USA > Massachusetts > Berkshire County > Pittsfield > The history of Pittsfield (Berkshire County), Massachusetts, from the year 1734 to the year 1800 > Part 24
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Happily, a mode of relieving the army from this serious strait was suggested to Major Brown; affording him an opportunity for another of those daring and dashing exploits in which he delighted, and which so often proved of signal service to the country. At Chamblee, on the Sorel, stood a strongly-constructed fort, contain- ing a considerable amount of stores, and a large quantity of pow- der, but feebly armed and garrisoned. Carleton believed that the Americans could not approach its walls with artillery, unless they first captured St. Johns, which commanded the river twelve miles above.3 But some of Livingston's Canadian recruits - experi- enced oarsmen - volunteered to place cannon upon bateaux, and take them at night past the fortifications of the latter place. Their offer was accepted ; and, on a dark night, the plan was suc- cessfully put in execution. Major Brown had been intrusted by Montgomery with the charge of the undertaking, and personally
1 Am. Ar., 4th ser. vol. iii. pp. 1097-8.
2 Schuyler to Washington, Am. Ar., 4th ser. vol. iii. p. 1095.
3 The River Sorel descends from Lake Champlain to the St. Lawrence.
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directed and took part in the perilous feat of the boatmen. At the head of the Chamblee Rapids, the guns were mounted upon carriages, and soon placed in position for attack. Major Living- ston re-enforced the besiegers with three hundred Canadians, -- there were but fifty Americans engaged in the affair; and Major Stopford, the commander of the fort, was surprised to find it closely invested. He had no reason to expect relief-but among the articles of capitulation which he proposed to Major Brown was one containing the extraordinary condition that the garrison should not be made prisoners, but be permitted to march out unmolested, drums beating, colors flying, with their arms, accoutrements, and twenty-four rounds of ammunition each, and carts and provisions sufficient to pass by the shortest route to Montreal, or any other place in that Province at the option of Major Stopford.
VIEW OF FORT CHAMBLEE.
This proposition was of course entirely inadmissible ; and Major Brown, at once declining it, demanded a surrender of the place upon the usual terms granted in honorable warfare. There was no alternative but to accede to this, or sustain an assault without hope of making a successful defence ; and the fort was given up, with its garrison, on the morning after the demand, Oct. 19.
One major, three captains, three lieutenants, a commissary, and a surgeon, with eighty-three non-commissioned officers and privates of the Royal Fusileers, were made prisoners. The stores found in the fort were eighty barrels of flour, eleven barrels of rice, seven barrels of peas, six firkins of butter, one hundred and thirty-four barrels of pork, one hundred and twenty-four barrels of gunpow- der, three hundred swivel-shot, one box of musket-shot, six thou- sand five hundred and sixty-four musket cartridges, one hundred
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and fifty-four stand of French arms, three royal mortars, sixty-one shells, five hundred hand-grenades, rigging for at least three ves- sels, and the arms and accoutrements of the eighty-three Fusileers. Gen. Montgomery was overjoyed at this glorious acquisition, which he foresaw would give an early and successful termination to the lingering siege of St. Johns. He announced it to Gen. Schuyler in the following terms : -
" DEAR GENERAL, - I have the pleasure to acquaint you with the sur- render of Chamblee to Majors Brown and Livingston. ... I send you the colors of the Seventh Regiment and a list of stores taken. Major Brown assures me we have gotten six tons of powder, which, with the blessing of God, will do our business here. Major Brown offered his service on this occasion. Upon this and all occasions, I have found him active and intelli- gent."
A report of the achievement was transmitted to the Continental Congress, which instructed a delegation it was about sending to the Northern army, to assure Majors Brown and Livingston " that the Congress had a just sense of their important services, and would take the first proper opportunity to reward them." 1 Livingston was made colonel of a regiment of Canadians. Brown waited for his reward.
St. Johns surrendered on the 2d. Both during the siege, and previously while in camp at Ticonderoga, Col. Easton's regiment suffered severely from sickness, induced by insufficient shelter, improper food, and lack of medical stores. One hundred and sixteen of its men were sent home, invalided, between the 20th of July and the 25th of September; and the returns of the 12th of October carried up the number to one hundred and forty-three. This loss had been in some measure repaired by new recruits, of whom one hundred and forty were sent forward at one time; and, at the close of the siege of St. Johns, the regiment numbered about three hundred men. We have no certain knowledge of what its services were up to that time; but Major Brown had been almost constantly employed on detached and adventurous duty, to aid in which, he would naturally have selected tried men from his own neighborhood, except when Canadians were better adapted to the work in hand.
The moment, however, that the surrender of St. Johns was sure,
1 Jour. Cont. Cong., Nov. 7, 1775.
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Col. Easton - Major Brown having rejoined him - pushed his small corps, augmented by Livingston's larger regiment of Cana- dians, down' the Sorel, driving before him Allen MeLean, who, without a commission, commanded an irregular body of king's men. MeLean attempted to intreneh at the point in the St. Law- rence formed by the debouching of the Sorel ; but was driven from his works by Easton, who proceeded at once to complete and strengthen them. In a few days they were mounted with three twelve-pounders, one nine, and two sixes, and effectually com- manded the passage of the St. Lawrence.
All the night of the 6th, Major Brown patrolled the north side of the river near Montreal, and captured several prisoners, from one of whom he learned that Gen. Carleton had announced to the citizens his determination to quit the place within a couple of days ; and that they had thereupon resolved to apply to the Amer- ican commander for protection. This intelligence changed the major's intention of remaining on the north side, to raise a party and cover Montgomery's landing; and, returning to Sorel, he wrote to the general, informing him what he had learned, and begging to be permitted, if his regiment was to remain at Sorel, "to have the honor of entering the city of Montreal with the army."
Montgomery marched into the city on the 13th. Carleton had, the night before, embarked with his garrison, certain promi- nent loyalists, and such stores as he could take, on board a fleet of eleven small vessels, with the expectation of dropping down the river to Quebee, but was unable to pass the batteries at Sorel. On the 17th, he was still engaged in vainly attempting to ef- fect a passage ; and Montgomery wrote that Col. Easton not only " prevented it, but had twice compelled him to weigh anehor, and move up the river."1 He added that he was making all despatch to attack the fleet from his own side. It capitulated on the 19th ; and, with it, there fell into the hands of the Americans Gen. Prescott, - infamous for his ill-treatment of Ethan Allen, - thirteen other officers, one hundred and twenty privates, and several prominent loyalist gentlemen. Gen. Carleton, in a boat with muffled oars, succeeded in passing the batteries under cover of an unusually dark night. Of ordnanee, the vessels were found to contain two nine and two six-pounders, and two or three
1 Am. Ar., 4th ser. vol. iii. p. 1633.
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smaller guns; of ammunition, three barrels of gunpowder, a large quantity of artillery cartridges and ball; twenty-three hundred musket cartridges; of small arms, eight chests, besides those borne by the prisoners; of other stores, seven hundred and sixty barrels of flour, six hundred and seventy-five barrels of beef, three hun- dred and seventy-six firkins of butter, two hundred pairs of shoes, a quantity of entrenching tools, &c.
" Col. Easton's detachment," wrote Montgomery to Schuyler, " while employed in this important service of stopping the fleet, were half naked, and the weather was very severe. I was afraid, not only that they might grow impatient, and relinquish the business in hand, but I saw the reluctance the troops in Montreal showed to quit it. . . By way of stimulant, I offered, as a re- ward, all public stores taken in the. vessels, to the troops who went forward, except ammunitions and provisions." But this stimulant induced only Bedel's New-Hampshire regiment to forsake their comfortable quarters in the city, to share the labors and the honors of the half-naked and almost shelterless Berkshire men at Sorel.
With the surrender of the fleet on the upper St. Lawrence, the first northern campaign ended; for, although the war in Canada was prosecuted with little interruption, Arnold's arrival gave to the succeeding operations a character distinct from that of the advance to Montreal.
The brilliant services rendered to the expedition by the chief Pittsfield officers were handsomely acknowledged. Montgomery wrote to Schuyler, Nov. 22, " Col. Easton has shown so much zeal and activity in the important service he has been employed upon, that I think myself obliged to speak of him in the warmest terms of acknowledgment; and, as his character suffered in the public opinion by some unfortunate transaction last summer,1 I hope you will be kind enough to do him the justice which his conduct with me merits."
Other letters in which Col. Easton was eulogized by his com- mander will be referred to in another connection. For Major Brown, Montgomery formed the warmest friendship and esteem ; and even Schuyler wrote to Congress that he "had certainly, in in the course of the last year, done extraordinary services." 2
1 Probably this refers to a dispute regarding the accounts of the Ticonderoga expedition.
2 Jour. Cont. Coug., Aug. 26, 1776.
.
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In October, 1776, Cols. James Livingston and Timothy Bedel, Major Robert Cochran, and Capts. Gersham Mott and William Satterlee of the Northern Army, certified, that, during the campaign of the previous year in Canada, Major John Brown "was the most active man in the army ; being employed in the beginning of the campaign in long tedious scouts, and, in the latter part, before the army with a detachment. Major Brown was scarcely off duty day or night during the campaign."
Of the services and sufferings of the other officers and men in Easton's regiment, Montgomery's praises were earnest.
While their brethren were thus winning honor in Canada, Col. Patterson's regiment remained with the army employed in the siege of Boston, and built Fort No. 3 on Prospect Hill in Charles- town,1 which it also garrisoned. On the day of the Battle of Bunker Hill, Patterson's regiment, with three others, was held in reserve for the protection of Cambridge; and late in the after- noon, being ordered to re-enforce the exhausted defenders of the Hill, failed to reach the lines before they were carried by the , enemy.
Some time in November, four hundred British troops landed at Lechmere Point, now East Cambridge, for marauding purposes, and were bravely repulsed, although under cover of a frigate, by an American force to which Washington paid the following com- pliment : " The alacrity of the riflemen and others did them honor, to which Col. Patterson's regiment and some others are equally entitled." He praised them again in the general orders of the next day.2
A tradition has been handed down in Berkshire, regarding the Battle of Bunker Hill, which, strange as it seems at first thought, is supported by such abundant and indisputable evidence, that we cannot refuse it credence. It is to the effect that the cannonading from the British fleet was distinctly heard by many persons in Pittsfield, and elsewhere among the hills. At Lee, persons digging a well heard the reports with peculiar clearness. In Pittsfield, among many others who distinctly heard the booming of the cannon, were Capts. Israel Dickinson, Jared Ingersol, and Hosea Merrill, - men of unquestioned veracity. By placing the ear near
1 Now Somerville.
2 Frothingham's Siege of Boston, p. 268.
16
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the earth, the loudness of the sounds was much increased. In considering the probable truth of this tradition, it must not be forgotten that the intervening space between Charlestown and Pittsfield was, in 1775, free from the disturbing noises of railroads, manufactories, and cities, which now abound.1
1 Another remarkable instance of the transmission of sounds among the hills oc- curred on the 26th of November, 1822. On that day, Samuel Charles, an Oneida Indian, was hung at Lenox for the murder of a negro in Richmond; and the Berkshire Greys, a Pittsfield military company, attended as sheriff's guard. At the hour fixed for the execution, Dr. Oliver S. Root was in a field, near where the Medical College in Pittsfield now stands, when he heard the sound of a drum and fife apparently close at hand. Surprised at the early return of the Greys, he went to the brow of the declivity made by the road at that point, expecting to see them on its southern slope, but was still more surprised when he found no signs of the company there. It afterwards appearcd, that it was at that moment just leaving Gallows Hill, seven miles distant. On the same occasion, fishing-parties at the north end of Pontoosuc Lake, ten miles from the place of execution, heard, as dis- tinetly as though in the next street, the mournful strains as the procession wended its melancholy way to the gallows, and the lively notes struck up on the return.
Since the above was written, I have seen an account in " The Springfield Repub- lican," that persons in that city heard distinctly the sound of three explosions, which, following each other in rapid succession, recently destroyed a powder-mill at Poughkeepsie, N.Y. These instances go far to remove any improbability which might otherwise attach to the old tradition.
CHAPTER XIV.
THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. - THE TORIES. - BATTLES OF WHITE PLAINS AND THE DELAWARE.
[1776-1777.]
King George's Name expunged from Military Commissions. - The Town instrnets its Representative in Favor of Independence and a Free Republic. - Committees of Correspondence, etc. - Their Rules of Practice. - The Tories. - The Hue and. Cry. - Hiding-place of the Tories. - The Ban of Community. - Its Effect illustrated by an Incident. - John Graves aids the Escape of a Royal Officer, and is punished therefor. - An ex-post facto Fright. - Infliction of Confiscation and Banishment. - Case of Elisha Jones and Others. - Enlist- ment of a Slave. - Woodbridge Little and Israel Stoddard. - Six Tories induced by Energetic Measures to take the Oath of Allegiance. - Anecdote of a Soldier returned from a British Prison. - Mr. Allen's Diary at White Plains. - Patterson's Regiment rejoins Washington. - Its reduced Condition.
V OTED, That the field-officers proceed to regulate the North District or Regiment with the erasement of George's name." Such was the quiet resolution by which, on the 25th of March, 1776, - more than three months previous to the Dec- laration of Independence, and two months before the famous resolution of the Continental Congress, "that the exercise of every kind of authority under the king ought to be suppressed," - the people of Pittsfield signified that they were done with his Majesty King George the Third, and regarded him much as their Puritan ancestors did " the man Charles." Independence was, with them, a foregone conclusion ; and, for their part, they were sick of the sham of fighting the king under his own commission. For the person of the man George, it was absurd any longer to profess affec- tion ; and they had early learned a theory of government which paid hardly more regard to the royal office. They had also acquired among the hills a habit of carrying political principles to their full legitimate conclusions, with a hopeful belief that a higher Power
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would take care of the consequences, - a habit and a pious faith which we shall find them exercising in other relations of state, as well as in this.
Having passed the vote which practically renounced all alle- giance to the king, - but which is recorded with no more note or comment than that by which the same meeting enacted that " hogs should not run at large," - the town went on with its ordi- nary business. Two months later, in May, it gave to Valentine Rathbun, its representative in the General Court, the following emphatic instruction : -
" You shall, on no pretence whatever, favor a union with Great Britain, as to becoming, in any sense, dependent upon her hereafter ; and we instruet you to use your influence with the Honorable House, to notify the Honorable the Continental Congress that this whole Province is waiting for the im- portant moment which they, in their great wisdom, shall appoint for the Declaration of Independence and a free Republic."
A town thus impatient for the birth of the nation must have hailed its actual occurrence with enthusiastic joy. But no account has been handed down, even by tradition, of the mode in which it was celebrated. Even the great Declaration, which the General Court ordered to be " spread upon the records of the several towns for a memorial forever," does not appear on those of Pittsfield ; probably on account of the practice, to which allusion has been made, of keeping the minutes of town-meetings for a long while upon loose sheets of paper. The permanent records at that time appear to have been written up at long intervals.
The General Court having recently sanctioned the committees of correspondence, inspection, and safety, consolidated them in one, and ordered the towns to choose them annually, the Pittsfield March meeting elected to the office, Dea. Josiah Wright, Valen- tine Rathbun, William Francis, Stephen Crofoot, Joseph Keilar, William Barber, and Aaron Baker: Capts. Eli Root, James Noble, and John Strong were added at the May meeting.1
1 The committees of subsequent years were as follows : -
1777. - Lient. William Barber, Valentine Rathbun, Col. John Brown, Capt. Eli Root, Joshua Robbins, Dea. Josiah Wright, Capt. William Francis, Lebbeus Backus, Lieut. Stephen Crofoot.
1778. - Valentine Rathbun, Caleb Stanley, Lieut. Stephen Crofoot, Dea. Josiah Wright, Capt. William Francis, Lieut. Rufus Allen, Lebbeus Backus. Re-elected in 1779.
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The unhappy Tories who were " handled," as it was quaintly phrased, by the Revolutionary committees, were never satisfied, whoever might compose them; but they took advantage of the change of persons to demur to the jurisdiction of the new body in cases commenced before the old ; whereupon the committee made application to the town, at its March meeting, for " directions how to recover pay for handling persons that appeared inimical to their country." The subject was referred to Valentine Rathbun, David Bush, William Francis, William Williams, Charles Goodrich, James Noble, and John Strong, on whose report the town determined, -
" First, That said committees, consisting, or having consisted, of whom they may, are one and the same, from their first appointment to this day ; and that all their. transactions and determinations ought to be considered the acts and proceedings of an adjourned court ; consequently, all matters and things that have not been finally determined, still have day with them ; and, if there be any matters and things before them that are not yet determined upon, they, the committee as it now stands, have as full power and author- ity to act upon them as ever they had; and if any person upon trial ap- peared inimical to his country, or hereafter upon trial shall appear so, they are hereby empowered, so far as our united influence can support them, to tax such persons for their time therein expended on trial, and all other necessary charges, and, on refusal, to be committed to the common jail, or be other- wise confined, till the same be paid; and, in all other respects, to deal with them, as to punishment, according to the direction of the Continental Con- gress, Provincial Congress, or General Assembly.
Second. Voted, That if said committee shall apprehend and convene before them any person or persons whom they suspect to be inimical to their country, or to be guilty of any other misdemeanor, and upon trial are found innocent, in that case the said committee have no pay for their time or cost.
Third. Voted, That if any complaint shall be brought before said com- mittee by any person or persons, and supported, then the offender shall pay all costs, and, refusing, shall be confined in the common jail, or else- where, until he comply and pay the cost, together with the confinement, with the costs thereof; and, in case any complainant shall not support his com- plaint, said complainant shall be holden to pay all costs, and, on his refusal, shall be holden and committed as aforesaid."
These rules, perhaps, made as fair a provision for impartial jus- tice as could be then attained; but it still left an inducement for
1780. - Lieut. Stephen Crofoot, Col. John Brown, Col. James Easton, Capt. Eli Root, Capt. William Francis.
The State Constitution being adopted in 1780, no more committees of this character were chosen.
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the committee, sitting as judges, to sustain their own suspicions as prosecutors, and thus obtain their costs. The confusion of func- tions rendered this difficulty inevitable.
The period from the spring of 1776 until the victories at Saratoga in Oct. 1, 1777, was one of those in which the spirit of Tory- ism was most rampant in Berkshire and the neighboring districts. The miserable failure of the Canada expedition, from which so much had reasonably been expected, spread dissension and mutual distrust in the Whig ranks, disheartening the patriots, and giving courage to those "inimical to their country." The Declara- tion of Independence, while it gave firmness and consistency to the Whig party, and inspirited its clear-sighted and determined members, disaffected not a few half-hearted men, who could not even yet admit the impossibility of reconciliation with the mother country upon honorable terms, or who, weary of the conflict, were willing to seize upon any pretext for abandoning it. The disasters to the army of Washington near New York, which looked more like utter ruin and disintegration than simple defeat, spread a gloom over the country, so discouraging that many were seduced by the liberal offers of pardon and favor which the royal com- manders extended ; and the danger that the defection would become infections was so great that the sternest measures for its repression were justified. Of those measures, the favorite was to place the offender under the ban of the community, by proclaiming him in the public prints to be an enemy of his country, and raising the hue and cry upon him.1 The effect of this proceeding was to deprive the culprit of the protection which law and public senti- ment ordinarily accord against petty depredations and annoy- ances, and, holding him up to the contempt and hatred of his
1 The hue and cry was not literally a pursuit with shout and halloo, although that sometimes came of it; but an advertisement, like the following from " The Hartford Courant : " -
" Whereas, Major Israel Stoddard and Woodbridge Little, Esq., both of Pittsfield, in the county of Berkshire, have fled from their respective homes, and are justly esteemed the common pests of society, and incurable enemies of their country, and are supposed to be somewhere in New-York government, moving sedition and rebellion against their country, it is hereby recommended to all friends of American liberty, and to all who do not delight in the innocent blood of their countrymen, to exert themselves, that they may be taken into custody, and committed to some of his Majesty's jails, till the civil war, which has broken out in this Province shall be ended.
"By order of the Committees of Inspection in the towns of Pittsfield, Richmond, and Lenox. JOHN BROWN.
" PITTSFIELD, April 27, 1775 .??
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neighbors, to invoke upon him those petty and irritating persecu- tions which the baser sort of villagers are at all times sufficiently prone to visit upon the objects of their dislike. It further ex- cluded Tories from intercourse with each other, and from business communication with all; and placed them under the strict surveil- lance of the committee's police, and the jealous watchfulness of a suspicious public. Fines and costs of court were the inevitable concomitants of this state of ban; and the sufferer might think himself lucky if he escaped imprisonment. On the frequent occa- sions when public feeling was roused by the approach of invasion, when rumors of treasonable plots were rife, or when news of such Tory atrocities as the massacre of Wyoming were received, - then it behooved the loyalist, however circumspect his conduct had been, and however little implicated in political intrigues, to beware.
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