History of Oneida County, New York : with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers, Part 17

Author: Durant, Samuel W
Publication date: 1878
Publisher: Philadelphia : Everts & Fariss
Number of Pages: 920

USA > New York > Oneida County > History of Oneida County, New York : with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers > Part 17

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DEAN'S PATENT.

On the 5th of May, 1786, an aet was passed by the Leg- islature, entitled "An act for the speedy sale of the unap- propriated lands within this State, and for other purposes therein mentioned." This aet covered the Dean patent under Section XXV., which reads as follows :

"And be it further enacted by the Authority aforesaid, that it shall and may be lawful for the said commissioners [of the Land-Office] to direct Letters patent to he prepared and granted in the manner afore- snid, to grant to James Denn, his heirs and assigns, in fee-simple, the following tract of laod, to mit : Beginning at a certain place where the west line of the patent of Coxborough crosses the streain or brook formed by the jonction of the streams or brooks called Ka- nagh-ta-ra-ge-a-ru and Kitu-you-skat-tn, it being one of the branches of the Oriskany Creek or River, and running thence porth twenty- four degrees and thirty minutes west, forty chains; thence south sixty-five degrees and thirty minutes west, one hundred and sixty chains; thence south twenty -four degrees and thirty minutes east, one hundred and sixty chains; thence north sixty-five degrees and thirty minutes cast, one hundred and sixty chains ; thence on a direct line to the place of beginning."

This patent was two miles square, and contained 2560 acres. According to Mr. Jones, a tract one mile square, lying south of the east half of Dean's patent, was granted to one Wemple, and a similar one, lying next west of Wemple's, was granted to Kirkland. A moiety of the latter was in trust for the support of a Christian minister among the Oneidus, and was afterwards known as the " missionary lot."* These two last-mentioned grants are shown on the map of 1829 in one long plat, marked " Wemple."

The grant to Rev. Samuel Kirkland, lying next south of the Wemple tract, was, according to this map, two miles in width north and south along the " Line of Property," with an average length of' nearly three and a half miles. It is stated by various writers that the total of Mr. Kirkland's grants from the State and the Oneidu Indians was about 4750 acres. This traet included about 4200 to 4400 acres.

CHAPTER VIIL. THE REVOLUTION.

Causes which led to it-Nationalities and Characteristics of the Anglo-Amerienn Colonies-Religious and Politienl Features- Taxation and Representation-Experience of the Colonists in former Wars-Public Actions of the New York Colonists-Brant - Whig and Tory Leaders - The Johnson Family - Political Meetings.

THE causes which led to the revolt of the British colonies in North America were not indigenous to the American continent ; they reached far back to the feudalism and in- tolerance of by-gone centuries in the history of Europe. Their germs were planted in the upturned subsoil of the Reformation ; and the principles which battled so heroically under William of Orange and against the iron-clad legions of the Duke of Alva, and maintained their vantage-ground for more than three-fourths of a century in the face of the most powerful empire in Europe, backed by the far-reach- ing influence and discipline of the " Mother Church," were identical with those which, transplanted to the island of Manhattan and the sand-dunes of Massachusetts Bay, flour- ished in the face of obstacles wellnigh insurmountable, and eventually built up a powerful member of the sisterhood of nations. The materials which crystallized into the Ameri- can republic were contributed from many and diverse lands.

From the persecutions of the Tudors and Stuarts fled the " Pilgrims" who settled New England, whose progeny has sinee, with a steady westward movement, planted its col- onies from the Atlantic to the Pacific along the parallel of the world's greatest energy, the axis of its intensest and most wonderful development. Transplanted for a brief period to the tolerant shores of Holland, they quickly com- prehended the valuable salients of that government which was then on trial, but which must eventually triumph in its fundamental principles in every portion of the earth. Seek- ing a region more remote from the clutches of despotismn, and a land where there was room to expand and improve, they brought the stubborn tenacity of the Anglo-Saxon, and, to a certain extent, the generous toleration of the commercial Hollander, and planted them deeply in the soil of the Western Continent.

The Dutch, in the opening years of the seventeenth century, were the most liberal and the greatest commercial people in the world. An Englishman, Henry Hudson, in the employ of the Dutch West India Company, discovered and explored the grand river which bears his name in Sep- tember, 1609, and in 1613 his employers planted colonies on the island of Manhattan and at Fort Orange (Albany). It is altogether likely that at first the only object was traffic with the red race which they found occupying the country; but in process of time the colony grew and prospered under the tolerant government of the Directors-General, who began to rule in 1621, and the germs of a new State rapidly de- veloped. Iu 1643, Isaae Jogues, the Jesuit, who had been a prisoner among the Mohawk Indians, escaped, through the connivance of the Dutch traders at Fort Orange, and visited Manhattan, which he reported as inhabited by an assemblage of eighteen different nationalities, living peace- ably together, the bulk of the population being Dutch Cal- vinists. This simple faet alone demonstrates that toleration

@ See aute.

HISTORY OF ONEIDA COUNTY, NEW YORK.

in religious and political matters must have existed in the heterogeneous colony.

Farther to the south, along the banks of the Delaware, were planted the followers of William Penn, who sought an asylum from scorn and contumely in the broad lands that now constitute the " Keystone State." New Jersey and Dela- ware were also the home of various nationalities,-Finns, Swedes, Danes, Dutch, and English, but mostly belonging to the Reformed religious organizations. Maryland was a Catholic colony, settled under the auspices of the very lib- eral Lord Baltimore; while Virginia, almost alone of all the various colonies, represented the aristocratic families of Great Britain. North Carolina was largely settled by the Scotch, and beyond, in South Carolina, were the refugee Huguenots from " the vine-clad hills of sunny France;" and about the mouth of the Savannah River, at a later date, were planted the English colonists of Oglethorpe.

These various nationalities made up a most incongruous mass of materials when taken in the aggregate. In New England were the representatives of the three English nationalities,-English proper, Scotch, and Irish, with possibly a moiety of the rugged and tenacious Welsh ele- ment. New York (the " New Netherland" of the Dutch) probably comprehended the greatest number of different nationalities of any of the colonies. Here were people, also, from all parts of Great Britain,-English, Scotch, Irish, and Welsh ; representatives from France and Hol- land, Huguenots, Walloons, Waldenses ; Palatinates from the German banks of the Rhine, and people from almost every nationality in Europe, called hither by the tolerant rule of the Dutch .*

From the Puritan and Dutch elements came the town- ship system, now so universal throughout the Northern States ; a system lying at the base of Republican institu- tions, and originally modeled upon its prototype in the " Low Countries."

When the doughty Hollanders were finally compelled to surrender their growing colony to the Duke of York, in 1664, the gain was not altogether on the side of the Eng- lish, for the sterling principles of the former had taken deep root and were never eradicated.

The population of the colonies at the commencement of the Revolution was an epitome of that of Europe, though possibly deficient in its highest and lowest elements. There were English High-Church men, Catholics, Calvinists, Lutherans, Scotch Presbyterians, scattering Wesleyans, or Methodists, and Quakers, or Friends. There were titled nobles with broken fortunes, enterprising merchants, land speculators, army and navy officers, soldiers of fortune, and a substratum of hardy yeomanry, who knew their rights, " and, knowing, dared maintain." But from whatever standpoint we judge them,-political, religious, mercantile,

agricultural,-it is apparent that one strong undercurrent united them in a determination to maintain their liberties, either as equal subjects of the English crown or as an independent people. They had fled from what they deemed oppression in Europe, or had come to America to better their pecuniary condition ; and when after years of growth and hard experience they found themselves strong in num- bers and in patriotism, it was not wonderful that they re- solved to maintain their rights at all hazards.

The colonies had learned many valuable lessons in their experience of a hundred and sixty years with English, French, and Indians. They realized that in the various wars waged by the former two for supremacy on this con- tinent, since 1744 at least, they had borne the brunt of the conflict, and contributed greatly to the success of the British arms, without, as they had a right to expect, re- ceiving any special favors therefor ; while, on the contrary, when reverses befell the English, all the horrible conse- quences of savage warfare had fallen upon them alone.

They had seen the best troops of Britain cut to pieces on the Monongahela, where, but for the stubborn bravery and long experience of the colonial militia, scarce a British soldier would have escaped. They had seen another gallant army slaughtered under an incompetent commander by an inferior French force under Montcalm at Ticonderoga, and realized that the capture of Frontenac by a provincial force under Bradstreet had been the only redeeming feature of the year's operations ; they remembered how an army of 1100 Virginians, under Colonel Andrew Lewis, had defeated the renowned Shuwanese warrior Cornstalk in a most desperate battle on the Kanawha, notwithstanding the supineness and treachery of Lord Dunmore; and they were cognizant that a body of New England troops, under their own com- manders, had captured the strong fortress of Louisburg, almost without assistance from the mother-country. In short, they began to feel that they were abundantly able not only to defend themselves against the French in Canada and the savages in league with them, but also to frame their own laws, establish a permanent government, and perform all those civil and military functions that belong to an independent nation.

As early as 1754 a convention of delegates from the sev- eral colonies had been held at Albany to discuss measures looking to a closer alliance and union among themselves for mutual protection. The central idea of the convention was, undoubtedly, that henceforth they must rely for de- fense against their enemies mainly upon their own strength and resources.

Dr. Benjamin Franklin was probably the leading spirit in that body, and he drew up and presented for its consid- eration a comprehensive plan of union for the mutual ben- efit and protection of the English colonies. There were many and diverse forms of opinion prevalent among the heterogeneous people composing the inhabitants of the col- onies. In New England the English Puritan element was largely predominant, though there was a somewhat different type that settled Rhode Island under the lead of Roger Williams, and which in the subsequent troubles with the mother-country, and, notably, in the halls of the Conti- nental Congress, bore a conspicuous part. New York was

# In speaking upon this subject, IIon. Horatio Seymour oses tbe following language : "Nine names prominent in the early bistory of New York and of the Union represent the same number of national- ities. Schoyler was of Holland; Herkimer, of German; Jay, of French ; Livingston, of Scotch ; Clinton, of Irish ; Morris, of Welsh, and Hoffman, of Swedish deseent. Hamilton was born in one of the English West India islands ; and Baron Steoben, who became a citizen of New York after the close of the Revolutionary war, and who was boried in Oneida County, was a Prussian."

HISTORY OF ONEIDA COUNTY, NEW YORK.

more cosmopolitan than any other colony, and on the whole influenced and governed by greater good sense and gener- ous toleration than probably any other seetion, and was consequently the most democratic of all. Pennsylvania, under the peaceable management of the proprietors, was loth to enter into any controversy that foreboded a conflict of arms, hoping that an amicable adjustment of all difficul- ties would be brought about by remonstrance and liberal legislation.

Virginia, as before stated, was settled in great part by aristocratie English families, who sent their sons and daughters across the sea to obtain the coveted education which, in their estimation, only the institutions of England could furnish. Even the great leader of the republican armies through the long, dark years of the Revolution, sent regularly to England, both before and after the war, for his clothing which he wore on public and state occa- sions, and for his carriages, saddles, and military and hunt- ing equipments .* But nevertheless when the storm came on her wealthy landlords drew the sword and cast away the scabbard to do battle for the right. Maryland and the Carolinas, though differing widely perhaps upon relig- ious and political questions, stood side by side-Presby- terians of the Neuse and Huguenots of the Santee and the Savannah-in the common cause of American indepen- dence.

The rock upon which the British government split was Taxation. When the long and exhausting wars in which it had been engaged had compelled the employment of every means for the purpose of raising a revenne, the eyes of king and minister and people turned toward their thriv- ing colonies in America, and they said, We can tax them on many things, both luxuries and necessaries; we can deny them the right to manufacture the goods which they require ; we will take their raw productions-their wool and hemp and fur and iron-and manufacture them, and then sell them what they need, and so gain all the profits of the traffic. Accordingly the government devised a scheme whereby the depleted national exchequer could be replenished from the proceeds of colonial labor. Against the protestations of the people, and the sound advice of Franklin and Adams and many more, they prohibited the manufacture of all kinds of goods where the labor of any- thing more than a single apprentice would be required, and commenced a systematic taxation on not only the luxuries, but also the necessaries of life. They had already, in 1619, introduced slave labor into the colonies, against the earnest protest of even the Southern planters, upon the plea of cheaper production, and now the last hair which breaks the camel's back was added in the shape of a tax on tea, stamped paper, glass, etc.

The motto of the Dutch colonists was, "No taxation without consent ;" and this, and the rallying watchword, " Unity makes might," were inscribed upon their banners and hung upon the outer wall for the statesmen of Britain to ponder and, if might be, to profit thereby. The cry of all the colonies was, " No taxation without representation," and meetings were everywhere held to take measures to

resist every attempt to invade their rights or curtail their liberties. The Chinese teas, without which the English government had foolishly supposed the colonists could hardly live, were stove by the hundreds of chests in Boston harbor, and poured into the rocking waters of the Atlantic; and at New York the agents, after vainly striving to com- pel the people to receive them, were obliged to re-ship them to England. The people had said, in just so many words, " Whatever you nnjustly place a tax upon we can live with- ont." When the famous edict was issued closing the port of Boston, it stirred a chord of sympathy and nerved to stubborn resistance throughout the land from Maine to Georgia.

In an address before Cornell University, June 30, 1870, Hon. Horatio Seymour, in alluding to the troubles preceding the Revolution, uses the following language with reference to the course pursued by the people of the colony of New York : " Not only were the colonists of New York imbned with sentiments of freedom, but they had the earliest and most urgent occasion to assert them. Living without the protection of a charter, for a long time under the control of the private ownership of the Dutch West India Company and the Duke of York, amid the unfavorable influences of great seigniories, as early as 1690 they boldly claimed their legislative rights, and resisted ' taxation without consent.' The contests with the royal Governor were conducted on the part of the colonists with signal ability, and their pro- tests and arguments were pronounced by Attorney-General Randolph, of Virginia, to be the ablest expositions of the rights of popular representation. These controversies in- volved a wide range of discussion, and thoroughly instructed the people in the principles of constitutional liberty. The contest, which commenced in New York between its Legis- lature and the royal Governors, extended to other colonies, and excited the public mind from time to time until the era of the Revolution. The whole of the American people were then united against the aggressions of the Crown.

"The resolutions of the New York Assembly were drawn up with consummate ability, and, to use the language of Pitkin, 'breathed a spirit more bold and decided than those from any other colony.' .

" In 1775 a Provincial Congress assembled in the city of New York, and was the first of those illustrious councils which, in the language of Lord Chatham, ' with solidity of reasoning, force of sagacity, and wisdom of conclusion, ascertained, vindicated, and established the liberties of America.' When it was determined to sever our connec- tion with Great Britain, Congress recommended the forma- tion of governments in all the colonies equal to the demands of their new independence. All of the States save two fol- lowed the recommendation. The constitution formed in New York amid the confusion of the Revolution is a proof of the profound knowledge of its leading men in the principles of civil liberty, good government, and constitu- tional law. Its superiority was universally admitted, and it was received with great favor, not only in the State, but elsewhere. 'Our constitution,' says Jay, in a letter to the president of the convention, 'is universally approved, even in New England, where few New York productions have credit.'

# See Lossing's Washington and the American Republic.

HISTORY OF ONEIDA COUNTY, NEW YORK.

" All the State constitutions recognized in express terms the natural and absolute right of every man to worship God according to the dictates of bis own conscience; yet the constitutions of New York and Virginia alone were free from provisions repugnant to those declarations.

" Great injustice has been done to the early instrumental- ity of New York in the cause of American independence. The peculiar situation of the province, without a charter, the arbitrary conduct of many of the royal Governors, the questions growing out of their aets and pretensions, com- pelled the people of this State to place themselves, from the beginning, on the high grounds of natural and inherent rights. Elsewhere these contests frequently grew out of questions about the construction of charters."

At the breaking out of the troubles between the colonies and the mother-country, the valley of the Mohawk was thinly settled above Schenectady ; and the region now eon- stituting the county of Oneida was almost or quite destitute of permanent white inhabitants. It is stated by some that a number of families were settled about Fort Stanwix and in the present town of Deerfield previous to the war; but, if true, they were compelled to leave the country when hostilities commenced. The Rev. Samuel Kirkland was a resident missionary among the Oneidus at the time, but he was also obliged to abandon his post for longer or shorter periods during the strife, though he returned at the close of the war. The western settlements of the valley were at the German Flats, between Little Falls and Fort Schuyler (Utica) ; and the country was sparsely vecupied, mostly by a German population on both sides of the river from the Flats to Schenectady, which latter place was a village of about 300 houses. The inhabitants of the lower portion of the valley were mostly Hullanders or their descendants. On the Kingsborough Patent, about Johnstown, was an ex- tensive settlement of Scotch Highlanders. They were Catho- lics and refugee followers of Prince Charles Edward, whose star disappeared in smoke and bloud at the battle of Cul- loden Moor in 1745. Notwithstanding their hostility to the British erown, these people took up arms, at the suggestion of Sir John Johnson, in favor of England, and the entire colony was broken up as a consequence and succeeded by settlers from New England. The upper portion of the valley was principally settled and inhabited by the German Palat- inates and descendants from the banks of the Rhine, who first located in the colony about 1713. As early as 1722 they had established settlements as far west as the German "Flatts," and, in spite of the terrible visitations of the French and Indians, had succeeded in making fine im- pruvements, and were, when the storm of war broke upon them, enjoying their comfortable homes iu peace, aud with plenty around them.

The discussions and dissensions preceding the Revolution gradually inereased in intensity and bitterness, and when the conflict eame they were divided in their political predi- lections, standing face to face in threatening opposition. The Whigs, in the aggregate, probably outnumbered the Royalists, but the latter were in themselves by no means a despicable body ; and when we realize that behind them was the British nation, supplemented by that terrible " bal- auce of power," the formidable confederacy of the Six

Nations, led on to battle by the most intellectual Indian warrior, statesman, and diplomatist of his time, we cannot but wonder at and admire the stern resolve of the heroic people of the valley to east their fortunes with the colonies, and peril all for the maintenance of those principles which lie at the very foundation of all just government.

THAYENDANEGEA* (JOSEPH BRANT).

As this renowned warrior occupied a conspicuous posi- tion in the history of the Mohawk Valley, a short outline sketch of his remarkable career is here presented, for the benefit of such of our patrons as have never enjoyed the opportunity of perusing the excellent life of the chieftain written by William L. Stone, and published in 1838.

In addition to this synopsis of his career, he will often appear in the pages of this work in connection with various military operations in this region.

Joseph Brant, or Thay-en-dan-e-gea, the celebrated Mo- hanck chieftain, who acted so conspicuous a part in the various wars from 1755 to 1795, was the son of a scarcely less celebrated Mohawk chief and warrior, Ar-o-ghy-a-du- gha, t familiarly known to Sir William Johnson and the English and American people as "Old Nickus" or "Old Brant," who was claimed to have succeeded to the chief sachemship of the Mohawk nation upon the death of Hen- drick (sometimes known as " King Hendrick"), who was killed, along with Colonel Ephraim Williams, in one of the bloody battles fought with the French and Indians under the Baron Dieskau, near Lake George, on the 8th of Sep- tember, 1755.

Jeseph Brant was said to have been born on the Ohio River, in 1742, while his parents were abroad upon a hunt- ing excursion. He had a sister, called Mary in English, who was Sir William Johnson's Indian wife, and by whom he had several children .¿ His father is supposed to have died or been killed, and his mother afterwards married a respectable Indian called Car-ri-ho-go, or " News-carrier," whuse Christian name was Barnet or Bernard, but by way of contraction was usually called Brant. The young boy was called Joseph, or " Brant's Joseph," and this was finally transpused into " Joseph Braut."§

# See portrait.

f There is much uncertainty regarding the father of Brant. This name is given ou the authority of Sir William Johnson's diary. Another statement gives his father's name as Te-ho-wongh-icen-ya- ragh-1 win, a full-blooded Mohawk of the Wolf tribe.

# There is a romantic tradition in the Mohawk Valley concerning Sir William's first acquaintance with " Molly" Brant, as she was familiarly called. She was said to have been a very beautiful and sprightly girl of about sixteen years. It was at a militia muster or drill where she was one of the crowd of spectators. In the course of the exercises a field officor rode slowly along near where she stood, when, in a playful manner, she bantered him to let her jump up be- hind him and ride. Thinkiog it impossible for her to perform the fent, he laughingly consented, when she sprang upon the horse with the agility of a panther. The horse started away at full speed, but she clung to the officer, and with her blanket flying in the wind, gal- loped around the parade, amid the cheers of the spectators. The baronet, wbo was present, became enamored of the young squaw, anil took her home as his concubine.

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History of Oneida County, New York : with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers, Part 17

Author: Durant, Samuel W Publication date: 1878 Publisher: Philadelphia : Everts & Fariss Number of Pages: 920

Author: Durant, Samuel W
Publication date: 1878
Publisher: Philadelphia : Everts & Fariss
Number of Pages: 920