USA > New York > Pioneer history of the Holland Purchase of western New York : embracing some account of the ancient remains > Part 24
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* Graham, in bis colonial history, says the Senecas were co-operators in the designs of Pontiac, but that, by the " indefatigable exertions of Sir William Johnson, the other
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MARY JEMISON, in relating a history of her captivity, &c., to her biographer, says that when she first arrived upon the Genesee river, the Senecas were making active preparations to join the French in the re-taking of Fort Niagara. That the expedition resulted, (not in any attack upon the garrison, as we are to infer,) but in a successful resistance to an English force that had sallied from the garrison to get possession of the small French post at Schlosser .* The English were driven back with considerable loss. This, she says, was in the month of November, 1759. Two English prisoners, that were taken, were carried to the Genesee river and executed.
TRAGEDY OF THE DEVIL'S HOLE.
There are few of our readers who will not be familiar with the main features of this event. It was fresh in the recollection of the few of the white race, that were found here, when settlement commenced, and Seneca Indians were then living, who participated in it. The theatre of this tragedy - the locality that is figuratively designated as one of the fastnesses of the great embodiment of sin and evil-was in the high banks of the Niagara river, three miles below the Falls, and half a mile below the Whirlpool. It is a deep, dark cove, or chasm. "An air of sullen sublimity prevades its gloom; and where in its shadowy depths you seem cut off from the world and confined in the prison-house of terror. To appearance it is a
of the Six Nations were restrained thongh with great difficulty, from plunging into the hostile enterprise, which seemed the last effort of the Indian race to hold at least divi- ded empire with tho colonists of North America."
*Fort Schlosser-called by the French Little Fort-took its name, under English possession, from a Captain Schlosser, who was the first to occupy the place as an English post. In Dec. 1763, he was in New York. The Moravian Indians at Beth- lohem, apprehending an attack from the whites, and the horrid fate that afterwards befel them, appealed to Gen. Gage and Sir William Johnson, for protection, sending a deputation to New York for that purpose. Capt. Schlosser, with one hundred and seventy men, were detached to accompany the deputation back, and defend the Mora- vian settlement. In Loskriel's History of the Moravian Missions, it is said :- " These soldiers had just come from Niagara, and had suffered much from the savages near Lake Erie, which rendered them in the beginning, so averse to the Indians, that nothing favorable could be expected from them ;- God in mercy, changed their dispo- sitions; their friendly behavior soon softened into cordiality; and they conversed familiarly with the Indian brethren, relating their sufferings with the savages." In Heckwelder's Indian Narrative, p. 83, that good Moravian Missionary, speaking of the same event, says of Captain Schlosser, the commander of the guard :-- " An officer deservedly esteemed by all good men, for his humanity and manly conduct, in protect- ing these persecuted Indians."
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fit place for a demon-dwelling; and hence, probably, derives its name."* The road along the river bank passes so near, that the traveller can look down from it into the frightful gulf-to the bottom of the abyss, one hundred and fifty feet. It would seem that a huge section of rock had been detached, parting off and leaving the high banks almost perpendicular -over-hanging in fact, at some points. A small stream-the Bloody Run-taking its name from the event of which we are about to give some account, pours over the high pallisade of rock. Trees of the ordinary height of those common in our forests, rise from the bottom of the " Hole," their tops failing to reach the level of the terrace above.
Hitherto our accounts of the tragedy enacted there, have been derived from traditionary sources; no cotemporary written state- ment of it has as yet appeared in any historical work, or in any printed form. Among the London documents brought to this country by Mr. BROADHEAD, and deposited in the office of the Secretary of State at Albany, is a letter from Sir WILLIAM JOHNSON, to the Board of Trade in New York, dated at Johnson's Hall, (on the Mohawk) September 25th, 1763, to which is appended the following Postscript :-
"P. S. - This moment I have received an express informing me that an officer and twenty-four men who were escorting several wagons and ox-teams over the carrying place at Niagara, had been attacked and entirely defeated, together with two companies of Col. Wilmot's regiment who marched to sustain them. Our loss on this occasion, consists of Lients. Campbell, Frazier and Roscoe, of the Regulars. Capt. Johnson and Lieut. Drayton of the Provincials; and sixty privates killed with about eight or nine wounded. The enemy, who are supposed to be Senecas of the Chenussio, [ Genessee,] scalped all the dead, took all their clothes, arms and amunition, and threw several of their bodies down a precipice."
In a " Review of the Indian trade," by the writer of the above, dated four years after, speaking of this furious outbreak of the Indians, it is said: - " They totally destroyed a body of Provincials and regulars of about one hundred men in the Carrying Place of Niagara, but two escaping." There is some discrepancy in the two statements. The first account was probably sent to Sir WILLIAM by a messenger despatched from Niagara as soon as the affair was known there, and before the full extent of the loss was ascertained. In 1764 the writer was at Niagara, holding a treaty with the Senecas, where he probably learned the facts as he last
* Orr's Guide to Niagara Falls.
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stated them. The statement that but two escaped the massacre, agrees, as will be seen from what follows, with the traditionary accounts, though the fate of the "eight or nine wounded," is left to conjecture.
JESSE WARE was the successor of the STEDMANS at Schlosser, and before his death related to the compiler of the first edition of the Life of MARY JEMISON, the story as he assumed to have heard it from WILLIAM STEDMAN, the brother and successor of JOHN STEDMAN, who was one of the two that escaped. The relation was in substance as follows :-
After the possession of Fort Niagara and Schlosser, by the English, Sir WILLIAM JOHNSON made a contract with JOHN STEDMAN to construct a portage road between Lewiston and Schlosser, to facilitate the transportation of provisions and military stores from one place to the other. The road was finished on the 20th of June, 1763, and twenty-five loaded wagons started to go over it, under the charge of STEDMAN, as the contractor for army transportation; accompanied by "fifty soldiers and their officers," as a guard. A large force of Seneca Indians, in anticipation of this movement, had collected and laid in ambush near what is now called the Devil's Hole. As the English party were passing the place, the Indians sallied out, surrounded teams, drivers, and guard, and "either killed on the spot, or drove off the banks," the whole party, "except Mr. STEDMAN, who was on horseback." An Indian seized his bridle reins, and was leading him east to the woods, through the scene of bloody strife, probably for the purpose of devoting him to the more excruciating torments of a sacrifice; but while the captor's attention was drawn in another direction for a moment, STEDMAN with his knife, cut the reins near the bits, at the same time thrusting his spurs into the flanks of his horse, and dashing into the forest, the target of an hundred Indian rifles. He escaped unhurt. Bearing east about two miles, he struck Gill creek, which he followed to Schlosser. [ See some subsequent remarks upon the claim instituted by the STEDMANS, or their successor, to lands, based upon this flight, and a consequent Indian gift.
"From all accounts," says the biographer we have relied upon for the above statement, "of this barbarous transaction, Mr. STEDMAN was the only person belonging to this party who was not either driven, or thrown off into the Devil's Hole." Tradition
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has transmitted to us various accounts of the fate of some few others of the party; that is, that one, two, or three others escaped with life, after being driven off the bank, although badly wounded, and maimed by the fall. Most of the accounts agree in the escape of a little drummer * who was caught while falling, in the limb of a tree, by his drum-strap.
Mrs. JEMISON says that no attempt was made to procure plunder, or take prisoners. The object, sanguinary as was the means used to accomplish it, was not mercenary, but formed a part of a general concerted plan to rid the country of the English.
The account of Sir WILLIAM JOHNSON, which the author, considering that it is both cotemporary and official, is disposed to rely upon, rather than the traditionary accounts, gives a different complexion to the whole affair, than the hitherto generally accredited version. The inference would be from his statement, that the cavalcade of wagons, teamsters, and guard of twenty-four men, was first attacked, and was reinforced after the attack by the two companies, who, he says, "marched to sustain them." This would protract the action beyond a sudden attack, and such a summary result as has before been given; and favor the conclusion that the advance party was first attacked as stated, and that those who came to their relief, shared a similar fate. Though the discrepancy is perhaps not material.
HONAYEWUS, or Farmer's Brother, an active Seneca war chief in the Border Wars of the Revolution, was in this battle, or rather surprise and massacre. It was one of his earliest advents upon the war-path.
The pioneer settlers upon the frontier, especially in the neighbor- hood of Lewiston and the Falls, say that at an early period relics of this horrid tragedy were abundant, in this deep gorge. They consisted of skulls, of human bones, and bones of oxen, pieces of wagons, gun barrels, bayonets, &c., &c.
* The story of the drummer is mainly true. Seeing the fate that awaited him, he leaped from the high bank ; the strap of his drum catching upon the limb of a tree, his descent, or fall, was broken, and he struck in the river, near the shore, but little injured by the terrible leap of one hundred and fifty feet ! His name was Matthews. He lived until within a few years, in the neighborhood of Queenston, to relate the story of his wonderful preservation.
NOTE .- Mrs. Jemison says the first neat cattle that were brought upon the Genesee river were the oxen that the Senecas obtained of the English in the previous affair at Schlosser. As that was an attack npon a military expedition, where no oxen would be likely to have been used, it is probable that those she speaks of were such as were preserved at the affair of the Devil's Hole.
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BATTLE NEAR BUFFALO.
In a few weeks after this too successful onslaught of the Senecas upon the English, they followed it up by an attack upon a detachment of English troops, on their way from Niagara to Detroit :---
From the Maryland Gazette, December 22, 1763.
"New York, December 5 .- Last Monday, Capt. GARDINER of the 55th, and Lieut. STOUGHTON, came to town from Albany. They belonged to a detachment of 600 men under the command of Major WILKINS, destined for Detroit, from Niagara; but on the 19th of October, at the east end of Lake Erie, one hundred and sixty of our people being in their boats, were fired upon from the beach by about eighty Indians, which killed and wounded thirteen men, (and among them Lieut. JOHNSON, late of Gorham's, killed, ) in the two stern-most boats, the remainder of the detachment being ahead about half a mile. Capt. GARDINER, who was in the boats adjoining, immediately ordered the men, (fifty) under his command, ashore, and took possession of the ground from which the enemy had fired; and as soon as he observed our people landing, he with Lieut. STOUGHTON, and twenty-eight men pursued the Indians. In a few minutes a smart skirmish ensued, which lasted near an hour, in which three men were killed on the spot, and Capt. GARDINER, with Lieut. STOUGHTON and ten others, badly wounded. During the skirmish, the troops that did not follow the Indians formed on the bank, and covercd the boats."
The attacks upon the English at Schlosser, the Devil's Hole, and at the foot of lake Erie, were all the out-breaks of the Senccas, during the disaffection that followed the English advent, of which there is any record, or well authenticated tradition. From some correspondence which occurred between General AMHERST and Sir WILLIAM JOHNSON, which have been preserved in the Broadhead documents, it would seem that the English attributed the hostilities of the Senecas to the evil influences of the French who remained among them as traders, or as adopted Senecas. This is likely to have been the case, though it is apparent that all along the Seneca branch of the Iroquois espe- cially, had resolved to maintain their independence, and resist the encroachments of both the French and the English. After the French were conquered, it was natural for the Senecas to adopt them as allies in any contest they had with the conquerors.
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But after the failure of the scheme of PONTIAC at the west, the promulgation of the peace of Paris here, and the consequent sub- mission of the French to the rule of their conquerors, the Senecas, as did the Indian nations generally, concluded that acquiescence and non-resistance was the best policy. By a letter from Licut. Gov. COLDEN to the Board of Trade, dated Dec. 19th, 1763, it seems that they had then sued for peace. In MANTE's History of the French War, the preliminary articles of this peace are given. It was entered into at JOHNSON's Hall, April 3d, 1764, between Sir WILLIAM JOHNSON and eight deputies of the Seneca nation, viz: - Tagaanedie, Kaanijes, Chonedaga, Aughnawawis, Sagenqueraghta, Wanughsisiae, Tagnoondie, Taanjaqua.
They were to cease all hostilities immediately; never more to make war on the English, or suffer their people to commit acts of violence on the persons or property of any of his Majesty's subjects; forthwith to collect and deliver up all English prisoners, deserters, Frenchmen and negroes; and neither more to harbor or conceal either. They ceded as follows :- "To His Majesty, and his successors forever, in full right, the lands from Fort Niagara extending easterly along lake Ontario about four miles, compre- hending the Petit-Marais, or landing place, and running from thence southerly about fourteen miles to the creek above 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 lake Ontario, and across the river, or strait, to Fort Niagara; compre- hending the whole carrying place, with the lands on both sides of the strait. [or river, ] and containing a tract of about fourteen 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."*
" This is the first tract of land to which the Indian title was extinguished, in Wes- tern New York. The reader will have no difficulty in determining the boundaries. It included both banks of the Niagara river, the Falls, Schlosser, Lewiston, Fort Ni- agara, Niagara, C. W. and the mouth of the Four-mile-creek. It will be observed of course, that the Senecas here assumed that their dominion extended over the Niagara river. This is based undoubtedly upon their conquest over the Nenter Nation I See pages 66, 67, 68.
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They farther agreed to grant a free passage through their country, from that of the Cayugas to Niagara, or elsewhere, for the use of His Majesty's troops forever; and the free use to His Majesty forever, of the harbors within the country on lake Ontario, or any of the rivers; immediately to stop all intercourse of their people with the hostile Shawnees, and to assist His Majesty's arms in bringing them to proper punishment. Sir WILLIAM grants a free pardon for past transgressions.
This treaty was to be fully ratified by Sir WILLIAM JOHNSON and the Senecas, the ensuing summer at Fort Niagara. But the Senecas, even after this, proved somewhat refractory. In the ensuing summer, Sir WILLIAM accompanied the expedition of Gen. BRADSTREET as far as Niagara, to attend there a congress of friendly Indian nations, convened to exchange with the English sentiments of peace and alliance, make purchases, receive presents, and some of them to offer themselves as volunteers under Gen. BRADSTREET. About seventeen hundred had assembled; but the Senecas were not among them. Sir WILLIAM sent them repeated messages to come in and ratify their treaty, which they answered by repeated promises of attendance. It was found that they were in council deliberating whether they should renew the war or confirm the peace. Gen. BRADSTREET sent them a peremptory message, in substance, that if they did not repair to Niagara and fulfill their engagements in five days, he would send a force and destroy their settlements. This brought them in. They ratified their treaty, and received some presents.
BURNT SHIP BAY -NIAGARA RIVER.
It will have been seen that the small French garrison at Schlosser, held out and successfully resisted the first attack. The fall of Quebec, however, convinced them that all was lost, and anticipating another attack, they resolved on the destruction of two armed vessels, lying in the river, having on board their military stores. The vessels were taken into the arm of the river that separates a small Island from the foot of Grand Island, and burned down to the water's edge; after which the hulls sunk. In low water, the wrecks are now plain to be seen. In an early period of settlement of the frontier, the hulls were partly exposed;
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anchors, chains, cannon balls, grape and cannister shot, irons belonging to the upper rigging, used to be taken from them by the carly settlers. The hulls are now mostly covered with mud, sand and gravel. The Bay derives its name from the circumstances here related .*
GENERAL BRADSTREET'S EXPEDITION.
By far the best account of this expedition that has come under the author's observation, is contained in MANTE's History, already cited; a rare work, which but a small portion of our readers can have seen. From that source, mainly, our brief notice of it is derived. The expedition was the result of the war that PONTIAC and his confederates had waged at the west, and was intended to over-awe the hostile Indians, recover the captured garrisons, and secure a general peace. Gen. BRADSTREET, who had headed the successful expedition against Fort Frontenac, was the leader in this. His orders were to "give peace to all such nations of Indians as would sue for it, and chastise those who would continue in arms." The expedition, consisting of about twelve hundred troops, came from Albany to Oswego, where it was joined by a band of warriors of the Six Nations.t From Oswego it came by water, to Fort Niagara, where it halted and remained until Sir WILLIAM JOHNSON, had perfected his treaty with the Senecas. Still distrustful of the Senecas, Lieut. MONTRESSOR had been ordered to throw up a chain of redoubts, from the landing place at the Four-mile-creek, to Schlosser, "in order to prevent any insults from the enemy, in transporting the provisions, stores and boats, from one lake to another, and likewise to erect a fort on the banks of Lake Erie. for the security of vessels employed upon it; and these services were effectually performed before the arrival of the army."}
* Pieces of the wreck are now often procured, as relics of olden time. The author procured from one of them, during the last summer, an oak plank. The timber - after remaining 89 years under water, is sound, and when the water is dried out, is very hard, and susceptible of a fine polish.
t It may not bo generally known, even to those familiar with colonial history, that Israel Putnam, once trod the soil of Western New York. He was in the expedition of Bradstreet, a Lieut. Colonel of tho Connecticut battalion, as the newspapers of that day clearly show.
# This was the origin of Fort Erie. The author finds no authority for assuming (as some tourists and authors of Sketch Books have, ) that the French ever had a post at that point.
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The army moved to Fort Schlosser on the 6th of August, when it halted until the 8th, for the arrival of an additional Indian force which was to accompany it. It consisted of three hundred Senecas, who, Mr. MANTE says, Gen. BRADSTREET "thought him- self compelled to regard as spies, rather than employ them as auxiliaries." The aggregate force of the expedition now amounted to about three thousand. The army moved up the Niagara, to Fort Erie, and from thence, on the 10th, continued its route along the south side of the lake, agreeable to the instructions of Gen. GAGE. In the morning of the 12th, while detained at l'Anse-Aux- Feuilles [Bay of Leaves]* by contrary winds, he received a depu- tation from the Shawnees, the Delawares, the Hurons of Sandusky and the Five Nations of the Sciota Plains, sueing for a peace; and in the evening he gave them an audience in the presence of the sachems, and other chiefs of the Indians who accompanied him. These Indians made excuses for hostile conduct, and begged for- giveness, which Gen. BRADSTREET granted, and proceeded to Detroit, where he held other conferences. On his way up he had burned the Indian corn-fields and villages at Sandusky, and along the Maumee, and dispersed the Indians wherever he had found them. The confederates of PONTIAC, with the exception of the Delawares and Shawnees, finding they could not successfully compete with such a force, laid down their arms, and concluded a treaty of peace.
PONTIAC, sullonly, stood aloof from the negotiations. He went to Illinois, yielding none but a tacit aquiescence to measures of necessity, in which he clearly foresaw the dispersion and gradual extinction of his race, which has followed the events we have been narrating. He was assassinated by a Peoria Indian. The Ottawas, the Pottawottamies, and the Chippewas, made common cause in avenging his death, by waging war, and ncarly exterminating the tribes of the murderer. "The living marble and the glowing canvass may not embody his works; but they are identified with the soil of the western forest, and will live as long as the remembrance of its aboriginal inhabitants, the Algonquin race." +
* Maumee Bay.
t Lanman's History of Michigan.
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CHAPTER II.
EARLY GLIMPSES OF WESTERN NEW YORK.
A primitive glimpse of the western portion of this state, has been reserved for insertion here, -though not in its order of time. It is by far the earliest notice, of any considerable detail, which we derive from English sources; if in fact it is not the earliest record of any English advent to our region. The author is disposed to conclude that the writer was the first Englishman that saw the country west of the lower valley of the Mohawk. His advent was but three years after the English took final possession of the Province of New York, and ten years previous to the expedition of DE NONVILLE. It is taken from " Chalmer's Political Annals of the United Colonies," a work published in London, in 1780 :-
"OBSERVATIONS OF WENTWORTH GREENHALPH.
"In a journey from Albany to the Indians westward, [the Fire Nations, ]- begun the 28th of May, 1677, and ended the 14th of July following. *
[NOTE .- What is said of the " Maquas, (Mohawks,) Oneydoes, Onondagoes, and Cayugas," is omitted, and the journal commences with the Senecas.]
"The Senecas have four towns, viz :- Canagorah, Tistehatan, Canoenada, Keint-he. Canagorah and Tistchatan lie within thirty miles of the Lake Frontenac; the other two about four or five miles to the southward of these; they have abundance of corn. None of their towns are stockadoed.
"Canagorah lies on the top of a great hill, and, in that as well as in the bigness, much like Onondagoe, [which is described as 'situ- ated on a hill that is very large, the bank on each side extending itself at least two miles, all cleared lands, whereon the corn is planted,'] containing 150 houses, north-westward of Cayuga 72 miles.
* Mr. Chalmers purports to derive the journal "from New York papers " meaning as is presumed, the manuscripts of the New York " Board of Trade."
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