GENEALOGY
974.701
W27H
GENEALOGY COU-EGTIONI
Al I ( N c CJIJNI I t-i JUL II I IHHAH r
3 1833 01149 0072
Digitized by the Internet Archive
in 2010 with funding from
Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center
http://www.archive.org/details/historybiographyOOgres
WASHINGTON ACADEMY, SALEM, N Y.
HISTORY AND 1-5 KM
HINGK
TOWN OF QUEE^SE
NEW YORK,
.
THE Ciw ISHIIV
?«U- itcb
.7 H
Ji
HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY
Washington Bounty,
TOWN OF QUEEJ4SBUHY,
WITH
Historical Notes on the Various Towns.
ARRANGED AND EDITED BY
THE GRESHAM PUBLISHING COMPANY.
3Uu$tvatcb+
GRESHAM PUBLISHING COMPANY: CHICAGO, ILL. RICHMOND, IND. NEW YORK, NY
1894.
PRESSES OF
M. CULLATON & CO.
RICHMOND, IND
*
IS
* "PREFACE.-
"^Q)^ '
1180279
§8&> F A TRUTH it may be said that History, the highest form of prose literature,
is fast becoming one of the most popular and important branches of human knowledge. It has rapidly risen in our day from an empirical state to the rank of a science, and the master minds of this century that have devoted their energies to efforts in behalf of its advancement in accuracy, interest and value, have transformed it from the princely eulogy and fairy tales of olden times into a vast super- structure only less real than the great drama of actual events it is intended to perpetuate in human memory. This improvement has popularized History until it is no longer the Pactolus of the learned, but has risen to be the guiding star of modern civilization. In it are reflected the principles that govern the character and destiny of nations, and from it the statesman and reformer may construct a chart to guide all intelligent effort at reform in our old civilization, or in the upbuilding of the new. As in ancient times, so even at this hour, "Experience is a light for our footsteps," no less for the Nation or community than for the individual, and true History is human experience condensed and preserved.
Local history particularly has rapidly risen in importance since our Centennial year, when the Congress of the United States, by joint resolution, recommended to each city, town and county in this country the duty of collecting for permanent preservation their local history and biography. In the first century of our National existence the annals of town and county, together with the individuality of the citizen, had been absorbed by the history of the State and the still more masterful theme of the life of the Nation. Since the opening of our second century it is becoming more generally understood that the history of a people resolves itself largely into the achievements of its leading men and women, and that in biography may be found that department of history most valuable for the intelligent study of National life and human advancement. Hence in the series of County Cyclopedias that bear the imprint of the publishers of this volume, much attention
vi PREFACE.
has been given to the collection and publication of biographical sketches of leading citizens, past and present. It is a fact that biography of this character must have promi- nent place in the local history of the future, and that the important and useful lessons it teaches will never fail to excite interest and give pleasure. It subserves the highest good by presenting examples worthy of emulation, and by perpetuating the memories of those who are worthy of remembrance.
From the time when this territory was yet a wilderness down to the present day, Washington county occupies an important position among her sister counties of the Empire State — a proud eminence based alike on her wonderful development, her indus- trial prosperity, and the prominent place she occupies in the history of the Revolution — that gigantic struggle for the rights of man, when a Nation was born in a day, and the dial hand on the clock of human progress moved forward in a greater advance than it had hitherto marked in five centuries.
That Washington county has kept well to the front in that general improvement which distinguishes these later times — in industrial development, art, science, literature, and everthing that tends to ennoble life and make its possession priceless — is largely due to the energy, ability and character of the men who have found fitting notice on the pages of this volume — worthy descendants of the pilgrims and pioneers who first conquered this soil, and by brawn and brain reduced it to the uses of civilization.
THE PUBLISHERS.
^(?O^TENTS4
HISTORICAL.
Pages.
History of Washington County 17-79
CHAPTER I. — Introduction —Geography — Topography — Lake George — Diononda- howa Falls — Geology — Minerals 17-23
CHAPTER 1 1. — Mound Builders — Indians —
War-path of America 23-27
CHAPTER III. — Champlain's Invasion — Hudson's Discovery — Iroquois Raids into Canada— Father Jogues Discovers Lake George 27-29
CHAPTER IV.— French Invasions of the Mo- hawk Country — Iroquois Ravages of Can- ada 29-30
CHAPTER V.— Destruction of Schenectady— Winthrop and Schuyler's Expeditions — French Invasion — Dellius Land Patent. . . 30-32
CHAPTER VI.— Nicholson's Expeditions — Saratoga Settlement — -Campbell Colony — Lydius' Establishment 32-34
CHAPTER VII.— Destruction of Old Sara- toga— Fort Clinton — French Expeditions — English Abandonment of the County. . . 34-35
CHAPTER VIII.— Battle of Lake George — Rogers, Putnam and Stark's Rangers — Fall of Fort William Henry — Abercrombie and Amherst's Campaigns 35-40
Pages CHAPTER I X— Early Settlements — Provin- cial and Artillery Patents — New Hamp- shire Grants 40-42
CHAPTER X. — County Formation under
Name of Charlotte 42-43
CHAPTER XL— Commencement of the Rev- olution— Burgoyne's Invasion — Battle of Fort Ann — Burgoyne's Slow Advance — Murder of Jane McCrea — Bennington — Saratoga — Union Convention — Revolu- tionary Soldiers 43-51
CHAPTER XII.— Charlotte becomes Wash- ington County — Cambridge and Eaton An- nexed — Canals — County Seat Struggles — Turnpikes — Warren County Erected — Battle of Plattsburg 51-53
CHAPTER XI II.— New Industries — Cham- plain Canal — Plank Roads — Early Rail- roads 53-55
CHAPTER XIV. — Commencement of the Civil War — Regimental Histories and Mor- tuary Lists — Peace 55-62
CHAPTER XV. — Later Railways — Present
Industries — County Progress 62-63
CHAPTER XVI.— Statistics of Population. Manufactures, Agriculture. Mining, and Trade, and Transportation 63-66
vm
CHAPTER XVI I. — Agricultural and Medical Societies — The Early Press — Churches — Schools — Early Banks— Secret Societies
CHAPTER XVI 1 1.— County Political and Civil Lists
CHAPTER XIX.— County Home— Early Iron Enterprises — LaFayette's Visit — Steam- boat Navigation — Indian Names — Histor- ians
Historical Notes upon the Villages and Towns of Washington County
CHAPTER I. — Village and Town of Salem. .
CHAPTER II.— Village of Sandy Hill, and Town of Kingsbury
CHAPTER 1 1 1. —Village and Town of White- hall
CHAPTER I V. —Villages of Fort Edward and Fort Miller, and Town of Fort Edward. . .
CHAPTER V.— Village and Town of Green- wich
CONTENTS.
Pages
66-72 72-76
76-79
|
80-142 |
|
80-84 |
|
84-90 |
|
90-95 |
|
95-100 |
|
00-105 |
Pages CHAPTER VI.— Village and Townof Argyle. 10~>-1 10
CHAPTER VII. — Towns of Jackson and
White Creek 110-116
CHAPTER VIII —Village and Town of Cam- bridge 116-122
CHAPTER I X.— Villages of Easton and North
Easton. and Town of Easton 122-124
CHAPTER X —Village of West Hebron and
Town of Hebron 124-127
CHAPTER X I. — Village and Town of Gran- ville 128-132
CHAPTER XII. —Village of Hartford and
Towns of Hartford and Hampton 132-136
CHAPTER X I I I —Village and Town of Fort
Ann 136-138
CHAPTER X I V— Towns of Dresden and
Putnam 138-142
Historical Notes upon the Village of Glens Falls
and the Town of Queensbury 143-148
< 'ONTENTS.
BIOGRAPHICAL.
Page
Adams, James 275
Adams, J. M 208
Allen, Fred. W 370
Allen, Hon. C. L 318
Ambler, S. B 350
Anderson, Rev. John 402
Armstrong, Adam, jr 315
Ashton, J. W 412
Ashton, W, J '. 433
Baker. N. G 349
Bancroft Public Library, The. . 361
Bartlett, Dr. W. R 390
Bascom, Hon. 0 385
Bascom. R 0 284
Bates, Homer B 318
Bemis, E. H 336
Blackfan, H. S , M. D 193
Blashfield, C. E 426
Bratt, Frederick A 387
Brayton, John 256
Briggs, David 0 192
Brooks. John 246
Brown, Maj. Daniel 389
Buck, Charles H 294
Bullock, Rowland S 156
Burdett, James H 383
Burditt, E. L 273
Burleigh, Hon. H. G 249
Byrne Hon. Frank 231
Cameron, Hon. W. M 161
Carver. J. W 292
Chase, D. A. M. D 407
Page
Chase, Elijah 424
Cipperley, John, M D 321
Clark, Asahel 190
Clark, Dr B. J 337
Clark, E. G 260
Clark, Guy R 418
Clark, Rev. Thomas. M. D 409
Cleveland, W. W 242
Cole. A. B 274
Cole. Hiram 436
Colvin. H. D 419
Contryman, Capt. A B , . 242
Cornell, Flavius J 410
Cotton, Willard H 187
Cozzens. W. L 419
Craadall. Alden M 379
Crandall, Henry 203.
Crandall, W. H 369
Crocker, B P 367
Cronkhite, L. W 201
Cronkhite. William 174
Cruikshank, Robert 224
Culver, George B 167
Cushman Family 356
Davis, C. G 209
Davis, L. L 235
Davis, O. F 422
Davis, Rufus R 282
Dearstyne, Andrus 155
Dennis, W. H 427
Derby. Hon J. H 105
Dillingham, Henry 306
Donahoe, Rev. John F 176
Page
Doren, James 215
Doremus, G. W 417
Dorr, Geo. E 420
Earl. J. C 384
Eldridge, Ahira 316
Eldridge, William 353
Ellis, James 308
Ethier, Rev. J S 329
Farr, Dr. D. C 343
Fennel, Rev A. J 215
Fenton, C. S 387
Ferriss, J. A 160
Field, Rev. T. A 186
Filkins, David 386
Finch, George N 225
Finch, S. L 283
Fishier, Franklin 324
Fitch. Hon. Asa, M. D 338
.Fitch, Prof Asa, M D 412
Flood, Thomas 381
Foster, John B 188
Frazer, Frederick 378
Fryer. Wilbur 345
Ganly, John 428
Gayger, W. H 287
Getty, George D 211
Gibson. Hon James 151
Gifford, Thomas C 305
Gilchrist Family 362
Gilroy, John 339
tioodson. Isaac A 380
CONTEXTS.
Page
Goodman, Hon. J. E 351
Gray, Capt. E. J 322
Gray, Henry, M. D 204
Gray. J. W 298
Gregory, Sylvanus 355
Greenough, E. A 194
Griffin, B. H.... 411
Griswold. S. K 221
Haines. AG 282
Hall. Austin 431
Hall, John 340
'Hamilton. Robert 168
Harris. G D 415
Harris, John F 175
Haviland, Joseph 184
Hill, Fred E 244
Hodgman, A C 251
Holcomb. B. R, M. D 178
Holmes, Cornelius, M. D 388
Horsfield. Rev. F. H. T 433
Horton. E, T„ M, D 293
Howard, Henry A 276
Howe, Prof W. W 253
Howland, L. M 215
Howland, Amasa 219
Hubbard, Martin D 316
Hughes. Charles 195
Hughes. William H 372
Ingalsbe. G. M 320
Ingalsbe. Milo 264
Ingalsbe. Myron D 193
Jenkins. C. A 425
Jenkins, Gamalael 197
Jenkins, Lyman 386
Jenkins, N. L 162
Jones, O. D 429
Johnston, Rev. John 251
Keenan, John 379
Kellogg, Rev. Charles D 258
Kenyon, Sylvanus H 157
King, Lieut. John 216
Page
Lapham, Hon. Jerome 375
Larmond, Capt. John 430
Lashway, Albert H 378
LaVake, James O 297
Law, James 326
Lawrence, W. E 278
Lillie. Judge Thomas A 169
Linendoll. R. A , A. M., M. D. 220
Long. A J 229
Lotrace, Charles H 337
Lowber, R.W 236
Lyon. Charles 291
Manville, Capt. J. H 262
Marline, Hon. G. R . M D ... 311
Mason, H L 385
Mason, S. C 312
Masters. J T 207
McArthur, James L 153
McArthur, Thomas W 162
McCarty, Maj. James 222
McCormick, J. B 277
McDermott, Rev. James 166
McDonald, Hon. Wm 325
McKensie, David C, M. D 389
Mc Wayne, LeRoy, M D 364
Mealey, Cornelius 377
Mealey, Jno. H 304
Miller, Frank 409
Miller, Joseph 313
Miller, W. H , M. D 190
Millington, John, M. D 361
Moneypenny, Dr. John 400
Montgomery, L. E 285
Morey, C. L 366
Mott, O H, M. D 257
Mowry, Henry L 177
Neddo, Capt. George 348
Newman, Alfred J 416
Northrup, H Davis 234
Northup. Judge L H 160
Norton, N. R 414
O'Brien, Rev. James J 204
O'Brien, M. H 307
Page
Ordway, James M 184
Ottarson, B. F 314
Packer, Nathan E 335
Palmer, W. M 382
Paris, C R 222
Paris, Hon. U G 223
Parks, S. H 201
Parrish, H. H 432
Patterson, Charles R 366
Peck Family 353
Pember, F. T 287
Petteys, Edgar M 188
Pierce. C. H 344
Piser, Leonard 368
Potvin, Mitchel 354
Powell, W. H 294
Pratt, Albert V 355
Pratt, De Morris 433
Pratt, James E 303
Pratt, John L, jr 363
Pruyn, Samuel 185
Reed, Edward 286
Rice, OK 165
Rice, R. Niles 405
Rich, L. M 403
Rider, James M 159
Robertson, H G 414
Robinson, J.J 272
Robinson, O. C 353
Rochon, C. A 262
Rogers, Deliverance 273
Rogers, Hon Charles 376
Rogers, Lieut. Harper N 388
Rogers, W. G 421
Root, Henry, A. M., M. D 232
Rosekrans, Hon E. H 339
Russell, S W 180
Satterlee. George 296
Sawyer, Rev. E. R , D D 189
Scales, Charles 402
Seeley, Jurden E 170
Sheldon, Hon. O W 191
CONTENTS.
Page
Sheldon, N. E., M. D 857
Sherrill, George 263
Sherrill, J. D 254
Sherman, Alex M 404
Shiland, John 40*
Shipman, Hiram 196
Sisson, Hon. Hiram 156
Sickles, Maj. Gen. D. E 384
Skeels, E. W 349
Skiff, S. M 422
Smith, Henry 404
Somers, John 434
Sprague, AT 381
Sprague, Watson N 171
Stevenson, Hon. W. D 252
Stillman, S. L 210
Sullivan, D. J 322
Sweet, B. G 233
Taber, Charles R 302
Teftt, Frances A 257
Tefft, Hon. W. H 179
Page
Thebo, P. C 245
Thomas, Mel vin 344
Thompson, J. H 206
Thompson, LeRoy 213
Thompson, Thomas 357
Thomson, Lemon. M D 346
Tidmarsh, H L 415
Travis, W. B 418
Trumbull, G. E 212
Underwood, Christopher 154
Underwood. George F 220
Vandewerker, H. W., M. D 214
Van Dusen, Hon. N. W 286
Van Ness, C. H 318
Van Wormer, Francis M 173
Van Wormer, Rodney 293
Vaughan. A C 323
Wallace, H. H 292
Wallace, J. W 243
Page
Wallace, Theo. C 347
Ward, T. L 426
Watkins, John L 358
Wells, WW 410
Wentworth, Rev E, D D. ... 192
Weston, Hon. Roswell 417
Whitcomb, George H 261
White, J. H 281
Williams, General John 393
Williams, R Jay 301
Williams, Sherman 226
Williamson, Alex 234
Wilson, Joseph 365
Wilson. Ross 435
Wing, Hon. H R 411
Witherbee, R. M 295
Woodard, Daniel D 326
Wright. C. T 255
Wright, Maj. James 202
Young. Cornelius 253
( 'ONTENTS.
ILLUSTRATIONS.
Page
Bancroft Public Library, The facing 361
Cronkhite, Leonard W. Ethier, Rev. Joseph S. . Gibson, Hon. James. .
Howland, Amasa
Ingalsbe, Milo
Lapham, Hon. Jerome.
Long, A. J
Lowber, Robert Wilson Lyon, Charles
201 320 149 219 264 375 229 236 291
Page Martin, Godfrey R, M. D " 311
Rice, Orrin Kellogg " 165
Russell, Solomon W " 180
View of Altars in St. Alfonsus' Church, Glens
Falls between 326 and 329
View of Altars in St. Mary's Church at Glens
Falls between 326 and 329
White, James Hylar facing 281
Williams, General John " 393
Williams, R. Jay " 301
®HlSTOHlGflLt g^ETCH
OF )SJ^~>
Washington County, flecu York.
<^r
-*~-
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTION — GEOGRAPHY— TOPOGRA- PHY—LAKE GEORGE-DIONONDAHOWA FALLS — GEOLOGY — MINERALS.
INTRODUCTION.
• lJ LONG the shore of one of the world's Q/ -*- most' beautiful lakes, and in the historic upper valley of the noble stream made famous forever by the " Prince of American Letters," lies an old and time -honored county, first called Charlotte for Queen Charlotte, wife of George III., of England, and afterward given its present name of Washington, in honor of the master-spirit of the American Revolution.
Washington county, New York, the "'war- path of America, " owes its military importance during war, and its commercial advantages in times of peace, to its geographical position ; but its history — like that of any other county — is the result of the character, the spirit, and the intelligence of its people.
To write the history of Washington county from its creation, under the name of Charlotte, by legislative enactment in 1772, down to the recorded events of the present, and confine the work to the limited space which the scope 3 (
of this volume will but necessarily allow, is an undertaking of no small degree.
In attempting to some extent the investiture of this important history with the interest that naturally belongs to it, we shall seek to trace the first attempted settlement on the Hudson, and the fate of Captain Campbell's Scottish colony, events occurring between 1737 and 1745. We shall attempt to give what can be secured of the fort building, the passing of hostile expeditions, and the battles in Wash- ington county during King George's and the French and Indian wars. We shall endeavor to examine carefully the Hudson river, the Salem and the Skenesborough settlement be- ginnings of 1761, made respectively by New Yorkers, Massachusetts pioneers, and Scotch Highland soldiers. We shall notice the later coming ef the Kingsbury Connecticut colony, and the Campbell and Clark colonies, respec- tively, of Argyle and Salem. We shall record the settlement, in 1770, of the Irish Methodist colony at Ash Grove, under the leadership of Philip Embury, the founder of Methodism on the American continent. We shall endeavor to chronicle the birth and mark the course of the two great New York and Vermont parties on the soil of the county, struggling for civil 17)
18
BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY
supremacy over its entire sweep of territory. We shall record the fraternizing, to a certain degree, of these hostile factions in the com- mencement of the common'war waged by the Thirteen Colonies against England, and call especial attention to the noble spirit of patri- otism and self-sacrifice, throughout the larger part of the count}', awakened by the opening thunders of the Revolutionary struggle. We shall give brief mention to the Tory defection in Wood Creek valley, and then follow the slow and toilsome march of Burgoyne's glit- tering legions over the "war-path of America" to the fateful field of Saratoga, where splen- did victory crowned the efforts of Arnold and Morgan in the cause of American indepen- dence, while not neglecting notice of the tragic death of lovely Jane McCrea and Baum's ill-starred expedition through the beautiful Cambridge valley to meet disaster and defeat at the battle of Bennington. We shall pro- ceed rapidly over the closing days of the Revolution and the insurrectionary Salem at- tempt of county annexation to Vermont. We shall next attempt to trace the progress of the county since the struggle for independence, noticing its several stages of growth, and re- cording its single accession and afterward great losses of territory. We shall endeavor to give the patriotic position the county occu- pied in the late Civil war, and the proud and honorable part its noble sons took in that great struggle for national supremacy and an undivided country. We shall attempt the record of county progress since the war, and give due attention to the efforts that have been made to place Washington in the front rank of the counties of the Empire State. We shall seek to tell the story of the develop- ment of her material resources and her com- mercial facilities, give her educational advan- tages and high moral and religious standing. and speak of the potent influence for the common weal and public prosperity wielded by an intelligent and progressive county press.
To write the history of the county intelli- gently it is absolutely necessary to trace the territory of Washington under the succeeding jurisdictions of Dutch New Netherlands and English New York, chronicling during that time the march of Indian and French war parties and expeditions over the densely wooded Champlain and Hudson portage.
Associated with the history of the present territory of Washington county under the rule of the white race, is the story of its In- dian occupation as a hunting ground and its use by the red lords of the forest as a great war trail between American and Canadian waters.
It should awaken a feeling of pride in the heart of every citizen of Washington county when they view the wonderful progress the county has made from a few colonies planted in an unexplored wilderness to wealthy com- munities and populous villages.
But little more than a century ago, dense forests covered mountain, hill and valley throughout Washington county, where green meadows and golden harvests now lie warm in heaven's bright sunshine. Such progress is far beyond any fairy result ascribed to the magic wand of enchantment.
GEOGRAPHY.
Washington county, New York, is in the historic, beautiful and far-famed valley of the upper Hudson river, and the basins of the northern lakes of St. George and Champlain, and lies between forty-two degrees and fifty- four minutes and forty-three degrees and forty-seven minutes north latitude ; and three degrees and ten minutes and three degrees and twenty-one minutes east longitude from Washington, or seventy-four degrees and ten minutes and three degrees and twenty-one minutes west longitude from Greenwich, Eng- land. As a political division of the State, it is bounded by Essex county ; on the east, by the State of Vermont; on the south, by Rens- selaer county, and on the west by Saratoga
BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY
19
and Warren counties. It is sixty-one miles in length, and for forty miles from the southern boundary line has an average width of eighteen miles, which then abruptly contracts down to nine miles; when it reaches the peninsular portion of the county, that narrows down to five miles at the Essex county line. In geo- graphical position Washington county is one of the northeastern counties of New York, while its geographical center and center of population are located respectively in the towns of Fort Ann and Hartford. Its lat- itude and longitude center is in the town of Hartford. The computed area of Washington county is eight hundred and thirty square miles.
TOPOGRAPHY.
The surface of Washington county is di- vided into three separate and distinct physical parts — a northern or mountainous peninsular, a central valley stretching from Lake Cham- plain to the Hudson river, and a great southwestern mountain region composed of three ridges and their two separating valleys, running from southwest to northeast, and em- bracing the larger part of the central, and all of the southern townships.
The highest mountain in the county is Black mountain, which is in the town of Dresden, and has an altitude of twenty-eight hundred and seventy-eight feet above the waters of Lake George.
The soil of the county is loam in the val- leys, and sand and clay on the hills and ridges; while the original heavy forests that covered mountain and plain, and hill and dale, were mainly of ash, oak, beech, maple, elm and pine, in whose depths gamboled the deer, and lurked the bear, panther and wolf. In the rocks once dwelt the deathful rattle- snake, and high in the air swept the fierce and vengeful eagle.
The drainage of Washington count}* is by the Hudson river and the Lake Champlain systems. The northern peninsula is drained west and east by several small streams into
Lakes George and Champlain, while the north, central and eastern parts have their drainage north by Wood creek, and Pawlet and Poultney rivers, into the narrows of Lake Champlain. The south, central and southern parts of the county have their drainage south by the Batten Kill and Hoosick river, into the Hudson.
The broad plain around Sandy Hill and Fort Edward, running northward, soon nar- rows into the valley of Wood creek, the lar- gest stream in the county that flows into Lake Champlain. This remarkable depression af- fords a fine portage from Lake Champlain to the waters of the Hudson river, and the march of invading armies through this valley, in the struggle of warring races for the mastery of the North American Continent, has made Washington county the "War-path of Amer- ica."
The Batten Kill, whose beautiful Indian name was Ondawa, is the largest stream that flows directly from the county into the Hud- son, and its head waters of Black and White creeks, drain the valley between the first and second great ranges of hills, ere it breaks its way through the first great range trending from southwest to northeast. It also drains largely this first mountain range which con- stitutes the highlands of the towns of Easton, Greenwich, Argyle, Hartford, Granville, Hampton and east Whitehall. Gathering its wealth of waters from the beautiful Cossa- yuna and Argyle lakes, and a score of bright and sparkling creeks and rivulets, the Batten Kill becomes a swift-flowing and strangely picturesque stream, whose wonderful Dionon- dahowa, or Middle Falls, have a descent of seventy-five feet in a distance of three hun- dred. Northward from the mouth of the Batten Kill, in early pioneer days, stretched twelve miles in length and six in width, the eastern part of the great Saraghtoga wilder- ness, one of the famous Indian hunting grounds, through which roamed for untold years the lordly and masterful Iroquois.
•20
BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY
In the valley between the second and third range of hills, flows the Owl Kill, the princi- pal Washington county branch of the Hoosick river. Draining largely the second range of hills which constitutes the high ground of Cambridge, West Jackson and east Salem, and Hebron, and the western part of the third ridge, which constitutes the highland in the extreme eastern parts of Jackson and White Creek, it wends southward into the Hoosick river, and through the populous Cam- bridge valley, noted for fertility, and famous for beautiful scenery.
LAKE GEORGE.
Andiatirocte, Saint Sacrament, and George are three names in three different languages for a mountain -walled and island -gemmed sheet of beautiful water whose fame is world wide. The Indian name was supplanted by the French, which in turn gave way to the English, and to-day throughout the bounds of civilization Lake George is the only name that has ever been heard by unnumbered thousands for the lovely sheet of water around which history and romance strangely cling in song and story.
The first white discoverer of Lake George was Father Isaac Jogues, a French Jesuit missionary, who first beheld its waters on August ii, 1642, while being carried a captive by Iroquois Indians from Canada to the banks of the Mohawk river. He escaped the next year, and in 1646, when returning to the Iro- quois as a French ambassador, he reached Lake George "on the eve of Corpus Christi, which is the feast of the Blessed Body of Jesus, and in honor of the day named the lake 'the Lake of the Blessed Sacrament.'" This name was contracted to that of Lake Saint Sacrament, by which it was known until 1755. In August of that year General William Johnson encamped with his arm}' on the head waters of the lake, and changed its name from Lake Saint Sacrament to Lake George, in honor of George II., of England.
DIONONDAHOWA FALLS.
On the Batten Kill are three falls — one at Greenwich ; the second at Galesville, forty feet high, and the third and most remark- able, half a mile below and west of Galesville, known by its Indian name of Dionondahowa. "For forty or fifty rods above the last falls the stream runs in a gently-descending rapid, curving to the_ right and descending more rapidly as it nears the fall. It then suddenly narrows its channel, inclines to the left be- tween rough walls of slate-rock, and falls over four successive terraces, each narrower and higher than the preceding, and having a total fall of seventy-five feet in three hundred feet of distance. The waters, now of creamy foam, here gather together, and entering a rocky gorge, hurl themselves madly over the brink into the ' Devil's Caldron.' Now lashed to fury, beaten to spray, dashed hither and thither with resistless force, they sullenly pour over another fall of twelve or fifteen feet, and turning to the right flow through a dark ravine between high rocky banks on their way to the Hudson. The scenery at' this point is beauti- ful and picturesque, and may well repay the tourist for a trip to view this woderful mani- festation of the power and masterly skill of Nature's great Architect."
GEOLOGY.
We condense the following account of the geology of Washington county from the geo- logic description of the same by Asa Fitch, M. D., who adopted the Taconic theory that the rocks of the county were an independent series lying between the primary and transition strata, and rejected the Metaphoric theory that placed them as lower members of the primary strata, changed from their appearance by the agency of heat : Starting from Lake George on the stratified or granitic rocks and passing to the southeastern part of the county, the following different rocks occur : at Wood creek a hard white sandstone rests upon the granite, and is known as the Potsdam sand-
BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY
21
stone, whose eastern edge lies along a soft lime and sand rock, named the calciferous sandstone, which is succeeded by the pure blue Chazy limestone. Twelve miles from this, in the Bald mountain range of hills along the Hudson river is the Trenton lime- stone. Bordering on the two last named limestones is the Hudson river slate. Upon the east side of the Bald mountain range commences the Taconic slate that occupies the eastern part and underlies three-fifths of the county. Principally gray in color, yet it changes to green Magnesian slate, and to pale blue Sparry and snow-white Stockbridge lime- stones, the latter being the celebrated Rut- land marble.
Lying in a trough between the primitive rocks of New York and the Green mountains, the strata of the county are sedimentary and belong to the lowest known paleozoic rocks.
The granite rock is a granitic gneissoid, and underlies nearly all of Putnam, all of Dresden, and Fort Ann and Whitehall, north of Half- way brook and west of Wood creek. Two valuable minerals — iron ore and block lead — are found in the area named, but the last mineral is most abundant in north Putnam.
The Potsdam sandstone is well developed from Whitehall to Fort Ann, and thence west along Half-way brook to the Warren county line. It usually crops out in precipices facing westward, and furnishes the best of firestones for furnaces, although very inferior for smooth stones or pavements. Occurring in uniform layers, it looks in cliffs like solid courses of masonry laid up for a wall of some great fortification, tower or castle of olden times.
Succeeding the Potsdam is the calciferous sandstone, intermediate in position and com- position between the sandstone below and the limestone above it. Soft enough to quarry in smooth faced blocks, it is in high repute for flagging. Several quarries are open in the towns of Kingsbury and Fort Ann, and north of Dewey's bridge this rock shows a thickness of two hundred feet.
Chazy limestone, pale blue or dove-colored, reaches from Fort Ann to the Mettowee river, and occupying northwest Hartford, and the east border of Kingsbury, reappears on the west side of Wood creek and passes to Glens Falls, where it has changed in color to a jet black. Its fossil shell, the Maclurea Magna, is abundant in the northwest part of Granville. This limestone is valuable for lime, and, tak- ing a high polish, becomes a good marble. In twelve miles distance, from Lake Cham- plain to the Hudson river, this limestone changes into a well-marked Trenton.
Trenton or Bald mountain limestone stands in the midst of slate rocks like an oasis in a desert. It constitutes Bald mountain, in the town of Greenwich. This mountain is a mile in length and seven hundred feet high, hejng made up principally of the blue Trenton limestone, and ranks as pure carbonate of lime, producing one of the finest of "rich limes." The Bald mountain lime has always ranked superior to any other lime offered for sale in the leading cities of the United States.
Hudson River slate is well exposed all along the Hudson, from Sandy Hill to Schuy- lerville. It extends three miles east from the Hudson to the base of Bald mountain, and is generally a shale rather than a slate. The Graptolithus pristis, the fossil of this slate, which occurs abundantly at Baker's Falls, re- sembles a narrow blade of grass, having teeth like a saw along both edges. The shale or slaty gravel of this slate makes a very fine top dressing for a sticky ciay road.
Taconic slate is dark colored where in con- nection with Hudson River slate, and quite black when in contact with the limestone of the western part of the county. Silex is the largest ingredient of this rock that occupies the eastern part of Washington county, and whose characteristic fossil, Buthoirephis ftex- uosa, which appears like curved and branching marks painted on the stone, has numberless shades of different colors and contains milky quartz and iron pyrites. This rock affords a
BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY
splendid roofing slate that is in demand in Europe, South America and Australia.
Taconic sandstone is a harsh gray rock with seams of white quartz running through it, and widely scattered throughout our soils. It shows a thickness from a bed of a few inches up to a rock of two hundred feet, and is pre- ferred to any other stone for the walls of buildings, as it can be readily quarried into narrow blocks.
The sparry limestone extending through the Taconic district resembles a chain, the successive links of which connect the west Trenton limestone with the east side granular limestone. It is a blue or bluish-gray rock, veined and marked with white calcareous spar, and occurs all through the Taconic dis- trict, at numerous points, in insulated masses.
Magnesian slate has widely different shades of color and degrees of hardness, as occurring in a few places in the west and in the east, but the main mass of rock lies in the extreme southeastern part of the county, where it is more uniform in color.
Granular limestone or Rutland marble touches the southeast corner of Washington county for the short distance of one mile. It is a white crystalline rock, and has been favorably known in the marble markets of the world for the last fifty years, under different names, such as Dorset marble, Stockbridge limestone, Arlington stone and Sutherland marble.
Granular quartz, alhough not a formation in the county, yet is everywhere abundant in the form of pebbles and cobble-stones.
The geologic record of the county is one that goes back into the very dawn of the creation of the world, and its rock-written chapters, if ever deciphered, will constitute a history of startling past changes of wonderful interest.
MINERALS.
In 1880 there was nearly eight million tons of iron ore mined in the United States, and the center of total production of this iron ore
was twelve miles northwest of Meadville, in Crawford count)', Pennsylvania. The meri- dian and paralleled center of production then intersected in the eastern part of Center county, Pennsylvania.
The great coal field of the central United States is nearly enclosed by the older rocks of the Wisconsin, Michigan, the Appalachian and the Ozark regions. In this basin and its rock border lie the fuel and ore with which the United States must make its material pro- gress in the twentieth century. On the north- eastern border of this great coal basin, we find the Archaean rocks, a narrow belt of which is found in Washington county.
The geological column of iron ores in New York commences down in the Archaean rocks, and with a few breaks extends up through the Lower and Upper Silureans, the Devonian, Carboniferous and Triasic rocks, and missing the Jurassic, attains its height in the Creta- ceous rocks. The iron ores of New York, and the number of tons of each mined in 1880, were as follows:
ORES. TONS.
Magnetite 927,000
Limonite 155,000
Hematite 95,000
Fossil 85,000
Carbonate ores, which are alone in Colum- bia county, were not reported in 1880.
The Archaean rocks come to the surface only in the northwestern part of the county, east of Lake George. Magnetic ores occur in this narrow belt, and in 1880 were only mined at the Potter and Mount Hope mines. The Potter mine is nearly five miles from Fort Ann, and in 1880 produced twelve thousand one hundred and seventy-two tons of ore, which was disposed of to Fort Edward fur- nace, fourteen miles distant, except a part that was hauled to the canal and shipped to the Hudson river furnaces. The Potter is named for Joseph Potter, its owner, and was opened in 1879, being worked the next year by John T. Harris & Son. The mine is situ-
BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY
23
ated between the headwaters of two small runs, the ore being granular, and containing more or less pyrite, but in places grades into a magnetite hornblende gneiss. A sample taken in 1880 from a pile of fifteen hundred tons, contained 62. 82 per cent of metallic iron with no phosphorous or titanic acid.
The Mount Hope mine is a half-mile north- west of the Potter, and in 1880 produced six thousand seven hundred and twenty tons of ore. The ore outcrops on the west, south and east side of Mount Hope ridge, and is finely granular in texture, being largely mixed with hornblende, and to a lesser extent with quartz, feldspar, mica, and occasionally with pyrite. A sample of the ore yielded 36.99 per cent of metallic iron, 0.055 Per cent phosphorus, and no titanic acid, while the phosphorous in 100 parts iron was 0.149 per cent.
The old Pedunk mine is two hundred and fifty feet northwest of the Potter, was worked for several years, but became idle about 1875.
Some five miles north of Fort Ann, and northeast from the Potter, are several small beds of limonite iron ore.
No statistics, at this writing, can be ob- tained of any of these mines or beds later than 1880. In that year the Potter and Mount Hope mines furnished employment for sixty miners, twenty-seven laborers, and five of a supervising force, all of whom received twenty-six thousand dollars wages. There was two hundred and fifteen thousand five hundred dollars of capital invested in them, and adjoining real estate, while the value of the yearly products was returned at forty-seven thousand seven hundred dollars. The iron made from the ore of these mines is used for the manufacture of Bessemer at Fort Edward and elsewhere in New York, and at several places in Ohio.
In 1880 there were four quartz and feldspar mines in operation in Washington county, in which fifty-two thousand two hundred dollars capital was invested, and where seventeen
hands were employed. Their yearly output was one thousand nine hundred and seven tons, valued at seven thousand eight hundred and twelve dollars.
Graphite is found in Putnam, brick clay exists in several towns, and lead containing silver is in White creek, but the latter so far has not been developed in paying quantities. Roofing slate is in the eastern part in consid- erable quantities, and the celebrated Rutland marble also lies in the southeastern part of the county.
CHAPTER II.
MOUND-BUILDERS —INDIANS— WAR-PATH OF AMERICA.
MOUND-BUILDERS.
The aboriginal history of the territory of Washington county would be extremely inter- esting, if it could be presented. But the mute ruins of mound and temple of the earliest inhabitants of America can tell noth- ing of their builders, while the traditions of the Indian are too dim as well as too fanciful to give anything of their own origin or the fate of their predecessor, the Mound-builder.
While there is abundant evidence of the Mound -builders residing in western New York, yet there is nothing known so far to warrant their permanent occupation of the territory of Washington ; no record of mound, temple, altar or fortification ruins having ever been discovered in the count}-.
Four principal theories exist for the emigra- tion of the Mound-builder from the old to the new world.
The existence, in past ages, of a narrow- north Atlantic isthmus from England to Maine afforded them a route if they were of European origin ; and the rending of this narrow stretch of land by the great ice fields of the glacial age into mere island fragments, of which Greenland and Iceland alone remain, would
-M
BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY
have cut them off from all communication with their native land, whose shores they may never have revisited, as in all probability it became the home of strangers after their westward emigration.
The study of the ocean currents, the winds and temperature of the South Pacific, with the record of drifting boats from the "Flowery Kingdom" and the East Indian isles being cast upon the western shore of South America, allow the possibility of a Mound-builder emi- gration from southeastern Asia to western South America.
The ice-bound floor of Behring's strait in winter and the chain of the Aleutian islands, stretching from Siberia and Japan to Alaska, is the third and most probable route of the Mound-builders from the shores of the old to the lands of the new world.
Some have thought that when fabled At- lantis was sinking in earthquake throes, they left its shores and their drifting boats floated into some south Atlantic harbor.
The seat of the Mound-builder's empire was in the Mississippi and Ohio valleys, where his temple, altar, effigy and tomb mounds are abundant, and in which his num- erous forts and fortifications were erected, with skill, and in places upon quite a large scale.
Schoolcraft states that the Mound-builders existed in considerable numbers along Lake Ontario before the twelfth century, and were the ancient Alleghans, who left their name upon the Allegheny mountains.
Stretching over the western part of New York in towns protected by forts and sur- rounded by mounds and temples were the Mound-builders, and it is highly probable that hunting parties of this great lost race once followed the chase and sought for fish on the territory and in the streams of Washington county.
INDIANS.
When the "Great Admiral" placed the im- perial standard of Spain upon the shores of
the western world he gazed upon an empire more vast than any of the empires of the east. Yet that mighty Indian empire, stretch- ing nine thousand miles from pole to pole, and more extensive in territory, greater in popula- tion, and more abundant in rich mines, than imperial Rome during her golden age, has passed away, and all its greatness lies buried in the graves of Powhatan, King Philip, Pon- tiac, Tecumseh, and a score of other great chieftains.
Of the eight great Indian families occupy- ing the territory of the United States at the time of the discovery of America by Colum- bus, the Algonquin and the Huron-Iroquois were the two most prominent in warfare.
The Algonquins stretched along the Atlan- tic coast and extended back to the lakes and the Allegheny mountains.
Encircled by the Algonquins were their in- veterate enemies, the Huron-Iroquois of the present territory of western and central New York and western Canada.
The fiercest and bravest of all the Huron- Iroquois was the Five Nations, after 1715 the Six Nations, whose home was in central New York.
The Six Nations, stretching in a narrow belt from east to west, through central New York, were the Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas, Tuscaroras and Senecas. Sylvester says that they celebrated five great feasts every year: New Year's Festival or Sacrifice of the White Dog, Maple Feast, Planting Festival, Feast of the Strawberries, Feast of the Green Corn Moon, and Harvest Festival.
The confederacy of the Five Nations, after 1715 the Six Nations, was the result of the wonderful "Tribal League of the Hodeno- saunee, or People of the Long House. " This league made them powerful and successful.
In each of the Five Nations there were eight tribes, arranged in two divisions and named as follows :
Wolf, Bear, Beaver, Turtle, Deer, Snipe, Heron, Hawk.
BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY
25
• Each tribe was divided in five parts, and one-fifth of it placed in each of the Five Na- tions. Thus the Mohawk of the Beaver tribe recognized the Seneca of the Beaver tribe as his brother, and they were bound together by the ties of consanguinity closer than could have been effected by any separate tribal relation which could have been devised. This league, the highest effort of Indian legislation, forms a splendid and enduring monument to the proud and successful confederacy that was reared under it, and that spread the terror of its name among every Indian tribe east of the Mississippi river and residing in Canada.
The Six Nations, "The Indians of Indi- ans," and "The Romans of the West," was the highest type of a thorough, finished, and developed savage.
John Bach McMaster, in his History of the People of the United States, speaks of the Indian as follows :
"The opinion which many careful and just minded persons of our time have formed touching the Indians, of whom the settlers in the border-land then stood in constant dread, is a singular mixture of truth and romance. Time and absence have softened all that is vile and repulsive in his character, and left in full relief all that is good and alluring. We are in no danger of being tomahawked. But, one hundred years ago there were to be found, from Cape Ann to Georgia, few men who had not many times in their lives seen numbers of Indians, while thousands could be found scat- tered through every State whose cattle had been driven off, and whose homes had been laid in ashes by the braves of the Six Nations. In every city were to be seen women who had fled at the dead of night from their burning cabins ; who had, perhaps, witnessed the de- struction of Schenectady ; or whose children had, on that terrible day when Brant came into Orange county, stood in the door of the school house when the master was dragged out, when their playmates were scalped, when their aprons were marked with the black mark
which, like the blood upon the door-posts, a second time stayed the hand of the Angel of Death. The opinions which such men and women held of the noble red man were, we may be sure, very different from those current among the present generation, and formed on no better authority than the novels of Cooper, and the lives of such warriors as Red Jacket and Brant.
"Of the true character of the Indian it is difficult to give any notion to those who are acquainted with it only as it appears exalted or debased in the pages of fiction. In him were united, in a most singular manner, all the vices and all the arts which form the weapons, offensive and defensive, of the weak, with many of those high qualities which are always found associated with courage and strength. He was, essentially, a child of na- ture, and his character was precisely such as circumstances made it. His life was one long struggle for food. His daily food depended not on the fertility of the soil, or the abund- ance of the crops, but on the skill with which he used his bow ; on the courage with which he fought, single-handed, the largest and fiercest of beasts ; on the quickness with which he tracked, and the cunning with which he outwitted, the most timid and keen-scented of creatures. His knowledge of the habits of animals surpassed that of Audubon. The shrewd devices with which he snared them would have elicited the applause of Ulysses : the clearness of his vision excelled that of the oldest sailor; the sharpness of his hearing was not equalled by that of the deer.
"Yet this man, whose courage was unques- tionable, was given to the dark and crooked ways which are the resort of the cowardly and the weak. Much as he loved war, the fair and open fight had no charms for him. To his mind it was madness to take the scalp of an enemy at the risk of his own, when he might waylay him in an ambuscade, or shoot him with a poisoned arrow from behind a tree. He was never so happy as when, at the dead
36
BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY
of night, he roused his sleeping enemies with an unearthly yell, and massacred them by the light of their burning homes."
In the foregoing description McMaster, while giving the Indian character, has failed to allow the Red Man credit for his honorable treatment of the Quaker, who bought his land in a satisfactory manner, and has not criticised the Puritan, Patroon and Cavalier for not adopting the policy of Penn, and averting nearly all of the Indian wars of the colonial period.
Washington Irving, in concluding his sketch of the "Traits of Indian Character," says: "Should he (the poet) venture upon the dark story of their (the Indians') wrongs and wretch- edness ; should he tell how the)' were invaded, corrupted, despoiled ; driven from their native abodes and the sepulchers of their fathers ; hunted like wild beasts about the earth ; and sent down with violence and butchery to the grave — posterity will either turn with horror and incredulity from the tale, or blush with indignation at the cruely of their forefathers."
Of the Indian occupation of Washington county but little can be learned at this late day, while it is a subject that the early his- torians of eastern New York were quite neg- lectful of, and so nearly all knowledge of camp and trail, of hunting ground and village, has passed away.
It seems that the Mohawks were the "over- lords" of the count}7, but had no permanent settlement within its boundaries when the white race made its appearance in the upper Hudson valley. Some years later they made no use of the county beyond occasionally hunting in its forests, and it became the resi- dence of their tributaries, the Mohicans, of western Massachusetts.
The Pompanuck tribe of Indians, and prob- ably a branch of the Mohicans, is said to have come to the vicinity of Pumpkin Hook, in the present town of White Creek. But nothing further of them is preserved in history or has been handed down in tradition.
As late as 1850 a company of Saint Francis Indians, from Canada, carrying bead-work, visited Granville, where they claimed the right by immemorial usage of camping at various places near the village. The leader of the party claimed that one of the traditions of his people was that their ancestors had camped and hunted for untold ages there, and there had made their hatchets and arrows, and found the best beavers in the, Pawlet river. In excavating for buildings defective arrow- heads and hatchets were found afterward, by a Mr. Thompson, which confirmed the Indian account.
The Mohicans had hunting camps on the territory of the count}', in the vicinity of the sites of Fort Ann and Fort Edward, as late, if not later, than 1755. But nothing can be found now to tell how soon thereafter they left, or where their camps were located, or the names and directions of the trails by which they had intercourse with the tribes of New England.
WAR-PATH OF AMERICA.
Situated on the great water-ways of the continent, the Five Nations had three great war-paths over which they passed to wage unceasing war with the rival Indian nations then inhabiting the United States and Can- ada.
From their great council fire in central New York the Cataba war-path led through Penn- sylvania and Virginia to the Carolinas ; the Niagara trail passed into western Canada and westward along the great lakes to the head- waters of the Mississippi ; and the Canadian trail, or the War-path of America, ran through Washington county to Lake Champlain, which afforded a water route to the heart of Canada.
Over the first path they marched south to carry the terror of their name to the gulf. Over the second path they swept to visit ruin on other nations of their own family along Lake Erie, and to wreak vengeance on the
BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY
27
tribes west of the great lakes. Over the third path they passed to battle with the Huron and afterward to mark the Canadian frontier with a wide swath of flame and a dark- trail of blood.
The War-path of America was originally the portage from the site of Fort Edward, on the Hudson, and extended along the valley of Wood creek to the site of Whitehall, at the head of boat navigation on Lake Champlain.
From Fort Ann, on this portage, Johnson cut a road, in 1755, to Fort William Henry, on Lake George, and it was used to some ex- tent by succeeding expeditions during the French and Indian wars.
But the chief interest of French and Eng- lish expeditions is with the old war-path through the Wood Creek valley, over which the legions of Burgoyne moved to impending ruin. The story of Saratoga and the raid of Clinton are, so far, the last chapters of the military history of this old war-path, whose earliest use was in the days of Iroquois su- premacy, and whose last military memory was in the closing hours of the great Revolution- ary struggle.
From the great carrying place at Fort Ed- ward the road passed for some distance through a great wilderness of mighty pines, and where it descended some hill into a deep valley the forest depths were so dark and gloomy that the rays of the sun never pierced them. Toward Fort Ann heavy but more open forests extended, and from that place the road struck Wood creek, whose waters often bore, both northward and southward, invading forces.
Ambush and battle were frequent along this road, massacre and torture were no strangers to it, and tradition has handed down many a legend of its scenes of horror and blood-shed. Until the axe of the lumberman and farmer cleared out these dense forests, the supersti- tious peopled some of its spots after night- fall with the spirits of its once marching war- riors, and the sounds of battle strife. But
the sunlight has dispelled the gloom of the road depths, scattered the flitting spirits among the shadows, and sent into oblivion many of the superstitions of a part of the early settlers.
On the War-path of America, over which once marched embattled hosts, now surge a resistless tide of trade and travel.
CHAPTER III.
CHAMPLAIN'S IN VASION — HUDSON'S DIS- COVERY—IROQUOIS RAIDS INTO CANA- DA—FATHER JOGUES DISCOVERS LAKE GEORGE.
CHAMPLAIN S INVASION.
In all the history of New France there was no event that was fraught with such far-reach- ing consequences as that of the invasion of the territory of what is now Washington county, in July, 1609, by Samuel de Champ- lain, whose name is borne by the beautiful lake once known as the "Wilderness Sea" of the Iroquois. On the 4th day of July, 1609, the daring and adventurous Champlain, with two Frenchmen and sixty Huron Indians, dis- covered and entered the great forest-sur- rounded and mountain-walled lake that will carry his name down through all the ages to come. Floating for two days on the calm and placid waters of the new found lake, the dis- tinguished French discoverer, with his feeble little flotilla of twenty-four canoes, hove in sight of a fleet of Iroquois warriors on their way to raid some Algonquin Indian village of Canada. Notwithstanding conflicting ac- counts, the weight of evidence is to establish the locality of this eventful meeting to be on the west shore of Lake Chaplain, in what is now the town of Putnam.
The dreaded Iroquois, two hundred in num-
2S
BIOGBAPHY AND HISTOBY
ber, landed along the shore, while the Hurons remained on the lake, but sleep was a stranger to both savage bands, who spent the swiftly flying hours of the short summer night in the elegant pastime of reviling and abusing each other in a manner that would have done credit to civilized adepts in the quarrelsome art. At the dawn of day, on the 7th of July, 1609, the French and Hurons went on shore, and the two Indian bands, burning with the engendered animosity of untold years, faced each other eager for the approaching fray. Then, to the astonishment of the Iroquois, who already anticipated an easy victory from their largely superior number, appeared in front of the Hurons a being such as they had never gazed upon before in the person of Champlain, whose white face, dark hair, and shining armor, produced a stupefying effect for a few minutes on the warriors of the Long House. Recovering from their momentary stupor, the Iroquois bent their bows to test the power of the strange intruder. Seeing this, Champlain raised his arquebus and fired, killing the two tall and haughty chiefs leading the Iroquois war party and also wound- ing a warrior. A thunderbolt from a clear and cloudless sky could not cause greater astonishment than the apparent lightning and thunder from the iron mouth of Champ- Iain's fire arm produced upon the stoutest hearted savages of the North American con- tinent. Although surprised, appalled, and stupefied, the Iroquois promptly rallied, and, for a few moments, sent a vigorous flight of arrows against their hereditary foes and the strange invader. Before Champlain could reload one of his French companions ad- vanced in sight and fired. Another Iroquois fell dead, and this increase of the strange in- truders and the second gleam of deathful flame shook the indomitable courage of the bold-hearted warriors of the Five Nations, and wavering, their line broke, under a weight of disasters that seemed as supernatural as it was incomprehensible. Flying into the forest
the escaping Iroquois carried the news of this unwonted French attack on their confederacy and bequeathed its bitter memory to succeed- ing generations.
The French and the Hurons re-entered their canoes and returned to Canada, but Champlain's death shot on the territory of Washington county, New York, was fatal for France in the new world, and its echo ringing through nearly two centuries of Indian inva- sions of Canada, died only on the Plains of Abraham, when French power in North America fell before the arms of England.
Hudson's discovery.
The greatest body of water bordering on the northern part of the county was discovered by Champlain, and bears his name, while the largest stream flowing southward along the western boundary of the county was discov- ered, where it empties into the ocean, two months later, by Henry Hudson, another of the world's great discoverers. Champlain claimed the territory of New York for France, and Hudson, although an Englishman, was in the service of Holland when he discovered the river which bears his name. On this stream settlements were afterward made by the Dutch, who claimed the territory of the Empire State as a part of New Netherlands, in right of Hudson's discovery.
Hudson, on a second voyage of discovery for Holland, discovered the great bay which bears his name, and which in all likelihood became his grave, as his crew mutinied there and cast him afloat in an open boat, from which no tidings ever came.
IROQUOIS RAIDS INTO CANADA.
The Iroquois were beaten by Champlain, or rather by his strange arms, and for a few years ceased to war with the Canadian Algonquins, but they were not subdued, and afterward be- came friendly with the new-settling Dutch, at Fort Orange, now Albany, in order to procure
BIOGRAPHY AXD HISTORY
29
the death dealing arms of the white man, which they obtained from the traders there in ex- change for their furs. Thus supplied with the weapons of the dreaded French invaders, they again took the war path, and in bands numbering from ten to a hundred, repeatedly overran the southern part of Canada, spread- ing terror and desolation in their track, and arresting French settlement in the valley of the Saint Lawrence. Their routes of inva- sion were by the west shore of Lake Saint George, and over the portage between the Hudson and Lake Champlain, through the territory of this county.
But little authentic account can be obtained of these raids, which, tradition says, com- menced between 1630 and 1640, and were made principally by the Mohawk and Oneida nations, as the other three of the Five Na- tions were engaged in a war of extermination against the Eries, Hurons, and other western Indian tribes.
FATHER JOGUES DISCOVERS LAKE GEORGE.
In 1642 one of these raiding bands of Iro- quois captured Father Isaac Jogues, a French Jesuit priest, who was born at Orleans, France, in 1607, and had come to Canada as a mis- sionary. After visiting terrible tortures upon him, they carried him, mangled and bruised, as a prisoner to the Mohawk country, from which he afterward escaped, and in which he was treacherously slain on October 18, 1646, at his Mission of the Martyrs, Saint Mary's of the Mohawks, that he had founded in the month of May, that year.
While bearing Father Jogues as a prisoner to the Mohawk country, the Iroquois band reached Lake George, on August 1 1, 1642, and their captive on that day was the first white man to gaze upon the waters of that beautiful lake, which four years later he named the "Lake of the Blessed Sacrament." Nine years later Sir William Johnson re-christened the lake as George, in honor of George II. of England.
CHAPTER IV.
FRENCH INVASIONS OF THE MOHAWK COUNTRY— IROQUOIS RAVAGES OF CAN ADA.
FRENCH INVASIONS OF THE MOHAWK COUNTRY.
A solemn treat}' of peace between the French and Iroquois had been negotiated in 1746 by Father Jogues, but the inveterate hate of the Iroquois soon caused them to dis- regard its provisions and to continue their raids into Canada with but little interruption for nearly twenty years.
In 1664, the English conquered the New Netherlands, and the Five Nations transferred their allegiance from the old to the new mas- ters of New York without any hesitation, and continued their summer pastime of plunder and murder in Canada.
Finally aroused to resistance, the French colonists obtained aid from France, and in 1665 a veteran regiment was sent over to stop the ravages of the Iroquois. After the arrival of these troops Governor Courcelle, of Can- ada, in January, 1666, started with a force of four hundred troops and two hundred Algon- quin Indians to invade the territory of the Five Nations. From the head of Lake Champlain he crossed the northern part of this county to Lake George, and then, by carelessness of his guides, missed the Mohawk- castles and arrived near Schenectady, from which he was compelled, in February, to re- treat to Canada by the way which he had come, and on the return trip his force was se- verely harrassed by the Iroquois, as well as suffering terribly by the weather and for want of provisions.
The fruitless winter invasion of the Mohaw k country of 1666 was followed by a more suc- cessful autumn one, led by Marquis de Tracy,
30
BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY
whose force is placed by Johnson at six hun- dred, while Sylvester states that it numbered one thousand three hundred. Tracy had two pieces of artillery and only succeeded in burn- ing the Mohawk villages, as their owners, ap- prised of his invasion, fled before his arrival.
IROQUOIS RAVAGE OF CANADA.
Tracy's invasion had such an effect on the Five Nations, that for nearly twenty years Canada enjoyed peace at their hands, but at the end of that time the unwise course of action pursued by Denonville, the Governor of Canada, and the weakness of that country, served as provocation and was temptation, and the relentless Iroquois sharpened up the hatchet. Once more the terrific war-whoop rang in the forest regions of the lakes as the Iroquois swept over the portage war-path in the summer of 16S9. They were nine hundred strong by Johnson, while Sylvester makes them one thousand five hundred in numbers. Like the angry waters of a torrent-flooded stream spreading over all the adjoining low- land, so this fierce savage wave swept over the entire open country around Montreal, and only receded when reaching the forts before the gates of that city. Canada, hopeful of prosperity from a score of years of peace, now lay desolate and blackened beneath the scalping knife and flaming torch of a mer- ciless savage horde.
Widely spread under the summer's sun were smoking ruins, wasted fields, and an unsepul- chered host of the dead, in which were in- volved alike the valiant soldier, the fearless hunter and the prosperous farmer, with the busy matron, the beautiful maid and the inno- cent babe. Through the darkness gleamed the death fires of the unfortunate captives, where fiendish cruelty exhausted human in- genuity in the infliction of most horrible tor- tures. The Iroquois had paid a large in- stallment on the debt of vengeance the}' owed to Champlain for his raid of 1609.
CHAPTER V.
DESTRUCTION OF SCHENECTADY — WIN- THROP AND SCHUYLER'S EXPEDITIONS — FRENCH INVASION — DELLIUS LAND PATENT.
DESTRUCTION OF SCHENECTADV.
The period of French and Iroquois wars, eight}' years in length, ended in 1689, when a second war period of seventy-four years com- menced, which is known in the history of this country as the inter-colonial wars. During this last named period four wars were waged between French and English, called in the new world King William, Queen Ann, King George's, and the French and Indian wars. Although these wars were terminated in Europe by treaties of peace, yet fighting never totally ceased at any time between the oppos- ing colonies in America, within the seventy- four years from 1689 until 1763; when New France ceased to exist as a political division in the new world.
King William's war opened in 1689, and in February of the following year a small detach- ment of French and Algonquin Indians, under Mantet and Sainte Helene, passed to the west of Washington county and surprised Schenec- tady. After killing sixty persons, they laid the place in ashes and retreated with upward of ninety prisoners.
WINTHROP'S EXPEDITION.
The massacre of Schenectady by the French and Indians aroused the provincial authorities of New York and Connecticut, and they re- solved upon retaliatory measures by raising a force and capturing Montreal.
Gen. Fitz John Winthrop, of Connecticut, was appointed to command this force, which consisted of four hundred from New York (mostly Dutch), one hundred and thirty-five Connecticut men, and thirty "River" and
JlKXiRAPHY AND HISTORY
31
one hundred and fifty Mohawk Indians. On the 5th of August General Winthrop crossed the Hudson at the "Great Carrying Place" (Fort Edward) and, preceded by a Dutch company under Major Peter Schuyler, the next day marched to the "Forks of Wood creek," now Fort Ann. From there he marched to the mouth of Wood creek. At that place, receiving word that he would not be joined by the Seneca and Iroquois Indians at the north end of Lake Champlain, on ac- count of small-pox breaking out in their coun- try, he did the most sensible thing that he could do under the circumstances by resolving to abandon the expedition.
A council of war, called on the 15th, sanc- tioned this course, and Winthrop returned to Albany, where he was put under arrest for retreating. Before retiring from Wood creek General Winthrop sent Captain John Schuyler with forty men and one hundred and twenty Indians against any French detachment that might be at the northern part of Lake Cham- plain. Schuyler was soon joined by a return- ing party of thirteen men and five Indians, under Captain Glen, who had been on a scout, and, with this slight accession to his small force, proceeded to La Prairie, on the lake, where he inflicted some damage on the French.
Schuyler's expedition.
During the next year Major Peter Schuyler collected a force of two hundred and sixty whites and Iroquois Indians, and proceeded, by the way of the portage route, from the "Great Carrying Place" to the falls of Wood creek, from which he descended the lake in a small fleet of canoes that he had built at Fort Ann. Arriving at La Prairie, he had a fight with the French, in which he had twenty-one men killed and five wounded, and was com- pelled to retreat.
FRENCH INVASION.
Several small Indian depredations on either side occurred during 1692, but it was reserved
for the next year to witness a French winter expedition, upon quite a large scale.
De Mantelle, with a force of four hundred and twenty-five French and two hundred Huron Indians, on snow shoes and provision sledges, came over the ice of Lakes Cham- plain and George and pushed through the forests into the Mohawk country, where they burned several castles or forts and captured quite a number of prisoners. On their retreat, Sylvester says that Major Peter Schuyler, with a body of English and Iroquois, fought them at Greenfield Hills, in Saratoga county, on February 27, 1693 ; while Johnson states that five days before this the French had arrived at Lake George. Schuyler did not follow farther than the Hudson river, and at the lake the French pushed on for Ticonderoga, while the Hurons crossed to Lake Champlain. A large number of their prisoners escaped, their depot of provisions was spoiled by rain, and the invaders did not reach Montreal until March 9, after suffering great hardships.
DELUUS LAND PATENT.
While there was a cessation in military affairs along the lakes in 1696, a move was made in a civil line that came very near trans- ferring the entire county to one individual. Rev. Godfredius Dellius, pastor of the Re- formed church at Albany, secured a patent from Governor Fletcher, for all the land north of the Saratoga patent on the east side of the Hudson, ninety miles northward, embracing more than half of Washington, all of Warren and the larger part of Essex counties, being in all two thousand square miles of territory. The quit rent to be paid to the crown Yearly for this land was one raccoon skin. Dellius claimed to have purchased this land from the Mohawks prior to 1696, but the settlement would have been retarded by this grant. which was vacated by the legislature in 1698, upon the persuasion of the Earl of Bellamont. Dellius resisted this vacation, and returning to Holland, is supposed to have transferred
32
BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY
his claim to Rev. John Lydius, his successor in the Alhany church.
King William's war, which has principally occupied this chapter, closed in 1697, by the treaty of peace, at Ryswick, in Holland, and for the remaining three years of the seven- teenth century comparative quiet reigned along the northern lakes and the dense forests of Washington county, but it was only a lull preceding another oncoming storm between England and France.
CHAPTER VI.
NICHOLSON'S EXPEDITIONS — SARATOGA SETTLEMENT — CAMPBELL COLONY— LY- DIUS' ESTABLISHMENT.
NICHOLSON S EXPEDITIONS.
The waning of the light of the seventeenth century was over peaceful days, but the sun of the new century was soon obscured by clouds.
In 1702 war was declared between France and England.
It was but the second stage of the great struggle between those two great powers for territorial supremacy in America, and was known in Europe as the "War of the Spanish Succession," while in the history of this coun- try it has place as "Queen Anne's War."
The heaviest part of this war fell upon the New England colonies, while New York was for the most part spared, which one historian says was on account of the French having made a treaty with the Iroquois, and then re- fraining from invading their territory.'
Be it as it may, concerning the last state- ment, yet but few and very small war parties of either Iroquois or Hurons traveled over Washington county during Queen Anne's war.
After seven years of comparative peace had prevailed in the Upper Hudson valley, the
English projected an expedition against Can- ada by the way of Washington county. Con- necticut, New York, New Jersey, and Penn- sylvania furnished fifteen hundred troops, which were joined at Albany by several inde- pendent New York companies, one hundred Mohawks, and a few British regulars. This army was commanded by Gen. Francis Nich- olson, and was preceded in its march by a de- tachment of laborers, under Col. Peter Schuy- ler, who built Fort Saraghtoga on the east side of the Hudson, just below the mouth of the Batten Kill. Proceeding northward, Schuyler built stockades at Stillwater and Fort Miller falls, opened a road from the Batten Kill up to the "Great Carrying Place" at Fort Ed- ward, where he erected Fort Nicholson, and then pushed forward to the "Forks of Wood creek," at which place he built Fort Schuy- ler, on the site of Fort Ann. Nicholson moved up with the main part of his army to Fort Schuyler, while a French force, re- ported to be sixteen hundred strong, lay on the northern part of Lake Champlain to watch his movements.
The expedition against Quebec from New England, with which Nicholson was to co- operate, failed to accomplish its purpose, and the NewYork forces could not move. They were soon depleted by a severe sickness which broke out in their camp, and in November retired down the river, after destroying Forts Nichol- son and Schuyler, and the posts at the second carrying place.
In 1 71 1 another expedition by sea and a land force by the lakes was projected by the English. General Nicholson was again placed in command of the land force, and arriving at the ruins of Fort Schuyler, built a new fort, called "Queen's Fort." Fearing that the Champlain route would be unhealthful, Nich- olson's arm}7, then increased to four thousand, took up its line of march to Lake George, but ere reaching its shore, learned of the English fleet, intended to operate against Quebec, being shattered at sea. This news caused
BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY
;;:;
Nicholson to abandon "Queen's Fort," and to disband his army at Albany.
Fort Saraghtoga remained as the northern outpost of the Hudson river settlements, and two years later Queen Anne's war was termi- nated by the peace of Utrecht in 1713. Des- ultory fighting still continued along the New England and western frontiers, but Washing- ton county and the northern lake region en- joyed peace for over thirty years, during which time the French sought to effect a set- tlement on the lake territory whose ownership had not been definitely settled by the peace of Utrecht. In 1731 the Governor of Canada built a fort at Crown Point, around which was planted a French settlement. This move alarmed the colonists as moving the French center of military operations so much nearer Albany, but the legislature and governor of New York were engaged in a constant conflict with each other and nothing was done toward building a fort at Ticonderoga as a check to French aggression. The building of the Crown Point fort was but a part of the grand design of France to found a mighty empire in the great extent of country watered by the Saint Lawrence, the Great Lakes and the Mississippi, and having for its eastern boun- dary the Appalachian mountain system.
The only means used by New York to coun- teract the French move at Crown Point was to countenance a settlement by the Schuylers at Fort Saraghtoga and invite "Loyal Pro- testant Highlanders" to settle on the lands between the Hudson and the northern lakes.
SARATOGA SETTLEMENT.
The Schuylers, some years after the peace of Utrecht, were instrumental in securing the settlement of a tract of land at the fort of that name on the east side of the Hudson river in what is now the town of Easton. This was the pioneer settlement of the county and was extended to the western side of the river. Nothing definite can be obtained of the year of its settlement, and its total destruction in 3
1745, led to its being confounded, in after years, with the Saratoga settlement and vil- lage on the west side of the river.
CAMPBELL COLONY.
In 1737, Capt. Laughlin Campbell, a soldier of great courage, visited Washington county in response to the invitation of the New York authorities to Scotch Highlanders to settle there. Being pleased with the country, he was promised, according to his account, a grant of thirty thousand acres for colony use for survey fees and quit rent by Lieutenant Governor Clark. Campbell then returned to Scotland, sold his property, raised a colony of four hundred and twenty-three adults, and, with a part of them, came the next year to New York, where Governor Clark insisted on full fees and a share in the land. Campbell refused to comply with these terms, likely not having the money to pay the fees demanded, and Clark recommended the legislature to grant the colony assistance, but that body, then at war with the governor, declined to re- spond, as the money, they suspected, would have to go to the colonial officials for fees. The colonists were obliged to separate to earn their living, and Campbell died in poverty, but his account of his treatment is, in all prob- ability, correct, for the colonial officials then in office enjoyed an unenviable reputation for double-dealing and charging extortionate fees.
LVDIUS' ESTABLISHMENT.
At some time between 1730 and 1744, ac- cording to all accounts, Col. John Henry Lydius, son of Rev. John Lydius, came to the site of Fort Nicholson and built a fortified house as a trading post, where he enjoyed a large trade with both the Iroquois and the Canadian Indians, as he sold goods cheaper than the French traders. He claimed the vast Dellius tract of land in right of his father, who had purchased the title of Rev. Dellius, the patentee.
The legislature did not recognize Lydius as
34
BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY
the owner of the land, and in 1740 granted twelve thousand acres of the tract comprising the larger part of the town of Fort Edward to John and Philip Schuyler and others. The next year Samuel Bayard obtained a grant of one thousand three hundred acres, extending into the very heart of Colonel Lydius' settle- ment. The Hoosick and the Rensselaer pat- ents were granted about 1740, and part of these tracts extended into the towns of Cam- bridge and White Creek.
The selfish course of the colonial officials, the war between the governor and assembly, and the likelihood of war breaking out at any time on the frontier, where the tomahawk and scalping-knife of the cruel Indian would play an important part, had prevented any consid- able settlement in the decades succeeding the treaty of Utrecht.
CHAPTER VII.
DESTRUCTION OF OLD SARATOGA — FORT CLINTON-FRENCH EXPEDITIONS— ENG- LISH ABANDONMENT OF THE COUNTY.
DESTRUCTION OF OLD SARATOGA.
The slow progress of settlement was arrested in 1744 by the outbreak of war again between France and England, in Europe, over the Austrian Succession, and which soon extended to the colonies, where it was known by the name of King George's war.
The preceding colonial war had been noted for attempted English invasions of Canada by the way of Lake Champlain, but King George's war was to be distinguished in the upper Hud- son valley only by French invasions and the total abandonment of Washington county in 1747 'by the English.
Soon after war was declared, Indian scouting parties lurked about Lydius' post and Fort Saraghtoga, but did no damage. The next
year Colonel Philip Schuyler repaired and strengthened the forts at Saratoga, which were attacked, captured and destroyed on November 28, 1745 (New Style), by M. Marin and a force of three hundred French and as many Algonquin Indians. M. Marin's origi- nal destination was Connecticut, but on his march he changed his plan and attacked Sara- toga, which lay on both sides of the Hudson, with a fort on each side. There were about thirty families in the settlement, and Colonel Philip Schuyler, refusing to surrender, was shot down in his brick house on the west side of the Hudson, according to Lossing and others, while Johnson is strongly of the opin- ion that his residence was on the east side of the Hudson, as well as that most of the set- tlement was on the Batten Kill on the east, and not on the Fish Kill on the west side of the river.
Marin captured one hundred and nine pris- oners and retreated by Lake Champlain to Canada. No attempt at pursuit was made.
FORT CLINTON.
In the spring of 1746, Fort Clinton was built near the ruins of one of the Saratoga forts, to protect the cultivation of the cleared fields of the destroyed settlement. Fort Clin- ton was named for Governor George Clinton (father of Sir Henry Clinton), cost three hun- dred and seventy-five dollars, and was one hundred and fifty feet long by one hundred and forty feet in width, with six wooden re- doubts for barracks, and mounting six twelve- pound and six eighteen-pound cannon.
The location of Fort Clinton has been a matter of some dispute. Johnson says the fort was on the east side, while Sylvester claims that it was on the west side of the Hudson.
FRENCH EXPEDITIONS.
During the year 1746 over twenty small French and Indian expeditions passed over the soil of the county to attack the settlers
BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY
35
along the frontiers of New York and Massa- chusetts, and one force four hundred and fifty strong, under Monsieur de Mery, camped on Wood creek, into which they felled the trees growing on its banks for several miles up from the mouth, so as to render its navigation im- practicable to any English expedition moving against Canada by that route.
War parties of the French and Indians continued throughout the next year to pass to their work of plunder and murder, but the only one that inflicted any damage in the county was that of Saint Luc, who, in July, 1647, made his way stealthily to the vicinity of Fort Clinton, with twenty Canadians and two hundred Indians. He had six of his warriors in the night approach close to the fort, and in the morning they fired on two men who came out of the fort and then rose up and fled, drawing slowly after them one hundred and twenty of the garrison into an ambush prepared by the French leader. The French and Indians fired, and then closed in with their tomahawks, killing twenty-eight and capturing forty-five on the spot, while many others were drowned or shot while try- ing to swim the river. Saint Luc's loss was one Indian killed and five wounded.
The French leader remained near Fort Clin- ton until he ascertained that there were over one hundred and fifty men yet in the garrison — a force too strong for him to attack while it was behind the walls of the fort — and then retreated leisurely, with his prisoners, to Canada.
ENGLISH ABANDONMENT OK THE COUNTY.
The English continued to hold Fort Clinton until October, when Governor Clinton, upon the plea that the assembly had not voted money enough to keep it up, ordered the can- non and stores removed and the troops with- drawn to Albany. As the last of the garrison withdrew the torch was applied, by the gov- ernor's orders, and the fort was burned to the ground.
Thus the first English occupation was of short duration, not lasting much over ten years at the farthest.
The next year the war was closed by the treaty of peace signed at Aix la Chapelle, and the French and Indian war parties ceased to pass through the county, but the distrust caused by the inefficient action of the New York authorities was sufficient to discourage all attempts at further settlement, until pro- vincial affairs should be in better shape.
1180279
CHAPTER VIII
BATTLE OF LAKE GEORGE — ROGERS, PUT- NAM, AND STARK'S RANGERS— FALL OF FORT WILLIAM HENRY ABERCROMBIE AND AMHERST'S CAMPAIGNS.
BATTLE OF LAKE GEORGE.
The last of three peace intervals between the four inter-colonial wars that constituted the great struggle for territorial supremacy between France and England in North Am- erica, lasted but six years. The first two of these wars were fought while Louis XIV., the "Grand Monarque, '' was on the throne of France. During his minority and early reign, his minister, Cardinal Mazarin, kept peace with England, because Cromwell was too powerful to be encountered, but in his later years, when dictating law to Europe, Louis foolishly refused to acknowledge the Prince of Orange as William III. of England. From that day his power waned and the House of Bourbon was doomed to fall. Under his pro- fligate successor, Louis XVI., the struggle was continued with England, ruled by the
36
BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY
House of Brunswick. The third war had been fought, and now the fourth, last and greatest of these wars, was about to begin. The first three wars had their origin in Europe, but the fourth, known in this country as the French and Indian war, originated in America in 1754, in the contest of the Virginians and French over the Monongahela valley in southwestern Pennsylvania.
Northward along the entire frontier line the contest spread and raged for two years before a formal declaration of war was made be- tween France and England, although during this time, while Louis XVI. and George II. were expressing friendship for each other, they were sending large bodies of troops to help their respective North American colonies in their great struggle.
During the last peace period the Mohicans, by permission of the Mohawks, had hunting camps in the county, and a dim tradition ex- ists of a settlement beginning in the town of Greenwich on the Schuyler patent, where, in all probability, a few settlers may have strug- gled back to the devastated fields of the Sara- toga settlement.
In 1755 England planned three expeditions against the French in America. The third of these expeditions was placed under command of Maj. Gen. William Johnson, and had for its object the capture of Crown Point. On August 14, 1755, General Johnson arrived at the site of Fort Edward, where General Ly- man had erected Fort Lyman on the site of Fort Nicholson, near the site of Lydius' estab- lishment. By August 25th Johnson had over four thousand troops, consisting of two Con- necticut, three Massachusetts, a Rhode Island, a New Hampshire, and a New York regiment, the latter of which contained three Connecti- cut companies. Two hundred and fifty Mo- hawk braves joined the expedition under com- mand of the celebrated King Hendrick. Gen- eral Johnson, on the 25th, moved with two thousand five hundred troops and his Indians toward Lake George, where he arrived on the
28th, and encamped within the territory of Warren county. A few days later he was joined by Gen. Phineas Lyman, with addi- tional reinforcements, and Colonel Blanchard was left in command of Fort Lyman.
The departure of Johnson was reported to Baron Dieskau, "the Dutch-Frenchman," as a retreat to Albany. The French com- mander, upon this intelligence, resolved to divide his force, and with one part of it cap- ture Fort Lyman. This course of action was resolved upon against the positive command of the governor of Canada. Dieskau, with twelve hundred and eighty Canadians and In- dians, landed at South Bay, on the 4th of September, and the next day took up their march for Fort Lyman, where they arrived on the 7th. His six hundred Indians refused to attack .the fort — really on account of its cannon — as property of King George, but offered to attack Johnson (as they supposed he had no cannon), as he was on French terri- tory. Dieskau was compelled to give up the attack on the fort, and seek battle with John- son. Moving toward Lake George the next day he learned that Johnson had started one thousand men, under Colonel Williams and King Hendrick, to relieve the fort, and planted an ambuscade into which the English and Indians fell, at Bloody Pond, in the edge of Warren county. Williams and King Hen- drick were killed, and their force nearly all destroyed. After this signal victory the obsti- nate and rash Dieskau pressed forward to the assault of Johnson's fortified camp, where he was wounded and captured, and his force de- feated and scattered. The battle of Lake George raged from noon till four o'clock, and was determined by a charge of the English after repulsing several desperate French as- saults. Johnson was wounded early in the fight, and Lyman really won the victory. The French and Indians retreated toward South Bay, but one detachment was sur- prised at Bloody Pond, and routed by a detachment of English sent out from Fort
BIOGUAPHY AND HISTORY
37
Lyman, under Captain McGuinness. From South Bay the remnant of the French and In- dian force returned in their boats to Crown Point.
Johnson ignored General Lyman in his re- port of the battle, and treated him with great shabbiness in changing the name of Fort Ly- man to that of Fort Edward, for Edward, Duke of York. Johnson was made a baron and given a gratuity of five thousand pounds for winning the battle of Lake George — the only English victory of that year, and Lyman, the true hero, went unnoticed alike by the Provincial authorities and the Crown.
Johnson wisely refrained from attacking Crown Point with his force, as the French had as many men as he had, and the advan- tage of their fortifications. Reinforcements came so late in the season that after building Fort William Henry, on Lake George, John- son returned to Albany and disbanded his army.
During the latter part of the year Captains Robert Rogers and Israel Putnam, and Lieu- tenants John Stark and Noah Grant (great- grandfather of General U. S. Grant) led nu- merous successful scouting expeditions toward Ticonderoga.
Dissatisfaction prevailed at Johnson's fail- ure to capture Crown Point, and in 1756, the colonies raised six thousand troops, who were sent to Fort Edward, under command of Gen. Seth Winslow of Massachusetts. There Winslow was soon joined by Gen. James Abercrombie with a body of British regulars. General Abercrombie assumed command and marched to Fort William Henry, where he allowed the daring and intrepid Marquis de Montcalm, the commander of the French forces, to completely outwit him in every way and capture Oswego, on Lake Ontario. Aber- crombie was too slow to attempt anything, and the Earl of Loudon, commander-in-chief, was less energetic, so the army, after laving at Fort William Henry till fall, was marched back to Albany and disbanded. 3a
ROGERS, PUTNAM AND STARK S RANGERS.
While the imbecility of the English com- manders was inviting defeat at the hands of the French, there were three partisan leaders — Rogers, Putnam and Stark — whose daring scouts and successful fights taught the enemy respect for provincial prowess. In June, 1756, Rogers and Putnam, with two pieces of light artillery and one hundred men, at the narrows of Lake Champlain, ambushed Saint Luc with a force of several hundred French and Indians, and killed a large number, besides sinking many boats. They also passed Crown Point in the night and raided into the edge of Canada. In January, 1757, Rogers and Stark, with seventy-four men, on snow-shoes, suc- cessfully attacked a French party on the ice between Ticonderoga and Crown Point, but one French soldier escaped, and a force of two hundred and fifty men, on snow-shoes, were sent to capture the audacious rangers. A battle of four hours, in snow four feet deep, followed ; the French drew off and the rangers retreated. Rogers was wounded early in the fight, and Stark (second lieutenant) won the victory and conducted the retreat. In March, Captain Stark prevented the surprise and probable capture of Fort William Henry by Vaudreuil and a force of one thousand five hundred French and Indians, who came from Ticonderoga on snow-shoes, along Lake Champlain, and through the towns of Dres- den and Fort Ann. Stark, by a ruse, kept his company of New Hampshire Scotch-Irish from getting drunk on Saint Patrick's day, and thus had sober sentinels, while the regu- lars were all hopelessly drunk. After a few days investment of the fort the French burned a lot of vessels and retreated.
FALL OF FORT WILLIAM HENRY.
During 1757, Abercrombie remained at Al- bany and sent Gen. Daniel Webb, with some regiments of British regulars and several thousand of provincial troops, to Fort Ed-
38
BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY
ward. Webb had distinguished himself the preceding year by a rapid flight down the Mohawk valley when no enemy was in pur- suit, and hence was not popular with either soldiers or colonists.
Montcalm frightened Webb from all offen- sive operations by two swift and bloody raids. Lieutenant Marin, the daring French partisan, on. July 25th landed at South Bay with two hundred French and Indians and killed nearly all of sixty men of a patrol and guard in sight of Fort Edward, where cautious Webb would not allow any of his regiments to go out and make short work of the butcher. On July 25th, the second raid was made under Lieu- tenant Corbierie, who with fifty French and two hundred Ottawas, came up Lake George to near Sabbath Day point and ambushed the barges, carrying a New Jersey regiment, three hundred strong, under Col. John Parker, kill- ing one hundred and thirty-one and capturing one hundred and fifty- seven, with a loss of only one Indian wounded.
Webb was most terribly frightened, and, going to Fort William Henry, his fears were not lessened any by learning there of an ad- vancing French force. He immediately re- turned to Fort Edward and dispatched a Scotch regiment to reinforce it. while he sent expresses through ail the colonies calling for reinforcements, which were promptly raised, to the extent of twenty thousand, and sent, although arriving too late to be of any use.
In the meantime Montcalm swiftly ascended Lake George and surrounded Fort William Henry with seven thousand five hundred troops, of which one thousand eight hun- dred were Indians. General Webb lay quaking in his trenches at Fort Edward, with five thousand men, and informed Colonel Munro, commanding Fort William Henry, that he could not relieve him until the militia arrived, and if he could not hold out till then he must make the best terms of surrender that he could. Putnam and Sir William Johnson on the 8th obtained permission to raise volun-
teers and advance to the relief of Munro, but when they drew out a considerable force to start, Webb countermanded the permission and ordered the troops back. The next day Munro surrendered, with two thousand two hundred men, under stipulations that his troops should retire the next day, with their arms and baggage, to Fort Edward. The re- treat the next day was turned into a flight, and the larger part were massacred by the Indians.
This massacre is the one dark stain on the otherwise bright character of Montcalm, who did not prevent it, while it is alike disgraceful to two thousand troops, with arms in their hands, to allow themselves to be butchered by an inferior force of Indians unless they feared to resist, under the impression if they did so the French would open fire on them.
Webb was relieved of his command by Ly- man, but escaped punishment and even cen- sure, although ordered to England.
The army and the militia returned to Al- bany and were disbanded. A strong garrison was left at. Fort Edward, and Putnam and Rogers, with their rangers, were stationed along the northern frontier. Putnam, in No- vember, saved Captain Little's detachment from capture by Levis, who, in that mon'h, made a dash into the neighborhood of Fort Edward with several hundred French and Indians.
Disaster to the English arms had marked the year 1757, but three years of repeated reverses were now to be succeeded by two years of victories, as Pitt had become prime minister; and under his genius success was to be organized. Loudon was removed and Abercrombie given the chief command in his place.
Lord Howe led the advance of Abercrom- bie's army to Lake George, on June 22, 1758, and shortly after this Putnam, with fifty men, was sent by Howe to guard the head of Lake Champlain and prevent French reconnoitering there. Fifteen of his men became' sick, and
IUOaiJAJ'HY ANT) HISTORY
39
with the other thirty-five he erected a stone wall at Fiddler's Elbow, three-quarters of a mile below Whitehall. Ambushing his wall with pine, the sturdy Putnam waited until fate sent no less a foe than the dreaded Marin or "Molang," with five hundred French and Indians. It took Marin nearly twelve hours to dislodge Putnam, and cost him nearly two hundred men, while the rangers had but two men wounded.
abercrombie's campaign.
On July 28, 1758, Abercrombie's army ar- rived at Fort Edward. He had the 27th, 44th, 46th, 55th and 80th regiments of regu- lars, two battalions of the 60th and 42d High- landers, or the celebrated "Black Watch," six thousand five hundred men, all told, and the flower of the British army. Ten thousand provincial troops and five hundred Iroquois, commanded by Sir William Johnson, -were with him. A magnificent arm)', if it only had had a commander of any military ability at its head.
On July 7, Abercrombie crossed Lake George and landed unopposed. Montcalm had only three thousand men, but he was an host within himself. In the skirmishing that ensued after the landing, Lord Howe, the idol of the English army, was killed. On the 8th, "Flung with blundering bolt-headness against a rude intrenchment protected by abatis and defended by only three thousand Frenchmen and Canadians, under the fiery Montcalm, the sixteen thousand British and Americans wore out the long, hot summer afternoon in hopeless attacks, and retreated at night with the loss of two thousand men, while that of the enemy scarcely reached three hundred."
Abercrombie retreated after his defeat, and later threw up fortifications at the head of Lake George, which he occupied until fall. He then marched his army back to Alb^nv.
Before Abercrombie retreated from the county, he allowed Colonel Bradstreet to col-
lect a small force and proceed to Lake On- tario, where he captured Fort Frontenac, with some cannon and a large amount of military stores.
Also, while Abercrombie was at the head of Lake George, Saint Luc, on July 30, at the head of a large body of Canadians, de- stroyed a train between Fort Edward and Lake George, taking one hundred and ten scalps and eighty-four prisoners. Putnam and Rogers were selected to make the pursuit, with five hundred men, but they were not soon enough to intercept the French at South Bay. They then divided their force and scouted for a short time, when they re united on information of Marin being in the vicinity with five hundred French and "Indians. Marin formed an ambusqade, into which Putnam ran unsuspectingly, but the rangers soon withdrew, and desperate fighting ensued in which Putnam was captured. The French finally retreated and took with them Putnam, whom Marin saved from the stake to which the Indians had tied him, and around which they had built a fire to burn him.
amherst's campaign.
In October, 1758, Gen. Jeffrey Amherst su- perseded Abercrombie, and while brave and energetic, yet was a man of no great military ability. The next spring another army moved from Albany, and in June arrived at Fort Ed- ward, where Amherst rested for a few days. He then marched for Lake George with six thousand British and nine thousand provincial troops. Crossing the lake he appeared suc- cessively before Ticonderoga and Crown Point, each of which was abandoned to him, as their garrisons combined only twenty-three hun- dred strong, fell back to aid in the defence of Quebec.
Amherst now showed his lack of general- ship by halting at Crown Point on the first of August, and instead of pressing forward to aid Wolfe at Quebec, actually gave up his cam- paign, and after building a fort or two, re-
40
BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY
turned to Albany, where he went into winter quarters.
The next spring Colonel Haviland led a small force through Washington county to Canada, while General Amherst went with the main army by the way of Oswego and appear- ing before the walls of Montreal, where he was joined by Murray's army from Quebec. Mon- treal surrendered without offering any resist- ance, and the war was virtually ended in Am- erica, although peace was not declared until three years later. Amherst being in chief command at the close of the struggle was made a baronet, and afterward received the title of lord. " But it has been truly said that if Wolfe had been such a soldier as Amherst, the Gib- ralter of America would not have been cap- tured, and history has justly flung her laurels on the corpse of the hero of Quebec, rather than bind with them the brow of the cautious and successful commander-in-chief."
The French and Indian war of America, known in Europe as the "Seven Year's War," had closed, and its results in America had largely changed the political map of the country. Louis XVI. had able generals, but too few soldiers, in Canada to hold that country against the English. If instead of sending one hundred thousand soldiers to defend his European friends and three thousand to Can- ada, he had sent more regiments to America, New France might not have been swept from the map of the new world. Likewise if France had accepted a water line boundary instead of a mountain one in 1754 the French and Indian war would have likely been de- ferred for some years. The Indian war period lasted eighty years, and the Inter-colonial war period had now closed after fifty-four years of duration. Each of these periods was opened by a single shot upon whose flight hung mo- mentous destinies. The echo of the one shot — Champlain's- — died only when Quebec fell ; the echo of the other — Washington's — rung until Yorktown made supreme the cause of American Independence.
CHAPTER IX
EARLY SETTLEMENTS PROVINCIAL AND ARTILLERY PATENTS — NEW HAMP- SHIRE GRANTS.
EARLY SETTLEMENTS.
The capture of Canada and the prospect of peace between France and England led im- mediately to the permanent settlement of the central and southern parts of Washington county.
During the year 1761 settlers came a second time to the Saratoga tract on the Hudson, and James Turner and Alexander Conkey, from Pelham, Massachusetts, located a colony site on the flats where Salem village now stands, while some families settled in Cambridge, and Major Philip Skene brought thirty families and founded Skenesborough (White- hall ) settlement.
In 1763 peace was declared, and under the royal proclamation issued offering land in America without fee to all British officers and soldiers serving in the French and Indian war, large tracts were set aside in Washington county for them.
Two years later quite a tide of emigration set in toward Washington county. The chil- dren of Captain Laughlin Campbell settled on ten thousand acres granted them in Argyle. Major Skene had brought quite a number of negroes to his settlement, where part of his colon)' had died from an unhealthy location, and was pushing forward his work with en- ergy. James Bradshaw had settled in Kings- bury. The advance of the colony from Pel- ham, Massachusetts, had arrived in the Salem country, which they named White Creek ; and at the same time Dr. Thomas Clark came with a colony of Scotch-Irish and settled among them, called the section New Perth. Scotch Highlanders, mostly of the 77th regi- ment, commence to settle on the military patents granted in the county.
BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY
II
In 1768 Albert Baker settled at Sandy Hill. In the next year a colony of Irish Methodists located near Ash Grove, and the smoke from the settler's cabin rose in every valley in the county by 1767, so rapidly had population poured from New England and New York, and from Scotland and the north of Ireland.
PROVINCIAL AND ARTILLERY PATENTS.
The Saratoga, Hoosick,Walloomsac, Schuy- ler and Bayard patents, all granted by 1740, were still in force.
The Cambridge patent for thirty-five thous- and five hundred acres in Cambridge and White Creek was granted to a Connecticut colony on July 21, 1761.
The Anaquassacook patent for ten thousand acres in Jackson and White Creek was granted to ten parties from Schenectady on May 11, 1762.
The Kingsbury patent of twenty-six thous- and acres in the town of Kingsbury was granted to James Bradshaw and others on Mav 11, 1762.
The Campbell patent for ten thousand acres in Argyle, now in Greenwich, was granted to the children of Captain Laughlin Campbell in the autumn of 1763.
The Turner patent of twenty-five thousand acres in Salem was granted to James Turner and others in 1764.
The Provincial patent for twenty-six thous- and acres in the town of Hartford was speci- ally granted to twenty-six New York infantry officers in Ma}', 1764.
The Artillery patent of twenty-four thous- ang acres in Fort Ann was granted to twenty- four New York artillery officers in 1764.
The Argyle patent of forty-seven thousand four hundred and fifty acres in Argyle was granted to the descendants of Captain Camp- bell's colony in May, 1764.
The Skenesborough patent of twenty-five thousand acres, now in the town of Whitehall, was granted to Major Skene in the spring of 1765-
The rest of the county, aside from the patents named, was nearly all set apart to British offi- cers and soldiers under the royal proclama- tion.
Some of these patentees in addition to the fees of seventy-five dollars per each thousand acres, had to deed an undivided half as a bribe to the New York authorities in order to secure any patent at all. No price, however, was ■asked for any of the land, only a small quit rent each year was to be paid in addition to the fees.
NEW HAMPSHIRE GRANTS.
After the close of the French and Indian war the old boundary trouble between New York and New Hampshire was revived, and the eastern part of the territory of Washington county was in the disputed strip. The con- troversy arose in 1749, when New Hampshire put forth her claim of her western boundary being within eighteen miles of the Hudson river, and New York claimed eastward to the Connecticut river above the colony of Massa- chusetts. New Hampshire asked a very low quit rent of nine pence per hundred acres, while New York assessed for the same amount of land the sum of two shillings six pence.
In 1751 both colonial governments appealed to the " Lords of Trade " in London to decide the controversy, which that remarkably dila- tory body naturally delayed doing until 1764, when George III. issued an order in council declaring that New York extended to the Con- necticut river. But afterward the Crown or- dered New York to issue no more grants until further orders. This kept the dissention alive between the adherents of each side, and on October 29, 1 77 1 , Ethen Allen and others of the New Hampshire settlers invaded east Hebron and tore down the house of Corporal Charles Hutchinson, beside driving away some eight or nine families. A squire's war- rant was issued and twenty pounds reward were offered for the raiders, but they laughed
42
BIO OJ! A PHY AND HISTORY
at both and remained unmolested on the east- ern border of the county.
The final result of the controversy was the establishment of the disputed land east of Washington county as an independent territory that afterward under the name of Vermont, be- came the first State admitted into the Union.
CHAPTER X.
COUNTY FORMATION UNDER NAME OK CHARLOTTE.
The supposition has been advanced that the idea of getting a new set of officers nearer to the Hampshire Grant troubles, than the Al- bany county officials, might have had some- thing to do with the erection of Washington county under the name of Charlotte by legis- lative enactment, on March 12, 1772. The county was taken from Albany and received the name of Charlotte, in honor of Queen Charlotte, of England, the wife of George III., and a native of Mecklenburg-Strelitz.
The north line of the county was the south boundary line of Canada until it struck the Green Mountains, which formed the eastern boundary down to the west line of Cumber- land count)', and then west to the south line of Princetown, in which it struck the Batten Kill, and from a point on that stream ran north to a point three and three-sixteenths miles east of the mouth of Stony run. From there it ran west to the mouth of Stony run on the Hudson, and then followed that river up to the northwest corner of the town of Luzerne, Warren county, ran west along the north line of Saratoga county, its northwest corner, and north along the present west line of Warren county, extended to the Canada line.
Thus constituted Charlotte county contained all of the present Washington county, except the towns of Easton, Cambridge, Jackson, White Creek, and the southwest part of
Greenwich, which remained in Albany county, while to the northward it included all Warren, Essex, and Clinton, and the eastern part of Franklin county, and eastward embraced all the western part of Vermont, north from the corner of Jackson. The Green mountains was its eastern boundary line, and its territory was sufficiently ample to have constituted a State.
A year passed away before any effort was made toward the appointment of count}' offi- cers and the location for the seat of justice. Major Skene sought to have the county seat located at Skenesborough, and also desired to receive the appointment of first judge, but was disappointed in both objects, as Philip Schuy- ler received the judgeship and Fort Edward was designated as the temporary county seat.
The first court convened with Judge William Durer on the bench, in place of Schuyler, who was sick. Philip Lansing was sheriff, Patrick Smith clerk, and Ebenezer Clark, Alex. Mc- Naughtori and Jacob Marsh were the justices present. The grand jury was Archibald Camp- bell, foreman ; Michael Huffnagle, Robert Gordon, Albert Baker, David Watkins, Joseph McCracken, Joshua Conkey, Jeremiah Bur- rows, Levi Stockwell, Levi Crocker, Moses Martin, Alex. Gilchrist, and Daniel Smith.
In the meantime the border troubles in- creased and criminals of many kinds became so numerous as to defy the civil authorities. In March, 1775, Judge Durer held a court under the bayonets of • Captain Mott's com- pany of British regulars, who had been stopped by him on their way to Ticonderoga, and in- dictments were found against the guilty par- ties, who were never apprehended on account of the breaking out of the Revolutionary strug- gle. These outlaws had broken up the Cum- berland county court, but found William Durer, the East Indian soldier, a man not easily to be intimidated.
The leading men of the new county were : Major Skene, Dr. Clark, Judge William Durer, Mr. Embury and Dr. John Williams, a young English physician, who had settled at Salem
BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY
4:1
in 1773- Dr. Williams and Judge Durer, al- though but recently from England, both em- braced the cause of the colonial struggle then rapidly gathering force for the Revolutionary trial by arms. It is a question with some that if Skene had been treated more leniently at the start that he would have cast in his for- tunes with the Continental cause.
CHAPTER XI.
COMMENCEMENT OF THE REVOLUT.ON — BURGOYNE'S INVASION — BAT TLE OF FORT ANN — BURGOYNE'S SLOW AD- VANCE—MURDER OF JANE McCREA — BENNINGTON-SARATOGA— UNION CON- VENTION—REVOLUTIONARY SOLDIERS.
COMMENCEMENT OF THE REVOLUTION.
The French and Indian war was the splen- did training school in which the thirteen col- onies fitted themselves for their oncoming magnificent and successful struggle for inde- pendence from Great Britain.
From weight of numbers and aggressive- ness of character, three elements of Ameri- can civilization — the Puritan, the Cavalier and the Scotch - Irish — were predominent factors in organizing armed resistance to par- liamentary usurpations and carrying on in America the Revolutionary struggle against the armies of England.
The Dutch of New York, the Catholics of Maryland, and French Huguenots of Georgia and the Carolinas, in proportion to their num- bers, bore well their part in the great contest.
The Puritan of New England received the first shock of the contest that was carried southward to its termination. The Cavalier, like the Puritan, fought chiefly in his own ter- ritory, but the Scotch-Irish from their center in western North Carolina spread along the Allegheny mountains both northward and southward, and fought from Bennington to
King's mountain, at which places they turned the tides of war that led to the surrenders of Burgoyne and Cornwallis.
The spring of 1775 was one of event in Washington count}'.
Fast-flying steeds along the forest roads of the county carried the news of Lexington to every settlement, and the mass of the people, under the leadership of Dr. Williams and Judge Durer, resolved to support the cause of the men of New England. Event rapidly followed event, and on the 10th of May canoes came up Lake Champlain with the tidings of the fall of Ticonderoga to the forces of Ethan Allen and Benedict Arnold.
A respectable minority of the citizens were slow to give up their loyalty to the king. They were mostly Scotch and English, and among their number were Dr. Clark and Major Skene, who was then absent in England it was asserted to secure the establishment of a new province, by the name of Ticonderoga, and obtain the governorship of the same. His tenantry, on the 13th of May, were sur- prised by the arrival in their midst of Captain Herrick's company of west Massachusetts men, who assumed the major's absence as an indisputable evidence of Toryism and confis- cated a considerable portion of his property, including the splendid Spanish horse which was shot under Arnold when he was wounded at the second battle of Stillwater. They also took his son, Andrew P., fifty of his tenants, and twelve of his negroes as prisoners, and carried to Arnold the major's schooner, which became the flag-ship of the miniature Ameri- can navy on Lake Champlain. Shortly after this Major Skene arrived at New York, where he was arrested and thrown into prison, while his papers were seized and examined. If they contained his commission as governor of Ticonderoga, embracing northern New York and the New Hampshire grants, it would have been destroyed or kept secret by the Continental authorities in order not to offend New York and New Hampshire.
44
BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY
The county committee met on the 15th of August, 1775, at Dorset's in the "Grants," but only acted for the western part of the county, and provided that every able-bodied man from sixteen to sixty should be enrolled and drilled once a month. It also recom- mended the raising of a regiment of militia in the western part of the county, to be com- manded by Dr. John Williams.
During 1775, General Montgomery and General Schuyler passed through the county on their way to join the northern army in Canada, and were followed during the autumn by small bodies of troops and scanty supply trains. The capture of Montreal raised hope, but the death of Montgomery and the defeat at Quebec sickened anticipation in the hearts of the Whigs.
The year 1776, although it gave definite purpose and a grand object to the men of the colonies by the Declaration of Independence, yet closed in Charlotte county with ominous threatenings of British raids over the old War- path of America. The Charlotte County Rangers guarded the lake frontier, and the county assessed a home bounty for volunteers for the northern army as follows in the differ- ent districts in proportion to their number of voters :
Districts. Voters. Bounty.
Argyle 90 £6 14 3.
Black Creek .36 214
Camden 12 10
Granville .30 2 o
Kingsbury 75 5 7
New Perth 160 12 o
Skenesborough 41 3 i}4
Total 464 32 ey2
There was a small property qualification on voters for the legislature which this list rep- resented, and making allowance for the few non-freeholders, the population of the county must have been about three thousand.
While the New Englanders and a small portion of the Scotch were ardent patriots,
yet the larger body of the Scotch preserved neutrality in the Revolutionary struggle, and a portion of them became active Tories. The disaffected and British element were mainly resident in Wood Creek valley, and the north- ern part of them settled part of the county.
Jonathan and David Jones were Tory lead- ers in Kingsbury and Fort Edward, where they raised a company of fifty men, ostensibly to serve at Ticonderoga, but which they marched past that fort to join the British in Canada, where Jonathan was commissioned as a captain and David as a lieutenant in the English forces.
This company came with Burgoyne's army of invasion, and David Jones attained a world- wide celebrity in connection with the tragic fate of Jane McCrea.
Another Tory or Royalist company was raised in Washington county by Capt. Justus Sherwood and joined the English army, serv- ing in Colonel Peter's regiment. Some of Sherwood's men were from the southern part of the county.
burgoyne's INVASION.
In the meantime the New Hampshire grants had declared themselves an independent State under the name of New Connecticut, which was soon changed to that of Vermont, and al- though Congress refused to recognize them and New York was unable to enforce author- ity over them, yet considerable local trouble existed over the matter in Charlotte county, whose officers finally confined their jurisdic- tion to the western part of their territory.
Great uneasiness prevailed among theWhigs on the report of an advancing English and Indian army, but they placed great hopes on the fortress of Ticonderoga being strong enough to stay the dark and deathful wave of threatened invasion.
They were, however, doomed to a dreadful disappointment.
The English projected two grand campaigns for 1777, the first under Howe to capture
BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY
43
Philadelphia, and the second under Burgoyne to move from Canada, and in connection with the forces of Clinton at New York, secure the line of the Hudson river, thus separating com- munication between the New England and the Middle States.
Gen. John Burgoyne landed in Canada, and in June came up Lake Champlain with an army of nearly ten thousand men, composed of the gth, 20th, 21st, 24th, 47th, 53d and 62d regiments of British regulars, dismounted German dragoons, Hessian rifles, mixed Brunswickers, some Canadians, and five hun- dred Indians under the partisan Saint Luc, then sixty-six years of age.
Schuyler, commander of the northern de- partment, made his headquarters at Fort Ed- ward, and engaged energetically in collecting and hurrying up men and provisions from the colonies, while he placed the command of Ticonderoga under Saint Clair, who had two thousand five hundred regulars and six hun- dred militia under him on July 1st. The Charlotte county regiment, under Colonel Wil- liams, was ordered out and stationed at Cas- tleton and Ticonderoga.
General Burgoyne profiting by one mistake of General Abercrombie, did not assault Ticon- deroga, and taking advantage of another mis- take made by Generals Amherst, Schuyler and Saint Clair and their engineers in not fortify- ing Mount Defiance, only fifteen hundred feet away, took possession of that frowning height during the night of the 4th. On the 5th Brit- ish cannon were being placed in position to open fire into the great fortress, and on the night of the same day Saint Clair retreated. He left Ticonderoga with some of its stores to the peaceable possession of the English.
Schuyler and Saint Clair were denounced all through the country for the loss of Ticon- deroga. They were both patriotic and brave, yet in this case it would have been better gen- eralship of Schuyler to have been at Ticon- deroga than at Fort Edward, and Saint Clair should have consulted his engineer and not
allowed a frowning height within fifteen hun- dred feet of his fort to have been peaceably occupied by the British.
General Saint Clair's line of retreat from Hubbardstown, Vermont, was through Hart- ford and Greenville to Fort Edward.
The stores were brought in a fleet of two hundred batteaux, protected by five galleys, on the 6th, to Skenesborough. Colonel Long's force then was largely composed of invalids, but he completed the transfer of the stores to Wood creek before the arrival of the British frigates Royal George and Invincible. Three of the galleys were blown up and two sur- rendered, while Long dismantled his fort, which he set on fire, together with the mills, iron works and shipping, unable to escape up Wood creek, and retreated to Fort Ann. A detachment of the English went in boats up South bay, with the idea of crossing the ridge from there and striking Wood creek in time to cut off Long's retreat, but failed to accom- plish their design.
BATTLE OF FORT ANN.
Col. Henry K. Van Rensselaer, the father of Gen. Solomon Van Rensselaer, of the war of 1812. commanded at Fort Ann, and with five hundred militia from the manor of Rens- selaer and five hundred of Long's convales- cent Continentals, met the British advance one-half mile below the fort on July 8. The British force consisted of eight hundred of the gth regiment, commanded by Colonel Hill. Long received the British attack while Van Rensselaer crossed the creek and poured in a heavy fire. The British then charged, were repulsed, and the Americans, following that advantage, encircled and drove them slowly up a steep, rocky hill, from which perilous position they were rescued by the arrival of a band of Indians. The Americans, now scant of ammunition, fell back on the approach of the Indians, while the British, glad of the opportunity, retreated rapidly toward Skenes- borough. The fighting was very severe, and
■Hi
BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY
a British officer in his testimony before Par- liament, declared the firing was the heaviest he had heard in America, except at Stillwater. Fort Ann was the most important battle that has ever taken place in the count}', and but few details are to be found anywhere concern- ing it. In the heat of the fight Colonel Rens- selaer fell, badly wounded, and would not allow his men to stop to pick him up. He lay on the field until the battle was over. For the number of men engaged, Fort Ann has been pronounced one of the most hotly contested battles of the Revolutionary war.
hurgoyne's slow advance.
Colonel Long burnt Fort Ann and retreated to Fort Edward, which General Schuyler left on the 22d of July, with four thousand four hundred men. On the 27th Schuyler was at Moses creek, and his force had decreased to two thousand seven hundred Continentals and a few militia. The decrease was caused by the almost wholesale desertion of the militia.
Schuyler soon crossed the Hudson and re- treated to the Mohawk, where, on August 1, he was relieved of his command.
Burgoyne had displayed fine generalship in the capture of Ticonderoga, and manifested unusual energy in his advance to Skenesbor- ough, but there he unaccountably delayed for three weeks and allowed the opportunity of scattering Schuyler's army to slip from his grasp. Four days march brought Burgoyne to Fort Edward, where he passed into a sec- ond inactive state that lasted four weeks and gave the demoralized Continental forces time to rally and receive sufficient reinforcements to become a formidable army. On September 13th the British crossed the Hudson and pressed vigorously forward until the 19th, when they were brought to a standstill by Morgan and Arnold. Falling back a short distance, Burgoyne had his third and last resting spell, which proved fatal to all his hopes of conquest and led to the surrender of his army. After the first battle of Still-
water he could have retreated, but after the sec- ond battle of Stillwater retreat was out of the question, and his surrender at Saratoga that followed was the turning point in favor of the colonies in their glorious struggle for political independence among the nations of the earth. While Burgoyne's forces were in Washington county two events — the murder of Jane Mc- Crea and the battle of Bennington — occurred that led to his defeat.
MURDER OF JANE M'cREA.
Burgoyne attempted to check the ferocity of his savage allies, and so far succeeded that before his campaign closed they had all de- serted his standard. His error was in ever allowing them to join his army.
Before leaving him, they however contribu- ted their full share toward his final defeat by the murder of Jane McCrea, on July 27, 1777, near Fort Edward. Her untimely death has received more versions than any other event in ancient or modern warfare. She was visit- ing at a house close to Fort Edward and dis- regarded her brother, Col. John McCrea's re- quest to go down the Hudson .to a place of safety, as it is supposed that she had an ar- rangement to meet and wed Lieut. David Jones, a former acquaintance and then a Tory officer in Burgoyne's advancing army. On the 27th Jane McCrea left her stopping place and went to the house of Mrs. McNeil, a rel- ative of General Frazer, and who lived one hundred rods north of the fort. At nine o'clock in the forenoon a band of Indians sur- prised and routed an American picket force of a dozen men beyond the McNeil house, into which another band then rushed and car- ried off Mrs. McNeil and her youthful guest. A quarrel ensued among the Indians and one of them killed Jane McCrea, although one ac- count states that she was killed by the fire of the Americans upon the Indians.
The sober truth of history is that Jane Mc- Crea was really a very handsome woman, and thus it argrees with romance and tradition
BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY
47
that in this, as in other tragic deaths of a woman, makes the victim beautiful and at- tractive.
The next day the scalped and mangled re- mains of Jane McCrea were found and buried temporarily in a spot three miles down the river, from which they were afterward removed and now lie in their present resting place in Union cemetery, between Fort Edward and Sandy Hill.
Gates wrote sharply about her murder to Burgoyne, who attempted to punish the mur- derers of Jane McCrea with death, but was compelled to forego his purpose by the force of circumstances.
The tragic death of Jane McCrea aroused a storm of indignation throughout the colonies that contributed largely to Burgoyne's defeat, and is a sad memory of the Revolution that will live unto the end of time.
BENNINGTON.
Another event that was a weight in the turn- ing scale against Burgoyne was the defeat of his foraging expedition at the battle of Ben- nington, which was fought in New York just outside the boundary line of Washington county, and not at Bennington, Vermont, for which point the marauders were heading. Colonel Baum led this plundering expedition of nearly six hundred Germans, Canadians, Tories and Indians, which left Fort Miller on August nth. Their first camp was near old Fort Saraghtoga, which they left on the 13th, to camp near Wait's Corners, in Cambridge, and from which he moved to be attacked by Stark on the 16th, in the town of Hoosick, Rensselaer county. Col. John Stark, with his Vermont, New Hampshire and Massachusetts militia, together with some men from the southern part of Washington county, made such a successful attack that Baum was mor- tally wounded and his force entirely routed. Baum, on the 14th. had sent a messenger for reinforcements, and Burgoyne, on the 15th,
started Colonel Breymann with five hundred Hessian light infantry and two cannon. Brey- mann unwisely halted for the night at a point seven miles northeast of Cambridge, and on the 1 6th marched to Little White Creek bridge, which William Gilmore and some others had just succeeded in unplanking. The delay too in crossing occasioned by the unplanking of the bridge gave Warner time to arrive in season for the second fight and was the pivot on which Burgoyne's fortunes turned at Ben- nington.
Breymann encountered Stark's pursuing forces ere he knew there had been a battle, and was driving them back when Seth Warner rein- forced Stark with a regiment of Green Moun- tain boys, and made complete the victory of the morning. Breymann was repulsed and re- treated, and Bennington passed into history as the first check Burgoyne received in his invasion. It roused the spirits of the Ameri- cans. Raw militia had defeated British sold- iers; the Indians, enraged at being restrained, began to desert from the English army, and the inevitable result in defeat and surrender followed at Saratoga.
Before Baum had marched southward the Whigs of New Perth and White Creek tore down their log church to make a stockade around their frame church, which they forti- fied, but later abandoned when the German raiding force marched through the Cambridge valley. The church fort was burned by the Tories, who also attacked Captain McNitt and a part of the Black Creek Whig militia, in a plank house, but were repulsed.
During Burgoyne's advance Sclruyler or- dered the Whigs to retire from the country and leave their harvests, while the English general ordered all who remained and desired his protection to fall in the rear of his army. These non-combatants, and all others who re- moved to the rear of the British army, were called '-protectioners," and afterward were often subjected to harsh treatment at the hands of the Whigs.
48
BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY
CARLETON S RAID.
The surrender at Saratoga gave peace to the county, and the northern frontier re- mained quiet until 1780, when in April a threatened invasion was reported by an es- caped prisoner. The militia was ordered out, and Governor Clinton, with a large militia force, hastened from Albany to Fort George. The alarm soon passed, and the forces were all either disbanded or withdrawn.
During the autumn the threatened invasion became a reality. In October, Maj. Christo- pher Carleton, a nephew of Sir Guy Carleton, with eight hundred regulars and royalists and a small party of Indians, came up Lake Champlain, and landed from his fleet of eight vessels and twenty-six boats, at Skenesbor- ough. From there he advanced rapidly to Fort Ann, which surrendered to him on Octo- ber 10, 17S0. The captured garrison con- sisted of seventy-five men, commanded by Captain Sherwood. From Fort Ann Clinton marched to Fort George, which also surren- dered to him, and on the 12th sailed down Lake Champlain. The militia were not ral- lied in time to prevent his retreat, and thus ended the last expedition that has marched over the War-path of America.
UNION CONVENTION.
In 1 781 Vermont still claimed all the pres- ent territory of Washington county, and di- rected that a convention be held at Cambridge to decide whether and on what terms the dis- tricts of that county and part of Rensselaer should be united with the "Green Mountain State."
The Seceders, mostly New Englanders, elected delegates to this convention, while the New York supporters paid no attention to these proceedings.
The "Union Convention" met at Cambridge on May 9, 1781, and after seceding from New York, chose delegates to the Vermont legisla- ture. Vermont was to defend them and sub- mit any state boundary line dispute to Con-
gress or any other tribunal mutually agreed on by New York and Vermont.
County and town secession was not a fav- orably received doctrine with any State be- yond Vermont, and a majority of the inhabi- tants of the county were opposed to the movement, and so the work of the convention never amounted to anything.
Vermont parties were then negotiating with England to acknowledge Vermont as a neutral State, but Yorktown was the death-knell of this move, and the Green Mountain State never attempted to take possession of the county. One year later Vermont renounced all claim to all of the present territory of eastern New York.
Yorktown not only gave the county peace on the northern frontier from England, but led to the peaceful relinquishment of all her present territory by the Vermont authorities.
REVOLUTIONARY SOLDIERS.
At this late date it is impossible to secure but a fragmentary list of those noble settlers of Washington county who bore arms in the War of the Revolution, but we present the names of what few could be secured.
Colonel Williams' Charlotte county regi- ment served in the Burgoyne campaign. It consisted of five or six companies, of which we have only an account of Captain Charles Hutchinson's company of fifty-two men, Cap- tain Thomas Armstrong's company of thirty men, and Captain John Hamilton's company of thirty-two men. No complete roster can be presented of these companies that are named, and but a few scattering names of others of the county that served in other regi- ments can be obtained. The following scant list of names has been obtained, together with some little information as to some of those named :
NEW PERTH OR SALEM COMPANY.
Captain Charles Hutchinson's company was largely from New Perth, or Salem, and there
BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY
(9
is record of it being in service from June 20 to October 20, 1777, and again serving in March, 1778.
captain Hutchinson's company. officers. Charles Hutchinson, captain. Edward Long, first lieutenant. Robert Stewart, second lieutenant. Alexander Turner, ensign. Daniel McNitt, sergeant. James Stewart, sergeant. Thomas Williams, sergeant. Thomas Lyons, sergeant. Isaac Gray, corporal. David McNitt, corporal. Robert Hopkins, corporal. James Tomb, corporal.
PRIVATES.
Chambers, John. Creighton, Robt. Dunlap, John. Gray, John, sr. Gray, John, jr. Gray, Nathan. Hamilton, James. Harsh a, John. Henderson, Alex. Henderson, James. Hopkins, David. Hopkins, David (2d). Hopkins, Isaac. Hopkins, John. Hopkins, Robert. Hopkins, Samuel. Hunsden, Alex. Lyon, Samuel. McAllister, John.
The above fifty-two names of officers and privates are on a pay-roll of November 10. 1777, and a memorandum attached states that twenty-two of this company had marched to Ticonderoga.
On another pay-roll of the same company
we find the following additional names : Isaac 4
McClure, John. McMichael, John. McNitt, Alex. McNitt, Alex., sr. McNish, Alex. Martyn, Hugh. Miller, John. Moore, James, jr. Rogers, William. Rowan, John. Simson, Andrew. Simson, Alex. Simson, John. Thompson, James. Thompson, John. Webb, David. Williams, John. Williams, Lewis. Wood, Reuben.
and John Gray, jr.; Alex. McNish, John Liv- ingston, Joseph Tomb, John, William, Andrew and John Lytle (2d); William Sloan, Andrew Simpson, Turner and James Hamilton, jr.; Lewis, Thomas and Lewis Williams, jr.; Robert Stewart, James and Samuel Hopkins, sr. ; Francis Lemon, John Chambers, Samuel Lyon, John Rowan, Ebenezer Russell, and James Moore, sr. and James Moore, jr.
On a third pay-roll of this company, in 1778, appear the following additional names : Thomas Bar, William Campbell, George Easton, Alex. Garrett, Nathan Gray, Robert Gilmore, Richard Hoy, Daniel Livingston, William and Robert Matthews, Hamilton McCollister, Matthew McClaughery, Daniel Mathison, William Moffit, William Miller, jr., George Miller, Peter McQueen, Thomas Oswald, David, Archibald and Alexander Stewart, George Robinson, Timothy Titus, Samuel Wilson, and John Webb.
From memoranda attached to this last pay- roll we find that the company was afterward commanded by Captain Edward Long, and that Reuben Wood became a sergeant, Thomas Williams clerk of the company, while John Gray and David Hopkins, the one exempt and the other above age, yet served.
CAVT. THOMAS ARMSTRONG'S COMPANY. OFFICERS.
Thomas Armstrong, captain. John Armstrong, first lieutenant. Daniel McCleary, second lieutenant. John Martin, ensign. Zebulon Turner, sergeant-major. John Gibson, sergeant. John Hunsden, sergeant. David McKnight, sergeant. Robert Caldwell, sergeant. William Lytle, corporal. William Smith, corporal. Jonathan Nivens, corporal. William Huggins, corporal. Robert Armstrong, drummer. James Turner, fifer.
50
BIOGRAPHY AXD HISTORY
Blakeney, George. Boyd, John. Boyd, Robert. Cleveland, Benjamin. Gibson, Thomas. Lytle, Isaac. Lytle, William, jr. Lytle, Robert.
PRIVATES.
Moncrief, William. McMichael, Robert. McArthur, Robert. McFarland,James,sr. Means, James. Wilson, John. Wilson, Joseph.
These names are taken from a pay-roll from June 20 to October 20, 1777.
capt. john Hamilton's company, officers.
John Hamilton, captain. James Wilson, first lieutenant. George H. Nighton, second lieutenant. Samuel Croget, ensign. David Hopkins, sergeant. R.V.Wilson, sergeant. Nathaniel Munson, sergeant. William Smith, sergeant. Jonathan Barber, corporal. Robert Getty, corporal. Isaac Hopkins, corporal. David Wheaton, corporal.
privates.
Brown, James. Duncan, John. Fisher, Daniel. Fisher, John. Getty, Adam. Getty, David. Getty, John. Gammis, Samuel. Harmon, Martin. Harmon, Selah.
Harmon, Alpheus, sr. Lytle, Isaac. McCloud, Daniel. Sharp, Abel. Parrish, Josiah. Tirrell, Samuel. Wilson, David. Whitten, David. Wade, Solomon.
Captain Hamilton's company was largely from Hebron.
The following persons, from the towns named, served in the Revolutionary war :
John Smith.
argyle.
John Taylor.
CAMBRIDGE.
Capt. Geo. Gilmore. Azor Bouton.
James McKie. Elisha Gifford.
Joseph Volentine. John Weir.
Jesse Averill. John Wait. Earl Durfee.
GRANVILLE.
The following soldiers served in Capt. Silas Child's company :
Ebenezer Danforth. Henry Watkins. Daniel Stewart.
HARTFORD.
Capt. Samuel Taylor. Nathan Taylor.
Col. John Buck. Samuel Bowen.
Capt. Asahel Hodge. Doctor Jones.
Alexander Arnold. Asher Ford.
HEBRON.
Col. Alex. Webster. Guile Wilson. Capt. John Getty. John Wilson.
Isaac Morehouse. Robert Getty.
WHITE CREEK.
Colonel Tiffany. William Gilmore.
Capt. Jon. Gardner. Isaac Fowler. Hiram Hathaway. Aaron Perry.
The revolutionary period had now drawn to a close, and the settlement period, which- it rudely terminated, was to find its successor in a pioneer period, following the war and stretching till the closing of the eighteenth century.
The story of the Revolution, that has so often and so eloquently been told by the au- thors of America as not to need repetition here ; yet it might be well, before leaving the subject, to correct two once prevalent errors concerning that struggle.
The German troops in America were not all Hessians. The latter were not such a blood- thirsty people as represented, only being con- scripts against their will to fight a ferocious set of rebels.
The leading statesman and the intelligent mass of the people of Great Britain were not in favor of the measures of the Parliamentary
BIOGRAPHY AN J) HISTORY
51
party in power that provoked the Revolution- ary war. Taxation without representation in America was a violation of the Magna Charta of England, that Englishmen would have fought against as quick as the Americans.
CHAPTER XII.
CHARLOTTE BECOMES WASHINGTON COUNTY— CAMBRIDGE AND EATON AN- NEXED—CANALS—COUNTY SEAT STRUGGLES — TURNPIKES— WARREN COUNTY ERECTED— BATTLE OF PLATTS- BURG.
CHARLOTTE BECOMES WASHINGTON COUNTY.
When the Revolution closed, the stream of settlement, which it had interrupted, poured again into the southern and central part of the county, and by 1784 settlers were securing farms in the north in Dresden and Putnam. The three thousand inhabitants of 1774 grew to fourteen thousand in 1790, and this great increase was nearly all from 1784.
The Revolutionary war left the Americans at its close with a hatred of everything Eng- lish. The names of Tryon and Charlotte were unendurable to the people of the coun- ties so called, as the one recalled the last Eng- lish governor and the other recalled the name of the Queen whose husband sent his armies to ravage the last-named county. This dis- gust took form in public expression, and on April 2, 1784, the legislature passed an act changing these names, and which, after the enacting clause, read as follows :
"From and after the passage of this act the county of Tryon shall be known by the name of Montgomery, and the count)7 of Charlotte by the name of Washington."
Thus the first Washington county in the United States came into existence, and the name of Queen Charlotte was left for preserva-
tion in the United States to the county in Vir- ginia that is still called Charlotte.
Courts had ceased to be held in the county m J775>and although ordered in 1779 to be convened again, yet there is no record of any court under the State being held until 1786.
On February 5, 1787, an act was passed di- recting the courts to be held at Salem — which had been formerly known as Scottish New Perth, and Puritan White Creek — but the in- fluence of Fort Edward was such that on April 21, 1788, the law was so changed that one of the three yearly terms was to be held at the house of Adiel Sherwood, in the village of Fort Edward.
In the meantime the lands of the Tories had been forfeited by an act of the legislature, passed May 12, 1784, and Col. Alex. Webster, commissioner under this law for eastern New York, sold many tracts of land in Washington county. He sold one hundred and sixty-two tracts of Philip Skene's land ; one hundred and thirty-one of Oliver De Lancy's ; ten Jessup tracts ; three Jones tracts, and many other tracts. Col. John Williams was the larg- est purchaser of these forfeited lands, buying sixty-five tracts in different parts of the county. Major Skene sought to regain his forfeited lands and resume his residence at Skenesbor- ough (Whitehall), but his effort was of no avail and he remained in England.
CAMBRIDGE AND EASTON ANNEXED.
During the year 1791 the town of Cam- bridge, including the present territory of Jack- son and White Creek, was transferred from Albany to Washington county, to which was also annexed the parts of Saratoga and Still- water towns on the east side of the Hudson as a town by the name of Easton. This trans- fer of territory was likely- secured by Gen. John Williams in order to strengthen the chances of SaLm to secure the permanent location of the county-seat.
In March, 1791, some of the residents of Salem and Cambridge, whose markets were in
52
BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY
Rensselaer county, got an act passed in the assembly annexing them to that county, but General Williams defeated it in the senate.
CANALS.
About 1794 considerable interest was awak- ened in the subject of canals, and two com- panies were formed to build one canal from the Mohawk river to Lake Oneida, and an- other canal to connect the waters of the Hud- son river with Lake Champlain.
The Northern Inland Lock Navigation Company was formed to construct the Hud- son and Champlain canal, and among its pro- moters were General Schuyler and General Williams. The company commenced clearing out the obstructions in Wood creek, but had to cease for want of funds, and their great work was not completed until thirty years later.
COUNTY SEAT STRUGGLES.
In 1792 three places — Salem, Fort Edward and Fort Miller — were rivals for the county seat. The legislature left the matter to the board of supervisors, who met and located the count}' seat at Salem. Fort Edward sought to have the vote reconsidered, but while failing in that direction made a success: ful move to retain the holding of the courts for a part of each year at that place, and se- cured the passage of a law to that effect. A court house and jail were commenced at Salem in 1792, but were not completed till 1796. In the last named year, Adiel Sher- wood, at whose house the court held its Fort Edward session, one day near the dinner hour ordered the judges to vacate the court-room, which was his dining-room, so that the table could be set for dinner. The judges resented this insult by fining Sherwood and passing a sentence of fifteen days imprisonment against him, and three of the honorable body being State Senators, procured a law at the next session of the legislature which removed the holding of courts from Fort Edward to Sandy Hill, where the}' have been held ever since,
and where, in 1806, a two-story frame court house was completed.
The county clerk's office was kept at neither court house, but at the clerk's residence until 1806, when it was located by law within one- half mile of Peleg Bragg's house in Argyle.
TURNPIKES.
The first important movement toward good roads was the incorporation, on April 1, 1799, of the Northern Turnpike Company, which built a turnpike from Lansingburg, in Rens- selaer county, through Cambridge, Salem, Hebron, Granville and Hampton, to the State line, and connecting with a similar road to Burlington, Vermont. This company also built a branch from Salem northeastward to the State line, and another from Granville to Whitehall. Seven years later the Waterford and Whitehall turnpike, sixty miles long, was built, and crossing the Hudson ran from Fort Miller, by the way of Fort Edward and Fort Ann, to Whitehall, from which the Whitehall and Fair Haven, and the Whitehall and Gran- ville pikes were built, beside the Mitchell and Shaftsbury, and the East Salem roads, constructed about the same time.
Closing the pioneer period of the old cen- tury, in whose last year the turnpikes had their beginning, we see the county with a newspaper, the Northern Centinel, that was started in 1798 as the second successor of the pioneer sheet, the Times or National Courier, whose existence was confined to the year 1794 ; and also having five militia regiments, under the command of General Williams.
In the opening decade of the nineteenth century we see the county equipped with three great pikes running north and south, one from Whitehall to the Hudson, a second from Whitehall to Salem and Lansingburg, and the third from Lansingburg to Bennington. Over these roads often passed north long lines, of teams, carrying grain and pot and pearl ashes to be shipped by Lake Champlain to Montreal, Canada, while south they bore the same arti-
BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY
53
cles (especially when the lake was frozen) to the local markets of Lansingburg.
During this pike period, that extended from 1799 to 1824, when it began to decline, several events of importance occurred, among which were the introduction of merino sheep in 1809, the raising of flax in 181 2 for manufacturing purposes, the great loss of territory by the erection of Warren county, and Prevost's threatened invasion, that was stayed by the battle of Plattsburg.
WARREN COUNTY ERECTED.
On March 12, 1813, Warren county was erected whereby the county of Washington lost all her territory west of Lake George and the Hudson river, and in the neighborhood of eight thousand population. This was her second great loss of territory, the first being when Vermont became a State and she lost all the lands east of the Green Mountains.
BATTLE OF PLATTSBURG.
For three years the second war of Inde- pendence had been dragging its weary way on the Niagara frontier, but nothing had occurred to disturb the Champlain region until August, 1 814, when the cry of invasion over the old War-path of America spread on the very wings of the wind all over the county. The militia was called out en masse and marched northward, but ere they reached Plattsburg McDonough's naval victory over the "cream of Nelson's marines" had caused Prevost's land forces, called the "flower of Welling- ton's army,"' to beat a hasty retreat, and their services were not needed. The Washington county men mostly went by the way of Bur- lington, Vermont, where they were very poorly equipped with arms.
For ten years after the close of the war of 181 2, the turnpikes were the main avenues of traffic and principal routes of travel in the county, and then came a change wherein Washington county took her first important step in the great material progress of this most wonderful nineteenth centurv. 4a
CHAPTER XIII.
NEW INDUSTRIES — CHAMPLAIN CANAL— PLANK-ROADS — EARLY RAILROADS.
NEW INDUSTRIES.
The pike period, toward the close of its most active years, was noted for the long pro- cessions of teams and the large number of big yellow stage coaches that passed over the three great roads of the country. In the lat- ter part of the pike period the log cabin and hewed log-house had given away largely to frame dwellings, and the people turned their attention to the development of several new industries, although not neglecting the manu- facture of potash and the raising of grain for home use and exportation. Hats, caps, and shoes were largely manufactured at every vil- lage, and fulled cloth, flannel, tow cloth and linen were made in nearly every farm house. But to new and increased home manufactures was added the business of wool-raising.
Wool-raising soon became the leading in- dustry of the count)', a position which it held for nearly thirty years. Granville, Salem and Cambridge, and one or two other places in the county, became such noted markets for com- mon and merino wool that large quantities of wool were brought to them for sale from Ver- mont and several New York counties.
CHAMPLAIN CANAL.
The active pike period was succeeded by the canal period, which commenced with the construction of the Champlain canal, and ex- tended from 1823 to 1848, when it was suc- ceeded (although it has never been superse- ded) by the railroad period.
The Champlain canal is next in importance to the Erie canal, and runs from Waterford, seven miles from Albany, to Whitehall, com- pleting the water-way between the Atlantic seaboard and the navigable Saint Lawrence. The construction of the canal was authorized
54
BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY
in 1817, and on June 10, 1818, work was com- menced on this great avenue of commerce. The canal crossed the Hudson at Schuylerville, by means of a seven hundred foot dam, and followed the east bank of the river to Fort Edward, where it left the Hudson and passed over a ridge to the valley of Wood creek, down which it passed (running part of the time in the bed of the creek) to Whitehall, where it united with the headwaters of Lake Champlain.
On September 10, 1823, the whole work was completed and commerce had a water- route from New York to Montreal. In 1825, Gov. DeWitt Clinton recommended to the legislature that the Hudson be made naviga- ble for steamboats to Fort Edward, and that the Batten Kill be made navigable for steam- boat travel to the Vermont line, but both pro- jects failed. The next year the canal was im- proved by the abandonment of slack-water navigation and the construction of a boat channel, independent of the river, all the way from opposite Schuylerville to Fort Edward. Other improvements were made in succeeding years.
The length of the Champlain canal is sixty- six miles, including Waterford side-cut and the Cohoes and Saratoga dams. When con- structed the size of prism was forty feet wide on the top water-line, narrowing to twenty-six feet at the bottom, and having four feet depth of water. In 1870 the size was increased to fifty-eight feet width at the top, forty-four feet at the bottom and six feet depth of water. Boats drawing five feet of water and the same size as those on the Erie were then placed on this canal. From its junction with the Erie canal to one mile north of Waterford the sup- ply of water is from the Mohawk river at Cohoes ; from Northumberland to Whitehall* the supply of water is from the upper Hudson through the Glens Falls feeder, supplemented on the north by Wood creek at Fort Ann. Droughts and the destruction of the forests on the water sheds of the upper Hudson decreased
the supply of water there to such an extent that in 1880 no surplus could be retained, and there was barely quantity enough to meet the demand. The canal has thirty-three locks, cost. nearly two and one-half million dollars, and in 1880 carried one million two hundred thousand tons of freight, yielding an income of over fifty-one thousand dollars.
When the canal was built farmers feared that there would be no sale for horses or oats, and that hauling would be destroyed, but they soon found that their fears were groundless.
PLANK ROADS.
Toward the close of the canal period the "plank road fever" broke out in Washington county, and four of these roads were con- structed between 1847 and some time prior to i860. These roads were as follows: White- hall and Hampton, Fort Edward and Fort Miller, Fort Edward and Argyle, and Hart- ford and Sandy Hill. The first: two went down in less than twenty years, and the others were in operation in 1880.
EARLY RAILROADS.
The period of the canal's supremacy in the material history of the county drew toward a close in 1848, when the first railroad train ran from Saratoga to Whitehall. Washington county had entered upon the second epoch of her progress from pioneer days to her present prosperity and advancement.
The railroad movement in the county dates back as early as 1834. On May 2, of that year, the Saratoga and Washington Railroad Company was incorporated, with a capital of six hundred thousand dollars, but did not fully organize until April 20, 1835, and its operations were checked by the panic of 1837. An increase of stock to eight hundred and fifty thousand dollars, and an extension of time until 1850 were secured, and the com- pany, in April, 1848, commenced laying their track, which was completed in December of that year. The road was soon extended to
niOGL'M'iry and iiistohy
55
the Vermont State line, and in 1855 was sold on a mortgage to parties who formed a new company, whose corporate name of Saratoga and Whitehall is now borne by the road.
The second railroad of the county was built in 1 85 1 and 1852, under the name of the Troy and Rutland Railroad, running through the towns of Cambridge, Jackson and Salem to the village of Salem. It was opened June 28, 1852, and then leased by the Rutland and Washington Railroad Company, whose road ran from Salem to Rutland, Vermont. Three years later it passed into the hands of a re- ceiver and was operated in connection with the Albany Northern.
The canal and the remaining pikes of the county now had a formidable rival for the freight of the one and the freight and passen- gers of the other.
But a dark shadow was falling on railroad and canal alike, and on every farm and shop, and the country from a peace dream of half a century was rudely summoned to meet the shock of civil war.
The latter part of the pike and the canal and railroad periods, stretching for a half cen- tury through peaceful times, were now to be succeeded by the civil war period, that was to become an important chapter in the history of every county in the United States.
CHAPTER XIV.
COMMENCEMENT OF THE CIVIL WAR- REGIMENTAL HISTORIES AND MORTU- ARY LISTS — PEACE.
COMMENCEMENT OF THE CIVIL WAR.
On that dark April day in 1861, when the storm of civil war burst upon the Nation, and the Union was apparently rent in twain, there was no county in the United States more de- votedly loyal to the Federal government than
Washington county, New York. All through the war it gave no uncertain support to the Union, and every call for troops received a prompt support from each town and village.
The county sent its sons by hundreds to the battle field, but most of them, and in many in- stances, whole companies of them, were en- rolled in regiments recruited in other counties of the State.
One distinctively Washington county regi- ment was in the Federal service, and while its record is one of imperishable glory, yet every company that went in other regiments made for itself a history of splendid and brilliant achievements.
REGIMENTAL HISTORIES. .
We give a brief account of each regiment or some mention of its career, in which were any companies from Washington count}'.
TWENTY-SECOND NEW YORK INFANTRY.
This regiment was organized June 6, 1861, and being fired on by a Baltimore mob on the 28th, when passing through that city, returned the fire. The 22d fought with great bravery at Second Bull Run, out of which it came with only one hundred men fit for duty. It also fought at South Mountain, Antietam, Chancellors- ville, and Fredericksburg, and was mustered out of the service on June 19, 1863. Capt. Thomas J. Strong became lieutenant-colonel, and Duncan Cameron and Lucius E. Wilson were mustered out as captains of companies G and D.
Four companies of this regiment were re-, cruited in Washington county, as follows :
Company. Recruited. Captain.
B Fort Edward, Robt. E. McCoy.
D Cambridge, Henry S. Milliman.
G Whitehall, Edmund Boynton.
H Sandy Hill, Thomas J. Strong.
MORTUARY LIST.
Company G — Capt. H. S. Milliman, Cam- bridge, wounds ; Lieut. W. T. Beattie, Sa-
56
BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY
lem, killed; Corp. J. W. Arnold, White Creek, died • Sergt. C. S. Eaton, White Creek, died.
Company B — Lieut. D. Lendrum, ,
killed ; Edward Blanchard, Kingsbury, died ; L. Chamberlain, Kingsbury, died ; C. H. Bowen, Kingsbury, died ; Rollin Wyman, Kingsbury, killed ; Stephen Podoin, Kings- bury, wound; James Wythe, Hartford, killed ; G. W. Miner, Hartford, killed ; S. L.Whitney, Kingsbury, killed.
Company D — Louis LaDoo, Fort Ann, killed ; Isaac Plue, Fort Ann, killed.
Company G — L. Y. Johnson, Greenwich, killed ; C. J. Greene, Cambridge, .
Company D — C. D. Whittaker, Greenwich, died.
FORTY-THIRD NEW YORK INFANTRY.
The 43d was raised in the summer of 1861; suffered terribly in the Peninsular campaign, especially in the Seven Days' Fight ; and bore well its part at Fredericksburg, Chancellors- ville, Gettysburg, and Second Winchester. It was mustered out of the service June 27, 1865.
One company — F — was raised at Sandy Hill and vicinity, under Capt. James C. Rog- ers, and suffered such loss that it finally be- came a part of Company B. No list could be found of its loss. Lieut. Hugh Knicker- bocker, of this company, was killed at Chan- cellorsville, and Sergt. Charles H. Davis, of Company G, and a native of Greenwich, died of wounds ; R. W. Walker, of Company F, of Dresden, died.
FORTY-FOURTH NEW YORK INFANTRY.
This regiment was known as the "Ells- worth Avengers," and was intended to be com- posed of two picked men from every town in the State. It served in all of the battles of the Arm}' of the Potomac from 1862 to Octo- ber, 1864.
From twenty to thirty men from Washington county served in its companies, and of these men we have record that three died. Two
were John H. Pullman and Charles Van Val- kenburg, both of the town of Greenwich, the former of Company B, and the latter of Com- pany G. The third, James F. Burnett, of Putnam, and a member of Company C, died in 1863. John Brackett, of Company K, and James Clements of E, died of wounds. Wil- liam Craig, of Greenwich, was in Company C and died of wounds.
I>' El'INEUIL'S ZOUAVES (FIFTY-THIRD NEW YORK INFANTRY).
Count Lionel J. D' Epineuil, of France, the author of a new drill, came, in 1861, to New York and endeavored to raise a brigade of French Americans, but failed, and his men, including some Germans, were mustered in as the 53d regiment, whose weakness of numbers led to its being mustered out of the service early in 1862.
Some fifty of his men were recruited at Whitehall, but we have not been able to ob- tain any list of those who never returned.
SEVENTY-SEVENTH NEW MIRK INFANTRY.
This regiment participated in several hard battles, and of the men in its ranks from this county we have record of six that never re- turned. From Greenwich, and in Company I, were : Lieutenant-Colonel N. E. Franklin, who died of wounds ; Sergeant Pat. Gilroy, missing, and J. E. Davidson, killed. Peter S. Taylor, Erastus Wade, and S. H. Warner, who died, were from Easton.
EIGHTY-SEVENTH NEW YORK INFANTRY.
This regiment was raised principally in Brooklyn, in 1861, and served gallantly on the Peninsula, where it was so depleted by battle and disease that it was consolidated, in September, 1862, with the 40th regiment, into which it was merged, and served until June 27, 1865.
Company A, of the 87th, was raised in the towns of Dresden and Putnam, this count)', and we find record of three of its members from Dresden who died. They were : Leon-
BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY
57
ard W. Barrett, A. P. Chase and J. J. Wetherby.
NINETY-THIRD NEW YORK INFANTRY.
This regiment was raised at Albany in 1861 by Col. John S. Crocker, of Cambridge, and contained three Washington count}- compan- ies. It did headquarter and provost guard duty during the Peninsular campaign and until May, 1864, when it was relieved from guard duty, and fought bravely through the Wilderness battles. It suffered heavily at Spottsylvania, Cold Harbor and Petersburg. The regiment was at Deep Bottom and served under Sheri- dan in the closing hours of the Southern Con- federacy, when it was commanded by Lieut. - Col. Haviland Gifford, of Easton.
The three companies of this regiment, re- cruited in Washington county, were as fol- lows :
Company. Recruited. Captain.
F Fort Edward, Wm. B. Moshier.
G Cambridge, M. S. Gray.
I '. , N.J.Johnson.
Company I was recruited at Granville, Argyle and other points in the count}".
MORTUARY LIST.
Company D — Thomas McGwerk, Easton, wounds.
Company G — Serg.-Maj. N.W. Gray, Cam- bridge, ; First Serg.W.B. Barber, Hamp- ton, wounds ; Lieut. R. L. Gray, White Creek, killed.
Company E — Lieut. E. W. Gray, White Creek, killed.
Company G — Corp. A. M. Lawton, White Creek, killed; James Smith. White Creek, disease; Corp. W. H. Pierce, White Creek, disease ; Corp. A. McGeoch, Jackson, disease ; P. A. Goodell, Hartford, died ; A. J. Beattie, White Creek, killed ; L. N. Ford, White Creek, died.
Company H — I. Fairbrother, White Creek, died.
Company G — D. Millington, White Creek, killed.
Company I — Welcome Thomas, Granville, disease ; William Searles, Hampton, disease ; Jerome Sears, Greenwich, killed ; Albert Honey, Hampton, disease ; V. W. New, Hampton, disdase.
Unknown companies — Dan'l Morgan, Gran- ville, ; Thomas Clark, Putnam, disease;
C. B. Pitney, .
NINETY-SIXTH NEW YORK INFANTRY.
This regiment was raised in 1861 and served with great gallantry in the armies of the James and the Potomac, and made a desperate charge at Cold Harbor, in which it lost nearly half its officers and men. It served until 1866, and company E was raised by Capt. James S. Cray at Sandy Hill and Fort Edward.
Company E was in the dreadful Cold Har- bor charge of its regiment, and lost its captain, James S. Cray, who fell mortally wounded, and twenty of its rank and file that were killed or wounded. We find no record of its fallen heroes and have obtained only three of their names beside that of Captain Cray, and they were William Ansment, of Granville, who died; Francis A. Granger, of the same town, who died at Andersonville, and G. R. Hopkins, Dresden, who died.
ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-THIRD NEW YORK INFANTRY.
The regiment of which Washington county may be justly proud until the end of time was the one which bore her honored name and was known as the 123d New York Infantry. It was raised in Washington county after the disas- trous Peninsular campaign, in response to Lin- coln's call for three hundred thousand men in the summer of 1862. War meetings were held all over the county after Lincoln's call, and it was resolved that the men raised should con- stitute a Washington county regiment. Camp Washington was established at Salem, and companies were recruited in every part of the county. The regiment was practically full by the last of August, and its companies were :
58
BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY
|
Company |
Recruited. |
Captain. |
|
A .... |
Greenwich, |
Abram Reynolds. |
|
B .. .. |
Kingsbury, |
Geo. \\T. W'arren. |
|
C |
Whitehall, [ Ft. Ann, j Dresden, ' Putnam, |
Adolph H. Tanner |
|
D .. .. |
r John Barron. |
|
|
j |
||
|
E .. .. |
\ Hartford, ( Hebron, |
- Norman F. Weer. |
|
F .. .. |
Argyle, |
Duncan Robertson |
|
G .. .. H .. .. |
\ White Creek, 1 Jackson, Salem, |
' Henry Gray. John S. Crary. |
|
I |
j Cambridge, ( Easton, |
[- Orrin S. Hall. |
|
K .. .. |
\ Granville, 1 Hampton, |
1 Henry O. Wiley. |
The field and staff officers were : Colonel, A. L. McDougal ; lieutenant colonel, Franklin Morton; major, James C. Rogers; adjutant, George H. Wallace ; surgeon, John Money- penny ; assistant surgeons, LysanderW. Ken- nedy and Richard S. Connelly; quartermaster, John King ; and chaplain, Henry Gordon.
The non-commissioned staff were: Sergeant- major, Walter F. Martin ; quartermaster ser- geant, Charles D. Warner; commissary ser- geant, Clark Rice ; and hospital steward, Seward Corning.
On September 4th, 1862, the Washington county regiment was mustered into the United States service as the 123d New York volunteer infantry. It reached Washington on the 9th, and in October was assigned to the 22d brig- ade, 1 st division of the 12th corps.
The regiment was in the " mud march " on Richmond, and received its baptism of fire and blood at Chancellorsville, where it lost one hundred and fifty men killed, wounded and missing. The 123d was engaged at Get- tysburg, and on September 24th, 1863, was sent west as a reinforcement to General Rose- crans, whose base of supplies it guarded for several months. Under Sherman, in the spring of 1864, the 123d entered upon the
Atlanta campaign, through which it passed after fighting several hard battles.
From Atlanta the Washington county regi- ment swung loose with Sherman in his " March to the Sea," and, after reaching Savannah, marched north into North Carolina, where Sherman received the surrender of Johnston's army. The regiment took part in the grand review at Washington, was mustered out on June 8th, 1865, and left for home the next day.
Quite an interesting history of this regiment has been written by Rev. Seth C. Carey, one of its adjutants.
MORTUARY LIST.
Company A — Capt. W. H. Dobbin, Green- wich, disease ; Sergt. W. J. Hamilton, Green- wich, killed ; Albert Allen, Greenwich, dis- ease ; Evander Bertis, Greenwich, disease ; William Bartlett, Greenwich, killed ; Oscar Baumes, Greenwich, killed ; Charles Lapoint, Greenwich, killed ; John H. Lampson, Green- wich, wounds ; Alexander Mitchell, Green- wich, disease ; Albert Potter, Greenwich, killed ; Leroy Wright, Greenwich, killed.
Company C — Sergt. William Hutton, jr., Putnam, wounds.
Company D — Corp. R. O. Fisher, Fort Ann, killed; Sergt. J. L. Cummings, Put- nam, wounds ; Sergt. A. C. Thompson, Put- nam, disease; William Anderson, jr., Put- nam, disease ; H. A. Dedrick, Putnam, dis- ease ; Darwin Easton, Putnam, disease ; Jere. Finch, Fort Ann, killed ; Charles Grout, Fort Ann, disease ; J. H. Haynes, Putnam, dis- ease ; James H. Loomis, Fort Ann, disease ; John Lapraine, Fort Ann, disease ; Isaac Mc- Nutt, Fort Ann, wounds ; J. M. Mattison, Fort Ann, disease ; Edward Rice, Fort Ann, disease ; A. Ward, Dresden, disease.
Company E— Capt. Norman F. Weer, wounds ; Lieut. John H. Daicey, killed ; F. Archambolt, Hartford, killed ; Alexander Bev- eridge, Hebron, disease ; Byron Briggs, Hart- ford, killed ; John Bell, Hartford, killed ;
BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY
59
James Dickenson, Hartford, disease ; George Donley, Hebron, killed ; W. J. Gilchrist, Hebron, disease ; Smith Hewitt, Hebron, disease ; A. Jeffaway, Hartford, killed ; Sam- uel Johnson, Hebron, disease ; Ira Munson, Hebron, disease ; James McEchron, Hebron, disease ; John Patrick, Hebron, disease ; Nath. Raymond, Hebron, disease ; Philo Smith, Hebron, disease ; H. L. Thomas, Hartford, killed ; John Wright, Hartford, killed.
Company F — Sergt. J. M. Ronan, Argyle, wounds ; James Cartwright, Argyle, disease ; W. H. Emerson, Argyle, disease ; Theo. Hogart, Argyle, disease ; T. A. Hopkins, Ar- gyle, killed ; George McKibben, Argyle, kill- ed ; J. H. Morrish, Argyle, disease ; H. M. Reid, Argyle, disease ; D.' G. Stewart, Ar- gyle, wounds ; George L. Taylor, Argyle, wounds ; W. J. Wood, Argyle, killed.
Company G — Clarence Coulter, Jackson, wounds ; A. J. Coon, White Creek, disease ; Peter Cromby, White Creek, wounds ; Thos. Dickenson, Hartford, disease ; John McUm- ber, White Creek, wounds ; W. H. Martin, White Creek, killed ; Chancey Parker, White Creek, disease ; H. W. Welch, Jackson, killed.
Company H — Corp. J. H. Cowan, Salem', disease ; Corp. J. C. Gray, Salem, disease ; Corp. W. H. Stewart, Salem, wounds ; Corp. F. I. Williamson, Salem, disease ; J. L. Beattie, Salem, killed ; M. H. Brown, Salem, disease ; Charles Billings, Salem, disease ; Henry Danforth, Salem, wounds ; Jacob
Heber, Salem, ; A. Johnson, Salem,
wounds; J. A. Mains, Salem, killed ; Charles Marshall, Salem, killed; J. McMurray, Hart- ford, ; P. McNasser, Salem, killed ;
W. J. Orcutt, Salem, disease ; W. L. Rich, Salem, killed ; George Sweet, Salem, disease : H. G. Sweet, Salem, disease : D. H.Warner, Salem, disease; Rich. West, Salem, disease.
Company I — Joseph R. Beade, Easton, disease ; Alonzo Morehouse, Hebron, disease.
Company K — Capt. Henry O.Wiley,Gran- ville, killed ; Serg. H. E. Howard, Granville,
wounds ; W. C. Allard, Hampton, disease ; Visti Bodevin, Granville, disease ; D. S. Car- mody, Granville, disease ; Horace Dowd, Granville, disease; A. W. Doane, Granville, killed ; James Gordon. Granville, disease ; R. E. Hall, Granville, disease ; George Os- borne, Granville, disease ; A. C. -Osborne, Hampton, killed ; John Pitts, Granville,killed ; William Reardon, Hampton, disease ; Milo
Shaw, Granville, ; W. A. Tooley,
Granville, killed ; H. H. Tooley, Granville, killed ; Edward Tanner, Granville, killed ; N. G. Thayer, Granville, killed ; William Walter, Dresden, killed ; Edson Whitney, Granville, disease ; C. H. Waite, Granville, disease ; B. F. Wright, Granville, disease.
On the soldiers' monument in Woodlands cemetery in the town of Cambridge appears the following names of " fallen heroes " who were members of the 123d regiment : Serg.
C. Darrow, Corp. C. L. Coulter, J. Herman, W. Skellie, C. C. Parker, W. J. Scott, J. P. Wood, A. ]. Coon, R. K. Bishop, ]. ]. Mc- Comber, J. Foster, R. Hennelly, J. L. Skellie,
D. Baldwin, jr.; W. H. Martin, R.W. Skellie, P. Crombie, W. H. Welch, W. H. Phelps, and H. King.
ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY- FIFTH NEW YORK INFANTRY.
The 125th was raised in 1863 in Rensselaer county; fought in the principal battles of the army of the Potomac from Gettysburg to Petersburg, and was mustered out June 5th, 1865.
Part of one company was raised in the town of Easton, and Capt. Lewis H. Crandell of the regiment was from Easton.
ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTY-NINTH NEW YORK INFANTRY.
Like the 125th regiment, so the 169th was raised in Rensselaer county, excepting com- pany F, commanded by Capt. Warren B. Col- man, that was recruited at Sandy Hill. The regiment was in the siege of Fort Wagner, fought at Cold Harbor and around Petersburg,
60
BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY
was in the storming of Fort Fisher, and served until July 19, 1865.
MORTUARY LIST.
Corp. J. D. Warren, Granville, killed.
Company F — Serg. S. O. Benton, Fort Ann, wounds ; Serg. H. Chamberlain, Fort Ann, killed ; Alex. P. Blowers, Fort Ann, killed ; W. H, Chase, Fort Ann, disease ; Len. Fish, Fort Ann, killed ; Amos Green, Fort Ann, disease ; Albert Keech, Fort Ann, disease.
Company C — Alanson Lewis, Easton, dis- ease ; Michael McBryan, Granville, .
SECOND NEW YORK CAVALRY. (BLACK HORSE CAVALRY).
This regiment was organized in 1861, and was mustered out of the service March 31, 1862, because the War Department concluded that there was too much cavalry in the field at that time.
Company A of this regiment was recruited at Salem, but contained men from several towns. It was raised and commanded by Capt. Solomon W. Russel, jr.
SECOND NEW YORK CAVALRY (HARRIS LICHT CAVALRY.)
This regiment was known as the Harris Light Cavalry for some time after the Second Cavalry was mustered out of the service, and then received its name. The regiment was raised in 1861, and saw the last days of its active service at Appomattox. It did a large amount of skirmishing and raiding, but did splendid fighting at Brandy Station and Get- tysburg, was in the two celebrated raids on Richmond, and served in the valley under Phil. Sheridan.
Company E of this regiment was raised at Fort Edward, but contained men from other towns.
MORTUARY LIST.
Company F — N. L. Allard, Hampton, .
Company K — Lorenzo Palmer, Fort Ann, wounds.
Company L — Lent. Smith, Fort Ann, dis-
ease; J. H. Smith, Fort Ann, disease; J. L. Perry, Fort Ann, disease; William Keech, Fort Ann, disease.
SECOND NEW YORK VETERAN CAVALRY.
In 1863 many veteran soldiers desired to re-enter the cavalry service, and two New York regiments were organized to accommo- date them. One of these regiments was the 2d Veteran cavalry. It served in the Red River expedition, where it did splendid fight- ing at Pleasant Hill ; afterward made two dar- ing raids in Mississippi and Florida, and ren- dered efficient service in Alabama from the siege of Mobile until November, 1865, when it was mustered out.
Company D, commanded by Capt. Thomas F. Allen, was from Whitehall, and parts of Companies A, E, and M were from Washing- ton county.
The Cambridge Soldiers' monument bears the names of M. L. Moore, J. Smith and W. Pratt, of this regiment.
FIRST NEW YORK MOUNTED RIFLES.
In July, 1862, the mounted battalion known as Wool's Body Guard was made the nucleus of a regiment that was raised in Rensselaer county, and became the First New York Mounted Rifles. The regiment was engaged in scouting, raiding and picket duty, under General Butler, and around Petersburg, until the fall of Richmond. In July, 1865, it was consolidated with the 3d New York cavalry, and the new organization became the 4th Provisional cavalry, which was mustered out in November, 1865.
Twenty or thirty men of Company E were recruited at Salem, and Cornelius S. Masten, of that village, was one of the captains of the company.
THIRTIETH NEW YORK CAVALRY.
This regiment served in the Army of the Potomac, and was engaged at Second Bull Run and in other hard battles. Several men from the county served in its ranks.
BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY
ill
MORTUARV LIST.
Company I — Sergt. J. M. Burdick, Green- wich, disease.
Company B — D. B. Cunningham, Easton, killed ; A. E. Gage, Cambridge, .
Company H — S. P. Milliard, Easton, dis- ease.
SIXTEENTH NEW YORK HEAVY ARTILLERY.
In December, 1863, Col. Thomas J. Strong sought to raise a new regiment but was re- fused, as no new regiments were being author- ized. He then made an arrangement to raise four companies for Colonel Morrison's 16th Heavy Artillery that was not yet full. Col- onel Strong agreed to serve as Major of this regiment. The 16th numbered four thousand men when it assembled in Virginia, and was the largest regiment that was ever seen in the new world.
About eight hundred of these men came from Washington county. Company I, com- manded by Capt. Henry C. Sherrill, was or- ganized at Sandy Hill. Thirty men from Sa- lem and Cambridge were in Company K, and the remainder of the men from the county were transferred to other regiments, as the government had to send hundreds of this mammoth regiment to other organizations. The regiment was left with fourteen compa- nies and two thousand eight hundred men, and then had been more than once mistaken for a brigade. The government could not furnish them cannon at that time and they were mostly armed as infantry. The 16th lost heavily by battle and disease around Pe- tersburg, and one part of it was given cannon and did good service in the attack on Fort Fisher and afterward on Cape Fear river. The regiment was mustered out on August 21, 1865.
MORTUARY LIST.
Company H — W. J. Graham, Hebron, dis- ease ; William Armstrong, Argyle, disease ; George Congdon, Argyle, disease ; John Scott, Argyle, disease.
Company K — Geo. F. Burke, Greenwich, wounds ; John Shields, Greenwich, disease ; Rufus Hall, Greenwich, disease; Ira Haw- thorne, Jackson, disease ; A. E. Higby, Hart- ford, disease.
OTHER NEW YORK REGIMENTS.
Second Regiment — C. H. Westcot, Hamp- ton, wounds.
Second Rifles — G. C. Fairbrother, Salem, disease.
Third Cavalry — A. McLaughlin, Putnam, disease.
Seventh Cavalry — M. L. Moore, Jackson, killed.
Twelfth Infantry — Jas. Cassidy, Hampton, killed.
One Hundred and Seventy-Sixth — J. M. Austin, White Creek, disease ; N. Tucker, White Creek, disease.
One Hundred and Seventy-Seventh — C. W. Billings, Easton, killed; Elisha Hurley, Easton, ■.
One Hundred and Ninety-Second — George Parrish, Easton, disease.
VERMONT REGIMENTS.
First — Thomas Cassidy, Hampton, killed.
Fifth — T.W. Taylor, White Creek, wounds.
Seventh — Lieut. R. M. Green, Hampton, disease.
Tenth — J. S. McBride, Hebron, disease.
Eleventh — C.B.Russell, Hampton, wounds; N. Coda, White Creek, wounds ; E. C. Allard, Hampton, disease ; Isaac Susment, Granville, wounds.
MISCELLANEOUS.
Corp. A. Wilson, Granville, wounds; Corp. John A. Wiley, Granville, wounds.
Serg. J. A. Norton, Hartford, killed ; Henry Orcutt, Hartford, killed ; John Wright, Hart- ford, killed : Barney Shandy, Fort Ann, wounds ; Jos. Kearney, Salem, wounds.
COLORED TROOPS.
Twentieth United States — S. P. Chase, disease.
62
BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY
Thirtieth United States — Henry Jones, dis- ease.
Thirty-first United States — Abner Jackson, killed.
No mortuary lists, at this writing, can be obtained of the towns of Cambridge, Fort Edward and Whitehall ; and, despite the most zealous efforts of many citizens of the count}', it has not been possible to secure but a ma- jority of the names of those from Washing- ton county who yielded their lives as a sacri- fice for their country's liberties.
Peace has her victories as well as war ; and, with the close of hostilities, we turn to trace again the progress of the count)' so sadly in- terrupted by four years of war, of bloodshed, and of ruin.
CHAPTER XV.
LATER RAILWAYS— PRESENT INDUSTRIES —COUNTY PROGRESS.
LATER RAILWAYS.
With the end of the war business revived throughout the county, and manufactures and agriculture again received their full share of attention. Hundreds of soldiers returned from the army to the field, the workshop and the manufacturing establishment, and every industry was quickened into new life and in- creased production.
The railroad period had been suddenly checked by the war, and the latter was suc- ceeded by a period of development into which the old and some new railways were import- ant factors.
The Greenwich and Johnsonville railway, the earliest of the new railways, was projected as far back as 1857, but the war stopped its building, and it was not completed until 1870. Its length is fourteen miles, running through the towns of Cambridge and Easton. This
road, in 1880, carried ten thousand six hun- dred and sixty-two passengers and nine thou- sand seven hundred and thirty-nine tons of freight.
The Glens Falls railway, running from Fort Edward to Glens Falls, in Warren county, a distance of five and three-quarter miles, was projected in 1867. It was built soon after- ward.
The New York and Canada railway, run- ning from Whitehall north, along the west shore of Lake Champlain to the northern boundary of the county, and connecting there with another railroad running to Montreal, Canada, was built in 1874 and 1875.
By the centennial year of the Republic the county possessed good communication by rail and water with the leading cities of the Uni- ted States.
PRESENT INDUSTRIES.
Sheep raising and wool growing has ceased to be the profitable industry that it once was, and the great wool trade of the county since the late war has dwindled to small proportions, although there are many fine flocks of sheep to be found in the different towns. Corn, oats, potatoes, apples, and dairy products are now the main resources of the farm.
Turning from agricultural pursuits to the mining interests of the county, we find that lime burning in Greenwich could be made a source of wealth.
Iron ore lies within the hills of the northern peninsula, and the furnace production in 1880 was very creditable to the county.
Slate and marble quarrying have been de- veloped in the eastern part of the count}'. In Granville fine roofing slate and excellent block marble quarries have been opened.
Ticonderoga black lead is obtained in Put- nam in considerable quantities.
Manufacturing establishments are situated at many places in the county, and prominent in this great branch of material wealth are agricultural and carriage works, iron foundries
BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY
and steel, hosiery, flouring, paper, cotton and woolen mills.
The garden seed business was started in the Cambridge valley as early as 1816, and the first manilla paper mill in the United States was built in 1846.
With good soil and considerable water power, and lying on the great inland route of commerce the county should be noted for the prosperity of the present industries and fine facilities for future enterprises.
COUNTY PROGRESS.
The growth of the county has been slow but substantial through its century and a third of white inhabitation, while the history of its territory extends through nearly three centur- ies of time. The Indian war period of eight}' years was followed in 1689 by the inter-colon- ial war period, whose ending in 1763 was two years beyond the first permanent settlement beginnings. Ten years of an early settlement period was distinguished for the incoming of three thousand white settlers, and a county formation, and was succeeded by the Revolu- tionary period of eight years, during which the county was severely ravaged. Following the Revolution was a pioneer period of nearly twenty years, in which the earlier industries sprang up and emigration sent the volume of population from about three thousand to thir- ty-five thousand. Then came a pike period, during which Warren county was cut off and the population fell off nearly six thousand. After nearly twenty-five years of pre-eminence the pike yielded to the canal, and the first great stride of progress was taken by the county. Wool growing and other industries came with it, and passed in 1848 into the rail- road period, that was terminated by the Civil war period, whose disastrous effects on the county retarded its advancement for some time. Succeeding the Civil war has followed the third great material advance of the people of Washington county, which may be designa- ted the progressive period noted for invention,
the introduction of labor-saving machinery, and a spirit of general improvement.
The financial panic of 1873 had some de- pressing effect upon the county, and occasion- ally the dullness of times may temporarily check the flow of business, but will never stop the march of improvement.
Washington county, rich within her own agricultural resources, her manufacturing in- terests and her commercial facilities, need never occupy any but a proud and prominent position in the wealth and development of the mighty State that stretches from the Hudson to the great lakes.
CHAPTER XVI.
STATISTICS OF POPULATION, MANUFAC- TURES, AGRICULTURE, MINING, AND TRADE AND TRANSPORTATION.
Census statistics have been specially intro- duced in this volume to supply a feature that is largely wanting in so many county histories published in the United States. While num- bers are not essentially necessary to the de- velopment and progress of a county, yet their increase stands for growth in industries as well as population, and their decrease tells the story of abandoned enterprises and the loss of territory as well as every great drain by emigration. The condensed statistics of agriculture, manufactures, mining and trade and transportation will forcibly tell their own story without need of illustration or explana- tion.
The census of 1S90 has been issued so slowly that many statistics of interest con- cerning the county have not yet been pub- lished.
STATISTICS OF POPULATION.
AGGREGATE POPULATION.
V. S. Census. White. Colored. Aggregate.
1790 I3-992 50 14,042
1800 35.393 399 36,792
i8ig 4I.I59 3>i3° 44-289
64
BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY
U.S. Census. White. Colored. Aggregate.
1820 38,427 404 38>83!
1830 42,242 393 42>635
1840 40,808 272 41,080
1850 44,400 350 44.75°
i860 45>643 259 45.9°4
1870 49,186 379 49.568
1880 47.523 340 47,87i
1890 45>687 252 45,939
Washington county had two Indians re- ported in i860, three in 1870, and six in 1880. Its Chinese inhabitants in 1880 were two. The 3,130 colored population reported in 1 810 is undoubtedly a mistake, and is more likely 313.
NATIVITY.
1870. 1880.
Born in the State 27,253 37,568
Vermont 2,605 2,678
Massachusetts 432 338
Connecticut 180 136
Pennsylvania 114 127
New Jersey 29 53
Total native born 41,274 4i,5J7
Born in Ireland 5,°24 4>°46
British America i,999 *.323
England and Wales 888 661
Scotland 198 137
Germany 124 125
France 14 8
Sweden and Norway 3 17
Total foreign born. .. . 8,294 6,354
In i860 the the native population was re- ported at 39,248 and the foreign as 6,656.
POPULATION OF MINOR CIVIL DIVISIONS.
Towns. 1870. 1SS0. 1890.
Argyle 2,850 2,775 2,313
Argyle village 351 316 158
Cambridge 2,589 2,324 2,162
Dresden 684 730 636
Easton 3,072 2,740 2,500
Fort Ann, including vil- lage 3,329 3,263 2,996
Fort Edward, including
village 5,125 4,680 4,424
Towns. 1870. 1880. 1890.
Granvillle 4,003 4, 149 4,715
Greenwich 4,030 3,860 4,196
Greenwich village 1,231 1,663
Hampton 955 833 791
Hartford 1,989 1,760 1,470
Hebron 2,399 2,383 2,044
Jackson 1,662 1,562 1,278
Kingsbury 4>277 4,614 4,677
Sandy Hill 2,347 2,487 2,895
Putnam 603 611 568
Salem 3,556 3,498 3,127
Salem village 1,239 1,410
White Creek, excluding
part Cambridge village 2,881 2,742 2,690 Cambridge village (a part) I.I53 Whitehall, including vil- lage 5.564 5.347 5.4°2
Whitehall village 4.322 4,27° 4.434
Town of Queensbury.. 11,849
Glens Falls village 9,5°9
In 1880 there were 23,955 males and 23,916 females in the county. Of school age — from five to seventeen years — there were 6,380 males and 6,143 females; and of military age — from eighteen to forty-four years — there were 9,312, while of citizenship age the number was 13,656.
STATISTICS OF MANUFACTURES. The statistics of manufactures in any census of the United States so far have never em- braced the full production of the hand-trades of mason, carpenter, blacksmith, cooper, plum- ber, and others of less importance ; but the tables for 1880 include every establishment of mechanical or manufacturing industry which was returned at the Tenth census as having had during that census year a product of five hundred dollars or more in value.
In all comparisons between values reported in 1870 and in 1880, it should be recollected that the values of the former year were ex- pressed in a currency which was at a great discount in gold. For purposes of compar- ison the values of 1870 should be reduced one- fifth.
BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY
65
SELECTED STATISTICS OF MANUFACTURE.
Establishments. Capital. Employees.
1870 427 $3,561,980 2714
1880 355 2,658,188 2205
The introduction of machinery will explain the decrease in the number of establishments and employees in 1880.
Wages. Material. Products.
1870 $928,398 $2,927,615 $5,028,391
1880 565-335 2,208,225 3>597>5I2
In 1870 there were twenty-eight steam en- gines and two hundred and fourteen water wheels in Washington county.
Of the four hundred and thirty-seven estab- lishments mentioned there were twenty-six cheese and butter factories, seven foundry and machine shops, twenty-eight flouring and grist mills, four tanneries, three lime works, eleven carriage and wagon factories or shops, one hosiery mill, eight woolen goods factories, four marble and stone works, one malt liquor manufactory, one iron and steel mill, thirty- one sawed lumber plants, one slate and marble mantel works, and nine paper mills.
AGRICULTURAL STATISTICS.
CEREAL PRODUCTIONS, 1870 AND l88o. Cereals. Busbs. 1870*. Bushs. 1880.
Wheat 24,091 16,809
Corn 384.7°^ 537>o6o
Oats 761,489 889,834
Barley 6,021 4j4:4
Buckwheat 5X>479 52,660
Rye 105,932 100,981
There were four thousand two hundred and seventeen farms with an average size of one hundred and sixteen acres in 1880.
LIVE STOCK, 1870 AND 1 880.
Nn. 1S70. No. 1880.
Horses 10,222 11,360
Milch Cows 18,352 21,762
Oxen 554 307
Sheep 102,045 64,606
Swine 9j3°i 17,908
5
Other cattle, in 1880, in addition to milch cows and oxen, were reported at thirteen thousand three hundred and thirty-two. In 1880 the spring clip of wool was given at three hundred and thirty-eight thousand eight hun- dred and eleven pounds.
POTATOES AND DAIRY PRODUCTS, 1870AND 1880. 1870. 1880.
Bus. Potatoes 2,141,464 2,216,648
Lbs. Butter 1,606,457 1,793,243
Lbs. Cheese 225,002 104,914
In 1879 there were one hundred thousand four hundred and forty-two tons of hay cut ; fifty-nine thousand five hundred and sixty- seven pounds of honey, and one thousand one hundred and forty-two pounds of wax taken ; and five thousand twenty-five bushels of beans harvested. Orchard products were worth eighty thousand five hundred and fifty- five dollars, and market garden products nine thousand five hundred and sixty-three dollars, in that year, while there were one hundred and thirty-six thousand five hundred and sixty- seven poultry fowls in the county, whose pro- duct of eggs was five hundred and twenty-five thousand one hundred and eighty-seven dozen.
MINING STATISTICS.
SELECTED STATISTICS OF MINIM;. Ores. Tons in 1880.
Magnetite iron ore . 18,892
Quartz and feldspar !,907
There were two mines in which two hun- hundred and fifteen thousand five hundred dollars capital was invested, and ninety-two hands employed. Twenty-six thousand dol- lars yearly wages was paid, and the value of the output was forty-seven thousand two hun- dred dollars. The maximum yearly capacity of these mines was forty-four thousand eight hundred tons.
There were four quartz and feldspar mines in which fifty-two thousand dollars capital was invested, and seventeen hands employed. The wages paid was three thousand three hundred and fifty-two dollars, and the value of the out-
BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY
put was seven thousand eight hundred and twelve dollars.
STATISTICS OF TRADE AND TRANSPORTATION.
In 1880 New York had seven canals, whose aggregate length was six hundred and seven miles, with four hundred and eleven miles of slackwater, that were built between 181 7 and 1862, at a cost of nearly sixty-nine million dollars. Those canals were : Erie, Oswego, Cayuga and Seneca, Champlain, Black River, Oneida River, and Delaware and Hudson.
The fou/th named canal, the Champlain canal, with its feeder and dam, was built be- tween 1817 and 1837, at a cost of two million three hundred and seventy - eight thousand nine hundred and ten dollars. It runs from Whitehall to Waterford, is eighty-one miles in length, and has a width of fifty-eight feet at the surface and forty-four feet at the bot- tom, being six feet in depth. It has thirty- three locks, one hundred and ten feet long and eighteen feet wide, with a rise and fall of one hundred and seventy-nine and one-half feet. In 1880 its freight traffic was one mil- lion two hundred thousand five hundred and three tons ; gross income, fifty-one thousand two hundred and sixty-seven dollars ; and ex- penditures, one hundred and thirty-six thous- and five hundred and twenty dollars.
Of the railways of the county we can se- cure no statistics in 1880, beyond the Green- wich and Johnson road, whose length was fif teen miles and its transportation expenses twenty-eight thousand four hundred and fifty dollars and fifty-nine cents. It employed thirty-five persons, and carried ten thousand six hundred and twenty-two passengers and nine thousand seven hundred and thirty-nine tons of freight in 1879.
VALUATION, TAXATION, AND PUBLIC INDEBTEDNESS.
Ig70. 1880.
Real estate 815,866,649
Personal property 3,091,234
State tax $65,791 57,577
1870. 1880.
County tax $45,347 $ 50,194
Local and school taxes, 46,483 107,771
County debt 63,000 23>525
Local debt 67,800 12,944
Total wealth 18,957,883
Total taxes 157,621 215,542
Total debt 130,800 36,469
In 1880 instead of count}' and local debt the headings in the census were bonded and floating debt, and with net debt for total debt. The valuation given is the assessed valuation.
CHAPTER XVII
AGRICULTURAL AND MEDICAL SOCIETIES — THE EARLY PRESS — CHURCHES — SCHOOLS — EARS.Y BANKS — SECRET SOCIETIES.
AGRICULTURAL SOCIETIES.
It is an encouraging fact that the ratio of increase of the principal agricultural products of Washington county has more than kept pace with its increase of population, while every indication warrants an abundant supply for all future contingencies. It is also a mat- ter of gratification that the enterprising farm- ers of the county have been fully in sympathy with the progressive agricultural spirit of the age for over three-quarters of a century.
The people recognizing the value of an agricultural society as early as December 2, 1 81 8, met at the Sandy Hill court house for the purpose of considering how the interests of agriculture could be best promoted. Hon. Asa Fitch was chairman, and Isaac Bishop secretary of that meeting, which resolved to organize a county agricultural society, and then appointed a committee to prepare a con- stitution and by-laws. This committee con- sisted of Hon. Asa Fitch, Isaac Bishop, Gar- rett Wendell, Zebulon R. Shipherd, David Russell, and Roswell Weston.
BIOGRAPHY AND BXSTOMY
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An adjourned meeting was held at Argyle, in the house of Joseph Rouse, on February ii, 1819. There the meeting gave organized form to the effort, and the first Washington county agricultural society came into exist- ence then and there, with a membership of fort}'. Hon. Asa Fitch was elected president, and a series of meetings were held at differ- ent places in September.
The first "Farmers' Holiday" or county fair was held on the second Tuesday of Oc- tober, 1822, at Major Andrew Freeman's hotel, at Salem. In 1825 the fair was held at Greenwich, and in 1826 at Argyle, where the premiums offered only amounted to two hundred and eighty-three dollars. The badge of membership was a spear of wheat and a ribbon.
Under the general apathy concerning agri- cultural matters that prevailed in the State about 1826, the society went down, and its successor did not appear until fifteen years later.
On August 4, 1 84 1, the second Washington count}- agricultural society was organized at Argyle, with Henry Holmes as president. Its first fair was held at Salem, in 1842, and at the next fair at Argyle two days were given to the exhibition. From 1844 to 1861 the fairs were held as follows : Salem, 1845. 1858; Cambridge, 1846, 1855, i860 ; Greenwich, 1847, 1852, 1856 ; Argyle, 1848, 1S50 ; White- hall, 1849; South Hartford, 1851 : Granville, 1853; North White Creek, 1854; Hartford, 1857 ; Fort Ann, 1859. In 1861 and in 1862 the excitement of the war prevented the hold- ing of any fair, but in 1863, Salem agreed to erect the buildings and furnish the grounds for a fair, if the society would exhibit at that place yearly until 1872. This proposition was accepted, and during that time, on March 25, 1865, the society was incorporated under the law of 1855, as "The Washington County Agricultural Society." The fair was also in- creased to four days, and in 1867 Horace Greeley delivered the address. In 1872 Fort
Edward and Sandy Hill agreed to furnish twenty-five acres in their vicinity and two thousand five hundred dollars if the society would hold their fairs there until 1882. This proposition was accepted, and the county fairs have been held there regularly until the present time; and have grown in importance, both in the quality of their exhibitions of blooded cattle, horses, sheep, swine, etc., and in the number of attendance of the people, second only to the State Agricultural society. In connection with the County Agricultural society, two other agricultural associations were formed. The Stock Breeders' associa- tion, February 20, 1816, and the Northern New York Poultry association, organized February 26, 1878, with headquarters at Sandy Hill.
THE WASHINGTON COUNTY MEDICAL SOCIETY.
The pioneer physician of the county was Rev. Thomas Clark, M. D., who came to Salem in 1765, when the oldest settlements had not been made more than four years. He was the only physician in the county for eight years, and then Gen. John Williams, M. D., came to Salem. Clark and Williams were na- tives of England, and attended to all the home practice of the county until 1780. when Dr. Peletiah Fitch arrived at Salem from Vermont, although a native of Connecticut. The first native and the fourth physician of the county was Dr. Joseph Tomb, of Salem, who read with General Williams. Among the prominent physicians succeeding them were: Zina Hitch- cock, M. D., of Connecticut, who settled at Sandy Hill about 1783. Hon. Asa Fitch, M.D., son of Dr. Peletiah Fitch, commenced practice at Salem in 1795 ; the same year, Dr. Andrew Proudfit, a student of Benjamin Rush, and a native of Pennsylvania, became a resident at Sandy Hill. Jonathan Dorr, M. D., of Lyme, Connecticut, and Hon. James Stevenson, M. D.. of Kilsyth, Scotland, read medicine at Salem, and entered upon practice about 1797. Cornelius Holmes, M. D., of Plymouth, Mas-
BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY
sachusetts, in 1805, was one of the first physi- cians of the present century and the last in the county, ere we come to the record of a county medical society with the year 1806, although a medical organization is said to have had an earlier existence than the year given.
The Medical Society of the county of Wash- ington held its first meeting at the Sandy Hill court house, July 1, 1806. Dr. Andrew Proud- fit was president of the society during 1806, and the charter members were twenty-three in number, as follows : Drs. Zina Hitchcock, Philip Smith, Andrew Proudfit, Isaac Sar- gent, Leonard Gibbs, Asa Stover, Cyrus Bald- win, William Livingston, Asa Fitch, Abram Allen, James Green, Ephraim Allen, Jonathan Mosher, John McKinney, Robert Cook, Daniel Hervey, Thomas Patterson, Liberty Branch, Israel P. Baldwin, Artemus Robbins, Asahel Morris, PenfieldGoodell and Cornelius Holmes.
The Society soon took high rank. and has done much since toward establishing the medical profession of the State upon an honorable and firm foundation.
THE EARLY PRESS.
The newspaper of to-day, with its command- ing position and wide influence, has grown from very small and very humble beginnings.
The press of Washington county is repre- sentative of the best interests of the people in every department of thought and field of ac- tivity, and aids largely in giving standing and moral and religious character to the county.
It is interesting as well as instructive to trace the early beginnings and slow growth of this press, now so active and potent for the progress of the county.
The pioneer of journalism in Washington county was George Gerrish, who on Wednes- day, June 18, 1794, issued the initial number of The Times or National Courier. It was issued at Salem, and bore the motto: ,L May we never seek applause from party principles, but always desire it from public spirit." This paper was printed "three doors south of the
court house," at 12s. per annum, and its his- tory is summed up in seven months of a pre- carious existence.
The second paper of the county was the Washington Patrol, to which fortune was no more propitious than to its predecessor. It was published at Salem, by William Wand, and edited by Saint John Honeywood, a lawyer of talent and education. The first number came out on May 27, 1796, and its last issue was at some time within the same year. Its mottoes were " Impartial and Uninfluenced." "All is well." "La unit est passee," and " Watch for the Republic."
Following the. Patrol at Salem came the Northern Ceniinel, the first permanent pa- per of the county. Its first issue was on Mon- day, January 1, 1798, and its publisher and editor, Henry Dodd, was a man of remark- able business ability. In May, 1803, the Ceniinel ceased, but was succeeded by the Northern Post, under the management of Henry Dodd and David Rumsey. James Stevenson, jr., and Edward and Henry W. Dodd, sons of Henry Dodd, were afterward associated with the paper that subsequently changed its name to that of Washington County Post. The Dodds were able editors and their connection with the paper ceased January 7, 1835, when Wil- liam A. Wells bought it and