Vol. II No. 6

THE
MAGAZINE OF HISTORY
WITH
NOTES AND QUERIES

DECEMBER, 1905

WILLIAM ABBATT
281 Fourth Avenue, New York

Published Monthly$5.00 a Year50 Cents a Number

Copyright, 1905, by William Abbatt

Vol. IIDECEMBER, 1905No. 6

[Pg 365]

II.

CHAPTER IV—Concluded.

Sullivan having heard nothing from either Brodhead or Clinton, became especially anxious about the latter, fearing that he might be waylaid by a union of the Tories under Butler and McDonald with Brant’s forces. On the 16th of August, he sent forward a picked force of nine hundred men, under Generals Poor and Hand, with the Coehorn mortar and eight days’ rations, to advance and meet the right wing. Marching to Owego, then an Indian village, and to Choconut, containing fifty long houses, they heard at sunset of the 18th, Clinton’s evening gun. This they answered with their Coehorn. Between the present city of Binghamton and Owego the two forces met and the forest resounded with sounds of mutual acclaim and welcome to brothers in arms. The place of their junction, as we see on the map, is named Union, now a flourishing village. Then the host, the flotilla in boats and the men along the flats and heights, moved down the Susquehanna in fine array. As the united forces of men from three states thus drew near the camp at Tioga Point, Sullivan ordered out the whole army to give them welcome. The fifers and drummers furnished lively music and a feu de joie, by the infantry drawn up in single line, completed the ceremonies. This was at noon on Sunday, 21st, and on the site of the present village of Athens.

Previous to the arrival of Clinton’s brigade, Sullivan (August 11) had sent westward up the river valley, a party of eight of his bravest officers and men, to reconnoiter the Indian town of Chemung. This collection of bark houses was built on the first great river flat above the village in Chemung county, at present called by that name. Keeping[Pg 366] away from the trail they reached the hill top and looked down upon the town, finding everything in confusion. The Indians fearing an immediate attack in force, were getting ready to move westward. When this scouting party returned to the main camp at three o’clock the next day, Sullivan ordered his whole force to be ready to march at a moment’s notice. At 8 P. M., August 12, he started with most of his force on a night march and pushed on through swamps and forests. At morning finding themselves in a fog, they also discovered that the enemy had fled.

General Hand asked that he be allowed to take Colonel Hubley’s regiment and the Wyoming companies to pursue the foe. This request was granted and our men pushed eagerly on. In spite of all wariness, Captain Bush’s company of the Eleventh Pennsylvania got into an Indian ambush, and six of the Continentals were killed and nine wounded. Our men rallied and drove the Indians off the ground with a loss equal to their own. Then they began destroying sixty acres of standing corn, then in the milk, by cutting down the stalks. While at this work they were again fired on by the Indians in hiding, and one man was killed and five were wounded. Forty acres of maize were left untouched for the future use of the army, and then the whole force returned, greatly wearied with fatigue and the extreme heat. The bodies of the dead were brought back to camp for decent burial.

It was a sad occasion, when in the forest, the seven slain were buried in one grave, which, as was usual, had all outward marks obliterated, so that the savages could not exhume and mutilate the corpses. Then their comrades fired memorial vollies. Thus perished by the bullets of the enemy the first of the men in Sullivan’s main expedition. Two days afterwards, a corporal and four men, who were guarding cattle on Queen Esther’s plains, were fired on by sneaking Indians. One was shot dead and one wounded. In the rude hospital, quickly built out of green wood, within the lines of the diamond-shaped Fort Sullivan, the fifteen wounded men found shelter and care. In 1897, in digging foundations for the edifice of the Tioga Point Historical Society, at Athens, Pa., the bones of the buried Continentals were exhumed, and with other relics of 1779 are now under glass in the cases of the Spalding Museum.

Having his whole effective force under his direct command, Sullivan reorganized the army, and announced both the order of march and the order of battle. The light troops under General Hand were to form the advance, the riflemen acting as scouts. Poor’s brigade was to guard[Pg 367] the right and Maxwell’s brigade the left of the army, Clinton’s brigade forming the rear guard. The park of nine pieces of artillery was placed in the center, with three columns of pack horses on either side. A morning and evening gun was to be fired daily and on account of the length and narrowness of the moving line through the woods, a horn, instead of drums, was to announce the orders to march or halt. The corps of engineers and surveyors were to measure each rod of ground traversed, and maps of the region traversed were to be made.

In the fort, Colonel Shreve was left with a garrison of two hundred and fifty men of the New Jersey regiment. It was ordered that when further supplies should come up from Wyoming, Captain Reed should proceed up the Chemung Valley, build a fort where Newtown Creek joins the river (at Elmira), and there await the return of the army from the Genesee valley.

The army was now eager to move into the unknown wilderness. The route was up the Chemung river, into the Seneca country, and through the Land of Lakes. There was no hope of reinforcements or relief, and, in case of defeat, of any quarter from the foe. Over paths never trodden by any white man, save the lone trader, trapper, or captive, they must now find much of their food and rely wholly on their own valor. How brave must these men have been, and how equally worthy of fame and honor, was this expedition in comparison with Sherman’s march through Georgia to the sea in 1864.

(It is to be noted that in the Centennial celebration of 1879, General William Tecumseh Sherman, was present in the Chemung valley, with words of memorial and congratulations to the thousands present, as well as with praise of the men of 1779 who had given him so inspiring a precedent of success.)

One of the first obstacles to the army, was a very high hill at the edge of the river. To avoid this, all but the infantry crossed the river twice, being supported and guarded against hostile attack by Maxwell’s New Jersey regiments. The other brigades marched over the hill, and camp[Pg 368] was made on the site of the Indian town of Chemung which the advanced detachments had destroyed two weeks before.

Our fathers thought few articles of food more delicious than green corn roasted in the ear. So the maize in the fields near by helped to make a good supper. In addition, the army enjoyed a feast of potatoes, beans, cucumbers, watermelons, squashes and other vegetables which were here in great plenty. It was the season of ripeness.

Towards the end of July, there had gathered together, whites and reds, Indians, Tories, Royal Greens and British regulars, numbering over a thousand men, at Newtown, the Indian town near Baldwin’s Creek, opposite to the present village of Wellsburg on the Erie, and at Lohmansville on the Lackawanna railroad. Here they were for weeks hard at work. Tearing down the Indian houses, they built, with the old and fresh-cut logs, a fortification that extended up the slope of the hill to the north and along the western ridge nearer the Chemung river.

But where was the enemy? It was known that the raid of Brant, down the Walkill valley to the Delaware, had failed to draw Sullivan from his main purpose. The other parties of Tories and Indians had been equally impotent. What then should be done to drive back the avenging army and save their villages and crops?

Evidently the only safety was to join all forces. At a great council of Tories and Iroquois, held where Geneva now stands, it was decided to send wampum belts again to every and all tribes and bands of the Iroquois, and bid them assemble to oppose the invaders in the Chemung valley. Some of the parties that started in response to this call arrived too late. The notorious John Butler, who had led the expedition against Wyoming, was in command of the mixed forces of King George, red, black, and white, and the strategy and tactics employed by him showed the combination of the crafts of both savage and civilized man.

On Saturday evening, August 28, Sullivan’s advance pickets heard the sound of axes and saw many fires brightly burning along the hills just beyond Baldwin’s Creek. A scout sent out a day or two before, reported that the enemy were fortified just beyond the creek and west of the Indian village of Newtown. The march must now be made with a constant reference to ambuscade and with the greatest wariness. “Above all, no Braddocking.”

On Sunday, August 29, the day broke with every indication of very[Pg 369] hot weather. The air was close and heavy. The army moved at nine o’clock, the riflemen being well scattered in front of Hand’s light corps, so as to act as scouts and skirmishers, while every man in the brigade moved with the greatest caution. Hardly had they gone a mile, before they discovered several Indians in front. One of these fired and then all fled. Going forward still further a mile, the riflemen found the ground low, marshy and well fitted for the shelter of hiding Indians. Moving slowly and alertly, they discovered another party of Indians, who as before, fired and retreated. Evidently their purpose was to lure the Americans into ambush.

Major Parr, commander of the rifle corps, now determined to advance no further without reconnoitering every foot of the ground. Ordering his men to halt, he sent one of them to climb the highest tree and survey the whole situation. The scout was unable at first to discover anything peculiar, but peering intently ahead, he made out a line of brushwood artfully concealed with green boughs and trees. Starting from near the Chemung river on the left, it ran up the slope of a high hill to the right, for possibly half a mile. Here had been the Indian village of Newtown, consisting of twenty-five or thirty bark houses, but most of the houses had given way to timber entrenchments and to the camp inside of them, though two or three were left so as to form, as it were, bastions for the newly-built fort.

Here the enemy had gathered to make their determined stand. Their force, numbering about nine hundred warriors from five tribes, had been reinforced by between two and three hundred white men, Tories and Canadians, drilled and aided by fifteen regular soldiers of the British army, and commanded by Butler, McDonald, and Brant, while two or three hundred more warriors were soon expected.

Such a position was a formidable obstacle to the advance even of an army provided with artillery. The right flank of the British rested on the river, their left on the side of a hill, while immediately in front of them and for a space of about one hundred yards was a clear field which their fire could sweep easily. Between this field and the Continental lines was a stream, since called Baldwin’s Creek, and then very difficult to cross. On the American right lay a valley so low and marshy that an attack in flank would seem nearly impossible. Thus the place was evidently well chosen.

Nearly the whole story of Indian craft in war is told in the one[Pg 370] word, concealment. To hide their breastworks with the hope that the invaders might come very near to them without their being discovered, the Tories and Indians had laid boughs and greenery over the front and top. They had even planted out in front, here and there, fresh young trees, so as to give the appearance of primitive and untouched forests. They had stuck these young trees in the ground outside the breastworks and had thoroughly cleaned up the ground, so that no chips or evidence of human industry were left lying about. They hoped also that Sullivan’s troops would rush for plunder into the few Indian houses left standing outside the lines and would thus be entrapped.

Evidently, also it was their design that the Continentals, moving in a narrow defile and strung out in a line several miles long, should be caught between the river and the entrenchments, while the Indians in ambuscade could pour in their fire. They hoped to “Braddock” Sullivan’s force by stampeding the pack horses and cattle. On the high hill across the river, and on the summit to the northward, watching parties were stationed by Brant so that at the right moment they could quickly descend. Then by frightening the animals, sending them flying in every direction, they could complete the destruction of the army thus huddled together. With so many chances in their favor, the Tories and Indians hoped to give the Continental army such a check as to compel its return.

All these plans were frustrated by the great caution of Sullivan and the alertness of his lieutenants. When Major Parr, about noon, reported to his superior the situation of the enemy, Hand sent forward the riflemen to occupy the banks of the creek, within one hundred yards of the breastworks and under cover. The light brigade then moved to within three hundred yards and deployed in line of battle. Sullivan coming forward with the main army, sent Ogden’s flanking division along the river to the left of Hand’s light brigade and further to the west. He ordered Maxwell to remain in the rear in reserve. For a flank attack, he detached two brigades, Poor’s New Hampshire and Clinton’s New York, to move to the right and north. They were to make their way up the swampy valley, and gain, if possible, the enemy’s left and rear. In order to divert attention from this flank attack, Hand’s light corps opened in the center, while Proctor’s nine guns were run forward and posted on a hillock, directly in front of the angle of the breastworks and about two hundred yards distance from them. As everything had to be done in a rough[Pg 371] country in the woods, on a fearfully hot day, it took several hours to get the batteries and the brigades into position.

Then opened a lively fusilade, of small arms, which held the attention of the enemy. It was proposed to allow until three o’clock for Poor and Clinton to reach the top of the hill (now called Sullivan’s Hill, on which the lofty monument stands), whence they were to turn and charge down upon the enemy. Yet Sullivan listened long in vain for the sound of musketry upon the distant right wing, notwithstanding that it was Poor’s intention to advance with unloaded guns and charge with the bayonet, for Wayne’s handsome work at Stony Point on July 16, only six weeks before, had stirred the army with an ambition to achieve a similar victory with cold steel. Colonel Cilley, who commanded a New Hampshire regiment, had been with Wayne on the Hudson and was now with Poor.

At three o’clock, Sullivan thinking it not wise to wait longer, gave order to Proctor to open fire with all his guns. The two howitzers, the little Coehorn and the six cannon opened with a terrific roar, while the light corps were ordered to be in readiness for a charge, as soon as the firing of the flanking column was heard. It was intended that the cannonade should be the prelude to a general advance on front and flank. The guns grew hot with firing, however, before anything was heard from the New Hampshire men, who had been obliged to face unexpected difficulties and especially to flounder through swamps, far deeper than anyone had supposed.

Proctor’s round shot, grape and bombs not only cut and tore the forest trees to the terror of the savages, but did terrible execution. In many places within the enemy’s line the bloody proofs of the terrific and destructive power of the shell fire were afterwards amply evident. Brant, their mighty leader, found it was all he could do to hold his painted warriors together. Suddenly, rather to their relief, than otherwise, runners from the hilltop came to inform their chief that the enemy had made an attack in force on their left flank, driven in the party of watchers, and were moving forward on the main body. Glad to escape the terrific missiles of the artillery, and to give his braves congenial occupation and one more suitable to Indian warfare, Brant led off a large party, possibly the majority of his warriors, to repel this new danger.

Turning now to the hilltop on the right and to the flanking operations, we behold the most startling episode of the battle, when for a[Pg 372] moment it looked as if a cloud of red men was about to overwhelm this one isolated body of their foes. The second New Hampshire regiment under Colonel Reid, separated from the others in the brigade, suddenly found themselves partly surrounded by a semi-circle of rifles and hatchets. Their thin scattered line of riflemen, sent out to scour the woods as skirmishers, and at this time only a few yards in front of them, was quickly driven back before a whirlwind of fire. With unloaded muskets, the destruction of Reid’s regiment seemed certain. Nevertheless the salvation of the Americans was in the Indians firing too high. They were too certain of victory to keep cool and take sure aim.

This was the situation—Dearborn’s Third New Hampshire, Alden’s Sixth Massachusetts, Cilley’s First New Hampshire, and Du Bois’s two hundred and fifty picked New Yorkers, on the extreme right flank, and far to the northwest of the main body, made up, with the Second New Hampshire, the brigade. These regiments moving in the woods, in a country which no white man had ever penetrated, had become quite separated from each other. Poor, the commander, hoping to completely outflank the enemy, was far ahead on the right, too distant to be heard from. Clinton’s brigade, consisting of the Third New York under Gansevoort, the Fifth New York commanded by Du Bois, the Fourth New York led by Livingston, and the Second New York on the right under Van Cortlandt, formed the reserve, but they were still far below in the rear. The regiments were all small, numbering each about three hundred men. The great and imminent danger was that Brant’s seven hundred warriors might wholly overwhelm the men of one regiment before help could reach them from their comrades.

Such disaster seemed now to threaten. Starting his men on the run, Brant had reached the hill top, just as the men of Reid’s Second New Hampshire, nearly out of breath, and toiling amid the terrific heat, were only half way up the rough face of the rather steep eastern slope. At the extreme left of their brigade and nearest the British breastworks, which were a few hundred rods to the westward, Reid’s men found themselves far away and out of sight from their comrades in the other regiments, which were further to the right—east and north. Their guns were unloaded while their ears were deafened with the yell of hundreds of exultant savages who felt sure of scalps. In a moment more they were face to face with the foe. With their empty muskets, defeat and massacre seemed certain. They realized that their brigadier, Poor, was far away[Pg 373] to the right, pressing his troops on to the attack, hoping to close in upon the enemy and prevent their retreat.

There was but one thing to do. It was to fix bayonets and charge. Reid shouted the order. His men, jaded as they were, pushed further up the hill, driving the enemy for a moment before them and getting a bare chance, in the momentary lull, to load their guns. Then began the usual fusilade among the trees. Yet it was still a desperate uncertainty and the enemy outnumbered them.

Not far away, Dearborn, with the Third New Hampshire, hearing the firing, realized at once the peril in which Reid was. Without waiting a moment, he took the responsibility, without orders, to right about face. He did so, supporting Reid and striking the enemy on the flank, while Clinton, equally alert, pushed forward two of his regiments. His object was to support the New Hampshires and if possible gain Brant’s rear.

Then ensued a severe fight in the woods, which from the nature of the situation could not last very long. Brant seeing his plans upset, ordered his men to retreat and save themselves.

At the same time, further down on the flats, Sullivan having heard the report of the guns on the hill, at once ordered an advance along the whole line. With cheers our men rushed over the entrenchments, and then a running fight of several miles, indeed all the way into the limits of the modern city of Elmira, ensued. Nevertheless the enemy were able to escape, being much more familiar with the country. They carried away their wounded in canoes up the river, and made off with, or concealed some of the bodies of their dead.

The battlefield was fully occupied by our trains and camp, and about six o’clock in the afternoon, when the pursuit stopped, three cheers told the story of another American victory. The known loss of the enemy was thirteen whites and many Indians. Twenty-six corpses of red men were found upon the field. Two prisoners, one a negro and one a Tory with his face painted black, were taken. General Sullivan reported three killed and twenty-nine wounded, five of whom afterwards died. All the patriot dead and most of the wounded were New Hampshire men, and all the casualties except four were in Poor’s brigade, Reid’s regiment suffering the worst.

In reality this was one of the great decisive battles of the Revolution,[Pg 374] for it broke forever the power of the Iroquois. Throughout the war, except in small parties, neither Tories nor savages were able to gather for raids. As a military factor the warriors of the Six Nations never again appeared in or with an army. Sullivan and his soldiers had ended the flank attacks on the army, and opened the way for civilization into western New York and Pennsylvania. Indeed, for over half a century, or until the railways dictated the lines of travel, “Sullivan’s Road” was the main highway into New York from Pennsylvania.

It began to rain on Sunday shortly after the battle firing was over, and the next day, Monday, August 30, was a day of rest.

It was also necessary, in consequence of the very poor and insufficient provisions, as well as the want of enough pack horses, to cut down to one-half the rations of flour, salt and meat. However, as the country through which they were to march was rich in vegetable food, Sullivan issued orders, stating the facts, and asking that “the troops will please to consider the matter and give their opinion as soon as possible.” So late that afternoon the whole army was drawn up in the separate brigades and regiments. Then the question was put whether they would advance, taking the risk of hunger.

“Without a dissenting voice, the whole army cheerfully agreed to the request of the General, which was signified by unanimously holding up their hands and giving three cheers.” Neither the remembered horrors of Valley Forge, nor the risk of possible starvation could discourage the army. With many a laugh and joke, the men moved forward to their “Succotash Campaign.” They were happy to know that the heavier artillery, the two howitzers and brace of six pounders were to be sent back. The labor of drawing ammunition wagons and heavy cannon up and down hills would be much reduced. Nevertheless, the four three pounders and caissons, taken along with the Coehorn, meant much chopping in the woods to make a path.

On Tuesday, the line of march was taken up through the broken, swampy, and mountainous country. For their night’s camp the men were[Pg 375] happy to find a level plain, but the next day they had to go through Bear Swamp, which was then a horrible dark quagmire six miles long. Having a clay bottom, the black mire held the water which flowed tortuously through the spongy soil, in which the vegetation of centuries had made a peaty mass, which the recent rains had made as unstable as a jelly and slippery as soap. Here was the divide of waters between the Susquehanna and the Saint Lawrence rivers, flowing into the Atlantic at Labrador or Hatteras. The Indian trail through this soggy country passed through defiles, over mounds and through ravine after ravine, rough and scrubby, while through all meandered a stream of dark water. Only with the most tremendous toil were the Continentals able to get through, and the rear guard did not reach hard ground until long after noon next day. The cannon were pulled through only by the toil of hundreds of men at the drag ropes, or by laying on the worst places corduroy, or a rough road of trees and brushwood. Many horses were mired and abandoned, and scores of packs with precious bags of flour and ammunition were lost. Altogether it was a most terrible experience, much worse than in the Pennsylvania swamp, called “The Shades of Death,” which they had traversed.

For years afterwards, that horrible night formed the blackest memory and gave the most disturbing element to the dreams of the old soldiers. In our time, as we travel through this drained and dry valley between the green walls of the hills on either side, we wonder as we look over the celery gardens where Bear Swamp was. Within half a century after Sullivan’s march and return, the forests were cleared and the Chemung canal, bearing millions of cubic feet of timber to the great cities, and especially to build the Maryland privateers for the War of 1812, traversed and drained the swamp. To-day smiling farms and vegetable gardens on either side of the well laid beds of the steam railway and electric trolley line fill the sunny and beautiful valley.

Just beyond this horrible swamp of 1779 lay the village of Sheaquaga, or “French Catherine’s town,” three miles from Seneca Lake, on the site of the present town of Havana, or Montour Falls. It was the capital of the Indian Queen Catherine Montour, and contained her “palace.” It consisted of about forty “long,” or apartment, houses of timber and bark, with splendid cornfields, orchards, and fenced enclosures, in which were horses, cows, calves and hogs. It looked as though the army would have, for a little while at least, meat rations. Here had been[Pg 376] the home of Catherine, sister of Queen Esther and granddaughter of Adam Montour, who was the offspring of Count Frontenac. A Dutch family had also lived here among the Indians. It seemed strange to our men to find feather beds and other evidences of civilization so far in the wilderness. Some of it was the plunder from Cherry Valley and Wyoming.

The town was deserted, but our troops had to wait all day Thursday for the pack horses and cattle that emerged one by one, or in parties, from the darkness of the dreadful swamp. They found an old squaw, whom they compelled to give information about the Indians. Then they built for her a hut and left her some provisions. Moving northward along the eastern shores of Seneca Lake, through open woods and level country, they found corn roasting in the fire, their supper left untasted and all the evidences of the hasty movement of a large body of Indians.

The next day they moved as far as North Hector, to a village consisting of one very large apartment house with several rooms and fires. To this day the new timber, grown up in the place of the old forest cut through for the artillery, can be easily discerned. Resuming their march, they came on Sunday, September 5, to Kendaia, or Apple Town. This was an Indian village of the first class, over twenty large, long apartment houses built of timber and bark, some of them well painted. There were apple and peach orchards, with many hundreds of trees ripening their fruit, and a cemetery, in which there were tombs erected to the chiefs and made of hewn and painted planks. Here they met with a white captive, Luke Sweetland, whom the Indians had kept employed in making salt. All this lake region is underlaid with beds of the purest chloride of sodium, and in times of peace the Senecas and Onondagas drove a thriving trade with the other tribes in this necessity of life. They made their salt by boiling the brine from salt springs. To-day at Ithaca and Ludlowville the white crystals fill daily a freight train.

On the sixth of September the evening gun sounded at Indian Hollow. On the seventh day they reached the great Seneca town of Kanadesaga, lying on both sides of Castle Creek near what is now Geneva, N. Y. Here had dwelt Old Smoke, the Indian King, and his son who married a daughter of Catherine Montour. In 1756, during the Old French War, Sir William Johnson had built a fort, or stockade, in this town, which was regularly laid out with the open square, in which the[Pg 377] fort stood, in the center. Orchards and gardens were plentiful, especially on the north and northeast. Although Sullivan had expected to fight a battle here, and had deployed his regiments for assault, yet the town was found to be entirely deserted, except that a little white boy three years old, captured from one of the settlements, was found playing, though nearly starved. The circular mound, on which the councils of the chiefs and orators were held, still stands, a monument of a nearly vanished race. Gleefully the troops marched in and through the town, with pumpkins and squashes skewered on their bayonets.

The Continentals were now in that renowned lake region of New York famous among the Indians not only for its salt springs, but for its abundance of fish and fruit, and the general fertility of the soil. The forest was still dense all around them, except the more frequent openings, but the Indian villages were numerous and with luxuriant vegetable gardens. In these, onions, peas, beans, squashes, potatoes, turnips, cabbages, cucumbers, watermelons, carrots and parsnips were plentiful, while great cornfields stretched farther off into the clearings and to the very edge of the forest, and orchards of apple, peach and mulberry trees were within easy reach.

It was this great store of vegetable food found everywhere ready that decided Sullivan and his brigade commanders, after a council of war, to push on further westward, despite the very scanty supplies of meat and flour rations. So the horses and the men unable to proceed further by reason of sickness or lameness, were sent back to the fort at Tioga Point, Captain Reed of Massachusetts with fifty men forming the escort. Thence he was to return again, as we have seen, to Kanawaholla, near the present city of Elmira, with supplies for the army on its return.

The main army, facing the setting sun, camped at Flint Creek September 9, and on the next day at noon reached Canandaigua, so named because here the trading Indians on the trail, or red commercial travellers on the road, “took off their pack” to rest. It was an Indian town of twenty-three large houses, with standing crops, all of which, as at the other places, were given to the torch. It is said that the women and pappooses hid themselves on Squaw Island, in the lake near the town. On Saturday, September 11, the Stars and Stripes were unfurled at the foot of Honeoye Lake, where stood the Indian village of twenty long houses. All these except one, selected for a fortified storehouse, were[Pg 378] set on fire. The walls of this strongest dwelling were still further strengthened with kegs and bags of flour, and a ditch dug and abatis made. Then two three pounders were mounted and their black noses poked out of the port holes cut through the walls. Here the sick and disabled, amounting to nearly three hundred, were left, in camp. The weakest found quarters in the rooms and bunks of the Indian house. Then the whole army, now able to move as a light armed corps, pressed forward to the goal, which was the big Indian town in the Genesee river valley, near what is now Cuylerville, below Geneseo, N. Y. Delayed by storm and rain next day, only eleven miles were made to Adjuton, a village of eighteen houses, near Conesus Lake, where had lived two celebrities, Captain Sunfish, a negro, and Big Tree, a Seneca chief. The fresh evidences of savages near at hand, were very manifest on the Indian path leading to the Genesee town.

It may be wondered what had become of the motley British force after their defeat at Newtown. As a matter of fact, two hundred fresh Indian warriors had joined Brant just after the battle. They were clamorous to advance at once against the Americans, but those who had a taste of grape shot and bursting bombs were unwilling to make a stand. So the whole force of red and white allies of King George had retreated to the north and west, making camp near Avon, in Livingston County. Keeping out their scouts on the hilltops, they were well informed of Sullivan’s movements.

Now, knowing that he had left Conesus, evidently to attack the big town of the Senecas, Brant and Butler chose a strong position. It was remarkably like that of Braddock’s field, in Pennsylvania, wherein the pride of England’s infantry were changed, from red-coated soldiers, in the glory of lusty life, to heaps of bleaching bones. On a bluff, parallel with the western side of Conesus Lake, well forested, but full of deep ravines, Butler posted his men in ambush. He hoped that Sullivan would advance with his men up the well known trail between two ravines. He had broken down the old, rude bridge over the stream, but he knew that the Continental pioneers would be likely to build another out of the oak and hickory which abounded here. Here he expected to post his men and watch for the opportunity when the scouts should announce the nearness of Sullivan, who was without artillery. With his fresh reinforcements Butler was confident of victory.

William Elliot Griffis.

(To be continued.)

CHAPTER VI—Concluded

It is also important to remember that the press appealed to a very much smaller percentage of the population in colonial times than it does to-day. “In Boston with a population of 8000, Campbell succeeded in selling but 3000 copies of his News Letters when it was the only newspaper printed in America.”[1] Later the circulation of all the papers increased, but it was still but a small proportion of the colonists who received first hand the opinions of the editor. And this body of subscribers was for the most part of the professional class or the wealthier part of those in trade, persons naturally of a conservative temper and apt to look with disfavor on any strong attack on or disregard of legalized and established authority.

In New York, owing to the peculiar way in which the press was introduced, it for the first forty years of its existence did nothing to put itself in antagonism to the government; in Massachusetts it at first was given a subvention by the General Court; in South Carolina a comparatively large sum was offered to any printer who would brave the dangers of the climate and establish a press. With these exceptions its early days were passed under governments which viewed with dislike or suspicion any attempts on the part of the printers to take an intelligent part in the questions that were interesting the people. For this reason the press in all the colonies early assumed a position of antagonism to the constituted authority and in return the government took every opportunity to hurt it by means of prosecutions in the courts or inquisitorial proceedings before the Governor and his Council. It is interesting to note however that these proceedings lost almost all their terrors as the period of the Revolution approached, for the press received more and more the support of the people, who had learned to appreciate the wide circulation which[Pg 380] the newspapers gave to the new doctrines; thus we constantly find the grand juries refusing to find true bills against the printers, in this way reducing the Governor to the use of Informations which were looked on with suspicion by the people and seldom resulted in a verdict of Guilty.

But the greatest influence of the press was exerted through the flood of hand-bills and pamphlets which ever increased in volume as the period of the Revolution drew near. Printed in large numbers and circulating everywhere, we find Governors reporting to the home government that it was impossible to stop them, and that they were doing incalculable harm.

If now we attempt in a very brief way to review the whole matter of the struggle for the liberty of the press we shall find:

First: That the system in vogue in America, as in England, up to the close of the seventeenth century, was a system of administrative control by the Crown through appointed officers called Censors, to whom all writings had to be submitted before publication and who either gave or refused permission to print. That this Censorship was shared by Church and State in some instances only complicated the situation.

Second: With the failure to pass the Licensing Bill in 1695 the press became in all parts of the English dominion freed from this censorship; but a system of judicial control took its place, for all publications were now subject to the law of libel, and an attack on the dominant party was held by the courts to be a libel, and a censure of the Governor to be a personal reflection on the King. In Franklin’s case in England in 1731,[2] it was laid down by Lord Raymond that the court alone was to judge of the criminality of a libel, to the jury was given only the right to decide as to the fact of publication.

In England that doctrine continued in force until the passage of Mr. Fox’s Libel Bill in 1792. But fifty-eight years earlier the Zenger case (in 1734) had established in principle the freedom of the press in the colonies, by settling the right of juries to find a general verdict in libel cases. We have said “in principle,” for this right, which the colonists soon grew to consider as a part of their common law, was yet in practice more or less nullified in the different colonies according as the Governor was able to impose his will on the courts or was opposed by an intelligent public opinion.

In other words, liberty of the press did not and could not exist in[Pg 381] the colonial period, but the people accepted the principle and when they obtained the opportunity incorporated it in Bills of Rights and State Constitutions. The Continental Congress in issuing, on Oct. 21st, 1774, an “Address to the people of Canada” proceeded to detail and enlarge upon the rights to which English subjects were entitled, and among them placed the freedom of the press.[3]

We see the same point made by State after State.

Maryland, 1776: “That the liberty of the press ought to be inviolably preserved.”

Virginia, 1776: “That the freedom of the press is one of the great bulwarks of liberty, and can never be restrained but by despotic governments.”

Pennsylvania, 1776: “That the people have a right to freedom of speech, and of writing, and of publishing their sentiments; therefore the freedom of the press ought not to be restrained.”

Georgia, 1777: “Freedom of the press and trial by jury to remain inviolable forever.”

Vermont, 1777: “That the public have the right to freedom of speech and of writing and publishing their sentiments; therefore the freedom of the press ought not to be restrained.”

South Carolina, 1778: “That the liberty of the press be inviolably preserved.”

Massachusetts, 1780: “The liberty of the press is essential to the security of freedom in a state; and ought not, therefore, to be restrained in this commonwealth.”

New Hampshire, 1784: “The liberty of the press is essential to the security of freedom in a state; and it ought, therefore, to be inviolably preserved.”

Pinckney’s Plan of 1787: “The Legislature of the United States shall pass no law touching or abridging the liberty of the press.”

Delaware, 1792: “The press shall be free to every citizen who undertakes to examine the official conduct of men acting in a public[Pg 382] capacity, and any citizen may print on any subject, being responsible for the abuse of that liberty. In prosecutions for publications investigating the proceedings of officers, or where the matter published is proper for public information, the truth thereof may be given in evidence; and in all indictments for libels, the jury may determine the facts and the law, as in other cases.”

After the Federal Convention came together in 1787 it was proposed to insert in the Constitution, “the liberty of the press shall be inviolably preserved.” This was defeated by six states against five.[4] But when the different States afterwards sent to the first Congress the proposals from which the first ten Amendments were selected we find in nearly all some reference to the liberty of the press. The article on the subject from Massachusetts was selected and now appears as a part of the First Amendment to the Constitution, “Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech or of the press.”[5] And since that time nearly every Constitution drawn up by the different States has contained an admission of the principle so long contended for by supporters of the rights of the press, that, as David Hume says, “its liberties, and the liberties of the people must stand or fall together.”

Livingston Rowe Schuyler.

Apropos of the proposed erection here of a monument to the memory of Commodore John Barry, it is interesting to know that in addition to his tomb in St. Mary’s Churchyard, on Fourth street below Locust, where he was buried, there are many other relics of the great naval commander in this city, which was his home and where he maintained both a town and country residence. In Fairmount Park, too, is a monument not known to many people, where one of the five figures of the fountain erected by the Catholic Total Abstinence Society is a statue of Barry. It is of heroic size and the inscription, besides reciting some of his principal exploits on the sea, describes him as the first commodore of the United States navy.

Nearly all the other relics are in the possession of Mrs. W. Horace Hepburn of this city, who is a great-grandniece of Barry, and also a granddaughter of Commodore Bainbridge, and to whom they have been handed down. They are of many kinds and, taken altogether, would form quite a museum. Some of them are particularly valuable as records of history, among these being the logs of the Alliance and other warships which Barry commanded. Another documentary relic is the commission as captain and commander of the frigate United States issued to Barry to “take rank from the fourth day of June, 1804.” It is dated February 22, 1797, however, and is signed by Washington. On the margin it is numbered “one,” showing it to have been the first captain’s commission issued in the navy of the new constitutional government.

Of nearly equal importance as a record is the certificate of Barry’s membership in the Society of the Cincinnati. With this Mrs. Hepburn has also the handsome jewelled badge of the order presented to him by Lafayette. It is in the regular form of the organization’s emblem, but is very ornate. It was manufactured in France. Also in Mrs. Hepburn’s possession is Stuart’s original portrait, a copy of which, by Colin Campbell Cooper, was presented to the city by the Hibernian Society in 1895, and now hangs in Independence Hall. The Stuart portrait was painted in this city.

[Pg 387]

Among the relics is a set of china, much of which was used on the frigate Alliance. Among these is a punch bowl and pitcher in white china, with a good picture of the frigate under full sail on each. This china was probably made in France, but that point has not as yet been definitely determined. What were also probably used on the ship are a number of glass goblets and other glassware, which are not particularly fine as to design and manufacture, but are none the less cherished as relics. There is also a considerable quantity of French china, with the monogram S. B., for Sarah Barry, on it, and a number of dinner plates, which were probably used in his house. Pertaining more closely to the commander’s seafaring career are one of his swords, a gun, and a full-dress uniform, the latter consisting of yellow nankeen knee breeches and vest, with a blue frock coat with immense brass buttons. The size of these garments emphasizes the well-known fact that the commodore was a very large man. Originally among the relics were a pair of silver knee buckles, which, before the collection came into the hands of its present owner, were melted down and made into teaspoons. How big they were may be inferred from the fact that they made six spoons. Mrs. Hepburn has these spoons, but says she would much prefer to have the silver in its original form of buckles. Commodore Barry’s watch is also in the collection, as is a large solid silver ale tankard, which was probably used on land.

Barry’s tomb in St. Mary’s churchyard is one of the most impressive mementos of him because of the inscription which it bears. The original tomb was erected by the commodore’s widow, but this became dilapidated through the ravages of time and the inscription, written by Dr. Benjamin Rush, a copy of which has been preserved in the Ridgeway branch of the Philadelphia Library, was barely decipherable as early as 1865. In 1876 the tomb was repaired, and now bears the following inscription:

“Sacred to the memory of Commodore John Barry, father of the American navy. Let the Christian patriot and soldier who visits these mansions of the dead view this monument with respect and veneration. Beneath it rest the remains of John Barry, who was born in County Wexford, Ireland, in the year 1745. America was the object of his patriotism, and the aim of his usefulness and ambition. At the beginning of the Revolutionary War he held the commission of captain in the then limited navy of the colonies. His achievements in battle and his renowned naval tactics merited for him the position of commodore, and to be[Pg 388] justly regarded as the father of the American navy. He fought often and bled in the cause of freedom, but his deeds of valor did not diminish in him the virtues which adorned his private life. He was eminently gentle, kind, just, and charitable, and no less beloved by his family and friends than by his grateful country. Firm in the faith and practices of the Roman Catholic Church, he departed this life on the 13th day of September, 1803, in the fifty-ninth year of his age. In grateful remembrance, a few of his countrymen, members of St. Mary’s Church and others, have contributed towards this second monument, erected July 1, 1876. Requiescat in Pace.”

Commodore Barry’s deeds as a naval officer, the fact that he commanded the Lexington, the first armed cruiser; that he captured and brought to Philadelphia the first prize; that he fought the last naval battle, and many other such points in his brilliant record, are all embalmed in the nation’s history. In private life he was a loyal friend and a good citizen, social in his tastes, hearty in his manner, and genial to all. He was a sailor before joining our navy, having been placed in the merchant marine service by his father when a mere boy. He came to this country when probably about twenty-one years old, reaching Philadelphia from the island of Barbados, in command of the schooner Barbados. This was ten years before the Revolution, and from that time until the opening of the war he followed his career in these waters, and in command of vessels sailing between here and England. He was twice married, and both wives were buried in the same grave in St. Mary’s churchyard. His second wife, Sarah Austin, and her sister, Mary, are said to have made and presented to John Paul Jones the flag of the Bon Homme Richard. Commodore Barry died in 1803, at his country residence, “Strawberry Hill.” This was not the Strawberry Hill in Fairmount Park, but was located on Frankford Road, at Gunner’s Run. The body was brought to his city residence, on the south side of Chestnut Street, between Ninth and Tenth Streets, on a site about opposite the Record building, where the funeral took place.—Philadelphia Record.

The successful use in the Russian-Japanese war (as is supposed, for no official statement has come from the Japanese officials) of submarine boats has obscured the historic fact that one hundred and thirty years ago the first attempt of the kind was made in the harbor of New York.

It is a fact that is not generally known, but which is of official record—that the first serious attempt in this line was the work of a Yale undergraduate. It was while a freshman at Yale, in the year 1771, that David Bushnell, an ingenious Connecticut boy, conceived the idea of a submarine vessel as a desirable means of defensive warfare. He kept at the problem throughout the four years of his college course, and by the time of his graduation, in 1775, had made several successful trial trips with his American Turtle, as his peculiar contrivance was called. The plans of this vessel were carefully examined a few years ago by Commander F. W. Barber, U. S. N., whose conclusion was that “it seems to have been the most perfect thing of its kind that has ever been constructed, either before or since the time of Bushnell.” Bushnell invented not only the first submarine boat of which there is any intelligent record, but the first torpedo as well. He discovered the principle of modern torpedo-mining—that is, the utilization of the pressure of the water to develop the desirable intensity of action in an explosion near the vessel to be destroyed. Furthermore, he was the first man to give the torpedo its modern name. All these triumphs he accomplished while an undergraduate student at Yale.

He gathered an assemblage of what he called “the first personages in Connecticut” to prove to them that this strange thing could be done. He first exploded two ounces of powder four feet under water, and later blew up a hogshead filled with stones, a wooden bottle, and a two-inch oak plank, greatly to the astonishment of his learned associates. After this preliminary display of what he could do, young Bushnell’s theories were held in greater respect throughout the rest of his college course. He had one great idea, however, and this was the possibility of constructing a boat that could sail under the enemy’s ship, attach to it a magazine with a sufficient charge of powder to destroy the vessel and all its men—the[Pg 390] operator, meanwhile, getting safely away. He kept hard at work throughout his four undergraduate years, and by the time he was graduated had constructed such a machine and experimented with the most encouraging success.

He finished his vessel at an opportune time. He had its complicated mechanism complete and in fine running order when the Declaration of Independence was signed, and the war between England and America was under full way. He naturally had some difficulty in gaining a respectful hearing from the leading men on the colonial side. Although afterwards he was praised by Washington as “a man of great mechanical powers, fertile in inventions, and a master of execution,” his first real encouragement came from another Connecticut man, Israel Putnam. Bushnell explained his contrivance to Putnam, who after carefully examining the vessel, was much struck with its ingenuity and its possibilities of success. He gave the young inventor full permission to go ahead, and declared his intention of being present at the first trial.

The occasion for this preliminary experiment was soon at hand. The movements of General Washington about Long Island had been accompanied by the arrival of a large British fleet from Halifax under Admiral Lord Howe, brother of the commander of the British army. Putnam had been left with 4000 men in New York, and sent for Bushnell, inviting him to test his submarine boat against one of the enemy’s ships. Bushnell was himself physically incapacitated from managing his machine, for it required considerable strength. He had, however, taught his brother its fine points, and the latter in many trials had demonstrated his skill. At the critical time, however, the latter fell ill of a fever and a substitute had to be found. Ezra Lee of Lyme, Conn., was finally decided upon as the fittest man for the place. Lee had already volunteered to go in a fire-ship, and his bravery was unquestioned. Bushnell spent several days teaching Lee the management of the boat—altogether too short a time, as subsequent events showed. The British fleet lay a little above Staten Island, the flagship, against which it was determined to operate being the Eagle.

It was a queer craft, the like of which no man had ever seen, in which Ezra Lee embarked one dark night in August, 1776, with the firm intention of destroying the pick of the British fleet. Its shape suggested a turtle or rather two upper turtle shells, securely fastened together. A brass crown, resembling a hat, represented the head of the[Pg 391] turtle; it was provided with glass windows, which supplied light while the boat was on the surface, and with several round doors, which were opened before submersion for the admission of air. The turtle rested in the water with its tail downwards, being held in position by a permanent lead ballast in the hold of 500 pounds. This was supplemented by 200 pounds of the same metal, which could be released at the will of the navigator, enabling him to rise suddenly to the surface. The turtle was made of oak, put together in the strongest manner; it was seven and one-half feet long and six feet high. It admitted only one person, who had room enough either to stand up or sit down. There were two air-tubes, one for letting the fresh air in and another for letting the foul air out. These were ingeniously arranged so that they operated whenever the boat was brought to the surface and closed immediately after it was submerged. There were no means of generating or supplying air while the contrivance was under water. Sufficient atmosphere to last the operator thirty minutes was supplied before the trial began, after the exhaustion of which he was obliged to rise to the surface.

The question of light presented a still greater difficulty. A candle exhausting the air too rapidly, Bushnell was obliged to find some less embarrassing substitute. He finally noted the points of the compass by two pieces of fox-fire wood—that is, wood that emitted a phosphoric light. The same method was used to determine the depth of the water. For this Bushnell constructed a peculiar contrivance, the secret of which is unknown, consisting of a glass tube, filled with water, in which a cork floated up and down. This cork was also covered with fox-fire, and by its rise and fall the operator could determine the depth to which his vessel was submerged. The boat was propelled back and forth by a paddle in front, shaped like the arm of a windmill. The operator turned this with a crank, and could go either forwards or backwards, as he desired. It was precisely the same principle as the modern screw, with the exception that it was placed in the bow instead of the stern of the boat. Another “oar,” identically the same, was arranged at right angles with the first, by means of which the vessel could be guided up or down. The progress of the boat was necessarily slow, but it is said that a strong man, with a favoring tide and current, could propel it three knots an hour. The rudder, also turned by a crank, could be used for sculling when desired. In the bottom of the vessel were two large water tanks, into which the water was let by a spring. It was by this means that the boat made its descent. There were two pumps, which the operator worked with his feet, for the[Pg 392] expulsion of the water when he desired to rise. In case these failed to work, the two hundred pounds of lead on the bottom could be released, after which the rise was very sudden. The operator sat upright, with his head in the crown of the vessel, and by a dexterous use of his hands and feet, had little difficulty in completely mastering his boat. It required considerable practice, however, and unusual strength.

This was Bushnell’s submarine boat, but it was only one feature of his invention. His other discovery, the torpedo, was ingeniously combined with his vessel. On the stern of the boat, just above the rudder, on the outside, was a large cask, made of two pieces of oak, carefully caulked and tarred, and bound together with iron. The interior was dug out and contained a charge of powder. Within was a gun-lock, which was arranged to strike fire whenever a clock-work attachment ran down. The magazine was fastened to the boat by a screw, which could be unscrewed from within. It was contrived so that when the magazine should be disengaged from the vessel the clock-work should be set agoing. The clock-work ran down in about thirty minutes, when the gun-lock went off and ignited the charge. A short cable attached the magazine to another screw in the top of the vessel. From within the operator could fasten this screw into the bottom of a vessel and fill his own boat at the same time. He could, therefore, sail safely away, leaving the magazine attached to the bottom of the enemy’s man-of-war, and await developments.

There was no evident reason why the attempt upon the Eagle should not have a satisfactory issue. Sergeant Lee was obliged to wait several nights for a favorable opportunity. Finally, at eleven o’clock one night in August, he embarked on his dangerous voyage. General Putnam was on the wharf when he pushed off, and kept a constant watch throughout the next few hours. Lee was towed by whale-boats as near the ships as the oarsmen dared to go, and was then cast off. He discovered that it was too early to make the attempt. The tide was running strong, and, in spite of all that he could do, it carried him far beyond the ships. He rowed aimlessly around until the tide slowed up, when he made directly for the man-of-war. He drew so near under the stern of the ships that he could see the British sailors and hear their voices. At a favorable moment he let the water into the reservoirs and sank. Everything up to this point worked splendidly. He had no difficulty in managing his boat under the water, and took up a favorable position directly under the keel of the man-of-war, near the stern. He at once proceeded to attach the[Pg 393] screw to the bottom of the vessel, when he struck a formidable opposition. He had not figured on the copper with which the bottom of the ship was covered, and which resisted all his attempts to fasten the screw. At every attempt the boat rebounded from the vessel’s bottom. Lee finally moved to another part of the ship, and in so doing lost his hold completely, and rose with tremendous velocity to the surface. He came within two or three feet of the man-of-war, upon whose destruction he had been bent—a rather uncomfortable circumstance, especially as it was nearly daylight. He at once, therefore, filled the reservoirs and sank again. As it would soon be morning, however, and as he had four miles to row, he decided to abandon his attempt to blow up the man-of-war, and instead to look out for his own safety. Bushnell never blamed Lee for his failure to execute the plan, owing to the fact that he had had such slight preparation for the task.

There was naturally much disappointment over this initial failure, and especially when a British frigate came up and anchored off Bloomingdale, and Lee made another equally unsuccessful attempt. His intention this time was to go up to the stern of the vessel and, without sinking, screw in his magazine close to the edge. Discovered by the watch, he dove under the frigate, but went too deep and came up on the other side. In the year 1777, however, Bushnell sent one of his machines against the Cerberus, a British frigate, lying at anchor between New London and the mouth of the Connecticut River. The machine instead fell in with a schooner, anchored astern of the frigate, which had escaped Bushnell’s observation. It blew up the schooner, completely demolishing it, and killed three men. Bushnell was very much cast down by the failure of his contrivance, which he believed had never had a fair show. At the end of the war he went to France, and was present during the stirring scenes of the Revolution. His relatives lost all track of him, and supposed that he had died in a French prison or upon the guillotine, until, in 1826, they received information of his death in Georgia.

B. J. Hendrick.

[Concluded from January Number.]

At the end of the “Western Insurrection,” in 1794, General White issued the following address to the troops:

[Pg 396]

(FROM CONTEMPORARY PRINTS)

New Brunswick, Feb. 3, 1795.

On Monday, the 26th, seventy-five officers of the New Jersey cavalry, met in this city and dined together at the White Hall Tavern, His Excellency the Governor and suite honored them with their company at dinner, after which fifteen toasts were drank. The next day all the officers waited on General White, delivered the following address to him, and partook of a cold collation at his house.

To which the General replied: That the polite and affectionate address of his fellow citizens and brother soldiers, expressing their approbation of his conduct added to the heart felt satisfaction he had already experienced from his late honourable commands, claimed our warmest acknowledgements, and sincerely wish that they might enjoy every happiness and a tender of his friendship and services.

The officers spent several days together in that harmony and true friendship, to be expected only from men warmly interested in the good of their country, and the happiness of each other.

Judge Paterson, Major General Dayton and several gentlemen and officers of character and distinction, visited the social board of this patriotic band of citizen soldiers. We are told that they have appointed Major Williamson of Essex, Major Meeker of Bergen, Major Laddle of Morris, Major Baily of Sussex, Major Carle of Hunterdon, Major Quay of Monmouth, Major Dunham of Middlesex, Captain Vanderveer of Somerset, and Captains Wollcot and Shute of the Western counties, a committee to wait on the Legislature with a memorial, praying redress of certain grievances which the cavalry are subject to, from the present militia law, and that the same may be formed into regiments, we also hear that they have agreed to meet annually, at such time and place as their General may please to fix.

On Thursday last, Anthony Walton White, Esq., Adjutant-General of the Militia of New Jersey, accompanied by Generals Frelinghuysen and Bloomfield, and politely attended by the members of Congress from[Pg 398] this State, waited upon the President of the United States, and, in behalf of the officers of the New Jersey Militia, presented the following address:

ANSWER:

Gentlemen:

Among all the numerous addresses which have been presented to me, in the present critical situation of our nation, there has been none which has done me more honor, none animated with a more glowing love of our country, or expressive of sentiments more determined and magnanimous. The submission you avow to the civil authority, an indispensable principle in the character of warriors in a free government, at the same moment when you make a solemn proffer of your Lives and Fortunes in the service of your country, is highly honorable to your dispositions as Citizens and Soldiers, and proves you perfectly qualified for the duties of both characters. Officers and Soldiers of New Jersey have as little occasion as they have disposition to boast. Their country has long boasted of their ardent zeal in the cause of freedom and their invincible intrepidity in the day of battle.

[Pg 402]

Your voice of confidence and satisfaction, of firmness and determination to support the laws and Constitution of the United States, has a charm in it irresistible to the feelings of every American bosom; but, when in the presence of the God of armies, and in firm reliance on his protection, you solemnly pledge your lives and fortunes and sacred honor, you have recorded words which ought to be indelibly imprinted in the memory of every American youth.—With these sentiments in the hearts, and this language in the mouths of Americans in general, the greatest nation may menace at its pleasure, and the degraded and deluded characters may tremble lest they should be condemned to the severest punishment an American can suffer—that of being conveyed in safety within the lines of an invading enemy.

John Adams.
Philadelphia, May 31st, 1798.

A. S. Graham.

The priests and sextons of old St. Joseph’s, St. Mary’s and Holy Trinity Churches, of Philadelphia, are often called upon by visitors to the city, to point out the grave of Evangeline and her lover, Gabriel, the delightful creatures of Longfellow’s fancy, in relating the expulsion of the Acadians from their happy homes and their dispersion along the coast of the British provinces.

Of course, Gabriel and Evangeline are buried nowhere, as they never existed, save in the imagination of the poet. The poem he calls “A Tale of Acadie,” a “mournful tradition still sung by the pines of the forest.” Still, it is astonishing that so many who have read the poem have believed in the actuality of the tradition in its relation of chief characters, in its Evangeline and her lover, and have sought their graves at these three Catholic graveyards. St. Joseph’s now has no burial ground attached to the church. It had originally, but after 1759 the dead of the congregation were interred in the ground across the street, and, after 1763, called St. Mary’s Street.

Longfellow’s poem represents the time of the meeting, death and burial, as occurring during a pestilence. This was the yellow fever of 1793, as no general epidemic had occurred in the city from the time of the coming of the Acadians in November, 1755, until that awful pestilence of 1793 ravaged the city.

But St. Joseph’s, in that year, had no burial ground at the church. The latest interment I know of was that of Father Farmer, August, 1786. Perhaps a few persons holding lots might have been permitted to inter in that graveyard after the opening of St. Mary’s ground in 1759, but most unlikely that Gabriel, an inmate of the city almshouse, would have been brought there for burial, and later Evangeline laid in a grave “side by side” by his.

So, though Old St. Joseph’s—mainly because it is called Old, and because of the nearness of the Quakers’ Almshouse (torn down in 1874), which many have supposed to have been the almshouse Longfellow had in mind—is the most probable place of the burial of the lovers, in the belief[Pg 404] of many, including usually well informed “Penn,” of the Evening Bulletin, who, on October 12, 1898, declared that as Evangeline had long been a Sister, who knew the city and its seamy side, she, like a good Catholic, could have saved his body from being buried in the potter’s field, and would have carried it to the ground of Old St. Joseph’s.

(It is to be remarked that Philadelphia had no Sisters of Mercy then, nor Sisters of any Order until 1814, when the Sisters of Charity came from Mrs. Seton’s to take charge of St. Joseph’s Orphan Asylum, on Sixth Street.)

St. Mary’s, on Fourth Street, almost directly opposite to St. Joseph’s, is not so often called at nor so frequently assigned as the supposed place of interment.

To the opinions of those, who have supposed that either of these “churchyards” was the one Longfellow had in mind when writing the poem, I, years ago suggested that Holy Trinity Churchyard, on Sixth Street, was the most likely place—the place most probable—the one which Longfellow saw and years after had in mind.

The City Almshouse, at the time of the fever in 1793, was on Spruce Street, south side, from Tenth to Eleventh Streets.

It was there when, in 1824, Longfellow visited the city.

On the same street from Eighth to Ninth, was then, and is now, the Pennsylvania Hospital. Longfellow doubtless saw both, and the recollection of either came to him when writing the poem, as the place where Gabriel, dying, was attended to by Evangeline, in the city poorhouse. Though there has been discussion as to which of these institutions Longfellow had in mind, it could not be settled, because the poet, in writing to Charles H. A. Esling, Esq., of Philadelphia, now a resident of Germany, could not himself tell what building he had in mind.

But the point with us is as to where the lovers were buried. They have so impressed countless thousands, that one may almost consider them as actual personages, who lived and moved and died, and were buried in our city—but where?

When it is remembered that the Pennsylvania Hospital and the City Almshouse were both on Spruce Street, and that either of these could have been the scene of the meeting of Evangeline and Gabriel, what is more[Pg 405] probable, that, as Longfellow walked Spruce Street, in 1824, he could, at the western entrance of Holy Trinity church have glanced at the passageway to the entrance of the church and seen as you can to-day see, the little churchyard attached to it? Then passing eastward, to Sixth Street, and turning northward, he had to pass the church, when again he saw “the little Catholic churchyard”—the only such in the city in 1824, and the smallest even to-day.

Remember, Longfellow, in describing the burial place of the lovers, wrote:

Mind, he says, “the little Catholic churchyard.” Many, I fear, have thought of Old St. Joseph’s, “the little Catholic church,” and so, have assigned to it the burial place, but it is “the little Catholic churchyard,” which Longfellow speaks of, and the smallest such which Philadelphia had in 1824, or could have had in 1793, the time of the pestilence, was Holy Trinity, which dates from 1789. It best fills the probabilities in the case: the almshouse at Tenth Street; the hospital at Eighth; the little Catholic churchyard at Sixth Street.

The word “yard,” too, is important. He does not say Catholic graveyard—but churchyard. Holy Trinity best fills the idea of a small space attached to a building—a church—and having the commonly called “yard,” a small enclosed place—in this case, at the side of the church, right “under the humble walls.” No other Catholic churchyard in 1793, could have been “under the walls” of any church but this. St. Joseph’s had ceased to be a place of interment; St. Mary’s was, and yet is, a large graveyard. It is not a “little churchyard,” and interments cannot be said, even in imagination of poetry, to have been “under the walls” of the church, as big in 1793 as to-day, save by about twenty feet.

While, of course, there was no real Evangeline or Gabriel in Philadelphia, and no real burial anywhere, the sole discussion is confined to the churchyard Longfellow saw, in 1824, and in 1847, had in mind as the burial place of the two. No place so well fills the possibilities, even the probability, as Holy Trinity’s “little churchyard,” at Sixth and Spruce.

[Pg 406]

How Longfellow came to write Evangeline has been narrated; how Lowell thought the “tradition” a fit one for a story, but that Longfellow desired he be allowed to use it for a poem.

In “The Neutral French or the Exiles of Nova Scotia,” by Mrs. Williams, issued in 1841, will be found the same story, but with New York as the scene of action. That doubtless was the source of suggestion to Longfellow.

Martin I. J. Griffin.

Colonel Hazen’s regiment was the second regiment of the kind and was known as “Congress’s Own,” because under authority of a resolution of Congress of January 20, 1776, permission was granted to enlist one thousand Canadians or more for one year, as was done in a previous case under Colonel James Livingston. This regiment was not chargeable to any State, and hence its name, “Congress’s Own.” The troops were sometimes called “Canadian forces.”

Colonel Moses Hazen was appointed Colonel and Edward Antill Lieutenant Colonel, by Congress. In the early part of 1776 about 500 Canadians were secured for the regiment; but the evacuation of Canada reduced the number to less than 100 by the time it reached Albany. Colonels Hazen and Antill then went to Philadelphia to lay the matter before Congress. As a result they received authority to recruit anywhere within the United States. Hazen went to New York and the New England States; Antill to Pennsylvania and the Middle States. The latter was the more successful in securing recruits.

In the early part of 1781 the regiment moved from West Point down the Hudson and joined the army en route for Yorktown, when it participated in the siege. After the surrender of Cornwallis it was ordered to Lancaster, Pa., where for ten months it guarded English prisoners. Then it moved to New York, and was finally disbanded at White Plains in November, 1783.

In this regiment served James Duncan, first as a Lieutenant, commission dated November 3, 1776, and next as Captain, commission dated March 25, 1778.

James Duncan was a native of Philadelphia, where he was born in 1756. He graduated at Princeton College and was studying for the ministry when the war broke out. As related by himself afterward, “The beating of the d— drums past my window made such a noise that I could not study;” so he concluded to enter the army. He became a member of Colonel Hazen’s regiment, and continued with it till the close of the war.[Pg 408] For his services he received from Pennsylvania 500 acres of land. This tract was situated in the Shenango valley, in what is now Mercer County. When Adams County, Pa., was formed, Captain Duncan was appointed first Prothonotary, and held the position until 1822. During the twenty-one years he filled this office, he was never beyond the sight of his Court House; and during that time he never opened his office at night nor allowed a candle or lantern to be used in his office, so carefully did he regard his duty to preserve the public records.

Captain Duncan removed to Mercer County, Pa., in 1822, and lived there to the time of his death, which occurred June 24, 1844, in his 89th year.

The diary which is here presented was kept by Captain Duncan with great care. As a scholarly man and a good military officer, he was thoroughly competent to make careful and reliable observations. These memoranda were in his own handwriting. From this record the author of this paper made an exact copy in 1899, and it is an important contribution to the history of the Siege of Yorktown.

THE DIARY PROPER

Captain Duncan’s diary, it will be observed, closes with the record of October 15. The failure to complete it for the remaining days of the siege is to be accounted for by the fact that he and his command were so actively employed in military operations that neither time nor opportunity to write was afforded him.

Fortunately, we are enabled to complete the record by referring to the “Military Journal of the Revolution,” written by Dr. James Thacher (born in Barnstable, Mass., Feb. 14, 1754, died in Plymouth, Mass., May 24, 1844), who as Surgeon’s Mate and Surgeon served in the Revolutionary War. As Surgeon of a Massachusetts regiment he was present at the siege of Yorktown. His diary very appropriately supplements Captain Duncan’s record. What follows is a condensation:

Yorktown was the site of the closing battle of the American Revolution.

The surrender included 7,247 regular troops, 840 sailors, and 225 guns.

The British loss in killed, wounded, and missing was 550; that of the Americans and French some 300.

W. F. Boogher.

When white frosts and keen, starry nights have turned the foliage of the Niagara gorge into a riotous color scheme is the best time to visit Queenston Heights, and walk the grass-grown thoroughfares of the forgotten hamlet at their base.

It is the best time, because the picnic and tourist season is over, and one’s contemplation of the beautiful view which every point affords is not disturbed; and as for the cluster of roof-trees lying below, it is more picturesque in its autumnal nakedness.

Three-score years ago this village was the second town of importance in the province of Upper Canada. Named for Queen Charlotte, Queenston began life auspiciously in 1787 with a dock, a distillery, and a tavern; and so rapidly did it grow that the opening century found the dock transformed into a wharf flanked with store-houses, the population doubled, and those infallible signs of prosperity in a new country—a grist- and a saw-mill—running on full time.

Situated at the head of the St. Lawrence route, and at the foot of the Chippewa portage, Queenston had every advantage at the start. It was the natural dépôt and point of departure for the western trade, now growing rapidly with the opening of new territory. Across its narrow wharf, and up the Chippewa road, flowed for over a quarter of a century, a continuous tide of traffic, which eddying here, débouched on the near shore of the upper lakes, or spent itself in the wilderness of the far west.

Hither swarmed the motley crowd that follows the hunter’s trail and the pioneer’s axe—fur-traders, settlers, speculators, Indians, emigrants, and adventurers.

Government land in Canada was very cheap as compared with the price of land in the “States,” and this fact alone accounts for the great influx into Canada of Americans, immediately after the close of the War.

This land boom, so wisely fostered, was too soon paralyzed by the War of 1812, and nowhere did the hardships of that war fall more heavily than upon the new port of the lower Niagara. When the hastily-planned and ill-executed assault upon Queenston Heights was made, it was only defended by a small battery upon which a solitary field-piece was[Pg 418] mounted. Those extensive earthworks west of the monument were an afterthought. They were not built until 1814.

General Brock was killed below this redan; and the heaviest fighting must have been along the foot of the ledge. A small cenotaph marks the spot where Brock fell. This little monument is more interesting from the fact that King Edward himself, as Prince of Wales, placed the block in position in 1860.

But for situation, no monument in the country can compare with that which marks the place of General Brock’s sepulchre. Standing on the very crown of the Heights, this shaft dominates a wonderful picture. The monument itself is of the usual British type, and the figure surmounting it might be Nelson, so very like is it to that hero’s attitude in stone.

The house into which General Brock was carried dying stands, a grey-stone ruin by the untraveled way. Other wounded soldiers besides Brock were carried into that low-roofed house to die. Diagonally across from this place is the house in which Laura Secord was living when she saved the British stores at De Cew’s.

It is not generally known that this famous Canadian heroine was born and lived in Massachusetts, until her twentieth year. In 1795 her father, Thomas Ingersoll, a Revolutionary soldier, came to Canada to buy land; and shortly after the family arrived at Niagara, Laura married James Secord of Queenston.

During the second year of the War of 1812, the Niagara frontier of Canada was in possession of the American forces, and American soldiers were billeted upon every family on the border.

Hearing some officers, whom she was thus forced to entertain, discussing a plan for seizing the stores at the De Cew house, some eighteen miles away, she determined to inform the officer in command at that place. It meant a long, dangerous journey on foot, over hill and bog land and through a densely wooded country swarming with hideous savages from the Grand River, the allies of the British. But Laura Secord was equal to the occasion. Though she had started from home before daylight, night overtook her on the journey. Her courage and promptness saved the stores, and the officer in command sent her home under the protection of a guard.

When the Prince of Wales visited Canada he sent her one hundred dollars, the first recognition made of her services to her adopted country.

As we stroll farther along the King’s highway we come to the Wadsworth[Pg 419] cottage, a rough-cast dwelling with sills much below the level of the street. This was a tavern at the time of the battle, and in the front room to the left, General Scott was detained as a prisoner. It was here, while waiting for his captors to complete arrangements for his removal to Fort George, that an Indian in the barroom deliberately took aim at the General through the open door, and would have shot him but for the presence of mind of Captain Thaddeus Davis, a British officer, who promptly knocked the gun from the Indian’s hands.

Screened by a clump of maples and rank shrubbery that speaks of an old-time garden, is a ruined stone house, rather more pretentious than those that date back to the period of the War. It is spoken of by the townspeople as the “blue-stone house.” In this house in 1824 William Lyon Mackenzie printed the first numbers of the Colonial Advocate, the first paper printed in Upper Canada.

“We are not in want, neither are we rich,” he says candidly in his prospectus. O, golden age! Our strenuous present admits of no such happy medium! Mackenzie is remembered no more as an agitator. The measures of justice for which he contended in the bitterness of poverty and exile, have long since been granted and enjoyed.

If plenty of relics of historic Queenston abound, no trace of its one-time prosperity remains. Gone the shipping and trade along with the store-houses bursting with pelts, and rum, and merchandise. Gone that horse railway to Chippewa, built to relieve congested traffic. Gone the bank, with its funds, and the unlucky thirteen taverns that tradition says lined the principal street. Gone, too, that first bridge that spanned the river, built in 1851, just too late to divert from newer channels the ebbing current of commerce.

The great cataract being more accessible by the Queenston route, all the distinguished visitors to our shores in former years came to this port. Chateaubriand was here as early as 1790. Lafayette, Thomas Moore, the Bourbon princes, and Louis Napoleon saw the town enjoying the top-most wave of prosperity. It is said that Moore’s poem beginning, “I knew by the smoke that so gracefully curled,” was inspired by the breakfast fire of one of Queenston’s houselets.

But if these later annals are more brilliant, they seem to belong less to the Queenston of to-day than that earlier history which gives the delightful old place a notable part in the making of a Great Dominion.

N. R. Benedict.

The influence of the strong men of any time upon their time and community is strikingly illustrated by a study of the origin of the names of the counties of Indiana, which has just been completed by an old resident of the State after the work of collecting the scattered material in odd moments during the last twenty years. The result as completed shows that seventy-eight of the ninety-two counties were named after men prominent nationally or locally, in war and in peace; men of foreign birth and foreign training, of foreign birth and native training, and native birth and native training. And the strong influence of men whose personality so dominated small communities, men whose names have not been handed down as taking part in the affairs of the nation, is shown by the fact that of the seventy-eight men whose names have been given to counties of the State, forty-one were men whose life and work, influential as it must have been in the particular communities wherein they lived, were not of sufficient prominence to save them from almost utter oblivion in State or National history.

Of the thirty-eight counties that have been named from what might be called well-known men, men of more than local prominence, seven were named for Presidents of the United States: Madison, Monroe, Washington, Jefferson, Jackson, Harrison (William Henry Harrison), and Adams (John Quincy Adams); sixteen were named for men prominent in military history—Clark, for George Rogers Clark; Decatur, for the commodore; De Kalb, for the famous German of Revolutionary days; Fayette, for La Fayette; Marion, for General Francis Marion; Morgan, for General Daniel Morgan; Perry and Porter, for Commodores Perry and Porter; Pulaski, for the Polish soldier; Putnam, for General Israel Putnam; Steuben, for Baron Steuben; Wayne, for “Mad Anthony”; Kosciusko, for the Polish soldier; Knox, for General Knox, one of the first secretaries of war; Greene, for General Nathaniel Greene; Warren, for General Joseph Warren, who fell at Bunker Hill, and Stark, for Captain John Stark, victor at the battle of Bennington.

Six signers of the Declaration of Independence were honored in the naming of counties—Huntington, Carroll, Franklin, Hamilton, Hancock,[Pg 421] and Jay. De Witt Clinton is honored in the naming of Clinton County. The eight other counties named for men of more than local prominence are Benton, after Thomas H. Benton; Boone, after the frontiersman; Clay, after Henry Clay; Fulton, after the inventor of the steamboat; Marshall, after the great Chief Justice; Henry, after Patrick Henry; Jennings, after Jonathan Jennings, Indiana’s first governor, and Posey, another governor, appointed to succeed Harrison.

Howard County is the only Indiana county that has changed its name. Its first name was Francisville, the name of a famous Indian chief, but on account of the universal esteem in which Colonel T. A. Howard, a prominent citizen of the community, was held, the name was changed.

Grant County was named for two Grant brothers, Samuel and Moses, early settlers in this region. Parke, for Benjamin Parke, one of the earliest of the educators in the State. He founded the State Law Library, was the first president of the Indiana Historical Society, and coöperated in the founding of the Vincennes Library and University.

Vigo County was named for Colonel Francis Vigo, a Sardinian, whose services were invaluable to General Clark in the capture of Vincennes. The bell now hanging in the court house at Terre Haute was bought with the $500 set apart in his will to show his appreciation of the people giving his name to the county.

Four counties—Delaware, Miami, Tippecanoe, and Wabash—received Indian names. St. Joseph County was named after the river running through it, named by the early French settlers. Switzerland was so named because most of the early settlers were Swiss, coming to grow grapes on the plan followed in the old country. The scheme failed. Ohio County was named for the river; Lake, for Lake Michigan; Elkhart, for a small island in the river that flows through the county. Laporte was named by the French. Three counties—Orange, Vermilion, and Randolph—were named after counties in other States—Vermilion for an Illinois county directly over the line, Orange and Randolph for North Carolina counties.

Of the remaining counties three were named after men of only local prominence: Allen, for Colonel John Allen, a Kentuckian who fell at the battle of River Raisin; Bartholomew, for General Joseph Bartholomew, State Senator, and identified with the early Indian wars; Blackford,[Pg 422] for a judge of that name; Brown, for General Jacob Brown, one of the heroes of the War of 1812; Cass, for General Lewis Cass.

Crawford County was named for Colonel William Crawford, Washington’s land agent in the West, who was finally taken prisoner by the Indians and burned at the stake; Daviess, for Joseph H. Daviess, distinguished lawyer; Dearborn, for General Henry Dearborn, once secretary of war.

Toussaint Dubois, a Frenchman who had charge of the spies under General William Henry Harrison, has the name of Dubois County as a memorial. Floyd County was named after Colonel John Floyd, an old Indian fighter; Fountain, for Major Fountaine of Boone County, Kentucky, who was killed in the battle of Maumee, October 22, 1790.

General John Gibson, after whom the county of that name was called, was secretary of war, who repeatedly acted as territorial governor of the State in the absence of General Harrison. He was taken captive by the Indians, made himself one of them for a long time, finally going blind. Hendricks County was named after William Hendricks, the State’s first representative in Congress, and governor from 1822 to 1824.

Jasper County was named after Sergeant Jasper, the Revolutionary hero; Johnson, for John Johnson, one of the early judges of the Supreme Court; Lawrence, for Captain James Lawrence, an esteemed citizen of the community; Martin, after Major Martin, a citizen of Newport, Ky.; Montgomery, for General Richard Montgomery.

There is some question as to the origin of the name of Newton County. Some investigators contend that it was named after a sergeant in the Revolutionary war, while others give the more poetic explanation that at the time of the organization of the county one of the commissioners, who was somewhat of an astronomer, was an ardent admirer of Sir Isaac Newton, and saw that the county was named after him.

Noble County was named after Governor Noble; Owen, after Colonel Owen of Kentucky, who was killed in the battle of Tippecanoe; Pike, after Zebulon M. Pike, killed at the capture of York; Ripley, for General E. W. Ripley, an officer of 1812; Rush, for Dr. Benjamin Rush, a prominent citizen; Scott, for General Charles Scott, the Revolutionary soldier and later governor of Kentucky; Spencer, for Captain Spier Spencer, who fell at the battle of Tippecanoe; Sullivan, for Daniel[Pg 423] Sullivan, who was killed by the Indians on the road from Vincennes to Louisville while carrying public papers; Tipton, for General John Tipton, who served in Congress; Vanderburg, for Henry Vanderburg, captain in the Revolution, member of the Legislative Council of the Northwest, and presiding judge of the first court organized in the Territory; Warrick, for Colonel Jacob Warrick, who fell at Tippecanoe; Wells, for Captain W. H. Wells, killed by the Indians while carrying papers from Fort Wayne to Fort Dearborn, now Chicago; White, for Captain Isaac White, killed at Tippecanoe; and Whitley, for Colonel William Whitley, who was killed in the battle of the Thames.—Indianapolis News.

IV.
THE DANCING GHOSTS

That beautiful phenomenon known to the white man as the Aurora Borealis, or Northern Lights, is called by the Chippewa Indians Je-bi-ne-me-id-de-wand, or the Dancing Ghosts. The legends accounting for it are numerous, and the following, which was related to the translator by a Chippewa hunter, named Kehes-Chock, or Precipice Leaper, is quite as fantastic as the phenomenon itself. That it is a very ancient tradition is evident from the fact that the sacrifice to which it alludes has not been practiced by the Chippewas for at least a century (1850).

There was a time when all the inhabitants of the far North were afflicted by a famine. It was in the depth of winter, and the weather had for a long time been so cold that even the white bear was afraid to leave his hiding place. The prairies were so deeply covered with snow that the deer and the buffalo were compelled to wander to a warmer climate, and the lakes and rivers were so closely packed with ice that it was only once in a while that even a fish could be obtained. Such sorrow as reigned throughout the land had never before been known. The magicians and wise men kept themselves hidden in their cabins. The warriors and hunters, instead of boasting of their exploits, crowded around their camp-fires, and in silence meditated upon their unhappy doom. Mothers abandoned their children to seek for berries in the desolate forests, and the fingers of the young women had become stiff from idleness, for they had not any skins out of which to make the comfortable moccasin. From one end of the Chippewa country to the other was heard the cry of hunger and distress. That the Great Spirit was angry with his people was universally believed, but for what reason none of the magicians could tell. The chief of the Chippewas was the oldest man in the nation, and he was consulted in regard to the impending calamity. He could give no reason for the famine, but stated that he had been informed in a dream that the anger of the Great Spirit could be appeased by a human sacrifice. How this should come to pass, however,[Pg 425] he could not tell, and therefore concluded to summon to his lodge all the medicine-men who lived within a day’s journey, for the purpose of consulting with them. He did so, and when the council was ended it was proclaimed that three Chippewas should be immediately bound to the stake and consumed. They were to be selected by lot from among the warriors of the tribe; and, when this sad intelligence was promulgated, a national assembly was ordered to convene.

The appointed time arrived, and, in the presence of a large multitude, the fatal lots were cast, and three of the bravest men of the tribe were thus appointed to the sacrifice. They submitted to their fate without a murmur. Whilst their friends gathered around them with wild lamentations, and decked them with the costliest robes and ornaments to be found in all the tribe, the youthful warriors uttered not a word about their untimely departure, but only spoke in the most poetical language of the happy hunting grounds upon which they were about to enter. The spot selected for the sacrifice was the summit of a neighboring hill which was covered with woods. Upon this spot had three stakes been closely erected, around which there had been collected a large pile of dry branches and other combustible materials. To the stakes, at the hour of midnight, and by the hands of the magicians, unattended by spectators, were the three warriors securely fastened. They performed their cruel duty in silence, and the only sounds that broke the stillness of that winter night were the songs and the shoutings of the multitude assembled in the neighboring village. The incantations of the priests being ended, they applied a torch to the faggots, and, returning to their village, spent the remainder of the night in performing a variety of strange and heart-sickening ceremonies.

Morning dawned, and upon the hill of sacrifice was to be seen only a pile of smouldering ashes. On that day the weather moderated, and an unusual number of hunters went forth in pursuit of game. They were all more successful than they had been for many seasons, and there was an abundance of sweet game, such as the buffalo, the bear, and the deer in every wigwam. A council was called, and the patriarch chief proclaimed the glad tidings that the Great Spirit had accepted their sacrifice, and that it was now the duty of his children to express their gratitude by a feast—the fast of bitter roots.

The appointed night arrived, and the bitterest roots which could be found in the lodges of the magicians were collected together and made[Pg 426] into soup. The company assembled to partake of this feast, was the largest that had ever been known, and, as they were to conclude their ceremony of thankfulness by dancing, they had cleared the snow from the center of their village, and on this spot were they duly congregated. It was a cold and remarkably clear night, and their watchfires burnt with uncommon brilliancy. It was now the hour of midnight, and the bitter soup was all gone. The flutes and the drums had just been brought out, and the dancers, decked in their most uncouth dresses, were about to enter the charmed ring, when a series of loud shoutings were heard, and the eyes of the entire multitude were intently fixed upon the northern sky, which was illuminated by a most brilliant and unearthly light. It was a light of many colors, and as changeable as the reflections upon a summer sea at the sunset hour. Across this light were constantly dancing three huge figures of a crimson hue, and these did the magicians proclaim to be the ghosts of the three warriors who had given up their bodies for the benefit of their people, and who had thus become great chiefs in the spirit-land. The fire by which their bodies had been consumed had also consumed every feeling of revenge; and ever since that remote period it has been their greatest pleasure to illume by their appearance on winter nights the pathway of the hunters over the snowy plains of the north.

Charles Lanman.

LETTER OF WASHINGTON TO DR. STUART

Philadelphia, March 3rd., 1793.

Dear Sir;

The official letter from the Commissioners to me—dated the 8th of last month—promising their sentiments on the subject of compensation, so soon as a meeting was had with Mr Johnson, prevented my acknowledging the receipt of your private letter of the same date and on the same subject, until now; nor shall I do more than slightly touch on it until I receive the further sentiments of the board thereupon. It may not be amiss, however, in this friendly & confidential manner, previously to regret that the expectations of the Commissioners and the opinions of those who were consulted on the compensation proper to be made them for past and future services, should accord so little. It is to observed (as was mentioned in my last) that the law authorizing the appointment contemplates no pay. Justice however, requires it—and therefore such as it was conceived would meet the concurrence of the public was allotted. In similar cases it rarely happens that high, if any salleries are allowed. Instance the Directors of the Potomac Company—of the Canal Navigation of this State—the Banks, &c &c—I do not quote these cases, however, to prove that Salleries ought not to be allowed in the case of the Commissioners of the federal district for the past, and compensation for their future services; but only to shew the necessity of their being as low as could comport with Justice—With respect to your ideas of a future allowance I am bold in assuring you as my opinion that, no fixed Sallery in the United States (however they have been reprobated for their extravagance), from the Chief Magistrate to the door-keeper of the House of Representatives, is equal to one thousand Dollars clear of expences. The reasons are too obvious to stand in need of enumeration—and I must candidly declare that I see little use for a Superintendant if more will be required of the Commissioners than either to form or to adopt plans;—give the great outlines thereof in Instruction;—and leave the details and execution to the Superintendant, who ought, as I have declared in a letter to you dated the 30th of November last, to be always on the Spot—(unless the duties of the trust should take him away, to facilitate the objects of it)—Under this[Pg 428] idea, could it suit any person better than yourself to visit the federal City once every three or four months—suppose every two months—when you have an Estate opposite to it that has a claim to a share of your attention,—as to the suspicion which may arise—if you serve for daily pay—that your sessions will be prolonged by it, they are not worth regarding—The malevolence of man is not to be avoided.—But instead of touching the subject only, in the manner I proposed, I find I am enlarging upon it, and therefore will change it.

Mr Jefferson is at a loss to discover what could have proceeded from him to Mr Ellicott that should have occasioned any discontent in the mind of the latter with the Commissioners;—and having shewn me the only letter which (he says) he has written to him for many months I see nothing there on which to found the conjecture contained in the latter part of your letter of the 8th of February.

As I do not take the George Town paper, and have seen no extracts from it in any others, I do not know to what it is you allude—in your letter of the 8 & 18 inst which came to hand a few days ago.—Mr Ellicot has never come near me since his return to the City:—no explanation therefore on this—the case of Mr Young, or any other subject has taken place between us. With respect to Mr Young’s renewed application for a change towards the point, &c. I scarcely know what answer to make at this time.—A change in one instance will, I am certain, open a wide door which could not easily be shut. Therefore before I could consent even to take the matter into consideration it would be necessary to have an accurate plan of the parts, delineated upon paper, with the alterations he proposes; and to have the Commissioners’ opinion of the consequences result’g from the adoption of it, in writing; for unless there are some powerful reasons for discrimination, it would be bad policy to comply with the request of one of the Proprietors, and reject the application of another. It is possible, & not improbable that I may be at George Town on my way to Mount Vernon, about the first of April; when, if every thing was prepared for it, I might on the spot be better able to give an opinion. But, as Mr Young is in the occupancy of the whole, I see no cause for hasty decision which may create (if an alteration should take place) discontents in other quarters.—No letter to me, has been received from him yet.

With very great esteem & regard
I am, Dear Sir
Your most obed’t & affec’t Serv’t
Gᵒ Washington.

[Pg 429]

LETTER OF JOSEPH TRUMBULL (SON OF “BROTHER JONATHAN”) TO CHRISTOPHER VARICK, DEPUTY MUSTER-MASTER GEN’L FOR NORTHERN DEP’T., AT ALBANY, N. Y.

Ty (Ticonderoga) 3rd November, 1776

Dear Sir,

I Received your polite favour of the middle of last month, amid such a hurry of business & Expectation that I omitted answering it—this Day I am Honor’d with your’s of the 29th by Major Stewart. Nothing mentional has happen’d till this Day we are informed that the Enemy have abandoned Crown Point, Chimney Point, &c., entirely, Determined on Winter Quarters in Canada. Its a prudent Choice I fancy, as we should not have parted with ours to them at a low Price & a high one they could not afford. I wish to have it confirm’d—Delay to us is Victory—& Victory procured without loss of Blood is more Glorious than any other. You must excuse my being so concise, my Best Compliments attend the Ladies & Poor Wilkinson, Jr.

I am Dr Sir
Your very Sincere & most obedient Servant
J. Trumbull

PART OF A LETTER OF WASHINGTON TO BENJAMIN HARRISON, SIGNER OF THE DECLARATION AND MEMBER OF THE BOARD OF WAR

Dated at Middlebrook, N. J., May 5, 1779.

The letter commences by referring to some statements in a previous letter recommending certain measures, and reiterates their necessity, and that if longer delayed “I shall not scruple to add that our affairs are irretrievably lost.” He also predicts that the result will be “the fate of our paper money and with it a general crash of all things.” Washington then proceeds:

[Pg 430]

Washington then criticises the method of calling out the Militia, condemning it, and proposes another scheme. He also writes about the treatment of the British prisoners, and then returns again to the operations and conduct of the war.

The General then gives warning that deserters or prisoners must not be trusted, giving some interesting facts, and proceeds to relate the latest news of the operations against the Indians on the frontier. The letter is signed G. Washington in full, and a postscript is added giving some news of the sailing of a British expedition, presumably to Georgia, and stating what he has ordered in consequence, signed G. W.

A WARD ELECTION IN NEW YORK IN 1739

[Contributed by Mr. William Nelson, Paterson, N. J.]

[In view of the recent election in New York city, this record of the simple methods of the forefathers will possess an obvious interest for the modern Knickerbocker. The license fee would interest the modern saloonkeeper—but he does not read the Magazine.—Ed.]

NORTH WARD

City of New York. } ss.:

I Christopher Bancker Esqʳ Alderman of the North Ward of the City of New York Do hereby Certifie (Pursuant to a Warrant unto me Directed by the Mayor of the said City) that this Day between the Hours of Nine and Twelve in the fforenoon the ffreemen of the said Ward being Inhabitants and the ffreeholders of the said Ward Did assemble and meet together within the said Ward at the time & place by me appointed, and then and there by the plurality of Voices or Votes Did Elect and Choose the persons hereafter mentioned (being ffreemen or ffreeholders Inhabiting within the said Ward) to serve in the Respective Offices hereafter mentioned for the said Ward for the Year Ensuing or untill other fit persons are Elected and Sworn in their Rooms or places, as by his Majesty’s Royall Charter Granted to the Mayor Aldermen and Commonalty of the City of New York is appointed Directed & Required (vizt)

Chris: Bancker.

[Pg 432]

A N. Y. LIQUOR LICENSE IN 1739

[Printed form; the names and words in italics are inserted with pen and ink.]

City of New York. } ss.:West Ward NᵒMurry Street

[Given under my Hand, the 1ᵗʰ Day of March—1785.]

Abᵐ. P. Lotts

[Endorsed:] Mary Clark £3. 2..
4/..

NEW JERSEY HISTORICAL SOCIETY

The annual meeting of The New Jersey Historical Society was held in the beautiful and spacious building of the Society on West Park Street, Newark, on October 25, 1905. A business meeting was held at noon, at which the annual reports of officers were read, showing the very prosperous condition of the Society. The Corresponding Secretary, William Nelson, in his report alluded to the fact that the present completed his twenty-fifth year of continuous service as an officer of the Society, and so was a sort of silver jubilee of his. He was elected Recording Secretary in 1880, holding that office for ten years, when he was elected Corresponding Secretary, which office he has held for fifteen years. The correspondence during the year had embraced between 400 and 500 letters of all sorts and covering a great variety of topics.

Francis M. Tichenor, Librarian, reported that during the year there had been 2400 visitors at the Library.

Ernest E. Coe, for the Committee on Membership, reported that the Society now had 784 members.

A very important adjunct of the Society for several years past has been the Woman’s Branch, presided over by Miss M. Antoinette Quinby, who read the report of the work of that body. The women have been devoting themselves specially during the past year to the compilation of tombstone inscriptions throughout the State, and Miss Quinby presented to the Society two large, handsome volumes of such inscriptions.

Dr. J. Ackerman Coles, Judge Amzi Dodd, Robert F. Ballantine, Wallace M. Scudder and George R. Howe were elected Trustees for the term of three[Pg 433] years, and Jonathan W. Roberts for the term of one year to fill a vacancy.

The address of the day was delivered by the Rev. William Y. Chapman, pastor of the Roseville (Newark) Presbyterian Church, his subject being “Acadia.” He was himself a native of Nova Scotia, and from his earliest boyhood had been familiar with the scenes so beautifully and pathetically described by Longfellow in his exquisite poem “Evangeline.” In the interest of truth, however, he was constrained to say that the cold facts of history differed very widely from the narrative of the romantic poem, and he described clearly and graphically the events which constrained the English commander to deport the recalcitrant French settlers.

At a subsequent meeting of the Board of Trustees of the Society, the following officers were elected for the ensuing year:

President, Jonathan W. Roberts; Vice-Presidents, Wallace M. Scudder, Francis M. Tichenor and George R. Howe; Corresponding Secretary, William Nelson; Recording Secretary, Joseph F. Folsom; Treasurer, William C. Morton; Librarian, Francis M. Tichenor; Trustees to fill vacancies, Dr. W. S. Disbrow, of Newark, and W. Elwood Speakman, of Woodbury.

BOOK NOTICES

The Records of the Town of Hanover, New Hampshire, 1761-1818. The records of the town meetings, and of the selectmen, comprising all of the first volume of records and being Volume I of the printed records of the town. Printed by vote of the town under the direction of Herbert Darling Foster, George Mendal Bridgman, Sidney Bradshaw Fay. Hanover, New Hampshire, 1905. Octavo, pp. VI+336.

The committee of learned men appointed by the selectmen of Hanover to print the early records of that town apparently have endeavored to reproduce faithfully the original spelling, capitalization and punctuation. Both copy and proofs have been compared with the records word for word, and when necessary letter by letter. The moderate sum of money used in preserving and making easily accessible to students these early annals has been well spent. The committee having this volume in charge suggests that the proprietors’ records (covering the years 1761 to 1807 inclusive) and the first volume of vital statistics (covering the years 1762 to 1846) ought also to be printed. All persons interested in the history of Hanover ought to use their influence towards carrying out this wise suggestion at once and having it done under the direction of the same committee.

The contents of the book and the space of time covered are accurately indicated by the title, but one very important feature of the work, not there mentioned, is the town clerk’s affidavit that the printed book is a true and correct copy of the original. The original paging is marked in brackets. The book is well indexed and substantially bound.

• American History, Footlights of, 199
• American History, Miscellanea of, 346
• American Independence, Ode to, 30
• Andre Country, In the, 75
• Andre Prison (Illustration), 151
• Army of the Potomac—A Page of History Corrected, 127, 171, 249
• Arpe, R. N., articles by, 127, 171, 249

• Baltimore’s Old Stepping-Stones, 282
• Barry, Commodore John, Relics of, 386
• Benedict, N. R., article by, 417
• Bolton, Reginald Pelham, article by, 223, 311
• Boogher, W. F., article by, 407
• Book Notices, 222, 433
• Bridgham, Eliza W., journal of, 14, 90
• British Navy in the Revolution, 223, 311
• Buffalo, Lone, 356
• Burr and Hamilton, 70
• Bushnell’s Turtle, 389

• Calhoun, J. B., article by, 326
• Catlin, Louise E., article by, 346
• Civil War Sketches, 34

• Dakota Militia (poem), 116
• De Costa, Rev. B. F., article by, 265
• Diamond Island, The Fight at, 265
• Diary of a Poet’s Mother, 206
• Duncan, Capt. James, Diary of, at Yorktown, 407
• Duryee, Rev. J. R., article by, 330

• Early Days in Luzerne County, Pa., 239
• Editor, articles by, 75, 352
• Errata, 281
• Evangeline and Gabriel, Where Buried, 403

• Fancies at Navesink (poem), 264
• Fate of the Pigeons, 353
• First United States Flag, 291
• First Dutch Church, Schenectady, 173
• First Woman in the Post-Office Department, 276
• Fleming, W. L., article by, 34
• Folsom, A. A., communication from, 285
• Froeligh, Reverend Solomon, and His Great Schism, 330
• Fulton, Robert, Reminiscences of, 326

• Genealogical:
• Adams, 71
• Allen, 292
• Bartlett, 70
• Burt, 221
• Chamberlain, 71, 151, 292
• Cushman, 220
• Elliot, 151
• Emmons, 71
• Estabrook, 71, 72
• French, 151, 220
• Gridley, 71, 293
• Hale, 152
• Hardin, 152
• Hasey, 151
• Horne, 71
• How, 71
• Howard, 292
• Huggins, 71
• Ingalls, 151
• Lamb, 220
• McNey, 151
• Parker, J., 71
• Parrott, 72, 293
• Pease, 71
• Perkins, 71, 151
• Perry, 292
• Poole, 220
• Pottle, 151
• Rand, 151
• Roberts, 151
• Snow, 292
• Thayer, 220
• Turner, 71
• Webb, 152
• Wood, 70
• Wright, 292
• Gloucester, Linzee’s Attack on, 85
• Griffis, Rev. W. E., articles by, 295, 365
• Guernsey, R. S., article by, 44
• Graham, Alex. S., article by, 394
• Grave of Leather Stocking, 283
• Great Dismal Swamp, A Day in the, 339
• Green, Samuel A., article by, 185
• Greenwood, Isaac J., article by, 181
• Groton, The Old Town of, 185

• Hall, Edward H., article by, 202
• Hammond, Otis G., article by, 48
• Hand-Loom Weaving Revived, 271
• Hanson, Joseph M., poem by, 116
• Historical Societies:
• Montgomery Co., N. Y., 221
• New Jersey, 432
• New York, 221
• N. Y. State Hist Ass’n., 69
• Hogg, Ebenezer, vs. John Paul Jones, 48

• Illustrations:
• André Prison, Tappan, August
• Gen. Clinton’s Dam, Cooperstown, November
• Landais, Capt. Pierre, portrait of, September
• Odell, Rev. Jonathan, portrait of, July
• Indian Legends:
• The Dancing Ghosts, 424
• The Lone Buffalo, 356
• The Shooting Meteors, 210
• Indiana County Names, 420

• Jones, John Paul, 48, 285
• Journey through New England and New York in 1818, 14, 90
• Landais, Captain Pierre, 181
• Lanman, Charles, articles by, 210, 273, 356, 424
• Last Century, A Port of the, 417
• Leather Stocking, Grave of, 283
• Liberty of the Press, 55, 118, 160, 228, 315, 379
• Lincoln, Abraham, speech of, 362
• Luzerne County, Pa., Early Days in, 239
• Letters:
• British Officer, 144
• John Dickinson, 290
• Capt. Jas. Duncan, 67
• William Lloyd Garrison, 150
• Col. Henry Glen, 287
• Capt. John Gooch, 216
• Andrew Jackson, 68
• Major James McHenry, 362
• Edmund Munro, 360
• Gen. John Pope, 217
• John Sellon, 359
• Jonathan Trumbull, Jr., 429
• Washington, 66, 146, 215, 289, 364, 427, 429
• Martha Washington, 364

• Maine, Henry C., article by, 206
• Martin, I. J., article by, 403
• Matthews, Amanda, article by, 206
• McHenry, James, letter of, 362
• McPike, Eugene F., article by, 346
• Memorial Trees, 281
• Miscellanea of American History, 346
• Miscellaneous Topics:
• André Prison, efforts to preserve, 151
• Burr and Hamilton, 70
• Fate of the Pigeons, 353
• First Dutch Church, Schenectady, 173
• N. Y. Liquor License, 1739, 432
• Thomaston Ter-Centenary, 150
• Ward Election in New York, 1739, 431
• Mississippi River, Progress of Discovery of, 1
• Munro, Edmund, letters of, 359, 360

• Navesink, Fancies at (poem), 264
• New England, Journey through, in 1818, 14, 90
• Northern Neck of Virginia, 259
• Notes and Queries:
• Replies, Revolutionary Flags, 219

• Odell, Rev. Jonathan, 28
• Portrait of, July
• Old Town of Groton, The, 185
• Origin of Name of Washington, 202
• Original Documents, 66, 67, 68, 144, 146, 150, 215, 216, 217, 287, 289, 290, 359, 360, 362, 364, 427, 429

• Parker, Mrs. Jane Marsh, article by, 153
• Pigeons, Fate of the, 363
• Poems:
• Dakota Militia, 116
• Fancies at Navesink, 264
• Ode to American Independence, 30
• Poet’s Mother, Diary of a, 417
• Port of the Last Century, 417
• Post Office Department, First Woman in the, 276
• Potomac, Army of the, 127, 171, 249
• Press, Liberty of the, 55, 118, 160, 228, 315

• Ryman, Wm. P., article by, 239

• Saratoga, Battle of, 284
• Schuyler, Rev. L. R., articles by, 55, 118, 160, 228, 379
• Sellon, John, 359
• Siege of Yorktown, Capt. Duncan’s Diary of the, 407
• Somes, John J., article by, 85
• Sullivan’s Great March in the Indian Country, 295, 365
• Stepping-Stones, Baltimore’s Old, 282
• Stone, William L., article by, 284

• Thomaston, Me., Ter-Centenary of, 150
• Turtle, Bushnell’s, 389

• Unknown Exile, was he Charles X?, 96
• “Unknown Exile,” not Charles X., 153
• Upham, Warren, article by, 1

• Vancil, Frank M., article by, 199
• Vallandigham, E. N., article by, 259

• Washington Name, Origin of the, 202
• Washington, Letters of—See Original Documents
• Weaving, Handloom, Revived, 278
• Wendover and the Flag, 44
• White, Anthony Walton, 394
• Whitman, Walt., poem by, 264

• Yorktown, Capt. Duncan’s Diary at Siege of, 407