USA > New York > Saratoga County > History of Saratoga County, New York : with historical notes on its various towns > Part 6
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And now the English of New England at- tempted to drive the Dutch from the Half- Moon on the Hudson, as they had driven them from Hartford on the Connecticut thirty years before. This appears from the following doc- uments copied from the records at Albany:
PETITION OF PHILIPP PIEETERSEN SCHUYLER AND GOOSEN GERRETSEN (VAN SCHAICK) FOR LEAVE TO PURCHASE THE HALF-MOON.
To the Noble, Very Worshipful, Honorable Director General and Council of New Netherland:
Respectfully show Philipp Pieetersen Schuyler and Goosen Gerretsen, residents of the village of Beverwick, that the Mahikanders have informed the petitioners the English of Connetikot on the Fresh river had requested them to sell a certain plain, called by the Dutch the Half- Moon, situate at the third or fourth mouth, about three or four leagues to the northward of here.
The said Mahikanders have offered to sell this land to the petitioners in preference, but as the petitioners may not do it without the consent of your Honble Worships, therefore they pray that your Honble Worships will grant them permission to purchase the said land, as it will be done for the best of the country and to keep the English away from this river. Waiting for a favorable apostel we remain your Noble Honorable Worships' obedient servants.
PHILIPP PIEETERSEN SCHUYLER, GOOSEN GERRETSEN.
Beverwick, the 27th May, 1664.
The prayer of this petition was granted, and out of it grew the Half-Moon or Van Schaick patent. The following is the minute of the council thereon:
MINUTE OF COUNCIL.
After the question had been put it was resolved :
The Director-General and Council of New Netherl nd give permission to the petitioners to buy the said piece of land from the lawful owners, provided that the same be, as usual, transferred and conveyed to the Director- General and Council as representatives of the Noble Lord's Directors. What the petitioners pay for it to the lawful owners shall be refunded to them at some con- venient time, or be balanced against the tithes, but all under this reservation, that if this piece of land should be found upon determination of the limits of the Colony of Rensselaerswyck to be within the boundaries thereof, they must properly acknowledge the patroon of that Colony as their patroon,
Actum Fort Amsterd im in New Netherland, the 10th July, 1664.
P. STUYVESANT. NICASIUR DE SILLE.
Upon this consent an Indian deed of the Half-Moon was obtained by the petitioners, Schuyler and Van Schaick, but in a few months the Duke of York invaded and subjected New Netherland to the English rule. The follow- ing year, however, the English authorities re- spected the title of the petitioners to the tract of land covered by the Indian deed, and granted them a patent for the same under date of Oc- tober 13th, 1665. This grant was confirmed to Anthony Van Schaick on the 31st day of May, 1687, by the patent described in the foregoing chapter as the Van Schaick patent, and no part of it fell within the boundaries of the Colony of Rensselaerswyck.
It seems from the meagre records that the Van Schaick interest in Half-Moon was para- mount, for on November 23d, 1669, Goosen Gerretsen Van Schaick sold land for a Bowerie at Half-Moon to Philipp Pieetersen Schuyler, and in eighteen years thereafter, as above stated, the whole tract of the Half-Moon was confirmed by a new patent to Anthony Van Schaick.
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BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY
Yet for a century and a half after the first settlers came to the Half-Moon, that is to say, not until the French and Indian wars were over, did the more permanent settlement of the Half-Moon begin with the purchase of the site of the present village of Waterford in 1784 by Col. Jacobus Van Schoonhoven, Judge White, and others, mostly from Connecticut.
Like other infant settlements along the Mohawk and Hudson rivers, the Half-Moon did not escape Indian depredations, as will be seen by the following Minute of Council to be found among the Albany records :
AT A COUNCILL JUNE 11TH, 1677.
Afternoon.
The Occasion was the Receit of Lettrs from Albany sent by an Expresse from thence Relateing that eighty or one hundred of Maques ( Mohawks) Indyans had fallen upon some Mahicandys & North Indyans at Phillip Peiters Bowery and the Halfe Moone, robbing the Ma- hicandrs and carrying the Others away Prisoners, butt they had returned some other Prisoners and Promised the rest should follow.
Also the Maques routing some of Uncasmen, four fall- ing upon eighty and Destroying Divers, &c.
Some account of the more permanent settle- ment of the Half-Moon, now Waterford, will be found in a succeeding chapter.
III .- THE PLANTING OF SARATOGA.
In the last half of the seventeenth century the Jesuit Fathers of Canada, following in the footsteps of their illustrious predecessor, Father Isaac Jogues (of whose mission some account is given in a succeeding chapter), continued his mission work among the Mo- hawks, leading the most of their converts to the banks of the St. Lawrence, where they founded the Missions of St. Rigis, St. Francis and Caghnawaga.
These Indian missions became strong out- posts of the French settlements in Canada, and rendered the French material aid in all the succeeding wars with the English settlements.
To establish a similar outpost of Albany on the Hudson the provincial governor of New York, Thomas Dongan, who was a Roman Catholic, in 1684 invited the Jesuit Fathers to establish an Indian mission, like those on the St. Lawrence, at Saratoga.
But the English revolution of 1688 brought the Protestant party again into power. An Indian mission at Saratoga was no longer practicable or desirable, and the place was settled under other auspices.
About this time the Mohawk sachems con- veyed the old Indian hunting ground of Sara- toga to some Dutch citizens of Albany, as will appear from the following memorandum, copied from Vol. XIII. of the Colonial His- tory of New York :
For Saratoga.
The Mohawk Sachems of the first and second castles Roo-de Sag-go-dioch-qui-sak, Aih-ag-a-ri, and Tais-kan- oun-da, representing their tribe, then present, declare to have sold and conveyed to Cornelis van Dyk, Jan Jansen Bleeker, Peter Philippsen Schuyler, and Johannes Wendel, a tract of land called Sar-ach-to-goe, or by Maquas Och- ser-a-ton-que, or Och-sech-ra-ge, and by the Mahicanders Am-is-so-haen-diek, situate to the North of Albany, Be- ginning at the utmost limits of the land bought from the Indians by Goose Gerritse [Van Schaick] and Philipp Pieterse Schuyler deceased, there being a kil called Tion- een-de-hou-we [Anthony's Kill], and reaching North- wards on both sides of the River to the end of the lands of Sar-ach-to-goe, bordering on a kil on the East side of the River called Dion-oen-do-ge-ha [Batton Kill], and having the same length on the West side to opposite the kil, reaching Westwards through the woods as far as the Indian proprietors will show, and the same distance through the woods to the East. They surrender all the land, kils, creeks, woodland, etc., except liberty to hunt and fish.
Albany, July 26th, 1683.
Under the same date as the foregoing deed, the Mahicander Indians renounce their claims upon the fore described lands which they might have upon it, "because in olden times the land belonged to them before the Maquaes took it from them."
This Indian deed was followed by a patent granted to the above named proprietors on the 4th day of November, 1684.
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OF SARATOGA COUNTY.
But the old Indian Saratoga was in the "dark and bloody neutral ground " which lay between the Iroquois tribes of central New York and the Algonquin tribes of Canada, the hereditary enemies of each other and of their respective allies, the French and the English, so settlements were retarded in consequence, and when made must needs be under the pro- tection of forts and armed men.
In the autumn of 1689 a band of fifteen hundred Iroquois warriors on the war path against Montreal, following the old northern trail described in the previous chapter, swept in one grand flotilla of bark canoes across the waters of Lake Saratoga and thence down the Fishkill to the Hudson across this old hunting ground.
Then in February of the very next year (1690) a return expedition of French and In- dians-the latter converted mission Indians -under command of D'Aillebout de Mantet and Le Moyne de Sainte-Helene, passed over the same ground on snow shoes on their way to the burning and sacking of Schenectady.
And in the early summer of the same year (1690) Major Peter Philipp Schuyler-then mayor of Albany-in command of a body of Dutch troops, which formed the advance guard of the first great Northern Invasion against the French at Crown Point, halted at Saratoga to await the approach of the main body under General Fitz John Winthrop, and built a fort there on the west bank of the Hudson below Fish Creek which he called "Fort Saratoga." This was the first application of this old historic name by white men, and from this date (1690) the name Saratoga was destined to play an important part in the world's his- tory.
Unlike the Half-Moon, Saratoga does not depend on tradition alone for the name and date of occupancy of her first pioneer settler, for upon these points there is ample evidence in the following minute of council in regard to at least one pioneer Saratogian, who led the way :
At a council held at the city of Albany, on Septem- ber 4th, 1689, it was-
" Resolved, That there be a fort made about the house of Bartel Vroman, a't Sarachtoge, and twelve men raised out of two companies of the city and two com- panies of the county to lie there upon pay, who are to have twelve pence a day, besides provisions, and some Indians of Skachcook to be with them, to go out as scouts in that part of the country."
On the 15th day of April, 1685, four years before the fort was built at Bartel Vroman's house, the seven proprietors of Saratoga met at Albany and divided their lands by lot.
To make the division without partiality or favor, seven numbered slips of paper were put into a hat, and after the same was well shaken, a little child of each proprietor, "without evil design and cunning "- as the ancient doc- ument quaintly reads-"drew the number which should thereafter designate his position."
In this drawing "Lot No. 5," which con- tained all of the tract lying west of the Hud- son and north of Fish Creek, on which Schuy- lerville has since been built, fell to Robert Livingston. "Lot No. 4," being next southerly on the south side of Fish Creek, and including what has since been widely known as tlie "Schuyler property," was drawn by Johannes Wendel. "Lot No. 6," situate on the east side of the Hudson, opposite Schuylerville, fell to David Schuyler.
It seems that Johannes Wendel, who owned "Lot 4" on the south side of Fish Creek, was the first to improve his land, for Bartel Vroman was there in 1689, as before stated. The origi- nal Fort Saratoga was also built on the south side of Fish Creek. Around the fort, under protection of its guns, grew up the ancient vil- lage of Saratoga of historic renown, and it was there that the Schuylers built their man- sion houses.
Johannes Wendel died in 1691, leaving by will his " Lot 4" at Saratoga to his son Abra- ham. In 1702 Abraham Wendel sold the Saratoga " Lot 4" to Johannes Schuyler, the grandfather of General Philipp Schuyler, of the Revolution.
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BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY
In the meantime David Schuyler had sold "Lot 6" across the Hudson to Peter Schuyler and Robert Livingston.
Johannes Schuyler continued the improve- ments on the south side of Fish Creek begun by Wendel, by the erection of mills and the opening up of farms. But previous to 1742 he had given it all to his sons, Philip and John, jr.
Philip Schuyler, the uncle of General Schuy- ler, took up his residence at Saratoga in a brick house which had been built by his father, Johannes. In this house Philip perished at the hands of the French and Indians at the time of the burning in the year 1745.
At the time of the burning, which marks the close of the pioneer history of Saratoga, the hamlet of "Old Saratoga," on the west side of the Hudson and the south side of Fish Creek, at what is now Schuylerville, contained about thirty houses, with barns and out-buildings, two or three mills and a large wooden fort.
For a mile or more, up and down the west bank of the river, above and below the fort, stretched broad, cleared fields, through which ran a single street north and south, in which the dwellings stood in a way to accommodate the occupants of the farms.
The Schuyler mansion, in which Philip lived, was the only one built of brick. It was large and strongly fortified, and had loop-holes all around to use in case of attack. It stood a little to the southeast of the site of what is now known as the "Schuyler Mansion," on ground mostly taken up by the canal in the rear of the "old lilacs" still growing there.
Thus situated, on the night of the 28th of November, N.S. 1745, the blow was struck, and pioneer Saratoga ceased to be. The fort and every building was burned to the ground; every inhabitant, save one who escaped to tell the tale by the light of his burning home, was either killed or carried away captive.
Truly, a fate as tragic as that of Schenec- tady, of Cherry Valley, or of Wyoming fell upon the pioneer settlers of Saratoga.
CHAPTER VII.
FRENCH AND INDIAN WARS-THE DIS- COVERY OF LAKE GEORGE BY FATHER ISAAC JOGUES-JOURNEYS THROUGH SARATOGA COUNTY TO HIS MISSION ON THE MOHAWK.
I .- FRENCH AND INDIAN WARS.
The history of the French and Indian wars is the story of the efforts of France to occupy and control by far the richest and best part of the North American continent.
Throughout the long contest for their mas- tery, the French possessions lay wholly to the north and west of the great Appalachian mountain chain; while the English posses- sions lay entirely to the south and east of this great mountain barrier.
Across these mountains thus dividing the contending parties there was throughout their whole length but one trail that did not lead over high mountain steeps and was available, therefore, for the passage of large armies. That trail led through the great Northern Valley of the Hudson river and Lake Cham- plain.
Of this valley Saratoga county occupies a central position, and was, in consequence thereof, more or less affected by all the hostile expeditions which, from time to time throughout a period of more than two hundred years, passed through her borders and over her territory.
It will be seen, therefore, that the history of this county is more or less interwoven with the story of all the French and Indian wars, as well as with the war of the revolution.
II .- ISAAC JOGUES.
Among all the historic characters who trod the war-trails leading through the county of Saratoga in the old-time, none is more inter- esting to the general reader than Father Isaac Jogues-the discoverer of Lake George and
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OF SARATOGA COUNTY.
the founder of the Mission of the Martyrs Saint Mary of the Mohawks.
The first white men who saw Lake George were the Jesuit Father Isaac Jogues and René Goupil and Guillame Couture, his companions. Tortured, maimed and bleeding, they were taken over its waters as prisoners by the Mohawks in the month of August, 1642.
Isaac Jogues was born at Orleans, in France, on the 10th January, 1607, and there received the rudiments of his education. He entered the Jesuit Society at Rouen in Octo- ber, 1624, and in 1627 removed to the College of La Fletche. He completed his divinity studies at Clermont College, Paris, and in February, 1630, was ordained priest.
He embarked in the spring of that year as a missionary for Canada, arriving early in July at Quebec.
Father Jogues at the time of his first visit to Lake George was but thirty-five years of age.
.
He was of a modest, thoughtful, refined nature, constitutionally timid, yet possessed of a courage which shrank at no danger. He had a sensitive conscience and great religious susceptibilities. He might have shone in literature and scholarship, but he had chosen another career, however unfitted he was for it, and where duty called he went unhesitatingly.
III. - FATHER JOGUES' FIRST VISIT TO LAKE GEORGE.
Thirty-three years before, Samuel de Cham- plain, on his voyage of discovery, had first attacked the Iroquois on the shore of the lake that bears his name, and they had fled in terror from the murderous fire-arms of the first white men they had ever seen to their homes on the Mohawk. Since then they had ceased to make war upon their hereditary enemies, the Canadian Algonquins, or the French colonists. But they had by no means forgotten their humiliating defeat. In the meantime they had themselves been supplied
with fire-arms by the Dutch traders at Fort Orange, on the Hudson, in exchange for beaver-skins and wampum, and now their hour of sweet revenge had come.
The war with the Eries, the Hurons and the other western tribes had been undertaken by the Senecas, the Cayugas and the Onondagas. It was left to the Mohawks and the Oneidas to attempt the extermination of the Canadian Algonquins and their French allies. They came near accomplishing their bloody pur- pose. But for the timely arrival of a few troops from France, the banks of the St. Lawrence would soon have become as deso- late as the country of the lost Eries or that of the Hurons. The savages hung the war-kettle upon the fire in all the Mohawk castles and danced the war dance. In bands of tens and hundreds they took the war path, and passing through Lakes George and Champlain and down the river Richelieu, went prowling about the French settlements at Montreal, Three Rivers and Quebec and the Indian villages on the Ottawa. The Iroquois were everywhere. From the Huron country to the Saguenay they infested the forest like so many ravenous wolves. They hung about the French forts, killing stragglers and luring armed parties into fatal ambuscades. They followed like hounds upon the trails of travelers and hunters through the forests, and lay in wait along the banks of streams to attack the passing canoes. It was one of these prowling hostile bands of Mohawks that attacked and captured Isaac Jogues and his companions.
IV. - CAPTURE OF FATHER JOGUES.
Father Jogues had come down the savage Ottawa river a thousand miles in his bark canoes the spring before from his far off Huron mission to Quebec for much needed supplies. He was now on his return voyage to the Huron country. In the dewy freshness of the early morning of the 2nd day of August, with his party of four Frenchinen and thirty-six Hurons
4
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BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY
in twelve heavily laden canoes, Jogues had reached the westerly end of the expansion called Lake St. Peters. It is there filled with islands that lie opposite the mouth of the river Richelieu. It was not long before they heard the terrible war-whoop upon the Canadian shore. In a moment more Jogues and his white companions and a part of his Hurons were captives in the hands of the yelling, exulting Mohawks, and the remainder of the Hurons killed or dispersed. Goupil was seized at once. Jogues might have escaped, but see- ing Goupil and his Huron neophytes in the hands of their savage captors, he had no heart to desert them and so gave himself up. Cou- ture at first eluded his pursurers, but, like Jogues, relented and returned to his captured companions. Five Iroquois ran to meet Cou ture as he approached, one of whom snapped his gun at his breast. It missed fire, but Couture in turn snapped his own gun at the savage and laid him dead at his feet. The others sprang upon him like panthers, stripped him naked, tore out his finger nails with their teeth, gnawed his fingers like hungry dogs, and thrust a sword through one of his hands. Jogues, touched by the sufferings of his friends, broke from his guards and threw his arms around Couture's neck. The savages dragged him away and knocked him senseless. When he revived they gnawed his fingers with their teeth and tore out his nails as they had done those of Couture. Turning fiercely upon Cou- pil they treated him in the same way. With their captives they then crossed to the mouth of the Richelieu and encamped where the town of Sorel now stands.
The savages returned to the Mohawk with their suffering captives by the way which they came-across the old hunting-ground Kay- ad-ros-se-ra, now Saratoga. On the eighth day, upon an island near the south end of Lake Champlain, they arrived at the camp of two hundred Iroquois, who were on their way to the St. Lawrence. At the sight of the captives these fierce warriors, armed with clubs
and thorny sticks, quickly ranged themselves in two lines, between which the captives were each in turn made to run the gauntlet up a rocky hillside. On their way they were beaten with such fury that Jogues fell senseless, half dead, and covered with blood. After passing this ordeal, again the captives were mangled as before, and this time were tortured with fire. At night, when they tried to rest, the young warriors tore open their wounds and pulled out their hair and beard.
In the morning they resumed their journey, and soon reached a rocky promontory, near which ran a forest-covered mountain beyond which the lake narrowed into a river. It was more than a hundred years before that pro- montory became the famous Ticonderoga of later times. Between the promontory and the mountain a stream issued from the woods and fell into the lake. They landed at the mouth of the stream, and taking their canoes upon their shoulders, followed it up around the noisy waters of the falls. It was the Indian Che- non-de-ro-ga, "the chiming waters." They soon reached the shores of a beautiful lake, that there lay sleeping in the depths of the limitless forest all undiscovered and unseen by white men until then. It was the forest gem of the old wilderness now called Lake George, but it then only bore its old Indian name, Caniad-eri-oit, "the tail of the lake."
Champlain, thirty-three years before, had come no farther than its outlet. He heard the "chiming waters" of the falls, and was told that a great lake lay beyond them. But he turned back without seeing it, and so our bruised and bleeding prisoners, Isaac Jogues and his companions Goupil and Couture, were the first of the white men to gaze upon its waters. "Like a fair Naiad of the wilder- ness," says Parkman, "it slumbered between the guardian mountains that breathe between crag and forest the stern poetry of war."
Again they launched their frail canoes, and, amid the dreamy splendors of an August day, glided on their noiseless course over the charm-
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OF SARATOGA COUNTY.
ing waters. On they passed under the dusky mountain shadows, now over some wide ex- panse, now through the narrow channels and among the woody islands, redolent with bal- samy odors. At last they reached the landing place at the head of the lake, afterward the site of Fort William Henry, now Caldwell, so famous as a summer resort. Here they left their boats and took the old Indian trail that led across old Indian Kay-ad-ros-se-ra from Lake George, a distance of forty miles, to the lower castles on the Mohawk. It was the same trail afterwards followed by the Marquis de Tracy in October, 1666, on his way to the Mohawk castles with his army and train of French noblemen to avenge the death of the youthful Chazy.
The old Indian trail, so often the war-path, led from the south end of Lake George on a southerly course to the great bend of the Hudson, about ten miles westerly of Glens Falls. From the bend it led southerly through the towns of Wilton and Greenfield, along in plain sight of and but four miles distant from Saratoga Springs, and through Galway to the lower castles on the Mohawk, four or five miles westerly from what is now Amsterdam, on the New York Central railroad.
After their arrival at the Mohawk castles, Father Jogues and his companions were again subjected to the most inhuman tortures, with the horrid details of which the reader need not be wearied. Among the Mohawks Jogues re- mained for nearly a year a captive slave, per- forming for his savage masters the most menial duties. Soon after his arrival more poor Hurons were brought in and put to death with cruel tortures. But in the midst of his own suffer- ings Jogues lost no opportunity to convert the Indians to Christianity, sometimes even bap- tizing them with a few rain drops which he found clinging to the husks of corn that were thrown him for food.
Couture had won their admiration by his bravery, and after inflicting upon him the most savage torture, they adopted him into
one of their families in the place of a dead relation. But in October they murdered poor Goupil, and after dragging his body through the village, threw it into a deep ravine. Jogues sought it and gave it a partial burial. He sought it again and it was gone. Had the torrent washed it away, or had it been taken off by the savages? He searched the forest and the waters in vain. "Then, crouched by the pitiless stream, he mingled his tears with its waters, and, in a voice broken with groans, chanted the service for the dead."
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