USA > New York > Niagara County > A brief history of old Fort Niagara > Part 5
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JOHN BUTLER AND JOSEPH BRANT.
John Butler and Joseph Brant both made Fort Niagara their real headquarters during the Revolution, and, no matter who was in actual command of the fort, these two were the recognized leaders, respec- tively, of the English and the Indian forces there.
The former recruited from all over the country, but most largely from Western New York and Northern l'ennsylvania, the famous band known as Butler Rangers, and their headquarters were at the 1 Stone's Life of Brant, vol. II., page 4, note.
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Fort. Thayendanegea or Brant, the great captain of the Six Nations, gathered his Indians from all sides, and Fort Niagara was their ren- dezvous.
Each of these two great leaders had many great and good qualities. There was no international code of warfare actually recognized at that time, particularly so far as regarded Indian warfare, and they were, no doubt, influenced to many atrocities by the customs of the age. Many barbarities committed by troops under their immediate com- mands, were in violation, it is claimed, of their orders and in spite of their influence ; while those perpetrated by parties sent off from their commands and outside of the orders given, should not be charged against them. They both repeatedly issued orders for the sparing and protection of women and children, and both on many occasions, by their personal influence, saved many lives. Yet both were regarded as death-dealing and devastating foes, and with good reason.
Walter Butler, a son of John Butler, was also a leader of these ex- peditions sent out from Fort Niagara to kill, rob and destroy, and in unsavory memory he outranked his more famous father and even Brant.
It should be here noted that just prior to the revolution Brant had led a band of the Mohawks to Lewiston, where he lived in a block house, which stood near what was called Brant's Spring. The huts of his followers were located along the Ridge road, east of Lewiston.1 A little log building near by was built and used as a chapel, and here the episcopal service was read occasionally by the fort chaplain or traveling ministers. This was probably the first building, outside of Fort Niagara, erected for a church in this section. A good-sized bell, hung in the crotch of a tree near by, called the Mohawks to service. John Bulter, who was superintendent of Indian affairs, lived in a com- modious house in Fort Niagara.
On these foraging parties, largely planned by Brant and Butler, during the Revolution, Fort Niagara to a very large extent relied for means of subsistence, and on every raid, from far and near, cattle and supplies were regularly sent back to the fort, their base of operations.
In each and every year, from 1778 to 1782, these foraging parties, and still larger expeditions, were regularly sent out from the fort, and as regularly as provisions were sent back, just as regularly were pris- oners and scalps brought back within its walls.
1 Turner's Holland Purchase, page 265.
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The fearful massacre of Wyoming in Pennsylvania in 1778 was planned at and the expedition set out from Fort Niagara. The fatal attack on Cherry Valley in the same year was the result of another expedition sent out from the same fort.
From the commencement of the war, the colonists had endeavored by every means to secure, if not the aid, at least the neutrality of the savages, and, while they kept up their efforts in this direction, by emissaries sent among them, they proved to be futile.
The desire to capture Fort Niagara was continually in the minds of the Colonial leaders, but not till late in 1778, when the atrocities, perpetrated by bands from that far-off stronghold made its reduction seem a matter of necessity, was an expedition planned for its capture.
The Senecas were faithful to the English, and urged incessant war on the Colonial settlements, and in 1779 Gen. Washington sent Gen. Sullivan with a small army to chastise them, even as De Nonville had done eighty-seven years before, and ordered him then to proceed to and capture Fort Niagara.
Sullivan entered the Senecas' territory with 4,000 men, burned their villages, provisions and crops, and defeated them in several small engagements. They fled westward to the protecting guns of Niagara, and Sullivan, for some reason, the ostensible ones being lack of food for his army and lack of boats to transport his troops, gave up the rest and the most important part of his projected expedition, and Fort Niagara was saved.
Had he pushed on, he would have found a horde of nearly 5,000 famished savages around the fort, and a weak and sickly garrison within, and he could have easily captured it. But he lacked the abil- ity to seize the great chance offered him, and Niagara remained in British hands, a scourge to the colonists for three years to come. His expedition merely prepared the way for the famine and want the Senecas soon felt.
The winter of 1779 was very inclement and many of the savages around the fort died from exposure and starvation." In the carly spring of 1780 some disposition had to be made of these hundreds of Senecas. They could not be tolerated around the fort and be fed from there, and they refused to go back to their linds from which Gen. Sullivan had driven them. Brant during the winter had strongly urged the Mohawks and the Senecas to emigrate to Canadi. The
Turner's Holland Purchase, page 281
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Mohawks and a few from other tribes agreed to this, and went. But the Senecas, under the lead of one of their chiefs, refused, and decided to settle on Buffalo and Tonawanda creeks, where they claimed to own the land through their ancestors' conquest of the Neuters in 1651. They had deeded this to England, as mentioned in 1764, but that nation made no objection. These Senecas and their descendants subsequently became allies of the United States, and fought in our army in the war of 1812.
Some of the Oneidas and Tuscaroras, who had been allies of the English, and had fled to Fort Niagara before Sullivan's advance in 1779 were also about Fort Niagara. In the spring of 1780 part of them returned to their own land and a part settled on a square mile of land some four miles southeast from Fort Niagara, near the Ridge Road, where their descendants to-day reside. This land was given to them by the Senecas. In 1804 the Holland Land Company gave them two square miles more,- these and over 4000 more acres bought for them, constitute the Tuscarora Reservation of to-day.
The Tuscaroras thus became the first permanent settlers in this region, settling here 17 years before the Holland Land Company opened up the territory.1
In 1780 and 1781 expeditions were sent out from Fort Niagara with the same deadly purposes and results ; notable among them being two expeditions to the Mohawk Valley in 1780, and two others to the same district in 1781, in the last of which Walter Butler was slain.
Opposite Fort Niagara, on the Canada side, each winter Butler's Rangers lived, and at one time six companies of them were quartered there. Outside of and near the fort a few wretched savages built huts each winter and eked out a precarious existence, subsisting on what they could obtain from the scant remains of the garrison's rations. Two sons of Sir William Johnson, Sir John and Guy, both leaders of and agents in the British Indian Department, were promi- nent during the Revolution, and both were frequently at Fort Niagara during this period.
During the winters of the war-period the garrison of the fort were often on short rations, and the necessity of provisioning it for a long period was frequently represented to the British Ministers, but with- out any favorable reply.
1 Turner's Holland Purchase, page 183.
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Let us now look at the moral and social life within Fort Niagara during the period of the Revolutionary War.
De Veaux says, "During the American Revolution it was the headquarters of all that was barbarous, unrelenting and cruel. Here were congregated the leaders and chiefs of those bands of murderers and miscreants that carried death and destruction into the remote American settlement. There civilized Europe revelled with savage America, and ladies of education and refinement mingled in the society of those whose only distinction was to wield the bloody tomahawk and scalping knife. There the squaws of the forest were raised to eminence, and the most unholy unions between them and officers of highest rank smiled upon and countenanced. There in their strong. hold, like a nest of vultures, securely for seven years, they sallied forth and preyed upon the distant settlements of the Mohawk and the Susquehanna. It was the depot for their plunder; there they planned their forays," and there they returned to feast until the hour of action came again.1
Many men, including especially Butler's Rangers, obtained during their service in the Revolution a training for war that enabled them to render efficient aid to Great Britain against the United States in the war of 1812.
The Revolution ended in victory for the Colonies in 1783. The Canadian side opposite Fort Niagara then became the objective point of many of those colonists who sided with the British during the war, many of whom had here enlisted in Butler's Rangers, and many of them settled there; such settlements having been especially encouraged hereabouts by the British officials during the war.
Among the clauses in the Treaty of Peace at Paris, 1783, was one that provided protection to and time for those colonists who had sided with England, United Empire Loyalists, as they were called, and who were then living in the colonies, in order that they might dispose of their property ; and the English commissioners to that treaty, appreciating how unpopular these U. E. Loyalists would be while they remained among their victorious neighbors, and foreseeing that it would be difficult, if not impossible, to get all the separate colonies to ratify such a clause as the American commissioners agreed to, insisted on retaining possession of five western forts, con- ceded to be an American territory, until such time as the conditions
1 The Falls of Niagara, 1839, page 119
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named were fulfilled. This also was agreed to by the American com- missioners. Fort Niagara was one of these forts. So, in 1783, we entered into what is called in history " the hold-over period," which lasted for 13 years, a much longer time that any of the commis- sioners on either side had contemplated. .
THE HOLD-OVER PERIOD.
The treaty of peace in 1783 only suspended hostilities, and when soon after Gen. Washington, sent to arrange for the evacuation of the posts still held by the British, he found no such instruc- tions had been given to their commanders. A full consideration of England's real reasons for delay in this matter is not a part of our subject, but it is pretty certain that even till after the war of 1812 England hoped, for one reason and another to be able to hold these forts forever, and ultimately to regain the vast empire she had just surrendered by compulsion to her American colonists.1
Gov. Simcoe, formerly colonel of Simcoe's Rangers, a noted British regiment in the Revolution, often and openly expressed this view while holding the high position of Governor of Upper Canada.2
As many of the U. E. Loyalists as could do so prepared as speedily as possible to remove to Canada, and the majority of those who went westward, in distinction of those that went to northeast Canada, came by Niagara, and all of them who were in need were fed during their stay here, from the fort.
It is estimated that during 1783 and 1784 no less than 5,000 of the United Empire Loyalists emigrated to Canada, at this point, and this emigration continued up to 1790, by which time fully 10,000 had passed by and received aid at Fort Niagara.
In 1784, John Butler, who was the Indian superintendent at the fort, convened a great Indian council on the Niagara plains, in Canada, opposite the fort, where the Six Nations met the Mississaguas. The commons were covered with their wigwams and the shore was lined with their bark canoes.
The summer of 1788 was an almost rainless one. There were no crops raised, and that year is known as the " Hungry Year." Stores were issued liberally from the fort during 1789 and 1790 to all in need, otherwise many would have starved.
1 Rochefoucault's Travels, 1799, vol. I., pages 240 and 241. " Read's Life and Times of Gov. Simcoe, page 251.
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In 1790, HI. R. H. the Duke of Kent paid a visit to Fort Niagara and personally interested himself in the distribution of food and clothing to the needy Loyalists.
During the first half of the hold-over period the English kept the strictest surveillance over this whole frontier, and persons traveling hereabouts were more than liable to be arrested and taken to Fort Niagara by the Indians, unless they could exhibit a pass from the commandant, which pass, as the Indians could not read, was a thick piece of card having on it a large wax seal bearing a particular im- pression.
A trader, stopping at Fort Niagara, called on the commander, who asked where he was going. "To Chippawa," he replied. "Go along and be damned to you," was the answer and verbal passport he re- ceived.
A fine specimen of British civility during the " hold-over period.'
In the fall of 1789, Gother Mann commanding the Royal Engineers made a report on Fort Niagara. After referring to the re-establishing of the north demi-bastion, which had been greatly damaged and part- ly washed away by the fury of the lake, he goes on to speak of a survey of the heights on the Canada side of the river about Navy Hall, later Gov. Simcoe's residence, with a view of establishing a perma- nent fort there, "which might counteract the designs of an enemy in his attack on the Fort of Niagara." In 1790, in another report, he stated " that the space on which Fort Niagara stands is diminishing, from the depredations of the lake" and speaking of the proposed fort said, "it will be about 1600 yards distant from the Fort at Niagara, which, though within the distance of annoying an enemy, could not prevent his carrying on operations against the Fort."" Thus we see that Fort George, which was built at a time when England never expected to be obliged to surrender Fort Niagara, was originally designed, not as an opposition to, but as a defense for that fort.
In 1791, Patrick Campbell was here and wrote, "It is a pretty strong stockade fort with regular bastions, palisades, pickets and dry ditches, sufficient against the attack of any irregular army.
By the act of 1791, Upper Canada was formed into a separate government and Col. J. Graves Simcoe was made its first Governor.
1 Read's Life and Times of Gen Simcoe, page 154. page 169.
I'ravels in North America, 1793
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He selected the village opposite Fort Niagara as the capital of the prov- ince. It had been called West Niagara, as distinguished from the British-controlled fort on the East, Loyal Village, Newark and Butlersburg.
On British soil, yet a border town, his selection of the site was much criticized. But Fort Niagara controlled it, the British con- trolled Fort Niagara, and he wanted to be near that famous fort, and he then expected England would always retain it.1
Here on September 17, 1792, he convened the first Parliament of Upper Canada. It has been claimed, yet not substantiated, that this body met in the fort itself.
However, the garrison took part in the ceremonies, a guard of fifty men from the Twenty-sixth Cameronians from the fort formed part of the military escort, and the guns of the fort fired a salute at the hour of assembling.
The fort was under the Governor's control and his guard of four men at Navy Hall was drawn each day from Fort Niagara's garrison.2 He had the garrison also as his guard on all occasions. From the fort was fired a royal salute in honor of his Majesty's birthday, June 4, 1793, and no doubt on other similar occasions, and it was as much a British fort during this period as if it had stood on British soil. In 1792 the York, the first Canadian Merchant vessel 3 on Lake Ontario was built just east of Fort Niagara.
In 1793, Gen. Lincoln, Col. Pinckney and W. Randolph, United States Commissioners, arrived at the fort on their way to a great council with the Western Indians, and were handsomely entertained, both at the fort and on the Canadian side, by Gov. Simcoe.
In 1794, the fort was strengthened by the erection of some new works, " especially covered batteries, designed for its protection on the side of the lake and river." 4
Eleven years had now passed since the Revolution closed, and England yet held the five American forts. This caused much dis- satisfaction. Yet the United States neither wanted to, nor could they, afford to, risk another war with the British over their occupation.
So, in Jay's Commercial Treaty of 1794, Article 2, provided, that the British garrisons in all the forts assigned to the United States by the Treaty of Peace of 1783, should be withdrawn by June 1, 1796.
1 Rochefoucault's Travels, 1799 ; vol. I., page 229 2 Rochefoucault's Travels, 1799; vol. I., page 241. 3 Read's Life and Times of Gov. Simcoe, page 271. 4 Rochefoucault's Travels, 1799, vol. I., page 257.
OLD FORT NIAGARA INN HISTORY.
This was a better way at that time of gaining our fights than by war, especially as the United States were not free from blame in car- rying out the terms of the Treaty of 1783.
In 1795 the Duke de Liancourt visited this section, and the Gover- nor entertained him on the Canada side; also dining him at the fort, which he told him " he was very loath to visit, since he is sure that he shall be obliged to deliver it up to the Americans." 1
The garrison consisted then of thirty artillery men and eight com- panies of the Fifth Regiment. All the breastworks, slopes, etc., were lined with timber. On the land side it had a curtain flanked by two bastions, in each of which a block house has been construc- ted, mounted with cannon." The Duke adds: " Although this fort, in common with all such small fortified places, cannot long with- stand a regular attack, yet the besiegers cannot take it without a considerable loss." ?
In 1796, in anticipation of their total withdrawal from American soil, the British transferred their patronage over the portage to a similar road built for that purpose on the Canadian side, between Queenston and Chippawa.
Work was also commenced in that year, and rapidly pushed, on a new block-house located up stream diagonally opposite Fort Ni- agara, on the Canada side, on land that commanded Fort Niagara, being nine feet higher than the roof of the Castle in that fort.
This block-house was designed to receive the British garrison from Fort Niagara' and Fort George, an earth fort, was built' around it at once.
In less than seventeen years Fort George was destined to ex change an extensive cannonade with Fort Niagara in the War of 1812.
During all this "hold-over period " the British officers at Fort Niagara exercised a certain sort of civil jurisdiction in the neighbor- hood. From the capture of the fort in 1759 the seat of civil jurisdic- tion of all this territory was at the fort; and after the evacuation, there being no Federal Courts here, the British officers, of necessity. continued to exercise this jurisdiction, and they exercised it wisely.
At last June 1, 1796, the day set by treaty for the evacuation arrived, but none of the five forts were evacuated. Why? Because
1 Rochefoucault's Travels, 1799, vol. 1., page 257. ' Rochefoucault's Travels, 1799, vol. I., page 257. Weld's Travels, 1799, page 306. 4 Read's Life and Times of Gov. Simcoe page 268.
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the United States were not ready to occupy them, not even Fort Niagara, the most important of the five.
So badly indeed had the United States' army been supplied with provisions that, when notice was sent to the Federal general by the British officers that they had received orders to deliver up their respective posts pursuant to the treaty, and that they were prepared to do so whenever he was ready to take possession of them, an answer was returned that unless the British officers could supply his army with a considerable quantity of provisions on arriving at the lakes, he could not attempt to march for many weeks.1
A British statement, but in general substantiated by fact.
The United States Government had sent no soldiers to garrison these forts and had sent no provisions for a garrison. Hence the delay was really at their wish.2
THE EVACUATION.
On August 11th, the order having been duly presented, the British evacuated Fort Niagara and transferred the garrison consisting of fifty men, guns, ammunition, stores, etc, across the river. As the banner of St. George came down from the flag pole at Fort Niagara on that day, the British emblem floated over but one spot on Ameri- can soil, Millimachinac, which was not surrendered up to the United States until the following October.
So Niagara was the next to the last post evacuated in America.
Gov. Simcoe had arranged to remove the capital of Upper Canada to York, now Toronto, and it was so removed in 1796.
ISAAC WELD'S VIEWS.
Soon after the evacuation in September, 1796, an English traveler of note, Isaac Weld, Jr., visited Fort Niagara, and wrote :
"Toward the water it is stockaded, and behind the stockade, on the river side, a large mound of earth rises up, at the top of which are embrasures for guns. On the land side it is secured by several batteries and redoubts, and by parallel lines of fascines at the gates and in various parts there are strong block-houses, and facing the lake within the stockade stands a fortified stone house. The fort and outworks occupy about five acres of ground and a garrison of 500 men, and at least from 30 to 60 pieces of ordnance would be necessary to defend it properly. The federal garrison consists, however, of only 50 men, and the whole cannon in the place amounts merely to four small field pieces, planted at the four corners of the fort.
1 Weld's Travels, page 302. 2 Howard L. Osgood, Rochester, N. Y.
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Great additions were made to the works after the fort fell into the hands of the British (1759). . . . Every part of the fort now exhibits a picture of slovenliness and neglect, and the appearance of the soldiers is equally devoid of neatness with that of their quarters." 1
Later he adds :
" The chief strength of the old fort is on the land side. Towards the water the works are very weak, and the whole might be battered down by a single 12-pounder judiciously planted on the British side of the river." ?
Referring to the " hold-over period," he says :
" The American prints, until the late treaty of amity was ratified, teemed with the most gross abuse of the British Government, for retaining possession of Fort Niagara and the other military posts on the lakes. After the independence of the States had been acknowledged and peace concluded, it was never taken into consideration that if the British Government had thought proper to have withdrawn its troops from the posts at once immediately after the definite treaty was signed, the works would, in all probability have been destroyed by the Indians, within whose territories they were situated, long before the people of the States could have taken possession of them. for no part of their army was within hundreds of miles of the posts, and the country through which they must have passed in getting to them was a mere wilderness ; but if the army had gained the posts the States were in no condition immediately after the war to have kept in them such large bodies of the military as would have been abso- lutely necessary for their defense whilst at enmity with the Indians, and it is by ilo means improbable but that the posts might have been soon abandoned. The reten- tion of them therefore to the present day was in fact a circumstance highly beneficial to the interests of the States, notwithstanding that such an outcry was raised against the British on that account, inasmuch as the Americans now find themselves possessed of extensive fortifications on the frontiers in perfect repairs, without having been at the expense of building them or maintaining troops in them for the space of to years."
This was also a British view but there was a great deal of justice in it. On the evacuation of the fort the American public papers paid some nice compliments to the English officers for their friendly atten- tions, their extensive gardens being left in full bearing.4 A plan of Fort Niagara made in 1801 shows these gardens extending along the lake front east of the earthworks, so that they then covered that part of the ground where the English dug their parallels and planted their batteries during the siege of 1759, which had not been washed away by the encroachments and the storms of Lake Ontario. The comparatively small matter of leaving the iron shutters on the win dows of the castle was overlooked, and these were all taken down and carried to the new British blockhouse.3
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