USA > New York > Orange County > Montgomery > The history of Montgomery classis, R.C.A. To which is added sketches of Mohawk valley men and events of early days, the Iroquois, Palatines, Indian missions, etc > Part 22
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HISTORICAL NOTES
ing hillside from which rose the peaked roof of Dutch architecture. The heavy floor of the attic forms a planed ceiling for the second story. The Brant house, near the Schenectady Pumping Station is given the date of 1736, but is probably older, and is built of brick, the latter being laid in characteristically Dutch style. The Schermer- horn house in Rotterdam has been occupied by the same family and their descendants for two hundred and fifty years. The Van Guysling frame house in Rotterdam dates back to 1664, making it the oldest house in the Valley, while the Johannes Peek house was built in 1711. The Queen Anne parsonage goes back to 1712 and is built of rough stone two stories high. The Butler house on Switzer Hill, a mile from Fonda, was built in 1743 by Walter Butler, father of Col. John Butler, father of Walter Butler. It is built of oak and has the usual broad dimensions.
The General William North residence at Duanesburgh was built in 1784. His wife was Mary Duane, daughter of Judge Duane, who gave her a thousand acres. Hereon a splendid mansion was built, the native woods, pine and maple and birch being used. Here noted men frequently mct among whom were Baron Steuben, whose aide General North was. The later Duane Mansion, built at the close of the eighteenth century, was the meeting place of Lafayette, Webster, Madison, Jay, Jackson, Calhoun, Joseph the King of Spain, and his brother, Jerome Bonaparte. The Duanesburgh Episcopal church, built by Judge Duane, is the oldest church edifice of that denomina- tion in New York state. The old stone house near Palatine Bridge, where Major John Frey was born, was built in 1740 and later palisaded and garrisoned.
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Biography
Arendt Van Curler
Arendt Van Curler was one of the earliest Europeans to visit the valley of the Mohawk, and had the confidence and respect of the Indian, as perhaps no one else, not even Sir William Johnson, ever held. So great was the regard of the Indian for him that we find them addressing the Governors of New York as "Corlaers" long after his death. The Iroquois word "Kora" comes from Corlaer, a term applied to the Dutch Governors of Orange and New Amsterdam, and to the English Governors of Albany and New York, and to all the Governors of New England, The Mohawks of Canada still refer to the Governor-general as "Corl," and they were accustomed to speak of Queen Victoria as "Kora-Kowa," i. e. the "great Corlaer." Van Curler came to America in 1638 as an agent for his cousin, Kilian Van Rensselaer, who, tho he owned some seven hundred thousand acres of land, including all of Albany, and most of Columbia and Rensselaer counties, and considerable in the Black River country, never left his home in the Netherlands That this Van Rensselaer manor was the only successful of the several manors laid out was due to the genius of Van Curler, born of noble blood, a sterling character, of great strength, physical and mental, and of a high moral nature all of which combined to win him the love of the civilized European as well of the uncivilized Indian. There were three Van Curlers, the least important one being immortalized by Washington Irving-a Jacobus Van Curler, a New Netherlands school master, and Arendt. It was Van Curler's broad states- manship and his practical common sense wisdom that won
him the esteem of the Iroquois, the most powerful con- federacy of Indians over known; it was his high ideals of peace and friendship that acted as a defense against French aggression, it was the Dutch blood coursing in his veins that led the colonists finally to liberty and self-government, and away forever from the French ideals and traditions; it was Van Curler who prevented the French from £ver possessing the Hudson and Mohawk valleys, gateways alike to the ocean and the great west. Van Curler was a true humanitarian. He was opposed to the feudal system imposed on all land sales by the Van Rensselaers. In 1642 he leaves Albany and goes as far west as Fonda-apparently to save the French Jesuits who were marked for martyrdom by the fierce Mohawks. And he suc- ceeded. In his letter to the patroon, June 16, 1643, he describes the Valley of the Mohawk as "the fairest land the eyes of man ever rested upon." In July 1661 he bought a great tract of land of the Mohawks and founded the present city of Schenectady. In 1667, while crossing Lake Champlain to visit Gov. Tracy of Canada, he was drowned. His widow continued to live in Schenectady until her death in 1675.
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Sir William Johnson-Bart
Sir William Johnson, the son of Christopher and Anna Warren John- son, was born in the county of Meath, Ireland, in 1715. At the age of twenty he came to Ameri- ca to act as an agent for his uncle, Peter Warren. Admiral Warren had married the daughter of Stephen De Lancey, a wealthy aristocrat of the provincial metropolis, and built there a new home, 10W known as No. 1 Broadway, later the head- quarters of Generals Howe, Clinton and Carle- ton. It was from this home that Major Andre set out on his mission to aid Arnold, with whom he had been intimate for years, to consummate his his treachery. At the time of Johnson's coming Capt. Warren had acquired a title to a tract of fifteen thousand acres of land in the present town of Florida (Montgomery Co.). In correspondence his uncle Peter speaks of William as a wayward youth in the home land who is being sent out to the new world in the hope that its experience will discipline him. One of the elements, perhaps the chief one, that called for this chastisement was his attachment to an Irish colleen which met the serious objection of both his parents and his uncle. Thus it happened that when the lad was ready to take up his new work in America he left behind him in the port town of Drogheda a broken-hearted girl, to whom, however, he pledged a sure return for marriage. But the girl knew that it was to break up this alliance that he was being sent away and instinctively she felt that they would never see each other again. We shall see how this incident colored the whole after life of William Johnson and gave him an unenviable reputation among the settlers of those days. Soon after the arrival of Johnson he was made the agent of the English government for the Iroquois or Six Nations. This was in June, 1738, the birth year of King George III. He began an extensive fur trade with the Indians and in various ways secured large tracts of land. He adopted not a few of the customs of the Mohawks, learned their language, and in 1746, was formally adopted into the tribe and given the title, Wa-ra- i-ya-ge,-i. e. "chief director of affairs." While advancing his own personal interests he kept the Amerind loyal to the English cause. His alliances, first with Caroline Hendrick, daughter of "King" Hen-
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drick, and later with Molly Brant, sister of Joseph Brant the noted Indian leader, and his intimacy with many of the wives of the chiefs of the various tribes, gave him increasing power over the Red men, and until his death made his name a tower of strength and influence in the valley in the dealings of the Indians with the white settlers and in their relations to the home government.
Johnson's first settlement in the new world was on the land of his uncle, to which he gave the name of Warren's Bush. This settle- ment was about half a mile below what is now (south) Amsterdam, and as late as 1795 was known as "Johnson's Settlement." Johnson lived there five years and here his first son, John, was born. A plan was devised whereby a homestead was to be given to the first five hundred families emigrating from Europe. In the first five years he had disposed of more than two-thirds of all his uncle's holdings, these being on the south side of the Mohawk and west of Schenectady. It was while Johnson was settled at Warren's Bush that his alliance with Catherine Weisenberg began. Two miles below Johnson's store was a tavern kept by Alexander and Hamilton Phillips at what is now called Phillips' Locks. The Groat brothers (cf Amsterdam) were living on the north side of the river at what is now Cranesville ("Adriutha"). Simms the historian of the Mohawk and Schoharie valleys gets his information from persons who were very close to these occurrences, indeed witnesses of much that he narrates, hence their historic credibility and authenticity. He says that Lewis Groat suggested the desirability of marriage to William Johnson, but the latter said that he wanted to marry a girl in the old country, but his folks prevented it. He had determined that he would never marry, but, he added, that he proposed to raise a numerous progeny. Even if one doubts the conversation there is an abundance of evidence to prove that Johnson carried out the spirit of this determination.
Johnson's first mesalliance was with Catherine Weisenberg, a "High Dutch" girl, then a Palatine orphan, whom he had met at the Phillips' tavern. Her passage money had been paid by Alexander Phillips, to whom she was bound out by the captain of the sailing vessel for a term sufficient to meet this indebtedness. It was a com- mon custom of the time. Phillips protested against giving up the girl but Johnson finally won out, paid the passage money, and took her to his settlement to be his housekeeper. One historian says Catherine was the daughter of Rev. Jacob Weisenberg, a Lutheran pastor at Schenectady, who was appointed by Governor Clinton in 1745, an Indian commissioner. It is said that the baronet availed himself of the Iroquois custom, still prevalent among certain Mexican tribes, of allotting to distinguished visitors their choice of maiden or squaw during their stay among the tribe. Hence William Johnson in the years raised up a numerous progeny among the Indian women, who were proud of the honor thus bestowed up- on them. This policy was the practice of the French colonists, urged . on them by the French King. It is a significant fact that while the men friends of Sir William Johnson frequently called on him at Fort Johnson and Johnson Hall the women acquaintances and the wives of the men mentioned seldom if ever went to his home, owing to this well known unmoral attitude of the Indian commissioner. In 1743 Johnson bought a large tract of land upon the north-west bank of the Mohawk on both sides of the Kayaderosseros creek. In 1742 he built
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a grist mill and the stone house now called Fort Johnson, the first colonial mansion in New York state. He had brot sixty Scotch- Irish families to this estate, all Romanists, and had settled them in Perth, Broadalbin, Galway, and Johnstown. It was from these families that Sir John Johnson, after the death of Sir William, re- cruited his body-guard of one hundred and fifty at Johnson Hall. In 1745 the baronet was importing breeding horses and stock; in 1746 he was shipping flour to the West Indies, and was the largest slave holder in the Province. In 1769, five years before his death, the crown, on the request of Sir William, gave him what is called, the "Royal Grant," an estate of sixty thousand acres of land, the tract extending between East and West Canada creeks, on the north side of the Mo- hawk. It included the present site of Herkimer and Little Falls. The tradition of Johnson securing this land from "King" Hendrick thro dreams is as fascinating as it is fanciful. Sir William was always keen on futures, both for himself and his families, and he had a lot of folks to remember in his will, and wanted his property and lands to go around.
Sir William's first residence on the north side of the river was at what is now Fort Johnson. Because of certain grants of land by Ethan Akin to the N. Y. C. H. R. R. the place for many years was called Fort Akin but in 1912 this was changed to Fort Johnson. The old baronial home has now for several years been the headquarters of the Montgomery County Historical Society. East of Fort Johnson, or "Mount Johnson" as it was first called, Sir William built a two story stone house for his daughter Mary (born in 1744) who married her cousin, Guy Johnson, a nephew of Sir William. And about midway between this residence and his own home he built another house for his daughter Nancy Anne (born 1740), who married Col. Daniel Claus. There was a tract of land about a mile square attached to each of these two residences.
Mrs. Nancy Claus went to Canada in 1776 and died there soon afterwards. A child of this marriage, Mary, married Lord Clyde, better known as Sir Colin Campbell of British fame, whose Highlanders raised the seige of Lucknow. When Sir William re- moved to Johnstown, named for Sir William's oldest son, in 1763, he left his son, John Johnson, in the home at Mount Johnson. The Johnson family were to all intents and purposes the ruling family of the valley of the Mohawk, living as aristocratic nobles, surrounded by a sort of feudal system borrowed from the old world, but ex- ceedingly offensive to the liberty loving German and Dutch settlers. An estate of two hundred thousand acres, the largest in the world at the time, was not in accord with the growing spirit of democracy in the new world. The house Sir William built for Mrs. Claus was soon afterwards accidentally destroyed by fire, but the Guy Johnson house, Fort Johnson, and Johnson Hall at Johnstown are well pre- served. The last was built in 1763. Of the alliance of Sir William with Catherine Weisenberg, three children were born, Mary (Mrs. Guy Johnson), Nancy (Mrs. Claus), and John Johnson (born in 1742), Mrs. Grant, to whose work we have referred in the article on the Pala- tines, visited the home of Sir William Johnson, and writes most in- terestingly of the life at Mount Johnson, especially emphasizing the- strict seclusion under which these first daughters were kept. John John- son was born Nov. 5, 1742. The mother, Catherine Weisenberg, died in
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1745, and was buried near the baronet's house at Fort Johnson, tho in later years the grave was completely lost track of. There is no extant evidence that Sir William Johnson was ever married-to this woman, or to Molly Brant, whom he refers to even in his will as a "housekeeper," or to Caroline Hendrick (niece of King Hendrick) or to any of the others who bore him children. His son, John John- son, was knighted a year or more before his father's death, and at the personal solicitation of the father who must have known that the question of legitimacy might have thwarted this honor after the decease of the baronet. And, again, we have too keen a respect for the ability and shrewdness of Mollie Brant to believe that if she were the lawful wife of Sir William, as some writers assert, that she would have allowed herself and her eight children to be driven back to the savage conditions of her Indian tribe.
Besides these homes we have mentioned Sir William also had others on his great estate, one at what is now known as the Fish House (Fulton County) a woody summer resort under the care of the two Wormwood women. Another home, with its attendant fur- nishing was built at Broadalbin. Caroline Hendrick, to whom refer- ence has been made, died in 1752, and Molly Brant was then brot to Mount Johnson to care for Caroline's three children. One of these, William of Canajoharie, whose Indian name was Teg-che-un-to, and who was killed at the Battle of Oriskany, is mentioned in the baronet's will. Two daughters, Charlotte and Caroline, had already received their dowry at their marriage. Charlotte married Henry Randall, a young British officer who, later joined the Continentals and fell at the Battle of Monmouth. Caroline married Michael Byrne, who clerked for Sir William. He was one of Butler's Rangers and was killed at Oriskany. His widow married Mr. McKin, a Canadian Indian agent. Francis Parkman, the eminent historian, refers to an alliance that Sir William had with one Eleanor Wallaslous, but does not quote any authority. The marriage of Sir William Johnson Bart to Elizabeth Cleland on March 10, 1757, published in the "Gentleman's Magazine" and the "London Magazine" in 1757, refers to another family of another name. Molly Brant the "tribal wife" of Sir William went to Fort Johnson in 1752 and lived with Sir William until the time of his death in 1774. She was the half-breed step-daughter of "Nickus Brant," at whose place Johnson always stopped when visiting Canajoharie. Her mother was a Mohawk squaw. Jared Sparks the noted historian of the Revolution, and other annalists say that Joseph Brant was the natural son of Sir William by this Mohawk squaw, which might account for the baronet's faithful attention to Joseph. It is a singular commentary on the influence of this baronial home that after so long a period of contact with the best that there was in that day in the valley, Molly Brant, the close companion of the baronet, and her halfbreeds all reverted to savagery, except possibly one son, Peter. The mother died in Canada in 1805. In 1757 because of his part in the battle of Lake George wherein the French were de- feated, Sir William was knighted and given a reward of five thousand pounds Sterling. Johnson was also in command at the fall of Fort Niagara in 1759, and in the surrender of Canada in 1760 he led a thous- and Iroquois against Montreal. Johnson was vigorous of body and fertile of mind, tho coarse in conduct and unmoral in action. He made the most of an opportune period and quickly rose from the
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ranks to be commander of the army, and from colonist to baronet. Almost invariably the histories of the valley refer to his generosity toward all Christian work. Up to the time of his death he seems to have been the prime mover in every religious undertaking of the valley, no matter what the denomination. This is what the books say and later writers who follow the books. Doubtless he did a great deal toward establishing his own communion, the Church of England. But amid all the lists of donors to the erection of the Dutch churches, as at German Flatts, Herkimer, Stone Arabia, St. Johnsville, Fonda, Manheim-enterprises of his day, we have never seen his name, tho these lists contain many of the names of the settlers of the Mo- hawk and Schoharie valleys. And it was natural that he should favor his own church, the Church of England, whose ministry and membership in their entirety were inimical to the colonists in their struggle for Independence, and whose persistent and seditious efforts to establish a foreign hierarchy in America precipitated the American Revolution. When Queens College (Rutgers) was founded by royal charter in 1766 upon the petition of the ministers and members of the Reformed Dutch church in America, Sir William Johnson, represent- ing the interests of England, was made one of the forty-one directors, the Governor, Chief-Justice, and Attorney General of the New Jersey Province, heading the list. The college buildings constructed were burned by the British in 1778. Johnson's correspondence shows that 1 in the beginning at least he was in league with England's policy of exterminating the liberty-loving colonists of the Mohawk valley. In 1746 Capt. Warren Johnson of the Royal Army, the baronet's brother, visited him at Fort Johnson, bearing important message from General Clinton. On March 18, 1747, William Johnson wrote Gov. Clinton, complaining that the government was likely to ruin him for lack of blankets, and paints, and guns and cutlasses, commodoties promised their copper colored allies who were bringing in prisoners and all sorts of scalps to Mount Johnson. In May, 1747, he writes of the youtlı, Walter Butler's successful scalping expedition. He refers to a party of six Mohawks who had just brot in seven prisoners and three scalps and adds "this is very good for so small a party." Fort Johnson in those days must have afforded a gruesome sight with its walls plastered with the scalps of the men, women, and children of the valley. Johnson, European and Mohawk, colonist and baronet, was also the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde of pre-Revolutionary times.
Sir William Johnson died at Johnston Hall, Johnstown, on July 11, 1774. The troubles between the Colonists and the Indians and between the Colonists and the mother country were beginning to tell upon him. We credit him with prophetic vision, for he must have seen the clouds of conflict gathering; he must have been keenly alive to what would happen when the savages were once unfetterd; he knew only too well the determination of the colonists, the liberty- loving Dutch, and the Palatines with half a century of unjust oppres- sion behind them in the valleys of the "Schorie" and "Mohaque," he doubtless felt that England would play a losing game with the In- dependents; he had received lavish gifts of gold and honor from his mother land, and at the same time, had cemented here in the valley privileged fellowship with these hardy pioneers who represented him and were guided and helped by his never failing counsels. The year before his death he had been to England and he knew the mind of
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french
war 48)
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the ministry there, or, at least, he knew the plans of those who would have charge of the war, if the conflict once came. In vision fearful he saw the slaughtered tribes of Red men, the devastated homes of the settlers, all of whom were his friends. Was there a premonition of his death in the reported conversation with John B. Van Epps of Schenectady, or Lewis Groat of Cranesville, or Mr. Campbell, to whom it is said he remarked in some such words as these-"I see the conflict coming, but I will never live to see it." On the day of his death he was attending the Tryon county court at Johnstown. He was wearied with the conferences he had held with the Indians. A package of personal correspondence had just come from England. He took it, left the court room, went to his home, and in an hour or so Sir William Johnson, Baronet, was dead. What choice he would have made in the impending struggle-between his beloved England and his beloved friends, the latter both Colonists and Iroquois, is only conjectural. His last word was spoken in the Mohawk tongue to Brant, "Joseph, control your people, I'm going away."
Sir William Johnson was buried a few days later beneath the altar of the stone church at Johnstown which he had caused to be erected in 1764. The body was first placed in a mahogany casket, then sealed in a lead container. During the Revolution this lead covering was removed and run into bullets. Campbell says that the body was taken up in 1806 and the "bones re-interred," but he does not say why this was done. But we know that there was a time in the early years of the past century when St. John's church was much neglected and falling into ruins. The church, after the Revolution had been used by the Presbyterians, except for eight Sundays in each year, when the Episcopalians might hold worship therein. The boys of the day found their way into the building and one tells how they used to get into the vault where they would read the brass-nailed inscription on the casket of Sir William, and when the waters of the Cayadutta broke their bounds and overflowed into the vault they watched the casket floating around.
In the fire of 1836 when the church was destroyed they re-cased the body before a second (or third) burial, but hung the coffin-lid with its brass inscription in the chancel. In the second fire, which burned out the church interior, this was consumed. When the church was re- built after the fire of 1836, the vault was without the edifice, and it was not until 1862 that it was discovered, and the bones again in- terred with a monument marking the spot. We do not know in all American history such an illustration of the complete overthrow in so short a time of the great ambitions, and the well-laid plans, and the consummate skill that was embodied in the establishment of a magnificient kingdom in this New World under the leadership of Sir William Johnson. Within a few months the vision splendid, which had a most substantial basis of fact, had crumbled into dust. The world's greatest honors were his, untold wealth, a land-kingdom of a hundred and seventy thousand acres, houses of stability that are still with us after a century and a half, the men of the old and new worlds, his friends and admirers. Studiously, prophetically he devised this vast estate, binding all the heirs that it should remain intact. But in a short time the eldest son is an exile and an object of infamy, while today instead of the boundless feudal kingdom there is a great free State with a multitude of farms, and villages, towns, and cities. Not
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much more than a name remains to recall the story, while the in- fluence of the lives of the men and women who loved God first and liberty afterwards still abides in the increasing devotion of their de- scendants to God and Home and Native Land.
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