USA > New York > Warren County > Queensbury > History and biography of Washington county and the town of Queensbury, New York > Part 5
USA > New York > Washington County > History and biography of Washington county and the town of Queensbury, New York > Part 5
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In 1763 peace was declared, and under the royal proclamation issued offering land in America without fee to all British officers and soldiers serving in the French and Indian war, large tracts were set aside in Washington county for them.
Two years later quite a tide of emigration set in toward Washington county. The chil- dren of Captain Laughlin Campbell settled on ten thousand acres granted them in Argyle. Major Skene had brought quite a number of negroes to his settlement, where part of his colony had died from an unhealthy location, and was pushing forward his work with en- ergy. James Bradshaw had settled in Kings- bury. The advance of the colony from Pel- ham, Massachusetts, had arrived in the Salem country, which they named White Creek ; and at the same time Dr. Thomas Clark came with a colony of Scotch-Irish and settled among them, called the section New Perth. Scotch Highlanders, mostly of the 77th regi- ment, commence to settle on the military patents granted in the county.
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BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY
In 1768 Albert Baker settled at Sandy Hill. In the next year a colony of Irish Methodists located near Ash Grove, and the smoke from the settler's cabin rose in every valley in the county by 1767, so rapidly had population poured from New England and New York, and from Scotland and the north of Ireland.
PROVINCIAL AND ARTILLERY PATENTS.
The Saratoga, Hoosick, Walloomsac, Schuy- ler and Bayard patents, all granted by 1740, were still in force.
The Cambridge patent for thirty-five thous- and five hundred acres in Cambridge and White Creek was granted to a Connecticut colony on July 21, 1761.
The Anaquassacook patent for ten thousand acres in Jackson and White Creek was granted to ten parties from Schenectady on May 11, 1762.
The Kingsbury patent of twenty-six thous- and acres in the town of Kingsbury was granted to James Bradshaw and others on May 11, 1762.
The Campbell patent for ten thousand acres in Argyle, now in Greenwich, was granted to the children of Captain Laughlin Campbell in the autumn of 1763.
The Turner patent of twenty-five thousand acres in Salem was granted to James Turner and others in 1764.
The Provincial patent for twenty-six thous- and acres in the town of Hartford was speci- ally granted to twenty-six New York infantry officers in May, 1764.
The Artillery patent of twenty-four thous- ang acres in Fort Ann was granted to twenty- four New York artillery officers in 1764.
The Argyle patent of forty-seven thousand four hundred and fifty acres in Argyle was granted to the descendants of Captain Camp- bell's colony in May, 1764.
The Skencsborough patent of twenty-five thousand acres, now in the town of Whitehall, was granted to Major Skene in the spring of 1765.
The rest of the county, aside from the patents named, was nearly all set apart to British offi- cers and soldiers under the royal proclama- tion.
Some of these patentees in addition to the fees of seventy-five dollars per each thousand acres, had to deed an undivided half as a bribe to the New York authorities in order to secure any patent at all. No price, however, was asked for any of the land, only a small quit rent each year was to be paid in addition to the fees.
NEW HAMPSHIRE GRANTS.
After the close of the French and Indian war the old boundary trouble between New York and New Hampshire was revived, and the eastern part of the territory of Washington county was in the disputed strip. The con- troversy arose in 1749, when New Hampshire put forth her claim of her western boundary being within eighteen miles of the Hudson river, and New York claimed eastward to the Connecticut river above the colony of Massa- chusetts. New Hampshire asked a very low quit rent of nine pence per hundred acres, while New York assessed for the same amount of land the sum of two shillings six pence.
In 1751 both colonial governments appealed to the " Lords of Trade" in London to decide the controversy, which that remarkably dila- tory body naturally delayed doing until 1764, when George III. issued an order in council declaring that New York extended to the Con- necticut river. But afterward the Crown or- dered New York to issue no more grants until further orders. This kept the dissention alive between the adherents of each side, and on October 29, 1771, Ethen Allen and others of the New Hampshire settlers invaded cast Hebron and tore down the house of Corporal Charles Hutchinson, beside driving away some eight or nine families. A squire's war- rant was issued and twenty pounds reward were offered for the raiders, but they laughed
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BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY
at both and remained unmolested on the east- ern border of the county.
The final result of the controversy was the establishment of the disputed land east of Washington county as an independent territory that afterward under the name of Vermont, be- came the first State admitted into the Union.
CHAPTER X.
COUNTY FORMATION UNDER NAME OF CHARLOTTE.
The supposition has been advanced that the idea of getting a new set of officers nearer to the Hampshire Grant troubles, than the Al- bany county officials, might have had some- thing to do with the erection of Washington county under the name of Charlotte by legis- lative enactment, on March 12, 1772. The county was taken from Albany and received the name of Charlotte, in honor of Queen Charlotte, of England, the wife of George III., and a native of Mecklenburg-Strelitz.
The north line of the county was the south boundary line of Canada until it struck the Green Mountains, which formed the eastern boundary down to the west line of Cumber- land county, and then west to the south line of Princetown, in which it struck the Batten Kill, and from a point on that stream ran north to a point three and three-sixteenths miles east of the mouth of Stony run. From there it ran west to the mouth of Stony run on the Hudson, and then followed that river up to the northwest corner of the town of Luzerne, Warren county, ran west along the north line of Saratoga county, its northwest corner, and north along the present west line of Warren county, extended to the Canada line.
Thus constituted Charlotte county contained all of the present Washington county, except the towns of Easton, Cambridge, Jackson, White Creek, and the southwest part of
Greenwich, which remained in Albany county, while to the northward it included all Warren, Essex, and Clinton, and the eastern part of Franklin county, and eastward embraced all the western part of Vermont, north from the corner of Jackson. The Green mountains was its eastern boundary line, and its territory was sufficiently ample to have constituted a State.
A year passed away before any effort was made toward the appointment of county offi- cers and the location for the seat of justice. Major Skene sought to have the county seat located at Skenesborough, and also desired to receive the appointment of first judge, but was disappointed in both objects, as Philip Schuy- ler received the judgeship and Fort Edward was designated as the temporary county seat.
The first court convened with Judge William Durer on the bench, in place of Schuyler, who was sick. Philip Lansing was sheriff, Patrick Smith clerk, and Ebenezer Clark, Alex. Mc- Naughton and Jacob Marsh were the justices present. The grand jury was Archibald Camp- bell, foreman ; Michael Huffnagle, Robert Gordon, Albert Baker, David Watkins, Joseph McCracken, Joshua Conkey, Jeremiah Bur- rows, Levi Stockwell, Levi Crocker, Moses Martin, Alex. Gilchrist, and Daniel Smith.
In the meantime the border troubles in- creased and criminals of many kinds became so numerous as to defy the civil authorities. In March, 1775, Judge Durer held a court under the bayonets of . Captain Mott's com- pany of British regulars, who had been stopped by him on their way to Ticonderoga, and in- dictments were found against the guilty par- ties, who were never apprehended on account of the breaking out of the Revolutionary strug- gle. These outlaws had broken up the Cum- berland county court, but found William Durer, the East Indian soldier, a man not easily to be intimidated.
The leading men of the new county were : Major Skene, Dr. Clark, Judge William Durer, Mr. Embury and Dr. John Williams, a young English physician, who had settled at Salem
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BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY
in 1773. Dr. Williams and Judge Durer, al- though but recently from England, both em- braced the cause of the colonial struggle then rapidly gathering force for the Revolutionary trial by arms. It is a question with some that if Skene had been treated more leniently at the start that he would have cast in his for- tunes with the Continental cause.
CHAPTER XI.
COMMENCEMENT OF THE REVOLUT.ON- BURGOYNE'S INVASION - BATTLE OF FORT ANN - BURGOYNE'S SLOW AD- VANCE - MURDER OF JANE McCREA - BENNINGTON-SARATOGA-UNION CON- VENTION-REVOLUTIONARY SOLDIERS.
COMMENCEMENT OF THE REVOLUTION.
The French and Indian war was the splen- did training school in which the thirteen col- onies fitted themselves for their oncoming magnificent and successful struggle for inde- pendence from Great Britain.
From weight of numbers and aggressive- ness of character, three elements of Ameri- can civilization - the Puritan, the Cavalier and the Scotch - Irish - were predominent factors in organizing armed resistance to par- liamentary usurpations and carrying on in America the Revolutionary struggle against the armies of England.
The Dutch of New York, the Catholics of Maryland, and French Huguenots of Georgia and the Carolinas, in proportion to their num- bers, bore well their part in the great contest.
The Puritan of New England received the first shock of the contest that was carried southward to its termination. The Cavalier, like the Puritan, fought chiefly in his own ter- ritory, but the Scotch-Irish from their center in western North Carolina spread along the Allegheny mountains both northward and southward, and fought from Bennington to
King's mountain, at which places they turned the tides of war that led to the surrenders of Burgoyne and Cornwallis.
The spring of 1775 was one of event in Washington county.
Fast-flying steeds along the forest roads of the county carried the news of Lexington to every settlement, and the mass of the people, under the leadership of Dr. Williams and Judge Durer, resolved to support the cause of the men of New England. Event rapidly followed event, and on the 10th of May canoes came up Lake Champlain with the tidings of the fall of Ticonderoga to the forces of Ethan Allen and Benedict Arnold.
A respectable minority of the citizens were slow to give up their loyalty to the king. They were mostly Scotch and English, and among their number were Dr. Clark and Major Skene, who was then absent in England it was asserted to secure the establishment of a new province, by the name of Ticonderoga, and obtain the governorship of the same. His tenantry, on the 13th of May, were sur- prised by the arrival in their midst of Captain Herrick's company of west Massachusetts men, who assumed the major's absence as an indisputable evidence of Toryism and confis- cated a considerable portion of his property, including the splendid Spanish horse which was shot under Arnold when he was wounded at the second battle of Stillwater. They also took his son, Andrew P., fifty of his tenants, and twelve of his negroes as prisoners, and carried to Arnold the major's schooner, which became the flag-ship of the miniature Ameri- can navy on Lake Champlain. Shortly after this Major Skene arrived at New York, where he was arrested and thrown into prison, while his papers were seized and examined. If they contained his commission as governor of Ticonderoga, embracing northern New York and the New Hampshire grants, it would have been destroyed or kept secret by the Continental authorities in order not to offend New York and New Hampshire.
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BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY
The county committee met on the 15th of August, 1775, at Dorset's in the "Grants," but only acted for the western part of the county, and provided that every able-bodied man from sixteen to sixty should be enrolled and drilled once a month. It also recom- mended the raising of a regiment of militia in the western part of the county, to be com- manded by Dr. John Williams.
During 1775, General Montgomery and General Schuyler passed through the county on their way to join the northern army in Canada, and were followed during the autumn by small bodies of troops and scanty supply trains. The capture of Montreal raised hope, but the death of Montgomery and the defeat at Quebec sickened anticipation in the hearts of the Whigs.
The year 1776, although it gave definite purpose and a grand object to the men of the colonies by the Declaration of Independence, yet closed in Charlotte county with ominous threatenings of British raids over the old War- path of America. The Charlotte County Rangers guarded the lake frontier, and the county assessed a home bounty for volunteers for the northern army as follows in the differ- ent districts in proportion to their number of voters :
Districts.
Voters.
Bounty.
Argyle. .
. 90
£6 14 S.
Black Creek.
.36
2 14
Camden.
. 12
IO
Granville
.30
2
0
Kingsbury
.75
5
7
New Perth
160
12
0
Skenesborough
.41
3
1 1/2
Total
464
32 6 1/2
There was a small property qualification on voters for the legislature which this list rep- resented, and making allowance for the few non-freeholders, the population of the county must have been about three thousand.
While the New Englanders and a small portion of the Scotch were ardent patriots,
yet the larger body of the Scotch preserved neutrality in the Revolutionary struggle, and a portion of them became active Tories. The disaffected and British element were mainly resident in Wood Creek valley, and the north- ern part of them settled part of the county.
Jonathan and David Jones were Tory lead- ers in Kingsbury and Fort Edward, where they raised a company of fifty men, ostensibly to serve at Ticonderoga, but which they marched past that fort to join the British in Canada, where Jonathan was commissioned as a captain and David as a lieutenant in the English forces.
This company came with Burgoyne's army of invasion, and David Jones attained a world- wide celebrity in connection with the tragic fate of Jane McCrea.
Another Tory or Royalist company was raised in Washington county by Capt. Justus Sherwood and joined the English army, serv- ing in Colonel Peter's regiment. Some of Sherwood's men were from the southern part of the county.
BURGOYNE'S INVASION.
In the meantime the New Hampshire grants had declared themselves an independent State under the name of New Connecticut, which was soon changed to that of Vermont, and al- though Congress refused to recognize them and New York was unable to enforce author- ity over them, yet considerable local trouble existed over the matter in Charlotte county, whose officers finally confined their jurisdic- tion to the western part of their territory.
Great uneasiness prevailed among the Whigs on the report of an advancing English and Indian army, but they placed great hopes on the fortress of Ticonderoga being strong enough to stay the dark and deathful wave of threatened invasion.
They were, however, doomed to a dreadful disappointment.
The English projected two grand campaigns for 1777, the first under Howe to capture
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BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY
Philadelphia, and the second under Burgoyne to move from Canada, and in connection with the forces of Clinton at New York, secure the line of the Hudson river, thus separating com- munication between the New England and the Middle States.
Gen. John Burgoyne landed in Canada, and in June came up Lake Champlain with an army of nearly ten thousand men, composed of the 9th, 20th, 21st, 24th, 47th, 53d and 62d regiments of British regulars, dismounted German dragoons, Hessian rifles, mixed Brunswickers, some Canadians, and five hun- dred Indians under the partisan Saint Luc, then sixty-six years of age.
Schuyler, commander of the northern de- partment, made his headquarters at Fort Ed- ward, and engaged energetically in collecting and hurrying up men and provisions from the colonies, while he placed the command of Ticonderoga under Saint Clair, who had two thousand five hundred regulars and six hun- dred militia under him on July Ist. The Charlotte county regiment, under Colonel Wil- liams, was ordered out and stationed at Cas- tleton and Ticonderoga.
General Burgoyne profiting by one mistake of General Abercrombie, did not assault Ticon- deroga, and taking advantage of another mis- take made by Generals Amherst, Schuyler and Saint Clair and their engineers in not fortify- ing Mount Defiance, only fifteen hundred feet away, took possession of that frowning height during the night of the 4th. | On the 5th Brit- ish cannon were being placed in position to open fire into the great fortress, and on the night of the same day Saint Clair retreated. He left Ticonderoga with some of its stores to the peaceable possession of the English.
Schuyler and Saint Clair were denounced all through the country for the loss of Ticon- deroga. They were both patriotic and brave, yet in this case it would have been better gen- eralship of Schuyler to have been at Ticon- deroga than at Fort Edward, and Saint Clair should have consulted his engineer and not
allowed a frowning height within fifteen hun- dred feet of his fort to have been peaceably occupied by the British.
General Saint Clair's line of retreat from Hubbardstown, Vermont, was through Hart- ford and Greenville to Fort Edward.
The stores were brought in a fleet of two hundred batteaux, protected by five galleys, on the 6th, to Skenesborough. Colonel Long's force then was largely composed of invalids, but he completed the transfer of the stores to Wood creek before the arrival of the British frigates Royal George and Invincible. Three of the galleys were blown up and two sur- rendered, while Long dismantled his fort, which he set on fire, together with the mills, iron works and shipping, unable to escape up Wood creek, and retreated to Fort Ann. A detachment of the English went in boats up South bay, with the idea of crossing the ridge from there and striking Wood creek in time to cut off Long's retreat, but failed to accom- plish their design.
BATTLE OF FORT ANN.
Col. Henry K. Van Rensselaer, the father of Gen. Solomon Van Rensselaer, of the war of 1812, commanded at Fort Ann, and with five hundred militia from the manor of Rens- selaer and five hundred of Long's convales- cent Continentals, met the British advance one-half mile below the fort on July 8. The British force consisted of eight hundred of the gth regiment, commanded by Colonel Hill. Long received the British attack while Van Rensselaer crossed the creek and poured in a heavy fire. The British then charged, werc repulsed, and the Americans, following that advantage, encircled and drove them slowly up a steep, rocky hill, from which perilous position they were rescued by the arrival of a band of Indians. The Americans, now scant of ammunition, fell back on the approach of the Indians, while the British, glad of the opportunity, retreated rapidly toward Skenes- borough. The fighting was very severe. and
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BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY
a British officer in his testimony before Par- · liament, declared the firing was the heaviest he had heard in America, except at Stillwater. Fort Ann was the most important battle that has ever taken place in the county, and but few details are to be found anywhere concern- ing it. In the heat of the fight Colonel Rens- selaer fell, badly wounded, and would not allow his men to stop to pick him up. He lay on the field until the battle was over. For the number of men engaged, Fort Ann has been pronounced one of the most hotly contested battles of the Revolutionary war.
BURGOYNE'S SLOW ADVANCE.
Colonel Long burnt Fort Ann and retreated to Fort Edward, which General Schuyler left on the 22d of July, with four thousand four hundred men. On the 27th Schuyler was at Moses creek, and his force had decreased to two thousand seven hundred Continentals and a few militia. The decrease was caused by the almost wholesale desertion of the militia.
Schuyler soon crossed the Hudson and re- treated to the Mohawk, where, on August 1, he was relieved of his command.
Burgoyne had displayed fine generalship in the capture of Ticonderoga, and manifested unusual energy in his advance to Skenesbor- ough, but there he unaccountably delayed for three weeks and allowed the opportunity of scattering Schuyler's army to slip from his grasp. Four days march brought Burgoyne to Fort Edward, where he passed into a sec- ond inactive state that lasted four weeks and gave the demoralized Continental forces time to rally and receive sufficient reinforcements to become a formidable army. On September 13th the British crossed the Hudson and pressed vigorously forward until the 19th, when they were brought to a standstill by Morgan and Arnold. Falling back a short distance, Burgoyne had his third and last resting spell, which proved fatal to all his hopes of conquest and led to the surrender of his army. After the first battle of Still-
water he could have retreated, but after the sec- ond battle of Stillwater retreat was out of the question, and his surrender at Saratoga that followed was the turning point in favor of the colonies in their glorious struggle for political independence among the nations of the earth. While Burgoyne's forces were in Washington county two events -the murder of Jane Mc- Crea and the battle of Bennington-occurred that led to his defeat.
MURDER OF JANE M'CREA.
Burgoyne attempted to check the ferocity of his savage allies, and so far succeeded that before his campaign closed they had all de- serted his standard. His error was in ever allowing them to join his army.
Before leaving him, they however contribu- ted their full share toward his final defeat by the murder of Jane McCrea, on July 27, 1777, near Fort Edward. Her untimely death has received more versions than any other event in ancient or modern warfare. She was visit- ing at a house close to Fort Edward and dis- regarded her brother, Col. John McCrea's re- quest to go down the Hudson to a place of safety, as it is supposed that she had an ar- rangement to meet and wed Lieut. David Jones, a former acquaintance and then a Tory officer in Burgoyne's advancing army. On the 27th Jane McCrea left her stopping place and went to the house of Mrs. McNeil, a rel- ative of General Frazer, and who lived one hundred rods north of the fort. At nine o'clock in the forenoon a band of Indians sur- prised and routed an American picket force of a dozen men beyond the McNeil house, into which another band then rushed and car- ried off Mrs. McNeil and her youthful guest. A quarrel ensued among the Indians and one of them killed Jane McCrea, although one ac- count states that she was killed by the fire of the Americans upon the Indians.
The sober truth of history is that Jane Mc- Crea was really a very handsome woman, and thus it argrees with romance and tradition
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BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY
that in this, as in other tragic deaths of a woman, makes the victim beautiful and at- tractive.
The next day the scalped and mangled re- mains of Jane McCrea were found and buried temporarily in a spot three miles down the river, from which they were afterward removed and now lie in their present resting place in Union cemetery, between Fort Edward and Sandy Hill.
Gates wrote sharply about her murder to Burgoyne, who attempted to punish the mur- derers of Jane McCrea with death, but was compelled to forego his purpose by the force of circumstances.
The tragic death of Jane McCrea aroused a storm of indignation throughout the colonies that contributed largely to Burgoyne's defeat, and is a sad memory of the Revolution that will live unto the end of time.
BENNINGTON.
Another event that was a weight in the turn- ing seale against Burgoyne was the defeat of his foraging expedition at the battle of Ben- nington, which was fought in New York just outside the boundary line of Washington county, and not at Bennington, Vermont, for which point the marauders were heading. Colonel Baum led this plundering expedition of nearly six hundred Germans, Canadians, Tories and Indians, which left Fort Miller on August 11th. Their first camp was near old Fort Saraghtoga, which they left on the 13th, to camp near Wait's Corners, in Cambridge, and from which he moved to be attacked by Stark on the 16th, in the town of Hoosick, Rensselaer county. Col. John Stark, with his Vermont, New Hampshire and Massachusetts militia, together with some men from the southern part of Washington county, made such a successful attack that Baum was mor- tally wounded and his force entirely routed. Baum, on the 14th, had sent a messenger for reinforcements, and Burgoyne, on the 15th,
started Colonel Breymann with five hundred Hessian light infantry and two cannon. Brey- mann unwisely halted for the night at a point seven miles northeast of Cambridge, and on the 16th marched to Little White Creek bridge, which William Gilmore and some others had just succeeded in unplanking. The delay too in crossing occasioned by the unplanking of the bridge gave Warner time to arrive in season for the second fight and was the pivot on which Burgoyne's fortunes turned at Ben- nington.
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