USA > New York > Monroe County > History of the pioneer settlement of Phelps and Gorham's purchase, and Morris' reserve; embracing the counties of Monroe, Ontario, Livingston, Yates, Steuben, most of Wayne and Allegany, and parts of Orleans, Genesee, and Wyoming. To which is added, a Supplement, or Extension of the pioneer history of Monroe county > Part 8
USA > New York > Allegany County > History of the pioneer settlement of Phelps and Gorham's purchase, and Morris' reserve; embracing the counties of Monroe, Ontario, Livingston, Yates, Steuben, most of Wayne and Allegany, and parts of Orleans, Genesee, and Wyoming > Part 8
USA > New York > Livingston County > History of the pioneer settlement of Phelps and Gorham's purchase, and Morris' reserve; embracing the counties of Monroe, Ontario, Livingston, Yates, Steuben, most of Wayne and Allegany, and parts of Orleans, Genesee, and Wyoming. To which is added, a Supplement, or Extension of the pioneer history of Monroe county > Part 8
USA > New York > Yates County > History of the pioneer settlement of Phelps and Gorham's purchase, and Morris' reserve; embracing the counties of Monroe, Ontario, Livingston, Yates, Steuben, most of Wayne and Allegany, and parts of Orleans, Genesee, and Wyoming. To which is added, a Supplement, or Extension of the pioneer history of Monroe county > Part 8
USA > New York > Ontario County > History of the pioneer settlement of Phelps and Gorham's purchase, and Morris' reserve; embracing the counties of Monroe, Ontario, Livingston, Yates, Steuben, most of Wayne and Allegany, and parts of Orleans, Genesee, and Wyoming. To which is added, a Supplement, or Extension of the pioneer history of Monroe county > Part 8
USA > New York > Wyoming County > History of the pioneer settlement of Phelps and Gorham's purchase, and Morris' reserve; embracing the counties of Monroe, Ontario, Livingston, Yates, Steuben, most of Wayne and Allegany, and parts of Orleans, Genesee, and Wyoming. To which is added, a Supplement, or Extension of the pioneer history of Monroe county > Part 8
USA > New York > Steuben County > History of the pioneer settlement of Phelps and Gorham's purchase, and Morris' reserve; embracing the counties of Monroe, Ontario, Livingston, Yates, Steuben, most of Wayne and Allegany, and parts of Orleans, Genesee, and Wyoming. To which is added, a Supplement, or Extension of the pioneer history of Monroe county > Part 8
USA > New York > Genesee County > History of the pioneer settlement of Phelps and Gorham's purchase, and Morris' reserve; embracing the counties of Monroe, Ontario, Livingston, Yates, Steuben, most of Wayne and Allegany, and parts of Orleans, Genesee, and Wyoming. To which is added, a Supplement, or Extension of the pioneer history of Monroe county > Part 8
USA > New York > Wayne County > History of the pioneer settlement of Phelps and Gorham's purchase, and Morris' reserve; embracing the counties of Monroe, Ontario, Livingston, Yates, Steuben, most of Wayne and Allegany, and parts of Orleans, Genesee, and Wyoming. To which is added, a Supplement, or Extension of the pioneer history of Monroe county > Part 8
USA > New York > Orleans County > History of the pioneer settlement of Phelps and Gorham's purchase, and Morris' reserve; embracing the counties of Monroe, Ontario, Livingston, Yates, Steuben, most of Wayne and Allegany, and parts of Orleans, Genesee, and Wyoming. To which is added, a Supplement, or Extension of the pioneer history of Monroe county > Part 8
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Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67
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He was just the man the English government required in the contest they were waging with the French; and he had not been long in the Mohawk valley, before he became its Indian agent, and the dispenser of its gifts, which added to his personal popularity with the Indians, gave him an influence over them greater than any one of our own race has ever possessed. He was the first Englishman to contend, with any great measure of success, with French Indian diplomacy ; their governors, missionaries and tra- ders.
On the breaking out of the last English and French war upon this continent, he was made a General of colonial militia, and by virtue of a leadership that had been created by the Iroquois, he was head warrior of all of them that inclined to the English interests. His first military service, was to head the formidable expedition against Crown Point, in which he was the vanquisher of the Baron Dieskeu. For this signal service, he was made a Baronet. The other prominent event in his military career, was the siege and con- quest of Fort Niagara, which mainly devolved upon him, by the death of his superior in command, Gen. Prideaux.
The gifts of his sovereign, and the facilities he enjoyed for pur- chasing Indian lands, made him the possessor of great wealth, which, with his military honors, the partiality of his countrymen, and his great influence with the Indians, rendered him as near a Prince as any thing the backwoods of America have witnessed. *
After the close of the French war, as a British agent, he held treaties and negotiated with the Iroquois, and some of the western nations, all of the territorial acquisitions in middle New York, north- ern Pennsylvania, and upon the Ohio River, that was made pre-
* " He built two spacious and convenient residences on the Mohawk River, known afterwards as Johnson Castle and Johnson Hall. The Hall was his summer residence. Here this singular man lived like a little sovereign, kept an excellent table for strangers and officers, whom the course of their duty now led into these wilds ; and by con- fiding entirely in the Indians, and treating them with unwearied truth and justice without even yielding to solicitations he had once refused, he taught them to repose entire confidence in him. So perfeet was his dependence on those people, whom his fortitude and other manly virtues had attached to him, that when they returned from their summer excursions and exchanged their last year furs for fire arms, &e., they used to pass a few days at the Castle, when his family and most of his domestics were down at the Hall. There they were all liberally entertained by Sir William, and 500 of them have been known, for nights together, after drinking pretty freely, to lie around him on the ground, while he was the only white person in a house containing great quantities of every thing that was to them valuable or desirable." - Memoirs of an American Lady.
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vious to the Revolution. To his influence with the Indians as a British agent, inherited by his family, may be attributed in a great measure their alliance with the British throughout the Revolution ; and yet had he lived when the contest was waged, it is doubtful what would have been his position. There are strong reasons for assuming that he would have been at least a neutral. He died at Johnson Hall, in June, 1774, just as the storm was gathering, soon after he had himself predicted that " England and her colonies were approaching a terrible war, which he should never live to witness." His health had been for some years declining.
In his youth, soon after he became a resident upon the Mohawk, he took for his wife, (conventionally,) a comely, German girl, who being a redemptionist, was serving her time with one of his neighbors. She was the mother of his son and successor, Sir John Johnson, and of his daughters, who became the wives of Col. Claus, and Col. Guy Johnson, a distant relative of Sir William. A legal marriage took place when Sir William was on his death bed, which ceremony had reference to the descent of property. And here it would be historical delinquency to conceal the fact, that Sir William, away from the restraints of civilized life, had indulged in what Mr. Ban- croft would call the "freedom of the backwoods." Ebenezer Allan, who was at one period, in the valley of the Genesee, what Sir William was in the valley of the Mohawk, without taking his many virtues as his examples, was but an humble imitator of his one prom- inent vice. The fruits of his amours may be traced at this day in all the retreats of the remnants of the Six nations. Upon the banks of the Allegany, the observing traveller will recognize the family resemblance in the contour of faces ; the " blood of the Johnsons," coursing the veins and harmoniously blending with that of the Iro- quois. The sister of Joseph Brant, in some respects as good a speci- men of her race, as was her renowned brother, was the mother of several of his children who were also legitimatized by a private marriage that took place a few years before his death.
Histories of the Revolution exist in too many forms, are too easily accessible to all classes of readers, to make it necessary to em-
* Documentary History. Vol. 2d. p. 957 ; Col Duncan, to a Friend of Sir Williams: "Yr friend Sir William is sore failed, he is ever now and then in a bad way, wherefore
Y
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brace even any considerable allusion to it in a work of this character. All of it that has any more than a remote connection with the his- tory of our local region, are the Border Wars of New York, and with them the author will assume that his readers are generally familiar.
On the death of Sir William Johnson, his son, John Johnson, suc- ceeded to his titles and estates, and his officer of General Superin- tendent of Indian Affairs fell into the hands of Col. Guy Johnson, his son-in-law, who had as his deputy Col. Claus, another son-in- law. Thus inherited, all the official and personal influence that had been acquired was wielded against the Colonies and in favor of the mother country. The natives unschooled in all that could enable them to understand the merits of the quarrel - themselves recog- nizing in their simple form of government heriditary rulers - could see in the up rising of the Colonies against their King, little else than unjustifiable rebellion, and they were told by the Johnsons that the outbreaks in Boston, and the battle of Lexington, were the acts of disobedient children against the King their Father, who had been kind to them as he had to the Six Nations. Sir William Johnson had been the almoner of annual gifts from his sovereign, and mingling a sincere regard for them, with his official duties, had wedded them strongly to him and to his government.
Joseph Brant, (in Indian, Thay-en-da-ga,) had been the protege of Sir William Johnson. When quite a youth he had sent him to the Rev. Dr. Wheelock's school in Lebanon, Connecticut, after- wards employed him in his private business. * Engaged in military service, when he took the field, the young chief took the war path, one of the leaders of Sir William's Indian allies. Under these cir- cumstances it was very natural that Brant should have been found a follower of the fortunes of the Johnson family.
With those influences bearing upon them, the Six Nations, with
is thought not to last many years more which will be a great loss to mankind in gen- eral, but particularly to this neighborhood, and I don't see that any one of the family is capable of keeping up the general applause when he is gone."
* His nativity is a mooted question. Bishop Strachan of Toronto, in an article written for the Christian Messenger, assumed that he was a Mohawk, born on the Ohio river, his parents having emigrated. This is upon the authority of Dr. Stewart, for- merly a missionary in the Mohawk valley ; Col. Stone accredits this. But better au- thority than either, because he has been a far moreindustrious researcher- L. C. Dra- per, Esq., of Philadelphia -assumes that he was a native Cherokee. There were Cherokees in all the nations of the Iroquois ; captives and their descendants.
5
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the exception of a part of the Tuscaroras and Oneidas, were the firm allies of England throughout the war of the Revolution. Immedi- ately after the death of Sir William, Guy Johnson renewed allian- ces, and as hostilities approached the Mohawk valley, " brightened the chain of friendship" with gifts and lavish promises of increased patronage from his master, the King. A "committee of safety," which was early organized in "Tryon county," were jealous of every movement of the Johnsons, and especially those of Guy John- son. It would seem, in fact, that he had at first rashly determined to maintain his ground, and, for that purpose, under pretence of fear of attack from "the rebels," had fortified his house, and drawn around it as guards, a formidable body of Indians. This alarmed the Tryon county committee, which had been early organized as auxillary to the central committee at Albany. They made re- presentations to the Albany committee of all that was going on, and in allusion to Johnson's fortified castle and the hostile Indians, they say :- " We are, gentlemen, in a worse situation than any part of America at present. We have an open enemy before our faces, and a treacherous enemy at our backs." They assure the Albany committee that they will " neither submit to the acts of Parliament nor Col. Johnson's arbitrary conduct."
A series of stirring local events followed : - The Johnson family closely allied in interest and friendship with other influential fami- lies of Tryon county, not only controlled the Indians, but had such an influence with the whites as almost to enable them to coerce local obedience to them, and fealty to the King. They even ventured, and partially were successful, in using the civil authori -. ties of Tryon county to subserve these purposes ; interfering in one or two instances in breaking up what they termed "rebel meetings."
Early in the summer of 1775 however, Guy Johnson had deter- mined that his own safety and the interests of his King, would both be promoted by removal to Canada. Up to this time, he had relied upon hopes that the revolutionary movements were but temporary outbreaks, which would be suppressed by the strong arm of his government, or conciliated by a redress of some of the grievances complained of. But admonished by the dark clouds of war that were gathering, that the crisis had arrived, that he could not preserve where he was with safety, a position even of neutrality, he resolved upon placing himself in a position to take an active part in the con-
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test. Under the pretence that he could better control the Indians, and keep them from harming the inhabitants by fixing his head- quarters at Fort Stanwix, he left "Guy Park " and repaired to that post, where he was soon joined by John and Walter Butler, Brant, and a formidable body of Tories and Indians. He soon removed with most of his retinue to Oswego.
It should here be observed, that inured to war as had been the Iroquois --- fond of it as would seem from the avidity with which they had engaged in it with their own race and ours - the breaking out of the Revolution, found them with somewhat altered inclina- tions. Vastly reduced by wars with the southern and western Indians, and with the French, the remnant of them that had enjoy- ed a few years of peace had learned in some degree to estimate its value. Fully realizing the consequences, should they take up the hatchet for the King, the local committees of safety for Tryon and Albany counties, held conferences with the Mohawks and received assurances of neutrality. In June, 1776, General Schuyler, appoint- ed for that purpose by the Congress at Philadelphia, held a council with all of the Six Nations upon the German Flats, where assur- ances of neutrality were renewed. But the superior influences that have been spoken of, finally prevailed.
Guy Johnson soon repaired to Montreal, where he made his head quarters, and engaged with zeal and activity, in enlisting the Indians in a harrassing border war, chiefly directed against his old neighbors. Sir John Johnson, previous to the flight, or hegira of his brother-in-law, had stipulated with Gen. Schuyler that he would remain and be a neutral, the chief motive being the preservation of the vast estate he had inherited ; but encouraged by the prospect of a final triumph of the King over the colonies, he followed his incli- nations, violated his pledges of neutrality, and taking with him three hundred of his neighbors and dependents, (chiefly Scotch,) joined his brother in Montreal, and became like him an active par- tizan. The immediate presence of the powerful family was thus withdrawn from the Mohawk, and little left of them but their desel ted fields and mansions ; but the devoted valley had yet to feel the terrible scourge which loyalty could inflict, when sharpened by mo- tives of private vengeance.
Col. John Butler soon fixed his residence on the shores of Lake Ontario, in the immediate vicinity of the village of Niagara, where
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he was soon installed as the leader of the tory refugees. Erecting barracks upon the plain, near where Fort George was afterwards built, there they were organized and quartered ; and from that point they sallied out in marauding expeditions to the vallies of the Mo- hawk and Susquehannah, with their Indian allies ; and to that point they returned when their errands of mischief had been executed. It was there the expeditions to the devoted valley of Wyoming, and to arrest the march of Sullivan, were projected.
After leaving the Mohawk valley, Brant was alternately at Oswego, Niagara, upon the Susquehannah and Genesee Rivers, until July 1777, when he made his appearance with an armed band of warriors at Unadilla, an Indian village upon the Susquehannah. There Gen. Herkimer, with a strong guard of Tryon county militia, sought an interview with him, in hopes of changing his purpose of engaging in the King's service. They met, Brant rather haughtily demanded the object of the interview, which was explained. Hinting to Gen. Herkimer that his attendants were pretty numerous for a peace ambassador, he assured him that he had a superior force, five hundred warriors, with which he could erush him and his party at a word ; but said he, "we are old neighbors and friends and I will not do it." A hot-headed and imprudent Col. Cox, who had accompanied Gen. Herkimer, grossly insulted Brant, which came near bringing on an uncqual contest, but Brant hushed the impending storm and promised another interview. It was had according to promise ; Brant assur- ed the General that he fully understood his errand ; "but" said he, " you are too late, I am already engaged to serve the King. We are old friends, I can do no less than to let you return home unmo- lested, although you are entirely within my power." This was the last conference held by the agents of Congress with the Indians, pending or during the war of the Revolution; and after this, soon followed the terrible scenes with which the author presumes the reader to be familiar.
Immediately following this interview with Brant, Sir John John- son and Col. Walter Butler sent out runners and convened delega- tions from all of the Six Nations at Oswego. The council was opened by a speech from Sir John, in which he assured the Indians that their assistance was wanted "to subdue the rebels who had taken up arms against their good Father the King, and was about to rob him of a great part of his possessions and wealth." The
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chiefs then rose and severally assured the British agents that they had only one year before in council with General Schuyler, pledged themselves to neutrality, and that they should not violate the pledge by taking up the hatchet. The British agents told them that the "rebels " were few in number and easily subdued, and that on ac- count of their disobedience they fully merited all the punishment that white men and Indians united could inflict ; that the King was rich and powerful, both in money and subjects; that his "rum was as plenty as the waters of Lake Ontario." This appeal to the appetites of the simple natives which British agents had done much before to vitiate, accompanied by promises of rich gifts, prevailed, and a treaty was made in which they pledge themselves to take up arms against the rebels, and continue in service during the war. "Upon the con- clusion of the treaty, each Indian was presented with a suit of clothes, a brass kettle, a gun, a tomahawk, a scalping knife, a quantity of powder and lead, and a piece of gold." *
In the speech of Cornplanter to the Governor of Pennsylvania, in 1822, he said : - " The cause of Indians having been led into sin at that time, was, that many of them were in the practice of drink- ing and getting intoxicated. Great Britain requested us to join them in the conflict against Americans, and promised the Indians land and liquor."
Soon after the war commenced, Brant collected the Mohawks at Lewiston, selecting for their home some of the fine grounds on the Ridge Road, near the present village. He built a small log church, using the bell of one of the Indian churches upon the Mohawk, which was hung upon the notch of a tree, the British chaplain at Fort Niagara, frequently holding service there. After the Revolu- tion, he removed to Brantford, C. W., where large grants of land were secured to him by the British government. He died in 1807, aged 64 years.
Col. John Butler, who was respectably connected upon the Mo- hawk, became, from the first breaking out of the Revolution, a
* Life of Mary Jemison.
NOTE .- In few things is the poverty of the colonies, when the war commenced, more strikingly evinced, than in these Indian negotiations. With a few thousand dollars expended in the form of presents, when Gen. Schuyler held his treaty with them, their neutrality could have been secured ; but he gave them nothing, for he had nothing to give. The British took advantage of this, secured their services, and made them a scourge to border settlers of New York and Pennsylvania.
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zealous tory, and fled from his friends and home with the Johnsons, fixed his residence at Niagara, as has already been mentioned. With the doings of him and his Rangers, the readers of the Revo- lutionary history are familiar; he is connected with some of the darkest pages of it. With more of the savage in his nature by far, than Brant, he was far ahead of him in acts of cruelty, and incapa- ble of the exercise of any of his sterling virtues. He was well educated, and his letters and the part he acted in various Indian treaties for the sale of the lands of this region, induce the conclu- sion, that he had a good share of business talents. At the close of the Revolution, he became Superintendent of Indian affairs for Up- per Canada, and was also a half-pay British Colonel. The patron- age of a King he had served so devotedly at the sacrifice of the private esteem of even those who had been his companions in arms, enabled him to surround himself with all the comforts and many of the luxuries of life. The home of which he was the founder, even now in its neglected condition, exhibits in all its primitive appoint- ments, much of cultivated taste and refinement, which it is difficult to reconcile with the character of the man, as given to us in the annals of Border Wars. He died at Niagara, in 1794.
The influence of the Johnson family with the Indians, was hard- ly less potent than with their white neighbors. No where in all the colonies, was there so large a proportionate diversion of the inhabitants from an espousal of the Revolution, as in the valley of the Mohawk ; and on the other hand, no where were there bet- ter examples of patriotism, bravery and self-sacrifice. It was, em- phatically, "the dark and bloody ground." At first, the contest had all the features of civil war; households were divided; it was brother against brother, and neighbor against neighbor ; and when, after the tories and Indians had withdrawn to Oswego, Montreal, Fort Niagara and Canada, they returned from time to time upon their errands of blood-shed and rapine ; they were upon familiar ground, and well knew where most effectually to direct their steps,
NOTE .- In 1791, James Wadsworth visited Niagara, principally to inform himself as to the prospect of an Indian war. He wrote to a friend : - "You will not suppose that we are under much fears from the Indians, when I tell you that I started from the Genesee river without company, and reached Niagara in two days, without any difficulty. Butsir, it was a most solitary ride." "I had an excellent dinner with Col. Butler. We were served with apples, chestnuts, hazel nuts and walnuts; but what surprised me most, was, to sce a plate of malacatoon peaches as good as I ever saw."
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and where to execute the most terrible mischief. In the retrospect, when nations have settled down in peace, and look back upon the excesses they have committed in the strife and heat of war, there is always much even for self-accusation ; but in all the history of wars, there is nothing that so stands out in bold relief, without miti- gation or excuse, as was the sanguine policy of England in the em- ployment of the tomahawk and scalping knife, to aid her in warring against her colonies. In all her own dark catalogue of wrongs, in the east, at home, in compelling obedience to the throne, there is nothing that so far outraged humanity, that so far transcended the rules of civilized warfare, as was the armning of savage allies, and sending them to lay waste unprotected backwoods settlements and massacre their inhabitants, without regard to age, condition, or sex. What the feeble colonies scorned to do in self-defence - after they had determined upon asking nothing farther than to have the toma- hawk and scalping knife kept out of the contest - British agents, with the sanction of their government, did not hesitate to do in a spirit of inhumanity so sanguinary aud unrelenting, that it urged on Indian warfare, even when it hesitated in the execution of its stealthy and bloody missions.
The Border Wars, the tory and Indian incursions from Canada, Oswego and Niagara, continued at intervals from the flight of the Johnsons, Butler and Brant in '75, until August 1779. The horrid details already fill volumes of published history .* With powerful British armies to contend with upon the sea board - work enough for the feeble and exhausted colonies -inadequate help had been afforded to repel invaders of the frontier settlements of New York. The stealthy foe could make descents by land or water through dif- ferent unguarded avenues, and when their work of death was accomplished, retreat to their strong holds at Oswego and Niagara, a wide wilderness their defence and security against pursuit and retribution. When expeditions were planned at Niagara, if designed for the valley of the Mohawk, the Indians and tories would concen- trate at Oswego; and if the valley of the Susquehannah was the destination, they would concentrate upon the Genesee river, Seneca
* For these details the reader is referred to Campbell's Annals of Tryon County, Simm's History of Schoharie and the Border Wars, Stone's Life of Brant, History of Onondaga, and the Holland Purchase.
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Lake, or the Tioga river. Their prisoners were usually taken to Fort Niagara, the Bastile of the then western wilderness
At last, in the early part of the year 1779, Gen. Washington de- termined upon a measure for carrying the war home upon the inva- ders, routing the Indians from their villages, and if practicable, the seige and capture of Fort Niagara. The command was entrusted to Gen. Sullivan. The army organized for the expedition was in three divisions. That part of it under the immediate command of Gen. Sullivan, coming from Pennsylvania, ascended the Susquehan- nah to Tioga Point. Another division under the command of Gen. James Clinton, constructing batteaux at Schenectady, ascended the Mohawk and rendezvoused at Canajoharrie, opened a road to the head of Otsego Lake, and from thence proceeded in a formidable fleet of over two hundred batteaux, to Tioga Point, forming a junction with the force under Gen. Sullivan, on the 22d of August. Previous to the arrival of Gen. Clinton, Sullivan had sent forward a detachment which fell in with a scouting party of Indians, and a skirmish ensued.
The combined forces amounted to 5,000 men. The expedition had been so long preparing, and upon the march, that the enemy were well apprized of all that was going on. Their plan of de- fence contemplated a decisive engagement upon the Chemung river. For this purpose the Rangers and regular British troops, under the command of Col. John Butler, Cols. Guy and Sir John Johnson, Major Walter N. Butler and Capt. M'Donald, and the Indians under Brant had concentrated their forces upon a bend of the river, near the present village of Elmira, where they had thrown up a long breast work of logs. The united forces of the British allies as computed by Gen. Sullivan, was about 1500. * Having ascer- tained their position, Gen. Sullivan marched in full force and attacked them in the forenoon of the 29th of August. He found the enemy partly entrenched and partly arranged in scouting and flanking parties, the Indians especially adopting their favorite mode of war- fare. Well provided with artillery, a heavy fire was opened upon the enemies entrenchments, which soon proved them a weak de- fence; a part of the Indians were panic stricken by the heavy cannonade, and fled, while other portions of them were rallied by
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