It Happened Here--The Palatines

Part 2, the Diaspora

King's Highway, Saugerties

The Palatines generally greeted the news of Governor Hunter's abandonment of the Tar-making project and of them, with excitement, as a release from servitude.  Many of those in the West Camp, who were less involved in tar-making continued on the lands in which they were settled,  eventually buying them. New settlements grew. A few miles west of West Camp the Palatines built, with their Dutch neighbors, a stone church, inscribing their names on a wall of this church at "Katsbaan".

Old Kings Highway, N. of Katsbaan (off of Rte. 32)

Some of the Palatines petitioned the Crown
 for the land bought by Gov. Hunter for
the tar-making project, but apparently their efforts were fruitless.

 

Similarly, they attempted to purchase land from Robert Livingston, but Livingston would not budge, only offering tracts for "three life leases." A few Palatine families accepted his terms.

Inscribed stones from old church in wall of the1867 Church

Rte 9, cor. 9G, north of Rhinebeck

After Robert Livingston rejected their offers to purchase land, about thirty families moved south to the adjoining patent owned by Henry Beekman. Beekman welcomed them and sold them land.  In 1713 they named their village after their homeland (the Rhine) and the landowner who treated them fairly (beck or beek).

Rte. 146 at Wagner Rd., Guilderland Ctr.

Most of the Palatines, however, continued to hope  they could find homes in their "promised land," "Scorie." After Governor Hunter's declaration that the Palatines must "shift for themselves" seven leaders of the villages,  the "list men" who kept records of the people in their jurisdiction, set off for the Schoharie headed by John Conrad Weiser. They hired an Indian guide who led them from Albany to Guilderland, into the Helderberg Mountains, then along the Fox Creek to Schoharie. They found the Indians in the Schoharie valley "hospitable" and readily to gave them permission to settle. After turning the last fifteen miles of the twenty-four mile track from Albany to Scoharie from a narrow Indian trail to a cart road, the first group of fifty families set out. They were followed in March 1713 by a second group of about one hundred and fifty families. The first winter the Palatines survived mainly because of the generosity of the Indians who gave them maize and showed them how to forage for edible native plants, roots and nuts.

Knox-Gallupville Rd., Knox

The Palatines settled in seven villages (dorfs or dorps), overseen by the listmasters.  Weiser's Dorf, and Hartman's Dorf, (named for Hartman Winedecker) were located in what is today Middleburgh. With Brunnen Dorf, named for the springs that flowed from the hillside, and Fuch's Dorf, named for its location where the Fox Creek enters the Schoharie Creek, was Smith's Dorf in the area that became "Schoharie".  North of them was Gerlach Dorf, and on the Cobleskill Creek, Kniskern's Dorf.

Rte 145, Main St., Middleburgh

     As in the camps, they built schools, churches and parsonages

Rte 30, N. of Middleburgh

Rte 30, Schoharie

Rte 30, Schoharie

Rte 30, Scoharie

Parsonage, Warner Hill Rd., Schoharie

The immigrants had barely settled into their new homes when they came under legal attack from none other than Governor Hunter. Though Hunter had "temporarily" released them from servitude and told them they must provide for themselves, he did not expect they would they would form permanent self-sufficient communities and he blamed them for the failure of the tar-making project, which threatened his financial ruin. 

The first assault on the Palatines claim to the valley began with Samuel Bayard's scheme to sell the Palatines titles to their land. Bayard's father Col. Nicholas Bayard had received a patent for almost the entire valley given to him by Governor Benjamin Fletcher (1692-1697), no doubt for a "consideration." (Fletcher was recalled for corruption and association with pirates, and had retired from the governorship an estimated  £300,000 wealthier) But in 1698 the Crown repudiated his "extravagant" land grants.* Though the exact nature of Samuel's scheme remains unclear, the younger Bayard entered the valley with a document he circulated offering title to the Palatine landholders. He was unceremoniously expelled from the valley by the Palatines.

A more serious threat came from Adam Vrooman of Schenectady. Vrooman had claimed to have bought some land from the Schoharie Indians in 1711. In the summer of 1714 Gov. Hunter issued him a patent for much of the land in the upper valley, including Weiser's Dorf. The Palatines were outraged. Enticing the local Indians with alcohol they re-marked their boundary claims, and bought additional land on the hillsides for 300 Spanish dollars. They began a campaign to harry Vrooman from the valley by driving their horses at night over the land Vroman attempted to plant and pulling down a stone house he was attempting to build. His son was pulled from a wagon and beaten, and Vroman's life was threatened. He too left, but his name remains in the valley as the name of a rocky promontory looking down on the fertile fields of the valley south of Middleburgh, "Vroman's Nose." 

After failing to peddle his titles to the Palatines, Samuel Bayard assembled five partners to invest in Schoharie lands. Though he appears to have failed to sell them title to the lower Schoharie Valley, they applied directly to Hunter himself and received a patent in November 1714. Three years later  two other partners joined them with interests in the area of the Fox Creek. They informed the Palatines they must buy or lease their lands or leave. The partners appealed to the court in Albany to get the Albany County sheriff to deliver papers requiring the settlers to "pay up" and to surrender John Conrad Weiser, who they identified as their ringleader. At Weiser's Dorf a riot occurred, led by the women of the village. They pulled Sheriff Adams off his horse, beat him up, dragged him through the filth of their barnyards and carried him out of the valley on a fence rail, depositing him, with two broken ribs, on the road back to Albany.

The next year, when the Governor visited Albany.** He ordered a committee of three men from each dorf to come to Albany to explain their people's actions. Angrily he forbade the Palatines from planting crops until they had bought or rented their land.

Johann Conrad Weiser and two others made a bold attempt to go over the Governor's head and seek an audience with George I, Britain's new German king from Hannover.  Sneaking out of the valley, they made their way to Philadelphia and boarded a ship bound for England.  But a short distance from port their ship was taken by French pirates who took everything of value off the ship, including the money raised by the Palatines to support the trio while seeking to get a royal audience. The ship refitted in Boston then sailed on to London.  They arrived penniless and managed to subsist for a while on commercial and personal loans, but the loans came due, and they were no closer to their goal. They were thrown into debtors prison, where one of the petitioners died. Finally, money to pay their debts and free them from prison arrived. Weiser soldiered on alone after his other companion returned to America, where, his health broken, he also died. By then Governor Hunter was back in London seeking reimbursement for the tar making fiasco. Though unable to advance his own cause, he used what influence he had left to sabotage the Palatines' efforts. After five years of fruitless lobbying Weiser, also, returned home. Then, in what could be described as a karmic twist of fate, Hunter got a ruling from the Board of Trade. The Board would consider reimbursing Hunter if (1) he produced receipts for expenditures to Robert Livingston and others, (which he expected) and (2) he produced affidavits from the Palatines that they had been adequately provisioned, supported and compensated for their efforts! (Needless to say, no such affidavits would be forthcoming from the Palatines!) In 1719 Hunter's commission as governor of New York was revoked and he was replaced by William Burnett in 1720.

With the government's support, and the arrest of several Palatine leaders, the seven partners were able to force about 1/3 of the Palatines to buy or rent their land from them.  Another group of thirty three families moved to the Tulpehocken valley in Berks county Pennsylvania where other Palatines and several sects of German religious dissenters had successfully settled.

Early in his tenure as New York's new governor, Burnett addressed the Schoharie problem by granting himself a patent on land in the Mohawk River Valley with several Palatine leaders named as co-patentees.  Before this, the Mohawk clans had vigorously resisted attempts of European settlers to occupy their lands but now they were feeling vulnerable. Disease and war had reduced their numbers from several thousand to about 600. In the last century a large number of their people had been converted to Catholicism by the Jesuits and had decamped for lands around Montreal.  The last war had seen their homelands raided by the French and Algonquin enemies.  Their experience with the Palatines in Scoharie had been generally positive. The Palatines, more than the English and Dutch, seemed to respect Indian peoples and their life-styles and they were generally good neighbors. If the Mohawks could lease land to them it might limit uncontrolled European settlement.  Having Palatine neighbors might increase their security in the next (inevitable) war with the French.
The new governor also saw the benefit of creating buffer communities of non-Britons located between invading French and Indian raiders, and the exposed towns of Schenectady and Albany.

Rte 30, N. of Schoharie (now missing)

             "Gerlach Dorf

    Johan Christian Gerlach
  Palatine Listmaster Settled
      near this site in 1717
Gerlach along with most of this
Dorf's Palatines Removed to the
  Mohawk Valley in 1722-1723
 Schoharie Valley Bicentennial 1995"

The Burnett Patent allowed nearly 92 heads of families, over 300 people, to settle on lands from  Little Falls, 24 miles west along both sides of the Mohawk. The settlements of Palatine, Palatine Bridge, Stone Arabia, Oppenheim, German Flats, Frankfort and others came into being between 1723 and 1726. Their numbers were swelled by the arrival of another ship of Palatines that arrived in 1722.  Included with them was the "Erghtmer" (Herchheimer or Herkimer) family.

For thirty years the Palatines lived in peace and growing prosperity along the Mohawk River until the last French and Indian war when their homes and farms were twice attacked and burned by  the French and their Algonquin allies in 1757, 1758 and again, by their Loyalist neighbors and Iroquois former-friends, twenty years later in the American Revolution.  Nicholas Herkimer, son of Palatine immigrants led the defense of the valley from Fort Herkimer in the last "French War" and turned back a British, Loyalist, Indian invasion in 1777, being mortally wounded in the Battle of Oriskany.  

Rte. 5,  North Illion

Gen. Herkimer Statue, Park Ave. Herkimer

For many years much of this part of the Mohawk Valley remained unoccupied.  After the wars some Palatines returned to pick up the pieces of their shattered lives, but many moved elsewhere, completing the last chapter of the Palatine diaspora.

*Another of Fletcher's thirteen "extravagant " grants revoked by the Crown was one used for the West Camp settlements.
**New York City was the seat of the Colony's government, as New Amsterdam had been the seat of New Netherlands in Dutch times.


Addenda--On 5/12/13 I wrote on a piece on "New York's Wooden Roads." Since then I have taken photos at a couple other sites. The newer Pomeroy sign makes an interesting observation about the noise arising from wood planks laid over wooden stringers under the wheels of wagons.

County Rte.110, Broadalbin

     

1315 Township Rd. Altamont



Note--This installment of NYSHMs has been delayed due to technical problems. These have included being unable to download several photos which if corrected, will be shown in the next installment's  Addenda

It Happened Here --The Battles on Snowshoes

William Johnson had a problem.  He had successfully parried a French thrust down into New York, at the Battle of Lake George using colonial militiamen and his beloved Mohawk Indians but it had taken every ounce of his personal charm and charisma with the Indians to enlist them to support his effort.  

Some thirty three Mohawks had been killed--a significant number for a tribe that numbered only a few thousand. One of their most revered chiefs, Theyanoguin (called Hendrick by the English) had been slain, and, most significantly the Mohawks had end up fighting against their fellow Mohawks from the French mission towns of Caughnawaga.  After the battle they let it be known they wanted no more of this war between white men and they made a hasty departure back to their own villages. Johnson's forces were left virtually blind without scouts in the wilderness north of Albany.

Eight months earlier, Robert Rogers, a young man raised in what was then the wilderness of western New Hampshire, also had a problem, but of a much different sort.  On January 31, 1755 Rogers was under arrest, charged with counterfeiting.  He, and several of his friends had fallen in with Owen Sullivan, a professional criminal and counterfeiter. Rogers had bought three yoke of oxen for Sullivan but by the time he returned Sullivan had left and Rogers was probably stuck with selling the oxen at a loss. Meanwhile Rogers' friends had discovered Sullivan had left behind some counterfeiting plates and  they were soon printing up phony New Hampshire pound and shilling notes. Rogers was charged with buying a wagon, a wig, and a pair of pumps with phony money. Faced with the real possibility of having his ears cropped and his cheeks branded for the crime of passing counterfeit money, Robert Rogers did what some young men who have found themselves "in a fix" have been doing since the dawn of organized warfare. But not content with simply enlisting, the charismatic Rodgers recruited some fifty of his fellow frontier New Hampshire-men, earning himself a captaincy in the process.

 Eight months later he and his regiment from New Hampshire  were stationed at Fort Lyman (about to be rechristened Ft. Edward) when the Battle of Lake George occurred.  After the battle, Johnson called for some experienced woodsmen to volunteer to spy on the French preparations at Fort Frederic. Rogers volunteered and was soon making his way north with two men from his company and two batteau-men, on the first of what would be many scouts.  Rogers returned with the first solid information of the enemy's strength, the state of their fortifications, and the first word on their activity around the Ticonderoga peninsula. Climbing a nearby hill he made a detailed map of the fort at Crown Point.

In a short time he would be leading small parties regularly out from Fort Edward or the new fort, William Henry at the head of Lake George to spy on the French and to raid their supply lines from Montreal. Audacious and clever, Rogers and his men became adept at slipping through the forest undetected and attacking outbuildings, burning batteaux and killing cattle within sight of the french forts. Once he even lured a sentry away from his post, taking the man prisoner to provide detailed information to his captors on the strength of the fort's garrison and hard to obtain details like the health of the French forces  and the state of their morale.

As Rogers schooled himself in the arts of guerrilla warfare he also began making notes on how to train ever larger numbers of scouts. Rogers' fame grew as his exploits were eagerly picked up by the colonial press, desperate for good news from the battlefield.  In March 1756  his successes earned him an interview with Massachusetts governor, William Shirley, temporarily head of the British forces in North America, since General Braddock's defeat and death the previous summer.  Shirley came away from the meeting with the impression that Rogers was not just some brash risk taker but an intelligent leader, and Rogers was given the task of forming a new sixty man independent company of rangers, paid for by the Crown and serving at the pleasure of the commander of British Forces in North America. With officers paid the equivalent of British Army officers, and privates paid almost twice that of provincial soldiers, (who themselves were better paid the regular army privates), Rogers was able to quickly fill the ranks of his new company with a recruiting trip into the New Hampshire frontier. He returned to Fort Edward via Fort No. 4 on the Connecticut river and crossed over to Crown Point where he staged a raid that killed twenty eight of the enemy's cattle. Rogers was making sure some of his new recruits would be earning their generous new pay.  His new Independent Company would be garrisoned on a fortified island in the Hudson River across from Fort Edward.

That summer the Rangers undertook an extremely dangerous mission to take a small fleet of whale boats up Woods Creek and slip by both the new Fort Carillon and Crown Point to attack a French brig sailing on the waters of Lake Champlain supplying both forts. Finding the lake swarming with enemy boats of all sizes they were obliged to attack a small galley before its crew discovered them, then hide their boats and disperse on foot back to Fort Edward.

As the winter of 1756-1757 approached Robert Rogers insured his men were prepared for it by making sure his men were properly clothed for winter operations, their muskets protected from winter rains and snows and each man had fashioned from ash splits and rawhide a pair of Ojibway style snowshoes. On January 21st he set out from Fort William Henry with a raiding party some 85 officers and enlisted men. (Eleven he would send back when he found them faltering from sickness or injuries.) North of Carillon a detachment of his raiding party had ambushed a sledge returning from the Fort, but other sledge drivers following along had seen the attack and beat a hasty retreat back to Ticonderoga.  (See my post of 11/12/13 "The Captivity Narratives") By chance, some 250 Canadians, French Regulars and western Indians had just arrived at the fort with Charles Langlade, an experienced frontier fighter and master of "le petite guerre." Along the western forests of the Trout Brook they staged their ambush. Rogers force, though severely mauled in the initial fusillade was able to fight back, and avoid encirclement, and with their ammunition nearly exhausted melt back into the forest and make their escape as darkness fell. Rogers, his forehead creased by a bullet and his wrist shot through by another ball made his escape with some fifty of his companions.

Rogers Statue. Rogers Island, Ft. Edward

At the end of January Rogers traveled to Albany to have his wounded hand treated and there he  met with Captain James Abercromby, son of Major-General Abercromby. The Captain encouraged him to codify his thoughts on ranging and wilderness warfare.  By summer these "Standing Orders"  were part of the regular ongoing training of Rangers, as Rogers was assigned the training of not only his own men but men from other units, including a new Light Infantry unit created by Brigadier General Howe.

In the late fall Rogers began planning his most ambitious raid to date, one that if successful would lead to the capture of Fort Frederic itself. Rogers' plan was to capture an entire sledge convoy heading for Fort Frederic, dress his men as the convoy's crew and gain entrance to the fort.  Once inside they would throw open the gates to other rangers and light infantry and take the fort by storm. But Rogers' spectacular career had inspired envy and his unorthodox methods discomfort. There were many in the British officer corp that wished him failure.  One such individual, unfortunately, was Colonel Haviland, Rogers' British superior at Ft. Edward.  Haviland disliked the Ranger's unsoldierly appearance. He was appalled at their slovenly camp and a mutiny in the summer of 1757 at Roger's Island set Haviland and Rogers at odds with Rogers defending the mutineers and eventually going over Haviland's head to secure their release. Once that was resolved the British colonel fumed at the Ranger's incessant hunting trips and contests of shooting at marks, which the Colonel viewed as a  waste of ammunition,  instead of useful training. Before the camp Haviland carelessly revealed Rogers' plan to attack Ft. Frederick in early March 1758 with 400 men, and then right before the raid he reduced Rogers' raiding force to a mere 183. 

Rogers was forced to set aside his plan for a more limited objective of ambushing one of the large patrols that regularly set out from Carillon. Concealing themselves in the woods back from the banks of the Trout Brook, Rogers' men waited until a group of nearly 100 French led Indians were in front of them. Though the distance was long, their first volley brought down about a dozen Indians and the rest fled with Rogers' lead divisions in hot pursuit. Unfortunately, their trail had been spotted by a small group of Indians earlier in the day and the hunters were in fact the hunted, for the Indians were but the lead contingent in front of perhaps 200 more Indians and French regulars. Their volley ripped through Rogers' pursuing men. The Ranger's advanced guard was surrounded and surrendered, but the remaining Rangers were able to pull back and avoid envelopment . Holding on until a moonlit night could partially cover their escape, the surviving Rangers dispersed into the woods between Bald and Cooks Mountains.  Rogers, himself, attracted more than his share of attention by clambering with his snowshoes up to the summit of Bald Mountain, allowing more of his comrades to escape. There he faced a sheer 700 foot drop off to the frozen lake below. Some say he flung himself off the sheer precipice, but more likely he sought out a crevice down from summit where ledges, outcropping and vegetation could slow his descent.  In any event, he emerged from the base of the cliff onto the ice below unscathed and from there organized the retreat back to the head of the lake.

Bald Mountain became known as Rogers Rock

Marker of the Week -- Still Other Remnants of the Horse-powered Society

NY 32, Feura Bush

They could fix a plow or make a pair of door hinges, but the mainstay of the local blacksmith shop was the forging of horsehoes and the shoeing of horses and just about every named community much bigger than a rural crossroads had one by the mid 19th century. Like the ubiquitous corner service stations of the 1940's, 50's and 60's with their one or two gas pumps and one or two service bays, blacksmith shops were locally owned and served the transportation needs of the community.

NY443 Clarksville

It Happened Here --The Captivity Narratives (Part 1)

While doing some reading for an upcoming blog on Roger's Rangers I was reminded of one of the early forms of colonial literature, the "Captivity Narrative." During the first "battle on snowshoes"  sixteen year old Thomas Brown was captured and would later write about his experience.

From the earliest days of colonial exploration and settlement accounts of settlers capture and captivity by Native Americans were part of the American experience that survivors of that experience felt compelled to record for their contemporaries and for posterity. Thus, Captain John Smith would describe his capture by Opechancanough, brother of the powerful chief Powhatan and his rescue by Pocahontas in 1607. In one of the most famous captivity narratives Mary Rowlandson would describe her eleven week captivity in the hands of the Nipmuc and Narragansett Indians during the the King Phillip's War in 1676.  Rowlandson's  The Sovereignty and Goodness of God:  Being a Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson became perhaps America's first best seller. Going through four printings in 1682, it was later studied extensively by scholars seeking to understand how Puritans viewed their Indian neighbors in the 17th century.

In Indian warfare, among the Eastern Woodland peoples. taking prisoners was probably always  as an important an objective as was capturing plunder and taking scalps. Prisoners might be used or sold as slaves, ritually tortured to appease spirits or to satisfy the need for revenge, or given for adoption to family members who had lost loved ones through disease or warfare. Contacts with Europeans only exacerbated these needs.  First contacts with Europeans had introduced diseases that decimated Native American communities. The loss of wives, children, and young men who would have become the future hunters/warriors in the tribe were keenly felt. The desire for European weapons and trade goods inspired a fierce competition for previously little valued beaver pelts.  Fueled by the desire to dominate the beaver trade, the Iroquois engaged in internecine warfare with most of their Native American neighbors throughout most of the 17th century.  The losses incurred by these "beaver wars" led to further raids, so called "mourning wars" motivated by the twin desires for revenge and replacement of lost family members. The outbreak of war between France and England, and their respective colonies added new incentives. Both English and French colonial authorities offered bounties for scalps and ransoms for live prisoners, with, of course, higher bounties paid for live prisoners. Particularly in labor-starved New France prisoners of war could be put to use in agricultural tasks. Britain would continue the practice on the frontier in the American War for Independence.

Writing in 1760, Thomas Brown produced a small pamphlet that detailed how he was taken prisoner while participating in a raid deep in enemy territory between the French forts of Carillon and St. Frederick at Crown Point. The raid led by Robert Rogers attacked a supply sled heading north from Carillon. As a detachment of Rangers attacked the sled, more sleds came into view and seeing the danger quickly turned tail for Carillon and made their escape. From the prisoners Roberts captured he learned that a force of nearly two hundred and fifty French and Indians had just arrived at Carillon and that being just arrived, would be fully equipped and available to intercept him.  One of Rogers precepts for scouting was never take the same route back from a scouting foray as you do on the way out, but he probably felt his best option, with the deep snow was to make his way back along the trail already broken through the snow to outrun any pursuers. Unfortunately, either through good luck or information brought by a foraging hunter,  the French found the Rangers' trail and were able to set an ambush. Only the cocking of some two hundred muskets gave away their position, too late to respond as a wave of fire tore through the Ranger ranks. Thomas Brown was shot through the side but was able to dispatch the prisoner he was guarding. Brown fired several shots before a musket ball smashed his gun stock. Dodging an attacking Indian, he broke his snowshoes, then kicking out of them lost his moccasins. Fighting through the afternoon,  he suffered additional musket ball wounds to his knee and shoulder.  Covered with blood, and probably slipping in and out of consciousness he was left for dead in the darkness when the order came for the Rangers to retreat back into the forest, as night fell.

During that night Thomas came upon his Captain and a British volunteer, both severely injured but alive. To prevent them from freezing to death Brown kindled a small fire. Later he watched in horror as he observed an Indian creeping toward them. Brown managed to crawl out beyond the light of the fire as the Indian attacked Captain Speakman stripping him of his clothes and scalping the still living officer.  Confronted with the horror of Speakman's scalping, Baker, the British volunteer attempted to cut his own throat but the Indian knocked his knife away and with a whoop grabbed the wounded soldier and bolted away into the darkness. Speakman, still conscious, begged Brown to end his life. Brown refused.  After Speakman died Brown began to hobble his way southward until about 11AM the next day when he was tracked down by a party of four Indians. Much to Brown's surprise, they staunched his wounds with leaves and took him to the French encampment,  near the battle site.  There he was reunited with private Baker and five other Rangers. The prisoners were ordered to march to Carillon but Baker was at the end of his endurance and refused to go on. As an Indian stepped forward, grabbing the British soldier's hair to scalp him, Brown swung the soldier's arms over his back, demonstrating he would carry him the one and a half miles to Ft. Carillon.

At Carillon Brown and the other captives were  well treated. The French Commandant fed them, bandaged their wounds and even gave them a bottle of claret. By the end of March, Brown was recovered enough to travel. His new master, one of the Indians who had captured him, hitched him to a heavy sledge and compelled him to pull it up the frozen lake to Crown Point. Near the Fort, as he reached the point of exhaustion, Brown invited three Indian women to climb on board the sled and told them he wished he could pull them as well. This act of bravado, along with his previous acts of courage, stamina and endurance led his captors to begin to consider the teenager as a candidate for adaption, instead of a slave and a war trophy.  Relieved of his heaviest burdens he was stripped of his clothes and given a blanket.  His hair was cut in the fashion of his captor's tribe, his face painted and his hand was tattooed. All of this he accepted.  When another captive resisted such treatment he was burned at the stake and Brown was compelled to participate in the Indians rituals and dancing around the fire.   Taken to an Indian village, a few miles from Montreal, Brown endured a version of the gauntlet ritual. Stripped naked he was forced to run to a wigwam as the villagers chased him, pelting him with sticks and stones.

That summer Brown was taken by his captor to his home in the Missisippi country and given to a women who was to be his adopted mother. Throughout the winter of 1757-1758 he hunted and dressed pelts for her. In the spring a French trader arrived. The trader needed help transporting the pelts he had bought back to Montreal. Brown convinced her to let him go with the voyageur. Back in Montreal Brown was traded to a Canadian farmer to work on his farm for food and clothing. Over the summer he became acquainted with another prisoner, a boy working on an adjacent farm. They conspired to escape together, and Brown, who was allowed the use of a gun for shooting pigeons, shot extra, drying them and hiding them in the woods. In September Brown and the boy made their escape. After a week, however, their food gave out and they survived for another fifteen days on roots worms and frogs, before the boy died. Brown considered cannibalism and even removed some of the flesh from the boy's body before burying it, but he could not bring himself to eat his friend's flesh. Brown was on the verge of succumbing, himself,  when a partridge landed nearby which he was able to shoot, cook and eat, along with two other pigeons.  His gunshots led a group of Canadian foragers to signal back to him and he was able find them before collapsing.  In their company he made a feeble attempt to present himself as a Dutchman in the service of the French army but they took him to Crown Point where he was quickly recognized. Under guard, the boy Ranger was returned to his Canadian master in Montreal. For the next several weeks he skirted extreme abuse from his outraged master by seeking the friendship and protection of a French officer quartered in the his master's home. In November 1758 Thomas Brown was included in a prisoner exchange and returned to Boston.

A Plain Narrative of the Uncommon Sufferings, and Remarkable Deliverance of Thomas Brown was published two years later in Boston.  Selling for "8 Coppers", it was very popular and had a second printing that same year.

Marker of the Week -- A remnant of the horse-powered society.

 

In one of his posts last week,  Hoxsie!  blogger Carl Johnson featured an 1863 advertisement for an Albany dealer of hay and feed. It is easy to forget the accommodations that were necessary to provide for a horse-powered society. Occasionally the NYSHM's remind us of some of those accommodations.

  The Reformed Church in Unionville on Rte 443 in Albany County is pretty typical of most country churches built in the first half of the 19th century.  What sets it apart from most churches of its day is the survival of a very large 1840 horse shed. While it seems reasonable that many churches should have had these, with services running for four or five hours or more,  in both summer heat and through winter storms,  there is little evidence at most churches that this type of building ever existed.

It Happened Here -- The Ghost of Duncan Campbell

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

Campbell's Marker *

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

On Lord Howe St., along the LaChute river

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

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

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

Ticonderoga from Rattlesnake Mt. aka. Mount Defiance

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

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

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

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

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

Baldwin Rd., Ticonderoga

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

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

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

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

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

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