History of Montgomery & Fulton Counties by F. W. Beers & Co. Montgomery County, Ch4

THE HISTORY OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY

CHAPTER IV.

THE CONSTRUCTION OF FORT HUNTER--FIRST SETTLEMENTS--SIR WILLIAM JOHNSON'S CAREER--THE BURNETSFIELD MASSACRE.

Fort Hunter was built early in the last century at the junction of the Mohawk and Schoharie creek to serve as a frontier military post. The contract with Governor Hunter for its construction, dated October n, 1711, provided that it should be one hundred and fifty feet square with a wall twelve feet high made of logs a foot square and pinned together at the corners. Within this inclosure there were to be a two-story block house with double loop holes and a chapel twenty-four feet square and one story high. The work was to be completed by the following July for 1,000 pounds. The contract was taken by Garret Symonce, Barent and Hendrick Vrooman, John Wemp and Arent Van Petten of Schenectady. The fort was afterward enlarged and strengthened. The house of worship within its walls, built of stone, was called Queen Anne's chapel, being furnished by the queen shortly after its completion and provided by her with a communion service of silver. Attached to it was a glebe of three hundred acres of good land on which stood a two-story stone parsonage. It was under the management of an Episcopal society in England " for propagating the gospel in foreign parts."

Fort Hunter was placed under the command of Lieut. John Scott, who, having purchased a large tract of land from the Indians on the 20th of October, 1722, took a patent for fifteen hundred acres extending westward from Auries creek along the south bank of the Mohawk ; and on the 23d of June, 1725, his son took a patent for eleven hundred acres lying immediately west and extending to the site of the village of Fultonville. Hendrick and Hans Hansen.in 1713 took a patent for two thousand acres near Tribes Hill, upon which they afterward settled ; and it is claimed that Henry, a son of one of them, was the first white child bom north of the Mohawk between Schenectady and Palatine Bridge. In 1714 a patent for two thousand acres on the north side of the Mohawk at Caughnawaga was granted to John, Margaret and Edward Collins, who subsequently conveyed it to Myndert Wemple, Douw Fonda and Hendrick A. Vrooman, descendants of whom are numerous in the valley. Among the early settlers were a family named Groat who located at what is now Crane's Village. The Groat brothers in 1730 erected the pioneer gristmill west of Schenectady. The latter place had previously furnished flour to the Palatines in the Mohawk valley as far up as the German Flats.

About this time appeared upon the scene of pioneer labors in this region a young man destined during the course of an active and ambitious life to far outrank his neighbors in social position and in the extent of his influence and possessions ; to fill the largest place in the local annals of his time and to found a community which will perpetuate his name in its own to the remotest future. William Johnsonwas sent into the Mohawk valley in 1738 to superintend a large estate, the title to which had been acquired by his uncle, Sir Peter Warren, a British Admiral. This tract, containing some fifteen thousand acres, lay along the south bank of the Mohawk near the mouth of Schoharie creek and mostly within the present town of Florida. It was called from its proprietor Warrensbush. Johnson was born at Warrentown in the county of Down, Ireland, in 1715, and was therefore twenty-three years old when he took charge of his uncle's wilderness domain. He was to promote Captain Warren's interests by the sale of small farms in Warrensbush ; his own interests by cultivating land for himself, and their joint interests by keeping a store in which they were partners. In 1743 he became connected with the fur trade at Oswego and derived a great revenue from this and his other dealings with the Indians. Having early resolved to remain in the Mohawk valley, he applied himself earnestly to the study of the character and language of the natives. By freely mingling with them and adopting their habits when it suited his interests he soon gained their good will and confidence, and gradually acquired an ascendancy over them never possessed by any other European.

A few years after Johnson's arrival on the Mohawk he purchased a tract of land on the north side of the river. In 1744 he built a gristmill on a small stream flowing into the Mohawk from the north about (three miles west of the site of Amsterdam. He also erected a stone mansion at this place for his own residence, calling it Fort Johnson. The building still stands and bears its old name. Johnson also bought from time to time great tracts of land north of the Mohawk, and at some distance from it, mostly within the present limits of Fulton county.

The Mohawk river early became the great thoroughfare toward Lake Ontario for the English colonists in prosecuting their trade with the Indians. Governor Burnet realized the importance of controlling the lake for the purposes of commerce and of resistance to the encroachments of the French, and accordingly established in 1722 a trading post, and in 1727, a fort at Oswego. The French met this measure by the construction of defences at Niagara to intercept the trade from the upper lakes. This movement was ineffectually opposed "by the Iroquois, who, to obtain assistance from the English, gave a deed of their territory to the King of England, who was to protect them in the possession of it.

To defend the frontier, which was exposed to invasions by the French, especially after their erection of the fortification of Crown Point, it was proposed to people the territory in that direction with Scotch Highlanders. Captain Campbell, a Highland chief, came over in 1737 to view the lands offered, which, to the amount of thirty thousand acres, it is said. Governor Clarke promised to grant free of charges, except the cost of survey and the King's quit-rent. Satisfied with the lands, and with the assurances given him, Captain Campbell transported, at his expense, from Scotland more than four hundred adults, with their children ; but on their arrival they were prevented by the intrigues of interested officers from settling in the tract indicated, and suffered great hardships before they could establish and support themselves elsewhere. Many of them settled in and about Saratoga, becoming the pioneers in that quarter, as the Palatines were on the Mohawk. England and France being at war, in consequence of the latter espousing the cause of "the popish Pretender," the Chevalier St. George, the Scotch settlement was surprised on the morning of Nov. i7th, 1745, by over six hundred French and Indians, who overcame the garrison, burned all the settlers' buildings, and either killed or carried into captivity almost the whole population. Thirty families were massacred.

The village of Hoosic having been similarly destroyed, no obstacle remained to the enemy's advance, and consternation prevailed in the outlying settlements, leading many of their inhabitants to flee to Albany. The environs of that city were harrassed by parties of French and Canadian Indians, and the Six Nations wavered in their attachment to the English. At this juncture William Johnson was entrusted with the sole management of the Iroquois. It is his services in this most important and delicate position, wherein he stood for a large part of his life as the mediator between two races, whose positions and aims made them almost inevitably hostile, that constitutes his strongest claim to lasting and favorable remembrance. His knowledge of the manners, customs, and language of the Indians, and the complete confidence which they always reposed in him, qualified him for this position. A high officer of his government, he was also in 1746 formally invested by the Mohawks with the rank of a chief in that nation, to whom he was thereafter known as Warraghigagey. In Indian costume he shortly after led the tribe to a council at Albany. He was appointed a colonel in the British service about this time, and by his direction of the colonial troops and the Iroquois warriors, the frontier settlements were to a great extent saved from devastation by the French and their Indian allies, the settlements north of Albany being an unhappy exception, while occasional murders and scalpings occurred even along the Mohawk.

Johnson's influence with the Indians was increased by his having a Mohawk woman, Molly Brant, sister of the famous chief Joseph Brant, living with him in the relation of a wife during the latter part of his life. The savages regarded the connection with great complacency, as they did the pale faced chief's intimacy with their wives and daughters generally. Johnson's first wife is understood to have been a German girl, purchased by him from a Mr. Philips, living on the south side of the Mohawk, nearly opposite Crane's Village, to whom she had been sold for payment of her passage across the ocean-a common custom for twenty-five years after the Revolution. She lived with Mr. Johnson but a few years before her death. Their children were subsequently Sir John Johnson, Mrs. Guy Johnson, and Mrs. Col. Claus. The generally received account is, that Johnson and his German wife were not married until during her fatal illness. Peace nominally existed between France and England from 1748 to 1756, but hostilities between their American colonies broke out as early as 1754. In the following year Col. Johnson was appointed a Major-General and led the expedition against Crown Point, which resulted in the disastrous defeat of the French near Lake George. At the same time with his military promotion he was re-appointed superintendent of Indian affairs. having resigned that office in 1750, on account of the neglect of the government to pay certain claims for services. On resuming the superintendency '' General Johnson held a council with the Iroquois at his house, which resulted in about two hundred and fifty of their warriors following him to Lake George. The victory there gained was the only one in a generally disastrous year, and General Johnson's services were rewarded by a baronetcy and the sum of 5,000 pounds, voted by Parliament. He was also thereafter paid, 600 pounds annually as the salary of his office over the Indians. The poor Irish trader had become the wealthy baronet, Sir William Johnson.

In the spring of 1756 measures were taken for fortifying the portages between Schenectady and Oswego, by way of the Mohawk, Wood Creek, Oneida I.ake, and the Oswego River, with a view to keeping open communication between Albany and the fort at Oswego. The latter was in danger of being taken by the French, but the English authorities, though warned of the fact, took but tardy and ineffectual measures to defend the post. A few days before it was actually invested Gen. Webb, a man of small ability and courage, was sent with a regiment to reinforce the garrison; and Sir William Johnson, with two battalions of militia and a body of Indians,'shortly followed him. Before Webb reached Oneida Lake, however, he was informed that the beleagured post had surrendered, and fled down the Mohawk to the German Flats, where he met Johnson's force. The fort at Oswego was demolished by the French, greatly to the satisfaction of most of the Iroquois, who had always regarded it with alarm, and who now made treaties with the victors ; and the Mohawk valley, exposed to the enemy, was ranged by scalping parties of Canadian savages. The Mohawks, however, through the influence of Sir William Johnson. remained faithful to the English. The Baronet, with a view to counteract the impression made upon the Six Nations by the French successes, summoned them to meet him in council at Fort Johnson, in June, 1756. Previous to their assembling an adverse circumstance occurred which rendered negotiations at once more necessary and less hopeful. A party of Mohawks, while loitering around Fort Hunter, became involved in a quarrel with some soldiers of the garrison, resulting in several of the Indians being severely wounded. Revengeful feelings possessed the minds of the tribe, but Johnson succeeded in pacifying them, and winning over the Oneidas and Tuscaroras to the English interest. In the beginning of August Sir William led a party of Indian warriors and militia to the relief of Fort William Henry, at the head of Lake George, which was besieged by Montcalm; but on reaching Fort Edward his progress was arrested by the cowardice of Gen. Webb, who was there in command, and who used his superior authority to leave the beseiged fortress to its fate, which was a speedy surrender. The provincials, thoroughly disgusted by the disasters incurred through the incompetency and cowardice of their English officers, now deserted in great numbers; and while this was the case it was not to be expected that the fickle warriors of the Six Nations would remain faithful.

Soon after the capture of Fort William Henry rumors gained circulation that a large force of French and Indians was preparing to invade the settlements on the Mohawk. The Palatines who had settled on the Burnetsfield Patent were evidently most exposed; and feeling but poorly protected by what fortifications there were among them, they were several times during the Autumn on the point of deserting their dwellings and removing to settlements further down the river which were better defended. The rumors, however, seeming to prove groundless, they became emboldened, and finally neglected all precautions against an attack. Meanwhile, an expedition of about three hundred Canadian French and Indians, under command of one Belletre, penetrated the northern wilderness by way of Black River, and at three o'clock in the morning of November 12, the Palatine village, containing sixty dwellings and four block houses, was surrounded, and the inhabitants aroused to a sense of their situation by the horrid war whoop, which was the signal of attack. The invaders rushed upon the block houses. At the first they were received with an active fire of musketry, but the little garrison was soon appalled, as much by the blood-curdling yells of the Indians, as the more serious demonstrations of the French. The Mayor of the village, who was in command, opened the door and called for quarter. The garrisons of the other block-houses followed his example. These feeble defences, with all the other buildings in the settlement were then fired, and the wretched inmates of the dwellings, in attempting to escape from the flames were tomahawked and scalped. About forty of the Germans were thus massacred, and more than one hundred persons, men, women and children, were carried into captivity by the marauders as they retired laden with booty. This they did not do, however, until they had destroyed a large amount of grain and provisions, and as Belletre reported, slaughtered three thousand cattle, as many sheep, and fifteen hundred horses-figures, doubtless, grossly exaggerated,

Although, as soon as their infamous work was consummated, the raiders hastily withdrew in the direction of their approach, the whole Mohawk valley was thrown into the wildest panic, which the distressed condition and heartrending narratives of women and children who had escaped the massacre, served to intensify. The inhabitants of the remaining Mohawk settlements hastened to send their effects to Albany and Schenectady, with the intention of following them; and for a time the upper towns were threatened with entire desertion. The Palatine settlement on the south side of the Mohawk, near the one whose destruction has been related, was similarly visited in April, 1758. The militia under Sir William Johnson rendezvoused at Canajoharie to resist this last invasion, but the enemy withdrew, and did not afterward appear in force in this quarter. About this time Johnson, with some three hundred Indian warriors, chiefly Mohawks, joined Abercrombie's expedition against Crown Point. The disastrous repulse and retreat of Abercrombie's force, with the expectation lhat it would be followed up by the victorious enemy, renewed the worst fears throughout the Mohawk valley, which for once were not realized. In spite of this disaster, the successes of the English elsewhere during 1758 made so favorable an impression on the Six Nations, that Sir William Johnson was enabled to bring nearly a thousand warriors to join Gen. Prideaux's expedition against Niagara, in the following summer, which the Baronet conducted to a successful issue after Prideaux's death hy the accidental explosion of a shell. Sir William, in 1760, led thirteen hundred Irequois warriors in General Amherst's expedition against Montreal, which extinguished the French power in North America.