It Happened Here  -- The Body of Jane McCrea *

(*a little warning and apology in advance -- this blog article is both a little more macabre and grisly than I am entirely comfortable presenting )

By the first decades of the 19 thcentury the settlement near Ft. Edward had grown up, with a “proper” cemetery located along

State Street. Many colonial era graves were located here, including the grave of Duncan Campbell. (See see NYSHM: It Happened Here 6/13). Sara McNeil, Jane’s friend who survived her ordeal in 1777 was buried here in a brick vault in 1799.  In 1822 when the Champlain canal was dug, Jane McCrea’s ,remains were moved here and buried on top of Sara McNeil’s vault. 

By mid-century the settlement at Fort Edward had grown into the village of Ft. Edward,

which was incorporated in 1849.  The Champlain Canal had linked Ft Edward to cities in

Canada, to Albany and, in turn, to the rest of New York State.  Two saw mills, (built in 1846) and

two paper mills (ca. 1850) utilized the forest products of the nearby Adirondacks. Many residents

of Fort Edward achieved a modicum of prosperity and aspired to the American Victorian lifestyle. 

 By this time the Old  State Street Burying Ground seemed crowded and antiquated.  A new cemetery

was planned, one that would fit notions of a “proper” burial with a more park-like setting, “memorials”,

rather than mere gravestones, family plots, and, for those who could afford them, family vaults,

obelisks, and statuary. The community’s prominent people in life would have a place of prominence

in death. Additionally, the community looked to the Old State Street Burying Ground to see who in the

town’s history were deserving of a special place of honor in the new Union Cemetery in 1852. 

Three who were selected were Jane McCrea, Sara McNeil and Duncan Campbell. (see my blog post on

Duncan Campbell posted on 6/13). Buried next to one another in the front, to the left of the main gate

their graves were surrounded by an ornate iron fence. A new marble headstone was supplied by Sarah

Payne,  Jane McCrea’s niece.

Union Cemetery, Rte 4, Ft. Edward

For the next 150 years the physical remains of Jane McCrea lay undisturbed though conflicting

written accounts of her death continued to be exhumed and examined by generations of 19th and 20th century historians. There was, however, the disturbing newspaper story written the year she was re-interred

that asserted the box containing her bones had been broken into and most of the bones “scattered all over

the country.”

In 2002 colonial archeologist David R. Starbuck secured permission from Jane McCrea’s oldest

living descendant and the Supreme Court in Washington County to exhume the bones of Jane McCrea to

determine if she had, in fact, been buried there and perhaps forensically shed some light on the circumstances

of her death. In 2003 the archaeologist and his team of forensic scientists uncovered a small 20” by 24” box in

her grave site. When they opened the lid they were astounded to find there were two sets of bones, those of

a younger women and those of a much older woman. And the younger woman’s remains were missing its skull!

It seemed likely that when the workmen exhumed Miss McCrea’s remains in 1852 they encountered a collapsed vault and the bones of the two women mixed together so rather than trying to separate the two skeletons, they boxed up both sets of bones together. Starbuck's subsequent comparison of the older woman’s DNA with a living descendant of Sara McNeil revealed it was indeed the skeleton of Mrs. McNeil. 

 

The other mystery, of what had happened to Jane McCrea’s skull is harder to fathom. In an account of the 1755

massacre at Fort William Henry during the French and Indian War, a witness reported seeing an Indian carrying

away a severed head in the chaos, probably intending to remove the scalp at a safe distance. Perhaps this was

an analgous situation, with the Jane McCrea's head being discarded!

Starbuck mentions other, but arguably no less grisly hypotheses. Could her skull been spirited away

as a "souvenir"?   Certainly there is abundant evidence that 19th and early 20th century Americans loved to collect

historical souvenirs. Fully 2/3s of “Plymouth Rock”, the glacial boulder the pilgrims reputedly stepped ashore

on in 1620 had been chipped away and carried off before a gated portico was built around the rock in 1867 to

protect it from souvenir hunters. The “Star Spangled Banner”, the huge flag that flew over Ft. William Henry

in the War of 1812 suffered chunks and even a star cut out of it. In Troy, a number of years ago, I was shown

a piece of armor plate made at the Rensselaer Iron Works, forged for the first ironclad battleship, the Monitor,

in 1862. It too had squares and round disks cut from it, no doubt given to friends of workers at the foundry,

or politicians and influential people who desired to own a piece of history.

There is also evidence that the burgeoning natural sciences spawned the proliferation of human skull

collections.

In the late 18th century, Viennese doctor Franz Joseph Gall postulated that different character traits, sensibilities

and talents were located in different parts of the brain and that the predominance of any of these could be

determined by feeling for ridges and lumps on a living person’s head or by directly examining skulls of the

deceased. One of Gall’s disciples, who coined the study “phrenology” toured the United States in 1832. 

Two brothers, Orson and Lorenzo Fowler became ardent devotees of the new “science” and soon had highly

successful careers as practicing phrenologists and publishers of books, articles, and a “scientific” Journal

of Phrenology.  They opened their “Phrenological Cabinet” on Broadway in New York City.  Advertised as

the “New York Golgotha” it featured, according to the Fowler’s Journal in 1854 “a thousand crania arranged

and labeled among the walls of the building.” An even larger collection of skulls from all over the world had

been assembled in Philadelphia by Samuel George Morton who was seeking to find a relationship between

cranial size and intelligence, “craniometry”. It was said that Morton spent between $10,000 and $15,000 –

then an extremely large sum, for that time, acquiring skulls.

“All manner of scientists began collections, taking skulls from anywhere they could find them.” Perhaps the disappearance of Jane McCrea’s skull was more than simple souvenir taking.

 

In 2005 Starbuck returned, with a court order allowing him to continue his examination and separation of the two skeletons. A digital restoration of Sara McNeil’s face was done from her skull and the two sets of remains were laid to rest in adjoining graves. Since then, more durable copies of Jane McCrea’s marble stone and Duncan Campbell’s red sandstone marker were set in place. A new marker adorned with a Scottish thistle was placed over Sara

McNeil’s new grave

Finally, (perhaps) Jane McCrea will rest in peace.

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

This is one of the Pomeroy Foundation's most recent signs, one of their series of markers that highlight historical episodes that might not stand up to historical scrutiny, but are too good to forget.

             Columbia County   Rte 22,   Ghent, NY 

                                                                                                                                                                                  

                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

                                                                                                                     

                                                                                                           

 

 

 

 

It Happened Here  -- The Tragedy of Jane McCrae

It was the third summer of the American Revolution (1777). The rebel forces were falling back before the invasion army of Major General John Burgoyne who had been joined by some 500 hundred Indians from the upper Great Lakes region, and even farther west. News of the approach of the invasion force with its screen of Indian warriors in the vanguard was sufficient to cause settlers of both Whig and Tory persuasion to take flight towards Albany.  A century and a half of Indian--colonial conflict had made settlers well aware of  the danger. Then too, was Burgoyne's proclamation, issued on his march south which contained the naked threat: "I have but to give stretch to the Indian Forces under my direction, and they number in the Thousands [to be] the messengers of justice and wrath...desolation... and every concomitant horror." 

                    

        off NY Rte 22, on Gilliland Lane, Willsboro

One of the few inhabitants remaining in the area lived on a farm just north of the old Fort Edward, a derelict fort from the French and Indian War, a decade earlier.  Jane McCrae had moved there from New Jersey to live with her older brother, after her parents had died. Jane was, by most accounts, a beautiful young woman, in her early twenties with stunning waist-length long  hair. Her brother, a colonel in the New York militia, pleaded with her to move out with his family to the safety of Albany, but Jane had fallen in love with a neighbor, David Jones.  Jones was a Loyalist and had gone to Canada to join a Tory unit, Peter's American Volunteer Corps. She hoped with the coming invasion, she would be reunited with her fiancée.  Abetting her was an older friend, Sara Mc Neil. Sara was the cousin of Simon Frasier, a brigadier General in the invasion force, and Burgoyne's closest friend and advisor. It was on this connection that the two women, no doubt, pinned their hopes for a safe deliverance to the British camp.  They were together at Sara McNeil’s cabin.

Rte 50,Ballston Spa

Co.Rte 29, Gansevoort

From its inception, the use of Indians had been a vital part of General Burgoyne's plan. In his "Thoughts for

Conducting the War from the Side of Canada", that the General had presented to Lord George Germain, the

Secretary of State for the Colonies, in January 1777, Burgoyne had proposed an army of 8,000 Regulars, 2000

Canadians and 1000 Indians. The King, himself, had read the plan and approved of it, noting in the margin that

perhaps more Indians might be used, leaving more regulars and Canadians for the defense of Canada. But Burgoyne

had considerable ambivalence about using Indians.  On the one hand he needed native warriors to be the eyes and

the ears of his army, and to screen against attacks by American raiders. In the dense American wilderness, cavalry,

the traditional scouts of European armies could not operate. And Indians were without equal in wilderness fighting,

whether infiltrating through the woods silently, seeing without being seen, one to one combat, or ambush.

On the other hand, Burgoyne knew from the experiences of both the English and the French in the last war that keeping Indian allies in line could be extremely difficult. Unlike in European armies, Indian warriors did not enlist for the duration of a campaign, or for any fixed term. Nor did they agree to follow, unreservedly, the orders of superior officers. For the Indian warrior warfare was more of personal and spontaneous act of allegiance to follow a war chief. That allegiance could be withdrawn at any time if the chief failed to continue to inspire confidence, or if circumstances turned unfavorable.

Disturbing, too, for the General were a variety of Indian practices.  Burgoyne knew that, for his native allies, success in battle was proof of manhood, and that proof of that success was the taking of scalps. More disturbing for Burgoyne was the reality that Indians did not distinguish between killing combatants and killing people who were not expected to fight back--women, children, prisoners, and the wounded. Though the eighteenth century was a violent and brutal age , it paled in comparison to earlier centuries when religious strife fractured European societies. Enlightenment philosophers  (Hugo Grotius, de Vitoria and de Vattel) reflected on, and codified growing societal consensus on what were legitimate versus what were barbaric ends, objects, and methods of war.  American Indians, of course, shared in no part of this tradition or dialogue. To a greater or lesser extent Indian warfare took as its model the hunting party. A central motive for warfare was the hope of improving one’s material conditions.  One hunted deer for meat and deerskins. One went to war for plunder.  Enemies were prey. Just as one did not single out the young from the mature, female from male animals, for many Indian warrior/hunters it seemed ridiculous to extend mercy on the basis of age or sex, and it made no more sense to spare the life of a wounded or disarmed/captive enemy than it did to spare the life of a wounded bear or a treed raccoon. (If, of course. a captive could be ransomed, or be adopted into one's own tribe to replace a lost family member, that was a different matter.)

Finally, the manner in which his Indian allies were recruited did not give Burgoyne much confidence. Most of the western Indians were recruited and brought to his army by two grizzled French veterans of the frontier wars. We cannot be sure how much Burgoyne knew about the backgrounds of these two men, to whom the British commander took an active dislike. But if he knew a fraction of what we know today about them he would not have been comforted or reassured. Charles Langlade led the Indians who destroyed Pickawillany in 1751 and may have participated in the cannibalism that followed. He was also infamous for his part in planning and leading the ambush that destroyed British General Braddock’s army in 1755.  The Chevalier St. Luc de la Corne had participated in French and Indian raids on Saratoga, Deerfield, Massachusetts, and around Schenectady and Albany that had yielded hundreds of prisoners and many more scalps.  In 1757 he had led the Indians at the battle of Ft. William Henry, and had been in charge of the Indians escorting English captives – wounded soldiers, women and children.  He had reportedly stood by when the Indians, drunk on captured liquor from the fort began killing and scalping their charges. Over five-dozen prisoners had been slain. Who knew what promises and inducements men with this history had made to this assorted collection of native warrior/adventurers!

And to make matters worse, no one on the General’s staff could communicate directly with these Indians. Burgoyne, speaking in French, had to rely on Langlade and St. Luc to translate for him.

Exactly what happened to the two women may never be known. Historian Richard Ketchum describes

it as [an affair] "so shrouded in hearsay, wild tales, and propaganda that it was the stuff of legend for a

century or more, retold in lurid prints, etchings and paintings, in novels and plays making it virtually impossible to

determine the truth of what occurred on that Sunday in July . What we do know is that soon after the western Indians arrived several war parties were out ranging south of Burgoyne's encampment. One led by an Indian

called Le Loup, also called the Wyandot Panther attacked the Allen farm. The family of six and three slaves

on loan to help with the summer wheat harvest were killed and scalped. 

Co.Rte 49 &Allen Rd., Argyle

Later, the war party spotted an American patrol and set a successful ambush. A Lieutenant Tobias
Van Vechten, two sergeants and two privates were felled in the surprise volley and were killed and scalped. (The wounded Van Vechten may have been taken captive and killed later.)

Rte. 4, south of Ft. Edward

The Indians next turned their attention to the McNeil cabin. A militiaman fleeing from the ambush

may have warned the women of the Indian's approach because the women were found by the Indians

hiding beneath a trap door in the cabin's cellar. Some sources say the Indians were looking for the women,

having been directed by General Simon Frasier. Other sources say McCrea's fiancee, David Jones had

offered them money to bring her in. In any event the women were made captive and the war party

continued south. At some point the women became separated. Jane McCrea may have been mounted on a

horse, probably taken from the Allen's or her farm. Sara McNeil, a very large middle-age women,

was forced to walk.

About 3 miles south of Fort Edward something happened.

In the most accepted version of the story, the Indians quarreled over who would get the reward for bringing

their captives in. In a fit of anger one brave shot (or tomahawked) Jane McCrea. She was scalped,

stripped of her clothes and her body mutilated. Her body was dumped and covered with leaves near

the body of  Lt. Van Vechten. Plausibly, Le Loup's party could have met up with Indians sent out by

David Jones, setting the stage for a quarrel between groups of Indians. 

A third scenario, one put forward by Le Loup in his defense was that his war party had run into a group

of American militiamen and they had fired on the Indians, killing McCrea. 

                                                                       U.S.Rte 4 & Case St.

Whatever happened, LeLoup's warriors reappeared at the British camp the next day with a furious

Mrs McNeil, stark naked, in tow. An angry and embarrassed Simon Frasier sought in vain for

some women's clothing to fit the ample widow McNeil. He ended up loaning her his great coat

until an outfit could be stitched together for her. The rest of the story emerged that evening. David Jones

wandered into the Indian encampment looking for information about his fiancée.  As the Indians danced

and celebrated their victories Jones spotted a pile of fresh uncured scalps in the middle of their celebrations.

In that pile was the unmistakable long beautiful red hair of Jane McCrae.

U.S. Rte 4 & Kingsbury Rd.

                                                                        Co.Rte 36, Kingsbury

Burgoyne was horrified.  He called the Indians together the next day to demand that the perpetrator of the atrocity be surrendered for prosecution. Frasier, and some of his other officers, and St.Luc cautioned him that this action might cause the Indians to defect and perhaps take their anger out on Canadian settlements on the way home. The Indians pleaded with the General to spare the life of such a young and bold warrior. Burgoyne relented but insisted that women and children must not be harmed and that henceforth, all raids must be supervised by a British officer. The Indians agreed, but there is no evidence they took this order seriously. The killings, scalpings and mutilations of settlers, and random individuals, along with enemy pickets and patrols continued daily for the next week until the army moved to the vicinity of Ft. Edward. 

Burgoyne again took the opportunity to lecture his Indian allies.  He reiterated he would not tolerate the murder of women and children and the plunder of settlers’ homes. For their part, many of the Indians told him they had had enough of his restrictions and his strange notions of warfare, and they intended to leave. Burgoyne attempted to salvage his relationship with the Indians by returning in the afternoon to restate his positions, which this time he hoped would be made more palatable by the casks of rum he brought with him. The Indians agreed to stay on, asking only that those warriors who lived closest might be allowed to leave to help with their families’ harvests. But by the next day dozens left, followed by more and more in the following days until the General was left with fewer Indians than he had when he began the expedition.

At first, the young girl’s murder and the series of attacks and atrocities that followed were extremely

demoralizing to the American troops and their supporters.  The territory between the armies became

a true no-man’s land, devoid of settlers. Militia units melted away.  The citizen-soldiers were simply

scared.  Over time, however, anger replaced panic.  While the frequency of attacks diminished as more

and more Indians abandoned the British expedition, many colonists realized their only salvation was to

stand up to the invaders. Would-be loyalist supporters were disheartened.  Burgoyne promised a restoration

of order and protection from their rebel neighbors, but how could he protect anyone when he could not

protect the King’s loyal subjects from his own Indians?  New volunteers swelled the ranks of the rebel

militias, and new militia companies were formed. Burgoyne had lost the battle for the people’s loyalty.

 

In the heights along the Hudson north of the village of Stillwater the strengthened American army made

its stand. The invasion ground to a halt. American militia forces appeared from nowhere and everywhere.

In two pitched battles the British could not break out.  Surrender eventually followed.

In death, the sister of the Rebel militia colonel and fiancée of the Tory soldier became an

American heroine, and a martyr to the cause of freedom. Her story became a dramatic tragedy,

one that the British General, himself an aspiring playwright, might have wished he had written,

circumstances being different.  It became a subject of books, plays, novels and paintings. Copies

of one painting, John Vanderlyn’s (1804) “The Murder of Jane McCrea” hung in the Wadsworth

Antheneum, in Hartford Connecticut and in an upscale bordello in New York City.

 

                                                 Rte 4 south of Ft. Edward next to VanVechten stone

Jane McCrae’s body was found by her fiancée, David Jones and given a decent burial

near where it was found. This story should have ended there, but martyrdom and fame,

sometimes have a way of making sure the dead don’t “rest in peace”.

Next time--"The body of Jane McCrae."

Marker of the Week  Fortnight (!)--Squeezing out  a profit.

                                        Grove St., Voorheesville, Albany Co. 

                               A local business that became a food icon.

Next Time--The Body of Jane McCrae