[siebert] loyalists AND SIX NATION INDIANS 81 



ducted them through the wilderness to the frontier post. William 

 and Peter Johnson, the half-blood sons of the late Sir William, Barent 

 Frey, a brother of Colonel Hendrik Frey of Tryon County, and John 

 Johnson, an Oneida trader, were some of the other agents in Butler's 

 employ. Already fugitive Loyalists were arriving from the border 

 settlements in sufficient numbers to be organized into a body of re- 

 liable assistants, and were especially serviceable because of their 

 familiarity with one or another of the Indian languages. In 1776, 

 one Thomas Smith came bringing a plan of Fort Stanwix and special 

 intelligence to communicate to the authorities. In May of the same 

 year Sir John Johnson, son of Sir William and leader of the Tories of 

 Tryon County, having had various clashes with the local Whig 

 committee, fled with 170 of his friends and tenants by way of the great 

 Adirondack wilderness, St. Regis, and Caughnawaga to Montreal. 

 The angry Whigs now sacked Johnson Hall and converted it into a 

 barracks, wrecked Guy Johnson's house and carried the families of the 

 refugees as hostages to Albany, including Lady Johnson and Mrs. 

 Butler. These events in Tyron County help to explain the continued 

 arrival at Niagara during the succeeding months of fugitives from the 

 Mohawk Valley, including many persons of influence. Perhaps, too, 

 they evoked the letters, delivered in the winter of 1776-7 by a Mr. 

 Depue, from 70 inhabitants of the Susquehanna country proposing to 

 enlist as rangers under Butler's command. Butler seems to have 

 had previous communication with these persons, for we are informed 

 that he had "already encouraged them to join him at Niagara." So 

 far as is known this was the first suggestion of the formation of Butler's 

 corps of Rangers, by means of which numbers of militant Loyalists 

 were drawn to the fort.^ 



Meantime, the aid which the Indians might render was not 

 overlooked by Butler and his superior officers. Although the author- 

 ities at Quebec remained undecided on the question of employing the 

 savages in border warfare until the beginning of 1777, Guy Johnson 

 and Butler appear to have anticipated favorable action on this point 

 by making use of about 70 warriors of the Six Nations during the year 

 1776. If full warrant had not been received from headquarters 

 previously, it came to hand early in June, 1777, when Butler received 

 instructions from Carleton to collect as many Indians as possible and 

 join Colonel St. Leger's expedition against Fort Stanwix. The task 

 of gathering this band of savages, which was supplemented by a body 

 of such refugees as were available, furnished Butler an opportunity 



1 Cruikshank, Butler's Rangers, 15, 27-29, 30, 31 ; 34-37; Third Report, Bureau of 

 Archives, Ont., 1905, 90; Flick, Loyalism in N. Y., 86; CanifF, Settlement of Upper 

 Canada, 67, 68. 



Sec. I and II, 1915—6 



