USA > New York > Fulton County > The border warfare of New York, during the revolution; or, The annals of Tryon county > Part 9
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The inhabitants, many of whom had left in the summer, in consequence of the repeated attacks of the Indians upon the frontiers, had now returned to their homes, thinking the season so far advanced that no danger need be apprehended. On the information above being given to Col. Alden, they requested per- mission to remove into the fort, or at least to deposit their most valuable property there. Both requests were denied by Col. Alden. He replied, that it would be a temptation to his soldiers to plunder ; that the report was probably unfounded ; that it was only an Indian story, and that he would keep out scouts, who would apprise them in season to secure themselves in case of real danger. Scouts were accordingly sent
* It was through his agency, doubtless, that the Senecas were roused up, as detailed in the letter of Mr. Dean.
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out to traverse the country in every direction. The scout sent down the Susquehanna kindled up a fire on the night of the 9th, and all very foolishly lay down to sleep. The fire was discovered by the ene- my, and a little before daylight on the morning of the 10th they were all surrounded and taken.
On the night of the 10th the enemy encamped on the top of a hill thickly covered with evergreens, about a mile southwest from the fort. On the morning of the 11th the enemy moved from his encampment toward the fort. They had learned from the scout which they had taken, that the officers of the garrison lodged in different private houses out of the fort ; their forces were so disposed that a party should surround every house in which an officer lodged nearly at the same time, while the main body would attack the fort. · During the night the snow fell several inches. In the morning it turned to rain, and the atmosphere was thick and hazy. The whole settlement thought them- selves secure. The assurances of Col. Alden had in a considerable degree quieted their fears. Everything favored the approach of the enemy undiscovered. Col. Alden and Lieut. Col. Stacia, with a small guard, lodged at Mr. Wells's. A Mr. Hamble was coming up that morning from his house, several miles below, on horseback; when a short distance from Mr. Wells's house he was fired upon and wounded by the Indians. He rode in great haste to inform Col. Alden of their approach, and then hastened to the fort. Still incredulous, and believing them to be only a straggling party, he ordered the guard to be called in. The delay of a few minutes gave the Indians
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ANNALS OF TRYON COUNTY.
time to arrive. The Rangers had stopped to examine their firelocks, the powder in which had been wet with the rain. The Indians, improving this opportu- nity, rushed by. The advance body was composed principally of Senecas, at that time the wildest and most ferocious of the Six Nations. Col. Alden made his escape from the house, and was pursued down the hill toward the fort by an Indian ; when challenged to surrender, he peremptorily refused so to do; sev- eral times he turned round and snapped his pistol at the Indian; the latter, after pursuing some distance, threw his tomahawk and struck him on the head, and then rushing up, scalped him. He thus " was one of the first victims of this most criminal neglect of duty." Lieut. Col. Stacia was taken prisoner. The guard were all killed or taken.
The Senecas, who first arrived at the house, with some Tories, commenced an indiscriminate massacre of the family, and before the Rangers arrived had bar- barously murdered them all, including Robert Wells, his mother and wife, and four children, his brother and sister, John and Jane, with three domestics. Of this interesting and excellent family not one escaped, except the late John Wells of New York city. His father had left him in Schenectady the previous sum- mer with an aunt, that he might attend the grammar school there. He might almost have exclaimed with Logan, that not a drop of his blood ran in the veins of any human being; or, as it has been beautifully ex- pressed by an eminent English poet -
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They "left of all my tribe
Nor man, nor child, nor thing of living birth.
No! not the dog, that watched my household hearth.
Escaped-that ' morn' of blood upon our plains
All perished ! I alone am left on earth ! To whom nor relative nor blood remains,
No ! not a kindred drop that runs in human veins."
A Tory boasted that he killed Mr. Wells while at prayer. The melancholy fate of Jane Wells deserves a more particular notice. She was a young lady, not distinguished for her personal beauty, but endeared to her friends by her amiable disposition, and her Chris- tian charities ; one " in whom the friendless found a friend," and to whom the poor would always say, "God speed thee." She fied from the house to a pile of wood near by, behind which she endeavored to screen herself. Here she was pursued by an Indian, who, as he approached, deliberately wiped his bloody knife upon his leggins, and then placed it in its sheath ; then drawing his tomahawk, he seized her by the arm; she possessed some knowledge of the Indian language, and remonstrated, and supplicated, though in vain. Peter Smith, a Tory, who had formerly been a domestic in Mr. Wells's family, now interposed, say- ing she was his sister, and desiring him to spare her life. He shook his tomahawk at him in defiance, and then, turning round, with one blow smote her to the earth. John Wells, Esq., at this time deceased, and the father of Robert Wells, had been one of the judges of the courts of Tryon County ; in that capacity, and as one of the justices of the quorum, he had been on intimate terms with Sir William Johnson and
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ANNALS OF TRYON COUNTY.
family, who frequently visited at his house, and also with Col. John Butler, likewise a judge. The family were not active either for or against the country ; they wished to remain neutral, so far as they could, in such turbulent times ; they always performed military duty, when called out to defend the country. Col. John Butler, in a conversation relative to them, remarked : " I would have gone miles on my hands and knees to have saved that family, and why my son did not do it God only knows."
Another party of Indians surrounded the house of the Rev. Samuel Dunlop, whom we have frequently had occasion to mention as the pioneer in education in western New York. His wife was immediately killed. The old gentleman and his daughter were preserved by Little Aaron, a chief of the Oquago branch of the Mohawks. Mrs. Wells was also a daughter of Mr. Dunlop; Little Aaron led him out from the house, tottering with age, and stood beside him to protect him. An Indian passing by pulled his hat from his head, and ran away with it; the chief pursued him, and regained it ; on his return, another Indian had carried away his wig ; the rain was falling upon his bare head, while his whole system shook like an aspen, under the combined influence of age, fear, and cold. He was released a few days after ; but the shock was too violent ; he died about a year after : his death was hastened by his misfortunes, though he could have borne up but a few years longer under the increasing infirmities of old age.
A Mr. Mitchell, who was in his field, beheld a party of Indians approaching ; he could not gain his house,
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and was obliged to flee to the woods. Here he evad- ed pursuit and escaped. A melancholy spectacle pre- sented itself on his return; it was the corpses of his wife and four children. His house had been plundered and set on fire. He extinguished the fire, and by examination found life still existing in one of his children, a little girl ten or twelve years of age. He raised her up and placed her in the door, and was
bending over her when he saw another party ap- proaching. He had barely time to hide himself behind a log fence near by, before they were at the house. From this hiding-place he beheld an infamous Tory, by the name of Newbury, extinguish the little spark of life which remained in his child, with a single blow of his hatchet. The next day, without a sing. e human being to assist him, he carried the remains of his family down to the fort on a sled, and there the soldiers aided him in depositing them in a common grave. Retributive justice sometimes follows close upon the heels of crime. This Tory was arrested as a spy, the following summer, by order of Gen. James Clinton, when he lay with his arıny at Canajoharie, on the Mohawk River. Mr. Mitchell was called to prove this act. He was found guilty by a court mar- tial, and with a companion suffered an ignominious death .*
* Extract from a letter from Gen. James to Mrs. Clinton, dated July 6th, 1779.
" I have nothing further to acquaint you of, except that we appre- hended a certain Lieut. Henry Hare, and a Sergt. Newbury, both of Col. Butler's regiment, who confessed that they left the Seneca coun- try with sixty-three Indians and two white men, which divided
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ANNALS OF TRYON COUNTY.
The party which surrounded the house of Col. Campbell, took Mrs. Campbell and four children prisoners. Mr. Campbell was absent from home, but hastened there on the first alarm, which was a cannon fired at the fort. He arrived only in time to witness the destruction of his property, and not even to learn the fate of his family ; their lives were spared, but spared for a long and dreadful captivity.
Many others were killed ; some few escaped to the Mohawk River, and the remainder were made prison- ers. Thirty-two of the inhabitants, principally women and children, were killed, and sixteen continental soldiers. The terror of the scene was increased by the conflagration of all the houses and out-houses in the settlement; the barns were many of them filled with hay and grain. He who fled to the mountains, saw as he looked back the destruction of his home, and of that little all which he had labored for years to accumulate.
When the enemy approached on the morning of the 11th, Mrs. Clyde, the wife of Col. Clyde, collecting together her children, fled into the woods. During
themselves in three parties ; one party was to attack Schoharie, another party Cherry Valley and the Mohawk River, and the other party to skulk about Fort Schuyler and the upper part of the Mohawk River, to take prisoners or scalps. I had them tried by a general court-mar- tial for spies, who sentenced them both to be hanged, which was done accordingly at Canajoharie, to the satisfaction of all the inhabitants of that place that were friends to their country, as they were known to be very active in almost all the murders that were committed on these frontiers. They were inhabitants of Tryon County, had each a wife and several children, who came to see them and beg their lives."
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that day and the following night, she lay with her chil- dren, one of whom was an infant, gathered around her, and concealed under a large log. As we have before mentioned, it was a cold, rainy day, and the storm continued through the night. She could hear the yells of the savages as they triumphed in their work of death; several of them passed near where she lay, and one so near, that the butt of his gun trailed upon the log which covered her. At the intercession of her husband, who was in the fort, a party sallied out the following morning, and, at the risk of their lives, brought her and her children into the fort; they were drenched with the rain, and stiffened with the cold ; but they all survived. Mrs. Clyde, at the time of her flight, had missed her eldest daughter, about ten years of age, and supposed she had gained the fort; when she arrived at the fort on the morning of the 12th, this daughter appeared in the neighboring field. 'When she saw the sentinels, who had wrapped them- selves in blankets, she supposed them to be the In- dians, and again fled to the woods ; she was followed and brought back to the anxious mother. When fleeing from the house she had separated from the rest of the family, and had lain concealed alone, until her appearance in the field. The sufferings of such a child in such a night, thinly clad, alone in the woods, must have been of the most excruciating nature.
Some generous acts were performed by Brant, which, in justice to him, ought to be mentioned. On the day of the massacre, he inquired of some of the prisoners where his friend, Capt. M'Kean, was. They informed him that he had probably gone to the
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ANNALS OF TRYON COUNTY.
Mohawk River with his family. "He sent me a challenge once," said Brant ; " I have now come to accept it. He is a fine soldier thus to retreat." They answered, " Capt. M'Kean would not turn his back upon an enemy, when there was any probability of success." "I know it; he is a brave man, and I would have given more to have taken him than any other man in Cherry Valley, but I would not have hurt a hair of his head."
In a house which he entered, he found a woman engaged in her usual business. "Are you thus en- gaged, while all your neighbors are murdered around you ?" said Brant. " We are king's people," she re- plied. " That plea will not avail you to-day. They have murdered Mr. Wells's family, who were as dear to me as my own." "There is one Joseph Brant; if he is with the Indians he will save us." "I am Joseph Brant ; but I have not the command, and I know not that I can save you ; but I will do what is in my power." While speaking, several Senecas were observed approaching the house. "Get into bed and feign yourself sick," said Brant, hastily. When the Senecas came in, he told them there were no persons there, but a sick woman and her children, and besought them to leave the house ; which, after a short conversation, they accordingly did. As soon as they were out of sight, Brant went to the end of the house, and gave a long shrill yell ; soon after, a small band of Mohawks were seen crossing the ad- joining field with great speed. As they came up, he addressed them-" Where is your paint? here, put my mark upon this woman and her children." As
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soon as it was done, he added, " You are now proba- bly safe." It may be observed here, that this was a general custom; each tribe had its mark, by which they and their prisoners were designated ; most of the other prisoners were thus marked. It was an evi- dence that they were taken, or claimed by some par- ticular tribe, or individual ; and woe to that person upon whom no captor had put his mark !
Brant, jealous of his character, always said, that in the councils he had urged the Indians to be humane, and not to injure the women and children. Where he had the exclusive command, this was in some de- gree effected. Col. Butler alleged, that Brant secretly incited the Indians in this massacre, in order to stig- matize his son, who had superseded him in command. Others said that he was humane, in order to contrast his own conduct with that of Walter Butler. Brant stoutly denied both charges, and appealed to his con- duct in Springfield and other places.
Whatever may have been the motives and conduct of Brant, it will not wipe away the stain from the character of Walter Butler. The night previous to the massacre, some of his Rangers, who were acquainted in Cherry Valley, requested permission to go secretly into the settlement, and apprise his and their friends of their approach, that they might escape the fury of the Indians. This he peremptorily refused, saying, that there were so many families connected, that the one would inform the others, and all would escape. He thus sacrificed his friends, for the sake of punish- ing his enemies.
Several attacks were made during the day upon
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ANNALS OF TRYON COUNTY.
the fort, but without success. The Indians were poor troops when a fortress was to be taken ; besides, the enemy had no artillery. They rushed up and fought with considerable courage, but were driven back without much loss on either side. Col. Alden's regi- ment numbered between two and three hundred men -a number not great enough to make a successful sortie against the enemy, with a force more than double their own.
The principal part of the enemy, with the prison- ers, between thirty and forty, including several of the officers of the garrison, encamped the first night in the valley about two miles south of the fort. To the prisoners it was a night of wretchedness, never to be forgotten. A large fire was kindled, around which they were collected, with no shelter, not even in most cases an outer garment, to protect them from the storm. There might be seen the old and infirm, and the middle-aged of both sexes, and "shivering childhood, houseless but for a mother's arms, couch- less but for a mother's breast." Around them at a short distance on every side, gleamed the watch-fires of the savages, who were engaged in examining and distributing their plunder, and whose countenances wore a still more fiend-like aspect, as seen indistinctly, through a hazy November atmosphere. Close by their eneampment, if such it might be called, the land rose abruptly into a high hill, thickly studded with dark frowning hemlocks. A lurid glare of light from the watch-fires below played upon their tops, contrasting strongly their dark foliage with the naked branches of the other forest trees, and rendering still
7*
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BORDER WARFARE OF NEW YORK; OR,
more appalling the whoop of some straggling Indian, as it broke the silence of the thicket beneath. Along up the valley they caught occasional glimpses of the ruins of their dwellings, as some sudden gust of wind, or falling timber, awoke into new life the decaying flame. An uncertain fate awaited them. If they augured from the scenes which they had that day witnessed, it was death. Their minds were filled with fearful forebodings-a secret fear which one dare not whisper to his fellow, that they might be reserved as the victims for a more deliberate and dreadful torture.
The morning broke upon a sleepless group; they did not, they could not close their eyes in sleep ; they were early divided into small companies, and placed under different parties of the enemy, and in this man- ner commenced their journey down the Cherry Val- ley Creek.
On the morning of the second day the prisoners were called together, and it was decided to send back the women and children, a decision which kindled up hope and life anew in their bosoms. This was ac- cordingly done ; but Mrs. Campbell and her four children, and Mrs. Moore and her children, whose husbands had been active partisans, were retained. It was at the same time told to them, that they must accompany their captors to the land of the Senecas.
The first day of their journey, Mrs. Cannon, the mother of Mrs. Campbell, being unable to travel, on account of her age, was killed by her side, and the same Indian drove her along with his uplifted and bloody hatchet, threatening her with the same
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ANNALS OF TRYON COUNTY.
fate if she should be unable to proceed on the jour- ney with the speed which he required. She carried in her arms a child aged eighteen months. The following day she was placed under the care of an Indian advanced in life, and who, during the remain- der of the journey, was very humane.
They passed down the Susquehanna to its junction with the Tioga, thence up the Tioga to near its source, and thence across to the head of Seneca Lake, and along down the eastern border of the lake to the Indian castle and village of Kanadaseago, a few miles from the present flourishing and beautiful village of Geneva. The whole distance was between two and three hundred miles. Here they arrived about the last of November. Here all their children were taken from them, not even excepting the infant, and given to different families and tribes of Indians. We shall have occasion to continue somewhat of their history in a future chapter.
The day following the massacre-that is, the 12th- a party of Indians returned, and prowled about for a short time. That day, two hundred militia arrived from the Mohawk River, and the straggling parties of Indians dispersed. The mangled remains of those who had been killed were brought in, and received as decent an interment as circumstances would per- mit. The most wanton acts of cruelty had been committed, but the detail is too horrible, and I will not pursue it further. The whole settlement exhibited an aspect of entire and complete desolation. The cocks crew from the tops of the forest trees, and the dogs howled through the fields and woods. The inhabit-
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ants who escaped, with the prisoners who were set at liberty, abandoned the settlement. The garrison was kept until the following summer, when the fort was also abandoned, and the regiment joined the troops of Gen. James Clinton,* when on their way to join the army of Gen. Sullivan.
* Gen. James Clinton was the father of De Witt Clinton, and the reader will find a sketch of his life, with a brief outline of the Clinton family, in Appendix, being a lecture read by the author before the New York Historical Society.
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ANNALS OF TRYON COUNTY.
CHAPTER VI.
" But go and rouse your warriors."
THE atrocities of which the Indians were guilty at - Wyoming, and along the frontiers of New York, drew the attention of the Congress and commander- in-chief to the situation of that section of country. Major Gen. Sullivan was ordered to march into the Indian territory, to lay waste their settlements and de- stroy their grain ; thus visiting upon them some of the inconveniences and hardships attendant upon their mode of warfare. The western and southern parts of New York were the places of his destination.
On the first of May, 1779, the 2d and 4th New York regiments left their camp near the Hudson, and, pass- ing through Warwarsing, arrived upon the Delaware the 9th. They crossed the Delaware, and passed down the west side to Easton, at which place their stores were collected. From thence they marched toward Wyoming, where they arrived the 17th of June. The delay was occasioned by the great labor required to open a road through woods and over an almost impassable swamp, extending many miles. Gen. Sullivan arrived with the main army on the 24th. On the 31st of July, the army left Wyoming for the
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Indian settlements. The stores and artillery were conveyed up the Susquehanna in 150 boats. "The boats formed a beautiful appearance as they moved in order from their moorings, and as they passed the fort received a grand salute, which was returned bythe loud cheers of the boatmen. The whole scene formed a ' military display surpassing any which had ever been exhibited at Wyoming, and was well calculated to form a powerful impression upon the minds of those lurking parties of savages, which still continued to range upon the mountains, from which all their move- ments were visible for many miles." On the 11th they arrived at Tioga, and encamped in the forks of the river. On the 12th a detachment was sent forward to Chemung, twelve miles distant, where they were attacked by a body of Indians, and lost seven men killed and wounded. The next day, having burned the town, they returned to Tioga. About a mile and a quarter above the junction of the Tioga and Susque- hanna, these rivers approach each other to within a stone's throw. Here a fort was built, called Fort Sullivan, while the army lay on what might almost be called the island below.
In this situation, Gen. Sullivan awaited the arrival of Gen. James Clinton. This officer, with the 1st and 3d New York regiments, passed up the Mohawk to Canajoharie, where he arrived early in the Spring. An expedition was sent out from here by Gen. Clin- ton against the Onondaga Indians. The detachment consisted of six companies of New York troops, one of Pennsylvania, one of Massachusetts, and one of rifles, amounting in the whole to five hundred and
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ANNALS OF TRYON COUNTY.
four, rank and file. Col. Van Schaick of the 1st regiment of the New York line had the command, and was accompanied by Lieut. Col. Willet and Ma- jor Cochran, of the 3d regiment. They rendezvoused at Fort Schuyler, and from thence began their march. The whole settlement of the Onondagas, consisting of about fifty houses, and a large quantity of grain, were destroyed. They took 37 prisoners, and killed between 20 and 30 warriors. About one hundred muskets were taken. On their return, they met a small party of Indians, who fired on them, but were soon driven back by the corps of riflemen under Lieut. Evans. They returned to Fort Schuyler in five days and a half from the time of their march from thence; the whole distance going and returning was one hundred and eighty miles.
Gen. Clinton commenced opening a road from Ca- najoharie to the head of Otsego Lake, distant about 20 miles, and one of the principal sources of the eastern branch of the Susquehanna. This was effected with great labor; his boats were carried across on wagons. It was midsummer before General Clinton found himself, with his army and baggage, at the head of the lake, upon which he had launched his boats. This is a beautiful little lake, about nine miles long, and varies in breadth from one to three miles. Its elevation is 1193 feet, and it is almost surrounded by high land. The water is deep and clear, which is said to be the meaning of its Indian name. The scenery from many points is very picturesque and wild: 3
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