USA > New York > The old New York frontier : its wars with Indians and Tories, its missionary schools, pioneers, and land titles, 1614-1800 > Part 6
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While the school remained at the lake, one of the missionaries returned to Lebanon to obtain a car- penter to build houses and make agricultural im- plements. Two of the Indians, Isaac Dakazenen- sere and Adam Wavonwanoren, in a letter dated at the lake in the summer of 1765, asked Mr. Whee- lock to "assist us in setting up husbandry by sending a number of white people to live with us who, when they come, should build us mills, teach us husbandry, and furnish us with tools for hus- bandry." But, they added, "we should have you understand, brothers, that we have no thoughts of selling our lands to any that come to live among us. For if we should sell a little land to-day, by and by they would want to buy a little more and so our land would go by inches till we should have none to live upon." A letter dated in September of the same year found these Indians back in Oghwaga.
Besides this school, others had been established among the Oneidas. Mr. Wheelock at Lebanon still had eighteen boys. Five Mohawks whom he had educated were teachers in various parts in Cen-
* Joseph Woolley, an " eminently pious " young Delaware Indian, who had been educated at Lebanon and duly licensed to preach. While mak- ing one of his trips into the Susquehanna Valley, he fell ill at Cherry Valley and died.
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tral New York. In the Mohawk and Oneida coun- tries one hundred and twenty-seven children were then attending schools, and another school was soon to be started with twenty.
Best known among the missionaries on whom Mr. Wheelock had influence is Samuel Kirkland, forty years of whose life were devoted to the work. As Dr. Wheelock afterward became the founder of Dartmouth, so was it Kirkland who founded Ham- ilton College. Scarcely more than a dozen miles southeast of Lebanon lies Norwich, where Kirk- land, in 1741, was born. He was a student at Le- banon in his youth, and was there ordained for the ministry. During the first years of his life in the wilderness he had for housekeepers two Indians, once companions of Samson Occum, named David and Hannah Fowler, who had been educated at Lebanon. In the neighboring town of Windham, Kirkland finally married Dr. Wheelock's niece.
In the year 1764 Mr. Kirkland, who had already been to Oneida with Brant in 1761, and who had learned the Mohawk tongue from Brant, began his labors among the New York Indians. Joseph Woolley accompanied him. They passed down the Susquehanna in November to Oghwaga, where Jo- seph was established as a school-master. Mr. Kirk- land then returned to the Mohawk Valley, whence he set out for the wilderness west of him, the scene of his life-long labor, without a penny in his pockets, and entirely dependent on the natives. Within a few months famine was threatened, and he was obliged to return to Oghwaga to escape starvation. He was forced to live for several days on "white oak acorns fried in bear's grease." At a later period he complained that he had lived " more like a dog than
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a Christian minister." Many a time he would have begged on his knees for a bone such as he had often thrown to a dog. For ten months he had not slept free from pain in his bones, with a pain in his chest. " The devil," he said, " has tried for three years to starve me to death."
A son of Mr. Wheelock's, named Ralph, who spent two years in a tour among the missionaries, came down to Oghwaga about 1768, and afterward passed considerable time with Mr. Kirkland among the Oneidas farther north. Ralph Wheelock does not appear to have possessed much knowledge of human nature. During this time his relations with Mr. Kirkland ceased to be cordial. Joseph Brant used to delight in telling a story of his school-days at Lebanon, in which Ralph did not figure as pre- cisely the hero. With Brant in the school was an Indian boy named William Johnson, a natural son of Sir William. Ralph Wheelock one day told William to saddle a horse for him. William refused to do it on the ground that he " was not a menial, but a gentleman's son." "Do you know what a gentleman is?" asked Ralph. "I do," was the answer. " A gentleman is a person who keeps race horses and drinks Madeira wine, and that is what neither you nor your father does-therefore saddle the horse yourself." William was among those who were slain at the battle of Oriskany in 1777.
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VII
Last of the Indian Missions
1769-1774
T HE work at Oghwaga in 1769 was in charge of the Rev. Eleazer Moseley. He had been settled there about three years and was receiving a salary of $500 from the Boston Com- missioners. The Revs. Peter and Henry Avery came some time later. James Dean was the inter- preter in Moseley's time, and in 1769 had been nine years in the country. In the Smith and Wells journal we have the following account of the meth- ods employed by Mr. Moseley in his Sunday work :
June 4th [1769] Sunday. In the morning we attended Messrs. Moseley and Dean to divine service which was conducted with regularity and solemnity. They first sang a psalm, then read a portion of scripture, and after another psalm Moseley preached a sermon (in a chintz night gown) and the business was concluded by a third psalm. The congregation consisted of near one hundred Indians, men women and children, including the chief of the Tuscarora town three miles below, with some of his people and they all behaved with exemplary devotion. The Indian priest named Isaac sat in the pulpit and the Indian clerk, Peter, below him. The clerk repeated the psalm in the Oneida language and the people joined in the melody with exactness and skill, the tunes very lively and agreeable. The ser- mon, delivered in English, was repeated in Indian by Dean, sentence by sentence. The men sat on benches on one side of the house and the women on the other. Before a meeting a horn is sounded three several times to give notice.
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In the afternoon we attended the service again. This was performed by the Indian priest in the Oneida language. He began by a prayer; then they sang a psalm, the tune whereof was long, with many undulations, then a prayer and a second psalm, followed by an exhortation, repeating part of what Moseley had said in the morning with his own comments upon it and reading sometimes out of a book, here being several books in the Indian language. He fin- ished the service with a benediction. He and his clerk were dressed in black coats. Isaac is the chief here in re- ligious affairs, and his brother, a stout fat man, in civil, like Moses and Aaron. This last fell asleep while his brother was preaching, but assisted in singing with a loud and hoarse voice. These brothers and other chiefs came to visit us very kindly.
An incident, at Oghwaga, of the year 1770 was the killing of a young Tuscarora by Thomas King, an Indian. Greatly depressed by his own act, King decided to submit humbly to the will of the Tusca- rora's friends, but the matter was referred to Sir William Johnson, an old sachem going on a special mission to the baronet. By this year many Mo- hawks and Oneidas were able to read and write, and frequently acted as lay readers at church services, us- ing the liturgy as well as the Presbyterian service, and making religious addresses.
In 1771 a graduate of Harvard, named Aaron Crosby, arrived and reported that there were " 290 souls of them who desire assistance." The Ogh- waga houses were superior to those used by many white men on the frontier. Some of the Indians he found to be good farmers. In 1774 Mr. Crosby became involved in an embarrassing dispute. As a Congregationalist, he had declined to use the Church of England service, which the Mohawks naturally
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preferred, having learned to use it at their Fort Hunter home. During the dispute, a Mohawk Ind- ian deliberately rose in meeting and proceeded to read the English service in spite of Mr. Crosby. Mr. Crosby had further trouble because he refused to baptize Indian children whose parents were im- moral, and who could give no guarantee that the children would be properly guided.
To return to Dr. Wheelock; it was probably the final letter from Johnson opposing immigration of whites that in the main repressed his zeal, and he saw, moreover, as time went on, that if the boys whom he educated at Lebanon were to be allowed to return home to places where no white men were settled around them, they would inevitably relapse into their former state of barbarism. Seeing these things, he was probably all the more willing to de- part from Lebanon when tracts of land had been offered in New Hampshire if the school would re- move to the place where now has grown up Dart- mouth College. Thus this school at Lebanon was the germ from which was developed the alma mater of Daniel Webster.
Mr. Wheelock afterward wrote concerning his suc- cess at Lebanon that he had educated about forty Indians to become " good readers and writers and even sufficiently master of English grammar, arith- metic and a number of them considerably advanced in knowledge of Greek and Latin and one of them carried through college." But in the same report he declared that these good results almost went to naught after the boys had returned to their former associations. "The current," he said, " is too strong. Of all the number before mentioned I do not hear of more than one-half who have preserved their
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characters unstained." He added that " some who on account of their parts and learning bid the fairest for usefulness, are sunk down as low, savage and brutish in manner of living as they were in before any endeavours were used to raise them up." Schools started in the Indian villages usually did well " un- til broken up by a hunting tour or some public con- gress." He was further of opinion that the time for doing anything effective for the Six Nations was probably past; they appeared to be dying rapidly in a quick consumption, " wasting like a morning dew." It is well known that the Mohawk nation in those years became reduced to small numbers compared with what they had been a few years be- fore. They declined much more rapidly than any other members of the Iroquois League .*
Late evidence of the work done by these mission- aries was obtained in 1843 by Mr. Lothrup, Kirk- land's biographer. Visiting some Oneidas in Wis- consin, he asked two aged women to translate for him certain Indian letters. While the women were eagerly examining them, he observed them to be- come suddenly affected as they read the signature of Honeyost. They explained that Honeyost was their father, and begged to be allowed to keep one of the letters. The request was granted, and with delight in their faces the women exclaimed : " How beautiful, how wonderful, is it not? For forty years our father has slept in his grave and here we have his very thoughts before us. He speaks now through this."
* Dr. Wheelock's complete disinterestedness in his Indian work has been called into question. It may at least be said that in the report giv- ing the disposition made of the funds raised in England the compen- sation he is shown to have received was large enough for the times. He seems to have been well paid for doing very creditable work. But that can scarcely he held up as a reproach.
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Honeyost, or Honayuwus, was a chief who lived more than ninety-four years. He was the author of a celebrated bit of Indian eloquence inspired by the close of the Revolution : "The Great Spirit spoke to the whirlwind and it was still."
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PART III
Land Titles and Pioneers 1679-1774
4
I
William Penn and Sir William Johnson
1679-1766
I N the future of North America and the history of Anglo-Saxon civilization the year 1664 was important. Men of English race, under their own flag, in that year began to exert an influence on Manhattan Island. Ten years later they were confirmed in possession of that territory, now occu- pied by one of the earth's largest and most opulent communities. The two dates form part of a great and memorable chain, starting in 1588, when was overthrown the Spanish Armada, and ending in 1759, when the English conquered at Quebec. The whole series embraces successive events by which the North American continent was wrested by Englishmen from Spanish, Dutch, and French domination. Considering all that followed from the peaceful capitulation of New Amsterdam in 1664, it was one of the most far-reaching events in American history.
Fifteen years after the capitulation, the English in New York obtained from the Indians a promise of the valuable domain of the Susquehanna. As affecting any actual title the promise appears to have had little value, but it is of interest to know that thus early had the valley attracted the attention of Englishmen. By this act the English surpassed in enterprise anything the Dutch had done in forty
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years of residence. The Dutch had shown merely the interest of fur traders, seeking a route of travel. The English wanted not only a route but land.
James Graham and William Haig, agents of William Penn, arrived in Albany in 1683 with an offer from Penn to the Indians for the purchase of these lands. Penn's purpose was by this method to divert toward Philadelphia the trade that went to Albany. His scheme showed foresight and the English were at once alarmed by it. They declared that if he bought the river it would "tend to the utter ruin of the beaver trade as the Indians do themselves acknowledge." Moreover, there " hath not anything ever been moved or agitated from the first settling of these parts more prejudicial to his Royal Highness's interests and the inhabitants of this government than this business of the Susque- hanna river. The French, it is true, have endeav- ored to take away our trade by piece-meal, but this will cut it off all at once." In one year Penn, in fact, had received " upwards of 200 packs of beav- ers," and the trade promised to increase. If this continued, the New York Government could not maintain itself and Albany would be depopulated. Governor Dongan received word from London in reply to this report that " we think you will do well to preserve your interests there as much as possible so that nothing more go away to Mr. Penn or either New Jerseys."
Three weeks after the visit a conference with the Indians was held at Albany, and a formal instrument was signed and sealed conveying to the English the Susquehanna territory above Wyalusing,* and in
* It is obvious that by the Susquehanna was then meant not only the river as we know it, but other streams that flow into it above Wyalusing,
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1684 an offensive and defensive alliance against the French was concluded at which the Onondaga and Cayuga sachems made the following statement :
We have given the Susquehanna river which we won with the sword, to this government and desire that it may be a branch of the great Tree * which grows in this place, the top of which reaches the sun, under whose branches we shall shelter ourselves from the French and any other peo- ple, and our fire burn in your houses and your fire burn with us and we desire that it always may be so and will not that any of your Penn's people shall settle upon the Susquehanna river, for all our folks or soldiers are like wolves in the woods as you sachem of Virginia know, we having no other land to leave to our children. We desire of you therefore that you would bear witness of what we now do, and that we now confirm what we have done be- fore.
You great man of Virginia, we let you know that great Penn did speak to us here in Corlear's House by his agents and desired to buy the Susquehanna river, but we would not harken to him for we had fastened it to this gov- ernment.
This " great man of Virginia " was the Governor- General, Lord Howard of Effingham, who had gone to Albany to remonstrate against invasions of his territory by the Indians. He told them it was now about seven years since they came unprovoked to Virginia and "committed such murders and rob- beries," and that they had invaded that province
including, besides the Unadilla and Charlotte, the Chenango and Che- mung. One of the official papers of the times says, "All the nations with whom Albany hath trade live at the head of the Susquehanna river." Again the river was described as " situated in the middle of the Senaca country." It was the Cayuga and Onondaga sachems who now made a conveyance to the English. They said the river " belongs to us alone, the other nations having nothing to do with it."
* The Tree of Peace.
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every year since in a warlike manner. He proposed a " new chain " and one "that may be more strong and lasting even to the world's end." The Indians were pleased by this conciliatory spirit and the next day planted the tree of peace.
When the delegates from the several nations re- ferred to the King of England, then Charles II., they called him "your friend that lives over the great lake." They asked to have him informed that they were "a free people uniting ourselves to what sachem we please," which was probably the earliest message to Great Britain from these shores showing a spirit of independence.
The Indians did not regard this treaty as a deed conveying all their right and title. The reference to the valley as the only land they had to leave their children, implies that they believed the land still remained in some sense their own. They were merely placing themselves and their lands " under the protection of the King," and hoped thus to " shelter themselves from the French." Sixty years later, at a conference in Albany, the Indians declared that their fathers had made the Susquehanna con- veyance by advice of the English as a way to secure self-protection and to prevent Penn and others from imposing on them. They had understood that they " might always have the land when we should want it." The English had told them they " would keep it for our use," and "accordingly we trusted them."
That the English, on the other hand, believed they had secured ownership is obvious from Don- gan's report of 1687, when he said he had been obliged " to give a great deal to the Indians for the Susquehanna river." Whatever the sum given,
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it probably was not large. Certain other convey- ances of land secured from the Indians in 1683 named as considerations " half a piece of Duffels, two blankets, two guns, three kettles, four coats, fifty pounds of lead and five and twenty pounds of powder."
Dongan, in announcing the purchase to Penn, expressed a hope that "you and I shall not fall out : I desire that we may join heartily together to advance the interests of my master and your good friend." But Penn never forgave Dongan for thwarting his ambition, and finally had his revenge. At the court of James II., where he was high in favor, Penn fostered prejudices against Dongan, and in 1686 Dongan heard that he was to be recalled. In distress he wrote directly to the King : " Mr. Penn has written that I was to be recalled home and I do not doubt that he would do all he can to effect it, having no great kindness for me because I did not consent to his buying the Susquehanna river." But this letter saved him not. Dongan was recalled. Two years later James himself, in the revolution of 1688, realized what it was to be overtaken by misfortune. Nor was it long before misfortune came to Penn. Penn's desire for the valley still existed as late as 1691, when an address to the King, William of Orange, from the Gov- ernor and Council of New York, contained these words :
If Mr. Penn should attain his pretenses to the Susque- hanna river it will not only destroy the best branch of your Majesty's revenue, but it will likewise depopulate your prov- ince, the inhabitants of Albany having only seated them- selves there and addicted their minds to the English lan- guage and the mysteries of the said trade with purpose to
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manage it, that if it should be diverted from that channel they must follow it, having no other way or art to get a livelihood.
In the following year, by an order in Council, Penn was deprived of the Governorship of Pennsyl- vania, and new accusations were made of treasonable correspondence with James, who was now a king in exile. But the men of New York, thanks to Don- gan,* had forever secured the Susquehanna Valley. In 1711 we find them giving an order to the Ind- ians living on the river to send their fighting men to Albany to join an English expedition against the French in Canada. Thenceforth until the Revolu- tion the English often repeated this appeal and not in vain.
Following the fur traders came actual settlers. Along the lower Mohawk white men had estab- lished homes soon after the Dutch came to New York, but in the main these were only trading posts, just as Albany itself originally was one. Schenectady was the most important, the place being actually settled somewhat later-about 1660. By 1690 it had grown to be a town of eighty houses surrounded by a stockade. At midnight in Febru- ary of that year Frontenac burned all those houses and killed sixty-three persons. Royal grants of land further west along the Mohawk came later still. Even the English were slow to set value on the vast areas of fertile soil that lay uncultivated in the Western wilderness.
Near Fort Hunter, John P. Maibae acquired a
* Thomas Dongan's services to the Province of New York have been most lastingly commemorated in that instrument called after him-the "Charter of Liberties and Privileges" of 1686, which remains a land- mark in the history of popular government in America.
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patent in 1705, while in the same year was issued the great Oriskany patent on which Fort Stanwix was afterward to be built, and which remained for many years the extreme outpost of the white men's landed possessions in the Province of New York ; but the real " thirst for land " did not actually set in among the English until twenty or thirty years later, in the time of Governor Burnet, who with large foresight planted the trading post and fort at Oswego. To that period belong the patents issued in the Mohawk Valley to Lewis Morris, Robert Livingston, Rutgerd Bleeker, Abram Van Horn, and Frederick Morris, and the great Cosby's Manor grant extending from German Flatts westward be- yond Utica, on both sides of the stream.
When the Protestant missionaries took up their work, the upper Susquehanna had become familiar ground to many white men, a few of whom had secured titles to land. It is not surprising to find that the first men who became owners of land were traders, or men interested in the trade, or that they still more frequently were men whose official places enabled them to secure grants advan- tageously.
John Lindesay, who obtained the Cherry Valley patent in 1738, and founded the settlement at that place in the following year under the name of Linde- say's Bush, had been Sheriff of Albany County, and in company with Philip Livingston, who lived in Albany and was a commissioner of Indian affairs, for more than twenty-five years, had obtained in 1730 a patent on the Mohawk near Little Falls. Lindesay secured the Cherry Valley tract while George Clarke was Lieutenant-Governor. Clarke, who was interested in the tract, came to America
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from England in Queen Anne's time, in order to act as Secretary to the Province, and in 1736 had become Lieutenant-Governor, an office he held for seven years. By marriage he was connected with the family of Hyde, to which belonged the earls of Clarendon, and from which came the name of the family home in Otsego-Hyde Hall .*
Arendt Bradt, of Schenectady, who obtained a small patent on Schenevus Creek in 1738, another on the same creek in 1740, and a third at the mouth of that creek in 1740, was a commissioner of Indian affairs, serving with Philip Livingston, and with Livingston owned a patent on the Mohawk. Nearly all these Indian commissioners were engaged in the fur trade. Although they received no sala- ries as commissioners, the office was one of profit and consequence. What was known as Petrie's Purchase, extending north from Otsego Lake, was secured in 1740, John J. Petrie being a resident of German Flatts, where at one time he was a mag- istrate. John Groesbeck, who was an officer of the Court of Chancery, obtained in 1741 the patent lying northeast of the lake, in which neighborhood lay the George Clarke lands.
Voleert Oothout in 1741 secured a patent to the bottom-lands of Cherry Valley Creek, extending from Lindesay's patent down to and across the Susquehanna. David Schuyler, whose family was prominent in Indian affairs, and who had close re- lations with John Lindesay, in 1755 obtained his large patent running west from Richfield. From
* After the Revolution another George Clarke, heir to these lands as Clarke's grandson, came over and established himself permanently on the lake. Of the semi-baronial life which he led there, interesting glimpses are given by Levi Beardsley, who knew Clarke well and had often partaken of his hospitality.
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