USA > New York > Erie County > Centennial history of Erie County, New York : being its annals from the earliest recorded events to the hundredth year of American independence > Part 23
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The Indians came to Main street first, a considerable time be- fore the troops, which were drawn up near the corner of Morgan, Mohawk and Niagara streets, where Samuel Edsall had his tan- nery. The savages had apparently full license to do what they pleased in the way of plundering, though some British officers "went ahead and had the casks of liquor stove in, to prevent their red allies from getting entirely beyond control.
Eight or ten Indians came yelling directly toward Mrs. St. John's house. She waved her table cloth as a flag of truce, but they burst in, and immediately began ransacking the trunks, which stood ready packed for removal. There were four squaws in the company, and they, almost the first thing, possessed them- selves of the looking-glass, and stood grinning and jabbering at the red faces reflected there, with childish delight. Presently
256
INDIANS AT MRS. ST. JOHN'S.
the ladies noticed that there was one Indian who took no part in the plundering, and they soon discovered that he could talk a little English.
" What will be done with us?" they anxiously inquired.
"We no hurt you," he replied. "You be prisoner to the squaws. Perhaps they take you to the colonel."
" Yes, yes," exclaimed the ladies, "take us to the colonel."
He spoke to the squaws, and they set forth with their "prison- ers" down Mohawk to the corner of Niagara, where the troops were drawn up, and where the ladies were taken before a British officer, probably Col. Elliott, the commander of the Indians. Mrs. St. John told him her condition-a widow, her husband and eldest son taken from her by a sad calamity, a large family of small children dependent upon her-and implored his protection.
"Well," said the colonel, "what can I do for you; shall I take you to Canada ?"
"No, indeed," replied Mrs. S., "but save my house; don't let it be burned or plundered."
After a moment's hesitation he assented, and ordered two sol- diers. of the Royal Scots regiment to accompany the ladies home, and sce that no farther harm was done. They did so, ordered the Indians away, and remained on guard until the British left in the afternoon.
Soon after their return they saw Mrs. Lovejoy contending with an Indian about a shawl, he pulling at one end and she at the other. One of .the St. John girls ran out into the road, call- ing to her for heaven's sake to let the Indian have it, and come over to their house where they had a guard. Mrs. L. rejected the offer, and continued the altercation with the savage.
Presently flames burst forth from the houses in the main part of the village, near the corner of Main and Seneca streets. A. lieutenant with a squad of men went from house to house, ap- plying the torch.
Dr. Johnson being absent, engaged in, his -duties as surgeon, Mrs. Johnson waited until her house was set on fire before she attempted to flee. She had a horse and sleigh but no wagon, and there was little sleighing. She harnessed the horse to the sleigh, put in the latter a feather bed, a. looking-glass, and her infant daughter Mary, (now Mrs. Dr. Lord,) and set out for Wil-
257
MURDER OF MRS. LOVEJOY.
liamsville, leading the horse. About this time, near ten o'clock, Lieutenant Riddle, of the United States regular army, with some forty convalescents from the Williamsville hospital, and a six-pounder gun, came marching down Main street to drive out the enemy! Mr. Walden went to meet him, convinced him of the hopelessness of such a course, and persuaded him to retire rather than needlessly exasperate the foc and his savage allies.
A little later a regiment in brilliant uniform came at a rapid gait up Mohawk street, and wheeled down Main.
"Ah!" exclaimed one of the guard at Mrs. St. John's, proudly, "sce our Royal Scots."
But the ladies, though they could not but notice the stalwart forms and splendid marching order of the soldiers, could not sympathize with the pride of their comrade. A little later they were all attracted to the windows by another altercation across the road. The same or another band of Indians were again en- deavoring to plunder Mrs. Lovejoy's house, and she was deter- mined to resist them. They saw her standing in the doorway barring the ingress of an angry savage. One account is that she had an axe, but this is not certain. Suddenly there was the flash of a knife, and, pierced to the heart, the woman fell on the threshold she had defended. She was dragged into the yard, and lay there for hours, her blood crimsoning the snow, and her long black hair trailing on the ground, for in this instance the savages forebore to scalp their victim.
Meanwhile the burning went on. The flames rapidly de- voured the frail, wooden tenements of which the embryo city was then chiefly composed. Dr. Chapin's and Judge . Walden's houses were spared on that day, and the burners respected the little dwelling before which lay the corpse of Mrs. Lovejoy. Both Chapin and Walden, however, were taken prisoners, and the former was detained in Canada over a year. Mr. Walden, who was less noted, managed to escape by quietly walking away from his captors, as if. nothing was the matter, and still re- mained about the village.
The large hotel of Mrs. St. John was set on fire by a squad of men, but, when they retired, the girls carried buckets of water and extinguished the flames.
By three o'clock in the afternoon all of the lately flourishing
258
THE SLAIN.
village of Buffalo, save some six or eight structures, was smoul- dering in ashes. What few houses there were at Black Rock were likewise destroyed, and the enemy then retired across the river. After they left, Mr. Walden and the St. John girls car- ried Mrs. Lovejoy's corpse back into her house, and laid it on the bed.
The foe took with them about ninety prisoners, of whom eleven were wounded. Forty of the ninety were from Blakes- lie's regiment. Besides these, a considerable number of Ameri- can wounded were able to escape-probably fifty or sixty.
Forty or fifty were killed. Most of these lay on the field of battle, but some were scattered through the upper part of the village. They were stripped of their clothing, and lay all ghastly and white on the snow. On most of them the tomahawk and scalping-knife had supplemented the work of the bullet.
Among the slain the officer of highest rank was Lieut .- Col. Boughton, of Avon. In Erie county, reckoning according to the present division of towns, the killed were Job Hoysington, John Roop, Samuel Holmes, John Trisket, James Nesbit, Rob- ert Franklin (colored), and Mr. Myers, of Buffalo; Robert Hil- land, Adam Lawfer, of Black Rock; Jacob Vantine, Jr., of Clarence; Moses Fenno, of Alden; Israel Reed, of Aurora ; Newman Baker, Parley Moffat and Wm. Cheeseman, of Ham- burg and East Hamburg; Major Wm. C. Dudley, and probably Peter Hoffman, of Evans'; and Calvin Cary, of Boston.
Moses Fenno was the earliest pioneer of Alden. Israel Reed was a middle-aged man, afflicted with asthma. He was on guard duty when the alarm sounded, but persuaded another to take his place, went forward to the fight and remained to the last. He then retreated, in company with the late Col. Emory, of Aurora. Pursued by the Indians, his asthmatic difficulty retarded his flight. For awhile Emory accommodated his pace to that of his comrade, but at length Reed declared he could go no further, sat down on a log and bade Emory go on. The latter did so. Reed was afterwards found where Emory left him, lying beside the log, his loaded musket by his side, show- ing that he had made no resistance, but with a bullet through his breast, his skull cloven by the relentless tomahawk, and his scalp removed by the vengeful knife.
259
THE BRITISH STRENGTII.
Calvin Cary, the oldest son of the pioneer, Dcacon Richard Cary, though only twenty-one years of age, was a man of gigan- tic stature and herculean strength, weighing nearly three hun- dred pounds. Pursued by three Indians, he shot one dead, killed another with his clubbed musket, but was shot, toma- hawked and scalped by the third. His broken musket, which was found by his side and testified to his valor, is still preserved by his kindred.
All the heavy guns of course fell into the hands of the enemy, as well as a considerable quantity of public stores. A few small vessels, lying ncar Black Rock, were also captured.
The force by which all this injury was accomplished, accord- ing to the British official report, consisted of about a thousand men, detached from the Royal Scots regiment, the Eighth (or King's) regiment, the Forty-first, the Eighty-ninth, and the One Hundredth, besides from one to two hundred Indians. The en- cmy suffered a loss of about thirty men killed and sixty wounded. Only two of his officers were wounded, and none killed.
That a thousand veteran soldiers should whip two thousand raw militia is not really very strange, yet there have been times when militia, acting on the defensive, have done much better than that. The repulse of three or four hundred invaders the previous summer, by a force of militia and recruits hardly their equal in number, shows what may be done under favorable cir- cumstances and resolute leadership.
General Hall, on reaching Williamsville, rallied two or three hundred of the fugitives, and collected reinforcements as rapidly as possible. There was, however, no further conflict with the enemy. Throughout this dismal epoch, the general seems to have acted with all possible devotion and energy, and to have failed only through the defection of his men and his own igno- rance of the military art. He did the best that in him lay.
Gen. McClure, on the other hand, did the worst that in him lay, and when he retired to his home was justly followed by the hatred and contempt of thousands. The destruction of the Ni- agara frontier is chargeable chiefly to the cruelty and cowardice of George McClure.
The news of the disaster fled fast and far. The chief avenue
260
SCENES IN THE COUNTRY.
of escape was up the Main street road to Williamsville and Ba- tavia. Next to that was the road up the beach to Hamburg. This was still the usual route, for teams, to all that part of the county south of the Buffalo reservation.
On this occasion, however, many went on foot or horseback to the Indian village, and thence through the woods to the Big Tree road.
During all that day (the 30th) the road through Williamsville and Clarence was crowded with a hurrying and heterogeneous multitude-bands of militiamen, families in sleighs, women driv- ing ox-sleds, men in wagons, cavalrymen on horseback, women on foot, bearing infants in their arms and attended by crying children-all animated by a single thought, to escape from the foe, and especially from the dreaded Indians.
On the Big Tree road the scene was still more diversified, for in addition to the mixed multitude which poured along the northern route, was the whole body of Indians from the Buffalo reservation. The author of the history of the Holland Pur- chase, then a youth residing in Sheldon, Wyoming county, gives a vivid picture of the scene from personal recollection.
" An ox-sled would come along bearing wounded soldiers, whose companions had perhaps pressed the slow team into their service ; another with the family of a settler, a few household goods that had been hustled upon it, and one, two or three wear- ied females from Buffalo, who had begged the privilege of a ride and the rest that it afforded ; then a remnant of some dispersed corps of militia, hugging as booty, as spoils of the vanquished, the arms they had neglected to use ; then squads and families of Indians, on foot and on ponies, the squaw with her papoose upon her back, and a bevy of juvenile Senecas in her train ; and all this is but a stinted programme of the scene that was pre- sented. Bread, meats and drinks soon vanished from the log taverns on the routes, and fleeing settlers divided their scanty stores with the almost famished that came from the frontiers."
Numerous incidents, pathetic, tragic, and sometimes conic, occurred in this universal hegira. The news flew, apparently on the wings of the wind, and as it flew people hitched up their horse or ox teams and fled eastward, long before all the fugitives from the western part of the county had arrived. Again and again it happened that a party of tired travelers front Buffalo
261
SEPARATION OF FAMILIES.
or vicinity would at nightfall find a deserted house, with plenty of furniture and provisions, somewhere in Aurora, or Wales, or Newstead, and would go to keeping house in it. The owners had perhaps gone on, another day's journey, and had found near Batavia or Warsaw another abandoned residence, whose late oc- cupants had determined to put the Genesee river between them and the foe. . Everybody wanted to get one stage farther cast.
Selfishess was the prevailing characteristic-at least few looked beyond their own families; yet there were some exceptions. On the morning of the 30th a farmer from Hamburg, with a load of cheese for the Buffalo market, met the fugitives on the lake beach, a short distance from the village. He immediately flung his cheese right and left upon the ground, filled his sleigh with women and children and carried them as far as his home.
I have mentioned how Hoysington's children were carried off by horsemen. Such aid by mounted men to children was quite frequent. Sometimes a horseman would take up two or three children ; sometimes a gallant cavalier would be seen with some weary woman seated behind him, and a child on the pommel of his saddle.
The cases of separation of families were very numerous, and sometimes they were not united for several weeks. In Clarence a family hastily loaded some provisions and several children into a sleigh, and drove eastward at full speed. After traveling several miles they discovered that they had lost one of the chil- dren out of the hind end of the sleigh. Fortunately, on returning, it was found uninjured.
Those who fled told the most dismal stories, making the mis- fortune even worse than the sad reality. The Indians were represented as just in the rear, tomahawking men, women and children indiscriminately.
Even particular individuals were causelessly reported as killed, to their terror-stricken friends. A militiaman came to the log tavern of Colonel Warren, where his frightened wife was anx- iously awaiting news of her husband. He looked up and read aloud the name on the sign-"William Warren."
"Well," said he "Colonel Warren is no more ; I myself stepped over his dead body ;" and then hurried on. In fact, the colonel was not even wounded.
262
THE SECOND RAID.
The fleeing Indians added to the dreadful rumors. During the war they kept runners going almost constantly between the Buffalo reservation and those of Cattaraugus and Allegany. One of their trails ran through Eden. These, when they could talk a little English, frequently enlivened the minds of the inhabi- tants along the route by terrible tales of the "British Indians." But after the burning of Buffalo they let loose all their powers of description.
"Whoop!" cried the dusky runner, as he paused for an instant before the door of some log cabin, where stood a trembling matron surrounded by tow-headed children ; "Whoop! Buffalo all burned up! British Indians coming! Kill white squaw! Kill papoose! Scalp 'em all! Burn up everything! Whoop!" and away he bounded through the forest, leaving dismay and wailing in his track.
Still, when it was found that the enemy had retired, curiosity induced many men from the nearest towns to visit the ruins. Others went to render what assistance they could, and still others, alas, to take advantage of the universal confusion and purloin whatever might have been left by the invader. A few went on the 31st of December, more on the Ist of January.
On the former day everything was quiet. On the latter, as the few remaining citizens and some from the country were star- ing at the ghastly ruins, a detachment of the enemy suddenly appeared, making prisoners of most of them; among others of Benjamin Hodge, Jr., of Buffalo, and David Eddy, of Ham- burg. The former was kept prisoner throughout the war.
They then fired all the remaining buildings, except the jail, which would not burn, Reese's blacksmith shop, and Mrs. St. John's cottage. On their coming to the latter, Mrs. S. and her daughters tried to persuade the commander not to burn the large hotel, which was still standing. He, however, drew from his pocket, and read, an order commanding him to burn every build- ing except "the one occupied by an old woman and two girls." So the big hotel went with the rest. The little house in which lay the remains of the murdered Mrs. Lovejoy was also fired, and the building and corpse were consumed together.
As the detachment was about to depart, the commandant was informed that there were public stores at Hodge's tavern, on the
263
EVENTS AT HODGE'S.
hill. A squad of horsemen were sent thither to burn it. Benj. Hodge, Sr., and Keep, the Cold Spring blacksmith, were there, and ran on the enemy's approach. The sergeant in command called to them to stop, and Hodge did so. Keep ran on a short distance, when a carbine bullet pierced him and he fell-near where is now the south gate of Spring Abbey.
The sergeant then entered, and, seeing a large quantity of merchandise stored there by merchants of the village, ordered the house set on fire, though assured that none of it was public property. After the building was well aflame he found a cask of old Jamaica, and was filling his canteen from it, when the cry was raised, "The Yankees are coming."
A detachment of horse was seen crossing Scajaquada creek. The British hurriedly mounted, and rode off toward Buffalo. The new comers were some mounted Canadian volunteers, under Adjutant Tottman. He galloped up to the side of the rearmost of the retreating Britons, and was instantly shot dead.
Close behind Tottman's force came Mr. William Hodge, who, having returned from Harris' Hill the day before and found his property undisturbed, was flattering himself that he had escaped the general desolation. Now he saw his hopes shattered at a blow. His house was the last one burned, both in point of time and of distance from the village. After Tottman was shot, his men, dashing up, caught a half-blood Indian setting fire to Hodge's barn. He was taken into Newstead where he was summarily disposed of.
At this same time, a squad of Indians went to Major Miller's tavern, at Cold Spring. A Mrs. Martin, who was there, fed them and kept them in good humor until our horsemen ap- peared, when they escaped into the woods. This was the far- thest that any of the enemy penetrated into the country.
A day or two after the second raid the people assembled and picked up the dead bodies, and brought them to Reese's black- smith shop. The number is variously stated, but the most care- ful account makes it forty-two killed, besides some who were not found, (Hoysington was not found until spring,) and some prominent persons like Col. Boughton, who were taken care of earlier. At the shop they were laid in rows, a ghastly display, all being frozen stiff, and most of them stripped, tomahawked
264
COMING BACK.
and scalped. After those belonging in the vicinity had been taken away by their friends, the rest were deposited in a single large grave, in the old burying ground on Franklin Square, cov- ered only with boards, so they could be easily examined and taken away.
Then quiet settled down on the destroyed village and almost deserted county. Even Mrs. St. John left, and when, a few days after the burning, James Sloan and Samuel Wilkeson came down the lake shore, the only living thing which they saw between Pratt's ferry and Cold Spring was a solitary cat wandering amid the blackened ruins.
But the pioneers had plenty of energy and resolution, even if they were not very good soldiers. On the 6th of January, just a week after the main conflagration, William Hodge brought his family back, it being the first that returned. Pomeroy came immediately afterwards. That energetic personage raised the first building in the new village of Buffalo, on the same spot where he had been once mobbed and once burned out within thirteen months. Hodge's was the second.
A few others came back and fitted up temporary shelters. A Mr. Allen occupied Mrs. St. John's cottage, and did a good business by keeping a house of entertainment for those who came to see the ruins. Soldiers were stationed in the village-I think a detachment of regulars-and as time wore on people began to feel more safe. But the winter was one of intense excitement and distress. Scarce a night passed without a rumor of an attack. Many times some of the inhabitants packed up their goods, ready to flee. Twice during the winter small squads of the enemy crossed the river, but were driven back by the sol- diers and citizens without much fighting. Most of the people who came back had nothing to live on, save what was issued to them by the commissary department of the army.
The rest of the county was hardly less disturbed. There were houses to live in, and generally plenty to eat, but every blast that whistled mournfully through the forest reminded the excited people of the death-yell of the savage, and fast-succeeding rumors of invasion kept the whole population in a state of spasmodic terror.
The Salisburys evidently made good their escape with their
265
RELIEF.
type as soon as they heard of the capture of Fort Niagara. On the 18th of January they issued their paper at Harris' Hill.
That point became a kind of rendezvous for business men. Root & Boardman opened a law office there, locating, according to their advertisement, "next door east of Harris' tavern and fourteen miles from Buffalo ruins." Le Couteulx went east after the destruction of his property, and Zenas Barker was ap- pointed county clerk, establishing his office at Harris' Hill. The nearest post-office, however, was at Williamsville.
The suffering would have been even greater than it was, had not prompt measures of relief been taken by the public authori- ties and the citizens of more fortunate localities. The legisla- ture voted $40,000 in aid of the devastated district, besides $5,000 to the Tuscarora Indians, and $5,000 to residents of Canada driven out on account of their friendship for the United States. The city of Albany voted a thousand dollars, and the city of New York three thousand. The citizens of Canandai- gua appointed a committee of relief, who raised a considerable amount there, and sent communications soliciting aid to all the country eastward. They were promptly responded to, and lib- eral contributions raised throughout the State. With this aid, and that of the commissary department, and the assistance of personal friends, those who remained on the frontier managed to live through that woeful winter.
IS
266
TROOPS AT WILLIAMSVILLE.
CHAPTER XXVI.
THE CAMPAIGN OF 1814.
Mars and Hymen .- Soldiers' Graves .- Scott and Brown .- Elections and Appoint- ments .- Discipline at Buffalo .- The Death Penalty .- The Advance .- Cap- ture of Fort Erie. - Approaching Chippewa .- An Indian Battle .- A Retreat. -A Dismounted Young Brave .- Victory .- Scalps .- " Hard Times."-Ad- vance to Fort George .- Return .- Lundy's Lane .- The Romance of War .- Retreat to Fort Erie .- The Death of the Spy. - " Battle of Conjockety Creek." -- Assault on Fort Erie. - The Explosion .- Call for Volunteers .- The Response .- The Track through the Forest .-- The Sortie .- Gallantry of the Volunteers. - Gen. Porter .- Quiet. - Peace.
As spring approached, the frontier began to revive. More troops appeared, and their presence caused the paying out of considerable sums of money among the inhabitants. There was a ready market for produce at large prices.
By March the people had sufficiently recovered from their fright to go to getting married. One number of the Gazette contained notices of two weddings at Williamsville, one at Har- ris' Hill, one in Clarence, one in Willink, and one in Concord- the longest list which had yet appeared in that paper.
Williamsville was the rendezvous for the troops. There was a long row of barracks, parallel with the main street of that vil- lage and a short distance north of it, and others used as a hos- pital, a mile or so up the Eleven-Mile creek. Near these latter, and close beside the murmuring waters of the stream, rest sev- eral scores of soldiers who died in that hospital, all unknown, their almost imperceptible graves marked only by a row of ma- ples, long since planted by some reverent hand.
Buffalo began to rise from its ashes. A brick-company was organized, and by the first of April several buildings had been erected, and contracts made for the erection of twenty or thirty more. By the 20th of that month several business men were there. The post-office was reopened, at first at Judge Granger's house and soon after at the village.
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