Our County and It's People

Chapter 4

1758 - 1760. Forts Stanwix and Schuyler

In 1756 William Pitt, the first Earl of Chatham, became Prime Minister of England. For more than two years the English in America had acted so much like children that the Indians were disgusted, while the activity of the French tended to win the admiration and alliance of the Iroquois Confederacy. This condition of affairs in the colonies had greatly troubled the English people. When Pitt came into power he bent the energies of his great mind to produce a change. He had in view the driving of the French from their Canadian posses-sions, and his first step in that direction was the capture of Louisburg, next Du Wuesne and then Ticonderoga. To capture the latter Abercrombie went in June, 1758, from Albany to Lake Champlain, and with him went Colonel John Bradstreet (afterwards General Bradstreet and part owner of Cosby Manor) and Marinus Willet (the then future hero of Fort Stanwix), then eighteen years old. That expedition was a disgraceful fizzle, and Colonel Bradstreet, indignant at the unnecessary failure, obtained from his superior officer permission to take 3,000 troops and go back to Albany, and via Mohawk River and Oneida Carrying Place to Oswego, thence to attach Fort Frontenac. This scheme was kept secret from all but the leading officers. On reaching Albany they hastened in boats up the Mohawk, and reached the carrying place about the first of August. Here they found General Stanwix with 6,000 troops, whither he had been ordered a short time before to erect a formidable fort in place of those destroyed. On this expedition went also the following, who subsequently became famous in the history of the county, vix: Nathaniel Woodhull, a major, subsequently a general in the Revolutionary army, and the first president of the provincial congress; Horatio Gates, then

a captain, subsequently a general, who captured Burgoyne in 1777, at Saratoga; James and George Clinton, the former general in the Revolutionary army, the latter war governor of New York, the former then twenty-two, the latter nine- teen years old.

Bradstreet began with his usual vigor to transport his men and his munitions of war across the portage and to clear Wood Creek of the numerous trees with which General Webb had obstructed it two years before. A dam was built across the creek near the late U.S. Arsenal site to raise the water and aid in floating the boats down that stream. Two weeks were occupied in these preparations, and these movements first indicated to the troops the direction they were to take. The troops started from the carrying place August 14, reached Oswego in six days, and after resting there a few hours, started for Fort Frontenac. On the evening of the twenty-fifth the fort was reached, and in three days it was captured. On arriving at the site of Fulton, Oswego county, on their return, the men were three days in dragging the boats around Oswego Falls, and so excessive was the labor and so great the fatigue that nearly 100 deaths occurred at that point, and when Fort Bull was reached about one-half the men were unfit for duty. It required four days to transport the boats and stores from Wood Creek to Mohawk River, and the men were so completely exhausted that, according to Smith's Colonial History, 500 died and were buried at the carrying place. The cause is attributed to the haste in cooking the food and the bad water of Wood Creek and the great fatigue of the men. The troops reached this point on their return September 10, 1758, and that very night young Willett was taken sick, and was confined to his tent until November by a dangerous illness. Before that summer was over it was evident that a fort was needed at this carrying place, and hence General Abercrombie gave orders to build one, detailing General John Stanwix to superintend its construction.

While General Abercrombie was at Lake George in the summer of 1758, he wrote to General Stanwix two letters under dates of July 16 and 23, 1758, directing that the fort should be build forthwith at the Oneida Carrying Place. Under date of July 27th, General Abercrombie write a third letter to General Stanwix on the same subject, in which he says:

Having been told that you had been obliged to encamp your troops at Schenectady through the reason of the present shallowness of the Mohawk River, where it is said you cannot even get up light bateaux, which will have prevented your forwarding the tools and materials necessary for building at the Oneida Carrying Place, the post or fort I directed by my letter of the 16th and the 23rd, should be forthwith built there and having been since advised, instead of that post or fort, to build one more extensive, pursuant to a plan laid before me, I have accordingly sent that plan to Lieut. Williams, now at Albany, with directions, if his health should permit, to undertake the same immediately, to join you and set about it; my reason for sending him is, that is acquainted with that part of the country, and accustomed to the method of working in it. General Stanwix asked the opinion of Captain Green on a plan of a fort to be built at the carrying place, and that officer answered as follows:

A good post to be made at the Oneida carrying place, capable of lodging 200 men in the winter, and 3 or 400 men in the summer for its defense, with logs, a parapet of such thickness as the engineer shall think necessary according to the situation. A ditch to be made to serve to thicken the parapet - barracks to be made underneath the rampart, with flues of the chimneys to come through the top. The square will be the cheapest form to be made use of for this work. The bastions in like manner can be made use of for storehouses or magazines. In the square may be made lodging for officers, and the rest of the quadrangle clear - the whole to be logged. And opposite the officer's barracks, may be made a storehouse for the deposit of Indian goods. By a good post - I understand to be meant such a one, as will contain with ease, the said number of men, to be executed in such a manner as to protect them from a cup-de-main, and to be of such a size as will admit of a proper defense by such a garrison - the exterior side of such square, cannot possibly be less (if so little) than 300 feet which procures but a very small defense from its flank, and will make an exterior circuit of logging of nearly 1,420 feet by at least of 14 feet high, according to the situation; and in order to admit of barracks under the rampart, to which the retaining and bracing log works, as well as the log work fronting the interior area, must of course be considered, as likewise the log work to cover the barracks, storehouses, and magazines that are proposed to be made under the ramparts of the curtains and bastions, by which it will appear that the greatest part of the rampart round this post must be formed and supported with log work. As to the thickness of the parapet, being informed cannon may be brought by the enemy, it cannot be less than 12 feet, if so little, 18 feet being the standard in such cases. The rampart for the maneuver of cannon, and likewise to admit of a reasonable breadth for the barracks underneath, cannot be less than 20 feet. The breadth and depth of ditch must be considered in proportion for the earth wanted to form said parapet, and to cover the legwork of the proposed barracks, magazines and storehouses to be made under the rampart. The exterior circuit of Fort Edward is nearly 1, 569 feet and as I am informed took nearly two seasons to complete it.

Fort Stanwix was begun August 23, 1758, by the troops under General Stanwix, and nearly finished November 11, 1758; it cost 60,000 pounds sterling. The ground where the fort was built was nineteen feet higher than the swamps and low land, descended gradually westward towards Fort Newport (late U.S. Arsenal). It is supposed that Dominick street follows the route of the old carrying path, except that in those years that path went to the east, or left, of what was then Fort Newport. Fort Stanwix was bounded east, north and south by what are now Spring, Liberty, and Dominick streets. An indentation in the ground commencing on the west bounds of George Barnard's late residence on Dominick street, and running northerly to Liberty street is where ran the westerly ditch of the fort.

The capture of Fort Frontenac by Bradstreet, followed by the taking of Louis-burg and Fort Du Quesne by the English in November thereafter, closed the campaign of 1759. A fleet was to sail up the St. Lawrence to besiege Quebec and Ticonderoga, and Crown Point and Niagara were to be captured. With the latter only this narrative has to do, as it more immediately concerns Oneida county. Either in 1758 or 1759 (authorities disagree as to the year), a mud fort was erected on the present site of Utica, on the south bank of the Mohawk River, in the block bounded by Second street and Ballou Creek, close by the tracks of the N.Y.C.R.R., a little easterly of the railroad depot. An Indian path leading from Oneida Castle, and one from the Oneida Carrying Place, met or crossed each other at the foot of what is now Genesee street in Utica; one path kept on the south side of the river down the valley, another forded that stream where those paths met, and led down the Mohawk on the north side, and another diverged (as supposed) and led to the Black River valley and thence north. This fording place was considered a good site for a fort and one was accordingly erected, as before stated; it was surrounded by palisades and ditches, and was probably intended more as a place of rest and a moderate protection to the inmates, than as a formidable work of defense. It was named after Peter Schuyler; authors disagree whether it was that Peter who was an uncle of Gen. Philip Schuyler of the Revolution, or another Peter Schuyler. That fort went to decay soon after the Revolution, and seems not to have been an important fortification.

General Prideaux and Sir William Johnson were charged with the expedition against Niagara. They were instructed to go up the Mohawk in May, 1759, with 5,000 troops, to leave a strong garrison at Fort Stanwix, establish a post on the east end of Oneida Lake (the Royal Block House now at Sylvan Beach, town of Vienna) and one at the west end of the lake (Fort Brewerton), descend the river to Oswego, leave nearly one half his force there and proceed with the remainder to attack Niagara. These orders were accomplished, and the troops passing up the Mohawk probably stopped for a while at Fort Schuyler (Utica) on their way west. Niagara was besieged, General Prideaux was killed, the fort captured by Sir William and the whole region of the upper Ohio fell into undisputed possession of the English. In the mean time the French forts around Lakes George and Champlain fell into the hands of the English, and in September Wolfe captured Quebec. These victories practically assured Canada to England, although the war in Canada continued for two or three years longer. In 1760 a final campaign was ordered by the British government to drive the French forces which had converged around Montreal from Canada. One English army was to proceed from Quebec, another from Lake Champlain, and a third from Albany, up the Mohawk via the Oneida Carrying Place to Oswego, thence over Lake Ontario to and down the St. Lawrence. General Amherst commanded the last, consisting of 4,000 English regulars, 6,000 Provincials, and 600 Indians under Sir William Johnson. With this army, and who went over this route, were General Amherst, the commander-in-chief; General Thomas Gage, commander of the British forces around Boston at the time of the Revolution; Colonel Haldimand, subsequently governor general of Canada; General Bradstreet, Israel Putnam, later a general in the army of the Revolution. In September of that year the English forces converged at Montreal, where the French army had been driven, and the French were compelled to surrender, and all Canada passed into the hands of the English.

1. The vestige of a part of an old military road near Lairdsville, in the town of Westmoreland, is yet visible; said to have been the road over which some of Amherst's men traveled on that expedition. 2. A brief sketch of General Stanwix may be of interest to the reader in this connection. He entered the army as early as 1706. In 1752 he was governor of Carlisle, in the north (continued next page)

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