USA > New York > Schoharie County > History of Schoharie County, New York : with illusustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers > Part 55
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evil spirits might be frightened away long enough for the doctor to get some of the medi- cine down the patient. Dominick, upon being released, concluded to leave the evil spirit found with the doctor, and when the latter's watchful eye was turned, he took to his heels and wandered down to Breakabeen, where he concealed himself for a while, and sent word to his sons to take him home. Regardless of dis- tasteful medicine, whippings, and the jeers of the uncharitable, Dominick was still a Methodist, and continued so to be until his death. He was the leader of the first Methodist service in the County, and for many years attended the old Knox church, from which a pastor was sent to preach in the school-house, in the present district, Number One, long before the present Methodist organization was formed.
His children were :-
John, Francis,
George,
Peter, Maria, (Mrs. Peter Schell,)
the children of whom love to relate the bewitch- ing life of the Christian grandfather, whose shouts of Hallelujah and Glory awoke distrust of lunacy among the simple settlers, and brought persecution upon him, to which his happy spirit responded a fervent Amen !
Upon the surrender of Burgoyne quite a colony of Hessians came to this town and located south of the creek upon the hills and became thrifty and industrious farmers, whose descendants are still in possession of the lands. Among them were the Nasholts, Derringers, Bellers, Hiltzley, Spateholts, (originally Betholts,) Shofelt and Keinholts. The latter, after settled in Guilderland.
Having referred to the earliest settlers, we will now consider the events of the Revolution- ary war as they occurred within the limits of the town, not forgetful of the fact that the set- tlers were in independent circumstances through their industrious and economical habits.
Nothing of a warlike nature occurred here until the morning of July 26, 1782, the particu- lars of which we draw from "Schoharie County
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and Border wars," whose author was conversant with the patriots who were in the strife upon that day. We are also indebted to Gideon Becker a grandson of one of the actors, for loca- tion of events and the free use of ancient docu- ments to substantiate dates and traditions.
On that eventful morning a band of Indians and Tories under the command of Adam Crysler, numbering twenty-five sallied out from Johannes Schaeffer's residence, where they had lodged a few days, to that of Jacob Zimmer, nearly two miles distant and somewhat obscured from the main settlement, without being de- tected by the neighbors.
Zimmer and his son Peter were not at home, but the savage band found others to practice their cruelty upon in the person of Jacob Jr., and a Hessian that worked for the family. The former was tomahawked and scalped in the presence of his wife and mother, and the latter was killed a few rods from the buildings in a brutish manner by crushing the skull with a stone. Perhaps he was the first one attacked and that method was adopted not to apprise the family of their approach.
After setting fire to the house and barn they turned their course back to the Becker neigh- borhood. The barn was entirely consumed, but the house being built of stone, the two Mrs. Zimmers succeeded in extinguishing the fire. Peter, another son, went to the Beckers upon an errand that morning and upon his return was met by the party who took him prisoner. Upon his asking the leader if they saw his brother Jacob, they replied they had left him home with the women, but ere they had marched to the Becker house, he recognized his brother's bleed- ing scalp dangling from an Indian's musket.
Upon nearing the Becker mansion which stood where the old house now stands, the party heard some one chopping, to the northeast of the house and they slily approached, and found John, the next oldest of the Becker sons, busily engaged in clearing a spot for a wheat stack. It being understood by the settlers that the enemy was bent on destroying their harvest, which as- sisted in the army supply, and to avoid it being burned they usually built stacks in thickets out- side of the regular paths, and John was that
morning engaged in preparing a spot for such purposes.
They came upon him unawares and struck him with a tomahawk upon the back of the head driving the weapon to the brain, which from appearances, instantly killed him. His scalp was taken and they passed on towards the house, near which were Jacob and William hoe- ing corn. The latter saw the party approaching in the thicket and cried "Indians !" upon which both dropped their hoes and ran towards the house. The Indians could have shot them both but not wishing to alarm the neighborhood, especially Major Becker of the present Delong residence, they tried to catch them by cutting off their retreat, but they both ran directly for the bank of the creek, east of the house and in- stead of running down the stream as one would naturally expect, to gain the stone house of Major Becker, they ran up along the steep bank and hid. The Indians were close upon them, but they eluded their search, owing, per- haps to the thick underbrush that grew along the bank, beneath the roots of which the water ran, and under which they hid. At one time Jacob could touch his pursuer's leg, but did not feel disposed to gain his attention by so doing. His heart throbs seemed to be loud enough to be heard at quite a distance, but the savage passed on over to an island that has long since disappeared, and searched for them. Not find- ing them he bent his course towards Major Becker's as did the whole force, without molest- ing the women who had hid near the cabbage patch they were hoeing when the party made their appearance, or setting fire to the buildings. No doubt but the invasion was made for the purpose of either taking Major Becker prisoner or obtaining his scalp, and the greatest caution was used in not apprising him of their presence.
The party were guided by a Tory neighbor, whose intimacy with the Beckers and Zimmers had been very close, both in a social and busi- ness point of view and without any aggravating interruption. It was but another example of the treachery the human heart is capable of practicing, when imaginary gain is to be en- joyed, and we find that at no period in the his- tory of our country, was the art practiced so much as in the Revolutionary war.
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Joseph and William remained concealed un- til the savages passed on, when they went upon the hill to the south of the house, and in an open spot pulled their clothes off to dry them in the sun, as they had lain partly in the water when concealed.
They heard the firing at Major Becker's, and moved on to the west to gain a ledge of rocks, north of Shutter's corners, from which they could look down upon the valley and witness the result of the attack. Before gaining the rocks, they heard the party approaching, and William, thinking it to be the neighboring women seeking safety by flight, came very near calling to then, and would have done so, had not the more discreet Jacob cautioned him. Soon the whole force passed up the brook near them, wending their way in the direction of the Cobles- kill, not wishing to pass down Fox's creek to the Schoharie, and then down, as they might be met with a force from the Lower Fort. The young men again started, after the party passed, and from the rocks, saw the house still stand- ing, and a few men close by. They drew near cautiously, for fear there might be a few still lurk- ing near, but upon close inspection, the brawny form of Schell and Hutt, were recognized, when they boldly joined them. The old house is still standing, as before stated, although its general appearance has been changed according to the fancy or convenience of later occupants. J. R. Simms says of its former design :-
" It had, at that period, a gambrel roof. A hall passed through it from north to south, with a door at each end. The house contamed five front and five rear windows, and at that time, two chamber windows in the east gable end, since altered.
"The upper part of the house was unfur- nished, and all in one room, and the windows were barricaded nearly to the top, with oak plank, the front door was closed up with plank, and the back door, then the only entrance to the house, strengthened by a false door, also of oak, to arrest the bullets of the enemy.
"Just before Crysler," continued the histor- ian, "and his murderers arrived at Major Becker's, Henry, his son, then nine years of age, Jacob Zimmer, Jr.,-nephew of the one mur-
dlered-and several other boys about the same age, had been a little distance southeast of the house to drive hogs to a pasture.
"On their return, and when within ten or fifteen rods of the house, one of the boys said to the rest : 'See the ritlemen over there ; they are painted like the Indians !' The Schoharie rangers, when on a scout, were clad much like Indians, but young Becker instantly recog nized the party to be a band of savages. A few rods above the house was a small island contain- ing perhaps an acre of ground, separated from the bank southeast of the dwelling, by a deep pool of stagnant water, over which had been felled a tree. The enemy being upon the island, had either to make a circuit, or cross the log, which could only be done in single file. This gave the boys a little start, and they ran to the house shouting "Indians ! Indians !"
"They could easily have been shot, as they were but a few rods distant from the enemy, but the latter still hoped to surprise a militia Major, which would doubtless have been done, had not the boys thus opportunely discovered their ap- proach.
" Major Becker, who chanced to be engaged back of the house, caught the alarm, and running in seized his gun, entered the southwest room, thrust it through a loop-hole above one of the windows, and fired upon the invaders, breaking an Indian's arm.
" As the boys ran into the hall door, they en- countered several children within, and all tum- bled in a heap.
" Major Becker's wife, who was a woman of the times, sprang to the plank door, which fastened with a ring and bolt, drew it to, and held it ajar with the bolt in her hand.
" John Hutt, as the enemy approached, was at the western end of the house making a whiffletree. Mrs. Becker continued to hold the door open for Hutt, who took alarm from the furious barking of three dogs belong- ing to the inmates of the house, which had met and were giving battle to the invaders, who halted to shoot them. As Hutt neared the door, a large Indian sprang to seize him; but the former raised the missile which he had re- tained in his hand, in a threatening manner, the
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HISTORY OF SCHOHARIE COUNTY.
latter recoiled, and he sprang into the door, which was quickly bolted by Mrs. Becker. Had not Mrs. Becker possessed great presence of mind, and the dogs met the enemy, Hutt must have either been slain or captured by them.
"The shot of the Major may also have damped the ardor of the assailants. George Schell, another Schoharie soldier, was for- tunately in the house at the time, and assisted in its defense.
" The inmates of the house consisting of the three men named, Mrs. Becker, Mrs. Adam Zimmer, possibly one or two other women, and some eight or ten children, went upstairs. The Major took his station at the southwest corner window, which commanded the enemy's ap- proach to his barn, assigned to Hutt the eastern gable windows, and to Schell, the northwest window opposite his own, which commanded their approach to the mill, which stood a few rods from the house upon the ground now occupied by the raceway of the present mill. The lower sash of the upper windows was also secured by plank.
" The enemy immediately ran around the eastern end of the house, and there gained temporary shelter, some under the creek bank, some behind a fence, and others behind a small log building standing a little distance southeast of the house, used as a sort of store-room. The enemy fired numerous balls at the windows, twen- ty-eight entering the window at which Hutt was stationed. He was a bold, vigilant fellow, and often incurred the censure of Major Becker for exposing his person so much about the window, telling him that the force of the enemy was unknown, but their own was three men, the loss of one being one-third of their strength. Hutt however, could not be restrained by the prudent counsels of the Major, and kept constantly returning the shot of the enemy.
" Discovering through a crevice of the log building the hat of one of his foes, Hutt sent a bullet through the brim of it close to the crown. This hat, it was afterwards ascertained, was on the head of Captain Crysler.
"The balls of the enemy cut the air several times around the head of Hutt like the fall of hail in a hurricane, but fortunately without injury.
"After continuing the attack for some time, the enemy attempted to fire the building. They placed a wheel-barrow under the water con- ductor leading from the gutter at the northeast corner of the house to within three or four feet of the ground; and piling on combustibles set them on fire which quickly communicated with the wooden spout, and threatened the destruc- tion of the building.
"It was impossible for the inmates of the house to fire on their foes while applying the in- cendiary torch without exposing themselves to almost instant death, as some of the Indians were constantly on the lookout for such an ex- posure.
" As the flames began to ascend the gutter towards the roof, Major Becker, who had no inclination to be burned alive, set about forc- ing off the corner of it with a piece of scantling, which fortune placed in the chamber, while his wife went into the cellar to procure water. On entering the cellar she found an outside cellar door upon the north side of the building stand- ing wide open, where the enemy might have entered had they gone to the other end of the building, which they could have done without danger.
"Fastening the door, and procuring a pail of water, she returned to the chamber. For a time the roof, which was nailed on with heavy wrought nails as was the ancient custom, baf- fled all the Major's efforts, but at length yielded and he sank down almost exhausted.
"As the shingles fell to the ground the In- dians gathered them up, exclaiming "Yok-wah" Thank you! and added in the dialect, "we can kindle it now." A hole being made, water was thrown down and the fire extinguished. The enemy soon had it blazing again with additional combustibles but it was again put out and again rekindled and put out, until the spout had burned off above their reach, when they abandoned further attempts to set the house on fire. Supposing their firing would be heard at the Lower Fort, some three miles distant, the assailants took French leave of the premises about nine o'clock. A. M., and buried them- selves in the forest, having been about the Becker house several hours."
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Others living in the neighborhood fled to the Lower Fort upon the beginning of the attack of the stone house, and according to Simms, Captain Brown, then in command, detailed Lieutenant Snyder with a party to give the Beckers relief, but they arrived after the enemy had left. Simms farther says :-
"After the enemy retired from Beckers, the supposed Indian whom Schell had shot, was found to have fallen partly in the water and was not dead. He was taken into the house and Doctor Werth called to examine his wound, who pronounced it mortal, the ball having passed diagonally through the body at the shoulders. The man was now discovered to be a painted Tory instead of an Indian; and was shortly after recognized to be Erkert, a Scotch cooper, who had made flour barrels for Major Becker before the war. The Major, on making the recognition, accused the Tory of ingrati- tude. Said he, 'when you came to me for work, I employed you, and always paid you well; and now you come with a band of savages to murder me and my family, plunder and burn my buildings.'
" The man appeared penitent as certain death was before him, expressing his sorrow for the course he had taken, and said he did not care which succeeded, King or Congress.
"He was scalped by a friendly Indian named Yan (a son of David who was killed by the Cavalry under Colonel Harper in 1777,) and on the following morning he was summoned to the bar of his Maker, to render an account for the deeds done in the body."
John Snyder, known as Schoharie John, and Peter Mann, of Fox's Creek were captured in the morning by Crysler and party, as the former were returning from Beaver Dam. Mann was. liberated at Kneiskern's dorf. The party passed on to the Warner neighborhood in Cobleskill, where they took George Warner, Jr., prisoner as stated in Chapter XVIII.
Zimmer and Snyder were taken to Niagara, the former returned on parole while the latter enlisted in the British service to afford an op- portunity to desert and return home as stated by Author Simms.
We will here state, although it is contrary to
published history that this Schoharie John Sny- der claimed the honor of killing the notorious Seths Henry, after the war closed. While it is firmly believed to be a fact by the family, we cannot vouch for its truthfulness, yet will here insert the tradition, as after the war closed many boasts were made of doing this and that, which had but little truth attached. It is said that during the march from Fox's Creek to Canada, after the attack upon the Becker house and cap- ture of Snyder, Seths Henry incurred the displeas- ure of Snyder by loading him with plunder and abuse. After the war closed, Snyder and several other men that became too lazy to labor, were lounging around Zimmer's inn, when an Indian and squaw were seen to approach from
the Beaver Dam road. Snyder recognized in him the dreaded Seths Henry, yet upon question- ing him, he pretended to be another man, but after a few drinks, offered in a friendly manner, the squaw became indignant towards her lord and master for trying to disown his name, and after a short time he acknowledged himself to be the hated savage. Snyder and his fellows freely treated him until he became sleepy drunk, and while nodding in his chair in front of the house, Snyder obtained a rope and making a noose at one end, slipped it over the Indian's head and around his neck, and he with his helpers ran towards the creek dragging the un- fortunate warrior roughly over the ground. Af- ter beating him with clubs they threw him in Fox's creek, and the water being high, he was carried along by the current the length of the rope, which was fastened to a log that span- ned the stream. He was thus held until death relieved him of the pains of vengeance, when the rope was unloosened from the neck and the body allowed to float down the stream. Some distance below, a tree had fallen across the creek against which brush and logs had floated and formed a miniature dam, or rather seine, through which only the water freely passed.
The body floated to it and sank, where it was found after the water subsided. Murphy through his biography, as has been seen, claimed the pleasure of relieving the villain of a hated existence by his unerring rifle, but we doubt very much as to the wily savage being disposed of in this manner.
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HISTORY OF SCHOHARIE COUNTY.
To show the treatment of the captives of that eventful day of which we have narrated, to- gether with George Warner, Jr., while on the march to Niagara, we will still farther copy from Simms' history as related to him by Warner himself :----
"The second day after leaving Cobleskill the whole party was obliged to subsist on horse- flesh without bread or seasoning of any kind. Warner, who communicated the facts to the author, said he ate on the way to Niagara of a deer, a wolf, a rattlesnake and a hen-hawk, but without bread or salt. The two captives, War- ner and Zimmer, were lightly bound and gener- ally fared alike while on their journey.
" They had for some days contemplated mak- ing an escape and complaining that they could not travel on account of their cords, and they were a little loosened, which favored their plan. They concluded they ought, in justice, to com- municate their intention to their fellow-prisoner, although he was not bound, and give him a chance to escape with them if he chose to em- brace it. But a short time after their intention was communicated to a third person, the con- spirators for liberty were more firmly bound than ever, and were afterwards continually watched until they arrived at Niagara. Nights they were pinioned so tight that they could not get their hands together, and were secured by a rope tied to a tree or pole, upon which rope an Indian always laid down.
"The prisoners also passed on their way an- other party of Indians, who were killing a pris- oner in a singular manner. His captors had tied his wrists together and drawn them over his knees, after which a stick was passed under the knees and over the wrists and a rope tied to it between them and thrown over the limb of a tree. His tormentors then drew him up a dis- tance and let him fall by slacking the rope, con- tinuing their hellish sport until the concussion extinguished the vital spark."
Major Becker lived within the stone house until his death, which occurred in 1806 at the age of sixty-eight, leaving two sons, Henry and John, who engaged in the mercantile and dis- tilling business. In 1799 they purchased the ground upon which the old stone walls now
stand at Shutter's Corners, and the year follow- ing built the store. Upon it we find engraved several names, among which is that of Ryer Schermerhorn, the mason that built the walls. It is to be regretted that the fire a few years ago nearly destroyed the ancient walls.
Henry became one of the Assistant Judges of the Court of Common Pleas of the County, and was an upright business man. He rebuilt the grist mill which still stands, about the year 1810. While there are many of the Becker family liv- ing in the town, there are none of the old class left, they have passed away, yet they left a worthy record of fidelity to country that is proudly referred to by their grandchildren. The widow of one of Jacob's sons, Mrs. John Peter Becker, still survives, at the age of eighty- five, with children around her with locks whit- ened by the weight of years, and is still in the vigor of her mental faculties, though somewhat crippled physically. She was a daughter of Hon- Yost Warner, of Warner Hill, and connected by marriage with many of the old stock patriotic families of the Schoharie settlements.
About the year 1800 Jacob Becker, Jr., built a fulling mill upon the north side of the creek, opposite the Delong residence, which was after- ward purchased by Silas Brewster, and still later by his son, Silas, Jr., who in turn sold to his brother Allen, who removed it up the valley and which is now owned and occupied by him. This little hamlet was for many years the business center of this part of the town of Schoharie and drew a large trade from the Schoharie valley and the hills surrounding. The Becker Brothers' store was no common affair for those days, ad- ded to which was the distillery and ashery, be- side the fulling and flouring mills, making a lively center.
The next settlement east, as we have already mentioned, was in the present Barber neighbor- hood, but no efforts were made to make a busi- ness center. The settlers returned after the war, and were farmers, but of no mean class, as we find they were aware of the importance of ed- ucation, and encouraged the facilities to instruct their children. As the founders of Yale College assembled in 1700, and upon laying a few books down, said: "I give these books for founding
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a college in Connecticut," so the early settlers of that neighborhood assembled and drew up the following preamble and resolutions, on No- vember 2, 1812 :-
"To promote literature and place the means of knowledge, information, and the benefits arising from well regulated society within the reach of all, we, whose names are hereunto an- nexed, do hereby form ourselves into a school society, in order that we may adopt some rule to govern ourselves by, for the continuance of a school, and to secure the benefits flowing from such an institution, we do hereby declare the following articles permanently binding on all the company :-
Article Ist. There shall forever hereafter, be two Trustees annually chosen on the first of Oc- tober, in each year, for the purpose of engaging preceptors, and see that they have their pay, and likewise to call school meetings whenever they deem it necessary.
Article 2d. There shall be two Censors annu- ally chosen, for the purpose of enquiring into the abilities of any Teacher that may present himself as such, and report their opinion respect- ing his qualifications, to the Society at their meet- ing. It shall likewise be the duty of the Censors to visit the school at least once in a month, and enquire into the progress made by the Scholars in learning.
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