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 2
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The government, and social polity of the Iroquois, united some of the better features of the feudal aristocracies, and mon- archical rules with some of the approved forms of a republican government, the general tenor of their polity assuming a patri- archal type. Their presiding ruler or civil head of the con- federacy was distinguished by the name of the Atotarho. This position was hereditary, belonging to a family of the Onondaga tribe, the line of succession following down through the female branches of the royal kin. Instances have not been wanting in their history, in which this venerated official has led their tribal hosts to battle and victory. He was supposed to be at all times employed, in serving the welfare, and guarding the interests of the league.
The command of their armies devolved upon the principal warrior of the Mohawk tribe. This military leader bore the name of the Tekarihogea. The two kings Hendrick, Little Abraham and Brant, during the colonial period of our history, were examples of this chieftainship. This office, like the former
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HISTORY OF THE TOWN OF QUEENSBURY.
was hereditary, except in extraordinary instances, when it was conferred upon superior valor or merit.
Under these officers, presided six sachems, selected equally for their bravery, skill, and wisdom, from each of the several tribes. It has been stated, that at the organization of the con- federacy, fifty of these rulers were created, with as many alter- nates to act as assistants or proxies as circumstances required, and these were apportioned throughout the six cantons, where- ever personal distinction and merit formed a fitting subject for preferment. These chiefs affected great poverty, and although largely called upon to exercise the rights of hospitality to their tribesmen, and all visitors, they generally distributed among their needy followers and parasites, their entire quota of tribute and share of plunder accruing from forays into neighboring territories.
Each canton was sub-divided into three or more distinct clans or families, designated by what they denominated totems, which, in forest heraldry, served as a badge of brother- hood, and hereditary distinction, and a certification of personal bravery and worth. The more distinguished of these totems, were the tortoise, the bear, and the wolf. These insignia were conspicuously tattooed upon their persons, and were re- garded by them with the pride and satisfaction which accom- pany the possession of armorial bearings, and knightly honors.
The six sachems before mentioned, constituted the grand federative council of the league. The Atotarho presided at its deliberations, and on all state occasions the principal warriors, orators, and chiefs of the several tribes were summoned to par- ticipate in the counsels. This august body levied war, con- tracted alliances, sanctioned treaties, and prescribed their in- ternecine regulations, and foreign policy.
The council fires of the league were constantly kept burning, at the castle of the Onondagas, and from it the people were yearly supplied with the sacred fire by the priests, or medicine men, with the most impressive rites and ceremonies. Here, also, during each year, was held the feast of the union, to keep bright the chain of their covenant, at which deputies from each tribe participated, and met to smoke in the great calumet of the confederacy
Each tribe had also eight sub-officials called Ra-ko-wa-nas, who were probably the head men of the several families repre-
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THE SIX MATIONS.
sented. These discharged the duties of magistrates in their re- spective villages in times of peace, and in war marshalled the braves to battle. Each of these had his subordinate, who acted as his substitute, or aid as occasion demanded. They were called Mishinawas. Still below these were a host of minor offi- cials, petty sachems, and brevet chieftains, whose duties and functions were various and fluctuating. The rights, preroga- tives, and powers of their rulers, seem to have been founded mainly upon the terms of respect due to capacity, ability, and past services.
All males above the age of puberty, were supposed to be ca- pable of taking the war path, and from that period, were, accord- ing to their usages, required to bear arms and render military service. The admission to the portals of manhood, was to them a solemn event, ushered in by protracted fastings, arduous trials, and imposing ceremonials, well calculated to inure the neophyte to the fatigue of the chase, and exalt his mind above the hazards of the battle-field. These preparations had their commencement in the wild peculiarities of their religious be- lief, and all their customs from the medicine dance to the great annual feast at their national altar were but parts of their pagan ceremonial and worship.
In their councils and treaties, their war chiefs were held in secondary estimation, and all encroachments upon the prero- gatives of their sachems were carefully guarded against, with a watchful discrimination and jealous vigilance. On the other hand, whenever the interests of the commonalty and women were involved, as in the sale, or partition of lands, they had an equal, and sometimes controlling voice in the determination of the question. Their cultivated lands in particular were consi- dered the peculiar heritage of the women who tilled, and of the warriors who defended them.
They exhibited a sagacious policy in regard to their prisoners of war. These were rarely exchanged, but with the remnants of conquered tribes were termed Wa-hait-wat-sha, literally, a body divided into pieces and scattered around. These were adopted according to their ability to care for, or look after them, among different families, and were thus incorporated into the several tribes of the confederacy.
As public speakers, the Iroquois have no equals in the annals of the red race. The reported speeches of Garangula, Logan,
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HISTORY OF THE TOWN OF QUEENSBURY.
and Red Jacket equal in force and fervor, in imagery, eloquence and pathos the best efforts of the most gifted orators of the world.
The Iroquois lacked the great welding and cohesive power of a common language, all of the tribes having a distinct dialect, bearing a striking resemblance to each other, and evidently de- rived from a common root. Of these, the Mohawk was the most harsh and guttural, and the language of the Senecas the most euphonious. In their ordinary conversation there was a great range of modulation in the inflections of the voice, while expressive pantomime and vehement gestures helped to eke out the meagerness of their vernacular on the commonest occasions. Their proper names were invariably the embodiments of ideas, and their literature, as contained in their oft repeated legends, and the well remembered eloquence of their gifted orators, abounded with the most sublime imagery, and striking anti- . theses, which were drawn at will by these apt observers of . nature, from the wild scenes, and picturesque solitudes with which they were most familiar.
After the Revolution, the Mohawks, and such portions of the other tribes as espoused the cause of Great Britain in the strug- gle for independence, withdrew to Canada, and were seated upon a section of territory granted by the crown, in the vicinity of Brantford, at the head of Lake Ontario, where their descend- ants are residing in a prosperous and flourishing condition at the present day.
The remainder of this people, after disposing by piece and parcel of the rich heritage left them by their forefathers, have been gathered finally upon their various reservations, around which the waves of emigration and civilization have surged for more than half a century. Here, in their villages and hamlets, with their schools, workshops and churches, this once warlike people are now peacefully and contentedly employed in the pursuits of agriculture and industry and the cultivation of the useful arts, presenting a singular, and in some respects, a re- freshing contrast, to the bustle and whirl, the greed, selfishness and rapacity of the world around them.
The St. Francis Indians are descended from the once powerful Androscoggins, a branch of the great Abenakies, or Tarrateens, which at one time held sway over the entire territory embraced in the peninsula of Nova Scotia, Maine and Eastern Canada.
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THE ST. FRANCIS TRIBE.
Through the indefatigable labors of Father Rasles, who dwelt among these tribes for more than twenty years, a flourishing mis- sion was established in the early part of the eighteenth century, at Nar-rant-souak on the River Kennebeck. This settlement speedily became the rallying point for the French and Indians in their descents upon the frontier settlements of New Hamp- shire and Massachusetts. The danger from this quarter at length became so eminent and pressing, that an expedition was finally planned for its destruction. A force of two hundred men, with a detachment of Indian allies, was fitted out in the summer of 1724, under the leadership of Captains Moulton and Harman of York. The village was invested. The attack was a surprise. Father Rasles, and about thirty of the Abenaki war- riors killed, and the remainder dispersed. The survivors of this relentless massacre, with the remainder of the tribe, fled to the Mission village of St. Francis, situated upon the lake of that name at the head of the St. Francis river. The frequent acces- sions of fugitives to their ranks, due to the active, aggressive policy of the English, so increased their numbers, that they soon became known as the St. Francis tribe. Under the training of their priests they speedily became a powerful ally of the French, cooperating with the predaceous bands of half savage habitans, kept the English border settlements in terror and trepidation for a space of twenty-five years. In the notable campaign of 1757, a large party of them accompanied Montcalm in his ex- pedition against Fort William Henry, at the southern extremity of Lake George, and were participants in the fearful and fiend- ish massacre which followed the surrender of that fort. They were doomed however to a reprisal, and vengeance, swift, tho- rough and effective. Immediately subsequent to the successes of General Amherst in 1759, the distinguished partisan Major Robert Rogers, was despatched with a force of two hundred picked men from his corps of rangers, to demolish the settle- ment, and chastise the tribe for its complicity in the frightful massacres of the three preceding campaigns. Proceeding with caution and celerity, the village was surrounded before an alarm was given, and after a brief, sharp contest, the place was re- duced, and the inhabitants, without respect to age or sex, were ruthlessly put to the sword. The dwellings and fortifications, together with a valuable church, fitted up with costly decora- tions and embellishments, were committed to the flames, and
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HISTORY OF THE TOWN OF QUEENSBURY.
destroyed. A large silver image, two hundred guineas in mo- ney, and a large amount of booty and spoils were carried off by the victors. Although their village and church were rebuilt, from that time forward the tribe rapidly decreased, until the settlement became almost depopulated. But a small remnant now remains of that once powerful race which hailed with wild enthusiasm the preaching of the border crusade, ere its fiery devotees rushed forth with bow and brand to desolate the smil- ing fields, and lay waste the hamlets of the early settlers of North- ern New York.
The few straggling representatives of the red race who haunt the watering places of this vicinity, during the season of travel, selling bead and basket work, are mostly descendants of the St. Francis tribe, who linger around the old hunting ground, like ghosts whose unfulfilled mission still holds them reluctant wan- derers on the shores of time.
Among the many localities of traditionary interest, within the town of Queensbury the Blind rock is associated in the memories of the oldest inhabitants with scenes and tales of tor- ture, cruelty, and suffering, the horrible details of which are as varied as the diabolical inventions of savage ingenuity could execute upon its unresisting victims. By a reference to the old town record, it will be seen that the commissioners of high- ways have, in several instances, referred to this as a common, and well known point in their surveys for private roads, and occasioned changes in the public thoroughfares. Dr. Fitch, in the Historical Survey of Washington County, refers to it in the following language :
" Almost every step between the present village of Sandy Hill and the lake thus became tracked with blood; and Half- way brook, and Blind rock, and the Five-mile run became noted as places of ambuscade, and were always approached with fear and apprehension."
This rock is one of the numerous boulders that lie in the path of the diluvial drift trending from the lofty Adirondack range to the valley of the Hudson. Its composition is gneiss.
It is deeply imbedded beneath the drift and soil, the slow ac- cumulation of untold ages, and, although legend states that within the period of a human life, over four feet of the rock has been exposed to view, yet the gradual wash from the hill above, and the frequent passage of the plow at its sides, has so filled
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LEGEND OF THE BLIND ROCK.
up the inequalities of the surface, that but a very small portion of the crown of the rock is now visible. It is situated a yard or two from the route of the old military highway leading from Fort Edward to Fort William Henry, and about twenty-five rods to the east of the present plank road to Caldwell, on the farm owned by Mr. William Miller, and about two and one- half miles north of Glen's Falls village. It is stated by some of the older inhabitants, that the rock has a large cleft or crevice through the centre, caused by the repeated and heavy fires to which it has evidently been subjected at some long distant period.
According to various legends, this locality was a favorite place of encampment for the Indians, and a frequent point of resort for the torture and immolation of the numerous prisoners captured by them in their excursions against the settlements at the south, or taken upon the line of march between the two great places of rendezvous at Fort Edward and Lake George.
One account states that the name of Blind rock was given to this scene of savage cruelty, in consequence of a blind man being brought here, put to the torture, and finally burnt to death upon its summit. Another version is that a captive's eyes were torn out, and thrown into the burning embers gathered in the crevice of the rock. All the stories agree in representing it as a place where prisoners were habitually tortured, their finger and toe nails torn out, their flesh gashed and hacked, their persons maimed, mutilated and mangled with knives, spears and tomahawks ; blazing splinters of fat pine thrust into the shrinking, quivering flesh ; and after every resource of savage craft and skill was exhausted, and their fainting victims were ready to drop in unconsciousness to the ground, their writhing bodies were tossed into the fierce flames, kept burning on the sacrificial stone, and were there relentlessly held among the seething brands, until life and the semblance of humanity had become extinct in their blackened and shrivelled forms.
Tradition has handed down to us the details of one affair when two English prisoners were captured while on their way from Lake George to Fort Edward. The Blind rock being nearly equidistant from these two points, comparatively safe from attack or molestation ; abounding in material for building their torture fires, contiguous to a rivulet of the purest water; and furnishing a cleared, dry, commodious site for a camping
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HISTORY OF THE TOWN OF QUEENSBURY.
ground, caused this vicinity to be more resorted to than any other on the whole route from Lake St. Francis to Albany. On this particular occasion, the captives were divested of their clothing, and one of them firmly lashed with thongs of bark to one of the neighboring trees. The numerous pines in the vi- cinity soon furnished material for the fierce, glowing fire. The usual council was in the meantime assembled, and its delibera- tions resulted in the determination that the prisoners should first run the gauntlet; after which the usual tortures were to be resorted to, crowning their exercises with the customary cremation.
In execution of this plan, the savages formed an extended circle around the fire, within which the captor was placed, and to avoid the fierce blaze of the crackling fire, he was obliged to shrink to the verge of the armed circle of painted demons who surrounded him, who, as often as he came within their reach, struck at him with their keen edged tomahawks and glittering knives, and impelled him onward in his weary death race, by thrusting at him with their spears, or with the blows of their formidable war clubs. At length, when nearly exhausted, he caught sight of a papoose, or Indian child, that unheeded, had worked its way among the feet of the warriors. With the im- pulse of desperation, the prisoner dashed forward, seized the child, and flung it on the fire. For an instant the savages were appalled and paralyzed ; and then, regardless of their victims, with loud clamors and shouts rushed forward to rescue the little scion of their tribe. In this moment of confusion, the captive snatched a hatchet, and liberated his companion from his bonds. They immediately took to the woods, and making a long detour, succeeded in escaping from their enemies, and finally reached Fort Edward, their flesh lacerated with the briers and underbrush, through which they forced their way, on their frightful and perilous journey. These, and many other incidents of a kindred nature, it is natural to suppose should have perpetuated the memories of this spot with an unfailing interest through all time, and yet, save to a few of the older residents, who in childhood, by the old fashioned blazing hickory fire, or the flickering flare of the pine knot, have lis- tened shuddering to these recitals of horror, the place is un- known to the people as possessing any historic interest, and the events connected with it, until now, an unrecorded myth. I have
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SKETCH OF REV. ANTHONY PAUL.
consulted old people who were born here in the town, who had never heard of such a place as " the blind rock," and, but for the accidental occurrence of the name on the town records, the whole affair would doubtless have soon passed into oblivion.
Something more than a half a century ago, a laborer named Robert Cranney while ploughing in a field south of, and adja- cent to this rock, heard a metallic sound like the jingling of coin in the furrow. His search was rewarded by finding nearly twenty-five dollars of an ancient coinage, which had been libe- rated from their long concealment by the edge of the plough- share, which had doubtless torn asunder the decayed purse in which they were originally contained. Animated by this dis- covery, all of the ground in the neighborhood of this rock, was subsequently thoroughly explored for treasure supposed to be concealed there. An eye witness states that he has seen the woods in the adjoining fields, thronged with horses tied to the trees, while their owners or riders were busily engaged in throw- ing up the earth, and sinking deep pits in search for money and valuables.1 It is to be presumed that these efforts were at- tended with but little success, as no important results have been heard of as the consequence of this industry.
COB-MONEY.
The annals of the town, and the history of the Presbyterian church within its borders, would be incomplete without some account of the Rev. Anthony Paul, who, in the primitive days of the settlement, furnished religious instruction and consola- tion to a sparsely settled and not over devout pastorate, em- bracing all that region bordering upon the western shores, and southern extremity of Lake George ; and occasionally extend-
1 In the olden time specimens similar to those in the illustration were frequently + found in the neighborhood of the picket posts and block houses. These fragments. were denominated cob-money from the resemblance of the stamp to the section of a corn cob, and were fragments of the old style cross pistareen.
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HISTORY OF THE TOWN OF QUEENSBURY.
ing his ministrations, as emergency demanded, among the wilder forests, and rocky declivities of Dresden and Putnam on the eastern borders of the lake.
When he came here, and where from, where educated and admitted to the ministry, is, in great part, a matter of doubtful tradition, or questionable conjecture.
According to the best information at hand, it is believed that he was a Mohican by birth, and quite probably a son of Moses Paul who was executed for murder at New Haven, Conn., on the 22d of September, 1772. His children claimed to be de- scended from the Stockbridge tribe, which of course is only another name for a branch of the same people. Anthony Paul's wife was a daughter of the celebrated Indian preacher Sampson Occum, in regard to whom I find the following in Drake's Book of the Indians.
"Sampson Occum or Occom, was a Mohegan, of the family of Benoni Occum, who resided near New London, in Connecticut. He was the first of that tribe who was conspicuous in religion, if not the only one. He was born in 1723, and becoming at- tached to the Rev. Eleazer Wheelock, the minister of Lebanon in Connecticut, in 1741, he became a Christian. Possessing talents and great piety Mr. Wheelock entertained sanguine hopes that he would be able to effect much among his country- men as a preacher of the gospel. He went to England in 1765, to procure aid for the keeping up of a school for the instruction of Indian children, which was begun by Mr. Wheelock, and furthered by a Mr. Moore by a donation of a school house and land, about 1763. While in England he was introduced to Lord Dartmouth, and other eminent persons. He preached there to crowds of people, and returned to America in 1768, having landed at Boston on his return. It is said he was the first Indian that preached in England. He was ordained, in 1759, a preacher to the Montauks on Long Island.1 About this time he visited the Cherokees. He finally settled among the Oneida Indians, with many of his Mohegan brethren about 1768 ; they having been invited by the Oneidas. He died in July, 1792, at North Stockbridge, New York, aged 69."
Stone, in his Life of Brant, states that the school at Dart- mouth was not opened until 1770, previous to which time, Dr. 1
1 For an extended account of his ministrations and services, see Dwight's Travels. vol. II, p. 99.
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SOME ACCOUNT OF FATHER PAUL.
Wheelock had charge of the Moore Charity School, at Le- banon, Connecticut, at which Sampson Occum, the first Indian pupil, had been received about the year 1743. It is supposed that Anthony Paul was one of Dr. Wheelock's pupils at Le- banon, and possibly pursued his divinity studies under the per- sonal supervision of Occum himself. It is conjectured that he removed to this region soon after the close of the revolutionary war, making his residence at first in the north part of Queens- bury, afterwards at Caldwell, and later on in Bolton, which latter place was the principal theatre of his ministerial labors.
In a conversation, which the compiler of this work had some years ago with Mrs. Emma Goss, the daughter of Stephen Stevenson, she stated that her father moved to this town, when she was but three years old, which would make the time of re- moval in 1785. He settled, cut out a clearing, and erected a log house on the farm recently owned and occupied by Ste- phen Vaughn, on the Dunham's bay road, near which "old John Paul, an Indian, built his hut, and made it his home." At this time, following her statement, there were only eighteen families residing in the whole town, and the extensive flats east and south of her father's house were covered with a dense wilder- ness of majestic pines where the wolf and panther lurked in undisturbed security. Whether this John Paul was a member of Anthony Paul's family or not is uncertain. I have supposed him to be either a brother or son. Stevenson's name first ap- pears in the town records for 1795.
Anthony Paul had children as follows, their names being presented in the supposed order of birth : Sampson, James, Phebe, Benoni, Jonathan called Daunt, and Henry. The iden- tity of two of the names with the Occum family is inferentially in favor of the claim of relationship. The children are repre- sented as being an idle dissipated lot, and though harmless and inoffensive, " prone to do evil," and caring little for religious observances or social restraints. Sampson's name appears in Judge Robards' docket for the year 1802, as defendant in a law suit ; and on the same docket, Anthony Paul is recorded as de- fendant in an action 18th March, 1805, David Osborne jr., a merchant at the Ridge, being the plaintiff.
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