USA > Massachusetts > Our western border : its life, combats, adventures, forays, massacres, captivities, scouts, red chiefs, pioneer women, one hundred years ago, containing the cream of all the rare old border chronicles > Part 28
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"Here," wrote Mrs. Grant, a Scotch lady who visited Sir William, and published her travels, "this singular man lived like a little sover- eign ; kept a most bountiful table for strangers and officers, and, by confiding entirely in the Indians, and treating them with unvarying truth and justice, without ever yielding to solicitation what he had once refused, he taught them to repose entire confidence in him. He, in his turn, became attached to them; wore, in Winter, almost entirely their dress and ornaments, and contracted a kind of alliance with them ; for, becoming a widower in the prime of life, he had connected himself with an Indian maiden, (daughter of a sachem,) who possessed an uncom- monly agreeable person and good understanding; and whether ever formally married to him or not, according to our usage, contrived to live with him in great union and affection all his life.
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FECULIAR EDUCATION OF SIR WILLIAM'S TWO DAUGHTERS.
"So perfect was his dependence on these people that when they re- turned from their Summer excursions and exchanged their pelts for fire- arms, &c., they used to pass a few days at the Castle, when his family and most of his domestics were down at the Hall. There they were all liberally entertained by their friend, and five hundred of them have been known, for nights together, after drinking pretty freely, to lie around him on the floor, while he was the only white person in a house containing great quantities of everything that was to them valuable or desirable."
THE PECULIAR EDUCATION OF SIR WILLIAM'S TWO DAUGHTERS.
"While Sir William thus united in his mode of life the calm urbanity of a liberal and extensive trader with the splendid hospitality, the numerous attendance and the plain, though dignified, manners of an ancient baron, the female part of his family were educated in a manner so entirely dissimilar from that of all other young people of their sex and station, that as a matter of curiosity it is worthy a recital. These two young ladies, his daughters, inherited, in a great measure, the per- sonal advantages and strength of understanding for which their father was so distinguished. Their mother dying when they were very young, bequeathed the care of them to a friend, the widow of an officer who had fallen in battle. I am not sure whether this widow was devout and shunned the world for fear of its pollutions, or whether romantic, and so despised its selfish, bustling spirit ; but so it was, that she seemed utterly to forget it, and to devote herself to her fair pupils. To these she taught needle-work of the most elegant and ingenious kinds ; also reading and writing, and thus quietly passed their childhood, their mis- , tress not taking the smallest concern in family management, nor, in- deed, the least interest in any worldly thing but themselves. Far less did she inquire about the fashions or diversions which prevailed in a world that she had renounced, and from which she wished to see her pupils forever estranged.
" Never was anything so uniform as their dress, their occupations, and the general tenor of their lives. In the morning they rose early, read their prayer book, I believe, but certainly their Bible; fed their birds; tended their flowers, and breakfasted. Then they were employed for some hours, with unwearied perseverance, at fine needle-work on the ornamental parts of dress which were the fashion of the day, without knowing to what use these were to be put, since they never wore them. They had not, at the age of sixteen, ever seen a lady excepting each - other and their governess. They then read as long as they chose,
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either the voluminous romances of the last century, of which their friend had an ample collection, or Rollins' Ancient History, the only books they had ever seen. After dinner they regularly, in Summer, took a long walk, or, in Winter, an excursion in the sledge with their ' friend. They then returned and resumed their wonted occupations, with the sole variation of a stroll in the garden in Summer and a game of chess or shuttle-cock in Winter.
" Their dress was to the full as simple and uniform as everything else ; they wore wrappers of the finest chintz and green silk petticoats, and this the whole year round without variation. Their hair, which was long and beautiful, was tied behind with a simple ribbon ; a large calash shaded each from the sun, and in Winter they had long scarlet mantles that covered them from head to foot. Their father did not live with them, but visited them every day in their apartments. This innocent and uniform life they led till the death of their monitress, which hap- pened when the eldest was not quite seventeen. On some future occa- sion I shall satisfy the curiosity which this short but faithful account of these amiable recluses has possibly excited."
Mrs. Grant, so far as we can learn, never did satisfy curiosity about these " amiable recluses," and we beg to supplement her story by jot- ting down a few facts from Sir William's life. She never mentions a son John, who was the eldest of his three children, and who afterwards in- herited his father's title and estate and became one of the most bitter and destructive tories during our Revolution. The mother was a plain but sensible German girl, of no social standing and but little education, Catharine Weisenberg by name, and was married to Sir William about the year 1740. When she died is not known, but it is thought it was about 1745. 'l'he two " recluses," mentioned by Mrs. Grant, were named Mary and Nancy. In 1763, the former and younger was mar- ried to Guy Johnson, her cousin, and for some time the private secre- tary of his uncle. Shortly after, Nancy married Colonel Claus.
Two spacious stone houses, each surrounded by an extensive domain, were built for these sons-in-law of Sir William in 1766. Both after be- came famous tories during the Revolution, and by means of their long acquaintance and large influence over the Six Nations were enabled to do great mischief. They afterwards (as did Sir John Johnson) removed to Canada and were gifted by the crown with large possessions, to com- pensate them for their immense landed property which was confiscated at the outbreak of the Revolution.
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SIR WILLIAM MARRIES AN INDIAN MAIDEN.
SIR WILLIAM MARRIES MOLLY BRANT, AN INDIAN MAIDEN.
It was somewhere about 1748 that Sir William took up with Molly ' Brant, sister to the far-famed war chief, Joseph Brant, (Thayendanegea of the Revolution,) and the Indian maiden, who possessed an "uncom- monly agreeable person and good understanding," as mentioned by Mrs. Grant. With her as his Indian wife, united according to the custom of the tribes, Sir William lived in great harmony and affection till his death, always treating her with respect and consideration, of which, according to all accounts, she was well worthy. Sir William had by her no less than eight children, to each of whom, as well as to the mother, he be- queathed, by will, generous sums of money and large tracts of land. Most of them migrated to Canada at the time of our Revolution, and their descendants are among the most respectable persons of that pro- vince.
Sir William's love for Miss Molly, as she was generally called, had a rather wild and romantic commencement. The story runs that she was born in Ohio, and that her mother had moved back to the Mohawk valley, with her and her brother Joseph. It was at a regimental militia muster that the Baronet first saw her, at which time she was a wild, laughing, beautiful girl of about sixteen. She, on this occasion, made one of a multitude of spectators, mainly Indians. One of the field offi- cers passing by her on his prancing steed, by way of banter, she laugh- ingly asked permission to mount behind him. Not for one moment supposing she could perform the exploit, he said she might. At the word she leaped upon the crupper with the agility of a gazelle. The horse sprang off at full speed, and, clinging to the officer, her gay- colored blanket flying and her raven tresses streaming to the wind, she flew about the parade ground swift as an arrow, to the infinite merri- ment of the onlooking throng. The Colonel, (for he had not at that time been titled, and was little over thirty years old,) who was a witness of the entertaining spectacle, so admired the spirit of the young squaw, and became so enamored of her person, that he at once took her to his house and made her its keeper.
Sir William Johnson died July 11th, 1774. It has been asserted, and largely believed, that his end was greatly hastened, if not caused, by the worries and perplexities occasioned by the approaching Revolution. There can be no doubt but that this royal beneficiary had many serious troubles of mind regarding the conflicts and growing discontents be- tween the colonists and the mother country, but it is a grave error to conclude for certain that had he lived another year, he would have
.
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OUR WESTERN BORDER.
espoused the cause of the crown. Many remarks he made, and parts of his letters written during these preliminary troubles, show that he con- demned England for some of her acts toward this country, and that he sympathized with Americans in many of their grievances. That he per- ished by his own hand in consequence of the clouds that were then darkening the political sky, or immediately after having received dis- - patches from England instructing him, in the event of hostilities, to use his influence with the Indians on behalf of the crown-and both these assertions have diligently been circulated-has not one tittle of evidence to support them. His demise occurred from entirely natural causes. For many years he was subject to alarming attacks of illness of a dys- enteric character, which often prostrated him on his bed for weeks to- gether. Even so far back as 1767 he had been induced by his faithful Mohawks to visit a medicinal spring whose healing waters had long had great repute among the tribes. Accompanied by Indian guides, and borne on a rude Indian litter, he proceeded through the wilderness to Saratoga Lake, and thence to what is now known as Cliff Rock Spring. Close to this healing fountain, in a rough bower of bark and boughs, reclined the first white man that is known to have visited the now world-famous Saratoga Springs. He was soon called away, however, on business, but short as his sojourn was there, such was the benefit derived, that he was enabled to travel part of the way back on foot.
The closing scenes of the English Baronet's days were in harmony with all his previous life and have much in them of the touching and picturesque. We have already given a full account of the wanton mur- ders committed in the Spring of '74 and under the lead of Captain Cresap and Daniel Greathouse, upon Indians living on the Ohio below Fort Pitt, and more especially on the relatives of Logan, the famous Mingo Chief. The news of these outrages was received by the Six Nations with alarm. They were very deeply moved and greatly exas- perated. Logan, the principal sufferer, was the son of Shikellimus, a distinguished Cayuga Sachem, and therefore one of their own flesh and blood. They at once desired Sir William to hold a congress with them upon this serious news. This was granted and by the 7th of July about six hundred Iroquois had assembled at the Hall. Sir William had for some weeks been indefatigable in his efforts to restrain the Six Na- tions from taking any part in the war, which, in consequence of these outrages, had already broken out upon the border, and by the time the congress was assembled was so physically exhausted as to bring on a sharp attack of his old complaint-dysentery. On the 8th and 9th the congress-involving almost constant exertion on the Baronet's part-was in full progress. On the 11th he made a lengthy speech of full two
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A LATE VISIT TO JOHNSON HALL AND CASTLE.
hours' duration, delivered with all the fire and fervor of an Indian ora- tor, to which, although seated under a burning July sun, the Indians listened with grave attention.
The great cause was gained, but it was at the expense of the life of its advocate. Scarcely had his strange and swarthy audience dispersed ere he had to be supported to his library. An express was immediately sent for his son, who was distant nine miles. Mounting a fleet English blood horse, John rode to the Hall with such uncommon speed that his gallant horse fell dead when within a mile of the house, having run up- wards of eight miles in a quarter of an hour. Sir John borrowed another horse and pushed on to the Hall. He found his honored father in the arms of a faithful body slave. He spoke to him but received no answer, and in a few minutes more the Baronet was no more.
Upon the announcement of this sudden and shocking death to the large assemblage of Indians, who had so long loved and trusted him for his justice and integrity, they appeared stupefied and fell into the greatest confusion and distress, declaring that they were now left with- out a protector, and would at once send " speech belts" to all the Jn- dian tribes. Colonel Guy Johnson, however, solemnly promised them that he would take charge of their affairs and carry out Sir William's wishes until His Majesty's pleasure was known. They then became calm, and on the 13th attended the august funeral in a body, behaving with the greatest decorum and exhibiting the most lively marks of real sorrow. The next day they performed the ceremony of condolence, Conoghquieson, a distinguished Oneida Chief, beginning the touching ceremony, and delivering an affecting speech, in which he earnestly ex- horted Colonel Johnson to follow the footsteps of their great brother Wawaghiyagey, who never deceived them.
Colonel Guy Johnson, in accordance with a request forwarded by the Baronet to the Crown a few weeks before his death, was continued as General Indian Superintendent. He was assisted by Colonel Claus, his brother-in-law, who had been for a number of years the Baronet's dep- uty in Canada, and was well qualified to give advice.
A LATE VISIT TO JOHNSON HALL AND CASTLE.
During the present Summer (1875) we proceeded, via the Hudson river, to the beautiful Mohawk valley, for the express purpose of visit- ing the scene of Sir William's long labors, and the baronial residences which are so inseparably connected with his name and memory. We were most richly repaid for our trouble. Leaving Albany by rail, we
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OUR WESTERN BORDER.
passed through the old Dutch town of Schenectady, and stopped first at Amsterdam.
Here taking a horse and buggy, we first visited Guy Park, where stands the hall built, in 1766, by Sir William Johnson, for his nephew " and son-in-law, Colonel Guy Johnson. It is situate near the Mohawk, in the midst of a grove of venerable elms, and can easily be seen from the cars on the N. Y. Central Road. It is a solid, substantial, double stone house, somewhat modernized, it is true, but still showing what it was in times long past-one of the finest structures in the colony. The grounds around, which were selected for Sir William by the Indians by reason of their fertility, still maintain their old reputation. The widow lady who now owns Guy Park says her large farm is as rich and productive as any in the Mohawk valley. A short distance further west once stood the hall built, at same time and in same style, for Colonel Daniel Claus, another son-in-law of Sir William's. It was burnt down during the Revolution. A body of six hundred and forty acres was the gift with each house.
About a mile west of Guy Park, the Mohawk river and the N. Y. Cen- tral Road running directly in front, stands Fort Johnson, or Johnson Castle, as it was frequently called in olden times. The property is located at the base of a hill called Mount Johnson, and was bought by Sir William In 1742. The next year he erected a solid, massive stone mansion, which looks, even now, as if it would stand for another hundred years. It is occupied at present by a family by the name of Aiken, who have put very few repairs upon it. The walls are very thick and strong; the timbers, especially in the attic, very sound and staunch, and the small, square panes of glass are set in heavy sash. Altogether, the house is an excellent specimen of the old-style mansion, and would be considered an elegant structure even at the present day. A venerable grove of locusts in front serves to somewhat obscure the view of it from the rail- road.
Here Sir William lived constantly until the construction of Johnson Hall, in 1763, and even then he occupied it during the Winters. John- son Hall is situate a few miles back off the Mohawk, on the edge of the flourishing town now known as Johnstown. It is easiest reached by rail from Fonda, but we preferred a ride via Tribes Hill, over the breezy, verdant uplands, and were accompanied much of the way by the hum of the mowing machine. We never remember to have passed over a more charming country, or to have had a more delightful ride. On reaching Johnstown we soon found the hall. Everybody knew it. It stands upon a gentle elevation, and is now the property of Mr. Wells, who very freely allowed us admission, and took great pains to show
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A LATE VISIT TO JOHNSON HALL AND CASTLE.
everything of interest. Although both house and grounds have been greatly altered and modernized, we can even now judge well what they must have been originally.
The hall is a two-storied double mansion, built of wood, in the most substantial, conscientious manner, with raised panels on the outside in imitation of stone. It was, without doubt, in its day the most spacious and elegant edifice in the colony outside of New York City. The hall is fully fifteen feet wide, and the ceilings over twelve feet high, sur- rounded with massive wooden cornices of carved work. The sides of the rooms are elegantly wainscoted with pine panels and heavy carved work. A broad staircase of easy ascent leads from the lower to the upper hall, ornamented with massive mahogany balustrades, which still, at every foot, bear the marks of the tomahawk's hacking, said by tradi- tion to have been notched there by Chief Brant himself when he fled the valley with Sir John Johnson in 1776, " to protect the house from the torch of Indians who would understand and respect these signs." W. L. Stone, however, the biographer of Sir William, thinks it far more probable that the hacking was done by some vandal soldier in the service who, not being allowed by his superior officer to burn the building, vented his malice in the above manner.
Of the garden and nursery, situated to the south of the hall, and which in the olden times were the delight of the Baronet, and the pride of the surrounding country, no vestige remains. Some of the poplars, however, which he planted, still stand green and vigorous. The hall was formerly flanked by two stone block-houses, with sundry loop holes for musketry cut directly under the eaves. But one of these-now con- verted into a servants' dwelling-yet stands, the other having been burned down many years ago. Of the stone wall which surrounded the whole place as a protection against attack, but little now remains.
Mr. Wells informed us that a subterranean passage led from the main building to the block-house on the left, and thence another communi- cated with the block-house on the right flank. These passages, however, as well as the port holes in the remaining block-house, have been filled up. Although the building never experienced a siege, yet it was twice fortified, once, as stated, by a strong stone rampart in 1763, by Sir William, and again in 1776, by Sir John Johnson, previous to his flight into Canada.
When Sir William died he was-part by purchase and part by gift of the crown-the largest landed possessor in America, next to the Penns. His magnificent estate, however, was confiscated during the Revolution and his halls passed out of the family into the hands of strangers. Mr.
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Wells informed us that occasionally some of the descendants of the Johnson and Brant families pay Johnson Hall a visit and are deeply in- terested in all the localities associated with his name.
Boone's combat with two savages .- See page 263.
CHAPTER IV.
DANIEL BOONE, PIONEER OF KENTUCKY.
Here once Boone trod-the hardy Pioneer, The only white man in the wilderness.
Oh, how he loved, alone, to hunt the deer ; Alone at eve his simple meal to dress.
No mark upon the tree, nor print nor track
To lead him forward or to guide him back ;
He roved the forest-king, by main and might-
Looked up to the sky, and shaped his course aright.
In hunting shirt and moccasin arrayed ;
With bear-skin cap and pouch and trenchant blade ;
How carelessly he leaned upon his gun ! Sceptre of the wild that hath so often won .- F. W. Thomas.
American History presents no character of such fascination and pop- clarity as that of Daniel Boone, the pioneer hunter of Kentucky; and this, not simply because he was a daring and adventurous woodsman, or because the free life of the wilderness has ever its special charms and romance, but because of the singular modesty, simplicity and guileless- ness of the man's character. Like all truly brave men, Boone had a vast amount of quiet, unostentatious force. No man was freer from a boastful, vaunting spirit. It is likewise gross error to consider him as nothing but a daring hunter, whose life was passed in constant conflict with wild beasts or with still more savage Indians. Although an unlet- tered man, Boone must occupy a higher plane in our history than that; he was a pioneer, a leader and a masterful director, as well as a hunter, and was as closely connected with civilization and its beneficial achieve- ments as he was with the woody solitude and the perils of varied adven- ture. He is chiefly admired because he is the completest and most ad- mirable specimen of the class to which he belonged.
George Boone, his grandfather, came to this country from England, bringing with him nine sons and ten daughters, the very kind of family men needed to populate the boundless wastes of America. Daniel Boone was the son of Squire Boone; was born in Berks county, Pa., in 1734, but the family soon moved to the South Yadkin, N. C. Daniel
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was then about nineteen, a fine, active, stalwart man, exceedingly fond of roving in the surrounding forests, and particularly skilled with the rifle. But little is known of his early manhood, as he has modestly for- borne to say anything of himself, saving so far as he is connected with Kentucky. We know for certain, however, that he took great delight in long and solitary wilderness excursions, and was early enamored of the untrammeled freedom of the boundless forests.
Of his romantic courtship and marriage, we will treat elsewhere, when we come to sketch the life of his most excellent wife, Rebecca. For some time he lived happily with her on the banks of the Yadkin, occa- sionally disturbing the toiling monotony of his farmer's life by long hunt- ing rambles. For instance, Ramsay's Tennessee gives a fac-simile of a rude inscription drawn by Boone on a tree in that State, announcing his killing of a bear in 1760, at the age of twenty-six. In '64 he had even stood within the eastern border of Kentucky and bathed in the waters of the Cumberland. It was while viewing the vast herds of buf- falo from a spur of the Cumberland mountains, that he exclaimed: "I am richer than the one mentioned in Scripture who owned the cat- tle of a thousand hills, for I own the wild beasts of more than a thou- sand valleys." .
KENTUCKY AS IT WAS IN THE OLDEN TIME.
In '67 Findley, the first white man who ever explored Kentucky, re- turned from his solitary vagabondizing and gave such glowing accounts of that magnificent country-its hills and valleys ; its park-like forests ; its dense canebrakes and-above all to affect a zealous hunter-its ex- haustless variety of game, from the beaver to the buffalo, that Boone's ardor was kindled and he determined to visit the new Eldorado and Paradise for hunters, in person. That Kentucky at that early day pre- sented irresistible attractions for the adventurer, can readily be judged from the accounts of all who traversed it. Captain Imlay, who, in early times, visited it in the Spring, and was enraptured with the pano- rama of bewildering beauty which everywhere met his eye, wrote: " Everything here assumes a dignity and splendor I have never seen in any other part of the world. Here an eternal verdure reigns and the brilliant sun piercing through the azure heavens, produces in this pro- lific soil an early maturity truly astonishing. Flowers full and perfect as if they had been cultivated by the hand of a florist, with all their capti- vating odors and with all the variegated charms which color and nature can here produce, decorate the smiling groves. Soft zephyrs gently breathe on sweets and the inhaled air gives a voluptuous glow of health
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