Forts and firesides of the Mohawk country, New York : the stories and pictures of landmarks of the pre-Revolutionary War period throughout the Mohawk valley and the surrounding country side, including some historic and genealogical mention during the post-war period, Part 17

Author: Vrooman, John J
Publication date: 1943
Publisher: Philadelphia : Elijah Ellsworth Brownell
Number of Pages: 660


USA > New York > Forts and firesides of the Mohawk country, New York : the stories and pictures of landmarks of the pre-Revolutionary War period throughout the Mohawk valley and the surrounding country side, including some historic and genealogical mention during the post-war period > Part 17


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Leaving Fort William by the left bank of the River Mohawk the Village of the Palatines is estimated to be 12 leagues. . . . The Palatine Village was situated on the left bank of the Mohawk, not directly opposite Fort Kouari but about half of a quarter of a league above it. You go from their Village to the Fort by batteau; the River can even be forded at several places. The Palatine Village which consisted of thirty houses has been entirely destroyed . and burned by a detachment under M. deBelletre's orders. The inhabitants of the Village formed a company of 100 men bearing arms. They reckoned three hundred persons, men, women and children, 102 of whom were made prisoners and the remainder fled to Fort Kouari, except a few who were killed whilst fording the River.


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FORTS OSWEGO AND ONTARIO


From the Palatine Village to Little Falls, still continuing along the left bank of the river, is estimated about three leagues. In this distance there had been eight houses which have been abandoned.


The portage at the Little Falls is a quarter of a league and is passed with carts. There is a road on both sides of the river but that on the left bank is preferable, being better.


From the portage at Little Falls continuing along the left bank of the River, there is only a foot path which is travelled with difficulty on horseback. . . . There is also a ferry boat at this place to put carts across when the river is high. . .


After fording Canada Creek we continue along the left bank of the Mohawk River and high road which is passable for carts, for 12 leagues to Colonel Johnson's mansion. In the whole of this distance the soil is very good. About 500 houses are erected at a distance, one from another. The greatest number of those on the bank of the river are built of stone. . . . There is not a fort in the whole of this distance of 12 leagues. There is but one farmer's house, built of stone, that is somewhat fortified and surrounded with pickets. It is situated on the bank of the River three leagues from where the Canada Creek empties into the Mohawk River. . .


Colonel Johnson's mansion is situated on the border of the left bank of the River Mohawk; it is three stories high; built of stone with portholes and a parapet and flanked with four bastions on which are some small guns. In the same yard, on both sides of the mansion there are two small houses; that on the right of the entrance is a store, and that on the left is designed for the workmen, negroes and other domestics. The yard gate is a heavy swing gate well ironed. It is on the Mohawk River side; from this gate to the River there is about two hundred paces of level ground. The high road passes there. A small rivulet coming from the north empties itself into the Mohawk River about 200 paces below the enclosure of the yard. On this stream there is a mill about 50 paces distant from the house; below the mill there is the miller's house where grain and flour are stored, and on the other side of the creck, 100 paces from the mill is a barn in which cattle and fodder are kept. One hundred and fifty paces from Colonel Johnson's mansion, at the north side, on the left bank of the little creek is a little hill on which is a small house with portholes where is ordinarily kept a guard of honor of some twenty men, which serves also as an advance post.


From Colonel Johnson's house to Chenectedi is counted seven leagues; the road is good; all sorts of vehicles pass over it. About twenty houses are found from point to point on this road.


The Mohawk River can be forded during the summer, a league and quarter west of Chenectedi. Opposite Chenectedi the traverse is usually in a ferry boat and batteaux. The inhabitants of this country are Dutchmen. They form a company of about 100 men with those on the opposite side of the River below Fort Hunter.


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FORTS AND FIRESIDES OF THE MOHAWK COUNTRY


مصنعً.


Going from Chenectedi to the mouth of the Mohawk River, where it discharges into that of Orange (Hudson) there, is a great Fall (Cohoes) which prevents the passage of batteaux so that everything on the river going from Chenectedi to Orange passes over the high road that leads there direct.


Of Fort Oswego (Chouegen) nothing remains. A boulder located on a State Reservation called Montcalm Park consisting of about two acres in the triangle of Montcalm and 6th Streets with Schuyler Street as its base, marks its location. It is on the west bank at the mouth of the river. Just one stone remains that can be positively identified as a part of old Fort Oswego. In the local courthouse, built in 1818, a stone under the sill of the window at the northwest corner, in the north wall, bears the date 1745. It is said that much of the building stone used in the walls of this structure came from the bomb-proof which was at the northwest corner of the enclosure of the Fort.


Nothing whatever remains of Fort George which stood to the rear, on the hill, now occupied by dwellings.


Fort Ontario remains in its rebuilt condition, opposite on the east bank overlooking the harbor and the sites of the former forts. It is still in use as an Army post and is intensely interesting but obviously of a much later date than the Revolutionary period. An old military report with its accompanying sketch, located a very early fort at the water's edge just under the bluff below Fort Ontario, but all traces of this structure have disappeared.


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FORT NIAGARA


Fort Niagara


REFERENCE date to the earliest history of this locality takes one back to the earliest French records which have come down to us, for this location was along the exploration route of those hardy French explorers, the first white men known to follow the St. Lawrence water route westward.


Etienne Bruslé, one of Champlain's interpreters, left a record of explorations in this neighborhood in 1615 and was perhaps the first to see this spot, for in 1626 Father Joseph de la Roche Dallion, a Franciscan priest with two companions visited the place described to them by Brusle. Here we have the first written record of a white man's presence.


From this date (1626) to 1669 little seems to have been accomplished toward effecting a settlement although Father Brébeuf had come and gone in the interval before 1641. The remaining years of this period are devoid of efforts at settlement, due perhaps to the fact that the Iroquois were at war with local tribes whom they eventually conquered.


In 1669 LaSalle, then but 26 years of age, came from Montreal with a company comprising nine canoes, with permission from the French governor to explore the territory and plant upon it the Bourbon flag. With them, or closely in their wake, came the fur traders and then arose the need of a permanent trading post. To build such a post required the services of carpenters, blacksmiths and masons so we have an embryonic settlement bustling with activity. Ships must be built to sail these large lakes and negotiate for trade in the limitless wilderness to the westward. Perhaps the most famous of these was the "Griffon," lost on her maiden voyage in August 1679 into this vast "beyond."


But Niagara remained the pivot from which, for a hundred years, the French spun their web of settlements, extending even across Illinois and far down the Mississippi. England watched this progress with growing concern, for the success of her settlements in New York were likewise wrapped up in the fur trade, the source of which conflicted with the French interests along the Great Lakes.


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FORTS AND FIRESIDES OF THE MOHAWK COUNTRY


Thomas Dongan, the English governor, built a fort and trading post at Oswego to stem this tide of French occupation. The French at Niagara, learning what had been accomplished, remonstrated and at the same time proceeded with the building of a more permanent structure at Niagara. A French report from Denonville, the governor of New France, of July 30th, 1687, reads in part: -


"The post I have fortified at Niagara is not a novelty since de La Salle had a house there which is in ruins since a year when it was abandoned by Sargeant LaFleur through intrigues between the Indians and English."


However, it seems this "House" was not a strongly fortified post, nor was it on the site of Fort Niagara, but, probably, more nearly where Lewiston now is. Therefore the "post I have fortified at Niagara" of Denonville was the first building at the mouth of the River and was actually the beginning of Fort Niagara.


This fort was built with difficulty because of continual "sniping" by the Indians. Any French who ventured into the forest for building material, or to hunt or fish were like enough to stay there - scalped !! To quote a. French record of this experience: --


"The wood choppers, one day, facing a storm, fell in the drifts just outside the gate; none durst go out to them. The second day the wolves found them


and we saw it all."


Then too, their provisions were "foul and unsuited." A serious plague of sickness followed from which there was no relief, lasting through an entire winter of slow starvation and scurvy. By the following spring (1688), the garrison which had numbered over one hundred was reduced to a dozen half-starved men who evacuated the place. It was but a diplomatic gesture on the part of the French to appease the English demand for its discontinuance.


It was rebuilt by the French in 1725 at the mouth of the River. From their trading post at Lewiston, built in 1720 to "prevent the English introducing themselves into the upper country" they carefully maintained a "tacit control" over the entire area. The building of 1726 was made possible by a Frenchman by the name of deJoncaire whose influence with the Senecas secured the permit to build a "store house" at the mouth of the River.


The "store house" was the most. strongly constructed fortification the French had yet built. However, to secure permission to build, unmolested by


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مساعد الهدى


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John J. Vrooman-1939


The Council Room in the Castle


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The Well in the Castle


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FORT NIAGARA


the Indians, the French called it a "store house" for the building of a "fort" was not to be permitted.


Gaspard de Lery, the King's chief engineer in Canada, determined its precise location and - superintended its construction. It was provided with exceptionally heavy walls four feet thick and heavy cross walls and arches, making possible the addition at a later date of upper stories from which heavy cannon could be fired. Beyond a doubt these ideas were embodied in the original plans. This building, called the "Castle," stands today and is by far the largest and most pretentious of the group of buildings making up the post.


As late as 1757 the French held all the important frontier forts from Louisburg to Quebec, Montreal, Ticonderoga, Crown Point, Frontenac, (Kingston) (The English Fort at Oswego they had destroyed), Niagara, Detroit and as far west as Mackinaw, forming a comprehensive line of fortifications which, if successfully held, quite effectually shut off any hope the English might have of trade or conquest to the north or west. Fort Niagara was strengthened by guns the French had captured at Oswego and at Fort Pitt on the Monongahela River. Here was a stop-gap so vast in the area it controlled, it was easily seen that French influences would extend southward and encompass the English settlements themselves.


The French and English war was the result; Louisburg, Duquesne and Frontenac fell to the English in 1758, followed the next year by Quebec, Ticonderoga, Crown Point, and Niagara. Another year, 1760, and Montreal surrendered and with it the other less important and more distant French outposts at Presque Isle, Detroit, and Mackinaw, leaving England in undisputed possession of this vast area, with the signing of the treaty at Paris in 1763.


Sir William Johnson captured Niagara with a combined English-Colonial- Indian army. There were some 5000 regulars and provincials and about a thousand Indians. The English General Prideaux, originally in charge of the expedition, was mortally wounded early in the battle by the premature explosion of one of the English cannon, and Sir William took command.


The Fort was in charge of Captain Pouchot who reported the condition of the garrison at the time as: -


"400 men greatly fatigued and reduced, no more than 150 muskets fit for service, 109 men killed or wounded, the heavy cannon ball all spent and the defense works irreparably injured."


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The surrender was accomplished with the understanding that the garrison should be protected from the Indians of whom they stood in the greatest terror, fearing a reenactment of the frightful scenes at Fort William Henry at the Battle of Lake George. Johnson's personal control over the Indians did accomplish this, preventing further bloodshed. He writes in his report, following the surrender: -


"The garrison of Niagara surrendered on August 25th at 7 A. M. The number consisted of 607 men, 11 officers, besides a number of women and children. I divided among the several nations the plunder and scalps amounting to 246, of which 96 were prisoners. The officers, I, with difficulty


released from them by ransom, good words, etc. Buried Brigadier General


Prideaux in the Chapel and with a great deal of form. I was cheif mourner."


The site of the Chapel was about the center of the present parade grounds. The exact location of the grave has never been determined. Johnson also reports his own losses at 60 killed, 180 wounded, besides 3 Indians killed and 5 wounded.


Fort Niagara like Ticonderoga was contested from the first period of settlement and had many changes of ownership and occupation. With regard to Niagara, these have been tabulated as follows:


Indian Ownership


1651 - 1669


Indian Ownership (some French present)


1669 - 1725


Indian Ownership (French occupation)


1725 - 1759


Indian Ownership (English occupation)


1759 - 1764


English Ownership


1764 - 1783


American Ownership


S holdover interval 2 1783 - 1796


American Ownership and occupation


1796 -


~


The most remarkable building surviving is the "Castle." Much had been done to put it in the original condition, inside and out, for through the years, changes were made to adapt the building to the various purposes to which it has since been put. But these were mostly superficial and within its walls, leaving the exterior almost intact.


The stone used in building was quarried along the line of escarpment near Lewiston. The cut stone was shipped from the quarries at Frontenac (Kingston) while the iron work came largely from Montreal or Quebec.


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The Guard Room in the Castle


The Chapel in the Castle


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FORT NIAGARA


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In the Castle is the old well, dug to insure a safe supply of water in the event the garrison was confined strictly to this building by an attacking force. Also on the main floor are a large kitchen and a "council room" named in honor of Sir William Johnson who held several important conferences here. This is a room of excellent proportions with large fireplaces at opposite ends. Adjacent to the council room is a room totally without light, which was used as a dungeon. A door opens into it from a narrow passage just outside the council room. The trading room is also located on the main floor, just to the right of the very massive front door. It is just here inside the front door that the well is located.


On the second floor are rooms used by the officers and two other larger rooms with a replica of a "bunk" without individual sides or partitions in which slept a garrison of soldiers side by side - after the fashion of sardines in a can! The Jesuit Chapel is another interesting room reconstructed after a close study of chapels of this period in New France. Great care has been used in the work of restoration and in the furnishings, such as chairs, tables, bunks, guns, hangings, paintings, etc .; all have been chosen and placed with excellent taste.


The other buildings within the walls, as well as the walls themselves, the wattled earthworks and stockades with their sharpened pickets, the underground passages and prison cells, the antique lanterns, the powder magazine, the hot shot oven, the bake house, the blockhouse, the reproduction of the old French cross, planted in 1688 by Father Jean Millet following that terrible winter of plague and starvation, are all of deep interest.


In the center of the parade ground fly the national emblems of the three nations whose armies shed their blood in the assault or defense of this place, the key to the rich trade territory of the west. These three flags are the "starred and barred" Continental flag of 1776, the British Jack of 1759, and France's Fleur de lis of the same year. There is also a monument commemorating the Rush-Bagot Treaty of 1817, perhaps as short a treaty as ever was written, establishing a limitation of naval armaments on the Great Lakes. It made possible the unfortified boundary between the United States and Canada. Not a fort across the entire three thousand miles of frontier. Compare it for instance with the pre- war Franco-German frontier!


Following the capture of the Fort by Sir William Johnson, it remained in England's hands throughout the Revolution and became for them a stronghold of no mean importance. It was the starting place of the St. Leger Sir John Johnson


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FORTS AND FIRESIDES OF THE MOHAWK COUNTRY


attack on Fort Schuyler, and was their retreat and refuge following their defeat. From that time forward, throughout the entire period of the war, it served as the base of operations against the Mohawk Valley. Its history is studded with such names as that of Sir William Johnson, Colonel John Butler, Walter Butler, the Claus family, Joseph Brant the Chieftain of the Mohawk Indians, Mollie Brant his sister and consort of Sir William Johnson, Catherine Montour the infamous Indian squaw whose merciless butchery at the massacre of the Wyoming Valley is an unmatched feminine atrocity, and many others whose names were familiar in the Mohawk and Cherry Valley settlements. Mrs. Campbell of Cherry Valley was brought here a captive from the massacre of that unhappy place, as were most of the prisoners taken in these raids.


With Catherine Montour, scudding before the whirlwind advance of the Clinton. Sullivan expedition, were the populations of entire Indian villages, to a total exceeding five thousand persons, all seeking protection and provisions from the English. Another winter of starvation, disease and death ensued. The military graveyard doubtless reaped its last grim harvest of burials for after 1812 the cemetery was no longer used. It was found that whenever a new grave was dug a previous burial was encountered, yet no stone was there to mark the spot. It is thus little more than a hallowed "boneyard" of French, English, Colonial, and perhaps Indian remains.


Another writer has said of the old "Post": -


"This old fort is as much noted for its enormity of crime as for any good ever derived from it by the nation in occupation. During the Revolution it was the Headquarters of all that was barbarous, unrelenting and cruel. There, were congregated the leaders and chiefs of those bands of murderers and mis- creants that carried death and destruction to the remote American settlements.


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 the officers of the highest rank were smiled upon and countenanced.


There, in their stronghold, like a nest of vultures, securely, for seven years, they sallied forth and preyed upon the distant settlements of the Mohawks and the Susquehannas. It was the depot of their plunder. There they planned their forays, and there they returned to feast, until the hour of action came again."


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John J. Vrooman-19 39


The Kitchen in the Castle


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John J. Vrooman-1939


St. Marks Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, Canada


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FORT NIAGARA


In 1777 the English constructed barracks across the river in Canada at the village now known as Niagara-on-the-Lake. Here Butler's Rangers were quartered. A mile from the village is Colonel John Butler's farm and on it a family cemetery in which he and others of the name are buried as well as many of the Rangers. Here also is the family vault of the Claus family where lies the widow of Daniel - née Ann Johnson of Fort Johnson on the Mohawk. The entire cemetery plot had lain abandoned for years, fences down and open to the farm livestock, but recently the Dominion Government took possession and restored it. This bit of ground, together with old St. Marks, are of great interest to innumerable historians and tourists.


Old St. Marks was built in 1792 in the village; someone said of it: "This is a piece of old England - do not allow it to be altered." Among the records of the church is the following entry: -


"May 15th (1796) Colonel John Butler of the Rangers buried (my patron)."


On the wall of the church is a tablet commemorating his services.


IN CONCLUSION


These old homes, forts and battlefields serve to link us perhaps closer than any other inheritance to our National foundations. As a voice from the past they bespeak a simple toilsome and hazardous existence, sustained by a neighborly, communal and religious sentiment.


Those who know these structures intimately have heard their message and felt the sustaining influence of their weight of years. Many whose forbears followed the winding, wooded trails or peaceful waterways of the post war period to a new home in the West never knew the Mohawk Country. Others, children at the time, handed down the tradition of a Valley home while still others, in untold number, know it only by repute.


Happily, within these sturdy doors, along the flashing streams or deep in the shady woods throughout the length and breadth of the Valley, where once the " destiny of a Nation hung in the balance, memories are brighter and the message is still to be heard by all who care to come and listen.


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