USA > New York > Warren County > Warren county : a history and guide > Part 3
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At the same time Champlain's companions opened fire from the flank. Appalled at the firestick whose thunder brought death, the Iroquois fled in utter rout. It was a defeat they neither forgot nor forgave. This deadly hatred of the French, a hatred translated into continual harassment of the settlements of France along the St. Lawrence, incited much of the action in the second act of the drama of empire, the growth of the Dutch and English colonies in New York and New England.
In September of that same year, 1609, Henry Hudson ( ?- 1611), ex- plorer and navigator in the service of the Dutch East India Company,
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sailed his little vessel, the Half Moon, up the river that has been given his name. He reached the head of navigation a few weeks after Champlain had fought the Iroquois at Ticonderoga only a hundred miles away to the north. Thus early did white explorers approach Warren County from both north and south. Before long, Dutch, English, and French traders and soldiers, following Indian trails far and wide, penetrated its territory, but it was not until a century and a half later that peaceful settlers began to clear the forest, build homes, and plant crops.
Meanwhile war parties and armies swept up and down Lake George to wreak havoc and destruction, plunder and pillage, and to carry away prisoners. The struggle between France and England for colonial empire kept alive the fires of hate and vengeance while both sides strove to win profit in the fur trade and to gain the military support of the powerful Iroquois Five Nations, of whom the warlike Mohawks were nearest to Warren County.
The Iroquois lived in long houses built of poles and bark. Rarely did the "long house" hold only a single family. Though it had entrances only at each end, it usually had compartments for many families, and often stretched out to a length of 200 feet, or even more. The Five Nations referred figuratively to their home territory, stretching across what is now New York State from Lake Erie to the Hudson River at Albany, as their Long House, and the Mohawks were called Keepers of the Eastern Door.
In 1642, a Mohawk war party captured three Jesuit missionaries and a group of their Huron converts on the St. Lawrence River. These they tortured and brought captive down Lake Champlain to their villages. Of the three Jesuits, Brother Rene Goupil was killed, while Brother Guil- laume Couture, exchanged for a Mohawk captive, left the order. After a year of incredible suffering, Father Isaac Jogues, the Jesuit leader, with the aid of the Dutch at Albany, escaped and sailed for France. There he was highly honored, and the Pope, calling him a "Martyr of Christ," granted a special dispensation permitting him to perform the sacrament of the Mass in spite of his terribly mutilated hands. Father Bressani, an Italian Jesuit, was captured two years later by a Mohawk war party on the St. Lawrence, received similar treatment, but was ransomed more promptly by the Dutch.
Father Jogues, having returned to Canada, was sent in 1646 to confirm a peace treaty with the Mohawks. He chose the route over the Ticon- deroga portage to Lake George, and on the eve of the feast of Corpus Christi, transported by the sight of that beautiful lake, he named it Lake St. Sacrament in honor of the day. There is no record that any white man had seen the lake before Father Jogues.
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The Mohawks now received him hospitably, and he returned to Canada promptly to report that the treaty bound only the Mohawks to keep peace with the French. It did not protect the Hurons and other Algon- kian allies of the French from attack by the Mohawks and was not binding upon the rest of the Iroquois Five Nations. Nevertheless, Father Jogues returned later in the summer with a lay brother named John Lalande and a few Hurons to found a mission among the Mohawks.
As the party approached the Mohawk villages, they were seized as captives. One faction, the Bear clan, desiring war, wanted to kill them, and accomplished their purpose by luring first Father Jogues, and the next day Lalande, into their huts to tomahawk them. Along the path by which the missionaries had entered the village their heads were set up on poles.
At Auriesville, just west of Amsterdam on the south shore of the Mohawk River, there is a shrine to commemorate this first attempt to found a mission among the Mohawks. Later efforts to convert the west- ern tribes of the Five Nations were only a little more successful, since the Iroquois remained for the most part loyal to the British and were hostile to French ·priests.
By act of Pope Pius XI, Father Jogues, Rene Goupil, and John Lalande were beatified June 21, 1925, and canonized June 29, 1930, three of the first eight North American saints. At Lake George Village the State of New York has erected a monument with a heroic bronze statue of St. Jogues at the place where he left Lake St. Sacrament on his fatal journey. That was the name of the lake for more than a century until William Johnson named it for the king who afterward rewarded him with gifts, high office, and a title of nobility.
A charter granted by Charles II to his brother James, Duke of York and Albany, in 1664 resulted in the seizure of New Netherlands by the Brit- ish, to whom it was finally ceded ten years later. Colonial wars between French and British were largely motivated by European disputes, and American boundaries were set by treaties between European monarchs. Of the many expeditions that passed through Warren County, up and down Lake St. Sacrament, or around it by way of the Great Carry be- tween the upper Hudson River and Wood Creek, the marshy headwaters of Lake Champlain, a few may be listed.
In 1689 Count Frontenac's plan to invade the British Colonies by the Lake Champlain route and destroy them, beginning with Albany, was frustrated by the Iroquois, who had ravaged and destroyed all the French settlements except Montreal. On his arrival from France, Frontenac found the surviving French provincials prostrate with fear and lacking
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supplies, but he still felt obliged to impress his Indian allies by a prompt reprisal. In January 1690, he sent a party of Frenchmen and Algonkians, 250 strong, to attack Albany. Nearly exhausted and groping their way through a violent snow storm they arrived before Schenectady late at night on February 8. Amazed to find the colony unguarded they sur- rounded the houses and woke the inhabitants with war cries. More than half the settlers were killed or captured, and the raiders retreated to Canada laden with booty.
Enraged by this act, Governor Leisler of the Province of New York called the first Colonial Congress ever assembled in America, and it met in April. The outcome was a punitive expedition of 800 men from New York and Connecticut under Major General Fitz John Winthrop, which assembled in Albany and moved as far as Hautkill (Whitehall) at the southern end of Lake Champlain. When Winthrop learned that he would not be supported by the expected Massachusetts contingent, that he would receive no further supplies from Albany, and that his Iroquois were sending but seventy braves, he ordered his expedition to face about and return to Albany. A detachment of 150 men, including Indians, proceeded up Lake Champlain. Led by Captain John Schuyler they made a successful raid on the French fort at LaPrairie, but they were too few to attempt an attack on Montreal just across the St. Lawrence.
The next summer, Colonel Peter Schuyler, John's brother, renewed the attack on Fort LaPrairie. Though he is generally credited with a victory over the French forces led by Valrenne, there was no decisive result.
In 1693, after a large French force had destroyed the Mohawk villages, Peter Schuyler pursued them and harassed their retreat.
In 1696 Frontenac personally led an expedition that destroyed the crops and castles of the Onondagas, an Iroquois nation south of Oswego on Lake Ontario, and they sued for peace. Meanwhile England in 1697 concluded the treaty of Ryswick with France.
But in 1702, with the mother countries once more in armed conflict, Queen Anne's War began in America. An expedition under Colonel Francis Nicholson marched out of Albany in 1709 for an attack on Montreal, supported by a fleet which was to sail up the coast of Canada. Advancing through the wilderness along the Hudson, Nicholson built a military road from Fort Saratoga (Schuylerville) to Fort Schuyler (Fort Ann), erecting fortifications along the way which he called Fort Miller and Fort Nicholson (Fort Edward). This was as far as he went; on receipt of news that the fleet had failed to carry out its part, he returned to Albany. In 1711, Nicholson, now a general, led another expedition over the same route but met with like reverses.
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The campaigning ended in 1713 with the Treaty of Utrecht. The French, making good use of the lull in hostilities that followed to push forward a program of colonial expansion, built Fort St. Frederic at Crown Point in 1731, on land once occupied by an English trading post. It was thereafter regarded by the northern colonies as a bared sword pointed at their heart because Lake George provided a highway across the wilder- ness to the English settlements and Mohawk villages. Peace, however, continued until King George's War opened with the burning and massacre of Old Fort Saratoga by the French and Indians under Marin on Novem- ber 17, 1745. Savage but indecisive border raids followed for several years, until 1748 brought the Treaty of Aix-la-chapelle.
It was a powder-keg peace. The French, at least, never stopped pre- paring for the final sanguinary chapter of conflict for the New World empire. While both sides were striving to win more Indian allies, the shrewd diplomats of the Five Nations had long maneuvered to maintain a balance of power they could control. Perhaps they foresaw that the triumph of one faction of the whites would spell their doom.
French and Indian War
D URING the French and Indian War the largest armies traversed what is now Warren County, the most exciting and colorful scouting raids and skirmishes occurred in this region, the most extensive military roads, stockaded posts, and forts were built here, the largest flotillas sailed upon Lake George, and some of the bloodiest battles were fought on Warren County soil. Monuments, markers, the ruins of fortifications, and place names reminiscent of participants in that strug- gle, bear witness to its intensity.
To this borderland beside a highway of death and destruction not even the hardiest frontiersmen, equally skilled in the use of rifle, ax, and plow, dared bring their families, make clearings, and make crude homes until the struggle between the French and British for the possession of the western colonial empire ended. Even then the few who first came to Warren County had hardly established themselves when another struggle, the War for Independence from Great Britain, wiped out their new commu- nities, as Indians, soldiers of both sides, and outlaws, ravaged the frontier with pillage and murder.
Thus for six generations after the martyrdom of St. Jogues in 1646, Warren County was part of the "dark and bloody ground" along the Great Warpath from Albany to Montreal. The scourge of tomahawk and scalping knife, bayonet and hatchet, musket and artillery, fire and sword was laid upon it. Here were felt the thrill of the victor, the despair of fugi- tive and captive; here were death by cold and hunger. Raiding parties and armies of Indians, Colonial settlers, and European conscripts, volun- teers, mercenaries, and professional soldiers trod its Indian trails and military roads and used Lake George for a highway.
In 1749, one year after the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, there was much concern in the English Colonies regarding the activities of the busy French, whose Fort St. Frederic at Crown Point constantly sent out fron- tier raiding parties. Colonel William Johnson of the Mohawk country, merchant, Indian trader, commander of militia, and sometime Indian agent for the Province of New York, reported to Governor George Clin- ton that the French were attempting to alienate the friendship of the Iroquois for the English, and later that they were stirring up strife among these Indians. Johnson told of Indian forays, instigated by the French, which had killed pioneers or driven them from their new homes on the New York and New England frontier. He pointed out that even Sche- nectady and Albany were now menaced, and that the French were pushing
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their trading posts and building forts at Niagara and on the Ohio which would threaten the Pennsylvania and Virginia frontier also.
Long before war was declared both England and France were well aware of each other's preparations for attack in America by land and sea. In February 1755 Governor Shirley of Massachusetts wrote to James de Lancey, Lieutenant Governor of New York, discussing plans to repel the French on the Ohio, and to attack Nova Scotia with a fleet. He expressed the hope that New York, New Jersey, and New England could unite their "strength to erect such a fort near Crown Point, as may command the French fort there, and curb the city of Montreal itself."
As leader of such an expedition Shirley nominated Colonel Johnson, "without the least partiality to the governments concerned," he explained, but because Johnson was well known for his influence over the Iroquois, at this time joined by the Tuscaroras, and henceforth known as the Six Nations.
In April 1755 Johnson and Shirley attended a meeting called at Alex- andria, Virginia, by Major General Edward Braddock, newly arrived commander in chief of his Majesty's forces in North America, to plan for operations against the French. Braddock himself was to march into the Ohio country; Shirley was to make the attack on Niagara; and John- son, whom Braddock appointed Superintendent of Indian Affairs, was to lead the expedition against Crown Point.
Johnson at once employed Peter Wraxall of Albany, who ably per- formed for him the functions of secretary, aide-de-camp, and "Boswell." Writing effusively from camp at Lake George, Wraxall was ever diligent that the best side of his master's leadership should be presented in his correspondence and reports to the Colonial governors and the English ministry at home. He played no small part in presenting the expedition, which failed to reach its goal, as a glorious victory for Johnson.
On April 16, Johnson received from Shirley his formal commission as major general in command of the expedition. His plan was to hold a grand powwow with the Iroquois and their allies at his home, next to assemble the troops, artillery, and stores at Albany, and then march north, cutting and clearing his own road as the army advanced, and building "such strong houses and places of security" as might be necessary to shelter the men, ammunition, and supplies.
Upon arrival at Crown Point he was to erect a fort on a nearby hill commanding the French fort, and call on the commandant to retire "from the same, as being an encroachment upon His Majesty's territories, within the Country belonging to the Indians of the Six Nations, and erected contrary to the Treaty of Utrecht ... whereby the Indians of the
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then Five Nations are expressly declared to be subject to the Crown of Great Britain." Nothing in Johnson's orders compelled him to attack Crown Point unless he first met with resistance - a nice point in that the mother countries were officially at peace.
There were bickerings and delays and the beginning of a bitter feud between Johnson and Shirley, who took for his own expedition troops meant for Crown Point, and belittled Johnson in his dealings with the Indians. In camp the Yorkers and Connecticut and New Hampshire troops quarreled with each other, and there were endless jealousies and disputes among the officers of Johnson's staff.
Johnson had plenty to occupy him before his recruits began to trickle into Albany late in June. He asked for an allowance for the proper main- tenance of his "new dignity and station," extra pay for officers in the Indian service, more gifts and presents for the Indians, and laws to curb the practice of buying the weapons and clothing of the Indians with rum.
The New York Assembly drew up "some Hints for a Commanding Officer" which contained sound advice about the necessity for adequate supplies, an admonition to "engage in no action of importance without the advice of a Council of War" and the sage observation that since "prayers have often a good effect, especially among New England men, a well gifted New England parson might therefore be a useful imple- ment." They also bade him carry a few conch shells to call in stragglers and suggested that he provide his sentries with watch dogs.
By the time the village of tents had begun to spread over the pastures across the river from Albany, Johnson wished he had never undertaken the job because of all the dispute, confusion, and delay which to his Tory mind were "consequences but too natural in so divided a system." The discipline and training of raw levies from farm and shop, enlisted "for the duration," chafing under the inactivity and restrictions of camp life, was no easy task. Soldiering was not the business of the Colonial recruit, who desired and, indeed, demanded a quick campaign soon finished so that he could go home to farm and fireside.
Carrying out Johnson's orders to select campsites and keep the men busy was Captain William Eyre, detached from Braddock's command to be artillery officer and engineer of the Crown Point expedition. A little later, encamped in Warren County at the head of Lake George, which turned out to be their journey's end, Eyre, with Wraxall and Glazier, made up that small official family which regularly sided with Johnson in his difficulties with the New England officers.
On July 17, 1755, Johnson issued orders to Major General Phineas Lyman of Connecticut, his second in command, to march with 1,100
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men of his own regiment and the Massachusetts regiments of Colonel Timothy Ruggles and Colonel Ephraim Williams to the Great Carrying Place, at first called Fort Lydius, then Fort Lyman, and finally Fort Edward. Lyman was to take with him two brass field pieces, ammunition, stores, and bateaux, clear the road along the Hudson by way of Old Sara- toga of trees, logs, and stumps, widen it to 25 or 30 feet, repair it, and build bridges, be on guard for lurking parties of French Indians, and take care not to fire on friendly Indians acting as scouts. Arrived at the Carry- ing Place, his division was to encamp and erect log buildings to store powder, supplies, and provisions.
On that same day Johnson's smoldering dispute with General Shirley broke into a full-blown feud because of Shirley's efforts to enlist Indians for the Niagara expedition without consulting Johnson. On the advice of Goldsbrow Banyar, his friend among the great, Johnson's Wraxall exercised care to write long accounts of the actions of Shirley and their effect on the good of the service. These he sent to the Colonial Governors, the Lords of Trade in London, and to Thomas Pownall, who became Gov- ernor of Massachusetts in 1757, and was now about to return to England, where he would, it was hoped, place Johnson's grievances and services in the right light with the home government.
Johnson complained bitterly about Shirley's chief Indian agent, Colonel John Henry Lydius, a rival of his in Indian affairs, who, until 1745, had conducted an important trading post at the Great Carrying Place. John- son professed to distrust him because of his trade with French Indians, his marriage to a Canadian half-breed wife, and a suspicion of illegal traffic with the French. This petty jealousy and selfish rancor was delaying the expeditions and making it increasingly evident that since both Shirley and Johnson wanted to be the great man of the war, the close of the campaign must find one or both in disfavor with the Crown.
In this time of confusion wild rumors flew through the camp beside the Hudson of Braddock's defeat and death near Fort Duquesne, and on July 26 Shirley automatically succeeded to the supreme command. The same day Shirley ordered Johnson, in case he met a superior force of the French on his march to Crown Point, to retreat to Albany and protect the Province of New York from attack. So disturbed was Johnson that he told both Shirley and de Lancey that he must have Indians to win at Crown Point. He further informed de Lancey that because of Braddock's ' defeat, Shirley's interference in Indian affairs, and the danger of a general attack in force by the enemy, it might be advisable to build a fort at the Carrying Place, garrison it with Lyman's division, arrived or about to arrive there, and hold the balance of his army in their present camp to cover the city of Albany and to act as a reinforcement for Lyman.
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Having received no new orders by August 1, Johnson sent the second division of his army, 1,105 men with ten pieces of field artillery under his third ranking officer, Colonel Moses Titcomb of Massachusetts, to the Great Carrying Place to join the forces of Major General Lyman. On August 3, Johnson received word from de Lancey to proceed according to plan and that he would try to obtain reinforcements from his own Assem- bly and from Connecticut.
It was not till leaky bateaux had been repaired that Johnson was able to march on August 9 with the third division of his army, about 800 strong. It took five days to drag the artillery and wagons by horse team and oxen through the hot, green wilderness to the Great Carrying Place. There he issued orders for Colonel Blanchard with his New Hampshire troops, who had finally given up the dangerous idea of marching direct to Crown Point and had arrived at Albany, to impress wagons, the river being too low for loaded bateaux, and march overland to join the expedi- tion. At the same time a council of war asked reinforcements of 1,000 men from Massachusetts and Connecticut.
Only 40 Indians had joined the army, and at Albany there were difficul- ties about provisions and a shortage of wagons, while camp discipline and inaction fomented disorder and insubordination among officers as well as men. Lieutenant Esa Noble, of Colonel Seth Pomeroy's company in Colonel Ephraim Williams' regiment, found guilty of "supporting and exciting a mutinous disposition in certain soldiers," was sentenced to make "public and audible acknowledgment of his crime with promises of future good behavior at the head of each regiment." Men were confined for fighting, for swearing, for firing their rifles contrary to orders, for sleep- ing on sentry duty. The birch rod, the irons, and the wooden horse were frequently in use.
At a council of war, on August 18, it was decided to send out 1,500 men under Lyman to cut a road to South Bay, if that was found to be the best and most practical route. It was also voted to build the proposed fort and to send all women in the camp back to Albany by the first wagon train. On the 22nd Johnson dispatched a list of wagoners, who, with their horses and wagons, had deserted from camp at the Carrying Place, to Sybrant G. Van Schaik, Albany magistrate, with a demand that the offenders be prosecuted. The deserters, mostly impressed Dutch farmers, apparently had small love for the English cause and the Dutch magistrates were little concerned to punish them.
On August 24 Johnson wrote the various Colonial governors that the Caughnawagas were to take the field for the French. This, he said, would make the Iroquois less willing than ever to ally themselves to the English because they had mothers, sisters, and brothers among the French Indians,
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and made even more urgent the need for strong and speedy reinforce- ments. Also he conveyed the information that a road "is now making from this place to Lake St. Sacrament [Lake George] where I propose to build magazines and raise a defensible fortification."
This carried the expedition into what is now Warren County, and the military road then built by Johnson is today followed very closely by US Route 9 between Glens Falls and the village of Lake George. For a gen- eration it was the scene of the bloodiest of battles, skirmishes, and raids on supply trains and travelers. Sizable trees had time to grow in the clearings made for the encampment and forts at Lake George and for the stockaded outposts along the way, before permanent settlements were made, because the first settlers who tried to take advantage of these clear- ings were driven out by the campaigns of the American Revolution.
Three days before Johnson's announcement of his plan to take the Warren County route and build a fort at Lake St. Sacrament, Mohawk scouts had arrived from Canada with news that the French were shipping troops to Crown Point, that they proposed to attack the English at South Bay if they advanced by Wood Creek, or at the pass called Ticonderoga if they came through Lake St. Sacrament. Councils of war held during the next two days had decided upon a change to the lake route.
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