30 



HISTORY OF STEUBEN COUNTY, NEW YORK. 



^' In my letter of the 19th instant to the Gazette in relation to Sul- 

 livan's campaign against the Indians in 1779, I had no idea of man- 

 ufacturing history or provoking a controversy. I desired simply to 

 throw light upon some of the incidents of that campaign, in which 

 the people of the Chemung Valley are at present interested. But a 

 brief criticism of my letter appears in the Free Preas of August 23, 

 in which the editor seems to doubt the taking place of an engagement 

 between a detachment of Sullivan's army and the Indians at a place 

 two and a half miles below Corning, on the east bank of the Chemung 

 River, on lands formerly owned by Jonathan Brown, Esq, Sept. 4th 

 or 5th, 1779. . . . 



" I have before me ' Lieut.-Col. Adam Ilubley's Journal,' ' Lossing's 

 Field Book of the Revolution,' ' Stone's Life of Brandt,' ' Miner's His- 

 tory of Wyoming,' and other reliable data, and there is not a word in 

 them incompatible with the assertions of William Mapes in relation 

 to an engagement on the 4th or 5th of September, 1779, at the place 

 stated by him, and communicated in my letter of the 19th inst. . . . 



'^ William Mapes, the old soldier from whom I obtained my infor- 

 mation, was in Greneral Maxwell's brigade of Sullivan's expedition. 

 He was an intelligent and truthful man, and his memory in regard to 

 Revolutionary events was truly wonderful. He had served five years 

 in the Continental army, and had made himself acquainted with the 

 history of that eventful era. 



" Before I ventured to write a word concerning any of the events of 

 the campaign of Sullivan, I tested him thoroughly, and found him to 

 be a perfect cyclopaedia of Revolutionary history, and had memorized 

 all the leading events, and had them at his tongue's end." 



One of the principal writers on the other side discredits 

 the value of this traditional evidence as follows : 



" If the above statement is true, it stands alone and without any 

 corroboration of official or traditional evidence within our knowledge. 

 The view from our standpoint: Abijah Ward, another soldier in Sul- 

 livan's army, and who was, as he said, ^one of the sixty men of the 

 detachment sent up the Chemung River by Sullivan,' lived for many 

 years in our town, and his integrity and soldierly reputation were no 

 more to be questioned than those of Mr. Mapes. In his relations of 

 the acts of the detachment, he denied not only the killing, but seeing 

 a solitary Indian from the time they left New town until their return. 



"There are gentlemen still living in our village who have heard 

 him repeatedly make this statement; also, that * he came up to' (and, 

 if I am not mistaken) * around the chimney Narrows Hill.' Another 

 Sullivan soldier, Mr. Little, a young man from Northumberland, Pa., 

 was in the battle of the Hog Back, taken prisoner after the battle, and 

 taken by the notorious Tory, Capt. McDonald, to Canada, in company 

 with a Mr. Taggart, a prisoner from Freeling's Fort, Pa., who, with 

 McDonald was present at the burial of the half-breed chief, Montour, 

 at Painted Post, on their route to Canada. Little made his escape, 

 and returning, stopped a few days with the renowned hunter and guide, 

 Benjamin Patterson, then living in the town of Painted Post,* to 

 whom he related, ' The chief that was buried at Painted Post was 

 wounded at the battle of the Hog Back, below New town. His name 

 was Montour, and he was taken in a canoe to Painted Post. It was 

 frequently mentioned in the camp where I was a prisoner, and before 

 I made my escape, and Mr. Taggart told me he was present at the 

 burial.' Now, Mr. William Mapes relates Hhat one of the twelve In- 

 dians shot in the engagement at Bloody Run was a chief, and had on 

 a calico shirt; was in the act of jumping over a log when hit; was 

 taken by other Indians to Painted Post, and buried.' And thus 

 ends the positive evidence : The statement of Mr. Mapes, that Mon- 

 tour was wounded at ' the engagement' at Bloody Run ; Mr. Little, 

 that he was wounded at the Battle of Hog Back ; and Mr. Ward, that 

 no Indians were seen, wounded, or slain on the expedition of the de- 

 tachment, and this is all the positive evidence. 



"Now let us look at the possibilities. 



" If this detachment was sent up the river by Gen. Sullivan, and was 

 composed of so many men, it must certainly have been considered by 

 the commander of some importance (and there is no reasonable doubt 

 but that such detachment was sent). If said detachment was sent to 

 destroy the crops of the Indians or scatter and destroy the Indians, 

 would not a report of the success or failure have been among the re- 



"-■' Benjamin Patterson did not live in Painted Post till 1796, at least 

 seventeen years after the capture of Little. 



cords of the campaign ? If so large a force had been sent, and an 

 important engagement, in which a dozen of the enemy, including a 

 renowned chief, were slain, and not one of the detachment wounded 

 or lost, would it have been kept out of the reports and left to the 

 chance of individual soldiers' descriptions ?" 



We have deemed the above views worthy of a respectful 

 hearing, although destitute of the qualities necessary to 

 constitute history. 



CHAPTER YL 



EXTINGUISHMENT OP THE INDIAN TITLE. 



Indians at the close of the Revolution— First Treaty at Fort Stanwix 

 — Council at Herkimer — The Lessee Companies — Second Treaty at 

 Fort Stanwix— Treaty of Fort Schuyler— Treaty of Albany. 



At the close of the Revolutionary war, the Indian allies 

 of Great Britain were deserted and left unprovided for by 

 the masters whom they had so long and faithfully served. 

 The United States, on the contrary, and the States as a 

 general rule, were disposed to treat them with greater lenity 

 than the laws of war and the usage of civilized nations re- 

 quired ; regarding them as subjects to be treated with for 

 the purchase of their lands, rather than as vassals who had 

 forfeited their ancestral inheritance to the conquerors. The 

 country has reason to congratulate itself, both on the score 

 of humanity and economy, that so liberal a policy was 

 adopted in extinguishing the Indian title to lands in this 

 State. It was an example to foreign nations of a forward 

 step in civilization, — a step not less truly American than the 

 peculiar form of government which our fathers established 

 in this Western World. 



After the merciless conduct of the savages at Wyoming 

 and Cherry Valley, many were disposed to show them no 

 lenity ; especially was this the case with those who had 

 suffered most at their hands. At one time the proposition 

 to confiscate their lands was received with so much favor 

 by the Legislature of New York that it probably would 

 have prevailed but for the opposite advice and influence of 

 Gen. Schuyler and others. Washington, also, used his 

 influence in the same direction in the National Councils. 

 The wiser and better measures advocated by these and other 

 flir-seeing statesmen prevailed ; and, notwithstanding the 

 long and perplexing period spent in negotiating treaties, and 

 the large sums of money expended by the State and the 

 general government in settling Indian claims, the more 

 humane policy was undoubtedly less expensive toUhe 

 country than a renewal of war and conquest would have 

 proved ; and it was certainly more creditable to the head 

 and heart of the nation to deal in this manner with the 

 remnant of a brave and heroic people, whose chief cause 

 fur fighting against the colonies was loyalty to the British, 

 with whom they had been for three-quarters of a century 

 in alliance. 



TREATY OF FORT STANWIX. 



The first attempt on the part of the State of New York 

 to convene a general council of the Five Nations was made 

 in 1784, only a few months after the treaty of peace which 

 closed the Revolution. In April of that year the Legis- 



