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,  three of the four members 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 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 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 interest 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 ficticious 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

 

It Happened Here  -- Spies, Spies and more Spies

(Part 1. Spies and the Burgoyne Invasion)

P 

Every war produces spies.  The need to get accurate information about an enemy's capabilities, intentions, movements, strengths and  weaknesses  is paramount to success in war.   Direct observation can provide some of this information, but often to get closer to an enemy it is necessary to apply stealth, subterfuge and deception.  Equally important is the desirability of  planting misinformation to misdirect an enemy.  

George Washington, who according to popular legend declared 'I cannot tell a lie,' relied heavily on spies. He took a personal interest in their recruitment, using them  to monitor the British encamped in New York City, to thwart their attempts to undermine the Continental Currency, to penetrate British defensive strategy around Yorktown, and  to ahead off assassination plots against him, among many other British plans and operations. He also used them to plant misinformation.  Before the battle of Trenton, for example, he used a spy to convince the Hessian commander that the Americans were in no position to attack, lulling him into a false sense of security, so that the commander allowed Christmas celebrations to proceed. When the Americans attacked on December 26, 1776, they confronted a Hessian soldiery hung over and stupefied from a previous day of celebration.

Additionally, civil wars--(and American Revolution was a civil war of deeply divided loyalties)--require both sides develop networks of "intelligence" to distinguish potential friends from foe and to prevent the enemy from  recruiting  and mobilizing citizens.  The American rebels were particularly successful in this, establishing from nearly the beginnings of the rebellion, "Committees of Safety" whose jobs were to not only carry on the basic functions of government, but also identify and keep an eye on people of Loyalist persuasion, stepping in to arrest and imprison anyone who might pose a threat to the rebellion, or attempt to join or enlist others in joining Loyalist forces.

Washington's first attempt at placing spies was a dismal failure. A young Yale graduate, masquerading as an unemployed teacher, looking for work in New York City was promptly picked up and hung as a spy. The whole incident might have escaped historical attention except that a British officer at Nathan Hale's execution noted his defiant last words and commented on it in his diary. Details are sketchy, as are those of many episodes of spying.

On this site, from 1763 to 1874, stood “Mount Pleasant”, the mansion built by James Beekman. It was used as a headquarters by Lord Howe during the Revolutionary War because of its commanding view and here Nathan Hale, American patriot, was imprisoned and tried. On the gallows in an orchard nearby he spoke the famous words “I only regret I have but one life to give for my country.”--plaque, 1st Avenue and 51st St., Manhattan

Silas Towne (aka. Town, Towns), according to his own accounts, had been living along the St. Lawrence River and reporting on local support for the rebellion since the earliest days of the revolution  until he fell under scrutiny of area Loyalists and was confined to his farm for nearly two years.  Escaping, he was tasked by American General Phillip Schuyler to observe British activities along the shore of Lake Ontario.  He was there when a large British force of Loyalist troops and Indians landed on the gravelly shores of a small island at the mouth of the Little Salmon River.  Creeping in the undergrowth up to where Brigidier Barry St. Leger was conferring with his officers,  he heard him detail his plans for a raid on Fort Stanwix (now known as Ft. Schuyler.).  Depending on surprise and swiftness, St. Leger decided heavy siege artillery would not be necessary. Towne successfully slipped away and raced the 50 some miles to the fort.  When St.Leger arrived at Stanwix he found a garrison  hunkered down and prepared for a siege, while he was not--with no heavy siege guns, and allies (his Indians) neither trained for, or constitutionally prepared for the style of grinding European siege warfare. The siege would last just twenty one days before intervening events and a "crazy" reluctant turncoat "spy" would cause it to unravel and the besiegers to turn against themselves.

Silas Towne would come to see his spying activities as the seminal event of his life.  He would settle in Vera Cruz (later called Mexico Point) near the island at the mouth of the Little Salmon River and tell his story over and over. (In fact,  his testimony is virtually the only historical account we have of Towne's spying career!) When he died he asked to be buried on the island .  Sixty years later an obelisk was erected at his grave site, then known as Grave Island.  In 1932 state historical markers were erected. Grave Island had become known as Spy Island.

                                                                                                    Obelisk+ Grave

                                                                                                      Spy Island
                                                                                                                                      Oswego, Co.Rte 40,  Mexico,  NY    

*****

St. Leger's  siege of Ft. Stanwix /Schuyler would set in  motion  a series of actions that would ultimately not only frustrate his efforts to take the fort but would cause the dissolution of his army and prevent him from sweeping down the Mohawk Valley  rallying Loyalist support and linking up with Burgoyne.  And so-called "Spies" would play a critical part.

                                                              Drawing of Ft. Stanwix at Reconstruction, Rome, NY

          Ft.Stanwix/Schuyler reconstruction, Rome N.Y.

 News of the siege caused the Tryon County Militia,  some seven to eight hundred strong, under General Nicholas Herkimer, to march to break the siege. Accompanying them were 60 to 100 Oneida Indians who sided with the Patriots.  St. Leger sent a force of about 500 Indians and Tories to head them off in an ambush.   The battle of Oriskany  was an horrendous day-long bloodbath.    The militiamen managed to hold their position but with terrible losses, some 395 killed.  British losses were around 100, with St. Leger  indigenous allies barring the brunt of the fighting.   This was not  the kind of war the Iroquois were expecting to fight!  First there was the boredom and drudgery of siege warfare; then there was this intense battle where braves had little opportunity to demonstrate audacious bravery to prove their manhood, or to reap trophies in single combat from their defeated foe by taking their enemy's personal possessions and scalps;  then there was the shock of finding themselves having to fight their own Iroquois brethren, the Oneidas,  effectively ending a confederacy that had lasted hundreds of years!  A final shock/insult came when they realized that while they were attacking the Tryon County Militia, forces from the Fort had sallied forth and raided their camp, carrying off all of their food and most of their personal possessions.

The days and weeks that followed were extremely difficult for both sides.   St. Leger's Tories struggled to keep their indigenous allies in the field, and in fact to prevent them from taking out their frustrations on them. (A Tory musket was as valuable as a rebel musket. A Tory scalp was at least some compensation for the anger, privation, and disappointment they felt.)

One of St.Leger's young officers proposed an audacious plan.  He, and a small group of Loyalists would openly travel  down the Mohawk Valley under a flag of truce heading toward Albany, ostensibly to discuss a settlement for ending the siege.  In reality,   his mission would be to gauge Loyalist support in the Valley, recruiting as he went, directing his recruits to   

                                                                                     Marker at Oriskany Battlefield

 join St. Leger.  He hoped this show of support would encourage St. Leger's disaffected native allies to remain with him. But the rebel authorities quickly realized what these "parley negotiators" clandestine objectives were.  Following an evening where Ensign Walter Butler and his associates harangued Loyalist sympathizers at Shoemaker's tavern in the hamlet of Mohawk, they arrested them, charging them with Spying.  A military tribunal condemned  all to be hanged, though Butler would be taken to Albany and later escape.*

                                                                                 W.Main St., cor. of Catherine St. Mohawk, NY  (missing?)

One of the Tories traveling with Butler was a widely known 'odd fellow'  who lived on the edge of  frontier  Mohawk Valley society.  Hon Yost Schuyler. lived  a hand-to-mouth existence, usually residing in valley Indian camps. He  was generally recognized as 'crazy' and 'feeble-minded' but the indigenous people held him in some degree of awe, as he had the ability to throw himself into a kind of a wild babbling trans-like state, they associated  with him being a witch or at least someone in touch with the spirit world.  From a distance of some 250 years it is impossible to suggest a diagnosis of his mental state or even speculate the degree that  these episodes were involuntary or calculated. ( Incredibly, but also not entirely implausibly, given the small number of individuals then living  in colonial New York,  Hon Yost,  was the son  of  a cousin of General Phillip Schuyler, head of the Northern Department, and  his mother, the sister of General Herkimer!)

Following the repulse of the Ft. Stanwix /Schuyler relief expedition, the Patriots were also scrambling to recruit volunteers for another attempt to relieve the fort and to prepare for the defense of the Valley.  General Phillip Schuyler ordered a young charismatic general, Benedict Arnold to raise forces from the farms and hamlets along the Mohawk but Arnold found little support among a population that had already lost nearly 400 of their fittest young men , with more than that still reeling  from their recent bitter pyrrhic victory.  With only about 100 volunteers, Arnold needed to convince St. Leger and his allies that he would be coming down on him with a much larger force.  As Arnold interviewed Butler and his condemned "spies" a plan occurred to him.  With Hon Yost babbling  incoherently in front of him,  Arnold stressed to the young man he would soon be hanged,  a fact highlighted by his mother and brother Nicholas, who had shown up and were present to beg for his life.  But, said Arnold, there was an alternative.  If Hon Yost would go to the Iroquois besieging  Ft.Stanwix/Schuyler,  and tell them he had escaped from the Rebels and convince them that Arnold had recruited a huge army that was soon to overwhelm  them,  and  induce  them to abandon the siege, then he could go free.  To guarantee he did as directed, his brother would be held as a hostage.  (Undoubtedly, Arnold intimated his brother would be hanged in his place if he failed.) 

According to early reporters of this story,  as this plan was unfolded to the 'madman' his babbling  stopped.

He became an engaged listener;  and he offered to enhance the plausibility of  his story by suggesting grazing shots be fired through his clothing and by arranging for cooperative Oneida Indians to enter the Mohawk and Seneca camps with stories supporting his own.  The plan was enacted pretty much as it was conceived.  Han Yost delivered a convincing (probably spell-binding)  performance.  When asked how many soldiers Arnold had, he ecstatically rolled his eyes upward to indicate "as many as there are leaves on the trees" or perhaps  "stars in the heavens!"  While the Tory leadership remained skeptical, for their indigenous allies this was the final straw.  They began to decamp immediately.  Seeing their alliance broken the Loyalists also fled en masse, fearful that if they straggled they would be set upon and scalped by roving bands of their former allies who were furious at them.  (As in fact some stragglers and rebel prisoners, were scalped.).  Hon Yost followed the retreating Tories but then broke for the rebel's Ft.Dayton.

 After  he learned his brother had been released  he disappeared, returning to Iroquois society and would  participate in Indian-Tory raids in 1780. He would live the latter part of his life among the Oneida Iroquois.                             

*****

With the threat of the Burgoyne invasion baring down on the Champlain--Lake George corridor, aimed at Albany, the amount of covert observation and communications undoubtedly greatly increased, though probably much  of this activity never made it into the historical record, or was lost in the greater events of the invasion itself.  The Helderberg escarpment, a wall of cliffs at the edge of the Hudson Valley, however, provided a unique enough environment to cause the spying activity that occurred there to be remembered. Jacob Salisbury a "Tory Spy" reputedly sheltered in a recess in the rocks 

                                                                                Albany  Co. Rte 156, Altamont
and observed  operations of patriot farmers who were providing food for the rebel army growing around Saratoga. He was captured when his tracks were found in the snow and the location of his cave discovered when smoke from a small cooking fire was spotted.

Thatcher Park State Park,  Co.Rte 157

*****

                                 Main St.  Hurley, N..Y.

The next "spy story"should properly be included in a future blog post about spies in the "Middle Department" since it involves activities around the British forces occupying New York City but it also is about communication between General Howe in New York and General Burgoyne during his invasion.

Lt. David Taylor, **a courier for General Howe,  must have breathed a sigh of relief when he saw an encampment outside of New Windsor of scarlet coated soldiers in front of him.

He must have been anticipating  receiving a good meal and a peaceful night's rest before he continued a long 

and hazardous journey through  enemy territory to Burgoyne's camp somewhere north of Albany.  What he got was an arrest and an interrogation!  Lt. Taylor had made the unfortunate mistake of stumbling into an encampment of a company of the Connecticut Governor's Foot Guards.  Connecticut in the colonial era had two capitals, one in Hartford and one in New Haven.  In 1771 the Connecticut Assembly provided the governor  with  the first of four companies  (two foot and two horse) to escort and protect him on his travels between capitals and to protect him during official functions. Their initial uniforms, it was said, were modeled after the British Coldstream Guards with white cross belts, buff facings and scarlet coats!  Benedict Arnold (yes, him again!) had incited Guard members to join the Rebel Army surrounding Boston in 1775 and pressured the Assembly to release the Royal (Gun) Powder stores for their use. Since then they had become part of the State Brigade supporting the Connecticut Line watching the British in New York. 

During his interrogation, the Lieutenant  swallowed a small silver ball, but given an emetic, vomited it up. When he tried to swallow it again he was warned he would be hanged immediately, and the ball cut from his stomach. He surrendered the ball, which was hollow, and sealed with a small threaded plug.  It contained a message on thin silk from Gen. Howe to Gen. Burgoyne.  

A few days before,  a large raiding party had sailed up to Kingston and burned the town with little opposition.  Before that,  Forts Montgomery and  Clinton had been taken, with the militias defending them decisively defeated.   Howe's note announced he was at Fort Montgomery, and airily asserted that  "now there is nothing before us but Gates" (General Horatio Gates had taken over command of northern army from General Schuyler), and he wished Burgoyne success.    

A courts martial  by  officers of the company was ordered.  Lt. Taylor was convicted of spying and sentenced to be hanged.  (The sentence, perhaps unwarranted-- given the severity of the offense,  only acting as a courier, was handed  down by  a jury of Connecticut officers, who had seen their fellow Connecticut officer, Natan Hale. executed a year before.)  The company was on the move to counter the British who had attacked Kingston,  so the sentence was carried out after they arrived in Hurley, adjacent to Kingston. Taylor was confined overnight in a sturdy stone cottage, that became known as "the Old Guard House" and hanged on a nearby apple tree, the next day.  Taylor's body was allowed to hang there two days and the company was paraded before it--a tacit warning to the troops of what might happen if anyone engaged in any covert actions that would aid the enemy!

After Burgoyne's army had been defeated and captured at Saratoga the main focus of the war shifted south.  But the war in the North continued with raids and countermeasures, including a large scale invasion and destruction of Seneca and Cayuga villages deep in Iroquoia, by the Continental army supported by militias in 1779, and multiple raids by Loyalist troops and Indians in 1778, through 1781 throughout the Mohawk Valley and settlements north of Albany.  Tory spying and other covert activities

including secret courier operations, theft, arson and kidnapping  would continue at heightened levels, as would patriot counter intelligence operations, aimed at identifying and imprisoning active tories and deterring tory sympathizers . Part II of "Spies, Spies and More Spies" will continue next time with "The Covert War in the Northern Department, After Burgoyne" 

Marker of the Week  Fortnight (!)-- Crum's Place

George Speck was a successful chef working at Moon's Lake House on Saratoga Lake that catered to the Saratoga vacationing crowd in the later half of the 19th century.  A black man with an American Indian mother, Speck was more than occasionally subject to demeaning treatment by his wealthy white customers.  Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt, a frequent patron of the restaurant persistently "forgot" his name, regularly referring to him as "Crum" rather than Speck.  Chef Speck shrugged it off, saying he guessed it was alright, since a crum was bigger than a speck. Another customer (some say it was Vanderbilt) regularly ordered fried potatoes, then regularly complained they were too soft and too thick. Finally,

Speck had had enough.  He took his razor, shaving off extremely thin slices of potato,  frying them HARD, and heavily salting them, to boot!  The "Saratoga Potato Chip" became a hit.  (By the way, a young Anna Mary Robertson (Grandma Moses) spent much her youth thinly slicing potatoes grown on her family's farm in Greenwich for the Saratoga  chip restaurant market,  decades before she ever picked up a paintbrush. --see NYSHMS: It Happened Here  April 14, 2013 ).

*See NYHSMS: It Happened Here posts "The Short Violent Life of Walter Butler" 8/17 and 8/23/15.

**Taylor was a loyalist from Kinderhook serving in the British Army's 9th Regiment.  He might have escaped detection but he also carried incriminating personal letters from some of his fellow officers written to their families in Kinderhook.

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