It Happened Here -- The Van Ness Murder and 

Some Further Thoughts on the Treatment of Tories

Last week we looked at the fate of two Tory families. 

 John Dirck Hoes, in what became Columbia County was silenced for his views and forced to go into hiding for the duration of the conflict, (or at least stay out of sight), under threat of banishment to the British lines in New York. After the war it was several decades before he was fully accepted back in his community. 

Simon Fraser (Sr.)  residing in adjacent Rensselaer County was arrested, following his participation at the Battle of Bennington, imprisoned under harsh conditions, until he died a little more than a year later in prison. When his family appealed to have him released, on the grounds that his family was suffering extreme hardship as the result of his incarceration, their appeal was ignored or denied and provoked a letter from someone opposed to the appeal who suggested the family should be driven away. His family was ostracized and harassed, even after the end of the war, with the apparent complicity of the local authorities who fined the older sons for non-participation in regular militia exercises. 

Why were they treated so differently?  It was not because Columbia County patriots felt less threatened by Tories within their midst, or were less willing to take decisive action.  A group of Tories heading north to join Burgoyne in 1777 broke into the house of Abraham Van Ness, looking for arms.  They captured Van Ness who was home on leave from the Continental army, then killed him on a bridge a short distance from his home.  The Tories were overtaken by the militia on the shore of the Hudson river as they were looking to cross.  The whole group were summarily hanged on the spot!

Obviously, the authorities in Albany felt Simon Fraser had demonstrated he was more of a threat than John Dirck Hoes. But there may have been other factors operating as well.  Hoes was part of an established community of interconnected families, an inter-connected enclave of dutch freeholders going back to the original dutch settlement.  As long as he took no overt actions against patriot forces and the threat of banishment to the British kept him quiet, his presence could be tolerated.

Fraser was a newcomer, and a dangerous one at that,  settled on his land only three years before he marched off to support the British invasion of his new homeland. His Highland gaelic culture and catholic religion were no doubt seen as a challenge to his Yankee and Yankee-Dutch neighbors.

Furthermore, Fraser had become an unwitting pawn in the boundary dispute between the Provinces of New York and New Hampshire.

Beginning in 1749 New Hampshire governor Benning Wentworth began issuing land grants in the western part of what he claimed was New Hampshire, for hefty fees to New Englanders, mostly from Connecticut. On the south west corner of the first of his grants a town sprang up, named for him--Bennington. After the end of the French and Indian Wars a succession of New York provincial governors got into the lucrative land granting game by issuing grants as far east as the Connecticut River to New York land speculators,  who looked to Highland Scots as potential settlers. Early in the 18th century the Commonwealth of Massachusetts had settled its boundary with colonial New York but New York officials maintained the boundary with New Hampshire was the Connecticut River, going back to James I claim in 1664 when he took New Netherlands from the Dutch. The Highlanders were recruited because many of them had served during the French and Indian Wars along the Lake George-Lake Champlain corridor and had seen the fertile lands in that area, and also in Scotland many Highlanders were being forced out of their farms as powerful lords began to enclose their lands for wool production. Fraser appears part of four hundred Highland Scots settled 'in the Albany area'  in 1773. Other Highlanders were granted lands around New Perth (Salem, New York); what became Argyle, New York; and east as far as Middlebury (Vermont).  To make matters worse, New York speculators sent the Albany county sheriff's men into the disputed lands to try to collect title payments from Yankee settlers who had already bought titles  from New Hampshire's governor.  Ethan Allen organized a Yankee militia, the "Green Mountain Boys" to defend their homes against New York authorities and to intimidate settlers (mostly Highlanders) from New York. So when Fraser took up arms against the rebels his actions became an excuse for insistence on his family's removal.

In another post we will look at the New York-Vermont border in more detail.

 Marker of the Week -- The Marker remains, but....

It is an unfortunate thing when a NYSHM goes missing, demolished by an automobile, removed and never replaced when a road is widened or a new structure built, or stolen or destroyed by vandals. But it is infinitely sadder when a marker survives but the historic building or site it describes is destroyed.  The Blenheim Bridge was the longest single span wooden covered bridge in the world. One hundred and eighty three years it spanned the often turbulent Schoharie Creek until Hurricane Irene in August 2011 carried it away.  Authorities offered to restore the bridge if only 40% of its original timbers could be recovered. But even that was impossible from a flood that devastated whole towns and swept away a whole herds of horses, without a trace. Other NYSHM sites suffered as well. Guy Park was severely damaged by the raging Mohawk River.