USA > New York > Warren County > Queensbury > A history of the town of Queensbury, in the state of New York : with biographical sketches of many of its distinguished men, and some account of the aborigines of northern New York > Part 1
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Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53
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GENEALOGY COLLECTION
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 01177 2396
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WESTERN PA'S NOTE
Sincerely Yours
a. W. Holdew
A HISTORY
OF THE
TOWN OF QUEENSBURY,
. IN THE
STATE OF NEW YORK,
WITH
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES
OF
MANY OF ITS DISTINGUISHED MEN,
AND
SOME ACCOUNT OF THE ABORIGINES" OF NORTHERN NEW YORK, 1
BY A. W. HOLDEN, M.D.
" THEREFORE TO US THAT HAVE TAKEN UPON US THIS PAINFUL LABOR OF ABRIDGING IT WAS NOT EASY, BUT A MATTER OF SWEAT AND WATCHING ; EVEN AS IT IS NO EASE UNTO HIM THAT PREPARETH A BANQUET, AND SEEKETH THE BENE- FIT OF OTHERS ; YET FOR THE PLEASURE OF MANY, WE WILL UNDERTAKE GLADLY THIS GREAT PAINS." -- II MACCABEES, II, 26, 27,
Al
M
FRYSE
bulus
ALBANY, N. Y .: JOEL MUNSELL. 1874.
To the Memory OF
1277589
THE LATE HALSEY R. WING,
AN EARNEST WORKER,
A PROFOUND THINKER, A WISE COUNSELOR, A SINCERE FRIEND, 1
THROUGH WHOSE ENCOURAGEMENT, THIS WORK,
AFTER YEARS OF TOIL AND RESEARCH,
IS
NOW PRESENTED TO THE PUBLIC,
THESE PAGES,
ARE WITH REVERENT AND AFFECTIONATE REGARD,
Inscribed
BY THE AUTHOR.
GLEN'S FALLS,
Christmas, 1873.
$22.50 9/25/69
A WORD TO THE PUBLIC.
BY ANOTHER HAND.
HE historian is the seer looking backward. My friend, Dr. Holden, has long held this office. For many years, his visions of ye olden times in Queensbury and vicinity, have placed him far in advance of any other person, as authority on all events of our local history. He almost sees the fish that used to swim in the waters that once covered our plains, and the icebergs depositing their freights of boulders along the mountain shores. He is never lonesome in his professional rides; he moves amid Indian encampments, and along In- dian trails ; now he marches with an English, and now with an American or French army. Here he says was the ambush, there was the battle, and a little further on was the massacre. He is acquainted with all the first settlers of the town. Dear dweller in these parts, the doctor knows your great grandfather well; he can tell you where he was born, whom he married, where he built his hut, and where his bones now rest. Read this book, it will open your eyes, as the eyes of Elisha's servant were opened, to see on every hillside and rood of sand, now so dull and dead, the teeming life that has moved here and dwelt here. It will make every spot new to you, and full of interest ; you will see the town prospering, the village growing, enterprise increasing, the churches thriving. I rejoice that the era, so long waited for, has at length come, when this history, which has cost years of earnest
1.
vi
A WORD TO THE PUBLIC.
research, which is so critical and authentic, and which will leave so little on this field to be undertaken by any one hereafter, is about to fall into our hands in type. It is just what we have needed ; and the author is entitled to our lasting gratitude. I am sure that no intelligent na- tive of this town, or permanent inhabitant, can wisely do without this book.
July Junk A.g. frank
GLEN'S FALLS, December 10, 1873.
THANKS.
HANKS and acknowledgements are due to many who have contributed facts and material for this work, which have not been easily accessible to the author ; and also to those who have aided by their assistance and sympathy in the undertaking. Among the names to be thus credited are those of E. B. O'Calla- ghan, LL. D., Dr. Franklin B. Hough, the late Asahel Wing, Esq., Hiram Ferguson, Zabina Ellis, Fred. A. Hol- den, Hon. James Gibson, Dr. Asa Fitch, George Brown, Dr. James Cromwell, Daniel Parks, Esq., Rev. S. B. Bost- wick, D.D., the late John J. Harris, and Joel Munsell, Esq.
In regard to the sources from which the material of the historic narrative has been derived, all the standard his- tories, and biographies bearing upon the subject, have been consulted and compared. Credits and references have been given only in a limited number of instances, and those chiefly where the account has varied from the com- monly received version. The Documentary and Colonial Histories of New York have been the sources from which the greater portion of the work relating to the French war has been compiled. This has been supplemented by in- formation derived from such rare works as Hoyt's Anti- quarian Researches, Pouchot's Memoirs, Kip's Jesuit Missions, Anbury's Travels, Memoirs of an American Lady, Carver's Travels, Rogers's Journal, Memoirs of John Stark, Dwight's Travels, Fitch's Historical Survey of Washington County, etc., etc.
Finally, while entire accuracy may not in all instances have been attained, yet truthfulness has been aimed at,
viii
THANKS.
with whatever sacrifice of sensation or effect it may have been reached, tradition and legend having a subordinate, though an important place in the relation. With a modest hope that the reader may derive as much pleasure in its perusal, as the author has in its compilation, this volume is now committed to the press.
GLEN'S FALLS.
Christmas-tide, 1873.
PART I.
HISTORY
OF THE
TOWN OF QUEENSBURY.
INTRODUCTION.
ABORIGINAL OCCUPATION - ARCHAEOLOGICAL RELICS - MOHICANS - SCHAGHTICOKES - ADIRONDACKS- ALGONQUINS - IROQUOIS - ST. FRANCIS TRIBE - LEGEND OF THE BLIND ROCK - FATHER PAUL.
MET the time of its almost simultaneous discovery by Samuel Champlain, and Henry Hudson, the territory of Northern New York, was the debatable ground of two powerful savage confederacies, the Adirondack at the north, and the Iroquois at the south. At the same time, on its eastern borders dwelt the Schaghticokes and a few scat- tered remnants of their affiliated tribes, which once held their council fires at Albany, and ruled this region with undisputed sovereignty from the sources to the mouth of the Hudson.
Comprised within the limits of the great triangle, bounded by Lake Champlain, the St. Lawrence, Hudson, and Mohawk rivers, was a vast reach of table land, amid whose tangle of streams and lakes, majestic mountain peaks and rugged ranges, endless swamps and illimitable forests, thronged and herded the elk, moose and deer ; their coverts and recesses af- forded range and security for the lurking wolf and the stealthy panther, the prowling bear and the subtle lynx. The pursuit of these was the red man's labor and recreation. The products of the chase furnished his food and raiment ; its attainment and success constituted his wealth and distinction. These were the loved and frequented hunting grounds of the aborigines, and, as tradition informs us, the scene of many a sanguinary struggle for supremacy, which thinned the warrior ranks, and opened up a pathway of conquest to the descendants of the hardy Viking, the sturdy Saxon, and the gallant Celt.
1
2
HISTORY OF THE TOWN OF QUEENSBURY.
The evidences of these conflicts are found imbedded along the banks of every stream, and beneath the soil of every carrying place from Albany to Montreal. Arrow and spear-heads, knives, hatchets, gouges, chisels, amulets and calumets, are, even to this late day, often found in the furrow of the plowman or the excavation of the laborer. Few localities have furnished a more abundant yield of these relics than the soil of Queensbury. While gun flints and bullets, spear heads and arrow points are found broadcast, and at large through the town, there are places abounding with them. Among the most noteworthy of these may be enumerated " the old Bill Harris's camp ground," in Harrisena, the headlands around Van Wormer's, Harris's, and Dunham's bays on Lake George, the Round pond near the Oneida, the Ridge, the vicinity of the Long pond, the banks of the meadow run and Carman's neck at the open- ing of the Big bend. This last was long noted as a run- way for deer and traditions are handed down of grand bunting frolics at this point, where large quantities of game were hunted and driven within the bend, and while a small detachment of hunters served to prevent their retreat, the imprisoned game, reluctant to take the water down the precipitous bluffs, was captured or killed at their leisure. At this point, and also in the neighborhood of Long pond, fragments of Indian pottery, and culinary utensils of stone, have been found in such profu- sion, as to give coloring to the conjecture that large numbers of the natives may have resorted to these attractive spots, for a summer residence and camping ground. The old wilderness trails, and military thoroughfares, the neighborhood of block houses, picket posts, garrison grounds, and battle fields, in ad- dition to their Indian antiquities have yieided many evidences of civilized warfare, in their harvests of bullets and bomb shells, buttons, buckles, bayonets, battered muskets and broken swords, axes and tomahawks of steel ; chain, and grape shot, coins, cob- money and broken crockery. Such relics are often valuable as the silent witnesses to the truth of tradition, and the verifi- cation of history.
The eastern part of New York, at a period .long anterior to the Iroquois ascendency, was occupied by a tribe variously known as the Ma-hick-an-ders, Muh-hea-kan-news, Mo-hea- cans, and Wa-ra-na-wan-kongs. The territory subject to their domination and occupancy, extended from the Connecticut to
3
THE SCHAGHTICOKE INDIANS.
the Hudson as far north as the southern extremity of Lake George. According to Schoolcraft, these Indians were among the tribes of the Algonquin stock. At the period of their greatest power, their national council fire was held on the ground now covered by the city of Albany, which was then known to them by the name of Pem-pot-a-wut-hut, signifying the fire place of the nation. The word Muh-ha-a-kun-nuck, from which the word Mohican is derived, means a great water or sea that is constantly in motion, either flowing or ebbing." Their traditions state that they originally came from a country very far to the west, where they lived in towns by the side of a great sea. In consequence of a famine, they were forced to leave their homes, and seek a new dwelling place far away to the east. They, with the cognate tribes of Manhattans, Pequots, Narragansetts and Nipmucks, occupied the whole peninsula of New England from the Penobscot to Long Island sound. The Brotherton community, and the Stockbridge tribe, now con- stitute the sole remnant of this once numerous people. Pre- vious to the establishment of the Dutch colonies in this state, the Mohicans had been driven eastwardly by the Iroquois, and, at the time of their first intercourse with the whites, were found in a state of tributary alliance with that fierce people. The early attachment which was formed with the first English colo- nists of Connecticut by the politic Mohicans, no doubt contri- buted in a great measure to their preservation during the harassing wars which prevailed through the colonial peninsula for the first fifty years of its settlement.
The Schaghticoke Indians received their name from the lo- cality where they dwelt, derived, according to Spafford, from the Indian term Scaugh-wank, signifying a sand slide. To this, the Dutch added the terminal, cook. The evidences of the early Dutch occupancy, exist to day, in the current names of the tri- butaries of the Hudson as far up as Fort Edward creek. The settlement of this tribe was seated on the Hoosick river not far from the town now bearing the same name. The hunting grounds of this vicinity, as far north as Lake George, for many years after the first white man had erected his rude habitation within this disputed border, were occupied by the Schaghticokes, under permission of the Mohawks, who owned the lands, and with whom they were upon friendly terms.
4
HISTORY OF THE TOWN OF QUEENSBURY.
Their numbers, at all times small, were greatly diminished about the year 1745, when a large portion of the tribe aban- doned the village, and proceeded to Canada, where they united with the tribes in the French interest. Their subsequent agency in the destruction of the settlements at Hoosick, Saratoga, and Lydius's mills gives a fearful importance to their history in connection with the border annals of Northern New York. By a reference to the proceedings of a council on Indian affairs held at Albany in 1754, it will be seen that the River Indians were usually present at the treaties and councils of the Six na- tions, and had a voice in their deliberations.1 On this occasion, the reply of the Schaghticoke Indians, to the address of the governor and council, represents their numbers as small, and their representatives as young and inexperienced.
The Algonquin nation, which, at the time of Cartier's first voyage of discovery in 1534, occupied in its affiliations, alli- ances and dependencies, the whole extent of country, border- ing upon the great lakes, from the Gulf of St. Lawrence to the Red river of the north, according to their traditions once occu- pied all the valley of the Lakes George and Champlain, as far westward as the St. Lawrence river and Lake Ontario. From these pleasant hunting grounds, after years of struggle and dis- comfiture, they were finally driven to the north-west by their pow- erful antagonists, the Iroquois, who in derision conferred upon the tribe the name of Adirondacks, signifying literally, a peo- ple who eat the bark of trees. The term Algonquin was one which was subsequently applied by the French to a particular class of that tribe, whose descendants are now settled in the vicinity of the lake of two mountains, Canada West. The earlier, and proper name by which this great family was known, was the Nipercerinians. They were finally amalgamated with the Caugh- nawagas, and fragments of other tribes, after many vicissitudes and reverses, and united in a civil jurisdiction, under the name of The Seven Nations of Canada. They were superior to the Iroquois in arts and attainments, and, at the culmination of their power had not only assumed in their relations to the neighboring tribes an attitude of commanding power, alike respected for its counsels, and feared for its strength, but had reached a point of civilization and polish scarcely equalled
1 Doc. Hist. N. Y., vol. II, p. 572.
.
5
THE ALGONQUIN NATION.
by any of the tribes north of the dominions of the ancient Aztecs.
The Lenni-Lenape, Shawanese, Chippewas, Ottowas, Winne- bagoes, Illini, nearly all of the New England tribes, including the Wampanoags, Pequots, Narragansetts, and Mohicans, had their origin, according to their common traditions, in this pro- lific stock. They were a mild, industrious, and brave people, scrupulous in fulfilling their promises, trustworthy, and honor- able according to the Indian code; but comparatively effemi- nate, being neither so skilled in stratagem, fierce and relentless in war, eloquent in debate, nor politic and sagacious in council, as their hardier and more warlike neighbors at the south. Through the instrumentality of the earlier French navigators, who, from the outset of their intercourse with the people, had supplied them with fire-arms, and ammunition, a temporary success attended their warlike efforts; but the Dutch at the south, and the English colonists at the east, soon placed their hereditary enemies on an equal footing, and slowly, yet surely, they were expelled and driven beyond the mighty current of the Hochelaga.
The traditions of this people state, that they originally came from a foreign country far to the north-west. They represented the Creator under the allegory of a large bird, and the order of the Creation in their legends, nearly corresponds with the Mosaic cosmogony. Like the majority of the Alleghanian tribes, they retain an account of the deluge, the waters of which covered the whole earth, except the summits of the highest mountains, whither their ancestors retreated, and remained in safety. They all believe in a Supreme Being, a future state of existence, a sensual paradise, and a state of punishment or retribution re- sembling that of Tantalus in the Grecian mythology. They also believe that in the beginning, the Great Spirit created an antagonistic power of evil, with which he is ever contending for the mastery. The sun stands to them as the representative and symbol of the Great Spirit, and is said by their medicine men to have been worshipped as such by their ancestors. They hold, also, the belief in the existence of minor spirits and powers both of darkness and light, such as furies, gnomes, and sylphs, water- sprites, genii and personal angels which attend every individual in the character of guardians and defenders. Their customs and worship are based upon supernatural observances; and
1
6
HISTORY OF THE TOWN OF QUEENSBURY.
though their traditions speak of sacrificial offerings, their religious rites, since the days of the discovery, are but a little more than a series of superstitious mummeries, which scarcely impose on the credulity of the uneducated savage.
Though, beyond a doubt, the warriors and hunters of this tribe once ranged the forests and hill sides of this township, in pursuit of foe and game, yet they have left no monuments of their occupancy, and the story of Adirondack greatness and renown, can only be surmised from the chant of the crooning squaw, or the relation of the half-blood borderer amid the dark firs and icy air of the far northern wilderness.
We now come to the consideration of the Six Nations, which, in point of prowess, power, and the extent of domain, may be considered as the first, and most important nationality among the red men of North America, unless we make a single excep- tion in favor of the Nahuatlac tribes of the Mexican peninsula.
On the authority of Schoolcraft, who has probably made more thorough investigations in relation to the archæology of this people, than any other writer, the term Iroquois, by which they are commonly designated, is of French origin, and is de- rived from an affirmative ejaculation or response, usually made by their warriors and sachems, on the reception of an address or speech. They were known to the Dutch as the Maquas, to the early English settlers, as the Mingoes, to the Mohicans as the Mengwe, and to the Algonquins as the Nodowas. Although, from time to time in the progress of their history, we hear of various tribes joining this confederacy, yet the order of their nationality soon became lost in the ascendancy of the original tribes. Thus, the Necariages who joined them in 1723, the Messasauges who were admitted as a seventh nation in 1746, as also the remnant of the Stockbridge tribe, which was annexed · to them at a later day, soon lost their individuality, and the United People, as the Iroquois called themselves, continued to be designated by friend and foe as the Six nations.
According to their own traditions, they originally consisted of seven nations, which, at a later period, were merged in six. This number they clung to as a distinguishing feature of their nationality up to the period when its existence was obliterated, and the brave descendants of many generations of warriors, became pensioners upon the stinted and parsimonious charity of the whites.
P
7
THE SIX NATIONS.
The territory over which the Iroquois held sway, extended at different times, and more especially at the epoch of the esta- blishment of the Dutch rule in this state, from the Connecticut to the Mississippi rivers; but their settlements proper, includ- ing their castles, villages, and cultivated grounds, were limited to the interior and south-western portion of New York, stretch- ing westwardly from the valley of the Mohawk to the lake of the Eries. This section they figuratively called their long-house, the eastern door of which at Albany, was guarded by the Mo- hawks, and the western entrance was secured with equal vigil- ance by the Senecas. Prior to the occupation of Canada by the French, the Six nations had no villages or permanent settle- ments north of the valley of the Mohawk; although they claim to have had villages upon the banks of the St. Lawrence at a very early period in their history.
Respecting their origin, their traditions are various and con- flicting. One of their own writers claims that their ancestors were called forth from the bowels of a mountain by Tar-en-ya- wag-on, or the Holder of the Heavens. Their relations gene- rally agree in the statement that they originally migrated from a country far to the south-west, and had continued their progress to the sea, from whence they retraced their steps, and settled by tribes in the order in which they were discovered by the whites as follows, viz: commencing with the Mohawks on the east, next came the Oneidas, the Onondagas, Cayugas and Senecas. The Tuscaroras, who became members of the confed- eracy at a later day, had their seat between the Oneidas and Onondagas. It is conjectured that of these groups, the Mohawk was the parent stock, from which the other clans were derived. This tribe was known as the elder brother among them, and it always commanded a prominent place and consideration in the councils of the league. Its territorial jurisdiction included that portion of Eastern New York which extends from the sources of the Delaware and Susquehanna to Lake Champlain and the St. Lawrence.
The Oneidas were an offshoot from the Onondagas. Ac- cording to their own myth, they were the offspring of the once celebrated Oneida stone in the town of Stockbridge, Madison county. . The name signifies, the people who sprang from the stone. They were called younger brothers by the rest of the confederacy.
8
HISTORY. OF THE TOWN OF QUEENSBURY.
The Onondagas, or people of the swamp, asserted that their lands were the first settled, and their chief village as the long established capital of the federation. They claimed their origin from an eminence near the falls on the Oswego river.
The Cayugas, who were settled around the fertile and plea- sant borders of the Cayuga lake, occupied a distinguished place in the history of the Iroquois. They also are conjectured to have sprung from the Onondagas, migrating at an early period, and planting themselves in the lovely region, over which they held undisputed sway for upwards of two centuries.
The Senecas, or, as they termed themselves, Nundowaga, the people of the hills, were the most numerous of the six cantons. They have a legend, that they descended from a couple who dwelt on a hill, at the head of Canandaigua lake. Their name, though coincident with that of the great Roman poet and philosopher, is believed to be of Mohawk derivation, and its use has been traced to within five years of Hudson's first discovery. They contributed more than either of the tribes to the extension of the Iroquois dominions, and their war parties were the scourge and terror of all the tribes from the great lakes to the Gulf of Mexico.
It is impossible, at this late day, to determine with any accu- racy the date at which the Iroquois federation was adopted. That it took place as early as the discovery of this continent may be justly inferred from the few gleams of truth to be derived from their wampum belts and picture annals. Accord- ing to tradition, their compact was formed on the banks of the Onondaga lake, a powerful and influential chief by the name Thannowaga having not only originated the idea, but pushed it forward to a successful accomplishment. Whatever specula- tions may be hazarded in relation to this vague point, it is certain, from their prowess and achievements, that they had long been banded together for purposes of mutual aid and co- operation long before the whites mingled in their dusky coun- cils, or added the weapons of civilized life to the fierce passions, and untamed energy of the savage state. From their legends we learn of the total extinction of a tribe called the Allegha- nians at a period indefinitely remote in their history. At a later date, the Eries, a powerful nation, dwelling on the shores of the lake which bears their name, were overwhelmed, and their national existence blotted out. The Kahkwas were obliterated
9
THE SIX NATIONS.
from the catalogue of forest nations. The Susquehannocks were annihilated.
The Satanas were whirled before them like the thistle down before the tempest, and their identity forever lost. The Hu- rons, Wyandots and Quatoghies, were driven from their hunt- ing grounds, and scattered in isolated hamlets among the islands and peninsulas of the far lakes, where they alone found safety in their insignificance. The Andastes were hunted out and ex- tirpated from the wide spreading forests of Ohio. The Dela- wares, Nanticokes and Manhattans were subjugated, and by annual tribute and humiliating submission, averted the merci- less brand of destruction. They carried terror, and desolation along the Appalachian mountains ; their fierce war whoop rang along the valley of the Housatonic and resounded from the palisades on the Hudson ; the cries of their victims ascended with the mists of St. Anthony's falls ; their pæans of victory were echoed from the crags and cliffs of Lake Superior; and far or near the aboriginal nomads quailed and retreated from their wild battle cry, and for upwards of two centuries, they swept the continent, from the eternal barriers of ice at the north to the very verge of the tropics, with the brand of conquest, or the besom of destruction.
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