USA > New York > Washington County > Washington county, New York; its history to the close of the nineteenth century > Part 6
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From his Journal, it would seem as if it cost our travellers much labor to get their canoe up the several rapids from the mouth of the Mohawk to Stillwater near Fort Saratoga.
He passed two Indians in their bark canoes. Occasionally he came across a clearing which had been turned into cornfields and meadows before the war but were now entirely deserted: He reached Saratoga, June 24th, and lay over night in a hut of boards orected by a family who had ventured to return after the massacre. "On the following morning," says the narrative, "we proceeded up the river, but after we had advanced about an English mile, we fell in with a waterfall [Saratoga Dam] which cost us a deal of pains before we could get our canoe over it. Above the fall the river is very deep, the water slides along silently and increases suddenly near the shores. After rowing several miles, we passed another water fall [Fort. Miller] which is longer and more dangerous than the preceding one. We intended to have gone quite up to Fort Nicholson [Fort Edward] in the canoe, but we found it impossible to get over this upper fall, the canoe being heavy and scarce any water in the river, except in one place where it flowed over the rock, and where it was impossible to get up on account of the steep- ness and violence of the fall. We were, accordingly, obliged to leave our canoe here, and to carry our baggage through unfrequented woods to Fort Anne, on the river Wood Creek, during which we were quite spent on account of the heat. We passed the night in the midst of the forest, plagued with mosquetos, gnats and wood-lice, and in fear of all kinds of snakes." At Fort Anne he describes the weather as being
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KALM'S JOURNEY.
oppressively hot, while he was again tormented by midges (black flies ?) and mosquetoes. Speaking of the gnats he says they are very minute and are ten times worse than the larger ones, the mosquetos; for their size renders them next to imperceptible; they are careless of their lives, suck their fill of blood, and cause a burning pain " The insect, here alluded to, says Dr. Fitch, we readily recognize as being the Simuruien noievum of Dr. Harris, which still occurs in woodland districts in June, throughout this vicinity. More recent researches plainly show that Kalm was in error in regarding this and the mosqueto as identical with similar European insects. 1
Embarking with their guide, as they paddled down Wood Creek they came near having their canoe stove in by running upon the sunken logs which abounded in this stream. But with much care this calamity was avoided; and finally they reached the French post at Crown Point. Here Kalm tarried till an opportunity occurred for his passing down the Lake to Canada, while his guide returned to Albany. In his progress through the country he makes observations respecting the musk rat, the sassafras, the chestnut, the fir or hemlock, the hawthorn, aub-hil- locks, wood-lice, the arbor-vitae, the elder, the iron-wood, squirrels, the " Giant's Pots" worn in the rock at Fort Miller, and other valuable objects of a similar character. He also made many discoveries of rare and beautiful plants before unknown to Europeans; and in our swamps and lowlands a modest flower, the Kalmia Glanca (swamp laurel) blooms in perpetual remembrance of his visit."
EARLY SETTLEMENTS.
Although the County and the Colonies, in general, were once more at peace, yet the exposed situation of this territory to attacks from Canada, entirely discouraged its settlement at this period. It is true, that a few bold emigrants occasionally made their way into this country ; but the majority preferred (and with reason) to locate west of Albany in the neighborhood of the friendly Mohawks, rather than run the risk of having themselves and families tomahawked and scalped or taken captives into Canada by locating so near the Canadian frontier. Scarcely, therefore, any advance was made in settling the country to the north of Albany at this period. Moreover, all thoughts of enter-
I Dr. Fitch, in this remark, is undoubtedly correct-for Fitch has long been recognized as perhaps, the greatest authority on entimology in the United States.
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WASHINGTON COUNTY: ITS HISTORY.
prises of this nature, were given up, when, in 1731, the French, taking advantage of the pusillanimity of the English built and occupied Crown- Point on Lake Champlain, twenty miles north of this county, and Fort Frederick, on the promontory called by the Iroquois Ticonderoga-the definition of which is " There the lake shuts itself." The erection of these two forts at these places, far within the territory which Great Britain had ever regarded as her own and upon the very ground to which this. province had, for over thirty years previously asserted its jurisdiction by the grant made to Dellins (to which allusion has been made in the introductory chapter) was felt to be a most impudent and audacious. proceeding, palpably contravening the treaty stipulation existing between England and France, and, as has been hinted, the seemingly manifest indifference of the mother country to resent this occupation of its territory, and thus afford no protection to settlers, who otherwise might gladly have taken up land, was a great hindrance to the early settlement of this country. Indeed, all the northern colonies (as is seen by the minutes of the various assemblies) looked with feelings of sad forboding and dismay upon the establishment of Crown Point and Fort St. Frederick, forseeing that, on the recurrance of hostilities, it would be a nest from which bands of savage mauraders and scalping parties would be continually issuing to lay waste with fire and tomahawk the frontier settlements, even the people of Albany, dreading lest some of these calamities would fall to their lot. George Washington, himself, also, in the House of Burgesses in Virginia, predicted much trouble in the future for the Colonies-" if this flagrant defiance of treaties was to go unredressed."
The New England Colonial Assemblies, also, were fierce in their condemnation of this outrage, and indeed, it is really marvellous that Great Britain (not the Provinces as has been alleged) should have so passively submitted to such an alarming encroachment. The mother country, however, having thus tamely submitted, the colony of New York took the matters up, and began to devise some way in which these encroachments could be rendered nugatory.
And among the various schemes proposed for averting the dangers to which the Province of New York was exposed from the French settlements at Crown Point and Ticonderoga that which promised to be the most successful, was the project of planting a strong colony of hardy, resolute, energetic settlers upon the vacant lands between the
41
EARLY SETTLEMENTS.
Hudson River and Lake Champlain.1 Could such a settlement be formed, it would be a cordon through which the enemy could not easily break to molest the country below. Buit from what part of the British Empire could settlers, possessing the desired qualities, be drawn ? The question was not difficult of solution. Their corporal habits and powers of endurance, their stability of sentiment and indisputable perseverance, and more than all else, their noted antipathy to Popery and their exe- cration of France and Frenchmen, as the espousers of the Pretender's claims to the British throne, set forth in strong relief the Protestant inhabitants of the Highlands of Scotland, as the very people for forming the proposed settlement. A proclamation was, therefore, published by the Governor, and circulated through north Britain, inviting "loyal Protestant Highlands" from that country to colonize the vacant land in this district-setting forth the liberal terms on which these lands would be granted them.
Captain Laughton Campbell was, by this proclamation, induced to visit this country in the year 1737. He traversed the country, and was pleased with its soil. The Indians whom he here met, admired his athletic form and the gay colors of his tartan costume and entreated him to come and live in their neighborhood. Lieut. - Governor Clarke, the acting Governor of the Province of New York, at that time, also urged him to found a settlement here, promising him a grant of thirty thousand acres, free from all charges, except those of the survey and the King's quit-rent. Thus allowed, Captain Campbell returned to Scotland, and sold his estate situated on the Island of Iola, and collected a company of eighty-three protestant families comprising four hundred ยท and twenty-three adults and a large number of children. The delays, disappointments and calamities with which these adventurers from the Heberdees were destined to be tantalized and disheartened ere they reached the goal for which they ever were starting, may almost remind one of the journeyings of Israel to the Land of Promise. Defraying the expenses of their passage, Capt. Campbell arrived in New York with part of this company in 1738, the remainder coming over the following
1 The account in this chapter which here follows, I have taken almost in its entirity from Dr. Fitch's Historical Scenes of Washington County. It would have been a comparatively easy matter to have changed his phraseology, and so have not acknowledged any indebtedness, but, 1 prefer to give it to the reader just as he wrote it-and it stands a monument to his great power of research-for it should be remembered that when he entered this held, 1849, it was one entirely unploughed-nor do subsequent investigations (save in a few minute and unimportant particulars) contravene his statements.
[5]
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WASHINGTON COUNTY : ITS HISTORY.
year. "Private faith and public honor," says Smith in his history of New York, "loudly demanded the fair execution of a project so expensive to the undertaker and beneficial to the colony."
But the prospect of having a large tract speedily improved and thereby rapidly enhanced in value, excited the cupidity of the Governor and the Surveyor-General, and they refused to make out the promised conveyance unless they received the usual fees therefor and were also allowed a share with Campbell in the grant. Upon his refusal to take the land upon these terms, the Governor began tampering with the emigrants to induce them to settle upon the proposed lands independent of Captain Campbell. The Assembly of the Province was in session at this time but that body and the executive were in open hostility to each other. To alarm them, therefore, into a compliance with his wishes in this affair, the Governor, on the 13th of October, 1738, communicated to the Assembly that the French were intending to commence settle- ments at Wood Creek and advised them without delay, to provide for the immediate settlement in that district of the Scotch emigrants just arrived, and for whose relief he asked aid. But ere the Assembly had acted on this subject the Governor became so exasperated with their opposition to him that he dissolved them and ordered a new election.
In his opening speech, March 23, 1739, the Governor said: "The peopling of that part of the county to the north of Saratoga will be of great advantage to the Province in strengthening the frontier and enlarging your trade. I hope, therefore, you will give them some needful assistance. This subject was further pressed upon the attention of the Assembly by a "pathetic petition from these poor strangers;" and Mr. Livingston's compassion for them in their destitute situation was so excited that he introduced a motion for a gift of seven pounds to each family to enable them to settle the lands at Wood Creek. But the suspicions at once arose in the minds of some of the members that this money would go to the Governor to pay his fees for signing the grant. Thus influenced by their suspicions they rejected the proposition.
An abhorence of being dupes to the self-interested motives of those in power, is the only apology that can be made in behalf of the Assembly for thus withholding their patronage from a measure of such importance to the province. Had the proposed settlement been commenced at this time, it would doubtedlessly have formed a powerful barrier on this frontier at the outbreak of the French War of 1744, and would have
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EARLY SETTLEMENTS.
warded off those calamities with which the feeble and scattered Dutch settlements were then assailed.
Hence, the illusion of these poor emigrants that they were to be speedily located and build up another Arggleshire in the wilds of America was dispelled; and the forlorn situation in which they now saw themselves placed, was, even to their stout hearts, all but over- whelming. Poor and friendless, in a strange land, ignorant of the language, costumes, modes of labor, where could they hope to obtain shelter ? Where could their wives and little ones find food unless the ravens fed them ? to escape from impending starvation many enlisted in an expedition against the West Indies, while others wandered forth from New York and became scattered among the Dutch inhabitants of the several river counties above that city.
Captain Campbell, after finding that he could not obtain the grant from the Governor, upon the terms that had been promised, memoril- ized the Board of Trade in England; but the difficulties and delays attending the step, were so great, that his means became exhausted and he was unable longer to keep his emigrants from starvation. With the poor remains of his broken fortune, he purchased and settled down upon a small farm in the Province. A few years after, in 1745, when the Rebellion broke out in Scotland, he hastened back to that country and served under the Duke of Cumberland. After the war, he returned hither to his family, and soon afterwards died, leaving a widow and six children to feel in after-years the consequences of his disappoint- ments. Such is the sad history of one whose high sense of honor and sound judgment, whose energy, patriotism and military talents, eminently fitted him for the enterprise in which he embarked. But for the baseness of those in power, there can be little doubt that the name of Laughton Campbell would now be inscribed in the annals of our State, as the Sir William Johnson of the Upper Hudson.
After the failure of Campbell's undertaking, the project was much discussed of purchasing the "Saratoga Patent" from its proprietors and settling it with friendly Indians, erecting a fort thereon, and culti- vating the lands for them, and thus form a barrier to protect the country below. But no steps were undertaken towards carrying out the scheme.
THE FIRST FAMILY LOCATED IN WASHINGTON COUNTY.
Within the bounds of Washington county. we have no indications of but one family as located at this period ; and in regard to this family
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WASHINGTON COUNTY : ITS HISTORY.
our information is very meager as has already been stated in my Intro- duction. The claim of Dellins to the lands from the Batten Kill to Crown Point appears to have been transferred by him to the Rev. John Lydius-although it appears that 1600 acres on the Hudson above the , mouth of the Batten Kill had been granted May 5th, 1732 to Cornelius Cuyler (a merchant in Albany) and Wm. Kettlehuyn. But probably, for the purpose of strengthening their claim by possession of residence upon this tract, Col. Lydius,1 a son of the minister, erected a house at Fort Edward and resided there with his family, engaging in traffic with the Indians -- one of the most lucrative branches of business in the Province at that time. His daughter Catharine was born here at this period, and was as near as I can ascertain the first child born of civilized parents in Washington county." She married Henry Cuyler, and died at an advanced age at Greenbush, April, 1820. Of her four sons, the two oldest entered the British service in the time of the Revolutionary War. One of these rose to the rank of a colonel in the army and was killed in Portugal: the other was a post-captain in the navy. Her third son, William Howe Cuyler, in the war of 1812, was an aide-de-camp in the American army on the Niagara frontier, and walking along the river bank one dark night with a lighted lantern, was killed by a shot from the opposite shore. Of her youngest son, Burton, we have no information. Her three daughters were Mrs. John Sprole, Mrs. - Le Roy and Mrs. Richard L. Smith.
Such then, was the condition of Washington county, at the time of which we are now writing. The silence of its primeval wilderness was unbroken, save by the hooting of the owl or the scream of the panther ; and its solitude was undisturbed except by savage beasts, or still more Savage tribes as the latter passed two and fro upon the war-path.
1 As I am writing this I have before me a paper The New York Weekly Journal, January 27, 1734. addressed to Mr. John Henry Lydius-Albany .- S.
2 1 am fully aware that this statement is disputed, but I prefer, every time to take the authority of Dr. Fitch to any other .- S.
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THE FRENCH WAR.
CHAPTER V.
THE FRENCH WAR, 1754-63 - SKETCH OF FORT EDWARD - VISITS TO IT OF DISTIN- GUISHED TRAVELLERS,
Blood had been spilled; Washington defeated; and the scalping knife unsheathed from the Ohio to the Kennebec; yet England and France were still at peace. Notwithstanding the bold assumptions of France, the vacillating course of the Newcastle Ministry rendered a definite policy toward that government impossible; and although the defeat at the Great Meadows roused the ministry sufficiently to ask the advice of Horatio Gates, a youghtful officer just arrived from Nova Scotia, yet they soon relapsed into their former imbecility, leaving the charge of American affairs to the Duke of Cumberland, at that time the Captain- General of the armies of Great Britain.
The Duke of Cumberland, who has been described as "cruel and sanguinary," regarded the opportunity thus afforded for indulging in his favorite pastime, war, with delight; and rightly judging that the French were bent on hostilities, he dispatched in January, 1755, while the ministry was still hesitating, two regiments to America under the command of Edward Braddock-a supercilious officer and one more acquainted with military manoeuvers in Hyde Park with men in glittering uniforms than with Indian warfare. He sailed from Cork the 14th of January, and arived in the Chesapeake the latter part of February. The French, thoroughly cognizant of the intentions of the English, notwith- standing the absurd diplomatic subtleties with which England's foolish prime-minister was amusing the French Court, immediately made preparations for sending large reinforcements into Canada; and with such a design a fleet of transports carrying troops under the command of Baron Dieskau, a veteran soldier, sailed from Brest early in May.
Meanwhile, as the prospect of war became more certain the alarm of the colonists grew so great as to induce the Governor of New York to send a message to the Assembly on the 4th of February in which he reminded them of the weak state of the frontier fortifications, should the French make-which was quite possible-a descent upon the Province. Albany he thought, should therefore be fortified without delay, and a
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WASHINGTON COUNTY : ITS HISTORY.
strong fort built at some advanced place upon the Hudson, whence scouts could be sent out to gain intelligence and give timely notice of the enemy's approach.
While New York was thus showing its active interest in the ucal of the Colony, a conference of the Colonial Governor had been called by Braddock, shortly after his arrival in Virginia, to meet on the 14th of April at Alexandria, Va., to devise measures for a vigorous prosecution of the war against the French. Yet, at the same time, it was distinctly understood (as no formal declaration of war had as vet passed between the two Governments) that Canada was not to be invaded, but only French encroachments along the frontier repelled.
A: this conference, four separate expeditions were planned by Braddock and the Royal Governors-the first for the complete reduction of Nova Scotia was to be commanded by Monckton, the Lieutenant Governor of that Province; a second under Braddock himself, was to recover the Ohio Valley; the third under the command of Shirley was to expel the French from Niagara, and form a junction with Braddock's forces; and the fourth wasto be given to Major-General William Johnson, having for its object the capture of Crown Point. The latter was to have under him the provincial militia of New York and the warriors of the Six Nations1; and his acknowledged influence over the latter, especially, gave great promise of success.
The result of three of these so carefully planned expedition are matters of record and does not come within the province of this History Monckton's expedition in Nova Scotia, aside from his brutal act of expelling the inoffensive and peaceful Acadians, was of no moment in regard to the effect of the war; Braddock's Expedition failed with his death and defeat, most ignomiously: while, Shirley, in his attempt on Niagara, got no farther than Oswego, on account of a severe storm on the Lake which destroyed his fleet and the consequent desertion of his Indian allies.
Thus, two, and in fact, three of the expeditions so carefully planned at Alexandria had signally failed. The hope of all the Colonies were now centered, in fearful suspense, upon the result of the expedition of Major-General Johnson. Crown Point had been strongly reinforced.
1 The "Five Nations " had now become the " Six Nations " as stated in a previous note, owing to the former having finally adopted the Tuscaroras of North and South Carolina, into the con- federacy. The reasons for this adoption do not properly come within the province of this history and are therfore not given.
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SKETCH OF FORT EDWARD.
Dieskau, who had advanced to South Bay (Whitehall) at the head of Lake Champlain, with a force of fifteen hundred French, Canadians and Indians, was watching with eagle eye his movements. Should Johnson fail the hopes of the Colonies are lost !
But the end of June (1755) all the forces destined for the reduction of Crown Point had assembled at Albany. They were composed chiefly of Provincial militia from the Colonies of Massachusetts and Connecticut. New York had contributed one regiment to the expedition, and New Hampshire had raised for the same object, five hundred sturdy mountaineers, and had placed them under the command of Colonel Joshua Blanchard, who had as one of his lieutenants John Stark, afterward the hero of Bennington.
In the beginning of August, General Lyman was sent forward with some six hundred men-the greater part of the troops to erect a fort on the east bank of the Hudson River at the "Great Carrying Place " between that river and Lake George, and which afterwards received from General Johnson the name of Fort Edward. This was in accord- ance with the recommendation of the Governor to the Assembly which has been before referred to 1
And here, before following up the army and military tactics of General Johnson, a description of this fort-a fort which, as it will afterward be seen, was destined to play such an important part not only in this present French War, but in that of the Revolution, will be given.
SKETCH OF FORT EDWARD.
Fort Edward, a short distance from which the death of Jane McCrea took place-an event which will be narrated in its proper place in this History-has an important niche in American history. In Colonial times it was a central point of interest both to the Whites and to the Indians; and, as we have seen, in the wars of William and Mary, Queen Anne's, the old French, and the French Wars both sides were equally anxious to possess it. In consequence, as we shall still further see, in the progress of this history, many thrilling adventures occurred in its immediate vicinity.
The first white man, says Sir William Johnson, who settled in the
1 It was while on his way to Lake George that in pursuance of the same general plan, that Lyman in August of this year. halted his troops and built a fort in old Saratoga at the mouth of Fish Creek (now Schuylerville on the Hudson,) and named it Fort Ilardy in honor of Sir Charles Hardy then Governor of New York.
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WASHINGTON COUNTY : ITS HISTORY.
town, was Colonel John Henry Lydius, son of a Dutch minister of Albany. Lydius was a man of extensive acquaintance with the Indians, having resided much among them in Canada for several years when he married, and again at Lake George. He erected several mills on an island opposited the present village of Fort Edward; and hence the name the place long went by-" Lydius' Mills." His daughter, Catha- rine, was, as I have previously mentioned, the first white child born in Washington county. The street in the Village of Fort Edward, now Broadway, was formerly called Lydius, after its founder. Colonel Lydius carried on an extensive trade with the Indians at this point for several years. He was, however, extremely unpopular with the Red- men, who justly accused him of having on various occasions, cheated them in land transactions. This feeling on the part of the Indians, at length culminated in 1747 (as has been noted) in which year they burned his house on the Island and carried his son prisoner into Canada.
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