It Happened Here -- Tryon County's Women in War  (Continued)

Last week's post told the stories of two women of Tyron County, who despite their losses acted with courage and determination to protect their families and to carry on in the aftermath of the Tory/Indian raids of 1780.  This week's post tells the stories of two women, who in the same raids, with cold fury faced down armed Indian invaders of their homes to prevent the theft of, or to recover their prized possessions.

NY 29 and Halles Mills Rd., Johnstown

Southeast of Johnstown was the homestead of Lodowick Putnam and his family.  In May 1780 Sir John Johnson with a force of 500 Tories and Indians came down through the Champlain Valley, Lake George and Sacandaga to attack the eastern end of the Mohawk Valley.  Around midnight some Indians from Johnson's force entered the Putnam home and began to ransack it, grabbing clothes off of their wall hooks. Putnam's wife Elizabeth, threw herself at one of the Indians declaring she needed those clothes for her daughter Hannah.  The two wrestled over the garments* until the Indian gave up the fight.  The Indians killed and scalped Lodowick Putnam and their son Aaron but left Elizabeth unharmed. They set fire to the house and Elizabeth and her younger children made their way the several miles through the darkness to alert the garrison at Fort Johnson.

Up river in Canjoharie,  Nancy Van Alstyne led her neighbors in hiding their most valuable possessions on an island in the center of

Moyer St., Canajoharie

the Mohawk owned by her husband. When the raiders struck the town a few days later, she must have watched with mixed feelings of horror and relief when her neighbors' houses went up in flames while her own stone house was spared.  Her husband, Martin J. Van Alstyne had been friends with the Johnsons before the war, although he became active in rebel politics and had hosted meetings of the town's Committee of Safety in their house. Because of his former connections to the Johnsons the raiders were under orders not to disturb his property.

In the fall of 1780 the raiders returned.  This time the Van Alystynes were not so lucky.  Indians ransacked the house, but did not burn it.  Gone were many of the family's possessions, including cooking utensils and most of the family's horses. After the raid,  Johnson, the Tories and many of the Indians accompanying them returned to winter quarters in Canada, but a few Indian bands decided to over-Winter in their old homelands along the Mohawk valley. Building fortified encampments, they settled in for the winter.  The location of one of these camps, within two dozen miles of Canajoharie became common knowledge and Nancy urged her husband to mobilize the local militia to attack it. But local residents still reeling from the summer's raids, were in no mood to incur further losses.  By mid-winter still no action had been taken and Nancy obsessed with recovering her lost things decided to take matters into her own hands. Taking her sixteen year old son with her, she harnessed a horse to the family's wagon. Ignoring the pleas of her family to be reasonable, she set out down snow choked trails to the Indian encampment. After a difficult trip of some twenty miles she arrived at the door of a large hut in the encampment.  The camp was nearly deserted as most of the warriors were out hunting.  She found only an old Indian woman tending a fire, who looked up and demanded to know what she wanted.  Numb and exhausted from the cold. she mumbled "Food."  As the woman set about preparing her a portion, Nancy realized she was using her cooking utensils. When the woman was distracted, Nancy snapped up the utensil and threw them in her wagon.  Outside, in a stable, she saw her family's horses and they recognized her.  Cutting their halters she gave them a slap, sending them down the trail toward home.  Her mission accomplished, she and her son made a hasty escape.  Later, when a group of Indians returned to the Van Alystyne home to reclaim their spoils she turned them away with a fierce show of defiance and by reminding them of the protection Johnson had given them.

Based on family legends these stories of Tryon County women in war can never be documented, but how plausible are they?  Certainly, the independence and determination of Dutch women in colonial America borders on legendary. From the wives of patroons (see my post of 6/30/13) to the common Vrouw  Dutch women ran their households and often partnered in their husband's enterprises.  They often managed servants and slaves and regularly had business with Indians that frequented frontier towns (and generally didn't have a very high opinion of them.)  The Iroquois, for their part, were raised in a matrilineal society, where the matriarchy controlled most domestic affairs.  Clan matriarchs that spoke with authority were given a great deal of deference.  Additionally, warriors were brought up to respect both bravery and bravado. Given these sets of cultural factors it is easy to see how these exchanges could have occurred and played out as they were reported.
 

*This story bears a remarkable similarity to one from Greene County--see my post of 12/17/13

 Marker of the Week--If you think "It's a Long Way to Tipperary"... 

Traveling along today's roads the trip from
Plattsburgh to Sackett's Harbor is

Rt. 30A, Gloversville

about 176 miles. However, if you have to come by way of Johnstown, its a bit longer.

 In 1814 General George Izard had been assigned to the Northern Army defending Lake Champlain. What he found was an army of 4000 poorly trained volunteers and 7000 raw recruits and almost non-existent defenses. Over a period of months he worked to train his men and build defenses around Plattsburgh. In a masterstroke of poor planning and terrible timing Izard was reassigned to take 4000 of his men and take over command of facilities at Sackett's Harbor to begin operations on the Niagara Frontier. (Meanwhile, the British were in the process of sending 30,000 battle hardened veterans of the Napoleonic Wars to attack Plattsburgh!) But there were no roads across the New York north country, and of course sailing up the St. Lawrence was out of the question.The alternative was a 400 mile march over bad roads, down the Champlain/Lake George corridor, across to Johnstown, before heading up the Mohawk, portaging to Oneida Lake and on north to Sackett's Harbor.

It's no wonder that after peace was restored President Monroe issued a directive in 1817 for a road to be built across the northern part of the state that became known as "the Old Military Highway."  Constructed with military labor, the project dragged on until 1826, beginning in Port Kent and ending up east of Potsdam.

It Happened Here -- Tryon County's Women in War 

Though women in the American Revolution were usually "non-combatants" the Tory and Indian raids of 1778, 1780 and 1781 brought the war to their doorsteps forcing women into roles and committing them to actions far outside their everyday experience.  While countless acts of determination, courage and heroism have gone unrecorded, most of those that are recalled are those passed down by word of mouth, from grandmother to granddaughter, down through the generations,  not written down for 100  years or more and then recorded by Victorian chroniclers perhaps anxious to illustrate the "nobility of the American Frontier Woman" and not above embellishing skimpy facts or perhaps creating "a good story" out of whole cloth.   To professional historians used to dealing with participants' letters and diaries, account books, military unit returns and the works of some early writers that are based on participant interviews and battlefield observations, dealing with such unsubstantiated historical "facts" like these are likely to leave historians feeling a bit "queasy".  Be that as it may, these stories can illustrate some of the roles and actions women played in this period.  Most of the NYSHM's don't refer to these women, either, but  they at least identify the scene of their actions.

On Rte 30A Esperance

In 1778, 1780 and 1781  mixed forces of Tories, Indians and British Regulars raided first the Schoharie and then the Mohawk Valleys.  Militarily they hoped to terrorize the inhabitants of the valleys and tie up large numbers of patriot troops to protect the region; strategically they hoped to disrupt the harvests and destroy wheat production used to feed rebel forces; and personally many Tories hoped to exact revenge for their' expulsion from their homes. Indian forces were similarly motivated by the destruction of their towns across Iroquoia by the Sullivan/ Clinton campaign of 1779.

On Noeltner Rd, Auriesville

     
           

           From early in the Revolution, the mills and 

           wheat fields of the Mohawk and Schoharie 

           Valleys were crucial to provisioning the       

            Patriot's  forces. 

On Denice Rd., off of Ft. Hunter Rd.

The fate of many women in the Mohawk Valley was to deal with loss of a husband or brother or son and of carry on without their loved one's help and economic support. Many families lost members in the third summer of the war as hundreds of Valley menfolk marched off to Oriskany never to return. The burden for women like Elizabeth (Cline) Pettingill is difficult to imagine, running a small farm, alone, with thirteen children!  It became worse in the summer of 1780. As Indian raiders approached, she gathered up her brood and fled, finding refuge under the overgrown banks of the Chuctanunda Creek. As Indian warriors began to track down the family one of the younger children (probably three and a half year old Hendrick, born January 1777)  began to cry and could not be quieted.  Desperate with fear of discovery, Elizabeth stuffed her petticoat in the child's face to muffle its cries.   By the time the danger had passed the child was unconscious but by shaking it vigorously she was able to revive it.  The family emerged to find their house, barn and outbuilding burned to the ground.  Gradually they managed to rebuild, surviving the first winter on wheat that had been scorched but not destroyed in a corner of the barn that now lay in ruins.

On Rte. 334, Fonda

On Rte 30A, at Fairgrounds

Peggy Wemple had more time to adjust to life without a husband, before the Revolution intruded into her life.  Her husband, Barent Wemple, had been a fur trader.  He was fluent in the Seneca dialect and served as a translator in several of the treaty conferences at Johnson Hall in 1769.  In 1771 he was killed in dispute with Indian fur traders.

  Peggy ran a tavern on Cayadutta Street in Caughnawaga* and with her son, Myndert, ran a gristmill on the Cayadutta creek.  She was renowned  for both her beauty and her fierce determination and independence. In 1780, when Tory and Indian raiders rampaged through the town,  she probably met them at the door, barring their way! They forced her inside, barricaded the door and set fire to the building. From an upstairs window she could be heard yelling "Help, Help! Murder, Murder!" Her son was taken captive.  Peggy's brother, John Fonda, sent his slave to investigate but before a rescue could be undertaken the Fonda property was overrun and John and his family was forced to flee. Peggy, apparently, effected her own escape as the tavern and the mill burned to the ground.

Meanwhile, Peggy's father,  Douw Fonda, a local patriot leader and fur trader was apprehended. One of the Indians, "One armed Peter," who knew the elder Fonda from before the war, struck him down and scalped the old man, believing he was certain to be killed, and that being the case, he, Peter might as well reap the financial incentives for taking his scalp!

Following the raid, Myndert was released at Johnstown, and Peggy, determined to go on, began immediately to rebuild.  Money from Douw Fonda's estate and the bequest of three of Fonda's slaves (Africa, Jacob and Catherine) gave her the resources to proceed.  Soon the new mill was up and running and Peggy pushed its production.  By winter of 1780 it had ground and "boulted**" 2700 skepples (2025 bushels) of wheat to be used by the garrisons of Fort Ticonderoga, Fort Hunter, Fort Plank and Fort Stanwix.

*Caughnawaga was named for the nearby Indian town of Caughnawauga, abandoned in 1694. The town's name was changed to Fonda in honor of its founder, Douw Fonda.

**"Boulting" or sifting was the process of sifting out bran and larger particles out of the flour to lighten it and give it better baking qualities. Sieves were made of large wooden hoops covered with a very fine woven cloth, through which the flour was shaken.


Next Week --  Tyron County's Women in War--continues.

Marker of the Week --  He almost got it!                                                                                                                    

On Darrow Rd., Currytown

In 1831 Enoch Ambler devised one of the first mowing machines, to be pulled by horses. It had many of the features that would become standard in many of the mowing machines and reapers over the next 75 years--a long sickle bar that shuttled back and forth, powered by one or more wheels that supported the machine and turned as it was pulled forward by horses. Teeth guided the bar over the ground and channeled the grasses into the sickle.  A skid supported the end of the bar. The sickle-bar was razor sharp like the scythe-man's scythe  until it got dull after a few passes.  But unlike the scythe-er, the mower machine operator couldn't stop, reach into his back pocket and pull out his whet-stone to give his blade a few quick passes to keep it razor sharp. So Enoch Ambler's machine cut at first, then pulled, then jammed.  Ambler wasn't wealthy so it took him a few years to recruit a couple of backers to help him secure a patent.  By then several competitors were using versions of his innovations. Finally he sold his patent and all its rights to a man for $250, and retired from inventing to split shingles for a living.  After a long life he was killed in a shooting accident and was buried in a pauper's grave. The man who bought the patent combined Ambler's machine with a saw toothed scythe blade, which with Ambler-designed guide-teeth scissored off grasses or crops. He combined that with a platform and paddles that swept shocks of grain into bundles.  Cyrus McCormack's reaper made millions, and his company eventually formed the nucleus of International Harvester.