USA > New York > Schoharie County > History of Schoharie county, and border wars of New York > Part 26
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House-less were those who from the wood returned, The fate of relatives to mourn ;
While other friends to living death, they learned, By human fiends, were captive borne.
The enemy, making between 30 and 40 prisoners at Cherry- Valley, passed down the Susquehanna to its junction with the Tioga-up the latter to near its source, thence along the Seneca lake to the Indian castle at Kanadaseago, near the present village of Geneva; where a division of the prisoners took place. The day after the massacre, 200 militia arrived at Cherry-Valley, and buried the dead .* The sufferings of the prisoners on their way to Canada, must have been very severe : many of them were women and children, illy fitted to endure the fatigues of a journey of three or four hundred miles, at that inclement season.
. For a more minute account of the destruction of this place, see Campbell's Annals of Tryon County.
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HISTORY OF SCHOHARIE COUNTY,
The following anecdote was related by Joseph Brant after the Revolution, to John Fonda while at his house near Caughnawa- ga. Brant, on being censured by Fonda for his cruelties at Cherry-Valley at the time of its desolation, said the atrocities were mostly chargeable to Walter Butler. He then stated that among the captives made by him at that place, was a man named Vrooman, with whom he had had a previous acquaintance. He concluded to give Vrooman his liberty, and after they bad pro- ceeded several miles on their journey, he sent him back about two miles, alone, to procure some birch bark for him; expecting of course to see no more of him. After several hours Vrooman came hurrying back with the bark, which the chieftain no more wanted than he did a pair of goggles. Brant said, he sent his prisoner back on purpose to afford him an opportunity to make his escape, but that he was so big a fool he did not know it; and that consequently he was compelled to take him along to Cana- da .- Mrs. Evert Yates, a daughter of John Fonda.
The English government on being officially informed of the treaty of alliance between France and the United States, declar- ed war against the former ; and thought it prudent to concentrate its forces. On the 18th of June, the British troops under Sir Henry Clinton evacuated Philadelphia, and set out for New York. Gen. Washington hung upon his rear, watching a favorable op- portunity to give him battle. On the 28th of that month, the battle of Monmouth was fought. Both armies were flattered during the day by alternate success, and encamped in the evening on the battle ground. Washington slept in his cloak after the fatigues of that day, in the camp of his brave men. In the night, Clinton silently withdrew, thus conceding the victory of the pre- ceding day to the spangled banner. The loss of the Americans in this engagement was from two to three hundred in killed and wounded ; and that of the enemy about one thousand, nearly half of whom were killed. The day on which this action was fought was extremely hot, and the suffering of both armies was very great for the want of proper drink. Says the Journal of Col. Tallmadge, " Many died on both sides from excessive heat and
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fatigue, the day being oppressively warm, and the troops drink- ing too freely of cold water." James Williamson, a soldier who assisted in burying the dead after the battle, assured the writer that he saw around a spring in a grove not far from the battle- field, the dead bodies of twelve soldiers, supposed to have been vic- tims of cold water.
American historians have recorded few instances of female pa- triotism and bravery, which rival the following: In the battle of Monmouth a gunner was killed, and a call was made for an- other, when the wife of the fallen soldier, who had followed his fortune to the camp, advanced and took his station ; expressing her willingness to discharge the duty of her deceased husband, and thus revenge his death. The gun was well managed and did good execution, as I have been informed by an eye witness. After the engagement, Gen. Washington was so much pleased with the gallant conduct of this heroine, that he gave her a lieutenant's commission. She was afterwards called Captain Molly .- Capt. Eben Williams.
A short time after the battle of Monmouth, Lieut. Col. Wm. Butler, with the 4th Pennsylvania regiment, and three companies of rifle men from Morgan's corps under Maj. Posey, commanded by Captains Long, Pear and Simpson, was ordered to Albany, and from thence to Schoharie. While there he commanded the Middle Fort. The command of the Schoharie forts devoled on Col. Peter Vrooman during the war, when no continental officer of equal rank was there.
Among the rifle men who went to Schoharie at this time, were some most daring spirits-men whose names should live forever on her fairy mountains and in her green valleys. We do not be- lieve it necessary, although it is a fact too generally conceded, that glittering epaulets are indispensable in forming a hero. Of the brave soldiers sent to aid the Schoharie settlers in their de- fence, and guard from savage cruelties the unprotected mother and helpless orphan, whose names I would gladly chronicle could I collect them, were Lieut. Thomas Boyd, (whose tragic
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end will be shown hereafter,) Timothy Murphy, David Elerson," William Leek,t William Lloyd, a sergeant, John Wilber,± - Tufts, Joseph Evans, Philip Hoever,§ Elijah Hendricks, John Garsaway, a very large man, and Derrick Haggidorn. Nor should we forget to name several of the native citizens who encountered many dangers in the discharge of their duty ; of the latter were Jacob and Cornelius Van Dyck, Jacob Enders, Bar- tholomew C. Vrooman, Peter Van Slyck, Nicholas Sloughter, Yockam Folluck, Joackam Van Valkenberg,|| Jacob Becker, and Thomas Eckerson. There were no doubt others equally merito- rious, whose deeds are unknown to the writer.
The following facts, relating to the attempted arrest and death of Christopher Service, a tory of no little notoriety, living on the Charlotte river, were communicated by Judge Hager, Mrs. Van Slyck, and David Elerson.
The people of Schoharie had long suspected Service-who re- mained with his family entirely exposed to the enemy-of clan- destinely affording them assistance. Captain Jacob Hager, who was in command of the Upper Fort, in the summer of 1778, sent Abraham Becker, Peter Swart, (not the one already introduced,) and Frederick Shafer, on a secret scout into the neighborhood of Service, to ascertain if there were any Indians in that vicinity, and to keep an eye of espionage on the tory. They arrived in sight of his dwelling after sundown, and concealed themselves in the woods, intending to remain over night. After dark the mus- quitoes began to be very troublesome, but the party did not dare
. He was married in Schoharie during the war, and became a permanent resident of the county. He was a ranger for several years, and, as he stat. ed to the writer, an extra price was set on his own and Murphy's scalps by the enemy. He was 95 years old at our interview, at which time he was boarding with Dr. Origin Allen, near the Baptist church in Broome, of which the old hero was a member.
t Went west after the war, and died in Cayuga county.
# Was from Reddington, Pa. He was a carpenter by trade, married a Miss Mattice and settled on Charlotte river.
§ Remained in Schoharie county after the war.
|| Killed in battle near Lake Utsayuntho, in 1781.
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to make a fire to keep them off. Becker told his companions he was well acquainted with Service, having lived near him for some time ; said he would go and reconnoitre, and if there were none of the enemy abroad, he would inform them, in which case all agreed to go to the house and tarry over night. Becker, after a short absence, returned with the assurance that the "coast was clear," and that he had made arrangements for their accommodation ; whereupon all three went to the dwelling. As they approached the door, the light was extinguished, but Becker went in, followed by his friends. They advanced to the centre of the room, at which time one of the family re-lit the candle, the light of which show- ed Swart and Shafer their real situation. Along the wall, upon one side of the room, were arranged a party of armed savages, who instantly sprang upon, and bound them. The two pri- soners were kept there until morning, when they were hurried off to Canada. Becker, who had not been bound, was suffered, after giving the Indians his gun and ammunition, to depart for home. He returned to the fort, and reported that the scout, near Charlotte river, had fallen in with a party of Indians in ambush, from whom they attempted to escape by flight ; that he was in advance of his comrades, who were both captured ; that he came near being over- taken, when he threw away his gun and equipage, and thus re- lieved, made his escape. Shafer, who remained in a Canadian prison until the war was closed, returned to Schoharie and made known the above facts. Swart never returned to Schoharie. He was taken by distant Indians, as his friends afterwards learned, be- yond Detroit, where he took a squaw and adopted the Indian life.
From the commencement of the border difficulties, Service had greatly aided the enemies of his country, by sheltering and victual-
ing them, in numerous instances. He was comparatively wealthy, for the times, owning a well-stocked farm and a grist- mill. When the tories and Indians from Canada were on their way to destroy the settlements, they always found a home at his house, from whence, after recruiting, they sallied forth on their missions of death. Several attempts were made to take him be- fore the Schoharie committee, previous to his joining Brant in his expedition against Cobelskill.
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Soon after the return of Becker with his hypocritical narrative, Col. Butler sent Capt. Long with some twenty volunteers in the direction of Charlotte river to reconnoitre, and if possible discov- er some traces of the enemy. One object of the expedition was, to arrest Service and take him to the Schoharie forts, or to slay him in case of resistance. Arriving near the head waters of the Schoharie, Capt. Long unexpectedly took a prisoner. On his per- son he found a letter directed to Service, and on opening it, learned that Smith, its author, a tory captain who had enlisted a company of royalists on the Hudson near Catskill, was then on his way to the house of Service, who was desired in the letter to have every thing in readiness to supply the wants of his men on their arrival. Learning from their prisoner the route by which Smith would ap- proach, the Americans at once resolved to intercept him. Some fifteen or twenty miles distant from the Upper fort, while proceed- ing cautiously along the east side of the river, Smith and his fol- lowers were discovered on the opposite bank. Capt. Long halted his men, and proposed to get a shot at Smith. It was thought by some of the party an act of folly to fire at so great a distance, but the captain, accompanied by Elerson, advanced and laid down be- hind a fallen log. Some noise was made by this movement, and the tory chief stepped into an open piece of ground a little dis- tance from his men to learn the cause of alarm, and thus fairly exposed his person. At this moment the rifles were leveled. Capt. Long was to fire, and in case he missed his victim, Elerson was to make a shot. At the crack of the first rifle, the spirit of Smith left its clay tenement to join kindred spirits ; but where-God on- ly knows. The scout then advanced and poured in a volley of balls, wounding several, and dispersing all of the tories. Thus unexpectedly did justice overtake this company of men, whose zeal should have led them to serve their country instead of her foes.
.
Capt. Long and his companions then directed their steps to the dwelling of Service. On arriving near, proper caution was taken to prevent his escape, and Murphy and Elerson_were deputed to arrest him. They found the tory back of his house, making a
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harrow. On the approach of the two friends, Mrs. Service, sus- pecting the object of their visit, came out and stood near them, when they informed her husband the nature of their visit. Ser- vice called them d-d rebels, and retreating a few steps, he seized an axe and aimed a blow at the head of Murphy. But the man who could guard against surprise from the wily Indian, was not to fall thus ignobly. Elerson, who stood a few feet from his com- panion, as he assured the author, told Murphy to shoot the d-d rascal. The wife of Service, seeing the determined look of Mur- phy, caught hold of his arm and besought him not to fire. He gently pushed her aside, and patting her on the shoulder said, " Mother, he never will sleep with you again." In another in- stant, the unerring bullet from his rifle had penetrated the tory's heart. Capt. Long and his men now advanced to the house, in which was found forty loaves of fresh bread, proving that some notice had already reached there, of Smith's intended visit. Many have supposed that injustice was done to Service. The author has taken considerable pains to inform himself on this point, and finds proof most satisfactory to his own mind, that from his ability and willingness to supply the wants of the enemy and his retired residence, he was a very dangerous man to the cause of liberty.
An old tory, who returned after the war, and died a few years ago in the town of Mohawk, was accustomed, when intoxicated, to " hurrah for king George." At such times he often told about being in person at the house of Service, who, as he said, " lived and died a tory, as he meant to." Had not Service made an at- tempt on the life of Murphy, he would probably have been con- fined until the war closed, and then liberated, as was the case with several wealthy royalists. The property of Service was confiscated in the war. Not many years ago, a son of his suc- ceeded in recovering the confiscated property of his father, and thus came into the undivided possession of an estate amcunting to eight or ten thousand dollars. The fortune thus obtained, how- ever, was soon dissipated.
In the latter part of August, 1778, the Lower Fort, but recent- ly completed, was commanded by Lieut. Col. John H. Beeckman.
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Early in October, Col. Butler proceeded from Schoharie with the troops under his command, to Unadilla and Oquago, Indian towns on the Susquehanna, which they effectually destroyed, with large quantities of provisions.
The troops under Col. Butler, in this excursion, among whom were several volunteers from the Schoharie militia, suffered in- credible hardships. " They were obliged to carry their provi- sions on their backs; and, thus loaded, frequently to ford creeks and rivers. After the toils of hard marches, they were obliged to camp down during wet and chilly nights without covering, or even the means of keeping their arms dry."-Dr. Ramsay. After an absence of sixteen days, they were greeted with a hearty wel- come at the forts in Schoharie.
A regiment of New York state troops, under Col. Duboise, went into winter quarters at Schoharie, in the fall of 1778. Adjt. Dodge, Maj. Rosencrans, Capt. Stewart, and Ensign Johnson, of Duboise's regiment, were quartered in the kitchen of Chairman Ball's dwelling .- Peter Ball.
On the 6th of August of this year, M. Gerard was publicly re- ceived by the United States government as minister of the king of France On the 14th of September following, Dr. Franklin was appointed minister to France, the first American minister delegated to a foreign court.
" The alliance of France gave birth to expectations which events did not fulfil; yet the presence of her fleets on the coast deranged the plans of the enemy, and induced them to relinquish a part of their conquests."-Hale.
The reward paid by English agents for the scalps of the Ame- ricans, eight dollars each, excited the avarice of both Indians and tories ; and many innocent women and children were slain not only in this, but in the several years of the war, to gratify the cupidity of a merciless and unfeeling enemy.
Late in the fall, the army under Washington erected huts near Middlebrook, in New Jersey, and went into winter quarters. In December of this year, Mr. Laurens resigned his office as presi- dent of Congress, and John Jay was chosen in his place.
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CHAPTER X.
Early in the spring of 1779, two men named Cowley and Sawyer, were captured near Harpersfield, by four Schoharie In- dians ; Han-Yerry, who escaped from the Borsts the day before the Cobelskill engagement, Seth's-Henry, Adam, a sister's son, and Nicholas, also a relative. One of the captives, was a na- tive of the Emerald Isle; and the other of the green hills of Scotland. They were among the number of refugees from Har- persfield, who sought safety in Schoharie at the beginning of difficulties.
The prisoners could not speak Dutch, which those Indians un- derstood nearly as well as their own dialect ; and the latter could understand but little, if any, of the conversation of those Anglo- Americans. When surprised, they intimated by signs as well as they could, that they were friends of the king ; and not only evinced a willingness to proceed with their captors, but a desire to do so. An axe belonging to one of them was taken along as a prize. The prisoners set off with such apparent willingness on their long journey to Canada, that the Indians did not think it necessary to bind them. They were compelled to act, however, as " hewers of wood and drawers of water," for their red masters.
They had been captives eleven days, without a favorable op- portunity to mature a plan for their escape, which they had all along premeditated. On arriving at a deserted hut near Tioga Point, the captives were sent to cut wood a few rods distant. On such occasions, one cut and the other carried it where it was to be consumed. While Cowley was chopping, and Sawyer waiting for an armful, the latter took from his pocket a news- paper, and pretended to read its contents to his fellow ; instead of doing which, however, he proposed a plan for regaining their
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liberty. After carrying wood enough to the hut to keep fire over night, and partaking of a scanty supper, they laid down in their usual manner to rest, a prisoner between two Indians.
The friends kept awake, and after they were satisfied their foes were all sound asleep, they arose agreeable to concert, and secured their weapons, shaking the priming from the guns. Sawyer with the tomahawk of Han-Yerry-who was thought the most desperate of the four-took his station beside its owner ; while Cowley with the axe, placed himself beside another sleep- ing Indian. The fire afforded sufficient light for the captives to make sure of their victims. At a given signal the blows fell fatal upon two; the tomahawk sank deep into the brain of its owner, giving a sound, to use the words of an informant,* like a blow upon a pumpkin. Unfortunately, Sawyer drew the handle from his weapon in attempting to free it from the skull of the savage, and the remainder of the tragic act devolved upon his companion. The first one struck by Cowley was killed, but the blows which sent two to their final reckoning, awoke their fel- lows, who instantly sprang upon their feet. As Seth's-Henry rose from the ground, he received a blow which he partially warded off by raising his right arm; but his shoulder was laid open and he fell back stunned. The fourth, as he was about to escape, received a heavy blow in his back from the axe. He was pursued out of the hut-fled into a swamp near, where he died. The liberated prisoners returned into the hut, and were resolving on what course to pursue, when Seth's-Henry, who had recovered and feigned himself dead for some time, to embrace a favorable opportunity, sprang upon his feet-dashed through the fire-caught up his rifle, leveled and snapped it at one of his foes-ran out of the hut and disappeared.
The two friends then primed the remaining guns, and kept a vigilant watch until daylight, to guard against surprise. They set out in the morning to return, but dared not pursue the route
* Lawrence Mattice. The adventures of Cowley and Sawyer were princi- cipally derived from Mr. Mattice and Henry Hager, who learned the particu- lars from the captives themselves.
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they came, very properly supposing there were more of the enemy not far distant, to whom the surviving Indian would communi- cate the fate of his comrades. They recrossed a river in the morning in a bark canoe, which they had used the preceding afternoon, and then directed their course for the frontier settle- ments. The first night after taking the responsibility, Cowley was light headed for hours, and his companion was fearful his raving would betray them ; but when daylight returned, reason again claimed its tenement. As they had anticipated, a party of Indians thirsting for their blood, were in hot pursuit of them. From a hill they once descried ten or a dozen in a valley below. They remained concealed beneath a shelving rock one night and two days, while the enemy were abroad, and when there, a dog belonging to the latter, came up to them. As the animal ap- proached, they supposed their hours were numbered; but after smelling them for some time, it went away without barking. On the third night after their escape, they saw fires lit by the enemy, literally all around them. They suffered much from ex- posure to the weather, and still more from hunger. They ex- pected to be pursued in the direction they had been captured, and very properly followed a zig-zag course; arriving in safety after much suffering, at a frontier settlement in Pennsylvania, where they found friends. When fairly recruited they directed their steps to Schoharie, and were there welcomed as though they had risen from the dead, among which latter number, many had supposed them.
Sawyer is said to have died many years after, in Williamstown, Mass .; and Cowley in Albany. At the time Cowley and Saw- yer returned from their captivity, the upper Schoharie fort was commanded by Maj. Posey, a large, fine looking officer, who, as an old lady of Schoharie county once declared to the author, was the handsomest man she ever saw.
Friendly Indians were sometimes in the habit of taking up a winter's residence in the vicinity of American frontier posts. In the spring of this year several Indians, who pretended friendship, left the Johnstown fort, where they had for some time been a tax
20
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on the charity of its officers; but they had gone but a few miles north of the garrison when they halted and murdered an old gen- tleman named Durham and his wife, whose scalps they could sell in an English market .- James Williamson.
The manuscript furnished the author by Judge Hager, states that in the year 1779, probably in the spring, a rumor reached the Schoharie forts that Capt. Brant, on the evening of a certain day, would arrive at some place on the Delaware river with a band of hostile followers. Col. Vrooman thereupon dispatched Capt. Jacob Hager with a company of about fifty men to that neighborhood. Hager arrived with his troops after a rapid march, at the place where it was said Brant was to pass-thirty or forty miles distant from Schoharie; and concealed them amidst some fall- en timber beside the road. This station was taken in the afternoon of the day on which Brant was expected to arrive, and continued to be occupied by the Americans until the following day between ten and eleven o'clock, when, no new evidence of Brant's visit being discovered, Capt. Hager returned home-thinking it possi- ble that Brant was pursuing a different route to the Schoharie settlements.
Capt. Hager afterwards learned from a loyalist, in whose neigh- borhood he had been concealed, that he had not been gone an hour when the enemy about one hundred and fifty strong-In- dians and tories, arrived and passed the fallow where he had been secreted. On being informed that a company of Americans had so recently left the neighborhood, prepartions were made to pur- sue them. When about to move forward, Brant enquired of a tory named Sherman, what officer commanded the Americans, and on being informed that it was Capt. Hager, whose courage from a French war acquaintance was undoubted, he consulted his chiefs and the pursuit was abandoned.
Brant, on learning that Schoharie was well defended, seems to have given up the idea of surprising that settlement, and directed his steps to more vulnerable points of attack. Several settlements were entered simultaneously by the enemy along the Mohawk river early in the season-directed no doubt by this distinguished
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