USA > New York > Fulton County > The border warfare of New York, during the revolution; or, The annals of Tryon county > Part 21
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They were unfortunate in the selection of a vessel. The captain was a violent and unprincipled villain. They were poorly supplied with stores, and, the voy- age proving long, they suffered from disease and fam- ine. A large number of passengers died, including a son and daughter of Mr. Clinton. They were final- ly landed upon the coast of Massachusetts, the captain refusing to go to New York or to Pennsylvania, the latter having been his original place of destination. Charles Clinton remained in Massachusetts until 1731, when he removed to the province of New York, and
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settled at a place called Little Britain, in a region de- signated as the precincts of the Highlands, afterwards a part of Ulster, and now a part of Orange County. Though within a few miles of the Hudson River, and within sixty or seventy miles of the city of New York, the residence of Mr. Clinton was on the frontier of civilization. The virgin wilderness was around him. In the language of some of the inhabitants of Ulster County after this period, in a petition to the colonial legislature asking for protection, they say that they are bounded on the west by the desert-a desert where, instead of the roaming Arab, the wild Indian erected his cabin, and "made his home and his grave." The inhabitants of that district were com- pelled to fortify their houses in order to guard against inroads of the savages. In the subsequent Indian and French wars Charles Clinton took an active and effi- cient"part. In 1758 we find him in command of a regiment of provincial troops, stationed in the valley of the Mohawk, and in the summer of that year he joined the main army under General Bradstreet, on his way to Canada, and was present with him at the capture of Fort Frontenac. Colonel Charles Clinton was a good mathematical scholar, and frequently act- ed as surveyor of lands, an employment of considera- ble importance and emolument in a new country. He was also a judge of the court of common pleas of Ulster County. He sustained a pure and elevated character, was neat in his person and dignified in his manners, and exerted a great influence in the district of country where he lived.
In a letter to his son James, who was in the army,
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dated June, 1759, he says : " My advice to you is, to be diligent in your duty to God, your king and coun- try, and avoid bad company as much as in your pro- vince lies ; forbear learning habits of vice, for they grow too easily upon men in a public station, and are not easily broke off. Profane habits make men con- temptible and mean. That God may grant you grace to live in his fear, and to discharge your duty with a good conscience, is the sincere desire of your affec- tionate father, Charles Clinton." Among his papers carefully preserved and written upon parchment, I found the following certificate. It was his Christian passport, which he carried with him when he embark- ed for the New World :
" Whereas the bearer, Mr. Charles Clinton, and his wife Elizabeth, lived within the bounds of this Protestant dissenting congregation from their infancy, and now design for America; this is to certify, that all along they behaved themselves soberly and inof- fensively, and are fit to be received into any Christian congregation where Providence may cast their lot. Also, that said Charles Clinton was a member of our session, and discharged the office of ruling elder very acceptably ; this, with advice of session, given at Corbay, in the county of Longford, Ireland. JOSEPH BOND, minister."
I need scarcely add that Charles Clinton took an active part in the advancement of the cause of religion and good morals. He sometimes also courted the muses, and I find in the commonplace-book of De Witt Clinton the following stanzas, with this caption :
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Lines written by my grandfather, Charles Clinton, and spoken over the grave of a dear departed sister, who had often nursed and taken care of him in his younger days.
" Oh, canst thou know, thou dear departed shade, The mighty sorrows that my soul invade ; Whilst o'er thy mouldering frame I mourning stand, And view thy grave far from thy native land. With thee my tender years were early trained; Oft have thy friendly arms my weight sustained ; And when with childish fears or pains oppressed, You with soft music lulled my soul to rest."
He concludes his last will, made in 1771, and a short time before his decease, with the following direc- tions : " It is my will I be buried in the grave-yard on my own farm, beside my daughter Catharine ; and it is my will, the said grave-yard be made four rods square, and open free road to it at all times when it shall be necessary ; and I nominate and appoint my said three sons, Charles, James and George, executors of this my last will, to see the same"executed accordingly ; and I order that my said executors procure a suitable stone to lay over my grave, whereon I would have the time of my death, my age, and coat of arms cut. I hope they will indulge me in this last piece of vani- ty." He died on the 19th of November, 1773, at his own residence, in the 83d year of his age, and in the full view of that Revolution in which his sons were to act such distinguished parts. In his last moments he conjured them to stand by the liberties of America.
His wife, Elizabeth Denniston, to whom he was married in Ireland, was an accomplished and intelli- gent woman."? Her correspondence with her husband,
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as far as it has fallen under my observation, exhibits her in an interesting and commanding light. She appears to have been well acquainted with the mili- tary operations of the times, and to have shared largely in the patriotic ardor of her husband and her sons. She died at the residence of her son James, on the 25th of December, 1779, in the 75th year of her age.
They left four sons, Alexander, Charles, James and George. The two former were physicians of con- siderable eminence. Charles was a surgeon in the British navy at the capture of the Havana. Of George Clinton, it will not of course be expected that I should speak at length. He was the youngest son. He was a soldier and a statesman. He was engaged in the French war and in the Revolution ; he was a mem- ber of the Provincial Assembly just before the Revo- lution, and in that body was a fearless advocate of his country's liberty. He was the first governor of the State of New York, and for twenty-one years was con- tinued in that high and responsible office, and exert- ed, perhaps, a larger influence than any other man over the then future destinies of the Empire State. He closed his eventful life while filling the chair of Vice President of the United States.
James Clinton, the third son, and the father of De Witt Clinton, was born on the 9th of August, 1736, at the family residence in Little Britain. It has truly been said of him, that he was a warrior from his youth upward. Born upon the frontiers, with a hardy and vigorous constitution ; accustomed to alarms and In- dian incursions, he became in early life attached to the profession of arms. As early as 1757 he was
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commissioned an ensign, and in the following year he was commissioned first lieutenant by James Delan- cey, lieutenant governor of this, then, province, and empowered to enlist troops ; and in 1759, being then twenty-three years of age, he attained the rank of captain in the provincial army. In 1758 a conside- rable army, under General Bradstreet, passed up the Mohawk valley, and thence to Lake Ontario, and, by a well-directed attack, captured Fort Frontenac, from the French. Colonel Charles Clinton was at this time in command of Fort Herkimer, near the German Flats, in the Mohawk valley, and, as I have hereto- fore mentioned, joined General Bradstreet with his regiment. James Clinton was also in this expedi- tion, and he commanded a company, his brother George being lieutenant. At the attack upon Fort Frontenac he exhibited an intrepidity of character which gained him great credit. He and his brother were instrumental in capturing one of the French ves- sels. The capture of this fort was one of the brilliant exploits of the French war.
Colonel Charles Clinton states in his journal, that the " destruction of this place, (meaning Fort Fronte- nac,) and of the shipping, artillery and stores, is one of the greatest blows the French have met with in America, considering the consequences of it, as it was the store out of which all the forts to the southward were supplied ; and the shipping destroyed there, they employed in that service." The expedition was con- ducted with secrecy, and the French were taken un- prepared. The fort contained but a small garrison, and was carried the second day after the commence-
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ment of the siege. Similar expeditions were common in that war. Armies plunged into the wilderness and forced their way up streams and over morasses with great labor and difficulty. The province of New York was the principal battle-ground. Fortresses were erected on the whole then northern frontier, extending from Lake George through the valley of the Mohawk, and along the shores of Lake Ontario to the vicinity of the great cataract itself. The Eng- lishman and the Anglo-American fought side by side against France and her dependencies, and it seemed at times as if the fate of nations three thousand miles removed, was to be decided by the hot contests of their armies amid the green forests of this western world.
It is to be hoped that the persevering and able au- thor of the life of the great captain of the Six Nations will follow out his original plan, and give to the world a full and accurate narrative of the thrilling scenes and romantic incidents of these early border wars.
From 1758 to 1763, James Clinton continued in the provincial army, now stationed upon the frontier posts engaged in the border skirmishes, and now en- listing new recruits under orders from the colonial governors, Sir Charles Handy, James Delancey, and Cadwallader Colden. In the latter year, 1763, he raised and commanded a corps of two hundred men, who were designated as guards of the frontier. He continued in the army until the close of the French war, and seems to have enjoyed, in a large degree, the confidence of the government and of his fellow- soldiers.
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After the close of the war he retired to his farm at Little Britain, and married Mary De Witt, a daugh- ter of Egbert De Witt, a young lady of great re- spectability, whose ancestors were from Holland. He had four sons by this marriage : Alexander, who was private secretary to his uncle George; Charles, who was a lawyer in Orange County ; De Witt, the third son, born in March, 1769 ; and George, who was also a lawyer and a member of Congress, all of whom are now deceased.
James Clinton, however, in time of peace, could not entirely forsake the tented field. He entered with zeal into the militia organization, and was a lieutenant colonel of a regiment in Orange County. At the commencement of the Revolutionary war he entered warmly into the continental service. His brother George, as has been related, had been for many years a representative in the colonial assembly from his native county, and had, from the first, advo- cated his country's cause with that fearlessness and energy of character for which he was distinguished.
The two brothers were not unmindful of the dying injunctions of their patriotic sire, and hand in hand, at the first moment of outbreak, they entered the arena and joined their pledges of faith and support to the colonial cause.
In 1775 James Clinton was appointed colonel of the third regiment of New York troops, raised by the order of the Continental Congress; and in 1776 he was promoted to the rank of brigadier general. In the summer of this year he was employed in the ex- pedition against Canada, under General Montgomery,
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and was before the walls of Quebec at the time of the fall of that brave and gallant general. In the sum- mer of 1777, that gloomy period when almost the whole force of the British armies in America was con- centrated upon the State of New York, General Clin- ton was stationed at Fort Montgomery, upon the Hudson River, and, together with his brother the governor, made a firm though unsuccessful resistance to the advance of the enemy, under Sir Henry Clin- ton.
The attack upon this fort, and also upon Fort Clin- ton, separated only by a creek, was made on the 6th of October, 1777, by an army of three thousand men. Some outposts had been carried during the day.
" As the night was approaching," says Sir Henry Clinton in his official dispatch, "I determined to seize the first favorable instant. A brisk attack on the Montgomery side ; the galleys with their oars ap- proaching, firing, and even striking the fort; the men-of-war that moment appearing, crowding all sail to support us; the extreme ardor of the troops; in short, all determined me to order the attack." The attack was continued until eight o'clock in the even- ing, when the enemy carried the forts by storm, and at the point of the bayonet. General Clinton, in the midst of the darkness and confusion, though wound- ed, succeeded in making his escape. These forts were intended to guard the navigation of the river, and to prevent the ascent of the enemy's ships, and were said not to have been well protected on the land side. Be this as it may, they were not sufficiently garrisoned. As early as March, General Clinton
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wrote to General McDougal, saying, " I understand the committee are uneasy at the want of stores in this fort, but I think they have more reason to be uneasy that we are not reinforced with more troops, as we have not a sufficiency to do the usual duty of the gar- rison on each side of the creek." It is presumed that they were better supplied with troops at the time of the attack, but there was still a deficiency. The time of service of many of the troops had expired, and they were with difficulty prevailed upon to remain. The campaign of the north also required the flower of the army. The conduct of George Clinton and James Clinton, in this defense, received the approba- tion of Congress.
During the greater part of 1778 General Clinton was stationed at West Point, and for a portion of that year was engaged in throwing a chain across the Hudson to prevent the ascent of the river by the ene- my's ships. The summer of that year has been rendered memorable upon the then frontiers, by rea- son of the massacres of Wyoming and Cherry Valley, under armies of Indians and Tories, led on by the Butlers and Brant. On the 16th of November, 1778, and just after the massacre at Cherry Valley, which occurred on the 11th of that month, General Wash- ington wrote to General Hand, acknowledging the receipt of his letter containing the information of the destruction of that place, and adds : "It is in the highest degree distressing to have our frontiers so con- tinually harassed by this collection of banditti under Brant and Butler." He then inquires whether offen- sive operations could not be carried on against them
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at that season of the year, and if not then, when and how. This letter was probably referred to General Clinton, as it has been preserved among his papers ; and it contains the first intimation which I have seen of that expedition against the Six Nations in the fol- lowing year, known as Sullivan's expedition, in which General Clinton was called to act a distinguished part.
It was determined to " carry the war into Africa." In other words, it was resolved to overrun the whole Indian country, and thus, if possible, put an end to the constant and harassing inroads of the enemy upon the frontier settlements. For this purpose ex- tensive preparations were made, and after some diffi- culty in obtaining a commander, the expedition was intrusted to General Sullivan. It was decided that the army should move early in the spring of 1779. General Sullivan was to cross to Easton, in Pennsyl- vania, and into the valley of the Susquehanna, while General Clinton was to pass up the Mohawk valley, and either unite with Sullivan in the Indian country, or else cross over from the Mohawk River to Lake Otsego, and proceed thence down the eastern branch of the Susquehanna. The latter route was finally determined upon, though General Washington preferred the former, as did General Clinton. The latter gave as his reasons, that the army could move up the Mohawk valley and enter the Indian coun- try with more ease and less delay, and that a move- ment in that direction would be more decisive and fatal to the Indians. The whole expedition was,
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however, under the control of General Sullivan, who preferred the other route, and it was adopted.
On the 1st of June, 1779, General Clinton's de- tachment, consisting of about two thousand troops, moved from Albany and proceeded up the Mohawk valley as far as Canajoharie. Here they pitched their camp, and with great labor carried over their boats and stores to the head of Lake Otsego, a dis- tance of nearly twenty miles.
While encamped at Canajoharie, two spies were arrested, and a court-martial ordered to try them. Their names were Hare and Newberry. They were both natives of that section of country, and had been with the parties of Indians and Tories who had laid waste the settlements. Newberry was a sergeant in one of the organized companies of Tories, and was engaged in the massacre at Cherry Valley, where he killed a daughter of a Mr. Mitchell under circum- stances of cruelty almost unparalleled.
A party of Indians had plundered the house, and murdered his wife and children. After they left, Mitchell returned to the house and found one child, a little girl about eleven or twelve years of age, who was still alive. He carried her to the door, and while engaged in endeavoring to restore her to con- sciousness, he saw another party approaching. He again retreated, and from his hiding-place saw New- berry, with a blow of his hatchet, extinguish the little spark of life that remained in his child. Retributive justice often follows close on the heels of crime. At this court-martial for the trial of Newberry, Mitchell was called as a witness.
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If I possessed the wand of the great magician, I might draw aside the curtain and present to your view this court-martial scene. I might show to you the rough soldier brushing away a tear, and the pale cheek and quivering lip of the guilty Newberry, as the witness related the simple and affecting story of his sufferings, of the destruction of all his earthly hopes, of that massacre which had widowed him, and sent him forth upon the world homeless and childless.
Both Hare and Newberry were found guilty and hung as spies, and their execution, says General Clinton, gave great satisfaction to the inhabitants. Their bodies were given to their friends for interment, and were placed in coffins, which were laid upon the ground-floor of a house near the place of execution. While the bodies were lying in that situation, it was alleged that a large black snake ran hissing from the wall of the house, and, passing around or over the body of Newberry, glided away and disappeared in the opposite wall. The tradition was current a few years since, and I have myself heard the statement from the lips of the living actors of that period. The story is also alluded to by De Witt Clinton, in his journal which he kept when exploring the canal route in 1810. The report of this, as was supposed, ap- pearance of his satanic majesty himself, to convey away the soul of Sergeant Newberry, produced a strong impression upon the minds of many of the unlettered and superstitous Germans of the Mohawk valley.
I cannot forbear, in this place, to pay a passing tribute to some of these Germans, whose advice Gen-
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eral Clinton was requested to take, who were educa- ted men, and who supported the American cause with great zeal and courage.
Among them was the Rev. Dr. Gross, the clergyman at Canajoharie, and Christopher P. Yates and John Frey, both lawyers, and residents in that vicincity. After the war, the Rev. Dr. Gross was chosen one of the professors of Columbia College, and I cannot present to you so correct and beautiful an outline of his character as is drawn by De Witt Clinton, in his address before the alumni of that college, which has never been printed, and which was the last of his literary efforts.
" The Rev. Dr. Gross," says Governor Clinton, "a native of Germany, and who had received a finished education in her celebrated schools, was a professor of the German language and geography, and afterwards a professor of moral philosophy. He had emigrated to this country before the Revolution and settled near the banks of the Mohawk, in a frontier country, peculiarly exposed to irruptions from Canada and the hostile Indians. When war commenced, he took the side of America, and, enthroned in the hearts of his countrymen, and distinguished for the courage which marks the German character, he rallied the despond- ing, animated the wavering, confirmed the doubtful, and encouraged the brave to more than ordinary exertion. With the Bible in one hand and the sword in the other, he stood forth in the united character of patriot and Christian, vindicating the liberties of man- kind, and amidst the most appalling dangers, and the
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most awful vicissitudes, like the Red Cross Knight of the Fairy Queen,
' Right faithful true he was, in deed and word.'"
Such was the Rev. Dr. Gross, at the time of which we have been speaking.
Another of the Germans of the Mohawk valley was Christopher P. Yates, an early and ardent friend of the Revolution. He was a lawyer by profession, and some of the resolutions drawn up by him, and adopted by the committees of safety, were patriotic in senti- ment and fearless in tone, and would have done no discredit to any provincial assembly, or even to the Continental Congress itself.
Another of these Germans was Major John Frey, a brother-in-law of Christopher P. Yates, and the last chairman of the Tryon County committee. He was one of the most prominent and active of the revolu- tionary patriots of the Mohawk valley ; and I trust I shall be excused, by an indulgent auditory, for sketch- ing the interview which it was my good fortune to have with him several years since.
It was in the winter of 1830, that I presented my- self at the mansion of Major Frey, and desired an in- terview for the purpose of conferring with him, and of obtaining such manuscripts as he might have pre- served.
Age and infirmity then sat heavily upon him. In the language of the good old Oneida chief, Skenando, he was like an aged pine, through whose branches had whistled the winds of an hundred winters. Like Ske-
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nando, also, the generation which had acted with him had gone and left him.
My own ancestors had sat in committee with him, and had shared in the toils, and in the fearful and bloody contests of the border. I never shall forget the appearance of this gray-haired sire as I entered his room, and was kindly introduced to him by his son, as a descendant of one of his co-laborers in the Revo- lution. His son explained to him at the same time, briefly, the object of my visit. He was entirely blind, and nearly deaf, so much so that it required a loud voice to rouse him. As soon as he understood his son fully, like a patriarch of old, he rose up, and ex- tending his trembling hand, requested that I would draw near to him that he might touch me. His fervent language was, " God bless you, my son, and prosper you in your undertaking. Your grandfather and myself fought side by side in the Revolution. I have somewhere several papers which may assist you. They are yours-keep them." In a neglected spot in the garret, from a mass of unimportant and moth-eaten papers, I selected several documents of great interest, and which were of much service in throwing light upon the history of the valley, espe- cially many of the proceedings of the Committee of Safety during the early part of the war.
A few years after this interview, the good old patriot was called to his rest, but the impression will pass away from my memory only with the decay of the faculty itself.
But I am wandering too much from my subject. On the 1st of July, General Clinton broke up his
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camp at Canajoharie, and crossed over to Lake Otsego, where his boats and stores had previously been carried, and, launching his boats, passed down to the outlet, and again encamped upon the spot where now is built the beautiful village of Cooperstown, the Templeton of the Pioneers. Two hundred and eight batteaux, and a large amount of provisions and mili- tary stores, had been carried across from the Mohawk River. Here, under date of 13th of July, General Clinton writes to Mrs. Clinton, saying that she proba- bly expects that the army is in the midst of the Indian. country, but that he is still waiting orders to move ; that he is impatient for them, but that his situation is by no means unpleasant ; that he can catch perch in in the lake and trout in the streams, and hunt the deer upon the mountains. Lake Otsego is a beautiful lit- tle lake, about nine miles long, and varies in breadth from one to three miles. Its elevation is about twelve hundred feet above tide water, and it is almost embo- somed by hills ; the water is deep and clear. The scenery from many points is highly picturesque and wild.
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