It Happened Here -- The Short Violent Life of Walter Butler --part 1

Old Trail Rd., Fonda

At the beginning of 1774 the future must have seemed bright for Walter Butler.  For two generations the Butlers had been faithful and trusted functionaries of the great landowner and crown Superintendent of Indian affairs, Sir William Johnson.  Walter's grandfather had been given a huge piece of land overlooking the Mohawk valley by the Mohawks (some said during a night of carousing with them at Fort Johnson,  Sir William's second home and trading post)  In 1742 Walter's grandfather had built Butlersbury and Walter had been born there about 1751.  In 1774 Walter was practicing law in Albany.

The Butler Homestead

Little is known about Walter's childhood. His father was frequently away on business with the Indian Department, and it is likely he formed an especially close bond with his mother who with three younger children must have depended heavily on him to help run her household. He may have been educated at home and he may have received some education from Edward Wall, a schoolmaster at Sir William's free school, set up before 1769 in Johnstown.  Wall married Walter's cousin Deborah. One historian has suggested he may have followed in the footsteps of Joseph Brant, a decade before, receiving some instruction at Eleazer Wheelock's school, in Lebanon, Connecticut.  In 1768 John Butler was commissioned as a Lt. Colonel in a new militia regiment and as was typical for the time, son Walter along with several other sons of prominent fathers was commissioned an ensign in the unit.  By the early 1770's Walter was reading for the practice of Law in the office of Peter Silvester in Albany and a few years later was in a law partnership with Peter Van Shaak.

Then beginning in the summer of 1774 things began to fall apart. In July, Sir William suddenly died. The heirs to the Johnson empire, son Sir John Johnson, nephew Guy Johnson, and cronies Daniel Claus and Joseph Brant did not share the same affection for the Butler family that Sir William had, and throughout his short life they seemed to spend an inordinate amount of time second guessing or belittling his and his father's efforts. Seemingly, almost overnight the difficulties and squabbles of the New England Yankees became the concerns of settlers in the Mohawk Valley. The Loyalists, as they soon would call themselves, felt compelled to draft a statement of loyalty to the Crown in March 1775, which young Walter naturally signed; then following the conflict at Lexington and Concord, in April, a group of dissidents attempted to raise a "Liberty Pole" near Caughnawaga*. Walter rode out with the Johnsons to break up this meeting. The Johnsons collected arms and fortified Johnson Hall while local Committees of Safety were formed to counter any actions of the Loyalists might take. 

Johnson Hall, Johnstown

*NYSHMs It Happened Here post of 7/4/15

Rte 5, Amsterdam

In May,  Guy Johnson heard he was about to be arrested by the provisional government in Albany and the local Committee of Safety. He fled to Canada, taking Sir John and 170 of his male supporters with him. Walter and his father John Butler left with them. Soon after they arrived in Montreal they learned Lady Johnson and Mrs Butler had been taken into custody with Walter's younger brothers and sister. This fact likely weighed heavily on Walter and he would spend a great deal of effort the next few years going through channels to obtain their release and obtaining women and children hostages to exchange for his family members.

The Battle of Bunker Hill and the attack on Fort Ticonderoga confirmed that a state of war existed.  Walter enlisted as an ensign in the 8th Regiment of Foot helping to thwart the first attack on Montreal by Ethan Allen's force. The following summer Butler was with St. Leger's Army when it invested Fort Schuyler (Stanwix).  He was there in the thick of the fighting at the Oriskany ambush and less than a week later he initiated one of the strangest episodes of his life.

Oriskany Battlefield,  Rte 69,  West of Oriskany

Rte 5, Mohawk

From the long perspective of history the Battle of Oriskany was an American victory because it turned back the western invasion force that intended to link up with Burgoyne's Army. But in the first days following the battle it seemed anything but a rebel victory. After a horrific battle, the Tryon county militia limped home, having failed to break the siege of Fort Schuyler, and having lost over 400 of its approximately 730 militiamen. On the heels of this debacle, Walter Butler talked his superiors into allowing him to go to the heart of the Mohawk Valley to recruit disillusioned valley residents to the Loyalist side. With about a dozen loyalists and Indians he appeared at the Shoemaker Tavern, the home of a prominent Tory, in German Flats,  under a flag of truce and began to harangue Tory sympathizers and anyone who would listen. Before long, the local militia got wind of Butler's activity; the tavern was surrounded and Walter Butler was in custody. Walter was not in uniform so he was charged with being a spy. Butler may have believed his flag of truce exempted him from being held and tried as a spy, but the court convened by Col. Marinus Willet would have nothing of his arguments and shortly he was carted off to Albany, in irons, to be hanged. But in Albany his fortunes began to look up as former law colleagues and friends convinced the authorities to stay his execution indefinitely. Conditions in the Albany gaol, however, were brutal as he sat in irons in an unheated cell, subsisting on starvation rations. After a few months his health broke down and his Albany friends feared for his life. They prevailed on the authorities to offer him a parole--a house arrest in Albany, in exchange for his promise not to try to escape.  While his health gradually improved, his father and his loyalist friends in Canada learned of his improved situation and plotted his escape. Though the details were never revealed, some facts became known. Alcohol was provided to get the lone guard stationed at his quarters drunk.  A horse was provided to allow him to slip through the early morning streets of Albany and a guide or guides met him to make his escape through the wintry Adirondacks to Quebec.

Rte 166, Cherry Valley

While his son was still in custody, Walter's father, John had been given permission to recruit a new unit, Butler's Rangers. Walter was given a captaincy in the Rangers. Throughout the spring and summer of 1778, Walter, while still recovering,  worked to build up and provision and house the new regiment while his father led contingents of the Rangers with Joseph Brant's Indians in attacks on the Wyoming Valley, on the Pennsylvania frontier.  The Americans retaliated by burning the Loyalist and Indian towns of Unadilla and Ouaquaga where Joseph Brant had based his operations.

By November, Walter was ready for a campaign of his own. The rich farming community of Cherry Valley was targeted, and because of the lateness of the season it was expected that all the summer's grain harvest would now be stored in barns where it could be destroyed. On the way, Butler's Rangers met up with Brant's Indians, still smarting from the destruction of their Susquehanna bases. Because it was so late in the year, the Cherry Valley Fort commander, Colonel Alden refused to believe reports of Indians and Tories in the vicinity of the Valley, and in the early morning hours of November 11th, Walter Butler's and Joseph Brant's raiders fell on a community totally unprepared for an attack. Most of the fort's officers were caught away from the fort in the homes of local residents where they were garrisoned. Colonel Alden was tomahawked and scalped as he attempted to make a run for the fort.  While Walter and his Rangers concentrated on attempting (unsuccessfully) to take the fort, Brant's Indians and Indian department men attacked the houses and barns in the village. Probably on Walter Butler's orders, a large number of women and children were taken captive for hostages, but many of the men in the village, children too young to survive the rigors of captivity, and women who resisted were slaughtered.  Did Butler order a massacre?  Did Brant?  We will probably never know.  It is just as likely the Seneca Indians that comprised most of the native-American raiders, out of control, initiated the atrocities themselves.  Brant, a Mohawk, probably did not have the control over the Senecas he might have had over his own Mohawks.  One thing is certain, among the Americans,  Butler was blamed for the massacre of innocents, and his reputation, following on the heels of the his father's campaign on the Pennsylvania frontier, the "Wyoming Massacre," experienced a rapid growth.

 The following year, Indians and Tories operating out of Fort Niagara were thrown on the defensive by a large scale offensive of the Continental Army, itself, designed to break the back of  Iroquois, and force them into dependency on their British allies.  Rebel armies under General George Clinton and General John Sullivan met at Tioga and began marching north into the heart of the Iroquois homeland destroying everything in their path. John and Walter Butler's Rangers were out in front of them and snapping at their heels, taking an occasional straggler but there was little the Butler's 250 or so Rangers could do against a Continental army of 4000 to 5000.  And their Indian allies, so adept at the techniques of ambush and confident in small force maneuvers stood overawed at their enemy's numbers. Desperate to stop the American advance, the Indians and Tories constructed a line of breastworks along the Chemung River, camouflaging them with tree branches in the futile hope they could spring a trap on the American army. While ambushes might work against small forces (Oriskany, Battle of Lake George--"the Bloody Morning Scout") or larger incautious armies (Braddock at the Monongahela), they would not likely succeed against a larger army well screened by scouts and pickets.

Chemung Co. Rte 60, Lowman

And so it was that the Clinton-Sullivan Army knew of the Indian/Tory's intentions even before their breastworks were completed. While John and Walter waited with their Rangers behind the concealed breastworks, and groups of Indians attempted to lure a column of Continentals to within range of the hidden Tories and Indians, two other columns of Sullivan's army attempted to work their way around in back to envelop them.  It was then Sullivan's artillery opened up on the breastworks, to focus British and Indian attention in front of the barricade, to allow Sullivan's columns to complete their encirclement undetected.  But then the unexpected happened. The exploding shells landing in back of the Indians led them to believe they were already encircled by artillery. The panicked Indians scattered and quickly discovered the encircling columns before Sullivan's army could close the trap. In total disarray Indians, Tories and British regulars bolted through the opening, and escaped. Remarkably less than three dozen Indian and Loyalist troops were killed, wounded or captured, but the Indians were badly rattled. They would never again stand to fight Sullivan's Army during the rest of the entire campaign. Only when Sullivan, after four weeks of destroying Indian fields and villages was preparing to return did a significant skirmish occur.  In the Genessee Valley a large party scouting ahead of the main army was ambushed.
Twenty two scouts were killed and its leaders, Lieutenant Boyd and and Sargent Parker were captured. The Indians poured out their weeks of frustration and impotence into torturing them.  The Butlers, infamously, did nothing to stop them.

Next week-- The Short Violent Life of Walter Butler --part 2

Marker of the Week-- What ever happened to Melancton Lloyd Woolsey?

Cumberland Head Road, Plattsburgh.

 When we last heard of Melancton Lloyd Woolsey (NYSHMs:It Happened Here of 7/19/15) Major Woolsey at the Middle Fort in Schoharie Valley had a failure of nerve and tried to negotiate a surrender with the Indians and Tories. Timothy Murphy had prevented that; Woolsey surrendered his command and the next day had slunk away in disgrace.  Never to be of heard of again?  Right?  No!

It is amazing what an attractive personality and a few high placed friends can do to cover over all sorts of sins and inadequacies.

It appears Mr Woolsey apparently landed on his feet, garnering both a lucrative federal job and a county job in Plattsburgh. Hopefully, if personal courage was not one of his strong points, incorruptibility was.


                            (nice house.) 

It Happened Here--The Marksman

General Simon Fraser was a good battlefield commander. He was out where you would expect a good battlefield commander would be—out with his men, observing, directing their officers, encouraging his men by his words and his example. Everywhere he went up and down the battle line, the units under his gaze seemed to respond to orders with a little more speed and precision, formed up and discharged their weapons with a little more alacrity, fought a little harder. With a practiced eye he looked out across the fields and scattered woodlands and observed where the enemy was gathering and advancing and where the weak spots were developing in the enemy's line.

General Benedict Arnold was also very much a front line-combat general. He saw what needed to be done and gave the order to Colonel Morgan who relayed it to a dozen of his best marksmen.

General Fraser probably noticed the small party of rebels roughly in front of him, hiding behind fallen logs and trees, but he probably didn't give them a second thought, firing, as they were, from an impossibly long distance. They certainly didn't look like soldiers, either, dressed in linen hunting shirts, and floppy farmers hats. One of them was even climbing a tree! Besides, he had more important concerns as the rebels had pressed them hard, pushing them out of the wheatfield, and his line was beginning to falter. When a rifle ball clipped the mane of Frasier's horse, one of the general's officers suggested he was their target and perhaps he should retire to a safer location.  Rejecting his junior officer's suggestion, he spurred his horse into a gallop to continue down the line, when another puff of smoke emerged from that tree top. A searing pain split the General's abdomen and he toppled from his horse. The General would die the next day.

General Fraser marker at the Barber Wheatfield Battlesite

• THE SHOT THAT KILLED
  GEN. FRASER
  OCT. 7, 1777
  WAS FIRED FROM NEAR HERE
  BY TIMOTHY MURPHY
  OF MORGAN'S RIFLEMEN.
  Location: SARATOGA NATIONAL HISTORICAL PARK
  (Original NYSHM marker removed when new Signage was installed) 
  

 Where Fraser fell
at the edge of the
Wheatfield

Hibernian marker Honoring Murphy

The man in that tree top was a 26 year old farmer/frontiersman from the Minisink region along the Delaware River*. Though they didn't look the part, Timothy Murphy and his companions were battle hardened soldiers. Murphy had joined the Continental Army in June 1775, as part of Thompson's Rifle battalion, and marched to the siege of Boston in June or July. He fought in skirmishes before and during the Battle of Long Island and retreated with Washington's beaten army across New Jersey. In December he had crossed the icy Delaware River with Washington's troops to defeat the Hessians encamped at Trenton and fight the British at Princeton, a few days later, before retiring to winter encampment at Morristown. That winter, George Washington ordered Daniel Morgan, of the 11^th Virginia Regiment to raise an elite corps of riflemen. Five hundred  of these men, including Murphy, were dispatched to the Northern Department to support the troops opposing Burgoyne's invasion in July 1777.

  

Following the Saratoga battles American artillery and Morgan's Riflemen kept up the pressure on the camp Burgoyne's army had retreated to, encouraging them to surrender

--Corner Rte 32 and Mennen Rd., Victory


After Murphy's detachment returned to the main army outside Philadelphia,  Morgan's riflemen
skirmished with the British during their withdrawal from Philadelphia, and the following year Murphy and other riflemen were again sent north to help garrison the forts along the New York frontier that were being thrown up to counter the threat of Indian attacks.  Murphy and others were sent to the Schoharie Valley where he was stationed at the Middle Fort, at the Dutch/Palatine settlement of Weiser's Dorf that would one day be renamed Middleburgh. From there he participated in

"scouts" to look for signs of Tory/Indian activity.  The following year he rejoined the rest of Morgan's Riflemen  in the Sullivan Campaign against the Iroquois.  Toward the end of that campaign, deep in Seneca territory he was with the ill-fated scouting party led by Lieutenant William Boyd that was ambushed. Murphy and a few others managed to escape but the others were killed and Boyd, and his Sargent were captured and tortured to death by the Iroquois.

In 1780 Murphy's enlistment was up and he chose not to reenlist, settling, instead, back in the Schoharie Valley where he was attracted by the rich farmlands and the young daughter of John  Feeck, perhaps the wealthiest man in the valley whose house, enclosed within a stockade, served as the central building in the Upper Valley Fort. The Feecks were unimpressed by this brave but illiterate frontier soldier whose future seemed destined to end with his scalp hanging on a trophy pole in some distant Iroquois longhouse. So, Timothy Murphy courted Margret in secret; had the banns of matrimony published at the Middle fort and with the connivance of friends and fellow soldiers manage to elope to Schenectady, where they were married. Only when Murphy threatened to leave with his bride to the Pennsylvania frontier, did Mr and Mrs Feeck warm to their new son-in-law, and Murphy and his bride settled near them after war's end.

Not surprisingly, Murphy joined the militia and volunteered for hazardous patrols deep in Iroquois territory, but he became best known for his actions when the Middle Fort was attacked late in October of 1780.

NY Rte 30, south of Middleburgh (both)

After raiding Johnstown in May of 1780,  Joseph Brant launched a second assault from the southwest, following the Indian trail that followed up the  Susquehanna, through the Charlotte valley, and the Panther creek to the upper (southern) end of the Schoharie Valley. Brant shared command with Lt. Col. Sir John Johnson and together they commanded a mixed force of 90 British Regulars, 130 Butler's Rangers, 250 King's Royal Regiment (Loyalists), 30 German Jagers, 80 Indian Department Men** (under Brant) and some 200 Mohawks, Onondagas, Cayugas, Senecas and Delawares.  With them on sledges they pulled a small bronze cannon on removable legs that fired a 3" solid ball, called a "grasshopper" and two mortars (probably Coehorns) that lobbed 4" hollow exploding cannon balls. Brant chose such a late date to begin his raid because a main objective was to destroy the grain harvest after it had been collected into barns up and down the Schoharie  and Mohawk Valleys.

                                                                                                                                                Schoharie Co. Rte 20, Summit          

             NY 30, Fultonham                                                                          
                         
                                                                                                                  





                        Replica Coehorns at a
Monument on the Ticonderoga Battlefield
Johnson's were slightly smaller 4"mortars.




In command of the three Schoharie Valley forts, stationed at the Middle fort, was a Continental officer, Major Melanchthon Lloyd Woolsey,  apparently a dashing, charming figure known for his equestrian jumping ability. Major Woolsey, however, had a flaw fatal for a military officer.

NY 145, Middleburgh

Brant and Johnson's force by-passed the Upper Valley Fort, hoping to get nearer the center of the valley to begin torching barns and homes before they were discovered. But then a party from the Upper fort stumbled into the rear of their column, and soon an alarm cannon was sounding from the Upper fort.  A scouting party, that included Murphy, was sent from the Middle fort to investigate,  and was forced to  make a fighting retreat back to their fort north of Weiser's Dorf.  The Crown forces quickly surrounded the Middle fort as the Indians and their Indian Department handlers fanned out to systematically burn and pillage, and the Regulars employed their meager artillery against the fort.  Johnson, after a short while, became disappointed at the seeming lack of effect his artillery was having on the Fort, so he attempted a different tactic--he would try to negotiate a surrender.

Meanwhile, inside the fort the exploding shells were having a negligible effect, except on the fort's commander.  Major Woolsey was gripped by fear--uncontrollable fear.  No doubt his fear was heightened by the knowledge that the fort had not received a promised allotment of gunpowder, and had precious little to withstand a determined or protracted assault. Perhaps from his vantage point he could get a sense of how outnumbered his garrison was. (There were actually less than 250 defenders to repel nearly 800 attackers.)  And of course there was the awful specter of the fort being overrun with the carnage and scalpings and mutilations and ritual tortures of survivors that characterized this war on the frontier. Woolsey must have shown a palpable sense of relief when he saw a green uniformed Tory officer coming forward with a fifer and flag bearer carrying a white banner to discuss surrender terms.  He retired to get ready to meet them when he heard a shot ring out from his own palisade warning them off. Enraged, he raced up on the firing platform, pistol in hand, demanding to know who had fired the shot. As the fort's officers gathered around, Timothy Murphy spoke up declaring he had. Woolsey threatened to shoot him if he attempted to fire again. Murphy responded that rather than see the flag enter the fort, he would put a bullet through the major's heart.  Woolsey ordered Murphy's arrest but the fort's officers were on Murphy's side, and no one moved.  Woolsey stormed off, hesitating only when he heard Murphy's rifle chasing back the Tory officer for a second time***.

NY 30, south of Middleburgh on the roadside turnout

Johnson, perhaps observing the dissension in the fort, sent his officer out a third time, only to be chased back a third time by a shot from Murphy's rifle; and the battle resumed. The major sought cover in a protected area of the fort where the women and children were being sheltered but was driven out by their threats and derisive comments. Seeking shelter between buildings near a cellar that served as the fort's magazine, Woolsey encountered militia Colonel Peter Vroman****, bringing up powder and shot. (Vroman had chosen to carry the powder himself, so the defenders didn't realize how short they were of gunpowder.) Vroman asked  Woolsey why he wasn't up in the fort directing his men.  The Major abjectly replied that the men refused to follow his orders and now Vroman was in command. Just then a cannon shot from the Tories' 3" cannon ricocheted between the buildings and fell at the Colonel's feet. Vroman picked it up and playfully ordered Woolsey to return it to the Tories.

Burial site marker for P. Vroman at the Old Stone Fort Church

Woolsey made an obscene comment and Vroman replied he regretted he had left his sword behind when he came to fetch the gunpowder for otherwise he would run him through with it.

After the Brant's Indians and Tories had completed their work of destruction in the vicinity of Weiser's Dorf, Johnson's forces melted away as suddenly as they had come, continuing down the valley to Schoharie. They surrounded the Lower Fort, a palisade encircling the stone Schoharie Dutch Church, and commenced burning barns and houses in the area. They kept up a desultory fire for a few hours before moving on to set up overnight camp near what became Sloansville, and continued their raid up the Mohawk Valley. The following day, Major Woolsey mounted his horse and left the Schoharie Valley, never to return.

The "Old Stone (Lower Valley) Fort" Fort Rd., Schoharie

Rte 30A, Sloansville

Early the following year Timothy Murphy enlisted in the Pennsylvania Line, under "Mad" Anthony Wayne, participating in the Southern Campaign that culminated in the surrender of Cornwalis at Yorktown. After the war he returned to the Schoharie Valley, became a successful farmer, ran a gristmill, and although he never learned to read or write, entered local politics. He had several children with Peggy and after she died in 1807, he remarried and moved to the Charlotte Valley where he continued to farm and raised a second family.  In his final year he returned to Fultonham and when he died was buried in the Middleburgh Cemetery next to his first wife, in 1818.

                               At the Murphy home,
                                       Charlotteville, NY

Rte 145, south of Middleburgh

*In recent years historians have backed away from the assertion that Murphy was the rifleman that killed Gen. Fraser. The only evidence comes from Jeptha Simms who says he got the story from one of Murphy's sons who reported his father told him he had made the fatal shot. Another witness claimed he had seen an old farmer with an exceptionally long rifle shoot the General. (Rifles at that time were individually crafted, and could be made to a buyer's specifications.) Daniel Morgan, who spoke about the incident on several occasions never identified the shooter, however, there is no doubt that Murphy was at the battle, and acknowledged as one of the best marksmen in the corps, he would likely have been one of those chosen for the assignment.
**Indian Department men were quasi-military leaders whose job it was to accompany the Indians and act as liaisons between
the warriors and the British military. 
***Murphy was said to own a rare double barreled rifle which though perhaps to heavy to carry on long patrols, he probably had with him on garrison duty. 
****Also written as Vrooman.