Our County and It's People

Chapter 5

1760 to August, 1777

The history of Oneida county, prior to 1760, is mainly written in war and bloodshed. Aside from the Indian trade carried on over its territory, nothing of a peaceful character prior to that year was transacted within its borders. The routes across it were traveled by hostile forces, infested by scalping parties lurking in ambush, and lined by forest erected for protection and defense. Nor a road was laid out, not an acre of land cleared, not a tree felled, not a building erected for any object other than of, or for, a warlike purpose. The "old French war" was in progress in 1760 and continued for several years thereafter; and up to that date not a person with a view to a settlement had located within its limits. The first settlers within the county were Johannis

part of England, which city he then represented in parliament. In 1756 he was appointed colonel of the 60th Royal regiment, went as a volunteer to America, and was put in command of the southern district of America and made his headquarters at Carlisle, Penn, during 1757; in December of that year was made brigadier general. In 1758, having been superseded by General Forbes, General Stanwix proceeded to Albany, where he was ordered by General Abercrombie to proceed to the Oneida Carrying Place, there to erect a fort, as heretofore stated, and which in his honor was named Fort Stanwix, by which name it has come down to us in history, notwithstanding the efforts on the part of the Americans during the Revolution to give it the name of Fort Schuyler. By reason of this attempt and of its being so called in official dispatches, and in some histories, this fort has been at times confounded with the Fort Schuyler at Utica; the latter fort has been called "Old Fort Schuyler". In 1759 General Stanwix returned to Pennsylvania; he repaired the old Fort Du Quesne, changed to the name of Fort Pitt, site of the present city of Pittsburgh. On his return to England he was appointed lieutenant governor of the Isle of Wight; he married a second wife in 1763. In 1765 he was ordered to Ireland, and in December, 1866, in crossing the sea to take his eat in the English parliament, the vessel in which he was a passenger and all on board, including his wife and only daughter were lost. A singular lawsuit grew out of the death of his family. By a stipulation on his marriage it was agreed that in case he survived his wife, the personal estate was to go in a certain direction, and if his daughter survived both husband and wife, then in another direction. The case was brought into chancery and the lawyers in the case could buffet with the waves and death longest, the old, the middle aged, or the young. The questions were so intricate and difficult of decision, the court advised a compromise by an equal division of the property, which was agreed to by the parties. In the north part of England is the city of Carlisle; from which General Stanwix was a member of parliament at the time of his death. One of the suburbs of that city is a hamlet named "Stanwix".

Relugg (anglicized John Roof) and wife. He was born January 9, 1730, in the city of Durlac, Suabice, Germany, and January 13, 1759, married in that city and both came to this country. In October of that year they landed in the city of Philadelphia. Soon thereafter they pushed their way onward to New York, up the valley of the Mohawk, past the Palatine settlement at German Flats and early in 1760 we find them located at Fort Stanwix. Not unlikely the location of the German Palatines along the Mohawk and up as far as Herkimer induced those persons to come so far into this wilderness region. Fort Stanwix was erected about a year and a half before, and when Roof and wife came it was garrisoned by British troops and was likely to be the theater of active military operations, or the route for the passage of hostile armies. Mr. Roof erected a log house on or near the banks of the Mohawk, opened trade with the Indians, and as time progressed, furnished board and lodgment for boatmen and for those who assisted boatmen across the carrying place, and for those who crossed this portage to trade with the Indians. Their nearest neighbors, aside from the garrison, were thirty miles away, and here this newly married couple commenced the battle of life, the pioneer settlers of Oneida county. Mr. Roof leased or purchased by contract, of Oliver De Lancey, a portion of Oriskany Patent, just east of the river, the present site of Factory Village; this land he cultivated, in due time erected barns, filled them with produce, and before the war of the Revolution was a thrifty, prosperous business man. Unto him while at Fort Stanwix the following children were born: John, born August 28, 1761; Susannah, born August 9, 1766; Martyn, born February 2, 1776; Barbara, born October 30, 1771; Adam, born May 16, 1773.

It will thus be seen that this family were permanent settlers, for they lived at that fort until driven out by the siege of Fort Stanwix in August, 1777. John, the first born, was baptized when Sir William Johnson and Captain Nicholas (afterward General) Herkimer were present, the latter acting as godfather. When sixteen years old, John entered the army under General Herkimer, was by the side of the latter when shot in the leg at the battle of Oriskany, and also present when that leg was amputated and the general died. The father was captain in Colonel Mellon's force of 200 Massachusetts men and under Colonel Gansevoort at

the siege of Fort Stanwix. The son Martyn was baptized by Rev. Samuel Kirkland, the well known divined and Indian missionary; three other children were born unto Mr. Roof at Canajoharie, after his family sought safety in that locality, subse-quent to the beginning of the war.

From the best attainable accounts Bartholomew Brothock (Brodock) was the next comer after Mr. Roof. He came from down the valley, and after the Revolution located in the town of Vienna, where descendants of his yet reside. Soon there-after the following families were found located around the fort clearing up the small patches of ground, trading with the Indians, and assisting boatmen up and down the river and over the carrying place, viz: William Kline, Thomas Myers, John Steere (or Steeve), William Quinn, Stephanes De Grow, and one Regins, and others, about a dozen families in all. The Documentary History there is a letter from Eleazer Wheelock, who had charge of a charity school at Lebanon, Conn., for the education of Indian youths, to Sir William Johnson. The letter is dated August 2 0, 1762, and it says that, "one Reggins lives at Fort Stanwix, but is doing business at the Royal Block House at the mouth of Wood Creek at the east end of Oneida Lake (now Sylvan Beach), and has in his employ a young boy of sixteen years by the name of George Haxton, and the latter would like to attend school, but his obligations to Reggins and the violent opposition of the latter prevent." The writer asks for the assistance of Sir William. These families continued around Fort Stanwix until driven down the valley by the Revolutionary war, as will be more fully stated hereafter.

On March 12, 1772, Tryon county was taken from Albany county by a north and south line which ran nearly through the center of Schoharie county; all west of that line in New York was in Tryon county (named in honor of William Tryon, then governor of the province).

The next settlement in Oneida county, after the one at Fort Stanwix, was at Deerfield Corners. In 1773, George J. Weaver (spelled Weber), Mark Damuth (some-times called Damoot and by the English Damwood) and Christ Jan Reall, located at the corners in Deerfield, built a log house and commenced to improve the land. That was in Cosby's Manor, which was sold the year before by the sheriff of Albany county for quit rents, to Philip Schuyler, for the benefit of himself, Gen. John Bradstreet and others.

The settlers around Fort Stanwix seemed to be doing a thriving business for those times, and to be acquiring considerable property. From old documents found in possession of Jelles Fonda, of Caughnawaga (see history of State Patents), at his death, it would seem as if those located around the fort considered they had in 1773 a monopoly of the carrying place, of the price of travel, and of carriage of goods. The following are among the documents referred to:

Caughnawaga (Fonda), 29 January, 1778. We the subscribers do agree that William Kline and Christian Reel shall have a wagon to ride over the carrying place, and work as we do; and shall have a full share of a wagon's riding and payment for the same during their good behavior, according to an agreement made this 29 day of January, 1773. Jelles Fonda, Johannes Ruff, Anthony Van Veighton, William Kline, Thomas Maires, Christ Jan Reil, Bartholomew Brodock. Present - Daniel Steele, Richard Caller, John Seere.

Fort Stanwix, March 3, 1773. Sir: - This morning we met together at Mr. Stephanes (Stephanes Degrow) and has agreed about the price of the riding at this place, which is 20 shillings to Kennedy (Canada) Creek, and likewise from there the same to the Indian field (perhaps Shoemaker's at Mohawk), and from the common Carrying Place 18 shillings to Kennedy Creek, coming and going. Thomas Mearse, Johannes Ruff, William Kline, Stephanus De grow. P.S. - The short carrying place is 4 shillings, and from the Indian field to Newport is six shillings. The following letter was from Mr. Roof to Jelles Fonda:

Fort Stanwix, April 23, 1773

Sir: - Your favor rec'd the 20 inst.; the next day I sent them to plow with my servant and my plow as I want the seed in the ground as soon as possible. I want no pay for it, only they must help me and I them; the riding (carrying persons, likely) is beginning to be pretty smart, therefore I want to have done with plowing. We have made a new sluice and it is in good order. The traders make complaint in regard to paying 4 shillings over this place, but as to Kanady Creek, I hear they seem to be easy about the price. They threaten to get other wagons here, but that we care nothing about; for I am not afraid, one wagon this year will clear as much as two last year. The foregoing will indicate what was going on in this county 120 years ago. Thus affairs moved on hereabouts, no great, if any, addition being made to the settlers in the county before the Revolution; and none, so far as history chronicles, outside of Fort Stanwix and Deerfield.

Political affairs in the colonies were approaching a crisis. The French had

been driven from the Canadian possessions, and England was seeking to tax and otherwise oppress her colonial subjects in America beyond endurance. The spirit of liberty, especially among the Anglicized people in the colonies, was fully aroused and hardly a decade had passed before a war was again threatened in the colonies, and more formidable than the old French war. The battles of Lexington and Bunker Hill in 1775 set the country in motion. The news from beleaguered Boston stirred up the people to the wildest extent and enthusiasm. Indians were on the warpath and scattered colonial settlements were wiped from the face of the earth. The Declaration of Independence July 4, 1776, solidified the sentiment of the colonial patriots in favor of a separation from the mother country. Early in that year matters assumed a very warlike aspect. The various forts in the Mohawk Valley were garrisoned, and although Fort Stanwix was in the midst of the wilderness, thirty miles from civilization, yet it was considered the key to the western country, and to the Mohawk Valley from the west. General Washington at an early day had called the attention of General Schuyler to this fort, the importance of this carrying place, and the necessity of repairing and garrison-ing it. In the course of 1776 Congress directed General Schuyler to put the fort in a state of defense, but nothing was done to it that year. The settlers remained around the fort as in years before, but war parties began to move. In the summer of 1776 a friendly Oneida Indian was hunting north of Deerfield Corners and while thus engaged came upon a party of Tories and Indians who were very particular in their inquiries as to the white settlement at the corners. The Oneida Indian gave evasive answers, and the party proceeded in the direction of the settlement. AS soon as out of sight, the friendly Indian made a detour and hastened to apprise the whites of their danger. Being acquainted with the woods, thickets, hills, swamps, and streams, he reached the settlement and gave warning to the whites, who barely had time to hide their scanty furniture in the woods. The women and children in a wagon, and the men on foot, beat a hasty retreat down the valley. The war party came, found the settlers gone, set fire to and burned the buildings, and the town of Deerfield was again a deserted wilderness. The only settlers then left in Oneida county was those who yet remained around Fort Stanwix. Colonel Dayton was in command of the fort of that

name, (now Herkimer village) in 1776, and he was ordered to take charge of Fort Stanwix and repair it. The fort had gone greatly to decay, the pickets rotted off, and the earthworks much out of repair. It seems that Col. Elias Dayton was at Fort Stanwix in the summer of 1776 and he was the one who changed the name to Fort Schuyler; that name clung to it in part during the war, and in that way it has often been confounded with Fort Schuyler at Utica; Colonel Dayton was superseded in the year 1776 in command at Fort Stanwix by Colonel Elmore of the State service. In April, 1777, Col. Peter Gansevoort, then twenty eight years of age, of the State service, was appointed to succeed Colonel Elmore by an order of General Gates dated April 26, 1777. On reaching Fort Stanwix Col. Gansevoort found the ditches nearly filled up, magazine and barracks gone to ruin and the works untenable and in no condition for defense. He had but a small number of men and it was rumored there was to be an attack by the British Col. Marinus Willett, then thirty seven years old, and near Peekskill, was ordered with his regiment to join Colonel Gansevoort; he started from Fort Constitution, opposite West Point, with his regiment in three sloops, reached Albany in three days, thence in boats up the Mohawk and arrived at Fort Stanwix May 29, 1777. When Colonels Gansevoort and Willett reached Fort Stanwix, the work of repairing commenced in earnest. The French engineer employed turned out to be wholly incompetent. Instead of repairing the works after the manner of their original construction, which would have been comparatively easy, he sent out to the

1. Colonel Dayton was grandfather of William L. Dayton, of New Jersey, minister to France under President Lincoln, and who ran for vice-president in 1856, on the ticket with John C. Fremont.

swamp large parties to cut pickets, which when brought to the fort with so much labor were found to be seventeen feet long, seven feet longer than required, and instead of putting them in the center of the ditch, as formerly, they were put in the covert way. A building for barracks was erected outside of the fort. Another blunder was that the portholes in the pickets did not correspond with the embrasures of the fort. The upshot of the matter was, the engineer was arrested and sent down the valley to General Schuyler. It was not until into July that this was done.

The British plan of the campaign for 1777 was for General Burgoyne to go from Canada with an army of 7,000 men up Lake Champlain, cross over to the Hudson River at Fort Edward, down that stream to Albany and there unite with General Howe, who was to come up the Hudson with his forces, and those two armies meet St. Leger with another army, which was to go via Lake Ontario, Oswego River, Oneida Lake Wood Creek, capture Fort Stanwix, and proceed down the Mohawk and overrun and wipe out the settlements in the valley. That plan was formulated in England, and the forces started in the spring of 1777 to execute it. If it had been successful it would have been the death knell of American independence, as it would have separated the New England from the other colonies, as was the plan, and trampled under foot the patriots of the Mohawk Valley - among the most vigilant, the most brave, the most alert and active, of any of the settlements in the thirteen colonies; but the British authorities had not duly considered, nor given proper weight to, the part Fort Stanwix might, and was to act in this contest. They did not seem to have taken into account that it was possible for St. Leger to fail before this fort; but to have assumed it was to be taken and the valley overrun as a matter of course.

And now the time was approaching when within the borders of Oneida county were to be enacted scenes, and in which history was to be made, of momentous import; history concerning not this locality alone, but involving the destiny of a nation, and hence it is not an exaggeration to say that the result of the siege of Fort Stanwix was the turning point in the Revolutionary conflict and assured independence to the colonies. General Burgoyne had charge of the Champlain expedition. He came from England in the spring of 1777, and in June went up Lake Champlain and in due time reached the Hudson River with an army of

7,000 men. It was not fully known in early summer to the colonies as to the general plan of the English campaign; but as the season advanced, rumors thick-ened, and savages prowling around Fort Stanwix, picking off all they could see, indicated the trend of events.

Under date of June 26, 1777, Colonel Gansevoort wrote to General Schuyler as follows:

I am sorry to inform you that Captain Gregg went out gunning yesterday morning, contrary to orders, and about 10 A.M. Corporal Madison was killed and scalped and Captain Gregg shot through the back, tomahawked and scalped and left for dead; but he survives. He saw two Indians. Under date of July 4 Colonel Gansevoort writes again, as follows:

The soldiers are constantly at work sending out parties of observation, felling the timber into Wood Creek, clearing the road to Fort Dayton, which in many parts is impassable, and at the same time prosecuting the works, are objects of great importance. 150 men would be needed speedily and effectually to obstruct Wood Creek; an equal number necessary to guard the men at work in felling and hauling timber. The number of inimical Indians increases. Yesterday a party of 40, supposed to be Butler's emissaries, attacked Ensign Spoor with 16 privates, who were out cutting turf three quarters of a mile from the fort; one soldier was brought in dead, and inhumanly mangled; tow brought in wounded; Mr. Spoor and six privates are missing. Our provisions are greatly diminished by reason of the spoiling of the beef; it will not hold out six weeks. Our stock of powder is too little. On the third of July, about noon, Colonel Willett chronicles in his narrative that he was startled from his siesta by the report of musketry; hastening to the parapet he saw a little girl running with a basket in her hand, while the blood was trickling down her bosom. It appeared that the girl, with two others, had been picking berries not forty rods from the fort (about where now stands the freight house of N.Y.C.R.R.) and were fired upon and tow of the number killed. The girl who escaped was but slightly wounded. One of the girls killed was Katy Steers, twenty years old, daughter of one of the settlers; the other was the daughter of an invalid British officer, and was entitled to a position in the Chelsea hospital, but had preferred to remain in the cultivation of a small piece of land around Fort Stanwix that to again cross the ocean. Quite likely this invalid was the patentee of Sumner's Patent (see history of that patent), and this murdered girl his daughter.

The storm was thickening and rapidly approaching, full of evil portents; by

the middle of July Indians were prowling around the fort with murderous intent, and it became necessary to house the cattle within the fort, to send the families down the valley for safety, and for none of the garrison to venture out except in good sized parties and well armed. At this time the garrison consisted of 550 men, but they were only partially supplied with provisions, powder, and munitions of war. Boats, however, with men and supplies, were daily expected to arrive from down the valley. On the 30th of July a letter was received at the fort from Thomas Spencer, a friendly half-breed Oneida, an Indian interpreter, that in four days the king's troops would be at the fort. On the first of August, 1777, the walls around the fort were repaired; the parapets nearly raised' the embrasures made on three sides of the bastions; horizontal pickets extending over the ditches from the embankment, the perpendicular pickets were erected around the covert way, and the gate and bridges made secure. The sally port was on the east side of the fort towards the river; the covert way was on the opposite side; the drawbridge on the southerly side towards Dominick street. On the north east corner or bastion of the fort, towards St. Peter's Church, were three guns; on the northwest corner, towards City Hall, four guns; on the southeast corner towards the river, four guns, and on the southwest corner three guns, and there was the flag staff. On the northerly side towards Liberty Street, were the soldier's quarters; on the east and south sides, the officers' barracks and in the southeast corner the magazine constructed of the seven feet cut off from the seventeen feet logs procured for pickets. Between the fort and the river the land was mainly cleared of trees, but the approaches from that direction were deemed difficult if not impassible by reason of the morass. A deep broad ditch encircled the fort, fifteen to twenty feet wide at the top, sloping to the bottom, and eighteen to twenty feet deep. In the center of the ditch were heavy perpendicular pickets, sharp pointed at the top. Another row of horizontal pickets projected from the ramparts over the ditch. Between the fort and what is now the Erie Canal, the land was cleared, and so it was westerly most of the way between the fort and Wood Creek. August 1st an express arrived at the fort with

1. He was killed afterwards at the battle of Oriskany. He was the one who went to Canada on a secret mission in the spring of 1777, and brought the news of the British plan of the campaign for that year.

the news that the boats coming up the Mohawk were near at hand On the 2nd of August in the afternoon, the boats with supplies and 200 men under Colonel Mellon (Mass. troops) reached the landing, just as a detachment from St. Leger's forces appeared in sight; all of Colonel Mellon's men reached the fort except the man who commanded the boats, who by reason of his dilatoriness, was taken prisoner. An hour's difference in time might have entirely changed the result of the siege. There were now 750 men in the fort, provisioned for six weeks, with plenty of ammunition for small arms, but a scanty supply for the large guns, with nine rounds for each for the same period. The main body of St. Leger's forces was near at hand, consisting of less than 500 troops outside of the Indians, and 1,000 of the latter; some accounts place the number of the enemy from 1,000 to 2,000 men. The siege commenced at once, while the parapets had to be finished by the garrison exposed to the fire of the enemy. Early in the year 1776 a regiment was raised in Connecticut, under authority of the Continental Congress, to serve for one year from April, 1776. It is known as Colonel Elmore's regiment. Col. Samuel Elmore and most of his company officers recruited their men in Connecticut, and to some extent from regiments which had served in the north. Some of the officers belonged in New York and a few in Massachusetts, and men were recruited from both of those states. Col. Samuel Elmore was from Sharon, Conn.; Lieut.-Col. John Brown was from Massachusetts (both appointed by Congress); Maj. Robert Cochran was from New York (probably Westchester county). The regiment took the field in July, 1776, under Gen. Philip Schuyler, and on August 25 marched from Albany up the Mohawk Valley. Capt. David Smith's company was on duty at German Flats, Capt. Lathrop Allen's company was in garrison at Fort Dayton (Herkimer), Capt. William Satterlee's company in garrison at Johnstown, Capt. Joel Dickenson's company (of which Robert Cochran was captain until he was promoted to be major) in garrison at Fort Dayton, Capt. Theodore Woodbridge's company, Capt. Albert Chapman's company, Capt. Robert Walker's company, and Capt. Jeremiah Parmalee's company (four companies) marched on to Fort Stanwix and were in that fort and its vicinity until they broke up in the spring of 1777, when their term of service expired. Most of the officers and a number of the men re-entered the Continental service in Connecticut, Massachusetts and New York lines. Captain Satterlee was from Massachusetts, Captain Cochran from New York, and the remainder of the captains from Connecticut. It is, or has been, generally supposed this regiment was at Fort Stanwix during its siege. This supposition is not well founded. The regiment at that fort during the siege in August, 1777, was the Third New York regiment, of which Colonel Gansevoort was colonel, and Col. Marinus Willett lieutenant colonel. In addition there were 200 Massachusetts men under Colonel Mellon (of Colonel Weston's regiment) who arrived at the fort the day the siege was commenced by St. Leger (August 2, 1777), and barely reached the fort before the advance force under Brant and Colonel Bird arrived. April 26, 1777, Colonel Gansevoort was appointed by General Gates to succeed Colonel Elmore, and May 18, 1777 , Colonel Willett was ordered to proceed from opposite West Point to Fort Stanwix, as lieutenant colonel, with his regiment, the Third New York.

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