Three Rivers
Hudson~Mohawk~Schoharie
History From America's Most Famous Valleys

The Frontiersmen of New York
by Jeptha R. Simms
Albany, NY 1883

Volume II, Page 181 -- An Anecdote of Capt. Nicholas Dygert while a Prisoner.-- Among the captives made by the enemy under Brant in 1778, was Nicholas, a son of Peter Dygert, taken near the Upper Mohawk Castle. The destructives returned by the southwestern route, and at Oquago this prisoner had to run the gauntlet, after which ordeal he was given to an old squaw, to supply the place of a lost son. He suffered severely from hunger on his way to Canada. One day when almost famished, he observed his new mother make several attempts to eat a hot dumpling, which she could not master for the want of teeth. After rolling it about in her mouth for a time, she cast it to her dog; but hardly had the animal seized it in his teeth, when Dygert caught him by the ears, and after a long shake he forced the dainty morsel from his jaws and transferred it to his own. The interference of her son with her will displeased the old woman, and seizing him by his ears, which freedom he dared not resist; she shook him until he restored to the dog his dinner, Brant had lived a neighbor to Dygert before the war, and apprised of this incident immediately after it happened, he sent him a plate of succotash. Dygert was exchanged soon after his arrival in Canada, returned to his native valley, and was afterwards given the command of a company of militia. He assured his friends on his return from captivity, that his mouth never watered after any dainty, as it did for the morsel the squaw and the dog had had in their mouths. Dr. Joshua Webster, who had the story from Dygert.