History of Saratoga County, New York, with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers., Part 7

Author: Sylvester, Nathaniel Bartlett, 1825-1894
Publication date: 1878
Publisher: Philadelphia, Everts & Ensign
Number of Pages: 780

USA > New York > Saratoga County > History of Saratoga County, New York, with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers. > Part 7

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

Ou the 16th of May, 1646, he set out from Three Rivers, with Sieur Bourdon, engineer to the governor, two Algon- quin ambassadors, and four Mohawks as guides.

On his way he passed over the well-remembered scenes of his former sufferings upon the river Richelieu and Lake Champlain.

He reached the foot of Lake George on the eve of Corpus Christi, which is the feast of the Blessed Body of Jesus. He named the lake, in honor of the day, " the Lake of the Blessed Sacrament." When he visited the lake before, as a poor bleeding prisoner, it was clad in the dreamy robes of the early autumn. Now its banks were clothed in the wild exuberance of leafy June. For more than a hundred years afterwards this lake bore no other name.

When Sir William Johnson began his military operations at the head of the lake, in the summer of 1755, he changed its name to Lake George, in honor of England's king.

From Lake St. Sacrament, Jogues proceeded on his way to the Mohawk country, and, having accomplished his po- litical mission, returned to Canada.

IX .- THE MISSION OF THE MARTYRS.

His work was only half done. Again, in the month of September, he set out for the Mohawk country. Ou his way he again passed over the shining waters of Lake St. Sacrament. Now it was adorned with the gorgeous gold and crimsou glories of the mid-autumn forests.

This time he went in his true character-a missionary of the gospel. But he had a strong presentiment that his life was near its end. He wrote to a friend, " I shall go and shall not return." Ilis forebodings were verified. While there in July he had left a small box containing a few ueces- sary articles, in anticipation of an early return. The superstitious savages were confident that famine, pestilence, or some evil spirit or other was shut up in the box, that would in time come forth and devastate their country. To confirm their suspicions, that very summer there was much sickness in their castles, and when the harvest came in the autumn they found that the caterpillars had eaten their

corn. The Christian missionary was held responsible for all this, and was therefore doomed to die.

He arrived at their village near Cach-na-ua-ga, on the bank of the Mohawk, on the 17th of October, and was saluted with blows. On the evening of the ISth he was invited to sup in the cabin of a chief. He accepted the invitation, and on entering the hut he was struck on the head with a toma- hawk by a savage who was concealed within the door. They cut off his head, and in the morning it was displayed upon one of the palisades that surrounded the village. His body they threw into the Mohawk.

Thus died Isaac Jogues, the discoverer of Lake George, at his Mission of the Martyrs, St. Mary of the Mohawks, in the fortieth year of his age. He was but an humble, self- sacrificing missionary of the Cross, yet his was

" Ome of the few, the immortal names That were not boro to die."

The old trail followed by Jogues through Saratoga County ran from the Hudson at Glen's Falls along the foot of Mount MacGregor, and turning northerly at the Stiles tavern, crossed the whole length of Greenfield, and passed near Lake Desolation, over the Kayadrosseras range, into the Mohawk valley.

CHAPTER IX.

FRENCH AND INDIAN WARS-THE NORTH- ERN INVASION OF 1666.

AFTER the weary feet of Isaac Jogues had ccased to tread the war-trails of old Saratoga and Kay-ad-ros-se-ra, the next expedition of importance which passed from the St. Lawrence to the Mohawk over these old trails was the famous expeditiou of Governor Daniel de Remi, Sieur de Courcelle, and the Marquis de Tracy, lieutenant-general of Canada, to the Mohawk country in 1666. This expedition was also intimately connected with the naming of the Chazy river, of Clintou county, on Lake Champlain.

The Chazy river flows from the beautiful lake of the same name northerly and easterly, and falls into the northerly end of Lake Champlain, nearly opposite the Isle la Motte, of historic fame. The Chazy lake sleeps at the foot of Mount Lyon, one of the central peaks of a mountain group of the Lake Bell of the Wilderness, on the rugged eastern border of Clinton county.

This beautiful stream was named in memory of Sieur Chazy, a young French nobleman, who was murdered on its banks near its mouth, by the Indians, in the year 1666.

M. Chazy was a nephew of the Marquis de Tracy, and was a captain in the famous French regiment, Carignan- Salières.

This regiment was the first body of regular troops that was sent to Canada by the French king.

It was raised by Prince Carignan in Savoy during the year 1544. Eight years after it was conspienous in the service of the French king in the battles with Prince Conde in the revolt of the Fronde. But the Prince of Carignan was unable to support the regiment, and gave it to the king, who attached it to the armies of France.

HISTORY OF SARATOGA COUNTY, NEW YORK.

In 1664 it took a distinguished part with the allied forces of France in the Austrian war with the Turks. The next year it went with Traey to Canada. Among its captains, besides Chazy, were Sorel, Chambly, La Motte, and others whose names are so familiar in Canadian annals. The regi- ment was commanded by Colonel de Salières. Ilenee its double name .*

In 1665, Traey landed at Quebec in great pomp and splendor.t The Chevalier de Chaumont was at his side, and a long line of young noblesse, gorgeous in lace, ribbons, and majestic leonine wigs, followed in his train. As this splendid array of noblemen marched through the narrow streets of the young eity at the tap of the drum, escorted by the regiment Carignan-Salières, " the bronzed veterans of the Turkish wars," each soldier with slouched hat, nodding plume, bandolier, and shouldered firelock, they formed a glittering pageant, such as the New World had uever seen before.

In the same year the captain Sieur La Motte built Fort St. Anne upon the Isle La Motte, at the south end of Lake Champlain, opposite the month of the Chazy river. Young Chazy was stationed at this fort in the spring of 1666, and while hunting in the woods, near the mouth of the river, with a party of' officers, was surprised and attacked by a roving band of Iroquois. Chazy, with two or three others, was killed upon the spot, and the survivors captured and ear- ried off prisoners to the valley of the Mohawk. For months the war thus begun raged with unabated violence, and the old wilderness was again drenched in blood, as it had been in the time of Father Jogues, twenty years before.

But in the August following a grand council of peace was held with the Iroquois at Quebec. During the council Tracy invited some Mohawk chiefs to dine with him. At the table some allusion was made to the murder of Chazy. A chief, named Ag-ari-ata, at once held out his arm and boastingly said,-

" This is the hand that split the head of that young man !"

" You shall never kill anybody else," exclaimed the horror-stricken Tracy, and ordered the insolent savage to be taken out and hanged upon the spot, in sight of his comrades.}

Of course peace was no longer thought of. Tracy made haste to march against the Mohawks with all the forces at his eommand.

During the month of September, Quebec on the St. Law- renee, and Fort St. Anne on the Isle La Motte in Lake Champlain, were seenes of busy preparation. At length Tracy and the governor, Courcelle, set out from Quebec on the day of the exaltation of the Cross, " for whose glory," says the Relation, " this expedition is undertaken." They had with them a force of thirteen hundred men and two pieces of cannon. It was the beginning of October, and the forests were putting on the gorgeous hues of an Amer- jean antumn. They went up Lake Champlain and into Lake St. Sacrament, now Lake George. As their flotilla

swept gracefully over the crystal waters of this gem of the old wilderness, it formed the first of the military pageants that in after-years made that fair seene famous in history.

Leaving their canoes where Fort William Henry was afterwards built, they plunged boldly on foot into the southern wilderness that lay before them towards the Mo- hawk country. They took the ohl Indian trail, so often trodden by Father Jogues and by war-parties of savages, which led across the Hudson at the main bend above Glen's Falls, and passed across the old Indian hunting- ground, Kay-ad-ros-se-ru, through what are now the towns of Wilton, Greenfield, and Galway, in Saratoga County, to the lower castles on the Mohawk near the mouth of the Schoharie ereek. It was more than forty miles of forests, filled with swamps, rivers, and mountains, that lay before them. Their path was a narrow, rugged trail, filled with rocks and gullies, pitfalls and streams. Their forces con- sisted of six hundred regulars of the regiment Carignan- Salières, six hundred Canadian militia, and a hundred Christian Indians from the missions.

" It seems to them," writes Mother Marie de l'Incarna- tion, in her letter of the 16th of October, 1666, " that they are going to lay siege to Paradise and win it and enter in, because they are fighting for religion and the faith."

On they went through the tangled woods, officers as well as men carrying heavy loads upon their backs, and dragging their eannon "over slippery logs, tangled roots, and oozy masses." Before long, in the vicinity of what is now known as Lake Desolation, their provisions gave out, and they were almost starved. But soon the trail led through a thick wood of chestnut-trees full of nuts, which they eagerly devoured and thus stayed their hunger.

At length, after many weary days, they reached the lower Mohawk cantons. The names of the two lower Mohawk castles were then Te-hon-da-lo-ga, which was at Fort IIun- ter, at the mouth of the Sehoharie creek, and Ga-no wa-ga, now Cuch-na-wa-ga, which was near Tribes hill. The upper castles, which were farther up the Mohawk, were the Ca-nu-jo-ha e, near Fort Plain, and Gu-ne-ga-ho-gut, oppo- site the mouth of East Canada creek.

They marched through the fertile valley of the Mohawk, the Indians fleeing into the forest at their approach. Thus the brilliant pageant of the summer that had glittered across the sombre rock of Quebec, was twice repeated by this war- like band of noblemen and sokliers amid the crimson glories of the autumn woods in the wild valley of the Mohawk. They did not need the cannon which they had brought with so much toil across the country from Lake St. Sacra- ment. The savages were frightened almost out of their wits by the noise of their twenty drums. " Let us save ourselves, brothers," said one of the Mohawk chiefs, as he ran away, " the whole world is coming against us."

After destroying all the corn-fields in the valley, and burn- ing the last palisaded Mohawk village, they planted a eross on its ashes, and by the side of the cross the royal arms of France. Then an officer, by order of Tracy, advanced to the front, and, with sword in hand, proclaimed in a loud voice that he took possession, in the name of the king of France, of all the country of the Mohawks.

Ilaving thus happily accomplished their object without

# Parkman's Old Regime, p. 181.

+ Ibid., p. 178.

į Ibid., p. 192.

IIISTORY OF SARATOGA COUNTY, NEW YORK.

the loss of a man, they returned unmolested to Canada over the route by which they came.

The death of young Chazy was avenged. The insolent Iroquois were for the first time chastised and humbled in their own country. For twenty years afterwards there was peace in the old wilderness,-peace bought by the blood of young Chazy.

Surely was the beautiful river, on whose banks his bones still rest, christened with his name amid a baptism of fire at an altar upon which the villages, the wigwams, the corn- fields of his murderers were the sacrificial offerings.

And so ended the second French and Indian war, known in colonial annals as the War of 1666.

CHAPTER X.

FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR OF 1689-90.

I .- THE INVASION OF MONTREAL OF 1689.

AFTER the return of Tracy's expedition of 1666, there was comparative peace in the old wilderness for a period of more than twenty years. But at length, owing to the mis- taken policy of Governor Denonville, the war broke out afresh, and the old northern valley again became the scene of untold horrors.

All colonies are sometimes unfortunate in their governors; and the dominion of New France was not an exception to the rule. In the manner in which some of the early Cana- dian governors treated the Iroquois of central New York, can easily be traced the persistent enmity of these savages to the French, and their unshaken friendship for the Eng- lish colonists of the Atlantic slope.

Previous to 1689 Governor Denonville had for a long time been on unfriendly terms with the Iroquois. In that year he committed warlike depredations upon their hunting- parties near the upper lakes. In the mean time, Governor Dongan, of New York, was the warm friend and ally of the Iroquois.

Governor Dongan's wrath was kindled anew when he heard that the French had invaded the country of the Senecas, seized English traders on the lakes, and built a fort at Niagara. IIe at once summoned the Five Nations to meet him at Albany. He told the assembled chiefs that their late troubles had fallen upon them because they had held councils with the French without asking his leave ; and he forbade them to do so again, and told them that, as subjects of King James, they must make no further treaty with the French except with his consent. He enjoined them to receive no more French Jesuits into their towns, and to call home their countrymen whom these fathers had converted and enticed to Cachnawaga. "Obey my com- mands," said the governor, " for that is the only way to eat well and sleep well, without fear or disturbance." The Iro- quois seemed to assent to all this; their orators said, " We will fight the French as long as a man is left."

Then arose a long controversy between Governor Dongan and Governor Denonville in reference to the Iroquois. Governor Dongan took the responsibility of protecting the

Iroquois upon his own shoulders. At length James II. consented to own the Iroquois as his subjects, and ordered Dongan to protect them.

This declaration of royalty was a great relief to Dongan. Ile now pursued more vigorous measures against the French. So the controversy ran on year after year between the two governors until the fall of 1689, when the Iroquois struck a blow which came upon the French like the crash of a thunderbolt.

During the latter part of July they assembled their war- riors and started on the war-path. Taking their bark ca- noes, they paddled down the Mohawk, passed the old city of Schenectady, and lauded at the mouth of Eel-Place creek, on the right bank of the river. Here they found a large corn-field planted by William Apple and his associates, who were inhabitants of Schenectady. Halting for a few days, they feasted upon the green corn in the car, destroying the whole field. In after-years what is now known as " Apple patent" grew out of this circumstance. Leaving the Mo- hawk, they then followed up the creek to the carrying-place which leads across into Ballston lake. At the lake they again took to their canoes, and sped across its water. It was a splendid warlike pageant for these now quietly- sleeping waters. The Iroquois were fully fifteen hundred strong, the fiercest warriors of the New World, painted and plumed for the war-path. They reached the outlet of the lake near what is now known as East Line.

Again taking their canoes from the water, they carried them over the land into the " Mourning Kill." From the " Mourning Kill" they descended into the valley of the Kay-ad-ros-se-ra river; down the Kay-ad-ros-se-ra they sped into the Kay-ad-ros-se-ra, now Saratoga, lake. Across its tranquil waters they passed in savage array, presenting a striking contrast with our modern regattas, and, entering the Fishkill, were soon upon the waters of the Hudson. Pro- ceeding up to the great carrying-place, at what is now Fort Edward, they passed over it into Wood creek, and thence down into Lake Champlain.

On the 5th of August, 1689, a violent hail-storm burst over Lake St. Louis, an expansion of the St. Lawrence a little above Montreal. Concealed by the tempest and the darkness, these fifteen hundred warriors landed at La Chine, and posted themselves in silence about the houses of the sleeping settlers, then screeched the war-whoop, and began the most frightful massacre in Canadian history. Men, women, and children were butchered indiscriminately, and the honses redneed to ashes. In the neighborhood were three stockaded forts, and an encampment of two hundred regulars were at the distance of three miles. At four o'clock in the morning, the troops in this encampment heard a can- non-shot from one of the forts. Soon after they were under arms they saw a man running towards them, just escaped from the Indian butchery. He told his story, and passed on with the news to Montreal, about six miles distant. Within a short time thereafter, there came in several fugi- tives one after another, each telling his tale of the frightful massacre. The commander of the troops at once ordered them to march. When they had advanced toward La Chine they found the houses still burning, and the bodies of the inmates strewn among them, or hanging from the stakes

HISTORY OF SARATOGA COUNTY, NEW YORK.

where they had been tortured. The Iroquois, they learned, had been encamped a mile and a half farther on, behind a tract of forest. Advancing towards the Iroquois sword in hand at the head of his men, the daring commander entered the forest ; but, at that moment, a voice from the rear commanded a halt. It was that of the Chevalier De Vaudreuil, just come from Montreal, with positive orders from Denonville to run no risks and stand solely on the defensive. On the next day eighty men from some of the forts attempted to join them ; but the Iroquois intercepted the unfortunate detachment and cut them to pieces in full sight of the forts. All were killed except Le Moyne, De Longeuil, and a few others, who escaped within the gates of the two forts,

Montreal was stricken to the earth with terror. But no attack was made either on the town or any of the forts, and the inhabitants, such as could reach them, were safe ; while the Iroquois held undisputed possession of the open country, burned all the houses and barns over an extent of nine miles, and roamed in small parties, pillaging and scalp- ing, over more than twenty miles more. They encountered no opposition nor met with any loss. Charlevoix says that the invaders remained in the neighborhood of Montreal till the middle of October; whether this be so or not, their stay was strangely long. At length, when ready to return, they re-crossed Lake St. Louis in a body, giving ninety yells, showing thereby that they had ninety prisoners of war. As they passed the forts they shouted, " Onontio, you have deceived us, and now we have deceived you !" Towards evening they encamped on the farther side of the river, and began to torture and devour their prisoners. On that miserable night groups of persons, stupefied and speechless, stood gazing from the Canadian shore at the lights that gleamed along the shore of Chateaugay, where their friends, wives, parents, or children were agonizing in the fires of the Iroquois, and where scenes were enacted of indescrib- able and nameless horror.

Under this terrible calamity Canada lay benumbed and bewildered ; but this was not all. James II., of England, the friend and ally of France, had been driven from Eng- land, and William of Orange had seized his vaeant throne. There was now war between England and France. The French not only had to contend against the Iroquois, but now the British colonies, strong and populous, were about to attack them. But Denonville was recalled, and in October sailed for France. His successor was Count de Frontenac.

II. THE BURNING OF SCHENECTADY, IN 1690.

No event in the long and bloody warfare of the old wilderness possesses a more tragic interest than the sacking and burning of Schenectady in the dead of winter, in the year 1690. Instead of opposing the Iroquois, his former allies, Frontenac at empted to reclaim them. Hle resolved, therefore, to take the offensive, not only against the Iro- quois, but also against the English, and to strike a few rapid, sharp blows that he might teach both his friends and foes that Onontio was still alive. He formed three war- parties of picked men,-une at Montreal, one at Three Rivers, and one at. Quebec; the first to strike at Albany, the second New Hampshire, and the third Maine. That

of Montreal against Albany was first ready. It consisted of two hundred men, of whom ninety-six were converted Indians, from the missions near Montreal.

D'Aillebout de Mantet and Le Moyne de Sainte-IFelene, the brave son of Charles Le Moyne, had the chief command ; they were supported by the brothers Le Moyne D'Iberville and Le Moyne De Bienville, with Repentigny de Mont- tesson, Le Ber Du Chesne, and other of the Canadian noblesse.

They began their march in the depth of winter, on snow- shoes, each soldier with the hood of his blanket drawn over his head, a gun in his mittened hand, a knife, a hatchet, a tobacco-pouch at his belt, and a pack on his shoulders. They dragged their blankets and provisions over the snow on Indian sledges. Thus they went on across the St. Law- rence up the Richelieu and the frozen Lake Champlain, and then stopped to hold a council. Frontenac had left the precise point of attack discretionary with the leaders, and the men had thus far been ignorant of their destina- tion. The Indians demanded to know it. Mantet and Sainte-Helene replied that they were going to Albany. The Indians objected,-" How long is it," asked one of them, " since the French grew so bold ?" The commanders answered that, to regain the honor of which their late mis- fortunes had robbed them, the French would take Albany or die in the attempt. After eight days they reached the Hudson, and found the place, at what is now Schuyler- ville, where two paths diverged, the one for Albany and the other for Schenectady ; they all without further words took the latter trail. There was a partial thaw, and they waded knee-deep through the half-melted snow, and the mingled ice, mud, and water of the gloomy swamps. So painful and slow was their progress that it was nine days more before they reached a point two leagues from Schenec- tady. By this time the weather had changed again, and a cold, gusty snow-storm pelted them. At four o'clock in the afternoon of the Sth of February the scouts found an Indian hut, and in it were four Iroquois squaws, whom they captured. There was a fire in the wigwam, and the shivering Canadians crowded about it and warmed them- selves over its blaze. The chief Indian, called by the Dutch " Kryn," harangued his followers, and exhorted them to wash out their wrongs in blood. They then advanced again, and about dark reached the river Mohawk, a little above the village. Their purpose had been to postpone the attack until two o'clock in the morning; but such was the inclemency of the weather that they were forced to move on or perish. Guided by the frightened squaws, they crossed the Mohawk on the ice. About eleven o'clock they saw through the storm the snow covered palisades of the devoted village. Such was their distress that some of them after- wards said that they would all have surrendered if an enemy had appeared.

The village was oblong in form and inclosed by a palisade, which had two gates, one towards Albany and the other towards the Mohawks. There was a block-house near the eastern gate, occupied by eight or nine Connecticut militia- men, under Lieutenant Talmadge. There were also about twenty or thirty Mohawks in the place, on a visit. The Dutch inhabitants were in a state of discord. The revolution

HISTORY OF SARATOGA COUNTY, NEW YORK.

in England had produced a revolution in New York. The demagogue, Jacob Leisler, had got possession of Fort Wil- liam, and was endeavoring to master the whole colony. Albany was in the hands of the anti-Leisler, or Conserv- ative party, represented in convention, of which Peter Schuyler was the chief. The Dutch of Schenectady for the most part favored Leisler, but their magistrate, John San- der Glen, stood fast for the Albany convention ; for this the villagers had threatened to kill him. Talmadge and his militia were under orders from Albany, and, therefore, like Glen, they were under the popular ban. In vain had the magistrate and Talmadge entreated the people to stand on ' their guard. They turned the advice to ridicule, and left their gates open, and placed there, it is said, a snow image as mock sentinel. There had been some festivity during the evening; but it was now over, and the primitive vil- lagers, fathers, mothers, children, and infants, lay buried in unbroken sleep. Before the open western gate, with its mock sentinel of snow, its blind and dumb warder, stood the French and Indians.

Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.

History of Saratoga County, New York, with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers., Part 7

Author: Sylvester, Nathaniel Bartlett, 1825-1894 Publication date: 1878 Publisher: Philadelphia, Everts & Ensign Number of Pages: 780

Author: Sylvester, Nathaniel Bartlett, 1825-1894
Publication date: 1878
Publisher: Philadelphia, Everts & Ensign
Number of Pages: 780