It Happened Here- Not Hadrian's Wall,                                                                but Clinton's Ditch.

Part I: "Romancing (the clay &) the stone "

Both the heart of the British Empire, Great Britain, and the "Empire State" of New York are  homes to two singular archeological features, (viz. ruins). They run east to west, virtually across the whole of their respective territories.

In a few areas they are (with the help of some reconstruction) almost intact, their stones rising nearly perfectly aligned, as they were built, to a height of more than twelve feet; or plunging nearly 4-10 feet to form a forty foot wide channel--each with its accompanying six foot deep vallum (defensive ditch), for the wall; or the raised four foot wide graded tow path, for the canal.  In some places, especially through urban areas, both have been leveled, or filled in, robbed of their stones for use in nearby buildings and farmers' walls, graded and even paved over.  But in many areas traces of their structures can still be seen, as can the ruins of extensive support facilities that accompanied them as well. The wall had its mile castles, support roads, forts, granaries, soldiers barracks and even Roman baths.  The canal had its bridges, aqueducts, basins, dry docks, canal stores, boat yards and of course, locks.

 Hadrian's Wall took six years to build; Clinton's Ditch took eight years.  Hadrians wall spanned  73  miles;  Clinton's Ditch flowed  363 miles.  Hadrian's Wall ultimately failed; the barbarians were not kept out and Rome eventually decided to abandon Roman Britain.  The Erie Canal succeeded beyond the wildest dreams of its promoters and builders, opening the Great Lakes and the interior of the United States to markets on the east coast, and the world beyond.  Within a few years this canal would spawn nearly a dozen other canals in New York, including  numerous feeder canals which would connect  much of New York State to the Erie Canal.  Within two decades a wider version of the canal with double locks to ease congestion on the canal would be necessary. By the twentieth century new dam/lock technology would enable a newer, larger version of the canal that would use the Mohawk River, itself, as part of the canal.

 

Over the course of the remainder of this year, interspersed with my regular posts I hope to do several posts about the Erie Canal.  Though still in a formative state, I expect they will center around several different  topics:

             I.   The Politics of the canal's creation,  Or-- How could the idea of a canal spanning the entire width of New York State, first fleshed out by some guy serving time in a local jail be sold to a government and a people still grappling with the notion that it was the government 's (and taxpayer's) responsibility to build and maintain,  even, public roads!

             II. The Engineering and Construction of the canal, Or--How could a group of engineers and practical men, (most of whom had never even seen a canal) and whose work experience was no more than constructing a few small bridges and laying out a few millponds with dams and sluices and  water raceways, construct the longest canal at the time, one heralded at the time as the 8th wonder-of-the-world!

           III.  The Consequences, Or- How did New York State end up with so many "port" town and cities, most of which are miles from any major river or ocean!  (Think--Brockport, Port Byron,  Lockport, Weedsport, Middleport, Bridgeport, Spencerport, Port Crane and Port Dickerson).  Or how did grain produced near Watkins Glen end up being shipped (literally) to New York City?

Marker of the Week  Fortnight (!)    Plastics!

Pool/Billiard type games had been around since the 16th century when the northern European leisure  classes brought popular croquet-like lawn games indoors to be played on green fabric covered tables played with wooden  or ceramic balls. But wooden balls could warp and dent and ceramic balls  could chip and even shatter. By the beginning of the 17th century Elephant ivory became the preferred material for billiard balls.  Smooth, hard, and heavy, ivory was perfect for conveying energy from ball to ball for  a fast and exciting game. Billiards/pool became increasingly popular in the early Victorian period but by then Elephant ivory had become very expensive. (Only 4 or 5 balls could be turned from the thickest part of an elephant's tusk.) 

In 1865 Phelan and Collender, a NewYork manufacturer of pool tables and supplier of billiard balls offered a $10,000 prize for anyone who could discover an acceptable substitute for ivory.  A young 

inventor, and former apprentice printer John Wesley Hyatt from Starkey, New York was intrigued.

As a printer, he had learned some printers coated their fingers with  a collodion, a solution of nitrocellulose dissolved in alcohol which formed a clear shell over the finger to keep out the printer's ink.  It was also commonly used as a covering for small wounds to keep out dirt (and, though not known, then, germs.) He had previously experimented with concoctions of pressed fibers to produce checkers and dominoes.

After several years of experimenting with different solutions of alcohols, ethers and finally camphor on nitrocellulose under heat and pressure he produced a substance he called Celluloid in  1868.  Casting his new material around a core of fiber reinforced shellac he made the first synthetic billiard ball [1], going into business as the Albany Billiard Ball Company.  (He apparently did not pursue the prize money.) 

 Looking for new markets to pursue he opened the Celluloid Manufacturing Company that would manufacture dental plates for dentures, replacing the hard rubber dental plates that had been used. He would develop injection molding and extrusion technologies and sell his new plastic material to companies  for all kinds of plastic uses from combs and ball point pen bodies, to shirt collars and cuffs, to toys and knife handles and synthetic piano keys.  In 1882  a chemist working for him would  develop a solvent that turned celluloid into a tough clear film that would replace the glass plates used in photography and enable the motion picture industry.   

Like one of it major components, however,  celluoid had a major drawback.  Like the nitrocellulose (also known as "gun cotton") it was made from, celluloid was unstable  and could burn easily and violently, and under some conditions cause a small explosion when struck--sometimes happening with billiard balls!

In the early 20th century Bakelite plastic replaced celluloid as the material of choice for billiard balls, later to be replaced by phenolic resins. 

[1] In 20223 the Smithsonian Institution allowed a mico-sample of an original Hyatt billiard ball to be chemically analyzed   They found in addition to its known ingredients powdered beef bone had been added to give it extra structure and resilience.

 It Happened Here --"Clang, Clang, Clang Went The Trolley"

The Trolley cars of my childhood imagination, and the impression of trolley cars from my very limited experience with Trolley cars from driving around  Boston in the 1970's, differed greatly from each other.  Neither one of them reflected the reality of trolley car  transportation in the approximately  six and one half decades that trolleys flourished in and between  cities in New York State from 1888 until after WWII.  (Approximately 30 larger cities still operate  trolleys [1]   in the United States, though none are in New York State.) The trolleys of my imagination were small and ramshackle, piloted/conducted by  uniformed, officious employees of  local transit companies who could not be more taken with themselves than if  they were the captains of  the great ships of the White Star or  Cunard Lines.[2]   Less than serious transportation, in theater and movies, they, with SanFrancisco's cable cars,  appeared as backdrops /sets for musical productions. (Think:  Judy Garland's "The Trolley Song"or Tony Bennet's  "San Francisco"--"where little cable cars climb halfway to the stars" ). The only tangible contact I had with trolley cars was on shopping trips with my mother.  When transversing  the Belgian block paved city streets of Albany  we would come upon the sunken rails of the trolley line, surviving in the street like the fossilized footprints of some long extinct dinosaurs . And I still remember my mother cautioning me that stepping in them  would surely lead to a twisted ankle.  In contrast, the trolleys of Boston seemed like huge orange or green behemoths,  trundling down the middle of avenues,  their tracks making great sweeping curves through the very centers of intersections, somehow sublimely confident that all other vehicular traffic would yield to them. This was in spite of the fact that most of them, like aging pachyderms, bore the scars of combat  with lesser motor vehicles.

Horse drawn streetcars appeared first, at the beginnings of the industrial revolution with the need for workers to get  to and from their homes to their workplaces in a regular and timely fashion. Few workers could afford the expense of a horse  w/ carriage to say nothing of stabling/caring for said horse the hours they worked. As factories and cities grew, housing became displaced to ever greater distances from workplaces. As distances between home and work grew from feet to miles, then many miles, taking "shanks mare" (walking) became impracticable. Placing omnibuses on rails buried in the streets allowed horses to pull much greater loads of passengers than possible on the rough and usually rutted surfaces of roads.  

By 1832 New York City had its first horse drawn street cars, of the New York and Harlem Railroad.  By 1855 horse car rails would snake through most NYC neighborhoods and NYC streetcars would provide 18 million rides per year!  By 1859 Philadelphia, Baltimore, Chicago,  Pittsburgh and Cincinnati had horse trolleys and many other cities would follow.   Two horse streetcars that could carry perhaps a couple dozen passengers and the smaller 1 horse "bob-tail" cars [3]  carrying around a dozen riders were becoming common.

Horse drawn streetcars, however, were expensive to operate, and could go only 5 to 6 miles per hour. One two horse car, operating on a  busy line for six long days a week,  might utilize five to ten horses. [4] And for  the horses, trolley car service was extremely taxing with trolley horses typically having only a three to five year working life!   And then, of course, there was the manure.  A trolley horse might produce 10 1/2 lbs. per day. But this could have some value. One trolley company with $40,000 in fares/year reported $14,000/year in manure sales to farmers.  Additionally, as with any living creature,  there is the risk of disease.  In 1872  an epidemic of epizotic apthinae killed thousands of horses.

Not surprisingly, very early on, inventors and entrepreneurs began looking for alternatives ways to power  trolleys.  Andrew Hallidae, a wire rope manufacture from San Francisco developed the first successful urban cable car system after he witnessed an accident in which four horses attempting to pull a street car up one of SanFrancisco's infamous hills, lost their footing and were dragged by their runaway car over the rough cobblestones to the base of the hill. (All four animals had to be destroyed.)  Hallidae's system involved a continuous moving cable (wire rope) in a channel running below the surface of the streets, supported on rollers and directed around corners by large pulleys, all powered by a central steam plant. The "cable  cars" utilized a gripping mechanism that extended down into the channel, locking and unlocking the car onto/ from  the continuously moving cable.

Small steam powered tractors were tried on some lines. Often concealed to look like streetcars themselves, in part to frighten horses less, these "steam dummies" still were noisy, producing clouds of steam, smoke and cinders but were used on some suburban lines with  fewer stops.

Electricity, however,  provided the most promise for trolley car propulsion in the fourth quarter of the 19th century.  For over two decades inventors in the U.S., Germany and England made steady improvements in electric motors, undercarriages, and current collection devices. By 1888 Frank J. Sprague had developed a car and electrification system for Richmond Virginia that became the model for trolley car systems across the nation, not only within, but between towns.

 In most areas where rails were accessible to pedestrians horses and other animals, electrified 3d or "hot" rails quickly and often disastrously proved impractical, though they became standard in subways and along some stretches of protected elevated urban railroads. Overhead power, through a system of electrified wires quickly became the safer norm.

                      The Albany-Hudson line persevered with 3d rail power, except in high traffic areas. despite accidents

                                            Remains of  the overhead electric system on Hamilton St., Albany

Leo Daft, an electrical engineer, working in the field of electrical distribution/ trolley propulsion built a    1 1/2 mile demonstration electric railway in Saratoga but was better known for a  four wheeled device sliding along the overhead-suspended electric wire was known as a "troller".  Pulled along by the streetcar, it took current  directly from the wire for the car's electric motors.  The term "trolley car " became synonymous with any streetcar wether horse-drawn, steam or electric propelled.  Unfortunately, troller wheels had some propensity to jam or jump free of the electric wires they travelled along and then the troller could unexpectedly come crashing down on their streetcars.  The solution was  one or two flexible poles, spring loaded, mounted on each car.   At the top of the pole was a wheel held onto the wire by the spring tension of the pole, that made contact as it ran along the underside of the electrical power wire. 

Almost overnight, cities large and small began contracting with entrepreneurs to build trolley systems. With electric propulsion, the price of operating a car/mile dropped from $0.25 to $0.15 car/mile, and unlike with cable car systems there was not the huge upfront cost of building a large steam power plant and extensive underground facilities to enable a continuous cable to travel in an unending loop.  Cities could charge trolley car companies for the franchise to run their cars along city streets, often requiring them to pave and maintain the streets on which they operated.  Real estate developers often courted trolley car companies to build lines adjacent to properties they were developing because access to  the city's trolley car system could multiply their properties' value.  Fairly extensive trolley systems could be operated by small electric generating plants located on small streams or rivers running through cities, or powered by steam engines.

Industrialization resulted not only in standardization of working times but also the standardization 

of non-working times, which resulted in both a problem and an opportunity for trolley companies.  

One day a week, Sundays, (and soon two days a week) trolley cars ran mostly empty. To fill these ridership voids trolley companies began to develop routes to popular recreational destinations like

 beaches and parks. To enhance the attraction of these destinations they combined with civic 

authorities and private entrepreneursto build bandstands, concert halls, dance halls, ball fields, 

racetracks and casinos.  The success of Mr. Ferris' giant wheel at the Chicago World's Fair in 1893

sparked the creation of a variety of "thrill" rides as well. Electrification of these parks,  (necessary 

for trolley operation) allowed for the entertainments to continue after dark, with festive colored 

lighting.  In many areas the local trolley company, itself, created a "Trolley Park" where a person 

could buy, for the price of a trolley fare, a full day's amusement.

From Albany Hudson Electric Trail signs at the Electric Park

site, Niverville, off Rte 203

I

 As urban congestion increased, larger cities looked for alternatives to the rail-bound, street level trolleys.  Elevated railways reduced street congestion and with the introduction of electric engines, eliminated the smoke and cinders associated with steam trains. With other large east coast cities, New York City would develop an extensive subway system.  To facilitate the flow of traffic, some trolley companies experimented with rubber tired cars, trolleybuses, that, though still tethered to the overhead electric grid,  no longer rode on steel rails and could maneuver (somewhat) through traffic, letting passengers safely off at the curb.

The twentieth century saw a number of developments that would remove trolleys from all but a few cities by mid-century.

Rising costs doomed many trolley systems for while the price of maintaining rails, the overhead electrical system, replacement cars and parts, and labor continued to rise, the price of fares did not, often frozen in initial franchise agreements with municipalities.  Labor unrest over static wages was a frequent problem.  In Albany, in 1901 and 1921 strikes against the United Traction Company became violent.  In 1901 two strikers were killed byNational Guardsmen called in to protect strikebreakers operating the cars. [4]  Even when not prohibited by franchises with municipalities, fare increases were immensely unpopular with the public.  Early on, the 5 cent fare had become sacrosanct.  

The main reason for the decline of the trolley, of course, was the proliferation of gasoline powered automobiles, vans and buses.  Automobiles offered a flexibility that trolleys could not compete against. Suburban areas expanded beyond the profitable range of streetcars.  Beginning in 1910 economic down turns encouraged some automobile owners to turn to the cities to solicit rides for a fare.  So called "jitney" cars became an urban phenomenon, not offering scheduled service, but skimming ridership away from trolley runs at the most profitable  peak times.  ("Jitney" is thought to have originated in New Orleans, a corruption of the creole word  "jetnee" or "nickel" referring to the common fare at the time.)  By a second downturn in 1914-15 between 6000 and 10,000 "jitneys" may have been operating in the U.S. .   Car companies were abetting them by offer larger multi-seated vehicles and small busses.  While jitney cab popularity would ebb and flow with economic conditions, efforts of municipalities to regulate/license these independents,  and labor disruptions, the effects were inevitable.

The Second World War provided a reprieve for the Trolley industry with people flocking to U.S. cities to work in war industries, and with automobile production halted and gasoline severely rationed.  But by mid-century the end was clear.[5]   Car manufacturers were cranking out thousands of new cars, and Americans were addicted to the freedom and independence of personal transportation.  Mass transit  would continue but gasoline powered busses would replace trolley cars.

[1] To be clear, by Trolleys I mean electric surface passenger trains that run on electric motors and get their power off of overhead wires, or occasionally from a third rail.

[2] This meme appears to have developed from a syndicated cartoon "The Toonerville Trolley that Meets All Trains" that ran from 1908 to 1955 in newspapers across the country.

[3] The horses of one horse trolleys were often hitched closer the streetcar itself, so their tails were often cut/bobbed to avoid them being tangled in the front grills of the trolley or whip in the faces of the drivers.

[4] By 1885 Albany's trolley system had 30 miles of track,  71 horse-drawn trolley cars, and 400  horses to draw them!

[5] The last trolley ran in Albany in August 1946

--An encyclopedic overview of the trolley in America and worldwide, with simple and clear explanations of trolley technology is provided in William T. Middleton.  Time of the Trolley. Milwaukee, 1967. 

 --A short history of Albany's United Traction Co. can be found at friendsofalbanyhistory.wordpress.com/tag/united-traction-co,/.   Friends of Albany.  "Getting from Here to There in Old Albany:  It was all about the Trolley". April 8, 2018. )

--The Albany-Hudson Electric Trail has numerous tablet-signs that are very informative, featuring prints of old photographs, etchings snd postcards along the trail, usually within 200 feet of where the trail crosses a road in Stottsville, Stockport, Stuyvesant Falls,  Kinderhook, Valatie, Niverville, N.Chatham and Nassau.

Marker of the Week  Fortnight (!)-- Proof!

                                                           "Rome Wasn't Built in a Day"

                                                          :)

It Happened Here   ... and more Spies

   (Part II. The Covert War -2 more Spies

and the Plot to Kidnap Gen.Schuyler

Joseph Bettys (Bettis)  was raised in Norwalk, Ct. and moved to Ballston, NY, where his father, Joseph (Sr) became a  well regarded innkeeper in Ballston.  He was recruited into the  American Army by John Ball, son of Eliphalet Ball the founder of Ballston  because he knew him to be "bold, athletic and intelligent  in an uncommon degree" and he arranged for him to be appointed as a sergeant.  

                         

Bettys' Inn--Marker is in  error Joseph (Sr) was proprietor

 

Young Joseph, however,  appeared be  thin skinned, and ready to take offense at any slight and soon was reduced to corporal for insolence to an officer.   Ball arranged for him to be transferred to the force that Benedict Arnold was recruiting to defend Lake Champlain.  Arnold, desperate for seamen, was eager to get Bettys who had  some experience as a sailor and reinstated him as a  sergeant.  But Bettys' aggressive volatility had  already been noted as he came with a note from General Gates' command to Arnold recommending he be put on board a ship on arrival to prevent him from running away!  Bettys served courageously as first mate on the gondola Philadelphia at the Battle of Valcour Island.  When it sank, after repeated mauling by the British fleet, he transferred to the row galley Washington, where he assisted the wounded General Waterbury relaying his commands to the ship's crew.  The Washington  was also badly damaged and could not keep up with Arnold's retreating fleet. Overtaken by the British, it surrendered. 

 Much to the surprise of the prisoners from the Washington, they were treated with kindness, and given parole in exchange for a promise not to aid the rebel cause any more and promptly returned to the Americans.  The experience must have profoundly effected Bettys and perhaps with some unrecorded negative experiences in the rebel camp in the months that followed, led him to change sides. By the following fall he was in Burgoyne's camp leading eight others volunteering to join Loyalist forces. 

 His initiative and talents were quickly recognized.  He was, first, put to work scouting the American lines; then, he  guided a group of Loyalist recruits to Burgoyne's army. He would become one of the most effective recruiters for  Loyalist regiments.  Operating behind American lines he enlisted not only  Tory-leaning whites but encouraged enslaved Blacks to flee their Whig masters with the promise of freedom, as well. Working for General Burgoyne, he was sent  to discover Lt. Gen. Henry Clinton's position and access if he was close enough to assist   Burgoyne; and finally, he delivered the message to British Gen. Vaughn and Gen. Howe that Burgoyne was surrendering. For the remainder of 1777 and much of 1778 Bettys carried out secret operations for Sir Henry Clinton  in New York and Connecticut including distributing official printed proclamations on an 80 mile circuit in (rebel) Connecticut.  But in January 1779 he was picked up by a party of rebel soldiers, stripped and confined in shackles first in Peekskill  then Fishkill until April  when he was officially tried and condemned to be hanged by a military courts marshal.  His execution, however, was delayed by the pleas and petitions by his family and family friends, prominent whigs and military men who knew of his valorous service on Lake Champlain.  On July 4th, 1779  George Washington, himself, pardoned Bettys along with two other condemned spies, in a display of mercy on America's  fourth Independence Day.  Bettys was free but filled with hatred for the rebels who had imprisoned him and after a month of recuperating at home, from his confinement he disappeared again for St. Johns, taking with him ten recruits  for the loyalist cause.  In the spring of 1780 he participated in raids on Skenesborough  and Sir John Johnson's raids in the Mohawk valley.  In the later part of the year  he focused on recruiting in the Ballston area, the Helderbergs,  and communities within a few miles south of Albany.

Burnt Hills Baptist Church Cemetery

Kingsley Rd., Burnt Hills

As mentioned  above,  as the war continued, the British desire  to capture  'valuable' prisoners increased.  Sherwood and Smyth developed a plan to kidnap eight prominent Whigs across upstate New York simultaneously, using small groups of four to about a dozen kidnappers.  Bettys would lead a lead a group of four to abduct  Dr. Samuel Stringer of Ballston, an ardent Whig and member of the Albany Board.  But the Ballston operation fell through, when,  according to Bettys report,  the other three of his team abandoned him!  Bettys, despite having a wife and two children, thereafter, decided to pursue a romantic relationship with the daughter of a staunch Loyalist farmer living south of Albany, and he returned to Saint John's with his lover.  The Tory farmer, Jellis Lagrange, appealed to the Albany board to stop him, and though they failed to catch Bettys, were made aware of increased kidnapping operations.  As a result of the heightened awareness an operation directed at a Hoosick Falls patriot was broken up and a list of the targets of the kidnappers  was revealed.

Bettys' return to St.John's presented a problem and an embarrassment for the British authorities. How could they support and encourage Loyalist "Friends of Government" in the Colonies and persuade them to offer up their sons to fight in the King's Armies if their agents were coming down  into America and seducing and abducting their daughters!  Bettys was defiant, hiding away the girl and refusing to give her up, while his handlers fumed and restricted him to the fort in St. Johns.  After several months they decided to let the whole matter blow over, and in a surprising turn of events they offered the willful spy a commission as an ensign in the 2nd Regiment of the King's Rangers.  Perhaps they thought, as an officer in a regular military unit,  they could better control him.  [4]

While  fighting had all but ended by 1782,  peace had not yet come.  In March  1782 the Albany Board minutes show Joseph Bettys was apprehended on the farm of John Fulmer (according  to one account, in Ballston or another in Newtown in the town of Halfmoon.)  By one account, he was alone; by another, he was in the company of one Jonathan Miller, who would escape, and one John Parker, who would be hanged with him.   John Fulmer  was out in his woods collecting maple sap with his two daughters, when they spotted   him/them  with  backpack and snowshoes armed with a musket(s).  Summoning his stepson, a neighbor, John Cory and two others they tracked him/them to the cabin of a local Tory named Hawkins.  Bursting in, they overpowered him/them, and took him/them to Fulmer's house where Fulmer's wife and wife's sister identified Joseph Bettys. They took them to Cory's House.  Seated before the fire, Bettys asked if he could smoke. The spy produced his tobacco box and pipe and in the process of preparing his pipe, threw something into the fire. The quick reacting Cory thrust his hand into the fire to retrieve the object along with a handful of burning embers.  Amongst the glowing coals was a small lead box.  It contained a note written in a cypher and another note addressed to the the mayor of British-occupied New York directing him to pay the bearer of the note 30 pounds, sterling. A desperate, undone Bettys offered the captors 100 Guineas if they would burn the notes. When they refused, he declared "I am a dead man.". The spy was taken to Albany, under heavy guard, quickly tried and convicted of being a spy.  The Albany Board was taking no chances of losing him again.  Parker was hanged; the ever defiant Bettys, with the noose secured around his neck,  jumped to his death from the scaffold, to deny the hated Whigs the satisfaction of hanging him.  [5]

                                                                                          *****

John Walden Meyers was born in southern Albany County to German parents with his name appearing in documents over time in a variety of German and anglicized renditions.  (Johannes, Hans, Waltermeyer, Waltenmeyers, Mayers, Mires, Myres) and the place of his birth reported variously as Redhook, Rhinebeck, or Coeymans. From his farm in Coeymans,  Meyers travelled to the Fort Edward area where he joined Jessup's Loyal American Regiment.  Soon after joining, he volunteered for recruiting and before leaving,  was given a courier assignment to deliver a packet to Dr. Smyth at Albany.  Though his first recruiting efforts were successful, as he headed for Burgoyne's Army he was frustrated to learn of Burgoyne's defeat. 

 Returning home, he discovered his farm seized by rebel militia, his crops seized by the rebel army, and his family living with his father.  He continued south to join Howe's forces in New York City and  enlisted in the third battalion of Delancy's Loyalist Brigade.  There, he was given a "beating warrant", (a commission authorizing him as an official recruiter--traditionally, in England, recruiters were accompanied by a drummer who signed up volunteers to the beat of a drum.)  He spent the winter, there in quarters  with other courier- recruiter-spies including  William Bettys. 

 In 1779 he made several trips carrying dispatches between British headquarters in New York, Dr. Smyth's Claverack home outside of Albany and St. Johns as  British commanders and intelligence operatives shared information and attempted to divine Americans intensions as the Americans prepared for their invasion of the Iroquois homeland.  Meyers was able to arrange for his wife and family to find refuge in British controlled Manhattan or Long Island but a few months later in a contentious clandestine meeting with his parents and younger brother he would learn that they had come to side with the Americans.  Shortly after, he would abandon his family name of "Waltermeyer" for "John Walden Meyers." [4]  The summer was spent in what must have been frustrating idleness in Quebec as Haldimand busied himself with building Canadian defenses and fretting about a French invasion and the potential of revolt by the French Canadian population. 

 In the fall, Meyers was sent to New York with dispatches for British headquarters, spending the winter with his wife and children.  On a visit to headquarters he met Col. Robert Rodgers of  (French and Indian War) Roger's Rangers fame who was attempting to raise a new battalion of Loyalists to be based at St. Johns.  Meyers enthusiastically resigned from Delancy's Brigade to come recruit for Rogers'. 

Meyers spent the spring and summer secretly recruiting in the many Tory-leaning hamlets and isolated settlements around Albany and  the southern Saratoga area acquiring over sixty commitments from Loyalist to enlist. His many appearances and frequent hairsbreadth escapes from militia patrols made him something of a legend/folk hero.  (Albany mothers were said to discipline their children with the warning that if they didn't behave "Waltermeyer" would come and eat them!)  At one point General Schuyler, himself, would be consulted on how to capture him and a whole regiment of Albany militia would be out looking for him .  This unwelcome attention made it extremely difficult to bring more than a few recruits at a time through rebel territory to St. Johns.  Meyers would find, that, over time, many of his recruits had reneged on their commitment or had been snapped up by recruiters for other regiments, when he came for them. [5]   On one of his more successful trips, Meyer staged a night time raid on Ballston, attacking the jail and freeing Loyalist prisoners,  recruiting two of them, while he took food and weapons.  

The following Spring, in 1781,  Meyer was enlisted as a key player in a plot to kidnap prominent whigs in New York State. The plan called for eight teams to kidnap eight Whig leaders simultaneously on  July 31st.  His role would be to lead a team of eight to kidnap General Phillip Schuyler in his home on the outskirts of Albany.  General Haldimand insisted that two of each team be British regulars to prevent the Loyalists from straying from their mission to visit friends or family or stopping to recruit.  The Brits were instructed not to speak to anyone, to avoid their accents raising suspicions.  They dressed like common militiamen/farmers, most likely in buckskin with linen or wool hunting smocks, older french pattern muskets and a variety of sidearms--knives or tomahawks. Outside of Albany,  Meyer enlisted the help of four Loyalists living along the Norman's kill  ( creek) .  Quartering his men in one of their barns, he learned from them and his own scouts  of increased militia patrolling activity, the result of Joseph Betty's affair and the uproar it caused.  After a few days, fearing the barn would be searched, Meyer moved his men to a "cave" along the Hudson, [6]  where he waited  until August 7th for the alarm to pass. 

Meanwhile, General Schuyler concerned about reports of plans to raid his summer house delayed  sending his family there, and the increased Tory activity around Albany prompted him to ask for an additional militia guard of two soldiers for his  Albany house.  

Schuyler mansion was/is an impressive three story classic brick Georgian mansion on the (then) outskirts of Albany.  During the war it was surrounded by a log stockade.  Attached to the back were two one story "wings" housing Schuyler's office and a kitchen and perhaps a nursery/ greenhouse.  Attached to them were a series of smaller outbuildings with a "necessary," an ash hold,  washroom, small smoke room/room to mash meal in, a harness/tack room, and lumber loft which, together, formed a hollow square compound.  The mansion, itself, had a grand 20ft. wide hall  running from the front entrance to the rear entrance with an open  partition about two thirds of the way to the rear.  On either side of the hall were two drawing rooms in the front and the dining room and a library in the rear A grand curving staircase ran from the rear of one side of the hall to the second floor where the layout was repeated with a pair of bed rooms on either side of a large central hall.  The third floor contained a nursery.

A model at Schuyler Mansion shows the probable layout of Schuyler Mansion in the 1790's. The stockade is gone but the one story brick wings still exist, as well as the square of outbuildings which  form the compound. directly in the rear of the mansion.

The rear of Schuyler Mansion.  The side doors connected to the office and kitchen wings, the center door to the central hall. The grass enclosure is the approximate compound.

On the evening of June 7th between 7 and 9 pm the General and his large family were finishing their dinner.  Meyers noted he saw the General through a window.  At dinner were the General, his wife and their eleven children including his two grown daughters and their children. (His son-in-laws were in military service.)  Meyers and his men broke through or climbed over the stockade and entered the compound through the kitchen and ran to the rear entranceway of the mansion. Meyers ordered two of his men to guard the front and rear entrances to prevent the General from escaping . Breaking their way through the locked door they encountered Schuyler's militia guard, as Schuyler's (enslaved) male servants armed themselves with whatever they had to protect their master.  General pandemonium broke out, as the numerous Schuyler girls and younger children screamed and cried and desperately sought shelter,  joined by Schuyler's female slaves and their children who were serving the dinner party.  A wild melee broke out in the hall.  One  of  the Tories from Normanskill was shot dead.  The two British regulars suffered bloody wounds, as did several of Schuyler's defenders.  One of the Schuyler girls, realizing she had left her infant in a cradle downstairs rushed from her hiding place in one of the upstairs bedrooms to save it and on her return up the stairs narrowly missed a being struck by a tomahawk  thrown by one of the Tories at a defender.  (The bannister still bares the scar of the errant tomahawk.)  In the confusion, General Schuyler was able to slip up the stairs to his bedroom to retrieve his personal weapons. Looking out of a window in his back bedroom he saw some of the attackers in the compound below.  He opened the window and fired two pistols at them. In a moment of inspiration he yelled from the window  'come on my lads, Surround the house the villains are in it', to make his attackers think that aid was at hand.  He quickly hid [7] as the raiders burst into his room.  Seeing the open window and apparently empty room they assumed Schuyler had jumped from the window and escaped.  When a quick search of the house revealed the General was nowhere to be found, Meyers concluded he had gotten away and ordered his men to make their retreat.  Helping the two wounded British regulars and guarding two of the Mansion's defenders, an enslaved servant and one of Schuyler's militia guard whom they had overpowered in the melee, the raiders quickly departed and made their way to Canada.

In Canada, General Haldimand was angry.  None of the kidnap operations had succeeded.  The Bettys' fiasco may have actually turned some "friends of Government" against the military in Canada.  And he, as the current military governor of Canada had likely looked at the prospect of hosting General Schuyler as his imprisoned "guest"at the  Chateau St. Louis, the Governor's residence,  as Schuyler had hosted the former military governor of Canada, the defeated General Burgoyne at his mansion in 1777. But it was not to be.  They had failed;  they presented themselves as apparent assassins; they terrorized Schuyler's wife and children; and (unbeknownst to Meyers) they made off with a considerable amount of Schuyler's silver dinnerware like common highwaymen! (Some of this Haldemand recovered and returned to Schuyler, with a humble written apology.)

Meyers did not participate in the Fall offensive, led by Sir John Johnson.  A large raid  with regulars, tories and Indians, it struck into the Mohawk valley but was  defeated at the Battle of Johnstown.  It was followed by the news arriving from Virginia of Cornwalis' defeat.  Meyers finally got his promotion to Captain when the various bits and pieces of regiments being formed by various military recruiters and their sponsors were finally consolidated to form active regiments.  With peace talks in the offing, this enabled aspiring and long frustrated would-be officers to retire at half-pay when peace was declared.  John Walden Meyers settled with his family on lake Champlain on a government grant, only to be later uprooted by the provincial government fearing that settling Loyalists too close to the American border would become a source of tension between the two countries.  Settling again, in Ontario, he built a farm, mill and several business interests at Meyer's Creek, a town that would become Belleville, Ontario.

[1]  The Bettys Inn marker mistakenly refers to the proprietor as William Bettys. Actually it was Joseph, father of Joseph (the spy).

[2]  As mentioned before, it had become common practice when building/rebuilding  units, that persons who brought in a number of new recruits would be rewarded a commission in that unit--the more recruits, the higher the rank. Bettys had certainly shown himself to be a successful recruiter.

[3]  The version of the three spies captured in Ballston comes from D. Loveless' Tory Spy based on   William  L.Stone. The Life of Joseph Brant--Thayendanega.  1851.  The account of the Newtown, Halfmoon capture of Bettys, alone, comes from Michael Aikley's Journal of the American Revolution article on Joseph Bettys citing an 1840 magazine article by James L.Chester, "Revolutionary Rememberances," in The Family Magazine, v.7 . The incident of Bettys last defiant act was related to me byRick Reynolds,  Ballston Town Historian.

[4] In The Loyalist Spy. historian Mary Beech Fryer has written an account of John Walden Meyers that lies between history and historical fiction.  While there are no fictitious characters in her narrative, and there appear to be few truly fabricated events, the author generously larded her account with imagined conversations, dialogue and characters' impressions  and reactions that even the most conscious diarist would have been unlikely to record, even if one existed.  (There was not.) That being said, she undoubtedly includes a lot of granular historical detail,  and in her end notes she comments by chapter where there is more and where there is less documentation and the bases for many of her suppositions and literary creations.

[5]  In this period of history in some respects, the British Army was still less a national army, and more a feudal army--a coalition of wealthy men ("noblemen") bringing together their retainers/peasants in regiments in fealty to their king to fight for him.  Recruitment was done by, and for the regiment; they were uniformed and equipped by their regimental benefactor (with greater or lesser support from the national treasury); and they were officered by men more or less selected by their benefactor.   For recruitment in the colonies this system proved disastrous.  Not only were Loyalist recruiters recruiting covertly in enemy occupied territory they were facing competition from recruiters from other regiments, each offering different incentives.  In upstate NewYork, at one time or another Jessup's  Kings Loyal Americans, Peter's Queens Loyal Americans, Robert Roger's Queen's Rangers, Johnson's King's Royal Regiment, Delancy's Brigade and Walter Butler's Butler's Rangers would all be competing for volunteers.

To add urgency to the situation,  regiments could not expect to be deployed until they reached a full complement of soldiers,  (about 60 enlisted).  Until then, they (including officers) could expect be provided with only a subsistence allotment, and remain idle or put to work digging and building roads and fortifications.

[6] While I know of no "caves" in this area,  several streams entering the Hudson do cut serpentine gullies with overhanging folliage that would be pretty inaccessible and well hidden from view.

[7] A story was  passed down in the Meyers' family that John Meyers learned in later years that Schuyler had escaped capture by hiding in an empty or near empty wine cask.  While the image of the General stuffing himself into a wine cask may have been an amusing one for the Meyers' family it is unlikely no matter how much the General enjoyed a glass of Madiera  he would not have kept a large cask in his bedroom or the nursery.  It is more likely his bedroom contained a "kas" a large  piece of dutch furniture,  a freestanding closet or wardrobe with a large central compartment for cloaks and greatcoats which a man might be able to step into, closing the door after him.

*See NYSHMs: It Happened Here. August 31, 2015. "In Sir William's Footsteps:  Part 1,The Jessups"

Marker of the Week  Fortnight (!)-- You Don't have to be an Entomologist to love this lovely rural area around where Bedbug Hill Road runs into the town of Fly Creek , northwest of Cooperstown.

            (I didn't see any bedbugs, but I can't speak for New Jersey that has a Bed Bug Rd., or North Carolina that has a Bug Road or Massachusetts that has two  Bug Roads!)

It Happened Here  -- Spies, Spies and more Spies

   (Part II. The Covert War in the Northern Department, after Burgoyne)

With Burgoyne's defeat, the focus of the war shifted south and both British and American commands reassigned regiments of their "regulars" to the stalemated war around New York City or the active war further south.  For the British and American generals tasked with protecting their home bases, of respectively, Canada, and upstate New York, fear of surprise attack became an increasing concern.  

Memories of the 1775 American  invasion of Canada  which resulted in the capture of Montreal, and a nearly successful attack on Quebec by a mostly New York and New England army were still fresh in the minds of British/Canadian authorities. The announcement of an American/French alliance in February 1778 was further cause for alarm.   Surely the French were looking at overturning the results of the last war, and restoring New France!   These fears were combined with the desire to mobilize  loyalist-leaning individuals to become "friends of government"  to collect and pass along information, and provide "safe house" shelters for spies and couriers.  Coupled with this was the continuing need to recruit loyalists to serve in provincial regiments.  In the years following Burgoyne's defeat, the level of spying and covert activity would actually increase.

From an American perspective, the Indian/Tory raids of 1778-9 on Cherry Valley, Cobleskill, Minisink (the future Port Jervis area), Andrusville, Springfield, and Wyoming, PA  reawakened long held fears of Indian attack, dating back over a century.  The participation of some local Tories, former neighbors, in these raids galvanized Committees of Safety to aggressively monitor their Loyalist-leaning neighbors for any indications of collusion with the enemy.  Counter intelligence activity increased, with local Committees of Safety (often little more than vigilante groups)  arresting, interrogating, and sometimes imprisoning or banishing/harassing  Loyalists and their families from the area.

From the beginning of the war, at the command level, spying -- the gathering of tactical and strategic information had been pretty much a personal and ad-hoc affair with commanders themselves,  (often through a trusted adjutant), sending out and personally debriefing a few trusted spies.   Phillip Schuyler had extensive business contacts in Montreal before the start of the war. He continued to get information from them which he passed on to the Continental Army and New York State authorities, even after he stepped down as the Major General of the Northern Department.  George Washington kept tabs on the British high command through a succession of aides, until he found the right one, to operate his "Culper

Spy Ring." 

As the conflict wore on, and the level of covert actions, and volume of counter intelligence  operations increased, both sides developed more organization.  (Note! We are along way from the OSS, MI-6, CIA or Mossad, here.)  In Canada, Lt. General Frederick Haldimand replaced Sir Guy Carleton in the summer of 1778.  By 1779 the southern fort at St Johns [1] had been strengthened and become the effective departure point for operations into New York.  Haldimand recognized that New York  and Vermont loyalists  would be more effective for covert operations where they would be less likely to stand out than British regulars; they would know the territory and would likely have family and friends from whom they could get assistance. His officers working in British secret service  began to recruit Loyalist for covert assignments. Working through his secretary, Capt. Robert Matthews,  Haldimand approved Justus Sherwood, a  trusted  Loyalist and veteran of the Battles of Bennington and Saratoga,  who had begun working as a secret courier, to oversee his covert operations.   He was joined in 1781 by  Dr. George Smyth of Ft. Edward and Albany who initially  had been a member of the NY Provincial Congress, but became disillusioned and began funneling information to the British.  Under suspicion,  he had been placed under house arrest, twice  and was about to be imprisoned when he was "extracted" by British agents.  Together they would oversee operations, with Sherwood doing more of the tactical and logistical planning and Smyth doing more strategic planning, security and counterintelligence.   In the summer of 1781 a blockhouse was built on the southern end of North Hero Island in Lake Champlain.  Known as the Loyal Blockhouse, from there,  raids and intelligence operations could depart and return without public knowledge [2].

                                                                                                             Rte 156, Altamont

In April 1778 John Jay proposed to the NY Legislature  that state boards be created to regionally counteract the threat of Loyalist plots and recruitment drives in the state. Of the seven boards, the minutes of only the "Albany Board of Commissioners for Detecting and Defeating Conspiracies in the State of New York" has survived.  They show an active board that arrested and examined some 1000 Tories.  The four person board could issue arrest warrants based on the testimony of informants.  With a company of militia at their command, they had the power to arrest, incarcerate and deport individuals . They could release them on bail, subject to good behavior, or require them to report regularly to a board member.  Some were freed on the condition they joined the Continental Army.  Bails could be accessed for from 40 to  5000 pds.  

 Increasingly larger numbers of Tories were imprisoned in Albany, with many locked away in the basement of City Hall, the old Stadt Huis,  Some detainees were brought from other regions.  Like British prisons at the time, conditions were often bad. With many in chains, the jail was overcrowded. With few adequate facilities  for holding them, some detainees were locked away in damp, dark cellars  or shut up in windowless attics that were freezing in the winters and stifling in the summers . 

 As their numbers grew, the pressure from Loyalists who had escaped to Canada grew on the British government to get their incarcerated friends and family members freed.  The war had gone on long enough that prisoner exchanges had become fairly commonplace but the British administration was at a disadvantage, with relatively few exchangeable prisoners.  So added to their tasks of securing secret information,  acting as secret couriers,  recruiting troops under the noses of patriot authorities, Tory "spies" were tasked with the job of kidnapping important Whigs to be used in hostage exchanges

Among over a hundred  spies, informants and secret couriers who operated in upstate NewYork and Canada in the latter part of the war,  three gained public notoriety/fame for their activities.  

When war came Thomas Loveless was a small farmer living on frontier land around Fish Creek in an area between Ballston, Old Saratoga (Schuylerville) and Jessups Landing (Corinth).   In November 1776 he enlisted in the King's Loyal Americans, a battalion organized by the wealthy landowners Ebenezer and Edward Jessups.[3]  Why he supported the Loyalists is uncertain.  Members of his family and perhaps he, himself had volunteered in the provincial forces supporting the British, in the French and Indian War. Certainly, he must have been attracted by the land bounty offered by Jessups for enlisting.  In Burgoyne's Invasion Loveless served as a teamster/bateaux man helping move Burgoyne's massive baggage train south. After Burgoyne's defeat, with most other Loyalist soldiers, he was paroled to Canada, where his family had already fled. For nearly two years he worked with most other loyalist parolees building roads and strengthening defenses in the approaches to Montreal. In the fall of 1779 Thomas Loveless was among the first Loyalist soldiers to be recruited as a guide for covert operations, guiding new recruits in, scouting and working as a courier.  In the fall of 1780 Thomas decided to begin actively recruiting Tory volunteers within NewYork on his covert missions.  By this time, success in recruitment had become a recognized path for advancement.  Typically,  a man who raised a company of 50-60 men could expect to be commissioned Captain of that company; one who recruited 25-30 men could be commissioned a Lieutenant; an Ensign, 12-15 men.  Unlike some of his fellow agents, Loveless was literate and one or two of his reports have survived in the Haldimand papers.  In one, in a mix of personal observations, intelligence from informants and  "news" from other colonies, he reports on a new blockhouse with stockade being built south-west of (Old) Saratoga in Palmerstown,  its size, the number of troops garrisoned in it, and the absence of cannon, as well as news of French ships in harbor in Rhode Island. 

While recruitment efforts were highly valued by Loyalist commanders they dangerously exposed operatives. Before long Thomas Loveless, and  other recruiter-spies  were well-known by reputation,

to both the rebel authorities and public, as well.

Following his commission as an ensign,                                               Rte 4, south of Schuylerville

in September 1781 Loveless' operations became centered around the garrison  posted at (Old) Saratoga. Several robberies were attributed to him and a  group of four conspirators, including a break-in at Phillip Schuyler's summer house, south of (Old) Saratoga.  A central target for Loveless was Col. Cornelius Van Vechten,  commander of the 11th regiment, (Saratoga) Albany Co. Militia.   Justus Sherwood (Loveless' "handler") believed Van Vechten could be "turned".  Loveless' men set up a small camp in a wooded swamp, five miles from  "Do-ve-gat", Van Vechten's home on the site of his old house, that had been occupied by General Burgoyne before and after the battle, and burned when he retreated from there.  According to one tradition Hezakiah Dunham, the captain of the local militia was alerted to the gang's presence by a local boy attempting to buy rum at a local tavern for a group of  'men' encamped in the woods. Captain Dunham and four of his men, hastily assembled,  divided to search the woods in the early predawn hours. The militia captain and two of his party stumbled upon the five spies, as dawn was breaking, assembled around a dying campfire, putting on stockings and shoes, preparing to begin their day.  Silently directing his men, Dunham and his two companions simultaneously jumped from their hiding places as the Captain yelled  "Surrender, or you are all dead men!" (A rather unlikely event of three men armed with single shot muskets taking down five opponents)--but the shock and suddenness of the attack were enough to overawe the Tories and, presumably soon joined by the other militiamen, Dunham was bringing in his captives.

       Rte 29 at Schuylerville Central School, Schuylerville. 

Justus Sherwood, had been concerned that if captured, Loveless might be hanged as a spy. So he drafted his order so that if captured Loveless would be presented as a common Loyalist volunteer, participating in a small military raid,  to be treated as a common prisoner of war.  But it was not to be.  Loveless' reputation preceded him and he had the misfortune to fall into the jurisdiction of Brig. Gen. John Stark.  Stark had developed a hatred for Tories.  At the battle of Bennington, Stark demonstrated that hatred by allowing the defeated British Regulars and Hessians to be marched out in military order while members of Loyalist units had their hands bound like criminals and were tied behind horses so if they failed to 

 keep up, they risked being dragged.

Captured on September 25th,  Loveless was tried, convicted.  He was hanged and buried in a gravel bank near General Schuyler's summer house on October 8th.

                                                                            *****   

[1]. St. Johns is now known by its original French name Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu.

 [2]  The site of Loyal Blockhouse has been on private property for many years, though  in 1912 the Vermont Sons of the American Revolution erected a boulder/plaque at the site.  In the 1950's a blockhouse-style house was erected on it (with aluminum screen door and picture window.

[3]See NYSHMs: It Happened Here. August 31, 2015. "In Sir William's Footsteps:  Part 1,The Jessups"

         

      (Part II continues in two weeks with two more spies and the plot to kidnap General Phillip Schuyler.)  

                                                                                        *****

Marker of the Week  Fortnight (!)--  Jail Limit Markers:  Artifacts of a  Prisoner's                                                                                                (and Court's) Dilemma

In the 1700's and early 1800's the problem of people not paying their debts was addressed by the courts threatening to throw debtors in jail for non-payment.  But what if they couldn't  pay? Locking people up only insured they wouldn't be able to work to pay off their debts, so many New York courts allowed prisoners to work outside of jail during the day, and return to jail at night. However, to avoid problems, they restricted workers they released to areas within the court's and local sheriff's jurisdiction.

                                 Switzer Hill Rd. Fonda

Inscription:This Stone long stood above northeast corner of James & Bloomfield Sts.

To mark the distance prisoners for debt might go from Rome jail to work by day--On the grounds of  Jervis Public Library, Rome.

Next Time-- Part II continues with  "2 more spies and the plot to Kidnap Gen. Schuyler