It Happened Here -- The Ghost of Duncan Campbell

Duncan Campbell's gravestone describes who he was: "Here lyes the Body of Duncan Campbell, of Inverawe, Esq.re, major to the old Highland Regiment, aged 55years, who died the 17th July.1758, of the Wounds he received in the Attack of the Retrenchment of Ticonderoga or Carillon, on the 8th July, 1758." But what distinguishes him from the other 1,943 British and American colonial troops who were killed, wounded or missing, the result of the disastrous attack the British made on the French fort Carillon in the French and Indian War was, according to tradition, the way he was forewarned of his death.

Campbell's Marker *

Union Cemetery, U.S. 4, Ft. Edward

Francis Parkman, one of the nineteenth century's greatest historians, relates the story told him by one of Campbell's descendants, in the appendices to Wolfe and Montcalm, the last book of Parkman's epic seven volume France and England in North America, published in 1884.

As Parkman relates it, late one night Duncan Campbell, the Laird (Lord) of Inverawe was sitting alone in the great hall of his ancestral castle at Inverawe, in the wild western highlands of Scotland. Hearing a loud knocking at the gate he opened it to find a man beside himself with fear in ripped clothes and a blood stained kilt. The stranger begged Campbell to hide him, explaining he had gotten in a fight; a man had died and now he was being pursued by the man's companions, who were bent on revenge. Campbell took pity on the stranger and agreed to hide him, in the process swearing that he would not betray him. He had barely hidden away the fugitive in the dark depths of his castle when he heard another loud commotion at his gate. Two armed men confronted him declaring they were looking for a man who had just murdered Campbell's cousin, Donald.  Campbell, feeling bound by his oath to the fugitive, lied to the two men saying he had not seen the murderer, and the two left.

In an agony of guilt and remorse, the Scottish lord retired for the night and eventually fell into a fitful sleep. Suddenly he was awoken by a figure standing next to his bedside, a ghost -- the ghost of his murdered cousin. In a hollow voice it spoke to him, 'Inverawe! Inverawe! Blood has been shed. Shield not the murderer.' In the morning Campbell rushed to where the man was hiding and told him he must leave. When the man reminded him of his oath, Campbell wavered, promising again not to betray him but insisting he could no longer give him sanctuary, and took him to cave in a nearby mountain in which to hide.

The next night, the apparition again appeared to Campbell, waking him from a restless sleep, sternly repeating his admonishment 'Inverawe! Inverawe! Blood has been shed. Shield not the murderer.’ As soon as it was light the shaken Campbell rushed to the cave where he had taken the man, but the man was gone.

The third night Campbell was visited by the ghost, now more pale than before, appearing only long enough to call to him, 'Farewell Inverawe. Farewell, till we meet again at Ticonderoga'

Duncan Campbell went on to join the Black Watch, the Royal 42nd Regiment, comprised of his fellow highlanders, and eventually became it's major. But the memory of the apparition's words and the strange sounding place the ghost spoke of were never far from his thoughts. After the French and Indian/ Seven Years War had begun he learned his regiment was being deployed in America. Arriving in America he found to his horror that the regiment would be part of the attack on the French Fort Carillon, known to the British, through their Indian allies, as Ticonderoga!

Despite Campbell's personal premonitions of disaster, the expedition moved confidently from its base in Ft. Edward to the head of Lake George. On July 5, 1758 in four columns, 900 hundred bateaux, 135 whaleboats and several large flat bottomed scows carrying the heaviest artillery moved up the lake in a procession seven miles long. With some 15,000 men it was then the largest army ever assembled in North America. The army's nominal leader was General James Abercromby. The General was an aging and declining figure with extensive staff, but little battlefield experience, who had never held an independent command. But the army's operational leader, was a charismatic, 34 year old, George Augustus, Viscount Howe, the personal choice of the Prime Minister. Howe was a serious student of frontier warfare, making many innovations to turn his army into an effective force for frontier warfare.

The young General was able to inspire both British army regulars and Provincial volunteers. In their journals and letters, both career British officers and Yankee ship carpenters, building the bateaux for the expedition wrote glowingly of him. It is not surprising that, after landing, Howe was out in front of the advance party of Rangers and Light Infantry scouting out a route from the landing site to the Fort. Suddenly, they collided with a force of some 350 French troops retreating from the position they had occupied when the English had arrived at the head of the lake. In the sharp fight that ensued, one of the first to fall with a musket ball through his chest was Brigadier General Howe. 

On Lord Howe St., along the LaChute river

The Army, and General Abercromby in particular, reacted with shock and confusion, doing virtually nothing the rest of the first day, then taking two days to make the two hour march to the French Sawmill, wasting additional time to fortify their encampment.

It was in this encampment that the next chapter of Duncan Campbell's story unfolded.

Many of Campbell's officers knew of his strange story. The night before the Army was to begin its attack on Carillon his officers tried to ease his mind, telling him that the immediate objective of the attack was actually  'Fort George', and that Ticonderoga was another fort further down the lake. But the following morning Campbell greeted the officers with a devastated look. 'I have seen him. You deceived me. He came to my tent last night! I shall die to-day.'

Ticonderoga from Rattlesnake Mt. aka. Mount Defiance

Only a week before, French General Montcalm had arrived to take over command at Carillon. At first he did nothing, vacillating between several undesirable alternatives, as the bad news about the strength of the forces arrayed against him continued to pour in from his scouts and advance troops. Mustering no more than 3,526 men with rations at the fort for no more than eight or nine days he debated about retreat. And the fort itself was far from impregnable. It had been constructed in haste after the French victory over Ft. William Henry, in 1755 and though it effectively commanded the narrows at the southern end of Lake Champlain and could block passage north, it was located in the shadow of the 700 foot Rattlesnake mountain. Any sizable force could take that hill, mount cannon on it and rain cannon fire down on the fort with impunity. His own chief engineer had said 'Were I to be entrusted with the siege of it (Carillon), I should require only six mortars and two cannon.' At the last moment, with the British force already landed, Montcalm decided to fortify the neck of the peninsula on which the fort stood. The General sent virtually his whole army to cut a swath of standing trees across the peninsula. Even the General and his officers swung axes to emphasize the urgency of their work. A low trench was dug and tree trunks were piled up some eight or nine feet high. Loopholes were cut along the top of the barricade, to fire through. Swivel guns were mounted in strategic locations. The tree's tops were dragged in front of the barricade, facing outward with their branches interlocking and sharpened to form a natural abbattis.¹

In the British camp the inaction that had settled over the camp was replaced by a sense of urgency bordering on panic when French prisoners, recently captured, told their captors of thousands of reinforcements expected any day. (In fact, raids planned along the Mohawk valley had been canceled when the French got wind of the Abercromby expedition but the troops slated for them were never dispatched to Montcalm.) Abercromby ordered several junior officers forward to survey the French defenses. When they reported they might be taken, he ordered the assault to proceed immediately the next morning without taking time to bring up the heavy artillery. (Historian Fred Anderson commented that with the 16 heavy cannon, 13 howitzers, 11 mortars and 8000 rounds of ammunition the expedition brought with it, Abercromby could have pulverized the French works and had "enough for sieges against every post from Ft Carillon to Montreal") By noon on Friday July 9th, 7000 regulars were lined up ready to attack with 6000 Provincial troops in reserve. At 12:30 the first regiments stepped off into a hail of musketry and grape shot, throwing themselves against the tree top abattis that proved virtually impenetrable. When the attack ground to a halt and turned into a retreat Abercromby re-formed the survivors and sent them in again with other regiments. When a second assault failed he followed it up with a third assault. And again. And again and again. From 12:30 to about 7:00 pm the British regulars attacked the French lines six times, breaking through only occasionally, most of the time getting close enough to only see the tops of the defenders hats and the muzzles of their muskets.

As dusk was falling the mauled British forces withdrew to their staging area at the French Sawmill.

A few hours later Abercromby ordered them to the original landing place, a more secure area, to reorganize for another attack a second day. But the men, not knowing the reason for this second withdrawal began to fear a French attack. Panic set in. There was a stampede for the boats. Dawn the next day saw the once proud columns of boats making their painful way back to the head of the lake.

In one of the boats lay the major of 42nd Black Watch regiment with a musket ball shattered arm.

Baldwin Rd., Ticonderoga

He would linger on in the military hospital at Ft.Edward for nine days before succumbing to a fate forewarned by a ghost, decades earlier.

*In 2005 Colonial Archeologist David Starbuck did a forensic investigation of Jane McRae's grave.  After that investigation, McRae, her companion Sara McNeil, and Duncan Campbell received new headstones. Campbell's badly deteriorated red sandstone marker was replaced with a red granite copy.

1 The effectiveness of this makeshift abbatis should not be underestimated. A few years ago when I was a Scoutmaster I camped with my Troop at an event at Ticonderoga. There we came across a medium sized maple tree that had been cut down. To illustrate for them the effectiveness of this defense I sat on the trunk and instructed the boys to climb through the branches and try to tag me. The only restriction was they could not run around the tree. After five minutes of trying, none of them, even the smallest and most agile boys, were able to reach me.

The Marker of the Week --the Mysterious "Throne" in Kingsbury
Europe has its share of mysterious runic stones; and Mezo America its stellae; and the Dessert Southwest United States its rock petroglyphs but you just don't find stones with mysterious writing or symbols in the Northeast. This is one notable exception. (So notable I will bend my rules for what constitutes a New York Historic Marker, a little.)

Co. Rte.36, 1.9 mi. West of US. Rte 4. Ft. Anne

Was this the instructions for a group of runaway slaves to meet their next "conductor" on the underground railroad at Fort Anne on May 23, 1841? One can only surmise.

It Happened Here -- a Bug in the Works!

This week a change-of-season cold bug has left me unable to pull together a post for the week but I hope you will check in next week to catch (in time for Halloween) "The Ghost of Duncan Campbell" and  "the mysterious throne in Kingsbury".

For future weeks I am working on--

"New York's Indian Captivity Narratives" 

 

 

 

The Anti-Rent Wars, the final Chapter, 

(Deputy Griggs, Walter Church and Smith Broughton)

and

"The Battles on Snowshoes"

It Happened Here -- From Alps, to Berne, to Andes

the Anti-Rent Wars Continue

The year 1845 began with the inauguration of a new governor.  The democrats had dumped William C. Bouck, a farmer from Schoharie county who had shown sympathy for the anti-renters,  in favor of Silas Wright who edged out his Whig opponent in the fall elections. Wright who had made overtures to the anti-renters, nevertheless came to believe the Calico Indians needed to be brought to heel.

Lutheran Church,  NYS443, Berne

That same month, an Anti-rent Convention was held in Berne.  In the dead of winter, 150 delegates from 11 counties crowded in the Lutheran Church in Berne to rally and write an anti-rent platform for political action.  They demanded that the special rights landlords had to draw up eviction papers without any government oversight be revoked. They asserted their right to challenge the landlords' title to their land and they demanded landlord's rents and other exemptions be taxed. In an effort to lend respectability to their movement, they passed a resolution calling for individual anti-rent associations to suspend the activities and tactics of their "Indian" organizations. That spring,
accompanied by 25,000 signatures, they presented their petition to the legislature.

NYS 443 & Co. Rte 1, Westerlo

Ignoring the resolutions of the Anti-rent Convention,  on January 28th Silas Wright asked for, and got from the legislature a law making it a crime for persons to appear in public armed and in disguise, or to fail to assist a law officer in discharging his duty.  Though technically misdemeanors, these laws carried with them jail penalties.

In the spring and summer of 1845 landlords and sheriff departments, working for them, encouraged by the new laws,  began a new round of attempts to serve papers and apprehend "Indians", especially in Ulster, Schoharie and Delaware Counties. In Delaware county, Under-sheriff Osman N. Steele made it his personal crusade to break the power of the Anti-Renters and bring the "Indians" to justice.

On Dingle Hill Rd, south of Andes

In August,  Sheriff Green More, Under-sheriffs  Steele and Edgerton and Peter Wright, the Landlord's Agent came to collect back rent from Moses Earle, a farmer from outskirts of Andes, in Delaware County. When Earle refused to pay, the Sheriff's men  began to round up several of Earle's cattle, to satisfy the rent due.  Cut off by a large group of "Indians", Deputy Edgerton declared he would shoot dead the first man who tried to stop him. As is often the case, what happened next is not clear.  A quick exchange of shots occurred and Steele, who was one of those firing, went down, mortally wounded.

                                An outdoor exhibit of Characters in the Anti-War drama that played out in Andes, NY

Under-sheriiff Osman Steele and  Landlord's Agent

 Indians, Moses Earl & his Adopted daughter

Calico Indians

According to legend, when Earl began to waver in his resolve not to pay the rent, Parthenia, his daughter snatched his money pouch from him and stuffed it in her blouse.






Following Steele's death a firestorm of reaction swept through Delaware county. Within twenty days nearly 150 anti-rent farmers were jailed in special windowless log structures thrown up  in the county seat, Delhi, for the emergency. Governor Wright declared the county in a state of rebellion and ordered 300 troops into the county. Mainstream city newspapers screamed for revenge. (Throughout the whole of the Anti-rent conflicts mainstream newspapers ranged from unsympathetic to viciously hostile to the farmers cause, often misrepresenting the facts and even fabricating outright lies. The farmers countered with half a dozen of their own agrarian and anti-rent papers, of various political persuasions.)

Steele's death galvanized Governor Wright's desire to prosecute Smith Broughton, to both remove him as a leader of the Anti-rent forces, and to make an example of him.  By September 1st Broughton was back in custody, facing a second trial.  Wright appointed John W. Edmonds, a close personal friend and political ally of the Governor.  For weeks potential jurors were examined until a group free of any sympathy for the anti-rent cause was found. In his charge to the jury, Edmonds instructed them  to stand firm and bring the guilty to justice. The jury complied and found Broughton guilty. In a sentencing panel of county judges and Hudson city officials Edmonds steadfastly pressed for the maximum sentence until one of the judges agreed with him, giving him a plurality of votes. Broughton would receive life imprisonment for the theft of a handful of court papers!

In Delhi, the Delaware county seat, trials proceeded against the first two of the 150 accused.  As in Hudson the Delhi jury was carefully screened to prevent anyone with anti-rent sympathies from being seated. And to further guard against anyone among the jury from being uninformed,  Judge Parker lectured the jury on the evils that the anti-rent movement had visited upon society. Finally, after the prosecution's testimony linking the selected defendants to the scene and establishing them as "Indians," Judge Parker came with a remarkable charge to the Jury. Any defendant found to have been armed and disguised was guilty of violating Wright's Anti-disguise law and subject to a year in state prison. Any crime punishable by state imprisonment was defined as a felony. Any death that resulted resulted during the commission of a felony was murder!  The jury was appalled, but given the judge's instructions could do little but convict and petition Judge Parker for leniency.  Parker chose to ignore their petition but declared that the ends of justice had been served. The two were sentenced to hang.  Facing likely death sentences, thirteen others plea bargained for manslaughter, receiving sentences of "life" to two years; fifty one paid fines or received suspended sentences and the rest avoided prosecution  by promising to cease all anti-rent activities.

Though the trials had been a tactical victory for Silas Wright and the "Up-Rent" forces,  their outrageous proceedings and draconian sentences turned many thoughtful people into supporters of the anti-rent movement. At the polls, in November, the Anti-Renters made their strongest showing ever.
Two weeks before their execution, at the end of November, Wright yielded to pressure and commuted sentences of the two condemned "Indians" to life imprisonment. In January, Wright did an unabashed about face, announcing it was time to examine the leasehold system in New York, and appointed a commission. At the same time a coalition of forces was pushing for a convention to revise the state's Constitution. From it came amendments prohibiting feudal style leases; restricting agricultural leases to 12 years; and outlawing "quarter sales" and fines that made it difficult or unprofitable for farmers to sell their properties. In addition many judges and top officials (including Attorney Generals) would now be elected, rather than appointed.  It would now be harder for a Governor to place his men within a court proceeding to insure things went "his way. "

By the election of 1846 Whigs and Democrats were closely matched in strength. Holding the balance of power were the anti-rent voters. Silas Wright came begging to Mary Broughton with an offer of pardon for her husband if Smith, and her father, anti-rent leader Amasa Bailey would support him. He also went to Clinton Prison to make the same offer to the Delhi defendants held there. John Young, the Whig candidate for Governor appealed directly to members of the 2nd Anti-Rent Convention, meeting in Albany. The overwhelming number of Anti-Renters threw their support to John Young and the Whigs.  Young swept into power. The new governor attempted to equivocate on his promise, but a quickly assembled petition with 11,000 signatures forcefully reminded him of his commitment. Broughton and the Delhi defendants were pardoned and released.

In the next few weeks we will conclude this series with a final post on the Anti-Rent wars.

Marker of the Week -- Honorable ?    Well, it was a rough and tumble political era.
                                                      (There is nothing like a little history to give us some
                                                       perspective on our own lives and times.)    
                                                    

US 4, across from Maple Street, Hudson Falls

It Happened Here--The Electric State, Part I

For generations, Schenectady, as home of General Electric, was known as the "Electric City",  but one could make the argument that New York State, as well, might be a contender for the title of the "Electric State".  In addition to being the home of Mr. Edison's company, New York State was the birthplace and home to one of his chief competitors George Westinghouse. Some of the first pioneering work on electricity was done in Albany,  right across from the State Capitol, and the first industrial application of that work was employed in the iron mining region of the eastern Adirondacks.  On a less positive note,  one of New York's prisons was the first to employ the electric  chair! This post will look at the earliest contributions of New York in the development of electricity.

Academy Park, Albany

In the first decades of the 19th century the idea that basic primary education for the citizenry was essential in a democracy was just beginning to take hold, while secondary education was seen mostly as an ornament for the upper class who could afford to pay for it themselves.  The fact that Joseph Henry, son of a scotch immigrant day laborer, who died when Joseph was a boy, attended Albany Academy was remarkable. In 1819 Henry's talent and drive was recognized and he was enrolled and given free tuition. Though he intended to go into medicine,  he was drawn to science, after he read a  book Popular  Lectures on Experimental Philosophy (1813).  By 1823 he was assisting his teachers in teaching science. In 1824 he obtained a position as an assistant engineer working on a new road to be laid out between the Hudson and Lake Erie. Following a period where he worked as a district schoolteacher and tutor, the laborer's son became a professor of mathematics and "natural philosophy" at Albany Academy. Though he often worked seven hours a day teaching and tutoring in mathematics, he was able to pursue his own studies and a course of experimentation. From his survey work he developed an interest in terrestrial magnetism, and from that, magnetism in general. From 1826 to 1832 he taught and did some of his most important work discovering the principle of self induction and producing some of the strongest electo-magnets created to date, preparing the way for the creation of the telegraph and producing the first direct current motor. In 1832, though he had never attended any college, he was hired to the faculty of Princeton University.

At the Penfield Homestead, Essex Co Rte, 2, Ironville

Allen Penfield's Home (the Mill exists as a foundation ruin)

Allen Penfield and Timothy Taft came from Vermont in 1807, setting up a successful store and sawmill in the hamlet that became Irondale, now Ironville. When high quality iron ore was discovered in 1826 they used the profits from that store and sawmill to buy land and set up a refining business.  (Since colonial times the region had been recognized for its iron ore, but until the advent of the Champlain Canal in 1823 large scale production was not practicable.)  By 1828 they had a forge and a mill powered by two water wheels.

At their mill, iron bearing rock was ground and the heavier ore captured  by running it through sluices. But this process worked only moderately well as a great amount of iron was washed away. In 1812 a magnetic ore separator had been invented by Samuel Browning but it had never been employed because it would only work with magnetite, a ferrous mineral not commonly found. The ore at the Penfield Pit, however, did contain a high proportion of magnetite. Soon after they began operation, the owners began getting requests for small quantities of magnetite from the young professor of "natural philosophy" at Albany Academy.  Thus, they heard about Joseph Henry's work.  When they learned that Henry's electro-magnets could be used to make  "permanent" magnets,  Penfield and Taft decided to build their own magnetic separator, a rotating drum that was studded with points of magnetized iron, to which the magnetite would adhere.  In 1831 they sent Henry a set of their iron points to be magnetized. After the separator was in operation Penfield and Taft ordered from Henry  a large electomagnet and voltanic cell so they could recharge their magnetic points, whenever they needed, on site--the first industrial use of electricity!

When the large electomagnet was not being used, the operators of the mill would often demonstrate its power to curious visitors by supporting a large anvil from it. News of the marvelous machine spread far and wide and attracted a visit from a Vermont blacksmith, Thomas Davenport.  Davenport, fascinated by it,  offered Penfield and his partners $75 for the magnet. Taking it home with him, in 1833,  he took it apart, redesigned the core and the windings and created the first electric motor that produced rotary motion.

For 70 years the mill at Ironville produced high quality iron.  Its superiority was endorsed by the U.S. Navy that specified Ironville iron for use in its anchor chains.  When a foundery in Troy began production of iron plates for the U.S.S. Monitor during the Civil War, Ironville iron was used.

Penfield and his partners became wealthy. In 1872 the mill was consolidated with other mining and milling operations around Crown Point and Port Henry and Penfield sold his interest in the operation. 
The Penfield family moved from the area, but returned to the homestead, summers. The mining operation continued until around the turn of the century when it closed in the face of competition from mining operations from the Masabi range in Minnesota.

Marker of the Week --Wait, Did I Miss Something?  2012? 2020?

NYS 212, Bearsville

History is often about politics, but not so often about political theater. Someone here must certainly have been committed to the campaign to stop hydrofracking as a method of recovering natural gas. At nearly $1000 each, cast iron or aluminum markers are not a cheap form of advertising to make a political statement!

It Happened Here -- The Physicians Who Practiced "Sedition"

And the Rising of the Calico Indians

  

At the Intersection of NYS 85 and NYS 143/443, Westerlo

Back in the end of May, this year. NYSHMs--It Happened Here told the story of the "Battle" of Clarksville,  an early confrontation between large New York landlords and rural lease-holding farmers in what became a decades long struggle known as the "Anti-Rent Wars".

Rte. 22, Claverack

From the earliest colonial times the Dutch attempted to populate their colony by granting huge tracts of land to Patroons who would enlist groups of settlers to take leases, work the land and put down roots securing the Dutch claim to the colony. When the Duke of York, brother of King Charles II, of Great Britain swept into power, driving the Dutch government out, he and his agents--a succession of early English colonial governors, found it convenient to continue the system the Dutch had utilized, granting large leasehold to political supporters and favorites, giving them the right to issue "three lifetime" or perpetual leases to farmer tenants and granting them power to govern their Manors and adjudicate disputes. The Van Rensselaers not only survived the change of power but continued to prosper, acquiring in addition to their Albany County holdings, the "Lower Manor" comprising most of what became Rensselaer County and land down to Livingston manor in what became Columbia County.

The Vedder Farm, a life lease in Gallatineville

After the American Revolution, Stephen Van Rensselaer III developed a scheme for populating the least fertile areas of his manor by offering leases to revolutionary war veterans rent free for seven years, to give them a chance to develop their farms. Other manors and smaller leaseholds also benefited from the post-war demand for farmlands as leases were taken out on undeveloped, less desirable plots of land in the hilly hinterlands from the Taconic Hills, the Berkshires,  to the Helderbergs, the foothills of the Catskills, the Blenheim "backbone" and Delaware County.

Stephen Van Renssellaer III was able to manage the discontent among his tenants by not pressing them for their rent and allowing rents to go unpaid during years of poor harvests, or times of personal hardship, but a crisis occurred when Van Rensselaer died and his heirs chose to press the tenants for their back rent. Out of this crisis grew an increasing awareness on the part of tenants of the inherent unfairness of this system which required them to pay and pay the value of their farms many times over, gave them nothing for the improvements they had made to their farms, and effectively prevented them from selling their property.  What once had seemed entirely proper in the English Colonies-- a landed aristocracy organizing and controlling a class of tenant farmers, now seemed gallingly undemocratic in a new republican society of Jacksonian democracy.

Crounse's marker in Altamont makes no mention of his anti-rent activities

Key to the growth of this perception was the influence of country doctors.  Traveling from farm to farm, country doctors ministered to the sick and injured,  and were routinely on hand when such personal crises on family farms brought about economic crises as well.  Spreading news and opinions from other farms they were instrumental in the creation of farmer's Anti-Rent organizations. Frederick Crounse was one such doctor, whose patients and their families would often be treated to a spontaneous lecture on democratic principles and reminded of their civic obligation to unite against the oppression of the Patroon.

In the East (Lower) Manor, another doctor,  Smith Broughton organized meetings in local towns, and spoke at corn huskings, barn raisings--wherever farmers gathered, to organize them into a boycott on paying rent. As the boycott became increasingly effective, the landlords countered by attempting to use local sheriffs to repossess  farms and confiscate farm animals and personal property to satisfy unpaid rents.

Co. Rte 157A, East Berne

In May 1844 anti-rent leaders from several counties, including Broughton met at a private home in East Berne to decide what to do. They agreed to a plan to set up independent units of disguised and armed farmers to disrupt repossessment sales and prevent the confiscation of animals and property. Set up as independent cells, no individual would know more than a few other individuals.  In a nod to the Sons of Liberty who had disguised themselves as Indians and dumped the tea into Boston harbor at the beginning of the American Revolution, the Anti-Renters called them "Indians", and identified each other with "Indian" names.  Inexpensive calico cloth was sown into loose gowns by farmer's wives, pledged to secrecy and fanciful masks of sheepskin, decorated with horns, war paint and animal hair mustaches and beards were made by the farmers. The "Indians" armed themselves with a variety of muskets, pistols, clubs and sharpened farm tools. As in the first confrontation, in Clarksville, back in 1839, the tin dinner horns would be used to communicate, and spread the alarm day or night at a moment's notice. Within a few weeks a tenant

NYS Rte 212, Lake Hill

militia of perhaps 10,000 farmers was armed, "uniformed," trained and ready. On the East Manor, one of its leaders and a spokesman who went by the name of "Big Thunder" was Dr. Smith Broughton.

By that summer sheriffs or their deputies in both the East and West Manors and Delaware County were turned back or had the foreclosure writs they were attempting to serve taken from them and burned and some were treated to a coat of warm pine tar and feathers.

The successes of the "Indians" engendered a concerted effort by "law and order" and  pro-landlord opposition forces to identify the ring leaders and stop them.  In December, Dr. Broughton was scheduled to speak at Smoky Hollow in Columbia County. Before the speech he talked with a prominent politician and realized later he may have intimated that he and "Big Thunder" were one and the same.  When he walked to the platform to speak he was greeted with a raucous ovation, with mounted "Indians" in the back of the crowd galloping back and forth, discharging their muskets into the air. Suddenly a young man standing in front of him collapsed, mortally wounded. A coroner's inquest would declare it was an unfortunate accident, the result of the reckless behavior of the Indians. Broughton agreed at the time, but in later years came to believe it was a failed assassination attempt. After the speech he was arrested, and not told until later he was being held for theft of foreclosure writs, taken from a Sheriff at Copake and burned by "Big Thunder".  Broughton and a fellow anti-renter were imprisoned  and chained in the Hudson City Jail under brutal conditions, as an unsympathetic judge first ignored then denied all efforts of the Anti-Renters to get Broughton released on bail. In March the trial was held, but the jury could not agree on an acquittal. One juror, who worked as a miller for the Livingstons declared he would never agree. With a hung jury Broughton was returned to jail.

All the while the anti-rent associations were working legal channels to secure Boughton's release, the anti-rent farmers of Columbia County were working to make the incarceration of Broughton as expensive as possible for the people of Hudson.  Refusing to sell their produce in the city of Hudson, the farmers also refused to buy or allow the distribution of Hudson newspapers unsympathetic to the anti-rent cause. Indians demonstrated on the outskirts of Hudson and throughout Columbia County causing panic and calls for troops to be stationed in Hudson.  Governor Silas Wright sent troops from Albany but the costs of housing and feeding them were borne by the city. 

Co. Rte 43, Alps

Broughton's modest home has seen some hard use

Finally, a desperate plot was hatched to free the doctor.  The bars of his cell were sawed through and horses for an escape attempt were stationed at seven mile intervals out of the state.  But at the last moment Broughton refused to go. Believing escape would be an admission of guilt, Broughton later wrote"I had acted within my  natural and constitutional rights, trying to save my fellow citizens.... I was determined to leave legally or not at all."

Through the spring and into the summer Doctor Broughton remained in jail. On the 4th of July huge anti-rent rallies were held in Albany, Rensselaer, Schoharie, Columbia and Delaware Counties. There and in other Independence Day celebrations across the state speakers railed against the treatment of Smith Broughton, and heaped the blame for it and the continuing disturbances associated with it, on the shoulders of Governor Wright. With elections just four months away Wright realized he needed to do something to diffuse the anger directed at him.  Recalling the present judicial commissioner, he appointed a new commissioner with new instructions--Fix Bail!

Broughton was free for now but his troubles were far from over. Ahead of him he faced another trial, a conviction and imprisonment. More severe tests awaited the calico Indians. The death of an undersheriff in Delaware County would result in some two hundred and fifty Indians imprisoned and charged as accessories to capital murder. And the leasehold system itself would endure a lingering death as the original manor-holding families piecemeal sold out to their tenants or tried to cut their losses by selling out to land speculators who would, in turn, try their hand at extracting rents. But all of this is for another post. The significance of what happened over the summer of 1845 was nothing less than a sea change of public opinion.

The Marker Of The Week -- Will return Next Week.

(Apologies to my regular readers who were looking for a Post on Monday. I guess I enjoyed vacation a little too much, and had trouble buckling down to get out a post the first day I returned! --Tom)