USA > New York > The old New York frontier : its wars with Indians and Tories, its missionary schools, pioneers, and land titles, 1614-1800 > Part 20
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In the early summer of 1781 there arrived in the Mohawk Valley a man whose presence meant stern and effective action. This was Colonel Marinus Willett, the only man in permanent command on the frontier during these Border Wars who could be said at any time to have become master of the territory committed to his charge. Under him were consolidated five New York regiments. After much urging he had been induced to leave the main army and take this command.
Colonel Willett, afterward a brigadier, was one of the bravest and most efficient officers of minor rank
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who served in the Revolution. He was already a veteran of the French war, having won distinction in Abercrombie's expedition of 1758 against Fort Ticonderoga, and having been present at the capture of Fort Frontenac. He had been one of the lead- ers of the Sons of Liberty in New York City, and in June, 1775, had prevented the dispatch of arms from the New York arsenal to the British troops in Boston. Under Montgomery he went to Canada in 1775. At Fort Schuyler in 1777 he was second in command, and led the sally from the fort against St. Leger, that secured to the militia the final victory at Oriskany. He afterward served under Washington in New Jersey, and in 1779 was with Sullivan in western New York.
Before Colonel Willett arrived, there had been constant irruptions all through the spring and sum- mer of 1781. In January scouts of Brant were at German Flatts, and in February and March at other places along the valley. Late in April the enemy was seen near Minisink. Finally, on April 26th, another descent by eighty men was made upon Cherry Valley, and in its way this, too, was a mas- sacre. All the people of the place, except one man and four boys, were either murdered or captured. Fifteen of the Indians then descended upon Cana- joharie, killed four persons and several children and burned houses, mills, and barns. The number killed at Cherry Valley was eight, and the prisoners taken away were fourteen .*
Meanwhile Schenectady was reported to be in danger. People in Albany were packing up their household goods preparing to depart, and the bar- racks at Fort Schuyler were burned. Fort Schuyler
* Statement of Andrew McFarlan in the Clinton MSS.
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COLONEL MARINUS WILLETT
( From the frontispiece to " A Narrative of the Military Actions of Colonel Marinus Willett." )
WILLETT IN COMMAND
had suffered severely that year from a flood. It was estimated that more than two-thirds of the works had been ruined, and that 500 or 600 men would be necessary to repair them. Fire now destroyed what remained. After the war, the fortress was rebuilt and the former name, Fort Stanwix, as already stated, was given to it again.
Tories were everywhere now increasing in num- bers, and many inhabitants with Tory sympathies were giving food and shelter to the invaders. Sug- gestions came from the main army that the forces on the frontier should be removed, but these were firmly resisted. It was insisted instead that an ex- pedition ought to go out to Buck Island. Wash- ington was then maturing his plans with Rocham- beau at Dobbs Ferry, intending to make his famous descent upon Cornwallis in the South and troops were wanted for that campaign.
So far from being able to take care of itself, the frontier was more defenceless than ever. When the war began, the enrolled militiamen in Tryon County numbered quite 2,500 men, but in the summer of 1781 the number liable to bear arms, according to Stone, did not exceed 800. This astonishing change was due in about equal propor- tions to three causes-men who had been killed, those who had fled, and those who had gone over to the enemy. In these circumstances blockhouses had been erected for the defense of women and chil- dren, each house holding from ten to fifty families. In 1781 there were twenty-four such structures be- tween Schenectady and Fort Schuyler.
With the arrival at Canajoharie of Colonel Wil- lett everyone in the Mohawk Valley took heart afresh. He soon ascertained that the settlement of
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Torlock, lying northeast of Cherry Valley, was a conspicuous haunt of Tories, and proposed to eradi- cate them. He wrote to Governor Clinton asking if there would be any difficulty in securing their punishment; otherwise he was willing to assume " all the responsibility of having them hanged him- self." Some of these Tories had promised $10 for every scalp taken, and fifty acres of land to all per- sons who joined them.
The settlement of Currietown having been put under the torch, Willett sent a force to its defence. He then went in pursuit of the enemy and a battle occurred at what is known as Sharon Centre, where in a cedar swamp still to be seen, 200 or 300 Ind- ians and Tories were dispersed. About forty Ind- ians were killed, and five Americans. The Indians were commanded by a chief named Quackyack and the Tories by John Doxstader, who had come from Johnstown and is believed to have retreated to Ogh- waga when pursued. Willett had with him only 150 men, including some militiamen. He led the attack in person, waving his hat and saying he could catch in the hat all the balls the enemy might send.
In this fight Captain Robert Mckean, the brave scout, was wounded, and from the effects of the shot afterward died. Before the battle the Indians had bound to trees nine prisoners whom they had taken at Currietown. These men were tomahawked and scalped when the action began. Willett's soldiers afterward buried them, but one of the nine, Jacob Diefendorf, was not actually dead and his grave being only slightly covered he was able to extricate himself when consciousness returned. Some of Willett's soldiers afterward found Diefendorf lying outside his own grave. Stone received this story
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WILLETT IN COMMAND
from Diefendorf himself. On July 15th, Willett's men captured ninety head of cattle at Torlock, these cattle being sent to Fort Herkimer, where now were quartered the troops who had been forced to aban- don Fort Schuyler in consequence of the destruction of the barracks .*
The next news from the enemy was that they had burned Wawarsing in Ulster County and had re- turned by way of Lackawaxen to Oghwaga. There were 300 Indians and ninety Tories in the party. In September an attack was made on a settlement occupying part of the site of the present village of Cobleskill, where between twenty and thirty Indians killed one man and took seven prisoners. Later in the season George Warner of Cobleskill was made a prisoner and, along with others, conveyed to Ni- agara, where were now confined about 200 Ameri- cans. Another incident in this neighborhood was the murder of Captain Dietz's family, his father, mother, wife, and four children, with a Scotch servant girl, by fifteen Tories and Indians. Near Little Falls, in an ambuscade, eleven men had been killed.
Near the end of October Colonel Willett was able to drive the invaders out of the valley and in cir- cumstances which make one of the most gratifying incidents in all this story of the Border Wars. Ma- jor Ross had sailed from Buck Island with 450 men. Leaving his boats in Oneida Lake in charge of twenty invalid men, he proceeded by the Unadilla River and Cherry Valley to Warren's Bush on the Mohawk, where he killed two men and burned twenty houses and large stores of grain. Brant and Crysler, meanwhile, with sixty or seventy Indians and Tories, fought an engagement on Summit, or * Clinton MSS.
t Ibid.
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Utsyantha Lake. Joachim van Valkenburg in that fight lost his life. He had been known in Schoharie as one of the bravest of scouts. Crysler says he had twenty-eight men at Summit Lake,* that he took off fifty cattle and some horses, but on being pur- sued twenty-five miles down the Charlotte lost the cattle and made no attempt to recover them.
Major Ross went on to Johnstown, pursued by Colonel Willett, and was forced to retreat, losing seven men killed, thirty or forty wounded, and twen- ty-two who were taken prisoners. His little army had swollen to about 600 men, of whom 155 were regulars, 120 Sir John's Royal Greens, 150 Butler's Rangers, and 130 Indians.+ Willett closely fol- lowed him to Fort Herkimer and when the motley forces turned to ascend the West Canada Creek, pursued them in a snowstorm. Twelve miles up the stream, at a difficult fording-place, where some of the enemy turned, Willett attacked them vigor- ously, killing several, among whom was the notori- ous Captain Walter Butler.1 With the hand of an artist Willett has described this retreat :
Their flight was performed in an Indian file upon a con- stant trot, and one man being knocked in the head or falling off into the woods, never stopped the progress of his neigh- bors. Not even the fall of their favorite Butler could attract their attention so much as to induce them to take even the money or anything else out of his pocket, although he was not dead when found by one of our Indians who finished his business for him, and got a considerable booty. Strange as it may appear, yet notwithstanding the enemy had been four
* The Indian name of this lake, Utsyantha, means beautiful spring, cold and pure. The spring at the head of the Delaware was then called Oteseondeo. Dr. Beauchamp thinks it may be the same word.
t Clinton MSS.
# Butler has sometimes been called Major, but the commission found in one of his pockets showed that he had only a captain's rank.
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WALTER BUTLER'S DEATH
days with only half a pound of horse flesh for each man per day, yet they did not halt from the time we began to pursue them until they had proceeded more than thirty miles (and they continued their route a considerable part of the night). In this situation, to the compassion of a starving wilderness, we left them, in a fair way of receiving a punishment better suited to their merits than a musket ball, a tomahawk, or captivity .*
The circumstances in which Butler died have been narrated in more detail by Campbell :
When he arrived at West Canada Creek he swam his horse across the stream and then, turning around, defied his pursuers, who were on the opposite side. An Oneida im- mediately discharged his rifle and wounded him and he fell. Throwing down his rifle and his blanket, the Indian plunged into the creek and swam across; as soon as he had gained the opposite bank, he raised his tomahawk and with a yell, sprang, like a tiger, upon his fallen foe. Butler supplicated, though in vain, for mercy ; the Oneida, with his uplifted axe, shouted in his broken English, "Sherry Valley ! re- member Sherry Valley !" and then buried it in his brain ; he tore the scalp from the head of his victim, still quivering in the agonies of death, and ere the remainder of the Onei- das had joined him, the spirit of Walter Butler had gone to give up its account. The place where he crossed is called Butler's Ford to this day.
Still another account says Butler was "shot dead at once, having no time to implore for mercy." " But Seeber Granger, who afterward lived in Cherry Val- ley and had been present at Butler's death, told Levi Beardsley that Butler was first shot in the back by an Oneida Indian from across the creek and tomahawked afterward. Whatever the details, it was meet that Butler should perish by the sword.
* Clinton MSS.
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IV
Final War Scenes
1782-1783
T EN days before Walter Butler, abandoned by his companions in retreat, died in that northern forest, Cornwallis surrendered. Pursued by Greene and La Fayette, his armies over- come again and again, he had retired to Yorktown. South from the Highlands with Rochambeau had come Washington, and there at Yorktown it was now the Englishman, instead of the American, who became the fox that was bagged. With 37 war- ships and 7,000 men, General Sir Henry Clinton, ten days later, reached New York.
For the country at large the war was over, but not for the New York frontier. Alarms and active invasions were still to occur. Colonel Willett had driven the enemy, starving, into the wilderness and might have inflicted greater punishment, had not General Stark called away two companies of men and thus caused what Willett, in his official report, called, "an essential injury.' Indeed a state of war scarcely ceased to exist on the frontier for a year and a half longer. Early in the winter, at a meeting of militia generals, it was voted unani- mously that defences were still necessary, and in January there was talk of raising more troops. The enemy was lurking on the Ulster borders ; Tories were giving them assistance ; Schoharie was in a state of alarm, and new block-houses were being erected .*
* Clinton MSS. 308
FINAL WAR SCENES
In July a party of Indians set out for the upper Susquehanna and Delaware, but were diverted to German Flatts, whence they were called to Oswego where reinforcements were promised. By the end of July it was feared that all remains of settlements in the Mohawk Valley would be destroyed. There were 560 of the enemy assembled at Oswego, of whom 350 were Yagers, but there were no Indians. Brant's followers had already been at Canajoharie whence they had proceeded to German Flatts. Brant had 500 or 600 men with him and had car- ried away 125 cattle for the army at Oswego. Early in August he started out again, but a scout was dispatched to call him back. Major Ross remarked that owing to the cessation of hostilities, he would rather have given 50 guineas than that Brant should have gone out. Brant returned with eighteen prisoners and one scalp .*
As late as October rumors were heard that an army was coming down from Canada to desolate the Mohawk. The fortifications at Oswego had been rebuilt and 400 men were stationed there. Here was one of the few strongholds now left in British hands. Its occupation had been of signal service to them in the years that had passed since Oriskany. Owing to delay in hearing that the Treaty of Peace had been signed, it was determined to make an attempt to capture it. Should another campaign be necessary, possession of Oswego by the Americans would be of the highest importance. Colonel Willett set out in February, 1783, and came within a few miles of the fortress, but was then forced by the severe weather, the mistake of a guide, and other obstacles to turn back his steps. This is
* Bartholomew Forbes's statement in the Clinton MSS.
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believed to have been the last offensive operation undertaken on the frontier, if not in the war itself.
British troops and Tories alone now remained at Oswego. Late in the previous summer the Indians had been sent home. The British had informed them that their services were no longer needed, and their supplies of provisions were stopped. After expressing great displeasure at this treatment, they departed with sullen faces into the wilderness .*
It awakens real sympathy to read that statement. Considering how small was the force of Indian war- riors at any time in Iroquois history, the men led to the frontier by Brant must be accepted as large Indian armies-as large, perhaps, as were ever put into the field. The total of all who served under the British has been placed at 1,580, while those friendly to the Americans numbered about 230. Of the Oneidas only 150 followed the British, while of the Mohawks they had in their service 300 and of the Senecas, 400.
It was base ingratitude that the English, in this last scene at Oswego, showed toward their faithful savage allies. In this war the Indians had had nothing to gain and all to lose. When the war closed they had, in fact, lost everything in the world that was theirs. That conduct at Oswego, more- over, was an ingratitude which the English Gov- ernment itself was afterward to exhibit when the treaty of peace with the colonies was drawn and signed. Strangely contrasted this ingratitude stands with that attention and that expenditure so freely bestowed on Brant and the other Indians during their visit to England in the early years of the war.
* Affidavit of Joseph Clements in the Clinton MSS.
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FINAL WAR SCENES
Desolation now prevailed everywhere on the frontier. During journeys westward with prisoners, fishing and hunting had long been the only methods of securing food in the Susquehanna Valley. The sites of former villages, Indian as well as white man villages, had become forlorn and blackened scenes. Thorns and shrubs had grown up where wheat and corn had waved their heads. Weeds and brambles flourished where hearthstones once had blazed. Captain Dietz, survivor of the family murdered in Schoharie, while a prisoner lived on birch bark and berries, during the journey down the Susquehanna, save that at the mouth of the Unadilla a deer was shot and starvation thus averted. Another party of prisoners found at Oghwaga a colt lost by Dock- stader. They killed it and lived long on its flesh, a part being dried and taken on the journey. Others are known to have passed four days without food. Life in one case was sustained by the flesh of a wolf, in another a hen hawk was eaten, in another a rattlesnake. Bread and salt there were none. Fresh ashes were often used as a substitute for salt.
Patchin told Priest that beyond Chemung a dead horse left by the Sullivan expedition was found in the spring of 1780, and enough of the carcass had survived the attacks of wolves to furnish food. On the Genesee River were met some Indians planting corn. The Indians had a horse which Brant ordered killed and the meat distributed. Patchin declares that Brant insisted that prisoners and Ind- ians should share alike in food. Brant's parties had often been provided with food at the home of Mary Jemison, a regular stopping-place on the route to Niagara. "Many and many a night," says she, " I have pounded samp for them from sunset to sun-
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rise and furnished them with the necessary provis- ions and clean clothing for their journey."
On arrival in Canada the privations endured by the prisoners were often great. Bloodgood mentions three men who spent two years working like slaves without hats in the cornfield. When they returned to Schoharie after the war they presented a very wo- ful appearance with their faces burned almost black. A touching story is told by Priest of Miss Annie McKee. She was made a prisoner at Harpersfield and taken to Niagara, where the squaws insisted that she should go through the terrible ordeal of running the gauntlet :
It was a grievous sight to see a slender girl, weak from hunger and worn down with the horrors and privations of a four hundred miles' journey through the woods by night and day, compelled at the end to run this race of shame and suf- fering. Her head was bare and her hair tangled into mats, her feet naked and bleeding from wounds, all her clothes torn to rags during her march-one would have thought the heart-rending sight would have moved the savages. She wept not, for all her tears had been shed. She stared around upon the grinning multitude in hopeless amazement and fixed despair, while she glanced mournfully at the fort which lay at the end of the race. The signal was given, which was a yell, when she immediately started off as fast as she could, while the squaws laid on their whips with all their might, thus venting their malice and hatred upon a white woman. She reached the fort in almost a dying condition, being beaten and cut in the most dreadful manner, as her person had been so much exposed on account of the want of clothing to pro- tect her. She was at length allowed to go to her friends- some Scotch people then living in Canada-and after the war she returned to the States.
In December, 1781, with the record not yet com- plete, it was estimated that in Tryon County 700
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FINAL WAR SCENES
buildings had been burned, 613 persons had deserted, and 354 families had abandoned their dwellings. The number of farms that lay uncultivated was placed at 12,000. Governor Clinton estimated that the wheat destroyed would amount to 150,000 bushels. Tryon County had lost two-thirds of its inhabitants. Of those who remained 380 were widows and 2,000 were fatherless children .*
3
* A collection of grim and curious souvenirs of this warfare was long supposed to have been captured and taken to Albany early in the spring of 1782. Along with a mass of peltry were said to have been found eight large packages containing scalps, "taken in the last three years by the Seneca Indians from the inhabitants of the frontiers of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Virginia." The scalps, " cured, dried, hooped, and painted with all the Indian triumphal marks," had been de- signed for shipment from Tioga Point in January of the same year to Sir Frederick Haldimand, Governor of Canada, who was asked to transmit them "over the water to the Great King, that he may regard them and be refreshed, and that he may see our faithfulness in destroying his ene- mies and be convinced that his presents have not been made to ungrate- ful people."
The letter to Sir Frederick Haldimand added that "the Great King's enemies are many, and they grow fast in number. They were formerly like young panthers; they could neither bite nor scratch; we could play with them safely ; we feared nothing they could do to us. But now their bodies are become big as the elk and strong as the buffalo; they have also got great and sharp claws. They have driven us out of our country by [our] taking part in your quarrel. We expect the Great King will give us another country that our children may live after us and be his friends and children as we are. We are poor and you have plenty of everything. We know you will send us powder and guns and knives and hatchets; but we also want shirts and blankets."
An invoice and description of the scalps were given in which appears the following : "No. I. Containing 43 scalps of Congress soldiers killed in different skirmishes ; these are stretched on black hoops, four inch diameter; the inside of the skin painted red with a small black spot to note their being killed with bullets. Also sixty-two farmers, killed in their houses; the hoops red, the skin painted brown and marked with a hoe ; a black circle all round to denote their being surprised in the night ; and a black hatchet in the middle signifying their being killed with that weapon. No. 2. Containing 98 of farmers killed in their houses ; hoops red; figure of a hoe to mark their profession ; great white circle and sun, to show they were surprised in the daytime; a little red foot to show they stood upon their defence, and died fighting for their lives and families. No. 5. Containing 88 scalps of women; hair long, braided in the Indian fashion, to show they were mothers; hoops blue ; skin yellow ground, with little red tadpoles, to represent, by way of triumph, the tears of
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Such was this warfare. The consequences were far greater destruction to settlements than the Revo- lution brought to any other part of the Colonies. For the only approach to these losses we must go to the distant South, where, in the late years of the conflict, ruthless destruction was done. But those parts offer a suggestion, not a parallel.
It is natural to say that this destruction in New York should have been averted, and that, with proper precautions, it might have been. Nothing is clearer than that the authorities were inexcusably slow to realize the danger and completely failed to guard against it. Aside from the Sullivan expedi- tion and Colonel Willett's success of October, 1781, no body of men sent to the frontier succeeded in one instance in crushing the enemy. It may well be questioned if the appalling havoc wrought by Colonel William Butler in the Susquehanna Valley and by General Sullivan's army in the Genesee country was not the gravest of all errors committed during these attempts to provide protection for the frontier.
It was not offensive warfare that the frontier needed, but defensive. Oriskany and the two ex- peditions merely roused the Indians to warfare still more savage. Could the men whom General Sulli-
grief occasioned to their relations ; a black scalping-knife or hatchet at the bottom, to mark their being killed with those instruments ; 17 others, hair very gray; black hoops, plain brown colour; no mark but the short club or cassetete, to show they were knocked down dead, or had their brains beat out. No. 7. 211 girls scalped, big and little; small yellow hoops ; white ground; tears, hatchet, club, scalping-knife, &c. No. 8. This package is a mixture of all the varieties above mentioned, to the number of 122; with a box of birch bark, containing 29 little infants' scalps of various sizes ; small white hoops; white ground."
This letter was long supposed to be genuine and has often been printed as if it were. Stone, however, discovered that it was written by Franklin "for political purposes."
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RESPONSIBILITIES
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