USA > New York > Monroe County > Rochester > Settlement in the West : sketches of Rochester with incidental notices of western New-York > Part 46
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With the exception of a small portion of the Oneidas and Tuscaroras, and a few Mohawks, the Six Nations co-oper- ated with the British and tories in all the atrocities which marked our border warfare during the revolutionary war. It is but justice to say that in this cruel career they were steadily stimulated and frequently surpassed by tories like Butler, Johnson, Gurty, and that miscreant Allen who af- terward built the first mill on the Genesee where Roches- ter now stands. The ferocity of the Indians was signally manifested at the siege of Fort Stanwix, where Gansevoort and Willett boldly defended the American flag; at the bat- tle of Oriskany, where the gallant Herkimer fell, bravely fighting against the ambushed British and Indians ; at the
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massacres of Cherry Valley and Wyoming, and at other similar scenes, the horrors of which aroused such general indignation throughout the Union, that the government de- voted its energies in the fall of 178S to equip the expedition under Sullivan which wreaked signal vengeance on the Six Nations by a blow from which they never recovered.
Sullivan's Expedition against the Six Nations as far as the Genesee, in 1779.
The expedition of Sullivan is worthy of record here, not merely from its influence on the Six Nations, but with refer- ence to the settlement of the Genesee country. " The fer- tility of the western part of the state had been discovered by Sullivan's expedition," says the intelligent annalist of " Try- on County," as all the State of New-York west of Albany county was called before the revolution. " These and other subsequent circumstances produced a tide of emigration to the West, which has not yet ceased to flow, and which still pours on its flood into the far unbroken wilderness. Many of the soldiers who were at the close of the war without homes, and who had been stationed along the frontier, re- turned and settled upon the places of their former trials and sufferings."
The prominent events of Sullivan's expedition were briefly and vividly narrated by John Salmon, one of the en- terprising pioneers who settled on the Genesee River after serving patriotically through the revolutionary war in the army with which he had previously desolated the Indian set- tlements. Mr. Salmon, who died last fall (1837), was for- merly from Northumberland county, Pennsylvania, and was orderly sergeant of Capt. Simpson's company during the ex- pedition of Sullivan. He had previously served under the gallant General Morgan ; and the section of the Genesee country where he located was near the scene of some of the most tragical events of the expedition under Sullivan which first caused him to visit the Seneca territory.
To repress the hostilities and avenge the barbarities of the Six Nations, Congress recommended and Gen. Wash- ington adopted the most rigorous measures in 1779. The atrocities perpetrated at Cherry Valley and elsewhere in
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the State of New-York, as well as at Wyoming in Pennsyl- vania, excited throughout the army a burning thirst for sum- mary vengeance upon the foe that " hung like the scythe of death upon the rear of our settlements"-a foe whose "deeds were inscribed with the scalping-knife and the toma- hawk in characters of blood on the fields of Wyoming and Cherry Valley, and on the banks of the Mohawk."
Gen. Sullivan was ordered to march into the Indian ter- ritory, to desolate their settlements, and otherwise inflict signal retribution for the past, while disabling the tribes from prosecuting further hostilities with their accustomed boldness.
" When it was first announced that an army was march- ing into their country," says a chronicler of the times, " the Indians laughed at their supposed folly, believing it impossible for a regular army to traverse the wilderness such a distance, and to drive them from their fastnesses."
The statement made by Mr. Salmon in 1824, and which is imbodied in the " Narrative" of the White Woman, pub- lished by Jas. E. Seaver, Esq., presents the operations of this expedition in a manner which renders it worthy of inser- tion here, corroborated as it is by the testimony of the White Woman, by the annals of Tryon county, and by other au- thorities.
" In the autumn after the battle of Monmouth (1778), Mor- gan's riflemen, to which corps I belonged, marched to Scho- harie, in the State of New-York, and there went into winter- quarters. 'The company to which I was attached was com- manded by Capt. Michael Simson; and Thos. Boyd of Northumberland county, Pennsylvania, was our lieutenant.
" In the following spring, our corps, together with the whole body of troops under the command of Gen. Clinton, to the amount of about 1500, embarked in boats at Schenec- tady, and ascended the Mohawk as far as German Flats. Thence we took a direction to Otsego Lake, descended the Susquehannah, and without any remarkable occurrence ar- rived at Tioga Point, where our troops united with an army of 1500 men under the command of Gen. Sullivan, who had reached that place by the way of Wyoming some days be- fore us.
" That part of the army under General Sullivan had, on their arrival at Tioga Point, found the Indians in some force there, with whom they had some unimportant skirmishies be-
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fore our arrival. Upon the junction of these two bodies of troops, General Sullivan assumed the command of the whole, and proceeded up the Tioga. When within a few miles of the place now called Newtown, we were met by a body of Indians and a number of troops well known in those times by the name of Butler's Rangers, who had thrown up hastily a breastwork of logs, &c. They were, however, easily driven from their works, with considerable loss on their part, and without any injury to our troops. The enemy fled with so much precipitation, that they left behind them some stores and camp equipage. They retreated but a short distance before they made a stand, and built another breastwork of considerable length in the woods near an opening. Sullivan was soon apprized of their situation, divided his army, and attempted to surround, by sending one half to the right and the other to the left, with directions to meet on the opposite sides of the enemy. In order to prevent their retreating, he directed bombshells to be thrown over them, which was done ; but on the shells bursting, the Indians suspected that a powerful army had opened a heavy fire upon them on that side, and fled with the utmost precipitation through one wing of the surrounding army. A great number of the enemy were killed, and our army suffered considerably. This was the only regular stand made by the Indians.
" The Indians having in this manner escaped, went up the river to a place called the Narrows, where they were attacked by our men, who killed them in great numbers, so that the sides of the rocks next the river appeared as though blood had been poured on them by pailfuls. The Indians threw their dead into the river, and escaped the best way they could.
" From Newtown our army went directly to the head of Seneca Lake, thence down that lake to its mouth, where we found the Indian village at that place (Kanadaseago, now Geneva) evacuated, except by a single inhabitant-a male child, about seven or eight years old, who was found asleep in one of the Indian huts, and who was adopted by one of the officers.
" From the mouth of Seneca Lake we proceeded, without the occurrence of anything of importance, by the outlets of the Canandaigua, Honeoye, and Hemlock Lakes, to the head of Conesus Lake, where the army encamped on the ground that is now called Henderson's Flats.
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" Soon after the army had encamped, at the dusk of the evening, a party of twenty-one men, under the command of Lieutenant Boyd, was detached from the rifle corps, and sent out for the purpose of reconnoitring the ground near the Genesee River, at a place now called Williamsburgh [the present residence of Colonel Fitzhugh], between Gen- eseo and Mount Morris, at a distance from the camp of about seven miles, under the guidance of a faithful Indian pilot [Hanayerry, the Oneida, whose fate is afterward men- tioned]. That place was the site of an Indian village ; and it was apprehended that the Indians and Rangers might be there or in that vicinity in considerable force.
" On the arrival of the party at Williamsburgh, they found that the Indian village had been recently deserted, as the fires in the huts were still burning .* The night was so far spent when they got to their place of destination, that Lieutenant Boyd, considering the fatigue of his men, con- cluded to remain during the night near the village, and to send two messengers with a report to the camp in the morn- ing. Accordingly, a little before daylight, he despatched two men to the main body of the army with information that the enemy had not been discovered.
" After daylight, Lieutenant Boyd cautiously crept from the place of his concealment, and upon getting a view of the village, discovered two Indians hovering about the settle- ment-one of whom was immediately shot and scalped by one of the riflemen whose name was Murphy. Supposing that if there were Indians in that vicinity, or near the village, they would be instantly alarmed by this occurrence, Lieu- tenant Boyd thought it most prudent to retire, and make the best of his way to the general encampment of our army. They accordingly set out and retraced the steps which they had taken the day before, till they were intercepted by the enemy.
" On their arriving within about a mile and a half of the main army, they were surprised by the sudden appearance of a body of Indians, to the amount of five hundred, under the command of the celebrated Brant, and a similar number of Rangers commanded by the infamous Butler, who had secreted themselves in a ravine of considerable extent which lay across the track that Lieutenant Boyd had pur- sued.
* See account of Mrs. Jemison, the " White Woman."
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" Upon discovering the enemy, and knowing that the only chance for escape was by breaking through their line (one of the most desperate enterprises ever undertaken), Lieut. Boyd, after a few words of encouragement, led his men to the attempt. As extraordinary as it may seem, the first on- set, though unsuccessful, was made without the loss of a man on the part of the lieroic band, though several of the enemy were killed. Two attempts more were made, which were equally unsuccessful, and in which the whole party fell, except Lieut. Boyd and eight others. Lieut. Boyd and a soldier named Parker were taken prisoners on the spot-a part of the remainder fled-and a part fell on the ground apparently dead, and were overlooked by the Indians, who were too much engaged in pursuing the fugitives to notice those who fell.
" When Lieut. Boyd found himself a prisoner, he solicited an interview with Brant, whom he well knew commanded the Indians. . 'This chief, who was at that moment near, im- mediately presented himself, when Lieut. Boyd, by one of those appeals which are known only by those who have been initiated and instructed in certain mysteries, and which never fail to bring succour to a ' distressed brother,' addressed him as the only source from which he could expect a respite from cruel punishment or death. The appeal was recognised, and Brant immediately, and in the strongest language, as- sured him that his life should be spared.
" Lieut. Boyd and his fellow-prisoner Parker were im- mediately conducted by a party of the Indians to the Indian village called Beard's town, on the west side of the Gen- esee River, in what is now called Leicester (near Moscow). After their arrival at Beard's town, Brant, their generous preserver, being called on service which required a few hours absence, left them in the care of the British Colonel Butler* of the Rangers-who, as soon as Brant had left them,
* " The tories, who often commanded the Indians, were the most bar- barous. There is a story told of an act in a settlement adjoining Scho- harie, which, for the honour of humanity, would not be believed were it not supported by undoubted testimony. A party of Indians had en- tered a house, and killed and scalped a mother and a large family of children. They had just completed their work of death when some royalists belonging to their party came up, and discovered an infant still alive in the cradle. An Indian warrior, noted for his barbarity, ap- proached the cradle with his uplifted hatchet. The babe looked up in his face and smiled ; the feelings of nature triumphed over the ferocity
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commenced an interrogation to obtain from the prisoners a statement of the number, situation, and intentions of the army under Gen. Sullivan ; and threatened them, in case they hesitated or prevaricated in their answers, to deliver them up immediately to be massacred by the Indians, who, in Brant's absence, and with the encouragement of their more savage [white ?] commander, Butler, were ready to commit the greatest cruelties .* Relying, probably, on the promises which Brant had made them, and which he undoubtedly meant to fulfil, they refused to give Butler the desired infor- mation. Butler, upon this, hastened to put his threat into execution. They were delivered to some of their most fe- rocious enemies, who, after having put them to very severe torture, killed them by severing their heads from their bodies.
" The main army, immediately after hearing of the situa- tion of Lieut. Boyd's detachment, moved on towards Gene- see River ; and, finding the bodies of those who were slain in Boyd's heroic attempt to penetrate through the enemy's line, buried them in what is now the town of Groveland, where the grave is to be seen at this day.
" Upon their arrival at the Genesee River, they crossed over, scoured the country for some distance on the river, burned the Indian villages on the Genesee Flats, and de- stroyed all their corn and other means of subsistence.
" The bodies of Lieut. Boyd and Private Parker were found and buried near the bank of Beard's Creek, under a bunch of wild plum-trees, on the road, as it now runs, from Moscow to Genesee. I was one of those who committed to the earth the remains of my friend and companion in arms, the gallant Boyd.
" Immediately after these events, the army commenced its march back, by the same route that it came, to Tioga Point -thence down the Susquehannah to Wyoming-and thence
of the savage : the hatchet fell from his hand, and he was in the act of stooping down to take the infant in his arms, when one of the royalists, cursing the Indian for his humanity, took it up on the point of his bay- onet, and, holding it up struggling in the agonies of death, exclaimed- ' This, too, is a rebel !' " Horrible as is this tale, it finds a parallel among the atrocities perpetrated by Ebenezer Allen, the tory, otherwise known as " Indian Allen," who built the first mill and owned the " Hundred Acre Lot" where Rochester was afterward laid out. See " Notices of the first Mills of Rochester" in this volume.
* See preceding note.
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across the country to Morristown, New-Jersey, where we went into winter-quarters .*
" Gen. Sullivan's bravery is unimpeachable. He was, however, unacquainted with fighting the Indians, and made use of the best means to keep them at such a distance that they could not be brought into an engagement. It was his practice, morning and evening, to have cannon fired in or near the camp, by which the Indians were notified of his speed in marching, and of his situation, and were enabled to make a seasonahle retreat.
" The foregoing account, according to the best of my recollection, is strictly correct. JOHN SALMON."
This narrative of the prominent events of Sullivan's ex- pedition is substantially corroborated by the journal of an officer, quoted in the " Annals of Tryon County," and by the testimony of Mary Jemison, " the White Woman." This latter personage was at the time settled as the wife of the Chief Hiokatoo, in Beard's town, the headquarters of the Senecas before the desolation produced by Sullivan's army, and took refuge then (where she remained till 1832) at a romantic spot between the high banks of the Genesee, be- side the Great Slide, and near the Falls of Nunda.
" 'The country of the Onondagas, the Cayugas, and the Senecas, the three western tribes, was completely overrun and laid waste," says the Annalist of Tryon county, in noticing the avenging expedition of Sullivan. " To some it may seem that too much severity was exercised in the burning of Indian towns, and that corn, &c., was wantonly destroyed ; but it must be borne in mind that this was not a bare retaliatory measure, though as such it might have been justified by the previous conduct of the Indians. Their towns were their retreats, and from thence they made in- cursions into the settlements : driven back to Niagara, and rendered dependant upon the English for supplies of provis- ions, they would necessarily be much crippled in their future operations. Though, as we have seen, this campaign did not put a stop to the ravages of the Indians, yet they never recovered from the severe chastisement which they received. A part only of the Indians ever returned to their old settle-
" The loss of men sustained in this expedition, considering the fa- tigue and exposure, was very inconsiderable-not more than forty in the whole were killed or died from sickness."
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ments from which they were driven. During the following winter, 1779-80, they remained in and about Niagara. Provisions were scarce ; those they received were salt ; a kind to which the Indians were unaccustomed. They took the scurvy, and died in great numbers. The winter was un- usually cold, which increased the difficulties of their situa- tion."
Truly is it said by the Tryon Annalist, that, "though the Indians never fully recovered from the severe chastise- ment which they received," this campaign of Sullivan " did not put a stop to the ravages" of the tribes.
" The next summer after that campaign," said the White Woman, " our Indians, highly incensed at the whites for the treatment they had received and the sufferings they had consequently endured, determined to take revenge by de- stroying their frontier settlements. Cornplanter, otherwise called John O'Bail, led the Indians, and an officer by the name of Johnston [Sir Guy] commanded the British in the expedition. The force was large, and strongly bent upon wreaking vengeance on the settlements. After leaving Genesee, they marched directly to some of the head waters of the Susquehannah River. They also went down the Schoharie Creek to the Mohawk River ; thence up that river to Fort Stanwix, and thence came home. In their route they burnt a number of places ; destroyed all the cat- tle and other property which fell in their way ; killed a considerable number of white people, and brought home a few prisoners."
The treaty between the Six Nations and the United States, formed at Fort Stanwix in 1784, is noticed elsewhere.
Can it be wondered at that the friends of Oliver Phelps and his followers manifested extreme solicitude, when bid- ding adieu to the expedition on their departure from Massa- chusetts to colonize this region in 1788? When it is recol- lected that the forces which encouraged the Indians to per- petrate barbarities on our frontiers during the revolution held possession of Niagara and Oswego till after Jay's treaty in 1795, it will not appear surprising that many doubted in 1788 whether the pioneers who then left New- England could long preserve their lives amid the Red Men of the "Genesee country."
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Indian Difficulties, subsequent to the Revolution, affecting the Welfare of Western New- York.
Some information which we have derived from GEORGE HOSMER, of Avon, Livingston county, may be communicated here as illustrative of an interesting portion of our Indian history, and as affecting particularly the settlements in Western New-York.
The facts that the British held possession of some posts (such as Niagara, Oswego, &c.) within our territory for several years after the treaty which closed the revolutionary war, that the Indians, rankling for revenge for the chastisement inflicted by Sullivan, &c., were stimulated from those posts to the per- petration of hostile acts towards the people on our frontiers, have been already mentioned. The uneasiness produced by this state of things is plainly manifested in the efforts of the United States government to propitiate the Six Nations at the treaties held by General Harmar in 1789, and by Colonel Pickering at Canandaigua in 1794.
" The fact is not generally known," says Mr. Hosmer, in reply to our inquiries, " that our New-York Indians were in correspondence with the western and hostile Indians during the late war, and prior to the battle of Tippecanoe. My wife speaks the Seneca language fluently, and the Indians have been in the habit of laying their grievances before me, and asking my counsel. This led to a communication from them of their earliest information of passing events ; and it is remarkable that we obtained through them news of all the important movements on the northwestern frontier-such as the fall of Mackinaw, the battle of Brownstown, &c., one or two days before the information became known to us through other channels. This must have been effected through the chain of runners connecting the friendly or neu- tral with the hostile Indians.
" In 1816 I went with Captain Parrish (the Indian agent) and a delegation of chiefs from the tribes in this state to the country of the Wyandots at the Upper Rapids of the San- dusky, and there attended a council held with the delegated chiefs from the Wyandots, Shawnees, Delawares, Ottowas, Piankashaws, and other western tribes. I then learned the fact (not generally known at the time) that there had been among the warriors opposed to Harrison at Tippecanoe, in
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a time of general peace, many warriors from the tribes in Western New-York ; who, through a savage thirst of blood, were imbruing their tomahawks in the blood of those who were reposing in confidence upon their treacherous friend- ship. I took down, at that time, the speech of Red Jacket, the Seneca chief, and that of Cuttewigasaw, or Black-hoof, the Shawnee chief. From those manuscripts, which are at your service,* the above statement is verified."
In the account of the " First Millers of Rochester" it is stated, on the authority of the " White Woman," that the rancour of the Senecas and others of the Six Nations could with difficulty be repressed even after the peace made be- tween Great Britain and the United States after the revolu- tion (in 1783). It is there related that Allen, who built the first mill at the falls where now stands the City of Roches- ter, was instrumental in preventing a foray of the Indians upon the frontier settlements-a deed for which he was per- secuted by the British from Fort Niagara and their Indian allies. The hostile feeling, thus checked in this quarter, found vent elsewhere, as the testimony of Mr. Hosmer par- ticularly shows.
The feelings which prompted some of the Six Nations to unite with the tribes that fought against Harrison at Tippe-
* Respecting the battle of Tippecanoe, in which some of the Indians from Western New-York were thus actively engaged, Mrs. Willard, in her " History of the Republic of America," says, "Menacing prepara- tions and the appearance of a combination had been discovered among the Indians on the western frontier, who, watching the hostile feelings existing between the United States and Great Britain, considered this a favourable opportunity for them to commence their depredations. They accordingly collected on the Wabash, and, under the influence of a fanatic of the Shawnese tribe, who styled himself a prophet, and of his brother, the famous chief Tecumseh, they committed the usual atro- cities of their barbarian warfare. Governor Harrison, of the Indiana territory, was directed to march against them with a force consisting of regulars under the command of Colonel Boyd, together with the militia of the territory ; and on the 7th of November he met a number of In- dian messengers at Tippecanoe, their principal town, and a suspension of hostilities was agreed upon till the next day, when an interview was to be had with the prophet and his chiefs. Warned by the fate of so many American armies surprised and cut off by the savages, General Harrison, aided by the vigilant Boyd, formed his men in order of battle, and thus they reposed upon their arms. Just before day, the faithless savages rushed upon the Americans. But their war-whoop was not unex- pected. The Americans stood, repelled the shock, and repulsed the assailants. Their loss was, however, severe, being about 180 in killed and wounded ; that of the Indians was 170 killed and 100 wounded." .
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