USA > New York > Saratoga County > History of Saratoga County, New York : with historical notes on its various towns > Part 9
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To secure the friendship and co-operation of these powerful tribes, the French king had enticed large numbers of their people to settle in villages along the banks of the St. Lawrence
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river. Yet even this policy was of little avail, for the great body of the Five Nations still re- mained the firm friends of the English and the merciless foes of the French.
It was then that Count Frontenac, Governor- General of Canada, resolved upon more vigor- ous measures, and began at once a war of extermination upon the people of the Five Nations. The Northern Invasion of 1693 was made in pursuance of this savage policy adopted by Count Frontenac.
The Indians of the Five Nations, not liking to wage war except secretly, selected the sea- son when the trees were full of leaves to ap- proach the French settlements. When they saw the leaves fall they retired to their homes to remain during the winter.
Count de Frontenac, being desirous of strik- ing them a heavy blow during the season of their retreat, dispatched from Montreal in the month of January, 1693, a force of six hundred and twenty-five men, with orders to proceed against and destroy the Mohawk towns, and afterwards to commit as great ravages as pos- sible around Albany.
This force was commanded by Sieurs de Manteth, Courtemanche and de Lanoue, Cana- dian officers, assisted by Sieur de L'Invilliers and twenty other officers, many of whom, being the seniors of those in command, went as vol- unteers. This little army was made up as fol- lows, viz : Twenty-five officers, one hundred regular soldiers, two hundred Indians and three hundred French Canadians. The In- dians were: Hurons from Loretto ; Abenakis from the falls of the Chaudiere, and some Algonquins and Soccoquis, of Three Rivers. Sieur de Manteth led the van and commanded those belonging to the government of the Three Rivers. Sieur de Courtemanche was in command of those of the government of Que- bec, some of whom had come from opposite Ladaussac, at the mouth of the Saguenai.
By the 20th of January all the troops from below had arrived at Montreal. On the 25th they started from La Prairie de la Madelaine
and marched to Chambly, where they tarried over the 26th.
Then on the 27th the French and on the 30th the Indians, who had stopped to hunt, took up their long march along the frozen lakes and through the deep snows to the distant Mohawk country. Their route lay up Lakes Champlain and George, thence southerly across the Hud- son river at the great bend near what is now Glens Falls; thence along the foot of the Palmertown range to the pass south of Mount MacGregor, and thence westerly along the Greenfield Hills and across the foot-hills of the Kayaderossera mountain range into the valley of the Mohawk.
The frozen lakes and streams were vast fields of ice glittering in the wintery sunshine. Over the vast fields of ice they come striding on snow-shoes. Each man has on a thick blanket coat of the very pattern of those now worn by the members of our modern snow-shoe and toboggan clubs, the hood drawn tightly over his head. In his fur-mittened hand he carries a gun. In his belt he wears a long knife, to- gether with his bullet pouch and his tobacco pouch ; his pipe hangs at his neck in a leathern case. Each man carries a heavy pack on his shoulder, and each drags after him his long, narrow Indian toboggan, on which is lashed his blankets, camp outfit and provisions. When they encamp for the night they gather in squads of ten or twelve in some sheltered nook of the forest. Digging away the deep snow, using their snow-shoes for shovels, they make a bare spot of ground large enough for them to lie upon for the night, in the center of which they kindle a fire. Sitting around the fire, they make their supper of dried fish and pemmican, washing it down with the con- tents of their liquor flasks and snow water melted in their camp kettles. Then wrapping their blankets about them, they lie down to sleep. Their only bed is the soggy, leaf-strewn earth, their only covering the heaven's glitter- ing star dome.
They must be weeks upon their journey, for
5
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it was the 16th of February, in the cold, leaden gray of the winter evening, when they arrived, weary and benumbed with cold, in sight of the lower Mohawk castle, in the vicinity of what is now Tribes Hill and Fonda, on the north bank of the Mohawk river.
They found there two Indian forts, within three-quarters of a mile of each other. One of these forts, at or near Fonda, was called by the Mohowks Ca-hun-a-ga, afterwards Cagh- nawaga, which means "cook the kettle." It was a doubled stockaded fort with four gates, each four feet wide. It stood on the brow of a hill, a bow-shot from the river, and contained about twenty houses.
The other fort stood on a flat a stone's throw from the river, and was called Can-a- go-ra. It was surrounded by a single row of palisades with four gates. It was the smaller of the two, as it contained only sixteen houses.
It was this smaller fort which the French came first in sight of on that winter evening.
The forces of the French were here divided into two divisions, that both forts might be attacked at one and the same time. Sieur Lanoue remained at the head of one division in order to attack the fort first reached, and Sieur de Manteth and Courtemanche held the other division to attack the larger fort. Scouts were sent out, who reported that the Mohawks within the palisades were singing and making merry, as if enjoying some festive occasion.
The French waited until the noise of merri- ment had ceased and all were wrapped in slum- ber. Then they advanced upon the forts. The French Indians scaled the palisades and opened the gates. The troops poured in and, surrounding the cabins, took their astonished inmates prisoners without resistance. Sieur Lanoue found but five men and several women and children in the small fort. These he soon overpowered, except one man who managed to escape. Sieur Manteth found still fewer people in the large fort. The truth was, the warriors of the Five Nations were at that time assembled, to the number of seven hundred,
at the castle of the Oneidas, one of the upper nations, deliberating in the council upon the expeditions of the coming summer, and so the Mohawk warriors mostly escaped capture, the French finding only the women, children and a few old men remaining at home in their forts.
At daybreak the next morning Sieur Lanoue burnt the small fort and marched his prisoners into the other. Here he remained in command of a small force to guard the prisoners, while Sieurs Manteth and Courtemanche, with the main body, marched against the upper Mohawk castle, which was about thirteen miles distant.
The upper castle was called Ti-on-on-dogue, and was situated near what is now called Fort Plain, but on the north side of the river. It was the principal fort of the Mohawk nation, and was surrounded with palisades like those below. There was still another fort that was called Ca-na-jo-ha, from which comes Canajo- harie. But this fourth fort was two miles back from the river, and seems to have escaped the notice of the French on this occasion.
The French arrived at the upper fort on the evening of the 18th. They were surprised to hear great uproar and war-songs within the fort, and thought at first they were discovered. But it turned out that the noise was made by some forty warriors who were preparing to join on the morrow the council at Oneida.
The French waited patiently without till all was quiet within the fort and its unsuspecting inmates had retired to rest. Means were then found to open the gates, and the French and their Indians entered in to seize the fort. The few Mohawk warriors remaining within made a spirited resistance, but were quickly over- powered and made prisoners. In the assault one Frenchman was killed and twenty or thirty Mohawks, men and women.
Elated by their victory, the invading army gave way to rejoicing, and during the twenty- four hours ensuing, in enacting a wild scene of drunkenness and debauchery which beg- gars description, in which several more Mo- hawks were killed.
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Upon sobering off, the French set fire to the cabins, the palisades, the provisions - what- ever they could not carry with them-and leaving the whole town a heap of smoking ruins, marched with the prisoners, and joined Courtemanche on the 20th at the fort down the river where he had been left.
The number of prisoners was more than · three hundred, one-third of whom were war- riors. The others wers were old men, women and children. The plunder was such as is usually found in Indian wigwams.
Count Frontenac, in pursuance of his policy of extermination, had exacted a promise from the Indians before their departure from Canada that they would give no quarter to the Mohawk warriors, and bring no prisoners but women and children, with whom they could augment their Indian settlements on the St. Lawrence, at the Sault and the Mountain.
Although solicited, if not commanded by the French officers to fulfill their agreement with Frontenac and slay the Mohawk men, the Algonquins refused to comply, and spared their lives.
The invading foe had now conquered and destroyed the strongholds of the Mohawks, and they passed all day of the 21st at the fort deliberating whether to attack Albany or take up at once their homeward march. The French commanders were in favor of the former course. But the Indians represented that they were already overburdened with prisoners and plunder, and furthermore, that the season was advancing, and the ice was already beginning to decay on the rivers and lakes so as to jeopardize their crossing without canoes.
These arguments prevailed, and so on the dawn of the 22d they set fire to the last Mo- hawk fort, and abandoning the idea of attack- ing Albany, took up their long homeward march.
The old Indian trail over which they had come, and now followed by the French on their return, led from the Mohawk valley
easterly through what are now the towns of Galway and Greenfield and Wilton and Mo- reau, in Saratoga county, to the great bend in the Hudson at what is now Glens Falls, and from thence to the head of Lake George. After traveling a day and a half they arrived at noon on the 23d, and halted at the mountan pass in the Palmertown range, situate nearly on the line between Greenfield and Wilton, about six miles north of Saratoga Springs. A station on the Saratoga and Mt. MacGregor railroad is near the spot where they halted, called " King's Station." Here news came by a Mohawk runner that the warriors of the Five Nations and the English troops were pursuing them in great numbers, and the Indians of the party, regardless of the urgent remonstrances of the French commander, refused to proceed further, and began at once to build a fort of fallen trees. In this fort the French and In- dians remained four days-until the 27th- awaiting the approach of the English and the warriors of the Five Nations, who were by this time in hot pursuit.
The French officers saw the danger of this delay, and used every effort in their power, and every argument they could think of, to induce the Indians to advance. The Mohawks who had come to their camp had persuaded the French Indians that the Five Nations, terror stricken by the destruction of their forts, were coming to sue for peace. So stay the French Indians would, until the arrival of the English troops in hostile array dissipated their illusion.
In the mean time the English were aroused to a sense of their danger. The reader will remember that while Lanoue was assaulting the smaller Mohawk castle-the first the French came in sight of on the evening of the 16th of February, after their long and toilsome march-one man escaped and fled. At the same time a white man who had for some time been a captive with the French also escaped. This man was named John Baptist Van Eps. He was a Dutchman who was taken at the
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sacking of Schenectady three years before, and for some reason came back with the French on this expedition.
Upon making good his escape from his captors Van Eps lost no time in hastening down the river to his old home and giving the alarm to the English settlements. The whole province of New York was at once thrown into the wildest excitement. The news reached Albany at 2 P. M. of the 18th of February. Couriers were despatched post-haste to New York to inform Governor Fletcher of the in- vasion. Major Ingoldesby, of Albany, called out the militia of Albany county, and on the very night the news was received Lieut. John Schuyler and Cornet Abeel, with a company of fifty-five horse, marched to Schenectady.
In the mean time many Mohawk warriors who had returned in haste from Oneida castle were now at Schenectady, and growing impa- tient of delay. So Maj. Peter Schuyler went over to pacify them, and to assure them of prompt assistance. On the 21st scouts were dispatched to lie near the enemy and watch his motions. On the 23d news was brought that the French had burned three Mohawk castles, and were marching away with their prisoners and plunder. No time was to be lost. The troops were now assembled, and with Major Schuyler at their head, took up their line of march, to the great delight of the Mohawks, who were anxious for the fate of their wives and children, now in the hands of the French.
The forces under Major Schuyler consisted of two hundred and seventy-three whites and three hundred warriors of the Five Na- tions- Mohawks and Oneidas. On the 26th the English forces arrived at a previous camping ground of the French, where they had stayed the night before they made their last halt. Here an Oneida Indian came into camp from the French, having been sent as an emissary to induce the Indians under Schuyler to go over in a body to join the French under promise of immunity for their wives and chil-
dren. The Mohawks refused the overture, and the Oneida was retained as a prisoner.
On the morning of the 27th the English forces resumed their march, having learned that the French awaited their approach in a strongly fortified camp. Precaution was first taken, however, by Major Schuyler, to send back to Major Ingoldesby to hasten forward provisions and reinforcements. Provisions they especially stood in need of.
In marching to assault the French fort on that cold winter day, the little army under Major Schuyler did not proceed in the direct line of the well trodden old Indian trail, but made a detour to one side for fear of an am- buscade.
It was eight o'clock in the morning when the English came in sight of the fort, in which the French commanders, controlled by their Indians against their better judgment, had been impatiently waiting for them during the last four dreary days. At the point of their first full view of the French camp the Indians under Major Schuyler halted and began the felling of trees and the forming of an abattis or barricade to protect their position.
By this time the French Indians had given up all hopes of making peace with the Mo- hawks, and prepared at once for battle.
Marching out of their fort, in which they left a small guard over their prisoners, the French and their Indians made the grim old wilderness ring with the dreadful war-whoop as they rushed with wild impetuosity in a fierce assault upon the half-formed English barricade.
The English troops bravely met this savage onset, and the Mohawk and Oneida warriors, with fierce answering yells, drove back the assailants into their intrenchments.
Again sallying forth, the French a second time attempted to carry by storm the English barricade, and were again repulsed with equal valor.
Then for the third time the French com- manders bravely led their troops and Indian
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allies in a desperate assault upon the English and Mohawks. For the third time they were as bravely driven back, and disheartened, they sullenly retreated into their fortified camp.
Thus each attack was fierce and the resist- ance each time equally obstinate. The loss on the part of the French was thirty-three killed and a large number wounded. Among the latter was Sieur de Lanoue. The English loss was reported smaller-four whites and four Indians killed, two officers and twelve men wounded. In this encounter both sides lost ground by turns, and each retained its own position in the end.
With the French was Father Gay, of the Mission of the Mountain. He rushed boldly into the thickest of the fight. When he saw his neophytes run he threw himself before them, crying, "What are you afraid of ? Have you forgotten that the Holy Virgin is our leader and our protector, and that you are subjects of the King of France, whose name makes all Europe tremble? "
The remainder of the day was stormy, and both parties lay quietly in their barricades. At night the forest aisles of the old Greenfield Hills were lighted up by the camp fires of a thousand hostile men bivouacking on their arms in anticipation of a bloody morrow.
Tradition fixes the site of this battle-field on the plain a little to the west of the old Stiles tavern, nearly on the line between the towns of Greenfield and Wilton. The spot is in sight of the cars on the Mount MacGregor railroad, near King's Station.
Major Schuyler continued to strengthen his position, but was out of provisions and his men began to suffer the pangs of hunger.
The Indians, however, had resources which · the English did not possess. Major Schuyler was invited to partake of some broth they had made. He desisted upon finding in his dish the part of a human hand. His Indians were eating the dead bodies of their slain enemies.
The morning of the 28th dawned with the blinding snow storm still continuing. Major
Schuyler's scouts brought news that the French were packing their baggage with the view of making their retreat. His provisions had not come and his men, cold and starving, would not advance to attack the enemy.
At ten o'clock the French, under cover of the raging storm, stole out of their fort in good order and resumed their homeward march, along the foot of Mount MacGregor in the Palmertown mountain range toward the bend in the Hudson, at Glens Falls.
At length, on the first day of March, the long looked for provisions arrived in Major Schuyler's camp, and hastily distributing five biscuits to a man, the first served were started in pursuit.
But on the morning of the same day the French had reached the Hudson. The river was swollen with the freshet. A large cake of ice had lodged in the bend of the stream, leav- ing the angry waters open above and below. The French lost no time in crossing, and thus made good their escape. But what most dis- couraged Major Schuyler's pursuit was the averseness of the Mohawks to fall upon the French, who threatened to retaliate by slaugh- tering their wives and children, many of whom they still held captive, although forty or fifty had escaped to the English.
Their long delay on the Greenfield Hills proved disastrous to the French. On the evening of the 2d of March they arrived at the head of Lake George. Here their Indians went to hunt, and relaxing their guard over their prisoners, many more escaped and re- turned.
The greatest difficulty the French experi- enced was in carrying their wounded men. It sometimes took twenty men with a litter to carry one.
On the fourth they came to a place where, on their advance, they had buried some pro- visions, which they found were completely spoiled by the rain. This caused a famine among them. Moccasins were put into the pot and eaten. Some died of starvation, and
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it was not till the 16th and 17th that the sur- vivors reached Montreal, wasted by fatigue and hunger.
After the French crossed the Hudson, Major Schuyler abandoned the pursuit, and taking up his homeward trail reached Schenectady on the 3d of March. Here he found Governor Fletcher had arrived from New York with a large body of additional troops.
The governor had received the news of the invasion by express post from Ulster county, on the night of the 22d February, four days after it had reached Albany. He at once adopted the most vigorous measures to place the province in a state of defense.
It so happened that the thaw had been so severe that the river was free from ice to Albany, and navigation open. Calling out the city regiment, the governor on horseback ad- dressed them and demanded who were willing to follow him to the northern frontier against the enemy. They unanimously threw up their hats, crying, "one and all."
The colonel was then ordered to select a hundred and fifty best fitted for the service. Orders were sent to Colonel Courtland, of Kings, and Colonel Willet, of Queens county, each to detach one hundred and fifty men and be in readiness without delay to embark at the ferry.
Placing his little army on board of eight sloops the governor embarked for Albany, touching at Kingston for the Ulster county men. · Governor Fletcher arrived in Albany on the 27th, the day of the battle of Greenfield Hills, and proceeded with his forces without delay to Schenectady. Here he was delayed several days with all his forces, being unable to cross the swollen waters of the Mohawk then filled with floating ice. In the meantime Major Schuyler returned and reported the re- retreat of the French. The English forces were then disbanded and returned to their homes.
But before his return to New York, Governor Fletcher held a council with the warriors of
the Five Nations at Albany. Out of compli- ment to the governor, the Indians named him Ca-jen-qui-ra-goe, which means, "Lord of the Great Swift Arrow." This name they said they gave him "because of his speedy arrival with so many men for their relief, when the enemy had fallen on the Maquaes Castles."
CHAPTER XI.
FRENCH AND INDIAN WARS (Continued) -QUEEN ANNE'S WAR -ENGLISH EX- PEDITIONS AGAINST CANADA -CAM- PAIGNS OF 1709 AND 1711.
I .- CAMPAIGN OF 1709.
The accession of Queen Anne to the throne of England in the year 1700, like that of Wil- liam and Mary of twelve years before, was followed by war between England and France. This war, known in Europe as the "War of the Spanish Succession," in America was called " Queen Anne's War."
The first depredations of the French and Indians in this war were directed against New England.
In the month of February, 1704, the blow fell upon Deerfield, in the valley of the Con- necticut, in Massachusetts. On the 26th of that month the French and Indians to the number of two hundred and fifty, under the leadership of Major Hertel de Rouville, at- tacked the sleeping hamlet in the night time. They killed sixty of the inhabitants, plundered and burnt their dwellings, and carried off a hundred prisoners over ice and snow to Canada.
After sacking and burning Deerfield the In- dians hung around the vicinity all through the spring and summer months, committing fur- ' ther depredations.
During the next three years the inhabitants of the Connecticut valley were kept in a con- tinual alarm, and several persons were killed by the Indians at Southampton and Spring- field.
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Finally, aroused by these repeated injuries, in the year 1709 retaliatory measures were re- solved upon by the English colonies. To this end the help of the mother country was in- voked and cooperation promised. Another joint expedition against Canada was planned in England, at the urgent solicitation of Col. Samuel Vetch, a nephew of Col. Peter Schuy- ler, who went over for that purpose.
On the IIth of March Colonel Vetch sailed for America. A squadron of ships was to follow for Boston with five regiments of regular troops on board, numbering three thousand men.
At Boston the English ships with the regu- lars on board were to be joined by twelve hun- dred provincial troops to be raised by Mas- sachusetts and Rhode Island. Then this force was to proceed by water up the St. Lawrence against Quebec.
New York, Connecticut and New Jersey were to raise fifteen hundred more provincial troops. This last body was to rendezvous at Albany and march up the Hudson and down Lake Champlain to attack Montreal.
Richard Ingoldsby, who had previously come over with the rank of major in command of four companies of regular troops, had then become lieutenant-governor of the province. On the 21st of May Governor Ingoldsby ten- dered the command of the expedition against Montreal to Gen. Francis Nicholson.
On the 19th of May the council at New York had given orders that there should be sent forthwith to Albany a sufficient quantity of stores and provisions and all other things necessary for building canoes and boats.
Things being in readiness the fore part of June, the vanguard, consisting of three hun- dred Dutch troops, mostly raised from the Manor of Rensselaerwick, moved out of Al- bany under the command of Col. Peter Schuy- ler. With this body was a company of pioneers and artificers.
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