Landmarks of Niagara County, New York, Part 4

Author: Pool, William, 1825-1912, ed
Publication date: 1897
Publisher: [Syracuse] : D. Mason & Co.
Number of Pages: 820

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hidden at that point. While the wagons and soldiers were moving by the declivity, the savages opened fire. It must have been a deadly volley, for it was at close range and very deliberate. The Indians at once sprang upon their victims with knife and tomahawk and com- pleted the slaughter. It is recorded that some of the teams were frightened over the precipice and that some of the English jumped over, preferring to take that desperate chance rather than be tomahawked or burned at the stake. One of these a, drummer boy named Matthews, fell into a tree top and descended in safety. He died long afterwards at Queenston at the age of ninety years. A wounded teamster is also said to have crawled into a secluded spot and escaped. Stedman was mounted and spurring his horse into a run, escaped through a shower of bullets to Schlosser. The firing was heard at Lewiston, and reinforcements immediately started for the scene. In some doubt these troops marched up the road to sure destruction. The Indians had finished the first massacre and, discovering the approach of the rein- forcements, again secreted themselves. As the troops came up a deadly volley killed or wounded a large part of their number and the knife and- tomahawk completed the bloody work. But eight men are reported as having escaped to carry the news to Lewiston and flee on- ward to Fort Niagara. The garrison turned out to meet the savages and with better knowledge of what had already taken place, they took greater precautions, but the Indians had gone. The soldiers found the remains of their stripped and mutilated comrades, broken wagons, wounded teams, etc., at the bottom of the precipice. This was the most terrible and bloody deed ever enacted in this immediate vicinity. The little stream close by, that some years ago supplied water for a saw mill, is known as Bloody Run, deriving its name from the massacre. Many thousands of tourists have visited the locality where, for many years, a charge was made for going down the declivity on rude steps. Along down the banks relics of this butchery were found by the pioneer settlers half a century later.

To prevent further depredations reinforcements were sent on from Oswego. In November two soldiers were killed at Lewiston while cut- ting wood in sight of their quarters. General Amherst was in favor of punishing all the Senecas wherever found, but Johnson secured immu-

ISAAC H. BABCOCK.

nity for two small villages that had remained pacific. Later in the sea- son, when news came from the west that the Hurons and others who had shared in the Pontiac war had offered to make peace, the Senecas hastened to Johnson with similar proposals. Johnson advised the Lords of Trade that the Senecas were undoubtedly sincere and advocated the exaction of the lands along the Niagara from the fort to Schlosser, with a guarantee from the Indians of its peaceable possession forever. Accordingly, when the Senecas to the number of four hundred met Johnson in April, 1764, they signed articles conveying to the English government all the lands on both sides of the river, two miles wide, from Lake Ontario to Fort Schlosser. At this meeting Johnson adopted measures to secure a general conference of all the Indian na- tions at Niagara. On the 8th of July he arrived here from Oswego with General Bradstreet and twelve hundred white men and six hun- dred Indians. Other western Indians had already arrived and more continued to come, the Senecas arriving last about August Ist. There were present at this council a little more than 2,000 Indians, seventeen hundred of whom were warriors. Some of the nations represented had been at enmity with each other, while others were deadly enemies of the English; consequently it required consummate diplomacy to avert trouble. But Johnson was equal to the occasion. and much important business was transacted. The cession of lands by the Senecas, before noticed, was ratified and the boundaries thereof extended to Lake Erie, while they made Johnson a present of all the islands in the river. All of this cession Johnson turned over to the English crown. The sale of liquors to the Indians by traders, a practice full of evil results, was also discussed, and certain regulations made to restrict the sale. Lieutenant- Colonel Vaughn took command of Niagara about this time, and Nor- man McLeod was commissary at the fort many years.

The conference ended early in August and Johnson left for Oswego on the 6th. Bradstreet erected a temporary defensive work at Buffalo and then marched to Schlosser where he embarked with his army for Erie and Detroit. On his return later in the season he encountered a storm, lost many boats and stores, and about one hundred and fifty of his men were forced to traverse the wilderness; some of them died on

the way and the remainder straggled on to Niagara in the cold months of the closing year.

Johnson had now accomplished his purpose of making friends with the Senecas, and treaties with other nations gave the settlers a feeling of security they had not before entertained. Johnson continued to urge upon the Lords of Trade a policy of conciliation and kindness towards the Indians, and altogether wielded a powerful and beneficent influence. He set up the just claim that he had never received ade- quate compensation for his services, asked for title to the lands in the Mohawk valley given him by the Mohawks, and an increase in salary. He, however, continued to give much of his time to adjusting difficul- ties among traders, and regulating affairs on the several frontiers, among which Niagara was, perhaps, the most important.

No very important events took place in which we are here directly interested during the period extending from the time under considera- tion to the breaking out of the Revolution. Settlement advanced very little beyond the various trading posts, everybody being intent upon making profit in the fur trade to the entire neglect of clearing away forests and tilling land. The English maintained the ship yard on Navy Island, and in the fall of 1766 one of two vessels there was burned, whether by straggling Indians or carelessness of workmen is unknown, but probably the latter. In 1767 Commissary McLeod called a small council of some Senecas and Canadian Indians at Niagara, occasioned largely by a drunken quarrel between parties of those Indians, some of whom were wounded. The matter was satisfactorily arranged. Other petty troubles were frequently the cause of complaints, but did not lead to serious difficulty.

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CHAPTER V.

1775 to 1812 .- THE WAR OF THE REVOLUTION.

The Niagara frontier had very little connection with the stirring events of the Revolutionary war, though the post at Fort Niagara itself was an an important one in a military sense for either power to hold during that struggle. It remained in undisputed possession of the English throughout the war, but the great events of that contest which gave freedom to America, the story of which is well known, were enacted far from this region.

In July, 1774, Sir William Johnson died at his home in Johnstown, leaving his estate and affairs largely in the hands of his son-in-law, Col. Guy Johnson, and Sir John Johnson, both of whom were active parti- sans of the English in the Revolution, until they were driven into Can- ada. During the period from 1759 to his death no man had wielded so great an influence over the destiny of the Iroquois Indians and New York as Sir William Johnson. His capacity for work was marvellous, and his diplomatic ability scarcely less so.

After the actual outbreak of the Revolution, Sir John Johnson, who had been appointed superintendent of Indian affairs, persuaded the Mo- hawks to move westward with him and gained a strong influence over all of the Six Nations excepting the Tuscaroras and the Oneidas. John Butler established himself at Niagara and organized a regiment known as Butler's Rangers,and he and the two Johnsons used all of their influence to induce the Indians to attack the Americans. The Senecas refused for a time, but in 1777 the prospect of gratifying their natural love of the war path and at the same time being paid for it overcame their scruples, and they made a treaty with the British at Oswego agreeing to serve the king throughout the war. From that time forward the Senecas, Cayugas, Onondagas, and Mohawks were active in the British interest, and Niagara became the key to this region, the Indians looking

hither for instruction and guidance. Here was the headquarters of the Butlers, Johnsons, Brant and other inveterate enemies of the country ; here forays were planned ; prisoners were brought here from long dis- tances, where they were safely hidden from their far away friends. Sir John Johnson was driven out of the Mohawk valley in 1776, for his disloyalty to the American cause; he fled through the forest to Mon- treal, was made a colonel in the British army, and raised and com- manded a regiment called the Royal Greens.

The campaign of 1776 was generally unfavorable to the Americans ; but none of its important events took place in this region. Complaint was made in the latter part of this year that large sums had been ex- pended at Niagara on the Indians gathered here, and that they had not participated in the war; but Butler's accounts were audited and settled at Quebec. He and his regiment of Rangers soon became infamously notorious in the border battles.

Inspired by repeated successes, the British made extensive prepara- tions for their campaign of 1777, involving the invasion of New York by Gen. John Burgoyne with a large army from the north ; and an ex- pedition organized under Col. Barry St. Leger, composed of regulars, Canadians and Indians, to land at Oswego and penetrate and lay waste the Mohawk valley. The first of these movements was successful, and Ticonderoga was captured ; but St. Leger came to grief and was driven back from the valley to Oswego, whence he proceeded with his dis comfited troops and Indians to Montreal. Butler and Brant returned to Niagara. In 1778 occurred the massacres at Wyoming and Cherry Valley, the story of which has stained the records of British warfare ever since. To chastise the Indians in some measure for their repeated atrocities, an expedition was made against the Onondagas in the spring of 1779, under Cols. Van Schaick and Marinus Willett; it resulted in the destruction of their dwellings and crops, but otherwise served only to further exasperate the savages. Later in the same year a similar but much more extensive expedition was organized with the same ob- ject in view-the punishment of the Indians. This expedition was di- rected against the Senecas, with the capture of Fort Niagara to follow.

General Washington placed Gen. John Sullivan in command of about three thousand Continental soldiers, gathered in Wyoming valley, with

orders to march against the Senecas and leave nothing but desolation in his path. Sullivan arrived at Tioga Point August 22, and was there joined by Gen. James Clinton with sixteen hundred men. The expedi- tion was slow in its early movements. giving the British opportunity to send a force to the aid of the Indians. The latter fortified themselves at Newtown (Elmira) and a battle was fought in which the Americans were victorious. The march was then continued into the Genesee

country. There he found an astonishing and beautiful region. The village contained one hundred and twenty- eight houses, " mostly large and very elegant," surrounded by a flat extending for miles, " over which extensive fields of corn were waving, together with every kind of vegetable that could be conceived," as the record has it. The torch and the axe were applied everywhere, and the beautiful scene was soon transformed into a picture of dreary desolation. The corn destroyed was estimated at one hundred and sixty thousand bushels. Orchards were cut down, one of which is said to have contained fifteen hundred trees. The Indians pursued their usual tactics in the face of such ex- peditions and fled. . Sullivan and his army retraced their steps eastward, leaving Niagara untouched. Why he did not continue and capture the post is not known, for it could, without doubt, have been easily done. The Senecas were completely broken up by this disaster and fled to Niagara. It was in this campaign that the famous Red Jacket first ap- pears and, it is said, in favor of making peace with the Americans, in which he was opposed by Brant.

·Sullivan's expedition had important results. It forced the Six Nations to make the Niagara frontier their principal resort. Here they gathered in large numbers, claiming protection of the king and sustenance through the severe winter of 1779-80. In the latter year several important forays were planned and executed against the border settlements. In May Sir John Johnson made a raid into the Mohawk valley from Crown Point, and burned every dwelling in that region, except those of tories, slew many people, recovered some valuable plate he had buried at Johnstown, took his booty and prisoners and fled to Canada. Another foray was organized against the Oneidas, who were driven eastward to Schenectady, and their buildings burned. That nation remained faith- ful to the Americans through the war.

In April, 1780, Brant was again on the war path, his main purpose being a raid into the Schoharie country. Leaving Niagara in the early spring with his followers, he reached his destination and destroyed one village, another being saved by the cool falsehood of a prisoner he had taken, who represented that a large force of Continentals had just arrived there. Brant returned to Niagara, bringing many prisoners who had escaped torture and death, by agreeing to come to Niagara as prisoners of war. When the party reached the western part of the State, Brant sent a rumor ahead to apprise the Indians of his approach with prisoners. It is believed that his principal object in this was the humane one of having the garrison meet him at the Indian settlements, one of which was Lewiston, and thus protect his prisoners from the ordeal that was customary on such occasions. In any event British troops met the home comers and saved the prisoners from torture. They were, how- ever kept in confinement at Montreal, Quebec, and Halifax until 1783.

Only a short time after Brant's arrival there was another party of cap- tives from the eastern end of the State sent on to Niagara. They were compelled to run the gauntlet here, but under favorable conditions, so that they escaped with little suffering. One of these captives was a Captain Snyder, who reported upon the condition of the fort, etc. He mentions Johnson, the Butlers, and Brant, and said the fort at that time was a structure of considerable magnitude, enclosing an area of six to eight acres, and of great strength. At the close of 1780, after an event- ful season of border war, the story of which belongs to the general his- tory of the times, the British and Indians settled down at Niagara for the winter. The forces here at that time consisted approximately of sixty British regulars, four hundred loyalists, and twelve hundred In- dians, including women and children. But the fort was then well sup- plied, and although there was a large force to feed, the Indians probably fared better than they ever had before.

The war of the Revolution continued with its march of memorable events, but they possess little interest in this immediate connection. Brant made some desultory and unimportant forays from Niagara dur- ing the winter and spring of 1780-81 ; but beyond this the frontier was quiet. In 1782 hostilities between the two countries approached an end. Demonstrations of conciliation were made by England, but Wash-

ington prudently kept the country in a state of defense until the final declaration of peace. In 1782 Brant's residence was at Lewiston, a short distance east of the village. After the war he went to Quebec to arrange for the fulfillment of British promises regarding the Indians. There he was given a large tract of land on Grand River, and from him is derived the name of the village of Brantford. The grant of land was for the benefit of those Indians of the Six Nations who had lost their homes by their continued alliance with the British. In 1781 the Tus- caroras were given a square mile of land on the mountain ridge, to which they removed. There they have remained as steadfast friends of the white people.

The arrangements for peace began with the agreement for the cessa- tion of hostilities made in Paris in November, 1782, and signed by com- missioners January 10, 1783. On March 24, 1784, a letter was received in this country from General La Fayette announcing a general peace. Congress issued a proclamation April II, declaring a cessation of mil- itary operations on sea and land. But England submitted to defeat with bad grace. Under the treaty the boundary between the possessions of the two countries was to run along the 45th parallel, and in the middle of the St. Lawrence River, Lake Ontario, Niagara River and Lake Erie ; but the mother country objected to the Americans occupying the posts on the fronlier south of this line. That country also set up a claim that the United States government had not the power to enforce observance of a commercial treaty, and therefore refused to join in the execution of one. These matters, in connection with the fact that debts due to British subjects from Americans were in many instances left unpaid, and confiscated property was not returned to royalists from whom it had been taken by Americans, were made the basis of the astonishing condition of affairs that existed for thirteen years after the peace, during which period a nation unsuccessful in war, occupied and held fortified military posts within the lines of the victorious country. The frontier was not formally surrendered until July, 1796.

In the mean time changes began to take place along the Niagara River. In 1793 United States Commissioners Lincoln, Pinckney, and Randolph came to Niagara on their way to a great council at Miami. At that time what is now Niagara, Ont., opposite Fort Niagara, was

the seat of government and there Governor Simcoe resided. With the cessation of hostilities and even before the actual surrender of the fron- tier by the British, a new era dawned ; a new class of traders came in, the vanguard of the pioneers from New Jersey, the New England States and eastern New York. It is recorded that the only white resi- dent at Lewiston in 1788 was one Middaugh, who kept a tavern for the accommodation of travelers and traders, but probably derived his greatest revenue from selling liquor to the Indians. Silas Hopkins was at Lewiston in 1788 buying furs, and subsequently settled on a farm on the Ridge road east of Dickersonville, where he lived to old age. He was grandfather of Silas and Willard Hopkins, of Lewiston.

John Gould came on from New Jersey in 1788 and was occupied as a drover, selling cattle mostly to Butler's rangers on the Canada side. He was the pioneer of the Gould families, long prominent among the residents of Cambria. Both Hopkins and Gould were neighbors of Brant, the celebrated Indian chief.

John Street, father of the late Hon. Thomas Street, had a trading place at Niagara, Canada, in 1790. Soon after receiving a visit from Hopkins and Gould, he was murdered near Warren's Corners, and the assassin and robber was not discovered.

In 1792 a traveler from Boston westward wrote descriptions of the country through which he passed. He alluded to the comparatively easy task of cutting a ditch twenty- three miles and a lock by which a water course could be opened to carry commerce "through an extent of country capable of maintaining several millions of people." He de- scribed the Genesee flats as very rich, clear of trees, producing grass ten feet high, mostly owned by Indians, and worth in his estimation £2,000,000 sterling. Coming onward to Niagara, a distance of ninety. miles, he found "not one house or white man the whole way." The reader will bear in mind that this was years after peace was declared at the close of the Revolution. The traveler evidently pursued his way across Tonawanda Swamp and went on to Fort Niagara. There he was passed over the river, where he found a public house. A regi- ment was garrisoned there which he said "had the honor of dancing Yankee Doodle on the plains of Cambridge, 19th April, 1775." He met Colonel Butler and one of the Johnsons.

Ontario county was formed in 1790, and included all of New York west of the so called preemption line. The extinguishment of the Indian title' to most of the lands in western New York opened up a vast and valuable tract for settlement. In 1791 there was not a house on the site of Youngs. town. In that year Joshua Fairbanks arrived at Fort Niagara. He began keeping a tavern at Queenston and made his house a favorite resort. He subsequently became a resident of Lewiston and was there a well known citizen. The Holland Company was in reality no company at all, at least in a legal sense ; it was merely a syndicate of Hollanders who sent over funds to agents in this country with which to purchase lands, having first been granted the privilege by our Legislature in 1798. In the latter part of that year the American trustees conveyed the Holland purchase to its real owners. It was, however, transferred to two sets of proprietors, and one of these sets was afterwards divided making three in all. Each set held its tract as joint tenants; that is, the survivors took the whole. The shares could not be the subject of will or sale, and did not pass by inheritance, except in case of the last survivor. But there was no incorporation and no legal company. For all details of this purchase, for which space cannot here be spared, the reader is referred to the well known work, Turner's Holland Purchase. It is sufficient for our purpose to state that the territory of Niagara county constituted a part of that purchase. The first general agent of the company was Theophilus Cazenove, who was sent over for that purpose. Previous to the extinguishment of the Indian title to the company's lands, Cazenove had employed Joseph Ellicott to survey

1 When in the spring of 1764 the Senecas became fearful of the vengeance of the English for repeated depredations, about four hundred of them waited on Sir William Johnson at Johnstown and begged for peace. Johnson realized his power over them and did not hesitate to exercise it. The cessions agreed upon at that time were most important, the document containing the fol- lowing: "That they [the Senecas] cede to His Majesty and his successors forever, in full right, the lands from the Fort of Niagara, extending easterly along Lake Ontario about four miles, comprehending the Petit Mavais, or landing place, and running from thence southerly, about fourteen miles, to the creek above the Fort Schlosser or Little Niagara, and down the same to the river or strait and across the same, at the great cataract, thence northerly to the banks of Lake Ontario, at a creek or small lake about two miles west of the fort; thence easterly along the banks of the Lake Ontario, and across the river or strait to Niagara; comprehending the whole carrying place, with the lands on both sides of the strait, and containing a tract of about four- teen miles in length and four in breadth. And the Senecas do engage never to obstruct the passage of the carrying place, or the free use of any part of the said tract, and will likewise give free liberty of cutting timber for the use of His Majesty, or that of the garrisons, in any other part of their country, not comprehended therein."

their tract in Pennsylvania. He was a younger brother of Andrew A. Ellicott, then surveyor general of the United States, and had aided in laying out the city of Washington. As soon as the treaty was made with the Indians, Mr. Ellicott was employed to survey this tract; with him was associated Augustus Porter, in the interest of Robert Morris These men, assisted by a force of surveyors, axemen, chainmen, etc., pushed ahead the work of surveying the great tract with energy. Elli- cott himself ran the east line of the purchase, known as the East Transit. The tract was first divided into ranges six miles wide, running from Pennsylvania to Lake Ontario and numbered from east to west. These were subdivided into townships six miles square, and these were further subdivided into sections and lots. In the fall of 1798 Seth Pease ran the line of the State Reservation along the Niagara River.

The lands of the Holland Company were placed on sale at $2.75 per acre ; but as lands were then selling in Canada for sixpence, and were offered very cheap in parts of this State nearer to advanced settlements, purchasers were very slow in accepting the terms of the company, as will presently appear. By request of the State surveyor, Ellicott selected Lewiston as a village site in 1798. The dwellers there in 1800 were the families named Woodman, Gambol, McBride, Hustler (a tavern keeper), Hough, Mills, Middaugh, and Joseph and John Howell; Mc- Bride had a small tannery. In 1801 there were only forty sales to set- tlers on the Holland Company's lands; but the number rapidly in- creased after that. At the old Schlosser terminus was the Stedman place. The traveled routes from the Genesee to the Niagara were through what is now Genesee county, where they divided, one taking the ancient Indian trail across to the Ridge road at Warren's Corners, and thence to Lewiston; the other continuing to Buffalo and from there down the river. The first named route passed through the Tonawanda Reservation, where there was then a large number of Indians. Philip Beach, then living at Scottsville, near the Genesee, carried the early mail from Batavia to Fort Niagara, over the route by Warren's Cor- ners. There being no dwellings on the way, he was forced to camp out nights, the journey requiring several days. In 1801 he settled in what is now Niagara county. His brother, Jesse Beach, settled on the North Ridge near Molyneaux's, as also did Aaron Beach.

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Landmarks of Niagara County, New York, Part 4

Author: Pool, William, 1825-1912, ed Publication date: 1897 Publisher: [Syracuse] : D. Mason & Co. Number of Pages: 820

Author: Pool, William, 1825-1912, ed
Publication date: 1897
Publisher: [Syracuse] : D. Mason & Co.
Number of Pages: 820