USA > New York > Rensselaer County > Landmarks of Rensselaer county, New York, pt 1 > Part 5
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For over thirty years after Nicholson's last expedition peace reigned throughout the valleys of the Hudson river and Lake Champlain. The latter had become a province of France and the construction by the French of Fort St. Frederick, at Crown Point, was evidence that they proposed to defend what they considered their rights in that region. The most northerly of the English settlements was at Sara- toga when hostilities were renewed, in 1745. The attacking party were the French and their northern Indian allies, who, at the dead of night on Nov. 15, deseended without warning upon the settlement at Saratoga, killed and scalped 30 of the inhabitants and took nearly 60
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THE WAR OF 1755.
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prisoners. This raid was the signal for general hostilities. For over two years massacres followed one another in rapid succession, the methods of warfare pursued being those of the Indians. They usually came without a moment's warning, descending upon the settlers with a rush, murdering or sealping large numbers in Saratoga, Washington and Rensselaer counties and completing the desolation of the country by the application of the torch. Peace was once more proclaimed in May, 1748, and for seven years thereafter the colonists were allowed to clear the land, till the soil and indulge in trade without molestation.
The greatest of all so-called French and Indian wars, and the last, by which French dominion in the colonies came to an end forever, was that which began in 1755. The war was simply the culmination of all the previous unsettled disputes. Both France and England realized that it was the final struggle -- the fight to the death. In anticipation of the impending struggle, a congress of the colonies, the second con- gress of the kind in the history of the country, was held at Albany June 19, 1754. The objeets of the congress were twofold: First, to renew the treaty with the Iroquois Indians; second, to aronse the colonial authorities to the necessity of some concerted action against the French. It was at this congress that Benjamin Franklin offered his famous plan of union, generally called the " Albany plan," by which he pro- posed to unite all the English colonies in America under one general government, with headquarters in Philadelphia. This was the plan most generally favored and it was adopted by the congress; but both the colonial legislatures and the British Parliament promptly rejected it, and the first attempt at federal union failed. In the meantime the Iroquois had renewed their treaty. England, though refusing to rec- ognize the right of the colonies to form a union, even for protection, realized that her honor and the welfare of the colonies were at stake, and Parliament decided to send an army to America to help the colo- nists repel the French invaders. The frontier must be protected against further invasions at all hazards, said the English.
While war had not been declared, it was decided to take immediate steps to repel the French on the western and northern frontier. A commander was assigned to each colony. Sir William Johnson of Johnstown, who had been appointed colonel of the Six Nations in 1744 by Governor George Clinton, in April, 1755, was placed in command of the army in the colony of New York by General Braddock and given the rank of major-general. He was directed to enroll a force of vol-
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LANDMARKS OF RENSSELAER COUNTY.
unteers and Mohawks in British pay, and to capture the French post at Crown Point.
The expedition entrusted to Gen. Johnson was most important, Its object was not alone to capture the enemy's fort at Crown Point, but also to drive the French from the shores of Lake Champlain. Ilis army numbered 3, 400 men, including a body of excellent fighters from among the Mohawk warriors. The active work of the campaign began early in August, when General Phineas Lyman in command of the New England troops, proceeded to the Hudson above Albany and built Fort Hardy in Old Saratoga. Further up he built Fort Edward. Gen. Johnson, too, constructed several forts. The scenes in this war, how- ever interesting they may have been to the early inhabitants of Rens. selaer county, must be dropped here with this passing mention, as they had no bearing, exeept in a general way, upon the interests of the county.
During the last of the French and Indian wars Major-General James Abercrombie, with more than 10,000 British troops, in 1758, encamped in the lower part of what is now Greenbush. Soon after sixteen co- lonial regiments arrived and a little later four more regiments from Connecticut. It was while these troops were in camp at this point that the song known as Yankee Doodle, originally intended as a satire on the Connectient regiments, was composed by Dr. Shackburg, a surgeon in the British army. The general appearance of these troops greatly amused the well drilled and well uniformed British soldiers, and they were laughed at and derided until they became a by-word, not only in the camp but in Albany. They were called Yankee Doodles, and the song which Dr. Shackburg composed was dedicated to and named after them. The music was adapted from an old song written in England many years before, and for a long time preserved in rhymes of the nursery :
"Lucy Locket lost her pocket, Kitty Fisher found it; Nothing in it, nothing in it, But the binding round it."
Just what Dr. Shackburg's composition was it is impossible at this day to tell, for parody after parody has been written since that time. The tune, however, is practically the same to-day as it was when the original Yankee Doodle was written, except for the interpolation of a few notes to fit the increased number of syllables in the stanzas. The
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William Remp
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DUTCH CONTROL AT AN END.
purpose of the composition was fulfilled and the Connecticut soldiers, who took the joke good-naturedly, called it " Nation Fine." Less than a score of years afterward, upon the surrender of General Burgoyne at Saratoga October 12, 1777, the captured enemy marched between the lines of the victorious Yankees to the tune which a British soldier had composed, and which by that time had become the only national air which the Americans had.
It was during the first of the long series of French and Indian wars that New Netherlands ceased to exist and New York took its place, Dutch control being succeeded, mercifully without resort to blood- shed, by English. The story is one familiar to all. The Dutch had tired of the narrow, selfish dominion of the Dutch West India Com- pany. England and Holland were at peace. March 12, 1664, Charles II, king of England, gave to his brother, the Duke of York, two ex- tensive patents for American territory. The first of these embraced the district reaching from the Kennebec to the St. Croix river, the sec- ond included all the territory between the Connecticut and the Dela- ware rivers. Thus, with one stroke of the pen, the unsempulous Eng- lish monarch robbed the friendly kingdom of Holland of the great American province which it had so hardly earned. The Dutch West India Company, through whose efforts the valley of the Hudson and . the contiguous territory was populated and the development of its re- sources begun, was treated with the highest contempt. In order to leave no time for the frustration of his designs the Duke of York made immediate preparations to take possession of the vast territory granted him. Richard Nicolls was immediately placed in command of an Eng- lish squadron, which reached Boston in July and proceeded from there . to New Amsterdam. The fleet anchored in Gravesend bay August 28, an English camp was pitched without delay at Brooklyn ferry and be- fore the sleepy Dutch were aware of the fact that the supremacy of Holland was threatened the whole of Long Island had been subdued. Peter Stuyvesant, the brave and loyal governor of the colony, sent commissioners to inquire the meaning of the hostile demonstration. Nicolls quietly demanded the surrender of New Amsterdam and New Netherlands in the name of the King of England and the Duke of York and an immediate acknowledgment of the sovereignty of England. Stuyvesant thereupon convened the council of New Amsterdam. The burgomasters, who truly represented the spirit of the majority of the colonists, decided to surrender. The Dutch had been witnessing the
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LANDMARKS OF RENSSELAER COUNTY.
prosperity and development of the English colonies in New England, while they themselves were held in check for the sake of enriching the West India company. The English colonies had better schools, lighter taxes and there were practically no poor among them. From Troy to New York, in the Dutch colony, there was not an institution of learn- ing worthy of the name. Liberty and personal rights were hardly known in the Dutch district, while the English were comparatively free men. Everything tended to render the Dutch dissatisfied with their lot. Stuyvesant doubtless realized these facts, as did the burgo- masters of New Amsterdam, but he was loyal to his country and en- deavored to excite those under him to fight. But he was forced to capitulate, and Sept. 8, 1664, New Netherlands ceased to exist and New Amsterdam became New York. Sixteen days afterward Fort Orange surrendered and thereafter was known as Albany, these two principal cities receiving their new names respectively from the Duke of York and the Duke of Albany. No conquest on American soil was ever more complete or more bloodless. English supremacy was established at once and for all time.
The history of New York under the English during the few years immediately succeeding their assumption of control is well known. Richard Nicolls, the first English governor of New York, began his duties by settling the boundaries of his province, a work of a very vexations character. In 1667 he was superseded by Lovelace, a still greater tyrant than Nicolls. The Dutch and English colonists were always friends, even white England and Holland were at war. The reconquest of the colony by the Dutch was little more than a brief military occupation of the country, the civil authority of Holland never being re-established. The administration of Sir Edmund Andros, a miserable failure, witnessed the rapid growth of the popular demand for fuller civil rights for the people and a legislative assembly. Thomas Dongan, a Catholic, became governor of the province in 1683, with instructions to accede to the popular demand and call an assembly of freeholders. This was done and for the first time in the history of the province the people were permitted to have a voice in the selection of their rulers and the framing of the laws which were to govern them. The new assembly granted all freeholders the right of suffrage. Trial by jury was established; taxes should no more be levied, it was de- clared, without the consent of the assembly; soldiers should not be quartered on the people; martial law was to prevail no more, and religious liberties were guaranteed.
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EARLY CAUSES OF THE ANTI-RENT WARS.
In July, 1684, the governors of New York and Virginia met the chiefs of the Iroquois and adopted a treaty which provided for a last- ing peace. The French Canadians, particularly the Jesuits, made desperate efforts to induce the Indians to go back on their word, and even invaded the Mohawk valley twice-in 1684 and 1687-as described elsewhere, with the intention of frightening the Mohawks and Oneidas into submission; but without avail. The friendly Iroquois from this time on were a bulwark of strength to the English and Dutch, and it was through their assistance that the French invaders were finally driven back to Canada forever.
By the surrender of the colony to the English in 1664 the personal righits of the colonists were secured and a new charter was granted to the patroon, restricting his civil power but confirming the relations existing between landlord and tenant. By laws enacted by the colonial legislature a few years subsequent to the close of the Revolution the feudal tenure was abolished, but the proprietors of manor grants were unwilling to relinquish their feudal claims, and continued a form of deed by which the grantees agreed to perform certain duties and make certain payments precisely similar to those abolished by the laws. The people who had settled on these manors had long been dissatisfied and restive under the feudal exactions. This dissatisfaction increased as the years went by and became the one thing above all others which tended to make the inhabitants of the manor discontented with their lot. The taxes imposed were not very high but the principle on which they were levied and the general plan of land-tenure was one which, though originally freely accepted by the colonists, was not in harmony with the spirit of freedom which had begun to pervade the new country and which was rapidly developing in Rensselaerwyck as elsewhere. It was this increasing spirit which finally culminated in the famous Anti- Rent Wars, during which the distasteful and unpopular fendal system was finally overthrown.
It is not necessary to trace the history of the manor of Rensselaer- wyck through all the subsequent years. The main points of interest are found in the brief sketch of the various wars --- if they may properly be called wars-between the French and Indians of the north and the combined forces of the English, Dutch and Iroquois on the south. After the English came into control affairs in Rensselaerwyck went on much as before. Development on all lines was gradual and marked by no event worthy of a prominent place in the annals of the.colony. New
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LANDMARKS OF RENSSELAER COUNTY.
settlers continued to arrive and trade was gradually expanded in all dircetions. During the long years of the French and Indian wars the inhabitants of Rensselaerwyck were. in constant fear that their pros- perous colony would become the scene of some confliet such as those with which the country to the north of them was afflicted, but their fears proved groundless. They were peaceful, contented, happy, till- ing the soil, erecting new farms, indulging in trade with the Indians and in turn with the inhabitants of the rapidly growing city of New York and with English ports. Large ships ascended the river and departed riehly laden with the wares which constituted the foundation of their wealth. There was little poverty. The inhabitants were sturdy and resolute and gradually worked their way into the wilder- ness surrounding them. They lived simply and in harmony with one another. Their houses were humble, but there was no lack of that hospitality for which the Dutch were noted in those days. Perhaps the fact that many years passed by without events that go to make up sen- sational history accounts, more than any other single thing, for the conservative spirit which characterized the inhabitants of Rensselaer eounty in succeeding years.
From the close of the last French and Indian war up to the seenes connected with the inauguration of the War of the Revolution little is to be said of the progress of Rensselaer county. The population in- creased at a satisfactory rate and the natural resources of the county were developed, gradually and thoroughly. The inhabitants were too busily oceupied in attending to their industrial interests to pay more than passing attention to the events preceding that memorable struggle for independence and which engrossed the attention of the cities and more populous communities. When the time came that men and money were needed to fight to secure the independence of the colonies, Rensselaer county was not found lacking in patriotism, as the annals of the county show. Before the actual operations of this great struggle were begun the colony of New York, and particularly that portion of it now embraced in Washington and Rensselaer counties, were deeply agitated over a bitter controversy respecting the title of certain lands in the southern part of the " Hampshire Grants."
The Hampshire Grants constituted practically the present State of Vermont, and the ownership of the territory was disputed by New York and New Hampshire. New York set up a stout claim to that section comprised in the town of Bennington and vicinity. Rensselaer
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THE HAMPSHIRE GRANTS.
county still formed a part of the original county of Albany, and Wash- ington county was embraced in Charlotte county. The disagreement began in provincial times over the boundary line between the provinces. In the Great Patent of New England granted in 1620 by King James the territory was described as follows:
"All that eircuit, continent, precinet and limits in America, lying and being in breadth from forty degrees northerly latitude from the equinoctial line to forty-eight degrees of the said northerly latitude, and in length by all the breadth aforesaid, throughout the mainland from sea to sea, with all the seas, rivers, islands, ereeks, inlets, ports and havens within the degrees, precinets and limits of the said latitude and longitude."
Charles II, in his grant to the Duke of York, defined the boundaries of the province of New York "from the west side of the Connecticut river to the east side of the Delaware bay."
These boundaries, as defined, led to many years of bitter contro- versy, which was not terminated until the colony of New York became a State at the close of the War of the Revolution. Governor Benning Wentworth of New Hampshire and Governor Clinton of New York endeavored to settle the boundary in 1649 to allow prospective settlers from New Hampshire to take up lands in the disputed territory. Gov- ernor Clinton maintained that the Connecticut river was the eastern limit of the province of New York, and Governor Wentworth, who had sent out a surveyor to mark the line, insisted that a continuation of the western boundary of Massachusetts struck the Hudson about eighty poles above the mouth of the Mohawk. Governor Clinton still object . ing to having his domain thus narrowed, Governor Wentworth wrote that inasmuch as Connectient and Massachusetts laid claim to the land west of the Connecticut river to a line about twenty miles east of the Hudson and running about parallel with the stream, he should insist upon the same line for the western boundary of New Hampshire, thus laying claim for New Hampshire to all the present State of Vermont. To make good his claim he announced that he had already made one grant to colonists of about thirty-six square miles of land north of the Massachusetts line and about twenty-four miles easterly of Albany. This township Governor Benning Wentworth named Bennington in his own honor. Governor Clinton asked Governor Wentworth to annul the grant he had made, but this the latter executive firmly declined to 6
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LANDMARKS OF RENSSELAER COUNTY.
do. This wrangle was kept up for fourteen years, and in the mean time the colony at Bennington continued to flourish.
With the evident intention of settling officially and for all time the controversy, on Dec. 28, 1763, Cadwallader Colden, lieutenant-governor and commander-in-chief of the province of New York, issued a long proclamation declaring the eastern boundary of his province. After citing the conditions of the grants issued by King Charles March 1, 1663-64, and June 29, 1674, to the Duke of York, and calling attention to the limits of New Hampshire as defined in the letters patent of July 3, 1741, the ruler of New York declared and ordered:
And whereas it manifestly appears by the several grants or letters patents above recited, that the province of New York is bounded to the eastward by the river Con- nectieut ; that the province of New Hampshire, being expressly limited in its extent westward and northward by His Majesty's other governments, is confined to the same river as to its western boundary ; and that the said government of New Hamp- shire is not entitled to jurisdiction westward, beyond the limits of that river.
And whereas the said government of New Hampshire, tho' fully apprized of the right of this government, under the Letters Patent aforementioned to the Duke of York; and sensible also that His Majesty had not been pleased to establish other boundaries between his said two provinces, hath granted lands westward of Con- nectieut river, within the limits and jurisdiction of the government of New York ; in virtue whereof, sundry persons, ignorant that they could not derive a legal title under such grants, have attempted the settlement of the lands included therem, and have actually possessed themselves of soil before granted within this province ; while others claiming under the said government of New Hampshire, have endeavored to impose on the inhabitants here, by offering to sale at a low rate, whole townships of six miles square lately granted by the government westward of Connecticut river,
'To prevent therefore the incautious from becoming purchasers of the lands so granted, to assert the rights, and fully to maintain the jurisdiction of the govern- ment of this His Majesty's Province of New York; I have thought fit, with the ad- vice of His Majesty's council, to issue this proclamation, hereby commanding and re quiring all Judges, Justices and other civil officers within the same to continue to ex- ercise jurisdiction in their respective functions, as far as to the banks of Connecticut river, the undoubted eastern limits of that part of the province of New York, not- withstanding any contrariety of jurisdiction claimed by the government of New Hampshire, or any grant of lands westward of that river, made by the said govern- ment, and I do hereby enjoin the High Sheriff of the county of Albany, to return to me or the commander in chief, the names of all and every person and persons, who under the grants of the government of New Hampshire, do or shall hold the posses- sion of any lands westward of Connectient river, that they may be proceeded against according to law.
On March 13 of the next year Governor Wentworth issued a counter- proclamation which, after citing the salient points in the grants re-
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GOVERNOR WENTWORTH'S COUNTER-PROCLAMATION.
ferred to, with a vastly different interpretation, however, and referring in a sarcastic vein to Colden's proclamation, contained these clauses :
The said proclamation carrying au air of government in it, may perhaps effeet and retard the settlement of His Majesty's lands granted by this government, for pre- venting an injury to the Crown of this kind, and to remove all doubts that may arise to persons holding the king's Grants, they may be assured that the patent to the Duke is obsolete, and cannot convey any certain boundary to New York that can be claimed as a boundary, as plainly appears by the several boundary lines of the Jerseys, on the west, and the Colony of Connecticut on the east, which are set forth in the proelamation as part only of the land included in the said patent to the Duke of York.
To the end therefore, that the grantees now settled, and settling on those lands under His Late and present Majesty's Charters, may not be intimidated, or in any way hindered or obstrueted in the improvement of the land so granted as well as to ascertain the right and maintain the jurisdiction of His Majesty's government of New Hampshire as far westward as to include the grauts made, I have thought fit, by and with the consent of Ilis Majesty's council, to issue this proclamation hereby encouraging the several grantees claiming under this government, to be industrions in clearing and cultivating their lands agreeable to their respective grants.
And I do hereby require and command all civil officers within this province, of what quality soever, as well as those that are not, as those that are inhabitants on the said lands to continue and be diligent in exercising jurisdiction in their respective offices, as far westward as grants of land have been made by this government, and to deal with any person or persons, that may presume to interrupt the inhabitants or settlers on said lands as to law and justice doth appertain, the pretended right of jurisdiction mentioned in the aforesaid proclamation notwithstanding.
The court at St. James decided the contest in favor of New York by an order issued July 20, 1764, in which it was declared that " the western banks of the river Connecticut, from where it enters the province of the Massachusetts Bay, as far north as the forty-fifth degree of north- ern latitude" were " the boundary line between the said two provinces of New Hampshire and New York." But the controversy was not to end here. Many settlers from Connectieut and New Hampshire had entered the disputed territory, built homes and commenced the cultiva- tion of the land. In 1768, 138 townships had been laid out in the Hampshire Grants with the permission of the governor of New Hamp- shire. The colonists organized and desperately resisted the continned attempts of the authorities of New York to eviet them. They were de- termined not to be compelled to pay New York for their land, having already paid the government of New Hampshire therefor. In retaliation for the efforts of the New York officials to dispossess them they ad- ministered many a sound threshing to the colonial agents who visited
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