It Happened Here--Lost Towns of the Revolution

Wars almost inevitably result in the disruption of lives, the destruction of towns and the mass displacement of peoples.  The American Revolution was no exception and nowhere was this disruption, destruction, and  displacement greater than on the frontier of  revolutionary New York and in Iroquoia.

 Early in the war the Iroquois maintained an uneasy neutrality toward what they viewed first as a "war between brothers"; but as the stakes and tempo of the war escalated in the summer of 1777 with the Burgoyne invasion of New York, the Iroquois nations succumbed to the blandishments of the King's and Rebel Indian agents.  Seneca and Mohawk forces became major combatants in an ambush of a rebel relief expedition headed toward Fort Stanwix, while a large contingent of Oneida warriors  accompanied General Herkimer's rebel force and became embroiled in the vicious fire fight that became known as the battle of Oriskany.

The following spring Mohawk Joseph Brant led the first small raids against the farming communities of Manheim and Ephrata in western Tryon county. Homes and farms were burned and a dozen captives were spirited away. From this, a pattern would develop in which  Tory raiders and their Indian allies would raid frontier farming communities, destroying farms and crops destined to feed Continental Armies, terrorizing the inhabitants to drive them in from the frontier, and obtaining a supply of captives that could provide leverage in dealings with the Rebel governments.  (As the war progressed, large numbers of prominent Tory sympathizers were rounded up and imprisoned, as well as an entire British army captured at Saratoga. Obtaining their release would become a major priority for the Crown.)

The summer of 1778 saw a raid in Cobleskill and farms burned in Broadalbin. On June 18th and
19th, Joseph Brant destroyed the villages of Springfield,  and Andrustown. Tory leader John Butler staged a major raid against the settlements in the Wyoming valley of Pennsylvania  on July 3d.  In September, Brant and (son) Walter Butler devastated the prosperous town of German Flatts, on the Mohawk. Sixty three houses, fifty nine barns and three grist mills were burned. Two hundred and thirty five horses, and ninety three oxen, two hundred and twenty nine "horned cattle", two hundred and seventy nine sheep were taken or killed.  Though the property loss was significant, only two lives were lost, thanks to the warning provided by scout John Adam Helmer that enabled the population of German Flatts to shelter in Forts Herkimer . (see my post of 3/24/13)  Though they were destitute,  the population was spared, and they began rebuilding almost immediately;  the following year planting resumed.

Andrustown Monument, Co. Rte 167, North of Jordanville

For Springfield and Andrustown reestablishment was less  certain. Springfield struggled on for years, becoming firmly re-established only with the arrival of the Great Western Turnpike (now U.S. 20) chartered in 1799.

Andrustown, in the rolling hills, eight miles south of German Flatts was settled by seven families of German Palatines. Its name, if you credit traditional sources, resulted from the corruption/distortion of its original name Hendersontown, named for its original patentee, a British Army surgeon named Henderson.  Several residents of the hamlet had fought in the battle of Oriskany.  After the battle, the seven families moved to the relative safety of German Flatts, but they continued to work their farms, going up from the Flatts, sometimes with armed escorts. Joseph Brant, his Indians and a force of Tories struck on a day when a group of farmers and their families were unescorted.  At least nine settlers were killed, including five who headed households and two women. Most were scalped. At the Bell farm, Frederick Bell Sr. was shot by an Indian through a window as he reached for his musket where it was hung on the rafters, while his son Frederick Bell Jr. was shot as he ran to catch a horse. His grandson, Frederick Bell III, age 8, was carried into captivity, where he was adopted by an Indian family. Ten years later he was returned to his surviving family, but by then had become so acculturated that he had great difficulty adapting to "civilized" life. He was said to have died at an early age from "melancholy".  Every house, barn and out-building was burned.  The lands continued to be farmed by the survivors and their descendants,  but Andrustown was never rebuilt, and passed into history.

Hicks Rd. (112) off of Co.Rte.167, cor. of Williams Rd., North

South of Paul Crim House,  Willams Rd., N.

 The Indian/Tory raids of the spring/summer of 1778 led to a retaliatory raid on two towns on the Susquehanna river, in what became south/central New York. Unadilla was a frontier town mostly populated by white settlers who held Loyalist sentiments. Ouaquaga (Onaquaga)* was an Indian town occupied by a mix of Indian peoples. Originally settled by Oneida Indians, it became home to Tuscarora, Shawnee, Mahican and Delaware peoples but was dominated by Mohawks. No primitive hamlet of mere bark wigwams and long houses, Ouaquaga was a town of 700, stretching across the Susquehanna.  American Lt. Col. William Butler declared Onaquaga, 'the finest Indian town I  ever saw' with more than forty 'good houses' of hewn logs, good floors, shingled roofs, stone chimneys, and "improvements" like those in European frontier settlements, along both shores.
                                                                                     


                    This cabin, Mary Jemison "White Woman of the Senecas",
                         (Letchworth State Park) built for her daughter, ca 1800.
                        The Ouaquaga houses must have looked much like this.
                   

 In the spring of 1777 Joseph Brant had settled his volunteer corp of Tories and Indians into Ouaquaga to establish it as a base for supply and recruitment.  In the end of May 1777 Brant, with seventy five of his men moved on Unadilla issuing an ultimatum to the inhabitants. They could either stay and declare their loyalty 
to the Crown and "volunteer " any supplies his troop required or they must go within eight days, taking with them only the provisions they could carry.  At the end of the eight days Brant's men ransacked the properties of those who had fled, and burned their buildings to the ground. 

Brant's Volunteers continued to use these towns as a base of operations until after their devastating raid on German Flatts.  With pressure building on General Washington to strike back, he ordered Lt. Col. William Butler of the 4th Pennsylvania Continental Regiment, garrisoned in the forts along the Schoharie Valley to attack the towns in October.  Indian scouts prevented  surprise and the towns' populations fled but Joseph Brant's forces, out on the warpath, were unaware of the attack until they returned to find their towns, their houses, mills, barns and store houses in ashes. The next year General James Clinton followed up with another attack that destroyed the buildings missed in the previous raid, and the buildings being rebuilt.

In the years following the Revolution Unadilla re-emerged as a town.  Some patriot families returned.  Newcomers arrived, and as nearly everywhere across New York, Tory properties were condemned by local governments to be resold or auctioned off.  Good farmland, and a strategic position on a small but important waterway, the Susquehanna,  favored Unadilla's survival. 

A NYSHM in Mayfield, Fulton Co. refers to a local commission for condemning Tory owned property and reselling it.

Riceville Rd., Mayfield

Ouaquaga, however, would not. After the war, many Indian families were reluctant to try to return to an area that was becoming populated by their former enemies, and where they knew they would not be welcomed.  But unlike former Tories, Indian peoples were legally considered sovereign, and could not be condemned as traitors and subject to forfeiture of their lands. So until treaties were negotiated and New York could arrange to buy the titles for their land, then sell it to land speculators (land wholesalers) who would in turn sell it to individual farmers--Ouaquaga languished  in a state of semi-abandoned limbo. Eventually the lands around Ouaquaga passed into the hands of individual farmers, and three settlements that developed became collectively  known as "Old Oquaga" but virtually all traces of the village and its former inhabitants had vanished. A state kiosk details the history of the area, but on a local NYSHM  created to mark an historic bridge, the Ouaquaga Bridge, the Indian town is mentioned only as an "Iroquois camp".

Doolittle Rd. south of
Rt. 79. south of Harpursville.
Broome County 

The fate of Ouaquaga was a fate shared by many Indian towns across the heart of Iroquoia. The month after the burning of Ouaquaga and Unadilla, Brant and Walter Butler retaliated by a brutal attack on Cherry Valley resulting in widespread destruction and the deaths of over thirty civilians. Over the winter George Washington and his generals would plan a massive invasion of Iroquoia that Washington hoped would knock  Britain's Iroquois allies out of the war or at least severely cripple them and force them into dependency on the British. The two armies of John Sullivan and James Clinton would meet at Tioga between the Chemung and Susquehanna rivers.  Their combined force of over 3000 would range north through Iroquoia sweeping all before it, burning every town and mill, orchard and field crop it came to. In less than two months over forty Indian villages were destroyed. Most would never be rebuilt, or re-inhabited.

By the mid 18th century, the largest, most powerful Iroquois people were the Seneca. One of their largest, most politically important Seneca towns was Kanadesega, also known as Seneca Castle.  Over forty well-built houses were surrounded by corn fields and orchards along the Kanadesega creek, a short distance from the foot of Seneca Lake, in the Finger Lakes. The British had fortified the town during the French and Indian War, and British agents made frequent visits to the town. Home to Sayenqueraghta, the second most influential war chief, after Joseph Brant, Kanadesega became a forward base for Maj. John Butler and his Rangers. After the Onondaga towns were destroyed, the Iroquois council fire, symbol of Iroquois unity, was moved to Kanadesaga. 

As the Sullivan/Clinton expedition approached Kanadesega in the first week of September 1779,  Indian and Tory forces in the town debated whether or not to make a stand at the town.  As Sullivan's Continental troops began to deploy around the town it became apparent to all of their overwhelming strength. When the Continental army entered the town they found their enemy had fled. Kanadesega, like so many Iroquois towns before it, was burned to the ground.

In 1788 a treaty transferred ownership of lands between Seneca Lake and the Genesee River from the Senecas to a partnership of Massachusetts investors (Phelps and Gorham). The properties passed through several hands and gradually the village of Geneva developed on the shore of Seneca Lake, eventually absorbing the abandoned Kanadesega.

From time to time groups and individuals in the 20th century remembered the town and left markers and monuments (including this NYSHM) to commemorate its existence. But, for the most part, the remains of Kanadesega slumber unnoticed underneath the cornfields, suburban housing, shopping malls, storage lockers and convenience store parking lots of suburban Geneva.

                             (All)   Co. Rte 4, near Preemption Rd, Geneva (Note the stone marker, behind the dumpster.)


*Because of the diversity of dialects of its inhabitants and because the Indian peoples living there had no written languages of their own, the town became known by a wildly confusing number of variants. According to Wikipedia, Ouaquaga was called Oneaquaga, Oughquagy, Onoaughquagey, Ononghquage, Auquauga, Anaquaga, Oughquogey, Anaquegha, Onaquaga, Aughquagee, Ochquaga, Aughquagey, Oquaca, Oguaga, Anaquaqua, Oquage, and Okwaha. Washington called the town Anaquaga.  Brant himself, called it Oghuago, and later Oghwage!

Marker of the Week --                                  

NY 414, near Hector

For a while the New York Highway Department, predecessor of the DOT,  joined in the enthusiasm for identifying historical sites with signs. Copies of this marker appeared in several locations, along with a couple other historical themed signs along other State roads.  Not to nit-pick, but it might seem that the Highway Dept. might have benefited from consulting an historian. Three years after the Declaration of Independence declared "That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States" many in Sullivan's army might have taken issue with their bodies politic being still called "colonies".  And while we are at it, since the Oneida Nation became and remained a faithful ally of the American rebels, it is hardly precise to speak of "War with the Six Nations".