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

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

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The assailants were now formed into two bands, Sainte- Ilelene leading the one and Mantet the other. They passed through the gate together in dead silence. One turned to the right and the other to the left, and they filed around the village between the palisades and the houses, till the two leaders met at the farther end. Thus the place was completely surrounded. The signal was then given ; they all sereeched the war-whoop together, burst in the doors with hatchets, and fell to their work. The villagers, roused by the infernal din, leaped from their beds. For some it was but a nightmare of fright and horror, ended by the blow of the tomahawk. Others were less fortunate. Neither children nor women were spared. "No pen can write, and no tongue express," wrote Schuyler, " the cruel- ties that were committed." At the block-house, Talmadge and his men made a stubborn fight, but the doors were at length forced in, the defenders killed or taken, and the building set on fire. Adam Vrooman, one of the villagers, saw his wife shot and his child brained against the door- posts, but he fought so desperately that the assailants prom- ised him his life. Orders had been given to spare Peter Tassemaker, the minister. He was hacked to pieces and his house burned. A few fortunate ones fled towards Albany in the storm to seek shelter. Sixty persons were killed outright, of whom thirty-eight were men and boys, ten were women, and twelve were children. The number cap- tured, it appears, was between eighty and ninety. The thirty Mohawks in the town were treated with great kindness by the victors, who declared that they had no quarrel with them, but only with the Dutch and English. For two hours this terrible massacre and pillage continued ; then the prisoners were secured, sentinels posted, and the men told to rest and refresh themselves. In the morning a small party crossed the river to the house of Glen, which stood on a rising ground, at what is now called Scotia. Glen had prepared to defend himself; but the French told him not to fear, for they had orders not to hurt a chicken of his. After requiring them to lay down their arms, he allowed them to enter. Glen had on several occasions saved the lives of the French, and owing him therefore a debt of gratitude, they

took this means of repaying it. He was now led before the crowd of prisoners and told that not only were his own life and property safe, but that all of his kindred should be spared. So many elaimed relationship with Glen that the Indians observed " that everybody seemed to be his rela- tion." Fire was now set to all the buildings except one in which a French officer lay wounded, another belonging to Glen, and three or four more which he begged the victors to spare. At noon Schenectady was in ashes. The French and Indians then withdrew, laden with booty. Dragging their sledges with thirty or forty horses, which were cap- tured, twenty-seven men and boys were driven prisoners into the forest. About sixty old men, women, and children were left behind, without injury by the vietors. Only two of the invaders had been killed.

The French and Indians returned across the territory of Saratoga County, in the order in which they came, pursued by the English troops. They were overtaken near Lake Champlain, and a few prisoners taken. Before reaching Montreal, they came near starving, such was the inclemency of the season and the difficulties of the journey.

III .- FITZ JOHN WINTHROP'S EXPEDITION OF 1690.

The first American Congress was held on the 1st of May, 1690, in the fort at New York. It was agreed that while the fleet should attack Quebec the army should proceed by way of Lake Champlain to Montreal and thus effeet the conquest of Canada.

The command of this expedition was given to Fitz John Winthrop, of Connecticut. He was commissioned a major- general in the service, being already a member of the coun- cil of Governor Andros. On the 14th of July of this year General Winthrop set out from Hartford with some troops, and was seven days marching through the almost impassable wilderness before he reached Albany, on the TIndson. Ile had been preceded by two companies under Captains Johnson and Fitch. "At Albany," says Win- throp, " I found the design against Canada poorly contrived and prosceuted, all things confused and in no readiness to march, and everybody full of idle projects about it."

The expedition consisted of four hundred troops from New York, one hundred and thirty-five men, being three companies, from Connecticut, thirty Ricer Indians, and one hundred and fifty Mohmicks. A sorry array compared to the thousands who, sixty-eight years after, swept up the Hudson through Lake George, under Abercrombie and Lord Howe, to find " glory and a grave" at Ticonderoga. On the 30th of July the New England troops and the In- dians moved up four miles and encamped on the flats of Watervliet. On the 1st of August Winthrop's expedition reached Stillwater, where they encamped for the night. The next morning Winthrop took up the line of march for Saratoga, now Sehuylerville, where there was a block-house and some Dutch soldiers. At this place he found the re- eorder of Albany, Mr. Wessells, and a company of prinei- pal gentlemen, volunteers from that eity. llere he got letters from Major Peter Schuyler, the mayor of Albany, who had already gone up the river before him with the Dutch troops, to the effect that he, Major Schuyler, who was situated at the second carrying-place, now Fort Miller,

HISTORY OF SARATOGA COUNTY, NEW YORK.

was making canoes for the army. " Thus far," Winthrop says, " the way was good ; only four great wading rivers, only one of them dangerous for horse and man."

On the 4th of August the provisions were divided ; to each soklier was given thirty-five cakes of bread, besides pork, and Winthrop moved up eight miks to Fort Miller ; the Dutch soldiers carrying up their supplies in their bark canoes, and the Connecticut troops carrying them on horses. " llere," says Winthrop, " the water passeth so violently, by reason of the great falls and rocks, that canoes eannot pass ; so they were forced to carry their provisions and canoes on their backs a pretty ways to a passable part of the river." This point was then known as "the Little Carrying-Place." On the 5th of August the soldiers marched about eight miles to " The Great Carrying-Place," taking their pro- visions on their horses, the Dutch having already gone up the river in their canoes. On the 6th of August the little army marched over the "Great Carrying-Place" twelve miles, to the forks on Wood creek, since called Fort Aun. The way was through a continuous swamp covered with tall white-pine trees. On the 7th of August, General Win- throp sent back thirty horses to Saratoga, under command of Ensign Thomilson, for provisions. On the same day the general passed down Wood ereck with two files of musketeers, flanked by the Indians under Captain Stanton, to the llautkill, now Whitehall, where he encamped with Major Schuyler and the Mohawk captains, on the north side of Wood ereck. On the 9th of August the general received information through Captain Johnson, who had been sent to Albany some days previous for provisions, that the western Indians whom he expected to meet at the Isle La Motte, near the north end of Lake Champlain, had not left their country on account of the smallpox breaking out among them. The expression the Indians used was " that the great God had stopped their way." The smallpox had also broken ont in the army under Winthrop, and seriously reduced the available force. The French claimed that of this expedition four hundred Indians and two hundred English died of the smallpox.

While at Hantkill, Major Schuyler sent forward Captain Sanders Glen,-the same who had been spared at the Sche- nectady massacre,-with a company of twenty-eight men and five Indians. At Ticonderoga Glen erected on the 5th of August some stone breastworks, and waited for the expedi- tion to come up; but it was found that the time was so

far spent that bark would not peel, and therefore no more canoes could be built that season. It was further aseer- tained that the commissaries at Albany could forward no further supplies of provisions. On the 15th of August a council of war was held, and it was resolved to return with the army to Albany. Thus ended the first expedition against Canada undertaken by the English colonists. Cap- tain John Schuyler, however, proceeded on down Lake Champlain, on his first expedition against the French at La Prairie. When the troops, on their return, reached Wood creek, Lieutenant Hubbell died of the smallpox ; he was buried there with much ceremony. All the forts above Saratoga, with the stores and boats, were burned. Winthrop's army reached Greenbush, opposite Albany, on the 20th of August, having been absent just three weeks.

CHAPTER XI.

THE NORTHERN INVASION OF 1693-A BATTLE IN SARATOGA.

IN the month of January, 1693, Count de Frontenac, governor of Canada, dispatched a force from Montreal with orders to invest and destroy the Mohawk castles, and com- mit as great ravages as possible around Fort Orange.

This expedition was under the command of De Manteth Courtemanche and La Nuoe. All the Canadian mission Indians were invited to join it,-the Iroquois of the Saut and mountain ; Abenakis, from the Chaudiere ; Ilutrous, from Lorette; and Algonquins, from Three Rivers. A hundred regular soldiers were added, and a large band of Canadian voyageurs. The whole force mustered six hun- dred and twenty-five men. They left Chambly at the end of January, and pushed southward on snow-shoes. Their way was over the ice of Lake Champlain, and so on to the Mohawk country. At night, in squads of twelve or more, they bivonacked in the forest ; they dug away the snow in a circle and covered the bare earth with hemlock boughs, built a fire in the middle, and sat around it. It was six- teen days before they reached the two lower Mohawk towns, which were a quarter of a league apart. They surrounded one town on the night of the 16th of February, and waited in silence till the voiees within were hushed, when they attacked the place, capturing all the inhabitants without resistance. They then marched to the next town, reached it at evening, and hid in the neighboring woods. Through all the early evening they heard the whoops and songs of the warriors within who were dancing the war-dance. The Mohawks had posted no sentinels; and one of the French Indians, scaling the palisade, opened the gate to his eom- rades. The fight was short but bloody. Twenty or thirty Mohawks were killed. and nearly three hundred captured, chiefly women and children. After burning the last Mo- hack town the French and their Indian allies began their retreat, encumbered with a long train of prisoners. It was the intent of the French to push on to Schenectady and Albany, but they were overruled by the Indian chiefs, who represented that the number of the prisoners was so great they would prevent them from making any farther advances. In the mean time the whole country had become alarmed. Lieut. John Schuyler and fifty-five horse marched from Albany to Schenectady. These were quickly followed by Major Schuyler, who sent out scouts to watch the enemy's movements. The English crossed the Mohawk, started in pursuit of the enemy with two hundred and seventy-three men, marched twelve miles, and eneamped. At one o'clock the next morning they broke camp and marched till six o'clock A.M., when they were advised that the Canadians were eight miles distant. At four o'clock P.M. the Eng- lish forces marched to a place near Tribes hill, where the invaders had remained the night before. On Tuesday, the 15th, they received a reinforcement of Mohawks, who had come down from the upper country, and they marched about ten miles to a place near Galway, where they halted and sent spies to discover the enemy. On Thursday, the 17th, they marched in the morning to the place where the French had previously encamped, near Greenfield Centre. Two miles

HISTORY OF SARATOGA COUNTY, NEW YORK.

farther on they learned, through a Christian Indian boy, that the French were then within three miles. They then marched and encamped within a mile of the enemy, where the French had built a fort, Indian fashion, near what is now known as the Stiles' tavern, in Wilton, on the eastern border of the Palmerton mountains. The English soon appeared before the fortified camp of the French. The forest at once rang with the war-whoops of the savages, and the English Indians set at work to intrench themselves with felled trees. The French and the Indian allies sallied to dis- lodge them. The attack was fierce and the resistance equally so. With the French, a priest of the Mission of the Moun- tain, named Gay, was in the thick of the fight; and, when he saw his neophytes run, he threw himself before them, crying, " What are you afraid of? We are fighting with infidels, who have nothing human but the shape. Have you forgotten that the Holy Virgin is our leader and our pro- tector, and that you are subjects of the King of France, whose name makes all Europe tremble ?" Three times the French renewed the attack in vain. They then gave over the attempt and lay quietly behind their barricade of trees. So did their English opponents also. The morning was dark and dreary ; a drifting snow-storm filled the air. The English were out of provisions and in a starving condition. The Indians, however, did not want for food, having re- sources unknown to their white friends. Schuyler was invited to taste some broth which they had prepared, but his appetite was spoiled when he saw them ladle a man's hand out of the kettle. The Indians were making their breakfast on the bodies of the dead Frenehmen.

All through the next night the hostile bands watched each other behind their sylvan ramparts. In the morning an Indian deserter told the English commander that the French were packing their baggage. They had retreated under cover of the snow-storm. Schuyler ordered his men to follow, but they had fasted three days and refused to go. The next morning some provisions arrived from Albany. Five biscuits were served out to each man, and the pursuit began. By great efforts they nearly overtook the fugitives, who now sent word back that if the English made an attack all the prisoners should be put to death. Ou hearing this the Indians under Schuyler refused to continue the chase.

When the French reached the Hudson, they found to their dismay that the ice was breaking up and drifting down the stream. Happily for them, a large sheet of it had become wedged at the bend of the river, that formed a temporary bridge, over which they crossed and pushed up to Lake George. Before the English arrived at the river the ice- bridge had again floated away, and the pursuit was ended. Thus was fought on the soil of Saratoga County, within six miles of Saratoga Springs, one of the sanguinary con- tests of the old wilderness warfare.

The battle is said to have been on the plain which lies to the northwest of Stiles' tavern. This region of the country was afterwards occupied by the Palmerton Indians. The peace of Ryswyck was declared two years after, in 1695, and for fourteen years thereafter, and until what is known as Queen Anne's war broke out, there was peace in the old wilderness.

CHAPTER XII.

FRENCH AND INDIAN WARS, 1709-48.

I .- QUEEN ANNE'S WAR.

IN the year 1709, what is known as Queen Anne's war broke out in Europe and speedily extended to the American colonies, each of which soon became bent on the extermi- nation of the other. Peter Schuyler was now of the executive council, a commissioner of Indian affairs, and a colonel in the service. He was called by the Indians Guider, because they could not pronounce his name. Ilis brother John had been advanced to the grade of lieutenant- colonel.

Richard Ingoldsby, who had come over with the rank of major, as commander of Her Majesty's four companies of regulars, was now lieutenant-governor of the province. Again a joint expedition was planned by the colonists for the conquest of Canada. Five regiments of regulars were to be joined with twelve hundred provincial troops, who were to proceed by sea to Quebec.

Another body of troops was to rendezvous at Albany- for the attack on Montreal. The forces for this latter ex- pedition were placed under the command of Colonel Vetch, a nephew of Peter Schuyler, and General Nicholson. Nicholson was tendered the command by Governor In- goldsby on the 21st of May, 1709.

On the 19th of May, the council had given orders that there should be sent forthwith to Albany a sufficient quan- tity of stores and provisions, and all other things necessary for building storehouses and boats and make canoes. About the 1st of June the vanguard of the expedition, consisting of three hundred men, with the pioneers and artificers, moved out of Albany, under the command of Colonel Schuyler. Proceeding to Stillwater, they built a stockaded fort for provisions, which they named Fort Ingoldsby. They also built stockaded forts at Saratoga, situated on the east side of the river, below the Battenkill, and another at Fort Miller falls. From Saratoga they built a road up the east side of the river to the Great Carrying-Place. At the bank of the IIudson they built, at the Great Carrying-Place, another fort, which they called Fort Nicholson. This has since become Fort Edward. From Fort Edward they went across the Great Carrying-Place to the Wood creek, where they built another fort, which they called Fort Schuyler. This name was shortly afterwards changed to Fort Ann. At Fort Ann they built a hundred bark canoes, one hun- dred and ten boats, which would hold from six to ten men each. Lieutenant-Colonel John Schuyler was in command of this place.

The number of men was finally increased to eleven hun- dred and fifty. Fort Nicholson was garrisoned by four hundred and fifty men, including seven companies of reg- ulars, in scarlet uniform, from Old England. At the Fort Miller falls there were forty men, and at Stillwater seventy men. In the mean time, Governor Vaudreuil had moved up from Montreal to Chambly, to watch the motions of the invaders. But this expedition overland was simply auxiliary to the fleet by sea from Boston. As this latter failed nothing further came of the invasion, and the sommer

HISTORY OF SARATOGA COUNTY, NEW YORK.

passed away in idleness. While at Fort Ann a fatal sickness broke out in the English camp, and a great number died as if poisoned. In October, Colonel Nicholson returned with his crippled forces to Albany. Charlevoix states that this sickness was produced by the treachery of the Indians, who threw the skins of their game into the swamp above the camp. It is probable, however, that it was a malignant dysentery, caused by the extreme heat and the malaria of the swamps. Two years later, in 1711, a second army was fitted out in a similar manner to the last and for the same purpose. It was composed of three regiments, as fol- lows : first, Colonel Ingoldsby's regulars ; secondly, Colonel Schuyler's New York troops; thirdly, Colonel Woodin's troops, from Connecticut. The whole foree consisted of about three thousand men, under command of General Nicholson, and left Albany on the 24th of August. By the 28th the troops were all on their march beyond Albany. They proceeded as far as Fort Ann, which had been de- stroyed two years before. Shortly after arriving at Fort Ann, intelligence was received that Her Majesty's fleet had been shattered by storms in the St. Lawrence, with the loss of one thousand troops, and the expedition was abandoned. Thus the third attempt to conquer Canada proved abortive ; and in 1713 the peace of Utrecht, between England and France, again put a stop to the warfare of the old wilderness.

II .- THE ATTACK ON FORT CLINTON, AT SARATOGA.

In 1744 war was again deelared between England and France. In the midst of the profound peace of the pre- eceding thirty-one years, the French had advanced up Lake Champlain as far as Crown Point, where they built Fort St. Frederick, in the year 1731. In the month of Novem- ber, 1745, an expedition against the English settlement was fitted out at Montreal ; it was composed of three hundred Frenehmen and as many Indians. Their object was to attack and capture the settlements on the Connecticut river; but, on their arrival at Fort St. Frederick, they changed this purpose and proeceded down to Saratoga. On the night of the 16th of November they attacked the little settlement of Saratoga, plundered and burned about twenty houses, together with the fort. They killed and sealped about thirty persons, and carried off' sixty prisoners ; only one family escaped by flight, who, as they looked back, saw the fort in flames. Among the killed was John Philip Schuyler, an uncle of General Philip Schuyler of Revolu- tionary memory. Schuyler had made his will a few years before, by which he divided his property between two nephews, one of whom was General Philip Schuyler.

In the spring of 1746 the English rebuilt the fort at Saratoga, changing its location, however, to accommodate some wheat-fields which were there growing, giving it the name of Fort Clinton.

On the 29th of August, 1746, a band of French and Indians, under command of M. De Repentigny, who were scouting near by, made an attack upon a party of twenty soldiers near the gates of the fort, killing four men, who were scalped by the Indians, and took four prisoners.

In June, 1747, an expedition started from Fort St. Frederick to attack and destroy Fort Clinton, at Saratoga. It was under the command of La Corne St. Luc, and con-

sisted of twenty Frenchmen and two hundred Indians. On the night of the 11th of June they arrived before the fort. While the main body of the French were lying in conceal- ment near by, La Corne sent forward six scouts with orders to lie in ambush within eight paces of the fort, to fire upon those who should come out of the fort the next morning, and if attacked to retire pretending to be wounded. At daybreak in the morning two Englishmen came out of the fort, and they were at once fired upon by the French scouts, who thereupon fled. Soon after the firing began, a hun- dred and twenty Englishmen came out of the fort, headed by their officers, and started in hot pursuit of the French scouts. The English soon fell in with the main body of the French, who rising from their auibuscade, poured a galling fire into the English ranks. The English at first bravely stood their ground and sharply returned the fire. The guns of the fort also opened upon the French with grape and cannon shot. But the Indians soon rushed upon the English with terrible yells, and with tomahawk in hand drove them into the fort, giving them seareely time to shut the gates behind them. Many of the English soldiers, being unable to reach the fort, ran down the hill into the river, and were drowned or killed with the tomahawk. The Indians killed and scalped twenty-eight of the English, and took forty-five prisoners, besides those drowned in the river.

In the autumn following this disaster, Fort Clinton, of Saratoga, was dismantled and burned by the English, and Albany once more became the extreme northern ontpost of the English colonies, with nothing but her palisaded walls between her and the uplifted tomahawks of the ever-frown- ing north. In May, 1748, peace was again proclaimed, which lasted for the brief period of seven years, until the beginning of the last French and Indian war of 1755, which ended in the conquest of Canada.

During this short peace of seven years, the settler's axe was heard upon many a hillside, as he widened his little clearing, and the smoke went curling gracefully upward from his lonely cabin in many a valley along the upper Hudson.

It was in the summer of 1749, during this short peace, that Peter Kalm,* the Swedish botanist, traveled, in the interests of science, through this great northern war-path. lle gives, in his account of the journey, a graphic descrip- tion of the ruins of the old forts at Saratoga, at Fort Nich- olson, and Fort Ann, which were then still remaining in the centres of small deserted elearings in the great wilder- ness through which he passed. He made many discoveries of rare and beautiful plants before unknown to Europeans, and in our swamps and lowlands a modest flower, the kalmia glauca, swamp laurel, blooms in perpetual remembrance of his visit. But there were no mineral springs in the Sara-' toga visited by Peter Kahm.

CHAPTER XIII.

LAST FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR, 1755-63.

WE have now come, in passing through the history of the long colonial wars of the old wilderness, to the last

* Vide Kalm's Travels, in Pinkerton, vol. xiii.

HISTORY OF SARATOGA COUNTY, NEW YORK.

French and Indian war, which raged for a period of eight years, ending in the peace of 1763.

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

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