PATHF 
 
 WILLIAM-ELLIOT GRIFHS
 
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 [HE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES 
 
 GIFT OF 
 
 COMMODORE BYRON MCCANDLESS
 
 THE PATHFINDERS OF THE 
 REVOLUTION
 
 BOOKS BY WILLIAM E. GRIFFIS, D.D. 
 
 THE ROMANCE OF AMERICAN HISTORY SERIES. 
 
 THE ROMANCE OF DISCOVERY. 
 THE ROMANCE OF COLONIZATION. 
 THE ROMANCE OF CONQUEST.
 
 MRS. EYRE TOOK HER PLACE AT THE HEAD OF THE TABLE.'
 
 THE PATHFINDERS OF THE 
 REVOLUTION 
 
 A Story of the Great March into the 
 
 Wilderness and Lake Region 
 
 of New York in 7779 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM E. GRIFFIS 
 
 AUTHOR OF "THE ROMANCE OF AMERICAN HISTORY 
 
 SERIES," "THE MIKADO'S EMPIRE," "BRAVE 
 
 LITTLE HOLLAND," ETC. 
 
 ILLUSTRATED BY W. F. STECHER 
 
 THIRD THOUSAND. 
 
 BOSTON AND CHICAGO 
 W. A. WILDE COMPANY
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1900, 
 
 BY W. A. WILDE COMPANY. 
 
 All rights reserved. 
 
 THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION.
 
 (P 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 WHO has done justice to Major General John Sul 
 livan and to his Continental soldiers ? These, in 
 their great expedition of 1779 into the lake region 
 of central and western New York, broke completely 
 the power of the Iroquois Confederacy. Why did 
 the Congress and Washington think it necessary to 
 detach on this perilous expedition, into an unmapped 
 wilderness, one-third of the whole army of the United 
 States? Why is the whole subject so slurred over 
 or ignored by the average historian ? 
 
 Had Sullivan been " Braddocked," or met with 
 disaster in battle, by ambuscade, by pestilence, or 
 starvation, he would have been better known. In 
 truth, he did his work so well that those who write 
 history, and love too much its merely dramatic side, 
 have been unfair to this able officer. Though poorly 
 provisioned and equipped, he led five thousand men, 
 with artillery and stores, into the river valleys and 
 pathless forests of western New York, fought a great 
 and decisive battle, destroyed the granaries of King 
 George and his allies, paralyzed the power of both 
 Tory and savage, avenged Wyoming and Cherry 
 
 5 
 
 973341
 
 6 PREFACE 
 
 Valley, rendered New York for the time uninhabita 
 ble by the red man, ended the dangerous attacks on 
 Washington's flank and rear, satisfied Congress and 
 the American people, and came back with his tri 
 umphant veterans for the work of Yorktown. All 
 this he did with the loss of only forty men, or one 
 per cent of his force. 
 
 It is not the business of the story-teller to satisfy 
 fully the questioners, to whom the historian should 
 make answer, but to tell how the army went and 
 came, and how the Continentals marched, fought, 
 made paths and bridges, enjoyed themselves amid 
 their toils, told stories around the camp-fire, and 
 drew out from the friendly Oneidas the myths and 
 lore of the Iroquois. Of the excitement of battle 
 and how Claes Vrooman rescued the captives, his 
 sister and betrothed, it has been his pleasant task to 
 narrate. Utilizing the local traditions of New York's 
 lake region, many old letters, and local and ancestral 
 traditions, he has shown also how the pathfinders of 
 the Revolution opened the way for the civilization 
 of the Empire State and the development of the 
 great West. May we never forget the fathers of the 
 Revolution and the days when they were young! 
 
 W. E. G. 
 ITHACA, N.Y., 
 March 24, 1900.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. AN INTERRUPTED TEA-PARTY . . . .11 
 
 II. BY THE BANKS OF THE DELAWARE . 25 
 
 III. THE FRONTIERSMEN AT THE CAPITAL . . 36 
 
 IV. RAAD VOOR DAAD . . . . . . 46 
 
 V. GAYETY IN THE CONTINENTAL CAMP . -57 
 
 VI. THE GENERAL OF THE CONTINENTAL ARMIES 67 
 VII. LIFE IN A FRONTIER TOWN .... 76 
 
 VIII. FROM SCHENECTADY TO OTSEGO LAKE . . 83 
 
 IX. INTO QUEEN ESTHER'S COUNTRY ... 97 
 
 X. THE MAIN ARMY STARTS FROM EASTON . . no 
 
 XI. KING GEORGE'S GRANARY . . . . 117 
 
 XII. THE CAPTIVE AT KENDAIA . . . . 124 
 
 XIII. THE PARSON'S PESSIMISM AND GIDEON'S OP 
 
 TIMISM . . . . ... . 141 
 
 XIV. JUST BEFORE THE BATTLE .... 158 
 XV. THE DECISIVE BATTLE IN THE WILDERNESS . 173 
 
 XVI. AFTER THE BATTLE IN THE CHEMUNG 
 
 VALLEY . . , . . . . .188 
 
 XVII. QUEEN CATHERINE'S TOWN AND INDIAN STAR 
 
 LORE ... . ... . 199 
 
 XVIII. THE RESCUE OF TRINTJE VROOMAN . .211
 
 8 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 XIX. CANANDAIGUA AND HONEOYE A SUCCOTASH 
 
 CAMPAIGN 223 
 
 XX. BOYD AND THE GROVELAND AMBUSCADE . 235 
 
 XXI. ABOUT FACE ! 245 
 
 XXII. MARY VROOMAN AND THE GLEN FLOWER . 255 
 
 XXIII. LEGENDS OF CAYUGA LAKE .... 264 
 
 XXIV. TENTING ON THE OLD CAMP GROUND . . 279 
 XXV. THE BANQUET ON THE BANKS OF THE CHEMUNG 287 
 
 XXVI. BACK TO FORT SULLIVAN . . . . 298 
 
 XXVII. THE AFTERMATH 307
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 PAGB 
 
 " Mrs. Eyre took her place at the head of the table " . 
 
 Frontispiece 1 7 
 
 " The General extended his hand courteously to the 
 
 father and son " 46 
 
 " Here . . . had been held many a council " . . 108 
 
 "... He led the cheering " . . . . 1 78 
 
 "... A shout that woke the echoes of the rocks " . 253
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 AN INTERRUPTED TEA-PARTY 
 
 THE year 1779 was the darkest in our war for 
 freedom. Popular interest was at low tide. 
 The Continental army numbered only fifteen thou 
 sand men. The treasury was nearly empty. The 
 bright hopes awakened by the French alliance had 
 given way to disappointment and chagrin, for the 
 great fleet sent by the Bourbon king had accom 
 plished nothing. The patriots were irritated. Those 
 who were loyalists at heart longed to go back to their 
 allegiance to King George, while gloating Tories actu 
 ally entered the camps of the Continental army and 
 persuaded the soldiers to desert. 
 
 All along the frontier, bands of savages ravaged 
 the settlements, burning the houses and killing the 
 farmers. Dashing out the brains of those who were 
 too young to walk, they tomahawked, scalped, or led 
 into imprisonment the women, the boys, and the girls.
 
 12 THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 The Indian valleys in western New York were gay 
 with plunder and populous with captives. The bark 
 houses of the Iroquois were everywhere decorated 
 with scalps. Stretched on hoops, dried or painted, 
 these represented every age in life and all colors of 
 hair. One could see the golden ringlets of the little 
 child, the long auburn tresses of maiden or mother, 
 the short stubby growth and the eelskin queue of the 
 stalwart man. Here and there hung the white and 
 gray locks of an old man's scalp that was bald in the 
 centre. Many of the great apartment houses of the 
 Iroquois, in 1779, were museums of plunder. They 
 showed that neither age nor sex had been spared, 
 and that the last count in. the indictment against 
 King George in the Declaration of Independence 
 was correct. 
 
 What with the conglomerate British forces Cana 
 dian, Iroquois, Irish, Scotch, Welsh, English, and 
 Hessian largely reenforced, new supplies voted by 
 Parliament to continue the war, with mighty fleets 
 blockading our harbors, British armies holding the 
 coast cities, and the Indians desolating our frontier, 
 besides making central New York a granary of sup 
 plies for " King George and all his host," it looked 
 indeed as if our fathers were " between the devil and 
 the deep sea," and that the war must stop. This 
 would mean that the thirteen states must once more 
 become colonies, and the members of the Continental 
 Congress, who had once by signatures in Indepen-
 
 AN INTERRUPTED TEA-PARTY 13 
 
 dence Hall " held together," as Franklin hinted, must 
 now on the gallows " swing separately." 
 
 At such a time it was like a light shining in a dark 
 place to see smiling folks who never doubted for a 
 moment the success of the Continental army. It 
 was a bright party that assembled in the two-story 
 brick house in Kensington, Philadelphia. There 
 Colonel Eyre, once boat-builder to his Majesty King 
 George III., later naval constructor to the Conti 
 nental Congress, and then chief of a regiment of 
 artillery in the Pennsylvania line, had his home. 
 The two brothers, Jabez and Emmanuel, had years 
 before left their kindred at Burlington, in New Jersey, 
 to make their fortune in the great city founded by 
 William Penn, then containing twenty-five thousand 
 souls. Not far away from the house stood the great 
 treaty tree under which the son of his Dutch mother, 
 William Penn, the hat-wearer with the hatless, as 
 the wampum belt still shows, had made that famous 
 covenant with the Indians, " Never sworn to and 
 never broken." In front flowed the Delaware River, 
 already beginning to hold upon its bosom the shad 
 ows of late afternoon. All around stretched those 
 green and flower-dotted acres now covered by houses 
 and docks, railways and machinery foundries, forges 
 and trip-hammers, mighty chimneys and derricks, 
 where are built and launched the mighty steel battle 
 ships of the United States navy. 
 
 The perfume of spring blossoms was in the air,
 
 14 THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 The day was so warm that Colonel Eyre's wife and 
 their daughter Margaret had spread the table out in 
 the garden under the apple trees. In those days the 
 places of home and business were not far apart. In 
 the city the great ships at the wharves almost poked 
 their bowsprits into the second-story windows of the 
 owners or consignees, whose offices were on the 
 ground floors below. In front of the Eyre home in 
 Kensington, just across the road and gently sloping 
 down to the river side, was the shipyard whence had 
 been launched many a gallant vessel of war floating 
 the thirteen stripes, even before there was a star in 
 that blue field which was yet to come. 
 
 It was a daintily set table which mother, daughter, 
 and maid had arrayed. On the snowy cloth fell 
 from time to time petals from the apple blossoms 
 above, while all around nest builders were calling to 
 their mates, making sweet music, and one or two, 
 bolder than others, seemed inclined to vary a diet of 
 worms with a taste of bread crumbs. The silver tea- 
 service and a few choice bits of china porcelain from 
 Canton were their special pride. The Eyres had 
 brought across sea from England not a few heir 
 looms from their old home in Nottinghamshire. 
 Indeed, Margaret, encouraged by her father, had 
 even embroidered the napkins of Irish linen with 
 the decussated and armored leg belonging to the 
 Eyre coat of arms. One can still see the same 
 blazon on both the gates of the manor at Rampton
 
 AN INTERRUPTED TEA-PARTY 15 
 
 in England, the one . of Tudor and the other of 
 Jacobean times. Indeed, save for the cruel war, 
 which had changed the garb of Jabez Eyre from 
 plain drab to buff and blue, and from a passive 
 Friend to a free and fighting Quaker for liberty's 
 sake, the father had hoped to visit dear old England 
 to see the ancestral homes. Now, however, while 
 Hessian and savage allies of King George had to be 
 fought, Jabez Eyre's chief items of care were his 
 cannon and his comrades. 
 
 " All ready, Margaret ; call the gentlemen." 
 Thereupon issued from the house and took their 
 places around the table, the host and his friends, 
 who, as they sat down, made a party of nine in all, 
 two of whom wore the uniform of officers in the 
 Continental army, while Colonel Eyre had on the full 
 regimentals of the Pennsylvania Line, for he was no 
 less than a colonel of artillery. On his right hand 
 sat Colonel Edward Hand, just arrived from Fort 
 Pitt, now Pittsburg, in western Pennsylvania. Only 
 thirty-two years old, he had once served his king as 
 a surgeon, but, resigning his commission, had settled 
 in Pennsylvania five years before and was an ardent 
 patriot. He was one of the best horsemen in the 
 army and always superb in appearance. 
 
 The other guests were Captain Adam Vrooman, of 
 Schenectady, New York, a middle-aged, well-knit 
 man. By his side sat his stalwart and handsome son 
 Claes, whose sunburnt face and appearance of being
 
 1 6 THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 always alert told of his long service in the forest. 
 He, like his father, carried a cross in his heart, for 
 his sister was captive among the Seneca Indians. 
 Yet his was a double burden, for his wife, the bride 
 of a fortnight, was a captive also, she with his sister 
 having been seized, while on a visit to Cherry Valley 
 the year before, by the savages. Father and son 
 had come from Schenectady and had gone in the 
 service, as riflemen, to Fort Pitt, in Pennsylvania, 
 hoping to join the expedition organized under Colonel 
 Broadhead. With better prospects of rescuing sister 
 and wife, they had returned with Colonel Hand. 
 
 Young Vrooman was happy in his appointment as 
 guide to General John Sullivan's " Western Expedi 
 tion into the Seneca Country," for the long-talked-of 
 project of destroying the Iroquois power was now an 
 official fact. Vrooman had lived in hopes of rescue, 
 for he had heard that instead of a tomahawk sinking 
 into their skulls, his sister had been .adopted by the 
 Tuscaroras of Lake Cayuga, and that his wife was 
 living in the same region of lakes and waterfalls. 
 
 There were present, also, a gentleman, John Harby, 
 and his daughter Henrietta, formerly living at Harris 
 Ferry, now Harrisburg, but, since the outbreak of 
 the war, at Barren Hill, not far from Valley Forge. 
 This was not her first visit to the city founded by Penn. 
 Formerly a pupil in the Moravian school at Bethle 
 hem, and called home by the outbreak of war, she 
 was now going back there to help the surgeons who
 
 AN INTERRUPTED TEA-PARTY 17 
 
 cared for, and the Moravian "nuns" who tended, the 
 wounded. Her happy disposition and continuous 
 brightness made her a favorite in the Eyre home. 
 
 The ninth person at the table was a sad-faced 
 young widow lady, one of nearly four hundred made 
 at Wyoming on June 30, 1778, by the redskins and 
 redcoats. She was a cousin of Mrs. Eyre, who since 
 the slaughter of her husband, a boat-builder on the 
 Susquehanna and previously foreman in Colonel 
 Eyre's shipyard, had found a home in his family. 
 He, the victim, was one of the fourteen men com 
 pelled to kneel in a circle on the ground, while the 
 Seneca Queen Esther, whose castle was at Tioga 
 Point, infuriated because of the death of her son, 
 brained one after the other with a tomahawk, until 
 the last one of the fourteen was a bloody corpse. 
 The Philadelphia home was like a haven of peace 
 ful comfort, after her weeks of wandering and semi- 
 starvation in the woods. 
 
 Mrs. Eyre took her place at the head of the table, 
 and was soon serving the fragrant tea, with " trim 
 mings " to suit each taste, for the first patriot taboo 
 ing of the leaf of China in 1 774 was a thing of the 
 past. Through St. Eustatius, in the Dutch West 
 Indies, with which port Colonel Eyre was in frequent 
 communication, the Amoy tea, though a luxury some 
 what more expensive than formerly, was not extra 
 hazardous in obtaining. The swift ships built by the 
 Eyres ran with comparative ease the blockade of the
 
 1 8 THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 heavy British frigates off the capes of the Delaware 
 and the Chesapeake. 
 
 As ever, the fragrant beverage lubricated the 
 tongue, and conversation flowed easily. 
 
 " I do not see that the ladies have changed since 
 I last saw your household, Colonel Eyre, except that 
 your daughter is taller and more womanly, but as to 
 yourself, in your military uniform, a stranger would 
 hardly recognize the Friend in drab of ten years ago. 
 Did you know your own husband, Mrs. Eyre, when 
 he put on soldier clothes ? " asked Colonel Hand of 
 the hostess. 
 
 " Oh, yes ; it was hardly a surprise, for I knew it 
 would come. From the very first, although most of 
 the city Friends held to the king's side, those in the 
 country all through Pennsylvania and New Jersey 
 favored the cause of liberty. Then, my husband is 
 ' Quaker,' as the world calls us, with only a half a 
 generation of Friends' doctrines and light behind 
 him, for my father-in-law belonged, when at home 
 across sea, to the Church of England. He entered 
 the congregation of Friends when he married his 
 sweetheart in Burlington." 
 
 " Oh, then it was Cupid, rather than original con 
 victions, that caused the Churchman to become 
 ' Quaker ' ; for, as you say, the world prefers to use 
 the term, and I am very much of the world. What 
 a fascinating Diana, or shall I say Minerva, your 
 sweetheart must have been," and the gallant Irish-
 
 AN INTERRUPTED TEA-PARTY 1 9 
 
 man, who was fond of classical allusions, glanced 
 roguishly at Colonel Eyre. 
 
 " Yes, Colonel ; and my husband, when he took 
 that trip to Fort Pitt before his marriage, was so 
 long away from the Meeting-house, and so much 
 with the officers of the garrison, that I think he 
 became much more than half a soldier even then. 
 Is it not so, husband ? " 
 
 " Well, I confess it, that after the first pressure of 
 work, having plenty of leisure at times, I studied the 
 handling of artillery." 
 
 Colonel Eyre had, in 1760, travelled to "the far 
 West," through Pennsylvania, taking with him ship 
 carpenters and blacksmiths engaged by his future 
 father-in-law. He went to Fort Pitt, after George 
 Washington had done his pioneer work in that direc 
 tion, to build the boats which should take King 
 George's soldiers down the Ohio River and there 
 assert his Majesty's rights. 
 
 " I judge, by the way your eye brightens, that 
 you rather enjoyed it," remarked Captain Vrooman. 
 
 " True, I acknowledge it ; even on First Day, after 
 the chaplain was through his sermon, I improved 
 time getting the theory, while on other days, as I 
 had opportunity, I practised the real thing with the 
 drill squad." 
 
 " Yes," joined in Mr. Harby ; " I remember when 
 you spent the night with me at my house at Harris 
 Ferry, how you told me you had not only learned to
 
 2O THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 make and equip gun carriages but could load, sight, 
 and fire siege guns, and even handle a battery in the 
 field." 
 
 " Oh, yes," said Colonel Eyre ; " I drilled regularly 
 with the field gun force too. Indeed, I may say that 
 Fort Pitt was my military college in which I trained 
 for Princeton and Brandywine. As I could not go 
 to Flanders or Woolwich, I learned at home." 
 
 " Good," said Colonel Hand ; " but I regret that you 
 didn't train further by making at least one trip with 
 field guns into the wilderness. If you could be trans 
 ferred from the Pennsylvania to the Continental line, 
 I should persistently urge your appointment for the 
 expedition into the Seneca country, which his Excel 
 lency General Washington has planned. Personally, 
 I would rather have you than Colonel Thomas Proc 
 tor, who is more likely to be chosen. By the way, 
 where is he now with his regiment ? " 
 
 " Most of his men are garrisoning the forts on the 
 Delaware, especially at Billingsport and Fort Mifflin. 
 I expect I shall be ordered with my companies to 
 relieve him. Some of my men are at Easton now, 
 but return as soon as General Sullivan starts west 
 ward. I confess I should like to try the hazard of 
 battle with Brant and Butler in that beautiful lake 
 region of New York, of which I have heard so 
 much." 
 
 "Would to God it might be so, cousin," broke in 
 the Wyoming widow, who was at times assisting
 
 AN INTERRUPTED TEA-PARTY 21 
 
 the maid and Margaret in the courtesies of the 
 supper. Then, blushing at her apparent haste and 
 presumption, she added, with a look at Mrs. Eyre, in 
 which gratitude and even sympathy were blended, 
 " Pardon me, I am glad enough that duty does not 
 call my friend into those dark swamps and gloomy 
 woods of New York, to fight enemies whose 
 method of warfare seems to be first ambuscade 
 and then massacre. Oh, mercy ! what's that ? " she 
 exclaimed. 
 
 All arose and listened to the alarming cries which 
 seemed to issue from the stable, some distance in the 
 rear of the house. 
 
 "Help! help! The British! Injuns! Tories! 
 Murder-r-r-r ! ' 
 
 They rushed out to see what was the matter, when 
 a sight greeted their eyes which, as soon as they 
 understood the situation, called for roars of laughter. 
 There was a little door within the big stable door, 
 which a man could unlock and get in or out, without 
 opening the big double-leaved door that opened for 
 carriage and horses. Wedged into this space of less 
 than two feet square were two fellows, one fat and 
 the other lean. Only their heads and half their 
 bodies were out, the other halves of their physical 
 economy, including legs, being inside the stable. 
 Squeezed tightly together, face to face, and a black 
 to a red head, they were puffing and blowing, their 
 faces making alternately the colors of their hair.
 
 22 THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 They were clamorous for help, but were unable to 
 get out. One was Colonel Eyre's coachman and the 
 other his hostler. 
 
 Whether to saw out another board of the door, or 
 to pull them out, was the question. If the latter, 
 should it be by the legs or by the shoulders ? One 
 way seemed better for the stout man and the other 
 for the thin. In either case, coats, spines, or shoul 
 ders must suffer. Suddenly, as the rescuers, willing 
 but uncertain how to act, hesitated, the door was 
 swung open and " Jeremiah Grumps," as the Colonel 
 had nicknamed him, a middle-aged and half-hearted 
 patriot, a shoemaker, who was always predicting the 
 success of the enemy, appeared in view. Seizing the 
 hostler's legs he pulled lustily inward, young Vrooman 
 reinforcing him to extricate the coachman. The 
 others outside pushed. After about as much traction 
 and hauling as would suffice to get a camel through 
 " the needle's eye " of an oriental caravansary, the 
 rescue was accomplished. The two men, now no 
 longer twins, with spines slightly scraped, and the 
 hostler with cheek barked, stood apart and perpendicu 
 lar again. They had had five minutes or so of in 
 voluntary horizontal balancing by their ribs on an 
 inch width of deal board, and were now glad to 
 assume the use of their legs. 
 
 The fat man, suffering most from both loss of 
 wind and personal dignity, disappeared to refit. So 
 the thin hero, the hostler, was called on to tell the
 
 AN INTERRUPTED TEA-PARTY 23 
 
 story, for "Jeremiah Crumps" had quickly made 
 himself invisible. 
 
 It seems that " Pud " and " Spider," as the two 
 men of the stable, though chums, called each other, 
 had been discussing war matters and Continental 
 money. Discouraged at the dark state of affairs on 
 our side, in this gloomy year of 1779, they feared lest 
 the British might, after all, win. Indulging in the 
 most gloomy reflections and wondering whether the 
 Revolution would be a failure and the country be 
 ruined, a third friend, " Jeremiah Crumps," the dys 
 peptic shoemaker, stepped in with a big powder-horn 
 in his hand and for a while uttered even more dismal 
 prophecies. There was a little portable earthenware 
 furnace, on which glowed a few lumps of charcoal, 
 for drying out the stable. Crumps proceeded to 
 amuse them, from time to time, while they were so 
 dejected, by pulling out the plug from the powder- 
 horn and throwing a pinch of powder on the fire to 
 see it flash up merrily. Now, this third party, despite 
 his dyspepsia, was a wag and a confirmed player of 
 practical jokes. Nevertheless, the pair did not sus 
 pect what he was at. 
 
 Increasing in doleful predictions, so as to utterly 
 outdo the others, Crumps finally declared that they 
 had better, then and there, all commit suicide by 
 blowing themselves up. Whereupon, pulling out the 
 plug and throwing it away, he cast the hornful of 
 rifle powder, as they supposed, into the open fire.
 
 24 THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 In an instant the two terrified patriots rushed to save 
 their lives by getting out of the stable. The gate 
 being locked, they wasted no time in trying to open it, 
 but both seeing that the small square entrance, or 
 manhole, usually called "the needle's eye," had been 
 left open by Crumps, they attempted simultaneously 
 to leap through. There and then, the brace got hope 
 lessly jammed together. The result was that they 
 stuck fast with their legs inside and their heads and 
 half their bodies outside. While the fat man yelled 
 murder and cried for help, the thin hostler, being less 
 squeezed, thought that silence was golden. 
 
 Yet, after all, there was no explosion. The jolly 
 joker, after nearly splitting himself with laughing, had 
 found the key, unlocked and swung the door open. 
 After assisting to get his friends on their feet again, 
 he disappeared, as we have seen. The powder-horn 
 had had real powder only toward the tapering end, 
 which was plugged up inside. The chief contents 
 were several pounds of black sand. The wrath of 
 the two victims at the roughness of the joke was tem 
 pered by their gratitude at being rescued.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 BY THE BANKS OF THE DELAWARE 
 
 AFTER the funny episode, which interrupted the 
 flow of conversation but for a few minutes, the 
 party took their places again at the table under 
 the apple trees, and a fresh relay of hot tea set the 
 stream of talk flowing again. All agreed that the 
 Wyoming widow, to whom the mystery of ambus 
 cades was not fully solved, should have it explained 
 just how and why neither the cunning nor the 
 castles of the Iroquois would avail against an 
 expedition planned by Washington and led by 
 Sullivan. 
 
 " We do not want another Braddock's defeat, to say 
 nothing of Wyoming," said Mrs. Eyre to her kins 
 woman ; " and I do not think there will be either am 
 bush or massacre, if there be riflemen enough " and 
 here she handed to Vrooman, senior, with smiling ap 
 proval, his third cup of fragrant Amoy tea. 
 
 " No, wife, and cousin, too ; nor shall we have any, 
 if Colonel Hand with his light troops leads the ad 
 vance. If I took lessons in handling cannon at Pitts- 
 
 2 5
 
 26 THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 burg, he learned to fight Indians in that same region. 
 He knows just how the redmen think and act, and 
 he knows well the superior skill and valor of the rifle 
 men. How delightful, too, Colonel Hand, it must 
 have been to mingle among your warm-hearted fel 
 low Irishmen in western Pennsylvania. For real 
 comradeship give me a jolly man from the Emerald 
 Isle." 
 
 "Thank you, Colonel Eyre," said Hand, blushing. 
 " We Irishmen are, it is certain, treated better here 
 than in the old country by king and Parliament. We 
 cannot help supporting Congress. But, concerning 
 the Indians, in these many months of service I not 
 only saw how the redman hides in ambush, sneaking 
 up to kill the men first, and then tomahawk the family 
 and set the home on fire, leaving a blazing ruin where 
 before was peace and comfort, but I know how the 
 red demons act when obliged to stand up and fight 
 when pursued. My experience in western Pennsyl 
 vania gave me some knowledge which I have gladly 
 placed at the disposition of General Washington, 
 himself once a frontiersman of skill, and I hope to be 
 appointed to lead a brigade of light infantry. Yet 
 I wish you were going, with your guns, for the 
 redmen have not moral courage to stand against 
 artillery." 
 
 " Moral courage ? How does that differ from the 
 muscular sort, colonel ? " asked Mrs. Eyre. 
 
 " Well, the Indian is brave enough physically,"
 
 BY THE BANKS OF THE DELAWARE 2/ 
 
 replied Colonel Hand. " It is astonishing what hun 
 ger, discomfort, and privations he can bear, and what 
 bodily tortures he will submit to for the sake of his 
 religion, or, as I should call it, superstition. I am not 
 certain, however, that he can stand getting a tooth 
 drawn any better than we white men, whom he jeers 
 at, because we do not bear torture, as prisoners, like 
 savages. Certain it is that he has not the mind to 
 look into the cannon's mouth. He cannot face a 
 howitzer, and nothing can induce him to keep his 
 ground when bombs are flying round or balls are tear 
 ing the trees to pieces. I hope that General Washing 
 ton will certainly order the artillery to go with us. I 
 am still fresh from Wyoming and its awful scene of 
 blackness, ashes, and skeletons. Pardon me, madam, 
 I see you turn pale," Colonel Hand interjected, as he 
 saw the widow lady's change of countenance ; " but 
 let me say that if two or three well-served field guns, 
 or coehorns, with Colonel Eyre's artillerists, had been 
 there, the story of June 30, 1778, might have been dif 
 ferent." 
 
 " Yes," said Colonel Eyre ; "you know that though 
 Braddock took his artillery with him, it was of no 
 use, when no enemy was in sight, for he let them 
 surround him and make themselves invisible. In 
 deed, I saw one tree on Braddock's field, two 
 and a half feet thick, cut in halves by cannon 
 balls; but firing at the invisible did no good. I do 
 not suppose anything could have saved his men
 
 28 THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 when the general was determined to fight in solid 
 platoons, as if he and they were on the flat fields 
 of Flanders." 
 
 " By the way," said Mr. Vrooman ; " that disaster 
 in Virginia had a terrible effect, even up in northern 
 New York, in emboldening the savages. I hope, if 
 our army goes into the Seneca country, they will not 
 be ' Braddocked.' There are many dangerous places 
 through which an army must defile in a long, 
 narrow line, and where even a small band of red 
 skins could ambuscade whole regiments or stampede 
 the pack-horses and throw everything in confu 
 sion, making short work even of the Continental 
 veterans." 
 
 "Yes," replied Colonel Hand. "With men drilled 
 only in ordinary European tactics, there is grave 
 danger in a march of three hundred miles through 
 woods, in which are only Indian trails. But give me 
 a few companies of 'Virginia riflemen,' who come 
 chiefly from Pennsylvania," said he, laughing, " such 
 as Colonel Morgan has trained and General Wash 
 ington thinks so much of ; or, still better, those 
 Pennsylvanians, Germans, Irishmen, or sons of Swiss 
 chamois-hunters whom I have had under my com 
 mand, and I'll guarantee immunity from a disastrous 
 ambuscade. These hardy fellows have grown up in 
 the forests. Having lived all their lives among the 
 Indians, they have learned their tricks of wood-craft 
 and added thereto the superior intelligence of the
 
 BY THE BANKS OF THE DELAWARE 2Q 
 
 white man. Give us enough of these, and instead of 
 being ' Braddocked,' we shall drive the Iroquois to 
 Niagara and into Canada." 
 
 " Was General Braddock really ambuscaded, Colo 
 nel Hand ? " asked Vrooman, senior, with a look of 
 doubt and incredulity. 
 
 " No, on my reputation, no. The French and the 
 redskins met the king's troops face to face in the 
 comparatively open forest, and the one side was as 
 much surprised as the other. But, while the British 
 sat down, with napkins on, to a well-cooked dinner, 
 to eat leisurely first and then go to battle, in the 
 correct style of the Low Countries, the Indians simply 
 scattered themselves in cover, and enjoyed an after 
 noon of target practice. Even when the army had 
 formed, the men and their officers, knowing how to 
 fight only in platoons according to the European 
 method, were quickly slaughtered. The soldiers were 
 not used to firing into bushes, or aiming at invisible 
 foes. A Frenchman I met and talked to told me 
 that he went over the field after the battle and saw 
 that most of the dead British officers had napkins 
 pinned on their breasts. The white linen had in 
 each case made a superb target for the Indians, and 
 most of the napkins had bullet holes in them. It 
 was the redskins that did the bloody work, however, 
 for the Canadians had run away." 
 
 " Well, colonel, you will not take many city cooks 
 into the New York wilderness, will you ? Napkins
 
 3O THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 and table luxuries will be left at home ? " queried 
 Mrs. Eyre. 
 
 " No, we expect neither to fall into ambush, nor 
 walk into a trap with our eyes open, and then call it 
 an 'ambuscade.' " 
 
 " By the way, Colonel Hand," asked Mr. Harby, 
 "did you ever visit the actual place of Braddock's 
 defeat?" 
 
 " Yes, more than once ; but it is now, after twenty 
 years or more, so overgrown that, except for an 
 occasional bone washed out here and there, or some 
 mark on the trees or branches, which only a wood 
 man's eye can detect, there are no signs of that 
 awful day, which would have been utterly lost except 
 for Washington. Nature has kindly covered up the 
 marks of slaughter." 
 
 "Ah, that reminds me," said the host; "I saw 
 Braddock's field when all the bones of his men were 
 lying white on the soil. With some comrades in 
 Fort Pitt, I went out to see that little amphitheatre 
 which the Indians had used as a shooting gallery. I 
 believe that the redskins surprised themselves fully 
 as much as they did the redcoats, at the amazing 
 ease of their victory. It was simply a case of a 
 martinet general setting up a target for an enemy he 
 could not understand. All around were old logs and 
 trees and the underbrush in the forest, undisturbed 
 for a thousand years. On the hill slope the savages 
 hid themselves and simply blazed away. If the
 
 BY THE BANKS OF THE DELAWARE 31 
 
 Virginians lay down behind rocks or stood behind 
 trees to circumvent the Indians, the demoralized 
 British infantry fired into their backs. This was 
 simply because they had something to see and to 
 fire at. 
 
 " Down in the low-lying portion, in a parallelogram 
 only half a mile long and about one hundred yards 
 wide, I saw the white bones of enough victims to 
 remind me of Ezekiel's vision. They lay thick as 
 leaves, one over the other. It was five years after 
 the sad event that I looked upon the scene. It only 
 shows how hard it is for our British friends to learn 
 from Americans. Why, King George himself, young 
 and headstrong, given to governing too much, seems 
 to be no better than Braddock in refusing to learn 
 from those who could teach him better." 
 
 "Well, I feel sure," continued Colonel Hand, 
 "that with some light guns and howitzers, and our 
 skilful axemen, we can chop our way into the 
 Indian country, demoralize the Indians, and blow 
 to pieces their strongest castles. Even though they 
 have the Tories of Canada, and the Butlers and 
 Johnsons from the Mohawk Valley to help them 
 build entrenchments, we can do it. Give us a few 
 companies of riflemen, scouts, and skirmishers, and 
 some guides like our young friend Vrooman here, 
 and I can assure General Washington that there will 
 be no ' Braddock's field ' along our route." 
 
 "Thank you, colonel, and God grant us the op-
 
 32 THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 portunity," said young Vrooman. "We young men 
 of the Mohawk Valley are all ready to march. While 
 you and Pennsylvania remember Wyoming, we have 
 Cherry Valley and Springfield to avenge. The plots 
 are all hatched, and the forays all planned at Kane- 
 dasaga, 1 at the head of Seneca Lake. In one of my 
 trips, I went there with Domine Kirkland and his 
 Oneida friends. Furthermore, we'll be doing the 
 patriot cause a good service to destroy all the corn 
 fields. I have been out in the region of those pretty 
 lakes in western New York, where the Indians have 
 raised grain and vegetables for a good many years 
 past. On my last scout, just before the Oriskany 
 campaign, I found hundreds of braves girdling and 
 deadening the trees in scores of patches in the for 
 est, for new maize fields, and thousands of squaws 
 planting the seed, or at work with the hoe. I hear 
 that both this year and last the Tories have been by 
 the score among the Indians, helping them in their 
 farming and building operations. Along the river 
 bottoms and in the open inter-lake country there 
 must be many tens of thousands of fresh acres of 
 corn planted. Many of the fields are fenced, and 
 live stock, cattle, hogs, chickens, and horses are com 
 mon. Hundreds of new bark houses have been 
 built to store the crops, and it is even proposed to 
 feed a large part of the British army, not only 
 those that come down from Canada, but those in 
 
 1 Geneva, New York.
 
 BY THE BANKS OF THE DELAWARE 33 
 
 New York and along the coast. Light boats and 
 canoes can be floated down the Susquehanna and 
 the Delaware, so that the main forces can thus be 
 provisioned." 
 
 " Indeed ! " said Colonel Hand, with true Irish 
 impetuosity, bringing his fist down on the table so 
 violently as to rattle the gilt-rimmed china cups and 
 saucers, and upset a pile of caraway-seed cakes. 
 The ladies looked at him almost with alarm, as he 
 blurted out, " An idea strikes me." 
 
 " As hard as you hit the table ? " queried Colonel 
 Eyre, merrily. 
 
 " Well," said the light infantry commander, laugh 
 ing, " I can see now why delay to General Sullivan's 
 expedition will do no harm. Even if beef, boats, and 
 flour are slow in coming, and we start late in the 
 season, we shall be in the nick of time, for then the 
 crops will be ripe and their destruction will be surer 
 and more disastrous to our enemies." 
 
 " I fear from the opposition of the Quakers, who 
 think the poor Indians are more sinned against than 
 sinning, and from the usual dilatoriness of the 
 Board of War, that there will be tardiness," said 
 Colonel Eyre. " Even if after the supplies are 
 delivered they are found to be worth using, then 
 the contractors in east Pennsylvania are more 
 honest men than their fellows in New York or 
 Massachusetts." 
 
 " Do you understand, colonel, that the expedition
 
 34 THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 is to start from Pennsylvania ? " asked Adam Vroo- 
 man. 
 
 " Well, yes ; the main body will, in all probability, 
 move from Easton, while the New York troops set out 
 from Schenectady. But that is a matter to be set 
 tled at the council board with the commander when 
 we meet him next week at Middlebrook, in New 
 Jersey, where he is now." 
 
 By this time the table began to look very empty. 
 The third cup of tea had been enjoyed by nearly every 
 one, and the party seemed ready to adjourn. The 
 only ones who had not spoken were the demure 
 maidens, Margaret Eyre and Henrietta Harby. The 
 former, looking at young Vrooman, seemed to wish to 
 speak. 
 
 " What is it, daughter ? " 
 
 " Well, father, you know how I love rare flowers, 
 and Mr. Bartram, our botanical friend, tells me there 
 is a wonderful little pink primrose, quite unlike any 
 thing in our region, that grows only in the cool gorges 
 of that wonderful land of lakes, in which Mr. Vroo 
 man has travelled with Domine Kirkland, and espe 
 cially at the foot of Lake Cayuga. I wonder if he 
 would get one of the plants, for it is too late for the 
 blooms, and press it for me. Here is a picture of the 
 leaf, flower, stalk; and root, with a sketch of its sur 
 roundings. I should prize it more than edelweiss, of 
 which the Swiss men in Colonel Hubley's Pennsyl 
 vania regiment talk."
 
 BY THE BANKS OF THE DELAWARE 35 
 
 " I will, fair lady ; you can count on me," said 
 young Vrooman. 
 
 " Thank you, and may you find and bring back 
 your wife and sister too." 
 
 " God grant it ! " The words and prayer sounded 
 like a chorus from a sextette of voices.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 THE FRONTIERSMEN AT THE CAPITAL 
 
 THE gentlemen rose and walked down through 
 the garden into the shipyard, where were stored 
 boxes of "hardware," or cannon, for which carriages 
 were then being built, the sheds seeming more like 
 wheelwrights' shops than a ship-builder's work place. 
 The three Eyre brothers, Emmanuel, Jabez, and 
 George, had built many gallant craft in time of 
 peace, with such names as the Truelove, the Three 
 Brothers, etc. The Bull Dog was a specimen name 
 of the war-ships launched for the Congress. The 
 party took bateaux, and rowed over to pay a short 
 visit to the Continental brig Andrea Doria which then 
 lay out on the bosom of the stream at anchor. 
 
 Colonel Eyre was proud of this craft, for he had 
 seen it built. John Adams had named it after the 
 famous Italian admiral, whose name is linked with 
 the story of Italian liberties. Having conquered a 
 city, Andrea Doria gave the inhabitants their choice 
 of government. On their choosing a republic, he 
 helped maintain for them this form of order. Colonel 
 
 36
 
 THE FRONTIERSMEN AT THE CAPITAL 37 
 
 Eyre felt a peculiarly patriotic, as well as a personal, 
 interest in this ship, because it was the first war ves 
 sel of the United States carrying the American flag 
 that ever gave and received a salute from a foreign 
 magistrate. 
 
 On the i6th of November, 1776, under command 
 of Captain Patterson, the Andrea Doria sailed into 
 the harbor of St. Eustatius with its then unstarred 
 flag of thirteen stripes flying apeak. Captain Ra- 
 vene, in command of Fort Orange, by order of the 
 governor of the island, Johannes de Graeff, fired, 
 with his Dutch artillery, in honor of " the flag of the 
 Continental Congress," a salute of eleven guns. 
 
 Colonel Eyre now told the story of the salute, how 
 given and returned, and of the dinner tendered by 
 Governor de Graeff to the officers of the Andrea 
 Doria, and enjoyed by them, and how they presented, 
 and he read, the document of July 4, 1776. 
 
 The ladies were still chatting in the parlor, as the 
 party were returning from the ship to the house, the 
 walls of which were hung with prints representing 
 scenes in England. These were the market road or 
 cross in the town of Worksop ; the ruins of Newark 
 Castle, where Colonel Gervaise Eyre, ancestor of 
 Colonel Eyre, had served King Charles against 
 the Parliament troopers, often gallantly leading his 
 own cavalrymen against Cromwell's Ironsides; and 
 the little parish church at Rampton, where the Eyres 
 of several generations lie buried. Over the mantel-
 
 38 THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 piece was draped the original American flag of 
 thirteen stripes, red and white, without stars. 
 
 "Well, Colonel Hand," said Mrs. Eyre, as he 
 stepped across the threshold, " did you see the ship 
 that drew forth the first salute ever fired in honor of 
 the American flag ? " 
 
 "Yes, thank you; and the colonel, your husband, 
 tells me you have the identical bunting in your 
 house." 
 
 "True, sir; here it is," and she pointed to the as 
 yet starless flag gracefully fastened over the mantel 
 piece. " This drew the thunders of Fort Orange in 
 the West Indies. Captain Patterson himself gave it 
 to me as a souvenir of his voyage and of the first 
 foreign salute to the flag of the Continental Congress 
 and of our country." 
 
 " Good ; but it seems to me the Eyres possess a 
 monopoly of famous flags. The colonel tells me that 
 Mrs. Betsey Ross, now Mrs. Claypole, who made the 
 first flag with stars in it, has married an artilleryman 
 once in his regiment." 
 
 " True, sir. The lady is fair and young, and we 
 do not wonder she has taken a third husband to her 
 self. Her second was prisoner in the old Mill prison 
 near Plymouth in England. He sent his dying mes 
 sages to his wife by the man, also an American 
 prisoner, formerly in my husband's regiment, and he 
 carried them to her. Evidently he was a diligent 
 lover, for in eight months they were married."
 
 THE FRONTIERSMEN AT THE CAPITAL 39 
 
 " How about the proverb, ' Don't trust a pigeon to 
 carry grain ' ? " 
 
 " But he, the third, carried the grain and won a nest 
 too," laughed Mrs. Eyre; "and here is one of the first, 
 though not the very first, flags she made, which she 
 kept many months as a pattern. Mr. Claypole him 
 self, her husband, gave it to Colonel Eyre." 
 
 Colonel Hand examined it and then looked up into 
 the matron's eyes with mute appeal. There was a 
 prayer in his eyes, but no word was spoken. 
 
 " Enough, Colonel Hand ; it is yours. Carry it in 
 the forefront of General Sullivan's army. Bear it 
 to the point farthest westward ever to be reached by 
 the regular Continental soldiers, and then return it 
 to me, if God will." Mrs. Eyre looked upward, 
 bowed, courtesied, and then handed the silken symbol 
 to the colonel of the light-armed troops who were to 
 be ever in the van of Sullivan's avengers of Wyoming. 
 
 " My life is consecrated to my adopted country," 
 said the gallant Irishman. " I promise nothing. Let 
 deeds tell." 
 
 Yet though there were leaking vessels, and a blue 
 coat wet on the breast where tears had fallen, there 
 was silence, while Colonel Hand wrapped up the flag 
 and put it inside his bosom. 
 
 The three days which Colonel Hand and the Vroo- 
 mans had to spend in Philadelphia before joining the 
 army at Middlebrook, New Jersey, were spent in see 
 ing the sights of what was then the capital of the
 
 4O THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 United States and the largest city in America. The 
 gentlemen rose from their beds in time to see the 
 Jersey crows fly in black clouds over the city to 
 their daily feeding grounds in Pennsylvania. In the 
 " West End," at Sixth Street, toward the Schuylkill, 
 apparently on the edge of the town, or at least the 
 main part of it, stood the State House, while Carpen 
 ters' Hall was in the heart of the city, eastward and 
 nearer the Delaware. The streets between the rivers 
 were numbered First, Second, Third, etc. Those 
 between Kensington and Southwark were named 
 after trees such as Walnut, Spruce, Pine ; or, after 
 bushes, Mulberry, Raspberry, etc. Colonel Hand 
 was reminded of London by the names of the wards, 
 Southwark, Northern Liberties, Kensington, etc. 
 Vrooman, senior, noted many Dutch names of fami 
 lies from the Netherlands who had come over with 
 William Penn, whose mother had also come from 
 Rotterdam. 
 
 There were many other things which seemed very 
 fine and grand to those who had spent most of their 
 lives in the backwoods, or at frontier settlements. 
 Indeed, when walking along Second Street, some 
 of the houses seemed so high and close together that 
 at one point Vrooman the younger wished to walk in 
 the middle of the street. 
 
 " Where are you going, my friend ? " asked Colo 
 nel Eyre, as Vrooman stepped off the curb and on to 
 the cobbles.
 
 THE FRONTIERSMEN AT THE CAPITAL 4! 
 
 " Why, sir ; I am afraid these high houses will fall 
 on me. They really seem to bend and frown at me." 
 
 " Ha, ha ! you are like sailors I have heard of. 
 Well, you will get more light and air. I like the lat 
 ter, for I take my name from this necessity of 
 existence." 
 
 " A story, Colonel Eyre. Tell it, or I shall not 
 order my pet scout and rifleman back on the curb. 
 How did you get your family name ? " asked Colonel 
 Hand. 
 
 "Well, I'll tell it, to account for fighting blood 
 being in a Quaker, though I warn you it is legend, 
 and not down in the documents. At the battle of 
 Hastings, William of Normandy, stunned by a mis 
 sile, was knocked off his horse. There he lay in his 
 iron harness, and, with visor down, might have died 
 for want of air. A soldier from the ranks, stepping 
 forward, made bold to raise and open wide the hel 
 met of the Conqueror and to ask those around him 
 to stand back. Soon the chief came to, declaring at 
 once that, by the splendor of God, the air (eyre) had 
 revived him. When able to stand, he asked who had 
 thought of unlocking his visor. The soldier being 
 pointed out, the mighty William summoned him 
 forth, bade him kneel, and then and there, with the 
 accolade, dubbed him knight, by the name of Air, or 
 Eyre, as they spelled it then." 
 
 " Good ! Blood will tell. Now I know why 
 you're a fighting 'Quaker.' Come Vrooman, walk
 
 42 THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 with us. I'll guarantee the houses will not fall 
 down." 
 
 So on they sauntered, first on Chestnut and then 
 along High Street. Among other friends met, whom 
 Colonel Eyre saluted, or whom he stopped to give 
 an introduction to his visitors, were Mr. Robert 
 Aiken, the publisher of the Pennsylvania Magazine, 
 and his editor, Mr. Thomas Paine, a brisk gentle 
 man of English birth, who had written not a few 
 tracts which fired the patriotism of both civilians 
 and soldiers. The Continentals had cheered their 
 hearts by reading these by the light of the camp- 
 fires. Even in the gloom of Valley Forge, such 
 stirring appeals to patriotism kindled lamps of 
 hope. 
 
 "When will you empty your battery of quills on 
 the enemy again, Mr. Paine ? " asked Colonel Eyre. 
 
 " Oh, I am out of ammunition just now," said 
 Mr. Paine, laughing. " Haven't a quire of paper 
 left. As soon as I get the fifty reams we are wait 
 ing for, from St. Eustatius, the country will hear 
 from me ! " 
 
 "Good," said the colonel; "our men need them. 
 I hope General Sullivan's soldiers will take a good 
 supply in their knapsacks." 
 
 " Thank you, colonel ; I am glad to find my work 
 appreciated. Good day." 
 
 Christ Church, on Second Street, seemed a grand 
 structure. After years of familiarity with narrow
 
 THE FRONTIERSMEN AT THE CAPITAL 43 
 
 river canoes only, the crowded wharves and sea 
 going ships loomed up vast and mysterious. Colo 
 nel Eyre pointed out the line of high ground along 
 Front Street, in which Penn's colonists had dug 
 caves and lived for a time while their houses were 
 going up. He showed the house in which Catherine 
 Montour, the Indian queen, whose town was near 
 Seneca Lake, had stopped, when visiting Philadel 
 phia at the age of ten years, with Seneca chiefs. 
 Another object of interest was the house in which 
 had been held the Indian council, at which the 
 Iroquois confronted the Delawares in a dispute 
 about their sale of lands, called them squaws, and 
 so angered the young chief Taughannock that he 
 went off vowing revenge, and kept his vow. He 
 showed also the spot on Chestnut Street where the 
 mangled and scalped corpses of those slain in the 
 Indian massacres had been brought and exposed 
 as an object lesson, showing what the British allies 
 could and would do. While all paused to admire 
 the State House, Colonel Eyre called attention to 
 the last indictment against King George, in the 
 Declaration of July 4, 1776, a copy of which was 
 posted on Independence Hall. It read : 
 
 " He [the king of Great Britain] has endeavored 
 to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers the 
 merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of 
 warfare is an undistinguished destruction of all 
 ages, sexes, and conditions."
 
 44 THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 " That statement, penned nearly three years ago, 
 fully justifies the Western Expedition against the 
 Indians, which General Sullivan is to lead," said 
 Colonel Hand ; " for what was then surmise is now 
 multiplied fact." 
 
 " Yes, ' seeing is believing, but feeling is the 
 naked truth.' The orders of the Congress to deso 
 late the Indian country are harsh, but they are 
 necessary. I have seen Wyoming. That is enough 
 for me." 
 
 As for the ladies, they had their own schemes and 
 pleasures. John Harby's daughter, who went shop 
 ping with Miss Eyre down the Philadelphia Cheap- 
 side, Second Street, thought the wonderful things 
 seen in the shops which had been captured by 
 the privateers or brought over by way of the Dutch 
 West Indies from Europe were gay beyond the 
 glamour of fairy tales. The first strenuous self- 
 denial of the early years of the war, which had 
 compelled the patriotic women to do without many 
 familiar luxuries, was now over. The privateers 
 which, in the teeth of British squadrons, kept the 
 stars and stripes afloat on the ocean and gathered 
 to refit and load with supplies at St. Eustatius, 
 brought in fresh invoices almost weekly. One prosy 
 but significant fact we must note, and that is this : 
 Besides what the ladies thought necessary for their 
 comfort, there were "grains" and "hardware," 
 which English as well as French merchants sold
 
 THE FRONTIERSMEN AT THE CAPITAL 45 
 
 to the Dutch, to supply Washington's army, in ex 
 change for tobacco, American produce, or Spanish 
 silver, said "grains" being grains of gunpowder, 
 and " hardware " being cannon. 
 
 This chapter, already far too long, would be 
 tediously so, were I here to tell of the call into the 
 upholstery shop on Mulberry Street near Second, and 
 the chat with Mrs. Ross-Claypole, flag maker to the 
 Continental Congress. Philadelphia, the nation's 
 capital, was a wonderfully gay city, for the British 
 had left it and gone to New York. Meanwhile, 
 Washington held his Continentals together, and waited 
 for the time to come when the French alliance should 
 mean efficient cooperation.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 RAAD VOOR DAAD 
 
 "F^AAD voor daad" ("Council before action"), as 
 1 \ the Dutch proverb says. Washington was ac 
 customed to think things out before he began opera 
 tions. He deliberated and then struck hard. 
 
 Colonel Hand, with Colonel Eyre and his aides, 
 Captain Adam Vrooman, and his son Claes, had ridden 
 from Philadelphia to the camp at Middlebrook, New 
 Jersey, arriving early in the morning of the third day. 
 After slight detention by the pickets and outer guard 
 of General Anthony Wayne's brigade, consisting of the 
 First, Second, and Third Pennsylvania regiments, the 
 visitors were escorted to Major Alexander Hamil 
 ton's office. By him they were introduced into Wash 
 ington's presence, who, in his dignity, greeted them 
 with noticeable warmth. Colonel Eyre had been very 
 active in the Trenton and Princeton campaign of 
 1776-77, both in handling the boats when crossing 
 the Delaware to capture Hessians and in serving 
 his cannon at Princeton. His brother George had 
 acted as his aide, and he knew the Eyres well. 
 
 " I am very happy to see both a Continental officer 
 46
 
 THE GENERAL EXTENDED HIS HAND COURTEOUSLY TO THE 
 FATHER AND SON."
 
 RAAD VOOR DAAD 47 
 
 and one of the Pennsylvania line who have been over 
 ground once so familiar to me in Ohio and western 
 Pennsylvania. I am particularly glad, Colonel Hand, 
 that you have taken some lessons in Indian warfare, 
 for I expect to give you further opportunities in that 
 direction. Do you mind travelling northwestwardly ? " 
 said Washington. 
 
 " I shall be only too happy, your Excellency, to go 
 wheresoever you order," said Colonel Hand ; " and I 
 wish to tell you how well I have been assisted by my 
 aides, Captain Adam Vrooman and his son Claes, of 
 Schenectady. The young man knows the Seneca 
 country by personal examination. He has been 
 beyond Cayuga Lake as far as Kanedasaga, the big 
 'castle,' where the Wyoming raid was planned. I 
 beg to commend them both to the attention of your 
 Excellency." 
 
 The general extended his hand courteously to the 
 father and son, and bade them be seated. After a 
 few exchanges of inquiry, the council of war was 
 called for ten o'clock next morning. The visitors 
 improved their time by visiting the camp and attend 
 ing the inspection of some regiments by Baron Steu- 
 ben. It was with a feeling of awe that young 
 Vrooman first looked on this former aide-de-camp to 
 the mighty king of Prussia, Frederick the Great. In 
 glittering uniform, on a horse richly caparisoned and 
 with unusually large holsters, Baron Steuben seemed 
 every inch a soldier. To a boy whose ideas of
 
 48 THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 European warfare had been gained in childhood by 
 poring over the numerous pictures of the Dutch 
 histories of the Vaderland and the States-General's 
 version of the family Bible, this Prussian recalled the 
 figures of Mars and the imposing Roman soldiers 
 under Caesar. Dismounting, after an hour or two of 
 drill and tactics, the indefatigable German ordered 
 knapsacks unslung and their contents tumbled into 
 their blankets, to see that everything provided by law 
 was there and in order. Five hours were spent on 
 three regiments. Then Steuben rode back to his 
 headquarters at the house of the Staats family. 
 "Nothing," as the baron said himself, "is too little 
 for a great soldier." 
 
 After dinner the visitors entered the soldiers' log 
 huts, built without a nail, but made strong with plenty 
 of hickory pins. These were provided with a double 
 row of bunks on all sides, in which were plenty of 
 straw and in each, neatly folded up, a Leyden blanket. 
 A dozen men lived in each hut. The broad fire 
 places and chimneys were made of bricks and splints 
 of wood well covered with clay. A rude table occu 
 pied most of the centre of the room, on one half of 
 which were soldiers' gear, Mr. Paine's tracts, smokers' 
 material, packs of cards, novels, copies of the Phila 
 delphia periodicals, occasionally a book, and once in 
 a while a Bible ; and on the other half, vessels for 
 eating and drinking, of wood, pewter, and earthen 
 ware. Later in the afternoon, the visitors enjoyed
 
 RAAD VOOR DAAD 49 
 
 the sight of dress parade and heard the evening 
 gun. 
 
 It was a brilliant company of handsome men, most 
 of them still young or in the prime of life, that gath 
 ered around the table of the commander-in-chief at 
 Middlebrook, to take council concerning the proposed 
 expedition of chastisement against "the Senecas," 
 that name of the largest of the Six Nations, which 
 stood in the popular minds for the whole of the allied 
 savages. There were present Generals Knox, Wayne, 
 Greene, Maxwell ; Colonels Hand, Eyre, Steuben, 
 Proctor, and Alexander Hamilton, Captain Adam 
 Vrooman and his son Claes. From Generals Clinton 
 and Poor and Domine Kirkland, letters recently re 
 ceived were read. General Sullivan was already at 
 Easton, where also were boat-building parties from 
 the Eyre shipyards, some of whom were to go for 
 ward to Wyoming and Tioga Point. 
 
 The "Seneca country" was a common phrase for 
 the great unknown land, rich in lakes, waterfalls, and 
 cleared maize land, of central and western New 
 York, the granary of the Six Nations. There were, 
 indeed, what professed to be maps of the region lying 
 on the table, and the heads of Washington's generals 
 were bent over them. But, apart from showing the 
 lines of the rivers and in a vague way the position of 
 the lakes and Indian " castles " or fortified towns, 
 there was very little exact information to be gained 
 about this rich region threaded only by Indian trails.
 
 5O THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 The great Iroquois confederacy dominated a region 
 twelve hundred miles long and six hundred miles wide, 
 but their houses and firesides lay between the Hudson 
 River and Niagara Falls and between Lake Ontario 
 and Tioga Point at the forks of the Susquehanna, 
 almost the whole area being within the length and 
 breadth of New York. The Long House, as they 
 called their domain, had four doors, the northern at 
 Oswego, and the southern, where all the trails from 
 the four points of the compass met, at Tioga Point, 
 where the two rivers, the Chemung and the outlet of 
 Otsego Lake forming the Susquehanna, meet. This 
 southern door was ever guarded by a vigilant Seneca 
 chief. Near by were the great maize lands of Queen 
 Esther, who had figured so cruelly in the Wyoming 
 massacre. The eastern door was at Schenectady, and 
 the western at Niagara. 
 
 Washington, feeling in duty bound to do so, had 
 offered the command of this expedition, for which 
 one-third of the whole Continental army was to be 
 spared, to General Horatio Gates, his old comrade on 
 Braddock's field. But this officer, pride-swollen with 
 victory at Saratoga over Burgoyne though Ganse- 
 voort at Oriskany, Stark at Bennington, Arnold at 
 Stillwater, and in all the wisdom and skill of Schuyler, 
 who had foreseen and prepared every element of suc 
 cess, had wrought the results which secured French 
 recognition declined Washington's generous offer. 
 This was done in language which plainly irritated the
 
 RAAD VOOR DAAD 51 
 
 commander-in-chief, who then turned to Sullivan. 
 Young, for he was not yet forty, alert, of hand 
 some military bearing, zealously patriotic, not indeed 
 able to avoid mistakes, but ever quick to rectify or 
 neutralize them, Major-General John Sullivan was the 
 man for the emergency. He was one not likely to be 
 " Braddocked." 
 
 Washington might have offered the command to 
 Major-General Anthony Wayne, but this gallant 
 officer had other work to do ; and do it he did, that 
 very summer of 1 779. Wayne, as elegantly gotten up 
 in his dress as a Chestnut Street beau, politely and 
 formally present in body but hardly in spirit, took 
 only a general interest in the council. During some 
 of the discussions of details over maps, he even pulled 
 out a book, which was no other than Smollett's novel 
 of " Roderick Random," and began to read in snatches. 
 It told the story of Admiral Vernon's expedition 
 against the Spaniards in Cuba, in which Washington's 
 older brother, Lawrence, had taken part. This, as we 
 all know, had resulted in the naming of the family 
 estate on the " Mount " by the Potomac and in the 
 bringing home of a comrade, the Dutchman Jacob van 
 Braam, who had taught the boy of ten, now the great 
 commander Washington, broadsword and infantry ex 
 ercises and a knowledge of fortification. Wayne had 
 come provided with " food for the mind." He had per 
 fect confidence in Sullivan, while, in planning a battle 
 or a campaign, Washington was in his eyes infallible.
 
 52 THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 Washington, who always made an allowance of 
 five minutes for difference in timepieces, for split- 
 second watches were not yet invented, called the 
 meeting to order at the moment of 10.05 A - M - 
 He laid down his own watch on the table, and, 
 addressing Colonel Hand, said: "What shall we do 
 for guides and interpreters ? You are going among 
 Indians that speak various languages. Fortunately 
 no European language, other than English, will 
 be needed. You will not have my unpleasant ex 
 perience of years ago." 
 
 " Ah," said Colonel Hand, ever alert ; " may I ask 
 your Excellency what that was ? " 
 
 " Well, not knowing French, I had to trust to my 
 former military instructor, Van Braam, whose ac 
 quaintance with English was as defective as was 
 mine with French. In the correspondence with 
 Commander Contrecceur, I and my party, after we 
 had captured Dumonville and his men, were made 
 out to be 'assassins.' The Senecas were our allies 
 then, and the Half King helped us. Yet I suffered 
 less than Van Braam ; for, on our return to Virginia, 
 the storm of ridicule so angered my Dutch friend 
 that he threw up his commission, sold his lands, and 
 is now somewhere in the British army. You will 
 have no experience of that kind, I hope. Have you 
 selected a pilot ? " 
 
 " My young friend Vrooman," said Colonel Hand, 
 "can certainly guide any force that will advance
 
 RAAD VOOR DA AD 53 
 
 through the Mohawk Valley and into the region 
 westward, for he has been as far as Conesus, which, 
 I am told, is the westernmost lake in that wonderful 
 crescent line, around the shores of which the Indians 
 are most thickly settled. He tells me also that there 
 is a Connecticut gentleman, a clergyman, who has 
 actually lived among the Oneidas. He speaks not 
 only their language well but knows other Indian 
 dialects." 
 
 " What is his name ? " asked the commander-in- 
 chief of Claes Vrooman. 
 
 "The Reverend Domine Samuel Kirkland," re 
 plied Claes. 
 
 "Very good," said Washington. "He is an old 
 friend. Your words confirm a letter I have received 
 from the domine himself. We must have him 
 appointed as chaplain, and he can take some of his 
 friendly Oneidas, our allies, with him, of whom Mr. 
 Vrooman has told Colonel Hand. At least this one 
 of the Six Nations has cast in its lot with us. We 
 are to have a visit from their warriors in a few days. 
 A delegation is now on its way here." 
 
 It was at this council table in Middlebrook, after 
 the opinions of Knox, Steuben, and Greene had been 
 especially drawn out and expressed, that the plan 
 of the campaign was definitely formed and the 
 forces assigned. It was decided to detach at least 
 five thousand men for the task, a number which at 
 once revealed the seriousness of the work in hand,
 
 54 THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 for that meant one-third of the whole Continental 
 army. 
 
 Though hundreds of miles apart, there was to be 
 a right and left wing to the main body. The centre 
 under Sullivan was to move from Easton, the right 
 wing under Clinton from Schenectady, and the left 
 under Broadhead from Pittsburg. Thus supported 
 on either flank, east and west, the Continental army 
 of chastisement was to sweep all Iroquoisia. 
 
 Colonel Broadhead, with six hundred men, was to 
 advance into northern Pennsylvania and south 
 western New York, to punish the Indians there. 
 
 At Schenectady General Clinton was to assemble 
 his New York and Massachusetts troops. These 
 were to proceed up the valley of the Mohawk. 
 After throwing forward detachments to chastise the 
 Onondagas, the men were to load their boats and 
 stores on wagons at Canajoharie, and then cross the 
 country to Lake Otsego. There they would build 
 a dam and raise the combined waters of this and 
 Schuyler Lake. By floating, poling, or pushing 
 down into the Susquehanna, they were to deliver the 
 ammunition and stores at Tioga Point. It seemed 
 a bold and toilsome enterprise, but Clinton was not 
 only brave and inclined to new projects, but was a 
 skilled engineer. From Easton, the New Hampshire, 
 Pennsylvania, and New Jersey regiments under 
 Poor, Hubley, and Maxwell, the artillery under 
 Proctor, and the riflemen under Colonel Hand, were
 
 RAAD VOOR DAAD 55 
 
 to set out by way of Wyoming for Tioga Point, to 
 force the southern door of the Indian confederacy, 
 and lay the " Long House " in ashes. Henceforth, 
 Washington was to be known among the Iroquois 
 as the " Town Destroyer." 
 
 Colonel Eyre was to relieve Colonel Proctor in 
 command of the forts on the Delaware. The two 
 artillery officers had been young men of energy and 
 enterprise in the shipyard of Richard Wright, Colo 
 nel Eyre's father-in-law, where the young Irishman 
 was very popular. Having learned the handling of 
 cannon, Proctor raised a company, and in two years 
 rose to be colonel. At Middlebrook, Eyre and Proc 
 tor had already renewed each other's acquaintance, 
 and were sitting together. 
 
 " I am putting a severe task upon General Sullivan 
 and yourselves, gentlemen," said Washington, ad 
 dressing especially Maxwell, Hand, and Proctor. "To 
 take so large an army so far into the wilderness 
 seems like invading a foreign country; but there is 
 not only an imperative need of the expedition in 
 order to cut off these flank attacks of savages and 
 Tories, but as one born on the soil, I feel that, while 
 grateful for foreign assistance, we must depend 
 largely upon ourselves. If our country is to be made 
 free, it must be by Americans. We cannot afford to 
 sit idly by and wait for the French to come and do 
 our work. The orders of the Congress are explicit. 
 Our cruel enemies are to be so punished that their
 
 56 THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 strength will be broken. Their country is to be so 
 devastated that it will be not possible for the savages 
 to occupy, the land again during the war. I have 
 taken every precaution, based on experience, and 
 shall furnish General Sullivan with all of the riflemen 
 we can spare, at least two hundred, if possible, for 
 these men are used to the forest and to Indian ways. 
 I have placed the light infantry under command of 
 Colonel Hand, who also has had experience in Indian 
 warfare. Although it will be difficult and toilsome 
 to transport the artillery, yet I rely upon its power of 
 inspiring terror among the savages. The labor ex 
 pended in transportation will, I feel sure, be justified. 
 In the other brigade commanders, Poor and Clin 
 ton, I repose the highest confidence. Besides the 
 skilled guides, I shall order Erskine and Lodge, of 
 the topographical engineers, to measure the route and 
 make maps of the region traversed. So, good day." 
 Thereupon Washington, leaving the members of 
 the council to the courtesies of his aide, Alexander 
 Hamilton, left the room, and adjournment was soon 
 the order of the hour.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 GAYETY IN THE CONTINENTAL CAMP 
 
 WHAT happened at Middlebrook, while Colonel 
 Eyre remained a fortnight with the army, is 
 thus told in a letter which he wrote to his wife, who 
 had charged him to tell her particularly about the 
 ladies at the camp and in the country around. Dur 
 ing the whole war there was probably no place at 
 which the officers of the Continental army had a 
 pleasanter time during winter quarters than at 
 Middlebrook, in central New Jersey. Here was the 
 very reverse of the gloom and misery at Valley Forge 
 the year previous. Colonel Eyre was a keen observer 
 and a diligent letter-writer. Hence his impressions 
 are worth our notice. He was not averse to amus 
 ing his wife with delightful bits of gossip which he 
 with his brother officers enjoyed. 
 
 Let us open the yellow time-stained packet of his 
 letters, and see with his eyes what was worth looking 
 at in the Jersey cantonments : 
 
 "CAMP AT MIDDLEBROOK HEIGHTS, 
 "May 31, 1779. 
 
 " DEAR WIFE POLLY AND DAUGHTER PEGGY : I must 
 tell you of my ride hither in the pleasant company of 
 
 57
 
 58 THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 Colonel Hand and Captain Vrooman and his son. 
 When I remember Valley Forge, with its hunger and 
 rags, its misery and sufferings, I can hardly believe 
 that this is the same army, but it is. Baron Steuben 
 has accomplished wonders in drill, tactics, and inspec 
 tion of arms and equipments. Our men, after hav 
 ing met the enemy in the open field at Monmouth, 
 feel in wonderfully high spirits. This is a rich coun 
 try, and there are many fine old homes and farms 
 here. Besides the pretty girls and stately matrons 
 of the county, many of the officers have their wives, 
 and in some cases their whole families. You would 
 be surprised at the gayety in the camp. Some of 
 the dinners given are more like those which we are 
 apt to associate with Walnut Street, rather than with 
 the heart of New Jersey. 
 
 " Let me first say, as I must always, a good word 
 about the loyalty and patriotism of our soldiers. 
 They live as they have fought, like men determined 
 to be free. Every effort has been made by the 
 king's emissaries to persuade our men, and all sorts 
 of rewards offered to them, to desert. Indeed, I 
 have found that during this winter past some of the 
 regimental camps have been flooded with printed 
 circulars, urging the soldiers to come again under 
 King George's banner, with promise of pay and 
 honors; but very few have yielded. Mr. Paine's 
 patriotic tracts have handsomely neutralized the 
 Tory treason.
 
 GAYETY IN THE CONTINENTAL CAMP 5Q 
 
 " The Jersey people, too, are nobly loyal. Wash 
 ington has done all in his power to protect them from 
 the marauders and disorderly elements in the army. 
 Any thief caught meets with speedy punishment. 
 Recently our commander gave a lesson which is not 
 likely to be soon forgotten. Late in April, after a 
 mighty crowd of people had gathered, and two regi 
 ments of soldiers had been drawn up in a hollow 
 square, five deserters sat on their coffins under a gal 
 lows with the halters around their necks. Alongside 
 of each was an open grave, for each one to fill. Two 
 did swing, but three were pardoned. 
 
 " In another case nine men went through the same 
 dramatic ordeal, but all except one were reprieved, 
 the coffins taken away, and the graves filled up with 
 earth. The ninth man had to swing, for he had 
 forged discharges by which the army lost nearly one 
 hundred men. I am happy to say. that the Consisto 
 ries of the Reformed Dutch churches here, through 
 their domine, Rev. Jacob Hardenbergh, the son of 
 the New York militia colonel, have sent a long letter 
 to General Washington, thanking him for his vigilance 
 in maintaining strict discipline throughout the army. 
 This letter General Washington answered with his 
 usual clearness and suavity. 
 
 "The domine is so hated of the Tories that he 
 sleeps with a loaded musket by his bedside. Prince 
 ton has heaped honors on his head, and made him 
 doctor of divinity. I suppose the British will burr
 
 6O THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 his meeting-house as soon as the army moves else 
 where. 
 
 " But now to more cheerful things. I could not now 
 take time to tell you about all the fine officers I have 
 met here. I shall leave that till I see you again ; but 
 of some I must speak. Our fellow Pennsylvanian, 
 Anthony Wayne, is as much of a dandy as when we 
 knew him before the war. He always looks as if he 
 had just stepped out of a bandbox, but is one of the 
 bravest of the brave. It is not only we " free 
 Quakers," who wear soldier clothes, but Dutch and 
 German Reformed domines also. 
 
 " Muhlenburg ' the time to preach and the time 
 to fight' parson-general is as fat as ever, like his 
 wife, who is with him. They entertain frequently, 
 not only with suppers but with dances. It is very 
 rare, they say, that the fun is over before two or three 
 o'clock in the morning. In spite of these muddy 
 roads as red as Margaret's cheek when she blushes 
 there is a good deal of social life and visiting of 
 officers' wives, one with the other. Judging by the 
 immaculate whiteness and elegant doing up of the 
 ladies' collars and ruffles, there must be a good deal 
 of starch consumed in the cantonment. 
 
 " The country houses here are, many of them, built 
 of Holland brick, and the Holland Dutch who live in 
 them are a very hospitable set of people. They cer 
 tainly know what good living is. I have been inter 
 ested to notice how differently the men from
 
 GAYETY IN THE CONTINENTAL CAMP 6 1 
 
 Connecticut or Virginia, North Carolina, or New 
 Jersey, do things. Each set has its own way, but it 
 is certainly a good thing for our country to bring the 
 patriots of the different states together, to stand 
 shoulder to shoulder in one common interest. 
 
 " Near Chimney Rock, which is a piece of high 
 ground easily seen from New Brunswick, Major-Gen 
 eral Putnam's division is encamped. With them is 
 Colonel Gibson's Virginia regiment, with the surgeon 
 of which, Thatcher by name, I had a long and pleas 
 ant talk. General Greene, of Rhode Island, whom I 
 have met before, has his headquarters in a snug stone 
 house belonging to a Mr. Van Veghten, a hale old 
 gentleman of about eighty years of age. I have had 
 considerable business with General Greene, who is 
 now quartermaster-general. His wife is a lovely 
 woman and extremely handsome. If I am not un- 
 gallant, and if you will not be jealous, I should say 
 that her bright gray eyes had not seen more than 
 twenty-five years of experience in this world. Her 
 conversation is certainly very delightful. 
 
 " Of course I am most interested in the artillery, 
 which I find is parked at Pluckamin. Here they hold 
 a sort of school of war in the academy building, the 
 young officers and men receiving instruction in gun 
 nery and tactics. There are altogether about forty- 
 nine companies, with about seventeen hundred men. 
 They wear black coats with red facings. Their jack 
 ets and breeches are of white wool, and their hats are
 
 62 THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 of yellow. My friend, Colonel Proctpr, does not like 
 this new uniform. He prefers the old blue coats 
 faced with white and buff, which remind him of old- 
 country politics and traditions ; but, like a good soldier, 
 he yields to Washington's orders. He will march his 
 artillery men into the wilderness with a regiment of 
 black coats instead of blue. He is to take nine guns. 
 How I wish I were going in his place ! 
 
 " Our Pennsylvania boys under Wayne have blue 
 coats lined with white, ruffled shirts, red flannel leg 
 gings, and caps dressed with fur. They are almost as 
 neat as their general, whose nick or pet name ' Mad ' 
 came from a slouchy, drunken fellow. His regiments 
 form one of the finest brigades in the Continental 
 force. Washington's life-guards wear buff and blue, 
 forming a splendid body of men, and the model for 
 the army. There are some quite bright uniforms in 
 the Maryland and Pennsylvania lines, but naturally I 
 am most interested in those men that are to march 
 westward against the savages. Nearly all the Jersey- 
 men wear blue, turned up with red. The New Hamp 
 shire men, who are to join Sullivan, are now in camp 
 at Redding, Connecticut, or on their march to the Dela 
 ware Valley. The general, as usual, is ahead of time, 
 and already at Easton. How well I remember him 
 ' at Brandywine, a dark-featured, bright-eyed man, 
 with rosy cheeks, and as handsome as a picture. 
 This morning I received a letter from him. He is 
 delighted with his appointment and work. Think of
 
 GAYETY IN THE CONTINENTAL CAMP 63 
 
 his seeing the New York lakes and perhaps pushing 
 on to Niagara ! 
 
 " I must tell you a curious little anecdote, which 
 shows how narrow and bigoted some sectarians can 
 be. You know how harshly some of the Friends 
 have spoken of us 'free Quakers,' because we have 
 taken up arms for our country's freedom, and how 
 uncharitable some of them are in their judgments; but 
 I think the Dutch churchmen here have gone further. 
 My chief of artillery, General Knox, told me about it. 
 Mrs. Knox has insisted on being with her husband 
 and sharing his privations in camp, so that it is no 
 wonder that two of her children have died in infancy. 
 They are Congregationalists, as indeed nearly all the 
 New Englanders are, and this, in the eyes of the 
 Dutch Calvinists, means something dangerous, 
 though both sorts of churchmen honor the Geneva 
 reformer. 
 
 "A short time ago Mrs. Knox's second baby, born 
 in the camp here, died. The father and mother 
 wished the little one to be buried in the churchyard, 
 but the elders in the Great Consistory are so fright 
 fully orthodox that they declined allowing the infant 
 to be buried within the cemetery. Is not this like 
 what Christ said about ' despising the little ones ' ? 
 The little grave lies about ten yards west of the 
 'meeting-house,' as we would say, for we find it hard 
 to call anything made of brick or stone a ' church,' 
 which can only be made up of living souls.
 
 64 THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 " I am bound to say that the general's host, old 
 Jacobus van der Veer, is very angry about the Con 
 sistory's action, especially as he gave the ground to 
 the church, for he himself has suffered from the same 
 narrowness and bigotry. Several years ago his own 
 daughter, who was insane, was denied burial on ac 
 count of her infirmity. When will the world learn 
 that insanity is not necessarily a proof of God's dis 
 favor? So he buried his daughter just outside the 
 line fence, and when the general was informed he 
 could not put his baby's corpse in the cemetery, Mr. 
 Van de Veer took my chief by the hand and led him 
 out by his daughter's grave, and with a choking voice 
 said, ' General, this is my ground ; bury your child 
 here.' 
 
 " I have been to several tea drinkings, dinners, and 
 evening companies, and if I were to give the list 
 of ladies, it would be a long one. Mrs. Washing 
 ton, Mrs. Knox, Mrs. Lott from near Morristown, 
 Lady Sterling and her brilliant daughter Kitty, Mrs. 
 Greene, a Miss Brown from Virginia, and Misses Katy 
 and Betsey Livingston, daughters of the governor 
 of New Jersey, are in the cantonment. His married 
 daughter, Mrs. John Jay, has also been here. She 
 has so wonderfully brilliant a complexion that stran 
 gers think it must come from rouge, though those 
 who know her best say it is nature's own blush. 
 Then there are the five handsome and well-bred 
 daughters of Philip van Home, who lives at Phil's
 
 GAYETY IN THE CONTINENTAL CAMP 65 
 
 Hill. He is a fine man, but his weakness seems to 
 be a desire to cultivate friendship with the friends 
 both of King George and the Continental Congress. 
 
 " On great occasions, such as a review, ladies come 
 up from Princeton, Elizabethtown, and Basking Ridge ; 
 but, handsome as they are, I must tell you of the 
 superb officers here, for example, Colonel Alexander 
 Hamilton. He is only twenty-two years old, has, be 
 sides rosy cheeks and powdered hair, such amiable 
 manners and agreeable presence, that he makes every 
 visitor a friend. He is single, and I wonder what 
 lady he is yet to win. The only person whom I ever 
 heard of having taken offence at him for being asked 
 to wait, while General Washington was busy, was 
 that rather impetuous Pole, Count Pulaski. 
 
 " Two other officers in Washington's military fam 
 ily are Colonel Tench, Tilghman, and William Colfax, 
 the latter being chief of Washington's body-guard. 
 I could not exaggerate the beauty of his clear, florid 
 complexion and expressive blue eyes. He is such a 
 favorite of Mrs. Washington that she has knit for 
 him, with her own hands, a linen thread net for his 
 queue. 
 
 " He is engaged to Hester, a daughter of Jasper 
 Schuyler, cousin of General Philip Schuyler. 
 
 " By the way, it may interest you to know that her 
 great-grandfather, Arendt Schuyler, was named after 
 that famous friend of the Indians, Arendt van Cur 
 ler, who a century and a half ago so impressed the
 
 66 THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 redmen with his honesty and justice that they still 
 call the governors of New York after his name, and 
 their bond of loyalty to the king 'the covenant of 
 Corlaer,' of which more anon. ' Corlaer ' is a name 
 to conjure by among the Indians ; and, by plying 
 them with the name of this Dutchman, who died 
 over a century ago, and is a sort of saint or holy 
 father among the Iroquois, the British won them 
 to their side."
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE GENERAL OF THE CONTINENTAL ARMIES 
 
 " I MUST tell you about Washington's body-guard, 
 1 which numbers one hundred and eighty men. 
 They wear blue coats faced with buff, red waistcoats, 
 buckskin breeches, white belts, and black cocked hats 
 trimmed with white capes, being as superb a body of 
 men as I have ever seen. Among them are several 
 Pennsylvania Germans, who are great singers of 
 hymns. One song I heard so often that I copied it 
 down, and here it is : 
 
 " ' England's Georgel, Kaiser, Koenig, 
 1st fur Gott und us zu weinig.' 
 
 " I hear that they go into battle singing this as a re 
 frain. Roughly translated, it means that King George 
 is not great enough to inspire loyalty, and that God 
 means it to be so. 
 
 " A very funny incident happened here a few weeks 
 ago. It was rumored that Captain Simcoe was riding 
 through the country, hoping, with his Queen's Rang 
 ers, to dash between the lines and seize Washing 
 ton's person. It was wonderful to see how quickly, 
 on the alarm being given, the life-guards showed 
 
 67
 
 68 THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 their mettle. They leaped out of their huts, half 
 dressed, and unceremoniously taking possession of 
 headquarters, bolted and barricaded the door. Then 
 they threw open every window, at which five men 
 could be seen, with guns loaded and cocked, waiting 
 until a regiment or two from the camp should turn 
 out and form around the house. 
 
 " The alarm proved to be a false one ; but at the 
 dinner table Mrs. Washington told, most amusingly, 
 how she had to put her head under the bed-clothes, 
 and entrenched herself with pillows, so as to keep 
 warm while the winter breezes swept through her 
 bedroom ; for the men stood guard till they were or 
 dered to enter their huts again, and the Simcoe sup 
 posed to be near should put off his raid till a more 
 favorable day. There have been so many cases on 
 both sides of officers being captured in their beds, 
 that, between enterprise and vigilance, there are some 
 lively episodes. 
 
 " General Washington seems to appoint men out of 
 sheer merit, and not out of personal favor. Neverthe 
 less, if I were a betting man, I should wager a dinner 
 of the best Pennsylvania ' dump noodles and schnitz,' 
 with the ham and molasses thrown in, that ' Light- 
 horse Harry Lee,' a young cavalry officer here, has 
 been sentimentally favored by Washington and given 
 the separate command of three companies of light 
 horse, although he is only twenty-three years old. 
 Mrs. Greene says that Harry Lee's mother, when a
 
 THE GENERAL OF THE CONTINENTAL ARMIES 69 
 
 young girl, made Washington's heart bounce up and 
 down, and many thought, from his attentions to her 
 at one time that they were both in love with each other 
 and engaged to be married. But, until our general 
 met the widow Custis, he does not seem to have been 
 very successful as a lover. 
 
 " ' Light-horse Harry Lee is a graduate of Prince 
 ton College, and a very graceful fellow. He is an 
 especial favorite at the Van Veghten house, which I 
 enjoy visiting so often, though I am frequently at the 
 Middlebrook tavern also, where I meet many officers, 
 among whom I am delighted with Colonel Alexander 
 Scammel, now thirty-five years old and an adjutant- 
 general of the army. He stands six feet two in his 
 stockings, and is a big-hearted fellow. He is self- 
 doomed to bachelorhood, for his lady love up in 
 Connecticut will have him only on condition of his 
 leaving the army. Yet, though he loves her, he 
 loves his country more, and has broken off the 
 engagement. 
 
 " It would not do to close my gallery of silhouettes 
 without telling you of Captain Duponceau, Captain 
 James Fairlie, and Captain William North, who are 
 of the baron's family. The first is a Frenchman, 
 with a proneness to kiss pretty girls that may get 
 him into trouble. The second tells such funny sto 
 ries that even Washington laughs at them. They 
 even say that once, in crossing the Hudson River, 
 the general actually rolled off his seat and came near
 
 7O THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 capsizing the craft, for Fairlie was so funny. Think 
 of that ! As for North, he is Steuben's right arm in 
 making the German discipline popular. 
 
 " It is a wonderful picture of society that I see 
 here. I confess that I am surprised to find so much 
 of it in the camp, yes, perhaps even more, relatively, 
 at least, than in the city. The visiting ladies, on 
 social occasions, wear high, round hats with long 
 feathers, and their satin petticoats, taffetas, and bro 
 cades seem to me to be simply gorgeous, though Mrs. 
 Washington, by dressing in plainer gowns, with only 
 neat kerchiefs, tries to set the good example of mod 
 est propriety. So long as the Dutch keep open for 
 us a port of free entry and departure at St. Eusta- 
 tius, we are likely to enjoy Europe's luxuries ; while, 
 as I know from my own wife's magical powers in the 
 same direction, you can trust to the skilful fingers 
 and needles of our ladies to make old things look 
 new and handsome. 
 
 "As for the men, they enjoy their fine clothes as 
 much as the birds do their feathers, or the ladies 
 their hose and head-dresses. What is there in war 
 that immediately makes men put on finery ? Is it to 
 please the ladies, or to make the soldier's short life 
 gay while it lasts ? Washington himself, in his uni 
 form of blue and buff, varnished boots, and three- 
 cornered hat, is ' the glass of fashion and the mould 
 of form ' for all of us. He is a perfect horseman, 
 delighting every eye that looks on him. Even the
 
 THE GENERAL OF THE CONTINENTAL ARMIES 7 1 
 
 horse seems to enjoy being ridden by such a capital 
 equestrian. As to fashions of the hair, the older 
 men, on social occasions, wear their wigs, but the 
 younger put their hair in a queue ; and you can be 
 sure that both lard for stiffening and powder for 
 whitening are plentifully used. 
 
 " When to a grand review, for example, the fine 
 ladies drive up from Basking Ridge, Morristown, or 
 Princeton, I almost think that it is Sunday morning, 
 and that I am standing on Second Street near Mar 
 ket, in front of Christ's Church, as I see these gentle 
 men, in gay coats, knee breeches, silk stockings, and 
 buckled shoes, with cocked hats under their arms, 
 handing out the gorgeously apparelled females from 
 their carriages. When the ladies salute their gal 
 lants with impressive courtesies, the bow of the head 
 and the wave of the leg and the scraping of the 
 ground with the foot make such a picture of gayety 
 that I wonder whether, after all, we are at war. 
 
 " But, as a people, we are poor enough, too. Our 
 army is shamefully small, and hard money is lacking. 
 Soon enough, no doubt, these officers, Greene and 
 Knox, Muhlenberg and Steuben, Maxwell and Hand, 
 who have fought on the red clay of Brandywine, in 
 the fog at Germantown, and over the rolling land 
 of Monmouth, will be amid rjpwder, smoke, and 
 blood again. Happily for our future, we now have 
 Steuben's ' Regulations for the Infantry of the 
 United States ' put into good English by Captain
 
 72 THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 Walker. It is certain that the artillery was never 
 in better condition,, while the cavalry, if dash and 
 valor can avail anything, will certainly make their 
 mark. 
 
 " One of the funniest sights the camp has yet wit 
 nessed contrasted strangely with the magnificent 
 review of the army, in presence of the French 
 minister Gerard and the Spanish envoy Don Juan 
 de Miralles, of which I must tell you. The latter 
 has been sent by the governor of Havana to look 
 into our country and its resources; but of his real 
 intentions, ability, or standing, we are all in the 
 dark. Some blame Congress for unwisely welcom 
 ing him ; for, although Spain may be our friend and 
 yet recognize our independence, this man may be 
 a spy and an intriguer. Spain evidently wants to 
 keep Florida, and to control the Mississippi Valley, 
 and in this matter, as a ship-builder, I am deeply 
 interested. Some of the Southern officers, whom I 
 have met here, say that they hope Congress will 
 never grant to any foreign power the free navigation 
 of the Mississippi, or give it up for a pecuniary 
 consideration. 
 
 " But the contrast I hinted at was in the visit of a 
 band of Indian chiefs, whose faces are painted, 
 their heads tufted ,with scalp-locks, and their ears 
 and noses hung with brass and copper ornaments. 
 They rode wretched horses without saddles, and had 
 old ropes and straps for bridles. Their appearance
 
 THE GENERAL OF THE CONTINENTAL ARMIES 73 
 
 was a sorry one, but, being from friendly tribes, 
 especially the Oneidas and Mohawks, Washington 
 thought it best to pay them considerable deference, 
 and had several regiments draw up in line on dress 
 parade for their delectation. He sat on his gray 
 horse and was followed by his black servant Bill, 
 in addition to his usual escort. I am sure we ought 
 to honor these Oneidas, for siding with us against 
 the king. Little Tree, a Seneca chief, who visited 
 Philadelphia and the general's headquarters, is now 
 believed to be a renegade, as ' Old Smoke ' proved 
 himself to be. Hanyari, the Oneida chief, is worth 
 them both. 
 
 "To conclude this too long letter, it has been 
 decided that the three brigades of Poor, Maxwell, 
 and Hand, with several companies of riflemen and 
 Colonel Proctor's artillery regiment, will form the 
 main force against the Senecas. They will report 
 at Easton and move on to Tioga Point, which is 
 near the centre of the boundary line between New 
 York and Pennsylvania, and there join Clinton's 
 brigade, from Schenectady. Proctor's regimental 
 band is also going, so the men will have some music. 
 They will need it, to cheer them up ; for hauling the 
 guns in a forest will be hard work, though to Tioga 
 Point they will go in boats. 
 
 " General Maxwell and his men have not had the 
 quiet winter which our soldiers at Middlebrook have 
 enjoyed, for, late in February, Colonel Sterling, with
 
 74 THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 two British regiments and a company of the guards, 
 tried to surprise the Jerseymen ; but the general 
 alertly led off his men down the Rahway Road. 
 So the prowling fox, as the disappointed hunter, 
 who failed to fill his game-bag, called him, was 
 neither trapped nor slain. Instead of being cap 
 tured, the Jerseymen turned on their foes and gave 
 the British a taste of cannon-ball and musketry, 
 cutting them up badly. 
 
 " Colonels Ogden's, Shrieve's, and Dayton's regi 
 ments, with some men from Colonels Spencer's and 
 Baldwin's regiments, will form Maxwell's brigade, 
 making 1 1 1 officers and 1 294 men. Lieutenant- 
 Colonel Barber, of the Third New Jersey, is to be 
 Sullivan's chief of staff, and Captain Aaron Ogden, of 
 the First Regiment, is aide to General Maxwell. The 
 New Jersey men felt very bad at being ordered into 
 the wilderness at this particular time. This is not 
 because they are not brave and patriotic, but because 
 the currency issued by Congress is so nearly worth 
 less. They have not had their pay for many months. 
 I am told that here a colonel's salary, in Continental 
 pasteboard, will not pay for his horses' oats, and 
 the six months' pay of a private will hardly buy 
 one barrel of flour. Fortunately, however, owing to 
 Governor Livingston's activity, both officers and 
 men have been paid some hard money, the officers 
 two hundred dollars and the men forty dollars each. 
 He keeps up a steady correspondence with Holland,
 
 THE GENERAL OF THE CONTINENTAL ARMIES 75 
 
 and is sure that the Dutch republic will yet recognize 
 and assist our country. How a million or so of 
 guilders would cheer us all up ! 
 
 "The first and third New Jersey regiments are 
 already at Easton, and I had the pleasure of seeing 
 the second, Colonel Shrieve's, marching past us the 
 other day. They were entertained first by the citi 
 zens of Elizabethtown and then escorted from the 
 village. As they passed through our camp at Mid- 
 dlebrook, the hurrahs of our soldiers, who envied 
 them the prospect of an active campaign, were worth 
 hearing. I am told that the cantonment here is 
 likely to remain nearly intact until June, but I must 
 hasten, for my orders are to report immediately to 
 the Delaware forts. Perhaps I may reach you almost 
 as soon as this letter, which goes out from camp to 
 night." 
 
 Thus ended Colonel Eyre's letter. He did not 
 reach home for a fortnight after the "express" had 
 delivered his message, for he was at his guns in the 
 Delaware forts, guarding against a rumored British 
 naval raid on Philadelphia. 
 
 Let us now read another letter, this time from 
 the north. It will tell us how his friends the fron 
 tiersmen fared. In those days, Schenectady was in 
 the " Far West."
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 LIFE IN A FRONTIER TOWN 
 
 " SCHENECTADY, N.Y., June 5, 1779. 
 
 " DEAR COLONEL EYRE : I promised to write to 
 you when I got home in Schenectady, and tell you 
 how my native town ' Dorp,' we call it looks to me 
 after many months' absence, and what is being done 
 by the military here in preparation for the Western 
 Expedition against the Tories and Indians. Father 
 and I left Middlebrook, and, after a long horseback 
 ride, came to Kingston, where I saw a big drove of 
 fat cattle starting off for Otsego Lake to furnish 
 beef for Sullivan's, or rather Clinton's, army. 
 
 "At Esopus we took boat up the Hudson River 
 to Albany and walked overland, arriving here day 
 before yesterday. 
 
 " You would like to know how a frontier town, so 
 different from Philadelphia, looks ? This settlement, 
 made in 1661 on lands bought from the Mohawks by 
 Arendt van Curler, was laid out as a parallelogram, 
 with a gate at the south on the road to Albany, and 
 one on the north toward Canada. In between are 
 
 76
 
 LIFE IN A FRONTIER TOWN 77 
 
 two streets. One is called Church, and is quite wide, 
 running from gate to gate ; and the other is Cross, 
 from east to west. The town is surrounded by pali 
 sades made by cutting trees, sharpening their points 
 and driving them into the earth, setting them three 
 deep, and bracing them at the top with stout timber. 
 Inside there is a bank or way, on which sentinels or 
 defenders may stand. Outside there is a ditch, and 
 at the gates drawbridges, so that Indians cannot 
 force the place by a sudden attack. Even white 
 men would have difficulty in capturing this place, 
 unless well provided with ladders or artillery at least 
 as heavy as six-pounders. 
 
 " The Mohawk River bends sharply here, and the 
 walls run along Front, Traders, Martyrs, and Ferry 
 streets. Thus two sides face the water, the main 
 river, and the Binne-kill or inside branch. Our 
 streets tell their story even better than yours, which 
 William Penn named after numbers and trees. On 
 Traders Street live the men who buy and sell. Front 
 street really fronts the river, and you reach the 
 ferry by going down Ferry Street. The Street of 
 the Martyrs is that on which so many fell in the 
 bloody Indian massacre, instigated by Louis XIV. 
 and his mistress, Madame de Maintenon, when our 
 Dutch stadholder was also England's king, in 1690. 
 We call the people slaughtered then, ' martyrs,' 
 for they died for their religion, as well as because 
 they were subjects of the king of England, Now
 
 78 THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 things are so changed that the savages are employed, 
 not by the French, but by the German king of Great 
 Britain. 
 
 " Since the war broke out, our wooden walls have 
 been extended eastward over the Wall Street and 
 Maiden Lane ; for, beside the townspeople ordinarily 
 living here, hundreds of refugees from the Mohawk 
 and Schoharie valleys and in the open country north 
 ward toward Saratoga have come to dwell in this 
 town. The increased population, together with the 
 soldiers who have at various times camped around 
 on the hills and flats, and the hospital nurses and 
 doctors on Niskayuna Street, together with the boat 
 building operations, make Dorp a bustling place, 
 almost like Philadelphia, though on a very much 
 smaller scale. If Sullivan's expedition fails, or is 
 only in part successful, we shall have to shelter the 
 friendly Oneidas here, also. 
 
 " Sunday evenings we generally spend in sitting 
 out on the stoep, the men smoking and chatting with 
 each other and the women, while the young folks are 
 sauntering up and down, though I tell you we have 
 fine singing in some of the houses, or by companies 
 gathered often on the porches. It is surprising how 
 popular, especially since the outbreak of the war 
 for Independence, the 'Wilhelmus Lied' or 'Dutch 
 National Song,' written by Sainte-Aldegonde, is. It 
 was my wife's especial favorite. I wonder if she 
 sings it in her captivity. The green and well-shaded
 
 LIFE IN A FRONTIER TOWN 79 
 
 road leading past the burying-ground is a favorite 
 walk, and some call it ' Lover's Lane.' 
 
 " The liveliest part of the town is on the strip 
 of ground between Front Street and the Mohawk. 
 Here the boat yards are as busy as beehives in honey- 
 making time. The two hundred and eight boats 
 ordered are nearly all finished. They are made for 
 use rather than beauty ; for they are to go with heavy 
 loads in shallow water, where they have to be poled, 
 pushed, drawn, and coaxed, as well as sailed occa 
 sionally. 
 
 " General Clinton's plan is to load the stores on 
 these boats and move up the river to Canajoharie. 
 There, teams of oxen and wagons will be in readiness 
 to transport both the boats and the stores over to 
 Otsego Lake, one of the sources of the Susquehanna. 
 Gay and eager as the soldiers seem to be for the ex 
 pedition, I really fear there will be some hard swear 
 ing, when it comes to dragging those boats and barrels 
 over the hills, for I have been over that region and 
 know it to be rough. Just now the last twenty boats 
 are under adze and hammer, and the chips are 
 flying at a lively rate. Kindling wood will be very 
 handy for everybody, this coming winter. The ground 
 is fairly carpeted with shavings. 
 
 " On week-days, after supper-time, the girls and 
 people generally come down to romp and frolic 
 among the boats and boat yards, and to see the 
 army stores, which have been hauled in wagons
 
 8O THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 overland from Albany, put on board. One wonders 
 whether all the powder in these casks will ever be 
 fired off, or these boxes of leaden balls be all used, 
 there are so many of them. Entrenching tools and 
 camp gear, big bullet moulds, axes, and what not, 
 take up a formidable amount of room. These stores 
 are frightfully clumsy and heavy, but I suppose are 
 necessary. The rum barrels alone fill ten boats ; for 
 evidently the officers are going to have a good time, 
 despite their vowing, one and all, that, under Clinton 
 they will never be ' Braddocked.' I hope they will 
 not, like Braddock's officers, be shot with their nap 
 kins pinned on them. As for buttons, I never saw 
 so many in my life as there are on these Massachu 
 setts troops. They fairly dazzle me. A rifleman, 
 accustomed to a brown buckskin hunting frock, can 
 not help noticing what splendid shooting they make 
 for an Indian behind a tree. He has only to count 
 down to the fifth, and he has the place to aim at. 
 They make nearly as good a target as a British offi 
 cer's gorget or brass neckpiece. This campaign will 
 not be a picnic. 
 
 " How these boats are ever to navigate the shallow 
 Susquehanna and I have been along the valley 
 there I do not know; but Clinton is an engineer, 
 and perhaps he can store up the water in Otsego 
 Lake to fill up the channels lower down and get us 
 to Tioga Point. All the boats will be finished by 
 June 1 5th. Then, while the regiments march on
 
 LIFE IN A FRONTIER TOWN 8 1 
 
 land, these will move up the river. I hope all these 
 boxes and barrels contain in good quality what they 
 profess to have inside, for I know of some pretty 
 rascally work done by contractors in Albany and 
 Schenectady, in days gone by, when they used to 
 supply Oswego. Last Sunday, I thought that the 
 Van Loup girls were rather extravagantly dressed, 
 and flaunted rather too much jewelry, in a time when 
 so many are suffering for clothing and shelter. Every 
 body knows that their father cheated both the king 
 and Congress, in the supplies which he furnished, 
 first for Oswego, and then for the Oriskany cam 
 paign. They proved worthless when they were most 
 wanted. 
 
 " The boatmen are all here, and ready to move west. 
 We New Yorkers are fortunate in having such a 
 leader as General George Clinton, and such colonels 
 as Gansevoort, who held Fort Stanwix we call it 
 Fort Schuyler now so gallantly against St. Leger. 
 Proud, indeed, are we of our red, white, and blue flag 
 made there, out of white linen shirts, red flannel 
 petticoats, and what-nots. It was this flag which, in 
 point of time, showed the stars and stripes first of all 
 over our army. This same flag is now kept here, and 
 we are going to hoist it over the fort at Front and Ferry 
 streets, when the flotilla moves up the stream. I am 
 to be attached especially to Colonel Pierre van Cort- 
 landt's regiment, and, when not under General Hand's 
 orders, as I often may be, must hold myself respon-
 
 82 THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 sible to the colonel. Of this I am mighty glad, for he 
 knows me, and what I want to accomplish. He is the 
 patriot who tore up his royal commission and foiled 
 all the seductions of Tories to win him over. He is 
 now at Wyoming with his regiment, but I report to 
 him at Tioga Point. His rank and file form a splen 
 did body of men. 
 
 " I must tell you about a fine lad here, named Her 
 man Clute, who is but twenty years old, but very 
 intelligent, strong as an ox, and brave as a lion. He 
 is to take the place of a soldier who was disabled by 
 an accident on the boats. He has been recommended 
 to my care by his mother. If we do not hear a good 
 account of him, then count me a stupid prophet." 
 
 We shall find out, in the course of our study, 
 whether Claes Vrooman's expectations of Herman 
 were extravagant. Had he been writing to an older 
 or more intimate friend he would probably have 
 added that, between the young soldier and the maid 
 in captivity, Mary Vrooman, there had long existed a 
 very warm and a very tender feeling. They had 
 been playmates from childhood. Since the Cherry 
 Valley episode, Herman had moped much. Now he 
 was full of the fire of hope. In him was the " love 
 that lightens all distress." His mother grieved to 
 spare her only son, but no Spartan ever gave her 
 son more willingly. It was a red-letter day for Her 
 man when he put on the Continental uniform.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 FROM SCHENECTADY TO OTSEGO LAKE 
 
 IT was a gay day inside " Old Dorp," as the pali 
 saded frontier town of Schenectady was called, 
 when, on that bright June morning, in 1779, people 
 from town and country, having come in in crowds to 
 seethe departure of the soldiers and the fleets, lined 
 the Binne-kill and the river sides. It was very cool 
 weather. Only a few days before, the hard frost had 
 killed many of the blossoms and nipped the flowers 
 and early vegetables, but there were enough of bloom 
 on the trees and rich greenery springing up, since 
 the warmth and showers together had come, to 
 obliterate all traces of Jack Frost's work. Flags 
 home-made indeed, but with the true ancestral 
 Dutch as well as American colors, red, white, and 
 blue, so dear to the eye of man descended from 
 Holland's heroes hung out of windows in the 
 house fronts and in the gable ends which faced 
 the streets. 
 
 Very few houses in the place were two storied, most 
 of them being of bricks indeed, but having but one 
 G 83
 
 84 THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 story, above which were high, sloping tiled roofs and 
 roomy attics on the second floor. All were shining 
 clean, with curtains and flowers at the windows, and 
 walls and mantelpieces inside well decorated with 
 prints and paintings from Holland, the old home land 
 of liberty set behind the dikes, as well as with 
 the less aesthetic efforts of the local artists. Many 
 of the fireplaces were flanked and topped with 
 tiles, telling the Scripture story rather freely, with 
 here and there a gay picture in enamel of Prince 
 Maurice or Father William, or some later stad- 
 holder. Delft ware in Dorp was quite as common, 
 at least, as ballast bricks from Holland and long 
 pipes from Gouda. Painted on the outside with 
 gay colors, generally red and blue, each house had 
 a stoep, or porch furnished with seats, kept well 
 " filed " or scrubbed. 
 
 The two-leaved or double door of each house was 
 not divided up and down, but crosswise, so that, when 
 the lower part was shut, all kinds of enterprising but 
 unwelcome creatures, including the pigs and chickens 
 by day, and various marauders, on two, four or more 
 legs, at night, were kept out. The upper half of the 
 door, on which was usually a shining brass knocker, 
 could be thrown inward, letting in air and light, and 
 keeping the house well ventilated. Moreover, on the 
 wooden equator, between the lintels, Mynheer or 
 Mevrouw could rest on his or her elbows. This he 
 could do while smoking his pipe in one corner of his
 
 FROM SCHENECTADY TO OTSEGO LAKE 85 
 
 mouth and chatting with a sociable neighbor out of 
 the other. Or, the vrouw could stand with broom, 
 and hand to her chin, or arms akimbo, while digesting 
 between breakfast and dinner the gossip of yesterday, 
 or, in late afternoon, the morning happenings. 
 
 To-day, however, pretty much " everybody that was 
 anybody," not at the riverside, was out on Church 
 Street. The spaces, not only on the stoeps but between 
 them, were crowded with women, children, and the older 
 men. The girls had bunches of flowers, to hand to the 
 soldiers to stick inside their big, smooth-bore muskets. 
 The small boys, who had on cocked hats, with enough 
 red and blue and white flannel pinned on their coats 
 to make them look like Continentals, waved flags, 
 while they hurrahed for Generals Washington, Sul 
 livan, and Clinton, and for Colonels Gansevoort and 
 Van Cortlandt. Some shouted to the men in the 
 ranks to be sure to bring home Brant and Butler as 
 prisoners, to dodge the bullets, and not to leave their 
 scalps in the woods. 
 
 So, with fife and drum and the flags flapping in the 
 stiff western breeze, the men of the various commands 
 assembled at Schenectady to convoy the stores afloat, 
 marched up the valley with their faces set toward 
 Canajoharie. Simultaneously the long flotilla of 
 boats, decked with hundreds of flags and pennons, 
 and some of them loaded perilously near the gunwale, 
 moved up stream in the same direction and disap 
 peared.
 
 86 THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 The town was once more left to its wonted quiet 
 ness and peace. The small boy grieved over the 
 absence of the soldiers, and, out of sheer habit, listened 
 in vain for the morning and evening gun from the 
 camp, answering that of the fort. Chickens, ducks, 
 and turkeys, to say nothing of the cows, manifested 
 visible signs of rejoicing, for they could now wander 
 peacefully up and down the streets, in which were 
 even yet some suggestions of stumps of forest 
 trees long ago cut down, on their way to and 
 from the pasture. Certainly the geese made their 
 usual gansevoort, or goose parade, with apparently 
 greater pride and regularity. It was noted by 
 Granny Shaddlegroen that the leading gander, find 
 ing half a loaf of hard, stale bread, actually carried 
 it all the way from Cross to Martyrs Street, and 
 there, dipping it in the runnel of water, so soaked 
 it soft that the gander's whole harem enjoyed the 
 feast with screams of delight. Surely this was a 
 good omen. 
 
 What happened to himself and comrades, and how 
 a soldier's life looks to the youth of twenty, Herman 
 Clute, who had been suddenly called to be a soldier, 
 may be learned from a letter which he wrote to his 
 mother from the great camp at Tioga Point, where 
 five thousand Continental soldiers, chiefly from the 
 six states of Massachusetts, New York, New Hamp 
 shire, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Virginia, were 
 gathered together under the forest trees in that won-
 
 FROM SCHENECTADY TO OTSEGO LAKE 87 
 
 derful peninsula formed by the twin branches of the 
 Susquehanna. 
 
 There, just like two lovers that nearly come 
 together, quarrel, part, and make up again, the 
 two streams first approach and then separate, only 
 to unite again farther on. Where on the map they 
 seem about to touch, but do not, Fort Sullivan, of 
 which we shall hear more, was built. 
 
 "FORT SULLIVAN, TIOGA POINT, PA., 
 "August 23, 1779. 
 
 " DEAR MOTHER : Would you like to know what 
 the life of a soldier on a campaign is like ? Well, 
 here I am, away off hundreds of miles from home 
 in the woods of Pennsylvania, but well and hearty, 
 though I declare I never worked so hard in my life. 
 After father had been drowned at Little Falls, and I 
 as the oldest son had to do the work of the house, 
 I used to think life was very hard. Between chop 
 ping wood, looking after the horses, and taking the 
 cows to drink and to pasture, with all my other 
 chores, I was driven pretty hard. But I tell you 
 that to carry a heavy gun, big powder-horn full 
 to the nozzle, bullet bag with a pound or two 
 of lead, an axe at my belt and a knapsack 
 weighing forty pounds with a blanket on top, 
 marching through the woods and along the river, 
 where there are no roads, except what the Indians 
 tramped over, is a good deal harder than farming.
 
 88 THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 For ease, I should like to be back among the 
 cows. 
 
 " The first few days I thought I could not stand it, 
 but now I am rather used to it. I must tell you my 
 first experiences, not of sleeping out of doors for I 
 have done that often but of sleeping in the rain. 
 The mosquitoes and wood flies were very lively the 
 first two days, and the men that smoked seemed to 
 have the easier time. Some of the tough and skinny 
 fellows seemed to suffer the most. 
 
 " The first night, when I lay down, with my knap 
 sack for a pillow, and fitted my shoulders snugly 
 between two roots of a tree, I was quickly asleep. 
 Something seemed to be tickling my face, and I 
 thought sister Cartie was teasing me with a spear 
 of wheat. By and by I dreamed that flies were 
 moving over my face, and I brushed them away. 
 This was of no use, for they kept coming on in 
 swarms, I thought. When I took both hands to 
 drive them away, I woke up and found my hands 
 wet. Then I realized that it was raining. However, 
 I didn't move, but let the rain fall until it began to 
 pour pretty lively. I could feel the water soaking 
 into my clothes, inch by inch, as I lay on the 
 ground. 
 
 " In the morning we were a very bedraggled set, 
 as you might imagine ; but wood is plenty here. In 
 spite of the rain, we soon had roaring fires, dried 
 ourselves off somewhat, and toasted slices of bacon
 
 FROM SCHENECTADY TO OTSEGO LAKE 89 
 
 on our ramrods. I thought that the dry bread in 
 my haversack never tasted better. 
 
 " At Canajoharie, we had to take off our coats and 
 help unload the boats, and hoist them up on the big 
 wagons that were here all ready to receive us. Such 
 pushing and pulling as we had, I can hardly tell you ! 
 One Connecticut man fell dead at the work. It is 
 said that he broke a blood vessel. Following the 
 wagons, each drawn by four yoke of oxen, we 
 marched over the hills. When we reached Lake 
 Otsego, I thought I had never seen a more lovely 
 sheet of water. Many of the trees and bushes, in 
 their fresh green of spring or early summer, dip 
 over into the water. 
 
 " We have a fine place for camp upon the side of 
 the hill, well cleared and drained, and the tents are 
 set in regular rows. We can get all the fish and 
 venison we want here, and we have plenty of beef 
 also, for fifty wagons are steadily going between 
 Canajoharie and the lake, and all the men seem in 
 good spirits. I have been over to see the other 
 regiments, especially that from Massachusetts called 
 after Colonel Alden, who was killed last year at 
 Cherry Valley. 
 
 " I have just heard that a spy from Butler's rangers 
 has been seized and hanged, down at the river. He 
 was one of a party of two Tories and nine Indians, 
 such as are still roaming the country, to kill, burn, 
 and destroy. When I take my place on the watch
 
 9O THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 at night, I feel that there is danger and I must keep 
 a sharp lookout. Only the other day a sentinel was 
 fired on by Indians in ambush. One night I caught 
 the gleam of moonbeams on gun barrels, and was 
 pretty sure that two men were moving around the 
 bushes. I fired, but whether any damage was done 
 them I do not know ; but a search afterwards 
 showed that I was not mistaken, for men had 
 been lying down there, and the officer commended 
 me. 
 
 " Of course you will want to know what we get to 
 eat. While at Otsego Lake we had good bread, for 
 an oven was built in the camp. With fresh beef just 
 from the hoof, and occasionally green stuff, we fare 
 well. A good deal goes on in the way of excitement. 
 One day thirty friendly Oneida Indians came in, led 
 by a chief named Hanyari, who will be our guides 
 into the Seneca country. I have learned to like 
 Hanyari very much. In the party is a wonderful old 
 fellow, who saved Domine Kirkland from starvation 
 by collecting ginseng plant in the woods, and, run 
 ning to Albany, sold it and brought back supplies. 
 He seems to know every plant in the forest. When 
 Vrooman showed him a picture of the glen flower 
 which the Philadelphia lady desires, he said at once 
 that he had seen it growing at the head of Cayuga 
 Lake. 
 
 " One white man here, whose house was burnt and 
 family all slain by the savages, who has been the
 
 FROM SCHENECTADY TO OTSEGO LAKE 9 1 
 
 whole length of the Susquehanna and to Baltimore, 
 will be our river pilot. He tells us about the Scotch 
 Tories of a settlement in this region, who were such 
 hidebound loyalists that they defied old customs. 
 
 " Instead of their observing the law of the road and 
 turning to the right, as our Dutch law directs, they 
 always moved to the left. They thus often got into 
 quarrels with their white neighbors, who would turn 
 to the right. They seem to enjoy keeping up the 
 old feuds and clan fights of Scotland. These are 
 all scattered now, and most of them are among 
 the Senecas, helping the savages on their maize 
 farms. 
 
 " On another day, an Indian came in from Fort 
 Schuyler and gave the news that fourteen hundred 
 Indians and Tories, under Brant, are on their way 
 to intercept or ambuscade us, when we attempt 
 to march from Otsego to Tioga Point. Failing 
 on this, we fear they may slip off down toward 
 the Delaware region, and ravage the settlements 
 there. 
 
 " On one Sunday, the brigade chaplain, the Rev. 
 Mr. Gano, preached a good sermon from Job xxii. 
 21. I have heard him several times, and- like 
 him. 
 
 " But even more solemn, certainly more awe- 
 inspiring, than worship under the trees, is the pun 
 ishment given to deserters. The army discipline is 
 very severe. On one day, three deserters were
 
 92 THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 brought into camp and immediately tied up and 
 whipped. One of them received five hundred lashes, 
 because he had some weeks ago been sentenced to 
 three hundred stripes, but was forgiven by the 
 colonel. Then, instead of being a better soldier, 
 he deserted again ; so what he got was back pay. 
 A few days later, two more men, one of them a 
 sergeant, were whipped, one hundred lashes each. 
 Three more were sentenced to be shot to death, 
 one a Massachusetts, another a New York, and the 
 third a Pennsylvania man. Riding the wooden 
 horse made by chopping a log into triangular 
 shape, with a sharp edge and running the gantlet 
 are common punishments. 
 
 " Oh, it was an awful sight, I tell you, to see three 
 wretched men sitting on their coffins, the roughest 
 sort you can imagine, with the lids on, and their fresh- 
 dug graves just before them ; but General Clinton 
 thought that two should be reprieved, and they were ; 
 but the other was brought out and, before the whole 
 brigade, shot. Nine men fired, but only eight guns 
 were loaded. These were changed round, before 
 being handed to the firing party, so that no man 
 could say or know or feel that his bullet did the 
 work. It was the law, not his comrades, that killed 
 the man. 
 
 " Except these dark things, everything else is 
 fine, and I enjoy army life. One day a courier 
 brought in tidings of General Wayne's capture
 
 FROM SCHENECTADY TO OTSEGO LAKE 93 
 
 of Stony Point, but most of the other messengers 
 told us of farmers shot in the fields, or people 
 on pleasure parties ambuscaded. The surmise 
 about Brant was well founded. He found our 
 forces too strong, and so he slipped away into the 
 Delaware and Walkill valleys. We have heard 
 of the Minisink massacre, in which fifty men were 
 slaughtered. 
 
 " On the whole, it was a very pleasant month, that 
 one of July, and I shall always remember it. We 
 had plenty of fruit, apples, vegetables, and a fine 
 herd of fat cattle, from Kingston, have kept us in 
 good condition. There is a broad trail leading 
 from that old town, Kingston, which grandmother 
 still calls 'Wiltwyck,' to Otsego, and on westward 
 to Niagara. On August /th, we had a parade in 
 which all the light infantry and the rifle corps 
 showed at their best. Colonel William Butler is 
 to command us, and we have word that General 
 Sullivan, after long delays at Wyoming, which were 
 no fault of his, has at last been able to get to Tioga 
 Point. 
 
 " There are plenty of rattlesnakes in this region, and 
 we have killed a great many. What a pity that old 
 Clausha Decatur, of Frog Alley in Dort, is not here. 
 He might get oil enough out of them to cure his 
 rheumatism. They say their flesh is good to eat and 
 that the taste is very pleasant. One escaped prisoner 
 from the Senecas, who joined our camp at Unadilla,
 
 94 THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 was sixteen days in the woods, and had little else but 
 rattlesnake meat to live on. One day last week, 
 while rambling in the woods, I caught hold of the 
 edge of a high rock to lift myself up with my hands, 
 when just as my eyes were level with the top, I saw 
 three big ones, just ready to spring at me. How I 
 dropped and ran ! I shall never forget their glit 
 tering, lidless eyes and dripping fangs. Ugh ! I 
 shudder as I think of it. 
 
 " Do you want to know how our boats got started, 
 and are now floating in plenty of water in the Sus- 
 quehanna River, where only a few days before one 
 would hardly have wet his knees in walking across 
 it? Let me tell you. On June 21 st, Colonel William 
 Butler ordered out a party made up of skilful axemen, 
 and they built a dam with a sluice and gateway clear 
 across the southern end of the lake. Making it 
 water-tight, they closed it up. What with the natural 
 flow of water into Schuyler and Otsego lakes, 
 and the heavy rains (for we had a terrible storm 
 on the nth of July), the water in the lake rose, 
 it seemed to me, about two feet, though others say 
 only one. 
 
 " Indeed, when it comes to numbers, figures, size, 
 or distance, I have learned not to believe everything 
 I hear in camp, for none of the trails have been 
 measured, and, especially on days when the men have 
 not much to do, all kinds of stories start. Sometimes 
 they try to scare me, because, being a young and
 
 FROM SCHENECTADY TO OTSEGO LAKE 95 
 
 green soldier, they consider me a good ' marine.' I 
 miss also my ' hill clock.' At home, for afternoon 
 time, I need only look eastward to the Helderberg 
 range, to see in what notch the sun was, and, when it 
 seemed to be rolling down hill like a ball, I knew how 
 late it must be ; but here, I know only the points of 
 the compass. 
 
 " Our chaplain, Gano, is a clever and jolly fellow, who 
 has helped us to bear cheerfully the long delay 
 here. Being on guard near the general's tent, on 
 Friday, August 6th, I heard the following conversa 
 tion : 
 
 " ' Chaplain,' said the general, ' you will have your 
 last preaching service here day after to-morrow.' 
 
 " ' Ah, indeed ! Are we to march soon ? Before 
 another Sunday ? ' 
 
 " ' Yes, but I do not want the men to know it.' 
 
 " ' Nor shall I tell them ; but, general, am I at 
 liberty to preach from any text I choose ? ' 
 
 " ' Certainly, chaplain.' 
 
 " ' And you will not, in any event, tax me with 
 violation of confidence ? ' 
 
 "'No! only stick to your Bible, and I'll give the 
 official orders.' 
 
 " ' All right, general.' 
 
 " The chaplain, recognizing me, warned me not to 
 disclose anything I overheard, and I promised not to ; 
 but I noticed a twinkle in his eye. So on Sunday, 
 August 8th, he preached to the whole brigade,
 
 96 THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 from the text, ' Being ready to depart on the 
 morrow.' 
 
 " The faces of our men lightened, but the general's 
 face wore a frown. He was distinctly vexed ; but the 
 parson made application to our souls, rather than our 
 bodies, and, as he proceeded, General Clinton looked 
 pleased. At the conclusion of the services, the com 
 mander rose and announced the order of march on 
 Monday morning."
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 INTO QUEEN ESTHER'S COUNTRY 
 
 HERMAN CLUTE'S letter, in different-colored 
 ink and another sort of paper, showing the 
 interruptions of a private soldier, continues as 
 follows : 
 
 " All the boats gathered in line, loaded, and ready 
 to proceed down the river, were moved to the banks 
 of the outlet. On Sunday, at six o'clock P.M., the 
 axemen chopped away the gate, and all night long 
 the water poured out through the sluice into the 
 river. You can imagine how steadily this supplied 
 a channel for us, for Otsego is eight miles long and 
 Schuyler Lake empties into it. On Monday, after 
 breakfast, I was one of the lucky fellows who were 
 ordered into the boats. The current was so swift 
 that it reminded me of sliding down hill. Besides 
 the ammunition, provisions, and stores, we have two 
 pieces of cannon belonging to Colonel Dubois's 
 regiment. 
 
 "We made thirty miles by water that day, and 
 twenty-five miles the next. Of course the men who 
 H 97
 
 9 8 
 
 marched by shore did not have to go the same dis 
 tance we did, for the river is very winding and they 
 could march in nearly a straight line, though the 
 riflemen kept near the bank, to guard against sur 
 prises by Indians, whose tracks we found in many 
 places. 
 
 " The savages were mightily scared at seeing the 
 river rise in summer, and thought the Great Spirit 
 was angry. In one place, they painted a rough pic 
 ture of the river overflowing on the rocks, showing a 
 cornfield flooded. At Unadilla, besides meeting the 
 rattlesnake eater I have spoken of, we came to the 
 place where General Herkimer had held a council 
 with Brant and the Indians. He urged them not to 
 take up arms against our side, but to let us settle our 
 family quarrel with the British between ourselves. 
 It seemed to be too much for the Indian intellect to 
 be able to decide between white men, as to the right 
 and wrong of British and American quarrels ; and 
 when the Tories' presents of rum, hatchets, powder, 
 balls, beads, and especially rum, came, they de 
 cided to side with King George. The Tories persuaded 
 them to believe they were thus keeping ' the Cove 
 nant of Corlaer,' and that ' the silver chain ' was well 
 brightened ; but they will have to suffer for their 
 weakness, just as the Onondagas have already been 
 ruined and driven from their desolated farms and 
 burnt homes by Colonel Van Schaick. 
 
 " After four days of boat service, I took my turn
 
 INTO QUEEN ESTHER'S COUNTRY 99 
 
 marching on land with the regiment. On Sunday 
 we rested, and Chaplain Gano gave us another good 
 sermon. I attended a soldier's funeral the first ever 
 I saw. This man, of the Fourth Pennsylvania Regi 
 ment, had died of putrid fever. The ceremonies were 
 very solemn, and three volleys were fired over the 
 grave. At one place, we came to an Indian town where 
 there had been about sixty houses, with one British 
 family among them. Only the cellars and walls, fruit 
 trees and grain fields remained. From this time forth 
 our men burned all the Indian villages, one that we 
 passed belonging to the Tuscaroras. We were not 
 allowed to stop and eat any of the ripe apples, or 
 shoot any game, for General Sullivan had sent word 
 to hasten our march. In one place, called Ingaren, 
 we found several sides of tanned leather in a vat, 
 and a dead white man, probably a prisoner, under a 
 tree blown down by the wind. There was a Scotch 
 bonnet near him. 
 
 " My friend, Claes Vrooman, who knows all the 
 Indian signs, pointed out, on a ledge of rocks by the 
 river, the colored picture of a boat on high water. 
 This was a notice given by Indian spies, who, some 
 days before, had seen our flotilla issue from the 
 woods, and had run ahead, making these pictures all 
 along, thus informing his fellow-savages as to the 
 manner of our coming. At another place, Mr. Vroo 
 man showed me a war post, which was all smeared 
 with paint and cut in several lines, up and down
 
 IOO THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 and crosswise, with a hatchet. This, Vrooman said, 
 would tell just how many scalps, and also how many 
 prisoners, the party had taken. In such a way, just 
 as we write letters, or our officers send despatches, 
 the different Iroquois parties communicate with each 
 other. All along the march, the Indians have had 
 spies on the hilltops. As we are to make our way 
 mostly in valleys until we get to the lake country, 
 all our movements will be well known before we 
 arrive. By sending swift runners ahead, they have 
 kept the Senecas and other savages well informed 
 about our numbers and purpose. I suppose, by this 
 time, Brant has returned from Minisink and joined 
 forces with Butler. 
 
 "After burning a good many houses on the i8th, 
 two scouts from General Poor's New Hampshire bri 
 gade came in to tell us that both camps, Clinton's 
 and Poor's, would soon be within eight miles of each 
 other. The next day we met at nine o'clock in the 
 morning, and both armies gave three cheers and wel 
 comed each other. We marched together to a place 
 called Owego, where was a big Indian settlement, 
 with plenty of fine land and crops growing. Vroo 
 man, who talked with Lieutenant McKendry, the 
 quartermaster of Alden's Sixth Massachusetts Regi 
 ment, says that this was the town to which Sergeant 
 Hunter was taken from near Cherry Valley, last 
 November, and Vrooman thinks that possibly his sis 
 ter might have been here too, though he rather cher-
 
 INTO QUEEN ESTHER S COUNTRY IOI 
 
 ishes the idea that she is up in the Cayuga Lake 
 region. 
 
 " Nearly every morning this week we have waked 
 up in a fog and had to march through the haze, 
 although the sky was clear. Vrooman says that all 
 the streams flowing south make fog, but those whose 
 waters go northward do not. Is it not strange ? 
 
 " How we did enjoy burning the big bark houses 
 here ! Think of over fifty dwellings, some of them 
 sixty feet long and divided into rooms with a fireplace 
 in each ! Whew ! what a blaze, and how the dry bark 
 did crackle ! We did not march on the morrow, 
 for it rained too hard, but on the next day we passed 
 more fine maize land and a place where some Indians 
 had burned a white prisoner to death. A deer ran right 
 through our camp, but he saved his venison by being 
 too swift for us. In spite of many rapids and rough 
 places which turned the boats around in every direc 
 tion, our watermen were lucky ; but, in one place, in 
 deep water we lost a boat, which had on board three 
 barrels of powder and fourteen boxes of cartridges, 
 besides one man drowned. Now, about this episode, 
 I must tell you in detail, for it shows what curious 
 beliefs some folks have. 
 
 " There were five men in charge of the boat, but 
 the current had made it unmanageable, and it was 
 overturned. Now, if it had been Cayuga Lake, about 
 which the Indians tell, we should not have expected 
 to see the body float again, for in this lake, which we
 
 IO2 THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 are yet to see, the water is so deep and so cold that 
 it is almost never that the corpse of an Indian man 
 or woman drowned in its waters comes to the sur 
 face again. The Indians do not expect to see their 
 friends who have sunk, but they begin mourning 
 for them at once, wailing as for those who have 
 not only died but disappeared even from the solid 
 earth. 
 
 " The reason of this is that down in the unsounded 
 depths, where it is too cold even for fish to live, in 
 the icy caves of the dead dwells the spirit of a malig 
 nant squaw, who is eager to have and to hold the 
 bodies of men, whom she hates. Her blind rage, 
 however, does not discriminate, and her grip is relent 
 less upon all that come to her. After hearing of 
 Queen Esther, I can believe in such a being. 
 
 " When a person drowns, the Senecas have no rites 
 or incantations by which they hope to appease the 
 malignity of the queen of the ice ; but with our me.n it 
 was different. They thought that the body of the 
 drowned man deserved honorable burial, and so they 
 attempted, after their own way, to make the corpse 
 float, and this was the way they did it. From one of 
 the other boats they borrowed a loaf of bread, the 
 staler and drier the better, and into this bread they 
 cut a tube-like hole from the top to the centre. The 
 next thing was to get some quicksilver to put inside 
 the bread. The idea was that the loaf of bread set 
 floating on the water would, because of the quicksil-
 
 INTO QUEEN ESTHER'S COUNTRY IO3 
 
 ver in it, and its subtle relation to the human interior 
 organs, especially the bladder, bring the corpse to 
 the surface. 
 
 "But how to get the white quicksilver -this was 
 the question. There was none in any of the military 
 stores, or in any one's private possession, but, appeal 
 ing to the surgeon, who was willing to humor the men, 
 he found that he had an unusually large amount of 
 the red precipitate, or oxide of mercury. Rigging up 
 a rude alembic, made of bottles and a bit of glass tube, 
 over the camp-fire, and carefully manipulating it, a 
 globule of mercury as big as a large pea was obtained. 
 This was duly set into the loaf of bread, which was 
 properly plugged up with a part of the material cut 
 from the top crust. 
 
 " Then the man who most fervently believed in the 
 prescription of literally raising the dead, carefully 
 launched the dry loaf some thirty feet above the 
 place where the man fell overboard. The current 
 bore the novel burden upon its bosom, first slowly, 
 then swiftly, until down near the place of the acci 
 dent, when it began to move near the shore and then 
 around in the curve of the land, but, instead of pass 
 ing on, out and over into the stronger channel, it 
 eddied entirely round, making a circle nearly six feet 
 in diameter. At this the eyes of the expectant man 
 danced with delight. He was a cousin of the de 
 ceased, and would rather have been shot in battle 
 than face the man's parents, and especially his grand-
 
 IO4 THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 mother, without having tried the mystic mercury and 
 the staff of life. 
 
 "All the other spectators kept quiet, some half 
 believing in the efficacy of the trial. The others, not 
 wishing to hurt the man's feelings, refrained from 
 jeers or laughter. Soon, to the astonishment of all, 
 something appeared on the surface of the water, 
 and in a moment it was recognized as a human foot, 
 with some grass and leaves with it. In but a few 
 seconds more, the water became clearer and the 
 body could be seen, and was soon brought to the 
 shore by two men already waiting with boat-hooks. 
 
 " By this time the loaf of bread had become so 
 soaked that it had sunk. Of course the man's faith 
 in the traditional method of raising a drowned man 
 from a watery to a dry grave was, in his own eyes, 
 amply vindicated. Out of respect for his feelings, 
 criticism, comment, and challenge of superstition 
 were postponed. There in the forest a grave was 
 dug, a volley fired. Then, brushwood and timber, 
 heaped up and fired, covered from desecration and 
 gave to oblivion the unfortunate boatman. 
 
 " Sunday, the 22d, was a bright day for us, for at 
 nine o'clock in the morning we arrived at General 
 Hand's camp. The light infantry, all splendid fel 
 lows and mostly Pennsylvanians, came out to meet 
 us with cheers, while thirteen cannon made the hills 
 and forest ring with echoes, such as I have never 
 heard before. We marched a mile further, and
 
 INTO QUEEN ESTHER'S COUNTRY IO5 
 
 arrived at Tioga Point. Sullivan's main body lies 
 in camp on the west side of the river, the east being 
 apparently all mountains. This new river flows out 
 of the country of the Senecas, and we shall proceed 
 up its valley. I can tell you that I was interested in 
 seeing the stream which for ages had floated the 
 canoes of the biggest of the Iroquois tribes. They 
 certainly do make pretty craft. Being of birch bark, 
 they are much handsomer and lighter, but also more 
 fragile than our clumsy boats, but both are alike in 
 having no iron nails in them, for even our big flat 
 boats are held together with pins of wood. 
 
 " By noontime we were safely encamped in a fine, 
 large Indian field. You would be surprised to see 
 how many hundred acres the redmen long ago 
 cleared at this place, first by cutting off the bark of 
 the trees (using the best for making houses and 
 canoes) and thus deadening them. After a year 
 or two, they burn the timber and underbrush, until, 
 after a decade or so, many of the fields look as smooth 
 and beautiful as any on the flats near Schenectady 
 or even in the Bowery. 
 
 "All the field officers of our brigade dined with' 
 General Sullivan ; but the next day we had a sad 
 accident when Captain Kimble, in Colonel Cilley's 
 regiment, was killed by a soldier's careless handling 
 of his musket. 
 
 " Though I have often seen soldiers march through 
 Schenectady, and even a brigade at a time, yet this
 
 IO6 THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 is the biggest army I have yet looked upon, for 
 there are nearly five thousand men, including three 
 hundred boatmen, who came with us and with Sulli 
 van up from Wyoming. There are thirty or forty 
 women in the camp, soldiers', sutlers', or drovers' 
 wives, though two or three are rescued captives, * 
 and there are five or six children. 
 
 " I must tell you an incident about one of these 
 men accustomed to the rifle from childhood, showing 
 also what sure marksmen Pennsylvania buck-shooters 
 are. A boy and girl, out with their father tending 
 the cows, rambled in the woods one day and found 
 what they thought to be a nest of kittens. The boy 
 put the pretty little things in his sister's apron to 
 carry back to show their parents. He himself was 
 carrying one on his shoulder and petting it, when 
 the mother wildcat, coming back, saw herself robbed, 
 and in a moment seemed infuriated. She sprang on 
 the boy's head, seized her cub in her mouth, and 
 appeared just about ready to claw the boy's eyes out, 
 when fortunately the father, who had seen the whole 
 affair, coolly took aim and sent a ball just through 
 the animal's eyes. The boy was only scratched in a 
 few places, and the girl brought her kittens home. 
 The family has a small menagerie of wild creatures, 
 including a hedgehog, a white owl, an eagle, and two 
 bears' cubs. 
 
 " We have plenty of good bread here, baked in the 
 ovens which have been set up by the assistants of Mr.
 
 INTO QUEEN ESTHER'S COUNTRY IO/ 
 
 Ludwig, the Philadelphia baker-general. Whether 
 'salt-raised' or 'milk emptin's,' or 'yeast riz,' I can 
 not say ; but it is light and sweet. 
 
 " The branches of the Susquehanna here come very 
 close together, about a half a mile above the point 
 where they unite, and it is on the narrow neck of the 
 peninsula that Fort Sullivan has been built. It is 
 shaped like a diamond, with points touching the river, 
 a block house being at each of the points. On the 
 great flat, at the wedge of land between the rivers, 
 and shaped like an arrow-head, are camped the sol 
 diers of the four brigades, with the artillery and the 
 riflemen. The Six Nations called this place, where 
 the fort stands, the 'Southern Door of the Long 
 House,' for here all the trails centred, and their 
 representative, a Seneca chief, the ' Guardian of the 
 Door,' always dwelt here. 
 
 " Queen Esther, the granddaughter of Madame 
 Montour, whose father was Count Frontenac, ruled 
 this part of the country and had hundreds of acres 
 southwest of the fort covered with cornfields. Of 
 course you have heard of her. She is supposed to 
 be the natural great-granddaughter of Count Fron 
 tenac, whose men burned our town of Schenectady 
 in 1690, when our own grandfather was shot and 
 scalped. Queen Esther had so fine a house at the 
 village of Sheshequin that our Pennsylvania boys 
 always speak of it as a palace, and her husband 
 was a famous chief named Echobund. She had only
 
 IO8 THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 one son, and he was killed in a battle the day before 
 the fall of Wyoming, in one of the skirmishes, and 
 so she took her revenge on the prisoners. She made 
 fourteen of them kneel in a ring, while she toma 
 hawked them all, one after the other. Last autumn 
 Colonel Thomas Hartley came here, burned her 
 palace and wasted her farms, but the land is still 
 called ' Queen Esther's plain.' 
 
 " There is another queen, named Catherine, sister 
 of Esther, near Seneca Lake. Queen Catherine is a 
 great horse trader. We expect to take and burn her 
 town, with its stock farms. 
 
 "The scenery here is so beautiful that I get home 
 sick. One afternoon, when the lovely white clouds 
 in the sky were reflected on the face of the river, I 
 wondered why war had to be. It was in this region, 
 only a little farther east, that the Moravians worked 
 so faithfully to tame the savages by means of the 
 Gospel. But how can a poor lout of a redskin know 
 what is right, when we white men make war with 
 each other ? So long, also, as the Indians kill and 
 burn and scalp as they do, I am afraid the counsels 
 of our town founder, Arendt van Curler, who always 
 told our fathers to keep peace with the Five Nations, 
 cannot be carried out. Why did the savages who 
 cherish 'Corlaer's' memory follow the Tories in 
 their murderous purpose ? 
 
 " We are going to march within a day or two, and 
 Vrooman says we are sure to have a battle up in the
 
 \D BEEN HELD MANY A COUNCIL."
 
 INTO QUEEN ESTHERS COUNTRY IOQ 
 
 river valley within two or three days after our start. 
 Before I close my letter I must tell you how kind 
 Colonel Van Cortlandt has been to me. Seeing me 
 one day in the camp here, he stopped and asked me 
 my name, and when I told him, he said, ' Why, are 
 you the son of Barent Clute, who was drowned by 
 the overturning of a canoe at Little Falls ? ' and I 
 answered ' Yes, the same.' He said, ' You had a 
 noble father. He once saved my life. When you 
 write home, please convey my respects to your 
 mother. I hope you will make a good name as a 
 soldier.' I said, 'Thank you, colonel; I'll try.' 
 
 " I must tell you, too, that I have not parted with 
 my little book, the ' Heidelberg Catechism,' at which 
 I try to get a look once every day. 
 
 " Please remember me to Domine Vrooman and to 
 my brothers and sisters at home, pet Frolic, my dog, 
 and wag pussy's tail for me, and take a great deal 
 of love from your oldest son. I hope to write to you 
 again, but where and when I do not know. Mr. Vroo 
 man also sends kind regards to all friends in church 
 and Dorp." 
 
 We must now turn to read about Sullivan's Con 
 tinentals, of the main army.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 THE MAIN ARMY STARTS FROM EASTON 
 
 E ASTON, the settlement at the point of junction 
 of the Lehigh with the Delaware, was in 1 779 in 
 its infancy. It had been begun by Germans from 
 the Palatinate region of the Rhine. Fleeing from the 
 oppression of the French, who desolated the land, as 
 well as slaughtered its people, they were glad in this 
 lonely spot in far-off America to have again around 
 them fertile fields and the glorious beauty of the ever 
 lasting hills. The future city was regularly laid out. 
 The houses, one story in height, with massive, thick 
 walls and much cosey comfort within, were mostly 
 built of stone. There were not many books in these 
 dwellings, but there were the Bible in German and 
 the " Heidelberg Catechism." Besides the public build 
 ings, jail and court-house, there was the handsome 
 stone church, in which the people of the Reformed 
 faith met Sabbath by Sabbath. Besides the preach 
 ing of the gospel of peace within its walls, many a 
 treaty with the Indians had been made, and other 
 works of mercy wrought. Since the battles of Brandy- 
 wine, Germantown, and Monmouth, the edifice had
 
 THE MAIN ARMY STARTS FROM EASTON III 
 
 been turned into a hospital. Even yet a few maimed 
 Continentals lay here, much helped and often attended 
 by the kindly women of the Reformed Church. 
 
 The point of junction where the waters of the Le- 
 high come rushing down to join those of the Delaware 
 was a spot sacred to all the tribes in the valleys of the 
 two rivers. Here, from time unrecorded, had been 
 held many a council, here the hatchet had been buried, 
 the calumet smoked, and the white wampum ex 
 changed in token of peace; for these symbols had, 
 with their users, the same meaning as the snowy dove 
 and the olive branch have among us. Here again, 
 when warlike passions raged, had the tomahawk 
 been dug up and the red wampum of war sent forth 
 as the messenger of blood and fire, to summon the 
 tribes to battle. Glorious was then the view of the 
 primeval forest and untouched nature, and magnifi 
 cent is yet the vista of mountain and valley, forest 
 and stream, from the lordly city of Easton. The Del 
 aware was already flowing out from the Catskills to 
 the sea, and was then the boundary line of states, as 
 it had been, for ag'es, the highway of the canoe. 
 Along the western line of what is now the superb 
 campus of Lafayette College, was begun by the pi 
 oneers, in the line of westward advance toward 
 Wyoming, that " Sullivan's Road " which in historic 
 interest is great and in local annals has many tender 
 associations, for it is known, and justly so, as 
 "Lovers' Lane." Thus with this highway are
 
 112 THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 locally associated those two passions most deeply 
 rooted in man's nature, the passion of giving and 
 the passion of taking life, which outflower in love 
 and war. 
 
 To this place, rich in glorious scenery of hill and 
 vale, Maxwell's brigade of New Jersey men marched 
 from Elizabethtown, in their native state. 
 
 The New Hampshire regiments under General Poor, 
 by a still longer journey, arrived from Redding, Con 
 necticut marching through Fishkill, Warwick, and 
 across New Jersey. The Eastern men, although quar 
 tered in " the Court House and other spare buildings," 
 were not, apparently, much pleased with this frontier 
 town. They thought the people were chiefly of " the 
 Dutch descent," by which they meant German, and 
 the principal merchants were Hebrews. The houses 
 were built of stone. One disappointed Yankee wrote 
 that it was " a place of about one hundred and fifty 
 houses, and inhabited chiefly by High Dutch and 
 Jews." On the contrary, the Rev. Dr. William Rogers, 
 chaplain, thought it was a pretty village. Here he met 
 Domine Kirkland, who knew the Indian dialects, and 
 had four Stockbridge Indians with him to act as 
 guides. 
 
 By the i8th of June, all the troops in town were 
 prepared for marching. They started between five 
 and six o'clock in the morning. With long lines of 
 loaded pack horses and wagons from Bucks and 
 Berks counties, they moved out of town and over the
 
 THE MAIN ARMY STARTS FROM EASTON I 1 3 
 
 hills by what is now called " Lovers' Lane," or " Sul 
 livan's Road," which Sullivan's pioneers had vastly 
 improved, and marched that day twelve miles. Their 
 route was from Easton to the foot of the Blue Ridge, 
 by way of Bushkill Creek. This stream has a curi 
 ous geological history, for, like some people, it has 
 changed its course in life. 
 
 The army encamped at Heller's tavern, near Hel- 
 lersville, in the southern opening of the Wind Gap, 
 which is a wonderful pass in the Blue Ridge Moun 
 tains. At daybreak next morning, the army moved 
 through this pass and took breakfast at Brinker's 
 Mills, where were plenty of supplies laid up in big 
 buildings, " Sullivan's Stores," erected some time 
 before. Here the men drew four days' provisions, 
 which were to feed them until they should arrive at 
 Wyoming. Nine miles farther march brought them to 
 a log tavern, which was the last house on the frontier. 
 In those days, every inn had a name or sign, such 
 as "The Ball," "The Plough," "The Wain and Six 
 Horses," " The Star," or, they took their "hail," as a 
 sailor would say, from the king or some famous hero. 
 But although King George's face had long ago been 
 smashed or smeared out or over, yet, in some cases, 
 where the paint was thin or bad, the Hanoverian's 
 face and queue were visible. Not infrequently the 
 landlords liked the old state of affairs, and the officers 
 complained of many a "Torified house." 
 
 Until early in the spring of 1 779, there had been
 
 114 THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 only a bridle-path between Easton and Wyoming. 
 General Sullivan had sent Van Cortlandt's New 
 Yorkers and Spencer's Jerseymen to chop a pathway 
 through the forest and lay a road-bed that should be 
 fit for wagons and artillery. So the bears and wolves, 
 woodchucks and ground hogs, were routed out of their 
 lairs and holes, rattlesnakes and other vermin com 
 pelled to glide farther afield, and the deer sent flying. 
 Often, when camp was made near their old runways, 
 these antlered creatures rushed right among the gangs 
 of workmen, as if in surprised protest at intrusion. 
 Great sunshiny swaths were cut in the forest among 
 the mighty tamarack trees. Swales and puddle-holes 
 were gorged with stone, timber, or truck of any sort 
 that was handy. Over swamps and miry places, 
 corduroy roads were laid by chopping down the larch 
 trees and packing the logs together, like candles in a 
 box. Over these, brush wood was laid and earth 
 thrown. Thus a rough road and difficult to travel, 
 but a wonderful improvement on the old bridle-path 
 or Indian trail, opened the path of civilization into 
 northern Pennsylvania. 
 
 Now, in the regular order of march, Maxwell's 
 brigade went ahead ; Proctor's regiment, of a quarter 
 of a thousand men, with eight pieces of artillery, 
 followed. Poor's New Hampshire brigade closed the 
 rear. The wagon trains were still farther back. 
 Wyoming was reached June 23d, but Sullivan was 
 ahead of his supplies, which had not come, and the
 
 THE MAIN ARMY STARTS FROM EASTON 115 
 
 host had to wait until July 3 ist. Then, leaving the fort 
 well garrisoned, the band played and the advance 
 began. Besides the thirty-five hundred men on foot, 
 there were a thousand on deck. A fleet of two 
 hundred and fourteen boats floated on the bosom of 
 the Susquehanna, bearing the artillery, salt provisions, 
 flour, liquor, ammunition, and heavy baggage. On 
 land, about twelve or fifteen hundred pack horses 
 carried stores and food, and seven hundred cattle 
 were driven along to provide fresh meat. Game and 
 fish in the forest might provide tit-bits, and in the 
 lake region were corn, potatoes, and vegetables ; but 
 meat and flour they must carry with them. Like a 
 snail the army had to carry its house on its back, 
 while moving on its belly. 
 
 The march to Tioga Point, a distance from Wyo 
 ming of sixty-five miles, through the rough forest 
 country, was one of great hardship ; but, on August 
 loth, the army halted at a point a mile below the 
 junction of the Chemung River with the branch of 
 the Susquehanna flowing from Otsego Lake. Then 
 the whole body of infantry, locking arms, stepped 
 waist deep into the water, and the men, bracing them 
 selves firmly against the swift current, crossed to the 
 opposite side. Then, going westward a mile, they 
 forded again the Chemung River, and encamped at 
 Tioga Point, between the rivers flowing out of the 
 heart of New York, the seat of the Iroquois con 
 federacy. Here were the headquarters of the army
 
 Il6 THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 and the base of supplies for the farther march west 
 ward. The stores and boats, as well as the sick and 
 wounded, were to be left here under guard, in the 
 large fort which was to be built and named by the 
 army after its trusted commander. 
 
 To this place with her father, John Harby, in 
 charge of the army wagons, came Henrietta Harby, 
 who, as it proved, was to spend several weeks in 
 Fort Sullivan, and lose her own heart. 
 
 We must now glance at that country, rich in grain 
 fields, which the Continental Congress had ordered 
 Major-General John Sullivan, with his five thousand 
 Continental troops, to invade, wherein pined many 
 scores of captives, survivors of the hundreds who 
 had sunk under the tomahawk or who filled unknown 
 graves.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 KING GEORGE'S GRANARY 
 
 UNTIL after the Revolutionary War, nearly all 
 central and western New York was a wilder 
 ness. The Palatine Germans had settlements in 
 the Schoharie and in the upper Mohawk valleys as 
 far west as the Utica of to-day. Between Schoharie 
 and Oswego, the respective headquarters of the 
 patriots and the British, there was Fort Stanwix, 
 later called Fort Schuyler, where is now Rome. 
 These people had been driven out from their homes 
 in the Rhine River region by the ravages equal 
 to anything ever wrought with torch and knife by 
 red Indians of the generals of Louis XIV. of 
 France. Some had sailed away to South Africa, to 
 help, with the Dutch and Huguenots, to make the 
 Boer Republic. Others, their kinsmen, helped by 
 the British government, with the idea of making 
 "naval stores," had come into the colony of New 
 York ; but they and their children, like General 
 Herkimer and his Oriskany heroes, were stanch 
 supporters of the Continental Congress. At Cherry 
 
 117
 
 Il8 THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 Valley and on Otsego and Schuyler lakes, there were 
 clearings and hatnlets, occupied chiefly by Scottish 
 people, some Tories, some patriots. Not a few 
 Highlanders had found peace and prosperity here 
 after the disaster at Culloden, which broke forever 
 the power of the clans. 
 
 Watercourses and Indian trails furnished the 
 only paths by which the adventurous wood-runner 
 or white trader made his way among the lands 
 which the Iroquois claimed as their own. When 
 the Revolutionary War broke out and the savages 
 sallied forth in small bands, five, ten, fifteen, rarely 
 twenty at a time, or when the Tories and redmen 
 joined forces, numbering hundreds of warriors, to 
 kill, burn, or destroy, where did they hatch their 
 plots ? Whence did they begin their march ? 
 
 Apart from the Indian council fires and tribal 
 capitals, with the great central council-hearth at 
 Onondaga, near the later Syracuse, and the large 
 palisaded towns and fortresses at places which we 
 know only by their modern names, such as Pompey, 
 Aurora, and Batavia, there were, besides Niagara 
 at the extreme west end of New York, two points 
 at which magazines and storehouses furnished sup 
 plies. From these issued the great marauding 
 parties. One was at Oswego, easily reached from 
 Canada, and by all the waterways east and west. 
 From Oswego, by Oswego River, that supplies the 
 thread on which many lakes are strung together as
 
 KING GEORGE'S GRANARY 119 
 
 on a rosary, long journeys by canoes, of warriors 
 fully equipped, could be made into the Mohawk 
 Valley and the eastern settlements. Farther south 
 lay that region which supplied waterways by its 
 chain of fifteen "finger lakes," and their connections, 
 besides the Delaware and Susquehanna rivers and 
 their many tributaries. Their valleys and tributary 
 water routes could bring the redmen within easy 
 striking distance of the white population in eastern 
 Pennsylvania and southeastern New York. The 
 capital of all this region " the Seneca Country " 
 was at Kanedasaga, near Geneva, at the northern 
 end of Seneca Lake. 
 
 Here, between 1776 and 1779, with storehouses 
 filled with everything to please the Indians' tastes 
 and desires, dwelt British Canadians and Tories by 
 the score, and sometimes by the hundreds. There 
 were civilians as well as soldiers, who lived among 
 the savages, keeping their guns and war gear in 
 repair for them, helping them to improve in agricul 
 ture and house building, and ready to give them, so 
 far as the savage desired them, whatever material 
 advantages the white man's civilization afforded. 
 
 If the Caucasian teacher went too fast in his sug 
 gestions of progress, the Indian plainly told him that 
 beyond a certain point he could not proceed, and 
 that he proposed to stick to the traditions and ways 
 of his fathers. The savage would fight and he 
 would work according' to his own ideas, but the
 
 I2O THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 squaw must be the chief beast of burden. As to 
 using a plough or the tools of the white man's special 
 crafts, the redman would not. So the ploughs were 
 left to rust, and the grindstones and carpenter's adzes, 
 planes, and chisels, lay idle or were turned into toys. 
 Bullets, lead, powder, axes, knives, iron arrow-heads, 
 beads, woven goods, and things that accorded with 
 the Indian's style of life, with rum and brandy for 
 his debauches, were eagerly sought. On the subject 
 of firearms, the taste of the warriors was highly 
 cultivated. No quality of guns was too fine for the 
 redman. He wanted the best. He would make 
 almost incredible sacrifices of comfort, pride, or pelf 
 to get a rifle. This latter rarity among soldiers, who 
 had only smooth-bore muskets, usually came from 
 Pennsylvania or the continent of Europe. The 
 British and American army authorities furnished 
 only the ordinary guns that shot a larger ball, but 
 with less distance, certainty, and power of penetra 
 tion than the leaden pellets of the riflemen. 
 
 The two garden spots of Iroquoisia were those of 
 the Genesee Valley and the inter-lake region between 
 the Cayuga and Seneca sheets of water. Like two 
 middle fingers of a great hand, they lay on the rosy 
 bosom of mother earth and between them, like 
 dimples were the fat valleys filled with thriving 
 villages. In the early summer of 1779, tens of 
 thousands of acres of young corn, fruit trees. peach, 
 apple, and pear, with gardens of beans, squashes,
 
 KING GEORGE'S GRANARY 121 
 
 and vegetable food in wonderful variety, were in their 
 glory of greenery and bloom. 
 
 It had been the purpose of the British govern 
 ment to make this fertile portion of New York a 
 granary for the feeding of its army. The newly 
 imported British soldier and the Hessian mercenary 
 could hardly be made to eat maize or corn meal, or, 
 as it was known in England, " Oswego flour," but 
 all the king's native-born adherents, Canadians and 
 Tories, with the soldiers long on service in America, 
 had learned to eat the delicious food, whether as 
 "suppawn," hasty pudding, "hoe," "ash" or "johnny " 
 cake ; while, as boiled on the cob or as roasting ears, 
 few even of the " green " troops were proof against 
 the attractions of this succulent grain, monarch of 
 American cereals. It is true that some skill was 
 necessary in learning to eat boiled corn on the cob. 
 The beginner who had never seen " beans growing on 
 a stick " was apt to bite deep into the cob, to the 
 detriment of his teeth. How to nibble just deep 
 enough, get the sweet grain, and let go the hard core, 
 was the problem which all could not master at once. 
 Yet, when once learned, the art of eating corn on the 
 cob added notably to the joys of life. 
 
 It was hoped and planned that, with the Indians' 
 aid, a considerable saving of British revenue could 
 be made by feeding the royalists among the revolted 
 colonists from the maize lands of New York. In 
 return, the red allies were to have unlimited ball,
 
 122 THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 powder, whiskey, woollens, beads, mirrors, and other 
 coveted supplies. 
 
 The impartial historian and the truth-seeking phi 
 losopher are more ready to-day than of yore to do jus 
 tice to our grandfathers' red foes. No philosophy of 
 religion is now accounted sound which does not take 
 into account the fact that the redman, though a sav 
 age, was religious. He bowed in awe before the Power 
 that rules this universe. He saw in the lightning and 
 the storm, in the sun and moon, in the cloudless blue and 
 the star-embroidered sky, in the carillon of the water 
 falls and the soughing of the wind through the forest, 
 signs and proofs of the Great Spirit's presence and 
 power. He pondered on the mystery of creation, 
 generation, and being. However rude his ideas, gro 
 tesque his ritual, or revolting the form which his 
 notions took, we must acknowledge that the Indian 
 was a worshipper. Many a rock, a precipice, gorge, 
 and tree, was sacred or awesome, because of the sup 
 posed presence of Deity or Spirit. Along the forest 
 trail and the river path, and at the great landmarks 
 on the lake, were totems, idols, pictures, shrines, and 
 votive tablets. Offerings, which, in purpose, mean 
 ing, and self-denial, ally themselves with the gor 
 geous worship in the Christian cathedral, were made 
 continually. 
 
 The Indian had a diplomacy, also. He possessed 
 and made use of what stood for written parchments, 
 engrossed documents, marks, and seals. He held
 
 KING GEORGES GRANARY 123 
 
 conventions and sat for days in deliberative bodies. 
 His orators made eloquent speeches and argued the 
 various points and sides of a question. He had cere 
 monies for the making of war and peace, of which 
 the tomahawk and the calumet were the respective 
 signs. Wampum, or belts of shells woven together, 
 was his money and his documents of state. Sent 
 rapidly by special messenger, or ceremoniously de 
 livered in council, they were, in importance and the 
 forcing of decisive action, as significant, as compel 
 ling, as royal despatches. Stored up in the tribe's 
 archives, they had a significance such as the great 
 seal of the state, the steel dies of the mint, the 
 book's title-page, or the originals of standard weights 
 and measures have among civilized nations.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 THE CAPTIVE AT KENDAIA 
 
 WE now return to the lone captive girl at Ken- 
 daia, Mary Vrooman, who had been seized by 
 the savages at Cherry Valley, and see how savage 
 life looked to her. It was many months after she 
 wrote to her brother, Claes Vrooman, that he received 
 the letter. When it came, it was not an affair of 
 folded sheets of white paper, duly held together with 
 wafers and directed by the outside, as in the days of 
 '79. Nor had it any sign of postmarks. Nor did it 
 in any way look like an epistle, either of this or 
 the last century. In outward form it was a package 
 of layers of birch bark, cut into pieces about six 
 inches square. The writing was done with a sharp 
 ened reed, dipped in some kind of red vegetable juice, 
 which made a legible mark on the white bark. Ten 
 or twelve of these birch sheets, pressed down together, 
 were tied with a piece of fawn skin and sewed up all 
 around, with strings to tie and hold it inside of a man's 
 shirt. Thus, between the heart and the buckskin of 
 a faithful negro, a captive like herself, it reached her 
 brother, Claes Vrooman, the rifleman, right after the 
 
 124
 
 THE CAPTIVE AT KENDAIA 125 
 
 decisive battle of August 29th. Of the negro we shall 
 have something further to say, and also as to how 
 Claes Vrooman found him. As the letter was dated 
 late in June, this is the place to tell about its con 
 tents, which are clear enough : 
 
 "KENDAIA, June 20, 1779. 
 
 " MY DEAR BROTHER : I am alive and not dead. 
 The negro boy, Drusus, who is here a captive like 
 myself, is to be my postman. He remembers grate 
 fully your own and father's kindness to him, and has 
 offered to take a letter to you, when the braves march 
 southward, though he must run great risks in getting 
 to you. I gladly take this opportunity of letting you, 
 and through you, all my friends, know that, by the 
 great mercy of God, I am not only alive but very 
 well, and surprised every day at being treated so 
 kindly. Nevertheless, I do not give up for an hour 
 the hope that I am yet to see my home and friends 
 again. 
 
 " Let me tell you about this negro boy Drusus. 
 He belonged to a Tory from Cherry Valley who 
 came, with his slaves, to live among the Indians, and 
 who died here. The negro, without political opinions 
 of any kind, seems quite happy, but says he 
 would rather be among our people and in his old 
 ways of life again, than with the Senecas, for, when 
 the war parties go off on long distances, the warriors 
 take him with them. He finds the travelling too hard,
 
 126 THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 and they make him do all the hard work they can, 
 treating him, he says, ' like a squaw and nothing 
 else.' His fault lies in having too good an appetite. 
 He is so fond of whiskey, and of getting plenty to 
 eat, that both the Tories and Indians amuse them 
 selves by playing on his weakness or shall I say 
 his strength of stomach. 
 
 " They do it in this way : Drusus has a tremen 
 dous thick skull, even for a black fellow, and quite 
 often, to get even so much as an acorn cup of 
 whiskey, or some nice thing a squaw has cooked, he 
 will let some of the most muscular of the Indian boys 
 crack him over the noddle with a club. The blows 
 would certainly stun a white man or crush his skull, 
 but, after taking off his cat-skin cap and rubbing his 
 woolly head a little while, Drusus does not seem to 
 mind it, though the squaws giggle endlessly over it 
 and call him ' Stone-head.' 
 
 "He has never forgotten the kindness you showed 
 him, in Schenectady, when nearly frozen and tired 
 to death while on his way with a bundle of ginseng 
 root to Albany, for which the Dutch, who export it 
 to China, pay such high prices. You gave him. a 
 good warm dinner in the kitchen, and let him rest 
 there for an hour or two. I can remember that I 
 once warmed some soup for a black boy, but apart 
 from that, cannot think of any details ; but his mem 
 ory of our house is extraordinary. He tells me of 
 the standing clock in the hall, and the print of Prince
 
 THE CAPTIVE AT KENDAIA 127 
 
 Maurice and the painting of John DeWitt that hung 
 on either side on the wall though he cannot, of 
 course, tell the names of these worthies. He speaks 
 of the brass andirons faced with the Leyden arms, 
 the keys of St. Peter crossed, and remembers the 
 two rifles set on pins over the fireplace. What more 
 than anything else made me certain that he was not 
 lying, but was the same man I helped to feed, was 
 that he recalled that our cat, Jan Steen, had six toes. 
 Drusus has not only been very kind to me and a 
 blessing, because able to talk with me in English, 
 besides knowing a little Dutch, but he is certain that 
 he can get this letter to you. The Indians do not 
 like him to act as a fighter, and think he may escape 
 if he goes with arms on the war-path, but they trust 
 him as a burden-bearer and general ' squaw-man,' or 
 laborer. Already rumors of the coming of General 
 Sullivan's army are flying about, and all the fighting 
 men are expected to march southward soon. 
 
 " I cannot get over my kind treatment by every 
 body here. My ideas of savage life have changed in 
 some things. How fortunate for me that I had so 
 many Indian girls as playmates, when we learned the 
 catechism under Domine Vrooman, so that I knew 
 enough of the Mohawk language to talk easily with 
 these Seneca people, whose dialect is different, but not 
 very much so. You have heard, perhaps, how at 
 Cherry Valley, Sarah and I were seized at the same 
 time, and our hands tied behind our backs with deer-
 
 128 THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 skin thongs, and how we were put with the other 
 captives under guard of some warriors till the fight 
 ing was over. The next day we were marched off. 
 I cannot remember much of the journey here, except 
 the awful weariness, but I want to tell you at once 
 that Sarah was left at a village of the Tuscarora 
 tribe called ' Coreorganel.' It lies on the banks of the 
 creek running from south to north into Cayuga Lake. 
 The Indians call this stream by a name meaning 
 ' pink with salmon,' as indeed the water often is, in 
 spring or spawning time. Then, passing around the 
 southern end of Cayuga Lake, our party of Senecas 
 travelled northwest, and came to this place, called 
 Kendaia, which is in a very pretty country, between 
 the two lakes, Cayuga and Seneca, within a mile or so 
 of the latter. About half the captives were distrib 
 uted in different Indian villages before we reached 
 this place where I am. 
 
 " There are about sixty houses in our town, made 
 of poles and bark. They are quite water and air 
 tight, except that they have only smoke holes for 
 chimneys. Four or five of the buildings inhabited by 
 the chiefs are two stories high, of hewn and sawed 
 timber, and painted ; but these were made by white 
 men from the settlements, who got their pay in skins 
 and produce, for some of the chiefs are smart traders, 
 and know how to strike a bargain. 
 
 " In our long house there are eight families, each 
 living in a big room with the fireplace in the middle.
 
 THE CAPTIVE AT KENDAIA I2Q 
 
 A hallway runs the whole length of the building, from 
 door to door, and the family rooms are on either side. 
 Though you know Indian houses and apartments 
 pretty well, I must tell, you that the one in which I 
 live with five squaws, one a widow woman, and the 
 others her daughters, is cleaner than most of them. 
 As the house is only three or four years old, the raf 
 ters are not so black and shiny with smoke, and the 
 soot does not hang in such long streamers as in the 
 others. 
 
 " Many of the walls are decorated with scalps, plain 
 and painted, some old and well smoked, others so new 
 that I can recognize the property of owners I for 
 merly knew. For example, no one could be mistaken 
 as to Mrs. Jane McMurtrie's hair, for it is of such 
 beautiful golden-auburn tint. Poor thing, I wonder 
 how her four bairns, now orphans, fare without their 
 mother! It seems that when the Indians entered at 
 one end of the village, she had time to escape to the 
 hills, taking her baby in her arms, and one child by 
 the hand, the other two children following. All day 
 long she was able to keep hidden, though she saw the 
 fires and heard the yells below. Toward evening the 
 children were so hungry and cried so persistently for 
 food, that she found she must go down toward the 
 house for some milk. As all seemed to be quiet, she 
 ventured forth, hoping to get to the spring house. 
 
 " Alas ! the children saw their mother no more. 
 They cried themselves to sleep in the woods. The
 
 I3O THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 next morning the older boy, cautiously venturing for 
 ward, saw hanging on a bush to dry what he knew 
 to be his mother's hair. The children were nearly 
 starved, but I have heard from a later captive who 
 passed through Kendaia that they were all living yet. 
 By the way, all the Indians in our village declare that 
 Brant was not in the Cherry Valley massacre, nor -any 
 where near at the time. 
 
 " Except that I have to work hard like the squaws 
 here, all through the winter, gathering fire-wood, 
 pounding corn, making clothes and baskets, and 
 dressing skins and furs, I cannot complain, for I have 
 good health. Now that summer has come, I work 
 out in the corn-fields, and in planting, weeding, and 
 tending the vegetable garden. I do not find my life 
 hard, except for the loneliness. Being kept so busy, 
 the time passes away tolerably well. I have been 
 adopted into the tribe, and am now the daughter of 
 the old squaw woman, who lost her husband and only 
 son on the war-path a good while ago. All her daugh 
 ters are older than I am, except one. Just think of 
 your sister as a Seneca damsel. My name in Indian 
 means Rising Moon. 
 
 " Although I have to hear a great deal that is rough 
 and even vile, no Indian man has in any way abused 
 me, and I must say that many of the braves are very 
 respectful. Although I knew that the redmen were 
 pagans and had heard nothing about the true God, I 
 have been surprised to find they have many customs
 
 THE CAPTIVE AT KENDAIA 131 
 
 and beliefs which seem very much like doctrine and 
 worship, and are so to them. I must tell you about 
 these, for the warriors, when they know that they are 
 going on a war expedition are, after their way, par 
 ticularly religious. The most wonderful of their fes 
 tivals is that of the White Dog, which they allowed 
 me to see and even take part in, because I am one of 
 the adopted daughters of the tribe. After this feast 
 of the White Dog are the ceremonies of planting, of 
 which also I shall tell you something. 
 
 " The Indians think that a white dog, when 
 offered up, is particularly grateful to their god. The 
 great festival of sacrifice takes place usually in the 
 month of February. I asked the squaws why they 
 chose white dogs for this purpose. They answered : 
 ' Because the color, like that of the white cloud, is 
 acceptable. It suggests purity, and the skin of the 
 animal is especially desired for the making of a 
 tobacco pouch which the Great Spirit uses. He 
 needs a great deal of the dried leaf to be properly sup 
 plied, but after he has had a pleasant smoke he is in 
 a good humor and will the more readily grant favors.' 
 I have noticed that at the edge of the woods, before 
 a rock which seems to be sacred, they will throw 
 some tobacco or occasionally a pipe, as an offering. 
 I am told that at dangerous points in every one of 
 the lakes in this region and along the river banks, 
 there are such holy places where the redmen cast 
 tobacco in honor of their god. Much tobacco is also
 
 132 THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 burnt on the fire, when the Indians pray or return 
 thanks to their god. 
 
 " The festival took place quite early in February 
 of this year. Two white dogs, the fattest and finest 
 looking in the village, were taken to the Council 
 House, in front of which were two poles. There 
 they were 'decorated in the most wonderful manner, 
 with all the pretty things that the squaw mothers 
 and daughters could furnish. The gifts of the 
 unmarried girls seemed to have especial value. 
 When the dog was dressed, he could hardly move, 
 for the ribbons, beads, strips of buckskin dyed in 
 bright colors, and, in fact, nearly everything with 
 which the girls adorn themselves, put upon him. 
 Then, after some incantations by the medicine men 
 of the tribe, the white dogs were taken out and hung 
 by their hind legs on the poles which stood in front 
 of the Council House gate, and about twenty feet 
 high from the ground. They were strangled, for no 
 knife ever touches them. 
 
 "This done, a band of about forty or fifty maid 
 ens, with their wraps or blankets around their heads, 
 each holding in her hand an ear of corn, marched 
 round the council room to the sound of Indian 
 music and out again. They then proceeded in a 
 line to every house in the village and into each room, 
 a certain number marching around the fireplace, 
 extinguishing all the fires. When nothing was left 
 but ashes, the trash and rubbish from each house
 
 THE CAPTIVE AT KENDAIA 133 
 
 well cleaned out, was brought together, placed in a 
 heap, and set on fire. The whole population of the 
 village, from the pappooses (except those asleep and 
 hanging in the tree branches) to the chiefs and 
 medicine men, gathered to see the blaze. When all 
 was burning hotly, they took the two dogs from the 
 poles and threw them on the burning heap. 
 
 " Meanwhile the principal men of the tribe, one 
 from each long house, most honored for their char 
 acter, or because they were the depositaries of the 
 traditions and secrets, led by a chief whose special 
 business it was to carry the brand which lights the 
 council fires, or that which, as in this feast, begins 
 the new year, moved slowly and solemnly around the 
 big blaze, with the idea of getting upon themselves 
 as much of the heat and smoke as possible. 
 
 " Then, at a certain signal, when the fire had 
 burned low and the dogs had become a true burnt 
 sacrifice, the chief men formed in line. One placed 
 his hands upon the other with the idea of throwing 
 off and out from himself, and upon and into the 
 other one, all his sins and evil. The second man, 
 with the same idea, slapped or laid his hands upon 
 the third, and the third upon the fourth, and so on 
 to the end of the line. Then the last man, who was 
 supposed to have taken all the sins of the whole 
 tribe into himself, went through some incantations, 
 which soon became violent contortions. When 
 apparently nearly exhausted, he made one final ges-
 
 134 THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 ture, by which he threw the whole burden into the 
 fire which had burnt up the white dogs, and fell to 
 the ground. The past record was now effaced and 
 the gods were well pleased with the offering. 
 
 " After this, the new life for the year began. The 
 tribe and each member made a new start. The 
 maidens began their march again. Entering every 
 house and room again, they relighted the fires for 
 each family, and the routine of life commenced once 
 more. 
 
 " There is also another festival, one, indeed, that 
 reminds me of our Thanksgiving. 
 
 "When the warriors start out on the war-path they 
 are expected to be very serious and to give up foolish 
 habits and ways. I have heard the old chiefs lecture 
 and warn the young warriors, almost as if they were 
 domines and the braves were in the catechism class. 
 Each fighting man worships at one of the holy places, 
 consecrates himself to the god, and makes an offer 
 ing of tobacco, war paint, a pipe, wampum, or some 
 thing that belongs to himself. He also makes a vow 
 of chastity, while on the campaign. It is against the 
 Indian's law to cut down any tree that gives food 
 even to an enemy. On the march and while hunt 
 ing, the braves pay great respect to the snakes, tor 
 toises, and the animals which are their clan totems, 
 or signs. They speak of the various animals almost 
 as if they were relatives and talked, thought, and 
 acted like human beings. The stories of imaginary
 
 THE CAPTIVE AT KENDAIA 135 
 
 actions, which the old men and squaws tell the young 
 people as what actually happened, are much like our 
 fairy tales, or ^sop's fables. 
 
 " Several war parties have gone out and returned 
 since I have been here, some with scalps and some 
 without them ; some coming back in full numbers, but 
 others retracing their steps with their number di 
 minished, having had some killed on the way. No 
 new prisoners have come to our village, but at the 
 end of the lake, where the great Seneca Castle is, 
 I hear that four women and two boys have been 
 adopted into the tribe by the widows or relatives of 
 those killed on the war-path. Besides the negro boy 
 here, there is a white man, a Pennsylvanian, who is 
 kept so busy making salt for them, and is away so 
 much, that I do not often see him. Besides selling it, 
 they have much ceremony and many notions about 
 salt, of which I shall tell you if I ever see home 
 again. 
 
 " I must tell you how they plant and raise corn 
 here. This is an old village. Many of the maize 
 fields have been cultivated, the old men say, during 
 ten generations. Some are almost as smooth as our 
 own at home. When they would make new planta 
 tions, they go right out into the woods. After first 
 making sure that the soil is rich, they chop or cut the 
 bark down near the roots of the trees and up to 
 where the branches grow, girdling the tree right 
 around, or, as they say, ' scalping ' it. Then, they
 
 136 THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 draw another cutting line perpendicularly down 
 from the top to the bottom, with hatchet or knife, 
 and strip the bark right off, leaving a white and 
 naked trunk. Of the best and most flexible pieces 
 of this bark, they make their canoes. Some of these 
 are very pretty, both in their shape and decorations. 
 I have sometimes seen a hundred of them on the 
 Seneca Lake, which, like Cayuga, is very long and 
 without islands, so that one can easily see what is 
 going on at the other side. 
 
 " With the bark not used in this way, they build, 
 the walls and roofs of their houses. These are made 
 by cutting down trees, sharpening their ends, and 
 driving them into the ground. Poles are lashed 
 along the side and front for walls and between the 
 rooms, partitions, and hallway, and on these poles 
 they fasten the bark. You would be surprised to 
 know how comfortable these big bark houses are. 
 Some of the single dwellings are, as I have said, 
 built of hewn timber, for axes and hatchets seem to 
 be plenty here. 
 
 " Almost as soon as the trees are stripped of their 
 bark, they begin to die, and soon the leaves curl, 
 wilt, and fall. Then the woods, that but a few days 
 before were dark and like twilight, become very 
 warm, full of sunlight, and, where the balsam trees 
 are, very aromatic. The corn is planted as soon as 
 the bark is stripped away and removed. Soon the 
 sun warms the ground and makes the little blades
 
 THE CAPTIVE AT KENDAIA 137 
 
 turn into stalks, which are hoed and tended by the 
 squaws. This is the story of the first year, for in 
 the second the trees are burned down, and in course 
 of time the fields become quite smooth. The har 
 vest time is always one of gayety and merriment, 
 as well as of work. When the grain is all ripe they 
 put it in great storehouses made of wood and bark, 
 and these hold the crops for the winter ; but the crop 
 last year, they say, was very poor, and this spring we 
 had none too much suppawn. 
 
 " The Indian is very superstitious, or, ought I not 
 to say religious ? He thinks that while work in the 
 field is beneath his dignity as a warrior, yet that in 
 some way the women are more easily influenced by 
 the powers of Deity, and that a good crop depends 
 more on them than on the men, or, as they say, 
 more on woman's spirit than man's toil. So he lets 
 the women do all the work of hoeing, planting, 
 and tending the corn. The only young woman in 
 the tribe who does not toil in the fields is one who 
 has been in Canada and is the widow for they say 
 she was married in the church by the French priest 
 of an officer of Butler's corps of rangers. He 
 was accidentally killed near Niagara, and she came 
 back to live with her people. She has a beautiful 
 seal ring which he gave her. She is very kind to 
 me. 
 
 " A very curious custom is that of ' mothering the 
 fields ' after the seed has been sown. All the wives
 
 138 THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 of the tribe, who hope before the harvest time to be 
 mothers, are expected to go out at night after, the 
 seed has been planted, and walk up and down 
 between the rows of corn, both lengthwise and 
 crosswise, so as to surround each seed ; for the 
 Indians think this action of hers will increase the 
 fertility of the soil and the certainty of the crop. 
 Indeed, a chief would consider it a great calamity 
 not to have an expectant mother go up and down 
 the fields at least once. 
 
 " We have also orchards here of peach, apple, 
 pear, and plum, and you would be surprised at their 
 size. They cover many acres, and in blossoming 
 time they look more beautiful than I can tell you. 
 Indeed, the peach trees made me feel homesick ; 
 for I thought of our own pink-blossoming tree in 
 our yard at Schenectady. Nothing has so brought 
 before me the picture of my home as the blooming 
 trees of May, and this year the prospect for a great 
 crop of fruit is very good. The Indians always had 
 squashes, pumpkins, and beans. Succotash is almost 
 a daily dish in late summer and autumn, and often 
 even in winter. Within four or five years, the Cana 
 dians and British people have distributed at Kane- 
 dasaga many seeds of other vegetables, so that we 
 have now growing, either here or in the other villages 
 near by, a variety equal almost to that found in our 
 gardens at home.
 
 THE CAPTIVE AT KENDAIA 139 
 
 "O brother dear, I am finishing and closing up 
 this letter weeks after I began it, for the messengers 
 from Kanedasaga have been here calling the war 
 riors to march south on the war-path. Is the army 
 coming ? God grant it ! I shall try to escape if pos 
 sible. Brant is the leader, they say, but three hun 
 dred white men from Canada are with him. May 
 we meet ! 
 
 " My daily thoughts for months have been on how I 
 might escape. Now, perhaps, my opportunity is near. 
 I do not know what route the army will take, but I 
 feel sure that if the destruction of the Indian villages 
 and crops is the main object, then you will pass around 
 the southern end of this lake, where, facing west are 
 two rocky gorges, in one of which is a magnificent 
 waterfall. 
 
 " Now, I have found a place in which I shall hide. 
 It is in this gorge, and I can give you a sign by 
 which you may at once recognize the spot. On the 
 south face only of the rocky sides of the high preci 
 pice grows a pink flower of the primrose family, 
 and I cannot find that it grows anywhere else in this 
 region. It is so rare that it will be a sign and clew to 
 my whereabouts, for though I hide I shall keep within 
 call. It has bloomed for this year, but its leaf is easy 
 to recognize. I enclose some specimens. 
 
 " If our army gains victory, the Indians will re 
 treat, they say, toward Niagara. As soon as the 
 people here begin to make ready to move, I shall
 
 I4O THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 hide in the corn-fields at about the last moment, and 
 in their hurry they will not seek me. Oh, rescue me if 
 it be possible ! If our army is beaten, or retreats, 
 then I see no hope but of living and dying here 
 among savages."
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 THE PARSON'S PESSIMISM AND GIDEON'S OPTIMISM 
 
 HUMAN nature was much the same in "the times 
 that tried men's souls " as in our own days of 
 the Spanish War, when " embalmed beef " was in both 
 the air and nostrils of the nation, and when various 
 scandals connected with this name or that were 
 bruited abroad. Our Revolutionary sires suffered 
 from scoundrelism and mismanagement and delay 
 also, and often the prospect seemed dark enough. 
 To great and real disorders were added those individ 
 ual and imaginary troubles that spring from bad 
 livers and sluggish digestion. Let us look into the 
 rough board hut set up within Fort Sullivan at Tioga 
 Point, in which Dr. Kinersley, the surgeon (Franklin's 
 rival in electricity), the Rev. Dr. William Rogers, 
 the parson, and Captain Bush, of the Continental 
 infantry, were messing together while in Fort 
 Sullivan. 
 
 The parson had been taking rather pessimistic 
 views since the misfortune of the i3th of August, 
 which we shall now describe. 
 
 141
 
 142 THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 On the evening of the nth, Captain Cummings 
 and a scout went forward twelve miles or more west 
 ward, up to the Chemung River valley, finding the 
 large Indian village of Chemung occupied. There 
 were sixty houses, some of them built of planks, with 
 a council house, amid fertile fields of grain. On re 
 turning, toward noon next day, and reporting to Gen 
 eral Sullivan, a council of war was called and a night 
 expedition resolved on. 
 
 All the force then in camp, except two regiments, 
 moved forward at eight o'clock in the evening. Sul 
 livan commanded in person, Hand's light troops lead 
 ing, Maxwell's and Poor's being in reserve. Through 
 narrow defiles, in the pitchy darkness, and into foggy 
 daylight, the army, on nearing the town, proceeded to 
 surround and surprise it, Sullivan even throwing two 
 regiments across the river to head off possible fugi 
 tives. At five o'clock, our men rushed from all sides 
 into the town. 
 
 But all was silent. Not even a dog barked. The 
 savages had evidently seen the scouts of the day 
 before, taken the hint, and fled. 
 
 Resting the main body in this town of Chemung, 
 General Hand sent forward Captain Bush and his 
 company on the trail to Newtown. After a mile or 
 so, they came to a village with fires burning, plenty 
 of skins and blankets lying round, as if men had 
 slept there and but recently risen, and one dog asleep. 
 Captain Bush sent back for reinforcements, and, these
 
 THE PARSON S PESSIMISM 143 
 
 coming up, they advanced another mile, and had 
 reached the low ground under a ridge or hill on their 
 right. 
 
 Suddenly, from scores of Indians in hiding, a 
 deadly fire was poured into Hubley's regiment. In 
 a few moments, sixteen men had reeled and fallen to 
 the ground. Six of the Pennsylvanians, a sergeant, 
 drummer, and four privates, were killed on the spot. 
 The guide, pight soldiers, an adjutant, and two cap 
 tains were wounded. It looked very much like an 
 ambuscade. 
 
 But not for one moment did the Pennsylvania 
 Continentals falter. Colonel Hubley, sending Cap 
 tain Bush to attack the savages in the rear, ordered 
 his men to charge up the hill. This they did with 
 cheers, setting the redskins on the run at once. 
 These were soon far away and invisible, before Cap 
 tain Bush got near their rear. As usual, they bore off 
 their dead and wounded, only blood drops here and 
 there, and a coat and hat with bullet holes in them, 
 telling of the effectiveness of the Continental fire. 
 
 Besides mounting the severely wounded of his 
 command, Colonel Hubley had the corpses of his 
 slain comrades tied on the horses that had carried 
 provisions, and these were brought to camp and 
 buried. The officiating chaplain, the Rev. Dr. Rogers, 
 delivered a discourse appropriate to the sad occasion. 
 Then Proctor's regimental band played the mournful 
 tune, " Roslin Castle " ; and there, under the leafy
 
 144 THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 aisles of the forest, under Nature's great cathedral 
 floor, were laid to rest the brave Pennsylvanians. 
 Here is the score of the music set to Sir Walter 
 Scott's lines : 
 
 Roelin Castle. 
 
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 f iy ^ * *p*~ " *LCSr ^ fc^ 
 
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 ^ 1 j ^=^4=^1-^-^-^-^
 
 THE PARSON'S PESSIMISM 145 
 
 General Hand wished to push on to the larger 
 Newtown, but General Sullivan thought best to halt 
 and return. 
 
 Returning to the Indian village, the torch was 
 applied to the sixty houses, and the whole laid in 
 ashes. Crossing the river, the thousands of corn 
 stalks full of ripe ears were razed by the men of 
 Maxwell's and Poor's brigades. While at this work 
 of destruction, prowling savages came near, and 
 killed one man and wounded several others. After 
 twenty-three hours of severe and continuous duty, 
 the weary men rested in camp again near Fort 
 Sullivan. It was this night expedition that helped 
 to fill the parson, and perhaps the captain, with evil 
 augury and gloomy forebodings. Certainly, as to 
 success, it was hardly equal to Gideon's night attack 
 on the Midianites. 
 
 The pessimistic parson, Dr. Rogers, chaplain of 
 the Third Pennsylvania Brigade, ha*d been ordered 
 to duty at Wyoming, and was waiting in the fort 
 until the boats should be ready to proceed thither. 
 They were to load with provisions and stores, and 
 then come back to meet the army on its return 
 march. Let us see how he felt about the prospects 
 of an avenging expedition, which rascally contractors 
 had ruinously delayed, and which many of the Tories 
 in their treason and Quakers in their principles 
 hoped to see defeated. It was a chill evening in 
 August, and the three gentlemen, representing medi-
 
 146 THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 cine, theology, and war, invited in Mr. John Harby 
 and his daughter Henrietta, for a pleasant hour or 
 two indoors, for the cool nights made shelter very 
 agreeable, and even a fire in the morning seemed 
 very appropriate. 
 
 It was on the evening of August 25th, after Henri 
 etta had written her letter to Philadelphia, that the 
 surgeon and the chaplain, feeling in a mood for 
 mutual confidences, unbosomed themselves. They 
 " told tales out of school " ; or, shall we say, because 
 "the cat," the commander-in-chief, was now "away," 
 the mice felt at full liberty to gambol. At any rate, 
 Surgeon Kinersley, after the usual polite common 
 places were over, broke out at once. 
 
 "Well, chaplain, what do you think of it all? 
 Will the army succeed, or soon come back a-fiy- 
 ing?" 
 
 " Now that you ask me, doctor, I must speak 
 plainly. I have no hopes of General Sullivan's 
 accomplishing anything ; but let us ask the opinion 
 of Captain Bush, and call for reasons. What 
 think you, captain ? Are the Six Nations to be 
 crushed ? " 
 
 " Well, I must confess, parson, the task is difficult, 
 and ours is the worst equipped army for such an 
 expedition I could imagine, for an advance into a 
 pathless wilderness. Our men are to move with 
 pack trains and artillery in a wild forest land, un 
 mapped and unsurveyed, against foes which have
 
 THE PARSON S PESSIMISM 147 
 
 every resource of cunning and that can keep them 
 selves invisible, while ready to spring like panthers 
 at every weak spot, and able to lure even the most 
 cautious men into ambush. I shall not be surprised 
 if the men of our army, while being harassed and 
 subject to loss continually, will not see a hundred 
 Indians at any one time. I should even be willing 
 to wager that many soldiers will come back without 
 seeing a single redskin, unless it may be the tip of 
 his nose or scalp-lock behind a rock or a tree! " 
 
 Both parson and doctor laughed very heartily at 
 this, and then the medical man said : " What I worry 
 over is the insufficiency of food and supplies. Why, 
 think of it ! They have only twenty-seven days' 
 rations. Even suppose that the cattle do not stray 
 off or the horses get stampeded, what can they 
 accomplish in so short a time? The enemy will 
 surely lure them on from their base of supplies. 
 Even supposing they should meet with no serious 
 mishaps, and even reach Niagara, how can they 
 get back again without food and through a wild 
 wilderness ? In such a case, the more men there 
 are, the more mouths to feed, the worse it will 
 be ; besides, we know that in those dreadful 
 swamps many animals will be mired or lost, and 
 the horses, lacking proper fodder, will have to be 
 shot." 
 
 " Rather a dark view, doctor," said Captain Bush ; 
 "but I understand also they have hardly any
 
 148 THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 medicines or hospital stores. What if they should 
 have two or three serious engagements, with a good 
 many wounded on their hands, up beyond the lake 
 country, where they will have neither boats nor 
 wagons ? " 
 
 " The case is indeed serious," said the doctor ; " for 
 they are very poorly supplied and the surgeons are 
 very few ; but what I wonder at is, how they can take 
 cannon with them. With one or two hundred men 
 helping with ropes behind, the wagons may possibly 
 be drawn up and down the hills, but think of the 
 heavy guns being pulled through the forest and over 
 the rough face of the wild country, where there 
 are no such things as roads. I confess that my 
 wishes are warm, but my fears more than counter 
 balance. I rather look for them to come back inside 
 of a fortnight, having given up the task as too 
 hard." 
 
 " But the general seems to be very punctilious, and 
 will probably hold his men together with great vigi 
 lance and care," said Mr. Harby. 
 
 "Oh, yes," said the chaplain; "that is what 
 I am really most afraid of. The great parade 
 and regularity which is observed must unavoid 
 ably, in the end, letting alone all other obstacles, 
 greatly defeat the purpose of the expedition, con 
 sidering the coyness and subtlety of the Indians. 
 This firing a morning and evening gun, and thus 
 giving the Indian notice of the approach and
 
 THE PARSON S PESSIMISM 149 
 
 whereabouts of the army, does not seem to be a 
 good thing." 
 
 " On the contrary, parson, if you will pardon me 
 for saying it," said the doctor, " the Indians look 
 upon the cannon as loaded with all the ' bad medicine ' 
 in the world and the very embodiment of mystery. 
 Hearing it in the distant forest will make them want 
 to keep away. Mark my words, they will not want to 
 get near a howitzer. Further, is it not humanity to 
 the women and children that, hearing the sound, they 
 can escape ? What I fear most is that the lack of meat 
 food, to which the men have been accustomed, will 
 bring on disease, which will be the ruin of the army. 
 What is the reason the salted beef is so much tainted 
 this year ? One expects more from good salt and 
 good beef, as these certainly were when put in the 
 casks were they not, Captain Bush ? " 
 
 "On my honor, yes. I was government inspector, 
 and saw the meat and the salt. I cannot tell why so 
 much of it is spoiled. Can you give me some light, 
 Mr. Harby ? " 
 
 "Why, yes," promptly answered the civilian; "the 
 truth is, that the demand of the Continental army for 
 salt meat rations long ago exhausted the supply of 
 casks made of seasoned wood. Then, the coopers 
 being mostly in the army, the raw hands had to use 
 green wood. Now, this spoils the brine, and makes a 
 fermenting compound which first sours and then 
 taints the meat."
 
 I5O THE -PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 " For this reason, then," said the doctor, " our men 
 must go hungry in the wilderness. I prophesy that 
 within a week our men with General Sullivan will 
 have to come to half rations. Then their patriotism 
 will be tested. I fear a revolt, or at least a refusal 
 to advance. It is pretty hard to be a patriot when 
 you are hungry, and we shall see whether the Con 
 tinental boys will come back having accomplished 
 nothing." 
 
 "Well, better that, than have another Braddock 
 affair," said Captain Bush. 
 
 " Well, gentlemen," said Mr. Harby ; " since we 
 are, from present appearances, not likely to have any 
 battle or victory in this part of the world, let us have 
 something from ancient history. Come, parson, can't 
 you tell us about a Bible battle, and cheer us up a 
 little?" 
 
 " Oh, do, domine, please," said Miss Harby, clap 
 ping her hands. 
 
 " I will, fair lady, if you will promise to decorate 
 my fireplace with goldenrod to-morrow," said the 
 parson, looking archly at the young lady. 
 
 "I'll do so," said she; "but you must be sure to 
 tell about some battle that brought victory to the 
 right side, and a great victory, too." 
 
 " I join with the young lady," said Dr. Kinersley ; 
 " tell us about something successful. We want our 
 leader to be a Gideon." 
 
 " The allusion is a happy one," said the parson ;
 
 THE PARSON'S PESSIMISM 151 
 
 "and I'll turn to the book of Judges at once, for 
 there we read how the Hebrew republics strove for 
 their freedom." 
 
 " Yes, domine," said Miss Harby ; " and about 
 King Bramblebush, too. I once heard you preach 
 about how the trees went forth on a time to anoint 
 a king over them, and how, after the olive, and the 
 fig and the vine declined the honor, the bramble 
 accepted. I declare, I have thought of that when I 
 have seen some of these swamps we have been 
 through on the march from Easton. But do tell us 
 about Gideon and his victory. I never could under 
 stand about those pitchers and trumpets, and, as for 
 lamps being inside the pitchers, how could they 
 manage them ? Imagine our Continentals bringing 
 crockery and lamps into this wilderness." 
 
 All laughed heartily at this. " And yet, my 
 daughter," said Mr. Harby, " I imagine that a few 
 Indians rushing around our camp at night with fire 
 could create a panic by scaring the horses. Do you 
 suppose that was Gideon's idea, by making a 
 noise and fire to demoralize the host ? " 
 
 " Come, doctor, give us all the facts in the case, 
 as you can out of your learning," said Captain 
 Bush. 
 
 "I shall be glad to do so," said Dr. Rogers; 
 " for the story is well told in the seventh chapter 
 of Judges. A great army of Midianites and 
 Amalekites and other desert tribes had pitched
 
 152 THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 their tents in the valley by the hill of Morah. 
 They were like grasshoppers in multitude, and their 
 camels were^ without number, 'as the sand by 
 the seaside for multitude.' Nevertheless, Gideon, 
 the wise leader, knew that a few tried and brave 
 men are better than a mighty host, and so he said 
 in substance : 
 
 " ' Cowards to the rear ! ' 
 
 " At once twenty-two thousand of his men left him 
 and went home. He had ten thousand left, but the 
 Divine Spirit in him told him that even these, un 
 seasoned and conceited as they were, were too many. 
 So, after letting them get thirsty, he brought them 
 down to the riverside to drink. Now, in war time, 
 vigilance is the first virtue. Certainly it is so with 
 our General Sullivan's army. Gideon's test is a good 
 one, even for to-day. If a man is, first of all, intent 
 upon satisfying his selfish appetite, he will, without 
 thinking of the wary and watching foe, fall down 
 upon his knees or lie upon his belly at full length 
 and put his mouth right to the water and drink 
 greedily. That is just the moment when the enemy 
 can take him unawares, charge upon him, or shoot 
 him. Or, if it be a thirsty army, he can drive the 
 mass of men, huddled together, into the stream, and 
 drown or shoot them at leisure." 
 
 " Isn't that the way that most thirsty men would 
 drink ? " asked Dr. Kinersley. 
 
 " Yes, doctor, I grant you the average man would ;
 
 THE PARSONS PESSIMISM 153 
 
 but the trained veterans, like our scouts or riflemen, 
 who know that an Indian is likely to lurk in ambush 
 especially near a spring or open water-side, would 
 not do this. Such a man would not kneel at all. 
 He would crouch by the river or spring side, and, 
 without taking his eyes off from possible danger, 
 but surveying all around him, he would dip up 
 in his hand a little water at a time, and drink even 
 while watching. In a word, he would never be taken 
 unawares. 
 
 " These were the kind of men that Gideon selected, 
 who did not bow down, like the rest of the people, 
 but that lapped, putting their hands to their mouths. 
 These alert and vigilant men that formed his chosen 
 band of three hundred could carry their provisions 
 on their backs and their trumpets with them. With 
 such men, Gideon felt that God had already given 
 the Midianite host into his hands." 
 
 " But the trumpet, chaplain, was not much of a 
 weapon, was it ? " asked Captain Bush, with a pleas 
 ant smile of mild credulity. 
 
 " No, captain, I grant you that," said Dr. Rogers ; 
 " but then, in war it is the moral as well as the 
 physical state of the soldier that we must consider. 
 The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to 
 the strong. The bravest men in a panic seem good 
 for nothing, while even delicate youth not naturally 
 brave can be made to fight like lions under an inspir 
 ing leader."
 
 154 THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 "Ah, yes, chaplain," said Mr. Harby ; "then our 
 artillerymen will give a good account of themselves, 
 for the Indian has not the moral courage to face the 
 cannon. Why, a bomb that bursts behind him scares 
 him worse than one that explodes in front. Noise is 
 a great part of a battle, and the Indian seems to know 
 it, for his yells are meant to scare." 
 
 " Yes, quite true," said the chaplain. " Gideon 
 understood well, also, how a man feels when he is 
 only half awake. Penetrating the Midianite camp, 
 he heard the story of the dream, how the flat sheet 
 of barley bread rolled into the camp of Midian 
 and completely overturned the tent. Gideon was 
 mightily cheered by the interpretation which the 
 dreamer's comrade gave, and went back to immedi 
 ately arrange his three hundred men into three 
 companies." 
 
 " But tell me about those empty pitchers and the 
 lamps inside the pitchers. How funny it must have 
 seemed ! " said the young girl. 
 
 " Oh, yes ! " laughed the parson ; " but you must 
 not think of a table ornament, or a stone jug, or a 
 bedroom ewer standing in a basin, nor even a water 
 pitcher ; but picture in your mind one of those big 
 earthen vases or two-handled jars, with a compara 
 tively narrow neck, and a long, rounding body taper 
 ing to a point. In place of a hand lamp, think of a 
 torch. Then imagine Gideon leading his three hun 
 dred men, each one silently holding a dark lantern
 
 THE PARSON'S PESSIMISM 155 
 
 his lighted torch inside the big earthen vase or jar, 
 which he could smash with a single blow of the trum 
 pet, revealing the light within. Thus, though unseen 
 in the darkness, Gideon's band could suddenly form 
 a scattered line of three hundred fires." 
 
 "True," said Mr. Harby ; "but I do not see yet 
 how the mere sight of three hundred torches should 
 so frighten an army." 
 
 "Well," said the domine, smiling, "that shows 
 our necessity of studying oriental customs. Consider 
 the ancient way of laying out an encampment in an 
 Asiatic country. A group of camels would be placed 
 here, one tribe with their tents and encampment 
 there, and each division in its appointed place ; but 
 at the headquarters, the general's tent, there would 
 be a great torch burning. This was the invariable 
 rule that, at the tongue of the commander-in-chief's 
 chariot, this light should burn all night. The com 
 mon soldier and subordinate officer were not allowed 
 this mark of honor, so that when waking up at night 
 the half-dazed soldiers would see not one torch burn 
 ing, but here and there many of them, even three 
 hundred. Such being their military habits and men 
 tal associations, would they not imagine that instead 
 of one army attacking them, there were many of 
 them, even a host without numbers, and that' every 
 torch represented not a soldier, but a general with a 
 host at his back ? 
 
 " At any rate, this is just what did happen. It was
 
 156 THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 at the beginning of the middle watch, just after the 
 first had been changed, that Gideon with his hundred 
 men came near the outside of the camp. Suddenly, 
 with a blast that roused all sleepers, the valiant 
 Hebrews sounded their trumpets and, smashing the 
 earthen vases which held their lighted torches, they 
 uttered their war-cry. Then the great host of sleep 
 ing men imagined that a multitude without number 
 was attacking them. In a moment more, at the fresh 
 blasts of the trumpets, their fears led them to suppose 
 that those nearest to them were their enemies. So 
 they either fought each other, or else fled in utter 
 panic." 
 
 "Well, well," said Dr. Kinersley; "that is a story 
 well told. It shows how three hundred alert men, 
 under a brave and resourceful commander, can accom 
 plish a miracle. Now, I do hope that our young Con 
 tinentals, led by the veteran riflemen and Sullivan, 
 whom I trust to the utmost, will clear all New York 
 State of its hosts of savages. They are no better 
 than wild Arabs of the desert. It is a case of thirty- 
 five hundred against many thousands fighting with 
 consummate craft on their own ground; but God 
 guard the right." 
 
 "Amen ! " cried the whole party. 
 
 Evidently there was no Gideon among the Indians, 
 or in the Tory camp not many miles westward. Sev 
 eral times the prowlers of the forest succeeded in 
 killing men sent to pasture or drive in horses or
 
 THE PARSON'S PESSIMISM 157 
 
 cattle; but pursuit was hardly worth while, for the 
 savage tactics consisted in this, to sneak, to fire, to 
 run. All this made the Continentals eager for a fair 
 stand-up fight, and this they were to compel the 
 enemy to give, or fly in force.
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 JUST BEFORE THE BATTLE 
 
 THE cool nights and mornings of late August had 
 already come, and the days of the foggy month 
 were nearly over. The young Continentals woke up 
 at the morning reveille, given by horn and drum, to 
 find the dew sparkling not only on grass and leaf, 
 but also upon their blankets, accoutrements, and 
 stacked arms as well. Several times, in order to see 
 clearly for marching, they had to wait till the sun 
 was well up and the thick fog rent by the sunbeams. 
 
 General Clinton's troops had made junction with 
 the main army on the 22d, and, after some reassign- 
 ments, the permanent order of battle was formed. 
 Colonel Van Cortlandt's regiment was ordered to act 
 with Clinton's, and Alden's regiment was joined to 
 Poor's brigade, while Colonel Butler's regiment, with 
 Major Parr's corps, were included in General Hand's 
 force of light infantry. Colonel Dubois's brace of 
 cannon were to be left in the fort, but all of Proc 
 tor's were to go forward. 
 
 The barrels of flour were now to be taken out of 
 158
 
 JUST BEFORE THE BATTLE 159 
 
 the boats, emptied, and put into bags, which were to 
 be carried on the backs of pack horses, for from this 
 point the river was too shallow to float loade'd boats, 
 though flat craft, put together with wooden pins 
 instead of nails, and almost like rafts, could be 
 pushed and hauled some miles further up the Che- 
 mung River. With plenty of water in winter and 
 making a terrific flood in the time of the melting of 
 the snows, the river channel in summer is for wad 
 ing rather than for boat navigation. Its purpose 
 in nature is to irrigate and drain one of the love 
 liest valleys in the world. The artillery must move 
 along the river flats, have a path chopped through 
 the forest, be rafted over streams and have cordu 
 roy roads made in the swamps and swales, all of 
 which meant plenty of work for the axemen and 
 pioneers. 
 
 A large division of men were at once set to work 
 to cut up the old tent cloth to be made into sacks 
 for the flour. All the women of the camp, some 
 forty in number, lent their needles and fingers, and 
 the work was kept up all night. On one day, drop 
 ping this manipulation for real soldiering, the signal 
 gun was fired at 5 P.M. in order to form the line of 
 march, according to the new assignments, to see how 
 well the comrades, thus rearranged, could move and 
 complete formations. At seven o'clock the army 
 encamped in proper order, everybody feeling that, 
 except in the very roughest country to be traversed,
 
 l6o THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 the alignments could be kept, though a half mile of 
 width would be necessary for columns, pack-horse 
 trains, and flankers. 
 
 The horses and cattle, as being the more easily 
 stampeded, formed the weakest part and must be 
 well protected, as well as guarded against, by those 
 who were dependent on them for rations and car 
 tridges. Men and horses together carried twenty- 
 seven days of soldiers' provisions ; for, indeed, this 
 was all they had. As for the horses and cattle, they 
 must live off the country. In a word, Sullivan must 
 conquer or return between moons. 
 
 The next day was entirely devoted to packing up 
 and getting everything in order, although the heavy 
 rains which fell hindered movement, but on Thurs 
 day, the 26th of August, at eleven o'clock, the great 
 army of chastisement set forward. First of all, 
 Major Parr with his riflemen moved ahead, examin 
 ing every hilltop and valley, defile and turn of river, 
 rock, and clump of trees, to prevent possibility of 
 ambuscade. Then followed the surveyors and chain- 
 bearers under Lieutenant Lodge, who measured the 
 distances exactly. After them came the hundred or 
 two men of the pioneer corps, skilful with axe, 
 spade, and crowbar, who widened the path, chopped 
 down trees, or improved the road. Sometimes they 
 had to stop for an hour at a time and fill up the 
 miry places, in order to give the artillery wheels and 
 pack trains a solid basis. Two columns of the main
 
 JUST BEFORE THE BATTLE l6l 
 
 army then followed, between which moved the 
 horses and cattle. On the right and left, the host 
 was guarded by the flanking divisions commanded 
 by Colonel Dubois and Colonel Ogden. Clinton's 
 brigade, holding the post of honor and danger, 
 brought up the rear. 
 
 During the days of routine life at the fort, after 
 the army had left to go into the wilderness, a party 
 went out after strayed horses and cattle. They 
 succeeded in driving into the fort twenty-four cows. 
 From living long in the forest, these creatures had 
 become almost as wild as deer. The twelve hundred 
 people in the fort, whose supply of visible meat 
 provision had been reduced to five lean and ill- 
 favored beeves, were mightily pleased. Visions of 
 juicy beefsteaks and pot-pie danced before their 
 eyes. Toward evening, sixty boats with the sick 
 and wounded, and with the chaplain, took passage 
 to Wyoming. A large detachment from the gar 
 rison went on board to work the boats down the 
 Susquehanna, and to bring back supplies for the 
 returning victors ? 
 
 The first march was short, and the general camp 
 was made at the upper end of Tioga flats, only three 
 miles distant from Fort Sullivan. 
 
 On the next day, August 2/th, the army moved in 
 the same order of march, but slowly, on account 
 of the roughness of the country. Toward night, 
 having arrived near the last defile, or narrows, to
 
 1 62 THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 be threaded that day, they saw all around Nature's 
 table spread with a feast that would delight the 
 soul of a vegetarian. Here were corn-fields and 
 gardens, whence they could and did draw all 
 the corn, potatoes, beans, cucumbers, watermelons, 
 squashes and other " sauce " necessary for a liberal 
 banquet. 
 
 The business of the next morning, August 28th, was 
 to discover a ford for the artillery, pack horses, and 
 cattle, by which the river could be crossed, so as to 
 find, if possible, a more practicable road ; for between 
 a very difficult defile called "The Narrows," only a 
 few inches wide, and the high hill, there was little to 
 choose. So Maxwell's brigade and the body of left 
 flankers were posted to protect the artillery, pack 
 horses, and cattle, and prevent any possible rush out 
 of the forest by Indians who might hope to stam 
 pede the animals. The four-footed creatures crossed 
 through the water, with the rafted guns, to the west 
 side of the river, and moved forward a mile and a 
 half. They then recrossed the stream, so as to get 
 on the Chemung flats. 
 
 Meanwhile, General Poor's New Hampshire men 
 and those of Clinton's brigade, with the right flank 
 ing division of the army, took their march over the 
 almost inaccessible mountain on the east side of the 
 river. It was hard work to climb, but on the top 
 they found level land and superb oak timber. On 
 reaching the westward slope, a magnificent panorama
 
 JUST BEFORE THE BATTLE 163 
 
 burst upon their eyes. Glorious plains, rich in grass, 
 grain, and fruit, with glittering streams of water, 
 covered the country for twenty miles round. The 
 broad and fertile valley was flanked on either side 
 with glorious hills. Even the Mohawk Valley men, 
 accustomed to one of the fairest spots on earth, broke 
 out into exclamations of delight. They could see the 
 river running forward and then bending round in a 
 splendid curve, where to the westward, near Newtown, 
 pillars of smoke rose up against the blue sky. Here 
 they knew they would meet the enemy. The united 
 army of men, with artillery horses and cattle in the 
 same order as set down on paper, now moved forward, 
 and at six o'clock encamped on the site of the Indian 
 town of New Chemung. 
 
 Wonderful things were here to be seen. At least 
 ten thousand bushels of corn in the ear stood on the 
 stalk, ripe for roasting and ready to be cut and stored, 
 while all the material for succotash, pumpkin pies, 
 and potato salad, thousands of bushels in quantity, 
 lay in or on the ground, ripe and ready. Evidently 
 here was the chief storehouse and rendezvous of the 
 enemy, the key to the frontier of New York and 
 Pennsylvania, from which an army could always be 
 victualled. Beside the dwelling-houses were great 
 granaries built of stout timber, with bark walls and 
 roofs. That they had never been occupied was proof 
 conclusive that the food was to be stored for King 
 George's allies.
 
 164 THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 The soldiers went rambling around after supper. 
 Many a time was the cry " Eureka." Not only in the 
 houses but hidden in various parts of the woods were 
 all sorts of plunder, carried off by the marauders 
 from the white man's settlements. Here were books 
 and candlesticks, pokers and andirons, copper kettles, 
 pot hooks and kitchen equipments, carpenters' tools, 
 jewelry, combs, women's clothing and ornaments, 
 with occasionally a chair or picture frame, linen and 
 bedroom necessities, or broken fragments of them, 
 which showed that the Indians had employed pack 
 horses or canoes, and not merely their backs, to carry 
 off the spoil of Cherry Valley, Wyoming, Springfield, 
 and other settlements, to reward or amuse their squaws 
 and pappooses. 
 
 While the men lay around their camp-fires, a scout, 
 who had been sent forward on Friday evening, Aug 
 ust 2 /th, to reconnoitre and who was no other than 
 Claes Vrooman, came in to report to General Sullivan. 
 He had gone ahead as far as the ridge near Newtown, 
 on which the battle of August I3th had been fought. 
 A few hundred yards beyond, camp-fires were burn 
 ing, and the flame or smoke could be traced far up 
 the sides of the hill. From these he judged that 
 there must be a thousand or fifteen hundred men. 
 Evidently they were going to make a stand, and dis 
 pute the advance of the American army. 
 
 This was indeed the case. After the battle on the 
 1 3th, which had been fought entirely by the Indians
 
 JUST BEFORE THE BATTLE I 65 
 
 against our troops, the Senecas had sent a runner up 
 to Geneva, where the British and Tories were en 
 camped, urging their instant march, with all of 
 Brant's Indians following. Preparations were has 
 tened, and, on the 25th, Brant, Butler, MacDonald, and 
 all their forces, numbering in all a thousand, of whom 
 about one hundred out of the three hundred white 
 men were New York Tories and the remaining two 
 hundred, Canadian rangers and British regulars, 
 reached the rendezvous, west of Baldwin Creek, near 
 Newtown. With skill and cunning, they selected their 
 ground at a place where they thought Sullivan's army 
 must march. The only possible path seemed to be 
 over low ground, along a narrow defile, between a 
 ridge and the river. On this ride, they built breast 
 works and carried their line of timber and earthen 
 defences up the side of the hill well on toward the 
 top, making a wall of defence nearly a mile and a 
 half long. The whole fortification was shaped roughly 
 like a V, with its point eastward toward the coming 
 Continentals, the British left resting on what is now 
 Sullivan's Hill, where the monument stands, 
 and their right resting on the ridge, which ran to 
 the river and commanded the only ground fit for a 
 path. 
 
 Now, in order to make theirs a masked defence, and 
 to give no sign that anybody was behind the ridge, 
 they took pains to have no chips from the axes or 
 any marks of human presence on the side toward
 
 l66 THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 Sullivan. There were three or four Indian houses out 
 side the lines. These served as bastions, and enabled 
 the enemy, by zigzagging their lines, to deliver a 
 flank fire on an army charging the intrenchments. 
 These log houses were not touched, nor were those 
 of the deserted village farther up the creek. They 
 were left standing as if recently deserted ; for it was 
 hoped that Sullivan's men, in search of plunder, 
 would crowd into and around the houses, and be 
 thus taken unawares. In a word, nothing on the 
 eastern side of the intrenchments gave any sign 
 of danger or of an enemy's presence. It was the 
 western or inside portion that contained the hornets' 
 nest of war. 
 
 To carry out their plan of ambuscade, they tore 
 down the houses at Newtown, dragged the logs and 
 poles forward, and with these built their works and 
 fed their fires. Their idea was that Sullivan's ad 
 vance, seeing no signs of an enemy, would pass 
 around the heel of the hill and, marching in a long, 
 thin line along the flat ground between the ridge 
 and the river, move up the valley to destroy the 
 Indian town. Then, by making their main body 
 invisible inside the concealed breastwork, and post 
 ing on the hills on either side unseen parties of 
 Indians to act as flankers, they hoped, by pouring in 
 a heavy fire along the whole line, while the outlying 
 parties rushed down and stampeded the pack horses, 
 to throw the American army into such confusion as to
 
 JUST BEFORE THE BATTLE l6/ 
 
 demoralize or cripple it, and to compel its return. In 
 a long, thin line, extending clear up to the hilltops, 
 both on this side of the river and across it, were 
 parties of Indian watchers, who had signals arranged 
 by which they could give notice of any attempt on 
 Sullivan's part to flank them, should their plans 
 be divined. To these hills could be summoned 
 strong parties of picked warriors. In a word, they 
 were ready here, where the Chemung River bends, 
 near Elmira, to make either a Braddock's field, or 
 to fight a pitched battle, hoping eagerly for the 
 former. 
 
 To make assurance doubly sure, they waited before 
 putting on the finishing touches of concealment, until 
 the night of August 28th. Then they knew from 
 their spies that Sullivan's army was quite near, and 
 would be up the next day. They piled on the green 
 boughs and brushwood, and even cut down and 
 transplanted a large number of young trees, so as to 
 still further hide the works and to remove the possi 
 bility of being discovered. But their landscape 
 gardening did not avail them, as we shall see. 
 Theirs was not the art which conceals art, for 
 our riflemen, as wary as foxes, had eyes like 
 eagles. These were to expose the ass in the lion's 
 skin. 
 
 Yet had it not been for the excessive caution of 
 Sullivan and his trusted officer, Major Parr, of the 
 riflemen, the green boughs and young trees might
 
 1 68 THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 have utterly concealed the presence of a fortification, 
 and our men have been surprised. 
 
 There was no time for preaching or worship on 
 that sultry Sunday morning of August 29th, for no 
 one knew what an hour might bring forth. Sullivan 
 expected a battle before the day was over, but 
 exactly where or when, neither he nor any of his men 
 knew. Breakfast over, the horn blew at nine o'clock 
 and the army moved forward, the light corps being 
 first, marching in six columns, Colonel Butler leading 
 the right and Colonel Hubley with his Pennsylvania 
 Germans being on the left. Behind them came the 
 axemen, artillerists, and cannon ; after that the main 
 army, with the pack horses and cattle in the middle. 
 Thus slowly the great host of thirty-five hundred men 
 advanced, the surveyors and chain-bearers .measuring 
 every rod of distance made. 
 
 After fording a stream, Parr's sharpshooters scat 
 tered themselves widely through the woods, the men 
 craning their necks and peering into the bush. Their 
 rifles were held in both hands, all ready to cock at 
 any moment. Thus every man alert, the riflemen 
 had no sooner passed over the ridge where the battle 
 on the 1 3th had been fought, than they caught 
 sight of some Indians moving about in front of them, 
 one of whom fired. Then they all ran. This was 
 suspicious. Going one mile farther, they saw, stretch 
 ing off to their right, a large area of low, marshy 
 ground. Between this and the little hillocks on the
 
 JUST BEFORE THE BATTLE 169 
 
 left seemed just the place for an ambuscade, so their 
 vigilance was doubled. Pretty soon they started up 
 another and larger party of Indians in war-paint. 
 These also fired hastily and ran. This was strange. 
 Why had not the savages hidden themselves and 
 taken deliberate aim? 
 
 These Pennsylvania riflemen were regular bush- 
 beaters and accustomed to start up game, whether 
 on two or four feet. They were veterans in a hun 
 dred forest battles, where logs and stones are forts 
 and a tree is a tower. They did not fear to move 
 straight on, yet the signs of danger had so multi 
 plied that Major Parr, bidding his men watch every 
 moment, ordered a lithe young fellow to pick out a 
 tall tree and to climb to the top, to see if anything 
 dangerous was visible. 
 
 Like a monkey the youth shinned up a grand trunk 
 and, clambering to the topmost limb, peered around 
 on every side. At first he could see nothing, but, 
 watching keenly through the forest ahead, he noticed 
 first of all a ridge of land running down to the river, 
 and that scores of young scrub oaks on the slope in 
 front of it, especially between the ridge and the creek, 
 seemed planted with astonishing regularity, in rows. 
 Indeed, it seemed more like a young nursery than 
 natural forest growth. This was like a piece of news. 
 Still peering through the leafage, he discovered 
 several Indians moving about inside of the little 
 ridge of land and up the hillside. As the sun was
 
 I/O THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 shining in their faces, he could see the great streaks 
 of war-paint. From that he knew they were all ready 
 for a fight, and expecting one. Very soon he noticed 
 others likewise well smeared with gay colors, and also 
 a tall chief with plumes of feathers on his war-bonnet 
 Occasionally, there was a flash of a steel weapon or 
 brass ornament in the sunlight. By studying the 
 landscape a little longer, he made out a zigzag line 
 of breastworks covered with green, but none the less 
 artificial, running down to the river on the left, and 
 over to the mountain on the right, the angle being 
 almost directly in front of him. In some places the 
 defences were quite low, but here he noticed pits or 
 holes dug, in which the enemy could lie and easily 
 defend themselves. Facing the works, about a hun 
 dred yards this way, was, a stream of water, and 
 between the ridge and the river, that here made a 
 great bend, was an open space on which corn was 
 growing. 
 
 When the man came down he made his report so 
 clearly and intelligently that Major Parr at once saw 
 the situation in his own mind's eye. He sent back 
 word to General Hand to bring up the light troops 
 immediately, and also notified General Sullivan of 
 the state of affairs. Only a few minutes were neces 
 sary to do this. Hand quickly deployed his men, 
 forming them in line of battle this side of the creek 
 and within three hundred yards of the works. The 
 riflemen went forward as skirmishers, and lay under
 
 JUST BEFORE THE BATTLE I /I 
 
 the banks of the stream within one hundred yards 
 of the enemy. 
 
 Inside the breastworks rapid action was necessary, 
 for Brant and Butler at once made up their minds that 
 their scheme had been detected. Seeing that there 
 could be no surprise, and that they must now have a 
 regular stand-up fight, they agreed to attempt first the 
 tactics which had been so successful at Wyoming, 
 Goshen, and Minisink. They would make a feint of a 
 sortie, sending out a squad of savages who should 
 pretend to be themselves surprised. Firing quickly 
 and in apparent confusion, the Indians would then 
 retreat with the idea of luring on the soldiers in pur 
 suit, in the expectation that the Americans would 
 rush pell-mell after them, and into the line of fire 
 of hundreds of guns aimed by cool-headed men in 
 ambuscade. 
 
 But this time Brant and Butler were not to deal 
 with raw militia, or even with regular troops unused 
 to Indians. They were to face the Pennsylvania 
 riflemen. All veterans, and led by officers who were 
 graduates in the school of forest war, they could be 
 neither scared nor lured. So after Parr had warned 
 his men, and Hand had given strict orders not to 
 pursue or move forward a single foot, our riflemen 
 were ready, and on the lookout for a little fun. They 
 were soon to see played in opera, as it were, "the 
 spider and the fly," while fully prepared to decline 
 "walking into the parlor." With the winking of the
 
 172 THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 eye and even with certain gyrations of the fingers 
 with thumb to the nose, vulgarly called " sniggle- 
 fritz," they would greet the oncoming foes, knowing 
 well that these were shamming fight. Yet, if Tory 
 or Indian meant more, they were even ready for them, 
 bullet for bullet ; yes, scalp for scalp.
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 THE DECISIVE BATTLE IN THE WILDERNESS 
 
 riflemen posted along the banks of the creek 
 1 were not long kept in waiting. The enemy soon 
 showed his old tricks. Out from the angles of the 
 breastworks emerged a body of nearly four hundred 
 Indians, and Tories painted like them. Leaping 
 through the greenery and uttering wild war-whoops, 
 they scattered themselves among the trees and on 
 the ground, but keeping themselves well protected. 
 It was not a rush or charge, but only the play of war 
 with a deeper purpose underneath, and the riflemen 
 knew it. They kept up a lively fire, which our men 
 returned with spirit, as they lay safely protected by 
 the banks of the creek, so that very little damage on 
 either side was done. Suddenly one of the Ameri 
 cans, tired of playing soldier, and, after arrangement 
 with his fellows, started a chorus of defiant yells, and 
 holding out their caps as. if about to move from their 
 cover and rush forward, drew the full fire of the sav 
 ages, who then, pretending to be panic-stricken, rushed 
 back into the works, crawling, climbing, or sneaking 
 in at various points.
 
 1/4 THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 The answer to this feint from the riflemen was a 
 loud guffaw all along our line. Instead of leaping 
 up and giving pursuit, some of the men laid their 
 guns against the trees or on the ground, indulging 
 in a long, loud laugh. Getting out their tobacco, 
 they enjoyed a chew and lighted their pipes, while 
 others looked their arms over to see if everything 
 was in good order. Exchanging winks and jokes, 
 and jeering at the unseen foe inside the breastworks, 
 they invited them to come out again, but they them 
 selves stirred not a foot. They knew well that they 
 were well supported by the whole of the light corps 
 near at hand. By and by a much smaller part of the 
 Tories and savages, though jeered at, apparently at 
 tempted the same old trick once and again. Never 
 theless, they kept themselves so well under cover 
 that it was evident that this time they were trying to 
 find out our movements and strategy. For this rea 
 son, the riflemen made it so hot for them that they 
 could learn little or nothing, and soon crawled back 
 into the fortifications. Thus for several hours our 
 sharpshooters kept the enemy penned up within 
 their works and occupied. Yet they made no change 
 in front, nor did Hand's corps advance any nearer. 
 After much firing and plenty of smoke, nothing of 
 note seemed to be done. 
 
 But by this time Sullivan had made all his plans. 
 He expected to beat the enemy and start them on the 
 run. The only line of retreat for the allied British,
 
 THE DECISIVE BATTLE IN THE WILDERNESS 1/5 
 
 red and white, on the left was between the hill and the 
 river up through Newtown to the northwest, toward 
 the great plain on which the city of Elmira now 
 stands. To head off the enemy's flight by this route, 
 Sullivan sent Ogden's division forward on the 
 left. 
 
 In the centre and front, beyond the riflemen along 
 the creek and Hand's light troops just behind them, 
 he kept Maxwell's brigade as a reserve in the rear. 
 Ordering Colonel Proctor to post his nine guns on a 
 piece of rising ground just over against the angle of 
 the breastworks, so as to enfilade both lines, he had 
 him wait an hour before opening fire, expecting to do 
 the heaviest work of battle on the hill by a flank 
 attack on the right. Believing that the Indians 
 could not long stand the bombshells and grapeshot, 
 Sullivan hoped to encircle them in their flight up the 
 valley. For this work his main reliance was on Poor's 
 New Hampshire men, with Dubois for support on 
 the extreme right and Clinton's brigade in the rear. 
 Poor's riflemen were to scatter in front to clear the 
 woods of ambuscade and to fire as skirmishers ; for 
 Poor, like Wayne at Stony Point, hoped to gain the 
 mountain in silence and then dash upon the enemy 
 with fixed bayonets. 
 
 It was Sullivan's ardent hope that Poor and Du 
 bois could make the detour in time to strike the 
 decisive blow ; but fighting a battle in an unmapped 
 and unsurveyed wilderness is not like a game of chess,
 
 1/6 THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 and time is an uncertain factor. In a country 
 thoroughly surveyed, where every road, house, barn, 
 and windmill may be down on the map, and all dis 
 tances accurately known, a general who fails to arrive 
 at the time ordered may be courtmartialled. But in a 
 wilderness, how can one gauge the progress of soldiers 
 who may meet an unknown swamp ? Wading waist 
 deep in mud and water is not like tramping over an 
 asphalt pavement. 
 
 Sullivan allowed sixty minutes for the flanking 
 column to march around to the extreme right and up 
 the hill, so as to strike the enemy in the rear. Had it 
 not been for the terrible nature of the swamp, which 
 delayed the movement of the flanking column, the 
 battle would have resulted in a much more decisive 
 victory. " Time and tide wait for no man," but a 
 swamp makes men wait for it. Instead of being one 
 hour, the flanking corps was much longer in flounder 
 ing through the morass. At last the men had pulled 
 their way through the bushes, and, crossing the creek 
 flowing into the main stream, passing through the 
 Indian village and then fording Baldwin's Creek 
 proper, they formed in line of battle and began the 
 climb of the mountain. For tired men on a sultry 
 day, this meant pull and tug with much loss of breath. 
 Yet Poor, who had already heard Proctor's guns open 
 ing on his distant left, cheered on his men. Stream 
 ing with perspiration they hurried up the hill, panting 
 like driven stags.
 
 THE DECISIVE BATTLE IN THE WILDERNESS 1 77 
 
 Two regiments in this unknown country got some 
 what farther off on the right than Poor had planned, 
 and Dubois being still a greater distance to the right, 
 as was proper, Colonel Reid's Second New Hampshire 
 Regiment, on the extreme left and lower down the hill, 
 was somewhat separated from the others by a danger 
 ous distance, while Colonel Dearborn's Third New 
 Hampshire, perhaps having easier ground to march 
 on, got farther up and nearer the crest, and was con 
 siderably in the advance. It was a terribly hot day, 
 and the ground was frightfully rough. There, at 
 about five o'clock in the afternoon, on that Sunday of 
 August 29th, a day most decisive in American history, 
 we leave them for a moment, to return to the rifles, 
 muskets, cannon, and coehorn of the main body, and 
 the brave hearts behind them. 
 
 When Sullivan's watch told him it was three 
 o'clock, he ordered Hand to have his men ready. 
 They were to advance and charge immediately after 
 the artillery should cease firing. He then gave the 
 signal to Proctor. At once, the whole battery of 
 nine pieces opened with a roar that seemed to rend 
 the mountains. The two bomb-howitzers were posted 
 in the centre and flanked by the six pounders and 
 light guns. At first, the three and six pounders sent 
 in solid shot, aiming at the works; but later, when the 
 enemy were visible, the gunners, sighting their pieces 
 carefully, poured in grape and canister. The little 
 coehorn, kicking itself over each time after the dis-
 
 THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 charge, threw its bombs neatly within the angles, 
 while the howitzers, delivering their five and a half 
 inch shells, quickly knocked to pieces the house- 
 bastions. Exploding within the works, the bursting 
 bombs made it impossible for the Indians to hold 
 together without seeking cover farther back in the 
 woods. Even there, the idea of missiles that could 
 not only kill you from the front but tear you to 
 pieces from behind and on all sides, up, down, and 
 around, was too terrifying to bear. The ripping and 
 tearing of the tree branches above, and the explosion 
 of bombs over their heads, sending down a rain of 
 iron, was too much for the redman's nerves. One 
 Indian, in later life describing his sensations, declared 
 that it seemed constantly as if the heavens must fall 
 flat and crush him and everybody, and he wondered 
 every moment that they did not. 
 
 Now, there is a difference between physical and 
 moral courage. 
 
 The savage Indian can fight bravely from under 
 cover, especially if he can hide and slowly sneak up 
 to his victim, or rush at him when unarmed or with 
 empty musket. He can bear hunger, cold, and pain. 
 He can stand the torture of his enemy without a 
 groan. In this, perhaps, he excels the white man, 
 at whom he laughs because his white enemy in 
 agony shows emotion. Yet the savage Indian has 
 not the moral courage to look into the muzzle of 
 cannon. He cannot face an open fire, or stand in
 
 HE LED THE CHEERING.'
 
 THE DECISIVE BATTLE IN THE WILDERNESS 1/9 
 
 ranks under discipline, while bombshells are burst 
 ing around him. 
 
 Brant, the chief, at first tried to hold his terrified 
 followers together. Dressed in Indian costume, and 
 conspicuous by the feathers in his head-dress, he 
 brandished his tomahawk, and moved up and down 
 among his tribesmen, cheering and encouraging them 
 to hold their ground. Many a rifleman that day tried 
 to bring down this proud chief. He was known 
 throughout all the land for his intellectual ability 
 and physical vigor. His sister, Molly Brant, had 
 been the mate of Sir William Johnson. To have 
 killed him would have added mightily to the reputa 
 tion of a rifleman. Yet he was unhurt. He seemed 
 to bear a charmed life, as if protected by the Great 
 Spirit. Although his clothes were pierced, no bullet 
 drank his blood. 
 
 Nevertheless, as Proctor's gunners stripped to 
 their work, and poured in unceasingly a rapid fire, 
 made more effective by the cool aiming of the 
 officers, the slaughter was terrible. According to 
 Indian custom, no wounded were left on the ground. 
 Only those corpses which could not be hastily carried 
 off were visible. Just before the battle, Butler 
 had scores of canoes moored in the Chemung River, 
 to bear away the wounded and, as far as possible, 
 the dead. The witnesses on the ground after the 
 battle testified to the grass and timber looking as 
 though smeared with buckets of blood. The crash-
 
 l8O THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 ing of the branches, the horrible sounds and odors 
 out of the screeching and bursting iron, so unnerved 
 the Indians that Brant saw, and Butler knew, that 
 something must soon be done to move them to 
 activities that would cheer them, or the day would 
 be utterly lost. What should they do ? It would 
 be useless to make a sortie, for two brigades of 
 alert and eager American soldiers lay in front of 
 them, all ready for that assault which they knew 
 would take place when the cannon ceased firing. 
 What sign of hope was there for the British cause ? 
 
 This came unexpectedly from the left flank, and 
 in the nick of time. On the hilltop, the Indian 
 sentinels had caught sight of the gleaming rifles 
 of Poor's skirmishers. Waiting only for a moment, 
 to be sure that the enemy were in force a fact 
 which was quickly made certain by the whole bri 
 gade's forming in line of battle after crossing the 
 creek near the deserted Indian village at the base 
 of the hill they sent courier after courier to Brant, 
 telling of this imminent danger. 
 
 Receiving this as joyful news rather than with 
 alarm, Brant at once led off about half his warriors 
 on the run. Reaching the slope of the nearest hill, 
 his hope turned to exultation. Fiercer yet was his 
 joy when, by half-naked runners dripping with 
 perspiration, he was informed that one regiment of 
 soldiers had got separated from the others, and were 
 toiling, half out of breath, up the rough slope. In-
 
 THE DECISIVE BATTLE IN THE WILDERNESS l8l 
 
 deed, they were at that moment within five minutes' 
 striking distance. At once giving silent signal to 
 his followers to form a semicircle, so as to enclose 
 Reid's regiment, Brant raised a yell that was re 
 peated from five hundred throats, until to the white 
 men earth seemed to have opened and the forest 
 to be suddenly populated with demons. Hot and 
 wilted by the sultry and lifeless air, with their breath 
 nearly spent, the New Hampshire men looked up 
 and found themselves nearly surrounded by a force 
 three times their number. 
 
 The prospect was gloomy enough. Had the 
 Indians not been so sure of victory, or their nerves 
 not been demoralized by the bombshells from which 
 they had just fled, they might have, by their first 
 fire, decimated the little regiment. As matter of 
 fact, from the hill's crest they fired too high, for 
 the most part down and over the heads of the New 
 Hampshire boys below them. 
 
 What should Reid do ? The thin line of riflemen 
 skirmishers, who on discovering the foe began firing 
 up hill, seemed not to check the redskins for a 
 moment. His men's guns were empty. Their 
 bayonets were in their scabbards. Must he retreat 
 and fall back on Clinton's reinforcements, too far, 
 it might be, in the rear for speedy help ? Where 
 was Dearborn ? There was no chance to communi 
 cate with his superior officer, Poor, who was too 
 far over on the right, with Indians in between.
 
 1 82 THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 Should he make a desperate charge against over 
 whelming numbers, and run the risks ? For a mo 
 ment, visions of their own scalps, fresh and bloody, 
 hanging to dry in Iroquois lodges, blanched the 
 faces of the New Hampshire lads, but only for a 
 moment. Thought was like lightning. Decision 
 was instantaneous. 
 
 " Fix bayonets ! " rang out Reid's order. Within 
 ten seconds, the men had ordered arms, and the 
 clinking of three hundred weapons, as the bayonets 
 slid over the beads, and the slot, ring, and barrel 
 of each musket made unity, as of a spear, was 
 over. 
 
 Before Brant's savages could think of reloading, 
 came another order, " Forward, charge ! " 
 
 Then, with a wild cheer, the New Hampshire men 
 dashed ahead with the cold steel, yet against heavy 
 odds and in fearful danger. Though they broke the 
 redmen's defiant front and scattered them, these 
 quickly found shelter and began reloading and 
 firing, and down dropped the charging Continentals, 
 until a dozen lay helpless and bleeding. Meanwhile, 
 the riflemen, who had moved to the right and left as 
 flankers, kept the savages from re-forming their 
 curving line, and made them keep their distance. 
 Yet though the New Hampshire men, to gain their 
 breath, stopped to load and bravely stood up to the 
 fight, the superiority in numbers told fearfully against 
 them. In a very few minutes, over thirty of the men
 
 THE DECISIVE BATTLE IN THE WILDERNESS 183 
 
 from the Old Granite State lay dead or wounded. It 
 was still what the Dutch taught us to call a " verloren 
 hoop " a forlorn hope. 
 
 Just at that moment help came from an unexpected 
 quarter. 
 
 Colonel Dearborn, with the Third New Hampshire, 
 having reached his post farther up the hill, and miss 
 ing Reid's regiment, heard firing behind him. In 
 stantly divining the situation, and suspecting that the 
 flankers were themselves flanked, he took the respon 
 sibility of action. " About face ! " was his order. It 
 was quickly given and superbly executed. Forward 
 on a run, until within firing distance, and then lining 
 up handsomely, these fresh boys from the old Granite 
 State struck the rear of Brant's forces, very soon 
 after Reid had ordered a charge. Here the Conti 
 nentals had the heaviest musketry battle of the day. 
 Being able to fire two volleys, they laid many a red 
 skin low. By this time, Clinton had hurried forward 
 Gansevoort's regiment, while the other forces near 
 at hand pressed Brant's in front and rear, and the 
 proud chieftain, seeing the danger of capture, sounded 
 the retreat. 
 
 When Butler saw the red clouds of beaten Senecas 
 flying toward Newtown, he knew that the game was 
 up, and had ordered his men on the run to save them 
 selves. Soon the whole host, red and white, Johnson 
 Greens and painted Tories, were streaming pell-mell 
 through the town and corn-fields, and over the ford
 
 184 THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 of the Chemung. In swift canoes, the wounded were 
 paddled up the river out of sight. 
 
 By this time, Hand's riflemen and light troops had 
 charged with cheers, leaped over the breastworks, 
 and were well forward in pursuit. Some of Poor's 
 men, being around on the right and far ahead of 
 them, tried to intercept the fugitives, but they broke 
 with impetuosity through the thin line and escaped, 
 though the commander of his Majesty's forces, 
 Colonel John Butler, came very near being taken 
 prisoner. Clinton's infantry moved forward more 
 leisurely, burning the Indian villages both east and 
 west of the intrenchments. At six o'clock all the 
 army gathered at the Indian town of Newtown. 
 
 Now came the opportunity of the gallant Irishman, 
 General Hand, of the light brigade. 
 
 " Pull out the stars and stripes, and let the Conti 
 nentals give three cheers, General Hand," said the 
 commander-in-chief. " Men, here is one of the first 
 flags made by order of the Continental Congress. 
 Let us salute it with a long-metre doxology of cheers. 
 Give your orders, general." 
 
 " Ay, sir, general," said Hand ; and as he sat on his 
 horse it seemed as if the war-steed was enjoying the 
 thrill and excitement of the moment with its master. 
 
 Then turning to the dust-stained soldiers of the 
 regiments, all ranged in line, but with eyes flashing 
 and eager to try their throats in patriotic vigor, Gen 
 eral Hand cried :
 
 THE DECISIVE BATTLE IN THE WILDERNESS 185 
 
 " Three times three, my gallant victors ! Once for 
 the flag, once for the Congress, and once for our 
 commander." 
 
 Then, pulling out from his bosom the flag made by 
 Betsey Ross and given him by Mrs. Eyre, he led the 
 cheering, which made the welkin ring. 
 
 Breaking ranks, camp and a rich vegetable supper 
 were now in order. 
 
 How the battle-field looked and what the surgeons 
 had to do was told very clearly in Claes Vrooman's 
 letter to his father at Schenectady. At Newtown, 
 he found quill pens, ink, paper, and apparently all 
 the accessories of Butler's headquarters. Before the 
 torch was applied, he had made spoil of the station 
 ery, and part of what he wrote is as follows : 
 
 " DEAR FATHER : We have had a great battle, and 
 I have been in the smoke as well as under fire six 
 hours. I never knew of so much powder burned at 
 one time, in all my life. ' So much mustard to so 
 little meat ' for our butcher's bill is quite small. 
 Parr's riflemen opened the battle, and amused the 
 enemy all the morning in front, spoiling all their 
 plans of entrapping our army into passing a line of 
 intrenchments, which they had cunningly covered 
 with green boughs and trees. While we were useful 
 in front, without being able to accomplish much on 
 men hidden behind breastworks, the New Hamp 
 shire men with Clinton's brigade were sent around
 
 1 86 THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 up the hill on the right, to strike the enemy on the 
 flank, while the artillery was ordered up to a little 
 rise of ground, sending bombs and round shot over 
 our heads as we lay on the ground. There was some 
 fighting on our flank, and, indeed, the New Hamp 
 shire boys did the hardest fighting ; but Brant, think 
 ing that his Indians might be surrounded, retreated, 
 and Butler's forces of white men soon followed in 
 their tracks. I have been over the ground with the sur 
 geons and must tell you about the dead and wounded, 
 but especially about the black prisoner, who, to my 
 delight and joy, actually brought me a letter from 
 your own daughter. 
 
 "She says nothing about my wife, Trintje, except 
 that she is probably at the Tuscarora village of Core- 
 organel, in the valley near the southern end of Lake 
 Cayuga." 
 
 The story-teller would add that, during the battle, 
 Colonel Van Cortlandt was standing near a tree 
 directing his troops. Catching sight of his well- 
 known enemy and recognizing him, the chieftain 
 Brant called to his side one of his favorite marksmen. 
 
 " There," said he, " is a commander of five hun 
 dred men. Aim carefully and bring him down." 
 
 The man, whose gun was empty at that moment, 
 loaded with particular care, for the colonel, resting 
 his hands on his sword, the point of which was on 
 the ground, seemed not likely to stir for a minute
 
 THE DECISIVE BATTLE IN THE WILDERNESS l8/ 
 
 or two. Then, sighting his piece, and deliberately 
 taking aim, the sharpshooter pulled the trigger. 
 The ball struck the tree, not more than two inches 
 above the top of the colonel's cocked hat, filling 
 the back of his neck with fragments of bark, caus 
 ing him to shrug his shoulders and bend forward 
 to shake out the debris, but this was all. He was 
 unhurt. 
 
 Years afterward, when Brant and Colonel Van 
 Cortlandt sat together as guests at the same dinner 
 in Albany, Brant asked his companion, 
 
 " How near did a certain bullet come to your head 
 when you were standing in front of a tree, during 
 the battle of Newtown ? " 
 
 " I should say within two inches," was the reply. 
 
 "Well, I am not surprised," said Brant; "for the 
 man who fired at you that day was my best marks 
 man, and I directed him ; but now I am glad he didn't 
 hit you," said Brant, laughing.
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 AFTER THE BATTLE IN THE CHEMUNG VALLEY 
 
 IT was a terribly disheartened band of beaten men 
 that Sullivan's light-armed troops drove before 
 them. The dead and wounded, put in light canoes, 
 manned by the most skilful paddlers, were moved up 
 the stream so rapidly that they were soon beyond 
 pursuit, while on land those who were fleeing had 
 but one idea, the saving of their lives. Without 
 stopping in their village at Newtown, they sped on 
 with their women and children. 
 
 Now that the victory had been achieved, Sullivan 
 was able to send back his howitzers and two of the 
 heavy cannon. At this order, shouts of joy went up 
 not only from the artillerymen and the soldiers who 
 had to drag them, but from the pioneers who knew 
 that there would now be less road and bridge work 
 and haulage through the forest and the mire. Never 
 theless, since they might meet with fortified towns on 
 the way, and possibly more breastworks, the four 
 light pieces and the little coehorn were ordered to go 
 forward. At this order, there was not a little private 
 
 188
 
 AFTER THE BATTLE 189 
 
 growling. One man declared that to take cannon to 
 Canandaigua was like carrying a mountain through 
 the forest. 
 
 But a far more serious duty now faced the army. 
 To do without cannon was delight ; to go forward 
 lacking a good supply of meat and bread was grief. 
 Touch a soldier in the stomach and you rouse a pro 
 test from the lowest foundations, for even an army, 
 like a rattlesnake, moves on its belly. A man is what 
 he has eaten. When the men were called on to make 
 the sacrifice and enter upon short rations, some asked, 
 " How can a man live on succotash ? " For, from this 
 time until they should return, a half pound of flour 
 and a half pound of beef a day were to be the rule and 
 the ration. 
 
 Nevertheless it was a question between forward 
 with glory on half rations, or backward in disgrace 
 on full stomachs. Though the enemy' had been 
 beaten in the field, the main purpose of the expedition, 
 in destroying the crops and desolating Iroquoisia, had 
 not yet been accomplished. Sullivan was not the 
 man to turn back when his work was but half done ; 
 and the army was worthy of its commander. 
 
 It was a fine sight when, after announcement being 
 made in general orders, and permission given to all 
 who would not accept the reduction in rations to re 
 turn, not a man retreated. All stepped forward, and 
 from the whole Continental line went up three rous 
 ing cheers. It was a soldier's vote to " carry the war
 
 THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 into Africa," and live off the country. Yet it seemed 
 easy to do this in a country where corn stalks were 
 eighteen feet high and corn-cobs a foot and a half 
 long. They were to pass from a succession of woods, 
 mountains, and swamps, into a level country dotted 
 with lakes. 
 
 How it all seemed to our young volunteer, Herman 
 Clute, may be learned from his letter to his mother, 
 written from Canandaigua. 
 
 " SEPTEMBER 10, 1779. 
 
 " DEAR MOTHER : I have gone through a battle, and 
 have come out unhurt. If I had ever been told, when 
 at home in Dorp, that so many thousand bullets could 
 be fired by men used to guns and yet so little harm 
 done, I should not have believed it. I find that calmly 
 shooting at a target, on a fair day, at home, with 
 plenty of time to take aim, is a very different thing 
 from fighting when excited in the woods, and in a 
 cloud of smoke, where you see an Indian dodging 
 about one minute and find him gone out of sight the 
 next. 
 
 " On Sunday morning, August 29th, we came to a 
 place in the woods with a ridge of hills which had 
 been fortified by the enemy and covered up with green 
 stuff. When General Hand found it out, he sent 
 word to Sullivan, who took his time and arranged the 
 plan of battle. We had to wait several hours, while 
 the riflemen in front along a creek kept up a lively 
 cracking, though they could see very little to fire at.
 
 AFTER THE BATTLE I 91 
 
 Indeed, from about eleven o'clock until five in the 
 afternoon, there was a tremendous amount of lead shot 
 at us by the king's people from inside their lines, 
 while our folks kept up the fire steadily. The New 
 Hampshire men and New Yorkers were sent far off 
 to the right up the hill, and they were the lucky fel 
 lows, for they were the only ones in our army that 
 saw any real fighting. In fact, that was the one time 
 in the battle when men got close enough to see each 
 other's faces. 
 
 " While they were gone from us, our artillery was 
 also playing on the enemy, and the noise was deaf 
 ening. At first, I was mightily interested in seeing 
 the red jets of fire leaping from the mouths of the 
 guns, and listening to hear the bombs burst in the 
 enemy's camp, for I could see nothing very far 
 ahead of the cannon. But by and by, I got so tired 
 of waiting, hour after hour, doing nothing and with 
 out any dinner, for we were kept in line to be 
 ready at an instant to charge after the artillery had 
 stopped firing, that I fell asleep, and so did several 
 of the other men. Indeed, after the first excitement 
 was over, we felt tired ; but, about half past four or 
 five, we heard what was music to our ears, the 
 horn sounding the order to move forward. We 
 waded through the creek, rushed up over the in- 
 trenchments and after the enemy, whom we could 
 see here and there in the distance through the woods 
 and at full speed. But we never caught up with
 
 IQ2 THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 them. They seemed to run like deer, and nearly all 
 got away safely. 
 
 " It turned out that the New Hampshire troops 
 and Clinton's brigade had taken so much time to 
 get through the swamp that they were too slow, 
 while Proctor's men were too fast. The bombshells 
 had got in among the enemy so early that, when the 
 retreat began, there was no one to head them off. 
 I do not think that I saw more than four or five 
 dead men, all Indians, lying on the ground as we 
 passed by ; but there were places where it looked 
 as if the shells had exploded among groups and 
 knots of men, for the trees and grass were dread 
 fully bloody. We could see where they had pulled 
 off and away the dead and wounded down to the 
 river, to get them into canoes. The doctors say 
 that about fifteen dead Indians were found, and two 
 Tory prisoners taken, but that only five of our men 
 were killed and about thirty-five wounded. Yet I 
 cannot get over it, that with all the firing in front 
 of the breastworks, and with the hard fighting on 
 the hill, in fact about seven hours, more or less, 
 of shooting, so few on our side were hurt. 
 
 " I think that the Indians on the hill must have 
 been made nervous by the bombshells, for they 
 fired over the heads of our men down below them. 
 On the low ground where we were, what with a 
 half a peck of iron scattering among them every 
 time the coehorn or a howitzer opened its mouth,
 
 AFTER THE BATTLE 193 
 
 while our side was protected behind the banks of 
 the creek, the Tories and Indians could do little to 
 harm us. Hardly anybody on our side fronting the 
 great works was hurt, and the killed and wounded 
 were almost wholly among the New Hampshire 
 men. 
 
 "I do not like the way our men act after the 
 battle. Some of the riflemen are rough fellows. 
 As soon as they got over the intrenchments they 
 rushed right at the dead Indians, whipped out their 
 knives, ran them around their foreheads and pulled 
 off their scalps. They washed these in the creek, 
 and now they are hanging them on sticks set near 
 fires. The owners of these horrible relics seem to 
 be as proud of their property as if it were jewellery. 
 One man secured three, and another boasted that he 
 had taken in his time twenty-seven. 
 
 " Yet this is not all. I saw two men bending over 
 the biggest of the dead Indians, whom one of the 
 riflemen had already scalped. While one held up 
 the redman's leg, another one took his knife and 
 skinned it from thigh to ankle. Wondering what 
 in the world he wanted to do with the hide off an 
 Indian's leg, he replied : ' Why, sonny, I am going 
 to tan it and make a pair of boots out of it. My 
 comrade, here, has a pair of leggings made of tanned 
 Indian, and I'm going to be up with him.' So he 
 skinned the other leg, and, having already stuck the 
 scalp in his belt, walked off with his bundle of raw- 
 o
 
 194 THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 hide Scalping the redmen seems to be as common 
 with our frontiersmen as with the Indians themselves. 
 
 " After pursuit was over, our men went round the 
 field and found a great many packs and knapsacks, 
 blankets, tomahawks, knives, and other things belong 
 ing to the Tories and Indians. Butler's papers, 
 jewellery, and coat were found and taken to the 
 general. After they buried our men, they kindled 
 big log fires over the top of the ground. When I 
 asked why they did this, they said it was quite com 
 mon for the Indians to dig up the dead and shoot 
 arrows into the bodies, and they wished to hide the 
 place of burial. I am sorry to say that some of our 
 own men, especially those who lost relatives in the 
 massacre, tell stories of their doing the same thing 
 to dead Indians. Indeed, all along our march to 
 Canandaigua, our men found fresh graves, which 
 they usually opened. They found in them the 
 bodies of men wounded in the battle. 
 
 " The Seneca village here, called ' Newtown,' was 
 surrounded on every side with fields of corn, beans, 
 pumpkins, squashes, and other vegetables. As we 
 rested the next day, we had good eating. From 
 this time forth, I suppose, we must be vegetarians, 
 for General Sullivan in his orders showed that we 
 could have only a half pound of flour and a half 
 pound of meat a day. All who did not like short 
 rations and wanted to go home could do so, but not 
 one turned back. Indeed, all stepped forward and
 
 AFTER THE BATTLE 195 
 
 gave three ringing cheers for the general and the 
 country. Nevertheless, when we are not near corn 
 fields, we have to lie down hungry. Our poor 
 horses seem to suffer worse than their masters. 
 That night, the four heavy guns, the wounded, all 
 the wagons, were sent back to the boats to be taken 
 to Tioga Point. 
 
 " Claes Vrooman read me the letter which his 
 sister in captivity had sent him by the negro boy 
 Drusus. He was found at the far end of the battle 
 field and scared almost white by the effect of the 
 bombs. Our men passed over him in their pursuit, 
 but afterward found him and a Tory, who also had 
 a black face. They thought the Tory was a negro, 
 until they noticed his hair. Then, pulling open his 
 shirt, they found he was a white man. Though our 
 men threatened both of the prisoners, they did not 
 hurt them. When brought into the presence of 
 General Sullivan, the negro told how fearfully the 
 Indians were demoralized by the bombs. Inquir 
 ing for Vrooman, he delivered him the birch-bark 
 letter. 
 
 "When, on the 3ist, we again started to march, 
 the right column went over the hills some distance 
 from the river, but the left column and the cannon 
 took the route by the river. Oh, what a beautiful 
 country we did pass through ! As usual, we burned 
 all the Indian houses and cut down the corn. At 
 a point between two streams, we came to a pretty
 
 196 THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 Indian town called ' Kanawaholla,' and up the river 
 saw some boats full of escaping Indians. You would 
 be surprised at the plunder which we find in those 
 Indian houses. They were built with the help of 
 white men, for there is a good deal of split and 
 sawed timber in them, and not a few paint pots have 
 been emptied on them to make them gay. 
 
 "We found many things stolen from the settle 
 ments : feather-beds, nightgowns and caps, women's 
 and men's clothes, and chests that were filled with 
 table ware, pewter dishes, and stuff of all sorts. I 
 have a silver spoon fashioned at the top with the three- 
 cross arms of Amsterdam, and marked 'A. V. C.,' and 
 under it a sheaf of bending grain. Could this be 
 Arendt van Curler's spoon, which has been in our 
 family ever since his widow died ? At any rate, 
 the end is all worn off from frequent scraping out of 
 pots of suppawn, which the Massachusetts men 
 call ' hasty pudding.' 
 
 "The next day, I think, was the worst marching 
 time we have had yet. Just as down at Tioga Point 
 we found a great farm carried on by Queen Esther, 
 so, near the end of Seneca Lake, was the Indian town 
 and horse-breeding place of her sister, Queen Cath 
 erine, who has two of the handsomest daughters in 
 all the land of Iroquoisia. Her farm seems, with 
 its fences, horses, colts, cows, calves, hogs, and chick 
 ens, more like a stock farm on the Hudson River 
 than the abode of savages. We have often heard
 
 AFTER THE BATTLE 197 
 
 of this famous woman, who is a great granddaughter 
 of Count Frontenac, who, in 1690, sent the French 
 and Canadian Indians on the raid that destroyed our 
 town of Schenectady. Her husband is a famous 
 Seneca chief, and she and he have become quite 
 rich by breeding and selling the finest horses known 
 in Iroquois land. I was therefore quite anxious to 
 see her town of forty big houses, of which I had 
 heard much. 
 
 " But before we got there, we had to go through 
 a most horrid, thick, miry swamp, covered with water 
 from the recent rains, terribly dark from the closeness 
 of the hemlocks, with plenty of rocks and sloughs and 
 swales, in which horses and men floundered dreadfully. 
 Some of the beasts stuck fast and could not get out, 
 and so died there. Others lost their bags of flour and 
 boxes of cartridges. We must have crossed the little 
 river in the swamp about twenty times. It was seven 
 o'clock in the evening before even the advance guard 
 got out of this Bear Swamp, which extends nine miles. 
 On either side was a ridge of hills, along which the 
 main column could march, but how we ever got the 
 artillery through I do not know. To-day the pioneers 
 are nearly dead with exhaustion, for they had to fill 
 up many of the pools and holes full of stuff as soft 
 as suppawn, besides bridging with corduroy a great 
 many hollows. Our brigade got out of the wilder 
 ness about eight o'clock, but Poor's and Maxwell's 
 did not make camp till near midnight. Many of
 
 198 THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 the men fell asleep by the way, utterly worn out, and 
 did not join their regiments till next day. 
 
 "As for Clinton's soldiers, being in the rear guard, 
 they lay in the swamp all night, hungry and miser 
 able. Vrooman tells me that this dreadful morass is 
 the dividing line of the waters, those on one side 
 going to the Susquehanna, and the other into the St. 
 Lawrence. So we shall follow the streams flowing 
 north hereafter. There is a great difference in the 
 fog-making power of the streams, ' according as they 
 run toward Cancer or Capricorn,' as our geographer 
 Lodge says. 
 
 " Here in this swamp, especially, is where the king 
 of bears, the messenger of the Great Spirit and the 
 prophet of the weather, has his lair. The Senecas 
 send a party every year in, to watch him come out. 
 If he sees his shadow, he stays out, and there will be 
 early spring and warm weather. If he does not, and 
 no shadow is cast, they know it will be a backward 
 spring, cold and raw for six weeks. So they can 
 arrange for their crops, fishing, hunting, and war 
 parties.
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 QUEEN CATHERINE'S TOWN AND INDIAN STAR LORE 
 
 " T TOW the Indian dogs did howl as we approached 
 1 1 Queen Catherine's town ! It consisted of forty 
 houses, all large and well built, with splendid corn-fields 
 and orchards all around it. A Dutch family lived here 
 among the Indians, and there were plenty of feather- 
 beds in the house, and two of their horses were in the 
 fields. The queen's palace was a two-storied, gam- 
 brel-roofed house, about thirty feet long and eighteen 
 feet wide. Warriors, squaws, pappooses, and dogs de 
 camped so suddenly that the horses, cows, calves, and 
 hogs were left behind. The baggage of many of the 
 officers being still in the swamp, some slept on feather- 
 beds and some on strips of bark torn from the houses. 
 The next day we hungry fellows had a banquet, for 
 all the cattle were barbecued. No half rations of 
 meat that day! Some of the wild oranges were as 
 big as common limes. We rested and feasted, burned 
 the houses, and cut down the trees and corn. It was 
 awful work, but, as our chaplain says, ' Washington 
 is our Samuel, Sullivan our Saul, the Senecas and 
 Tories our Amalekites ; and, if we catch Brant or 
 
 199
 
 2OO THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 Butler, our men will make him as Agag.' Some of 
 the Pennsylvania riflemen shouted, ' Remember Wyo 
 ming,' as they rushed over the breastworks at 
 Newtown. 
 
 " I must tell you about an old squaw that we found 
 here. I was walking out in the woods, and found her 
 hidden in the bushes. She looked to be a century 
 old, and as leathery looking as one of Domine Vroo- 
 man's tomes of Bor or Voet ; but, unlike the smooth 
 parchment on the books, her face was puckered like 
 an apple baked too long, as if every year since her 
 fortieth had added a new pucker. I couldn't make 
 her understand anything I said, though I knew 
 Mohawk pretty well ; but I called one of Domine 
 Kirkland's Oneida Indians, who can rattle off sev 
 eral of the dialects, but every time she shook her head 
 as if she did not understand. Convinced that she 
 was only shamming, we took her before General Sulli 
 van, and he threatened her with punishment if she did 
 not answer, promising her food and kind treatment 
 if she would tell what she knew. Then she became 
 voluble. 
 
 " She said that Butler and the old chiefs had held a 
 council here. He had been reinforced by two hun 
 dred Niagara Indians, who wanted to fight at once ; 
 but those who had been in the battle and under the 
 artillery fire shook their heads. The majority were 
 against beginning hostilities at once, but voted to 
 wait for a good chance, after Sullivan had got well
 
 QUEEN CATHERINE S TOWN 2OI 
 
 into the wilderness. Two of the old chiefs and all 
 the squaws were in favor of peace, yet Butler would 
 not allow any surrender. He told the women that 
 Sullivan would kill them all. 
 
 " Brant was moody, but defiant. He was disap 
 pointed at the non-arrival of a big band of Cayugas 
 whom he was expecting. Fearing they might come 
 on the trail after his retreat, Brant ordered a picture- 
 message to be left for them near one of the holy 
 places so well known to the Indians of the whole 
 confederacy. One of our scouts found this and 
 showed it to General Sullivan. I walked out to see 
 it. On the rocks was a drawing in bright colors, 
 showing twelve men with arrows through them. 
 Near by was a live young sapling, with its top 
 branches bent down and twisted around the trunk. 
 This, alike for friend and foe, was the meaning of the 
 double symbol, the picture-message and the tree 
 set for defiance : ' We have lost the battle, in which 
 twelve warriors were killed ; but, though beaten, we 
 are not conquered.' 
 
 " The old squaw said further that many Seneca fam 
 ilies were mourning the death of their relatives, and 
 that hundreds of women and children were hiding in 
 the place about five miles away. This stirred the 
 general at once. He started up, ordering Colonel 
 Butler to take a regiment and the coehorn and go 
 immediately in pursuit. Could he capture these, the 
 whole Seneca nation might have to sue for peace.
 
 2O2 THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 Yet, except hard marching, the expedition was 
 useless. 
 
 " The general is a kind man at heart. He ordered 
 a comfortable hut to be built for the old woman, and 
 left her food enough to last for several weeks. Then 
 her savage eyes overflowed with tears. Some of our 
 men begrudged the old woman the keg of pork and 
 the round of beef left her, for good meat is so 
 scarce. We marched on the next day, and moved on 
 through open woods and over level country. We 
 came to a small Indian village that was a model. It 
 was made of only one house, but this had ten fires in 
 it, one fire to a room, showing that as many families 
 lived under this one roof. I think you would open 
 your eyes wide, were you to see how well furnished 
 some of these Indian houses are. They have not 
 only plenty of grain, but horses, cows, and wagons. 
 
 "Yet we burnt them all and cut down the corn, 
 for the object of Congress and General Washington 
 is to make this country uninhabitable for years to 
 come. True, there are clean Indians and dirty ones, 
 and some villages and the houses in them are nasty 
 beyond description, being more like pig-pens than 
 habitations for human beings. Usually they do not 
 take any care to have clean water, never dig any 
 wells, but take the water for drink or cooking right out 
 of the lake and river. 
 
 " The next day we came to the famous Apple Town, 
 or Kendaia, situated about a quarter of a mile from
 
 QUEEN CATHERINE'S TOWN 203 
 
 the lake. It is the Indian town in which Mary 
 Vrooman was a prisoner for nearly a year. Here 
 the houses were built of hewn logs covered with 
 bark, and some of them were well painted. Eleven 
 of them stood on a ridge sixty rods long and twenty 
 rods wide. The corn-fields were at some distance 
 from the town. 
 
 "The Wyoming militiamen had been very eager 
 to get to Apple Town, for it was out of this village 
 that one of the most active parties in Brant's raid 
 on Wyoming and Nanticoke had set forth. You 
 should have seen the soldiers rush into the place 
 and begin at once to hunt in the bark houses for the 
 dried scalps of their relatives, some of which they 
 found, and at least four were recognized. Then how 
 lustily they did swing their axes on the trees and put 
 the torch to the houses ! I tell you it was a good 
 sight to behold. Our men drove three Indian ponies 
 into the lake, but caught them easily. 
 
 " Among our other surprises here was our seeing 
 a white man named Luke Sweetland rush out from 
 his hiding-place, some distance from the town, and 
 greet his old friends from Wyoming, some of whom 
 he knew by name. He had been captured at Nanti 
 coke in the raids last year and adopted into the tribe. 
 He said that in winter he lived mostly on suppawn, 
 and that from April until corn was fit to roast, he 
 was nearly starved, but now he was fat, for succo 
 tash was plenty. He told Vrooman and me some-
 
 2O4 THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 thing about the salt-making among the Indians, 
 which we have long wanted to know. 
 
 " Mr. Vrooman remembers that several years ago, 
 when he was present at the blacksmith's shop in 
 Cherry Valley, a squaw brought a copper kettle to 
 get a rent soldered up, which had been accidentally 
 made in it by a slip of a tomahawk. Seeing a shin 
 ing incrustation in it, he asked the squaw what the 
 crystals were, but she made some evasive reply. 
 Whereupon he swept some of it into his palm and 
 putting his tongue to it, found it was pure salt. The 
 squaw seemed displeased, and, though he plied her 
 with questions and promises of gewgaws, she would 
 say nothing. 
 
 " Sweetland says that these Cayuga Indians regu 
 larly sent him about twenty miles off to the salt 
 springs, which lie in a ravine on this side of Cayuga 
 Lake, several miles south of the northern end, and 
 also in the flats at the lake's end, near a big fall of 
 water, one of three streams about two or three miles 
 this side of Coreorganel. This salt the Kendaia 
 people make and sell to all the savages in this part of 
 the country. We wish they had left a store of it for 
 us, as we shall need a good deal of salt while living 
 on so much green food. Both lakes, Seneca and 
 Cayuga, are full of fish, particularly salmon, trout, 
 rock, and sheepshead, while game on land is plen 
 tiful. 
 
 " Sweetland tells us that there were many wounded
 
 QUEEN CATHERINE'S TOWN 205 
 
 in the battle, and the savages are much cast down. 
 They took Vrooman's sister along with them, when 
 they retreated northward, but Sweetland thinks that 
 his wife is still over at Coreorganel. It was at Ken- 
 daia that I received your letter, which an express had 
 brought up from Tioga Point, where it had remained 
 over a week. By the same messenger we heard 
 about our own wounded after the battle. I am sorry 
 to tell you that Colonel Dearborn's nephew, only 
 sixteen years old, and with whom I got acquainted, 
 because we were boys together, died of his wounds 
 on the 22d. Although Kendaia must be an old 
 town, for some of the trees appear to be sixty years 
 old, yet our horses and cattle could not get any pas 
 turage here, and many of them strayed away. 
 
 "So the next day we could not march till three 
 o'clock, and even then the horses and cattle were not 
 all recovered. Some time before sundown we stopped 
 for supper and the night. Wild pea-vines grew very 
 luxuriantly, and here our horses enjoyed them as if 
 they were clover. 
 
 " We could see on the other side of the lake some 
 Indians busy with horses, but they did not look like 
 warriors. There was quite a large town, with houses 
 and corn-fields. 
 
 " I remained a long time on the edge of the lake, 
 watching the Indians and the horses on the other 
 side, for something unusual seemed to be going on. 
 Old men and squaws seemed to be trying which
 
 2O6 THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 was the fastest of the colts, for the animals appeared 
 to be young horses. There were many Indian chil 
 dren interested and lively. I borrowed an officer's 
 spy-glass, and, though the sun was now pretty well 
 down in the sky and the shadows beginning to stretch 
 long toward the east, I saw that they brought out a 
 squaw and tied her on a white pony. They rested 
 her body on the animal's back, her head toward the 
 tail, and then fastened and tied her feet around 
 the pony's neck. Whooping and yelling, the old 
 men and squaws gave the animal's flank a whack, 
 and off it went upon a gallop along the lake, and 
 finally I lost sight of it, white though it was, in the 
 woods. What could it mean ? When I told Vroo- 
 man of what I saw, he seemed at first interested and 
 then distressed, but said nothing. 
 
 "I talked to one of the friendly Oneidas, named 
 Hanyari, a splendid specimen of a redman, about 
 what I had seen. He was highly interested in all I 
 could tell him. 
 
 " ' It must be a case of witchcraft,' said he. ' Some 
 squaw has been accused of bewitching a man or 
 woman. Or, what is nearly as bad, of saying some 
 thing offensive to the tribe or predicting calamity or 
 defeat.' 
 
 " ' It may be she foretold the thrashing the Senecas 
 got at Newtown,' I suggested. 
 
 " ' Quite likely. Probably the old men and squaws 
 may have heard of the loss of some of their warriors,
 
 QUEEN CATHERINE'S TOWN 207 
 
 and though her words may have been uttered months 
 ago, yet even now recalled or even dreamed of, they 
 may be the means of accusation, punishment. She 
 will certainly starve, poor squaw.' 
 
 " From my friend the Oneida guide, I learned many 
 of the Indian notions of witchcraft and of religion. 
 As night fell, the stars came out one by one, cover 
 ing the heavens, while Seneca Lake was spangled 
 with reflections like jewels. Vrooman joined us and 
 we had a talk about the stars, and the lake, and 
 the Indian's idea of creation, which I must write 
 down for you." 
 
 Here the story-teller must add that it was not all 
 marching, fighting, cutting down corn-fields, or drag 
 ging artillery up and down hills that occupied our 
 young Continentals. Some of them, students, school 
 masters, lovers, friends, enjoyed mightily the sight 
 of the flowers by day and the stars at night. It was 
 superbly clear weather during that whole month 
 of September, 1779, and every night the glorious 
 heavens showed the sight that never palls on the 
 eye. On this night, by the shores of Seneca Lake, 
 when the silver baldric of the stars stretched its 
 palpitating glory across the whole heavens, from 
 horizon to horizon, Vrooman turned to Hanyari and 
 politely asked him what the Indians thought of "the 
 milky way," and how it originated. Hanyari was 
 one of Domine Kirkland's warm friends. He knew
 
 2O8 THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 how the white men thought, but he was not wholly 
 ashamed of Iroquois lore, and when in the mood, 
 loved to talk freely. 
 
 " Oh," said Hanyari, good humoredly, " I'm tired 
 of answering your questions ; tell me what you think 
 of it? How did the great white light come there? 
 Why do you call it 'milky way'?" 
 
 " Well, in our story, which comes from the Greeks, 
 there was a very stout little baby, named Jupiter, who 
 lived a long time ago up in the heavens, and once, in 
 a temper, spilt his milk all over the sky. But our 
 fathers have no story of their own to tell, so you 
 must tell me yours." 
 
 "We have not much of a story," said Hanyari; 
 "but one of my uncles told me that this band of 
 light was the track of the great tortoise walking 
 across the sky. Others say it is the road which 
 departed souls travel on to reach the land beyond 
 the western heavens, and the lights in it are the 
 shining foot-marks of the greater heroes." 
 
 "Have you any name for the other stars?" asked 
 Vrooman. 
 
 " Oh, yes," said Hanyari, and his eyes brightened. 
 
 " Well," said Vrooman, "what about the north star? " 
 
 " Oh," said Hanyari, " that is the star we travel by. 
 Since we learned some things of you white men, we 
 call it the 'compass' star." 
 
 " Have you names of groups of stars when seen 
 together ? " asked Vrooman.
 
 QUEEN CATHERINE S TOWN 2OQ 
 
 "Oh, yes," said Hanyari. "We have the fisher 
 man's star, the loon-hunter in a canoe, the travellers 
 in the big boat, the bear's head and flank, the morn 
 ing star, and the seven stars." 
 
 " What about the great bear ? " inquired his white 
 friend. 
 
 " Oh ! is that what you white men call it ? " in 
 quired Hanyari. " Our fathers tell us that one day 
 one of the great stone-clothed giants was walking 
 through the woods, when he found some Iroquois 
 hunters chasing a big bear. The giant took the 
 animal's part, and, seizing some rocks, hurled them at 
 the hunters, killing all except three. Yet he enjoyed 
 seeing the men have the sport, and would not stop it. 
 So, taking the bear and the hunters in his hand, he 
 hurled them up into the sky, and there they are. See 
 those four stars together ? The big ones are the 
 bear's body and legs. Do you see that big star 
 next ? That's the foremost hunter, intent with his 
 bow and arrows on shooting the bear. See that 
 second star ? That's the second hunter. He is carry 
 ing a kettle to cook the meat in, when the bear is cut 
 up. Last of all is the third hunter, who is gathering 
 brushwood to make the fire." 
 
 " Oh," laughed Vrooman ; " you have a ' kettle,' 
 and we have a ' dipper.' Is that the whole of the 
 story?" said Vrooman. 
 
 " No ; my aunt told me that when all the leaves 
 turned red in autumn, it was because the foremost 
 p
 
 2IO THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 hunter had shot the bear to death, and through the 
 hole in which the arrow entered, and along the shaft 
 and over the feathers, the bear's blood drops out. In 
 autumn, this drips upon the leaves of the trees, mak 
 ing them all red, until at last they, too, die and fall."
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 THE RESCUE OF TRINTJE VROOMAN 
 
 " A A/E were all in high spirits when we started 
 V V again next day, for we expected another 
 battle at the outlet of the lake at its northern end, 
 which we had to ford. The scouts were sent out on 
 all sides, but found the coast clear. Crossing this 
 outlet in water knee deep, we marched farther on 
 through a terrible quagmire called the 'soap mine,' 
 and still another swamp, and then along the lake 
 beach until we came to Butler's buildings. These 
 were four or five in number, containing, until recently, 
 great stores of tools, seeds, provisions, and war ma 
 terial. We set them on fire, and -then moved on to 
 the famous Seneca Castle, or Kanedasaga. 
 
 " The capture of this Indian stronghold, of which we 
 have heard so much, was accomplished with more fun 
 than dignity or bloodshed. General Sullivan is not 
 yet used to the slipperiness of our invisible enemy, 
 but he takes no risks. Surely expecting resistance 
 here, if anywhere, he cautiously surrounded the town 
 with several brigades. After being for five hours 
 within three miles of the ' castle,' General Hand's
 
 212 THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 and Colonel Dubois's men, under connivance of their 
 officers, who had learned from their scouts that the 
 town was empty, loaded themselves with vegetables. 
 Bound to have a good supper, some of the soldiers 
 had as many as three pumpkins stuck on their bayo 
 nets, or were staggering under a breastload of ears of 
 corn or strings of beans, when suddenly General Sul 
 livan appeared on the scene. Half vexed, that after 
 all his elaborate plans, there would be no need of 
 either tactics or strategy, and half in good humor, he 
 roared out sternly, even while his eyes twinkled : 
 
 " ' You clumsy, unmilitary rascals ! What ! Are 
 you going to storm a town with pumpkins ! Open 
 at once to right and left, and let men unaccustomed 
 to plunder carry out my orders.' 
 
 " At once the whole host was disrobed of its vege 
 table accoutrements and armor, and an avalanche of 
 pumpkins, squashes, melons, and mandrakes rolled 
 down the hill, while beans and corn strewed the 
 ground. 
 
 " After a few moments, however, the general rode 
 on, and the men gathered up their spoil again and 
 entered the town. 
 
 " Kanedasaga contains fifty houses, some of them 
 with well-made chimneys, surrounded with orchards 
 and corn-fields, and with many marks of the white 
 man's assistance, such as ploughs, axes, and vats for 
 tanning. We found here a great many things of Ind 
 ian workmanship, which our boys would like to carry
 
 THE RESCUE OF TRINTJE VROOMAN 213 
 
 home as curiosities, if they were not already heavily 
 loaded. The Indians had left in a great hurry, but 
 we found a little white boy, about three years old, 
 undoubtedly a captive. A milch cow was browsing 
 not far away from him, but he was playing with a 
 chicken. He was thin, very hungry, and perfectly 
 naked. He could not talk a word of Dutch or Eng 
 lish, but prattled in Indian. 
 
 " ' Can a mother forget her suckling child ? ' I 
 thought ; but, poor baby, his mother is probably 
 dead. One of the officers took care of him, and he 
 seemed very happy to have a foster father and to get 
 clothes. You ought to have seen him eat some of our 
 army bread, with fresh milk, when the cows came up. 
 One of the Oneida Indians made a pannier, or basket, 
 on one side of a pack horse, balancing the boy by bags 
 of flour on the other side, and thus the little fellow 
 has travelled with us, the pet of the regiment. He 
 gets daily rations of milk from Colonel Hubley's cow. 
 
 " I am afraid we shall not have any more battles, 
 but I am surprised at the Indians giving up their 
 houses and corn lands so easily. It must be the 
 artillery that has so taken the spirit out of them. 
 Dr. Campfield, the surgeon, says that the land here 
 is a good deal worn out from long cultivation, but 
 that the town is in a healthy place. It was regularly 
 laid out by Sir William Johnson, and in the centre 
 is a large, green plot, like a white man's town. 
 Twenty-three years ago there was a fort built here,
 
 214 THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 and some of the old palisades are still sticking in 
 the ground. 
 
 " This was the home of a famous chief called ' Old 
 Smoke.' The particular honor he enjoyed was to 
 carry the burning brand to light the council fires. He 
 took part in the raid on Wyoming. His successor is 
 a boy under twelve years old, and he has a daughter 
 married to Roland, a son of Queen Catherine. 
 
 " From this place, the general is going to send 
 back all the sick and lame men, together with the 
 broken-down horses, and Captain John Reed, with 
 fifty men, will escort them back to Fort Sullivan. 
 Then the captain is to come back again to Kana- 
 waholla with supplies, to meet us on our return. 
 Although we shall have to live on vegetables chiefly, 
 making this a ' succotash campaign,' General Sulli 
 van is determined to push on to the Genesee castle. 
 
 " We are now indeed in a strange country. Hitherto 
 we had guides like Mr. Vrooman, who has been 
 through this region, besides Hanyari and his Oneida 
 Indians, and Domine Kirkland, who lived here two 
 years and once nearly lost his life, when the Senecas 
 turned against him. But westward from this point 
 not one soul in the army has ever been. So the 
 general must depend upon his scouts. We know 
 the route we have passed over, for we have with 
 us a party of surveyors who have chained and 
 measured every mile of the path. Their chief, Lieu 
 tenant Lodge, has made maps of the region traversed,
 
 THE RESCUE OF TRINTJE VROOMAN 215 
 
 that is, of the river routes over which we have thus 
 far come, but now we leave the rivers and are in 
 the lake country. 
 
 " Last night, after the day's march, while all except, 
 the sentries were sound asleep, some of the men 
 were awakened by the sound of a cannon, as they 
 thought, and a few even had dreams of a battle. 
 The sentinels all cocked their guns and held them 
 ready for what they supposed would result soon 
 after the booming sounds which they had heard. 
 Were Butler and his Canadians reinforced and 
 marching on them with cannon ? But nothing 
 further came of the noise. It seemed to be down 
 in the lake. What could it have been ? Has Seneca 
 a ' lake cannon ' like that in Cayuga ? 
 
 " As we rested yesterday, several bands were sent 
 out to explore and to destroy. Colonel John Harper 
 called for volunteers, and I was delighted when he 
 took me as one. We followed the Seneca River 
 about eight miles, and came to a town of eighteen 
 houses, called ' Skoiyase,' in which, it is said, Red 
 Jacket often spoke. This eloquent chief and orator, 
 who belongs to the Wolf Clan, has a name which 
 means ' he keeps them awake.' He is said to have 
 been in favor of our side in the war. 
 
 " The most curious thing I saw on this raid was a 
 line of fish ponds, and here, it seems, lived an Indian 
 chief named Fish Carrier, who made a good living 
 by raising fish and selling them. There is a great
 
 2l6 THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 trail here through this town. It extends all the way 
 from Albany to Niagara. While we were here, 
 Major Parr's riflemen began the work of destroying 
 the town and crops which I saw a few days before 
 from across the lake, at which the squaw was bound 
 to a horse, and driven away into the wilderness like 
 a scapegoat. This place is called ' Shenanwaga.' 
 There was so much to do that the major sent for 
 four hundred more men, to help in completing the 
 work. The twenty houses were new and surrounded 
 with fields of maize, orchards of apple and peach 
 trees, stacks of hay, hogs, chickens, ducks, and geese. 
 Even the fields were fenced, and the whole village 
 seemed quite equal to a white man's frontier clearing, 
 yet everything was destroyed." 
 
 Here the story-teller must narrate what happened 
 to Claes Vrooman on this side-raid to Shenanwaga. 
 In his letter to his mother, Herman Clute only refers 
 to the incident that so affected the disconsolate bride 
 groom, and says that Vrooman " will write fully to 
 his father, and thus you and all the folks will know 
 about it " ; but we must give it here. 
 
 Vrooman, as one of the rifle corps, numbering 
 about one hundred men, went with Major Parr, as 
 guide and scout also. While this party, and after 
 ward the extra four hundred men detailed to assist, 
 were busy with torch, axe, and knife in levelling vil 
 lage and crops, Vrooman with Nathaniel van Patten,
 
 THE RESCUE OF TRINTJE VROOMAN 21 7 
 
 a comrade, took position on a bit of rising ground to 
 guard against surprise. The afternoon and night 
 passed by without an adventure or any sound save the 
 cries of the wild animals, but on the 8th of Septem 
 ber, as morning dawned, Van Patten, being on guard, 
 awoke Vrooman, saying : 
 
 " Claes, get up. By the holy sacrament, if here 
 isn't a horse, loaded with a squaw. She is tied to 
 its back. And what do you think ? She's actually 
 singing. It's something we know, for I heard the 
 music played by the band. She can't see me, but I 
 had a strong notion to shoot the animal. I could 
 bring down the horse, without hitting her. The 
 beast is white and I could take him in the head 
 easily." 
 
 " Are you sure it's a squaw ? " asked Vrooman, 
 as he rose hastily, and, out of sheer habit, opened 
 the pan of his rifle and shook some fresh priming 
 into it. 
 
 "Sure of it. Come and see." 
 
 "Warily and as noiselessly as possible, the two 
 men approached the pony, for such it was. Brows 
 ing on the rich grass in spite of the thongs which 
 bound the woman's feet around its neck, it paid no 
 attention to the men at first. As it moved about, 
 the face of its burden was exposed. 
 
 " God have mercy on me ! It's a white woman ! 
 
 " Hello, who are you ? " shouted Van Patten to the 
 object.
 
 2l8 THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 "A Christian woman, Trintje Vrooman, of Sche- 
 nectady, a captive, taken at Cherry Valley. Help me." 
 
 The voice was low and feeble, as of one very 
 weak, but mild as it was, the pony started, pricked 
 up its ears and trotted off, sniffing the air and gazing 
 defiantly at the two men. 
 
 " Heaven help me and her ! It's my wife, Van 
 Patten. We must not lose her, or miss the beast. 
 What shall I do?" 
 
 " Here," said Van Patten ; " you pick some of these 
 tiny white flowers and set them in the palm of your 
 hand, as if you had some salt, and approach the pony 
 from the front, while I'll go round, and we'll so get 
 about the beast that, even if we cannot catch him, 
 we'll drive him in among our men in camp." 
 
 Suddenly the quiet was broken and the men heard 
 distinctly the music and the first verse in Dutch of 
 that famous song of Philipp van Marnix Saint-Alde- 
 gonde's, "Wilhelmus van Nassouwe," with its music, 
 an old hunting song of the thirteenth century (see 
 page 219). 
 
 So cleverly did Vrooman manage the lure, while 
 Van Patten stealthily approached in the rear, that the 
 former, by coaxing and holding forward the hand 
 half closed, which had in it the whitish flowers look 
 ing like salt, was almost within catching distance of 
 the horse's mane or the woman's moccasined foot, 
 when Van Patten grasped the animal's tail, and his 
 captors had their double treasure.
 
 THE RESCUE OF TRINTJE VROOMAN 
 
 1. WILHELMUS VAN NASSOUWE. 
 
 
 
 
 m= 
 
 qE=p 
 
 giB 
 
 3^ 
 
 j 
 
 R 
 
 ( ^ J i 
 
 f 
 
 -a=F=^ 
 
 Then was seen the true chivalry of the frontiersmen. 
 Both knives were unsheathed at once, thongs cut, and 
 the cramped woman's body borne limp in the arms 
 of her lover-husband to the fire, to food, and to rest ;
 
 22O THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 while Van Patten, not for one instant relaxing vigi 
 lance against possible savage foes lurking near, led 
 the horse and himself away, so that the loved ones 
 might be alone in sacred joy and in gratitude to God. 
 
 Trintje's story in outline was soon told. Until the 
 news of Sullivan's advance had been received at Core- 
 organel, in the Inlet Valley, near the modern city of 
 Ithaca, she had been living there, working hard, but 
 well fed and kindly treated. Then, sold to a squaw 
 in the town of Shenanwaga, she had fallen under the 
 suspicion of being a witch. For, since this white 
 woman had come among them, the black rats, un 
 known before, had made their appearance, killing off 
 the native gray rats and playing havoc in the store 
 houses, by devouring the grain. From Coreorganel, 
 the black rats had reached Shenanwaga. Who could 
 have led them or made them but the white woman ? 
 
 After thus poisoning public opinion, the old man 
 and his squaw had openly accused Trintje Vrooman 
 of turning old water-worn stones into black rats. 
 This she did, according to the accusation, by breath 
 ing fire on the stones. Other calamities and portents 
 were traced to the white woman, who was alleged 
 to be able to breathe out fire. 
 
 A council, consisting mostly of old men and 
 squaws, for the warriors were all away under Brant 
 and Butler, was held. After a long pow-wow, it 
 was decided, before flight for Sullivan's town de 
 stroyers had been discovered on the opposite side of
 
 THE RESCUE OF TRINTJE VROOMAN 221 
 
 the lake to tie her on a swift pony or colt not yet 
 broken to use, and set him free. It was expected that 
 she would starve in two or three days. Almost as 
 soon as she was tied on and the pony struck and 
 sent flying, the whole village, Indians, dogs, horses, 
 and all, fled westward. 
 
 Trintje's robust constitution had withstood the 
 strain. The pony had kept for the most part in 
 the open country, and then, naturally, had returned 
 to the place most familiar, whence he had set out. 
 Except torturing thirst, even more painful to bear 
 than hunger, and though much scratched on her 
 limbs and one side of her body, Trintje was unhurt. 
 She quickly recovered her spirits, though the return 
 of strength was slow. 
 
 Indeed, when the detachment reached Sullivan's 
 main army, Claes Vrooman was warmly congratu 
 lated by General Sullivan himself. And, since it 
 was too late to hope to overtake the party sent off 
 to Tioga Point, the special privilege was given him 
 to have his wife accompany the army to Honeoye, 
 where she could rest at the fort, there to remain 
 while the advance proceeded to the goal of the expe 
 dition, the famed Castle of the Genesee. 
 
 "What did you think of, most of the time, when 
 the Indians turned you into a female Mazeppa ? " 
 asked Claes, seeing that Trintje had recovered her 
 spirits. 
 
 " Well, to tell the truth, Claes, after the first fears
 
 222 THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 and agony were over, and I had prayed again and 
 again the evening prayer we learned at home, ' O 
 Merciful God, eternal light, shining in darkness,' 
 etc., I was not so very uncomfortable during the 
 thirty-six hours or so that I took an involuntary ride 
 on horseback. During the day I kept singing, occa 
 sionally shouting, hoping the army might be near, 
 for I had heard rumors of the coming of our men. 
 The next morning I felt sure that white men were 
 near, and I began singing the old Wilhelmus Lied. 
 But when I saw and recognized you, I was so happy 
 that I wanted to cry, and yet, as you carried me in 
 your arms, through my light head ran the old nurs 
 ery song. Here it is, 
 
 " ' Ride a cock horse to Ban bury Cross, 
 To see the fair lady ride a white horse. 
 Rings on her fingers and bells on her toes, 
 She shall have music wherever she goes.' " 
 
 "Well," said Claes, "the rings were not there, but 
 the music, the fair lady, and the white horse were." 
 Laus Deo !
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 CANANDAIGUA AND HONEOYE A SUCCOTASH 
 
 CAMPAIGN 
 
 AFTER several days' subsistence chiefly on corn 
 and beans, it was a cheering sight to the main 
 army when the pack horses, returning from Shenan- 
 waga, came in camp loaded with dressed pigs and 
 poultry. 
 
 The Continentals seemed in unusually good spirits 
 after their liberal diet of fried pork and chicken. 
 They set forward again on the 9th of September, 
 camping at night by a stream of good water. 
 
 Herman Clute's letter continues : 
 
 " On the roth, we forded the outlet of Canandaigua 
 Lake, marching a mile westward round the town. 
 Its name, Canandaigua, means, ' the place where we 
 take off our packs to rest.' It is an important trade 
 town and baiting place on the long trail between 
 Niagara and Schenectady. On entering the town, 
 we saw ahead of us, hung up on a tree in front of 
 the big council house, a white dog, with a string of 
 wampum round its neck, and otherwise most curi 
 ously decked and trimmed. One of the friendly 
 
 223
 
 224 THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 Oneidas told me it was a sacrifice to the gods, and 
 an offering accompanying prayer for victory. 
 
 " No one was in the town, but, unbeknown to us, 
 the island at the end of the lake the only island 
 we saw in any of these lakes, though Vrooman 
 says there is a very pretty island in Lake Cayuga 
 was packed full of squaws and pappooses in hiding. 
 We should have bagged much game had we known 
 this at the time, for every woman and child captured 
 is a hostage for the braves. All around the edge of 
 the lake are many thousands of rounded stones. 
 
 " Canandaigua town had twenty-three log houses, 
 large and new, some of them of framed timber. 
 These are by far the best-built Indian dwellings we 
 have yet seen ; but they and the corn all went on the 
 same pile and up into smoke from the same fire. 
 The first things we noticed were two posts fixed 
 near the council house, and alongside of these two 
 war-mallets. Was it an execution ground ? 
 
 " This Seneca country is so very flat that there 
 are very few springs. This makes it hard for a 
 marching army, on these hot September days. Over 
 many miles that we have passed, tall, wild grass as 
 high as the horses grows, showing that here were 
 old, cleared lands for maize, which the Indians burn 
 over every year. The smoke fills the air for hun 
 dreds of miles, and makes that haze which we 
 associate with Indian summer, though exactly when 
 that comes no two Americans are agreed. The
 
 CANANDAIGUA AND HONEOYE 22$ 
 
 Indians say that it is the smoke from the pipe of 
 the Great Spirit, and a proof that he is in a good 
 humor. 
 
 " I noticed while here a hill that seemed strangely 
 bare, for most of the hills we have seen are wooded. 
 That evening, as usual, around the camp-fire at Can- 
 andaigua, Mr. Vrooman and Hanyari talked, to my 
 great delight, about old Indian legends. This time 
 we had Mrs. Vrooman with us as a listener. She 
 survived her rough bareback ride astonishingly 
 well. 
 
 " ' This is a wonderful place for the Seneca 
 Indians/ said Hanyari. ' Indeed, this is the nation's 
 birthplace. The Senecas claim that they are unlike 
 the other Iroquois, for their first ancestors were all 
 born together, at once and here they got their 
 name.' 
 
 " ' How is that ? ' said Vrooman. 
 
 " ' Well, you know their name means, ' the big-hill 
 people,' and this is the hill which gives them their 
 name.' 
 
 '"A good story here, I suppose,' said Vrooman. 
 ' Let me have it.' 
 
 " ' Well, a long, long time ago, the Great Spirit was 
 much pleased when he looked on this beautiful Can- 
 andaigua lake and landscape. These he thought the 
 fairest on earth. So, in his happy mood, he touched 
 this hill, which the white men call " Bare Hill." For 
 a moment there was no sign or motion, but before 
 Q
 
 226 THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 many minutes the mountain opened and out came 
 little things which at first looked like worms, but 
 pretty soon these grew into bodies with arms and 
 legs, and when the sun shone on them they proved 
 to be boys and girls. They grew up and began to 
 play with each other. In time, they turned into men 
 and women, and went forth to live in the land a little 
 farther south, but they always looked back on this 
 mountain with pleasure, and called themselves the 
 " People of the Great Hill." That is what the word 
 Seneca means.' 
 
 " ' Do they ever visit this hill,' asked Vrooman, 
 ' for any purpose ? ' 
 
 " ' Oh, yes ; very often. They come here to give 
 thanks and pray to the Great Spirit. They talk of it 
 as the Mother Hill. For both, joy and grief they 
 come, and sometimes even to mourn. They have 
 great pow-wows here, and hold councils. Some of 
 the most important decisions, both of trade and 
 hunting and war, have been made on this hill.' 
 
 " 'What's the name of it?' said Vrooman. 
 
 " ' Genundewa,' said Hanyari. 
 
 " ' Oh, yes,' said Vrooman ; ' I know that. It means 
 the big hill. But why is it so bare? From top to 
 bottom toward the lake, there is hardly a tree. It 
 looks as if your Hawenniyu had tobogganed down 
 on a big rock and scraped it bare. How came it to 
 be so bald ? ' 
 
 " ' Oh, I have heard the Senecas tell that once,
 
 CANANDAIGUA AND HONEOYE 
 
 when they had a stockade on this hill, there was a 
 great serpent made by the evil spirit Ha-ne-go-ate-ge, 
 who wanted to destroy the Seneca people, and he 
 frightened them so that they all ran inside the stock 
 ade. After driving them all in, he coiled himself 
 around, and, his head and his tail meeting at the gate, 
 he lay there, keeping up such a cloud of his poison 
 ous breath that none dared to go out, while all 
 were more or less stupefied, as if they had been 
 filled with fire-water. Finally some of the leading 
 men planned a way of escape ; but they were not 
 smart enough for the serpent. Seizing their weapons 
 and cooking utensils, they thought to walk out of 
 the open gate so noiselessly that the serpent 
 would not awaken from the torpor in which he 
 seemed to have fallen. Instead of this, the serpent 
 had opened his great mouth in front of the gate, 
 and they, going out at night, thought they were 
 walking down hill, when in reality they had gone 
 right down the throat of the reptile and into his 
 stomach. 
 
 " ' This would have been the end of the tribe, but, 
 fortunately, a boy and a girl had been forgotten and 
 left in the villages outside the fort. To them the 
 Great Spirit spoke, telling the boy to make a bow 
 and arrows out of a certain kind of tree in the swamp. 
 Then they were to go up behind, and send the shaft 
 in such a way that it would strike the serpent's flesh 
 under its scales. The brave did as he was told.
 
 228 THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 Stealthily approaching the serpent, he sent his poison 
 shaft into the soft flesh. 
 
 " ' Immediately the serpent, writhing in pain, 
 straightened itself out and slid down the hill, level 
 ling the trees and hiccoughing as it went. It was in 
 such a terrible sickness that it dropped out of its 
 mouth all the heads of the Senecas which it had 
 swallowed ; and these, all rolling together, fell down 
 into the lake, forming the very stones which may 
 now be seen lying in the water. Of the blood of the 
 serpent were created other little snakes, which crawled 
 off into the woods and waters. 
 
 " ' From the boy and girl, another race of Seneca 
 Indians followed, and gradually the land was over 
 spread, until the great tribe has become what it is 
 now.' 
 
 " ' Well,' said Vrooman, ' that was a very industri 
 ous serpent. Are any other wonderful things credited 
 to him?' 
 
 " ' Oh, yes,' said Hanyari, ' you know our Oneida 
 talk is a little different both from that of the Mo 
 hawks and the Onondagas, and this serpent is the 
 cause of the difference ; for at first all the redmen 
 spoke one tongue, but it was the serpent that in some 
 way divided them, so that they could not understand 
 one another.' 
 
 "'Oh, then,' said Vrooman, 'here, then, is the 
 Iroquois Tower of Babel.' 
 
 " ' Yes, I understand,' said Hanyari ; ' and, what is
 
 CANANDAIGUA AND HONEOYE 22Q 
 
 more, the Senecas claim to have a language that was 
 first of all spoken. They say that they speak the 
 original in its purity, which we Oneidas and Mohawks 
 have confused. However, the Onondagas laugh at 
 the Senecas, for they consider that theirs is the first 
 and best.' 
 
 " During the telling of Hanyari' s stories, in spite 
 of fire and smoke, the mosquitoes were large and 
 lively. What was very surprising, they seemed to 
 enjoy drilling and draining the seasoned riflemen, so 
 inured to the woods and swamps, as they did me," 
 wrote Herman Clute. 
 
 " ' How on earth did the mosquito originate, in 
 Indian notion ? ' asked Vrooman. 
 
 " ' I'll tell you,' said Hanyari. ' I don't know how 
 the first one came into the world, but we know how 
 the little ones that bite us got here. They came 
 from the Onondagas.' 
 
 " ' Oh, that's an Oneida story, making a rival tribe 
 responsible for such pests. Always a rap at the 
 Onondagas, I see,' laughed Vrooman. 
 
 '"Well, I have been told,' said Hanyari, 'that a 
 long time ago, the Holder of the Heavens came down 
 to their great fortified castle, to pay a visit to the chief 
 of the Onondagas. Looking out, he saw an enormous 
 mosquito, as long as a pine tree, flying around the 
 fort and getting ready to do what he had often done 
 before. It had attacked not only squaws and pap- 
 pooses, but many strong men, poking each one with
 
 23O THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 its big bill, and then going for another victim, making 
 a meal out of eight or ten at once and then flying 
 away. After sucking their blood, it left them lying 
 on the ground. The warriors were unable to kill the 
 pest with arrows or destroy it when asleep, so they 
 had prayed the Holder of the Heavens to come to 
 them and help them. 
 
 " ' Seeing the plight of his children, the Great One 
 attacked the monster, but found that it flew so fast 
 that he was kept several days chasing it. Finally 
 coming up to it, he discovered that the flying monster 
 had led him round and round to the place whence they 
 had started. But when right toward the edge of 
 the Lake Onondaga, he struck it a blow with his 
 tomahawk and killed it. Thinking that he had 
 entirely delivered his children of the pest, he let 
 his body lie there, but, lo and behold ! the blood 
 of the mosquito ran out over the ground, and this, 
 under the sunshine, turned into little mosquitoes, 
 and so the world is still cursed with them. To 
 this day, this lake shore is called "the mosquito's 
 bed." ' 
 
 " By this time the horn sounded ' taps,' and at 4.30 
 A.M. the same instrument called reveille. The whole 
 army was in motion as early as six o'clock on the 
 morning of Saturday, September i i.th. A march 
 of fourteen miles brought us to the Indian town 
 of Honeoye. Concerning this spot, the Iroquois 
 traditions tell of war and slaughter, in which
 
 CANANDAIGUA AND HONEOYE 23! 
 
 many fingers especially were cut off, as the name 
 signifies. 
 
 " One of the most terrible battles ever fought be 
 tween hostile tribes on this continent was that when 
 the Senecas met their ancient but now banished foes, 
 the Kah-gwas, a tribe that had emigrated from the 
 south and west and settled near the foot of Lake 
 Erie, where they grew in strength and became very 
 numerous. According to the usual Indian custom 
 on such occasions, the Kah-gwa women had made 
 great numbers of moccasins with which to shoe the 
 captives which they expected were to be taken. So 
 the women accompanied the warriors to within a 
 short distance of Honeoye Lake. The battle raged 
 nearly four days. In those days no firearms were 
 used. The Indians on either side, dressed in bark 
 armor and helmets, with only bows and arrows and 
 stone-headed lances and clubs, fought out in the open. 
 The younger braves were set in the front of the battle 
 and the middle-aged warriors farther back. Both 
 sides fought until the stream which they charged 
 over, back and forth, flowed red. The Senecas 
 nearly exterminated the Kah-gwas, who fled to the 
 southwest, and nothing more has been heard of 
 them. 
 
 "The village in 1779 consisted of twenty houses 
 at the foot of the lake. It was on all sides, except 
 toward the water, surrounded by corn-fields. The 
 men joked about honey, but we found neither hives
 
 232 THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 nor bees there," continues Herman Clute. " Our way 
 went through fields of grass, with very little timber, 
 and evidently much of what we saw was fallow ground. 
 There were plenty of wild flowers. I heard one 
 Yankee, who had punned on the sound of honey, 
 twitting a New Yorker for moping after his lady-love 
 who lived at Saugerties, New York, which the New 
 Hampshire man pronounced Sugar-ties, telling him 
 he ought to emigrate to this place when the war was 
 over. 
 
 " Supposing the army to be about twenty-five miles 
 from the Genesee Castle, the general determined to 
 leave here his cattle and horses, with all the sick, the 
 lame, and the lazy, about three hundred in number. 
 So the strongest house in the Indian village was 
 selected, and its walls were strengthened on the 
 inside with kegs, casks, and bags of flour. Two 
 port-holes were cut into the sides, out of which the 
 two three-pounder guns poked their yellow, brass 
 noses. Then, chopping down the apple trees, we 
 made an abatis and ditch about the house. So here 
 in the wilderness is another of the three forts our 
 men have built between Wyoming and Seneca Castle, 
 which latter place is the goal of our expedition. 
 This, some call only a ' post.' I name it ' Fort 
 Honeoye.' 
 
 " There are three lakes here, lying right in a row 
 together, Honeoye, Canadice, and Conesus. An 
 Indian village of eighteen houses lies east of the
 
 CANANDAIGUA AND HONEOYE 233 
 
 Conesus Lake inlet, with the usual large corn-fields 
 all around. We encamped on the flats. Here have 
 lived two persons of importance in Iroquois land, 
 one black, the other red, a negro called Captain 
 Sunfish, who has made much money and has great 
 influence, and the Seneca chief, Big Tree, who, as 
 we used to suppose, was a friend of Washington and 
 Congress. Mr. Vrooman thinks that he was not at 
 heart a traitor to us, but was our friend until he 
 found the war sentiment of his tribe too strong for 
 him. It was a game of rouge et noir, as our Yankee 
 joker says. 
 
 " Evidently the Indian spies are very near us, for 
 I myself have seen their tracks in the fresh mud. 
 Vrooman surmises that Brant and Butler have been 
 reinforced, and that we may have a battle pretty 
 soon. So be it ; we are ready for them, and even to 
 go to Niagara. 
 
 "The general has ordered Vrooman to remain 
 here at the fort, as the chief scout. He is both 
 happy and sorry, for his joy at regaining his wife 
 is tempered with regret and anxiety as to the fate 
 of his sister. 
 
 "We have four days' rations with us, and will 
 march to-morrow against the largest town, the capi 
 tal, indeed, of the Senecas, the largest of all the six 
 tribes of the Iroquois. After destroying this, we are 
 likely to turn our faces homeward, for the frost will 
 soon be along, and we cannot live on succotash.
 
 234 THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 Yet we have not found Mary Vrooman, and neither 
 her brother nor I wish to go home till we at least 
 know whether she is alive or dead. All of us hope 
 to rescue more captives. Perhaps we will have a 
 battle. Vrooman thinks the enemy will be in force 
 near Conesus Lake, just at the place we are to reach 
 to-morrow."
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 BOYD AND THE GROVELAND AMBUSCADE 
 
 VROOMAN'S surmise as to the enemy's move 
 ments after the battle of Newtown was true. 
 Brant and Butler retreated until near the site where 
 now stands Avon in Livingston County. Here they 
 were joined by fresh reinforcements of Indians and 
 Canadian rangers. Butler, greatly encouraged, now 
 planned to " Braddock " Sullivan's army. At the 
 head of Conesus Lake, where the soil is soft and 
 miry, the Indian path to the big town near the Gene- 
 see, following almost the present roadway, crossed 
 the inlet by a rude bridge, which Butler had ordered 
 to be destroyed, but the work was only partially 
 done. 
 
 West of Conesus Lake was a steep bluff, with 
 deep ravines cut in it by the rains of centuries. A 
 path to the hilltop ran between two of these ravines. 
 As the land above the lake was covered with forests, 
 it was possible to post a large body of men in the 
 brushwood on the crests of the ridge and in the 
 ravines, and thus flank an army that would pass 
 over the path to the town. 
 
 2 3S
 
 236 THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 Hence it was that here, on the I2th and I3th of 
 September, 1779, making almost the exact duplicate 
 of Braddock's field in Pennsylvania, the servants of 
 King George, red, white, and black, were posted, 
 awaiting the approach of Sullivan's Continentals. 
 
 Thinking that he was near the " Western Door of 
 the Confederacy," which he hoped to capture, Gen 
 eral Sullivan sent forward Lieutenant Thomas Boyd, 
 on the night of the I2th, to reconnoitre. He directed 
 him to take but three or four riflemen, make a rapid 
 examination of the country, and report at sunrise next 
 morning. As the army, having left their base of sup 
 plies, had but four days' rations when they left Ho- 
 neoye, every moment was precious. 
 
 Were the heads of the young Continentals swelled 
 by the ease of their victory at Newtown ? Had they 
 begun to despise their enemy, because no hostile 
 shot had been fired since that success so easily won ? 
 Did they think the Senecas were so cowed that they 
 would always flee before the riflemen ? However we 
 explain it, Lieutenant Boyd, twenty-two years old, a 
 Pennsylvanian of superb physique, fine manners, and 
 brave even to recklessness, instead of taking but four 
 men as ordered, allowed volunteers to join him, eight 
 of whom were musketmen, and two of them, red allies, 
 one an Oneida and the other a Stockbridge Indian, 
 making a party of twenty-nine in all. No one can 
 believe that Boyd increased his force because he 
 feared to go with a quartette only. No, the proba-
 
 BOYD AND THE GROVELAND AMBUSCADE 237 
 
 bilities are that so many volunteers were eager to fol 
 low such an intrepid leader, that he exceeded his 
 instructions in order to gratify their martial valor. 
 Many young men who had not even been in the bat 
 tle at Newtown and were still thirsting for adventure, 
 hated to go back home without having fired at least 
 one hostile shot against their country's foes. 
 
 Nobody knew exactly where the big Indian town 
 was located. The so-called maps were farces, and 
 for want of exact knowledge all leaders were equally 
 at fault. It was a case of blindman's buff in the 
 wilderness. Sullivan did the best that mortal could 
 do, and, apart from his insubordination, Boyd did 
 likewise. In the darkness the lieutenant and his 
 company crossed the outlet of Conesus Lake, went 
 north along the base of the hill for a quarter of a 
 mile. He then climbed up the steep hillside and 
 moved westward along the Indian path. In doing 
 this, Boyd actually passed Butler's right wing with 
 out either party knowing the other's whereabouts. 
 About a mile and a half from Sullivan's camp, the 
 path forked, one trail passing to the northwest to 
 Little Beard's Town or the Genesee Castle, the other, 
 which Boyd, perhaps misled by his guides, took, 
 led to the village on Canaseraga Creek, two miles 
 from the Genesee River. 
 
 Boyd halted his force and then went in among the 
 empty houses, finding little except baskets of common 
 utensils, with here and there a scalp hung on the
 
 238 THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 sooty walls. Nevertheless, the fires were still burn 
 ing. This showed that enemies could not be far away 
 After a time he rejoined his men, who needed rest. 
 Making concealment in the woods, he sent back 
 four of his party to report his discovery to General 
 Sullivan. 
 
 Daylight soon broke in the eastern sky, and 
 another of the lovely days, for which the late sum 
 mer and early autumn of 1779 was as noted as was 
 its terrible winter for its days of storm, broke on 
 the glorious landscape, then golden with ripened 
 grain. As the sun was just beginning to tint the 
 clouds, four Indians on horses were seen riding into 
 the town. Boyd at once sent a party to capture 
 them, but only one was killed. The others, one of 
 whom was wounded, got away. 
 
 Boyd now began his return march, sending out 
 flankers and keeping constantly alert. After four 
 or five miles, expecting soon to meet the army, Boyd 
 halted and sent two men forward to make a further 
 report to Sullivan. It was evident that the party 
 was now watched, and likely soon to be called to 
 face enemies, for in a few minutes the two men 
 sent ahead came back, saying they had found five 
 Indians on the path. So the march was resumed, 
 and soon they saw the same party of Indians and 
 fired at them. 
 
 Now, is it not strange that, with so much experi 
 ence of the old Indian trick of pretending to retreat
 
 BOYD AND THE GROVELAND AMBUSCADE 239 
 
 in order to lure their enemies into an ambuscade, 
 experienced Nimrods like Boyd should want to pur 
 sue such enemies on unknown ground ? These five 
 savages were as so many decoy ducks to lure the 
 game into the line of fire of the war-hunters, Brant 
 and Butler. Again and again had our frontier mili 
 tia been entrapped into ambuscade and massacre. 
 Brave always, but at times rash, Boyd determined 
 to pursue them. Hanyari earnestly protested, advis 
 ing him not to do so. 
 
 " They are only the minnows which the fisherman 
 Butler hopes we shall snap at and bite on his hook, 
 that he may string us all," warned the Oneida, but 
 in vain. 
 
 Hanyari was right. All the time the Indians 
 were moving ahead of their pursuers and cunningly 
 drawing them within the lines of their hidden com 
 rades. They even allowed Boyd's party to get 
 within easy rifle range in order to tempt and draw 
 their fire, while dodging behind trees and underbrush 
 so as to be really out of danger. Suddenly, when 
 within a half mile of the crest of the bluff above the 
 river, a little northeast of what is now Groveland, 
 New York, a yell, that sounded as if hell had opened 
 all its doors and let out all its demons, broke on their 
 ears, and Boyd's party found themselves confronted 
 by eight hundred Indians and Tories. It was as 
 one to thirty. For every bullet of defence, there was 
 a shower of lead. In less time than the story requires
 
 24O THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 for telling, a circle of fire, ever narrowing, enclosed 
 the band. The end could not be far off. The eager 
 Indians, so sure of their prey, approached so closely 
 that the unburned powder of their guns was driven 
 into the flesh of Boyd's men, though very many of 
 their own number were killed, probably three times 
 as many as were in Boyd's party. 
 
 We must now go into Brant and Butler's camp 
 to see what had happened there. After the retreat 
 from Newtown, where the British allies, red, white, 
 and black, were so badly beaten that they " feared 
 the tops of the tall grass," they recruited near Cone- 
 sus Lake. Yet, although reinforced by hundreds of 
 warriors from the Six Nations and by rangers from 
 Canada, not a hostile musket was fired against Sul 
 livan's victorious army, until in this " Groveland 
 ambuscade." Yet the royal expresses were busy. 
 All along the path spies had kept watch from the hill 
 tops, and runners had brought the news thrice daily, 
 and sometimes hourly, to Brant and Butler, of Sul 
 livan's movements. 
 
 Having seen the building of the fort at Honeoye, 
 and noticing that no wagon or long trains of pack 
 horses or cattle were with the army, and only three 
 of the lightest guns, the British leaders made up 
 their minds that the Continentals had no food or 
 supplies beyond what they carried on their backs. 
 They therefore deliberately resolved to strike a blow 
 and risk a battle. After a long council, in which
 
 BOYD AND THE GROVELAND AMBUSCADE 24! 
 
 the orators among the younger Indians, that had not 
 yet faced coehorn or cannon, were particularly elo 
 quent, the usual strategy of ambuscade was decided 
 upon. The spot most likely to secure utter ruin to 
 the Americans was selected and occupied near 
 Conesus Lake. 
 
 So, on that morning of September I3th, 1779, 
 the Canadian rangers and the braves of the Senecas 
 and allied tribes were thickly posted in the ravines 
 and on the edges of the hill slope. Wherever stones 
 or underbrush could hide the tawny warriors, whose 
 buckskin shirts looked so much like the rocks, or the 
 Johnson Greens could lie in the tall grass, to be dis 
 covered only by the keenest of eyes, there were the 
 servants of King George and his corrupt Parliament 
 posted to kill the " anti-revolutionary " founders and 
 defenders of the United States of America. It 
 seemed as certain that the Continentals this time 
 would be as surely " Braddocked," as that the au 
 tumn winds moving through the trees loaded with 
 ripe apples would cause them to drop. 
 
 Sullivan's army, soon after beginning their march 
 at seven o'clock on the 13th, came to an Indian town 
 of eighteen houses situated near Conesus Lake. 
 While with sword, knife, and axe the soldiers levelled 
 the corn for the fire, the pioneers began at once to 
 rebuild the bridge over the creek or outlet of the 
 lake. To protect them in their work, Sullivan posted 
 a line of sentries on the farther side of the water, up
 
 242 THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 and down the hard land between the morass and the 
 hill crest. While the bridge makers plied their tools, 
 the sentries paced up and down, and the surveyors 
 and chain-men went still farther westward beyond 
 the pickets, where they were busy measuring dis 
 tances. All this time the white leaders, Butler and 
 MacDonald, with their glasses, and hundreds of pairs 
 of keen black Indian eyes, were watching from the hill 
 crest above, the work below. It must have been hard 
 for the individual braves to resist the temptation to 
 crawl forward and fire on the sentries below. Never 
 theless, Butler held them back, for he hoped to strike 
 and defeat the whole of Sullivan's force as it defiled 
 in a long line over the bridge and narrow path. 
 Would he not have them hopelessly muddled between 
 the advantageous hill crest and the deep creek ? 
 
 Suddenly Butler heard firing on his left flank. 
 This surprised him very much. He could not tell 
 what it meant. He knew nothing about Boyd's 
 party, and, if he had, he would have sent only a party 
 of a hundred or two, to attend to such small game, 
 which he could surely capture. The memories of 
 Newtown, the vision of the New Hampshire Conti 
 nentals bursting, as it were, out of the clouds on his 
 flank, were very vivid. Butler knew that he had an 
 able foe to contend with, ever alert and fertile in 
 resources. Was he again to be outwitted ? Had 
 Sullivan amused him with a show of bridge-building, 
 while sending a brigade of men that had risen early
 
 BOYD AND THE GROVELAND AMBUSCADE 243 
 
 in the morning to strike his rear and drive him down 
 the hill into the morass and into the jaws of the can 
 non and the main army ? 
 
 While thus his active brain churned in anxious 
 thought, the firing became so very lively that he felt 
 assured that Sullivan was practising the same tactics 
 as when Poor's brigade struck his flank at Newtown. 
 No time must be lost, so he ordered at least half his 
 whole force to face about, deploy in semicircle, and 
 then surround what he supposed to be the riflemen 
 skirmishers of a larger body, hoping to defeat this 
 supposed flanking force before the bridge was fin 
 ished, and the cannon and main body of Americans 
 could get over the stream. Then he would call his 
 men, flushed with victory, for the capital work in 
 hand. 
 
 Thus Butler lost all chances of victory, for the 
 twenty-five Americans had found shelter in a clump 
 of trees, and, firing unerringly from behind the 
 trunks, sold their lives dearly. Killing perhaps two 
 or three times their number, they also gave time to 
 Sullivan's main army to form. The enemy closed 
 round them, getting nearer and nearer ; and then, 
 rushing upon them, fired in their faces, one after the 
 other. All of the twenty-five were slain, except Boyd 
 and his sergeant, Michael Parker, who were captured 
 alive. Among the dead was the brave Oneida chief, 
 Hanyari. After Boyd had refused to give any in 
 formation in regard to the Continental army, both
 
 244 THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 were delivered over to the Indians and to incredible 
 tortures. Goaded to desperation by the loss of their 
 homes and farms, the Senecas looked upon Boyd as 
 the head and front of their woes. They gave vent to 
 those brutal instincts which a savage man has in com 
 mon with the wasp, the rattlesnake, the panther, 
 and the wolf. They revelled in mutilation, as if 
 they were in a Spanish Inquisition ; their chief, Little 
 Beard, being master of ceremonies. 
 
 Butler gnashed his teeth in rage to see his high 
 hopes once more, as at Newtown, crushed. A paltry 
 band of twenty-five Americans had occupied half his 
 force, given the alarm to Sullivan, and jeoparded 
 the day. 
 
 Yet, though so much time had been lost, and his 
 plans disarranged by the fight with Boyd, he had not 
 been flanked as he feared. There were still several 
 hundred Tories and Indians on the hill crest ; the 
 corduroy road over the morass, and the bridge, were 
 far from complete, and the special scouts whom he 
 had sent out assured him that all of Sullivan's men, 
 except the sentries and pickets, were still on the 
 eastern side of the stream. Hence there was no 
 danger in his rear. So there was still a prospect of 
 victory in a stand-up fight.
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 ABOUT FACE! 
 
 IN fact, Butler might have re-formed his men and 
 perhaps " Braddocked " Sullivan, had it not been 
 for another happy accident which contributed to the 
 benefit of the American side. Just what that acci 
 dent was, let our young soldier tell in the letter which 
 he wrote to his mother, from Fort Reed, when the 
 army halted on its return march. 
 
 " DEAR MOTHER : Well, we are on our way home 
 again. We have actually been on the march east 
 ward for four days. Our general would certainly 
 have gone to Niagara, and our fellows would have 
 captured the place, I know, except that our provi 
 sions were really all gone. The night before we 
 reached the end of our journey, and the night after, 
 we actually heard the British evening gun. When 
 we got near the last of the great chain of lakes from 
 Otsego to Conesus (I have seen them all now), the 
 body had to halt and build a road through the morass 
 and fix up the bridge that used to continue the road 
 over the stream which is the outlet of the lake. 
 
 245
 
 246 THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 Although we did not know or suspect it, the enemy 
 were hiding on the hill up which we had to go to get 
 to the famous Seneca Castle. Lieutenant Boyd, com 
 manding his scouting party, went forward the night 
 before, but early the next morning got into an am 
 buscade. Some of his party escaped, but most of 
 them were killed, and Boyd and his sergeant taken 
 alive and tortured. 
 
 " You can imagine how curious the situation was, 
 at sunrise on that morning of the I3th. An army of 
 about fifteen hundred British and savages lay hidden 
 in the grass and behind the trees, within a musket 
 shot of our pioneers, who were making the road and 
 building a bridge. Boyd's party of twenty-nine men 
 had actually passed close to the enemy without either 
 party knowing it, but when Boyd, on coming back, 
 was enticed into the Indian lines and got into a big 
 fight, Butler must have thought himself flanked, and 
 ordered out half his men. Those who escaped of 
 Boyd's detachment say there were about eight hun 
 dred Indians that surrounded them, so that seven or 
 eight hundred more must have been left on the hills, 
 waiting for us. 
 
 "Among those slain was Hanyari, our brave and 
 wise Oneida comrade. I grieve over his loss, and 
 Vrooman will be a sad man when he hears the news. 
 
 " Now, it was my duty to be sentinel that morning, 
 and the general posted a line of us along the bottom 
 of the hills between the crest and the swamp. I
 
 ABOUT FACE ! 247 
 
 imagine that the savages hiding foremost in the 
 grass could easily have picked us off, by firing from 
 the hilltop just above us, but they had their orders 
 not to, and did not. Pretty soon I saw Lieutenant 
 Lodge, with his four or five chain-bearers, cross over 
 the stream and begin the work of measurement on 
 the Indian path. This Mr. Lodge is a very fine 
 gentleman. I have made his acquaintance and been 
 well treated by him. He and his men have meas 
 ured every mile from Easton, and he has shown me 
 some of the maps he has made. The party of sur 
 veyors soon passed beyond me, although I was at the 
 line of sentries, and they even went up the hill out of 
 sight. 
 
 " I thought he was running a risk, but it was none 
 of my business, so I walked up and down the distance 
 assigned me by the officer of the guard, until sud 
 denly I heard firing to the westward. I cocked my 
 gun and held it ready for use. I trembled at first, 
 but very soon was calm again. In a minute or two 
 out came the surveyor and chain-bearers, one less in 
 number than when they went into the woods. They 
 were running for their lives, and a dozen Indians 
 after them with tomahawks, one of whom threw his 
 hatchet at Lieutenant Lodge, but it missed him. 
 The other savages fell back, but a big, brawny red 
 fellow, who had a brass medal on his breast, kept on 
 chasing him. He was just raising his tomahawk to 
 let fly at Lodge, I suppose, when I found he was
 
 248 THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 within range. Taking aim as coolly as if I were 
 shooting a squirrel on a tree trunk, I aimed at the 
 medal, and fired. The Indian tumbled backward 
 dead, and Lieutenant Lodge got into our lines 
 safely. 
 
 " Now all this, as General Sullivan has himself 
 told me, upset the plans of Butler, and demoralized 
 the men hidden on the crest; for by this time the 
 bridge was sufficiently completed to allow Hand's 
 light troops to cross over it on a run. It would have 
 done you good to see how those Pennsylvanians 
 rushed over the log road through the swamp. They 
 stepped neatly over the tree trunks and rapidly over 
 the bridge. Then, with cheers, they moved in the 
 most lively way up the hill. Although Butler was 
 actually at that moment coming back with his rein 
 forcements, and his Indians had the scalps of all of 
 Boyd's party that had not escaped, fifteen in number, 
 he could not get his rangers and savages, whom he 
 had left on the hill crest and in the ravines, into good 
 form again. They were in as much disorder as a 
 flock of scared wild pigeons, and they did not dare to 
 stand before Hand's brigade. I think the glimpse 
 they got of the shining brass cannon moving over 
 the bridge completed their confusion. ' They didn't 
 even take time to put their packs on their shoulders. 
 Even the white men left their hats behind them ; so 
 that, when our whole army had crossed over, we had 
 only a promenade to the great Genesee Castle.
 
 ABOUT FACE ! 249 
 
 " We destroyed the Indian town to which Boyd 
 had gone, after we had got over the river and 
 marched several miles. It had twenty-two houses. 
 One of them was already burned, for in it the 
 enemy's dead, killed in the fight with Boyd, had 
 been piled up on timber and then all was set on fire. 
 Toward sundown our advance guard found the red 
 skins and Canadians apparently ready for another 
 battle, for they were drawn up in line. For a while 
 it looked as though there would be another fight, 
 but just as soon as the general had started off his 
 flanking divisions, they were so afraid of being struck 
 in the rear that, without firing one gun or giving us 
 a chance to fire one, they retreated. We camped on 
 the spot, and the next day it took two thousand men 
 six hours to level the tall grain, eight or nine feet high, 
 to the ground. 
 
 " The next day about noon we started to reach the 
 great Genesee town. Such grass as grows in this 
 valley I never saw before. In moving through it we 
 could see only the shining tips of the bayonets of the 
 regiments near us. Our general had ordered the 
 army to march in the same order as laid down on 
 paper, so we trampled down the grass in a swath 
 half a mile wide. A wonderfully flat country it is, 
 without hills or bushes, and only here and there a 
 clump of trees. On coming to the river, we found 
 it deep and wide, and too big to be bridged. So we 
 locked our arms together and crossed in platoons,
 
 25O THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 though, on account of the warm day, we were well 
 dried before evening. This is Little Beard's Town, 
 named after the famous Seneca chief, and the largest 
 I ever saw. There were one hundred and twenty- 
 eight houses, and some of them very much finer 
 than the average farmer's log cabin in the upper 
 Mohawk Valley. The savages called this place the 
 ' Western Door' of their ' Long House.' 
 
 " Three things happened to us while we were at 
 this town which I shall never forget. The first was, 
 the discovery by Mr. Sanborn, in Clinton's brigade, of 
 the mangled bodies of Lieutenant Boyd and ser 
 geant. The heads lay some distance away from the 
 bodies, for the dogs had run away with them and 
 partly eaten them. I could not tell you all the hor 
 rible mutilation which these men had to submit to, 
 besides their tortures. I never saw anything like it. 
 It reminded me of what I had so often read of the 
 Spanish Inquisition, from which our ancestors suf 
 fered when King Philip of Spain tried to change our 
 fathers from being Bible readers. It made our men 
 determined to fight to the death, rather than be taken 
 prisoners by such allies of the king of Great Britain. 
 Boyd's men were very fond of him, and his own rifle 
 company were sent to bury him. I saw them dig 
 ging the graves under a wild plum tree which stood 
 near the forks of two streams. 
 
 " The other incident was much pleasanter, I can 
 tell you. Last November the Indians captured, near
 
 ABOUT FACE ! 2$ I 
 
 Nanticoke, down in Pennsylvania, a woman and her 
 little child, having shot her husband and father, and 
 she was brought to this place. I talked with her, 
 but she could not tell me anything about Mary Vroo- 
 man, though she had seen many other captives, both 
 male and female. She escaped very easily, for the 
 Indians were in such a hurry to move toward Niag 
 ara, which is eighty miles distant, that they paid no 
 attention to her, and so she hid herself and came 
 within our lines. 
 
 " The next morning we were up before sunrise 
 and breakfasted quickly. Then the whole three 
 thousand of us went into the corn-fields to cut down 
 the tall stalks, chop down the fruit trees, and make 
 mighty heaps of the timber and fodder. Then we 
 set the whole on fire. About twenty thousand 
 bushels of corn were destroyed here. As for the 
 size of the ears, I never saw anything like them. We 
 think our Mohawk Valley flats fat land, but this is 
 far fatter. The New Hampshire men, who come, 
 from a pretty stpny region, I imagine, could hardly 
 believe their eyes at seeing ears of corn twenty-two 
 inches long. A great many of them have carried 
 home specimen ears in their knapsacks. As for the 
 stalks of corn, they are from twelve to fifteen feet 
 high. 
 
 " The third incident took place after we had had 
 our dinner. Then we got the most joyful order we 
 have heard yet. Some of us would like to have seen
 
 252 THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 Niagara, but to march there on green victuals would 
 have been too much, and we should have starved on 
 our way back, for our meat and flour were wholly 
 gone. So we gladly faced to the right about, and 
 marched toward the rising sun. 
 
 " We crossed the river again, and, as we put on 
 our clothes, which we had carried over our heads, I 
 don't think there was ever a happier lot of men. 
 Our camp was on the river flats. The next day we 
 passed the scene of Boyd's big fight, and found there 
 the bodies of fifteen dead and scalped. I think we 
 felt more sad over the fate of Hanyari, the Oneida 
 chief, than for even our own men. He was a great 
 favorite with us. 
 
 " At each Indian town, we have seen that the poor 
 savages are in a fearfully dejected state of mind, and 
 I have heard that they just behaved like Baal's 
 prophets. The captive white woman says that they 
 leap and howl in anguish of mind, calling on their 
 gods to come back from their hunting, or wake up 
 from their sleep and to help them, and drive back 
 the men sent among them by the Town Destroyer. 
 That is the name they give to Washington. Yet 
 some of their own chiefs who have wiped out whole 
 settlements are called by the same name, and Destroy 
 Town, a Seneca, is well known. 
 
 " Many of the Senecas have no tobacco left, because 
 they have thrown it all in the fires as a sacrifice to 
 their god Ha-wen-ni-yu. I was wondering what it
 
 ... A SHOUT THAT WOKE THE ECHOES OF THE ROCKS.'
 
 ABOUT FACE ! 253 
 
 meant, when I found two white dogs hung on poles 
 about fifteen feet high before the council house in 
 the big town. In one place I saw a war-post made 
 of a big tree, cut and carved, painted, and set in the 
 ground. It was wrapped round with the skins of 
 white dogs, so as to be nearly covered. These, I 
 was told, were to appease their god, who takes the 
 hides to make jacket, breeches, tobacco pouch, and 
 moccasins. 'The captive woman says that after the 
 big battle at Newtown, they went at once after two 
 dogs and killed them and hung them up on poles, 
 all the while beseeching their gods not to be angry 
 with them. This seems to have been done in every 
 village. How terrible must their suffering of mind 
 have been ! 
 
 " At this place, we had good news from the world, 
 which we had seemed to leave behind us, for General 
 Washington had sent an express with news that 
 Spain had declared war against England and will 
 help us, and that the great Spanish and French 
 fleets have made a junction at sea and will sail 
 together to our shores. I forgot to tell you that 
 most of the men we left at Honeoye are better, and 
 are now marching with us. This is not the case with 
 the poor pack horses. They have been so run down 
 that many of them are worthless, and so we had to 
 shoot a score or more, just as we did with a lot of 
 them after the battle at Newtown. 
 
 " All the artillery, five pieces, has got safely
 
 254 THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 through. This I know, for I counted them, but some 
 of the men say that they lost a cannon at Honeoye. 
 Others declare that it was at another stream, or in 
 a miry swamp, they cannot tell for certain which. 
 I expect that some of the men who have been down 
 on the idea of taking artillery at all, will keep up 
 this notion of a ' lost ' cannon. It seems to be the 
 thing to believe, and, if we listen to all the stories, 
 there have been cannon lost all the way from Conesus 
 to Kanedasaga. On one day, the breaking down of 
 a cannon carriage cost a delay of two hours to the 
 whole army, during which time all sorts of stories 
 started. 
 
 " A party of Oneida Indians came to the general 
 to plead that the Cayuga Indians on the east side of 
 the lake should be spared, for they are relatives by 
 marriage of the Oneidas, and if all their fields should 
 be wasted, the Oneidas would have to support the 
 warriors' families. General Sullivan, however, deter 
 mined to carry out the programme of destruction laid 
 down by Congress, because these men were hostile 
 and liars. He has sent Colonel Butler with five 
 hundred men to destroy their settlement. Colonel 
 Gansevoort, with a hundred men, will march into the 
 Mohawk Valley and return to Schenectady by way 
 of Fort Stanwix, or, as we now call it, Fort Schuyler."
 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 
 MARY VROOMAN AND THE GLEN FLOWER 
 
 LEAVING the main army, Colonel Henry Dear 
 born, with two hundred New Hampshire men, 
 started to march from north to south down the west 
 side of Cayuga Lake, and then to cross over the in 
 tervening country and to go from south to north up 
 the east side of Seneca Lake, thence joining the army 
 at Fort Reed. Like the former marches, this was one 
 in which the torch and the sword joined their forces 
 of destruction. One of the three Indian towns burned 
 on the first day was Ganoga, famous as the birthplace 
 of Red Jacket, who had so used his eloquence in try 
 ing to persuade his fellow Senecas to neutrality, that 
 the Tory Butler looked upon him as only a half 
 hearted warrior, and afterward taxed him with treach 
 ery. The next day, burning another town, Dearborn 
 found three squaws and a young crippled Indian, and 
 took them along as prisoners, in the hope of learning 
 something from them. 
 
 The pathless country back of the bluffs of Lake 
 Cayuga was " so horrid rough and brushy " that it 
 was almost impossible to advance but with much dif- 
 
 255
 
 256 THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 ficulty and fatigue. Coming in sight of that rocky 
 and precipitous cape so well known as Taughannock 
 Point, which projects itself into the water, he imag 
 ined he had reached the end of Cayuga Lake. In 
 this he was mistaken. The shale rock, which aeons 
 ago was grooved or scooped out by glaciers, is here 
 cut up into numerous picturesque gorges. It was im 
 possible to move along the bluffs overlooking the lake, 
 nor was there any Indian path there. But about two 
 miles back, along the heads of the ravine, passing 
 through what is now Hayt's Corners and Ovid Centre, 
 lay the trail. So, moving back to this better ground, 
 Dearborn arrived at the end of the lake near where 
 to-day lies the city of Ithaca, and where," far above 
 Cayuga's waters," rise the hills on which Cornell 
 University rears her proud edifices, and where, above 
 all, soars the gold-tipped library tower, with its sweet 
 chimes, gleaming against the blue sky. 
 
 May we not stop here, to recall Lowell's lines cut 
 in the granite arch beneath ? 
 
 " I call as fly the irrevocable hours, 
 
 Futile as air or strong as fate, to make 
 Your lives of sand or granite, awful powers ; 
 Even as men choose, they either give or take." 
 
 ***** 
 
 By this time, feeling that he must be near the 
 Cayuga capital, Dearborn sent out small parties to 
 tread every trail, and scour all nooks. Moving up 
 what is now " the Inlet," they found ten or twelve scat-
 
 MARY VROOMAN AND THE GLEN FLOWER 2 57 
 
 tering houses and large corn-fields and at last came 
 upon the great town of Coreorganel. The Catawbas, 
 whose fathers had lived between the Potomac and the 
 Roanoke rivers, had, after a long history of war, finally 
 at Sir William Johnson's house, in 1753, smoked the 
 calumet of peace with the Iroquois. Hither on the 
 stream, "the Inlet," flowing into Cayuga Lake, they 
 had come to light their council and home fires. 
 
 They had not yet completed three decades of life 
 on this spot, which Dearborn's detachment of Sulli 
 van's army made the grave of a nation. 
 
 The work of devastating Coreorganel, two miles 
 from the modern Ithaca, was accomplished on Sep 
 tember 24, 17/9. Small parties of the New Hamp 
 shire Continentals had scoured the region round, 
 burning the outlying and isolated bark lodges and tim 
 ber houses. They penetrated even into the gorge, 
 through which flows the stream which to-day fur 
 nishes the water supply of the Forest City, Ithaca, 
 and through the western end of which bursts the 
 glorious Buttermilk Falls, the actual sight being more 
 sublime than its homely name. It was one of the 
 thirty or more of gorges famous, and of waterfalls 
 three hundred and known, within a radius of fifteen 
 miles of Ithaca, one of the latter excelling Niagara in 
 height. 
 
 From 9 A.M. until the long shadows of sunset lay 
 over the landscape, the firing, chopping, girdling, and 
 uprooting went on, until smoke and ashes covered the
 
 258 THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 once lively place of habitation, like the floor of a fur 
 nace. Then the weary Continentals slept, to march 
 at sunrise. It was the pall of smoke hanging over 
 the Inlet valley, that next day made an air mark, to 
 guide Colonel Butler on his way thither. 
 
 While all the journals kept by officers and pri 
 vates, and many of their letters, tell of Dearborn's 
 and Butler's operations in the devastation of the lake 
 country, few or none, thus far recovered, give infor 
 mation concerning Colonel Pierre van Cortlandt's 
 movements around Cayuga Lake. 
 
 For several days his regiment camped on ground 
 now in the very heart of the city of Ithaca. Here 
 had dwelt a remnant of the once proud Neodakheats, 
 for even yet there come to light, from time to time, 
 many proofs of their sepulchres continued from time 
 unrecorded. Three ravines or gorges seam the hills 
 facing the west, and, flowing from the plateau on 
 which now stands Cornell University, were two 
 streams of water, which readers of geological time 
 say were made during or after the ice age. The 
 third stream, flowing between East and South hills, is 
 believed to be still older, or preglacial. 
 
 On Prospect Hill, a lower plateau of South Hill, 
 overlooking the Inlet valley, the flats and the lakes, 
 and commanding a view of the Western hills was 
 an Indian signal station. It was on this point of 
 vantage that one detachment of Van Cortlandt's 
 regiment encamped during several days in late Sep-
 
 MARY VROOMAN AND THE GLEN FLOWER 259 
 
 tember, while the other found space, water, and con 
 veniences by the oldest o.f the future Ithaca's four 
 streams that fed the ever beautiful lake. 
 
 The landscape was then clothed in the loveliest of 
 autumn's myriad hues, and the men were happy in 
 anticipation of home ; but Herman Clute, despite 
 his glory won at Conesus Lake, felt wretched 
 and disappointed, for Mary Vrooman was as yet 
 unheard from. Must he go back, not knowing 
 whether she still pined as a captive, or was dead, 
 or the thought vexed him had she been found 
 or rescued by others ? 
 
 Then he bethought himself of what Vrooman had 
 told him of the glen flower the wild primrose, 
 hermit of the ravine, whom botanists of to-day salute 
 as a very Methuselah among plants as to age and a 
 very Melchizedek in royal rarity. He drew out of 
 his leather pocket-book, kept within his bosom, the 
 drawing and colored picture of its root, leaf, stalk, 
 and flower, with a scrap of descriptive environment 
 of rock and moss, and sallied forth hopefully. 
 
 The little Primula Mistassinica as later natural 
 ists have called it, from a lake in Labrador is a 
 survivor of the ice age. It has, as yet, been found 
 only in a few of the deep, shady glens npar the lakes in 
 central New York. Here, gloom and shadows, which 
 ally themselves to the colder world of the ice age, love 
 to linger. Its time of bloom is in mid-May, when 
 its clouds of pink attract the skilled observer who
 
 26O THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 peers into the mingled gloom and glory of the lake 
 region's dark ravines. He who first, as pioneer of 
 science, discovered the primula growing here, felt 
 himself a Columbus ; but the Indian maidens knew 
 it long ago. 
 
 From the camp on that stream, in science labelled 
 " preglacial," but in common local parlance named 
 the Six Mile Creek, Herman Clute wandered north 
 ward over the flats at the base of the plateau which 
 Cornell's edifices now crown. He crossed Cascadilla 
 Creek, and, going a few hundred yards farther, stood 
 within sight of the superb scenery of Fall Creek. 
 He rambled up the gorge, delighted with the beauty 
 of the tumbling, foaming water. Though not then 
 the " local Niagara," that after heavy rains or in time 
 of melting snow it becomes, it was, in volume and 
 beauty, more than enough to fascinate the gazer. 
 Yet despite the thrall of the vision of the forest's 
 colors and of autumn's hardy and richly tinted wild 
 flowers, of dancing spray, and gay fern, and water 
 plant smiling in the foam, Clute was a true soldier, 
 ever alert for a possible lurking foe. 
 
 Suddenly, peering into a dark cleft in the face of 
 the southern precipice, he uttered a cry of joy, for 
 there was the' leaf long looked for. Pulling up the 
 tiny plant by the roots, and comparing sketch and 
 picture with the reality, he felt sure he had found 
 the place. 
 
 Imagination was busy, for, on further sight, he
 
 MARY VROOMAN AND THE GLEN FLOWER 26 1 
 
 found the whole cliff so rich in patches of the plant 
 that to think of mid-May, or early June, and its 
 blooms, was to see in faith a firmament of pink. 
 At once he picked a dozen plants, some even with 
 the roots, to take home for souvenirs, and to send 
 by Vrooman to Margaret Eyre in Philadelphia. 
 
 But was she there ? 
 
 " She must be near, if alive at all, for this is the 
 place," said the young man to himself. 
 
 Thereupon, with a shout that woke the echoes 
 of the rocks, gray with the weathering of aeons, 
 he shouted : " M-a-r-y V-r-o-o-m-a-n ! A-r-e y-o-u 
 h-e-r-e ? " 
 
 The echoes died. Not a sound was heard, besides 
 the purling and tinkling of the stream, and the 
 splash and drip of waters, save only as the shrill 
 insect music varied the void of human interests. 
 
 Again the young Stentor exercised his lungs. 
 Five times, at intervals, did his shoutings weary the 
 forest with their yearning inquest. The dead gray 
 walls of the north precipice, all the barer in the sun 
 light, seemed contemptuous in their silence. They 
 even mocked at him, he thought. The south wall 
 seemed to frown at hope. But all the primula leaves 
 seemed to wave in the morning breeze then blowing 
 out of the ravine, and to whisper cheer. They nod 
 ded as if to say, " Keep on." 
 
 "Well, seven is the holy number, as the domine 
 says; I'll try again."
 
 262 THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 " M-a-r-y V-r-o-o-m-a-n a-r-e y-o-u h-e-r-e-e-e ? " 
 
 "I am. Wait!" sounded from the opposite cliff. 
 Yet Herman Clute saw nothing. Were his ears 
 deceived ? 
 
 No ! soon the bushes on the other side of Trip 
 hammer Ravine parted, and a brown face, yet not 
 an Indian girl's, appeared. In a moment the full 
 figure in squaw's dress stood out on the edge of the 
 rocks. 
 
 " Herman ! I know your voice. Wait ! I know 
 the way, I'll come to you." 
 
 Disappearing for a moment, she ran like a deer 
 back around and down the northern hill slope to 
 the low land where she could ford the creek at 
 the point where now the road passing along Percy 
 Field seat of Cornell's athletic triumphs crosses 
 the stream. 
 
 Fleet as the white maid of the woods was, the 
 lover was as swift. With feet quickly bared, he was 
 across in a trice, meeting her, his beloved, on the 
 opposite shore. After one glad embrace, he bore 
 her in his arms to the southern side. 
 
 An hour of lovers' talk, joy under the "Primrose 
 Cliffs," and then, triumph and welcome at the camp ! 
 That was the morning programme ! No one but sol 
 diers long in exile from woman friends can tell how 
 radiantly lovely a maiden in full youth and beauty 
 albeit in squaw's dress seems in the eyes of home 
 sick men.
 
 ' MARY VROOMAN AND THE GLEN FLOWER 263 
 
 The story told to lover and rescuer by the side of 
 the cliff in Triphammer Ravine, beneath the primula's 
 home and amid the music of the waterfall, was re 
 peated in outline to Colonel van Cortlandt and some 
 of his officers, \n the hasty flight of the Kendaia Ind 
 ians, no one had cared for her. She hid herself in 
 the corn-fields, but, not knowing which way the army 
 would come, had fled to her place of refuge, long ago 
 foreseen and chosen. There, bravely and alone, she 
 had waited, amid the alternate agonies of despair and 
 the joys of hope. 
 
 The next day, the march began to Fort Reed, where 
 now stands the fair city of Elmira.
 
 CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 LEGENDS OF CAYUGA LAKE 
 
 THE letters of the young Continental, Herman 
 Clute, to his mother at Schenectady, were full of 
 a fresh glow and enthusiasm and a deep, new joy, from 
 the time that he had found Mary Vrooman in the 
 gorge at Ithaca. His sensitiveness to nature's love 
 liness seemed to have been kindled afresh, and he 
 wrote freely about the lovely legends that lend such 
 charm to the fairest of the lakes, Cayuga. He thus 
 describes the vision of a glorious dawn, from near 
 that part of the water which the Iroquois named 
 " Constant Dawn " and the white man, " Aurora." 
 
 " I witnessed, this morning, what I must call ' the 
 battle of the elements.' Standing on the edge of 
 the lake, I could see the vapors rising cloud-like from 
 the face of the water and then forming again in great 
 streaks and banks. At first they lay still above the 
 surface or moved very slowly, but when the sun rose 
 they seemed to be all stirred and excited, moving up 
 and down hither and yon, until they seemed at times 
 like armies charging in battle. By and by I found 
 the blue sky hidden from my sight, but here and there 
 
 264
 
 LEGENDS OF CAYUGA LAKE 265 
 
 the sun's rays tore through the white mass. Grad 
 ually, as the heat increased, the once solid banks of 
 clouds were torn and riven, and soon, breaking up 
 into shreds and patches, they went off and became 
 invisible. 
 
 " Then the whole blue face of the lake was revealed ; 
 but still a new surprise awaited me. Instead of one 
 color, blue or green, there seemed to be a dozen of 
 them. All I had ever read about the stones on the 
 breastplate of the high priest, or the walls of the New 
 Jerusalem, came up to my mind, for here, right on the 
 lake's surface, seemed to be tints of amethyst, emerald, 
 sapphire, ruby, indeed almost every color one can 
 think of, from violet to orange. I had never seen 
 anything like it, and thought that it must come en 
 tirely from the varying depths and shallows of the 
 water ; but, besides this staining of the water, there 
 were glorious reflections from the sky. I am so 
 charmed with this country that I think that by and 
 by, when the war is over and we get our freedom, I 
 shall come out here to live. I shall choose this spot 
 for my home overlooking Cayuga Lake, where I can 
 watch the war of the elements and enjoy these colors. 
 No wonder that the Indians call this place by a name 
 which means 'Constant Dawn.' 
 
 " I must tell you also of the wonderful vision I had 
 of our flag in the sky. It was the grandest picture 
 I have ever looked upon. I was on sentinel duty, 
 and my post was on the high ground near the
 
 266 THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 banks of the lake, whence I could see up and down 
 the water and over toward the east. Before sunrise 
 I noticed clouds lay on the sky which at daybreak 
 divided into gray bands or wide streaks. Just as the 
 lower cloud bars began to redden with the rays of the 
 rising sun, the upper ones began to shorten, and 
 within five minutes the whole eastern heavens showed 
 on their face the figure of an American flag, for there 
 were thirteen broad stripes, the red ones as red as 
 those on our standard, with a strip of sky in between. 
 I counted them. There were seven cloud bars or 
 stripes, all flaming in the morning sun, and in the 
 upper left-hand part, there was the great blue space 
 of sky. Oh ! it thrilled my soul to see it, and yet 
 there were no stars there. How glorious to think of 
 our flag with the stars of night, as well as the colors 
 of the day sky. 
 
 " I never saw such a country as this for cascades. I 
 thought the rapids at Little Falls were wonderful 
 and the big falls at Cohoes amazing, but this region 
 astonishes me. The soil around here lies on shale 
 rock, which is rather soft, and the streams of water 
 running down through it wear out great ravines 
 and gorges. Some of these must have been made 
 ages upon ages ago. Up at the head of the lake 
 there are at least three of these, and the sight of the 
 waterfall right after the rain is very fine, and reminds 
 me of what I have heard of Niagara. But the most 
 wonderful place is a great hollow called by the Ind-
 
 LEGENDS OF CAYUGA LAKE 26/ 
 
 ians, 'Tatighannock.' Here the rocky heights, some 
 distance back from the lake, have been so hollowed 
 out that I believe one could put the Colosseum of Rome 
 inside of it. Standing at the bottom, one sees open 
 ing into the eastern wall, far above him, the smaller 
 gorge that has been worn by Taughannock Creek. 
 The water flows over the rocks first as though it came 
 from a great spout. Then, as it foams toward the 
 bottom, it curves and curls into a lacelike mass of 
 white water. Our chain-bearers, who have a good 
 eye for distance, say that it must be many feet higher 
 than Niagara Falls. 
 
 " Domine Kirkland says that Taughannock is not 
 an Iroquois word, but is a Delaware Indian chief's 
 name. On our first march up on the other side of 
 Cayuga Lake, early in September, when talking with 
 Hanyari, the Oneida chief, we learned the story which 
 he interpreted for us one night at the camp-fire, which 
 is this." 
 
 The story-teller here prefers to describe briefly the 
 place referred to, and to reproduce here the talk 
 between Hanyari and Vrooman, when, years before, 
 they had travelled hither with Domine Kirkland. 
 Then they had chatted about this wonder of nature, 
 which the Indian accounts for by the poetry of his 
 mythology, even as the white man explains by 
 science. 
 
 It was while traversing the western side of Cayuga 
 Lake, they forded a stream leading out of a leafy
 
 268 THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 ravine into a deep gorge, or opening at the top of a 
 great cliff on the highlands back from the shore. 
 The waters, after ages of activity, had cut out the 
 rocks and worn them smooth. It is out of this upper 
 gorge that the material commonly called flagstone is 
 to-day supplied from the quarry, the neighboring 
 towns and cities receiving the broad, flat slabs for 
 paving. 
 
 Still further beyond this smaller gorge, and toward 
 the lake, was an enormous amphitheatre, hollowed out 
 by the action of water and the movement of pebbles 
 against the bed-rock. The churning of the stream 
 in times of flood had done a work which might have 
 occupied giants for an aeon. Many hundreds of 
 feet long and over six hundred feet wide, forest 
 trees were growing in the floor of this great hollow, 
 through which the creek wound its way in a silver 
 thread to the lake, while the trees, when seen from 
 the dizzy height and ravine, seemed of a size like toys. 
 All around at the base of the lofty and rocky walls, 
 lay the debris accumulated through the centuries. 
 
 Falling from the brink of the perpendicular cliff, 
 through the outlet of the upper and smaller gorge, 
 like a stream of limpid water from the lip of a mar 
 ble laver, the stream, broadening as it leaped, turned 
 into a white mass of lacelike foam. Tremulous, 
 wavy, and scalloped, its mass seemed as if it were 
 being woven in a living loom. From a height higher 
 than Niagara's level, and into an abyss deeper than
 
 LEGENDS OF CAYUGA LAKE 269 
 
 line had yet measured, at morning arched with rain 
 bows, and at night tiaraed with a lunar arch, it had 
 during untold time fascinated the Iroquois. Though 
 at the top a solid liquid mass, polished in its velocity, 
 it scarce reached the bottom in aught but clouds of 
 watery dust. All around were fern and flower, grass 
 and greenery, nodding, gleaming, laughing, under the 
 constant baptism of spray. 
 
 " Wonderful ! wonderful ! " exclaimed Claes Vroo- 
 man, as he gazed upon the scene. " How in the 
 world could ever such a space have been hollowed 
 out of the rocky earth ? Come, comrade, can you 
 explain ? " said he to his Oneida guide. 
 
 " I can only tell you what I have heard," said the 
 Oneida, as his face took on a far-away look. " My 
 fathers have told me of this place, which we Oneidas 
 know well, though it is far from our country." Fill 
 ing his stone pipe and striking flint and steel, he 
 lighted his forest-grown tobacco, and, after a few 
 puffs, began : 
 
 " Ages ago, when the stone-clothed giants lived on 
 the earth, the spirit of the waters and the spirit of the 
 rocks fell into a disagreement. They had friends 
 among the other spirits of the sky and air : the light 
 ning, the thunder, the wind, and the others that rule 
 the forest, the garden, the corn-field, and the caves. 
 These two spirits, of water and of the rocks, were 
 especially fond of showing their prowess, and wres 
 tled often with each other. The spirit of the water
 
 2/O THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 was considered the gentler, and the spirit of the rock 
 the rougher one, though he was often very lazy. 
 One day the spirit of the rock twitted the spirit of 
 the water with being so active and busy, always tak 
 ing on so many forms and toiling so hard. 
 
 " The rock spirit grew boastful, declaring that he 
 could do more in force and destruction in one minute 
 by rolling a great mass down the mountain, levelling 
 the trees and scraping the earth clean ; or, he could 
 make more splash and noise by having a cliff riven 
 so as to fall into the lake, or could accomplish more 
 by a landslide, in a single night, than the spirit of the 
 waters, with all its rain and dew, cloud and moisture, 
 or even a flood, could accomplish in many hours. 
 While the spirit of the water had to depend on the 
 wind spirit to cause the lake's surface to rise and 
 mount into waves and foam, or to make much noise 
 or power in the air, the rock spirit, apparently with 
 out any effort, could tumble over the gorge, drop 
 from the cliff, make a landslide, or even crack and 
 open in an earthquake. Thus the rock spirit jeered, 
 even boasting that he was a brave, while the water 
 spirit was only a squaw in his eyes. 
 
 " Now, the water spirit was usually very gentle, 
 and did not seek to irritate any one. So he kept 
 quiet for a long time, but finally, when thus jeered at 
 by the spirit of the rocks, said : 
 
 " ' Well, I know a place right near my favorite bed 
 of Lake Cayuga, where I have a little stream serv-
 
 I 
 
 LEGENDS OF CAYUGA LAKE 2? I 
 
 ing me. It runs quietly down the slope, from the 
 upper highlands into the lake. Now, I will back that 
 little stream and it will be my agent, and I dare you 
 to come in the form of a big rock, as high as a pine 
 tree and wide as twenty horses, set side by side, and 
 we'll have a wrestling bout before all the stone- 
 clothed spirits, and before the spirits of the wind, the 
 lightning, the thunder, the sun, and the moon, of the 
 corn-field and the cavern. There we'll wrestle, till one 
 of us is beaten and has to retire.' 
 
 "'Agreed,' said the spirit of the rocks; Til be 
 there.' 
 
 " So, on a certain day, all the spirits gathered round 
 in a circle to watch the contest. At that time there 
 was, instead of the great hollow hundreds of feet 
 wide and deep, nothing but a forest-clad slope, 
 through which the stream of water went purling 
 along to the lake. 
 
 " The contestants began, and the water spirit and 
 the rock spirit locked arms and began to wrestle. 
 They were not to give up until one or both was 
 spent as to his strength. Even when they were down, 
 they were to roll over and over, and fight it out in 
 one bout. 
 
 " So away they began, rock and water, rubbing 
 and grinding ; and oh, how the earth and brushwood 
 did fly ! But, while the rock spirit moved round 
 and fussed and fumed, the water spirit held on 
 tightly and persevered, always getting fresh strength
 
 272 THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 from his supply in the brook. All the time, the two 
 combatants were getting deeper and deeper down into 
 the earth. In their terrible struggles, they dug out 
 a great, big hollow, like two rabbits fighting in the 
 snow, until, by and by, the pit in which they fought 
 was a quarter of a mile wide and a half a mile long. 
 When the wrestling and rolling were over, the rock 
 was all broken to pieces, and the spirit of the rocks 
 had fled out of it ; but the spirit of the waters seemed 
 to be no more tired than when he began. First giv 
 ing thanks to the stream that had helped him as such 
 a faithful ally, and bidding him flow forever over the 
 mighty rock wall, the spirit of the waters rose into a 
 cloud and passed over the lake, to reflect its shadow 
 in thanksgiving there also. And so the creek has 
 flowed on till this day." 
 
 " A wonderful story," said Vrooman ; " but how did 
 it get its name? " In what dialect of the confederacy 
 does the name Taughannock belong ?" 
 
 "Well, it is neither Cayugan nor Tuscaroran. It 
 is the name of a chief of the Lenni Lenapes, or, as 
 you white men say, the Delawares." 
 
 " How, under heaven, did such a name get stuck 
 on a piece of the earth so far up here in New York ? 
 Some chief on the war-path, I suppose ? " 
 
 " Yes, you are right. I heard the story from my 
 uncle. He told me that long time ago, when the 
 famous Taughannock family of chieftains lived down 
 in the Delaware River valley, before the Tammanys
 
 LEGENDS OF CAYUGA LAKE 2/3 
 
 came into power, they got into a dispute with the 
 white men about the sale of land at the forks of the 
 Delaware. The white people under the Feather 
 (governor of Pennsylvania), knowing that the Dela- 
 wares had been conquered by the Iroquois and made 
 to wear the petticoat, craftily appealed to the Iro 
 quois to settle the question. Thereupon delegates 
 from the whole confederacy, of whom my father was 
 one from our tribe, held a great council at Onondaga. 
 After some oratory, they agreed to decide in favor of 
 the white men and against the Delawares. This was 
 over thirty years ago. They sent an imposing dele 
 gation to Philadelphia, at the head of which was the 
 great chief Kanasatigo. He was accompanied by 
 over two hundred warriors. At the council held in 
 the city of Penn, they addressed the governor, 
 whom they always called ' Feather,' telling him that 
 the Delawares were 'no good; they were women, 
 and had no right to sell their land.' They even went 
 so far as to insult the Delaware chieftains in the 
 council to their very faces." 
 
 " Why, yes," said Vrooman ; " I have heard that 
 from a friend, who, when a boy, was present at the 
 council. I remember his telling how exultantly the 
 Onondagas sat down to the big dinner and drank 
 unlimited rum, while the poor Delawares went off 
 cowed and disheartened. They made their way into 
 western Pennsylvania, losing most of their old tribal 
 organization and yielding to such adoption into other 
 
 T
 
 2/4 E PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 tribes as was offered. Yet I remember my friend's 
 telling of one young Delaware chief, named Taugh- 
 annock, whose eyes danced and snapped like fire. 
 Now, the name of that chief and this place is the 
 same. Is there any connection between the man 
 and the gorge ? " 
 
 " Yes," said the Oneida ; "this chief, whose fathers 
 in a long line had been chiefs, was stung to the 
 quick. He vowed revenge. He separated from his 
 tribe and persuaded about two hundred young war 
 riors to side with him. They consecrated themselves 
 to the purpose of revenge, by what you white men call 
 a war dance. Instead of accompanying his discour 
 aged tribesmen farther west into Ohio, Taughannock 
 led off his band when near Wyoming, and turned 
 northward toward Owego. His purpose was to get 
 into the New York lake country and fall upon the 
 village of Goioguen, where the Seneca Indians and 
 Cayugas had formed a great town of between five 
 and six thousand people. Its name was made up of 
 the names of two chiefs, the one whose mother was a 
 Cayuga and the other whose father was a Seneca. 
 Reaching Ganoga and trending to the left, they went 
 northward. So brave and determined were this band 
 of Delawares that the Seneca scouts and runners, 
 when they had discovered the invaders, would not 
 trust to themselves alone to fight them, but sent 
 messengers through the lake country and even to 
 Onondaga, the central council fire, for aid.
 
 LEGENDS OF CAYUGA LAKE 2/5 
 
 " The chief, Kanasatigo, quickly gathered a band, 
 and marched southward, crossing the lake at Seneca 
 Falls, the Indian village where lived Red Jacket, 
 then a boy. Holding a hurried council at Ganoga, 
 he set out at the head of two hundred braves, and 
 was soon in front of the camp of Delawares, who 
 were painting themselves for the fray soon to come. 
 
 " The Delaware invaders found themselves be 
 tween a band of Neodakheats (Ithacans), who were 
 about to cross the stream on the south, while the 
 Kanasatigo forces were hovering on their flanks on 
 the north. When the Delawares realized their situ 
 ation and their likelihood of being surrounded and 
 exterminated, they resolved to retreat toward the 
 lake. Seeing this movement, the two bands of ene 
 mies signalled to each other, and, while the triple 
 allies, Senecas, Cayugas, and Neodakheats, or Itha 
 cans, moved down the left side of the stream, Kana 
 satigo moved up from the lake on the left bank, 
 keeping out a line of flankers to prevent the possible 
 escape of the Delawares. The stream was flooded 
 with recent rains, and crossing was difficult under 
 any circumstances, but, in the face of arrows and 
 bullets, how could the Delawares get across ? 
 
 "This, however, they essayed to do, when near 
 the smaller gorge, just above the falls of the creek. 
 They were repulsed and driven along the banks and 
 on toward the great amphitheatre, with its terrific 
 precipices, yet not dreaming that so large a force
 
 2/6 THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 of Onondagas was there confronting them and lying 
 in wait in the forest flanking the great abyss. Sud 
 denly, as the retreating Delawares neared them, these 
 rose up, raising their yells. Then began a terrific 
 battle at close quarters, for the Onondagas in front 
 were now reinforced by the triple band of allies 
 which had crossed the stream. These, with the 
 Onondagas, quickly completed a semicircle of living 
 enemies, while northward was the brink of the awful 
 abyss, whence, far down below, in a sheer line of 
 hundreds of feet distance, lay a multitude of jagged 
 rocks. 
 
 " Nevertheless, the Delawares resolved to show 
 themselves, in courage at least, the equals of the 
 Iroquois, to die bravely and at highest cost to their 
 foes. They would leave a name for valor that should 
 cleanse away the stain of disgrace which had so 
 long cursed the -Delaware nation. The young chief 
 Taughannock, after having levelled many a warrior 
 to the ground, dashed at Kanasatigo, wounding him 
 with his scalping knife. He might have ended the 
 life of the Onondaga chieftain then and there, but 
 the other warriors rushed to his rescue, and struck 
 down Taughannock. They stabbed him with fiercely 
 repeated blows of their knives, until he was gashed 
 in every part of his body. Then, seizing his bloody 
 corpse, they rushed forward and halting within a 
 foot of the edge of the awful cliff, hurled his body 
 out into the air and down upon the rocks below.
 
 LEGENDS OF CAYUGA LAKE 
 
 " Only ten of the Delawares escaped. Those who 
 were seized alive were tortured, all singing the death- 
 song and defying their enemies to the last, glorying 
 \to have wiped out their nation's shame." 
 
 " Thus has Taughannock a memorial in this wil 
 derness, and his fame shall be as lasting as the eternal 
 hills," added the domine, who had listened atten 
 tively to the narrative. 
 
 Nor can we turn our backs upon Cayuga's waters 
 without recalling the legend which accounts for the 
 presence of Frontenac Island. 
 
 Out in front of the lake, looking from Union 
 Springs, is a beautiful island, opposite which, on the 
 mainland, long ago, the Cayuga chief, Pine Cone, 
 dwelt. He had fallen in love with the daughter of a 
 Seneca, at a time when these two tribes were hostile 
 to each other. Failing to get the maiden for his 
 bride by ordinary etiquette, for the old squaws disap 
 proved, he decided on stratagem. To occupy the 
 attention of the wary Senecas, he sent some of his 
 followers, all painted for the war-path, in a canoe to 
 Ganoga. The Senecas, thinking that these warriors 
 were after scalps, gathered together to give them bat 
 tle. This was just what Pine Cone wanted. Quickly 
 he sped across the lake in his canoe, and seized the 
 maiden, who was waiting and only too ready to go. 
 He put her in his canoe and paddled with all his 
 might across the lake. The Senecas, catching sight 
 of this single canoe and its double burden, suspected
 
 2/8 THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 at once what it was. Launching their boats, they 
 started in pursuit, and, since six or eight paddles 
 were at work in the foremost canoe, the Senecas, 
 fresh and strong, began to gain visibly upon the 
 marauding lover. Pine Cone, becoming a little 
 weary from his double journey, feared he would be 
 caught. So, earnestly praying to Ha-wen-ni-yu, he 
 kept on, straining every muscle. This Good Spirit, 
 hearing his servant, thrust down his mighty arm, and, 
 scooping up the earth from the bottom of the lake, 
 formed an island, which enabled Pine Cone to escape 
 to the mainland and turn back the pursuers. This 
 was the origin of Frontenac Island.
 
 CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 TENTING ON THE OLD CAMP GROUND 
 
 THE main army had camped at Kendaia and 
 reached Catherine's town at noon the next day, 
 where they found the old squaw and left her a 
 further supply of food. Alas for the truth of the 
 proverb, coined later, in Indian parlance, " as cruel 
 as Sullivan's soldiers." Yet the facts show that it 
 was a" few irresponsible brutes in human form, and 
 not soldiers wearing the Continental uniform, that 
 gave the name of infamy to the whole army. For, 
 near the corrugated hide of leather that held within 
 it a human soul, the old squaw, with a quart of 
 corn still left her, there lay in the ditch near her 
 the corpse of a young Indian woman, shot in wanton 
 sport by some camp followers, or letter bearers from 
 Philadelphia. 
 
 Trintje Vrooman recognized the aged woman as 
 one who had long acted as a sort of doctress among 
 the Seneca villages, and, with a true woman's sym 
 pathy, spoke words of cheer to her as a human sister ; 
 but the old woman said she expected to live but a 
 few days. She was very profuse, and apparently 
 
 279
 
 28O THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 sincere, in her gratitude for kindness received at 
 General Sullivan's hands. Under Trintje's kindly 
 hands, the young squaw's body was washed, rolled 
 up in a blanket, and buried in a grave dug by her 
 husband Claes. Without a pulse of malice or desire 
 for revenge, this was done ; for Trintje, though a 
 slave among savages, had been kept in personal 
 honor and without violence. Suffering many indig 
 nities of savage life, she yet remembered this shining 
 fact with a gratitude that lent joy to the gift of a 
 grave in the wilderness to the Indian woman whom 
 Christians had murdered. 
 
 When the returning victors came within sight of 
 Fort Reed, there was a mighty noise of welcome 
 from the three-pounder, thirteen rounds being fired, 
 to which our men having the coehorn in advance 
 answered by a similar salute. Here the soldiers 
 ceased to be vegetarians, and enjoyed full rations, 
 remaining several days to rest and recruit, for stores 
 and comforts had been brought up from Wyoming 
 and Fort Sullivan. 
 
 On the 25th, great rejoicings were held and five 
 oxen were barbecued. There was no fear of any 
 superstition about the number thirteen, for thirteen 
 fires and thirteen candles were kept burning in Gen 
 eral Hand's brigade, and thirteen toasts were drunk 
 in honor of the thirteen United States of America. 
 To this grand affair, we shall devote a chapter. 
 
 Dearborn had expected to meet Colonel Butler
 
 TENTING ON THE OLD CAMP GROUND 28l 
 
 with his party at Coreorganel, but did not. The next 
 day, some of Butler's men, coming to the smoking 
 ruins, as we have seen, found Domine Kirkland's 
 horse browsing on the prostrate corn leaves and ears. 
 
 Dearborn, marching southwesterly across the coun 
 try, this American Interlaken, reached Cather 
 ine's town to find the main army gone forward to Fort 
 Reed. So he pressed forward four miles farther, 
 and camped in a place which a few weeks before 
 would no more have been selected than if it were 
 a purgatory. Now, however, instead of a "vale of 
 woe" or "slough of despond," they found this once 
 horrible place a sunny thoroughfare, and their going 
 through was like a picnic jaunt. Indeed, on their 
 return march, all the regiments went through the 
 great Bear Swamp without much trouble, for four 
 weeks of dry weather had made a tremendous differ 
 ence, and the men joked and laughed at their first 
 night of horrors here. 
 
 Several of the detachments scouring the Indian 
 country were not yet in, but, about two thousand 
 Continentals being in camp at Fort Reed, General 
 Sullivan, who loved the pomp of war, resolved to 
 rejoice. Being in a very happy mood, he ordered all 
 the soldiers to discharge their muskets and to parade 
 at five o'clock in the afternoon, to fire a feu de joie, 
 or continuous rattle of rejoicing. The epidemic of 
 delight quickly spread until the whole camp was well 
 inoculated. In all the regiments, the men brushed
 
 282 THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 themselves up, to look as spruce as possible on dress 
 parade. One blank cartridge was given to each 
 man. 
 
 Toward sunset, when all were in line, thirteen 
 rounds were fired from the cannon. Then from all 
 the regiments a fire was ordered, not in a volley but 
 by each musket in succession, and this was done. 
 Powder was burned and the air was desolated. 
 
 Yet the way in which the two thousand or more 
 reports saluted the general's ear did not suit him. 
 So he ordered a blank cartridge to be given again to 
 each man. Then making the alignment, along the 
 river flats, of the whole force, in one rank only, he 
 ordered that all should be ready to fire, but that not a 
 man should pull trigger until he came opposite to each 
 musket, as he rode along. When all was prepared, 
 he put his horse at full speed, with whip and spur, 
 and rode from the right to the left end of the line, 
 each man firing as the general came opposite to him. 
 This made a very grand effect, and Sullivan cried 
 out: 
 
 "Well done; that sounds like a hallelujah." 
 
 Then, all in line, standing at parade rest, the Con 
 tinentals gave cheers, three times three, one round 
 for the Congress, three for the United States, and 
 three for the king of Spain. After that followed the 
 dinner of the day, given by General Hand in com 
 pliment to his officers. The particularly good feel 
 ing toward Congress was that this honorable body
 
 TENTING ON THE OLD CAMP GROUND 283 
 
 had, on the i8th of August, passed resolutions 
 increasing the pay of the officers. 
 
 Saturday, September 25th, the day of the officers' 
 banquet, was one of news, arrivals, and surprises. 
 A messenger from Philadelphia and the Congress 
 arrived, and the officers of Colonel Hubley's command 
 were made happy by receiving their commissions. 
 This officer noted in his diary, also, that about eleven 
 o'clock, Colonel Dearborn's detachment having 
 emerged from Bear Swamp returned to Fort Reed 
 bringing in two squaw prisoners, who looked like 
 frightened deer. 
 
 Sunday was enjoyed richly by the veterans, for it 
 was one of complete rest and the day was glorious. 
 
 On Monday, two of his men who, on the counter 
 march had lost track of the army at Canandaigua 
 Lake, came in after seven days' wandering in the 
 wilderness. They were nearly starved at first, but 
 finding along the way two of the pack horses which 
 had been shot, they had taken out their hearts and 
 livers and after that got along very comfortably. 
 Toward evening, all were made happy by the return 
 of the detachment, sent out in the morning to de 
 stroy the Indian towns a few miles off, for they saw 
 the men coming back with sixteen boats loaded with 
 most delicious vegetables. "Why, it beats the 
 Philadelphia markets ! " said a shoemaker soldier, 
 who remembered the luscious vegetables which he 
 used to buy on High Street.
 
 284 THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 Colonel Hubley noted also that it was on Tuesday, 
 September 28th, that Colonel Butler's party came 
 into the camp about 10 A.M. of that morning. 
 
 While Colonel Van Cortlandt's regiment was on 
 its way to rejoin the army, Mary Vrooman told her 
 lover the mystery of "the lake cannon" the ter 
 rific report as of artillery that had alarmed him when 
 a sentinel by Lake Cayuga's shore, and had even 
 wakened some of the men out of their sleep. This 
 is the story as heard from the old squaw, her quon 
 dam foster-mother. 
 
 The Senecas have great terror of this Cayuga 
 Lake on a windy day or in a squall, for they think 
 that down at the bottom of the lake lives an old 
 squaw, in a vast, icy cave. All around her are caves 
 and hollows of ice, which she keeps ready to store 
 away the bodies that sink down to her. 
 
 It is said that a long time ago, when living on the 
 earth, she conceived a passion for a warrior, but he 
 cared nothing for her. Once, when walking along 
 the steep cliff overlooking the deepest part of Cay 
 uga Lake, she pressed her desire. He seized her in 
 his anger and hurled her out into the lake, sullenly 
 watching her struggles until she disappeared. Sink 
 ing down far under the dimpled face of the lake that 
 smiled so sweetly in the sunshine, and far, far down 
 below where fishes can live, into the deep water 
 which is always just on the point of freezing even in 
 summer, her spirit lives. Being lonely and malig-
 
 TENTING ON THE OLD CAMP GROUND 285 
 
 nant with revenge, she keeps all who come to her. 
 She buries them in ice, so that they can never rise to 
 the top or their friends reclaim their corpses. Her 
 chief occupation is to hew out new caves for the 
 dead. It is the blows of her hatchet, which some 
 times dislodges great masses of ice down in the 
 caverns, that causes those terrible sounds like artil 
 lery, and which the Indians call "Ihe lake cannon." 
 
 All the various detachments were safely united at 
 Fort Reed, before the order to march homeward was 
 issued. Trintje and Mary Vrooman were very happy 
 in their reunion, with life and hope and joyful pros 
 pects. It was a. pretty scene to see them walking 
 together, to the delight of the young soldiers. Yet 
 they were but one pair in a score or more of white 
 captives rescued from Indian captivity, and now safe 
 and happy. 
 
 It was a sight never to be forgotten, too, but often 
 recalled in after years by the veterans who under the 
 bright stars of the cool September night gathered 
 around the camp-fires to tell again the story of their 
 adventures during the " succotash campaign " and 
 their hopes of a speedy ending of the war. 
 
 All wondered whether the Spanish alliance would 
 greatly help the American cause. Spain was still 
 the symbol of wealth, despite her real poverty, and 
 " Spanish milled dollars " were what the Continental 
 paper shillings promised to be worth, but were not. 
 The Pennsylvanians, Jerseymen, and New Yorkers
 
 286 THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 were unanimous in believing that Holland's recogni 
 tion, when it came, would be worth more than 
 Spain's, for, besides their splendid naval record in 
 the past, the Dutch would be likely to loan the 
 Congress plenty of hard money. 
 
 Before we see the rescued captives and the Conti 
 nentals turning their faces eastward, let us give an 
 account of the officers' banquet by the banks of the 
 Chemung River.
 
 CHAPTER XXV 
 
 THE BANQUET ON THE BANKS QF THE CHEMUNG 
 
 THE officers of Hand's brigade had built a bowery 
 of timber and poles, had roofed it with hemlock 
 and greenery, and decked it with such flags and tro 
 phies as they could extemporize. Over mighty fires, 
 made to burn up and leave a bed of live red coals, the 
 ox, split barbe-a-queue (from nozzle to tail) and laid 
 across a huge grid made of green poles, roasted and 
 sizzled, the men catching the savory juice and melt 
 ing fat for gravy, in iron spoons, dishes, and even 
 hollow stones, as they were able. Finally, after sev 
 eral hours of slow roasting and the occasional renew 
 ing of the green poles, the fare was served up. 
 
 Besides the carvable parts of the savory and juicy 
 pieces laid out on slabs of timber and slices of bark, 
 there were stews made of the beef's heart and liver 
 with onions, while great quantities of roasted and 
 boiled ears of corn, boiled beans, sliced cucumbers, 
 and other spoil from Indian farms, were served up 
 in such metal dishes as they had brought in the camp 
 mess chests. There were neither tables nor chairs, 
 but on the logs rolled up for the purpose, or on piles 
 
 287
 
 288 THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 of greenery chopped and laid for the purpose, or on 
 the grass, the officers sat down and ate their dinner 
 with that zest which living in the open air always 
 imparts. 
 
 Besides water from the sparkling brook and the 
 moderate allowance of spirits ordered by the general, 
 there were pitchers of milk drawn from the generous 
 udder of Colonel Hubley's cow. This "lady of the 
 glens " had gone through the whole expedition, surviv 
 ing the dangers of miry swamps, scarce pasturage, 
 and stampeding Indians, furnishing milk every day. 
 The men looked on " Betsey Ann," as they called 
 her, with unusual interest and affection. On this day 
 they had her horns so decked with bits of red flan 
 nel and her neck so wreathed with goldenrod that 
 she hardly knew herself, and would certainly have 
 blushed, had she not been a cow. As it was, Betsey 
 Ann really seemed to enjoy the fun, and to be vain 
 of the attentions showered on her. She walked 
 right into the shallow Chemung River, and there 
 mirrored, if not admiring herself, in the tranquil 
 water, she seemed to have attained the summit of 
 bovine pride. 
 
 When potatoes, beans, and rich roast beef and 
 gravy had warmed the interior economy of all the 
 officers, and every one was in a merry mood, Gen 
 eral Hand ordered in the fifers and drummers of 
 the brigade, to take position just outside the bowery 
 and give the proper responses with fife music and
 
 THE BANQUET ON THE BANKS OF THE CHEMUNG 289 
 
 drum ruffles. He then rose to propose the first 
 toast, which was, " To the Thirteen States and their 
 Sponsors." All the officers lifted their tin cups or 
 pewter mugs, it would seem more proper to write 
 " glasses," but there was not a glass tumbler or 
 wine cup in the army, and, touching their recepta 
 cles together, drank in water, milk, or whiskey, accord 
 ing to their taste. Then followed the fife and drum 
 music, both fifers and drummers playing most hila 
 riously. 
 
 The second toast proposed was to " the Honorable 
 the American Congress," - a body of men much 
 abused but also hard working and worthy of honor. 
 
 The third toast was to " General Washington and 
 the American Army." At once rose lively memo 
 ries of the past, of Bunker Hill and Long Island, 
 of Oriskany, Bennington, and Stillwater, of Trenton, 
 of Princeton and Valley Forge, of Monmouth and 
 Butt's Hill, and again the fifes screamed and the 
 drums rattled and boomed. 
 
 Now came glory to "the Commander-in-chief of 
 the Western Expedition," Major-General John Sul 
 livan, whom every officer honored, whom every man 
 in the army followed with enthusiasm. He it was 
 who first of all in the colonies advocated indepen 
 dence, that is, separation from Great Britain. He it 
 was, who, when a corrupt Parliament under a for 
 eigner-king, infringed and abridged the right of a 
 free people to keep and bear arms, by prohibiting
 
 2QO THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 the importation of military supplies in the colonies, 
 made answer by raising a company of troops and 
 drilling them. Sullivan and his companions seized 
 Fort William and Mary, and thus provided the 
 powder which filled the horns at Bunker Hill. 
 
 Could any one have looked ahead, from that lonely 
 place in the wilderness, and foreseen the future, he 
 would have discerned that the Empire State would 
 be first to do honor in public memorials to New 
 Hampshire's brave sons, and that then, and not 
 until then, his native state would rear a granite shaft 
 in Sullivan's memory, on the site of the old meeting 
 house at Durham, where the powder was stored. 
 
 Did any then foresee the wilderness blossoming 
 as the rose and millions rejoicing in the glory of 
 civilization, and a century later thousands gathering 
 on the battle-field at Newtown to do honor to Sul 
 livan, the leader of the Western Expedition, and that 
 above the bones of the dead all New Hampshire 
 men should rise a memorial shaft ? 
 
 Did Colonel Cilley dream of the time, only a few 
 years distant, when he should stand by his loved 
 commander's grave-side with cocked pistols, demand 
 ing that the veteran's body should have honorable 
 burial and that those who would seize his body for 
 debt should retreat from their ghoulish quest? 
 Surely may John Sullivan be named as one of 
 the makers of the Empire State. Had he been 
 " Braddocked," sacrificed his men in rashness, met
 
 THE BANQUET ON THE BANKS OF THE CHEMUNG 2QI 
 
 with disaster, or led home a broken and defeated 
 remnant of an army, he might to-day be more fa 
 mous, or notorious, in American history than he is. 
 As it was, he lost only forty men by battle, disease, 
 and accident, and, doing his work so well, many a 
 book professing to give " the history of the United 
 States " does not even mention Sullivan's expedition 
 of 1779. 
 
 Amid forests, though so far inland, the American 
 navy was not forgotten. While the Continentals 
 upheld the cause of freedom on land, our sailors and 
 privateersmen none the less, but as bravely, as affec 
 tionately, kept the stars and stripes floating on the 
 sea, and this in the teeth of the mightiest navy in 
 the world. It was not Saratoga or Yorktown that 
 decided the war of the Revolution. It was the clam 
 ors of the British merchants, whose ships, numbering 
 many thousands, were captured by our armed vessels. 
 Did the Continental army take six thousand pris 
 oners at Saratoga in New York, and eight thousand 
 at Yorktown in Virginia? The navy made thirty 
 thousand British men prisoners, and captured sup 
 plies vastly more. One half the munitions of war 
 and soldiers' equipments for Washington's army 
 came through the privateers, which not only fought 
 and defended themselves, but traded or won from 
 the enemy the clothes, powder, and accoutrements 
 for some of the regiments on this very Western 
 Expedition.
 
 THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 Much, and in some years most, of the spoil came 
 from St. Eustatius in the West Indies through the 
 Dutch, and not a little direct from Birmingham ; for 
 Englishmen, like Americans and Dutchmen, love 
 money, and a few of them did not object to earn 
 pounds, shillings, and pence in a clandestine way. 
 Every month Dutch ships loaded in British ports 
 with goods for America via St. Eustatius. Even 
 the very paper on which Mr. Thomas Paine's patri 
 otic tracts, read with eagerness before the camp-fires 
 of the army, were printed, was from Holland, and 
 brought in American privateers from this same horn 
 of plenty in the West Indies. 
 
 Yes, the soldiers appreciated our navy, and the 
 toast was drunk by Hand's officers amid an outburst 
 of drum and fife music. They had not yet heard of 
 Paul Jones's splendid victory, fought about this very 
 time. Had they known that, the welkin would have 
 rung again with cheers, three times three. 
 
 Not many of the Continentals had yet seen a 
 French soldier, except as they had looked upon 
 Lafayette and a few individuals from France. The 
 red and white uniforms of the " sparkling Bourbon- 
 naires " were not yet in evidence, but they were 
 coming. Lafayette's rearrival must have been known 
 at this time. The sixth toast was " Our Faithful 
 Allies, the United Houses of Bourbon." Our men 
 had a clear apprehension of French history, and real 
 ized how the Houses of Bourbon had been united.
 
 THE BANQUET ON THE BANKS OF THE CHEMUNG 2Q3 
 
 In the chat following the toast in honor of France, 
 Colonel Hubley recalled that one of Count De 
 Grasse's vessels was named L'Alamance; that in 
 North Carolina was a beautiful stream of water by 
 that name ; that he had read a novel with the same 
 title, and that at this place the Regulators had first 
 stood up for their rights against the brutal and 
 extravagant royal governor, Tryon, at the battle of 
 the Alamance. The New Yorkers detested the very 
 name of Governor Tryon, for had he not been pro 
 moted by the king for his vile work, and made gov 
 ernor of New York ? It was after him that Tryon 
 County, in which Cherry Valley lay, had been named. 
 " Bloody Billy " was what the New Yorkers called 
 him. Just now this same ruffian, instead of facing 
 Continental soldiers, was busy in marauding expe 
 ditions in Connecticut. 
 
 The seventh or keystone toast, as the proud Penn- 
 sylvanian, Hubley, called it, was a long one. It is 
 interesting to note that the Congress was here con 
 ceived of as in the feminine gender. Was it in pure 
 gallantry and in the yearning loneliness of man away 
 from sweethearts, wives, and daughters ? Or, was it 
 with a flavor of contempt for the weakness of that 
 body ? Whatever be the philosophy or the cynicism 
 in the toast, here are the words : " May the Ameri 
 can Congress and all her legislative representatives 
 be endowed with virtue and wisdom, and may her 
 independence be as firmly established as the pillars
 
 2Q4 THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 of time " One wonders whether at the mention of 
 "pillars," the soldiers and officers, paid with Conti 
 nental paper, did not think longingly of. the silver 
 columns and floating scrolls stamped on the good, 
 honest coins minted by their new ally, the king of 
 Spain, even the scroll and pillars which became 
 our graphic mark for dollars, $. 
 
 The next toast expressed the hope that the civil 
 and military servants of the state would always live 
 in brotherhood, and the man of war ever be the ser 
 vant of the son of peace. " May the citizens of 
 America, and her soldiers, be ever unanimous in the 
 reciprocal support of each other." 
 
 The ninth was a prayer for that unity which gives 
 strength. Here it is : " May altercations, discord, 
 and every degree of fraud, be totally banished the 
 peaceful shore of America." 
 
 The tenth was a protest against oblivion and the 
 alleged ingratitude of republics : " May the memory 
 of the brave Lieutenant Boyd and the soldiers under 
 his command, who were horribly massacred by the 
 inhuman savages or by their more barbarous and 
 detestable allies, the British and Tories, on the I3th 
 instant, be ever dear to his country." 
 
 This toast was drunk in silence, and for a moment 
 all bowed their heads under the leafy canopy. Then, 
 at a nod from General Hand, the fifers played the 
 Dead March, from Handel's " Saul," after which the 
 drums beat in muffled roll, as though marching in
 
 THE BANQUET ON THE BANKS OF THE CHEMUNG 2Q5 
 
 funeral procession, winding up with a very clear imi 
 tation of three volleys over the grave. 
 
 This prayer was answered when, in 1841, the bones 
 of Boyd and his companions were disinterred and 
 taken to Rochester, and with elaborate military 
 honors deposited in Revolutionary Hill in Mount 
 Hope Cemetery. 
 
 Toast number eleven showed that, while our men 
 were ready to leave the hardships of war and enjoy 
 the comforts of home, they were willing to fight on 
 to the death, unless peace came with honor. The 
 toast explains itself : " An honorable peace with 
 America, or perpetual war with her enemies." 
 
 Toast number twelve is unique. It brings up 
 visions of Erin's harp and Tara's halls, of the green 
 flag, of the shamrock, of St. Patrick, of the early 
 centuries when Ireland gave Christian light and 
 learning to Europe, and, last but not least, of later 
 days, when oppressive British trade legislation ruined 
 Irish industry, especially that of flax raising and 
 linen making, which had been introduced into the 
 island by Dutchmen, and which ruinous legislation 
 sent tens of thousands from the northern counties of 
 Ireland to the shores of America. Settling chiefly 
 in New Hampshire and the Middle States, they were, 
 powerfully influential in the making of at least one 
 New England state, and of western Pennsylvania and 
 Virginia. They and their sons furnished a tremen 
 dous proportion of soldiers to the Continental army.
 
 296 THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 Sullivan himself, most of his New Hampshire colo 
 nels, officers, and soldiers, were of Irish stock, and 
 so were Proctor, of the artillery, and Hand, of the 
 light corps, and many of their fellow Pennsylvanians. 
 Indeed, it might not be too hazardous to assert, or at 
 least conjecture, that the majority of men in this 
 expedition were of the stock of North Ireland. 
 
 It was not, then, merely a desire to compliment 
 Generals Sullivan, Proctor, or Hand, or all of them, that 
 prompted the toast. The cynical critic may, indeed, 
 notice in the wording of the toast that vagueness of 
 ideas which is so often associated with the Celt's 
 utterances. Further, since the toast contained a 
 wish, rather than an assertion or prophecy, does it 
 not recall the Addisonian words, " 'Tis not in mortals 
 to command success, but we'll do more, . . . We'll 
 deserve it." 
 
 The toast was this, " May the kingdom of Ireland 
 merit a stripe in the American standard." It was 
 drunk with rollicking delight, and the fifers played. 
 
 In defiance of all those superstitions which gather 
 around the number thirteen, inherited from medi- 
 aevalism, but pointing back to the presence of the 
 Master with the eleven disciples and the traitor Judas, 
 which even yet requires the number to be omitted in 
 a hospital, and often in other places, but to which no 
 American ought ever to pay any attention, the list of 
 toasts conformed to the number of the states. 
 
 The poor pack horse, which began business before
 
 297 
 
 the days of army mules, was the butt of the Conti 
 nentals, even as his long-eared cousin is yet with our 
 soldiers. The last toast was : " May the enemies of 
 America be metamorphosed into pack horses and 
 sent on a western expedition against the Indians." 
 
 All drank, amid roars of laughter, and the fifers 
 played the " Rogue's March." 
 
 By this time the great star clock of the sky showed 
 that it was near midnight. The men of the rank and 
 file were already wrapped in slumber, and the officers 
 happily laid themselves down to sleep on their hem 
 lock boughs. Most of the watch-fires had burnt low, 
 having so far gone down as to leave only here and 
 there a suggestion of red flame. Beyond the stream 
 and out on the flats, one who listened carefully could 
 hear the sentinels walking, and the cry of " All is 
 well."
 
 CHAPTER XXVI 
 
 BACK TO FORT SULLIVAN 
 
 IT was now time to prepare to move eastward, so 
 the sick and lame soldiers were ordered down the 
 river in boats. Then the palisades of the fort, with 
 all the timber stuff, boxes, casks, etc., were heaped 
 up and set on fire. 
 
 The next day's march took them past the old battle 
 field of the 29th, and the night's encampment was on 
 the same spot as that occupied on August 27th. 
 
 At two o'clock on the afternoon of the last day of 
 September, they were within sight of Fort Sullivan, 
 at Tioga Point. In the same regular line and order 
 of march, exactly as when they left the fort, over a 
 month before, they moved forward. Besides the 
 whole garrison coming out under arms to meet them, 
 there was a salvo of thirteen rounds from the two 
 cannon of the fort, a salute which Proctor's artillery 
 duly returned. 
 
 Once back and inside the fort, Major Fogg, one of 
 General Poor's staff officers, and a graduate of Har 
 vard College, wrote out his impressions. 
 
 " Although we are now one hundred and twenty miles 
 298
 
 BACK TO FORT SULLIVAN 2QQ 
 
 from peaceful inhabitants, yet we consider ourselves at 
 home and the expedition ended : having fulfilled the 
 expectations of our country, by beating the enemies 
 and penetrating and destroying their whole country. 
 The undertaking was great and the task arduous. 
 The multiplicity of disappointments occasioning a long 
 delay at the beginning, foreboded a partial, if not a 
 total, frustration of our design ; but the unbounded 
 ambition and perseverance of our commander and 
 army led him to the full execution, contrary to our 
 most sanguine expectations ; . . . a march of three 
 hundred miles was performed, a battle was fought, 
 and a whole country desolated in thirty days. The very 
 evils that first predicted a defeat were a chain of 
 causes in our favor. Not a single gun was fired for 
 eighty miles on our march out, or an Indian seen on 
 our return. The extraordinary continuance of fair 
 weather has infinitely facilitated our expectation; 
 having never been detained a single day ; nor has 
 there been an hour's rain since the thirtieth day of 
 August. He who views the scene with indifference 
 in view of the special hand and smiles of Providence 
 being so apparently manifested is worse than an 
 infidel. 
 
 "The question will naturally arise, What have 
 you to show for your exploits ? Where are your 
 prisoners ? 
 
 " To which I reply, that the rags and emaciated 
 bodies of our soldiers must speak for our fatigue, and
 
 3<X) THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 when the querist will point out a mode to tame a 
 partridge or the expediency of hunting wild turkeys 
 with light horse, I will show him our prisoners. 
 The nests are destroyed, but the birds are still on the 
 wing." 
 
 Another officer wrote : " Thus, by the perseverance, 
 good conduct and determined resolution of our com- 
 mander-in-chief, with the assistance of his council and 
 the full determination of his troops to execute, have 
 we fully accomplished the great end and intentions 
 of this important expedition ; and I flatter myself we 
 fully surpassed the most sanguine expectations of 
 those whose eyes were more immediately looking to 
 us for success. The glorious achievements we have 
 given in extending our conquest so far, and at the 
 same time rendering them so very complete, will make 
 no inconsiderable balance even in the present politics 
 of America." 
 
 How the army looked when at Fort Sullivan, in the 
 first days of lovely October, may be learned from Her 
 man Clute's letter, written to Schenectady : 
 
 " DEAR MOTHER : I feel like a veteran at the end 
 of the war, for here we, that is, the whole army, are 
 at Fort Sullivan, from which we started about a month 
 ago. It is quite a substantial fort, with two gates. 
 The walls are made of palisades three thick, and the 
 blockhouses are very strong. Colonel Shrieve has 
 kept everything in good order here, but in two or
 
 BACK TO FORT SULLIVAN 30 I 
 
 three days all will be burned up, and this place will be 
 left to the deer, the bears, and the rattlesnakes again. 
 I do not believe that the savages will inhabit the place 
 for several years to come ; but until the white people 
 fully occupy this country, the Iroquois will make 
 Tioga Point their rendezvous, for all their southern 
 and some of their eastern and western expeditions. 
 
 " We had two days' march from Fort Reed. The 
 night we arrived here, Colonel Shrieve, the governor 
 of the garrison, had a most elegant dinner provided 
 for the general and field officers of the army. Be 
 sides the good things to eat, Proctor's regimental band 
 and the fife and drum corps played during most of 
 the evening. 
 
 " On Friday morning, General Sullivan sent his 
 secretary, General Brewer, to give an account to Con 
 gress of the great success of the expedition, for cer 
 tainly it has been wonderful. Most of us have kept 
 well. We have had almost a month of perfectly 
 splendid weather, with little rain and no storms. We 
 have often been tired and some of us lame, but alto 
 gether there have been only forty men out of the 
 whole army that have lost their lives, and this includes 
 all who died by accident. We had three battles, one 
 at Chemung, in which seven of Colonel Hubley's men 
 were killed ; the big one at Newtown, where, with all 
 the powder burned and lead fired off, only three or four 
 men were killed, while five have since died of their 
 wounds ; and the Groveland ambuscade, in which
 
 3O2 THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 seventeen were killed. The others were shot by Ind 
 ians hid in the bush, met death by accident, or were 
 drowned. Not one of the soldiers has died through 
 disease. 
 
 "When we started out, we had only twenty-two 
 days' rations of flour and sixteen of meat. So our 
 march has been made on half allowance, but we had 
 more vegetables than we wanted. A good deal of 
 our time has been taking up grating corn. We 
 took old tin pans and punched holes in them with 
 a bayonet, and thus made graters. It was tedious 
 work, and half the men were kept up at night after 
 the day's march was over, grating corn. We made the 
 mess into a kind of a cake. Sometimes we mixed 
 the rough meal with boiled beans or pumpkins, and, 
 pounding or squeezing it into paste, we baked the 
 patties over the fire or on hot stones, and it tasted 
 good. 
 
 " But oh, how glad I was at Fort Reed to get a 
 good slice of fresh roast beef ! Once in a while I 
 enjoyed a glass of fresh milk. Out of the seven hun 
 dred oxen we took with us on the start, some kept up 
 till we got to Canandaigua, but Colonel Hubley's cow, 
 which is a white and black creature of the Friesland 
 breed, showed herself a wonder. She has actually 
 been with us all the time and given us her milk every 
 day. I was really sorry to part with her when we 
 put her in the boat yesterday, to send her, along with 
 the officers' horses, down to Wyoming."
 
 BACK TO FORT SULLIVAN 303 
 
 Here follows an account of his finding Mary Vroo- 
 man, of the march to Fort Reed, his experiences 
 there, and the return march down the Chemung Val 
 ley to Tioga Point. 
 
 " On Saturday, General Sullivan gave an elegant 
 entertainment, inviting all the generals and field offi 
 cers of the army to dine with him. I begged to be 
 allowed to wait on the table, for I enjoyed seeing the 
 officers all together and hearing them talk. They actu 
 ally did have a long table, made of split timber, and a 
 great many more pieces of table furniture than were 
 visible during our march. This was the first time 
 that I have seen all the officers of the army together. 
 They are a handsome set of men, I can tell you. 
 
 " Everything was properly packed up that was to 
 be taken away. Then, all the stores and other bag 
 gage, the cannon and the coehorn, were put on board 
 the boats. After resting on Sunday, the whole army 
 was to move on Monday morning, most of the men 
 to march overland to Easton, via Wyoming, and the 
 boats to go down the river. 
 
 " The fun of jollity culminated on Saturday night. 
 After supper, a genuine Indian dance was arranged, 
 in which scores of the most athletic men in Hand's 
 brigade took part. A young sachem of the Oneida 
 tribe was the director of the dance, and was assisted 
 by several Indians. During the day the officers, who 
 were to take part in the fun, made wooden masks to
 
 304 THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 represent Indian deities and spirits of the mountain 
 and the river. These, grotesquely painted, were put 
 on when they danced. The music was original, the 
 sachem, singing an Indian song, started the move 
 ments, clashing together his rattle, knife, and pipe. 
 At the end of every measure, occupying five or ten 
 minutes each, the Indians set up a war-whoop, and 
 the dancing continued several hours. 
 
 " The next morning, after breakfast, the Oneida 
 warriors, who had been faithful guides, gathered 
 together and received presents. Then, bidding us 
 good by, they started off for their own villages. 
 
 " At eight o'clock the march began, and on Thurs 
 day, at three o'clock, the whole army, reaching Wyo 
 ming by land and by water, made their encampment 
 in the same order as that of the 3Oth of July. News 
 came from General Washington that Count D'Es- 
 taing had arrived with a fleet and an army, and that 
 many of Sullivan's men would be required to join a 
 new campaign of action as soon as the winter was 
 over. 
 
 "This happy news cheered up the Continental boys. 
 As it is easier to march faster when going homeward, 
 they did so, moving with an alert step that surprised 
 themselves. Sullivan, turning the command over to 
 General Clinton, set out on Saturday, the Qth, having 
 the day before sent ahead a large party of pioneers 
 to repair the road. It was not possible to get wagons 
 to carry the baggage, and as they had to leave their
 
 BACK TO FORT SULLIVAN 305 
 
 boats behind, the only thing for the officers to do was 
 to break up their chests, and load their baggage on 
 pack horses. As these were very weak, many of the 
 officers, like private soldiers, had to carry their own 
 baggage on their backs. Only four miles, up the 
 terribly long hill, were made on Sunday, the loth, 
 and the encampment was on very stony ground. 
 Again, through the awful swamps they marched, 
 and on Wednesday fresh wagons came to help solve 
 the question of baggage. When they reached Larn- 
 ard's Tavern, as one officer wrote, 'This was the 
 beginning of the settlement of a Christian country.' 
 It seemed strange indeed to men coming out of the 
 forest to meet with houses built in civilized style. 
 As some of the soldiers were able to get dinner at 
 the country houses, they felt as if they were sharing 
 the luxury of palaces. 
 
 " Orders were issued to the private soldiers to 
 make themselves as clean and presentable as possible, 
 for the march into Easton ; but officers made a virtu 
 ous determination to pass through the town without 
 taking a single drink at any of the taverns. This was 
 less a matter of temperance than a determination to 
 punish extortioners, as it had been told that the shop 
 keepers of Easton had laid in great supplies of eata 
 bles and drinkables, for which they expected to charge 
 very high prices. 
 
 " One lieutenant, who made himself both inspector 
 and censor, noticed that, despite the temptation, not
 
 306 THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 a single soul entered a tavern. Yet, for his vigilant 
 censorship, the officer had to suffer at the hands of 
 some inhabitant, who either had a grudge against him 
 or was eager to break both the tenth commandment 
 and the eighth, also. Having left his underclothes 
 with a washerwoman, to be renovated, these necessi 
 ties were all stolen from the clothes line during the 
 night. Not having a second shirt to his back, he 
 had to go around wrapped in bedclothes, begging a 
 shirt and a pair of socks from his comrades. His 
 special disappointment was in this, that he wished 
 to go with the whole army to attend worship. 
 
 " Evidently his fellow-officers magnified their privi 
 leges, for the man who had to stay home and heard 
 not, wrote that the Rev. Dr. Evans preached ' a very 
 Elegant Oration . . . Sutible to the Occasion.' How 
 ever, having been properly shod and beshirted, the 
 officer without undergarments consoled himself for 
 lack of spiritual nourishment by getting, at a farm 
 house, ' Buckwheat Cakes, Butter Milk and honey 
 which was a very great rarity indeed.' A more 
 cheerful view of things was possible the next day, 
 for he recorded in his diary that ' Part of my Cloaths 
 was found to-day hid in the mountain, but two of my 
 best shirts is yet a missing.' "
 
 CHAPTER XXVII 
 
 THE AFTERMATH 
 
 IT now remains to gather up the threads of our 
 story, and to show how Sullivan's Continentals 
 were the pathfinders of the American Revolution. 
 
 From Easton, it proved to be more convenient for 
 the rescued captives to be taken to Philadelphia, and 
 thence distributed among their friends. On this ac 
 count, the two Vrooman ladies had the pleasure of 
 spending the autumn and winter in the capital by the 
 Delaware. 
 
 There again, in the hospitable home of Colonel 
 Jabez Eyre, during a fortnight's furlough in Novem 
 ber, nearly the whole party that had met in May 
 assembled, but this time with new faces. Appar 
 ently none the worse for their exile in the Seneca 
 country were the two young women who had seen 
 life among savages. Mary Vrooman sat as guest, 
 though " alone, yet not alone." Her lover and res 
 cuer, Herman Clute, was in camp with his regiment. 
 Of Mr. and Mrs. Claes Vrooman it was frequently 
 remarked (sideways and quietly), " What a handsome 
 couple ! " 
 
 307
 
 3O8 THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 Two young officers of the Continental army had also 
 hung their chapeaux, or three-cornered cocked hats, 
 in Colonel Eyre's hall. One, hearty, ruddy, and 
 with a polished elegance of manner that suggested 
 a long and unconscious inhalation of a refined social 
 atmosphere, was an artillery officer, Phineas Foter- 
 all, who had been trained in Colonel Eyre's Pennsyl 
 vania artillery. He had just received his transfer 
 and commission as captain in Proctor's regiment 
 (now, in 1900, and for scores of years past, the 
 Second United States Artillery). 
 
 The other, pale, and still bearing traces of suffering, 
 was a lieutenant of infantry in the New Hampshire 
 line. He had been desperately wounded in the battle 
 of Newtown, but, nursed (and shall we not say saved ?) 
 by the tender care of Henrietta Harby in Fort Sulli 
 van, now his own appraisement of health was that it 
 was almost at par. 
 
 Of these two patriots, we need but say that both 
 were "Spei et in sfle," the sons of hope, and in hope, 
 as the Dutch say ; or, we might call them both " the 
 extinguishers of names." The one expected un 
 grateful man to bury in his own gentile name that 
 of his honored colonel, as well as that of the colonel's 
 daughter. He loved his leader not less, but his 
 leader's daughter more. The other, Uriah Perry, 
 was happy, looking forward to peace and the time 
 when he might bear away, to the Irish-Yankee land 
 of granite and noble character, New Hampshire,
 
 THE AFTERMATH 309 
 
 this Pennsylvania maid. Hers was a family name so 
 rare that some would deny its very existence among 
 those Swiss and German folk called " Pennsylvania 
 Dutch." 
 
 General Hand, in his best spirits, was the lion of 
 the hour. It was noticed that the bosom of his new 
 buff and blue coat was so full as to seem padded. 
 Had the tailors made him a dandy ? Honored by 
 Washington, idolized by his soldiers, saluted on all 
 sides as Sullivan's ablest lieutenant in the campaign, 
 he was less thoughtful of himself than of others. On 
 first reaching Philadelphia, even before holding one 
 interview with a tailor, he had repaired at once to con 
 sult the jewellers, whose shops lay between Second and 
 Dock streets. Some of these, despite war, were still 
 open. He was known to have left the design of a 
 rare flower, and to have talked about particular shades 
 of green and pink enamels. 
 
 Now, after the dinner and the drinking of healths 
 (in tea, not wine) to the Congress, Washington, Sul 
 livan, all his colonels and his brave army, with one 
 special bumper to the riflemen which actually made 
 Claes Vrooman's face turn as red as a rose, a clos 
 ing liquid tribute was offered, with super-exceeding 
 enthusiasm, to General Hand himself. When palates 
 had been tickled, all eyes, if not voices, called for a 
 response. 
 
 The blushing Irish-American rose, put back his 
 chair rather far, and then said :
 
 3IO THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 " I respond, by calling out mother, wife, and maid 
 for honorable decoration, and ask them to come for 
 ward. Mrs. Eyre ! " 
 
 The matron rose and approached the gallant hero, 
 who, drawing the stars and stripes from behind his 
 lapels and breast buttons, handed the flag with grace 
 and thanks to Colonel Eyre's wife. 
 
 "There, madam, my May promise is fulfilled. 
 Your flag and our country's waved at the Seneca 
 castles of Kanedasaga and Genesee." 
 
 The matron with beaming smile courtesied and re 
 sumed her seat. " A precious heirloom now," she 
 said, as she glanced at Margaret and Captain Fot- 
 erall. 
 
 " Miss Margaret Eyre and Miss Mary Vrooman, 
 come here together ! " 
 
 The two maidens, one fair, rose-tinted and white, 
 the other brown, with the rich glow of health gained 
 in out-door life, stood together, making a rare picture 
 of varied loveliness. 
 
 " Miss Eyre," said the gallant brigadier, "in May I 
 heard your request and in August I heard my friend 
 Vrooman's story. 
 
 " Miss Vrooman, I learned from Herman Clute's 
 own lips his adventure at Lake Cayuga. May he 
 soon, victorious and decorated as an officer, come 
 back to be bridegroom." 
 
 "This, to Margaret the pressed glen flowers, 
 roots, leaves, and blossoms, the last as well as the
 
 THE AFTERMATH 311 
 
 first from your friend Mary." Suiting action to 
 word, he handed neatly arranged specimens of the 
 glen flower of ancient lineage. 
 
 "To both, for bridal gifts, when the happy hour 
 comes, I hand you these jewels, with my congratula 
 tions in advance." 
 
 Thereupon, the big-hearted Irishman drew out of 
 his inner pocket two shagreen cases. Each was 
 about as large in perimeter as a Spanish milled 
 dollar, but thicker, and apparently as round as 
 Giotto's O. Holding one in each hand, between 
 thumb and forefinger, their springs toward the 
 maidens, he touched them with his digital tips. 
 
 Thereupon the lids flew open and revealed twin 
 wonders. Resting upon a silvery green bed of silken 
 plush, which looked like fresh moss, heavy with dew, 
 as seen in morning's light in shadow, was a stem of 
 gold, with serrated leaves of green, and four-petalled 
 blooms of pink enamel, a triumph of the jeweller's 
 art. It was the glen flower, Primula Mistassinica, 
 glorified in the royal metal, with the colors, not of 
 nature woven in the loom of light, but of art, wrought 
 by fire. 
 
 After the shower of exclamations of delight, 
 thanks, admiration, and we must tell the truth 
 a kiss simultaneously on both the general's cheeks 
 by two happy maidens, the gems were passed around 
 for further joyous appreciation. During this, at a 
 nod from the general, Trintje Vrooman walked over
 
 312 THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 THE WHITE COCKADE 
 
 
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 to the virginal, followed by Claes, her husband. 
 She opened the pretty rosewood case and played the 
 air of the Wilhelmus Lied, while Claes, her husband, 
 sang with a fine tenor voice the stirring words. 
 " Good," cried General Hand, when the last stanza 
 was finished. " If it were Saint Patrick's Day, I 
 should want the shamrock, but now I am only too 
 happy to look on the glen flower blooming in fresh
 
 THE AFTERMATH 313 
 
 glory on maiden's bosom," for there the twain had 
 placed their trophies " and now for the ' White 
 Cockade.' " 
 
 Thereupon, Margaret Eyre who knew the music 
 well played the famous Jacobite air. 
 
 The party broke up, for the sound of drums and 
 trumpets was still in the land. The Dutch boys in 
 the Hudson Valley were singing the Amsterdam 
 street song, " Hier komt Paul Jones Aan," telling 
 how his own ship had gone down near an English 
 cape, and also how " he was a born American " 
 which this Scotsman wasn't. 
 
 Soon the various alliances ripened and came to 
 the fruit-bearing period. That with Spain yielded 
 nothing. That with Holland brought us fourteen 
 million of dollars and naval help, in time to pay 
 off the veterans of Yorktown and restore our 
 credit. While Washington, threatening the British 
 General Clinton in New York, skilfully concealed 
 his march, with the red and white uniformed French 
 troops, the " Sparkling Bourbonnaires," through 
 Philadelphia to Yorktown, the great Admiral Rod 
 ney with his mighty British fleet, after demolishing 
 the Spanish ships, sailed to help Cornwallis ? 
 No! 
 
 Rather did it seem best to this " man of action " to 
 pass by his countryman and sail to the West Indies 
 to clear out the depot of the American army supplies. 
 So thither he now betook himself and his. ships of
 
 314 THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 the line. Capturing the helpless place, he found 
 there fifty American privateers, and three men-of- 
 war with two thousand of our sailors but he lost 
 Cornwallis, whom Washington and our French allies 
 compelled to surrender with seven thousand men. 
 While the British soldiers in Virginia listened for his 
 cannon, only the voice of the auctioneer was heard 
 at St. Eustatius. 
 
 Herman Clute did gain an officer's epaulettes. 
 After being paid in full, in good Dutch silver and 
 gold at Newburg, he returned to Schenectady, and in 
 the old church was married to Mary by Domine 
 Vrooman. He lived on Ferry Street, while Trintje and 
 Claes dwelt on Martelaar's straat. This thorough 
 fare, as soon as the shaky "confederation" was over 
 and the Constitution made the thirteen common 
 wealths one and indivisible, was named State Street, 
 the blood of the martyrs having proved the seed of 
 the nation. 
 
 One might have read in the Philadelphia papers of 
 the marriage of the couples known in life and to 
 their descendants as Captain and Mrs. Foterall and 
 Major and Mrs. Perry for this rank did the New 
 Hampshire hero attain. 
 
 The latter lived long enough to survive and attend 
 the burial of his beloved commander Sullivan, but 
 not to see his native state only after New York 
 had done abundant honor to his memory rear on 
 the site of the old Congregational meeting-house at
 
 THE AFTERMATH 315 
 
 Durham, New York, a monument to the honor of 
 Major John Sullivan. To Broadhead of Pennsyl 
 vania, and Clark of Illinois, like, yes, greater honors 
 should yet be paid. 
 
 Long before the heroes of the Revolution had been 
 gathered to their fathers, "Sullivan's road," made by 
 the tramp of his army and the axes of his pioneers, 
 had become the highway of empire. 
 
 One can stand on Cornell Heights to-day, or in the 
 White Library of the University, and through the 
 plate glass that at once frames in and reveals God's 
 picture of lake and hill, valley and flat, see with 
 the mind's eye history's shining procession. Hither 
 come Sullivan's veterans, often with brides that had 
 been captives rescued by themselves, to be founders 
 of towns and cities. Yonder, with faces flushed with 
 hope, emerge the beginners of a better time dis 
 coverers of New Jerusalems and Earthly Paradises. 
 The lumberman gives way to the merchant and arti 
 san. On the old Indian trails are laid highways of 
 steel. Pennsylvania and Yankee meet at Penn-Yan. 
 Forest industries thrive. The axeman clears the 
 way for the farmer. Lovely homes, fair as the glen 
 flower, spring up. Churches, schools, colleges, all 
 the blooms of civilization, rise out of the land, ap 
 parently, much as the earth produces the flower. 
 In time, " Sullivan's road " becomes the fugitive 
 slave's path to manhood, as he follows the North 
 Star to freedom.
 
 3l6 THE PATHFINDERS OF THE REVOLUTiON 
 
 Yet under the joy of life is its travail. Nor, amid 
 all the beauty, comfort, triumph of to-day, do we forget 
 the toil of Sullivan's Continentals, the Pathfinders of 
 the Revolution.
 
 THE ROMANCE OF AMERICAN HISTORY SERIES 
 
 THE ROMANCE 
 OF DISCOVERY: 
 
 A THOUSAND YEARS OF EXPLORATION, ETC. 
 
 By Wm. Elliot Griffis, D.D. 
 Three volumes $1.50 each ; or the set in a box, $4.50 
 
 It is one of the most useful and entertaining books. Dr. 
 Griffis has shown how the dryest facts of history are really 
 full of romance, if we look beneath the surface and note the 
 relation one to another, and he presents these facts in a most 
 attractive form. It is an admirable introduction to the study 
 of history and cannot fail to interest every reader old and 
 young. Brooklyn Daily Eagle. 
 
 This book is to be commended, not only for its making an 
 important epoch of history inviting to the general reader, but 
 for its skillful putting of the facts in their true historical per 
 spective, in spite of the flavor of romance which is given to 
 the story. The Advance. 
 
 In "The Romance of Discovery" Dr. W. E. Griffis 
 describes the explorations which have for their object chiefly 
 the occupation of new territory. Of course it deals chiefly with 
 the expeditions hither from different European countries. It 
 is written in the author's familiar spirited and enjoyable 
 manner, groups the result of much investigation in an avail 
 able form, and is thoroughly readable throughout, which 
 cannot be said of all such books. The Congregntionalist.
 
 THE ROMANCE OF AMER- 
 ICAN COLONIZATION: 
 
 HOW THE FOUNDATION STONES 
 OF OUR HISTORY WERE LAID 
 
 This is a volume that will be of unending interest to any 
 bright boy or girl old enough to read history, and it is likely 
 to lay the foundation for a life-long love for historical study. 
 While it is all history, it is not all of history. Bookseller, 
 Newsdealer and Stationer, 
 
 
 
 Though interesting to old readers it is primarily a book for 
 young people, and boys and girls will turn its pages with 
 quickening interest. When they have finished it they have 
 not only been entertained, but they have received instruction 
 in a subject which ij of vital interest to every one of them 
 the formation and making of their country. Nothing better 
 in general reading can be given our young people than this 
 book. Library Bulletin. 
 
 THE ROMANCE 
 OF CONQUEST: 
 
 THE STORY OF AMERICAN EXPANSION 
 THROUGH ARMS AND DIPLOMACY 
 
 The book is splendidly written, and is a distinct addition to 
 the history of our country. Christian Observer, 
 
 
 
 Dr Griffis is interesting on any subject he chooses to il 
 luminate, and it is needless to say that this book on so impor 
 tant and timely a topic as American expansion is of unusual 
 interest Cumulative Book Index.
 
 AN HISTORICAL NOVEL 
 
 A SON OF~~THE" 
 REVOLUTION 
 
 IN THE DAYS OF 
 BURR'S CONSPIRACY 
 
 By Elbridge S. Brooks 
 301 pages. Cloth, $7.50 
 
 Mr. Brooks knows how to catch and hold the attention of 
 boys and girls. In this story of Aaron Burr's conspiracy he 
 is very happy, choosing scenes and incidents of picturesque 
 American history and weaving them into a patriotic and stir 
 ringly romantic narrative. The young hero is a fine character 
 strongly presented, and from first page to last the interest is 
 lively. We heartily recommend the book to our young readers 
 as one sure to please and instruct them. The Independent. 
 
 
 
 Elbridge S. Brooks has written nothing better than " A 
 Son of the Revolution." Designed for boys, it is so spirited 
 and interesting, dealing as it does with little-known episodes 
 in our past history as a nation, that it will gain many readers 
 in the ranks of the grown up. It is really as the sub-title 
 says, "an historical novel" of the days of Aaron Burr, when 
 he was conspiring to create a western empire. A young 
 fellow full of enthusiasm and patriotism, named Tom Ed 
 wards, comes under the fascination of Burr, and works with 
 him for quite a period before considering his true aims and 
 real character. When the day of awakening comes, the fight 
 with his conscience is thrilling. No better book for boys 
 can be mentioned, nor one so rich in lessons of true patri 
 otism. The Publisher 1 s Weekly.
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 
 Los Angeles 
 This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. 
 
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 176U Pathfinders of 
 G86p the revolution