USA > New York > Schoharie County > History of Schoharie county, and border wars of New York > Part 43
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* Most of the Scotch settlers in and around Johnstown either went to Can- ada with the Johnsons at the beginning of difficultics, or if they remained, were more the friends of the British than the American government. Duncan McGregor, who resided several miles north of Johnson Hall, was an exception. At the time of Ross' invasion, several Indians and a tory entered this pioneer's house in the evening, who left it as they were approaching, un- observed by them. He gained the rear of his log-dwelling, and through a cranny watched the motions of the party. He was armed with a gun and a sword, and resolved that if any injury or insult was offered his wife, to shoot the offender and flee to the woods. Mrs. McGregor detected a tory as one of the party, by observing his white skin where the paint had worn off. This white Indian enquired of her, " if she could not give them something to eat." She replied that she had some jonny.cake and milk. " That will do," said he, and soon they were eating. As they rose from the table, one of them espied a handsomely painted chest in one corner of the room, and asked what it con- tained? " It contains books," said she, " and other articles belonging to a re- lative in Albany." " Ah !" said the speaker, " he belongs to the rebel army I suppose?" She replied that he did; and her countenance indicated no little anxiety as he exclaimed with a menacing gesture, " be careful you do not de- ceive us." One of the intruders with a tomahawk instantly split the cover, and the books and sundry articles of clothing were thrown upon the floor. The clothing was added to their stock of plunder, and soon after the warriors departed .- A. J. Comrie.
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between Willet's advance under a sergeant, and a party of the enemy, in which several of the latter were killed .- John Ostrom.
After the enemy had passed West Canada creek, Walter But- ler lingered behind, unconscious of being within reach of Ameri- can rifles, and having dismounted, he was in the act of drinking water from a tin cup, as he was discovered by Daniel Olendorf, and Anthony, a Mohawk sachem, both well known in the valley. The two, who were a scout in advance of Willet's army, readily recognized the tory chieftain, and both fired upon him. He fell, and the Indian, casting off his blanket and upon it his rifle, dash- ed through the stream, tomahawk in hand, to him. He was lying with one elbow upon the ground, the hand supporting his aching head, and as his foe approached, he raised the other hand implor- ingly and cried-" Spare me-give me quarters !" Remember- ing the onslaught at Cherry-Valley, and the part the suppliant had there acted amid the unheeded prayers of weeping mothers and orphan children, the Indian replied, " Me give you Sherry- Falley quarters !"-burying, with the words, his keen-edged toma- hawk in his brain. At the moment he fell, Col. Willet and seve- ral of his officers arrived upon the bank of the creek. Informed by Olendorf of Butler's proximity, he instantly forded the stream, attended by Col. Lewis, the Indian chief, on horseback, followed by Col. And. Gray of Stone Arabia, and John Brower of the Mohawk valley, on foot : the two latter walking together to stem the cur- rent. They reached the spot just as Anthony raised his knife to perform the last act in the tragedy. Seeing his chief he asked him if he should do it, making a circular motion around the bleeding head. The red colonel asked Willet if he should be scalped, who replied, he belongs to your party, Col. Lewis. An approving look was sufficient, and the reeking scalp-lock was torn off, in the pre- sence of those witnesses, as the victim lay quivering in death. Such was the fall of Walter Butler .- Daniel and Peter Olendorf, sons of Daniel Olendorf named in the context ; and John I. Brower, son of John Brower above named.
Which of the American scout shot Butler is uncertain, but Olen- dorf stated to his friends that he aimed at the cup, which, as the
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HISTORY OF SCHOHARIE COUNTY,
sun shone upon it, afforded him a good mark ; and as Butler was wounded in the head, it is highly probable the ball of Olendorf's rifle brought him down. The Indian having stripped his victim, re-crossed the creek to his companion, and hastily putting on the regimentals began to strut about and assume the airs of a British officer. " I be Brish ofser !" said he to Olendorf. " You are a fool !" replied the latter. "Me fool?" responded the Indian with warmth-" Me fool ? No, me Brish ofser !" and again the bushes had to bow their submission to his assumed character. Said Olendorf again, "You are a fool! and if any of our men should see you at your back, they would mistake you for the vil- lain who once wore those clothes and instantly shoot you down." This was a view of the case which the Indian had not taken, but the words were hardly uttered by his comrade ere he doffed them and resumed his blanket .- The Olendorf brothers.
The prisoners captured by Maj. Ross and party, suffered much on their way to Canada from the cold, being seventeen days jour- neying to the Genesee valley, during which time they were com- pelled to live almost wholly on a stinted allowance of horse-flesh. Some of the prisoners wintered in the Genesee valley, and were taken to Niagara the following March. Keller, one of the Curry Town prisoners, on arriving at Niagara, was sold, and one Coun- tryman, a native of the Mohawk valley, then an officer in the Bri- tish service, was his purchaser. In June he was sent to Rebel Island, near Montreal ; in November, to Halifax ; thence to Nova Scotia, and finally to Boston, where he was exchanged, and left to foot it home without money, as were many of the prisoners du- ring the war. They were, however, welcomed to the table of every patriot on whom they chanced to call, and suffered little by hunger. Keller reached his family in Minden, near Fort Plain, whither they had removed in his absence, on the 24th day of De- cember, 1782. Van Epps, a fellow prisoner, again reached home about eighteen months after his capture, and the rest of the prison- ers, taken that fall, either returned at the time he did, or at subse- quent periods, as they were confined in different places .- Keller and Van Epps.
481
AND BORDER WARS OF NEW YORK.
About the 1st of November, 1781, a party of the enemy under Joseph Brant, and Capt. Adam Crysler, a former resident of that vicinity, entered Vrooman's Land early in the morning, near the residence of Peter Vrooman, a little distance from the Upper Scho- harie fort. Isaac Vrooman, father of Peter, had removed his fa- mily below the Helleberg some time before, and had, at the time of which I am writing, visited his son to procure his aid in mov- ing his family back to his old residence in Schoharie. A few days before the arrival of his father, Peter had removed from a hut he occupied at the fort, to his dwelling, which he intended should be his winter quarters, thinking the season so far advanced that the enemy would not re-appear that fall.
Peter was a self-taught blacksmith, and had a little shop near his house, where he usually did his own horse-shoeing. It was found necessary, previous to leaving home. to set several shoes ; and the father rose before daylight, carried a shovel of coals from the house to the shop, and made a fire. As it began to get light, the old gentleman left the shop, as was supposed, to call his son. On his way two guns were fired at him-the one by the tory chief- tain, and the other by an Indian warrior beside him. The door of Vrooman's dwelling was on the side opposite the shop, and the son, already up, hearing the report of the two guns, and rightly conjecturing the cause, sprang out of his house, and ran towards the fort, a few hundred yards distant. He had gone but a short distance from his house, when he was discovered, fired upon, and hotly pursued by several Indians, but reached the fort in safety.
The wife of the younger Vrooman, on hearing the guns, ran up stairs, and from a chamber window saw an Indian in the act of tearing off the scalp of the elder Vrooman, who was then on his hands and knees, bellowing most piteously. After the scalp was torn off, the Indian, who was the reader's old acquaintance, Seth's Henry, dispatched his victim with a war club, cut his throat, and with the bloody knife added another notch on the club, to the re- cord of the many scalps he had taken in the war ; after which he laid it upon the body of the murdered man and left him. The reader will remember that this Schoharie chief left a war-club in
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HISTORY OF SCHOHARIE COUNTY,
the same neighborhood some time before, which recorded a most startling account of his prowess and cruelty ; the record was much larger at a later period, and I think it hardly possible that an equal number of scalps and prisoners were made during the war by any other individual Indian. When the enemy entered Vrooman's house for plunder, Mrs. Vrooman went below, and being known to several of the Indians, she addressed them in their own dialect, and they spared her life, probably from the recollection of former kindness.
The invaders did not linger long in the vicinity of the fort, but advanced up the river, appropriating to their own use whatever was attainable. Soon after the arrival of Peter Vrooman, a par- ty of fifteen or twenty were dispatched from the fort in pursuit of the foe, of whose numbers they were totally ignorant. Who commanded this American scout is unknown, but Timothy Mur- phy is said to have had its principal direction. They proceeded with alacrity along the eastern shore of the Schoharie, and when on "Bouck's Island," a few rods above the present residence of Gov. Bouck, they were fired upon by the enemy, who were con- cealed on the bank of the river above Panther mountain, and one of their number, Derrick [Richard] Haggidorn, mortally wound- ed. The Americans returned the fire and retreated. As Haggi- dorn fell, he called to his companions not to leave him to a mer- ciless foe ; whereupon Murphy addressed his brave com- ades nearly as follows : " My boys, every ball was not mould- ed to hit, let us save him."* He was then taken between two of his friends and borne off in safety to the fort, where he died the next day, much lamented, as he had been a patriotic and faithful soldier.
* The remark of Murphy, that every ball was not moulded to hit, was pecu- liarly applicable to his own case. He was almost constantly exposed in bor- der wars from the beginning to the close of the Revolution, ever seeking the post of danger-the front rank, if an enemy was near, and probably, at the lowest estimate, had several hundred bullets fired at him by good marksmen, without ever receiving the slightest wound. To look back on the multiplied dangers he passed through, without injury-but a few of which have come down to the writer in a tangible form-it would almost seem as though for- tune had her particular favorites.
483
AND BORDER WARS OF NEW YORK.
Whether the enemy received any injury from the return fire of Murphy and party was unknown ; but not long after, Jacob Fri- mire, a soldier who was out on a hunt from the Upper fort, found the body of a white man sitting against a tree, with his gun and equipments by him ; supposed to have been a tory under Brant and Crysler, and to have been mortally wounded by the scout on Bouck's Island : the appearance of the body justifying the belief that he had been dead about that length of time. The dead man, who had been shot through the body, was found a mile or more from where the skirmish had taken place, near where a brook intersected the mill stream known as Bouck's saw mill creek : the brook was afterwards called dead man's creek.
As the enemy were concealed, their number was still unknown on the return of Murphy and party, but enough having been seen and heard to judge somewhat correctly of their strength, Colonel Vrooman dispatched Capt. Hager with fifteen or twenty Schoha- rie rangers, and a company of eastern troops, numbering about sixty men, under Capt. Hale. The command of the Americans was given to Capt. Hager, who, taking two or three days' provi- sions, moved up the river. The enemy, as was afterwards ascer- tained, numbered between sixty and seventy Indians and tories, under the command of Brant and Crysler. One of the principal objects of the invasion was, the removal to Canada of Crysler's family, which, up to this time had remained in Brakabeen.
Capt. Hager halted his men just at dark near the present tavern stand of Wm. Fink, where they encamped in a pine grove beside the road. The night was a very cold one, and the troops suffered considerably, deeming it imprudent to build fires in the night near an enemy whose strength they did not know .* Three hours be-
. Johan Jost Dietz and Peter Vrooman, the former a colonel and the latter a major of militia after the war, were left at the place of encampment, in charge of a keg of rum and a quantity of provisions, to await the return of the troops : and well did they perform their duty, as they assured the writer when together in 1837 ; being unable a part of the time to leave the trust if they would, lest others who liked " the striped pig " should fall in with them and bear off the keg, they secured a liberal share of its contents within their own stomachs.
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fore the dawn of day, the pursuit was renewed : and near the re- sidence of the late Gen. Patchin, the Americans ascended the mountain by a narrow and uneven road ; overhung by a heavy growth of hemlock. As the night was cloudy and dark, the pro- gress of the troops was necessarily slow. On arriving at the forks of the roads which led, one to Harpersfield and the other to Lake Utsayantho, they halted, struck up fires and ate breakfast : it being then about daylight. It was discovered that the enemy had gone towards the lake, and a consultation now took place be- tween the officers about the road to be pursued. Capt. Hager was in favor of making a rapid march on the Harpersfield route and, if possible, head the enemy at a favorable place for surprise ; but was overruled and the trail of the enemy followed.
Capt. Hager and his men had pursued the enemy but a short distance on the Lake road, before their approach was known to the latter, who made preparations to receive them. About a mile from the place of breakfasting, they met two of Capt. Hager's horses hoppled together, which the enemy had taken the preced- ing day. The captain who was walking in front of his men at the time, with the cautious Murphy beside him, stept up to the horses and cut the cord which fastened them together. They had proceeded but a little way farther, when they heard the whoop of several savages, whom they supposed were in search of the hor- ses. A rapid march soon brought the Americans where the ene- my had encamped the previous night ; seven large fires being still burning. Several horses laden with plunder and a number of cat- tle were abandoned by the Indians near the fire.
On arriving at the lake, the road, which was little more than an Indian foot path, ran along its margin. A ridge of land extended nearly to the Lake where the Americans were approaching, and as they were rising the eminence, the enemy who were concealed near its summit, discharged upon them a volley of balls. The in- stant they fired, Capt. Hager commanded Hale, who was march- ing in the rear to " flank to the right and march on !" Hager intended to bring the enemy between his command and the lake ; but Hale, instead of obeying the order, faced to the right about,
485
AND BORDER WARS OF NEW YORK.
and followed by his men with one noble exception, retreated in double-quick time. Brant and his destructives seeing the cow- ardly retreat of Hale and his men, advanced to meet Hager, who was left with less than twenty men to resist a force more than triple his own. The little band had taken trees, and were begin- ning to return the enemy's fire at the time Hale retreated; but seeing that they must soon be entirely surrounded if they at- tempted to maintain their position, their brave leader ordered a retreat. On leaving the ground, they were necessarily exposed to the fire of the enemy, and Sacket, a Bostonian, (the exception to Hale's men,) sealed his bravery with his blood, as did Joachim Van Valkenberg,* one of Capt. Hager's followers. Joseph, a brother of Capt. Hager was also wounded severely in the right shoulder, but the ball was extracted and he subsequently recov- ered. It was thought by the Americans at the time a most pro- vidential circumstance, that, exposed as they were in their re- treat to the fire of so many good marksmen, only two should have been killed. Capt. Hager, with Murphy still at his side, then ran to overtake the cowardly Hale; and after a chace of about five hundred yards overtook him : as both of them gained his front, they placed the muzzles of their rifles at his breast, and the cap- tain in a voice of thunder exclaimed, " Attempt to run another step and you are a dead man !"
Thus unexpectedly brought to a stand, Hale, at the order of Capt. Hager, which he was not in a situation a second time to
* The following anecdote was related to the author by Lydia Kline, a sister of Van Valkenberg. Among the Indians who returned to Schoharie, after the war, was one who called at the house of Henry, a brother of Van Valkenberg above named, having with him a gun. Henry instantly recognized the gun as that of his deceased brother, and taking it up he asked the Indian where he got it. He replied that he had killed a man at the ' Little Lake,' and thus obtained it. Said Henry, " This is my gun, and I shall keep it." The red man was unwilling to concede that point, it being as he believed a lawful prize from the fortune of war. Henry however retained the gun, and told the Indian to take it from his grasp and he should have it. Mortified at thus los. ing his gun, the Indian left the house and went into a swamp near by. Not long after this event the body of a dead Indian was discovered in this swamp, but the cause of his death, or by whose hand he had fallen, remained among the mysteries of the times.
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HISTORY OF SCHOHARIE COUNTY,
misunderstand, faced about and began to retrace his steps. But the golden moment to punish the invaders of Schoharie and avenge the murder of Vrooman, was past. Brant, to whom pos- sibly the actual force under Capt. Hager was known, having, as before remarked, a French war acquaintance with the latter, and knowing what resistance he might expect if a stand was effected by him, chose, encumbered as he was with Crysler's family, to make a rapid march to the Susquehanna. The two soldiers who fell near the lake were scalped by the foe.
Having restored order and infused a share of his own fearless spirit into his ranks, Capt. Hager was about to renew the pursuit as Col. Vrooman arrived upon the ground, with forty men drawn from the Lower fort. After a short consultation, the chase was continued, but still in ignorance as to the enemy's numbers; after proceeding about two miles and losing all trace of their footsteps, they having left the usual path for some unknown route, the pur- suit was abandoned, and the troops returned to Schoharie .- Man- uscript of Judge Hager, one of the pursuing party.
In the latter part of the war, supposed in the year 1781, six to- ries, who had threaded the forests from Niagara to Schoharie in the hope of making a profitable adventure, were concealed in and around the settlements for a week or more. They were led by Nicholas Snyder, a former resident of the valley and neighbor of my informant Jacob Enders, whose person they thought to secure. The party were secreted in a small swamp several days, near the dwelling of William Enders his father, on Foxes creek. After awaiting in vain nearly a week for a sight of Jacob's person, two of the number dressed in Continental clothes, went to the house of Enders, and supposed to be patriots, were very kindly treated : they enquired of Mr. Enders, while partaking of his hospitality, if he had no sons to aid him in his farming ! He replied that he had a son, who was then in the nine months' service at the Middle fort.
Mortified at being thus foiled in their attempts, the tories then sought to surprise and capture Capt. Stubrach, to effect which they laid in wait for him some time under a bridge in Kneiskern's
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dorf; but the captain was not to be caught napping, and the en- terprise proved abortive.
Capt. Henry Eckler, late of Warren, Herkimer county, was out with a friend in the summer of 1781, in the vicinity of Fort Her- kimer, and unexpectedly fell in with Brant and a party of his war- riors. The chief, who was well acquainted with Captain E., ad- dressed him by name, and asked him if he would surrender him- self his prisoner. "Not by a d-d sight, as long as I have legs to run !" and suiting the action to the word, he turned and fled at the top of his speed, and his companion with him. The surprise took place near a piece of woods, into which the fugitives ran, pursued by a band of yelling savages. Eckler had proceeded but a little distance in the woods, when he found it would be impos- sible for him to run far with the speed requisite for his escape by flight ; and passing over a knoll which hid him from the observa- tion of his pursuers, he entered, head first, a cavity at the root of a wind-fallen tree. He found its depth insufficient, however, to conceal his whole person, and like a young ostrich or partridge, that, with its head concealed, feels secure, if it remains still, he resolved to keep silence and trust to Providence for the issue. The party pursuing soon arrived upon the knoll, and halted almost over him to catch another glimpse of his retiring form. But they look- ed in vain ; and while they stood there, and he heard their con- versation, he expected every moment would be his last, as he was sure if his foes looked down they could not fail to see at least one half his person. He thought, as he afterwards told his friends, that had Brant, who also came upon the bank above him while he was thus concealed, but listened, he must have heard his heart beat, as it felt in his breast like the thumping of a hammer. Sup- posing Eckler had fled in an opposite direction, his pursuers over- looked his place of concealment, and expressing to each other their surprise at his sudden exit, and declaring that a spirit had helped him escape, they withdrew, when he backed out of his hi- ding place, and regained his home in safety. His comrade also effected his escape uninjured, although he had a long and strong race for his liberty .- Dr. Z. W. Bingham, who also communicat- ed the facts detailed in the next succeeding adventure.
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HISTORY OF SCHOHARIE COUNTY,
In the fall of 1781, a man was captured in the vicinity of Fort Plank, a picketed block-house, situated in the western part of the present town of Minden, some three miles westward of Fort Plain .* The prisoner of whom I speak was captured by seven Indians, and hurried off into the wilderness. At night the party halted at a deserted log tenement in that part of Danube known as Otsqua- go,t or as usually spoken, the Squawke. As the weather was cold the Indians made a fire, and after partaking of a scanty sup- per, gathered round it to talk over the result thus far of their ex- pedition. They had, as they stated, taken but a few scalps, very little plunder, and but one prisoner, who, they concluded, was hardly worth taking to Canada alone. They there resolved to have a pow-wow in the morning, kill and scalp the prisoner, re- turn toward the Mohawk, and seek among the defenceless or un- guarded whom they might plunder or slay.
The enemy, after discussing thus freely their future plans in the Mohawk dialect, laid down upon the floor to rest, with their feet to the fire. The prisoner was compelled to lie down between two Indians, under cords fastened to their bodies, which crossed his person over the breast and thighs, and not long after, all, save the prisoner, were in a sound slumber. If the Indians were soon dreaming of rich hunting grounds, human scalps, " beauty and booty," the case was far otherwise with the poor captive, who understood every word they had said, and had listened with hor- ror to his own approaching fate. Believing his foes all under the padlock of Morpheus, he began to tax his ingenuity for some means of escape. Hope of procuring those means was fast fading from his excited mind, which already began to suffer the imagina- ry pangs of savage torture, when, in moving his hand upon the floor, it accidentally rested upon a fragment of broken window- glass.
*Col. Stone, with several other writers, has fallen into the error of suppos- ing Fort Plank but another name for Fort Plain.
tThis is the Indian name for the creek which runs into the Mohawk at Ft. Plain, and signifies "The Springs," alluding to its sources .- Wagner.
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