USA > New York > Washington County > Washington county, New York; its history to the close of the nineteenth century > Part 23
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195
SUBSEQUENT LIFE OF LIEUTENANT JONES.
Indeed, this question regarding Jones's sending for his betrothed, was often a topic of conversation between General Fraser and his cousin, Mrs. McNeal, who, with Miss Hunter (afterwards Mrs. Teasse) accompanied him from Fort Edward to Saratoga, and on his death, in that battle, returned to Fort Edward, after witnessing the surrender of the British general. Jones frankly admitted to his friends that in consequence of the proximity of the savages to Fort Edward, he had engaged several chiefs, who had been at the Bouquet Encampment, to keep an eye upon the fierce Ottawas and especially upon the blood- thirsty Wyandotts and persuade them not to cross the Hudson; but if they could not be deterred from so doing, by intimations of danger from rebel scouts, his employes were to watch over the safety of his mother's residence, and also that of Colonel McCrea. For all which, and in order the better to secure their fidelity, Jones promised a suit- able but not specified reward, meaning thereby, such trinkets and weapons as were fitted for Indian traffic, and usually bestowed upon savages, whether in peace or in war.
But partisanship was then extremely bitter and eagerly seized the opportunity thus presented of magnifying a slight and false rumor into a veritable fact, which was used most successfully in stirring up the embers-which otherwise would have smouldered-of hatred against Loyalists in general, and the family of Jones in particular. The experience of the last few years afford fresh illustration of how little of partisan asseveration is reliable; and there is so much of the really terrible in civil war which is indisputably true, that it is not difficult, nor does it require habitual credulity, to give currency to falsehood.
One who, a hundred years hence, should write a history of the late Civil War, based upon the thousand rumors, newspaper correspon- dence, statements of radical and fierce politicians on one or the other side, would run great risk of making serious mistatements. The more private documents are brought to light, the more clearly they reveal a similar, though even more intensified state of feeling between the Tories and the Whigs during the era of the Revolution. Great caution should, therefore, be observed, when incorporating into history any accounts as facts, which seem to have been the result of personal hatred or malice.
As might naturally be expected, the death of Miss MeCrea
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WASHINGTON COUNTY: ITS HISTORY.
brought forth a correspondence between General Gates and General Burgoyne. In General Gates' letter he thus wrote to Burgoyne.
** * * * That the savages of America should, in their unhappy warfare, mangle and scalp the unhappy prisoners who fall into their hands, is neither new nor extraordinary, but that the famous Lieuten- ant-General Burgoyne, in whom the fine gentleman is united with the soldier and the scholar, 1 should hire the savages of America to scalp Europeans and the descendants of Europeans-nay more, that he should pay a price for every scalp so barbarously taken, is more than will be believed in Europe, until authenticated facts shall, in every gazette, confirm the truth of the horrid tale.
" Miss McCrea, a young lady lovely to the sight, of virtuous charac- ter and amiable disposition, engaged to an officer of your army, was, with other women and children, taken out of a house near Fort Ed- ward, carried into the woods and then scalped and mangled in a most shocking manner. Two parents, with their six children, were all treated with the same inhumanity, while quietly resting in their once happy and peaceful dwelling. ? The miserable fate of Miss McCrea was particularly aggravated by her being dressed to receive her prom- ised husband, but met her murderers employed by you. Upwards of one hundred men, women and children have perished by the hands of the ruffians to whom, it is asserted, you have paid the price of blood."
To this latter portion of Gate's letter, Burgoyne lost no time in replying as follows :
* * * I have hesitated, Sir, upon answering the other para- graphs of your letter. I disdain to justify myself against the rhapso- dies of fiction and calumny, which, from the first of this contest, it has been an unvaried American policy to propagate, but which no longer imposes on the world. I am induced to deviate from this general rule, in the present instance, lest my silence should be construed as an acknowledgment of the truth of your allegations, and a pretense be thence taken for exercising future barbarities by the American troops.
" By this motive, and upon this only, I condescend to inform you,
1 To explain this allusion. it should be remembered that Burgoyne had already, aside from his military fame, greatly distinguished himself by a number of plays, which were spoken of highly by literary critics. Through the courtesy of Fontblanque, Editor of Burgoyne's literary edition of his works, I have now in my possession part of the MIS. play of "The Lady of the Manor" in his own hand-writing.
2 This allusion is doubtless to the massacre of the Allen Family for which account see ante.
BURGOYNE'S LETTER ABOUT McCREA TRAGEDY. 197
that I would not be conscious of the acts you presume to impute to me, for the whole continent of America, though the wealth of worlds was in its bowels and a paradise upon its surface.
" It has happened that all my transactions with the Indian Nations, last year and this, have been clearly heard, accurately minuted, by very numerous and in many parts very unprejudiced persons. So immediately opposite is your assertion that I have paid a price for scalps, that one of the first regulations established by me at the great council in May, and repeated and enforced and invariably adhered to since, was that the Indians should receive compensation for prisoners, because it would prevent cruelty, and that not only stich compensation should be withheld, but a strict account demanded for scalps. These pledges of conquest, for such you well know they will esteem them, were solemnly and peremptorily to be taken from the wounded and even the dying, and the persons of aged men, women, children and prisoners, were pronounced sacred, even in an assault.
"In regard to Miss McCrea, her fall wanted not the tragic display you have labored to give it, to make it as sincerely abhorred and la- mented by me, as it can be by the tenderest of her friends. The fact was no premeditated barbarity. On the contrary, two chiefs who had brought her off for the purpose of security, not of violence to her per- son, disputed which should be her guard, and, in a fit of savage pas- sion in one, from whose hands she was snatched, the unhappy woman became a victim. Upon the first intelligence of this event, I obliged the Indians to deliver the murderer into my hands; and though to have punished him by our laws or principles of justice, would have been, perhaps, unprecedented, he certainly should have suffered an ignominious death, had I not been convinced from my circumstances and observation, beyond the possibility of a doubt, that a pardon, under the terms which I presented, would be more efficacious than an execution, to prevent similar inischiefs.
The above instance excepted, your intelligence respecting the cruelty of the Indians is false. 1
Indeed, look at it as one may, the whole occurrence was dark and dreadful, and Burgoyne in this letter to Gates, retreated behind a false assertion, to escape the perils which were sure to grow out of an ad- mission of even one-half the truth of Gates's letter. That letter. how-
1 Burgoyne. evidently, at the time of writing this letter, had not heard of the massacre of the Allen and Barnes families.
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WASHINGTON COUNTY: ITS HISTORY.
ever, as Sparks justly remarks, was "more ornate than forcible and abounded more in bad taste than in simplicity and pathos, yet it was suited to the publie feelings of the moment and as might be surmised, produced a lively impression in every part of America." Burke, in the exercise of all his glowing eloquence, used the story with most powerful effect in the British House of Commons, and made the dreadful and harrowing tale a household word throughout all Europe.
In confirmation of what Burgoyne did on the occasion, as outlined in his letter to General Gates, is the following extract from the testi- mony of the Earl of Harrington, who was a witness before the com- mittee of the British House of Commons, during its inquiry into the failure of the Burgoyne Campaign, at London in 1779. 1
"Question. Does your Lordship remember General Burgoyne's receiving at Fort Anne the news of the murder of Miss McCrea ?
" Answer. I do.
"Q. Did General Burgoyne repair immediately to the Indian camp and call them to council, assisted by Brig. General Fraser ?
"A. He did.
"Q. What passed at that council ?
"A. General Burgoyne threatened the culprit with death, insised that he should be delivered up and there were many gentlemen in the army and I own I was one of the number who feared he would put that threat in execution.
Motives of policy, I believe, alone prevented him from it, and if he had not pardoned the man, which he did, I believe the total desertion of the Indians would have ensued and the consequences, on their return through Canada, might have been dreadful, not to speak of the weight they would have thrown into the opposite scale had they gone over to the enemy, which I rather imagine would have been the case.
"Q. Do you remember Gen. Burgoyne's restraining the Indian parties from going out without a British officer or proper conductor, who were to be responsible for their behaviour ?
"A. I do.
"Q. Do you remember Mr. St. Luc's reporting discontent among the Indians soon after our arrival at Fort Edward ?
"A. I do.
" Q. How long was that after enforcing the restraints above mentioned ?
"A. I can't exactly say. I should imagine about three weeks or a month.
1 In justice, however, to General Burgoyne, it should be stated, that this investigation was instituted entirely at his own request. Although its results were nugatory, yet. that Burgoyne was really reinstated in public estimation is fully shown by the fact that soon after he was ap- pointed by the Crown, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland.
199
MISS McCREA'S MURDERERS ESCAPE.
"Q. Does your lordship recollect Gen. Burgoyne's telling Mr. St. Luc that he had rather lose every Indian than connive at their enormities, or using language to that effect ?
"A. I do.
"Q. Does your lordship remember what passed in counsel with the Indians at Fort Edward ?
"A. To the best of my recollection, much the same exhortation to act with humanity, and much the same rewards were offered for saving their prisoners.
" Q. Do you recollect the circumstance of the Indians desiring to return home at that time ?
" A. I do, perfectly well.
" Q. Do you remember that many quitted the army without leave ?
" A. I do, immediately after the council and the next morning.
"Q. Was it not the general opinion that the desertion of the Indians, then and afterwards, was caused by the restraint upon their cruelties and habits of plunder ?
"A. It was.
This testimony, it should be remembered, was given by the Earl only two years after the death of Jane McCrea, and the matter could not have been otherwise than fresh in his mind.
Again, in another part of Burgoyne's testimony, when questioned about his proclamation at Putnam's Creek, to the people of Washing- ton County, in which he threatened the direst penalties to those who did not at once surrender and come in under his protection, he said: " I have spoken daggers, but used none!"
And once more, in justification of Burgoyne's course, Sergeant Lamb in his "Journal of Occurrences" -- from which I have already quoted in narrating the Battle of Fort Anne-says: "Had the execu- tion [ i. e. of the scalper of Jane McCrea ] taken place, there is every probability that the Indians would have retired from the army, massa- creing everybody and destroying everything before them; thus it would have caused the destruction of hundreds of the innocent inhab- itants, not only in the vicinity [meaning by that the settlers of Wash- ington County] but of those on the frontiers of Canada, if the assassin had been put to death. When the murder of Miss McCrea had reached the General's ears, he went to the Indian camp and insisted in the most determined language that the culprit should be given up to jus- tice, and had it not been for the remonstrances of Monsieur St. Luc de le Come, a Frenchman, who then presided over them, the mnur- derer's execution would not have been deferred another day. St. Luc also informed the General that great discontent had reigned among
200
WASHINGTON COUNTY: ITS HISTORY.
the Indians, at the restraint under which they were kept. To which General Burgoyne replied: "That he had rather lose every Indian in his army than connive at their enormities."
The General afterwards said, "That he ever esteemed the Indian alliances, at best a necessary evil, their services to be over valued ; sometimes insignificant, often barbarous, always capricious, and that the employment of them was only justifiable when, by being united to a regular army, they could be kept under control. Governed by these sentiments the General acted. In his own expressive language, 'he determined to be the soldier, not the executioner of the state. ' Indeed, it was very remarkable how he restrained their ferocity dur- ing the short time they were with our army, and in order to do this, the more effectually he took to his aid a favorite priest of theirs, who had more control over the passions of the Indians than all their chiefs put together."
On the 22d of April, 1822, the remains of Jane McCrea and of Lieutenant Van Vechten were removed to the old burial ground near the site of the present village of Fort Edward. The ceremonial was attended with unusual pomp and display for those early days-the celebrated and afterwards unfortunate pulpit orator, Hooper Cum- mings of Albany, N. Y., (whose lamp was so soon to go out in black darkness) preaching upon that occasion from Michah 2-10, so impres- sive and pathetic a sermon that many of his audience were convulsed with sobs and weeping.
Miss McCrea's remains were again removed in 1852, to the Union Cemetery between Fort Edward and Sandy Hill, the McCrea lot being near the entrance. The marble slab which marks the spot bears the following inscription :
HERE REST THE REMAINS OF JANE McCREA, AGED 17. MADE CAPTIVE AND MURDERED) BY A BAND OF INDIANS WHILE ON A VISIT TO A RELATIVE IN THIS NEIGHBORHOOD A. D. 1777. TO COMMEMORATE
ONE OF THE MOST THRILLING INCIDENTS
201
GRAVE OF JANE McCREA.
IN THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION TO DO JUSTICE TO THE FAME OF THE GALLANT
BRITISH OFFICER TO WHOM SHE WAS AFFIANCED AND AS A SIMPLE TRIBUTE TO THE MEMORY OF THE DEPARTED THIS STONE IS ERECTED BY HER NEICE, SARAH HANNA PAYNE, A. D. 1852.
"There is at present," (1895) writes to me the late Mrs. Charles Stone of Sandy Hill, who, with most praiseworthy interest, had taken a deep interest in the matter, " a chain fence with stone posts around the lot. The marble slab bears the coat-of-arms of the relic-hunter, being nicked at every point, except, possibly, beneath the soil. The whole, indeed, has the appearance of great neglect. There is, how- ever, a fund now being raised to put it in much better condition, and it is the intention of the trustees of the cemetery to have the improve- ments made this spring. They wish to erect a substantial fence, ornamental, of iron, but to be kept impenetrable from the chisel of the relic hunter. *
* A certain portion of the fund will be kept in trust continually to improve, adorn and keep in order the lot." 1
A sketch of the Jane McCrea tragedy would be incomplete without an account of the after career of Jenny's lover, David Jones, especially since so much fiction has been woven into his life, after the terrible death of his betrothed. It seems incumbent, therefore, that the writer should present such reliable facts about him, as he has been able to glean from different sources.
The facts then appear to be as follows:
1 The late Miss Lura A. Boies has written an exquisite little gem of a poem on Jane McCrea. My friend, Judge Hay thought. and I agree with him, that it would compare with any efforts of our best poets. Lura A. Boies, daughter of Jerome and Hannah G. Gillette Boies, was born in the town of Moreau, Saratoga County, N. Y., May 2d, 1835. Like the Davidson sisters (Lucretia and Margaret) she, at a very early age, developed precocious intellectual abilities, which her pen shaped from ' Airy Nothings' and formed 'a local habitation and a name.' Devoting the leisure hours of a busy life to literary pursuits, she, while yet in mere girlhood, accumulated the materials for a graceful volume of poems, which, after her early and untimely death, were, through the indefatigable efforts of her life-long friend, the late Judge Hay of Saratoga Springs, published under the title of " Rural Rhymes." She died April 15, 1859, and is buried near her heroine, Jane McCrea, in the Union cemetery, between Fort Edward and Sandy Hill. The curious reader is referred for Miss Boies' exquisite poem on Jane McCrea to the author's " Bal- lads of Burgoyne's Campaign."
[ 25]
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WASHINGTON COUNTY: ITS HISTORY.
Lieutenant Jones, chilled with horror and completely broken in spirit by the event, tendered the resignation of his commission to Burgoyne, which was refused. He bought the scalp of his Jenny and with this cherished mememto, deserted, with his brother, before the army reached Saratoga and retired into Canada. Various accounts, as I have said, have been given respecting his subsequent fate. Some have asserted that, perfectly desperate and careless of life, he rushed into the thickest of the Battle of Bemis Heights and was slain; while others allege that he died within three years afterward broken-hearted and insane. But neither assertion is correct. "While searching for Mrs. F-n among her friends of Glens Falls." says my friend Mr. Lossing, "I called at the house of Judge R-s, [Rosekrans?] whose wife is related to the family of Jones. Her aunt married a brother of Lieutenant Jones and she often heard this lady speak of him. He lived in Canada to be an old man and died but a few years ago. [This was written in 1848]. The death of Jenny, was a heavy blow and he never recovered from it. In youth he was gay and ex- ceedingly garrulous, but after that terrible event he became melan- choly and taciturn. He never married and avoided society as much as business would permit. Towards the close of July in every year, when the anniversary of the tragedy approached, he would shut him- self in his room and refuse the sight of any one; and, at all times his friends avoided any reference to the Revolution in his presence."
As supplementary to, and corroborative of, this statement of Mr. Lossing, I have been so fortunate as to light upon a communication in The Catholic World of December, 1882, which gives the final end of Jones, and which is from the pen of Julia C. Smalley. She writes as follows:
" In the course of an evening conversation with the cheerful circle in which an easy-chair is permitted to fill the privileged place accorded to its invalid occupant, we fell to relating incidents connected with the early history of our Republic. An aged member of that circle sat diligently plying her knitting needles, a silent listener to our chat, instead of supplying the share which we knew full well she could have drawn from her own knowledge of many interesting events of that period, at the time of their occurrence or soon after. She was, there- fore, very warmly urged by the younger part of the company to " tell us a story, " even though it might prove, as she hinted, but a " twice told tale," to some of her listeners.
203
REMINISCENSES RELATIVE TO LIEUT. JONES.
It so happened that she had, on that day, taken up a stray number of Lossing's "Pictorial Field Book of the Revolution," and while glancing drowsily over its pages, her eye was attracted by his account of the tragical death of Jane McCrea, near Fort Edward on the Hudson River in July, 1777. Having frequently in former years visited an aged relative who lived in Bennington, Vermont, through the War of the Revolution, and who was well acquainted with the unfortunate maiden and with the Mrs. McNeil whom Miss McCrea was visiting at the time of the sad event, she had heard the painful story in all the mournful details from the lips of that relative, with the shuddering horror and tearful sympathy which it would naturally awaken in a sensitive young heart.
It is curious to note how some such trivial cause as this renewal of her acquaintance with that sad story will often impel an old person to rake up the dying embers of the past and draw from them living sparks which had long been smouldering beneath their dust. It was thus with our serene old friend as she closed the book that afternoon and settled back in her old arm-chair, musing upon the narrative and recalling scenes of her early life which she had not thought upon for years. Hence it followed, of course, when our evening chat dipped into history and she was urged to bear her part in it, that she should recur to the subject of her late reading and revery, and to the fact that she knew more of the later life of Lieutenant David Jones than was recorded by Lossing. "For," said she, "all the early years of my life, with the exception of occasional visits to friends in Vermont, were passed on the American shore of the St. Lawrence. It was then a wilderness from Sackett's Harbor to the "Rapids," only broken by the little village of Ogdensburgh, just starting into existence, and by small openings made here and there by such hardy pioneers as dared encroach within its forbidding boundaries. Schools there were none up or down the river from Ogdensburgh, and the children of the set- tlers had no means for instruction, unless taught at home or sent across the river to attend schools in the older settlements on the Can- adian shore.
" No sooner had my father taken up a large tract of land and planted our pleasant home in this wilderness-indeed, before we had been there long enough to get it reduced to a tolerable state of order, we were visited by the residents of that shore up and down the river, and afterwards formed many prominent friendships with them, among
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WASHINGTON COUNTY: ITS HISTORY.
the most highly valued of which were members of the Jones's family. So it befel that when I was old enough to be sent away to school I was admitted into one of those families more as a household pet than a boarder and was cordially invited to range freely through the whole circle: As every separate family was blessed with daughters near my own age, I was decidedly " in clover " among them-clover the luxury of which for me who had no sister or young companions at home, save the little squaws from a neighboring Indian encampment, cannot pos- sibly be conceived by any small lassie who lives amid abounding youthful companionship. I reveled in it. Such parties as were given weekly at one and another house! Such multitudes of dolls as went with us in every variety of costume; among which my own large and small, figured, copper-colored and in full Indian dress, with hair banged according to the most approved aboriginal style-which has been adopted by our modern fine ladies-and was necessary to the completion of the Indian toilet that I took pride in arranging for them in honor of my special pets, the papooses of the wigwams.
"Among the young girls of the Jones's connection was one to whom I was particularly attracted as she was to me, by the similarity of our positions. Her father lived in a remote district and her home was as isolated as my own, while she was with her relatives for the same purpose as myself. At the close of each term of our school she was, as well as myself, carried home to pass the short interval between the terms. On one of these occasions she was so urgent in her en- treaties that I might be permitted to go with her for the vacation that my father consented, much to my satisfaction, and we set forth in great glee. Our journey was very delightful, through a wild and romantic region, and I received a most cordial welcome from her fam- ily at its close.
" The house was more elaborate in style and furniture than our house so recently founded in the woods. A portion of it was built by her grandfather many years before and extensive modern additions had been made by her father. Her grandfather had died the previous year and his brother, a very venerable old gentleman, with hair as white as snow, lived in the family. I was deeply impressed by the countenance and manner of this grand-uncle of my friend. An ex- pression of unutterable sadness was stamped upon his noble features, and a gentle dignity-benign to the verge of pity-marked his whole bearing, even to the softened tones of his manly voice, especially when
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