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 23
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
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Sir John Johnson
Sir John Johnson, the eldest son and heir of Sir William John- son and Catherine Weisenberg, was born at Warrenbush, November 5, 1742, and died at the age of eighty-eight at Montreal, January 4, 1830. He is referred to elsewhere in this history under Sir William Johnson, Border Wars, Iroquois, etc. When Sir William left Mount Johnson in 1763 to found Johnstown, named after the heir, Sir John took up his residence at what is now called Fort Johnson. The mistress of this baronial mansion for a decade was the beautiful Clara Putman of the Mohawk valley, by whom Sir John had several children. Then a new love came into his life in the person of Mary ("Polly") Watts, the daughter of a wealthy New York Loyalist, and forgetting his promise of marriage to Clara Putman he married Mary Watts June 30, 1773, who died August 7, 1815. On his return to the mansion Sir John had Clara Putman and her children removed, first to the town of Florida, then to Schenectady, where it is said he bot a home for her, and where she lived until 1840. At this time Sir John held a Colonelcy in a Regt. of Horse in northern New York, and afterwards served the King as Maj. General, and as Lieut. Colonel of the "Royal Greens." Sir John and Mary Watts Johnson had eight children-William (borne in 1775), who married Susan de Lancey; Adam Gordon, who became a third baronet; James, Stephen, Robert, Warren; John, who married Mary, the daughter of Richard Dillon of Montreal; Charles Christopher, and Archibald Kennedy (born in 1792). Now and then writers have carelessly interchanged the names and work of Sir John with those of Guy Johnson who married his sister, Mary, and who became the Indian Agent on the death of Sir William, and who was an irresponsible officer of the British Crown. The life and character of Sir John are best revealed in the stirring times prior to the Revolution, and during it, and in the Border Wars after the Treaty of Peace had been signed, and in his alliance with the Indians to annihilate the Colonists and devastate the Valley of the Mohawk.
General Nicholas Herkimer
Herkimer House Built in 1764
Gen. Nicholas Herkimer was the foremost American in the Mohawk Valley, if not in the Province of New York, during the quarter-century pre- ceding the signing of the Declaration of Independence. He was the eldest son of Johan Jost and Catherine Her- kimer and was born, as were his twelve brothers and sisters, in the log house, built in 1721 by his father when he settled at Burnetsfield. " Documentary proof is lacking as to the racial ancestry of the Herkimers,
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but the preponderance of opinion is that the General's father, Johan Jost, and his grandfather, Jurgh (George) Herkimer emmigrated to Holland from the Lower Palatinate, and came to America in 1710, and to the present Fort Herkimer in 1721. His first house was of logs, just east of the village, but about 1740 a stone structure was built about fifty rods west of the present Dutch Reformed church. It was forty feet wide, seventy feet long, with walls two feet thick, two stories, with steep roof covered with three foot long shingles. This house was torn down about 1812, many of the stones being used in the second story of the Fort Herkimer church which at that time was enlarged. The earliest name of the place was Kouari (Oquari), a Mohawk term for "bear." When the 1740 Herkimer house was forti- fied (about 1756 when Sir William Johnson also fortified the church) it was called Fort Kouari, later Fort Herkimer. The General Herki- mer home (shown in illustration) was built in 1764. Here General Herkimer died in 1777, aged fifty, ten days after the Battle of Oriskany. His brother, Captain George Herkimer, and, after his death in 1786, his widow, Alida Schuyler Herkimer and her sons, Major John and Joseph Herkimer, lived in this house until 1817, in which year it passed out the family. In 1914 it was bot by the State of New York. In 1848 Warren Herkimer (son of Joseph), who died at Janesville, Wis., in 1878, marked what he believed to be the grave of Gen. Herkimer, and in 1896 an obelisk sixty feet high was placed on the spot by the U. S. Government. Herkimer was the personification of a fearless Independent, the living embodiment of a sturdy American, the most prominent among the first contenders of those democratic ideals that in time created out of the colonies a Nation that today stands first among the world powers.
Joseph Brant
Joseph Brant was born about 1742, but whether, as some historians say, on the banks of the Ohio, a pure native Indian, or at Canajoharie, where the mother of Joseph and Mollie Brant lived, after the death of her first husband in the west, and where Sir William Johnson spent much of his time, it is difficult to say. Sparks and other annalists of that day do not hesitate to attribute his birth to Sir William Johnson, and refer to the un- usual attachment and personal concern of the baronet to the youth because of this paternity. His Indian name was "Thay-en-da-ne-ge-a" which means a "bundle of sticks," that is, "strength." An Indian named "Carrihoga" had married the mother of Joseph, to whom the settlers gave the name of Barent (Brant). Elsewhere Molly Brant is referred to as the Mistress of Mount Johnson. Joseph was sent to the Indian school of Dr. Eleazer Wheelock at Lebanon, Ct. (which ensued in Dartmouth College) with the purpose of training him for a missionary among the Mohawks. He served in this capacity for a few years under Kirkland, who sought to get him to remain netural as the
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Revolution approached. But Sir William Johnson's relationship and influence overcame this. Joseph Brant visited England in 1775 and 1783, and entered into certain agreements with the Crown. He held a Colonel's commission from the king. Brant married a daughter of Colonel Croghan in 1779, the ceremony being performed by former Justice of the Crown, John Butler, father of Walter Butler. An Erie county town is called after him. He died November 24, 1807, aged sixty-five. One of his sons was in the British army in the war of 1812, and a daughter married W. J. Kerr of Niagara in 1824. He lies buried in the Mohawk churchyard near Brantford, Can. After Brant's death efforts were made to "better" his character, principally because English aristocracy had feted him, the crown had honored him, and, because he had not always killed. But such wanton murder as that of Lieut. Wormwood at Cherry Valley, an intimate friend of Brant, whom the latter himself tomahawked, and many other like incidents stand in the way of this.
Walter Butler
,
Walter Butler was the son of Colonel John Butler, a Justice of the King's Court of Tryon. Both father and son held commissions in the English army and were with St. Leger at Oriskany. The Butler estate (old house still standing) included lands in the present site of Fonda, upon which land the old Caughnawaga church was built, which fact saved it from destruction in the October, 1780, raid. Robert Chambers has given us in his "Cardigan" a graphic account of the part played by Butler in the valley, whose name is the most odious in all the history of the Mohawk and Schoharie country. He outsavaged the savage in his diabolical treatment of all who were not English. In his youthful scalping expeditions Sir. William John- son in correspondence compliments him. After Oriskany he visited German Flatts with fourteen Tories and tried to get the settlers there to ally with the King. He was arrested, condemned to death as a spy, imprisoned at Albany, and escaped later thro influence, and reached Canada where he joined his father's regiment of "Butler's Rangers." To Colonel Willet fell the privilege of ridding earth of this incarnate fiend. On October 24, 1781, Willet set out from Fort Rensselaer (near Fort Plain) for Fort Hunter, twenty miles distant, in pursuit of the British force of 600 under Major Ross, and to fight later the Battle of Johnstown. October 25, 1781. The enemy were soon in flight, Willet pursuing them, Tories and Indians (500), across West Canada Creek, north of Herkimer, where the stream leaves Oneida county. Here Capt. Butler dismounted, and while in the act of drinking, oblivious to the nearness of the American forces, was shot by Anthony, a Mohawk. As the demon fell, the Indian crossed the stream and fell upon his quarry, who plead for quarter. 'Anthony, it is said, appealed to Col. Willet who signified that the prisoner belonged to the Mohawk, who at once scalped Butler with the promise of "Cherry Valley Quarter," and left the body to be food for the wild beasts. Col. Willet, whose force rid the valley of its scourge, lived to be ninety years old, and died on the anniversary of the Battle of Johnstown, August 22, 1830. The ' body was encased in a coffin made of woods which the Colonel had gathered from Revolutionary battlefields.
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Bibliography
In the gathering of material for these Ecclesiastical Studies of the Montgomery Classis churches we have consulted the Clerk's Records of the counties in which they are situated in order to verify incorporation dates and secure other data of interest. The published County Histories insofar as they refer to the Reformed churches have been read. The Minutes of the Coetus and Conferentie, pre- decessors of the General Synod, and the Minutes (printed) of both General and the Particular Synod of Abany to date were examined. Most of the churches now in Classis have had their records carefully read, and in a few cases we have read historical sermons based upon these records. In the case of the extinct or merged churches we obtained information from the men who formerly served these churches or from the oldest members. Other works or records which have been examined in the preparation of this history are as follows: "Annals of Tryon County" (Campbell, 1831); "Biographical Records" Auburn, New Brunswick, Princeton, and Union Seminaries; Union College "Alumni Record"; Minutes of General Assembly of Presby- terian Church; "Documentary History of New York State" (4 vols.); "Ecclesiastical Records" of New York State (6 vols., 1901-1905) ; "Geographical History of New York" (Mather, 1851); "History of Schenectady County" (Pearson, 1883); "History of Schenectady County" (Halsey, 1887); "History of New York State" (Macauley, 3 vols., 1829); "In the Mohawk Valley" (Reid, 1901); "Old Fort Johnson" (Reid 1906); "Indian Names in New York" (Beauchamp, 1894); "Manual of the Reformed Church" (Corwin, 1869, 1879, 1902); "Old New York Frontier" (Halsey, 1902); "Joseph Brant" (Stone, 1838); "History of Schoharie County" and "New York Border Wars" (Simms, 1845); "The Frontiersmen" (Simms, 1878); "Committee of Safety Minute Book of Tryon County" (1905); "Story of the Pala- tines" (Cobb, 1897); "Fathers of the Reformed Church" (Harbaugh, 2 vols., 1854); "History of New York" (Smith 2 vols., 1814); "History of an American Lady" (Mrs. Grant, 1808, London); "History of the New York Iroquois" (Beauchamp, 1905); "Gazeteer of Mohawk Valley" (Childs, 1869); "Mohawk Genealogy" (Reynolds, 4 vols., 1911); "Delaware County and New York Border Wars" (Jay Gould, 1856); "Eminent Americans" (Lossing, 1855); "Van Curler's Journal" (Wilson); "Greycelaer a Mohawk Romance" (Hoffman, 2 vols., 1840) ; "Colonial New York" (Schuyler, 1885); "Sir William Johnson and the Six Nations" (Griffis, 1891); "The Hudson River" (Bacon, 1903) ; "Onondaga" (Clark, 2 vols., 1849); "Colonial Period" (Andrews, 1912); "Colonial Homesteads" (Harland, 2 vols., 1899). Articles in Nation, Harpers, Century, Lippincott, bearing on the Mohawk valley, etc.
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ADDENDA
The beginning of the work at Currytown is uncertain. The 1796 organization, tho recorded at Fonda, is not mentioned in Classis record. The present church was in- corporated May 7, 1806, and the land deeds bear this date, but were not recorded until April 18, 1849. On January 29, 1811, the churches at Sprakers and Mapletown com- plained to Classis that Currytown had "ceceded" from them and formed a separate congregation. Currytown was received into the Classis May 31, 1814. The Tryon County Committee of Safety Records show thirty-one meetings, fourteen of which were held at the Gosen Van Alstyne stockaded house at Canajoharie, the present home of the Fort Rensselaer Club. H. B. Stryker, a licentiate, was a missionary of the Classis at Athol, Cald- well, Johnsburgh and Warrensburgh, in Warren county, in 1832 and 1823.
Page 18, line 51, read "descendant"; page 27, line 8, read "Robert" for "Harvey"; page 28, line 28, read "taken"; page 30, line 28, read "1796"; page 44, line 34, read "log"; page 105, line 41, read "proved"; page 107, line 39, read "1885"; page 117, line 25, read "True"; page 149, line 10, read "1760-1765"; page 149, line 26, add Pater- son, N. J .; page 152, line 12, read "Cincinnati, O." for "Auburn, N. Y."; page 158, line 39, read "Auburn"; page 164, line 12, omit ????; page 164, foot note, read "story"; page 185, line 12, reads: "The other part was built in 1750- by Peter Ehle. It is still owned by the Ehles. Before the Revolution an old-fashioned square house within sight of the Lutheran Stone church was built, which became the home of Dr. John Cochran," etc.
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