USA > New York > Warren County > Queensbury > History and biography of Washington county and the town of Queensbury, New York > Part 3
USA > New York > Washington County > History and biography of Washington county and the town of Queensbury, New York > Part 3
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Over the first path they marched south to carry the terror of their name to the gulf. Over the second patlı they swept to visit ruin on other nations of their own family along Lake Erie, and to wreak vengeance on the
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BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY
tribes west of the great lakes. Over the third path they passed to battle with the Huron and afterward to mark the Canadian frontier with a wide swath of flame and a dark trail of blood.
The War-path of America was originally the portage from the site of Fort Edward, on the Hudson, and extended along the valley of Wood creek to the site of Whitehall, at the head of boat navigation on Lake Champlain.
From Fort Ann, on this portage, Johnson cut a road, in 1755, to Fort William Henry, on Lake George, and it was used to some ex- tent by succeeding expeditions during the French and Indian wars.
But the chief interest of French and Eng- lish expeditions is with the old war-path through the Wood Creek valley, over which the legions of Burgoyne moved to impending ruin. The story of Saratoga and the raid of Clinton are, so far, the last chapters of the military history of this old war-path, whose earliest use was in the days of Iroquois su- premacy, and whose last military memory was in the closing hours of the great Revolution- ary struggle.
From the great carrying place at Fort Ed- ward the road passed for some distance through a great wilderness of mighty pines, and where it descended some hill into a deep valley the forest depths were so dark and gloomy that the rays of the sun never pierced them. Toward Fort Ann heavy but more open forests extended, and from that place the road struck Wood creek, whose waters often bore, both northward and southward, invading forces.
Ambush and battle were frequent along this road, massacre and torture were no strangers to it, and tradition has handed down many a legend of its scenes of horror and blood-shed. Until the axe of the lumberman and farmer cleared out these dense forests, the supersti- tious peopled some of its spots after night- fall with the spirits of its once marching war- riors, and the sounds of battle strifc. But
the sunlight has dispelled the gloom of the road depths, scattered the flitting spirits among the shadows, and sent into oblivion many of the superstitions of a part of the early settlers.
On the War-path of America, over which . once marched embattled hosts, now surge a resistless tide of trade and travel.
CHAPTER III.
CHAMPLAIN'S INVASION-HUDSON'S DIS- COVERY-IROQUOIS RAIDS INTO CANA- DA-FATHER JOGUES DISCOVERS LAKE GEORGE.
CHAMPLAIN'S INVASION.
In all the history of New France there was no event that was fraught with such far-reach- ing consequences as that of the invasion of the territory of what is now Washington county, in July, 1609, by Samuel de Champ- lain, whose name is borne by the beautiful lake once known as the " Wilderness Sea " of- the Iroquois. On the 4th day of July, 1609, the daring and adventurous Champlain, with two Frenchmen and sixty Huron Indians, dis- covered and entered the great forest-sur- rounded and mountain-walled lake that will carry his name down through all the ages to come. Floating for two days on the calm and placid waters of the new found lake, the dis- tinguished French discoverer, with his feeble little flotilla of twenty-four canoes, hove in sight of a fleet of Iroquois warriors on their way to raid some Algonquin Indian village of Canada. Notwithstanding conflicting ac- counts, the weiglit of evidence is to establish the locality of this eventful meeting to be on the west shore of Lake Chaplain, in what is now the town of Putnam.
The dreaded Iroquois, two hundred in num-
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ber, landed along the shore, while the Hurons remained on the lake, but sleep was a stranger to both savage bands, who spent the swiftly flying hours of the short summer night in the elegant pastime of reviling and abusing each other in a manner that would have donc credit to civilized adepts in the quarrelsome art. At the dawn of day, on the 7th of July, 1609, the French and Hurons went on shore, and the two Indian bands, burning with the engendered animosity of untold years, faced each other eager for the approaching fray. Then, to the astonishment of the Iroquois, who already anticipated an easy victory from their largely superior number, appeared in front of the Hurons a being such as they had rever gazed upon before in the person of Champlain, whose white face, dark hair, and shining armor, produced a stupefying effect for a few minutes on the warriors of the Long House. Recovering from their momentary stupor, the Iroquois bent their bows to test the power of the strange intruder. Seeing this, Champlain raised his arquebus and fired, killing the two tall and haughty chiefs leading the Iroquois war party and also wound- ing a warrior. A thunderbolt from a clear and cloudless sky could not cause greater astonishment than the apparent lightning and thunder from the iron mouth of Champ- lain's fire arm produced upon the stontest hearted savages of the North American con- tinent. Although surprised, appalled, and stupefied, the Iroquois promptly rallied, and, for a few moments, sent a vigorous flight of arrows against their hereditary foes and the strange invader. Before Champlain could reload one of his French companions ad- vanced in sight and fired. Another Iroquois fell dead, and this increase of the strange in- truders and the second gleam of deathful flame shook the indomitable courage of the bold-hearted warriors of the Five Nations, and wavering, their line broke, under a weight of disasters that seemed as supernatural as it was incomprehensible. Flying into the forest
the escaping Iroquois carried the news of this unwonted French attack on their confederacy and bequeathed its bitter memory to succeed- ing generations.
The French and the Hurons re-entered their canoes and returned to Canada, but Champlain's death shot on the territory of Washington county, New York, was fatal for France in the new world, and its echo ringing through nearly two centuries of Indian inva- sions of Canada, died only on the Plains of Abraham, when French power in North America fell before the arms of England.
HUDSON'S DISCOVERY.
The greatest body of water bordering on the northern part of the county was discovered by Champlain, and bears his name, while the largest stream flowing southward along the western boundary of the county was discov- ered, where it empties into the ocean, two months later, by Henry Hudson, another of the world's great discoverers. Champlain claimed the territory of New York for France, and Hudson, although an Englishman, was in the service of Holland when he discovered the river which bears his name. On this stream settlements were afterward made by the Dutch, who claimed the territory of the Empire State as a part of New Netherlands, in right of Hudson's discovery.
Hudson, on a second voyage of discovery for Holland, discovered the great bay which bears his name, and which in all likelihood became his grave, as his crew mutinied there and cast him afloat in an open boat, from which no tidings ever came.
IROQUOIS RAIDS INTO CANADA.
The Iroquois were beaten by Champlain, or rather by his strange arms, and for a few years ceased to war with the Canadian Algonquins, but they were not subdued, and afterward be- came friendly with the new-settling Dutch, at Fort Orange, now Albany, in order to procure
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BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY
the death dealing arms of the white man, which they obtained from the traders there in ex- change for their furs. Thus supplied with the weapons of the dreaded French invaders, they again took the war path, and in bands numbering from ten to a hundred, repeatedly overran the southern part of Canada, spread- ing terror and desolation in their track, and arresting French settlement in the valley of the Saint Lawrence. Their routes of inva- sion were by the west shore of Lake Saint George, and over the portage between the Hudson and Lake Champlain, through the territory of this county.
But little authentic account can be obtained of these raids, which, tradition says, com- menced between 1630 and 1640, and were made principally by the Mohawk and Oneida nations, as the other three of the Five Na- tions were engaged in a war of extermination against the Eries, Hurons, and other western Indian tribes.
FATHER JOGUES DISCOVERS LAKE GEORGE.
In 1642 one of these raiding bands of Iro- quois captured Father Isaac Jogues, a French Jesuit priest, who was born at Orleans, France, in 1607, and had come to Canada as a mis- sionary. After visiting terrible tortures upon him, they carried him, mangled and bruised, as a prisoner to the Mohawk country, from which he afterward escaped, and in which he was treacherously slain on October 18, 1646, at his Mission of the Martyrs, Saint Mary's of the Mohawks, that he had founded in the month of May, that year.
While bearing Father Jogues as a prisoner to the Mohawk country, the Iroquois band reached Lake George, on August 11, 1642, and their captive on that day was the first white man to gaze upon the waters of that beautiful lake, which four years later he named the "Lake of the Blessed Sacrament." Nine years later Sir William Johnson re-christened the lake as George, in honor of George II. of England.
CHAPTER IV.
FRENCH INVASIONS OF THE MOHAWK - COUNTRY-IROQUOIS RAVAGES OF CAN- ADA.
FRENCH INVASIONS OF THE MOHAWK COUNTRY.
A solemn treaty of peace between the French and Iroquois had been negotiated in 1746 by Father Jogues, but the inveterate hate of the Iroquois soon caused them to dis- regard its provisions and to continue their raids into Canada with but little interruption for nearly twenty years.
In 1664, the English conquered the New Netherlands, and the Five Nations transferred their allegiance from the old to the new mas- ters of New York without any hesitation, and continued their summer pastime of plunder and murder in Canada.
Finally aroused to resistance, the French colonists obtained aid from France, and in 1665 a veteran regiment was sent over to stop the ravages of the Iroquois. After the arrival of these troops Governor Courcelle, of Can- ada, in January, 1666, started with a force of four hundred troops and two hundred Algon- quin Indians to invade the territory of the Five Nations. From the head of Lake Champlain he crossed the northern part of this county to Lake George, and then, by carelessness of his guides, missed the Mohawk castles and arrived near Schenectady, from which he was compelled, in February, to re- treat to Canada by the way which he had come, and on the return trip his force was se- verely harrassed by the Iroquois, as well as suffering terribly by the weather and for want of provisions.
The fruitless winter invasion of the Mohawk country of 1666 was followed by a more suc- cessful autumn one, led by Marquis de Tracy,
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BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY
whose force is placed by Johnson at six hun- dred, while Sylvester states that it numbered one thousand three hundred. Tracy had two pieces of artillery and only succeeded in burn- ing the Mohawk villages, as their owners, ap- prised of his invasion, fled before his arrival.
IROQUOIS RAVAGE OF CANADA.
Tracy's invasion had such an effect on the Five Nations, that for nearly twenty years Canada enjoyed peace at their hands, but at the end of that time the unwise course of action pursued by Denonville, the Governor of Canada, and the weakness of that country, served as provocation and was temptation, and the relentless Iroquois sharpened up the hatchet. Once more the terrific war-whoop rang in the forest regions of the lakes as the Iroquois swept over the portage war-path in the summer of 1689. They were nine hundred strong by Johnson, while Sylvester makes them one thousand five hundred in numbers. Like the angry waters of a torrent-flooded stream spreading over all the adjoining low- land, so this fierce savage wave swept over the entire open country around Montreal, and only receded when reaching the forts before the gates of that city. Canada, hopeful of prosperity from a score of years of peace, now lay desolate and blackened beneath the scalping knife and flaming torch of a mer- ciless savage horde.
Widely spread under the summer's sun were smoking ruins, wasted fields, and an unsepul- chered host of the dead, in which were in- volved alike the valiant soldier, the fearless hunter and the prosperous farmer, with tlie busy matron, the beautiful maid and the inno- cent babe. Through the darkness gleamed the death fires of the unfortunate captives, where fiendish cruelty exhausted human in- genuity in the infliction of most horrible tor- tures. The Iroquois had paid a large in- stallment on the debt of vengeance they owed to Champlain for his raid of 1609.
CHAPTER V.
DESTRUCTION OF SCHENECTADY - WIN- THROP AND SCHUYLER'S EXPEDITIONS - FRENCH INVASION -DELLIUS LAND PATENT.
DESTRUCTION OF SCHENECTADY.
The period of French and Iroquois wars, eighty years in length, ended in 1689, when a second war period of seventy four years com- menced, which is known in the history of this country as the inter-colonial wars. During this last named period four wars were waged between French and English, called in the new world King William, Queen Ann, King George's, and the French and Indian wars. Although these wars were terminated in Europe by treaties of peace, yet fighting never totally ceased at any time between the oppos- ing colonies in America, within the seventy- four years from 1689 until 1763; when New France ceased to exist as a political division in the new world.
King William's war opened in 1689, and in February of the following year a small detach- ment of French and Algonquin Indians, under Mantet and Sainte Helene, passed to the west of Washington county and surprised Schenec- tady. After killing sixty persons, they laid the place in ashes and retreated with upward of ninety prisoners.
WINTHROP'S EXPEDITION.
The massacre of Schenectady by the French and Indians aroused the provincial authorities of New York and Connecticut, and they re- solved upon retaliatory measures by raising a force and capturing Montreal.
Gen. Fitz John Winthrop, of Connecticut, was appointed to command this force, which consisted of four hundred from New York (mostly Dutch), one hundred and thirty-five Connecticut men, and thirty "River" and
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BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY
one hundred and fifty Mohawk Indians. On the 5th of August General Winthrop crossed the Hudson at the "Great Carrying Place" (Fort Edward) and, preceded by a Dutch company under Major Peter Schuyler, the next day marched to the "Forks of Wood creek," now Fort Ann. From there he marched to the mouth of Wood creek. At that place, receiving word that he would not be joined by the Seneca and Iroquois Indians at the north end of Lake Champlain, on ac- count of small-pox breaking out in their coun- try, he did the most sensible thing that he could do under the circumstances by resolving to abandon the expedition.
A council of war, called on the 15th, sanc- tioned this course, and Winthrop returned to Albany, where he was put under arrest for retreating. Before retiring from Wood creek General Winthrop sent Captain John Schuyler with forty men and one hundred and twenty Indians against any French detachment that might be at the northern part of Lake Cham- plain. Schuyler was soon joined by a return- ing party of thirteen men and five Indians, under Captain Glen, who had been on a scout, and, with this slight accession to his small force, proceeded to La Prairie, on the lake, where he inflicted some damage on the French.
SCHUYLER'S EXPEDITION.
During the next year Major Peter Schuyler collected a force of two hundred and sixty whites and Iroquois Indians, and proceeded, by the way of the portage route, from the "Great Carrying Place " to the falls of Wood creek, from which he descended the lake in a small fleet of canoes that he had built at Fort Ann. Arriving at La Prairie, he had a fight with the French, in which he had twenty-one men killed and five wounded, and was com- pelled to retreat.
FRENCH INVASION.
Several small Indian depredations on either side occurred during 1692, but it was reserved
for the next year to witness a French winter expedition, upon quite a large scale.
De Mantelle, with a force of four hundred and twenty-five French and two hundred Huron Indians, on snow shoes and provision sledges, came over the ice of Lakes Cham- plain and George and pushed through the forests into the Mohawk country, where they burned several castles or forts and captured quite a number of prisoners. On their retreat, Sylvester says that Major Peter Schuyler, with a body of English and Iroquois, fought them at Greenfield Hills, in Saratoga county, on February 27, 1693 ; while Johnson states that five days before this the French had arrived at Lake George. Schuyler did not follow farther than the Hudson river, and at the lake the French pushed on for Ticonderoga, while the Hurons crossed to Lake Champlain. A large number of their prisoners escaped, their depot of provisions was spoiled by rain, and the invaders did not reach Montreal until March 9, after suffering great hardships.
DELLIUS LAND PATENT.
While there was a cessation in military affairs along the lakes in 1696, a move was made in a civil line that came very near trans- ferring the entire county to one individual. Rev. Godfredius Dellius, pastor of the Re- formed church at Albany, secured a patent from Governor Fletcher, for all the land north of the Saratoga patent on the east side of the Hudson, ninety miles northward, embracing more than half of Washington, all of Warren and the larger part of Essex counties, being in all two thousand square miles of territory. The quit rent to be paid to the crown yearly for this land was one raccoon skin. Dellius claimed to have purchased this land from the Mohawks prior to 1696, but the settlement would have been retarded by this grant, which was vacated by the legislature in 1698, upon the persuasion of the Earl of Bellamont. Dellius resisted this vacation, and returning to Holland, is supposed to have transferred
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BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY
his claim to Rev. John Lydius, his successor in the Albany church.
King William's war, which has principally occupied this chapter, closed in 1697, by the treaty of peace, at Ryswick, in Holland, and for the remaining three years of the seven- teenth century comparative quiet reigned along the northern lakes and the dense forests of Washington county, but it was only a lull preceding another oncoming storm between England and France.
CHAPTER VI.
NICHOLSON'S EXPEDITIONS - SARATOGA SETTLEMENT-CAMPBELL COLONY-LY- DIUS' ESTABLISHMENT.
NICHOLSON'S EXPEDITIONS.
The waning of the light of the seventeenth century was over peaceful days, but the sun of the new century was soon obscured by clouds.
In 1702 war was declared between France and England.
It was but the second stage of the great struggle between those two great powers for territorial supremacy in America, and was known in Europe as the " War of the Spanish Succession," while in the history of this coun- try it has place as "Queen Anne's War."
The heaviest part of this war fell upon the New England colonies, while New York was for the most part spared, which one historian says was on account of the French having made a treaty with the Iroquois, and then re- fraining from invading their territory.'
Be it as it may, concerning the last state- ment, yet but few and very small war parties of either Iroquois or Hurons traveled over Washington county during Queen Anne's war.
After seven years of comparative peace had prevailed in the Upper Hudson valley, the
English projected an expedition against Can- ada by the way of Washington county. Con- necticut, New York, New Jersey, and Penn- sylvania furnished fifteen hundred troops, which were joined at Albany by several inde- pendent New York companies, one hundred Mohawks, and a few British regulars. This army was commanded by Gen. Francis Nich- olson, and was preceded in its march by a de- tachment of laborers, under Col. Peter Schuy- ler, who built Fort Saraghtoga on the east side of the Hudson, just below the mouth of the Batten Kill. Proceeding northward, Schuyler built stockades at Stillwater and Fort Miller falls, opened a road from the Batten Kill up to the "Great Carrying Place" at Fort Ed- ward, where he erected Fort Nicholson, and then pushed forward to the " Forks of Wood creek," at which place he built Fort Schuy- ler, on the site of Fort Ann. Nicholson moved up with the main part of his army to Fort Schuyler, while a French force, re- ported to be sixteen hundred strong, lay on the northern part of Lake Champlain to watch his movements.
The expedition against Quebec from New England, with which Nicholson was to co- operate, failed to accomplish its purpose, and the New York forces could not move. They were soon depleted by a severe sickness which broke out in their camp, and in November retired down the river, after destroying Forts Nichol- son and Schuyler, and the posts at the second carrying place.
In 1711 another expedition by sea and a land force by the lakes was projected by the English. General Nicholson was again placed in command of the land force, and arriving at the ruins of Fort Schuyler, built a new fort, called "Queen's Fort." Fearing that the Champlain route would be unhealthful, Nich- olson's army, then increased to four thousand, took up its line of march to Lake George, but ere reaching its shore, learned of the English fleet, intended to operate against Quebec, being shattered at sea. This news caused .
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BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY
Nicholson to abandon "Queen's Fort," and to disband his army at Albany.
Fort Saraghtoga remained as the northern outpost of the Hudson river settlements, and two years later Queen Anne's war was termi- nated by the peace of Utrecht in 1713. Des- ultory fighting still continued along the New England and western frontiers, but Washing- ton county and the northern lake region en- joyed peace for over thirty years, during which time the French sought to effect a set- tlement on the lake territory whose ownership had not been definitely settled by the peace of Utrecht. In 1731 the Governor of Canada built a fort at Crown Point, around which was planted a French settlement. This move alarmed the colonists as moving the French center of military operations so much nearer Albany, but the legislature and governor of New York were engaged in a constant conflict with each other and nothing was done toward building a fort at Ticonderoga as a check to French aggression. The building of the Crown Point fort was but a part of the grand design of France to found a mighty empire in the great extent of country watered by the Saint Lawrence, the Great Lakes and the Mississippi, and having for its eastern boun- dary the Appalachian mountain system.
The only means used by New York to coun- teract the French move at Crown Point was to countenance a settlement by the Schuylers at Fort Saraghtoga and invite " Loyal Pro- testant Highlanders" to settle on the lands between the Hudson and the northern lakes.
SARATOGA SETTLEMENT.
The Schuylers, some years after the peace of Utrecht, were instrumental in securing the settlement of a tract of land at the fort of that name on the east side of the Hudson river in what is now the town of Easton. This was the pioneer settlement of the county and was extended to the western side of the river. Nothing definite can be obtained of the year of its settlement, and its total destruction in 3
1745, led to its being confounded, in after years, with the Saratoga settlement and vil- lage on the west side of the river.
CAMPBELL COLONV.
In 1737, Capt. Laughlin Campbell, a soldier of great courage, visited Washington county in response to the invitation of the New York authorities to Scotch Highlanders to settle there. Being pleased with the country, he was promised, according to his account, a grant of thirty thousand acres for colony use for survey fees and quit rent by Lieutenant Governor Clark. Campbell then returned to Scotland, sold his property, raised a colony of four hundred and twenty-three adults, and, with a part of them, came the next year to New York, where Governor Clark insisted on full fees and a share in the land. Campbell refused to comply with these terms, likely not having the money to pay the fees demanded, and Clark recommended the legislature to grant the colony assistance, but that body, then at war with the governor, declined to re- spond, as the money, they suspected, would have to go to the colonial officials for fees. The colonists were obliged to separate to earn their living, and Campbell died in poverty, but his account of his treatment is, in all prob- ability, correct, for the colonial officials then in office enjoyed an unenviable reputation for double-dealing and charging extortionate fees.
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