USA > New York > Oneida County > Our county and its people; a descriptive work on Oneida county, New York; > Part 3
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1758 TO 1760-FORTS STANWIX AND SCHUYLER.
chapter. That partisan and bloody attack of Belletre closed the cam- paign of 1757.
CHAPTER IV.
1758 TO 1760 .- FORTS STANWIX AND SCHUYLER.
In 1756 William Pitt, the first Earl of Chatham, became Prime Min- ister of England. For more than two years the English in America had acted so much like children that the Indians were disgusted, while the activity of the French tended to win the admiration and alliance of the Iroquois Confederacy. This condition of affairs in the colonies had greatly troubled the English people. When Pitt came into power he bent the energies of his great mind to produce a change. It was to- wards America that he turned his heartiest efforts. He had in view the driving of the French from their Canadian possessions, and his first step in that direction was the capture of Louisburg, next Du Quesne and then Ticonderoga. To capture the latter Abercrombie went in June, 1758, from Albany to Lake Champlain, and with him went Colonel John Bradstreet (afterwards General Bradstreet and part owner of Cosby Manor) and Marinus Willett (the then future hero of Fort Stanwix), then eighteen years old. That expedition was a disgraceful fizzle, and Colonel Bradstreet, indignant at the unnecessary failure, obtained from his superior officer permission to take 3,000 troops and go back to Albany, and via Mohawk River and Oneida Carrying Place to Oswego, thence to attack Fort Frontenac. This scheme was kept secret from all but the leading officers. On reaching Albany they hastened in boats up the Mohawk, and reached the carrying place about the first of Au- gust. Here they found General Stanwix with 6,000 troops, whither he been ordered a short time before to erect a formidable fort in place of those destroyed. On this expedition went also the following, who sub- sequently became famous in the history of their country, viz .: Nathaniel Woodhull, a major, subsequently a general in the Revolutionary army, and the first president of the provincial congress; Horatio Gates, then 3
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OUR COUNTY AND ITS PEOPLE.
a captain, subsequently a general, who captured Burgoyne in 1777 at Saratoga; James and George Clinton, the former general in the Revo- lutionary army, the latter the war governor of New York, the former then twenty-two, the latter nineteen years old.
Bradstreet began with his usual vigor to transport his men and his munitions of war across the portage and to clear Wood Creek of the numerous trees with which General Webb had obstructed it two years before. A dam was built across the creek near the late U. S. Arsenal site to raise the water and aid in floating the boats down that stream. Two weeks were occupied in these preparations, a . these movements first indicated to the troops the direction they were : ):ke. The troops started from the carrying place August 14, reached Oswego in six days, and after resting there a few hours, started for Fort Frontenac On the evening of the twenty-fifth the fort was reached, and in three days it was captured. On arriving at the site of Fulton, Oswego county, on their return, the men were three days in dragging the boats around Oswego Falls, and so excessive was the labor and so great the fatigue that nearly 100 deaths occurred at that point, and when Fort Bull was reached about one-half the men were unfit for duty. It required four days to transport the boats and stores from Wood Creek to Mohawk River, and the men were so completely exhausted that, according to Smith's Colonial History, 500 died and were buried at the carrying place. The cause is attributed to the haste in cooking the food and the bad water of Wood Creek and the great fatigue of the men. The troops reached this point on their return September 10, 1758, and that very night young Willett was taken sick, and was confined to his tent until November by a dangerous illness. Before that summer was over it was evident that a fort was needed at this carrying place, and hence General Abercrombie gave orders to build one, detailing Gen. John Stanwix to superintend its construction.
While General Abercrombie was at Lake George in the summer of 1758, he wrote to General Stanwix two letters under dates of July 16 and 23, 1758, directing that the fort should be built forthwith at the Oneida Carrying Place. Under date of July 27th, General Aber- crombie writes a third letter to General Stanwix on the same subject, in which he says :
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1758 TO 1760-FORTS STANWIX AND SCHUYLER.
Having been told that you had been obliged to encamp your troops at Schenectady through the reason of the present shallowness of the Mohawk River, where it is said you cannot even get up light bateaux, which will have prevented your forwarding the tools and materials necessary for building at the Oneida Carrying Place, the post or fort I directed by my letters of the 16th, and 23d, should be forthwith built there and having been since advised, instead of that post or fort, to build one more exten- sive, pursuant to a plan laid before me, I have accordingly sent that plan to Lieut. Williams, now at Albany, with directions, if his health should permit, to undertake the same immediately, to join you and set about it ; my reason for sending him is, that he is acquainted with that part of the country, and accustomed to the method of working in it.
General Stanwix asked the opinion of Captain Green on a plan of a fort to be built at the carrying place, and that officer answered as fol- lows :
Heads of the ordered Plan :
A good post to be made at the Oneida carrying place, capable of lodging 200 men in the winter, and 3 or 400 men in the summer for its defence, with logs-a parapet of such thickness as the engineer shall think necessary according to the situation.
A ditch to be made to serve to thicken the parapet-barracks to be made under- neath the rampart, with thues of the chimneys to come through the top.
The square will be the cheapest form to be made use of for this work.
The bastions in like manner can be made use of for storehouses or magazines. In the square may be made lodging for officers, and the rest of the quadrangle clear- the whole to be logged.
And opposite the officers barracks, may be made a storehouse for the deposit of Indian goods.
By a good post-I understand to be meant such a one, as will contain with ease, the said number of men, to be executed in such a manner as to protect them from a coup-de-main, and to be of such a size as will admit of a proper defence by such a garrison-the exterior side of such square, cannot possibly be less (if so little) than 300 feet which procures but a very small defence from its flank, and will make an ex- terior circuit of logging of nearly 1,420 feet by at the least of 14 feet high, according to the situation ; and in order to admit of barracks under the rampart, to which the retaining and braceing log works, as well as the log work fronting the interior area, must of course be considered, as likewise the log work to cover the barracks, store- houses, and magazines that are proposed to be made under the ramparts of the cur- tains and bastions, by which it will appear that the greatest part of the rampart round this post must be formed and supported with log work.
As to the thickness of the parapet, being informed cannon may be brought by the enemy, it cannot be less than 12 feet, if so little, 18 feet being the standard in such cases.
The rampart for the maneuver of cannon, and likewise to admit of a reasonable breadth for the barracks underneath, cannot be less than 20 feet.
The breadth and depth of ditch must be considered in proportion for the earth wanted to form said parapet, and to cover the logwork of the proposed barracks.
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OUR COUNTY AND ITS PEOPLE.
Magazines and storehouses to be made under the rampart. The exterior circuit of Fort Edward is nearly 1,569 feet, and as I am informed took nearly two seasons to complete it.
Fort Stanwix was begun August 23, 1758, by the troops under Gen- eral Stanwix, and nearly finished November 11, 1758 ; it cost 60,000 pounds sterling. The ground where the fort was built was nineteen feet higher than the swamps and low land, and descended gradually west- ward towards Fort Newport (late U. S. Arsenal). It is supposed that Dominick street follows the route of the old carrying path, except that in those years that path went to the east, or left, of what was then Fort Newport (late U. S. Arsenal). Fort Stanwix was bounded east, north and south by what are now Spring, Liberty, and Dominick streets. An indentation in the ground commencing on the west bounds of George Barnard's late residence on Dominick street, and running northerly to Liberty street is where ran the westerly ditch of the fort.
The capture of Fort Frontenac by Bradstreet, followed by the taking of Louisburg and Fort Du Quesne by the English in November there - after, closed the campaign in 1759. A fleet was to sail up the St. Law- rence to besiege Quebec and Ticonderoga, and Crown Point and Niagara were to be captured. With the latter only this narrative has to do, as it more immediately concerns Oneida county. Either in 1758 or 1759 (authorities disagree as to the year), a mud fort was erected on the present site of Utica, on the south bank of the Mohawk River, in the block bounded by Second street and Ballou Creek, close by the tracks of the N. Y. C. R. R., a little easterly of the railroad depot. An Indian path leading from Oneida Castle, and one from the Oneida Carrying Place, met or crossed cach other at the foot of what is now Genesee street in Utica; one path kept on the south side of the river down the valley ; another forded that stream where those paths met, and led down the Mohawk on the north side, and another diverged (as supposed) and led to the Black River valley and thence north. This fording place was considered a good site for a fort and one was accordingly erected, as before stated ; it was surrounded by palisades and ditches, and was probably intended more as a place of rest and a moderate protection to the inmates, than as a formidable work of defence. It was named after Peter Schuyler ; authors disagree whether it was that Peter who was an uncle of Gen. Philip Schuyler of the Revolution, or another Peter
21
1758 TO 1760-FORTS STANWIX AND SCHUYLER.
Schuyler. That fort went to decay soon after the Revolution, and seems not to have been an important fortification.
General Prideaux and Sir William Johnson were charged with the ex- pedition against Niagara. They were instructed to go up the Mohawk in May, 1759, with 5,000 troops, to leave a strong garrison at Fort Stanwix, establish a post on the east end of Oneida Lake (the Royal Block House, now Sylvan Beach, town of Vienna) and one at the west end of the lake (Fort Brewerton), descend the river to Oswego, leave nearly one- half his force there and proceed with the remainder to at- tack Niagara. These orders were accomplished, and the troops pass- ing up the Mohawk probably stopped for a while at Fort Schuyler (Utica) on their way west. Niagara was besieged, General Prideaux was killed, the fort captured by Sir William and the whole region of the upper Ohio fell into undisputed possession of the English. In the mean time the French forts around Lakes George and Champlain fell into the hands of the English, and in September Wolfe captured Que- bec. These victories practically assured Canada to England, although the war in Canada continued for two or three years longer. In 1760 a final campaign was ordered by the British government to drive the French forces which had converged around Montreal from Canada. One English army was to proceed from Quebec, another from Lake Champlain, and a third from Albany, up the Mohawk via the Oneida Carrying Place to Oswego, thence over Lake Ontario to and down the St. Lawrence. General Amherst commanded the last, consisting of 4,000 English regulars, 6,000 Provincials, and 600 Indians under Sir William Johnson. With this army, and who went over this route,1 were General Amherst, the commander-in-chief; Gen. Thomas Gage, com- mander of the British forces around Boston at the time of the Revolu- tion ; Colonel Haldimand, subsequently governor general of Canada ; General Bradstreet, Israel Putnam, later a general in the army of the Revolution. In September of that year the English forces converged at Montreal, where the French army had been driven, and the French were compelled to surrender, and all Canada passed into the hands of the English.2
1 The vestige of a part of an old military road near Lairdsville, in the town of Westmoreland, is yet visible ; said to have been the road over which some of Amherst's men traveled on that ex- pedition.
2A brief sketch of General Stanwix may be of interest to the reader in this connection. He
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OUR COUNTY AND ITS PEOPLE.
CHAPTER V.
1760 TO AUGUST, 1717.
The history of Oneida county, prior to 1760, is mainly written in war and bloodshed. Aside from the Indian trade carried on over its terri- tory, nothing of a peaceful character prior to that year was transacted within its borders. The routes across it were traveled by hostile forces, infested by scalping parties lurking in ambush, and lined by forts erected for protection and defence. Not a road was laid out, not an acre of land cleared, not a tree felled, not a building erected for any object other than of, or for, a warlike purpose. The " old French war " was in progress in 1760 and continued for several years thereafter ; and up to that date not a person with a view to a settlement had located within its limits. The first settlers within the county were Johannis
entered the army as early as 1706. In 1752 he was governor of Carlisle. In the north part of Eng- land, which city he then represented in parliament. In 1256 he was ap pented colonel of the @nh Royal regiment, went as a volunteer to America, and was put in command of the southern dis- trict of America and made his headquarters at Carlisle, Penn . during 1.5; ; in December of that year was made brigadier general. In 175s, having been superseded by GeneralForbes, General Stanwix proceeded to Albany, where he was ordered by tieneral Abercrombie to proceed to the Oneida Carrying Place, there to erect a fort, as heretofore stated, and which in his honor was named Fort Stanwix, by which name it has come down to us in History, not withstanding the efforts on the part of the Americans during the Revolution to y ve at the nanie of fort Schuyler. By reason of this attempt and of its being so called in official dispat hies, arel in some histories, this fort has been at times confounded with the Fort Schuyler at Utica , the latter fort has been called " Old Fort Schuyler." In 1759 General Stanwix returne I to Pennsylvania ; Fe repaired the old Fort Du Quesne, changed to the name of Fort Pitt, site of the present olty of Pittsburgh. On his return to England he wasappointed lieutenant governor of the Isle of Wight ; he married a second wife in 1763. In 1765 he was ordered to Ireland, and in De umber, lima, in crossing the sea to take his seat in the English parliament, the vessel in which He was a passenger and all on board, including his wife and only daughter were lost. Asingular lawshit grew out of the death of his family. By a stipulation on his marriage it was agreed that in case he survive l his wife, the personal estate was to go in a certain direction, and it h's daughter survived both husband and wife, then in another line. The case was brought into chan ery and the lawyers in the case made ingenious arguments as to the "survival of the fittest." and as to the probabilities which could buffet with the waves and death longest, the old, the mid lle uged, or the young. The questions were so intricate and difficult of decision, the court advised a compromise by an equal division of the property, which was agreed to by the parties. In the north part of England is the city of Carlisle, from which General Stanwix was a member of parl arent at the time of his death. One of the suburbs of that eity is a hamlet named "Stanwix."
23
1760 TO AUGUST, 1777.
Reuff (anglicized John Roof ) and wife. He was born January 9, 1730, in the city of Durlach, Suabice, Germany, and January 13, 1759, mar- ried in that city and both came to this country. In October of that year they landed in the city of Philadelphia. Soon thereafter they pushed their way onward to New York, up the valley of the Mohawk, past the Palatine settlement at German Flats and early in 1760 we find them located at Fort Stanwix. Not unlikely the location of the Ger- man Palatinates along the Mohawk and up as far as Herkimer induced those persons to come so far into this wilderness region. Fort Stanwix was erected about a year and a half before, and when Roof and wife came it was garrisoned by British troops and was likely to be the theater of active military operations. or the route for the passage of hostile armies. Mr. Roof erected a log house on or near the banks of the Mohawk, opened trade with the Indians, and as time progressed, furnished board and lodgment for boatmen and for those who assisted boatmen across the carrying place, and for those who crossed this por- tage to trade with the Indians Their nearest neighbors, aside from the garrison, were thirty miles away, and here this newly married couple commenced the battle of life, the pioneer settlers of Oneida county. Mr. Roof leased or purchased by contract, of Oliver De Lancey, a portion of Oriskany Patent, just east of the river, the present site of Factory Village ; this land he cultivated, in due time erected barns, filled them with produce, and before the war of the Revolution was a thrifty, pros- perous business man. Unto him while at Fort Stanwix the following children were born: John, born August 28, 1761; Susannah, born August 9, 1766; Martyn, born February 2, 1776; Barbara, born Oc- tober 30, 1771 ; Adam, born May 16, 1773.
It will thus be seen that this family were permanent settlers, for they lived at that fort until driven out by the siege of Fort Stanwix in Au- gust, 1777. John, the first born, was baptized when Sir William John- son and Captain Nicholas (afterward General) Herkimer were present. the latter acting as godfather. When sixteen years old. John entered the army under General Herkimer, was by the side of the latter when shot in the leg at the battle of Oriskany, and also present when that leg was amputated and the general died. The father was captain in Colonel Mellon's force of 200 Massachusetts men and under Colonel Gansevoort
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OUR COUNTY AND ITS PEOPLE.
at the siege of Fort Stanwix. The son Martyn was baptized by Rev. Samuel Kirkland, the well known divine and Indian missionary ; three other children were born unto Mr. Roof at Canajoharie, after his family sought safety in that locality, subsequent to the beginning of the war.
From the best attainable accounts Bartholomew Brothock (Brodock) was the next comer after Mr. Roof. He came from down the valley, and after the Revolution located in the town of Vienna, where descend- ants of his yet reside. Soon thereafter the following families were found located around the fort clearing up small patches of ground, trading with the Indians, and assisting boatmen up and down the river and over the carrying place, viz : William Kline, Thomas Myers, John Steere (or Steeve), William Quinn, Stephanes De Grow, and one Reg- gins, and others, about a dozen families in all. In the Documentary History is a letter from Eleazer Wheelock, who had charge of a charity school at Lebanon, Conn , for the education of Indian youths, to Sir William Johnson. The letter is dated August 20. 1762, and it says that, "one Reggins lives at Fort Stanwix, but is doing business at the Royal Block house at the mouth of Wood Creek at the east end of Oneida Lake [now Sylvan Beach], and has in his employ a young boy of sixteen years by the name of George Haxton, and the latter would like to attend school, but his obligations to Reggins and the violent op- position of the latter prevent." The writer asks for the assistance of Sir William. These families continued around Fort Stanwix until driven down the valley by the Revolutionary war, as will be more fully stated hereafter.
On March 12, 1772, Tryon county was taken from Albany county by a north and south line which ran nearly through the center of Schoharie county ; all west of that line in New York was in Tryon county (named in honor of William Tryon, then governor of the province).
The next settlement in Oneida county, after the one at Fort Stanwix, was at Deerfield Corners. In 1773, George J. Weaver (spelled Weber) Mark Damuth (sometimes called Damoot and by the English Dame- wood), and Christ Jan Reall, located at the corners at Deerfield, built a log house and commenced to improve the land. That was in Cosby's Manor, which was sold the year before by the sheriff of Albany county for quit rents, to Philip Schuyler, for the benefit of himself, Gen. John Bradstreet and others.
25
1760 TO AUGUST, 1777.
The settlers around Fort Stanwix seemed to be doing a thriving busi- ness for those times, and to be acquiring considerable property. From old documents found in the possession of Jelles Fonda, of Caughnawaga (see history of State Patents), at his death, it would seem as if those located around the fort considered they had in 1773 a monopoly of the carrying place, of the price of travel, and of carriage of goods. The following are among the documents referred to :
Canghnawaga [Fonda], 29 January, 1773.
We the subscribers do agree that William Kline and Christian Reel shall have a wagon to ride over the carrying place, and work as we do; and shall have a full share of a wagon's riding and payment for the same during their good behavior, ac- cording to an agreement made this 29 day of January, 1793.
Jelles Fonda, Johannes Ruff, Anthony Van Veighton, William Kline, Thomas Maires, Christ Jan Reil, Bartholomay Brodock.
Present-Daniel Steele, Richard Caller, John Seere.
Fort Stanwix, March 3, 1773.
Sir :- This morning we met together at Mr. Stephanes [ Stephanes Degrow's] and has agreed about the price of the riding at this place, which is 20 shillings to Kennedy [Canada] Creek, and likewise from there the same to the Indian field [perhaps Shoe- maker's at Mohawk], and from the common Carrying place 18 shillings to Kennedy Creek, coming and going.
Thomas Mearse, Johannes Ruff, William Kline, Stephanus De grow. P. S .- The short carrying place is 4 shillings, and from the Indian field to New- port is six shillings.
The following letter was from Mr. Roof to Jelles Fonda :
Fort Stanwix, April 23, 1773.
Sir -Your favor rec'd the 20 inst. ; the next day I sent them to plow with my servant and my plow as I want the seed in the ground as soon as possible. I want no pay for it, only they must help me and I them; the riding [carrying persons, likely] is beginning to be pretty smart, therefore I want to have done with plowing. We have made a new sluice and it is in good order. The traders make complaint in regard to paying 4 shillings over this place, but as to Kanady Creek, I hear they seem to be easy about the price. They threaten to get other wagons here, but that we care nothing about; for I am not afraid, one wagon this year will clear as much two last year.
The foregoing will indicate what was going on in this county 120 years ago. Thus affairs moved on hereabouts, no great, if any, addition being made to the settlers in the county before the Revolution ; and none, so far as history chronicles, outside of Fort Stanwix and Deer- field.
Political affairs in the colonies were approaching a crisis. The French
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OUR COUNTY AND ITS PEOPLE.
had been driven from the Canadian possessions, and England was seek - ing to tax and otherwise oppress her colonial subjects in America beyond endurance. The spirit of liberty, especially among the Angli- cized people in the colonies, was fully aroused and hardly a decade had passed before a war was again threatened in the colonies, and more formidable than the old French war. The battles of Lexington and Bunker Hill in 1775 set the country in motion The news from be- leagured Boston stirred up the people to the wildest extent and enthu- siasm. Indians were on the war path and scattered colonial settle . ments were wiped from the face of the earth. The Declaration of In- dependence July 4, 1776, solidified the sentiment of the colonial patriots in favor of a separation from the mother country. Early in that year matters assumed a very warlike aspect. The various forts in the Mohawk Valley were garrisoned, and although Fort Stanwix was in the midst of a wilderness, thirty miles from civilization, yet it was consid. ered the key to the western country, and to the Mohawk Valley from the west. General Washington at an early day had called the attention of General Schuyler to this fort, the importance of this carrying place, and the necessity of repairing and garrisoning it. In the course of 1776 Congress directed General Schuyler to put the fort in a state of defence, but nothing was done to it that year. The settlers remained around the fort as in years before, but war parties began to move. In the summer of 1776 a friendly Oneida Indian was hunting north of Deerfield Corners and while thus engaged came upon a party of Tories and Indians who were very particular in their inquiries as to the white settle- ment at the corners. The Oneida Indian gave evasive answers, and the party proceeded in the direction of the settlement. As soon as out of sight the friendly Indian made a detour and hastened to apprise the whites of their danger. Being acquainted with the woods, thickets, hills, swamps, and streams, he reached the settlement and gave warning to the whites, who barely had time to hide their scanty furniture in the woods. The women and children in a wagon, and the men on foot, beat a hasty retreat down the valley. The war party came, found the settlers gone, set fire to and burned the buildings, and the town of Deerfield was again a deserted wilderness. The only settlers then left in Oneida county was those who yet remained around Fort Stanwix.
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