USA > New York > Ulster County > History of Ulster County, New York, with illustrations and biographical sketches of its prominent men and pioneers. Vol. I > Part 13
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Miss Montagne, the guide, seems to have missed the course, for we find when day came they were off the track. It is, indeed, noteworthy that she could guide them at all, for she had only been once in the country, and that as a prisoner.
Once in the right path, Cregier again pressed forward, and wrote :
". On the wny we passed over much stony land and hills, and had to tarry at the swamps, long. broken, and even frequent kills, where we balted, and must ent trees to make bridges to pass over, and . divers mountains were so steep that we were obliged to baul the wagons and eannons np atal down with ropes. Then our progress was slow.' When ahout four English miles from the fort, the com- mander detached Capt. Couwenhoven, Lieut. Stillwell, and Eusign Niesen, with one hundred and nineteen men, and ordered them forward to effect the surprise. if possible, while he followed with the einnonz. They executed their task with great celerity, but found the fort had been abandoned for two days. About six o'clock in the afternoon Cregier arrived, having left the great guns and wagous & mile in the rear, under a guard of forty men. These be bad ordered to intrench, lest they should be surprised aud all slain. When night came on they had only taken a squaw, who came for green corn, and was surprised, and three horses, doubtless those which had been carried off at the time of the massacre.
"' At break of day, on the 25th, the ofheers again beld a council and determined ' to go in search of the Indians to the mountain, where Miss Montagne had been a prisoner.' Accordingly, one hundred and forty men ascended the rugged sides of the blue hills, taking the squaws with them; 'but they had left that place also.' They were then directed to a great high mountain, whither they had fled, taking with them seven Christian prisoners. Whereupon the officers resolved to go there, and dil, 'after experiencing vast dithculty, but found no Indians there.'
"' The squaw, being again questionel whether she did not know where they were,' said they had moved to another mountain, which she pointed out about four miles off, but there was no path thither. Being ou the brow of the hill, ont people saw nine Indians coming towards them, whereupon they fell that, intending thus to surprise
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HISTORY OF ULSTER COUNTY, NEW YORK.
them on their approach, but they did not succeed, our people being noticed at a distance of about two musket-shots. Eight of them ran off in an oblique direction, and the ninth attempted to run back to the place whence they had come, 'but he was headed off and cap- ture.t.'
". As our forces were discovered on all sides, and the friendly In- dinns alvised against any further pursuit, because the whole tribo were alarmed, the expedition returned to the savage fort. After taking a little rest, for the day's work climbing up and down the mountains about Wawarsing had been fatiguing, orders were given to destroy the growing corn and beans, and also the corn ' which they still bad in pits iu great abundance in their corn-fields and around their fort.' ' Whereupon,' wrote Cregier, 'I went out of their fort with fifty men to a distance of a full half mile: there cut down several plantations of maize : threw into the fire divers pits full of muize and beans ; returned to the fort at sundown, and there saw that divers Indians and horse- mett found sotue pits with plunder in the vicinity of the fort, which they brought in. Having stated before the expedition started that all plu fer was to be held in counuon, the emitentler, when he saw the booty, called the whole company together and reminded them of it.' Whereupon one of the horsemen stepped out of the troops and said, ' What we have found we'll keep und divide among us horsemen." Cregier reminded him that they were under command, but a doughty burgher, Jan Hendricksen, denied this, and said, 'They are un ler the command ef no man but Long Peter, whom they, forsouth, called their colonel, and uttered divers unmanuerly words in the presence of all the officers.' This tuade the commandler so angry Le bit Jan two or three times with his sword, when the latter seemed as if he would put himself in n posture against him. The chronicler here adds, . But I being close up to his body, he could not act a - he wished, and I told bim I should bring him to an account.'
" This Jau Hendrick-en, with Albert leymanse Roosa, acted in- solently on the 7th of July. Whilst we were examining the two Way- piuger Indians, in the presence of the Schout and commissaries, in Thomas Chambers' room, a messenger came in and said that two or three buory were without the door with lade guns to shoot the In- dians when they came out. Whereupon I stood up aud went to the Joor ; found them there with their guns. Asked them what they were doing with their guns. They gave the for answer, 'We will shoot the Indians' I said you must not. To this they replied, ' We will, though you stand by' I told them to go home and keep quiet, or I should send such disturbers to the Manhattans. They rehotel, I might do what I pleasel; they would shoot the Indians to the ground, even if they should hung for it. This Allert, coming into the council, told the comunissaries one of theut should come out. What his intention was, I can't ray. This by way of memorandum. Meanwhile arrested Jan Hendricksen."
The day after this episode, the destruction of corn and beans continued. While it was going on, some Indians appeared on the mountain opposite the fort, and ealled out, ". They would come out and fight us ou the morrow." The squaw being brought out, they said the same thing, for the " Dateh had now come and taken their fort, eut their eorn, børne all their old maize, and they should die of hunger." When Cregier announced, " We went in search of you to the mountains, but ye always ran away," they made off. After this the work of destruction continued for that and the following day. Some idea may be formed of the magnitude of this labor when it is remembered they cut down nearly two hundred acres of corn, and destroyed a hundred pits full of maize and beans. Having finished on the 30th, they all prepared for a return to Wiltwyck on the morrow.
Accordingly, ou the 31st of July, only six or seven socks from the beginning of the war, this conquand, at early dawn, set fire to the Indian stronghold and all their houses, and " while they were in full blaze marched out in order. Captain-Lieutenant Couwenhoven forming the van- guard, Lieutenant Stillwell's company the centre, and
Cregier the rear-guard. They arrived home about nine o'clock that night without any loss, and with all their guns and equipments."
The Dutch said, " The road or course from Wiltwyek to the fort of the Esopus Indians lies mostly southwest, about ten Dutch, or thirty English, miles." This is all the records say of the course of this expedition. In the Albany records there is a mutilated record of an Indian fortress, ealled Wiltmeet, which was on a high hill, point- ing on one side on the kill, " which here is as wide as the Esopus Kill was at Wiltwyck." It further says the latter is not very deep, there being rifts or rapids in three or four places which may be passed with ease. Opposite was a high mountain. "The inclosure is as large as Fort Orange," and had two gates, one opening to the north and the other to the south. " At night the prisoners made a hideous noise."
The site of this fortification was on Indian Hill, at the junetion of the Vernooy and Rondout Creeks. The maize- fields were on the flats, both above and below this spot. Old people have told me that the pits in which they pre- served their corn and beans were on the sides of the same elevation, and against the hill behind Port Ben. The great council-house of all the Esopus elans stood here, which was destroyed with the rest of their huts.
The blow to the savages was a severe one. From this time off they did not have courage. Indeed, from the very start they did not fight much, and must have been weak.
The first of Angust was a day of fasting and prayer, wherefore no work was done. Van Ruyven, secretary of the colony of New Netherland, arrived at the Strand, and was escorted to the village by a company of soldiers. Two days afterwards he went back to New Amsterdam, accom- panied by Lieutenant Couwenhoven, the friendly Indians, and the company's negroes. On promise of behavior, Jan Hendricksen was pardoned by the council of war for his contempt at Wiltmeet.
1663, August. Three horses which were taken from the Indians were sold " by public beat of drum." This gave rise to much controversy. The boors thought they should have them to make good their losses. Gosen Gerrets wanted two, and so did De Witt. This brought up a case of mistaken identity, which Cregier wisely took advantage of, and sold them. But these quarrels gave much trouble to Mattys Capito, who was in Esopus, and took charge of the public records.
On the 29th of July, while Cregier was out after the savages, the court convened, and Albert Gysbert accused Aert Martens Dorn of knocking dead his hog. He an- swered he did not know it, and would pay the owner. He was ordered to pay six guilders to whomsoever owned it.
Jolian De Decker being present, the sheriff accused Tryntje, wife of Cornelius B. Slecht, for defaming him by calling his honor a bloodsucker. The lady did not deny the charge, but said it came " through hastiness and ill-will over their losses by the Indian attack."
The soldiers and freemen were now leaving the place in large numbers without a convoy, wherefore a council of
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THE SECOND ESOPUS INDIAN WAR.
war, composed of both military and civil officers, passed stringent placards, prohibiting all from going out without a pass, " lest they fall into the hands of the barbarous savages, our enemies,"" and fixed heavy penalties for dis- obedience, among them this : " Should any one, in violating this order, happen to be captured by Indians, no expense or trouble shall be ineurred for him, inasmuch as he, by his perverse and stiff-necked course, contrary to this ordinance, will have brought down this misfortune on himself." They also forbid the wasting of powder and balls by a fine of six guillers.
Christopher Davis being at Fort Orange, some Mohegan savages were sent to invite him down, for the Dutch wished his service to parley with the savages, to obtain those wlio were in the hands of the enemy. For the next weck nothing of importanee transpired. The time was occupied in sending out scouting-parties and convoying the farmers, but no hostile savages were seen.
Drunkenness now became a cause of disorder and suffer- ing. "Servants not hesitating to sell, pawn, and pledge their own necessaries for strong drinks to traders in intox- ieating liquors ; the traders receiving the same; yea, even not hesitating to give them more credit and trust whether they have anything or not," an ordinanee was read by the town door prohibiting the sale of pawns of any kind, and also that none should be sold on the Sabbath, or at all to soldiers without permission of the officers. To effectually provide against the latter, the soldier was instructed he should not pay for the rum except by permission. These facts best illustrate the confusion of the town while filled with fugitives and soldiers.
Cregier was too good a soldier to be idle. On the 1Sth he sent out Ensign Niesen with fifty men about nine miles away to maize-land to surprise the savages, if possible. Ife marched all night, but when day dawned and showed him the plantation, there was no sign of an enemy. The next day, when he reached Wiltwyek, he found there Christopher Davis, who had come all the way from the Manhattans in a canoe. He brought word from Pieter Couwenhoven, who was lying in the Dans Kamer with his sloop, that the Esopus Indians, in connection with the Minnesink and Wappinger savages, were meditating to surprise Wiltwyek in two days with four hundred men. He also said those who were there "made a great uproar every night, firing guns and kinte- buying so that the woods rang again." Davis declared he Nept one night with the savages and a sachem, who had for prisoners, one of whom, a woman, said a large party of savages had beeu near the Esopus to watch.
Much of this was the veriest boast of savages, but it was sufficient to alarm Cregier, who issued strict commands against venturing beyond the stockade. The next day Couwenhoven arrived, bringing with him a woman and boy whom he had ransomed. The woman " was brought to bed of a young daughter on entering Esopus Kill." The next lay the lieutenant was sent back with the Indians to ex- chance for whites, bearing instructions to get them by sur- pri-e if he could no other way. It was expected the Wap- pingers would act as mediators. In the mean while, Blom and wife took a trip to the Manhattans.
Only three or four days passed before the captain learned
his lieutenant had obtained three more prisoners and sent a sachem over to Shawangunk to confer about securing all the remainder of the captives, but that he had let loose the Indian prisoners contrary to orders. In indignation he wrote, " Now let him defend himself." Having sent a messenger reproving his eenduct, he awaited further de- velopments. There soon eame in word that the Wappinger sachem had visited the new fort and stayed three days, but that his eonferenee had been broken off by the appearance of two Mohawks and a Mingua savage, who bore sewan and a long message, which made the Esopus Indians " ill disposed to him."
Capt. Cregier, perplexed at parleying, for he said, " I cannot imagine what there is in it," convened a council of war, and they determined forthwith to send one hundred and twenty meu to attack the new fort and reseue the cap- tives by force of arms. They accordingly issued rations, and ordered a start that afternoon or on the next morning. Rain delayed them that day, however, when they sent a ciessage to the civil and militia officers of Wiltwyck asking for twenty horsewien " from the hired men of the village." The answer to this request shows a want of sensitiveness and love for their captive wives and children, which, at this day, seems almost inexcusable. The court and superior officers, having convoked the farmers and read the request, " they gave for answer they were well disposed to do their best for the publie interest, but find at present that the horses, fatigued from the harvest, are unfit to be rode by men." Whereupon they asked the expedition be deferred for " six or seven days, until the harvest be completed, as the grain yet in the field is already injured."
Rain stopped the departure the next day also. Again the civil officers were asked for " some horses" to place the wounded on, in case any were injured. After great trouble they obtained six from a few, but spiteful and insulting words from many. One said, " Let those furnish horses who commenced the war ;" another, "I'll give 'em the devil; if they want anything, they will have to take it by force;" the third said, " I must first have my horse valued and have security for it," ete., with much other foul and unbecoming language not to be repeated.
The 1st and 2d of September passed with the same delay by rain. That was a wet sumimer, truly. It stormed fer a month almost continually. On Monday, the 3d, the rain abated, and Cregier, with twenty-two meu of his own company, twenty of Lieut. Stillwell's, and seven free- men, with two negrocs, mustered and prepared to start. By perseverance they had obtained eight horses, the eap- tain writing, " Thomas Chambers, without any solicitation, presented me with two for the expedition." At one o'clock iu the afternoon they left Wiltwyck, accompanied by Chris- topher Davis as interpreter, and a Wappinger Indian as guide, promising him his liberty and a coat if he piloted them aright. That night they eneamped on the banks of the creek at Rosendale. The next morning the stream was so swollen they could not cross. Determined not to be thwarted, " two horsemen were sent back to the village for ropes and axes, with which to make rafts and other conve- niences." They returned abont ten o'clock with three axes . and a rope. The last was immediately stretched across, " so
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HISTORY OF ULSTER COUNTY, NEW YORK.
the people may not be swept far down the creek." By two o'clock all were over and marched ou about twelve miles, when they bivouacked for the night. At daybreak they again moved ou, and about noon " discovered two squaws and a Dutch woman, who had come that morning for corn." By this time they were near the site of the Shawangunk church, and the women were just beyond, on the opposite side of the Siusinek Kill. All this while they had been following a trail ; but now, finding they could not seize the women without exposure, they turned to the left into the woods and followed the Hooge Berg.
THE INDIAN FORTRESS.
At two o'clock they came in sight of the Indian fortress, which was situated on a " lofty plain," with a stream to the west. Niesen, with Stillwell, now took part of the force off to the left, so as to prevent escape, except by way of the creek, while Lieut. Conwenhoven and Cregier weut forward with the remainder. They muarched under the hill in order to get right upon it before they were discovered, but in this they were foiled. There is a small plain which had to be crossed, in doing which the soldiers were discovered by a squaw, who was piling wood. She immediately gave a " terrible sereain," which alarmed the savages, who until now had been unconscious of danger. Uulnekily for them, they were at work on their fortifications, while their huts and arms were between them and the Christians. They attempted to reach these, but were foiled by the prompt charge of the soldiers. "They hastily picked up a few guus and bows and arrows, but we were so hot at their heels that" they were forced to leave many of them behind. Being hotly pressed by the fire and charge of the whites, they ran down the hill and crossed the stream. Once there, they courageously returned the fire, and made it so hot that a party had to be sent across to dislodge them, when they took to their heels for the mountains. The country being clear of timber for some distance, they dared not return.
When the battle was over, Cregier found fourteen dead warriors and the body of the chief, Pepequanehen. Legend has fixed the spot where this sachem fell. It is ou the bank of the kill, immediately below " the new fort." Be- sides these, four women and three children were shin. " But probably many more were wounded when rushing from the fort to the huts, when we did give them a brave charge. We also took thirteen of them prisoners, both men and women, besides an old man, who accompanied us about a half-hour, but could go no farther. We took him aside and gave him his last mical." The Dutch lost three killed and six wounded, aud recovered twenty-three Chris- tian prisoners.
The enemy being conquered, Cregier mustered his forces and found he had one more wounded than he had horses, whereupon he prepared a litter to carry this one. In the mean while, he counseled with his officers what should be done with the maize-fields. After some deliberation it was resolved to leave it stand, for they wisely reasoned that they had one wounded man more than they had horses already, and could not afford to tarry for the destruction of these crops, and run the risk of being burdened with more. Thereupon they began the destruction of the fort prepara-
tory to leaving, not forgetting the wigwams and contents. They found considerable booty, such as bear-skins, deer- skins, blankets, elk-hides, and smaller articles, many of which they were obliged to leave behind, " for we could well fili a sloop." " They destroyed all they could ; broke the kettles; got also twenty-four or five guns, more than half of which we smashed, and threw the barrels here and there in the creek, hacking and breaking in pieces as many as we could." Several horns and bags of powder were found, in all about twenty pounds. " Got also thirty-one belts and strings of wampum ; took some of the booty along, and destroyed the rest." This done, they set fire to the fort and huts, and took up the homeward march. That day they went about four miles and encamped, which must have been in the neighborhood of Tuthilltown. The next morning they crossed a " rapid stony creek" -- the Shaw- angunk -ard encamped that evening "just beyond the Esopus Creek," which must have been in the neighbor- hood of Mrs. Peter Cornell's, at Rosendale. " There died the Indian child, which we threw into the ercek." The savages followed and watched their course from the Shaw- angunk Mountains, but did not molest them while on the march. The whole force arrived at Wiltwyck about noon the 7th of September. I suppose they were met with great joy by the Dutch and French burghers, for these whites had been prisoners exactly three months, and must have been sorely missed; but if their joy was as slow as they were to rescue them, it did not show itself in a week. Be it remembered, they wanted their erops before their wives and children.
Thus ended this expedition. The fort alluded to was a perfect square, " with one row of palisades set all round, being about fifteen feet above and three feet under ground. They had already completed two angles of stont palisades, all of them almost as thick as a man's body, having two rows of port-holes, one above the other, and they were busy at the third angle. These were constructed so solid and strong as not to be excelled by Christians." It was not so large as the one burned at Wawarsing. The release of so many captives was due to a Mohawk Indian, who slept in the fort the night before the attack, and advised them bot to take them into the woods, as usual, for, said he, " The Dutch will not come hither, for they cannot come so far without being discovered."
A beautiful legend has come down to us through the Huguenot families, which recites that Louis Du Bois and some of his brethren rescued these captives, their wives and children, at the new fort. Cregier, who wrote everything minutely, only speaks of seven freemen being with him ; therefore I judge Du Bois was one of them. The same story says the white women were singing Marot's hymus wien the Dutch attacked the fortification, but, as the gallant captain says nothing of this also, another poetic tale disap- pears from the page of history, and takes its place in fiction.
Stillwell was now sent back to the Manhattans, and con- veyed the news of their snecess to Stuyvesant. That hanghty old officer immediately returned thanks for the favor of Providence, and organized a reinforcement of both Christians and Marseping savages. These were quartered in the mill of Peter Jacobsen.
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THE SECOND ESOPUS INDIAN WAR.
Between this and the 27th detachments went out to de- stroy some maize in the neighborhood of Wagondale and " Sager's Kill," but they found the crops had been left un- cultivated, and that wild beasts had destroyed much of what had grown without it. On the 25th, Juriaen Jansen shot a squirrel, which fell in the creek near the redoubt. While reaching for it from a canoe it upset, and he was drowned. The next day the sale of liquor was interdieted in Wiltwyck, and another expedition against the savages announced, with a request of sixteen horses from the burghers. This produced some windy words between the justices, military officers, and the citizens, Roosa and Slecht being principals in the wordy melee.
In the mean while, ahnost all the male inhabitants of the settlement were cited before the court to answer for violation of the ordinance prohibiting them from going out without a pass and convoy. Much dissatisfaction existed in regard to these prosecutions, and, although designed for the public good, they were deemed tyrannical acts.
Not more than twenty-seven or twenty-eight warriors. fif- teen or sixteen women, and a few children now remained of the hostile savages. The huts and plantations of these were mostly destroyed, and they were scattered here and there through the woods asking food. The Wawarsings, Wap- pingers, and Minnesinks, who helped in the first attack, had gone to their homes, disgusted with the turn the tide had given them. Against this remnant of the Esopus Indians, ou the 2d of October, one hundred and two Dutch sol- diers, forty six Marsepings (Long Island), and six burghers marched out. They encamped that night in the neighbor- hood of New Paltz. The next day, about two o'clock in the afternoon, they came to the scene of the surprise of a month before. Solitude reigned supreme in the woods of Shaw- augunk. The silence of the untenanted battle-field was unbroken except by the kar! kar! of the crows as they flew up from the half-consumed carcasses of the Indians. They had dug five pits in the fort and Afted them with dead. These the wolves had dug up, and, with the ravens, partly consumed. Down on the flat, below the hill, four other graves had been treated in the same way. A little farther on lay the bodies of three warriors, a woman, and child, which had not been buried, and were almost caten up by beasts and birds of prey. Had these carcasses been those of whites, the sight would have sickeued the hearts of the Dutch soldiers, but they were only Indians, who were not, they thought, much better than dogs.
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