The Mohawk Dutch and The Palatines by Milo Nellis

DUTCH CUSTOMS AT ALBANY & THE MOHAWK VALLEY
Probably no better or more reliable picture of this early Dutch life has ever been written than Mrs. Anne M. Grant's Memoirs Of An American Lady, first published in London in 1808. Here again it seems best to let Mrs. Grant* tell her own story:

"My father was at the time (1759) a subaltern in the 55th regiment. That body of men were then stationed at Oswego; but during the busy and warlike period I have been describing my mother and I were boarded in the country, below Albany, with the most worthy people imaginable, with whom we ever after kept up a cordial friendship. My father, wishing to see his family, was Indulged with permission, and at the same time ordered to take command of an additional company, who were to come up, and to purchase for the regiment all the stores they should require for Winter; which proved a most exhaustive commission. In the month of October he set out on this journey, or voyage rather, in which it was settled that my mother and I should accompany him. We were, I believe, the first females, above the very lowest ranks, who had ever penetrated so far into this remote wilderness......

"Sitting from morning to night musing in the boat....... and then having my imagination continually aroused with the variety of noble wild scenes which the beautiful banks of the Mohawk afford, I am convinced that I thought more in that fortnight, that is to say, acquired more ideas, and took more lasting impressions, than ever I did, in the same space of time, in my life. (p. 57)

The first day we came to Schenectady, a little town, situated in a rich and beautiful spot, and partly supported by the Indian trade. The next day we embarked, proceeded up the river with six bateaux, and came early in the evening to one of the most charming scenes imaginable, where Fort Hendrick was built; so called, in compliment to the principal sachem, or King of the Mohawk The castle of this primitive monarch stood at a little distance, on a rising ground, surrounded by palisades. He resided, at the time, in a house which the public workmen, who had lately built this fort, had been ordered to erect for him in the vicinity. We did not fail to wait upon his majesty; who, not choosing to depart too much from the customs of his ancestors, had not permitted divisions of apartments, or modern furniture, to profane his new dwelling. It had the appearance of a good barn, and was divided across by a mat hung in the middle. King Hendrick, (probably Abraham, who succeeded Hendrick, (the latter having been killed at the battle of Lade George four years before) who had indeed a very princely figure, and a countenance that would not have dishonored royalty, was sitting on the floor beside a large heap of wheat, surrounded with baskets of dried berries of different kinds; beside him, his son,
*Mrs. Grant was born in 1755; made the trip to Oswego in 1768, at the age of thirteen years; wrote her Memoirs in 1808, at the age of 53 years. (See Faithful Mohawks, p. 81)

a very pretty boy, somewhat older than myself, was caressing a foal, which was unceremoniously introduced into the royal residence. A laced hat, a fine saddle and pistols, gifts of his good brother the great King, were hung round on the cross beams. He was splendidly arrayed in a coat of pale blue, trimmed in silver; all the rest of his dress was of the fashion of his own nation, and highly embellished with beads and other ornaments." (I want here to enter the comment that within the year of Mrs. Grant's visit died Hendrick Klock, aged 97. A Dutchman whose family enter largely in this work and who had spent most of his life and was buried within five miles of Hendrick's Castle. The scenes so strange and wild to Mrs. Grant bad been long familiar to the Mohawk Dutch.)

Returning to Dutch Albany, Mrs. Grant continues:

"Confined education precluded elegance; yet though there was no polish, there was no vulgarity ...... At the same time, these unembellished females had more comprehension of mind, more variety of ideas, more in short of what may be called original thinking, than could easily be imagined. Their thoughts were not like those of other illiterate women, occupied by the ordinary details of the day, and the gossiping tattle of the neighbourhood, (p. 68) "The wolves, the bears and the enraged or intoxicated savages, that always hung threatening on their boundaries, made them more and more endeared to each other. In this calm infancy of society, the rigor of the law slept, because the fury of turbulent passions, had not awakened it ...... Yet no person appeared uncouth or ill-bred, because there was no accomplished standard of comparison. They viewed no superior with fear or envy; and treated no inferior with contempt or cruelty. ...

(p. 75) "The city of Albany was stretched along the banks of the Hudson; one very wide and long street lay parallel to the river, the intermediate space between it and the shore being occupied by gardens. A small but steep hill rose above the center of the town, on which stood a fort, intended (but very ill-adapted) for the defense of the place, and of the neighboring country. From the foot of this hill, another street was built, sloping pretty rapidly down till it joined the one before mentioned that ran along the river. This street was still wider than the other; it was only paved on each side, the middle being occupied by public edifices." (The reader will note this explains the unusual width of State Street, today.) "These consisted of a market place, a guard house, a town hall, and the English and Dutch churches. The English church, belonging to the Episcopal persuasion, and in the diocese of the bishop of London, stood at the foot of the hill, at the upper end of the street. The Dutch church was situated (at the bottom of the descent) where the street terminated; two irregular streets, not so broad but equally long, ran parallel to those, and a few even ones opened between them....

(p. 76) "Each family had a cow, fed in a common pasture at the end of the town. In the evening they returned all together, of their own accord, with the tinkling bells hung at their necks, along the wide and grassy street, to the wonted sheltering trees, to be milked at their masters doors. Nothing could be more pleasing to a simple and benevolent mind than to see thus, at one view, all the inhabitants of a town, which contained not one very rich or very poor, very rude or very polished, individual; to see all these children of nature enjoying in easy indolence, or social intercourse, 'The cool, the fragrant, and the dusky hour', clothed in the plainest habits, and with minds as undisguised and artless. The primitive beings were dispersed in porches grouped according to similarity of years and inclinations. At one door young matrons, at another the elders of the people, at a third the youths and maidens, gaily chatting or singing together, while the children played round the trees, or waited by the cows, for the chief ingredient of their frugal supper, which they generally ate sitting on the steps in the Open air......At one end of the town, as I observed before, was a common pasture where all the cattle belonging to the inhabitants grazed together. A never failing instinct guided each home to her master's door in the evening; there being treated with a few vegetables and a little salt, which is indispensably necessary for cattle in this country, they patiently waited the night; and after being milked in the morning, they went off in slow and regular procession to their pasture. At the other end of the town was a fertile plain along the river, three miles in length, and a mile broad. This was all divided into lots, where every inhabitant raised Indian corn sufficient for the food of two or three slaves (the greatest number that each family ever possessed) and for his horses, pigs, and poultry: their flour and other grain they purchased from farmers in the vicinity."...

(p. 80) "In the society I am describing, even the dark aspect of slavery was softened into a smile. And I must in justice to the best possible masters, say, that a great deal of that tranquillity and comfort, to call it by no higher name, which distinguished this society from all others, was owing to the relation between master and servant being better understood here than in any other place. Let me not be detested as an advocate for slavery when I say that I think I have never seen people so happy in servitude as the domestics of the Albanians, One reason was (for I do not now speak of the virtues of their masters), that each family had few of them, and that there were no field negroes. They would remind one of Abraham's servarts, who were all born in the house, which was exactly their case. They were baptized too, and shared the same religious instruction with the children of the family; and, for the first years, there was little or no difference with regard to food or clothing between their children and those of their masters. When a negro-woman's child attained the age of three years, the first new year's day after, it was solemnly presented to a son or daughter, or other young relative of the family, who was of the same sex with the child so presented. The child to whom the young negro was given immediately presented it with some piece of money and a pair of shoes; and from that day the strongest attachment subsisted between the domestic and the destined owner. I have nowhere met with instances of friendship more tender and generous than that which here subsisted between the slaves and their masters and mistresses. Extraordinary proofs of them have been often given in the course of hunting or Indian trading, when a young man and his slave had gone to the trackless woods together, in the case of fits of the ague, loss of a canoe, and other casualties happening near hostile Indians. The slave has been known, at the imminent risk of his life, to carry his disabled master through trackless woods with labor and fidelity scarce credible; and the master has been equally tender on similar occasions of the humble friend who stuck closer than a brother; who was baptized with the same baptism, nurtured under the same roof, and often rocked in the same cradle with himself."...

(p. 84) "Amidst all this mild and really tender indulgence to their negroes, these colonists had not the smallest scruple of conscience with regard to the right by which they held them in subjection. Had that been the case, their singular humanity would have been incompatible with continued injustice. But the truth is, that of law the generality of those people knew little; and of philosophy, nothing at all. They sought their code of morality in the Bible, and there imagined they found this hapless race condemned to perpetual slavery; and thought nothing remained for them but to lighten the chains of their fellow Christians, after having made them such. This I neither 'extenuate' nor 'set down in malice,' but merely record the fact. ...

(p. 97) "I know not if this be the proper place to observe how much of the general order of society, and the happiness of a people depends on marriage being early and universal among them; but of this more hereafter. The desire (undiverted by any other passion) of obtaining the object of their affection was to them a stimulus to early and severe exertion. The enamored youth did not listlessly fold his arms and sigh over his hopeless or unfortunate passion. Of love not fed by hope they had not an idea. Their attachments originated at too early an age, and in a circle too familiar to give room for those first-sight impressions of which we hear such wonders. If the temper of the youth was rash and impetuous, and his fair one gentle and complying, they frequently formed a rash and precipitate union without consulting their relations, when perhaps the elder of the two was not above seventeen. This was very gently borne by the parties aggrieved. The relations of both parties met, and with great calmness consulted on what was to be done. The father of the youth or the damsel, which ever it was who had most wealth, or fewest children, brought home the couple; and the new married man immediately set about a trading adventure, which was renewed every season, till he had the means of providing a home of his own. Meantime the increase of the younger family did not seem an inconvenience, but rather a source of delight to the older people; and an arrangement begun from necessity was often continued through choice for many years after. Their tempers, unruffled by the endless jealousies and competitions incident to our mode of life, were singularly placid, and the love of offspring, where children were truly an unmixed blessing, was a common sentiment which united all the branches of the family and predominated over every other." At this point it seems appropriate to interrupt Mrs. Grant's story to insert the following additional comment upon this same subject from Old Schenectady by George S. Roberts, published by Robson & Adee, Schenectady.

(p. 44) "The old Dutch had many curious customs, curious according to twentieth century ideas, but entirely natural and quite proper in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. There was marriage, for instance. Many a searcher after family history, or pedigree, has had his or her especially her -- gray matter dislocated by the startling closeness of the marriage ceremony and the first birth, but future investigation reduced the dislocation and the search was continued calmly.

"The Dutch in the Western Hemisphere considered marriage a civil contract. When two persons decided to marry, that decision was in the eyes of the community, marriage. They lived together as man and wife and when the minister made his periodical visit for the purpose of administering the sacraments, they would have their civil marriage confirmed by the religious ceremony. In the early days the visits of the minister were sometimes three months, or even longer, apart. In the cases of such persons who lived at a distance from one or another of the small settlements, the difficulty in having the marriage confirmed by a minister was greatly increased. In those early days the conditions required that the community should be made up of families. When the men were conquering Nature and planting and reaping, or hunting and fishing for food, the women were weaving and making garments and preserving such of the products of the fields and woods, as could be preserved, for the winter, so marriage was the natural condition. There were no bachelor-girls in the seventeenth century and the remarriage of widows and widowers would be considered somewhat rapid even in Chicago." Now to complete the picture of the social conditions particularly as regards marriage, we should remember that for the first full hundred years of Dutch trading in the Mohawk Valley and the west, there were no white women beyond Schenectady, no females but Indians. We should also consider the naked beauty of those copper-colored, healthy, athletic maidens (whose crude clothing was worn solely for ornament and for protection from the weather) revealed to the eyes of athletic and vigorous young Dutch traders whose very mode of life stimulated every fibre of their physical beings to active response, and then recall that friendly whites were regarded by the Indians as distinguished guests and that as Colden in his Five Nations (p. xxix, Introduction) tells us:

"The hospitality of these Indians is no less remarkable, than their other virtues; as soon as any stranger comes, they are sure to offer him victuals, If there be several in company, and come from afar, one of their best houses is cleaned and given up for their entertainment. Their complaisance, on these occasions, goes even farther than Christian civility allows of, as they have no other rule of it than the furnishing their guest with every thing they think will be agreeable to him; for this reason, some of their prettiest girls are always ordered to wash themselves, and dress in their best apparel, in order to be presented to the stranger, for his choice; and the young lady, who has the honor to be preferred on these occasions, performs all the duties of a fond wife during the stranger's stay.

"As all kinds of slavery is banished from the Countries of the Five Nations, so they keep themselves free also from the bondage of wedlock; and when either of the parties becomes disgusted, they separate without formality or ignominy to either, unless it be occasioned by some scandalous offence in one of them. And in case of divorce, the children, according to the natural course of animals, follow the mother. The women here bring forth their children with as much ease as other animals, and without the help of a midwife, and soon after their delivery, return to their usual employment."

Thus it was possible for a trader to have an Indian wife in every camp he visited without resultant responsibility or restraining influences, a circumstance of which Sir Wm. Johnson availed himself without stint as will elsewhere be referred to. For a reasonably complete idea of social conditions we need to add to all this the picture so vividly portrayed by Defoe in his Moll Flanders, which, although a work of fiction, envisioned a condition that did actually exist.

Execution and Imprisonment for debt and other petty offenses were common practice in Europe at the time. A pregnant woman could temporarily, at least, escape the penalty of law by reason of that condition. So that a woman threatened with conviction would commonly enter that plea, whether true or not, and gain a suspension of sentence. Frequently the next step, especially with single women, was to hasten to the water front and to induce the captain of an American bound vessel to transport her by binding herself to sale, by him, into temporary bondage, on arrival in America, to pay for her passage. This was easily accomplished, due to the scarcity of white women in America, where white men anxiously bid for such arrivals and took them home to become their common-law wives.

Sir Wm. Johnson's first white mistress was acquired in this manner by Johnson's neighbour, Phlllips, who was induced to resell her to Johnson by the latter's threats. (See Simms' Frontiersmen of New York)

These explanations may tend to soften the criticism of Johnson's social relations and his numerous Indian children, many of whom he acknowledged and provided for in his last will. It is perhaps well for us to recall that Jotason came here in 1738, thirty years before Mrs. Grant was a visitor to the vicinity, and thirty years subsequent to Hendrick Klock's arrival.

The foregoing ought, certainly, to convince the sceptical of the unquestionable Dutch origin of such families as the VanSlykes and Timmermans whose pioneers received Indian grants of land in the Mohawk Valley under consideration specifically stated in the Indian deeds, that their wives were members of the granting tribe. Or of such families as the Klocks and Beekmans whose pioneer families were among the earliest officials of both New Netherland colony and the Dutch West India Trading Co. We can also add the Schuylers, Wendells, Sanders, and many others. It is, of course, to be understood, the Dutch did not take Indian women as did Johnson -- with the exception of a few of the very earliest traders, to whom no white women were available.

Returning to Mrs. Grant's narrative, she continues:

(p. 99) "When one of the boys was deeply smitten, his fowling piece and fishing rod were at once relinquished. He demanded of his father forty or at most fifty dollars, a negro boy and a canoe; all of a sudden he assumed the brow of care and solicitude, and began to smoke, a precaution absolutely necessary to repel aguish damps, and troublesome insects. He arrayed himself in a habit very little differing from the aborigines, into whose bounds he was about to penetrate, and in short commenced Indian trades.... The small bark canoe in which this hardy adventurer embarked himself, his fortune, and his faithful squire (who was generally born in the same house, and predestined to his service), was launched amidst the tears and prayers of his female relations, amongst whom was generally included his destined bride, who well knew herself to be the motive of this perilous adventure.

"The canoe was entirely filled with coarse strouds and blankets, guns, powder, beads, etc., suited to the various wants and fancies of the natives. ..... The canoe generally steered northward towards the Canadian frontier. ..... Then commenced their toils and dangers at the famous water-fall called the Cohoes, ten miles above Albany..... This was the Rubicon which they had to pass before they plunged into pathless wood, engulfing swamps, and lakes, the opposite shores of which the eye could not reach. At the Cohoes, on account of the obstructions formed by the torrent, they unloaded their canoe, and carried it above a mile further upon their shoulders, returning again for the cargo, which they were obliged to transport in the same manner, This was but a prelude to labors and dangers, incredible to those who dwell at ease. Further on, much longer carrying places frequently recurred; where they had the vessel and cargo to drag through thickets impervious to the day, abounding with snakes and wild beasts, which are always to be found on the side of rivers."

(p.101) "Their provision of food was necessarily small, for fear of overloading the slender and unstable conveyance already crowded with goods. A little dried beef and Indian corn meal was their whole stock, though they formerly enjoyed both plenty and variety......

''In the slight and fragile canoes, they often had to cross great lakes, on which the wind raised a terrible surge. Afraid of going into the track of the French traders, who were always dangerous rivals, and often declared enemies, they durst not follow the direction of the river St. Lawrence but in search of distant territories and unknown tribes, were wont to deviate to the west and southwest, forcing their painful way towards the source of 'rivers unknown to song' whose winding course was often interrupted with shallows and oftener still by fallen trees of great magnitude lying across, which it was requisite to cut through with their hatchets before they could proceed...

"When the toils and dangers of the day were over, the still greater terrors of the night commenced. In this, which might literally be styled the howling wilderness, they were forced to sleep in the open air, which was frequently loaded with the humid evaporation of swamps, ponds and redundant vegetation. Here the axe must be again employed to procure the materials of a large fire even in the warmest weather. This precaution was necessary that the flies and mosquitoes might be expelled by the smoke, and that the wolves and bears might be deterred by the flame from encroaching on their place of rest. But the light which afforded them protection created fresh disturbance.... The American wolves howl to the fires kindled to affright them, watching the whole night on the surrounding hills to keep up a concert which truly 'rendered night hideous': meanwhile the bullfrogs, terrible though harmless, and smaller kinds of various tones and countless numbers, seemed all night calling to each other from opposite swamps, forming the most dismal assemblage of discordant sounds. Though serpents abounded in the woods, few of them were noxious'.....

(p. 104) "It is Inconceivable how well these young travellers, taught by their Indian friends, and the experimental knowledge of their fathers, understood every soil and its productions. A boy twelve years old would astonish you with his accurate knowledge of plants, their properties, and their relation to the soil and its productions. Here (said he) is a wood of red oak, when it is grubbed up this will be loam and sand, and make good Indian corn ground. This chestnut wood abounds with strawberries, and is the very best soil for wheat. The poplar wood yonder is not worth clearing; the soil is always wet and cold. There is a hickory wood, where the soil is always rich and deep, and does not run out; such and such plants that dye blue, or orange, grow under it".....

(p. 105) "Without compass, or guide of any kind, the traders steered through these pathless forests.....Knowing so well as they did the quality of the soil by the trees or plants most prevalent, they could avoid a swamp, or approach with certainty to a river on high ground if such was their wish, by means that to us would seem incomprehensible, (p. 108) The joy that the return of these youths occasioned was proportioned to the anxiety their perilous journey had produced. In some instances the union of the lovers immediately took place before the next career of gainful hardship commenced. But the more cautious went to New York in winter, disposed of their peltry, purchased a larger cargo, and another slave and canoe. The next year they laid out the profits of their former adventures in flour and provisions, the staple of the province: this they disposed of at the Bermuda islands, where they generally purchased one of those light sailing, cedar schooners, for building of which those islanders are famous, and proceeding to the leeward islands loaded it with a cargo of rum, sugar and molasses.

"They were now ripened into men, and considered as active and useful members of society, possessing a stake in the common weal.

"The young adventurer had generally finished this process by the time he was one, or at most two and twenty. He now married, or if married before, which pretty often was the case, brought home his wife to a house of his own. Either he kept his schooner, and loading her with produce, sailed up and down the river all summer, and all winter disposed of the cargoes * he obtained in exchange to more distant settlers; or he sold her, purchased European goods, and kept a store. Otherwise he settled in the country, and became as diligent in his agricultural pursuits as if he had never known any other.

(p. 110) "It was in this manner that the young colonist made the transition from boyhood to manhood; from the disengaged and careless bachelor, to the provident and thoughtful father of a family; and thus was spent that period of life so critical in polished society to those whose condition exempts them from manual labor .....Marriage in this colony was always early, very often happy, and very seldom indeed interested.

(p. Ill) "The very idea of being ashamed of anything that was neither vicious nor indecent never entered an Albanian's head. Early accustomed to this noble simplicity, this dignified candor, I cannot express the contempt and disgust I felt at the shame of honorable poverty, the extreme desire of concealing our real condition, and appearing what we are not, that peculiarly characterizes, I had almost said disgraces, the northern part more particularly of this island.

(p. 112) "Of the more substantial luxuries of the table they knew little, and of the formal ceremonious part of good breeding, still less.

If you went to spend a day anywhere, you were received in a manner we should think very cold. No one rose to welcome you; no one wondered you had not come sooner, or apologized for any deficiency in your entertainment. Dinner, which was very early, was served exactly in the same manner as if there were only the family. The house, indeed, was so exquisitely neat and well regulated, that you could not surprise them; and they saw each other so often and so easily, that intimates made no difference. Of strangers they were shy; not by any means from want of hospitality, but from a consciousness that people who had little to value themselves on but their knowledge of the modes and ceremonies of polished life, disliked their sincerity, and despised their simplicity. If you showed no insolent wonder, but easily and quietly adopted their manners, you would receive from them not only very great civility, but much essential kindness."

(p. 117) "In this same bush, there were spots to which the poorer members of the community (Albany) retired to work their way with patient industry, through much privation and hardship, compared to the plenty and comfort enjoyed by the rest..... He had plenty of the necessaries of life, but no luxuries. His wife and daughters milked the cows and wrought at the hay, and his house was on a smaller scale than the older settlers had theirs, yet he had always one neatly furnished room, a very clean house, with a pleasant portico before 4 generally a fine stream beside his dwelling and some Indian wigwams near it."

(p. 134) "It Is a singular circumstance, that though they (the Indians saw the negroes in every respectable family not only treated with humanity, but cherished with paternal kindness, they always regarded them with contempt and dislike, as an inferior race, and would have no communication with them. It was necessary then that all conversations should be held, and all business transacted with these females, by the mistress of the family."

(p. 211) "No Indian ever served another, or received assistance from any one except his own family..... To all that Induces us to labor they were indifferent. When a governor of New York was describing to an Indian the advantages that some one would derive from such and such possessions;'Why,' said he, with evident surprise, 'Should any man desire to possess more than he uses?' More appeared to his untutored sense as an encumbrance." Now let us turn our attention to the next step to the westward, Schenectady and the Mohawk Valley.

From John Sanders' Early History of Schenectady we have the following:

(p. 2) "Schenectady was an off-shoot of Albany; and in honor of the old intrepid, brave pioneer emigrants to the far Wes1,as the Mohawk Valley was then called, the following statement shews why they parted company with their monopolizing, fur-trading, nominal mother, to breathe the air of freedom, beyond the limits of Ft. Orange (The West India Company's trading post), and the exacting colony of Rensselaerwyck.

"Ft. Orange or Beverwyck (now called Albany) was permanently settled in 1623; but divers traders of Holland set about establishing trade at Ft. Orange as early as 1614, and they obtained a charter from the states General at the Hague to trade to New Netherland, to the exclusion of all others." (Documentary History of New York, Vol. IV, p. 115) Ft. Orange, in 1661 and up to that period was the frontier town of the northern and western borders of the province of New Netherland. Beyond that all was "the far west"; little known, and less explored, wholly abandoned to the wild savage and roving animals of the chase. History assures us that the early proprietors and rulers of New Netherland were simply merchants, traders and speculators; by no means "Saints and Martyrs" driven from home by religious intolerance and persecution, and carving out for themselves, their descendants, and their successors, new homes in a stubborn wilderness, with steady perseverance, honest labor, and unhesitating faith, like their colonial neighbors.

"From the moment colonies began to be planted by the Patroons in New Netherland, the Directors of the West India Company became jealous of their existence, opposed their continuance..... Col. Peter Stuyvesant, Director General of the West India Company, and Brandt Van Slechtenhorst, a determined and intelligent Hollander, who was director of the Rensselaerwyck Colony, were the champions of these hostile interests and opposing views..... This state of misgovernment, distress and confused disorder continuing, with many oppressions and disabilities imposed upon the sparsely-settled and suffering people, by both the West India Company and the Patroons' government, some of the best settlers of Ft. Orange and Beverwyck, bearing their double burthens with great impatience, they were anxious especially to escape from the feudal tenures and trading restrictions of the manor of Rensselaerwyck, when an opening seemed providentially made to place them beyond the confines of the manor, under the following circumstances.

"The proximity of the whites had exhausted the hunting resources of the Indians in the neighborhood of Beverwyck and their castle at Schenectady. Furs were there becoming scarce, and the soil was no longer of special value to them, whose life occupation was the chase. It was ascertained, on this ground, that the natives were willing to sell for a moderate price their Great Flats, westofFt. Orange, "towards the interior of the country"..... The Flats and Islands.....were all cleared as and when the pioneers first found them, and had been cultivated by the Mohawks for successive generations..... It was under such circumstances that Arent Van Curler, on the 18th day of July, 1661, on behalf of himself and others, applied to Peter Stuyvesant, the Director General, for permission to purchase the Indian lands at Schenectady. They were the first permanent actual settlers of Schenectady.

"On the 21st day of July, 1661, Stuyvesant.granted the requisite authority, but the permission was loaded down with the provision, 'That the said lands, on being purchased from the native proprietors, must be, as usual, transferred to the Director General and Council, as representatives of the Lords Directors of the Privileged West India Company; that whatever the petitioners should pay for the aforesaid lands to the original proprietors should, in due time, be returned to them, or be discounted to them, against the tenths. (See Albany Rec. XIX, p. 180)..... On the 27th day of July, 1661, the deed was obtained from the Indian owners."

(p. 10) "The true name of the witness to this instrument, who signed as Martin Mourisse, was Martin Maurice Van Slyck, brother of Jacques Cornelius Van Slyck, both subsequently proprietors, and among the first original settlers of Schenectady. The mother of both was a Mohawk chieftan's daughter. They were the children of Cornelise Antinosen Van Slyck, the great Indian interpreter, and were born at Canajoharie, the principal Mohawk castle,-- Jacques as early as 1640, and Martin a year or two after that time.

"A grant in confirmation of Indian title ..... was tardily issued under the provincial seal, April 6, 1662, but the land was not surveyed, or permitted to be divided, until 1664, as the inhabitants of Ft. Orange and Rensslaerwyck interfered; they were most anxious to retain the fur monopoly, and had sufficient influence with Director and Council to induce them to order that the settlers of Schenectady should confine themselves exclusively to agriculture, and abstain from all trade with the Indians, and only on this condition were they allowed to remove; or if already removed, to remain there.''

(p. 22) "The first named, and apparently most prominent pioneer, he having acted as head agent in obtaining the original grant of Schenectady for himself and other first settlers, was Arent Van Curler.....

"Van Curler was an unhesitating humanitarian under any circumstances, and had, with great labor, perseverance and expense, rescued several French captives from the hands of the barbarous Mohawks....

''His influence among the Iroquois was almost unbounded, and in honor of his memory, as we have seen, those tribes addressed all succeeding governors of New York by the name of 'Corlears.'

"Alexander Lindsey Glen is the third original proprietor named....... John Alexander Glen, the third and youngest son of Alexander Lindsey Glen, (commonly called Major Coudre, his designation by the French and Indians, was born November 5, 1648, and died November 6, 1731, at the advanced age of eighty-three years.....Major John A. Glen built the present Sanders mansion at Scotia, in 1713..... His whole estate, real and personal, was spared when Schenectady was destroyed, (1690), by express order of the Governor of Canada, for rescues made and kindness shown to sundry French prisoners captured by the Mohawks, so that it seems probable, in common with Van Curler, from whom he had received valuable lessons, he was a humanitarian.....

"The Mohawks of Scotia's early days were always devoted friends of the Dutch, but they were barbarous after all; and the white population was too sparse, weak and timid, to interfere with the chivalric customs of those noble knights of the tnrnahawk, blunderbuss, bow and arrow.

"The writer's father, John Sanders, has shown him a hillock, not far from the present Scotia house, where, after their return from warlike or plundering expeditions, they were wont to sacrifice their victims. Even so late as the time of his grandfather, Col. Jacob Glen, (who often caressed his grandson), a Mohegan Indian was burned on the spot. This surely was revolting, but the monarchs of the valley, original owners of the soil, willed it so, and nothing was left to civilization but to mitigate or ameliorate, and this the Christian pioneers accomplished when possible; and many were the acts of kindness which, according to the accounts of the French themselves, wererendered by the Glens of Scotia to parties captured by the Mohawks.

"Under such circumstances, according to well-established tradition, It happened that some time about five years before the burning of Schenectady, in 1690, towards sundown of a beautiful summer afternoon...... that a large party of Mohawks, just returned from the north, encamped below the Glen mansion, as in that day of aboriginal power they claimed clear right to do, as original sovereigns of the soil.

"The party was in high state of elation and triumph, having captured a Roman Catholic Jesuit priest, against whom they entertained extreme anti-pathy. The reason of their peculiar dislike to priests was this: the Mohawks were Protestants, after their own fashion,' because the Dutch were'; and this priest, with others, had proselyted among them, and caused some, as a Catholic party, to remove (in 1671) to Canada.

"Now, these rejoicing, victorious Christians soon announced to Mr. Glen and wife, that they intended a special roast of their captive on the following morning. So they brought the unfortunate priest along for Glen to lock up in his cellar, until they should want him for their pious sacrifice.

"Mr. Glen and his wife -- the last very much praised in the French accounts for her many acts of benevolence and humanity to captives -- 'did not see it in that light'. Now, Major Coudre (Glen) did possess two keys to his locked cellar, and aware of the confidence the Mohawks placed in him, also of their credulity and superstition, raised this clear sighted, well-intended and formidable objection.

"That the Mohawks were his friends, and he felt pleasure at all proper times to oblige them; but in this case, he would not take the responsibility. 'Priests' were "Wizards', and could go through any key-hole; suppose the priest was gone in the morning, what then? No, he should take no risk. But one thing he proposed 'with wise solemnity'. They might lock him up and take; the key themselves. This just proposition Mrs. Glen seconded. It was ratified, and the poor priest placed in close quarters, and the key duly delivered to his captors.

"Mr. Glen had also suggested, at a proper time, in a quiet way and to proper ears, that early in the morning, before daylight, he should send his team to Albany for salt, so as to excite no suspicion about movements contemplated or an early stir.

"Well, the noble Mohawks, as was customary after a campaign, got their rum from Schenectady and feasted, drank, danced and sang, until the wee, small hours in the morning, when exhausted nature, and even the dogs, settled into stupid repose.

"This lull, Major Glen, his wife Anna and faithful slaves having watcher placed the priest in a wagon, in a hogshead with the lower head out, and the bung-hole to breathe through, and with a good team, the priest and two negro men started for Albany after a load of salt. The priest was quietly and well received by the humanitarians of Albany, and silently forwarded to Montreal. Publicity after such a joke on Mohawk warriors, was impolitic; but this kind act bore abundant and blessed fruit afterwards to the Glen family in 1690, when Schenectady was burned. Nor was it ever heard that Major or Mrs. Glen, or their faithful slaves, ever felt any remorse about the pious fraud.

"The team, hogshead, priest and negroes were gone. The dawn of morning came, and with it the Mohawks, having an important mission on hand, rose; but Mr. Glen took the matter easy. The Mohawks found the cellar closed, 'but the priest flown'. Sleep to Mr. Glen then became impossible, the shouts were awful, and the agonies of disappointed justice became simply diabolical. When Major Glen appeared, he calmly and only said to his Indian friends: 'I told you so; I told you so'; 'priests are wizards'. And they reluctantly responded: 'Coudre (his Indian name) was right.' Nor was it ever known that any Mohawk of that generation discovered the deception.'' Colden's account of the burning of Schenectady follows. (See History of Five Indian Nations, Vol. I, p. 138)

"The Count De Frontenac being desirous to raise the drooping Spirits of the French in Canada, by keeping them in Action, and engaging the most daring of them, in Enterprises that might give Courage to merest, had sent out three Parties against the English Colonies, in Hopes thereby to lessen the Confidence which the Five Nations had in the English Assistance, now that England had declared War against France. The Party sent against New York was commanded by Monsr. De Herville, and was ordered to attempt the surprising of Schenectady, the nearest Village to the Mohawks; it consisted of 150 French Bush-lopers or Indian Traders, and of as many Indians, the most of them French Converts from the Mohawks, commonly called the Praying Indians, settled at a Place near Montreal, called Cahnuagha. They were well acquainted with all that Part of the Country round Schenectady and came in Sight of the Place the 8th of February, 1689-90.*

"The People of Schenectady were at that Time In the greatest Security. notwithstanding that they had information from the Indians, of a Party of French, and French Indians being upon their March that Way. They did not think it practicable, in that Season of the Year, while it was extremely cold,

*The village (of Fonda) occupies the site of the ancient village of Caughnawagha, one of the principal towns of the Mohawk tribe. It's name, Caughnawagha, is said to signify 'a coffin', which it received from the circumstance of there being, in the river opposite the place, a large black stone, (still to be seen) resembling a coffin, and projecting above the surface at low water. (See Barber and Howe's Historical Collection, N.Y., 1841.) This identifies the former home of these marauding Indians and explains their familiarity with the locality. Many boulders rested in the bed of the Mohawk previous to the digging of the barge canal.

and the whole Country covered with Snow. Indeed Europeans will hardly think it possible, that Men could make such a March through the Wilderness in the severest Frosts, without any Covering from the Heavens, or any Provision, except what they carried on their Backs.

"Tho' the People of Schenectady were informed in the Evening before thai Place was surprised, that several skulking Indians were seen near the place, they concluded, that they could be only some of the neighbouring Indians and as they had no Officer of any Esteem among them, not a single Man could be persuaded to watch in such severe Weather, tho', as the French owned afterwards, if they had found the least Guard or Watch, they would not have attemp ted the Place, but have surrendered themselves Prisoners: They were so exceedingly distressed with the Length of their March, and with Cold, and Hungeer, but finding the Place in fatal Security, they marched into the Heart of the Village, without being discovered by any one Person; then they raised their War Shout, entered the Houses, murdered every Person they met, Men, Women, and Children, naked and in cold Blood; and at the same time set Fire to the Houses. A very few escaped, by running out naked into the Woods in this terrible Weather: And several hid themselves, till the first Fury of the Attack was over; but these were soon driven from their lurking Places by the Fire, and were all made Prisoners.

"Captain Alexander Glen, at this Time, lived at a Distance by himself, on the other side of the River, and was the most noted Man in the Place. He had at several Times been kind to the French, who had been taken Prisoners by the Mohawks, and had saved several of them from the Fire. The French were sensible what Horror this cruel sacking of a defenceless Place, and murdering People in cold Blood, must raise in Men's Minds; and to lessen this, they resolved to shew their Gratitude to Captain Glen. They had passed his House in the Night, and observing that he stood on his Defence the next Morning, some of them went to the River Side, and calling to him, assured him, that they designed him no Injury. They persuaded him to come to the French Officer, who restored to him all his Relations that were Prisoners.

"Some Mohawks being also found in the Village, the French dismissed them, with Assurance, that they designed them no Hurt.

"This Conduct was not only necessary to promote the Peace which the Count De Frontenac with so much Earnestness desired, but likewise to secure their Retreat, by making the Mohawks less eager to pursue them.

"The French marched back, without reaping any visible Advantage from this barbarous Enterprise, besides the murdering of sixty-three innocent Persons in cold Blood, and carrying twenty-seven of them away Prisoners.

"The care the French took to soothe the Mohawks had not entirely it's Effect, for as soon as they heard of this Action, a hundred of their readiest young Men pursued the French, fell upon their Rear, and killed and took twenty-five of them.

"This Action frightened the Inhabitants in and about Albany so much, that many resolved to desert the Place, and retire to New York. They were packing up and preparing for this Purpose, when the Mohawk Sachems came to Albany to condole, according to their Custom, with their Friends, when any Misfortune befalls them."

(p. 187) "One may wonder how it is possible for Men to March several hundred Miles in the Wilderness, while the Ground is everywhere covered with Snow, two or three Feet deep at least; but the foremost march on Snow Shoes, which beat a firm Track for those that follow. At Night, when they rest, they dig a Hole in the Snow, throwing the snow up all round, but highest towards that Side from whence the Wind blows, so large, as to contain as many Men as can lye round a Fire; They make the Fire in the Middle and cover the frozen Ground round it with the small Branches of the Fir-Trees. Thus they tell me a Man Lyes much warmer, than one imagines that never tried it."