USA > New York > Ulster County > Kingston > The history of Kingston, New York : from its early settlement to the year 1820 > Part 5
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There has been considerable discussion as to the particular loca- tion of the fort above referred to and thus destroyed. It has been generally claimed to have been located on a hill near the junction of the Rondout and Vernoey Kills, at Warwasing. There have been frequently found at that locality the usual evidences of Ind-
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ian occupancy -- arrow-heads, etc .- and the character and shape of the surface of the ground appeared to favor it. But there was un- doubtedly an Indian fort near Kahanksen, some four miles east of the other locality, also in Warwasing, but not far from the Rochester line. The treaty which was subsequently made by Governor Nicolls with the Indians in October, 1665 (which will be hereafter referred to), in specifying the land released by the Ind- ians in that treaty, describes the tract as "lying and being to the west and southwest of a certain creek or river called by the name of Kahanksen, and so up to the head thereof, where the old fort was," etc. The former existence of an Indian fort in that locality, therefore, cannot be doubted. Rev. Mr. Scott, who was formerly pastor of the Reformed Dutch Church at Shawangunk, in a communication made by him to the Ulster County Historical Society in 1861, and published in the proceedings of that society, page 237, insists that the fort destroyed on the 31st of July, as above stated, was the " old fort " referred to in the Nicolls treaty. He describes the locality as being " on the south side of the Ka- honksen, near the line between Rochester and Warwasing, and just north of what is called Shurter Hill. By the present roads the spot is twenty-two or twenty-three miles from Kingston, two miles from Pine Bush, and about the same distance from Middleport. From the mouth of the stream to Shurter Hill is nearly two miles, and from thence to the head fountain less than one mile. The fine lowlands of the Rondout and the Mumbaccus spread out many an inviting acre for the cultivation of the maize. The nature of the ground made this place a strong defensive position for the savage occupants, and any one, standing below in the valley, can easily comprehend why Kregier should be compelled to leave his cannons and his wagons where he did. An Indian trail led up from the mouth of the Kahanksen to the village, and thence turn- ing to the south, passed over the hills to Lackawack, and con- tinned to the upper waters of the Delaware." He further says : " This locality is suited in all respects to the descriptions of Cap- tain Kregier-the direction, the route, the situation, the distance, and the surroundings."
On the 19th of August, 1663, the commandant of the forces at Wiltwyck received a letter from Peter Couwenhoven, who lay with his sloop in the Dunskamer, notifying him to be on his guard, as he was informed that the Esopus Indians, together with the Man- issings and Wappingers, were prepared to attack and surprise the fort, in about two days, with four hundred men ; that they daily made intolerable threats against him. It appears he was then upon some negotiation in regard to the release of prisoners, and stated " that he daily expected the arrival of the sachem, who had
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already been four days gone about the captured Christians, to learn what he should then do and what would be the issue of it."
Christoffel Davids, who appeared to act as an interpreter, brought information that he slept one night with the Indians in their wigwams ; that some Esopus Indians and sachems were there, who had four Christian captives with them ; that one of the female captives had secretly told him, Davids, that forty Esopus Indians had already been near the fort to observe the reapers and other people. Davids also reported that the Indians had on shore several bowls and gourds of brandy, which they obtained daily from the sloops ; and the Indians told him they could get as much as they wanted, and also all the powder and lead they required from the sloops.
On the 20th Lieutenant Couwenhoven returned with his sloop, and brought with him a Christian woman and boy whom he had ransomed. The woman, on entering the Esopus Kill, was brought to bed with a daughter. Peter Couwenhoven reported that the Indians had promised him to bring in all the captives they had within two days, and he was going back to meet them.
He accordingly went back, taking with him two Indians and a squaw, who were prisoners at Wiltwyck, but with instructions not to surrender them until he had all the Christian prisoners re- turned and in his possession.
On the 30th Peter Couwenhoven returned to the redoubt, from his expedition to the Wappingers, with his sloop and the two Wappinger Indians. He had released the squaw, but had only procured the release of a Dutchman and two Christian children prisoners.
The Wappinger sachem had been with the Esopus Indians at their fort, which they were erecting anew, in order to procure the release of the Christian prisoners ; but when he had been with them a couple of days to negotiate for their redemption, two Mohawks and one Minqua came there, with sewan and a long message, after which the Esopus Indians exhibited great unfriend- liness toward the Wappingers. He therefore felt compelled to leave, without effecting anything toward the release of any of the captives.
They ascertained from this Indian that the new fort was about four hours farther off than the other, which locality is supposed to be in the town of Mamakating, Sullivan County. Upon the promise of freedom and a new coat, the Wappinger Indian agreed to act as the guide of an expedition against the Indians, which was at once determined upon.
On the 3d of September, 1663, Captain-Lieutenant Kregier set out with fifty-five men, guided by the young Wappinger, against
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the Indians. On the 5th of September, after a very laborions march, rendered very fatiguing by almost continuous rain and freshets in the streams, they came in sight of the fort at about two o'clock in the afternoon. The fort was situated on a lofty plain. They divided the force into two sections, Lieutenant Couwenhoven and Kregier commanding the right wing, and Lieutenant Stilwell and Sergeant Niessen the left wing. They proceeded in this disposi- tion along the hill so as not to be seen, and to come right under the fort. It being somewhat level on the west side of the fort, the soldiers were seen by a squaw, who was piling wood there. She sent forth a terrible scream, which was heard by and alarmed the Indians, who were standing and working near the fort. The sol- diers instantly fell upon and attacked them. They rushed through the fort to their wigwams, which were near by, to secure their arms, but with little success, as they were so closely pursued, and a continual fire kept upon them by the soldiers. They rushed to and across the stream, which ran on the opposite side of their plantation. There they made a stand and returned the soldiers' fire. They were soon dislodged, however, by the soldiers, who crossed the stream after them. They then made good their retreat to the woods.
In this attack the Indian chief named Pepequanehen, fourteen warriors, four women, and three children were killed, and prob- ably many others were wounded who escaped. Of the soldiers three were killed and six wounded. Twenty-three Christian pris- oners were rescued and thirteen Indian men and women captured.
The rescued Dutch prisoners stated that the Indians every night removed them to the woods, each night selecting a different locality, to secure them against rescue, bringing them back to the fort in the morning. The last night before their rescue, however, they were not removed, a visiting Indian of another tribe having told them it was useless, as they were so far in the woods the Dutch could not find them.
The soldiers started on their return the same day, taking their wounded and their rescued friends and the Indian prisoners and much booty with them. They arrived at Wiltwyck about noon of the 7th of September.
The preceding narrative, compiled from the official report made at the time by the commanding officer of the expedition, showing, as it does, the arrangement and order of quiet and secret approach, the peaceful and unsuspecting occupation of the Indians, working at their palisades, when first discovered, in preparation for a stay, not a departure, the narrative of the female captives as to their treatment up to the time of their rescue, and their extended liberty the last night by reason of the Indian fears of rescue being allayed,
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furnishes no letter of credit to the fanciful traditionary talk of the captive women singing psalms while being led to the stake and fagots prepared for them, as victims for a holocaust, and of an heroic Walloon rushing, sword in hand and in advance, to the rescue, dealing death and destruction in his progress.
Historians have almost uniformly located the Indian fort sur- prised and taken in this final battle of the second Esopus Indian war as having been at Bloomingburg, in Sullivan County. The Rev. Dr. Scott, in his paper before referred to as read before the Ulster County Historical Society in 1861, and published in the transactions of that society, clearly demonstrates that the location of that fort was not at Bloomingburg, but was in the town of Shawangunk, on the east bank of the Shawangunk Kill, two miles south of the Bruynswick post-office, and twenty-eight miles from Kingston. Mr. Scott proceeds to say : "The mouth of the Kill is six miles away, and most of that distance is occupied by fine and fertile lowland. From the water rises an abrupt declivity of singular formation, reaching, it may be, an elevation of seventy-five or eighty feet, and then spreading out into a beautiful sandy plateau of twenty or thirty acres. The hill-side is covered with the original forest, and broken up into what seem to be artificial mounds. On the edge of the plain, overlooking the creek, the fort was situated, and the wigwams a little distance below. To the north, along the Kill, extends a flat of moderate dimensions, but on the opposite side are some of the finest lowlands in Ulster County. Here the Indians planted their maize, and one spot is yet distinguished as Basha's Cornfield. The plateau is covered with flints and arrow-heads, which every ploughing turns up to the hands of those who prize them.
"From the village a pathway yet preserved led across the mountains to Warwasink and the Kerhonksen settlement, just twelve miles to the north .* This was the Warwasink track ; the other track bore off to the traps and through the Clove to Marble- town ; and yet a third passed eastward to the Hudson through Montgomery and New Windsor, and branching near the Walkill to the south, gave access from the Esopus clans to the wigwams of the Haverstraws and the Hackensacks. Perhaps there is not in southern Ulster a more fitting place for an Indian castle, or one more suited to savage tastes.
" Legends of battles fought there are yet related by the old to the young. . . As stated before, the distance to the Kerhonksen Castle was twelve miles, and the mountain over which it passed was called Aioskawosting (the place of crossing).
* It leads over the mountain; crosses the west end of the Schoonmaker tract, a short distance west of Lake Aioskawosting, commonly called Awasting or Longpond.
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"The village, which was found abandoned on the 4th of October, was in the vicinity of Burlingham. An Indian burial- ground marks the spot, and a path led from thence to the ' Hunt- ing house' at Wurtsboro'."
The fort was square, with one row of palisades set all round, projecting about fifteen feet high above and extending three feet down below ground. They had already completed two angles of stout palisades, all of them nearly as thick as a man's body, hav- ing two rows of portholes one above the other ; and they were, at the time of the attack, busy at the third angle. These angles, the report says, " were constructed so solid and strong as not to be ex- celled by Christians."
Nothing apparently occurred worthy of note until the 18th of September, when a communication was received from the director- general and his councillors advising the commandant in charge at Wiltwyck that they intended to send, by the first opportunity, additional soldiers and a party of Marseping savages to seek out and subdue as much as possible the Esopus Indians, and asking that necessary arrangements be made to provide them with suit- able quarters. The captain-lieutenant and council of war advised the schout and commander of the requirement at Wiltwyck, and · they secured the mill of Jacob Peterson for that purpose.
On the 24th of September Dominio Blom returned to Wiltwyck from a visit to New Amsterdam ; and on the 26th Peter Couwen- hoven arrived with his sloop at the redoubt with some Marseping savages. As the authorities at Wiltwyck had before this experi- enced much trouble from the conduct of the gunner's wife on that boat retailing strong drink to Indians and Christians, including habitual drunkards, without discrimination, and to such an ex- tent that they could " not distinguish even the door of the house," thus creating broils and trouble between white men and friendly Indians, " the captain-lieutenant and valiant council of war" sent an order to the village schout, whereby they authorized and ordered Schout Swartwout of said village " to notify and forbid the tap- pers or retailers of strong drink, that they do not under present circumstances sell strong drink to any one, be he Christian or Indian, under the forfeiture of the intoxicating liquor that may be found in his house. Done Wiltwyck, 26th September, 1663." (Surely broad enough to satisfy any Prohibitionist of the present (lay.)
On the 29th of September, the council of war ordered an expe- dition to set out against the Esopus Indians on the following Monday, the 1st of October, and made the necessary provisions and order therefor. 1
On the 1st of October, 1663, the expedition, consisting of one
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hundred and two military, forty-six Marseping Indians, and " six freemen," with fourteen horses, set out in the same direction as the last one. About two o'clock in the afternoon of the second day they reached the fort where the battle had occurred ; on the 5th they found in all nine pits, in which the Indians had cast their dead, and farther on three Indians, with a squaw and child un- buried. That appears to indicate a greater slaughter of Indians than is stated in the preceding account of the battle. On that day and the next expeditions were sent out in different directions from the fort in search of Indians, but none were found. On the 4th the fort, the palisades, wigwams, and all crops in the ground hav- ing been destroyed, the expedition started on its return, and arrived at Wiltwyck on the evening of the 5th of October. On the 7th of October, Sunday about noon, a white girl was brought up from the redoubt, who on the day before had arrived on the opposite bank, - and was immediately brought across the stream. She reported that she had escaped from an Indian who held her captive, and who lived on the opposite side of the creek, in the mountain, and about three miles from Wiltwyck. An expedition was immediately sent to capture the Indian. The hut was found empty and abandoned. They remained and watched there during the night and returned next day, having destroyed some corn they found there, and bring- ing the rest with them.
On the 9th of October, in accordance with a resolution of the council of war passed on the previous day, Lieutenant Couwen- hoven departed in Derick Smith's sloop for New Amsterdam with all the Marseping Indians and forty military.
On the 10th Louis the Walloon went after his oxen, which had strayed away. After finding them in the rear of Jurian Westphalen's land, he was set upon by three Indians, who sprang up out of the bush. One of them shot at him with an arrow, only slightly wounding him, while he, with a piece of palisade he had in his hand, struck the Indian on his breast, so that he staggered back, and before he recovered himself Louis escaped through the Kill. A party was immediately sent out after the Indians, but they could not be found.
After this the military and inhabitants at Wiltwyck were much disturbed by reports sent in of Indians congregating on the oppo- site side of the river with hostile intentions. But they proved to be without foundation. They served the purpose, however, to in- 'duce the council of war and authorities to persist in compelling the reluctant and dilatory inhabitants to repair the fort and stock- ade. From one of the orders on that subject, it appears that be- sides the farmers there were inhabitants or burghers occupying thirty-four lots in the village, who were ordered to repair the pali-
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sades in front of their lots. This gives an approximate idea of the size of the village at that time, showing that there were then at least thirty-four houses in the village, besides those occupied by farmers, whose number is believed to have been about twenty.
On the 7th of November a sloop arrived at the redoubt with Peter Wolfertsen, who had with him two Christian children, which he had in exchange from the Esopus Indians for a squaw and a girl.
A Wappinger sachem and one of his Indians was also on board. An arrangement was made with him to go down and en- deavor to procure the release of a female Christian captive held in custody by a squaw. He was supplied with a bark canoe and left, promising to return in six or seven days. The Indian returned with the Christian female on the 13th of November upon Rut Jacobson's sloop, for which he was satisfactorily rewarded, and left.
On the 5th of November an Esopus chief had agreed with Peter Couwenhoven, on board the sloop in the Wappinger Creek, for the return of all the Christian prisoners at the redoubt within ten days, for exchange, and a ten days' truce was agreed upon. On the 17th the captain-lieutenant left on a short visit to New Amster- dam, taking some of the military with him, leaving about sixty soldiers in Wiltwyck, under the command of Sergeant Christian ·Niessen.
On the 1st of December two captive Christian children were re- turned. On Monday the 24th Sergeant Niessen assembled the schout and schepens of the village, and handed them a letter from the director-general and council, discharging Swartwout as schout and appointing Matthys Capito provisionally in his place. On the 28th of December all the captives were returned except Barent Slecht's daughter. She had married a young warrior, and chose to remain with him. The tradition is that years afterward she and her Indian husband settled on the Esopus Creek in Marbletown ; he was called Jan, but it is not known whether they left any de- scendants or not.
During the rest of the winter the Indians remained quiet, and in March, 1664, all the company's troops were withdrawn from Wiltwyck. The militia at that time duly organized under the command of Thomas Chambers as captain and Hendrick Jochem Schoonmaker as lieutenant numbered about one hundred able- bodied men, showing a considerable increase since the massacre, when it numbered only sixty-nine.
On the 10th of November, 1663, Director-General Stuyvesant, in his report to the West India Company, stated, in reference to the expedition when the Indian fort was taken, that, after such last attack, the Indians had not more than twenty-seven or twenty-
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eight effective men, fifteen or sixteen women, and a few children remaining ; that through fright they had no abiding place, and did not dare to erect any huts. From information subsequently gathered, that estimate was undoubtedly not far, if any, out of the way. Of course this refers only to the specific band of sav- ages by whom the attack was made.
While the troubles with the Indians were thus existing at Wilt- wyck, the director-general and the council at New Amsterdam were annoyed and perplexed by claims of the English at Hartford and New England of title and jurisdiction over Long Island and other portions of the Dutch possessions. It is not the province of this work to go into a detail of those matters, but as the final re- sult affected Wiltwyck, it is proper to refer to them generally. Those claims were pressed in the fall of 1663. The situation of affairs then greatly alarmed the local government at New Amster- dam. Besides the war which was being waged with the Indians about Wiltwyck, and which was entailing considerable expense upon the Government, the company's territory was invaded by Connecticut, the English villages were in revolt, and the public treasury was exhausted. Under that unfortunate situation, the burgomasters and schepens of New Amsterdam called upon the director-general and council to convoke a convention of the officers of the several towns and colonies, to take into consideration the state of the provinces. The meeting was called, but the season was so far advanced (November 1st) that only delegates from the lower towns, including part of Long Island, attended ; Wiltwyck, Fort Orange, and Rensselaerwyck were not represented.
This convention adopted and transmitted a remonstrance "To the noble, great and respected Lords the Directors of the Priv- ileged West India Company department of Amsterdam." The re- monstrants set forth in their petition that the people had been encouraged to leave their "dearly beloved fatherland " by their promises to protect them in the possession of their property and lands which they settled and occupied, and also " against all civil or foreign war, usurpation, and open force." And to this end they were bound "to obtain from their high Mightinesses the Staats- General, the Supreme Sovereign commissions and patents, in due form establishing and justifying your real and legitimate jurisdic- tion over this province, and its territory, so far as it extended." Then the States-General could have acted and effected a definite arrangement and division of their respective limits with England, and their rights been respected ; they then proceed to allege that " the English to cloak their plans now object that there is no proof, no legal commission or patent from their High Mightinesses. to substantiate and justify our rights and claims to the property of
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this province, and insinuate that, through the backwardness of their High Mightinesses to grant such patent, you apparently in- tended to place the People here on slippery ice ; giving them lands to which your Honours had no right whatever." They also set forth that the English Government have granted an unlimited patent and commission, which they enforce according to their own interpretation.
Also they allude to the then existing Esopus Indian war and the massacre of the inhabitants, attributing it as " occasioned by the premature and at this conjunction totally indefensible reduc- tion of the soldiery in the province, at a time when they ought rather to have been increased and re-enforced." And they substan- tially demand protection in their persons, property, and rights, and a redress of their grievances.
During the winter troubles culminated. The English continued their demands and encroachments, negotiations progressed, and one after another, by the 3d of March, 1664, the Dutch had aban- doned every point their enemies had assailed. Connecticut River and Westchester were gone, and by convention concluded that day, Newtown, Flushing, Gemeco, Heemstede, and Gravesend were surrendered. At this important crisis in the affairs of the prov- ince, 'when apparently everything, including titles and govern- mental authority, were at loose ends and uncertain, the authorities resorted to, and for the first time in the history of the country fully recognized, the sovereignty of the people. On the 19th day of March, 1664, the lords directors and council of the New Nether- lands, at the request of the burgomasters and schepens, summoned a general assembly of delegates from the several towns in the prov- ince, to take into consideration the state of the province, to meet at New Amsterdam on the 10th day of April, 1664.
On the 31st of March, 1664, an election was held in the village of Wiltwyck for the choice of two delegates to such assembly. Thomas Chambers and Gysbert Van Imbroeck were elected by a plurality of votes. Credentials were issued to them in the follow- ing form :
" Whereas, on the summons of the Director General and Coun- cil of New Netherland, addressed to the Schout and commissaries here, it is required that two deputies be sent from our village, Wiltwyck, to a General assembly in form of a Landdach, the Schout and commissaries have called us, the undersigned inhabi- tants of Wiltwyck together, on the day underwritten, to elect from the Commonalty two proper persons and to authorize the same as deputies to the said assembly, which shall be on the 10th April next. We have therefore by plurality of votes, chosen the worthy persons Thomas Chambers and Gyesbert Van Imbroeck, to whom
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