USA > New York > Essex County > The military and civil history of the county of Essex, New York : and a general survey of its physical geography, its mines and minerals, and industrial pursuits, embracing an account of the northern wilderness > Part 5
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Men, who literally tilled the earth with the musket at their sides, were ripening for any emergency and pre- pared to defend a heritage, endeared by their blood and sorrows, against every foe and any wrong. The career of the colonies, neglected, contemned and suffering, was to them a baptism of blood and sorrow, that consecrated a free and ennobled spirit, equal to any sacrifice or any conflict. The wars into which the colonies were forced by this policy of England, and the proximity of the French pro- vinces, afforded the severe schools for their military educa- tion. The shores of Lake Champlain formed the nursery of future heroes of the revolution. The military spirit was here enkindled, that in after years blazed at Bunker
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MILITARY AND POLITICAL HISTORY.
hill, and Bennington, and Saratoga ; and here, amid victory and defeat, the science and tactics of Europe were incul- cated and diffused throughout the broad colonies. If Washington was taught on the banks of the Monongahela, to lead armies and to achieve independence for his country, Putnam and Stark, Pomeroy and Prescott, amid the forests and morasses of Horicon and Champlain, and beneath the walls of Ticonderoga, were formed to guide and conquer in the battles of freedom. Human wisdom, in her philosophy, may pause to contemplate such strik- ing and singular coincidences, and to trace these causes to their momentous results; but the eye of faith will reverence them as the hidden workings of an overruling and beneficent Providence, who, in these events, was un- folding the elements and forming the agents of a mighty revolution, destined, not only to sever a kingdom, but to change the course of human events.
An ordinance of the king of France had authorized, as early as 1676, the issuing of grants of lands situated in Canada. In accordance with this power, and assuming the sovereignty of France over the valley of Lake Cham- plain, the government of Canada had caused a survey to be made of the lake and its contiguous territory, the year succeeding the erection of the works at Crown point. Many of the names of the headlands, islands and other topographical features of the lake, which are still perpe- tuated, are derived from that survey. In their descriptive force and beauty, they almost rival the euphony and appropriateness of the Indian nomenclature. A map and chart based upon that survey, was published at Montreal in 1748, and has not been surpassed by any subse- quently made, in its scientific aspect or minuteness and accuracy. Extensive grants, under the ordinance of 1676, upon both sides of the lake, are delineated upon that map. A seigniory was granted to the Sieur Robart, the royal storekeeper at Montreal, in June, 1737. This grant, which seems to have been the only one issued for land within the limits of the county of Essex, embraced " three leagues
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HISTORY OF ESSEX COUNTY.
in front by two leagues in depth, on the west side of Lake Champlain, taking, in going down, one league below the river Boquet, and in going up, two leagues and a half above said river.1 These boundaries comprehend all of the present town of Essex and a large proportion of Wills- boro'. The tract was soon after formally laid out and allotted by an official surveyor. We have no evidence that any permanent and actual occupation was formed under these grants. Kalm, who visited the region at an early period, asserts that few colonies, and these only in the vicinity of the fortresses, were formed by the French dur- ing their occupation.
The authority from whom I have already given extracts states that in 1750, "fourteen farms were occupied in the vicinity of Crown point, and great encouragement given by the king for that purpose," and " that other colonists were approaching."2 The journal of Rogers contains re- peated references to villages adjacent to Fort St. Frederic and situated upon both sides of the lake.
The devastation in 1745, of the settlement of Saratoga, by an Indian and French force, armed and organized at Crown point, and the deeper atrocities committed a few years later at Hoosick, by the same bands, while they in- creased the apprehensions of the colonies, excited to the highest intensity the desire and purpose of vengeance. This feeling could be best consummated in the destruction of St. Frederic. Whilst that fortress was occupied by a powerful and vigilant rival, the tenure of life and property in the adjacent English colonies, was esteemed so preca- rious and valueless, that the country north of the Mohawk, until the conquest of Amherst, was nearly depopulated.
A convention of the colonial governors had been held at Albany in 1747, but without yielding any fruits of prac- tical utility. The increasing and more active aggressions of France, both in the Ohio valley and upon Lake Champlain, demanded a similar meeting in 1754, that was only mem-
2 Doc. History. ยช Doc. Hist., VI, 582.
MILITARY AND POLITICAL HISTORY. 49
orable for the adoption of a Plan of Union between the British colonies, inspired by Franklin, and which, although at the time futile, formed the prolific germ from whence in another generation sprung the American confederacy. It was on this occasion, that the venerable Hendrik, the great Mohawk chieftain, pronounced one of those thrilling and eloquent speeches that marked the nobler times of the Iroquois. It excited the wonder and admiration of those who listened, and commanded the highest encomiums where- ever it was read.1 In burning words he contrasted the supineness and imbecility of England, with the energies of French policy. His hoary head and majestic bearing attached dignity and force to his utterances. "We," he exclaimed, " would have gone and taken Crown point, but you hindered us." He closed his philippic with this over- whelming rebuke: "Look at the French, they are men. They are fortifying everywhere. But you, and we are ashamed to say it, you are like women, bare and open with- out any fortifications." 2
The admonitions of the provincial governments, and the cry of alarm and agitation that arose from every section of the colonies, at length aroused the English ministry to the duty of their protection, and the assertion of the honor of Britain. Between France and England a peace, under the solemnities of treaty, still existed. Four distinct expedi- tions were, however, organized, professedly to guard the colonial possessions of England ; but prepared, at the propi- tious moment, to be hurled upon the strongholds of French power. In this combination an army, designed for the reduction of Crown point, was assembled at Albany, and confided to the command of William Johnson. The zeal and solicitude of New England, for the conquest of the fortresses upon Champlain, exasperated by the alarms and calamities of a quarter of a century, excited all the en- thusiasm of her bold and energetic yeomanry. Every
1 Dwight's Travels, Gentleman's Magazine, Shirley and Gov. Livingstone.
2 Stone's Johnson.
4
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HISTORY OF ESSEX COUNTY.
requisition of the government was met amply and with promptitude. Levies from New York and New England constituted all the forces demanded.
France was not insensible to the gathering storm, which began to lower around her American empire, and prepared to meet and avert it.
CHAPTER IV. DIESKAU, 1755, 1757.
The bold and rocky cliffs which mark the confluence of the waters of Lake St. Sacrament with Lake Champlain, a position still more imposing than Crown point, and deeper within the domains of the Iroquois, had attracted the attention of the French engineers.1 In the summer of 1755, De Quesne advised the construction of works at that point. "St. Frederic was threatening to fall on all sides." 2 The selection of the site and the construction of the fort, was confided to Lotbiniere, an engineer of the province. "A rock, which crowns all the environs, whose guns could command both the outlet and that leading to the Grand marais and Wood creek, " was selected as the appropriate ground for the projected fortification.3 The original work, which a year later was in an unfinished
' Saint Sacrament, literally the Lake of the Blessed Sacrament, which name it obtained in 1646, from Father Jogues, because he passed through it on the festival of Corpus Christi .- E. B. O'Callaghan, Doc., IX, 400. The common impression that the name of this lake was suggested by the singu- lar purity of its water, is erroneous. By the aborigines, it was in one dialect called Canidere-Oit, or the tail of the lake, in reference to its rela- tion to Lake Champlain .- Spafford's Gazetteer. By the Iroquois it was named Andiatarocte, "there the lake shuts itself."-Relations. Honiton, although redolent with beauty, seems to be a pure poetical fancy. The various names attached, as well to tribes as to places, in the difficult Indian language, often lead to confusion and error.
2 Du Quesne to Vaudreuil.
8 Vaudreuil, Doc., x, 225. Modern engineers will ratify the complaint of Lotbiniere, that his salary was no more than six hundred francs.
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state, " was a square fort with four bastions, and built of earth and timber.1 Johnson, the same year, mentions Ticonderoga as an important, but unoccupied position.2 Such was the inception of Fort Carillon, a fortress and a locality destined to a terrific preeminence in the future scenes of a sanguinary war.3 At what period the massive stone battlements were constructed, which still reveal the former magnitude and strength of the fortress, by its grand and picturesque ruins, I cannot determine. At the approach of Abercrombie, in 1758, the French were energetically engaged in augmenting both the extent and strength of the works. Crown point, by its unfavorable position, and the decaying walls of St. Frederick, had fallen into a subordinate attitude, " as a second line of defense." 4
When the court of St. Cloud was made aware of the de- parture of Braddock's formidable expedition, a powerful fleet was promptly dispatched from the French posts bear- ing six battalions of regular troops, designed to aid in the defense of the colonies. It bore also Vaudreuil, the governor general ofnew France, and with him came Baron de Dieskau as commander in chiefof the colonial armies. Dieskau was a pupil of Saxe, trained from youth to age in the battle-fields of Europe, and skilled in the handling of drilled and veteran troops, ardent and aspiring, and stimulated by the desire of action and fame. Dieskau prepared without delay to open his American career by the capture of Oswego. Half of his forces were already advancing in accordance with that plan, and "the thing, " he exclaims in his characteristic but im- aginary conversation with Saxe in the Elysian fields,5 " was inevitable," when Vaudreuil, alarmed by intelligence from St. Frederick, altered his design and hurried Dieskau, im- patient and reluctant, to the defense of Lake Champlain. He hastened to Crown point with three thousand men, and
1 Doc., x, 414. 2 Idem, XI, 997.
3 Carillon seems to bear the same signification as the Indian name, "the Onderoga," the original of Ticonderoga, noise-chimes, in allusion, doubtless, to the brawling waters.
4 Montcalmn. 5 Doc., x, 340.
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HISTORY OF ESSEX COUNTY.
there learnt that Johnson was lying at Fort Edward and Lake St. Sacrament, slowly collecting his forces and prepar- ing to advance.
Immediately upon his arrival in Virginia, Braddock con- vened a conference of the colonial governors at Alexandria to determine and harmonize a concerted action of the English colonies in a general attack on the French posses- sions. In consonance with the plan then decided upon, an army intended to move against the French works on Lake Champlain, was entrusted to the command of William Johnson, who had already achieved prominence in the colonial affairs of New York, by his estates, his com- manding abilities, and by his efficient and zealous measure in organizing the militia of that province. Johnson was Irish by birth, and of ancient and respectable lineage. He emigrated to America in boyhood, and at an early age occupied a subordinate but highly responsible position as agent for the large landed property of his uncle, Sir Peter Warren, lying in the vicinity of the Mohawk river. Living in baronial magnificence among the Mohawks, his justice, magnanimity and generous habits imparted to him a potent influence over his aboriginal neighbors. He had never seen a field of battle, and had no knowledge of military affairs, only as he had derived it from the theory of books, or like his cotemporary Clive, he became a soldier from the intuitive perceptions of his own genius.
Most of the army which Johnson was to lead, had, in June, 1755, assembled in the vicinity of Albany. A large proportion of the troops were from New England, but the character of Johnson, and the influence of Shirley of Massachusetts, secured his appointment, and in its pro- priety there seems to have been a harmonious and loyal acquiescence.
The embarrassments and delays always incident to the organization of new levies, retarded the advance until the last week in August. Leaving a part of his troops at Fort Edward, and in an adjacent encampment for its protection, Johnson advanced with a force, including
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Indians, of about thirty-four hundred men, to the foot of Lake St. Sacrament, of the French, and by him then first called Lake George, " not only in honor of his majesty, but to ascertain his undoubted dominion here."1 He "found the country a mere wilderness, not one foot cleared."2 Here he prepared ground "in a protected position for the camp of five thousand men," the number whose presence he was warranted in expecting. His army, fresh from the plough and the workshop, save a few who had been engaged at the siege of Louisburg, were novices in the arts and services of war. The provincials, clothed in the home-spun garments woven by wives and mothers, armed only with their own rifles and fowling pieces, without bayonets, but animated by the noblest impulses of patriot- ism and courage, and inspired by a fervid religious enthu- siasm, which enkindled the faith that they were battling in defense of the altars of protestantism and for the sub- version of idolatry. While the preparations were in active, but to their impatient ardor, slow progress, they were restive and impatient for the advance. On the sab- bath, in obedience to their puritan habits, they assembled to unite in prayer and " to listen to the word," while their swarthy allies gravely hear the interpretation of a long sermon.3 The native groves, the primitive temples of God, witness their worship.
Johnson, under the delusion of a singularly false secu- rity, neglected to erect even the slightest works for the protection of the army. His designs embraced the con- struction of a fort near the ground he occupied, in the view of ultimate security, and when the necessary bateaux were built he " proposed to proceed down the lake to an important pass called Ticonderoga, and there endeavor to take post until the rest of the forces join me, and thence march to the attack of Crown point. All of which I hope to be able to accomplish in three weeks."4 But all these
1 Johnson to Lords of Trade, Doc., VI, 997. 2 Idem. $ Bancroft.
4 Doc., VI, 999.
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HISTORY OF ESSEX COUNTY.
purposes were suddenly arrested by the startling and un- expected tidings, that a French army had landed at South bay, and rapidly advancing in his rear, was threatening to sever his communications with Fort Edward.
The written instructions of Vaudreuil to Dieskau were clear and positive, that he should advance from Crown point with his entire force, and that he should not attack the English entrenchments without a cautious recognition.1 Each of these instructions was violated by Dieskau, but under circumstances that warranted him conducting a re- mote command, to exercise an individual judgment, which justified apparent disobedience. When disaster had clouded the fortunes of Dieskau, a complaint of this action was car- ried by Vandreuil with extreme bitterness to the throne.2 With half his army, consisting of six hundred Canadians, six hundred Indians and three hundred regulars, Dieskau advanced, leaving the remainder to occupy Carillon, and to maintain a position known as the " two rocks," to cover his retreat in case of defeat.3
The motives which controlled the decision of Dieskau, he explains in the dialogue with Saxe. He intended a mere coup de main, and no regular investment or assault, and for that object he deemed his force adequate.4 The close supply of provisions, the necessity of a rapid march through a wild and wooded country, and crossing deep streams, sometimes along a single log, rendered the use of a larger force impracticable. He had been informed by his spies, that Johnson lay in an unfortified camp at Lake George short of supplies, and that a body of nine hundred militia troops, which in a common professional spirit he despised,5
1 Doc., x, 325. 2 Vandreuil to Machault, Doc., x, 318.
$ These rocks, called the Pulpit and Narrows, stand on the junction of the towns of Dresden and Putnam .- Fitche's Washington County. Some discrepancy exists in the accounts of the relative proportions of Dieskau's forces, but none as to the aggregate.
" Col. Doc., x, 341.
6 They are such miserable soldiers that a single Indian would put ten of them to flight." - Idem.
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were encamped near Fort Edward, and that this work was only protected by unfinished palisades. Upon this intelli- gence he formed the plan of his campaign. It was con- ceived with great ability, and in the instincts of bold enter- prise, and its execution was attempted by the highest vigor and intrepidity. A brilliant success would have approved the scheme, had his army been composed of the drilled veterans he was accustomed to lead. But a just estimate of savage hordes and raw levies scarcely less intrac- table, did not enter into the contemplations of Dieskau, and in the anguish of wounds and defeat he bitterly ex- claimed : "These then, are the troops which have been so much crowed up to me." 1
On the fourth of September, 1755, Dieskau, in confor- mity with the designs he had adopted, proceeded up Wood creek, and, traversing the shallow waters of South bay, left one hundred and twenty men to guard his bateaux, and had advanced through the woods by three days' march, intending, on the morning of the fourth, to assail and de- feat the militia before Fort Edward, and to capture the works; this accomplished he proposed to march rapidly against Johnson, cut off his communications, and to anni- hilate his army by a sudden and impetuous attack. But his guides, either bewildered in the mazes of the forest, or treacherous in their purpose, wandered from the proposed course, and when light appeared they were several miles on the road leading to the English camp. The Indians, who had become alarmed by the rumors of artillery on the fort, although not a single gun was mounted, refused to assail it or to cover an assault by the French, arguing with a singu- lar casuistry, that the land it occupied belonged to England.2 They professed a readiness to attack Johnson,3 and while
1 Hist. Doc., x, 334. 2 Idem, 342.
" Johnson establishes in his letter to Sir Charles Hardy the wisdom of Dieskau's original plan : " Happily for us he complied [with the proposition of the Indians] for he would have found our troops separately encamped out of the works and no cannon there, and his victory would have probably been a very cheap one, and made way for another here." - Hist. Doc., VI, 1014.
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HISTORY OF ESSEX COUNTY.
Dieskau was promptly changing his movements to gratify this caprice, he received intelligence that a large detach- ment was advancing from the lake on the road he occupied to relieve the fort.
Johnson, immediately, when informed of the advance of Dieskau, convened a council of his officers. The aged Hendrik participated in the consultation, and seems to have been its Nestor. When the march of a small body of troops was proposed, he remarked, in the laconic and sententious manner of his race : " If they are to fight they are too few, if they are to be killed, they are too many." And when it was suggested that the detachment should be divided into three bodies, he gathered three sticks from the ground : " Put these together, " he said, " and you can't break them ; take them up one by one and you may break them readily." Had the wise savage ever heard of the classic fable ? Hendrik was the sage in council, the consummate orator, and on the war-path the bold and sagacious leader; and in the combination of those qualities, was the last of the noble Mohawks. He had visited England twice; was received with distinction at court, and was slightly educated. Immediately, before Colonel Williams began his march, Hendrik mounted a stage and harangued his people. His strong masculine voice, it was supposed, might be heard at the distance of half a mile. A spectator, who did not understand a word of his language, afterwards said, " that the animation of Hendrik, the fire of his eye, the force of his gestures, his emphasis, the inflexions of his voice and his whole manner affected him more deeply than any speech he had ever heard." 1
It was decided by the council that Colonel Ephraim Wil- liams, with a thousand provincials, supported by Hendrik and two hundred Mohawk warriors, should promptly march to relieve the fort. Williams, who a few days before, by a will executed at Albany, created the foundation of an institu- tion, which a memorial of his love of science still preserves
1 Dwright's Travels.
.
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MILITARY. AND POLITICAL HISTORY.
his name, was inspired by the earnest and heroic spirit of his province, was a gallant soldier, but untutored, except in trifling Indian warfare, by any military experience. He advanced precipitately, but with little soldierly circumspec- tion. Hendrik, on horseback, led the van.
Meanwhile, the skill of the French commander had prepared for them a terrible reception. He placed his forces on the road he occupied, in a defile about three miles from Johnson's camp, arranging them in the form of a parallelogram, with front open, or as a cul de sac.1 The Canadians were posted on the right, the Indians upon the left, and the regulars at the extremity, with strict orders to the two former, " not to move or to discharge a single gun, until the French had fired." The rock, the bushes and forest disguised the presence of an army, and Williams entered into this " valley of death " in the midst of an invisible foe. At this moment, when, to the prac- ticed eye of Dieskau, the destruction of the whole detach- ment appeared inevitable, a part of the Iroquois arose from their hiding place, and, perceiving their Mohawk brethren in the English army, fired into the air, and thus revealed the ambush. These were Senecas, the western tribe of the confederacy, but domiciliated in Canada, whose fidelity, Dieskau, in his correspondence with Vau- dreuil, had uniformly distrusted. This treachery, probably without premeditation, was stimulated by that strong fraternal affection, which united the different tribes of the confederacy in bonds firmer than their political union, and was a remarkable feature in the character of the Iro- quois. Each canton might independently accept a sub- sidy from England or France, and would serve with fidelity and fight with courage against the adverse nation or in hostility to alien Indian tribes, but previous to the revolu- tion were never -possibly some rare and brief exceptions may have occurred- brought into conflict with any other branch of the confederacy. In the war of independence,
1 Hist. Doc., x, 342, where he represents his formation by a diagram.
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HISTORY OF ESSEX COUNTY.
a part of the Oneidas received the war-belt from the Ame- rican congress, and engaged in a sanguinary contest with their kindred tribes.
The friendly or treacherous warning came too late, to save the provincials and Mohawks from the fatal error of their leader. A crushing fire was poured upon them in front and from the right. Williams, who gallantly took position upon a rock-the same rock that is now the base of his own monument-at the first alarm, better to observe and direct the battle, early fell. Hendrik, nearly at the same moment, was also killed.1 The provincials and In- dians retreated in confusion, "doubled up," Dieskau wrote, " like a pack of cards, and fled pell-mell to their intrench- ments." 2 They were soon rallied by Lt. Colonel Whiting, fought with great valor, and under cover of a party of three hundred men commanded by Colonel Cole, which had been opportunely detached by Johnson to their support, effected a retreat in good order to the camp.
Dieskau, bursting through the red tape instructions of Vaudreuil, and following the inspiration of the motto in- scribed upon his crest : "Boldness wins," did not pause to reconnoitre, but leading the French and Canadians, rapidly pursued, hoping in the panic and confusion to enter with the fugitives, an unfortified camp; but again the Indians disappointed and deceived him. When they saw the sem- blance of an intrenchment, and "heard the roar of cannon, stopped short." He still advanced, but soon perceived the Canadians also " scattering right and left." 3
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