USA > New York > Erie County > Buffalo > An authentic and comprehensive history of Buffalo : with some account of its early inhabitants, both savage and civilized ; comprising historic notices of the Six Nations or Iroquois Indians, including a sketch of the life of Sir William Johnson, and of other prominent white men, long resident among the Senecas ; arranged in chronologial order > Part 22
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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
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and that ultimately it must reflect on his name and station, the unfavora- ble epithet of a discerning public, as preferring to cherish the rage of the desolating sword of war, to the happiness which flows in such abundance through the channels of peace. And perceiving from those causes that nothing further can be done by us at this time, I must take my leave of the Six Nations, and return with my information to the chiefs that sent me, to whose attention I will recommend them, seeing that no fault at this time lay at their doors. Having placed our disappointment to the fountain from whence it came, and to-morrow being the day I propose moving hence, I have now to desire that the chiefs will prepare to deliver me their farewell speech, which I will duly communicate to the great chief of the Thirteen Fires, and hope that it may be done soon to-morrow.
May 21. The whole of the chiefs resorted to my cabin, and the Young King, by appointment, gave their farewell speech, but not without the aid of Fish Carrier, whose physiognomy when speaking, put me in re- membrance of the old Roman Senators, possessing so much keen gravity in his manner. (For the conclusive speech of Farmers Brother, see sub- sequent page. ) Settled with Mr. Cornelius Winney for liquors &c., had for the Indians occasionally, £26 5s, deducting thirty-two dollars for a horse sold to him, bought of Mr. Maxwell at Tioga. Also gave a white prisoner that lived with said Winney, nine pounds four and a half pence. Having now all matters arranged, I delivered to Capt. Houdin all the pub- lic writings I had prepared for his Excellency, the Secretary of War, and sent him by the Genesee, in company with Messrs. Smith and Ewing, residents of said place, (in the several villages adjacent to the castle of Buffalo, to-wit, the Cayugas, the Onondagas, &c ; there are more than one hundred and seventy tolerable well built huts, ) and proceeded by the verge of the lake for Cattaraugus, with an interpreter and servant, where we arrived on the 22d.
The reason of my taking the route for Pittsburgh was, that I was apprehensive that my letters might have been intercepted, had I put them into the hands of the Indian before named, and taken to a British garrison for inspection ; and that my con- ducting them myself might give me the opportunity of meeting with Gen. St. Clair, or Col. Butler, and giving them personal information of such matters as might not have been treated of in my letter. Having found myself fully disposed to make a forced march to Pittsburgh, though late in the afternoon, I hired fresh horses and an Indian to go to New Arrow's Town and to return, for which I paid eight dollars, and for a supply of stores to a British trader, sixteen pounds ten and a halt pence. I arrived at the New Arrow's Town on the 24th in the evening, (distance
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eighty miles, ) having encamped out in the woods the two preceding nights. I had no sooner arrived than the chief's were sunimoned to coun- cil by the sound of a conch shell, which was intended for nothing more than to take leave of me. Here I parted with my interpreter, for him to return to the Genesee country, the place of his residence, and accounted with him for sixty-one days services, allowing him six days to return, at ten and a half shillings per day. I gave him my obligation to pay the balance found his due at sight, in Philadelphia ; and at a late settlement with the Pay Master General of the United States, I left the same, to- gether with eighteen pounds payable to Messrs. Hollenbeck & Maxwell, for a small horse received of them at Tioga Point, and seven pounds ten shillings to the payment of my draft on the Secretary of War to Joseph Smith, Indian interpreter. Previous to my leaving this town, 23d of April last, I was obliged to send my own riding horse to the Genesee set- tlement, it being impossible to procure forage or corn for him, and at which place he has remained ever since at expenses. Not having it in my power of doing otherwise, and whether the same will be allowed for to me, I must submit to the judgment of the Secretary of War.
Being in private conversation with Capt. O'Beel this evening, and sit- ting between him and the New Arrow sachem, I hinted to Capt. O'Beel, that if he would go and join Gen. St. Clair with thirty-five or forty of his warriors, as well equipped as he could make them, purely to counterbal- ance the force that Brant had taken with him to the unfriendly Indians, I would use endeavors with the Secretary of War to procure him'a com- mission that should yield to him and his people a handsome stipend. He replied that the Senecas had received a stroke from the bad Indians, by taking two prisoners, a woman and a boy, from Conyatt, and that should the hatchet be struck into the head of any of his people hereafter, he would then inform me what he would undertake to do.
I hired a canoe and two Indians, this evening, to carry me to Fort Franklin, and should have set out immediately, but for a heavy rain that fell. I agreed to pay them four dollars and thirty cents, and a portion of whisky, when we should reach the garrison, and provisions to bring them back. I arrived the next morning by daylight at Fort Franklin, took breakfast with Lieut. Jeffers, had a canoe prepared with four fresh hands put into it, and after adjusting my engagements with the Indians brought to New Arrow's Town, pushed off as speedily as lay in our power for Fort Pitt, (distance about one hundred and fifty-six miles by water, ) and gained the same in twenty-five hours, the men having worked hard all night to complete it, and assisted myself, for which I paid extra to
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each one dollar, and one dollar for entertainment at Pittsburgh, having completed in five days and two nights, going by land and by water from Buffalo to this place, four hundred and eleven miles. * Set * out from Pittsburgh to Philadelphia on the evening of the 29th of May, and arrived on the 7th day of June. *
THOMAS PROCTOR TO THE HON. SECRETARY OF WAR.
PHILADELPHIA, June 8th, 1791.
SIR-I left the castle of the Six Nations of Indians at Buffalo Creek, the 21st of last month in the afternoon, the fore part of the day being spent in council with the chiefs of the above Nations, of which there were a full representation ; and by the following, as delivered by the Young King and the Farmers Brother, will evidence their friendly dispo- sition towards the United States, in maintaining with them an inviolable peace, as also with the British, as from the situation of their Nations, they are centrally placed between them. The same day I sent forward my despatches for your Excellency, under the care of Capt. Houdin, by the route of Wyoming, while I should proceed by way of Fort Franklin and Pittsburgh, with the letters I had written for the information of Gen. St. Clair, and arrived here yesterday afternoon. It is also with pleasure I inform you that as to the several posts on the Alleghany River, &c., they were under no apprehension of danger from the unfriendly Indians, and were in good health and high spirits.
I am Your Excellency's most Obedient Servant,
THOMAS PROCTOR.
TO THE HON. SECRETARY OF WAR.
NO 2.
Oration by Samuel Treat, Esq., in 1841, on the occasion of the exhu- mation and interment of the remains of Lieut. Boyd, of Gen. Sullivan's army, who was taken by the Senecas and put to the torture in the most barbarous and cruel manner, at Little-Beard's Town, on the Genesee River, in 1789. From "Notices of Sullivan's Campaign."
ORATION RESPECTING REVOLUTIONARY WARFARE IN
WESTERN NEW YORK.
With muffled drum and lengthened funeral train, we have this hour fol- lowed from their long and silent resting place, the mouldering remains of those gallant men who, in the depths of the wilderness, fell early martyrs for American liberty.
Long have their bones lain, unhonored, beneath the sod moistened by their life-blood, whilst the rank grass has waved, unnoticed, above their fast-decaying frames. The little stream has flowed gently by, and the waters of the neighboring spring gushed forth, unheeded, save when one more curious than his fellows, has, in his love of traditionary lore, turned aside from the adjacent path, to linger over the grave of these champions of freedom.
And now, after the lapse of sixty-two years, the valiant dead receive the honors which they have so long and hitherto fruitlessly claimed. (See Note A.)
From the distant city and all the neighboring towns, an eager innlti- tude have assembled in this sacred temple "not made with hands," un- der the broad canopy of heaven, sheltered only by these majestic oaks that have, for more than half a century, stood, the silent sentinels of the heroes' graves, to pay the last solemn rites of sepulture to the brave and generous-hearted of another and heroic age.
Thus it always has been-it always must be. The noble deeds, the self-sacrificing heroism of those who die in the cause of God and their
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country, of virtue and liberty, will at length, though it be at a tardy pace, receive the just tribute of well-earned praise-of solemn admira- tion. The thousands crowded together here at the present moment, who have left their harvest-fields and their workshops, their quiet firesides in the still country, and the bustling din of the city's varied pursuits-the high and honored in station, and the humble laborer-all, inspired by one deep and common feeling of reverence for the valiant dead, speak in no faint tones of the immortality of heroism and virtue.
Standing, as I do at the present hour, in sight of these everlasting hills, clothed in many a spot with the richest verdure, and here and there covered with the primeval forest-hills once pathless and untenanted, save by the wild beasts and the ruthless savage-gazing out upon the far- spread valley, "the richest and most fruitful which the sun, in all his course, looks down upon "-the luxuriant crop yet scarcely gathered in by its many happy proprietors-an expanse, save in an occasional spot, but a few years since an unreclaimed morass, through which nought but the prowling wolf and the startled deer had ever threaded their danger- ous way ; and where no sound was heard save the gentle murmurs of yon lazy stream, broken, ever and anon, by the wild bird's shrill cry, the snake's deadly rattle, and the Indian's horrid yell-standing here, at this hour, with the scene changed from the desolation of the past, as it were by some magic spell, to yellow fields laden with plenty, barns bursting with the fruits of the harvest, populous villages sown broadcast over the extended prospect-boats, laden with the various products of every elime, hurried along yon artificial stream, that has superseded the ancient river and robbed it of its former glory-at our feet, too, on the very site of the red man's home, a busy mart that has sprung into existence in nearly the short space of a single glance-every thing within the limits of the vision, instinct with life, industry, and wealth-thus encompassed by all the blessings of the joyous present, the thoughts, involuntarily turning back to the dismal past, are lost in amazement at the mighty change, and seek, in the thousand mementos around, for the great secret of the wonder- working power which has thus wrought out a fairy land from the gloomy wilderness and the stagnant marsh.
That sable pall aud consecrated urn tell how, and at what cost, all these wonders have been wrought. As the eye returns from its wander- ings over this far-extended and beautiful scene, and rests upon those sa- . cred emblems of death, the mind is filled with the traditions of that dire- ful hour which we have met to commemorate. With the vividness of present reality, imagination calls up the very spot of that awful conflict
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-the frightful dangers of that painful hour-the sharp and deadly ring- . ing of the Indian's rifle-the glittering tomahawk and bloody scalping knife-the stern yet resolute despair of the gallant few-the short yet fierce encounter-the ground reeking with gore, and covered with the mangled corpses of the dead and yet-quivering bodies of the dying-the painful march and dread suspense-the agonizing torture of the heroic leader, and the demoniac rejoicings of the savage foe.
But let us, for a moment, turn aside from this awful scene, to learn the course of previous events leading to these painful calamities, that, with the voice of an impartial posterity, we may fix upon their guilty authors the deep and damning stain of inflicting upon their fellow-men of the same common blood and common country, the most cruel and merciless tortures that fiendlike malice ever devised.
At the commencement of the controversy between England and her trans-Atlantic colonies, there resided in the fertile valley of the Mohawk, in what was then called Tryon county, which embraced all of that part of New York west of Scoharie creek, several rich and powerful families, that, from their vast possessions and intimate associations with the mother-country, could not long remain indifferent spectators of the con- troversy. Among these, the wealthiest and most influential were the Johnsons and Butlers. Sir William Johnson had endeared himself to the colonists, not only by his private character, but also by his great exer- tions during the French and Indian War. For his gallant services and brilliant victories, he had received from his sovereign a baronetey, and the commission of General Superintendent of Indian Affairs.
He possessed an unbounded influence over the savage tribes of this State, for whom he ever felt a fatherly care. Bound to the cause of his king by the many marks of special favor which he had received from the royal hand, and equally attached to his neighbors, whom he had so often Ied to battle, and by whose generous aid he had been enabled successfully to brave the dangers of the wilderness, and to triumph over their com- mon foes, he looked with agonizing emotions upon the fratricidal contest which he foresaw must soon commence. Having suddenly expired in his castle, in June, 1774, he was spared the heart rending anguish of witnessing the atrocious cruelties of the commeneing conflict. His son, Sir John Johnson, succeeded to the titles and estates of Sir Win. John- son, his distinguished father; and his son-in-law, Col. Guy Johnson, to the office of Superintendent. Brant, the celebrated Indian chief, was the private secretary of the latter, and rendered him the most important ser- vices in his efforts to win over the warriors of the Six Nations to the
21
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cause of England. Col. John Butler and his son, the infamous Walter N. Butler, were near neighbors of the Johnsons, and associated with, them in official duties. These men, together with the most influential loyalists of the county, taking advantage of the gathering at the court in Johnstown, in the year 1775, procured the signatures of a majority of the Grand Jurors and the Magistrates present, to a declaration in oppo- sition to the proceedings of the Continental Congress, then about to reas- semble after the bloody battles of Lexington and Concord. At this meeting the discussion ran high ; and, after its adjournment. the patriots returned home filled with generous indignation. They soon infu sed some of their own burning spirit of liberty into their neighbors' souls, and meetings of the people were held in every town and hamlet. The first assembly met at Canghnewaga. Among the three hundred unarmed men who had come together to that spot to deliberate on the momentous question of their endangered freedom, Sampson Sammons was by far the most zealous. He and his two sons, afterwards so celebrated in the bor- der warfare, with their associates, were just raising a liberty-pole, the emblem of rebellion, when the Johnsons and Butlers, with their armed retainers rushed into the crowd. Col. Guy Johnson harangued the peo- ple at great length, on the power and resources of England ; and de- nounced, in the bitterest terms and with the most unsparing invective, the measures taken by the disaffected. Jacob Sammons, unable to re- strain his goaded feelings, pronounced the speaker a " liar and scoun- drel." Johnson retorted the epithet, and seized Sammons by the throat. In the scuffle which ensued, Sammons was severely wounded ; and, on the retreat of the loyalists, returned home, "bearing on his own body the first scars of the Revolutionary contest in Tryon county."
One of the most spirited meetings was held in the church at Cherry Valley. There the fathers took with them their children, that they might early imbibe, at the altar of religion, an undying love of liberty. From various indieations, the patriots supposed that Johnson was endeav- oring to enlist the Indians against the colonists. In consequence of the information sent by their committees, Congress took early measures to prevent such a fearful result. In the address read by the Colonial Com- missioners at the council of the chiefs, held in Albany, Congress said : " This is a family quarrel between us and England. You, Indians are not concerned in it. We do not wish you to take up the hatehet against the king's troops. We desire you to remain at home and not to join either side, but bury the hatchet deep." Here, as at a council subsequently held at German Flats, the chief's of the Six Nations promised to remain neutral during the pending contest.
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After various consultations with the Indians and the employment of every artifice in their power, without success, the Johnsons and Butlers sent runners over the whole Indian country, and visited, in person, most of the tribes, to procure their attendance at a council to be held at Oswego in the month of July, 1777. The Indians were invited to as- semble on that occasion "to banquet on a Bostonian and drink his blood." Walter Butler harangued the assembled chiefs ; and, after por- traying, without effect, the great wealth and power of England, stated that the king would give a bounty for the enemy's scalps-money and food to all who joined his troops; that " his men were as numerous as the sands on the sea-shore, and his rum as plenty as the water in Lake Ontario." His representations and bribes produced the expected result. All of the Indians-with the exception of abont one-half of the Oneidas -took up the hatchet, in violation of their solemn pledges at Albany and German Flats.
The foul stain of stimulating the savages to the innumerable acts of barbarity exhibited on the frontier settlements during this contest, must rest on the escutcheon of England. Indeed, the shameless avowal of Lord Suffolk, in the British Parliament, that the ministers had resorted to such measures, called forth that burst of eloquent indignation from Chatham which stands unrivalled in our language for withering rebuke. The emissaries of England traversed the whole Indian country ; and, in their endeavors to arouse the savages to deeds of the most horrid cruelty. omitted no artifice which could excite their passions-no bribe which could tempt-no statement which could influence-no promises which could lure them on to the most relentless warfare.
Burgoyne, in his proclamation, "denounced the most terrible war against those who opposed him. He admonished them not to flatter themselves that distance or coverts could screen them from his pursuit, for he had only to let loose the thousands of Indians under his direction to discover, in their most secret retreats, and to punish with condign severity, the hardened enemies of Great Britain."
Thus, whilst Congress, averse to enlisting in the war the merciless savages of the surrounding wilderness, employed her agents to procure pledges of neutrality, the mother country left no means untried to arouse the native ferocity of the Indian warriors against her own children. But her own gifted orator and statesman "has damned to everlasting fame the pale-faced miscreants " guilty of this inhuman device. From the time of the council at Oswego until the close of the war-nay, for a
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long series of years after-the savages of the North and West continued their depredations and murders on the frontier settlements.
About ten miles south of the Mohawk river, and fifty-two west of Albany, is a fertile valley sixteen miles in length, and varying from one- quarter to a mile in breadth. Far away at the north-east, may be seen in the dim distance the Green Mountains of Vermont mingling with the horizon-whilst, immediately surrounding the valley, and terminating in the Catskills on the south-east, are chains of hills whose sides gently slope down to the vale, through which, for miles, a small creek flows to the south until its waters mingle with the Susquehannah. At a very early period this lovely spot had attracted the settlers attention; and the people who had taken up their abode in this romantie and fruitful val- ley, became noted for their exemplary lives and fervent piety. Though animated by the most ardent love of liberty, that feeling partook of their religious devotion, and was interwoven with the loftiest sentiments of duty to God. Of the many families residing at this spot, none was more beloved, or more marked for all the virtues that adorn the Chris- tian character, than that of Mr. Robert Wells. His family consisted of himself and mother, his brother and sister, his wife and four children. He had held the office of Judge in the county, and been an intimate friend of Col. John Butler and Sir William Johnson.
On the morning of the 11th of November, in the year 1778, this fam- ily, with the Colonel and Lieutenant of the neighboring fort, were as- sembled around the domestie altar. Without, the snow-storm of the preceding night had changed to a heavy rain, and the dense mist shrouded all objects in obscurity. All of that little group, on bended knee, were joining the husband and father in his fervent prayer; and, absorbed in their devout aspirations, were lost to all earthly objects. Whilst the old man's voice, eloquent in prayer, was rising above the fieree raging of the storm without, the fierce war-whoop broke upon their horror-struek ears; and, with a single bound, the Seneea warriors and their more ferocious associates stood, with glittering tomahawks, over that still kneeling group. Ere the half-uttered sentence was elosed, or the speaker's voice had ceased vibrating on their ears, he-his lips yet trembling with the fervent devotion of his morning worship-lay quivering in the agonies of death; and by his side were the mangled corpses of all that family save the loved sister. She who had been an .angel of merey to all within the reach of her ever active virtues, was now a captive in the relentless grasp of the savage foe. His tomahawk, yet recking with the blood of her kinsmen, swung over her defenceless
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head. As it descends on its death-errand, a tory domestic of her father's. turns aside the falling blow, and claims her as his sister. The merciless savage is not thus to be robbed of his victim ; the next moment the tom- ahawk is driven through her upturned face. Col. Alden has escaped from the house, but the deadly weapon speeds unerringly on its course, and he falls, " one of the earliest victims of his most criminal neglect of duty." Lieut. Stacia is a prisoner in the hands of the dusky warriors. From the adjacent house, the aged father of Mrs. Wells is led forth, tot- tering with age-" the rain falling upon his bare head, and his feeble limbs shaking like an aspen,"-to meet, in the fury of the storm, the taunts and cruelties of his savage captors. Mitchell, a near neighbor who had been absent but a few minutes from his home, rushes back, only to find his wife and four of his children, silent in death, and his little girl quivering in the last agonies of dissolution. As he raises her dying frame the foe again approaches ; and Newbury, the fiend like tory drives his hatchet deep into her scarcely throbbing temples.
A few moments thus sufficed to turn a quiet village into a heap of ashes, to change the happy villagers into mangled corpses or miserable captives. The morning prayer was suddenly changed into the groans of the dying and the frantic yells of the ruthless savage. The father, just as his lips were teaching his loved children early devotion to God, was summoned with his little ones to another and unseen world. Most of those who had escaped the first blow, were wretched prisoners, doomed to suffer in the remote wilderness the agonies of long and hopeless cap- tivity, or perish by the most frightful tortures. The few who fled to the overhanging hills, turned back to behold those dearest to their affections, borne away amid the demoniac shouts of the Indian braves ; or their reeking scalps waving on the spears of the unsparing foe. On that morn- ing, sixty men, women and children of that village, were inhumanly butchered, and all others save a mere handful, hurried away to a more cruel fate. Of the three hundred troops, most of whom had been quar- tered out of the fort, but fifty escaped-one of whom is now by my side .* Such, in a few words, is the painful story of Cherry Valley.
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