the intention of awing the entire county.
It did awe us who were unorganized, had no powder, and whose messengers to Albany in quest of ammunition were now stopped and searched by Sir John's men.
For the Baronet, also, seemed alarmed; and, with his battalion of Highlanders, his Tory militia, his swivels, and his armed retainers, could muster five hundred men and no mean artillery to hold the Hall if threatened.
But this is not what really troubled the plain people of Tryon. Guy Johnson controlled thousands of savage Iroquois. Their war chief was Sir William's brother-in-law, brother to the dark Lady Johnson, Joseph Brant, called Thayendanegea, – the greatest Mohawk who ever lived, – perhaps the greatest of all Iroquois. And I think that Hiawatha alone was greater in North America.
Brave, witty, intelligent, intellectual, having a very genius for war and stratagems, educated like any gentleman of the day and having served Sir William as secretary, Brant, in the conventional garments of civilization, presented a charming and perfectly agreeable appearance.
Accustomed to the society of Sir William's drawing room, this Canienga Chief was utterly conversant with polite usage, and entirely qualified to maintain any conversation addressed to him. Always he had been made much of by ladies – always, when it did not too greatly weary him, was he the centre of batteries of bright eyes and the object of gayest solicitation amid those respectable gatherings for which, in Sir William's day, the Hall was so justly celebrated.
That was the modest and civil student and gentleman, Joseph Brant.
But in the forest he was a painted spectre; in battle a flame! He was a war chief: he never became Royaneh;3 but he possessed the wisdom of Hendrik, the eloquence of Red Jacket, the terrific energy of Hiakatoo.
We, of Tryon, were aware of all these things. Our ears were listening for the dread wolf cry of the Iroquois in their paint; our eyes were turned in dumb expectation toward our Provincial Congress of New York; toward our dear General Schuyler in Albany; toward the Continental Congress now in solemn session; toward our new and distant hope shining clearer, brighter as each day ended – His Excellency the Virginian.
How long were Sir John and his people to be left here in County Tryon to terrorize all friends to liberty, – to fortify Johnstown, to stop us about our business on the King's highway, to intrigue with the Mohawks, the Oneidas, the Cayugas, the Onondagas, the Senecas, the Tuscaroras?
Guy Johnson tampered with the River Indians at Poughkeepsie, and we knew it. He sent belts to the Shawanese, to the Wyandottes, to the Mohicans. We knew it. He met the Delaware Sachems at a mongrel fire – God knows where and by what authority, for the Federal Council never gave it! – and we stopped one of his runners in the Bush with his pouch full o' belts and strings; and we took every inch of wampum without leave of Sir John, and bade the runner tell him what we did.
We wrote to Albany; Albany made representations to Sir John, and the Baronet replied that his show of armed force at the Hall was solely for the reason that he had been warned that the Boston people were laying plans to invade Tryon and make of him a prisoner.
I think this silly lie was too much for Schuyler, for all now knew that war must come. Twelve Colonies, in Congress assembled, had announced that they had rather die as free people than continue to live as slaves. Very fine indeed! But what was of more interest to us at Fonda's Bush, this Congress commissioned George Washington as Commander in Chief of a Colonial Army of 20,000 men, and prepared to raise three millions on bills of credit for the prosecution of the war!
Now, at last, the cleavage had come. Now, at last, Sir John was forced into the open.
He swore by Almighty God that he had had no hand in intriguing against the plain people of Tryon: and while he was making this oath, Guy Johnson was raising the Iroquois against us at Oswego; he was plotting with Carleton and Haldimand at Montreal; he had arranged for the departure of Brant with the great bulk of the Mohawk nation, and, with them, the fighting men of the Iroquois Confederacy. Only the Western Gate Keepers remained, – the fierce Senecas.
And so, except for a few Tuscaroras, a few lukewarm Onondagas, a few of the Lenape, and perhaps half – possibly two-thirds of the Oneida nation, Guy Johnson already had swung the terrible Iroquois to the King.
And now, secretly, the rats began to leave for the North, where, behind the Canada border, savage hordes were gathering by clans, red and white alike.
Guy Johnson went on pretense of Indian business; and none dare stop the Superintendent for Indian affairs on a mission requiring, as he stated, his personal appearance at Oswego.
But once there he slipped quietly over into Canada; and Brant joined him.
Colonel Claus sneaked North; old John Butler went in the night with a horde of Johnstown and Caughnawaga Tories. McDonald followed, accompanied by some scores of bare-shinned Tory Mc's. Walter Butler disappeared like a phantom.
But Sir John remained behind his stockade and swivels at the Hall, vowing and declaring that he meditated no mischief – no, none at all.
Then, in a fracas in Johnstown, that villain sheriff, Alexander White, fired upon Sammons, and the friends to liberty went to take the murderous Tory at the jail.
Frey was made sheriff, which infuriated Sir John; but Governor Tryon deposed him and reappointed White, so the plain people went again to do him a harm; and he fled the district to the mortification of the Baronet.
But Sir John's course was nearly at an end: and events in the outer world set the sands in his cloudy glass running very swiftly. Schuyler and Montgomery were directing a force of troops against Montreal and Quebec, and Sir Guy Carleton, Governor General of Canada, was shrieking for help.
St. John's surrendered, and the Mohawk Indians began fighting!
Here was a pretty pickle for Sir John to explain.
Suddenly we had news of the burning of Falmouth.
On a bitter day in early winter, an Express passed through Fonda's Bush on snow-shoes, calling out a squad of the Mohawk Regiment of District Militia.
Nick Stoner, Andrew Bowman, Joe Scott, and I answered the summons.
Snow-shoeing was good – a light fall on the crust – and we pulled foot for the Kingsborough trail, where we met up with a squad from the Palatine Regiment and another from the Flatts.
But scarce were we in sight of Johnstown steeples when the drums of an Albany battalion were heard; and we saw, across the snow, their long brown muskets slanting, and heard their bugle-horn on the Johnstown road.
I saw nothing of the affair at the Hall, being on guard at St. John's Church, lower down in the town. But I saw our General Schuyler ride up the street with his officers; and so knew that all would go well.
All went well enough, they say. For when again the General rode past the church, I saw waggons under our escort piled with the muskets of the Highland Battalion, and others heaped high with broad-swords, pistols, swivels, and pikes. And on Saturday, the twentieth of January, when our tour of duty ended, and our squads were dismissed, each to its proper district, all people knew that Sir John Johnson had given his parole of honor not to take up arms against America; not to communicate with the Royalists in Canada; not to oppose the friends of liberty at home; nor to stir from his Baronial Hall to go to Canada or to the sea, but with liberty to transact such business as might be necessary in other parts of this colony.
And I, for one, never doubted
Sachem: the Canienga term.
