USA > New York > Oswego County > History of Oswego County, New York, with illustrations and Biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers > Part 8
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The first duel of which there is any record in Oswego County was fought at this time, between " Bassy Dunbar and Lieutenant Pionier, of the Royal Americans." The former was shot through the lungs, receiving, as was sup- posed, a mortal wound.
There were still some French vessels on Lake Ontario, and two of them came in sight of Oswego. Two or three small English vessels had also been built, which went out to meet the visitors, but did not succeed in doing so.
Meanwhile, measures were taken to prevent losing what the English already possessed. The engineers drew a plan of a pentagon fort to replace the Fort Ontario destroyed by Montcalm. It was approved by General Gage, and the erection of a large and substantial fortress was begun. It was also called Fort Ontario, and remained until replaced by the present fortification, about 1839. No attempt was ever made to rebuild either of the works on the west side of the river.
The new Fort Ontario was very nearly, perhaps exactly, on the site of the old one. It was also partly on the site of the present work, but went considerably nearer the lake. The south part of the fortress, built in 1759-60, was within the limits of the present Fort Ontario. The traces of the old walls are still to be seen between the present rampart and the lake. The whole circuit of the five sides was about five hundred feet. The rampart was built of earth, revetted with " saucissons" on the side towards the lake, but on the landward sides the earth was kept in place by large square timbers laid one upon the other. The parapet was some twelve fcet thick, and outside of it there was a ditch nearly thirty feet wide. During the autumn of 1759 or spring of 1760, four block-houses were also erected at long gun-shot from the fort.
At this time, too, detachments from Oswego and Fort Stanwix, under the direction of Captain Brewerton, built a fort on Oneida river, a few rods from the north bank and about a mile below the outlet of the lake. Like the one at the falls, it was an octagon, with the sides curved inward, so that the sharp angles made it resemble an eight-pointed star. It was about a hundred feet in diameter on the in- side, with a wall five feet high, crowned with palisades twenty feet high, with loop-holes and embrasures. Outside was a ditch, and outside of that a still lower wall. The new fort was evidently intended for defense against Indian rifles, not against French artillery. It was named " Brew- erton" in honor of its constructor. The remnants of the old wall and ditch are still to be seen close to the present Fort Brewerton hotel.
At the same time a mole or wall of large rocks was built at the exact point where the lake changes into the river, running southeast into the lake and reaching somewhat above its surface. At the end a sentry-box was erected, and here a sentinel was continuously posted, who, from his
curious station, could view the river for many miles and the lake as far as eye could reach. Of this, too, the ruins are still to be seen under water. More. than a hundred acres were cleared around the fort to give a more extended view of an approaching foe.
Here, too, as at the falls, the modern fortification is in the near neighborhood of ancient relics dating back to un- known ages. In a sand-bank, a short distance east of the fort, a large number of human bones have been discovered, apparently belonging to males, and denoting the probable place of interment of the warriors of a nation. The length of some of the bones found there is said to have indicated that they belonged to men at least seven feet high; but the accuracy of such estimates is always doubtful.
On the 8th of October, 1759, a scout sent out from Os- wego towards the enemy returned with some Canadian prisoners. These brought to the garrison the first news of the capture of Quebec, which had occurred three weeks previously. All men saw that the downfall of French power in America must speedily follow, and joy reigned supreme, especially among the provincials, who could now hope for a long respite from the haunting fears of toma- hawk and scalping-knife. Sir William Johnson issued a formal invitation to the Indians to reopen trade at Oswego and Niagara the next spring, most of the provincial troops were sent home, the garrisons of the posts went into winter quarters, and silence again settled down on the scene lately so full of life.
In the spring of 1760 England and her colonies rallied their forces to give the final blow to the French dominion in Canada. Although it was plain that the fall of Quebec involved the conquest of the whole province, yet De Vau- dreuil at Montreal still held out for King Louis, and many minor posts were yet in possession of the French. It was arranged in the English councils that three armies should concentrate on Montreal. One was to move up the St. Lawrence from Quebec, one smaller one was to go down Lake Champlain from Albany, while the main Anglo- American force, under the commander-in-chief, General Amherst, was to rendezvous at Oswego, and thence pro- ceed down the St. Lawrence to attack the doomed capital.
The colonial levies came in slowly, and it was not until the 12th of June that Amherst left Schenectady with six thousand provincials and four thousand regulars. Once more the Mohawk, the Oneida, and the Oswego were alive with hundreds of boats, their banks resounded with the tramp of armed battalions, and the deer and the panthers alike shrank back affrighted from the countless camp-fires which blazed upon their woodland shores.
In the forepart of July the whole force arrived at Os- wego. Great preparations had to be made ere this armny, the largest ever seen within this county, could be embarked on its destined voyage. On the 25th of July Amherst was joined by Sir William Johnson, with six hundred Iro- quois warriors, and this number was soon swollen to over thirteen hundred by those called French Iroquois, anxious to make their peace with the conquering English. Never before nor since has Oswego exhibited such an animated and variegated scene as during the latter part of July and forcpart of August, 1760. Four thousand regulars, re-
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HISTORY OF OSWEGO COUNTY, NEW YORK.
splendent in the gaudy uniform of England, moved with martial port about the frontier fortress, or engaged in mili- tary manœuvres, executed with machine-like precision. Six thousand provincials, mostly sturdy New York Dutch- men and keen-faced New Englanders, whose uniforms, if not so brilliant, were generally new, and who had seen too much hard service to be despised as soldiers, even by European veterans, proudly marched and countermarched to martial strains, in which the time-honored sounds of " God Save the King" were mingled with the newly-in- vented air of " Yankee Doodle."
Supplies were being brought forward by the ton ; hun- dreds of carpenters were at work constructing boats; the whole locality rang with the noise of axe and mallet, of drum and fife, of shout and song, and amid the excitement the thirteen hundred plumed and painted Iroquois forgot for the moment that their hunting-grounds were being over- run with fearful rapidity, and were ready to follow Brother Warragiyaghey, alias Sir William Johnson, to the death.
Many were the men, then or afterwards celebrated in American history, congregated at that time at the mouth of the Oswego. The commander-in-chief, General Jeffrey Amherst, afterwards Lord Amherst, though devoid of great genius, was an energetic and faithful soldier, then forty- three years of age, a firm but not harsh commander, highly respected by his men, and ever ready to share their hard- ships and their dangers. General Gage, the second in command, a bluff, dull-witted British general, of the regu- lation pattern, was destined to reap a dubious fame as the presiding genius on the English side at the opening of the Revolution, and then to sink into obscurity.
More famous at that time than even the commander-in- chief, Sir William Johnson was doubtless the busiest of all the busy throng. Pioneer, fur-trader, soldier, man of busi- ness, magistrate, superintendent of Indian affairs, council- lor of the province of New York, chief of the Mohawks, and baronet of the Kingdom of Great Britain, this " Trib- une of the Six Nations," as he has been aptly called, was then, at the age of about forty-five, in the full vigor of strength, the full flush of power, the full tide of success in all his undertakings.
General John Bradstreet, the quartermaster - general, whose doings in the vicinity of Oswego we have so often had occasion to chronicle during the previous four years, was by this time recognized by the commander-in-chief as one of the most efficient officers on the continent. He was taken sick, however, while at Oswego, and did not accom- pany the expedition down the St. Lawrence. His coad- jutor and friend, Major Philip Schuyler, being on other service, was not with Amherst's army that summer. There was another Revolutionary officer there, the opposite of Schuyler in every respect except valor and patriotism. This was that rough but stanch Connecticut farmer who left his oxen unyoked in the furrow at the news of Lexing- ton, and whose fame is now especially united to the glories of Bunker Hill, but who was known to the army eneamped at Oswego in 1760 as Lientenant-Colonel Israel Putnam.
Many others of minor fame were employed under the skillful direction of Amherst in forwarding operations, and on the 9th of August all was ready. Hundreds of whale-
boats were loaded with artillery and supplies, and Colonel Haldimand had been sent ahead with a thousand men to clear the way.
On the 10th occurred the scene, somewhat remarkable in the history of war, of the embarking of over ten thou- sand men in open boats to traverse a lake and river for more than two hundred miles. A great host of bateaux and whale-boats were filled with regulars and provincials, the Iroquois warriors, with Warragiyaghey at their head, occupied their light canoes, a long train of artillery and supply-boats brought up the rear, and then, to the sound of martial musie, with flashing oars and waving banners, the grand army set forth on its watery path to the Franco- American capital.
Amherst's plan of advancing by three routes was faulty enough, for it involved the possibility of the enemy's de- feating all the corps in detail. Had the French had any- thing like equal numbers, and been directed by the genius of Montcalm, such a consequence might perhaps have resulted. They were, however, too much enfcebled and discouraged to make the attempt. Captain Pouchot gallantly defended Fort Levis, below Ogdensburgh, but the fort was soon eap- tured by the overwhelming numbers of the English, and that brave and skillful, but unfortunate, officer was again sent as a prisoner through Oswego.
In September, the Marquis de Vaudreuil surrendered Montreal, and with it all Canada. This ended forever the rule of France in this part of America, although the formal treaty of peace was not signed until February, 1763. Am- herst's provincials returned home by way of Lakes Cham- plain and Ontario, the regulars were distributed where their presence was most needed, and Oswego County saw no more of the grand pageants which had so lately enlivened its sylvan scenery.
1128822 CHAPTER IX.
FROM 1761 TO 1775.
"Dunean of Lundie"-Annie MeViear-The First Oswege County Sehout-Military Gardening-The Pathfinder, Eau-Douce, Dew-of- June, ete .- A Sudden Death-The Chieftain's Funeral-Brad- street's Western Expedition - A Dramatie Meeting - A Week's Festivities-The " Property Line"-Tryen County-The Treeps withdrawn-Death uf Sir William Johnson.
A CONSIDERABLE force was still thought necessary at Oswego, and the greater part of the Fifty-fifth Infantry, a regiment mostly raised in Scotland, was transferred thither from Montreal immediately after the surrender. The com- mander was Major Alexander Duncan, commonly called " Duncan of Lundie," from the estate which belonged to his family. One of its captains was Duncan MeVicar, a Scotchman, whose wife and little daughter had been living on the Iludson while he was doing duty with the army. Ile was determined to take them to Oswego, and they are supposed to have been the first white females belonging to any, except the lowest, class that ever visited this county. Little Annie MeVicar was hardly six years old, but very precocious, and having a most remarkable memory. Nearly fifty years later, and forty years after she had returned to
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HISTORY OF OSWEGO COUNTY, NEW YORK.
Scotland, having, under the name of Mrs. Grant, acquired considerable literary fame, she wrote a book, entitled “ Me- moirs of an American Lady" (Mrs. Schuyler, aunt of the general), which is widely recognized as the most charming picture extant of New York colonial society and life. Three chapters of her work are devoted to her journey to, and stay in, Fort Ontario, which bring vividly before the reader that frontier post as it was a hundred and sixteen years ago.
The McVicars came through in October, 1760, with a company of soldiers of the Fifty-fifth, in bateaux, follow- ing the usual-not well-trodden, but well-paddled-course, and few things in literature are more pleasant than the romantic child's description of their forest-shaded voyage and fire-lighted bivouacs. The last night of their journey was spent at Fort Brewerton, then garrisoned by a company of the Fifty-fifth, under Captain Mungo Campbell, another Scotch officer, afterwards killed at the battle of White Plains.
They found Fort Ontario a large structure, built of " earth and logs," as Mrs. Grant expressed it. The major commanding was a shrewd, quaint, hard-headed, middle- aged Scotchman, who ruled his young subordinates with despotic, yet fatherly, control. He had had fitted up for his own use a small frame house on wheels, which could be moved to any part of the parade. The thin walls and floor were supplemented by an ample lining of deer-skins, bear-skins, etc., and the area was divided into two parts,- one serving as the commandant's bedroom, the other as eating-room and library.
Here, during the long winter, which completely closed all communication with the civilized world, the subordinate officers were assembled for instruction by the worthy major, and required to take their daily lessons with the regularity of school-boys. The object of the major was, doubtless, not so much to make his officers good scholars as to keep their faculties from rusting and their habits from lapsing into dissipation through the idleness so common in unoccu- pied garrisons. Whatever the object, this was undoubtedly the first school ever taught in Oswego County.
When spring came, both officers and men, when not em- ployed in the chase, were kept busy in agricultural labors. Of the large tract which had been cleared around the fort, either for defensive purposes or to provide firewood for the many successive garrisons, a portion was devoted to the raising of beans, peas, Indian corn, etc., by the men, an- other to the gardening operations of the officers. The shrewd and kindly Duncan had thus the gratification not only of raising on that new, strong soil the largest beans, onions, and squashes in America, but of keeping his officers and men out of mischief to a very remarkable extent. Major Duncan's garden lay in the hollow south of the fort, where, E. W. Clark states, the appearances of it could be seen sixty or seventy years ago. The MeVicars returned to Albany in 1761, but Major Duncan and six companies of the Fifty-fifth remained there until 1765, the necessity for this large garrison being caused by the difficulties with the western Indians.
It was during the reign of Duncan of Lundie that Cooper lays the opening scenes of his celebrated novel, " The Pathfinder," in Oswego County. It was near the Queida river that Cap, the sailor, Mabel Dunham (" the
sergeant's daughter"), Arrowhead, and Dew-of-June met Jasper Western (Ean-Douce), Chingachgook (the Big Ser- pent), and the redoubtable Pathfinder. It was down the Oswego falls that Pathfinder and Eau-Douce ran their bark canoe, while the veteran salt-water sailor sat in the middle of it trembling for the consequences,-a feat which Cooper thinks it needful to verify by declaring that he has seen a long thirty-two-pound cannon floated over the same dubious- looking track. It was on the western border of Volney that the party hid in a leafy cove, while their savage pur- suers passed by, and that Big Serpent tomahawked the inquisitive Iroquois. It was at Fort Ontario that Duncan of Lundie and Quartermaster Davy Muir disputed regard- ing the three or four wives of the latter, and that the great contest of marksmanship came off in which Eau-Douce, through the complaisance of Pathfinder, won the silken calash which he bestowed on Mabel Dunham.
Pontiac's war, which broke out in 1762, created great excitement iu all the frontier posts, but did not extend as far east as Oswego. When they heard of it, several chiefs of one of the Canadian tribes came to visit Major Duncan. He invited them to return with their people, and celebrate the accession of the new king, George the Third, and renew the treaty of peace with Britain. They did so, witnessed a review, and were supplied with a grand feast outside the fort. The principal chief and his brother, a pair of stal- wart braves, were invited to dinner with the officers. When they were seated, the major called for wine to drink the health of King George. Scarcely had this been done by the assembled party, when the sachem's brother fell lifeless on the floor. The usual remedies in case of fainting were applied, without effect. The chief looked quietly on while these efforts were being made, but when convinced that his brother was indeed dead, he drew his blanket over his head and burst into tears.
Indian life is not conducive to apoplexy or heart-disease, and such sudden deaths are almost unknown among them. The officers might well fear that some sinister interpretation would be put on this strange event, following so soon after drinking the wine given by the English to the deceased. The weeping of a warrior was something equally unknown, and betokened a degree of grief which might easily turn to revenge. But presently the chieftain threw back his blanket, arose, and in a dignified manner addressed the English. He acquitted them of all part in his brother's death, and declared that their common enemies, the Hurons, should weep tears of blood for all those which he had shed for his brother.
Major Duncan ordered the dead warrior to be buried with the greatest ceremony. His body was borne to the grave to the sound of muffled drums and booming cannon, attended by a guard with reversed arms, while British offi- cers in full uniform walked in solemn procession with the warrior-brethren of the dead. The brother and companions of the deceased were highly pleased with these manifesta- tions of respect, and it is quite likely that this gratification of their vanity made the apparently untoward death of the chief the cause of linking them more strongly to the Eng- lish interest.
In 1764, General Bradstreet, so frequently mentioned in
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HISTORY OF OSWEGO COUNTY, NEW YORK.
these pages, was sent with a considerable force to quell the rebellious Indians of the west. In the latter part of June he came across from the Mohawk valley to Oswego with from fifteen hundred to two thousand provincial troops from New York and New England, among whom Putnam, who never missed a chance for a fight, was in command of the Connecticut battalion. Shortly after their arrival they were joined by the "Tribune of the Six Nations," Sir William Johnson, with five hundred and thirty of his Iro- quois warriors. The expedition sailed for Niagara on the 3d of July. Johnson returned after holding a council at that post, but Bradstreet and his white and red command proceeded to the head of Lake Erie, inflicted some punish- ment on the hostile tribes, and did not return to Oswego till September.
In the spring of 1766 Sir William Johnson was ap- pointed commissary of trade for Oswego and all the west- ern posts. His duties are not definitely known, but from the title of his office it is presumed that they involved a general superintendence of the traffie with the Indians at those points.
In July of that year there occurred at Oswego one of those dramatie events which we hardly expect to meet with (though we frequently do) in real life, and which would form an unsurpassed subjeet for the historie painter. In accordance with an arrangement made the previous year through Deputy Superintendent Croghan, Pontiac, the de- feated but hardly conquered Ottawa chief, came from his home on the distant shores of Lake Michigan to meet Sir William Johnson at Oswego. It seems strange that one who had so deeply imbrued his hands in English blood should have trusted himself so far in the country of his conquerors ; but a safe-conduet was granted him, and he seems to have relied implicitly on the good faith of the re- nowned Warragiyaghey.
Pontiac, with a few of his tribe, eame in canoes about the 18th of July, and Sir William arrived on the 20th. Nearly all the warriors of the Six Nations, too, eame at the call of their superintendent, to give dignity and importance to the interview. An awning of evergreens was erected in the open air to protect the deliberations of the council from the rays of the July sun. On the 23d the high contract- ing parties met in a brief preliminary interview, to make each other's acquaintance, but nothing of consequence was done till the next day.
On the 24th the council opened in full state. Standing beneath the shelter formed of the fragrant branches of the pine and hemlock were the two principals, each in his way one of the most remarkable men of the age. The broad- shouldered baronet, who never missed an opportunity of pleasing his Indian friends, wore over his civilized costume a fine scarlet blanket edged with gold lace, while his full, strongly-marked features were surmounted with the cocked hat and plumes of a British colonel. The head of the tall, keen-eyed, hawk-visaged Ottawa was also adorned with plumes,-not, indeed, of the ostrich, but of the eagles which his rifle had brought to the earth,-and if his blanket was less costly than that of Sir William, it was worn with no Jess dignity and with much greater grace.
Around these central figures the principal chiefs of the
Six Nations reclined upon the ground in savage ease, yet with all possible decorum, while farther back was a host of the ordinary warriors, all in full costume of feathers and paint in honor of the occasion. A group of British officers in their brilliant uniforms added variety to the seene, and the murmur of the wild Oswego furnished appropriate music for this curious drama.
Sir William lighted the great calumet, which had pre- viously been sent to him as a present by Pontiac, took a puff himself, gravely presented it to his distinguished visitor, and then in turn to each of the Iroquois chiefs. Then the baronet opened his speech with the usual formula, presenting a belt of wampum to Pontiac, and declaring that thereby he " opened the door and made the road clear and smooth" for the English and Ottawas to meet each other in friendship. He then proceeded to discuss the position of affairs at considerable length, pointing out what the English had done and were willing to do for the west- ern Indians, and adjuring them to pursue henceforth the flowery paths of peace. At the conclusion Pontiac thanked the baronet for his remarks, said his speech was " all good," and promised to reply to it the next day.
On the 25th the council again met with the same for- malities as before. Though he had taken a night for de- liberation, Pontiac did not make a very lengthy address. The substance of it was that he too was in favor of peace ; that although he had been the enemy of the English he should be so no longer, and referred to the fact that he had always kept faith with the French as proof that he would do the same with the English. Sir William expressed his belief in these professions, and again the council adjourned.
The sessions were continued for several days after that ; for however reticent the great Ottawa might be, there was abundance of eloquence garnered up for the occasion in the bosoms of the Iroquois chiefs, and it never would have done to prevent its due expression. There was much feast- ing, too, to be gone through with, and, doubtless, some drinking ; and it was a week from the opening of the council ere all these pleasing ceremonies were concluded.
At length, on the last day of July, Pontiac was ready to return home. Sir William presented to each of the principal chiefs, both Iroquois and Ottawa, a silver medal bearing this inscription : " A pledge of peace and friend- ship with Great Britain, 1766." Then Pontiac and War- ragiyaghey spoke their last adieus, the Ottawa chief and his warriors entered their canoes and turned their prows westward, while the stately baronet watched them from the shore till they disappeared behind the nearest headland.
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