USA > New York > The old New York frontier : its wars with Indians and Tories, its missionary schools, pioneers, and land titles, 1614-1800 > Part 17
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We deny any cruelties to have been committed at Wy- oming, either by whites or by Indians; so far to the con- trary, that not a man, woman, or child was hurt after the capitulation, or a woman or child before it, and none taken into captivity. Though should you call it deep inhuman- ity, the killing men in arms in the field we in that case plead guilty. The inhabitants killed at Cherry Valley do not lie at my door.
These statements are so at variance with well- authenticated facts that perhaps the charitable judg- ment to be passed on Butler is that he was not re- sponsible either for his acts or his words.
Colonel Alden's regiment, or some portion of it, was stationed at Cherry Valley for the winter.
* Perhaps the truest estimate of Butler may be formed after reading Harold Frederic's In the Valley, a story of life on the frontier dur- ing the Border Wars, the original inspiration for which was derived from Horatio Seymour. In the Valley came straight from its author's heart.
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McKendry, who remained with it, says that on Janu- ary 18th he went to Newtown Martin and " bought two stacks of hay from James Bradshaw." Camp- bell describes the place as one of utter desolation. Cocks crowed from the tops of forest trees, and dogs howled through the abandoned fields.
In departing from the scene of their terrible re- venge the invaders proceeded directly down Cherry Valley Creek, and during the first night slept out in the open air about two miles on their way. During the following day, the feeble Mrs. Cannon, one of the prisoners, was put to death. A contemporary newspaper account says Colonel Stacey and others of the Continental regiment " were stripped and driven naked before them." Besides the prisoners, the Indians had with them all the horses, cattle, and sheep of the settlement. Except Mrs. Campbell and her children, and Mrs. Moore and children, all the prisoners were eventually sent back to Cherry Valley, and the most of them from the first camping place.
Some of the Senecas invaded Sleeper's Mills and carried away everything they cared to possess except some money which Mrs. Sleeper adroitly concealed among old rags. Mr. Sleeper was away from home at the time, and his wife and ten children were ren- dered almost destitute. When Brant reached the place he said to Mrs. Sleeper, whose family were well known to him : "My God, are you alive? I expected to find all killed. Those Senecas I can't control. They would kill their friends for the sake of plunder. They would have killed many more in Cherry Valley if it had not been for me." He offered to pay her for the losses she had met with, but she declined to receive his money, on the ground that it had been taken from other settlers.
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Brant and his companions remained in the upper valley for two weeks or more after the massacre. Among their prisoners was a man named Vrooman, whom Brant had formerly known. Wishing to assist Vrooman to escape, he sent him up the river on a pretence that he wanted him to get some birch bark. The man had the honesty, or stupidity, to return with the bark, much to the disgust of Brant, who was now under the necessity of taking him on the journey. At the mouth of the Charlotte, rafts and canoes were secured, and in them the remainder of the journey was made to Tioga Point, whence the whole company proceeded rapidly to Kanadesaga and thence to Niagara.
Soon after the party reached Kanadesaga, the Indians celebrated their victory in truly savage manner. The facts for an account of it have come down to us from Mrs. Campbell, who was a terrified witness of the scene. After a grand council, the warriors gathered around a great fire in the little park in the centre of the village, each with his face and parts of his body painted in black and white to a hideous extent. Songs were sung in praise of their exploits and those of their ancestors, "by degrees," says Stone, "working themselves up into a tempest of passion ; whooping, yelling, and uttering every hideous cry; brandishing their knives and war clubs and throwing themselves into the most mena- cious attitudes in a manner terrific to the unprac- tised beholders." Meanwhile the prisoners were paraded, the scalps borne in triumph, and for every scalp was uttered the scalp yell, or death halloo, " the most terrific note which an Indian could raise." The festival closed with the killing of a white dog, the burning of the entrails, the roasting
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of the carcass, and the eating of the same. In this manner was celebrated near the site of Geneva the most bloody occurrence in the annals of Otsego County.
Mrs. Campbell, while in captivity at Kanadesaga, was one day asked by an Indian why she wore a cap. She replied that it was a custom among the white people. "Come into my house," said he, "and I will give you a cap." She followed him, and after taking a cap from behind one of the beams, he re- marked : " I got that cap in Cherry Valley. I took it from the head of a woman." " Mrs. Campbell at once recognized it as having belonged to Jane Wells. It was still spotted with blood and showed the cut made by the tomahawk. Before her, therefore, stood the murderer of a friend whom she had known from infancy. Mrs. Campbell's grandson tells this story in his " Annals of Tryon County."
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PART VI The Sullivan Expedition 1779
I
General Clinton at Otsego Lake
1779
T HESE events created a profound impres- sion, accustomed though the country was to the worst scenes and calamities of war. General Gates's share in the responsibilities has already been indicated. It is made impressively clear in the Clinton correspondence .* After many appeals and warnings, Gates finally had written to General Stark on April 17, 1778, that " in case of any sudden irruption of the enemy," Stark was em- powered to call upon such militiamen, “ as will en- able you to repel every hostile invasion "-directions which make all too evident Gates's failure to un- derstand the methods that Indians employed in warfare. Such military action would, indeed, have been merely to lock the door after the horse had been stolen. What the frontier needed was men to guard it against attack, not men to be sent to its defence after destruction had been done and the enemy had taken to the woods.
James Duane had warned Congress early in 1778 that an irruption would occur. His letter at the time was duly transmitted to Gates, but Duane, on June 6th, complained bitterly to Governor Clin- ton that "to the misfortune of the country it has
* Vol. iii., passim.
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not been attended to." Two weeks later Governor Clinton complained that Gates had required of him a large proportion of the militia to reinforce the army under his command. But Clinton had disre- garded the order to the extent of sending one bri .. gade to the frontier in spite of Gates. On August Ioth he wrote to Duane that it was " to be regretted that the operations which were intended by Con- gress against the Indians have been hitherto so utterly neglected by the commanding officer of the Northern Department."
Some responsibility lies at the door of General Stark. When Colonel William Butler proposed to Stark the plan he had made for an expedition to Unadilla, Stark did not favor it, although it had received Governor Clinton's approval. Governor Clinton wrote that he was " more than ever con- vinced that offensive operations against the savages and Tories are absolutely necessary," and regretted " that the plan had not already been carried into ex- ecution, especially as (if I know the man) it must have been much better than any he can devise." On October 12th, when complaints continued to pour in from the frontier, the Governor wrote to Colonel Klock that, upon the first appearance of hostilities, he had applied to Washington for Continental troops and had secured two regiments. Moreover, he had ordered that one-fourth of the militia be stationed on the frontier. If these troops had been improperly placed, so that they failed to give the protection needed, it was " the fault of the com- manding officer at Albany, and not in my power to correct."
A month before this the Governor had written to Washington complaining of Stark. He had re-
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ceived two letters from Stark, " neither of any con- sequence." From these and from "common re- ports of the inhabitants," supported by complaints from a civil officer of the State, Clinton could only conclude that Stark had " paid a greater share of attention to the support and encouragement of the disaffected subject of this State on the Grants * in es- tablishing their usurped government than to the de- fence of the Western frontier and protection of its inhabitants." Hand had afterward succeeded Stark, but he likewise had failed to provide any real defence.
The protection of the frontier was now to be con- fided to other men than Gates or Stark or Hand. It was decided that the general government must strike a blow that would crush out completely the warlike spirit on the frontier. But how terribly had the frontier suffered in order to teach that lesson, and what warnings had not been given ? While this cor- respondence had been going on, the battle of Cobles- kill had occurred. Springfield and German Flatts had been burned. Wyoming and Cherry Valley had been visited by massacre.
In the spring of 1779 an act was passed by the Legislature providing for 1,000 men for purposes of defence, these men to continue in service until the following January and to be allowed the same pay and rations as the Continental army. But the Continental Congress, under the approval of Wash- ington, decided to make a national campaign, and to Washington was given the direction of it. It was planned to consist of two divisions, one under General Sullivan, which was to cross from Easton
* What were known as the New Hampshire Grants, concerning which for many years there has been much bitter contest between New York and the Green Mountain boys, now temporarily in suspense owing to the war with England.
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to the Susquehanna, and thence ascend the river to Tioga Point, while the other, under General James Clinton, now in command at Albany and a brother of the Governor, was to proceed up the Mohawk to Canajoharie, crossing to Otsego Lake, and going thence down the Susquehanna to Tioga Point, where the two expeditions were to unite in a com- bined attack on the Indian settlements in Western New York.
Of the men raised by New York, only 150 were added to General Clinton's force, which in all com- prised about 1,800 men,* with three months' pro- visions and 220 boats.+
From Albany General Clinton gave orders that the boats should meet him at Schenectady and that 300 or 400 horses should be ready at Canajoharie " to transport the boats and stores across the carrying place to Lake Otsego, the place of embarkation." On arrival at Canajoharie the brigade went into camp. Here were tried by court-martial as spies Lieutenant Henry Hare and Sergeant Newberry, who were convicted and hanged. They had wives and children who begged for their
* Some of the journals of the expedition say 1,500 men, some 1,800, and some 2,000.
t The brigade was composed of detachments from the Third New York regiment, of which Peter Gansevoort was colonel, Marinus Willett, lieutenant-colonel, and Leonard Bleecker one of the captains ; the Fourth New York, of which Frederick Weissenfels was lieutenant-colonel, and Rudolphus van Hovenburg one of the lieutenants ; the Fifth New York, of which Lewis Dubois was colonel; the Fourth Pennsylvania, of which William Butler was lieutenant-colonel, Erkuries Beatty a lieutenant, and William Gray one of the captains; the Sixth Massachusetts (Colo- nel Alden's), of which Daniel Whiting was the major commanding, William McKendry a lieutenant, and Benjamin Warren a captain ; one or two companies of artillery, of which Thomas Machin was captain, and a volunteer corps under Colonel John Harper. Machin was employed during the war as an engineer in the construction of the historic chain that was stretched across the Hudson to prevent the British from ascend- ing the stream beyond West Point. He afterward coined money for the several States in a workshop five miles back of Newburg.
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lives in vain. Newberry had been an " active par- ticipant in the massacre of Cherry Valley," where, with a hatchet, he had killed a child ten or twelve years old. When the Erie Canal was built, nearly fifty years later, his bones and those of a man named Titus, who had been shot as a deserter, were thrown out by the workmen.
On June 17th Major Whiting, at Cherry Valley, received orders to proceed to Otsego Lake with the regiment of the late Colonel Alden. He set out on the following day, encamping that night in Spring- field. Here, says McKendry, Whiting " ordered a fatiguing party on to mend the roads toward the lake," and on the following day the regiment itself marched to the lake. Of Clinton's coming from Canajoharie, Lieutenant Van Hovenburg, in his journal, says that on June 16th his regiment, then at Canajoharie, " marched about five miles on the Cherry Valley road and encamped there that night." On the following day they marched four miles, and on the 19th " escorted stores to Springfield," while the rifle corps went to escort the stores to Lake Otsego. On the 24th McKendry says " boats and provisions arrive at this lake very fast, 500 wagons going very steady." *
* It is obvious from these contemporary records that General Clinton did not open any new road from the Mohawk to Lake Otsego, as several writers have said, among them Cooper, Campbell, and Gould. " After ascending the Mohawk as far as Fort Plain," says Cooper, " the brigade cut a road through the forest to the head of Lake Otsego, whither it trans- ported its boats." Campbell described the road as constructed " from Canajoharie to the head of Otsego Lake, distant twenty miles," and says its opening was " effected with great labor." Gould followed these state- ments. The obvious fact is that General Clinton employed the old road to Cherry Valley from the Mohawk and other roads near the lake con- structed many years before the war. The one still known as the Conti- nental road, and leading to the lake near the mouth of Shadow Brook in Hyde Bay, was doubtless among those which were mended by the fatiguing party sent out by Major Whiting.
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While the brigade lay at the head of the lake, David Elerson, of Colonel Butler's regiment, met with a thrilling adventure described by Stone. He wandered off one day to an old clearing a few miles distant, when suddenly ten or twelve Indians ap- peared and sought to take him captive. As he fled, tomahawks were hurled after him, one of them wounding his arm. For hours he was pursued through the forest ; once he was wounded and once he killed an Indian. Finally he hid himself in the hollow trunk of a hemlock-tree, and spent two days there without food. On emerging he found that he had lost the points of the compass, but he took what seemed the most promising course, to find himself at last in Cobleskill, distant twenty-five miles from the lake.
At the outlet of the lake General Clinton met with a serious obstacle to his progress. The river was too shallow and narrow to permit the boats to pass out, and for some distance down was filled with flood-wood and fallen trees. As soon as the regi- ment from Cherry Valley had reached Hyde Bay, "a party of men," says McKendry, writing on June 21st, "was ordered by Colonel Butler to the foot of the lake to dam the same, that the water might be raised to carry the boats down the Susque- hanna River. Captain Warren commanded the party." By this dam the surface of the lake was raised about three feet, according to one account, about one foot, according to another, and "at least two," according to General Clinton. Some of the logs used in building the dam were still in their places fifty years later. Simms records certain tra- ditions of the country that, in order further to in- crease the flow of water, a party was sent to open a
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beaver dam which held the waters of Schuyler's Lake. " This invasion of private property under a plea of public necessity," remarks Hough in his notes to Bleeker's book, "was resented by the beavers, who, as soon as the party had gone, set themselves at work to repair the dam in the night, and before morning had restored it complete." After that experience a guard was " stationed to pro- tect the point against further molestation."
The entire brigade had reached the site of Coo- perstown by July 5th. One regiment went over- land by way of Cherry Valley, the others all by water. Lieutenant Erkuries Beatty,* in his journal, says a part of the expedition encamped "on the site of Croghan's house " and " found a very fine chest containing carpenter's tools, books, papers, etc., con- cealed in a thicket, and covered with bark," which was supposed to be the property of Croghan, " who formerly lived here, but is gone to the enemy." General Clinton himself arrived on July 2d, when he was glad to inform the Governor that he believed such a quantity of stores and baggage " had never before been transported over so bad a road in so short a time and with less accidents."
The brigade remained here until August 8th, a period of four weeks, awaiting orders from General Sullivan. On July 4th the third anniversary of Independence was celebrated, the General " being pleased to order that all troops under his command should draw a gill of rum per man, extraordinary, in memory of that happy event." The Rev. John
* Beatty, or Beattie, had taken part in the battles of Long Island, Germantown, and Monmouth, and was at Valley Forge and the sur- render of Cornwallis. His father was a clergyman, who got the singular name Erkuries from the Greek, in which tongue it signifies "from the Lord."
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Gano, a Baptist clergyman from New York City, the chaplain of the brigade, preached from the text, " This day shall be a memorial unto you through- out your generation." Three men were put on trial for desertion, convicted, and sentenced to be shot. Two of them were afterward pardoned, but the third, Anthony Dunnavan, who had previously deserted from the British army, and had advised the two other men, both younger than he, to desert with him from General Clinton's brigade, was shot at a place on the west side of the outlet near the lake. General Clinton said his conduct sufficiently showed that he was " unfit to serve either his king or his
country." On the arrival of James Deane,* on July 5th, with thirty-five friendly Oneidas, who came to "apologize for the absence of their brethren," due to a threatened invasion of their country from Canada, the General requested the soldiers to be careful " not to insult the Indians who are in camp, nor crowd about them." On July 29th great joy prevailed on receipt of news that Anthony Wayne had made his successful assault on Stony Point.
* So printed in The Order Book of Captain Bleeker, but apparently an error for James Duane, the Indian commissioner.
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II
Brant's Return and the Battle of Minisink
I779
B EFORE narrating the journey of General Clinton from Otsego Lake to Tioga Point, it is necessary to revert to the doings of Brant and the Indians during the spring and early summer of the same year. At Niagara, before the winter ended, Brant had in vain sought to win over the Oneidas and Tuscaroras for a descent upon the Mohawk Valley. In February some Oneidas brought news to Tryon County of his projected ex- pedition, the main part of which Brant was himself to lead to the Mohawk, while another part was to go down the Unadilla River and proceed thence to the Schoharie settlements. Governor Clinton wrote to the New York delegates in Congress of his help- less condition, and expressing fears lest the Hudson River " become our western boundary."
General Clinton, then in command at Albany, determined to send Colonel Van Schaick to Fort Schuyler at once, and thence westward to Onondaga. With 558 men Van Schaick set out on April 17th, and wrought great destruction at the Council House. Proceeding westward by way of Oneida Lake, he descended upon the Indian villages lying south of it. " We took thirty-eight Indians and one white prisoner," says Captain Machin, in his journal, " and killed twelve Indians. The whole of their settlement,
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consisting of about fifty houses, with a quantity of corn and every other kind of stock, was destroyed," while about 100 guns, some of which were rifles, were among the plunder, " the whole of which, after the men had loaded with as much as they could carry, was destroyed, with a considerable quantity of ammunition." Many Indians escaped " by a pre- cipitate flight through the woods." Not a man in the command was killed or wounded.
While this expedition was in the Onondaga country, parties of Indians were making attacks on the frontier. Near the middle of April a band of forty descended upon Lackawaxen and burned the settlement, besides other houses in that part of the Delaware Valley. Meanwhile sixty Indians ap- peared on the Mohawk; one party captured two prisoners in Schoharie ; another killed two persons near Stone Arabia ; another took five scalps at Fort Dayton, while another made two prisoners near Fort Plank. General Clinton himself now hastened up the valley and wrote to his brother that but for the appearance of his troops, he believed Schenectady " would have become the frontier of the State." *
About June Ist a party of six Oghwaga Indians reached the old settlement now called Sharon Center, and took two prisoners to Oghwaga. Of this inci- dent, McKendry, writing on June Ist, at Cherry Valley, says :
This day was informed, not many days agone six Indians took two men prisoners from Turlough } (12 miles from Fort Alden) [Cherry Valley ], carried them as far as Ocqu- augo, where two of the Indians left the party to go on to in-
* Clinton Papers, vol. iv.
t Also written Torlock and Durlagh, and afterward named Sharon Center.
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form their brothers of their success; when the four that were left got asleep, the two prisoners took their hatchets and killed two of the Indians; the other two awoke, and started ; the white men, being too many for them, wounded them both and the two Indians fled. The two late prison- ers took the Indians' arms of the dead and those that had fled with only their lives, and made their escape. The Indians soon were alarmed in that quarter, and came to the ground, set the woods all on fire, so that they might dis- cover their tracks, that had made their escape, but to no purpose ; the two late English prisoners escaped clear. I have had the pleasure since to see the man that killed the two Indians. It was Mr. Sawyer.
On June 18th news was received that 450 reg- ular troops, 100 Tories, and 30 Indians had been sent from Montreal to reinforce those Indians, al -. ready in the country, against whom the Sullivan expedition had been sent. They had collected at Buck, or Carleton, Island, near the western end of the St. Lawrence, where they had four large lake vessels, and two others were ready for launching .* On June 25th it was learned that a force of 300 Ind- ians and a few Tories, under Brant, had left Cayuga for the Susquehanna, where they intended to hang about General Clinton's line of march, and harass his movements down to Tioga Point, near which, at Newtown, they intended to make a stand.
Thus, with the opening of the summer, Brant at Oghwaga, or Unadilla, was awaiting the coming of General Clinton from the lake. He found the val- ley a difficult place to live in, after the destruction done by Colonel Butler in the previous autumn, and it became necessary to penetrate to more prosper- ous settlements in order to find food. The most
* Clinton Papers, vol. iv.
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important of his doings was the invasion of Mini- sink, * which the departure of Count Pulaski for South Carolina, in the previous February, had left wholly unprotected. After waiting a month for General Clinton to move, he set out from Oghwaga by way of the trail to Cookoze and thence followed the Delaware down to the ancient settlement in the Neversink Valley below Port Jervis. He had with him sixty Indians, and twenty-seven Tories disguised as Indians. Surprising the settlement, he burned ten houses and twelve barns, besides two mills and a fort ; drove away the cattle, took other booty, killed four men, and captured three prisoners. Brant's letter to Colonel Bolton, + writ- ten from Oghwaga on July 29th, after his return, de- scribes as follows the work he did at the settlement :
I beg leave to acquaint you that I arrived here last night from Minisink, and was a good deal disappointed that I could not get into that place at the time I wished to do-a little be- fore day ; instead of which I did not arrive till noon, when all the cattle was in the woods, so that we could get but a few of them. We have burned all the settlement called Minisink, one fort excepted, round which we lay before about an hour, and had one man killed and one wounded. We destroyed several small stockaded forts, and took four scalps and three prisoners, but did not in the least injure women or children. The reason that we could not take
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