86 THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



spite the large number of persons coming in during the year 1778, 

 we have the personal statements of only nine of them. Three of 

 these testify that they joined the Rangers, one enlisting with his 

 three sons. Another says more indefinitely that he "joined the 

 British army at Niagara." Two of the nine came from Tyron County, 

 four from the Susquehanna, one from Staten Island, one from Albany 

 County, and the remaining one fails to tell whence he came. William 

 MacGrosh, one of those from Tyron County, reports that he was 

 accompanied by other refugees, and Dorothy Windron, from the Sus- 

 quehanna, testifies that she arrived with her own and other families. 

 By a census of February 12th, 1779, it appears that 1,346 people 

 were drawing rations at the post, of whom 445 were red men, while 

 64 are set down as belonging to "distressed families," most of them 

 from the Mohawk Valley.^ Deducting the number of savages. 

 Rangers (348), and troops of the garrison (200 in December, 1778), 

 there still remains over 350 persons out of the total mentioned above, 

 and most of these must have been white refugees.^ 



During the year 1779 there was no cessation of flights to Niagara, 

 so far as we can tell; and the destruction of 40 Indian villages with 

 their fields of maize in the Genosee Valley by General John Sullivan 

 and his forces in August and September increased the number of sav- 

 ages at the post to more than 5,000. Even though war parties were 

 at once sent out, there were still 3,678 of these hungry and homeless 

 red men on the ground in October, and during the ensuing winter the 

 Superintendent of Indian Affairs, Guy Johnson, was heavily burdened 

 with the task of distributing clothing to more than 3,000 of his wards, 

 while the supply of provisions gave out. To make matters worse, 

 the season became so severe that the Niagara River remained frozen 

 from January to March, and the camps of the Indians were decimated 

 by cold, as well as starvation. Numbers of the survivors never 

 returned to their former abodes, but passed into Canada. The 

 Senecas, however, settled in the region watered by the Buffalo, 

 Cattaraugus, and Tonawanda creeks. Despite casualties in every 

 one of his eight companies, Butler was able to report in November, 

 1779, that his corps was nearly completed. Its barracks, which had 

 been erected a year before, consisted of a range of log buildings on the 

 west side of the Niagara. ^ 



1 Cruikshank, Butler's Rangers, 51, 52, 58; Halsey, The Old New York Frontier, 

 225, 226; Haldimand Papers, B. 89, pp. 190, 200, 201; Severance, Old Trails of the 

 Niagara Frontier, 60, 62; Second Report, Bureau of Archives, Ont., Pt. 1,392; Pt. 

 II, 974, 979, 990; Pt. I, 470, 415, 416, 392; Pt. II, 974, 979, 990, 1,079; Centennial 

 of the Settlement of Upper Canada, 275. 



2 Severance, Old Trails of the Niagara Frontier, 53, 58, 60, 61; Cruikshank, 

 Butler's Rangers, 59, 64-75, 78; Caniff, Settlement of Upper Canada, 77, 79; Marshall, 



