Part 4

This war was a prelude to the French and Indian, or Seven Years’ War, which, with its five campaigns, raged continuously through the war-worn valley of the grand northern waterways. Nearly a century and a half of struggle, first of the French discoverers and missionaries with the savages, and then of the Frenchmen and Iroquois, and later the French, the Indians, and the English, had proved the importance of this valley as the northern doorway to the country. Of the three expeditions first planned to be sent simultaneously against the French—one under Braddock against Fort Duquesne, another under Shirley against Niagara, and another under Johnson against Crown Point,—the third was considered the most important.

In August, Major-General William Johnson took command in person and pushed on to the outlet of Lake George, intending to build a fort at Ticonderoga as a defence against Crown Point, to which the French had extended their possessions in the last interval of peace. Before his design could be accomplished, desperate warfare disturbed the placid waters of the beautiful lakes and so discolored their outlying waters that time has not yet effaced the name of “Bloody Pond.”

Abercrombie’s campaign in 1758 was a fatal mistake. The brilliant hope inspired by his fine army of Regulars with their splendid accoutrements, his thousands of boats paraded on the broad lake with banners flying and strains of music unknown in the wilderness, was turned to gloom when a few days later the boats returned laden with the dead and dying, and carrying the body of the beloved Lord Howe.

Again, in 1759, the war-trail of old Saratoga was trodden by an English army, twelve thousand strong, under the command of the successful Lord Amherst. In the autumn the final conflict came when the death of Wolfe signalled the triumph of England, and the great waterways passed under the sovereignty of the Anglo-Saxons.

[Illustration: CONGRESS SPRING IN 1820.]

For some years, Sir William Johnson suffered from the effects of a wound received in the hip during the war. In 1767, his Indian friends told him about the “Great Medicine Waters” of Saratoga, and carried him by boat and on a stretcher to the mysterious spring. The waters proved so beneficial that he was able to return over the “carrying-place” unaided and on foot. The waters which he drank were taken from the High Rock Spring of Saratoga Springs. Once they overflowed the cone-like rock through which they now rise and from which they are dipped, and the rock was gradually deposited and formed by the overflow. The process has lately been repeated by new springs like the Geyser and the Champion, which for some years threw the water several feet into the air, leaving a heavy cascade-like deposit about the opening. Gradually the waters subsided, the geyser effect was lost, and like the High Rock Spring they have fallen below the level of the ground.

In the year (1767) of Sir William Johnson’s expedition, the old land troubles with the Six Nations were settled amicably at the Fort Stanwix conference, where over three thousand red men met the English commissioners. The complaints of alleged frauds in purchase and surveys included the Kayadrossera patent, which covered 700,000 acres lying between the Hudson and the Mohawk, obtained by grant in 1703 and confirmed in 1708.

Yet quiet did not prevail. The restless spirits of the wilderness were stirred by their first political aspirations. The Schuylers, whose possessions extended over the old Saratoga hunting-ground, awoke the farmers to an interest in the burning questions of the day. Sloops sailing up the Hudson brought rumors of riots in New York City, and of the resistance offered by the Sons of Liberty to the execution of the Stamp Act. When news came that no good patriot would wear imported garments, the women redoubled their efforts to produce from spinning-wheel and loom the homespun fabric. As the King grew more determined, and the people learned more clearly what rights were theirs, the British soldiers became violent and the patriots more indignant and outspoken. The first military order of the home government to put the forts at Crown Point and Ticonderoga on a war basis was quickly followed by the tramp of soldiers through the wilderness. The rumble of artillery and of commissary wagons broke once more the stillness of the forest. The farmers who lived along the old war-trail revived by the evening fireside the stories of the French and Indian wars. The Indians, quick to discern the coming storm, began once more, under the influence of the Johnson family (allied to them through Brandt and his sister), to destroy property and massacre the unprepared. The settlers of the “long valley” were bearing at this time the brunt of the preliminary warfare of the American Revolution. They met the issue bravely. While they fought, their wives and daughters gathered in the crops, melted into bullets the treasured pewter teapots and sugar-bowls, learned to shoot, to barricade their houses or their little forts, and to conceal themselves from prowling bands of Indians and savage Tories. It was then that the Royalist Governor Tryon, taking refuge on a war vessel, exclaimed, “The Americans from politicians are now becoming soldiers.” Had he witnessed the courageous deeds of the women of the great waterways, he would perhaps have added, “The women from housekeepers are becoming farmers and fighters.”

[Illustration: KAYADROSSERA PATENT, WITH GREAT SEAL OF QUEEN ANNE PENDANT, 1708.

ORIGINAL IN SARATOGA COUNTY CLERK’S OFFICE.]

[Illustration: WOMEN OF THE REVOLUTION, 1776.

FROM TABLET ON SARATOGA BATTLE MONUMENT, SCHUYLERVILLE, N. Y.]

New anxieties arose in the Province of New York as rumors multiplied of the advance in stately procession of a new and splendid army of the British, recently arrived in Canada, down the old war-path through Champlain and Lake George on the way to Albany to unite with the British wing ascending the Hudson River. Inspired by General Schuyler, commanding the American army, the farmers seized whatever firearms they could find and hurried to his camp. The women of Albany hammered the leaden weights from the windows of their houses, moulded them into bullets, and urged on the men. The militia of New England, aroused by the invasion, came by hundreds and by thousands until the river hills were covered. The hasty breastworks planned by Kosciuszko were completed, and the rude recruits were hurriedly formed into regiments and brigades. Gates, who superseded Schuyler, lay with his staff in the rear of the army, while Morgan with his riflemen held guard at the western extremity of the entrenched camp on the hills, with his headquarters at Neilson’s. This was the defensive camp of the Americans at Bemis Heights, and it stretched from the river bank westward over the hills about two miles and faced the north. Here they lay in wait for Burgoyne, who had rallied from his repulses at Bennington and Fort Stanwix, and was pressing down the bank of the Hudson River toward Albany from Fort Edward.

On the 13th of September, a bridge of boats was stretched across the Hudson River—just below the mouth of the Batten Kill—for the passage of Burgoyne’s army. They halted for the first night amid the charred wheat-fields of General Schuyler’s farm on the south side of the Fishkill. On the morrow they hastened on to Coveville, and thence to Seward’s house, where again their white tents were spread over the country.

On September 19th Burgoyne moved forward to outflank the American camp on the west. An obstinate fight of many hours about the old farm-well and in the great ravine followed, and the British failed in their attempt to pass the Americans or to weaken their line. But they held persistently to the position they had taken at Freeman’s Farm and at the close of the battle fortified their camp from the point on Freeman’s Farm in a line to the eastward on the bank of the river, where they built three redoubts upon three hills. The fortified camp of the Americans lay about a mile and a half below in a line parallel with the British. Here, within bugle-call of each other, for two weeks, the hostile forces sat upon the hills of Saratoga, frowning defiance at each other, and ready to open the conflict at a moment’s warning.

Burgoyne waited in vain for the Americans to attack him behind his works, and for a message, hourly expected, that Clinton would come from New York to his relief. Hunger pressed sorely upon the army. The brilliant conquests he had pictured to himself were fading from his grasp. He called his officers together in council. Silence and gloom hung over them. Should they advance or retreat? His imperious will dictated the advice he desired. Finally Fraser sustained the commander. An advance was ordered. On the 7th of October the British marched from their entrenchments in battle array. Burgoyne led the centre; Fraser a flanking column to the right; the royal artillery to the left, and the Hessians in reserve. Like a great bird of prey they settled in line of battle upon the broken ground that separated them from the American camp. Gates took up the gauntlet thus thrown down and exclaimed, “Order out Morgan to begin the game.” With a word to his command the watchful and heroic Morgan dashed into the struggle, scattered Burgoyne’s advance-guard, rushed on against the trained forces of Fraser, and swept them from the position to the left which they had taken in advance. With masterly skill and courage, Fraser rallied his men, and was forming a second line of defence, when he fell mortally wounded.

[Illustration: “OLD WELL,” FREEMAN’S FARM, BATTLE-GROUND BEMIS HEIGHTS, SEPT. 19, 1777.]

The sharp whistle of Morgan called his men once more to action. They charged, while Poor and Larned attacked the centre and the right. The battle swayed back and forth through the great ravine. Another charge from Morgan and the British retreated to their entrenchments. At this moment the impatient Arnold, stung to madness by the slights put upon him by Gates, dashed across the field. He gathered the regiments under his leadership by his enthusiasm, bravery, and vehemence. He broke through the lines of entrenchments at Freeman’s Farm. Repulsed for a moment, he assailed the left and charged the strong redoubt of Breyman which flanked the British camp at the place now called Burgoyne’s Hill. The patriot army, fired with hope and courage, crowded fearlessly up to the very mouth of the belching guns of the redoubt, won the final victory of the day, and then, exhausted by the desperate fight, dropped down for a few hours’ rest before they took possession of the British camp.

[Illustration: GENERAL DANIEL MORGAN.]

But there was no rest for the defeated army. Silently and sullenly during these hours, they withdrew from the works at Freeman’s Farm, and huddled closely together under the three redoubts by the river. Here the women, Madam Riedesel, Lady Ackland, and others, trembled and wept over the dying Fraser. Here the hospital stood with its overflowing throng of the wounded and the dead. The great and princely army waited in doubt and despair while their commander wavered in his plans. Should he try to hold his dangerous ground, should he risk another engagement, should he retreat? The last course was chosen. On the following night a retreat began as the last minute-guns were fired magnanimously by the Americans, in honor of Fraser’s funeral, which took place at sunset. The sun fell behind the heights upon which the exultant Americans lay; heavy clouds followed, and quickly after, amid the drenching rain, the army of Burgoyne, abandoning their sick and wounded, began the retreat up the river.

Retracing their steps from Bemis Heights, the scene of their disaster, they followed up the river road to the Fishkill and the Schuyler mansion, which they burned to the ground. Failing here in an attempt to make a stand against the advancing Americans, they fell back, formed an entrenched camp, and planted their batteries along the heights of old Saratoga. In this camp they still hoped to hold out until relief should come up the Hudson from New York. Here the romance and pathos of the campaign culminated, as described by Madam Riedesel, the accomplished and beautiful wife of the Hessian general, in her thrilling account of the retreat and of the agonizing days that followed. At the Marshall house, where she had taken refuge, the cannonballs thrown across the river crashed through its walls, and rolled along the floor, so that the sick and wounded were driven into the cellar where she and her children and the broken-hearted widows of the dead were suffering, watching, and starving. Frail by birth and rearing, Madam Riedesel stood in the doorway of the cellar, and with arms outspread across the open door held at bay the selfish, brutal men who would have crowded out the sick and dying. Burgoyne and his army, entrenched on the hills, and with the river below, yet had no water to drink, except a cupful brought now and then for the faint and wounded from the river by the British women, on whom the gallant Americans, ever tender toward woman, would not fire.

[Illustration: CONGRESS SPRING, 1898.]

Finally, driven to the last extremity, with the Americans on the north, where Stark had seized Fort Edward, to the east, where Fellows held the river bank, and to the south, where Gates had thrown his victorious army, Burgoyne sent in his terms of surrender. Almost on the site of old Fort Hardy, his brave but unfortunate troops laid down their arms, and near the site of the old Schuyler mansion, which they had so recently burned, Burgoyne surrendered his sword to General Gates. Along the road, just across the Fishkill, the American army stretched in two lines, between which the disarmed prisoners were marched to the shrill notes of the fife and the measured beat of the drum, to the tune of “Yankee Doodle,” played for the first time as a national air.

[Illustration: SIGN “PUTNAM AND THE WOLF” ON PUTNAM’S TAVERN, SARATOGA SPRINGS.

ORIGINAL SIGN IN GRAND UNION HOTEL, SARATOGA SPRINGS, N. Y.]

General Schuyler, the hospitable and magnanimous, was on the ground. Neither the slight he had received from Congress nor the injuries inflicted on him by the British could quench his generous nature. He rejoiced with his victorious countrymen, he sympathized with the fallen enemy, he protected and cared for the helpless women.

During the summer of 1777 he had cut a road from his farm at old Saratoga through the wilderness to the High Rock Spring, already famous for its medicinal properties. He built a small frame house on the ledge of rocks overhanging the spring, and here for several summers his family came with him for rest and recreation as they had formerly gone to the comfortable mansion at old Saratoga. This was replaced by a rude cabin, and there, in 1783, Washington was entertained when, with General Clinton, he came to visit the Saratoga battle-ground. The party proceeded northward to Ticonderoga, and on their return stopped at High Rock Spring. General Washington was so strongly impressed with the value of the water and the beauty of the region that shortly afterward he tried to buy the property, but Livingston, Van Dam, and others had already secured it.

The events of the Revolution had discouraged the few settlers who first came to the springs, and for years afterwards but two log cabins offered a shelter to adventurous tourists. In 1791, Gideon Putnam cleared his farm at Saratoga, and Governor Gilman of New Hampshire in 1792 discovered Congress Spring. Putnam built his large boarding-house and tavern, and far-seeing and liberal-minded, he purchased extensive tracts of land and secured the foundation of the beautiful and prosperous village which is now a delight to visitors and a valued home to its residents. It is essentially a place of “homes,” where people of large or small means are assured of that quiet and ease which cannot be found in cities or towns which depend for their prosperity on active commercial or manufacturing interests.

[Illustration: SEAL OF SARATOGA.]

[Illustration]

SCHENECTADY

THE PROVINCIAL OUTPOST OF LIBERTY

BY JUDSON S. LANDON

Schenectady was settled in 1662. To give to the story of the settlement its proper character among the beginnings of free institutions in America it is necessary to recall the fact that the States-General of the Netherlands in 1621 chartered a trading concern, the Dutch West India Company, granted it the monopoly of the fur trade in New Netherland, and permitted it to govern, so long as it could, whatever colonies might inhabit the territory. The company thus formed ruled over the territory from 1624 to 1664, when the English, trumping up a stale claim of prior discovery, interfered and took possession.

The company’s rule was arbitrary, but not without good features. Traders are not apt to cavil over religious dogmas,—the company permitted freedom of conscience and worship. Subjects and servants render better obedience and service if treated with kindness and justice. The directors of the company seemed to know this, and professed to govern accordingly, but their governors sometimes found pretexts for the injustice which promised the surest profits.

[Illustration: COLONIAL HOUSE, UNION STREET.]

Some of the colonists insisted that the people ought to have a part in the government. The Dutch governor, when he most needed their support, would promise concessions. He sometimes seemed to have begun to make them, but he made none that were substantial. Why should the trading company sentence itself to death?

Agriculture was necessary for the food-supply of the new province, and promised customers for the imports from Holland. Liberal terms were extended to the agriculturist. Men of wealth were tempted by offers of vast tracts of land, with a sort of feudal sovereignty, on condition that each of them would establish fifty families upon his domain. Among others the manor or lordship of Rensselaerswyck was established, embracing nearly all the territory now comprised within the counties of Albany and Rensselaer. Literally its jurisdiction was subject to that of the West India Company, but practically it was independent of it. The company established a trading and governmental post at Beverwyck or Fort Orange, now Albany, and exercised supreme jurisdiction, exclusive of that of Rensselaerswyck, for at least musket-range about the fort.

Among the colonists and traders who had been attracted to Beverwyck and Rensselaerswyck were some intelligent and enterprising men, mostly Protestant Dutchmen, who, after varied experience but general good fortune in the province, resolved to go apart by themselves and establish a community where justice equality and liberty could be secured and enjoyed, free from the overlordship of a patroon, and as remote as was practicable from contact with the grasping West India Company, either at Fort Orange or Manhattan.

[Illustration: VIEW ON STATE STREET.]

The leader of these men was the founder of Schenectady, Arendt Van Curler. He was the nephew of Killiaen Van Rensselaer, and came from Holland in 1630 as director of his uncle’s principality. This he managed with great success for many years. All accounts agree in describing him as a man of honor, benevolence, ability and activity. His unvarying fairness and tactful address soon secured for him the respect and confidence of all who knew him, and especially of the Mohawk Indians. In their opinion he was the greatest and best white man they ever knew. They decorated him while living with the distinction of “very good friend,” and honored him when dead by calling other governors “Curler” or “Corlear,” a title which still survives with the same meaning in the language of the scattered remnants of their tribe. It was through his good offices that peace was secured between the province and the Five Nations, among whom the Mohawks were the foremost, and preserved unbroken during his life. By following his policy peace was long maintained after his death.

The beauty and fertility of the Mohawk country early attracted his attention. A letter addressed by him in 1643 to the “Noble Patroon” at Amsterdam exists, in which, after giving an account of his stewardship as manager of his uncle’s interests, he writes that the year before he had visited the Mohawk country, where he found three French prisoners, one of them being the celebrated Father Jogues, “a very learned scholar, who was very cruelly treated, his finger and thumb being cut off.” These prisoners were doomed to death, but Van Curler succeeded in effecting their release. Father Jogues, however, eager for the salvation of their souls, returned to them two years later, to suffer martyrdom at their hands. In this letter Van Curler writes:

“Within a half-day’s journey from the Colonies lies the most beautiful land on the Mohawk river that eye ever saw, full a day’s journey long.” He says “it cannot be reached by boat owing to the strength of the stream and shallowness of the water, but can be reached by wagons.”

[Illustration: “THE BLUE GATE” ENTRANCE TO UNION COLLEGE GROUNDS.]

Another part of this letter is worth transcribing:

“I am at present betrothed to the widow of the late Mr. Jonas Bronck. May the good God vouchsafe to bless me in my undertaking, and please to grant that it may conduce to His honor and our mutual salvation. Amen.”

We know that the good lady long survived him, and as his widow was conceded some special privileges by the government.

“The most beautiful land” upon which Van Curler looked, was the Mohawk Valley, embracing Schenectady and extending far to the westward.

As he stood upon the crest of the upland southwest of the present city, where the sandy plain abruptly ends and gives place to the rich bottom-lands a hundred and fifty feet below, he looked northwesterly upon a wide expanse of meadow, through which the Mohawk River, gleaming in the sunlight, slowly wended. His eye rested upon the outline of that break in the mountains where the Mohawk has gorged its bed, through which in our day the New York Central Railroad passes from the seaboard to the Mississippi without climbing a foot-hill. It is the only level pass through the great Appalachian chain between the St. Lawrence Valley and the Gulf of Mexico. Not a tree and scarcely a bush grew upon this plain, but here and there were scattered patches of beans, corn and pumpkins, the fruit of the industry of the Mohawk women; and upon the higher ground where Schenectady now stands, the second great castle of the Mohawks, the Capitol of the Five Nations, stood, surrounded by many wigwams of the tribe. The nearer hills and the more distant mountains were clothed with forests. This cleared and fertile intervale, set in its forest frame, was due to the volume of water which in the spring freshets pours down the river. Three miles east of the city its channel is crossed by great ledges of shale rock, through which the river has cut its way, which still remains too narrow for the immediate passage of its waters when greatly swollen. These, overflowing and enriching the bottom-lands above, also denude them of their forest growth.

The Indian name of the place was Schonowe, the first syllable pronounced much like the Dutch “schoon,”—beautiful. Some of the Dutch, sharing Van Curler’s idea of the beauty of the place, wished to call it _Schoon_, beautiful, _achten_, esteemed, _del_, valley,—_Schoonachtendel_. The Indian name and the Dutch substitute were combined and confounded in a various and perplexing orthography which remains to us in the deeds, wills and other papers of that time, from which the name Schenectady was finally evolved.