History of Oneida County, New York : with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers, Part 8

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 8

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> Jones' Annals.

HISTORY OF ONEIDA COUNTY, NEW YORK.

have been informed that those who are inimient to us in Canada havo been tampering with those nations, and endeavoring to attach them to the interest of those who are attempting to deprive us of our ines- timable rights and privileges, and to subjugate the colonies to arhi- trary power. From a confidence in your attachment to the cause of liberty and your country, wo now transmit to you the enclosed ad- dress, and desire you will deliver it to the suchem of the Mohuicks tribe, to be communicated to the rest of the Six Nations ; and that you will use your influence with them to join with us in the defense of our rights ; but if you cannot prevail with them to take an active part in this glorious cause, that you will at least engage them to stand neuter, and not by any means to aid and assist uur enemies; anlas we are at a loss for the name of the sachem of the Mohawk tribe, we have left it to you to direct the address to him, in such way as you may think proper."#

Though Mr. Kirkland was not forcibly removed from his mission, he was, by Johnson's influence, prevented from returning to the Oneida town. The following letter from Mr. Kirkland to the committee at Albany gives an insight into the situation at that date, and shows that he already anticipated the result which was brought about through Guy Johnson in the spring of 1775:

" CHEnNY VALLEY, Jannary 9, 1775.

"GENTLEMEN,-I am much embarrassed at present. You huve doubtless heard that Colonel Johnson has orders from government to remove the dissenting missionaries from the Six Nations till the dif- ficulties between Great Britain and the colonies are settled ; in conse- quence of which he has forbidden my return to the people of Oucida. Ile has since given encouragement that I may revisit them after the Congress is closed ; but, to be plain, I have no dependence at all on his promises of this kind. lle appears unreasonably jealous of me, and has forbidden my speaking a word to the Indians, and threatens me with confinement if I transgress. All he has against me I suppose to be a suspicion that I have interpreted to the Indians the doings of the Continental Congress, which has undeceived them, and too much opened their eyes for Colouel Johnson's purposes. I confess to you, gentlemen, that I have been guilty of this, if it he a transgres- sion. The Indians found out that I had received the abstracts of said Congress, and insisted upon knowing the contents. I could not deny them, notwithstanding my cloth, though in all other respects I have beco extremely cautious not to meddle in matters of a political nature. I apprehend that my interpreting the doings of the Congress to a number of their sachems has done more real good to the cause of the country or the cause of truth and justice than £500 io prescuts would have effected."t

Mr. Kirkland was appointed by Congress at some period of the Revolutionary war a chaplain in the army, and served at Fort Stanwix, and other posts in the vicinity. He was chaplain of the fort at the time of its siege by St. Leger, but was not present, being absent on detached ser- vice. In 1779 he was chaplain of one of the brigades in General Sullivan's army which laid waste the country of the hostile portion of the Six Nations, and continued with the army until late in the autumn, when he made a visit to his family at Stockbridge, Mass. Subsequent to this expe- dition, while the war lasted, he was stationed mostly at Gi-no-a-lo'-huile (Oncida Castle) and Fort Stanwix.

In 1784 he returned to his labors as a missionary among the Oncidas, under the auspices of the Boston Board of Missions for the So tish society, with the latter of whom his connections appear to have been amicable even during the war, though they refused to pay him a salary while he was under a commission as chaplain from the Continental Congress.

In October, 1784, he attended a great council of the Six Nations, held at Fort Stanwix, at which commissioners of the United States were present, and negotiated a treaty by which the Six Nations ceded all the country east of a line drawn from Johnson's landing-place on Lake Ontario, and keeping four miles east of the carrying place between that lake and Lake Erie to the mouth of Te-ho-se-ro-ron, or Buffalo Creek, and thenee south to the north line of Penn- sylvania, and down the Ohio, to the United States. Mr. Kirkland acted as interpreter at this treaty, and rendered other valuable services.

In 1786 a great religious awakening occurred among the Oneidus, and some seventy persons made profession of a belief in the Christian religion. The excitement con- tinued for several mouths, and it is said that for the space of two-thirds of a year subsequently not an instance of drunkenness was known in the village. But this event was very near proving disastrous to the missionary, for the Pagan portion of the nation were greatly annoyed, and ulti- mately much exasperated, and finally laid a plan to take his life, in which they were frustrated by the Christian party, and the Pagans were eventually subdued and forced to beg his pardon. During the years 1786-87 it would appear from his journals that his labors were eminently satis- factory to the home society in Scotland.

During the residence of his family in Stockbridge, Mass., he had four children born to him, -Samuel, Jerusha, Sally, and Eliza.

In January, 1788, while he was on a visit to his family, his wife sickened and died. "She was an excellent woman, wife, and mother. This was a severe blow to the mission, to the missionary, the husband, and the father, and his plan of removing his family to Oneida the following spring was frustrated ; he therefore returned, solitary and alone, to his labors."}

Iu the summer of 1788 he visited among the Indians of the Confederacy, journeying as far west as Buffalo Creek, aud was present at a treaty held there in that year. He had interviews during the council with every branch and village of the Six Nations, and renewed many interesting acquaintances, some of them going back to 1765. From information gathered during this trip, he estimated the population of the Six Nations, exclusive of the Mohawks who had settled on the Grand River, in Canada, at 4350. Here he also had an interesting interview with Joseph Brant, the acknowledged leader of the Six Nations, in which the chieftain informed him that he had been trying to unite the Indians in an independent confederacy. He stated that a delegation from the Six Nations had visited twenty tribes, who had sent belts announcing compliance with his plans.

The principal object of the council held at Buffalo Creek was the extinguishment of the Indian title to a tract of 6,144,000 acres, familiarly known as the Genesce country, and covering all the western portion of the State, and equal to one-fifth of its entire area. This immense region was claimed under colonial titles by the State of Massachusetts, and was confirmed to that State, subject only to the Indian

# Jones.

# Stone's Life of Brant, pp. 55, 56. t Ibid., p. 61.

HISTORY OF ONEIDA COUNTY, NEW YORK.

title and the right of government of the State of New York in 1786. The entire tract was subsequently sold by the State of Massachusetts to Messrs. Oliver Phelps and Nathaniel Gorham for $1,000,000. For his services at this important treaty Messrs. Phelps and Gorham after- wards, in April, 1792, deeded Mr. Kirkland a tract of 2000 acres in Ontario County ; located, according to Mr. Jones, in town 7, range 7, of the Phelps and Gorham tract.

" In December, 1788, the State of New York and the Indians ( Oneidas), conjointly, made a grant to Mr. Kirk- land and his two eldest sons of large and valuable tracts of land in the neighborhood of Oneida, amounting in all to about 4750 acres."*

In August, 1788, Mr. Kirkland resumed his labors among the Oneidas. About this period a series of incidents oc- curred, which interfered to a considerable extent with his usefulness.

In the spring of 1789 a French Catholic priest (said to have been a Jesuit) came to Oncida, and located near the lake. He claimed to be acting under the direction of the French ambassador at New York. He was accompanied by a notorious French adventurer, named Peter Penet, t and the two very soon gathered quite a party among the natives favorable to their interests. Matters went on until a serious feud between the " French" and " American" par- ties resulted ; and although Mr. Kirkland carefully avoided meddling with the Frenchnen, the ill feelings engendered rose to such a point that serious trouble was anticipated. Mr. Jones, in his Annals, relates the following incident : "The author of this work (' Annals of Oneida County') recollects of hearing, when but a small lad, his father state that this quarrel at one time had risen so high that nineteen Indians of one party and twenty of the other, all armed to the teeth, met with the determination to settle the matter by trial of battle, and for this purpose they had chosen a large room, where they had all met, and were about to commence their murderous contest, which, had they proceeded with their purpose, would have eventuated in the almost entire extermination of the whole party, so equally balanced were they as to strength and numbers, when Mr. Kirkland by some means heard of the meeting of the parties and its object, and at once went to them and obtained admission. He then proceeded in one of his most glowing speeches to depict the wickedness and folly of shedding each other's blood, and with such effect upon his savage anditors that they were induced to forego the work of slaughter."

During these difficulties each party, it seems, had written Governor Clinton, who returned the following sensible reply, which was translated and delivered to a full council of the nation :

"NEW YORK, Sept. 12, 1789.

" BROTHERS,-I have received your letters, and shall give you an answer. Mr. Penet is only to be considered among you as an adventuring merchant, pursuing his own interest. He holds no

office, nor does he sustain any publie character in this country. He attempts to deceive you, therefore, when he says he is sent by the King of France and the Marquis La Fayette to transact business with you. You ought not to listen to his speeches, nor pay any attention to his dreams.#

" The King of France is our good ally, and he has an ambassador here (whom you saw with me at Fort Stanwix last fall) to transact business and maintain friendship with the United States; but he has nothing to do with any particular State or the Indians residing in it. You must not, therefore, believe Mr. Penet when he says he is sent among you by the ambassador. I believe the priest now among you came at the request of Mr. Penet and his friends. They have a right to worship God in a manner most agrecable to them ; but I approve of your determination to adhere to your old minister, for I fear the preaching of different doctrines among you will only serve to perplex and puzzle your understandings; and divisions, either in respect to your temporal or spiritual concerns, may prove dangerous to your welfare and prosperity.

" Brothers,-I am happy to hear you are firmly united as to our late agreement, and you may be assured that it will be faithfully adhered to on the part of the State.

" Let me exhort you to sobriety and industry, for it is this alone, by the blessing of the Great Spirit, that can seeure to you comfort and happiness.

"I am your friend and brother,

" GEORGE CLINTON."

This letter had a salutary effect upon the Indians, for it satisfied them of the character of Penet, and thwarted, to a good degree, his speculative operations. The sole purpose of his location among the Oneidas was to favor his own in- terests, and he very cunningly introduced the priest for his own special advancement among them.

In January, 1791, Mr. Kirkland made a short visit to his children in Massachusetts, but soon returned to his post in the wilderness. During this year a difficulty of long standing between the Wolf tribe and the Turtle and Bear tribes, said to have been caused by the intrigues of the French traders, was settled peaceably by Mr. Kirkland. In a letter to General Knox, then Secretary of War, he advised the sending of Captain IIendrick, a Stockbridge Indian, upon a peace mission to the Western tribes. The suggestion was accepted and the captain sent to endeavor to preserve peace among them. But the effort proved unsuccessful ; war followed, and the bloody defeat of St. Clair occurred in November following.

In January, 1792, at the request of General Knox, Mr. Kirkland attended a council of the Six Nations, held at Genesco, on the Genesee River, now the county-seat of Livingston County. The object of the council was to in- duce the Confederacy to send a delegation of their principal men to Philadelphia, then the seat of government for the United States.

This object was accomplished by Mr. Kirkland after surmounting many difficulties, and in the latter part of March, of the same year, a delegation of forty reached Philadelphia.

" Mr. Kirkland's conduct was entirely approved by the War Department. Indeed, the credit of bringing this large representation of the Six Nations to the seat of government is due, and the success attending the measure attributable, mainly to his efforts and influence with the Indians. Its

# In the memorial volume of Hamilton College, page 63, in a foot- note, it says, " Mr. Kirkland's Patent was two miles squaro." This " Patent" could not have included the whole of his grants from the government and the Indians, as two miles square (four square miles) would give only 2560 acres.

t See chapter on land titles.

# Penet pretended to have dreamed that the Oneidus gave him a tract of land ten miles square. It was afterwards given him in Jefferson County, and is still known as " Penet Square." This man Penet will appear again in the subject of land titles.

HISTORY OF ONEIDA COUNTY, NEW YORK.

results were highly importaut, for there had been previously a strong disposition among the Six Nations, with the excep- tion of the Oneidas, to make common cause with the West- ern Indians in their hostility to the United States. Had they done so, the frontiers of New York and Pennsylvania, instead of the territory northwest of the Ohio, would have been the seat of savage warfare and barbarity. Such a calamity was averted by the visit to the seat of government of so many chiefs.

" Mr. Kirkland returned to Oneida about the middle of May, rejoicing in being able to return to the immediate duties of his mission, but with a consciousness that he had been in the way of his duty, and had rendered some service to his country, to the Indians, and to the cause of human- ity."*

In October, 1791, Mr. Kirkland removed his family to the land granted him by the Indians and the State.

" After his return from Philadelphia, in May, 1792, he spent the summer in the discharge of his missionary duties, and in superintending the measures adopted by government for the instruction of the Indians in agriculture and the arts of civilized life. Additional oxen, plows, and other farming implements were purchased and distributed."t

In August of this year he attended the Commencement of Dartmouth College, taking along with him an Oneida chief named Onondaga, but called by the whites " Captain John." In the course of the exercises, President Wheelock addressed the captain, to which he replied, and in closing his remarks addressed the graduating class in a manner worthy the most profound scholar in the land.

In October, 1792, he had the misfortune to injure one of his eyes while riding through the forest between Clinton and Oneida; and, in December following, his eyesight and general health became so seriously affected that his physi- cians advised him to consult experienced oculists in New York and Philadelphia. He was the more willing to make the journey, as it promised him the opportunity of maturing a plan to which he had already given much thought. This was the establishment of a high school or academy in con- nection with his niission, to be located near the boundary line between the whites and Indians, where cach could par- take of its advantages.} The school was established in 1793, and was the last important public business of his life.

The Penet party managed to produce considerable trouble at Oneida, and in 1794 undertook to have Mr. Kirkland superseded. The Rev. Drs. Belknap and Morse were ap- pointed a committee by the board to investigate the matter, who, after a careful examination, reported in his favor, and the board thereupon dismissed the complaint.

In 1795, Mr. Kirkland was severely injured by the stumbling of his horse, being thrown upon the ground with great violence. From the effects of this accident he suffered for a number of years, and never fully recovered from them.

In 1797 the connection between Mr. Kirkland and the missionary society in Scotland was dissolved, and the society ceased, to a great extent, its operations in America.

In the years 1805-6 additional misfortunes overtook him in the death of his sons, of whom his youngest-Samuel- died in Boston, in the former, and George W. in Jamaica, in the latter year.

He continued his labors at Oneida, so far as his health permitted, through life. The church at that place, so long as he survived, considered him as their missionary and pas- tor ; but the toils and exposures in the wilderness for forty years had produced their legitimate result, and the faithful teacher had literally worn himself out in the service of the cause which he loved. We quote from Mr. Jones : " In one of his last communications to the society he says, ' Whether I hold the office (of missionary ) or not, while I live and have capacity for service I must do much of the duty. I know their language and manners : I love them, and they me. I have learned to bear with their ignorance, their perverseness, their dullness, and not be angry or de- spondent. They must and always will come to me, and expect to receive counsel, instruction, sympathy, and hospi- tality.' He frequently expended the whole of his salary in his hospitality to them ; and it was no unusual thing for him to furnish 70, 80, and even 100 meals in a single week to the Indians. Even after his death they seemed to expect, and claimed almost as a right, the same attention and hospitality they had ever received in his lifetime."

He died, after a brief but severe illness, of pleurisy, on the 28th of February, 1808. His funeral was attended at the church in Clinton, where a sermon was preached by the Rev. Dr. Norton. His remains were interred on his own land, near his dwelling. According to Mr. Jones, his second wife (who survived him a number of years), and his daughter, and the celebrated chief Skenandoa were buried beside him. The memorial volume upon Hamilton College, published in 1862, does not mention a second wife. The remains of the family, together with those of the chief, were exhumed and re-interred in the college cem- etery on the 31st day of October, 1856. Three sons and three daughters were born to him. Two of the sons, as before stated, died young and unmarried. Dr. John Thorn- ton Kirkland, president of Harvard College, lelt no children.

Of the daughters, Jerusha, the eldest, married John H. Lothrop, of Utica, in 1797 ; Sarah married Francis Amory, of Boston, in 1804; and Eliza, the youngest, married Rev. Edward Robinson, D.D., in 1818, then a professor in Han- ilton College, and subsequently known as an Oriental trav- eler, and professor in Union Theological Seminary of New York City.§

REV. DAVID AVERY.

This gentleman was born in Norwich, Conn., April 5, 1746. He was converted to Christianity when quite young, under the preaching of the celebrated Rev. George White- field, and soon after set about preparing himself for a min- ister of the gospel. He attended Rev. Dr. Wheelock's missionary school at Lebanon, Conn., where he remained for two years, and bore the reputation of an industri- ous and promising student. During his sojourn at this

* Jones. t Jones' Annals.

# See Ilistory of Hamilton College, in the chapter devoted to education.

¿ Tho matorials for this skotch of Mr. Kirkland are mostly from Mr. Jones' Aunals, but partly from the memorial volume of Hamilton College and Stone's Life of Brant.

HISTORY OF ONEIDA COUNTY, NEW YORK.

school he became acquainted with the famous Joseph Brant ( Thayendanegea), the Mohawk chief, who was also attend- ing the school.

Mr. Avery soon after entered Yale College along with Timothy Dwight and Dr. Strong, of Hartford, both of whom subsequently became chaplains in the army. A por- tion of his junior years was spent among the Six Nations as a missionary.

After finishing his college course he entered upon the study of divinity with Dr. Wheelock, of Hanover, N. H., and was ordained in 1773, and spent a year with Rev. Mr. Kirkland as missionary among the Oneidas at Gu-no-a-lo'- hile, or Oneida Castle. He afterwards preached on Long Island with great success. Subsequently he removed to Vermont, where he was settled at the time of the battle of Lexington, upon hearing of which he immediately enlisted a company of twenty men and marched at their head to Boston.

He served with distinction in the Revolutionary army as chaplain of Colonels Sherburn and Patterson's regiments, and often took a musket (as at Trenton) and did good ser- vice in the ranks. He was present and active at the battle of Bennington, where he settled after the war and remained until his death. We have been unable to procure any special information touching his missionary labors with the Oncidas.

PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL.

In 1816 a mission was established by this denomination at Oneida, under the patronage and direction of Bishop Hobart, and Mr. Eleazer Williams was selected to take charge of the mission. He was the (reputed) son of Thomas Williams, a distinguished chief of the Mohawk branch of the St. Regis Indians, and was a descendant of Rev. John Williams, who, with his family and many others, was taken captive by Major Hertel de Rouville's party of French Canadians and Indians who destroyed the town of Deerfield, Mass., Feb. 29, 1704 .* He was also the same person whom rumor reported as the natural son of Louis XVI. of France. Mr. Williams had been liberally edu- cated, in order that he might be useful to his people. He was at first a Presbyterian, but changed to the Episcopal faith, and was selected by the bishop to serve among the Oneidas as a catechist, lay reader, and school-teacher.

Previous to the year 1816 a large proportion of the na- tion had continued firmly attached to the religion of their fathers, and were known to Christians as the Pugan Party. But Mr. Williams had such remarkable success among them that, in 1817, a large number sent an address to Governor De Witt Clinton abjuring paganism, and de- claring their adhesion to the doctrines of Christianity, and requesting henceforth to be known as the " Second Chris- tian Party of the Oneida Nation." The address was adopted in council, and subseribed to by eleven chiefs and principal men. On the 13th of September, 1818, Bishop Hobart visited the mission and confirmed 89 young people, and in the next year 56 additional. Altogether during the continuanee of the mission upwards of 500 were confirmed.

In 1818 the Second Christian Party sold a piece of land and from the proceeds erected a chapel, which was consecrated by Bishop Hobart on the 21st of September, 1819, under the title of "St. Peter's Church." In 1822 Mr. Williams removed, with a part of the Oneidas, to Green Bay, Wisconsin, and was succeeded at Oneida by Rev. Solomon Davis. Mr. Williams, in 1826, while on a visit to Oneida, was ordained a deacon, and in 1829 Mr. Davis was admitted to the order of priests. In 1833 Mr. Davis, with another portion of the nation, removed to Wisconsin, where the missions have been successfully con- tinued. The chapel at Oneida was sold, in 1840, to the Unitarian society of Vernon, who removed it thither, and have since occupied it.

METHODIST EPISCOPAL.

A Methodist mission church was organized at Oneida in 1829, with a membership of 24 Indians. It had but in- different success until 1841, when Rev. Rosman Ingals was appointed to take charge of the missions at Oneida and Onondaga, preaching three Sabbaths at the former and one at the latter place each month. Mr. Ingals remained until August, 1846, when he was succeeded by Rev. Daniel Fancher, who also ministered to both nations. Under his ministration the missions were very prosperous. A house of worship was erected in 1841, but the land on which it stoed was sold in 1843, and in 1844 a new building was erected.

A Rev. Mr. Jenkins succeeded Mr. Kirkland as mission- ary at Oneida, but his ministration was not satisfactory to the Indians, and he only remained a short time. Rev. John Sargent was located among the Stockbridge Indians for some time, and was granted a tract of land in 1796, one mile square, for his services among them. It adjoined the Stockbridge reservation on the northeast.

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History of Oneida County, New York : with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers, Part 8

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