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SIR WILLIAM
JOHNSON
APPLETONS SERIES OF
HISTORIC LIVES.
Father Marquette.
By REUBEN GOLD THWAITES, Editor of "The
Jesuit Relations." Third Edition.
Daniel Boone.
By REUBEN GOLD THWAITES. Third Edition.
Horace Greeley.
By WILLIAM A. LINN, for many years Man
aging Editor of the " New York Evening
Post."
Sir William Johnson.
By AUGUSTUS C. BUELL, Author of "Paul
Jones, Founder of the American Navy." [In
preparation.]
Champlain.
By EDWIN ASA Dix. [In preparation.]
Sam Houston.
By Prof. GEORGE P. GARRISON, of the Univer
sity of Texas. [In preparation.]
Sir William Pepperell.
By NOAH BROOKS. [In preparation.}
Each I2mo. Illustrated. $1.00 net.
Postage, 10 cents additional.
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK.
OF THE
UNIVERSITY
OF
SIR WILLIAM JOHNSON.
3Mm0on
BY
AUGUSTUS C. BUELL
Author of " Paul Jones, Founder of the
American Navy"
* jN[ llustrated
cr r HE
UNIVERSITY jj
OF
NEW YORK
ant*
1903
mm
COPYRIGHT, 1903
By D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
Published June, 1903
LIST OF ILLUSTKATIOSTS
FACING
PA OB
Sir William Johnson .... Frontispiece
Sir Peter Warren 8
Fort Johnson, near Amsterdam, N. Y. (from a recent
photograph) 18
Fort Johnson, near Amsterdam, N. Y. (from an eight
eenth century print) 58
King Hendrick of the Mohawks 146
Joseph Brant ......... 158
From a portrait in oil by Romney
The battle of Lake George 162
King Hendrick and Sir William Johnson . . .200
Bronze statue at the State Park, Lake George
Map showing Fort Stanwix treaty line, negotiated by
Sir William Johnson in 1768 244
vii
OF
SIR WILLIAM JOHNSON
CHAPTER I
HIS EARLY LIFE IN IRELAND AND ON
THE MOHAWK
1715-1748
THE year 1715 was epochal. It witnessed
the end of one great chapter in the history of
civilization and the beginning of a new one yet
greater. The chapter that ended then was
the one which embraced the stubborn and
bloody dynastic wars that since 1672 had
resulted from the collision between the stern,
sullen genius of William of Orange and the
reckless, unscrupulous ambition of Louis
XIV. For forty-two years war had raged
everywhere, broken only in its devastation by
such brief and hollow truces as Nimwegen
and Ryswick. True, William died in 1702,
killed by the stumbling of his clumsy charger
just at the threshold of a new campaign. But
during the thirteen years of his reign as King
of England he had built up a party of aggres
sive patriotism, which has since proved the
1
Sir William Johnson
founder of the British Empire as we know it
to-day.
For twelve years after William died, this
party under the reign of a really great though
rather indolent woman, Queen Anne, carried
forward William s projects and executed his
policies with no less vigor and, possibly, with
even more success, than he himself could have
done alive. I have seen the conflicts of Will
iam and Louis described in some histories as
" religious wars." They were anything but
that. They were dynastic and political wars.
William may be called the inventor of the
" balance of power." He was the originator
of coalitions. The England that he took from
the Stuarts in 1689 was an insular province
near the coast of Europe. The England that
he left to Queen Anne and John Churchill
in 1702 was the prime factor in Europe,
and the last vision that faded before his
dying eyes was the dawn of the British
Empire.
It is a strange fact that, with all her wealth
of literature, England has no thorough history
of her greatest modern king! A few great
soldiers have been born to the purple since the
dark ages Gustav Adolf, Charles XII, Peter
of Russia, and Frederic of Prussia. But no
man of royal birth has ever combined the sol-
His Early Life in Ireland
dier and the statesman as William did. It
may, perhaps, be fortunate for England that
the task of carrying William s statecraft into
complete execution passed by legacy, as it
were, from his hands into those of Marlbor-
ough ; for the Great Duke was a greater man
than even the Great King. And in all human
probability the commander who won Blen
heim and Malplaquet was a safer instrument
of destiny than the king who lost Steenkerke
and Neerwinden.
The year 1715 witnessed the end of Louis
XIV s long and turbulent reign and the acces
sion of Louis XV to the Bourbon throne
under the regency of the able and dissolute
but peaceful Duke of Orleans. It also marked
the permanent solution of dynastic chaos in
England by the installation of the sturdy,
and, in the long run, conservative, House of
Hanover.
But more important than any or all of
these events, so far as the destinies of the
Western Hemisphere were concerned, was
the fact that in 1715 began a period of peace
that lasted a generation, during which the
Anglo-Saxon colonies along the Atlantic slope
found opportunity for that development of
resource and unity which, forty-five years
later, enabled them to expel Latin power from
3
Sir William Johnson
North America, and, sixty years after, to cre
ate our Republic.
It seems fittingly coincident that this
epochal year of 1715 should have been the
birth-date of a boy destined to play a colossal
part in the new era then at its dawn. He was
the son of Christopher Johnson and his wife,
Anne Warren, and he first saw light at War-
renpoint, County Down, Ireland. I have seen
in a so-called Life of Sir William Johnson,
printed in Canada about sixty years ago, the
statement that his father was " an obscure
Irish schoolmaster, and a cripple ! " It is
possible that in his younger days Christopher
Johnson may have taught school. But from
1692 till 1708 he was an officer in a regiment
of heavy cavalry, then known as Cadogan s
Horse a regiment that has maintained con
tinuous organization more than two hundred
years, and is now the Fifth Kegiment of
Dragoon Guards in the British Army.
In 1715, when his son William was born,
Mr. Johnson held the post of local magis
trate for the bailiwick of Carlingford, to
which he was appointed in 1709 as a reward
for long and faithful service under King Will
iam and Marlborough. He was, indeed, " a
cripple" at that time, as the Canadian biog
rapher says. But his physical disability a
4
His Early Life in Ireland
bent and withered leg was honorable, be
cause it was due to a French bullet that hit
him in the famous charge of Lord Cadogan s
Cavalry Brigade at Oudenarde a charge
that needed only a Tennyson to make it im
mortal. Whether he was "obscure" or not
is hardly worth discussion. At any rate, he
held a social rank that enabled him to marry
Anne Warren, daughter of a commodore and
sister of an admiral in the British navy.
If there is anything congenital in the mar
tial spirit, it may be that the wonderful mili
tary talents subsequently developed by Will
iam Johnson were transmitted to him from the
loins of the veteran of the wars in Flanders,
who could count his battles from Namur to
Oudenarde. So when his young wife "Mis
tress Nancy" as the society dialect of those
days had it presented a bouncing boy to the
veteran of Flanders, the father named him
after the old fighting king who had been his
commander at Namur. Of William s child
hood and youth there is scanty record. In
May, 1726, his uncle, Admiral Warren, makes
the following entry in his diary, or, as he
called it, his "log ashore":
. . . Visiting me Mistress Nancy Johnson, with
her Young Son, William, aged eleven. William is
a Spritely Boy, well grown, of good parts, Keen
5
Sir William Johnson
Wit but Most Onruly and Streperous ! I see in him
the Makings of a Strong Man. Shall keep my
Wether Eye on this lad !
The importance of the old sea-dog s
"wether eye" as a factor in his nephew s for
tunes will appear later on.
When William was fourteen the usual
family consultation was held to determine
what should be done with him. The consen
sus of domestic opinion was that he should
be what they called in those days "the King s
Own." That meant either the army or the
navy. But, to the amazement of every one,
the youngster declared that he had made up
his mind to study law and be a barrister.
After some vain argument, the family acqui
esced in the boy s choice, and he was sent to
the ancient Academy of Newry, where he soon
immersed himself in Latin conjugations and
the Anabasis. It is not recorded that he was
particularly apt. He grew rapidly, but his
development of body seems to have outrun
that of mind. At any rate, the "onruly and
streperous " quality mentioned by his sailor
uncle, at an earlier period, appears to have
abided with him; because in his seventeenth
year, or about the middle of his third year at
the Academy, his curriculum ended suddenly
in a peremptory expulsion.
6
His Early Life in Ireland
The immediate cause of this was an at
tempt on the part of the Moderator to chas
tise him, which resulted in failure, disastrous
to the pedagogue and dismal to young Will
iam. He was not only expelled from the
school, but taken before a magistrate on a
charge of aggravated assault and battery,
fined seven guineas, and "put on the limits"
for twenty-one days !
At the end of his period of detention young
William returned to the paternal abode at
Warrenpoint, only to encounter fresh trouble.
Sixteen years service with "the Army in
Flanders" had made a martinet of Squire
Christopher, and twenty-four years of local
magistracy had imbued him with Spartan
theories as to the majesty of law. There
fore, though his tall son William was un
questionably by long odds the physical supe
rior of the old and crippled parent, the latter
did not hesitate to subject him, upon his
return home, to the kind of discipline in
which the robust pedagogue had so signally
failed.
This flagellation William endured with
filial grace, doubtless on the principle that
it did not hurt him much, and did the old
gentleman a great deal of good.
The next three or four years of his life
7
Sir William Johnson
were uneventful. He served for some time
as magistrate s clerk in his father s office.
But all the time he diligently read law and
history. So apt a law-student was he and so
able a preceptor did he find in a local barris
ter of the name of Byrne, his father s cousin,
that he was listed for examination at the
spring assizes in 1737 for admission as a
junior barrister. But a month or two before
the assizes met, an opportunity was offered
to him which permanently turned the current
of his life.
Some years prior to that time his uncle,
Admiral Sir Peter Warren, had purchased,
under royal grant, a large tract of land in
the colony of New York, "scituate in the
Valley of Mohock, west of the trading-post
called Schenectady, and south of the river
called Mohock." The settlements of the Pal
atine Germans and Holland Dutch were push
ing up the valley of the Mohawk rapidly,
under the benign influence of the long peace,
so that by 1737 Sir Peter s land had acquired
market value and was worth looking after.
He therefore offered to his young nephew,
then barely twenty-two years old, the chief
stewardship of this estate, with the general
agency of all his interests in America, and a
power of attorney "to buy and sell or lease
8
SIR PETER WARREN.
His Early Life in Ireland
real estate, to incur debts or pay demands,
and in all respects to do all things in the
name of Peter Warren, the same and with
equal validity and binding force as if the said
Peter Warren had done them with his own
hand and under his own seal." That Admi
ral Warren had faith in the judgment and
integrity of his erstwhile "most onruly and
streperous" nephew may be inferred from the
fact that this sweeping power of attorney
was made to last "during the lifetime of the
said William Johnson."
Joyfully accepting the great opportunity
which may, perhaps, be described as due to
the keen vision of that "wether eye" the old
sea-warrior had long ago determined to
"keep on this lad" young Johnson sailed
late in the summer of 1737 from Dundalk to
Bristol, and thence to New York, where he
arrived in December of that year. His
papers indicate that he spent the winter of
1737-38 in New York city, making plans and
laying in supplies for active operations in
his new field of duty early in the spring. 1
1 During the winter of 1737-38 that young Johnson spent
in New York city he was the guest of his aunt, Sir Peter War
ren s wife. Lady Warren was Susan DeLancey, daughter of
Stephen DeLancey, one of the richest merchants in New York,
and the family held leadership in the most refined and aris
tocratic society of the colonial metropolis. In this select social
2 9
Sir William Johnson
As soon as navigation was opened in the
North Biver, in the spring of 1738, Johnson
proceeded to Albany with a sloop-load of
implements for subduing the forest, includ
ing a "set of mill-irons" and a "run of stone."
He also took with him about half a dozen
mechanics of various trades. From Albany
the material for the new settlement was trans
ported by land to a point on the south side
of the Mohawk Biver, a short distance west
of the mouth of Schoharie Creek, where he
founded a settlement on his uncle s land.
This settlement was then known as "War-
rensbush" by the Dutch and "Warrensburg"
by the English-speaking settlers, but it has
long since disappeared from the map. Here
young Johnson remained about five years,
diligently improving his uncle s property by
building mills, making roads, and clearing
land; also by selling land in farm tracts
and encouraging and aiding the settlers to
clear it.
The young agent for Admiral Warren s
estate in the forest soon found that its exact
location was ill-defined and its boundaries
circle William bore himself with tact, dignity, and grace
worthy of wider experience and maturer years, and in it he
met many men whose interest and influence were vastly use
ful to him later on.
10
His Early Life in Ireland
quite conjectural. However, this was usu
ally true of kingly grants in the American
wilderness during those days, and the prob
lem was not considered formidable. At any
rate, the particular point first occupied was
not in dispute, and William Johnson began
his task of subduing the forest with the tre
mendous energy and keen judgment that
made him the colossal pioneer he proved
to be.
Thus far I have referred to Warren as an
admiral and a baronet. As a matter of fact,
at the moment when William Johnson began
operations in the Mohawk Valley his uncle,
who owned the grant, was only senior cap
tain or commodore of the British squadron
on the North American station, his flagship
being the 28-gun frigate Squirrel. He was,
however, promoted to the rank of rear-admi
ral in 1739, vice-admiral in 1745, and was
made a baronet. It may be worth while to
remark here that Stone, in his generally accu
rate and admirable Life of Sir William John
son, says that Admiral Sir Peter Warren
was born in 1704. This may have been a
typographical error. At any rate, the navy
records of England show that Warren was
rated a midshipman in 1706, commissioned a
lieutenant in 1712, post-captain in 1724, and
11
Sir William Johnson
was commodore on the North American sta
tion in 1737-38. In those days midshipmen
were usually rated in the British navy at
from twelve to fourteen years of age. While
we have not been able to find the exact date
of Admiral Warren s birth, it may be pre
sumed that he was at least twelve years old
in 1706 or ten in 1704. Instead of the latter
date, Stone should, doubtless, have said 1694.
Young Johnson proceeded diligently to
improve and develop his uncle s estate.
Much of it was sold off in farms of from 150
to 300 acres, and settlement was rapid. Sir
Peter had hoped to preserve the estate intact
and rent its lands in long leases to tenants.
But William soon advised him that the Dutch
and Scotch-Irish settlers were averse to rent
als and would take the land only in fee simple
upon easy terms of payment. So, rather
than let his grant remain an unproductive
wilderness, Sir Peter reluctantly consented
to sell his land, and in a few years the most
of it had passed out of his hands, leaving him
the possessor of a snug sum of money and a
large fund of mortgages drawing a fair rate
of interest. Sir Peter died in 1752, and then
William Johnson acquired possession of such
of his lands as remained unsold probably
about one-third of the original area.
12
His Early Life in Ireland
From this time on, for the sake of conve
nience, I shall refer to Johnson as "Sir Will
iam," although he was not actually made a
baronet until some years later.
Sir William passed five years at Warrens-
bush 1738-43. But he never intended to
make it his permanent home, nor was he
content with the occupation of agent for a
landlord. He had not been at Warrensbush
two years before he acquired by purchase a
tract of several thousand acres, on part of
which a portion of the city of Amsterdam
now stands. This tract lay north of the
Mohawk River, and Johnson acquired title to
it in 1741. He at once began building a sub
stantial stone house, known as "Fort John
son" or "Mount Johnson," which is still
standing, about a mile west of the corporate
limits of Amsterdam. He also built a saw
mill and grist-mill on a water-power running
through his lands. Sir Peter Warren heard
of these operations and, being apprehensive
that Sir William intended to give up the
charge of his estate and set up in business for
himself, wrote two or three rather severe let
ters to his nephew. The latter, however,
assured his uncle that, whatever he might do
on his own account, it would not in the least
degree interfere with his care for the inter-
13
Sir William Johnson
ests of the Warren estate, and ultimately
pacified the admiral on that point.
Sir William s five years at Warrensbush
were not eventful in any broad sense. But
he made it a preparatory school for the great
destiny that awaited him. Apart from the
care of his uncle s estate and, after 1741, the
development of his own on the north side of
the river, he found time to learn, to a degree
never surpassed and seldom if ever equaled
by any white man, the character, ways, man
ners, modes of thinking, and the language of
the Iroquois Indians.
He soon discovered that the management
of Indian affairs, then conducted by a Board
of Colonial Commissioners, was rotten to the
core. There was no system whatever in the
regulation of traffic between the whites and
Indians. Any adventurer able to pay the
small license fee required, or enjoying the
favor of a commissioner, could obtain a
permit without any inquiry whatever as to
his antecedents, character, or responsibility.
The result was that the Indian trade had
fallen, almost without exception, into the
hands of sordid, unprincipled sharpers, who
never thought of an honest deal with any red
man, but cheated and swindled the Indians at
every turn.
His Early Life in Ireland
About this time 1741 George Clinton,
the father of General Sir Henry Clinton of
the British Army, was appointed Colonial
Governor of New York, though he did not
actually take up the duties of the office until
1743. However, Sir William immediately
began a correspondence with him, which
became voluminous, so that by the time Gov
ernor Clinton assumed control, he had the
benefit of Sir William s keen insight and
thorough personal observation to guide him
in the administration of Indian affairs, which
had then become the most important element
of executive responsibility in the colony of
New York.
George Clinton was a veteran naval officer
and at the time of his appointment to be Colo
nial Governor of New York held the rank of
vice-admiral. His only previous experience
in a civil capacity had been that of Governor
of Newfoundland for eight or nine years ; but
that was a mere sinecure, as there were not
more than a thousand white people in New
foundland at that time, while the few hun
dred Micmac Indians living there took care of
themselves and needed little or no attention.
Hence, he was not in any wise prepared for
the turmoil of faction and the subtlety of
political intrigue that distracted the councils
15
Sir William Johnson
of New York. Still, he held his post for
ten years 1743-53 and whatever may have
been his other administrative shortcomings,
the management of the Indian Department
during his term of office left nothing to be
desired simply because, as soon as he had
authority to do so, he lodged the whole power
and responsibility of that office in the hands
of Sir William Johnson. Admiral Clinton
and Admiral Warren were warm friends and
had been shipmates. No doubt a good word
or two at the proper moment from Warren
had done much to anchor Sir William in Clin
ton s confidence.
The most important event in Sir Will
iam s five years residence at Warrensbush
had been his marriage with Miss Katharine
Weisenburg in 1739. This young woman
was the daughter of Jacob Weisenburg, a
Lutheran clergyman, who had given her the
rudiments of a fair education. But the fam
ily became impoverished, and Katharine was
"bound out" as a servant when about four
teen years old to a Mr. Phillips, who lived
near Warrensbush. Soon after he settled at
the latter place, William Johnson saw this
girl, fancied her, and "bought her indentures"
from Mr. Phillips. This was in 1739, and as
soon as she became "his property" by pur-
16
His Early Life in Ireland
chase of her indentures, he married her; the
ceremony, according to W. Max Eeid, author
of The Mohawk Valley, being performed by
the Rev. Mr. Barclay, rector of Queen Anne s
Chapel at Fort Hunter. She bore to Sir
.William three children: Anne, born 1740;
John (afterward Sir John), born 1742; and
Mary, born 1744. 1
At length, in the early spring of 1743, the
new stone mansion at Mount Johnson was
completed, and Sir William transferred his
family and household to it from the log house
which had been his habitation at Warrens-
bush. Some idea of the tremendous energy
of the man may be formed from the fact that
during the two years of his possession of the
Mount Johnson tract he had not only built on
it a commodious and, for those times, elegant
stone mansion, but had built a large dam,
forming a valuable water-power, a sawmill
capable of turning out 1,000 to 1,500 feet of
lumber a day, and had laid the foundations of
a flouring-mill, which was completed and in
operation the following year (1744). But
more than all that, he had, by means of hired
1 Some idea of the vicissitudes possible on that Old New
York Frontier may be formed from the fact that a woman,
destined to be the wife of one baronet of England and the
mother of another, was a "bound servant" at fourteen, and
that her husband had to buy her before he could marry her.
17
Sir William Johnson
labor in a colony where it was difficult to in
duce men to work for wages, cleared and
made ready for cultivation nearly 500 acres
of the most fertile land to be found anywhere
in the great "Mohawk Flats."
Much of this force of laborers he had
brought over himself from the County Down,
where his father acted as his employment-
agent. During the year 1741 about sixty
families came over sturdy Scotch-Irish like
himself. He paid all their expenses and had
comfortable log houses prepared for their
reception when they arrived. In accordance"
with the custom of those days, these immi
grants came as " bound servants," but upon
arrival they were immediately released from
their indentures by Sir William, and lands
belonging to his estate were allotted to them
by long leases for nominal rental, which they
paid in labor, or, as the saying was, "worked
out."
This policy Sir William followed for many
years, until he had gathered about him a
numerous clan of frontier yeomanry as loyal
to him as were ever the retainers of a feudal
baron. On one occasion, hearing that a con
siderable number of German refugees had
sailed from a port in Holland bound for New
York, he arranged with his brother, Warren
18
His Early Life in Ireland
Johnson, an officer in the British navy, then
on shore duty in New York as keeper of the
king s magazines, to meet them upon their
arrival and persuade them to come to the
Mohawk Valley and settle upon his estate.
Captain Johnson succeeded, and the entire
little colony, numbering about 160 souls, set
tled upon the extension of Sir William s
estate, commonly known as the Johnstown
tract. Besides all these vast undertakings
vast, indeed, for their times and conditions
Sir William established, in 1744, a trading-
post at Oquawgo or Oghwaga, an Indian vil
lage on the Susquehanna, at the foot of the
mountain from which it derived its name. Its
location was near the present site of the vil
lage of Windsor, Broome County, N. Y., and
about five or six miles below it on the river
was the principal village of the remnant of the
Tuscaroras, who had been adopted into the
Iroquois Confederacy.
Oquawgo, which lay more than one hun
dred miles south of Sir William s home, was
then an Indian village of about one hundred
lodges, many of which were quite commodi
ous habitations built of logs or of poles cov
ered and roofed with bark, having fire
places with chimneys, and otherwise far be
yond the average aboriginal abode in the
19
Sir William Johnson
essentials of decency and comfort. The popu
lation of this village was made up of people
from every tribe of the Iroquois, and at the
time of which I now write (1744) it had ac
quired a status of its own, having existed
more than two hundred years, and its deni
zens were currently designated as a sort of
tribe or clan by themselves, distinctive enough
to cause them to be spoken of in most histo
ries of the time and place as the "Oquawgo "
(or "Oghwaga ") Indians.
The name has been spelled in a great vari
ety of ways. The author has adopted the or
thography of his great-grandfather, Simon
Buell, who came from Dutchess County
shortly after the Revolution and settled close
to the then nearly deserted Indian village,
a part of his farm being land that had been
cleared and cultivated by the Indians long
before. Joseph Brant, in his correspond
ence and papers, always spelled it "Ogh
waga," and maybe he was a better authority
on Iroquois orthography than Simon Buell.
However, in any future reference to the place
I shall use the form "Oquawgo."
The trading-post which Sir William
founded there in 1744 was built on the bank
of the river opposite the Indian village and
just abreast of the lower end of an island
20
His Early Life in Ireland
which, from the profusion of apple-trees
growing on it, was known to the older settlers
as Indian Orchard. When Sir William pro
posed to establish this post, which was within
the jurisdiction of the Oneida tribe, the chief
of the southern district of that clan, Antone,
gave him about a square mile of land in con
nection with it. The trading-post was a log
blockhouse about 36X24 feet on the ground,
with a second story projecting 2 feet all
round, or 40X28 feet. It was surrounded
by a palisade of logs placed upright some
10 feet high, with an open space of about 60
feet all round between it and the building.
The enclosure contained a small but never-
failing spring, so that, if besieged, the garri
son of the post would have no trouble on the
score of water-supply. After the conquest
of Canada the palisade was taken away, and
the blockhouse itself was burned by Colonel
William Butler s Rangers (Americans) in
1778.
The site for the post was selected and the
blockhouse built by Ezra Buell, Sr., 1 a sur
veyor from Dutchess County, who was in Sir
1 This Ezra Buell had a nephew, also named Ezra, who fig
ured during the Revolution as a lieutenant in Morgan s Rifle
men until 1778, and after that until 1783 as a captain in the
Third New York Continentals.
21
Sir William Johnson
William s employ for many years; Ms last
service of any note having been to assist Simon
Metcalf in running and marking the Fort
Stanwix treaty line in 1769. When the post
was established, Sir William requested Ezra
Buell to manage it until he could find a com
petent man to be permanent agent. 1 This
search seems to have lasted three years, be
cause it was not until 1747 that Buell was
relieved by John Butler afterward notori
ous in the Tory annals of the Mohawk Valley.
In the meantime the post had developed a
great and thriving trade, which it continued
to enjoy until the outbreak of the Revolution.
Sir William, when he applied to the Colo
nial Governor for a license, said: "I wish to
create this trading-post not any more for the
profits it may bring to me than to show by
actual example that trade with the Indians
can be conducted honestly as well as any
other commercial business ! "
The sequel soon proved that the Indians
know as well as anybody when they are fairly
dealt with. Sir William s honest trading-
post at Oquawgo within five years drove out
of business the horde of rascals who, from
1 During this period Ezra took unto himself a pretty Tus-
carora girl, with whom he lived happily for many years. He
died near Kingston, on the Hudson, in 1807, aged eighty-nine.
His Early Life in Ireland
the beginning of Indian traffic, had been rob
bing the red men of the Susquehanna Valley;
right and left.
Necessarily considerable capital was re
quired to carry on such a tremendous volume
of business. This was supplied mainly by
Admiral Warren and the rest by Stephen and
James DeLancey, who had taken a warm
fancy to the stalwart and indefatigable young
Scotch-Irishman. The rates of interest were
low, and were paid, in the main, by percentage
on profits. But few years elapsed, however,
before the growth of Sir William s own for
tune enabled him to discharge the principal
of the loans from his Uncle Warren and the
DeLanceys, and thereafter he was abundantly
able to "go it alone."
Admiral Warren s ability to "finance" his
ambitious nephew may be inferred from a
letter written to Sir William by his brother,
Captain Warren Johnson, under date of
"New York, September 13, 1747." The mate
rial part of it is as follows :
Last evening I arrived here from Louisburg
with my ship, which is in need of repairs, and I am
to go to England in the Scarborough frigate, there
to get a new command. My rank now entitles me
to a first-class frigate, in which I will have much
better opportunities than in the 20-gun ship I have
23
Sir William Johnson
commanded these two years past. I have had no
chance of independent cruising, having been all the
time either with the fleet as despatch- vessel or on
convoy. The result is that, excepting what share
may fall to me as prize from the taking of Louis-
bourg and the St. Domingo fleet, the words " prize-
money " have an empty sound for me.
I would much like to go up to Mount Johnson
and see you. But the Scarborough sails too soon
to permit making the journey and returning in
time, and, besides, the first thing Aunt Susan (Mrs.
Admiral Warren) told me when I arrived at her
house was that you are now out among the Western
Iroquois counteracting the intrigues of the French
Papists and arranging for a contingent of war
riors for the grand movement * to be carried out
next spring.
So nothing is left for me but to go to England
without seeing you.
I make no doubt you have heard of our Uncle
Warren s great successes in his two cruises; the
first as second-in-command to Admiral Anson and
the second with a squadron of which he was com-
mander-in-chief, part of which fell in with the
Santo Domingo fleet, home bound with full cargoes,
1 The "grand movement" referred to was the proposed
reduction of Crown Point and invasion of Canada by way of
Lake Champlain early the next spring. It will be noted that
Captain Warren Johnson spoke of it in the vaguest possi
ble terms. His letter might, he thought, by some mishap
fall into the hands of the French.
24
His Early Life in Ireland
and took sixty-two sail of them. He had taken
several rich ships before. He must now be one of
the richest men in England, and not one has done
his country better service. He must be worth four
hundred thousand pounds sterling. He is now
Vice- Admiral of the White and member of Parlia
ment for Westminster; and I have no doubt in a
very short time he will be a peer of England.
With his removal from Warrensbush to
Mount Johnson in the early spring of 1743
the active and effective public career of Sir
William Johnson may be said to have begun.
Prior to that time his connection with public
affairs had been limited to correspondence
with Governor Clinton on the Indian ques
tion, and with the Colonial Chief-Justice,
James DeLancey, in regard to the confusion
of land-titles in the Mohawk Valley, both of
which were then prime objects of public
attention.
His first notable appearance in public
affairs was his appointment by Chief-Justice
DeLancey as master or referee in a land liti
gation between George Klock and Peter Van
Braam of Canajoharie, involving a consider
able tract nortli of the Mohawk River, where,
by the vagueness of their terms, two pur
chases of land from the Indians appeared
to overlap each other. Upon this issue he
3 25
Sir William Johnson
brought to bear his knowledge of the Iroquois
tongue, and personally examined a number of
Indian witnesses without an interpreter. In
fact, after about 1740, he never used an inter
preter in his dealings with the Indians, but
often acted as such himself at conferences
between the Governor and delegations of
chiefs at Albany. His report in this case was
prepared with such ability and precision as
to elicit the outspoken admiration of Judge
DeLancey, who approved it.
Late in the fall of 1743 the venerable
Colonel Peter Schuyler resigned from the
Board of Indian Commissioners, and Gov
ernor Clinton at once invited Sir William to
fill the vacancy. The Board consisted of five
members, one of whom must, by the law then
prevailing, be a minister of the Gospel. At
the time under consideration the clerical
member of the Board was a clergyman of the
Church of England whose pastorate was in
New York city, who knew little or nothing
about Indian affairs, and paid little or no
attention to the duties of his office. He was
willing to resign, and Sir William recom
mended that his resignation be accepted. In
his place he advised the Governor to appoint
the Eev. Jacob Weisenburg, a Lutheran min
ister of Schenectady, and the father of his
26
His Early Life in Ireland
wife. Mr. Weisenburg had lived among the
Indians ever since his arrival in this country,
early in the eighteenth century, had converted
many of them, was familiar with their traits,
and was much beloved by them. This was
done. Not long afterward another member
of the Board resigned, and, to fill his place,
Sir William recommended the Rev. Mr. Van
Ness, a Dutch Reformed pastor of Albany,
whom Governor Clinton at once appointed.
He now had a majority of three to two
on the Board on any or all of the three prime
questions involved in the Indian problem:
First, he was sure that the ministers of the
Gospel one representing the Holland Dutch
and the other the Palatines would stand by
him in the determined effort he intended ma
king to break up the liquor traffic with the In
dians. Second, he knew that the reverend
gentlemen could not possibly have any con
nection with the rascally traders or their in
terests, and would sustain him in his efforts
to compel honest dealing with the red men.
And, third, he took it for granted that they
would joyfully back him up in his scheme to
organize Protestant missions and mission
schools throughout the Iroquois Confederacy,
which he considered the only effective means
of counteracting the intrigues and influence
27
Sir William Johnson
of the Canadian French Jesuits, who for
many years had been proselyting among the
Six Nations particularly the two western
tribes, the Cayugas and the Senecas.
His anticipations in these directions
proved well founded. The laws against sell
ing liquor to the Indians were rigidly, and in
some cases drastically, enforced to such an
extent that, according to the manuscript jour
nal of William Sammons, corroborated by
the papers of the Rev. John Barclay, a mis
sionary, there were at one time twenty-six
culprits in the Albany jail serving various
terms of imprisonment for violation of the
Indian anti-liquor law. Also during the
period between 1743 and 1746 a majority of
the trading-licenses previously granted had
been revoked and annulled by the Governor
on recommendation of the Board, and in three
or four of the most flagrant cases of fraud
and swindling, prosecutions had been insti
tuted by the Attorney-General or King s
Counsel for the Colony. Besides these
things, Sir William s pet policy of founding
numerous missions and mission schools
among the tribes was adopted and an appro
priation was made by the Colonial Assembly
to aid them.
In fact, it may be said that, supported as
28
His Early Life in Ireland
he invariably was by his two clerical hench
men, Sir William soon became to all intents
and purposes not only the president of the
Board, but the Board itself. His idea of the
value of Christianity as an agency of civiliza
tion among the Indians may be inferred from
a passage in a letter he wrote to Governor
Clinton in 1744, in which he said:
You can make a pretty good and generally
faithful fellow of an Indian by simply treating
Mm fairly in business matters and helping him
along now and then when his natural indolence or
improvidence or bad luck has brought him to
straits. But you can never completely depend on
him or overcome the inherent fickleness of his
nature until you have made a Christian of him and
brought him thereby under that sense of personal
responsibility not only to men, but to the Almighty,
that religion teaches. Either in war or in peace,
one Christian Indian is always worth two heathen
ones!
From 1743 to 1746 Sir William, whose
public duties did not take up more than a
moiety of his time, continued to improve his
estate and extend his commercial operations
with unflagging energy. Notwithstanding
that, in addition to his duties in connection
with the Indian Commission, he was ap
pointed colonel of the militia regiment for
29
Sir William Johnson
the western district of Albany County in
1744, and king s magistrate for the same dis
trict in April, 1745, he still found time to
transact his great and rapidly growing pri
vate business.
About this time he came to the conclusion
that the live stock of the Mohawk Valley
needed improvement, and to that end im
ported from England a considerable breed
ing stud of horses, together with a number of
cattle and sheep. His papers and accounts
indicate that he imported about thirty horses,
thirty or forty head of cattle, and a hundred
or more sheep. He selected the Irish hunter
as the most available breed of horses for
Colonial use in general, though in the ac
counts of his importations four Suffolk stal
lions appear. These, of course, were in
tended to improve the breed of draft-horses
by crossing with the native mares. The
cattle he imported came from Devonshire
and Hereford. The sheep were English-
bred Spanish merinos a breed producing
an exceeding fine wool. These importations
were made from time to time in small lots
during a period of three or four years. To
his tenants he gave the services of his breed
ing animals free, and to his neighbors in gen
eral for a nominal consideration, in view of
30
His Early Life in Ireland
the outlay lie had incurred in importing them.
So rapidly did his agricultural operations
grow that by 1746 he began shipping flour
to the West Indies in considerable quantity.
All the time he continued clearing land at
the rate of from 250 to 300 acres a year, so
that by the end of the year 1746 he had about
1,200 acres under his own cultivation, besides
the large areas cleared and brought into till
age by his tenants, who now numbered over
a hundred. Up to this time Sir William had
not held any slaves, but in 1747 an estate in
Dutchess County was sold at administrator s
sale, in partition. This estate included nine
teen slaves. Sir William bought the lot
entire, though only about ten or eleven of
them were able-bodied men or women, the
rest being aged and infirm, or children. The
men he employed chiefly in taking care of his
horses and other live stock, while the women
were occupied in his household. He pro
vided comfortable cabins for them, and ac
cording to all accounts he was an easy mas
ter. He ultimately became the largest slave
holder in the colony of New York, possessing
between sixty and seventy.
During this period the War of the Aus
trian Succession raged in Europe, but its
effect in America did not begin to be felt to
31
Sir William Johnson
any serious degree until 1745; and even
then there were no great operations in the
interior of the country. About all that
occurred were raids by small parties against
outlying settlements or posts. In 1746 an
effort was made to combine the provincial
forces of New England, New York, and Penn
sylvania with a force of British regulars, for
the reduction of Crown Point and an invasion
of Canada by way of Lake Champlain. But
the colonies could not reach an agreement as
to quotas of men and proportions of money
to be furnished. The British Government did
not seem disposed to employ its regular
troops in such an enterprise in fact, the
military operations of the English on the
continent of Europe absorbed all the troops
they had available, and the colonial garrisons
were depleted rather than reenforced. The
colonists, accordingly, during this struggle
which, in America, was known as "King
George s War " were left almost wholly to
their own resources.
The only great event in America was the
siege and capture of the French fortress of
Louisburg on Cape Breton Island by a com
bined military and naval force, the troops
being all Provincials except one company of
regular sappers and miners and two compa-
32
His Early Life in Ireland
nies of infantry. The fleet was commanded
by Admiral Sir Peter Warren and the land
forces by Colonel Sir William Pepperell of
Massachusetts. 1 All the Provincial troops
were furnished by the New England colonies,
and though a contingent was to have been
provided by New York, its organization was
not completed in time to sail with the expedi
tion. The taking of Louisburg was an ex
ceedingly brilliant affair and reflected great
credit upon the Provincial troops engaged in
it. They were, of course, powerfully and
decisively aided by Admiral Warren s fleet,
which not only cut off and captured the
French ships that tried to bring reenforce-
ments and supplies to the garrison, but par
ticipated effectively in the bombardments.
Finding that the Provincial volunteers were
not highly expert in the use of heavy siege-
guns, Admiral Warren landed a force of blue
jackets sufficient to work them. This land
ing force was commanded by Captain Warren
Johnson of the 20-gun ship Avon, and brother
of Sir William. The terms of the peace of
Aix-la-Chapelle restored Louisburg to France,
1 Pepperell was a native and resident of Kittery, in the
present State of Maine and Maine now claims him. But it
was part of Massachusetts then, and for that reason I speak
of Pepperell as " of Massachusetts. "
33
Sir William Johnson
to the bitter disgust of the colonies, particu
larly New England.
During the fall of 1747 a substantial
agreement was reached between New Eng
land, New York, and New Jersey to invade
Canada by way of Lake Champlain early in
the spring of 1748. The quotas of men and
money were agreed upon by commissioners
appointed from each colony. Pennsylvania
did not undertake to furnish a quota of men,
but agreed to bear a share of the financial
burdens. No attempt was made to enlist the
cooperation of any colony south of Pennsyl
vania. The British Government was to fur
nish a siege-train with regular artillerists and
two regiments of regular infantry. Sir Will
iam Johnson s share in this proposed enter
prise was to have been an important one. In
September, 1746, the Governor had abolished
the Indian Board and appointed Sir William
sole Superintendent of Indian Affairs in the
colony of New York. This action of Gov
ernor Clinton had been confirmed by royal
warrant, and Sir William was commissioned
a colonel on the permanent establishment.
The practical effect of this action was to take
the control of Indian affairs out of the hands
of the Assembly and vest it in an officer of
the Crown, responsible directly to the king.
34
His Early Life in Ireland
It was a bold step, but a logical one, and
based upon the views Sir William had fre
quently expressed both in his correspondence
with the Governor and in Council.
Sir William held that the Indians could
not rightfully be held as under the jurisdic
tion of the Colonial Government, that they
had thus far been so held by sufferance, or
because no one had taken sufficient interest in
them to assert their rights for them which
they could not do or did not know how to do
themselves. He held that they had a govern
ment of their own, that they were not citizens,
and that they were unrepresented in the body
that legislated for them. This status, he
argued, made them the wards of the king
individually, and that their government was
under the protection of the king.
As I have already remarked, the abolish
ment of the Board and the appointment of Sir
William as sole superintendent, with military
rank as an officer of the Crown, carried this
theory into effect in fact, if not in name ; and
so long as the Colonial condition lasted, after
that the relation was never changed, nor was
attempt made to change it except in one
instance, which will be noted later on. This
somewhat detailed description of Sir Will
iam s status at the time under consideration
35
Sir William Johnson
seems requisite to a clear understanding of
his relation to the proposed expedition
against Canada in the spring of 1748. He
was to have command of a division composed
of a brigade of Provincial troops under his
own immediate command, and a thousand
Indians to be commanded by Hendrick. And
he was also to be second in command of the
entire force, Sir William Pepperell having
been selected for the command-in-chief. Dur
ing the autumn of 1747 all arrangements were
made to mobilize a force at least nine thou
sand strong, with a reserve of five thousand.
The Iroquois had agreed to furnish not less
than a thousand picked warriors. It was
noted that the Senecas now, for the first time
since the alliance between the English and the
Six Nations was ratified, in 1710, displayed
zeal and responded to the call for men with
alacrity.
As an indication of the thoroughness with
which this proposed invasion had been
planned, it is worth while to observe that the
scheme of preparation involved not only the
mobilization of fourteen thousand troops in
the early spring, but also provision for ta
king control of Lake Champlain. Three stout
sloops were to be built during thq winter at a
convenient point near the south end of the
36
His Early Life in Ireland
lake. These sloops were designed to carry;
one long 12-pounder each on a pivot amid
ships, and two swivels. In fact, at the time
when the communication of the Duke of New
castle reached Albany, considerable timber
for the construction of these sloops had
already been cut, and some of it shaped for
use. As the French had no naval force what
ever on the lake, it was estimated that these
sloops could command its waters long enough
to ensure the reduction of Crown Point,
because, if the French had gunboats in the St.
Lawrence of dimensions capable of passing
the Sorel River, the ice would not be out
before May, and it was confidently expected
that Crown Point must fall before the end of
April.
It was now considered that all requisite
preparations for the spring campaign had
been completed, when a communication was
received from the Duke of Newcastle, then
Prime Minister. In this communication the
duke, in the name of the king, warmly ap
proved the zeal and fidelity of the colonists,
commended their preparations, and congratu
lated them upon their apparent unity of
design. But he intimated that events were in
progress in Europe which would be likely to
render the proposed expedition unnecessary.
37
Sir William Johnson
In those circumstances and in the interest
of economy, the king had directed that the
troops already assembled and ready to go
into winter quarters at and about Albany be
furloughed until April, retaining only a force
of Provincials and Indians sufficient to guard
the northern frontier. This action disap
pointed the white troops who had volunteered
with so much alacrity, and it almost disheart
ened the Indians. But by liberal distribution
of presents, as they started for their home,
Sir William managed to allay in great meas
ure their discontent.
There were about six hundred Indians in
their camp near Cohoes and at Schaghticoke,
and additional recruits were coming in every
day. As all these men had been kept from
their usual fall hunt, there was considerable
destitution among the tribes during the win
ter, which, however, proved to be short and
mild. The Assembly voted considerable
sums to relieve them as far as possible. This
was practically the end of "King George s
War," so far as the colonies were concerned.
The frontier, however, was strongly guarded
during the winter, and in February, 1748, at
the solicitation of the Governor, Sir William
took command of the whole line of frontier
defense, and held it until the peace of Aix-la-
38
His Early Life in Ireland
Chapelle was promulgated. But no military
event of moment occurred within the limits
of his command during the winter or the
ensuing spring.
By April, 1748, it became generally known
that the war was practically over, and though
the definitive peace of Aix-la-Chapelle was
not promulgated until October of that year, a
virtual armistice prevailed during the sum
mer, both in Europe and America. The
frontier defenses were considerably strength
ened as spring opened, but there was no move
ment on either side. The French did not
come south of Crown Point which was their
most advanced post while the northern out
post of the Provincials was at the head or
south end of Lake George, where Sir Will
iam had his field headquarters. During the
spring and summer of 1748 the frontier force
of the Provincials was about three thousand,
including some four hundred Iroquois. The
Provincials were quartered in four or five
camps within easy supporting distance ; some
at the head of Lake George, some at the head
of Lake Champlain, and others at Saratoga,
Glens Falls, or where Fort Edward was
afterward built, and the remainder at Fort
Anne. The Indians remained at Schaghticoke
and Cohoes.
39
Sir William Johnson
The French had twelve hundred men
about half of them regulars at Crown Point,
and a large reserve of Canadian militia and
Indians at Isle aux Noix. In this manner the
two belligerents faced each other quietly dur
ing the summer of 1748. Sir William was,
however, by no means idle personally during
this interim. The abortive attempts that had
been made in 1745, 46 and 47 to mobilize the
Provincial forces of New York quickly had
shown that the militia of Albany County was
in a state of utter disorganization. Albany
County at that time embraced the whole of
New York Colony north and west of Dutchess
and Ulster counties, together with the present
State of Vermont. While this vast county
was, on the whole, sparsely populated, the
fact that it embodied the whole northern and
western frontier open to invasion from Can
ada, made its militia organization of para
mount importance. In June, 1748, as soon
as he was sure that there would be no more
hostilities, Governor Clinton appointed Sir
William colonel-in-chief of the Albany County
militia, with directions to reorganize it on his
own plan carte blanche. "You may consider
whatever you recommend as done," said the
Governor in a personal letter accompanying
the appointment and instructions. Sir Will-
40
His Early Life in Ireland
iam thereupon proceeded with his task and
effected a new organization, which stood the
test of the next war, 1755-62, and lasted until
the Revolution. The basis of this reorgani
zation was regimental in the more populous
districts, such as the valleys of the Hudson
and the lower Mohawk, and independent com
panies in the sparsely settled outlying dis
tricts. Its result was the creation of five
regiments of eight companies each, having a
normal strength of seventy-five to the com
pany, or six hundred to the regiment, and
twelve independent companies of from sixty
to seventy-five men each.
In July advices were received that the pre
liminary articles of peace were signed, and
the frontier defense force was disbanded.
The French evacuated Crown Point and the
Indians on both sides buried the hatchet.
During his command of the frontier defenses
Sir William made two permanent improve
ments: he built through the forest a road
practicable for supply wagons and artillery
from the head of Lake George to Glens Falls
on the Hudson, and another from the head of
Lake Champlain, at Black Mountain, to Fort
Anne, which was already connected with
Sandy Hill on the Hudson by a practicable
road. The -Governor now appointed him
4 41
Sir William Johnson
permanent colonel-in-chief of the Albany
County militia, and he returned to his home
at Mount Johnson, having, as he said, "done
a deal of hard work for two years with
mighty little to show for it."
On the whole, "King George s War," so
far as the colonies were concerned, was an
abortive affair. Except the brilliant exploit
of taking Louisburg, there had been no
action whatever worth mention in history. A
few raids back and forth by the French and
Indians on one side and Provincial back
woodsmen and Iroquois on the other; some
cabins burned, several murders, and a few
scalps, told the whole story for the interior
frontier. But it served to teach the colonies
lessons which proved of great value in the
final and decisive struggle for empire in
North America that was then only seven
years distant. Those lessons were : first, the
absolute need of unity in design and har
mony in execution; second, that their situa
tion required in peace a constant prepared
ness for instant war; and, third, that the
balance of power on the northern frontier be
tween the colonies and the French power in
Canada was held by the Six Nations, and he
who possessed influence to hold them loyal
was the most important man in the colony.
42
His Early Life in Ireland
And this war, desultory as it may have been,
had demonstrated beyond dispute or doubt
that that man was Sir William Johnson.
We have seen one good description of Sir
William himself and his household. A little
later than this (in 1751) Mrs. Julia Grant, the
wife of Captain (afterward Major-General)
Grant of the British Army, then in command
of the small garrison of regulars at Albany,
visited Mount Johnson and painted a por
trait of Sir William. The lady was an art
ist of no mediocre ability, and during her
eight years sojourn on the New York fron
tier painted many clever portraits of dis
tinguished people, including Colonel and
Mrs. Schuyler, Solomon Van Rensselaer and
others. She also kept a vivacious journal,
which was afterward printed in Edinburgh.
In this journal Lady Grant pen-pictures Sir
William as follows:
... A little scant of six feet high say five
feet eleven and one-half inches. Neck massive,
shoulders broad, chest deep and full, limbs large
and showing every sign of great physical strength.
Head large and finely shaped. Countenance open,
frank, and always beaming with good-nature and
humor a real Irishman as he is for wit. Eyes
large, a sort of black-gray or grayish black in color.
Hair dark brown with a tinge of auburn in certain
43
Sir William Johnson
lights. In conversation, he is a most delightful
person, relating recollections of his dealings with
the Indians or discussing the classic authors or
the literature of the day with equal readiness and
ease. His mode of living is that of an English gen
tleman at his country seat, and I was astonished to
find on this remote frontier, almost in the shade of
primeval forest, a table loaded with delicacies and
Madeiras, ports and Burgundies of the rarest vint
age. His table is seldom without guests, and his
hospitality is a byword the region round. During
my stay he had Indian chiefs to dine with him
several times. Their attire was the same as white
people, and for the most part they conversed in
English. This disappointed me, because I wished
to sit at table with genuine Indians in blankets and
leggings and talking nothing but their gibberish
through an interpreter. Among those I met at
Colonel Johnson s table were the venerable and
noble-looking old chief Hendrick, now over sev
enty years of age ; his brother Abraham, about sixty
years of age, chief of a Mohawk clan and father
of Caroline, the beautiful young Indian woman
who is the mistress of his household ; also Nicklaus
Brant, chief of the Upper Castle Mohawks, a man
of prodigious silence and the most grave and sol
emn courtesy. . .
Colonel Johnson is the soul of method. At
breakfast I tell him I wish a half -hour s sitting
some time in the day. We agree on an exact time
by the clock. The Colonel then mounts his horse
44
His Early Life in Ireland
and dashes here and there about his estate over
seeing everything. At the appointed moment he
dismounts at the door and is ready for the sitting.
"When the half hour is done he is away again as
swiftly as he came. He must have fifty or sixty
people in his employ besides the negroes and he
oversees everything that they do. Marvellous!
And then he attends to a mass of complicated pub
lic business besides!
CHAPTEE II
DOMESTIC LIFE AND THE ALBANY
CONGRESS
1745-1754
WE may now turn briefly from the public
to the private side of Sir William Johnson s
life. Late in 1745 his white wife, Katharine,
died suddenly, leaving him with three little
children Anne, five years old; John, three;
and Mary, a baby one year old. 1 At first he
1 Parkman, in his Montcalm and Wolfe (vol. i, p.
briefly surveys the character of Sir William Johnson from the
Boston point of view. Its tone is half -cynical, half-patron
izing, and it may be left without comment so far as Sir Will
iam is concerned. But in the course of it he goes clear out of
his way to cast a slur upon the memory of Katharine Weisen-
burg, who, though an unpretentious Mohawk Dutch girl, was
an honorable woman, a faithful wife, and a devoted mother.
After a brief description of Mount Johnson he says: "Here
presided for many years a Dutch or German wench whom he
(Sir William) finally married."
This is not only a painfully ill-natured but a grossly inac
curate statement. Johnson married Katharine Weisenburg
within a week after he had bought her indentures from Mr.
Phillips, as previously related ; and she never "presided " at
Mount Johnson except as his wife. Whether she was a
46
Domestic Life and Congress
employed as nurse for them a worthy woman
to whom history has given no more intimate
recognition than the remark that she was a
"Dutch widow." She was undoubtedly a
faithful nurse, but Sir William soon detected
that his little daughter Anne and his little son
John, who were just beginning to talk, rapidly
acquired the Mohawk Dutch " brogue " of
their nurse. This he did not desire. So he
found other employment in his establishment
" wench " or not may be a question of lexicography as between
Boston and the rest of mankind. The fact is that, in this
silly slur upon the memory of a good woman, Parkman be
trays the besetting weakness that mars in many places the
results of his wonderful research and often besmears the gen
eral purity of his style. That weakness was his inexorable
prejudice and incorrigible bias in favor of everything and
everybody of Massachusetts and against everything and every
body everywhere else. The reader of Parkman and Park-
man alone would imagine that Massachusetts, almost single-
handed, sustained the brunt of all the French and Indian
wars, and finally, with some trifling assistance from the Brit
ish navy and a few English regulars, drove the French out
of North America ! As for the other colonies, they simply
looked on. Their men, most of whom were "boors," cut little
or no figure in the contest, and their women were mainly
"wenches."
In Sir William s case the grudge was personal. Massa
chusetts, who furnished the largest contingent both of men
and supplies for the campaign of 1755, bitterly resented the
appointment of a New Yorker to the supreme command. Her
people considered Colonel (afterward General) Phineas Ly-
man entitled to the leadership. Parkman simply inherited
the local spite and jealousy of his province.
47
Sir William Johnson
for the good Dutch woman, and secured the
services of a middle-aged Scotch-Irish wom
an, the widow of a non-conformist minister
of New York city, whom Lady Warren found
available and sent to him. This lady proved
an ideal nursery-governess, because she was
not only a capable nurse, but a well-educated
woman besides, and able to instruct the chil
dren as well as to care for them. The name
of this lady was Mrs. Barclay (also spelled
"Barkley " in some of the manuscripts), and
she passed the rest of her life under the John
son roof. Sir William now remained in single
blessedness about two years, beset by match
makers, from his aunt, Lady Warren, in New
York, to his aristocratic friends in Albany.
But in the fall of 1747 he astonished all his
friends.
One of his biographers and by far the
best of them in a general sense writing of
the events of the year 1748, says (Stone, p.
327, vol. i) :
It was about this period though I have not been
able to learn the exact date that Colonel Johnson
employed as his housekeeper Mary Brant, or "Miss
Molly" as she was called, a sister of the celebrated
Chief Thayendanegea (Joseph Brant), with whom
he lived until his decease, and by whom he had
several children.
48
Domestic Life and Congress
In the Brant manuscripts the statement is
made by the chief that he was born in 1742,
and that his sister Mary was "nearly seven
years his senior." This would have brought
the date of Mary s birth in the year 1735,
and she would therefore have been in her
thirteenth year in 1748 an age hardly ripe
enough for the domestic responsibilities of
such an establishment as that of Sir William.
However, " about this time " that is to say,
late in 1747 he did employ a young Indian
woman as his housekeeper; but she was not
Mary Brant, who, by the way, did not achieve
that distinction until about six years later.
This young woman was a daughter of the
Chief Abraham, sachem of the Lower Castle
Mohawks, and when she attracted the atten
tion of Sir William was about twenty-two
years old. She was reputed to be the hand
somest girl in the Iroquois nation. Indeed,
there is, or used to be, among the older resi
dents of the Mohawk Valley a tradition that
Abraham s wife was a white woman of Hol
land Dutch antecedents. If so, this girl was
a half-breed. And, more important than
that, if the legend be true, her elder sister,
who married Nicldaus Brant and became the
mother of Joseph and Mary, was a half-breed
also, which would put a strain of white blood
49
Sir William Johnson
in the veins of the great captain unquestion
ably the greatest of American Indians. I do
not believe this tradition. Chief Abraham s
wife may have been an unusually light-col
ored Indian woman. The Iroquois were uni
versally lighter in complexion than any other
American Indians, and the Mohawks and
Oneidas were the lightest of all. So marked
was this peculiarity, taken together with their
superior civilization, that some of the early
writers mainly Jesuit Fathers considered
them a different race from the common
aborigines.
A noted student of Indian life and char
acter, Professor Donaldson, explains it on
purely physical grounds, which is doubtless the
true view. He says that for generations
even before the white man was known on these
shores the Iroquois had lived in comfort
able habitations, tilled the soil, raised grain
and fruits, and, generally speaking, had much
better shelter, better cookery, better sanitary
arrangements, and altogether more of the
good things of life than any other Indians.
This mode of living had tended to " bleach
out " their complexions and endow them with
other physical advantages of which for cen
turies they had availed themselves to gain
an ascendency among Indian nations that
50
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finally came to be undisputed. We may,
therefore, take it for granted that Chief
Abraham s wife was simply unusually white
even for a Mohawk woman, but a full-blooded
Indian nevertheless.
The girl who placed herself under Sir
William s protection was, like all the Hen-
drick family, Christianized. She had been
baptized under the name of Caroline, and had
received as complete an education as the mis
sion school at Fort Hunter and a private
school in Schenectady could impart. The
relation she so willingly assumed to Sir Will
iam may seem equivocal in the lights of our
time; but whether there was any marriage
ceremony or not, it was a case of unconcealed
cohabitation, accompanied by child-bearing,
which, after all, under the statutes of those
days, amounted to a common-law marriage.
At this point the view adopted by W. Max
Eeid of Amsterdam, N. Y., author of a most
excellent History of the Mohawk Valley, is
of interest. It may be premised that Mr.
Keid is more thoroughly conversant with the
history, legends, and traditions of the Mo
hawk Valley than any other man now living,
and probably more so than any other man
ever was, except Horatio Seymour. In one
of his entertaining papers recently published
51
Sir William Johnson
Mr. Reid remarks on the history and geneal
ogy of the two most famous families in the
Iroquois Nation:
I have been informed on indubitable authority
that after the death of Katharine Weisenburg, the
mother of his son, John, and daughters, Mary and
Nancy, he (Sir William) had a Dutch widow as
housekeeper, but that she did not remain with him
long, as her place was taken in 1747 by a niece of
Hendrick, being the daughter of his brother, Abra
ham, who is frequently spoken of in the Documen
tary History of New York. As in the case of Molly
Brant, Sir William did not wed this Indian girl,
who took the English name Caroline. She had
three children by Sir William one son and two
daughters. The son was named William and the
daughters Charlotte and Caroline. The mother
died in giving birth to the third child. William
was the first born. This half-breed son is the Will
iam Johnson, alias Tag-che-un-to, who is mentioned
in Sir William s will as "William of Canajoharie."
The date of Caroline s death was in 1753, which
consequently makes the birth of Caroline, the half-
breed, in 1753 ; and the installation of Molly Brant
as Sir William s mistress was subsequent to that
date. Probably this occurred soon after the death
of Caroline as her daughters (Charlotte and Caro
line) are said to have been adopted by Molly and
treated by her as her own children, while William,
the half-breed boy, was mainly raised by his grand-
52
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father, Abraham, or his uncle, " Little Abe/ at
Canajoharie Castle at Danube.
The history of the two daughters is of interest.
Charlotte, the eldest, married a young British
officer shortly before the Revolution, but who after
ward joined the Continental army and fell at Mon-
mouth Court House. His name was Henry Randall.
They had two children, one named Charlotte Ran
dall, who married George King. George and
Charlotte King had a daughter Charlotte, who was
the grandmother of my informant. 1
The other daughter of Molly Brant s predeces
sor (Caroline) whose name was also Caroline, mar
ried a man named Michael Byrne, a clerk in Sir
William s office of Indian affairs. Byrne was killed
at Oriskany in Butler s Rangers. His young
widow, Caroline Johnson, went with the Brants to
Canada and afterward married an Indian agent
named MacKim, whose descendants are still living
in Canada.
Brant, who went to England with Hendrick and
others in 1710, was the grandfather of Joseph and
Molly Brant. When Joseph was born, in 1742, his
grandfather was probably between sixty and sev
enty years old. Brant s father was called Nickus,
or Nicklaus, by the Dutch. Stone anglicizes the
name and calls him Nicholas Brant. He must have
1 There was a third child a boy named Morgan Randall,
after General Daniel Morgan, in whose riflemen Henry Ran
dall served.
53
Sir William Johnson
been at least thirty years old when Joseph was
born, and Molly was at least six years older than
Joseph.
The mother of Joseph and Molly was also a
daughter of Abraham (the brother of Hendrick)
and a sister or half-sister of " Little Abe" of the
lower castle at Fort Hunter. This made her a niece
of Hendrick also, and a sister of the girl Caroline,
who went to live with Sir William in 1747.
It is also said that Joseph Brant s wife was a
daughter of the Oneida chief of Sauquoit, and her
mother was a daughter of Hendrick. So it will
be seen by the foregoing that the families of Brant
and Hendrick were closely interrelated. As Molly
Brant s mother was the sister of Caroline, Molly s
predecessor was her own aunt, and Sir William
might be called her uncle.
Eeturning to William Johnson, the half-breed
mentioned in his will: He was educated by Sir
William at Dr. Wheelock s school at Lebanon,
Conn., and was at the battle of Oriskany with
Brant. Here he was killed in a hand-to-hand con
flict with the half-breed Thomas Spencer, who
played a conspicuous part with Herkimer s troops
and at the siege of Fort Schuyler. Incidentally,
Thomas Spencer is said to have been a son of the
missionary, Rev. Elihu Spencer, by an Oneida girl,
and was born at Oghwaga about the year 1755.
About a year after the death of Caroline
Hendrick, Sir William offered Ms protection
54
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and affection to Mary Brant. She accepted,
and outlived him; their life together during
a period of twenty years 1754-74 having
been by universal account of the times happy
and affectionate. Mary Brant was not as
handsome or as majestic a woman as her aunt
and predecessor, Caroline, but she was a very
pretty girl nevertheless, and developed into a
woman of much tact, sterling virtues, and a
model housewife. She was about nineteen
years old when she accepted the protection of
Sir William, and survived him many years.
She bore him nine children two boys and
seven girls but one of the latter died in
infancy. Of these children the eldest was a
boy, to whom they gave the name of Peter
Warren Johnson, after the admiral; the
second was a girl named Elizabeth, the third
a girl named Magdalene, the fourth a girl
named Margaret, the fifth a boy named
George, the sixth a girl named Mary, the
seventh a girl named Susanne, and the eighth
a girl named Anne.
In the text of his will he describes these as
"my natural children by my housekeeper,
Mary Brant."
Young William Johnson is the only one
of Caroline Hendrick s children mentioned or
provided for in the will. But this may be ex-
55
Sir William Johnson
plained on the ground that the two girls,
Charlotte and Caroline, had been married
some time before his death Charlotte in 1770
or 71 and Caroline a year or two later and
Sir William had undoubtedly made what he
considered sufficient provision for them in
the marriage settlements.
When the Tories were expelled from the
Mohawk Valley in 1776, two years after the
death of Sir William, Mary Brant and her
children went with them and settled on Grand
Eiver, or the Oise, as the French called it.
Of the two sons Peter and George no trace
seems to have been left in history. The six
girls all married white men, one of them
becoming the wife of Dr. Kerr, a surgeon in
the British army. Mrs. Kerr was an accom
plished woman, a clever writer, and wrote two
or three interesting little books on the cus
toms and beliefs of the race to which she half
belonged.
There was a legend, which most of Sir
William s biographers have adopted, to the
effect that his attention was first attracted to
Mary Brant at a militia muster in Canajo-
harie. It was said that she mounted the
horse of an officer and rode furiously around
the parade-ground several times, her long
black hair and loose red robes streaming in
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the wind ; at last, riding up to where the great
man stood, lost in admiration, and leaping
gracefully from the back of the panting
steed into his stalwart arms.
All this is very pretty ; but the fact is that
Sir William had known Mary Brant from the
time she was ten years old, his intimate
acquaintance with Nicklaus Brant and his
family having begun very soon after his first
settlement at Warrensbush. When Caroline
Hendrick was in her fatal illness her sister,
Brant s wife, came to nurse her, and Mary
accompanied her mother. Not long after that
the arrangement was made by which Mary
became the mistress of his household.
Mary Brant had been educated in the
common English branches in the Manor
school at Canajoharie, where her father lived
before he became chief of the Upper Castle
Mohawks. He had a comfortable frame
house at Canajoharie and lived and dressed
altogether after the fashion of white men.
The female members of his family were never
made to do the usual drudgery of squaws.
He owned a good farm close to the town and
cultivated it as well as any of his white neigh
bors. He was, as Mrs. Grant says, "a man
of prodigious silence " noted for his taci
turnity and for his keen faculty of observa-
5 57
Sir William Johnson
tion as well. Whenever Sir William had an
extremely delicate mission to fulfil with the
Cayugas or Senecas, who were usually more
or less recalcitrant, he always sent Nicklaus
Brant. Beyond question, Sir William s inti
mate connection with the Hendrick and Brant
families was more potent than any other
agency in giving him the control and ascend
ency over the Iroquois which he so success
fully maintained through the twenty-odd try
ing and troublous years that immediately pre
ceded the Revolution. Many times, when Sir
William got hold of an obdurate and trouble
some delegation of Senecas or Cayugas, he
would turn them over to "Lady Molly," as
she was commonly called after he was made a
baronet which was the next year after their
alliance and she "never failed to Mollyfy
them," as he used to say. Of this period in
Sir William s life, Dr. Wheelock says:
I have seen at Mount Johnson and also at John
son Hall sixty to eighty Indians at one time lodg
ing under tents on the lawn and taking their meals
from tables made of pine boards spread under the
trees. They were delegations from all the Iroquois
tribes, come to pow-wow with their great white
brother, " Warragh-i-ya-gey " (the Indian name
they gave to Sir William when they adopted him
into the Iroquois nation and gave him a council-
58
O 55
W |
g &
// p V
(I OF THE \
UUNIVERSITY 1
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seat in the l Long House " ) . These visits must have
been very expensive to Sir William, and he told
me that never more than half their cost was de
frayed out of the public exchequer.
* They say, said the baronet to me once, * that
it is not right or fair that I should be superintend
ent over the Indians and an Indian trader at the
same time. Why, bless me, doctor, my profits from
the Indian trade do not reimburse me for my outlay
in entertaining these delegations and giving pres
ents to their members !
"The Indians are honest," he pursued. "I
have often supplied one Indian or a small party
living as far away as the Southern Senecas on
Cattaraugus Creek or the Conewango I have often
supplied such with a complete hunting and trap
ping outfit guns, ammunition, traps, etc., with
blankets, woolen shirts, and other clothing all
on absolute credit. If they did not die or get
killed by the Catawbas or Shawnese their natural
enemies they would always come back and pay as
soon as they got wherewithal to pay with."
Griffis, in his Life of Sir William John
son, says that "after the death of his wife,
Catharine, Sir William lived with various
mistresses, etc." But Mr. Eeid, a much more
studious and careful historian, rejects this
tradition. It is true that the baronet lived in
a morganatic fashion with two Indian women
at different times. But all the circumstantial
59
Sir William Johnson
evidence points to the conclusion that lie was
faithful to them, and that he was not in the
least degree inclined to promiscuous licen
tiousness. He was always as solicitous for
the welfare of his half-breed children as any
father could be for any children; and as he
was temperate and moderate in all things, it
is fair to presume that he was equally so in
his relations with women, white or red. In
fact, the dignity he had to maintain to hold
his influence over the Indians must have been
sacrificed instantly had this been otherwise.
The truth undoubtedly is that he was true
and constant to the two Indian women with
whom he lived openly in the sight of every
body living with one of them about six
years and with the other twenty years.
This survey of Sir William s peculiar
domestic life has carried us to a point far
ahead of the main thread of our narrative;
but necessarily so, because I considered it
advisable to treat that branch of the subject
in a single sketch, rather than filter its inci
dents here and there in detached parts
throughout his history. Many students of
Sir William s life and some of his biogra
phers notably Griffis have chosen to be
lieve, or affected to believe, that his selection
of Indian mistresses for the head of his do-
60
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mestic establishment, when he could have had
his pick among refined, well-connected, and
thoroughly educated white women, argues the
lurking of a debased trait in his otherwise
lofty character.
On this point, it seems to me, that argu
ment would be wasted. Without discussion,
I am inclined to believe with Mr. Reid, that
the element of statecraft entered largely into
the sum-total of reasons for these singular
alliances, and that he chose, first, Caroline
Hendrick, and, after her, Mary Brant, because
he wanted a housewife who could make his
Indian guests of whom his house was sel
dom in lack feel at home. His fortunes
depended on his influence with the Indians.
Without that he could never have been any
thing more than a settler in the Mohawk Val
ley; richer, perhaps, than his neighbors, but
still only a settler. His command of the Iro-
quois just at the time when their adherence
to the British cause was vital to the objects
of British policy, made him the most impor
tant, if not actually the greatest, man in the
colony. No white woman could have made
Sir William s red henchmen feel at home in
his house as Caroline Hendrick or Mary
Brant could. If this was one of his mo
tives, it was creditable at least to his ambi-
61
Sir William Johnson
tion, if not to his sense of propriety. But the
point of propriety itself must be measured by
the standard of morality prevailing in his
days, not ours. And even if Caroline and
Mary were only housekeepers or mistresses,
and if, as he says in his will, their children
were only "natural/ yet his fidelity to them
and his affection and solicitude for the chil
dren they bore him can not be forgotten or
neglected in the scales of charity.
Returning now to consideration of Sir
William s public life, it may be said that after
the peace of Aix - la - Chapelle he passed
nearly a year in almost undivided attention
to the affairs of his estate. The only inter
ruption of any note he experienced was the
arrangement and management of a grand
council, at Albany, of the governors of the
New England colonies, New York, New Jer
sey, Pennsylvania, and Virginia with the
chiefs of the Indians friendly to the English
and the colonists, or who were willing to be
friendly in the future. This grand council
was opened on the 20th of July, and lasted
about ten days. There were present seven
colonial governors, each accompanied by
members of his staff; thirty Indian chiefs of
high rank, each attended by several espe
cially distinguished warriors of his tribe ; and
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Domestic Life and Congress
the Indian superintendents of Virginia, Penn
sylvania, Massachusetts, and New York.
The Iroquois were by no means alone
in representation. Chiefs were there from
the Delawares of western Pennsylvania; the
fierce and hitherto untamable Shawnese of
what is now Ohio; Mingoes, Wyandots, Adi-
rondacks who came from territory claimed
and hitherto held by the French together
with the "River Indians " (remnants of the
former Pequots, Mohegans, Narragansetts,
and other aborigines of New England). Per
haps the most interesting figure in this assem
blage was the great war-chief of the Genesee
Senecas, Hi-o-ka-to, who for years had
vowed that he would never speak one word
with an Englishman. Hi-o-ka-to was the
husband of the celebrated Mary Jemison, a
white woman, who, captured by the Algon-
quins when a little girl, had been retaken by
the Senecas, and adopted by them. As soon
as she grew to womanhood Hi-o-ka-to, then a
redoubted warrior and knight errant of the
tribe, nearly forty years of age, asked her
to share his wigwam or rather his house
which was a comfortable log cabin. She
consented, and lived with him until his death,
many years afterward. She wrote a narra
tive, which is doubtless the most interesting
63
Sir William Johnson
personal description of life among the Indi
ans ever printed. In it she says of her stal
wart brave after his death :
Ferocious as he may have heen on the war
path, and savage as he may have been in battle, I
can only say that no husband could have been
kinder to wife than he was to me, and no man,
white or any other color, could have been gentler
than he was when inside the four walls of our
cabin. In all our life together, he never spoke one
cross word to me, and I have often seen him curb
his fierce temper toward others simply because I
happened to be present.
Governor Clinton and Sir William consid
ered it a great point gained when Hi-o-ka-to
was induced to attend this conference. Sav
age as he was, the Seneca war-chief did not
lack ready wit. Some years later, during
another council, Sir William, in a bantering
way, asked him in the Iroquois tongue, "Why
didn t you bring your white wife with you,
Hi-o-ka-to ! I would like to introduce her to
my Indian wife." "Because," replied the
chief, "I was afraid you white folks would
steal her, the same as you do pretty much
everything else we poor Indians have that is
worth stealing ! "
A remarkable and somewhat amusing
feature of this grand council was the fact that
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Domestic Life and Congress
the venerable senior chief of the Iroquois,
Hendrick, was unable to attend, and asked
the council to accept his brother Abraham as
his representative giving as the reason the
fact that he was at that moment prostrated
by an acute attack of inflammatory gout! A
rather singular malady for an American In
dian ! Perhaps the old chief had availed him
self too freely of his nephew-in-law s prover
bial liberality with his "crusty old port " and
"nut-brown Madeira!"
Toward the end of the grand council on
its sixth day Chief Abraham made a speech,
addressed particularly to the Senecas and
Cayugas. This speech was provoked by some
remarks made by Onnasdego, chief of the
Onondagas, in which that orator accused the
English of neglecting the western Iroquois,
and thereby leaving their hearts open to the
blandishments of the French emissaries.
Abraham spoke in English, so that the assem
bled governors and members of their staffs
could readily understand what he was say
ing. But he had provided interpreters to
translate his speech as he went along to those
Indians present who could not understand
the English language. Lack of space forbids
reproduction of his remarks. One quotation
may serve as a sample :
65
Sir William Johnson
"You complain," he said, "that the English,
the Colonists, do not trust you. How can they when
you do not trust them ? There can be no confidence
between two unless both share it alike. There can
never be faith on one side and doubt on the other
without distrust on both sides. And wherever
there is distrust no real friendship can exist. You
Western Iroquois listen to the silver tongues of
French priests and emissaries whose only object
is to lure you to ruin that their cause may profit
by it. They do not love you. They would not
give you a gourdful of succotash if you were starv
ing. But when have the English and the Colonists
failed to help you in distress? Put away the
French! Send them across the Lake! Tell them
to practise their bows and scrapes and grimaces
upon the stupid Indians of Canada not upon the
noble Iroquois!"
To Abraham s speech a reply was made by
Kayaghshota, chief of the "Old Castle" or
Lake Senecas, whose village occupied the pres
ent site of Geneva. No record of the Seneca s
speech seems to have been preserved. Mr.
Croghan, who kept the minutes of the council,
says simply that it was "an eloquent and
plausible defense of the vacillating conduct of
his tribe." Kayaghshota, it may be interesting
to remark, was the nncle of the famous Eed
Jacket probably the most accomplished and
powerful orator the Indian race ever produced.
66
Domestic Life and Congress
This grand council was one of the most
picturesque events in the history of the colo
nies. Many of the chiefs brought their
wives with them, and some brought their
children. All were provided with new cloth
ing by Governor Clinton as soon as they
arrived, together with a liberal supply of the
gaudy ornaments so much prized by the Indi
ans; and the streets of Albany were daily
thronged by the gaily clad sons and daugh
ters of the forest enjoying an ovation far
beyond their wildest dreams. For many
years afterward the proudest boast of an
Indian would be: "I was at the great Albany
Council!" Stone says:
The old Dutch city had in fact seldom witnessed
such a sight. Here were gathered Indians from the
far West, many of whom were destined to redden
their tomahawks in the blood of so many brave
garrisons under the great Pontiac. Here were
many of the River Indians remnants of once pow
erful tribes whose grandfathers had followed
Uncas and Miantonomoh to battle, and had taken
their last stand with the ill-fated King Philip. In
one spot a painted warrior might have been seen
smoking his pipe as he recounted to his wonder
ing companions the sights seen in his morning s
stroll; while everywhere groups of picturesquely
attired Indians, with nodding plumes and varie
gated blankets, wandered through the streets gaz-
67
Sir William Johnson
ing with curious eye upon the novelties of civili
zation.
The results of this council were more sat
isfactory and on a larger scale than any pre
viously held. The Iroquois renewed all their
ancient covenants with the king. The Sen-
ecas, who had never before formally acknowl
edged the covenants of 1684 and 1710, now
gave in their complete adhesion through Hi-o-
ka-to, Captain Jean Montour 1 (himself a
1 There were three Montours : Jean, born about 1715,
Andre, born about 1720, and Henry. They were the sons of
Catharine Montour by a young half-breed chief of the Niagara
Senecas, who took her name. Catharine Montour was a
daughter of the Count de Frontenac by a Huron woman. She
was born at Fort Frontenac about 1692, and her name figures
in a curious old document called Accusation against Louis de
Buade, Comte de Frontenac, in which, among other things,
he is charged with "debasing the morals of the colony by
propagating more than sixty half-breeds ! " Jean and Andre
Montour were both chiefs of high rank in the Seneca nation.
Catharine Montour received a good education in a convent at
Montreal. But in 1710, during Queen Anne s War, while
journeying from Montreal to Fort Frontenac, she was cap
tured by a raiding party of Senecas and taken to their village
at Black Rock. Here she soon afterward married the young
chief, who took her name and she seemed perfectly contented.
At any rate, upon the exchange of captives that followed the
Peace of Utrecht, she refused to leave her husband and spent
her life among the Senecas. After the death of her husband
in 1735 she became female chief, or Queen in her own right,
and ruled the Niagara and Southern Senecas until her death
in 1752. She carefully educated her children, Jean, Andre,
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Domestic Life and Congress
French half-breed), and the Tonawanda chief
"Black Loon "; all of whom had hitherto been
opposed to English influence. They agreed
to expel all French emissaries and priests
from their territory, and they also promised to
arrest the most pestiferous of them, "Jean
Coeur," l and deliver him up to the Colonial
authorities. They never kept this promise,
but they expelled "Jean Coeur " with the rest.
They agreed to hold no further communica
tion with the French, to forbid the residence
of French interpreters in their midst, and to
prohibit all trade or barter with French tra
ders ; together with many other things the
English desired.
Henry, and three girls. One of her grandchildren was the
famous "Queen Esther," who practically commanded the In
dians in the massacre of Wyoming. Jean and Andre Mon-
tour were conspicuous in the old French War, in Pontiac s
Rebellion, and in the Revolution. They were good warriors
and hard fighters, but held reputations for humanity equal to
that of Joseph Brant. Henry never achieved fame.
1 In the text we have followed the orthography of the
Colonial Documentary Records; but there was no Jean
Coeur." The person meant was Joncaire, a captain in the
French service and for many years the principal agent and
emissary of the Canadian Government among the Western
Indians. We shall have occasion to refer to him frequently
later on. At the time under consideration he was what might
be called "principal intelligence officer" of the Canadian
Department of Indian Affairs, and had his headquarters at
Fort Niagara.
69
Sir William Johnson
The Governor then requested them to give
a list of articles they needed to make good
their losses during the late war. The list
was rather formidable. Among other things,
they wanted a thousand guns, with hunting-
knives, hatchets, flints, and ammunition; two
thousand blankets; a large quantity of red
flannel cloth; farming utensils, such as hoes,
spades, iron plows, sickles, axes, etc. ; cooking
utensils ; some large kettles, suitable for ma
king salt from the salt-springs, and maple- 1
sugar from the sap of trees, etc., etc. The
total footed up prodigiously. But the Gov
ernor or the assembled governors prom
ised that the list should be filled out, and they
kept their word.
Prior to Sir William Johnson s time it had
not been the policy to arm the Indians indis
criminately. But he took the view that unless
well armed and practised in the use of their
weapons, they would be of little value as
allies, and from his first official connection
with Indian affairs he had done all he could
to provide them with serviceable guns and
plenty of ammunition. At that time the rifle
was little known outside of the trading-zone of
Old Lancaster, Pa., where the manufacture of
rifled weapons in America was begun by a
colony of Swiss gunsmiths in 1729 hardly
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Domestic Life and Congress
twenty years before the Albany Council
and, at the time under consideration (1749),
Lancaster still enjoyed the monopoly of rifle-
making in this country. A few specimens
had found their way into New York, and Sir
William had a very fine one, made by Deck-
ert, which he bought while attending the
Treaty Council at Lancaster in 1744. But
the production of rifles was limited, and there
was nothing like a general supply of them.
The regulation musket cumbrous, heavy,
and carrying an ounce ball was not suited to
the use of the Indians, who wanted a lighter
gun of smaller bore. So, among the first
things Sir William did when he became Indian
Commissioner, was to design a gun specially
adapted to the Indian s requirements. It was
three feet long in the barrel and about four
feet two inches over all, smooth bore, carried
a half-ounce spherical bullet, and could be
used either with ball or with small shot. This
was known for many years as the "Indian-
trade smooth bore," and was not completely
supplanted by the rifle on the frontier until
after the beginning of the nineteenth century.
The barrels and locks were made and proved
in Birmingham and then shipped to this coun
try, where the stocks were fitted by Colonial
gunsmiths. Twelve hundred of these guns
71
Sir William Johnson
were ordered immediately after the council,
and in due time they were in the hands of the
Indians. The other articles wanted were
more easily procured, and the distribution of
them was begun at once.
Philip Van Courtlandt, who as a young
boy attended this council with his father, the
Patroon, relates the amusing incident that
Hi-o-ka-to took a great fancy to the garb of a
Highlander he happened to see in Albany, and
asked the Governor to give him a Highland
outfit. The Governor succeeded in finding a
shirt, kilt, and tartan that would fit his stal
wart proportions, and the great war-chief of
the Genesee Senecas strutted around Albany
as a Highlander to the infinite delight of the
rising generation and the admiration of the
women of his own race. And long afterward
it was his custom to appear on state occasions
in his own tribe clad in the plaid and tartan of
the Forty-second Highlanders. The council
adjourned the 30th of July, with a grand out
door banquet, at which were present over a
hundred Indians and as many white people.
Then the Indians went quietly back to their
forests and peace reigned supreme.
The next two years passed without special
event. Sir William had recently come into
possession of another large tract of land,
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Domestic Life and Congress
which was patented in 1753 as the "Kingsboro
Patent " though he took possession of his
part of it and began to improve it more than
two years before the date of the patent. This
afterward became known as the "Johnstown
tract." It lay some distance north of the
Mohawk River and several miles west of
Mount Johnson. Improving this new tract
and managing his great farm and mills on
the Chuctenunda near Mount Johnson, to
gether with his official duties as Indian Su
perintendent, colonel-in-chief of the Albany
County militia, and king s magistrate, must
have kept his hands full. Yet he found a
good deal of time for writing and reading,
and for such diversions as horse-racing and
hunting.
In 1751 the first and perhaps the only
really unpleasant episode in his public career
occurred. During the late war he had ex
pended large sums of money from his private
purse for the public service over and above
the amounts currently appropriated by the
Assembly. Most of these expenditures were
for the maintenance of the Indians he had
mobilized for the two abortive attempts to
organize expeditions against Crown Point,
and for the invasion of Canada. During this
period he had also maintained the white gar-
6 73
Sir William Johnson
rison of Oswego for a considerable time be^
yond the expiration of a contract he had for
that service. The total amount of his private
expenditure in these directions was nine
thousand nine hundred and seventy-six
pounds sterling and some shillings and pence
nearly $50,000.
These expenditures were under two heads :
first, those which had been submitted to Gov
ernor Clinton and approved by him before
disbursement ; and, second, those approved by
the Governor after disbursement. The first
amounted to 5,700; the last to 4,276. Dur
ing the session of 1750-51 Sir William sub
mitted these accounts to the Committee of
Supply in the Assembly and asked reimburse
ment. After long consideration, the commit
tee reported and the Assembly passed two
resolutions directing payment of the 5,700,
which had been approved by the Governor
before disbursement. But they also passed
a resolution directing further investigation
of the 4,276, approved by the Governor after
disbursement. In debate on these resolu
tions, during which Sir William was present
in the Assembly Hall, severe animadversions
were made upon the "close corporation " that
was alleged to exist between the Governor,
Chief-Justice DeLancey, the Attorney-Gen-
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eral, and Sir William. In the course of the
debate one member of the Assembly Mr.
Hardenburgh, of Ulster referred in rather
caustic terms to the fact that Sir William had
for several years "filled the apparently incon
gruous, if not wholly incompatible, stations
of Superintendent of Indian Affairs and
Indian Trader on a large scale at the same
time!"
After hearing this, Sir William left the
hall of the Assembly, and the same afternoon
sent a note to Mr. Hardenburgh asking him
if he intended by those remarks to impugn
his personal integrity. Sir William was at
that time the guest of Mr. DeLancey, in
New York, and that gentleman carried the
note. Mr. Hardenburgh promptly replied by
inquiring whether he (Sir William) intended
his note as preliminary to a demand for sat
isfaction. To this Sir William responded at
once as follows:
DEAR SIR: Replying to your inquiry in reply
to my note by the hands of Mr. DeLancey, permit
me to say that the idea of a demand for satisfaction
never entered my mind. Nor have I entertained
any thought of individual grievance at your hands.
Had you answered that the condition of my ac
counts and my relation to the Indians did seem to
involve my personal integrity, I should simply
75
Sir William Johnson
have given you the key to the vault where my
books of account are kept, and requested you to
examine them at your own leisure and in your
own way.
As for "satisfaction," permit me to say: first,
that I am well aware of the parliamentary privilege
which averts personal responsibility for language
uttered in debate in a legislative body ; and, second,
I believe the practise of dueling is always barba
rous and often murderous. I should be sorry if
I thought I had a repute for courage that could be
sustained only by fighting duels. Believe me, my
dear sir, that I shall always keep all my bullets
and all my marksmanship for the enemies of my
country! I shall never visit them upon any of
my own countrymen who may be hostile to me
personally.
I have the honor to be, with profound respect,
Your Most Obedient Servant,
WILLIAM JOHNSON.
It took a pretty courageous man and an
Irishman at that to thus denounce and flout
the practise of dueling in the year 1751. The
Assembly adjourned two days after that,
leaving the 4,276 for further consideration.
Mr. Hardenburgh seems to have been im
pressed by Sir William s attitude, because, at
the next session, when Mr. Holland moved
"consideration of the unsettled accounts of
Colonel William Johnson," Mr. Hardenburgh
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Domestic Life and Congress
seconded the motion, and an appropriation to
reimburse him for his outlay of 4,276 of pri
vate funds in the public service was passed
under suspension of the rules.
In the meantime, however, Sir William
had resigned the office of Sole Superintendent
of Indian Affairs, and, though the Governor
and many others besought him to withdraw
the resignation, he remained firm. He knew
very well that no one in the Assembly bore
any malice toward him personally. But he
also knew that a considerable majority of the
Assembly hated the Governor, and that, in
attacking him about his accounts, they were
only clubbing the Governor over his shoul
ders. Still, it was a thankless position ; he was
tired of the eternal bickerings between the
Governor and the Assembly, and he wanted to
place himself out of range of their fusillade.
Besides, his private business was being neg
lected, and, ambitious as he was for public
life and public honors, his first love was
always his home, his children, his dusky
sweetheart, his horses, his cattle, his wide-
spreading lands, and his buzzing mills.
Every overture was made to him to resume
the superintendency. Finally, after the As
sembly had paid his accounts in full, he told
the Governor that whenever his services in
77.
Sir William Johnson
dealing with the Indians might seem desir
able, he would accept a temporary appoint
ment to visit them or confer with them as a
special envoy, but under no circumstances
would he resume the permanent superintend-
ency. The result was that the Governor did
not fill his place, but used him from time to
time on special missions, as occasion required.
The Indians, as soon as they heard of Sir
William s resignation, took it deeply to heart.
Eunners were sent from the Lower Mohawk
Castle all through the Iroquois Nation by
Hendrick, asking for a council of chiefs post
haste. In a few days quite a delegation gath
ered, including Captain Jean Montour of the
Senecas, whom the runners happened to find
visiting his wife s people at Onondaga Castle.
The chiefs reached Albany, where the Gov
ernor then was temporarily staying, late at
night, and they waited on him early the next
morning, requesting a private interview.
This was, of course, granted, and as soon as
the doors were closed, Hendrick said:
We have come to consult with our Brother Cor-
lear (their name for all the governors) in relation
to Colonel Johnson. We have just heard that he
has resigned. When the war was breaking out,
your Excellency recommended him to us, and you
then told us that we might consider anything he
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Domestic Life and Congress
said as being spoken by yourself. So as we had
had no hand in his appointment we have done noth
ing to induce his resignation. Judge, therefore,
the shock we felt when he sent us a belt of love and
peace, with a letter saying he had resigned and
would be our superintendent no more. We can
not express our feelings. He must come back to
us. No one can take his place in our hearts. We
can never learn to believe the words of any one
as we believed him. You, or if you can not, then
our Great Father, the King, must make him come
back to us. We can not get along without him!
Captain Montour then spoke for the Sen-
ecas:
"Our nation," he said, "is hard to control.
There are many good Senecas, and also many bad
ones. But all love Colonel Johnson, all believe
what he says, and all, good and bad alike, will listen
to his words and have faith in his promises. His
tongue is not forked. He always speaks with one
tongue. In peace, he was like a fertile field that
raised corn and pumpkins and melons. In war, he
was like a tree that grew for us to bear fruit, but
now seems to be falling down, though it has many
roots sunk deep in the soil of our affection, our
confidence, and our esteem. His knowledge of our
affairs, our laws, and our language made us think
he was not like other white men, but an Indian
like ourselves. Not only that, but in his house
is an Indian woman, and his little children are
79
Sir William Johnson
half-breeds, as I also am, your Excellency knows
only I am a French half-breed and Colonel
Johnson s little children are English half-breeds.
We understand that he declines to return to his
office. This makes us afraid you will have to ap
point some one in his place who does not know us
some person who is a stranger to us and to our
affairs. We therefore ask you to compel him to
resume his office of superintendent, or if you can not
compel him yourself, to send a letter asking our
Great Father, the King, to compel him. We know
that he will obey the King. Please tell the King, if
you write to him, that we want Colonel Johnson
over us, and no one else. He has keen ears and
hears a great deal, and what he hears he tells to
us truthfully. He also has sharp eyes, and sees a
long way ahead, and conceals nothing from us."
After hearing these speeches the Governor
adjourned the interview till the next morning
at nine o clock, when lie promised the chiefs
that he would answer them. The Governor s
reason for deferring his reply to the chiefs
was that he expected Sir William to reach
Albany that evening, and wished to see him
before making a definite answer. Johnson
arrived about seven o clock, and the Governor
at once called upon him. He was visibly af
fected when the Governor told him what the
chiefs had said, but persisted in his declina
tion to resume office. He finally agreed, how-
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ever, to deal with the Indians in his personal
capacity whenever the Governor might con
sider such services essential to the public wel
fare. But he declared he would hold no offi
cial position calculated to bring him into con
tact with what he termed "that factious and
malignant majority in the Assembly."
The next morning the Governor and Sir
William called on the chiefs together, and
explained the situation to them. They were
partly appeased, and the whole affair was left
in statu quo. No successor to Sir William
was appointed, but, in his personal or unoffi
cial capacity, he continued to supervise the
Indian affairs of the colony almost as closely
as he had done while in office. Under such
conditions the years 1751 and 1752 passed
without incident of special note; the French
secretly pushing their preparations, the Brit
ish and Colonial governments resting su
pinely.
In 1753 the signs of impending war began
to multiply. The movements of the French
to take actual possession of the Ohio Valley
had at last roused the English and Colonial
governments to a sense of peril, and they
began, rather slowly and clumsily, to take
measures for safety. In 1748, at the close of
"King George s War," a company had been
81
Sir William Johnson
formed in Virginia, of which Lawrence and
Augustine Washington were members, called
the "Ohio Land Company." This corpora
tion secured a grant of 600,000 acres on the
south side of the Ohio River, between the
Monongahela and the Great Kanawha. Both
the French and Indians held that the King of
England had no right to grant lands in that
region. The Indians owned the land and the
French claimed sovereignty by right of orig
inal discovery, exploration, settlement in the
shape of trading establishments, and free
travel to and fro with consent of the Indians.
According to the ethics of those days, these
acts constituted a prime basis for the claim of
sovereignty.
The English based their counterclaim
mainly upon their old treaty with the Iroquois
in 1684, at Albany, confirmed in 1710, and re
confirmed at Lancaster, Pa., in 1744. By
that treaty the English undertook to defend
the domain of the Iroquois, and the latter had
claimed jurisdiction over the Ohio Valley and
all lands drained by its tributaries, "as far
south as the Chilhowee or Great Smoky
Mountains." This was purely a claim of
rapine! For, while the Iroquois had in ear
lier days frequently invaded the Ohio coun
try and subdued its aboriginal inhabitants,
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Domestic Life and Congress
they had never attempted permanently to
occupy the territory. Their invasions were,
in fact, simply raids, and they had come and
gone, leaving wreck and ruin in their tracks,
much like the Tartar hordes when they in
vaded Hindostan, or the Goths, Vandals, and
Huns when they overran Europe.
That the Iroquois were and had been for
centuries the most powerful Indian nation
east of the Mississippi, and had frequently
invaded and ravaged the territory of their
weaker neighbors on all sides of them, was
undeniable ; but that mere rapine and ravage
should constitute a basis of permanent sov
ereignty was a theory that only Indian
schools of international law would be likely to
teach. However, England was willing to ac
cept such a basis for her own claim of sov
ereignty in the Ohio Valley, and, as the
sequel proved, she was willing to fight for it to
the death. The fact is, the English states
men were never serious about this shadowy
claim. They laughed at it themselves over
their dinner-tables and their Madeira. The
real truth was that they had finally made up
their minds to oust the French from North
America altogether, and one pretext was as
good as another.
In the spring of 1752 the Ohio Company
83
Sir William Johnson
sent a daring backwoodsman, named Chris
topher Gist, to explore their grant of land.
Gist went as far west as the mouth of the
Great Kanawha, and on his return in the
autumn made an interesting report. This
was the first effort even pretense the Eng
lish had ever made to explore the country they
claimed. Event now followed event in quick
succession. The Governor of Virginia, Din-
widdie, sent a company of frontiersmen,
under Captain Trent, to the head of the Ohio,
where they built a small log fort. Captain
Trent had forty-one men. In April, 1754, a
French and Indian force about 700 strong
came down the Allegheny River and invested
the little fort. As the French had four pieces
of artillery, Captain Trent saw that resist
ance would be hopeless, and he at once ac
cepted the terms offered by the French com
mander, Captain Contrecoeur.
The little garrison marched out with the
honors of war and Contrecoeur at once pro
ceeded to enlarge the fort, mounted his can
non on its ramparts, and took formal posses
sion of the Ohio Valley in the name of the
King of France. Then followed Washington s
advance to Great Meadows, and his skirmish
with a scouting party of French and Indians
under de Jumonville, who was killed with ten
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Domestic Life and Congress
of his men, and the rest, twenty-two in num
ber, wounded or taken prisoners. Then came
the building of "Fort Necessity" and its
capitulation a few days afterward to a force
of about seven hundred French and Indians
under Captain de Villiers. This ended the
operations of 1754, and left the French in full
control west of the mountains. The "Old
French War " was now fairly on. The French
had gained the first success ; the English were
slowly getting ready to fight.
During the period whose events in the
Ohio Valley we have thus briefly sketched,
affairs in the northern colonies remained in
a quiet state until late in the fall of 1753,
when alarming rumors reached Sir William
Johnson of the presence of numerous French
emissaries among the Senecas, and of great
discontent on the part of the Western Iro-
quois generally. Lieutenant-Governor DeLan-
cey was then acting Governor, and he at once
requested Sir William to visit the Senecas
and do what he could to quiet them. Though
it was late in December, and considerable
snow was on the ground, Sir William did not
shrink from a winter journey on horseback
between Mount Johnson and Kanandagea, the
principal town of the Senecas. The distance
was about 160 miles. There was a fair road
85
Sir William Johnson
to Fort Stanwix, and a good bridle-path from
there to Onondaga Castle ; the rest of the way
there was nothing but Indian trails. How
ever, there were comfortable Indian villages
along the route, where he was sure to find
hearty welcome and the best that the simple
hospitality of the Iroquois afforded, which,
to a great extent, mitigated the rigors of the
journey. On this occasion Sir William took
with him only his half-breed orderly, John
Abiel, and Nicklaus Brant, who had then just
become chief of the Upper Castle Mohawks.
The journey was made in seven days ; but Sir
William stopped one day to visit Hi-o-ka-to
in his village at Genesee Falls. He found
no French emissaries at Hi-o-ka-to s town,
though the chief told him some had appeared
there a fortnight before, and he had peremp
torily sent them away. "But you will find
plenty of them farther west," he said. Hi-o-
ka-to then saddled his horse and accompanied
Sir William on his journey.
Arriving at the Seneca capital, Sir Will
iam was heartily welcomed. The council-
house, a commodious log building, having a
puncheon floor (split and hewn logs) and a
large fireplace, was allotted for his accom
modation, with several attendants. A feast
was made in his honor, and all the warriors
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Domestic Life and Congress
present in the town were introduced to him
by Hi-o-ka-to. No French emissaries were
found, but he was informed that several
French traders from Niagara had been there
recently. The only Frenchman at Kananda-
gea, to the great surprise of Sir William,
proved to be the redoubtable Captain Jon-
caire himself, who had arrived two or three
days before him. The captain, when he
learned that Sir William was in town, made
no effort to avoid him, but, in fact, paid him
a visit the day after his arrival. He assured
Sir William that his presence at the Seneca
capital had no political significance, but was
merely a visit to old friends. He reminded
Sir William that ten years of his boyhood and
youth had been passed at this town as a cap
tive, adopted into the tribe, and jocularly
remarked that, though he returned to Canada
when about twenty years old, he was still a
Seneca by adoption, and, as such, was under
the jurisdiction of the English Superintendent
of Indian Affairs for the Iroquois nation!
He told Sir William about the visit of Major
George Washington to his trading-post at
Venango, a month or so previous to this time.
Major Washington was at Venango on his
way to Fort LeBoeuf, on a tour of observa
tion for Governor Dinwiddie, during Novem-
87,
Sir William Johnson
ber of that year, and be also stopped there a
couple of days on his return journey. In his
journal of that mission, Washington says that
Captain Joncaire was very polite and enter
tained him handsomely. This was the first
news Sir William had received of Washing
ton s tour of observation along the Allegheny
line of French posts. It was highly impor
tant news to him, because it indicated that Vir
ginia had begun to move in earnest with regard
to the Ohio question. As Joncaire bore a re
lation to Indian affairs on the French side in
many respects analogous to that borne by Sir
William on the English side, their accidental
meeting at the Seneca capital in midwinter
was an interesting occurrence.
A singular incident of this casual meeting
of Sir William Johnson and Captain Joncaire
in the Seneca capital was the fact that neither
one of them could speak or understand the
other s mother tongue. Joncaire had no
knowledge of English and Sir William knew
nothing of French. Both, however, could
speak the Iroquois tongue as fluently as an
Indian orator, and it was in that language
that they held all their conversations. It is
doubtful whether a similar instance ever
occurred in the careers of two men as promi
nent in their respective countries as these two.
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Domestic Life and Congress
Sir William remained at Kanandagea
about a week, and then returned home by easy
stages, stopping a day or two at each impor
tant village on his route, and, as he expressed
it, "thoroughly feeling the pulse of the Sene-
cas, Cayugas, and Onondagas." His con
clusion was that the stories about French
emissaries had been exaggerated, and that
their operations had been confined mainly to
the Western Senecas living near Niagara, and
on the Tonawanda, or to the southern branch
of the tribe in the valleys of Cattaraugus
Creek and the Conewango.
The rest of the winter and the spring of
1754 passed without particular incident in the
colony of New York. But at the end of June,
that year, an event occurred of primary im
portance. It was the convention at Albany
of delegates from the colonies of New Hamp
shire, Ehode Island, Connecticut, New York,
New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Maryland to
form a plan of concerted action in the war
which all now saw to be inevitable. There
had been meetings of Colonial governors
before, but this was the first instance of a con
vention or congress of delegates chosen for
the specific purpose of forming a Colonial
Union. Virginia and the Carolinas were not
represented except by letters from their gov-
? 89
Sir William Johnson
ernors approving the scheme, and saying that
they would cooperate in any program the con
vention might adopt. "In fact, gentlemen,"
wrote Governor Dinwiddie of Virginia, "the
war is at my back door already, and I have
my hands full. I will try to keep my own
frontier intact, and that is all I can do. You
must take care of the northern frontier."
The governors of the Carolinas wrote in a
similar vein.
With this Congress met also delegations
from the Six Nations, from the Delawares of
western Pennsylvania, and the Elver Indi
ans. The deliberations lasted several days,
and the results were a resolution to act to
gether, to recommend that the king appoint
Governor Shirley of Massachusetts com-
mander-in-chief of the confederated Colonial
forces, and an agreement as to the quotas of
men, money, and supplies to be furnished by
each colony in their united operations. It
was agreed that the eight colonies represented
could raise and maintain an effective force of
25,000 men for general operations; that Vir
ginia and the Carolinas should be considered
as doing their share if they effectively de
fended their own frontiers, and furnished
contingents for any movement that might be
made against the French posts on the Ohio.
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Domestic Life and Congress
Three commissioners were appointed to go to
England and lay the whole situation before
the king and his ministers. They were in
structed to ask that at least twelve thousand
British regulars be sent over at once, and that
the -fleet on the North American station be
increased to a force sufficient to blockade the
St. Lawrence and cut off communication be
tween France and Canada.
On the part of the Indians, it was agreed
that they should furnish, upon call, a force
of at least one thousand picked warriors
for general service, provided their command-
er-in-chief should be Sir William Johnson.
And in addition to these, the Indians under
took to raise a force of at least six hundred
more to help repel any attempt the French
might make against Oswego, or any other sali
ent point within the territory of the Six Na
tions. The Indians also stipulated that their
warriors, when in the field, should receive the
same pay, rations, and clothing-allowance as
the provincial troops. And that if, upon
inspection, the gun of any warrior should be
found disabled or unserviceable, he should
receive a new one free of cost ; also that each
warrior, when mustered for actual service,
should receive a new blanket, a red flannel
shirt, a blue hunting- jacket with red trim-
91
Sir William Johnson
ming, and a pair of stout leather or buckskin
leggings !
Having settled all these things, the Con
gress of 1754 at Albany adjourned, subject to
recall at any time by Governor Shirley of
Massachusetts. That Congress was the em
bryo of another Congress that met twenty
years later at Philadelphia whose history,
has been heard round the world !
92
CHAPTER III
BRADDOCK S DEFEAT AND THE BATTLE
OF LAKE GEORGE
1752-1754
IN order that a clear and accurate concep
tion may be formed of the relative conditions
prevailing in their respective North American
colonies at the time when England and France
began their final and decisive struggle for
empire on the continent, it is necessary to sur
vey, first, the numerical strength of each Colo
nial establishment in white people; second,
the numerical strength and general fighting
power of the Indian tribes under the control
of or in alliance with each; third, the meth
ods of each respectively in dealing with the
Indians; and, fourth, the effect of their di
verse methods in winning and holding the
fealty of the Indian tribes.
With regard to the relative numbers of
white people resident in the North American
colonies of the two countries, it may be said
that at the beginning, or just before the be-
93
Sir William Johnson
ginning, of the French war, the Marquis Du-
quesne, then (1752) just appointed Governor-
General of Canada, reported that there were
in all the French Canadian possessions then
known as New France a white male popula
tion of 22,000, inclusive of the royal or regular
troops then garrisoning the various military
strongholds in Canada. As these troops at
that time numbered about 3,000 to 3,500, it
follows that the civilian white adult male
population of all French Canada in 1752 did
not exceed 19,000. The English colonies,
stretching along the Atlantic coast from
Maine to Georgia, had at the same time nearly
if not quite 1,600,000 people, of whom at least
200,000 were adult males. At first glance any
one would say that a contest between 22,000
men on one side and 200,000 or thereabouts on
the other, would necessarily be a farce, but as
a matter of fact, it took the 200,000, backed by
all the power of England, seven years to con
quer the 22,000.!
1 It is unquestionable that the marquis, in his estimate of
22,000, etc., meant to include only males capable of bearing
arms or of military age. This would have embraced all males
between sixteen and sixty years old under the militia regula
tions then prevailing in "New France." He must have had
in mind only the able-bodied male population, because Vol
taire, writing of the same period, says: "... And while the
population of British America was over 1,200,000, that of all
94
Braddock s Defeat
During the progress of the seven years
struggle, the white French population of
Canada was increased by some 3,000 or 4,000
civilian adventurers, and the French Govern-
Canada, Cape Breton, and Louisiana could not have exceeded
80,000 souls." If Voltaire s estimate of the total white popu
lation 80,000 and Duquesne s estimate of the number of
males capable of bearing arms 18,000 to 19,000 besides the
regular troops were both correct, it would argue an extraor
dinarily large proportion of adult males about one in every
four of the total population but that was always true of
Canada under French rule. The adult males outnumbered
the grown women in a proportion never less than two to one.
This was because as a rule Frenchmen came to Canada single
and formed alliances with Indian women. The immigration
of married men with their families was exceptional.
Dr. Woodrow Wilson, in his History of the American Peo
ple, says (p. 4, vol. ii) that "probably there were not more
than 12,000 Frenchmen, all told, in America when William
became king (1689)." This, of course, was sixty-three years
prior to the Marquis Duquesne s estimate of the number of
males capable of bearing arms, and about the same length of
time previous to Voltaire s estimate of 80,000 of all sexes and
ages. However, on p. 98 of the same volume, Dr. Wilson,
writing of the period of 1750-52, adopts Voltaire s estimate of
80,000 as the total white population of Canada at the outbreak
of the old French War. But Voltaire s estimate of the total
white population of the English colonies in 1753, which in
his own original phrase is "plus que douze-cent mille" [more
than 1,200,000], is too low. No census was taken in those
days. The tide of immigration was not at flood. We had by
Franklin s estimate about 2,500,000 white people in the Amer
ican colonies in 1776. Taking the two extremes and calcu
lating on the basis that an actuary would adopt, we have
figured out that the total population of the Anglo-American
colonies in 1753 was not less than one million six hundred
95
Sir William Johnson
ment succeeded in reenforcing its garrisons
or its field force there with seven regiments of
regular infantry, besides some small units of
other arms of the service, which will be noted
later on.
As against this reenforcement, it may be
said that from the beginning to the end of the
struggle England landed in the colonies, from
time to time, a total force of 18,000 British
regular troops, and besides, supported the
campaigns on land by an exertion of her sea
power, which, during the last four years of the
struggle, practically obliterated all means of
communication between France and her Ca
nadian colonies.
Therefore, we have calculated that during
the whole seven years struggle, the French
had in North America, exclusive of Louisiana,
about 22,000 white civilians (males), and be-
thousand (1,600,000) souls, which included about 200,000
negro slaves. At any rate, the first reliable census 1800
showed that natural increase for forty -seven years could
not have produced the difference between Voltaire s estimate
of 1753 and the actual count of 1800, for between those two
dates the volume of immigration was not enough to make up
the difference. As for the State of New York, with which
this work mainly deals, an enumeration in 1790 seven years
after the close of the Revolution showed a population of
341,000; and New York at that time was fourth of the States
in number of people, being exceeded by Massachusetts, Penn
sylvania, and Virginia.
96
Braddock s Defeat
tween 10,000 and 11,000 regular troops. As
before remarked, this disparity of numbers
not less than ten to one, so far as white males
of military age were concerned might seem
appalling, but when due account is taken of
the radical and fundamental difference be
tween the systems of the two nations in their
respective colonies, the numerical inequality,
to a great extent, loses its significance. Col
onization from the English point of view, as
practised in the colonies of the Atlantic sea
board, meant permanent improvement, home-
making, the building of commercial cities and
towns, the clearing of forests, creation of
farms, cultivation of the soil, manufactures
of various kinds, and a general commerce by
sea and by land. The meaning of this, so far as
concerned the Indian, was a constant policy of
driving him back, of obtaining his lands from
time to time by hook or by crook, by nomi
nal purchase or by conquest. It meant also a
traffic with him that was insufficiently regu
lated, if regulated at all, and, as a rule, in this
traffic the Indian was cheated out of his prod
ucts with as little hesitation or compunction
as he had previously been cheated out of his
lands. The result of all this was that wher
ever the English colonists encountered the
Indian, they made an enemy of him. This
97
Sir William Johnson
was true along the whole coast and back to the
Allegheny range of mountains, with the single
exception of the Iroquois Confederacy, or the
Six Nations, living in central and western
New York.
On the other hand, the French system of
colonization was simply a military occupa
tion. The French never colonized Canada
they simply garrisoned it. They did not
covet the lands of the Indian. All their pol
icy was shaped to discourage permanent set
tlement of French colonists on any consider
able scale. The most that the French did in
the way of permanent settlement was the
building of three good-sized towns Quebec,
Montreal, and Louisburg together with a
number of smaller towns and villages; but
these cities, towns, and villages were little
more than rendezvous or places of arms,
either for defense pure and simple against
foreign aggression, such as Louisburg, or as
depots or entrepots for their Indian trade,
which was, from beginning to end, the life-
blood of the French colonial system in Can
ada. There was never a time in the history
of French Canada, from the advent of Samuel
Champlain, at the beginning of the seven
teenth century, until the final evacuation of
the country, after the fall of Montreal in 1760,
98
Braddock s Defeat
when the agriculture of New France or Can
ada produced anything like a sufficient sup
ply of foodstuffs for the needs of its white
inhabitants, comparatively few as they were. 1
1 " In 1753," says Voltaire, "the exports of Canada
amounted to but 68,000, while its imports were 208,000.
During the same year the exports of the English provinces
were 1,486,000, their imports 983,000. In 1755 Canadian
imports were 5,203,272 livres, its exports only 1,515,730 livres.
Le Canada coutait beaucoup et rapportait tres peu [Canada
costs a great deal and returns very little] " pursues Voltaire ;
and he proceeds to argue that the policy of expending so
much blood and treasure in maintaining and defending such
an unprofitable dependency is unstatesmanlike and wrong.
Voltaire then goes on to say: " Si la dixieme partie de 1 argent
englouti dans cette colonie avait ete employe a defricher nos
terres incultes en France, on aurait fait un gain considerable.
. . . Mais il f aut que le roi s amuse ; et cette colonie ruineuse,
c est un de ses joujous!" [If the tenth part of the money
squandered on this colony had been used to improve our
waste lands in France there would have been a considerable
profit. . . . But the king must amuse himself, and this ruin
ous colony is one of his playthings!] He concludes by de
scribing Canada as "un puisard de 1 argent et une grande
eponge du sang de la France ! " [A sinkhole for the money
and a vast sponge for the blood of France !] This may have
been nothing more than Voltaire s habitual cynicism, but
there is no disputing his facts. In the long run France spent
on Canada ten times the money she received in return, shed
the blood of her sons in torrents by land and sea to defend it,
and then lost all ignominiously in the end. The deduction is
plain : her system was false. It was opposed to the genius of
modern civilization and hence had to fall, but we can not
help admiring the desperate courage and the unflinching for
titude with which she defended it to the last gasp.
99
Sir William Johnson
The Indians soon found out that the
French did not want their lands, did not wish
to cut down and clear away their forests, did
not propose a policy which would disturb
them or compel them to move from the habita
tions of their forefathers to new forests and
new hunting-grounds. Therefore, the jeal
ousy and hatred with which the Indians far
ther south regarded the English colonies was
never felt or cherished toward the French. In
the social sense, the Frenchman was much
better adapted to deal with the Indian charac
ter than the Englishman. The Englishman
as a rule disliked to associate with Indians.
He considered them an inferior race dirty,
slovenly, and on all accounts to be avoided
whenever possible. On the other hand, the
Frenchman made himself at home in the In
dian villages; married, or in a less formal
way allied himself with their women; raised
large families of half-breeds; learned their
language, or taught them his own, or both;
traded with them, in the main honestly ; and,
above all, was never afraid of them. The
result of all this was that when the two pow
ers arrived at the threshold of their final
struggle for control in North America, the
French could count on the support of the en
tire fighting strength of every tribe of Indians
100
Braddock s Defeat
east of the Mississippi and north of the Ohio,
excepting alone the Iroquois.
Now, to this happy method of ingratiating
themselves socially and politically with the
Indians, the French had the additional advan
tage of the labors of their priests, the Jesuit
Fathers. These devoted men, beginning
away back early in the seventeenth century,
traversed the entire continent, visited almost
every tribe of Indians, not merely east of the
Mississippi River, but passed beyond it to the
Missouri, and even to the foot-hills of the
Eocky Mountains, introducing their peculiar
rites into every tribe, and impressing the
sacredness of their personality upon the
abundant superstition of the Indians. It is
really an open question whether the tact,
benevolence, and good nature displayed by the
French traders and soldiers had been as
potent an influence in bringing the great mass
of western Indians under French control as
the ministrations of their black-robed priests.
Be that as it may, they had brought them at
the time now under consideration say 1753-
54 completely under French sway, and not
only that, but they also at that time seriously
disputed with the English the control of the
western tribe of the Iroquois nation itself
the Senecas who were by far the largest and
101
Sir William Johnson
most powerful clan of the Six Nations. How
ever, as this particular subject belongs to a
later phase, we will not further discuss it
here.
Proceeding now to consider the numerical
strength of the Indians under the control of
either power, it may be said that in 1753-54
the population of the Six Nations was vari
ously estimated. In 1752, immediately after
the Marquis Duquesne assumed the Governor-
Generalship of Canada, Captain Joncaire,
who had for many years been the principal
"Indian Intelligence Officer " for the Govern
ment of Canada, reported to the Governor-
General that, according to the best of his in
formation, the total number of the Iroquois
was very nearly 25,000 or 22,000 at least.
Of these, he calculated that the Senecas num
bered two-fifths, or about 9,000 to 10,000; the
Cayugas and Onondagas together, about
6,000 to 6,500 ; the Oneidas about 3,500 ; and
the Mohawks including a clan allied to them
known as the "River Indians " about 4,500;
and the Tuscaroras a remnant of the once
powerful tribe of that name, formerly living
in the western Carolinas, who had been re
ceived and adopted into the Six Nations at
from 500 to 600 souls. This estimate was
probably excessive, because in Sir William
102
Braddock s Defeat
Johnson s papers, under date of the year 1753,
appears an estimate of the numbers of these
Indians, in which he places the total at about
19,000, maintaining generally almost exactly
the same proportions, tribe for tribe, as those
stated by Captain Joncaire. It may be a
question as to which of the two had the better
means of information. Sir William Johnson
derived his estimate from detailed statements
made to him by chiefs of all the tribes, and of
the different clans in each tribe. It was not
an exact census, as that term is understood in
modern practise, but it came as near to a cen
sus as was possible in the circumstances. At
the same time, Joncaire had unusual facilities
for ascertaining the numbers, or any other
facts that he desired to obtain concerning the
Iroquois.
Joncaire was a characteristic product of
the times in which he lived and the circum
stances under which he had his being.
Parkman, historian par excellence of the
French regime in North America, frequently
refers to Joncaire s activity among the Indi
ans. But he seems to merge two individuals
in one. For example, he makes a Joncaire
busy among the Senecas around Niagara as
early as 1704, at the beginning of Queen
Anne s War; and then prolongs his career
103
Sir William Johnson
until the downfall of French power in 1759-
60. Besides, he speaks of him as "Chabert
Joncaire," and says "he was the half-breed
son of a French officer, by a Seneca squaw."
The facts are as follows : The first of the name
to figure prominently in the New World was
Jean Frangois Joncaire. He was the son of
a subaltern officer of French colonial troops
and a full-blood white man. Born about 1682
in France, he was brought by his parents to
Canada when about nine years of age say
1691. His father was a "pioneer officer " or
military engineer, and was employed at fort-
building and road-making. In a raid against
the settlements on the Richelieu early in King
William s War a party of Senecas captured
young Joncaire and took him to one of their
villages in western New York (the present
Canandaigua). They adopted him and he
lived with them until the interchange of cap
tives a year or so after the Peace of Ryswick.
He was then about eighteen years old. He
attracted the attention of Cadillac, then com
manding the French forces in the Lake region.
Through Cadillac s influence he was sent to
the Jesuit Academy or Seminary at Quebec
for a time, but completed his education in a
school of Recollet Friars at Montreal. For
some reason he always opposed the Jesuits.
104
Braddock s Defeat
Early in Queen Anne s War Joncaire, then
about twenty-two, was employed as agent or
emissary among the western Iroquois
mainly the Senecas and Cayugas. He spoke
their language to perfection, and he also knew
half a dozen other Indian tongues or dialects.
From 1703 or 1704 until the capture of Fort
Niagara in 1759, his activity among the west
ern Indians was incessant, and his field of
operations ranged from the banks of the
Genesee to those of the Ohio, the Mississippi,
the Sault Ste. Marie, and the faraway shores
of Lake Superior and the Bed River of the
North. It was a wonderful career; a career
that ended only in his seventy- eighth year,
and with the fate of French rule in Canada.
About 1714 he took to wife the half-breed
daughter of a French trader named Chaubert
or "Chabert," as Parkman spells it by a
Seneca squaw. She bore to him a son, whom
he named Chaubert Joncaire. This was the
one who nearly forty years later com
manded the fort at Little Niagara in 1759.
This first wife died not long after giving birth
to Chaubert Joncaire. The old captain
placed the boy in the hands of the Eecollet
Friars and gave him the best education
French Canada could afford. In 1736, when
fifty-four years old or thereabouts, Captain
8 105
Sir William Johnson
Joncaire married Mile. Clauzun, half-breed
daughter of the Chevalier de Clauzun by a
Huron woman, said to have been the aunt of
the famous half-breed Chief Anasthase, who
commanded the Indians at the defeat of Brad-
dock.
Mile. Clauzun bore to him a son, whom
he named for her Jean Frangois Clauzun-
Joncaire.
We have given so much space to the his
tory of Captain Joncaire because he was the
only Frenchman whose influence among the
Iroquois Sir William dreaded, and because his
importance as a factor of French power in
Canada for nearly sixty of its most thrilling
years has been neglected by historians.
He was a man of medium stature, iron con
stitution, vehement temperament, and the
most dauntless courage. His dislike of the
Jesuits got him into trouble more than once,
and they succeeded on one occasion in indu
cing the Governor-General to try him by
court-martial. But he was triumphantly ac
quitted and lived to witness the confusion of
his enemies. 1
1 Stone (vol. i, pp. 29-32) speaks of Joncaire as "a Jesuit
Brother." This is an error into which Stone was probably
led by his knowledge of the fact that Joncaire was educated
at the Jesuit Academy of Quebec. He was undoubtedly a
zealous Roman Catholic, but never a member of the Order
106
Braddock s Defeat
But whether his estimate or that of Sir
William Johnson be correct, the difference is
not material to the subject under discussion.
Turning now to the Indians under French
influence or control, we find that they included
all the tribes east of the Mississippi, north of
the Ohio and north of the Great Lakes, and
the New York frontier to the Atlantic sea
board. The principal of these tribes were
the St. Regis, Adirondacks, St. Francis, and
Abenakis in Lower Canada and the extreme
northern part of the present State of New
York ; the powerful tribes of the Ottawas and
the Hurons, who inhabited the rich country
bounded by Lake Erie on the south, Lake
Huron on the west, and the Ottawa River on
the northeast; the Mississago or Michigan
Indians ; the Mackinaws, or Mackinacs a
small tribe and the Saginaws, who inhabited
the northern part of what is now Indiana
and the southern peninsula of Michigan; the
Winnebagos and Menominees of Wisconsin,
together with a branch of the powerful Chip-
pewa tribe, who inhabited the northern penin
sula of Michigan and Wisconsin in the neigh-
of Jesuits. The academies of that sect educated many lay
men or secular pupils. In fact, when Joncaire was a student
there were no other institutions in Canada where the higher
branches were taught.
107
Sir William Johnson
borhood of Fort Mackinaw or Mackinac; the
Pottawottomis, Kickapoos, Sauks, and a
mixed tribe then known as the Wabash Indi
ans, inhabiting what is now eastern Illinois
and southern Indiana.
The total number of these Indians in direct
communication or in close alliance with the
French was estimated as high as 90,000 in
1752. This, which was Joncaire s estimate, is
perhaps an exaggeration, but for present pur
poses it is not necessary to discuss that point.
This estimate of 90,000 French Indians ap
pears in St. Martin s History of New
France, 1 an old work compiled during the
French possession of the country, and pub
lished in Paris a few years afterward, and it
is given on the authority of Joncaire. Be
sides the Indians above enumerated, there
were at that time in Ohio the powerful tribes
of the Shawnees, Miamis, and the Wyandots,
besides a considerable clan of the Delawares,
who had emigrated from Pennsylvania and
settled at and about the forks of the Muskin-
1 Father St. Martin may be termed the last of the great
Jesuits of Canada. Born in Quebec, 1699, and educated as a
Jesuit priest, he began mission work among the Hurons and
Ottawas in 1721 or 1722. When Sir William Johnson visited
Detroit in 1761, Father St. Martin was at the Huron mission
near by, and the baronet paid him a visit, which will be further
noticed in this work.
108
Braddock s Defeat
gum River and in the valleys of the Tuscara-
was and Walhonding Rivers.
For some reason the French had never
taken the pains to put themselves en rapport
with the Ohio Indians that they did with those
farther west and north. We have never seen
any explanation of this omission. There was
apparently no reason for it, because at any
time prior to the conquest of Canada the
French were the only white people who had
access to the Ohio Indians on any friendly
terms whatsoever, and most of the trade of
the Shawnees, Wyandots, and Miamis was
carried on with the French, from whom they
obtained guns, ammunition, cutlery, cooking
utensils, blankets, etc., almost exclusively, at
the French trading-posts of Presque Isle,
Cuyahoga, Maumee, and Detroit. Prior to
1748 no English or Colonial trader had
crossed the Allegheny Mountains. In fact,
prior to that time no Englishman or colonist
had crossed the range except a few daring
hunters like Gist, Grady, and Post and these
had to carry their lives in their hands.
But, apart from numerical considerations,
apart from the genius of the French in ingra
tiating themselves into the good graces of the
Indians, apart from the tremendous leverage
of the clerical power exercised by the Jesuit
109
Sir William Johnson
Fathers, and apart from the ineptness of the
English colonists in dealing with the Indians,
there was still another factor of organic dif
ference between the English and French sys
tems on this continent, which was, perhaps,
more important than all the others at least
it was a factor which gave a quick mobility
and a constant vitality to the French power
that were totally wanting in the English Colo
nial system. The thirteen English colonies,
at the beginning of the old French war, were
all autonomous, semi-independent, self-gov
erning commonwealths. Each had its gov
ernor, its council or assembly elected by the
people, and everything that it did or that was
done in its name must be the subject of dis
cussion and legislation. Then, among the
several colonies also was a good deal of bick
ering, of jealousy, and in some cases vexa
tious disputes about boundaries and jurisdic
tions leading up to the very threshold of inter
necine war. For these reasons the English
colonies were indolent and procrastinating in
the conception of any operations that required
united action, and even when the difficulties
of conception and design had been overcome,
they were, if possible, slower in execution.
On the other hand, the French regime in
Canada was a solid, compact body. There
110
Braddock s Defeat
was no representative government nor the
semblance of one. The Governor-General at
Quebec was within his domain a monarch as
absolute as the Bourbon king at Versailles.
His word was law and his orders gospel.
Every able-bodied Frenchman in Canada was
at all times a soldier in esse or in posse. He
was constantly enrolled in what was termed
the Canadian militia, 1 and his term of liability
1 Garneau, in his Histoire du Canada, quotes Montcalm
as saying: "The Canadian militia are better soldiers than
the American provincials, man for man. But they are too
few ; and when they are once in the field there is no reserve
from which to recruit their ranks." This remark is worth
consideration. The French Canadian is always brave. He is
hardy and can live on a diet that would starve an American.
He is inured to all possible rigors of climate. The military
system that prevailed under French rule in Canada made him
at least a half -regular soldier all the time. In war every com
pany commander of Canadian militia was a French regular
officer. The "habitans" could hold only subaltern rank.
Every company had a French regular drill-sergeant. Their
discipline and regulations in every respect were those of the
regular troops. They never mutinied or deserted and seldom
complained; if they did their shrift was short. They were
the soldiers of a despotic government and they knew it.
On the other hand the American Provincial troops were
volunteers, freemen ; and they carried a good deal of their
democracy into the field with them. While they marched and
fought well and endured marvelous fatigues and privations
at times, they were always prompt to find fault if any was to
be found. It was impossible to bring them up or down to
the regular standard of discipline. More than one British
officer who ordered a provincial soldier to be flogged fell with
111
Sir William Johnson
to service was from the age of sixteen years
anywhere to decrepitude. Moreover, the
male sex largely predominated in the white
population of Canada, the proportion being,
in the average for the 160 years between the
advent of Samuel Champlain and the down
fall of French power in 1760, as two to one.
In a word, French Canada may be said to
have been under perpetual martial law. All
the conceptions and designs were secretly
planned in the palace of the Governor-Gen
eral at Quebec. All the orders were issued
without publicity, and such was the prevailing
discipline in all grades of society and through
out the local military force, that the execution
of these plans and designs was always as
swift as their consideration had been secret.
It does not seem that any contrast of systems
could be more perfectly antipodal than this,
or that any comparison of methods could
exhibit wider extremes.
Thus far we have dealt only with the white
people and the Indians proper, but in Canada
there was another element which did not exist
a bullet in his back at the next battle or skirmish. From the
purely disciplinary point of view there is every reason to agree
with the sentiment that Garneau quotes from Montcalm. But
judging by results, wherever the Canadian militia and the
American provincials came together, neither one supported
by regulars, history does not verify Montcalm s theory.
112
Braddock s Defeat
to any extent in the English colonies. That
was the element of the half-breeds. At the
time when the Marquis Duquesne became
Governor-General, the half-breed or mixed-
race population of French Canada was nearly
as numerous as the white race itself. These
half-breeds, the offspring of French traders
and soldiers by Indian women, were scattered
through every tribe. They were to be found
in every Indian village. They were the lead
ing race in hunting and trapping. They were
the common carriers of supplies and of arti
cles of trade and barter all over the French
Northwest. They were a brave, active, inde
fatigable, and intelligent race. In peace, they
carried the name and the influence of France
to the remotest Indian tribes; in war, they
were, under the peculiar conditions that pre
vailed, more formidable in combat than the
French regulars themselves, and more effec
tive than the full-blood Indians, combining, as
they did, the disciplinary aptitude of the one
with the subtle woodcraft of the other. As
a rule, in the campaigns they were not
grouped in military bodies of their own or by
themselves, but were distributed among the
Indians, whom they instructed by their supe
rior knowledge and encouraged by their un
failing example. It is hardly too much to say
113
Sir William Johnson
that at the period under discussion the race
of French Canadian half-breeds formed the
most important factor of the military strength
of France in North America. Under such
conditions, France and England, with their
respective American colonies, began about the
end of 1754 their final struggle for absolute
supremacy on this continent.
The hope of the American colonists that
the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle would inaugu
rate another long peace, like that which inter
vened between the end of Queen Anne s War
in 1714 and the beginning of King George s
in 1743, had proved illusory. The ink was
hardly dry on the treaty of 1748 when the
French began measures for carrying out a
plan long cherished. This plan contemplated
nothing less than the seizure of all the country
west of the Alleghenies, the "hinterland," as
modern diplomatists say, of the English colo
nies. The English had always nominally
claimed this back country south of the Great
Lakes and parallel with the Atlantic front of
their colonies, to the banks of the Mississippi.
But they had never made the slightest effort
to settle it, to open trade within its borders, or
even to explore it.
The French, on the contrary, had explored
it nearly a hundred years before the period of
114
Braddock s Defeat
which we now write (1754). They had estab
lished numerous trading-posts and a few
small villages, such as Old Vincennes within
the present State of Indiana, Kaskaskia in
Illinois, and St. Charles and St. Genevieve in
Missouri. They had established several
routes through this region between Canada
and their settlements at the mouth of the Mis
sissippi, now Louisiana. One of these routes
was from the head of Lake Michigan to the
Illinois River, and thence down that stream
and the Mississippi to New Orleans. An
other was up the Maumee to its head waters,
thence by portage to the head waters of the
Wabash, and so on down. Another was from
their trading-post at Cuyahoga to the head
waters of the Miami, thence down that stream
to the Ohio. In short, their traders, priests,
and voyageurs had, for more than half a cen
tury, permeated the region, forming alliances
with the Indian tribes, converting many of
them to the Catholic faith, marrying their
women, supplying them with firearms and
ammunition, and practising, in short, all the
arts of French colonization or rather, of
French occupation.
In any struggle that might occur between
France and England for the actual possession
and control of this vast territory, it is there-
115
Sir William Johnson
fore apparent that the French must have a
very great initial advantage. And this ad
vantage was enhanced by the fact that the
French, from their places of arms in Canada,
could communicate with all parts of the region
by water, or through a level and easily trav
ersed country. The English, on the other
hand, could reach it only by long marches
over difficult mountains, where they would
have to cut their roads as they advanced, and
where their columns and their supply-trains
would be beset at every step by the lurking
savage allies of the French. In the first part
of his reign Louis XV neglected the French
colonies in America. His great-grandfather,
Louis XIV, throughout his long reign, made
them the objects of his especial solicitude.
But the neglect and, to some extent, the op
pressive regulations of trade and immigra
tion in the first thirty years of the reign of
Louis XV had seriously weakened the French
power in Canada. Moreover, Louis XV had
made Canada a sort of penal colony ; not, in
deed, for common criminals, but a place of
exile for officers who fought duels or failed to
pay their debts, for broken-down noblemen;
in short, for all classes of genteel offenders
not quite bad enough for the Bastile.
Among other things, this had caused an
116
Braddock s Defeat
actual decrease of the white population.
When Louis XIV died, in 1715, there were at
least 30,000 white men in Canada; whereas,
when the Marquis Duquesne assumed the
Governor-Generalship, he reported only 22,-
000. Prior to Duquesne all the Governors-
General during the reign of Louis XV had
been mere creatures of the court, possessing
neither aptitude nor ambition for the per
formance of their duties, or the extension of
French power and influence. The appoint
ment of Duquesne itself was a change of pol
icy, from the halting, the indecisive, and the
weak to the aggressive, the determined, and
the strong. This change of policy was due
mainly, if not wholly, to the influence of Ma
dame de Pompadour, who, since her alliance
with Louis, in 1745, had never ceased her
efforts to arouse his interest in the vast pos
sessions of France in the New World, and at
last her eloquence and tact had brought the
luxurious and careless monarch to something
like a sense of his obligations.
Simultaneously with the selection of the
Marquis Duquesne to succeed M. de la Galis-
soniere as Governor-General, Louis XV
began quietly to prepare for another war.
All ships of war on the stocks at Toulon,
Brest, TOrient, Rochefort, and La Eochelle
117
Sir William Johnson
were ordered to be pushed to completion at
the earliest date. Vessels in need of repair
were ordered to be thoroughly overhauled,
and all defects made good. Twelve thousand
additional seamen and marines were ordered
to be recruited for the fleet. All the military
and naval arsenals of the country were filled
with munitions. The regular regiments were
ordered to be recruited up to the maximum
establishment. Most significant of all, ten
regiments of regulars, comprising some of the
oldest and most famous corps d? elite in the
French army, were ordered to be in readiness
for service beyond the seas. Of these, seven
were intended for Canada and three for the
East Indies.
Those destined for Canada were the regi
ments of Artois, of Beam, of Languedoc, of
Guienne, of Burgundy, of Picardy, and the
famous Regiment de la Eeine. Under the
system of organization prevailing in the
French army at that time, the full war
strength of an infantry regiment of the
line was twelve companies of 103 of all
ranks each, with eight field and staff offi
cers, or a total of 1,244 to the regiment. But
when sent on foreign service two companies
were left at home to form a depot for re
cruiting and training purposes, so that the
118
Braddock s Defeat
actual strength in the field would be a maxi
mum of 1,038. In addition to these infantry
regiments, Louis ordered four companies
(batteries) of light artillery and a siege-
train to be in readiness for Canadian service.
The batteries were of six guns each (light
8-pounders or howitzers) and 140 men.
The siege-train had twelve heavy guns (12-
and 18-pounders) and 280 heavy artillerists.
At first Walsh s regiment of the Irish Brigade
the selfsame men who, seven years before,
had stemmed the English tide and turned the
fortunes of the day at Fontenoy was in
cluded in the Canadian contingent. But for
some reason, they were sent to reenforce La
Bourdonnais and Lally at Pondicherry in the
East Indies. However, the total strength of
the Canadian reenforcement was about 7,500,
and it was made up of the best troops in the
French regular army.
The sending of French regular regiments
of territorial titles to Canada or anywhere
beyond seas was itself a remarkable innova
tion. Hitherto the French regulars employed
in Canada had been regiments specially re
cruited for colonial service. They were, in
fact, organized in a manner quite similar to
the " Foreign Legion " of our times. They
were, of course, regular troops in every sense ;
119
Sir William Johnson
borne on the army list under the head of
"Corps de la Marine et des Colonies," and
their officers held equivalent and interchange
able rank with the line regiments of territo
rial title.
These preparations began in 1752. Du-
quesne was appointed to succeed la Gallisson-
iere in 1751, and went immediately to Can
ada. 1 But on arriving there, he requested the
latter to hold the office a few months in order
that he (Duquesne) might have opportunity
to make a personal survey of the frontiers and
of the general situation incognito. Early in
1752 Duquesne, accompanied only by Captain
Joncaire, Captain Beaujeu (who subsequently
commanded the French and Indians at the de
feat of Braddock), together with half a dozen
half-breed trailers and hunters, journeyed
from Presque Isle (now Erie, Pa.) to the
junction of the Allegheny and Monongahela
1 Madame d Hausset says that Duquesne s instructions
were in Madame de Pompadour s handwriting, and all that
the king had to do with them was to sign his name. She also
says that when Duquesne was leaving Versailles, de Pompa
dour sent for him and gave him a magnificent seal ring, the
seal of which was cut in an immense ruby. "Now," she said,
"Monsieur le Marquis, I want you to put that seal on arti
cles of capitulation for Boston, New York, and Philadelphia.
France must be supreme in the New World and you must
make her so." It would appear that the gracious madame
gave the gallant marquis a large contract.
120
Braddock s Defeat
Elvers, and indicated the spot where the fort
afterward named for him should be built.
There is nothing in history to show that
the English Government or any of the colonial
governments had adequate knowledge of these
tremendous preparations ; and their first in
timation of the French scheme was in the
fall of 1753, when Captain Joncaire estab
lished a fort at Venango, the confluence of
French Creek with the Allegheny River. This
was the third in a chain of posts hugging the
western slope of the Allegheny Mountains,
and designed by Duquesne to cut the English
off from the Ohio Valley. The first of the
posts was Presque Isle, the second Fort Le
Boeuf, thirteen miles south of the former, and
at the head of canoe navigation on French
Creek ; Venango, the third ; and they were cal
culated to serve as intermediate stations be
tween Lake Erie and the grand fortress to be
built at the head of the Ohio.
In our time it is difficult to believe that
such secrecy with regard to such portentous
movements could be maintained. Nowadays
every nation knows all about every other
nation s army, its navy, and its movements
with either or both. But in those days, under
the Bourbon rule in France, absolute secrecy
was possible. No outsider could get within
9 121
Sir William Johnson
gunshot of a French dockyard or arsenal.
Men employed in them were under oath not to
divulge anything. If they did divulge, it was
rated high treason, and punishable by death.
Thus it happened that the French were able
to penetrate far into territory claimed by the
British, establish lines of communication, and
build substantial forts without the English
knowing anything about it, and all this in a
time of profound peace.
At last the British Government awoke to
the fact that things were going wrong in the
American colonies. Tidings of the disasters
on the Virgina frontier of Trent s surrender
of the fort at the head of the Ohio, and of
Washington s capitulation at Fort Necessity
reached England in August, 1754. These
tidings were so bad that they infused a spasm
of energy into even the ridiculous ministry of
the absurd Duke of Newcastle. But, after all,
it was not the Duke of Newcastle who really
acted. At that time the Captain-General and
commander-in-chief of the British army was
William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland. He
had the additional advantage of being the
king s favorite son. And he was unquestion
ably the best soldier if not the only one
that the House of Hanover has produced.
Cumberland did not wait upon the moods and
122
Braddock s Defeat
tenses of the fat-witted Prime Minister. As
Captain-General, he had control of military
affairs in the colonies as well as in England in
time of war and this was certainly such a
time.
Therefore, without consulting the ministry
or any one else unless, perhaps, his father,
the king Cumberland ordered the Forty-
fourth Regiment of Foot, Colonel Sir Peter
Halket, and the Forty-eighth Regiment, Col
onel Thomas Dunbar, to be put in instant
readiness for service in the American colonies.
He also sent letters of service in the king s
name to General Sir William Pepperell and
Colonel William Shirley then Governor of
Massachusetts authorizing and directing
them to raise two regiments of infantry in the
colonies, to be known as Royal Provincial or
Royal American regiments, to be enrolled in
the British regular army list, and to be paid
and provided for by the king the same as any
other British regulars. These orders bore
date of September 19, 1754 less than four
weeks after the news of the disastrous result
of Washington s campaign reached London.
Other provisions were made by the Duke
of Cumberland for the employment of Pro
vincial troops, and of such Indians as might
adhere to the English cause. On the whole,
123
Sir William Johnson
Cumberland calculated that his scheme would
serve to put in the field in the American colo
nies a force of at least 14,000 men by the open
ing of spring in 1755, and of this force he in
tended including the small garrisons already
in the colonies that about 4,000 should be
British regulars. It should be remarked at
this point that the numerical strength of the
British regular army in 1754 was at its lowest
ebb. After the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle
which the French always called a truce the
silly Duke of Newcastle imagined that the
millennium had come, and, if he could have
had his way, would probably have disbanded
the British army altogether.
Be this as it may, a man of different mold
was directing this particular affair. With
out going into details, the Duke of Cum
berland selected Major-General Sir Edward
Braddock to command the British troops des
tined for the American colonies, and at the
same time made him commander-in-chief of
all the British forces in North America regu
lar, Provincial, and Indian. After arranging
for transportation of his troops, ordnance,
and supplies, Braddock himself, with his staff,
sailed from the Downs in the famous old Cen
turion which had been Anson s flagship in
that wonderful cruise round the world a dec-
124
Braddock s Defeat
ade before on the 21st of December, 1754,
and reached Hampton Roads after a most
tempestuous passage, the 20th of February,
1755. The convoy of transports, with the
troops, ordnance stores, and general supplies,
sailed from Cork the 14th of January, 1755,
were dispersed at sea, and, as they arrived
from day to day in the Chesapeake, were
worked up the Potomac to Alexandria, where
the last of them, the Severn, with four com
panies of the Forty-eighth Dunbar s regi
ment on board, arrived the 15th of March.
Detailed description of Braddock s cam
paign would be foreign to the scope of this lit
tle book. But on his arrival in this country
he did some things in his capacity as com-
mander-in-chief which do more credit to his
memory than does the battle in which he fell.
Chief among these things was the appoint
ment of Sir William Johnson, in the name and
by authority of the king, to be General Super
intendent of Indian Affairs for the whole of
British North America. This appointment
was made in March, 1755, less than a month
after General Braddock s arrival in Hampton
Roads.
The story of Braddock s fatal expedition
is known to most well-read American school
boys. They know it, not because it was Brad-
125
Sir William Johnson
dock s expedition or Braddock s defeat, but
because the name and fame of George Wash
ington are intimately associated with it. No
attempt to describe it will be made here.
Suffice to say that on the 10th of June, 1755,
Braddock s army left Fort Cumberland 2,150
strong, as stated in the journal of Captain
Orme, of the general s staff. This force con
sisted of 1,400 British regulars, about 500
Virginia Provincials, and a miscellaneous
force of 250 more, composed of three inde
pendent companies, in the king s pay, each
about 60 strong; a small troop of Provincial
Light Horse from Virginia about 30 men
10 guides, and 30 sailors from the Centurion,
sent along to help handle the artillery of the
expedition. It was a tedious march, during
which not more than ten miles a day was
traversed, by reason of the delay in making a
road practicable for the wagon-train and the
heavier arms.
Braddock, fretted by these delays, finally,
by the advice of Sir Peter Halket, Captain
Orme, and his special Provincial aide-de
camp, Major George Washington, deter
mined to leave the heavy baggage and guns
behind with a guard of 700 men under
Colonel Dunbar, and to push forward, by
forced marches, with a column in light march-
126
Braddock s Defeat
ing order, composed of 1,000 British regulars
and 400 Virginia Provincials. This column
started the 19th of June, taking with it eight
of the lightest guns with their tumbrils ; the
provisions twenty days rations being car
ried on packhorses. The rest, so far as this
little volume has space to deal with the sub
ject, is soon told. On the 9th of July, Brad-
dock, with his column of 1,400, crossed the
Monongahela a few miles above its conflu
ence with the Allegheny forming the Ohio
River.
Here the British column fell into an am
buscade of French and Indians under Captain
Beaujeu of the French regular army, and in
less than an hour was hopelessly defeated,
utterly routed, and almost annihilated. Eng
lish historians have described it as the most
complete disaster that ever befell a British
force. General Braddock and all the field-
officers present were either killed or wounded.
The total loss out of 1,460 officers and men
was 456 killed outright or mortally wounded,
and 521 wounded, many of whom were so
disabled that they fell that night or the next
day under the tomahawks of the pursuing
savages. Of the total force of 1,460, only
483 escaped fit for duty and many of these
received slight wounds. The Virginia Pro-
127
Sir William Johnson
vincials did their best to cover the retreat, but
they, too, were overwhelmed.
When the wreck of Braddock s army
reached the reserve under Colonel Dunbar,
the latter partook of their panic, and a dis
graceful flight back to Fort Cumberland en
sued, baggage, supplies, cannon, and every
thing else that could impede flight being
abandoned. It was the greatest defeat ever
suffered by the whites in frontier warfare
greater even than St. Clair s and the most
wonderful victory ever won by the Indians.
We have noted that Braddock s force was
1,460 of all ranks. The force of French and
Indians that destroyed it has been variously
estimated. Doubtless the most accurate
statement is that of Captain Joncaire, who
organized the Indian part of the force, and
who would have commanded in the battle but
for an accident that happened to him early in
the morning of the day on which it occurred.
Just after daylight he mounted his pony
and was riding at top speed through a new
clearing full of logs and stumps, when the
pony stumbled, throwing the captain over his
head. The result was a dislocated left shoul
der and severe contusions in the head. He
was carried to the fort unconscious, and re
mained in that condition several hours being,
128
Braddock s Defeat
in fact, roused from his stupor by the trium
phant yells of his Indians returning from
their field of victory. He says in his journal
that the force actually in contact with Brad-
dock s army was composed of 600 Indians, 20
cadets (half-breed boys under training for
military service), and 16 white Frenchmen,
of whom 7 were regular officers a total of
636.
The 600 Indians, he says, represented as
many as ten tribes, it having been his policy
in organizing the force to take a small num
ber of picked warriors from each tribe, partly
with a view to stimulate rivalry, and partly to
identify as many different tribes as possible
with the French cause. He gives a list em
bodying an exact statement of the number
present from each tribe, and this list includes
80 Senecas and 18 Cayugas ; so that one-sixth
of the Indians who defeated Braddock be
longed to the traditional "friends of the Eng
lish," the Iroquois! The principal chief and
commander of all the Indians was the cele
brated Huron half-breed Anasthose, who was
said to be a grandson of Count de Fronte-
nac. The second-in-command was Pontiac,
then a young war-chief of the Ottawas. The
total loss of the French and Indians in
Braddock s defeat was 3 white men (includ-
129
Sir William Johnson
ing Captain Beaujeu) killed and 2 wounded;
2 cadets wounded; 7 Indians killed and 17
wounded a total of 10 killed and 21 wounded.
Winthrop Sargent, in his History of Brad-
dock s Expedition, says that the force under
Captain Beaujeu consisted of "600 Indians,
146 Canadian militia, 72 French regulars, and
20 cadets total, 838." But Joncaire says
that all but 16 of the French regulars and
all the Canadian militia were retained at the
fort by Captain Contrecoeur "who," he
says, rather sardonically, "did not imagine
that success was possible, and was among the
last to realize the magnitude and glory of the
victory. He had made all arrangements for
a capitulation with the honors of war ! "
Perhaps Joncaire was prejudiced against
Contrecoeur. The latter was only a captain
of infantry of the line, and the 72 French
regulars at Fort Duquesne were simply his
own company of the regiment of Languedoc.
Joncaire had long held the commission, pay,
and allowances of a "First Captain of Marine
Infantry " in the regular army of France, and
was borne on the "extra " or "special-service
list " of his regiment that of Toulon. A
"First Captain of Marine Infantry " was, by
title, only a captain, but the real rank was
equivalent to that of major in the British
130
Braddock s Defeat
service. He therefore ranked both Contre-
coeur and St. Pierre, who were only captains
of infantry of the line. But, as he had never
actually served with his regiment, and as his
rank was honorary rather than substantive,
they were always disputing his precedence
over them. However, at the time of Brad-
dock s defeat, Joncaire was recognized at
" Government House " in Quebec as the com
mander of the French and Indian forces in
the Ohio Valley. He was over seventy years
old at the time of the accident above related,
and he never again had much use of his left
arm. He never attempted field service after
the Braddock campaign. 1
1 During the rest of the war Captain Joncaire made his
headquarters most of the time at Fort Niagara, where he was
captured in 1759 when that stronghold surrendered to Sir
William Johnson s army. In his " list of prisoners" Sir Will
iam describes him as "captain of marines," and in the same
list appears the name of his half-breed son, "Chabeare"
(Chaubert) Joncaire, who commanded a company of half-breed
rangers. He was sent to England with the other captured
officers, and upon his release in 1762 returned to Canada. He
settled on his farm near St. Catharines, where he died in
1775, over ninety years old.
Sir William went to Niagara in 1766 to hold a council with
delegates of the Northwestern Indians who had recently been
engaged in Pontiac s war and now wanted to make peace. It
may be mentioned as a curious fact that these Indians, who
all belonged either to the Algonquin or the Ojibway (Chip-
pewa) grand divisions of the Indian race, could not be per-
131
Sir William Johnson
Unquestionably the general trend of pub
lic opinion in this country has, for nearly a
century and a half, been unfavorable to Gen
eral Braddock, and prejudiced toward his
memory. We have neither time nor space
here to debate the question whether public
opinion in this instance is right or wrong,
but whatever his faults may have been, Brad-
dock lacked neither breadth of perception,
boldness of design, nor bravery in execution.
It is worth while to say here that George
Washington, who was his aide-de-camp, and
stood by him when he breathed his last, never,
in all his writings or his conversations, had
suaded to come to Johnson Hall because that would compel
them to pass through the Iroquois tribes, their hereditary
foes. Therefore Sir William had to meet them at Niagara.
His journal during this conference contains the following
entry :
"... Had the pleasure of a visit from the venerable
Captain Joncaire, now past seventy (eighty), but hale and
hearty and a most loyal subject of our king. We had a long
talk in Iroquois, as I knew no French and he no English.
He asked me to give his two sons, Chabeare (Chaubert)
and Jean Francois (Clauzun), something to do in our Indian
service. I found them to be quarter-breeds, their mother
having been a half-breed. Discovering that they were very
capable fellows and loyal, I appointed one of them, Jean
Francois, interpreter and assistant agent at St. Mary s [Sault
Ste. Marie], and Chabeare in the same capacity at our new
post of Green Bay among the Menominees. They were all
very grateful and declared their content with British rule."
132
Braddock s Defeat
anything but the kindest words to say of Ed
ward Braddock. He was undoubtedly a mar
tinet, rough in manner, and, perhaps, severe
if not cruel in his methods of discipline, but
he was nevertheless a thoroughbred soldier
and a skilful tactician, within the teachings of
the school in which he had been trained, and
a general strategist of far more than ordi
nary ability.
After his arrival in this country he lost
no time. Upon reaching Hampton Roads,
almost his first act was to summon a council
of Colonial governors to meet him at Alex
andria, Virginia. The governors who ac
cepted the invitation and attended this coun
cil were those of Massachusetts, New York,
New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Virginia.
The other colonies, except South Carolina and
Georgia, which took no part in the conference,
were represented by their lieutenant-govern
ors. Sir William Johnson was present at this
conference by special invitation. He and
Benjamin Franklin were the only members of
it who were not governors or lieutenant-gov
ernors of colonies. At this conference Gen
eral Braddock outlined the strategy which he
had planned for his campaign at large. He
proposed four expeditions. One of these was
to be carried out in Nova Scotia under the
133
Sir William Johnson
governor of that province Lawrence with
the object of finally expelling the French from
that peninsula, but it had no direct connection
with the other three projects, and need not be
considered here.
The main projects were: first, an expedi
tion to be commanded by Braddock himself
for the reduction of Fort Duquesne and ex
pulsion of the French from the Ohio Valley ;
second, an expedition to be commanded by
Governor Shirley of Massachusetts for the
reduction of Fort Niagara, with the ultimate
object of cutting French communication be
tween Lake Ontario and the upper lakes ; the
third was an expedition for the reduction of
Crown Point, then the southernmost fortress
of the French on the New York frontier. As
commander of this last-mentioned expedition
he named Sir William Johnson, at the same
time appointing him, as has already been re
marked, General Superintendent of Indian
Affairs for the whole of British North Amer
ica in the name of the king. The scope of this
work, as already intimated, does not admit
discussion of the expeditions assigned to
Braddock himself, Shirley, or Governor Law
rence of Nova Scotia, but we may find space
for some detail of Sir William Johnson s ex
pedition against Crown Point.
134
Braddock s Defeat
As soon as the conference at Alexandria
was over, Johnson returned as rapidly as he
could to the Mohawk Valley, and immediately
summoned a conference of Iroquois chiefs to
meet him at Mount Johnson. With this mes
senger he sent a belt of wampum to each
chief, informing him of the appointment he
had received as the direct royal superintend
ent of all the North American Indians, which
was a very considerable promotion over the
commission he had recently held as superin
tendent of the Iroquois only. Upon receipt
of this information the Indians did not need
urging. The news, says Stone, that their
brother Warragh-i-ya-gey had again been
raised up to power among them, spread like
wildfire. Within ten days from the date of
his call for this conference, over 1,000 Indians
assembled at Mount Johnson. So unprece
dented and unexpected was the number pres-
sent by far the largest assemblage of Indi
ans ever before convened that Sir William
Johnson was altogether taken by surprise,
and his food-supply completely overwhelmed.
He had to call in the assistance of a large num
ber of his most prosperous neighbors for
fifteen or twenty miles up and down the
Mohawk Valley to help him out in this re
spect. On the 21st of June he opened the
135
Sir William Johnson
council by a speech, in which he informed the
Indians that he had been delegated to com
mand a certain expedition against a certain
important fortress of the enemy, that the
forces to be placed at his disposal were to be
Provincial troops from Massachusetts, New
Hampshire, Connecticut, and New York, and
that it was expected that about one thousand
picked warriors from the Six Nations should
form part of his force, to be commanded by
the venerable chief sachem of the Mohawks
and senior chief of all the Iroquois Hen-
drick. The usual interchange of oratory then
took place, after which the Indians departed
for their respective castles and villages, full
of enthusiasm and promising to place a thou
sand warriors at his disposal within six weeks
or two months. So well satisfied with the
results of this council was Sir William that
he wrote to the Duke of Cumberland shortly
after that "there are very few if any among
the whole Iroquois Confederacy who, in the
present dispute between the French and our
Crown, do not sincerely wish us success, and
are disposed to assist our arms."
Sir William now proceeded energetically
to organize his expedition. According to the
original plan, the force employed was to con
sist of 2,500 Provincial troops from Massa-
136
Braddock s Defeat
chusetts ? New Hampshire, and Connecticut;
1,000 from New York, and 1,000 Indians
4,500 altogether. Before the end of July all
the forces destined for the reduction of
Crown Point had assembled under Sir Will
iam s command at Albany. The contingents
of Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New York
were a little in excess of the required number.
New Hampshire sent 500 men organized in
seven companies under command of Colonel
Joshua A. Blanchard. The Massachusetts
and Connecticut troops were commanded by
Colonel Phineas Lyman. The only disap
pointment he experienced was that a little
less than 600 Indians responded to the call,
instead of the thousand expected. This,
however, was because the quota of Senecas,
which according to the population of the re
spective tribes had been fixed at 400, was
dilatory, and, in fact, was not mobilized in
time to take any active part in the campaign.
This was due partly to the lingering seeds of
disaffection which had been sown by the
French emissaries among the Senecas during
the past three years, but mainly to the fact
that just at the time when Hi-o-ka-to and Cap
tain Montour were assembling their warriors
at the Falls of the Genesee say about the
middle of July they received the stunning
10 137
Sir William Johnson
and utterly demoralizing news of Braddock s
defeat, which had occurred the 9th of that
month.
These tidings threw the whole of the Sen
eca Nation into a ferment of doubt and hesi
tancy, which all the eloquence of Montour and
all the stalwart bullying of Hi-o-ka-to were
powerless to overcome. All they could do
was to send runners to Sir William, inform
ing him of the state of affairs. Montour
persuaded perhaps twenty-five or thirty Sen
eca warriors to accompany him, and joined
Johnson s forces at Saratoga, and they were
the only Senecas engaged in the expedition.
Hi-o-ka-to stayed behind, declaring his de
termination to bring the allotted contingent of
Senecas along if, as he expressed it, he "had
to drag every mother s son of them by the
scalp-lock ! " On the 6th of August Sir Will
iam decided not to wait any longer for the
Seneca contingent, and sent Colonel Lyman
forward with the New York and Massachu
setts troops to erect a fort on the bank of
the Hudson Eiver at the south end of the
great portage between that river and Lake
George, to which he gave the name of Fort
Edward. At this time an unfortunate con
troversy arose between Sir William and Gov
ernor Shirley, growing out of the Govern-
138
Braddock s Defeat
or s pique at what he considered some lack
of suitable personal attention toward him
on Johnson s part. This controversy re
sulted in considerable correspondence of a
more or less acrimonious character, which
our present limits of space preclude us
from reproducing. Suffice to say in general
terms that the whole affair grew out of the
personal vanity of Governor Shirley brought,
as it was, in contact with Sir William s mat
ter-of-fact, businesslike way of transacting
affairs.
On the 8th of August Sir William himself
set out from Albany with the stores, baggage-
train, and artillery and the rest of the troops,
including four companies of the New York
regiment, which, coming from Dutches s and
Ulster counties down the river, were a little
behind those raised in Albany County. This
force was accompanied by the Chief Hendrick
with a hundred and fifty Mohawk warriors,
among whom was Joseph Brant, then a mere
boy of thirteen years, but, notwithstanding
his extreme youth, able to carry a light gun
(a small fowling-piece presented to him by
Sir William) that he had, and serving in the
ranks.
Sir William arrived at Fort Edward on
the 14th of August, where he was joined by
139
Sir William Johnson
250 more Indians, making the total number
about 400; and afterward 120 more came in
by small squads. The New England and New
York troops were full of ardor and impatient
of delay. The news of Braddock s defeat had
not only not disheartened them, but had made
them all the more anxious to be led against
Crown Point. They considered this expedi
tion a measure for the defense of their fire
sides. One of the Provincial officers, belong
ing to the Massachusetts contingent, Major
Thomas Williams, wrote a letter to his wife,
in which he said, among other things: "I en
deavor to keep myself calm and quiet under
our slow progress, and await God s time, but
the advance seems very slow." Colonel
Lyman was equally restive under the delay.
Indeed, a day or two before Sir William s
arrival at Fort Edward, he had set 300 of his
men to work to cut a road across the hills to
Fort Ann, supposing that the army would
proceed against Crown Point by way of Wood
Creek and the head of Lake Champlain.
Sir William, on his arrival, called a coun
cil of war to decide upon the best route, and
the result of this council was that Colonel
Lyman s movement was countermanded. A
scouting party of forty soldiers, under Cap
tain John Stark, with thirty Indians, was then
140
Braddock s Defeat
sent out to reconnoiter the whole country in
the vicinity of Lake George. When these
scouts returned another council of war was
held on the 22d of August, in which the offi
cers, upon hearing their report, unanimously
decided that the Lake George route appeared
to them the most eligible, and that it ought
to be immediately adopted as the plan of cam
paign. In a previous chapter we have men
tioned that about the close of King George s
War, seven years before, Sir William had
made a road from the head of Lake George to
Fort Edward or Glens Falls, but this road
had been neglected. Many trees had fallen
across it, and it had to be cleared out. So
2,000 men were sent forward to restore this
road, with orders also to erect at the head of
the lake a fort, with suitable buildings in
which to store arms and other munitions of
war when they should arrive.
Then, leaving Colonel Lyman to await
the rest of the troops, and the New Hamp
shire Provincials to complete and garrison
the fort, Sir William set out on the 26th of
August with 3,400 men for the lake a dis
tance of about fifteen miles and reached it
at dusk on the 28th. After some reconnoiter-
ing he selected on the 29th a position for his
camp which was on a bluff shore of the lake,
141
Sir William Johnson
flanked at both ends by thickly wooded
swamps where small creeks emptied in. The
French had always called this lake "St. Sac
rament," and Sir William now solemnly
changed it to Lake George, "not only, 7 as he
said, "in honor of His Majesty the King, but
to assure his undoubted dominion here."
Although Lake George had been used for
many years as a means of communication,
both for warlike and commercial purposes,
between Canada and Albany, yet its shores
were still a primeval forest, where no house
had ever been built or a spot of land cleared.
The troops immediately set about clearing a
place for a camp capable of sheltering 5,000
men, and providing housing for their military
stores.
Meanwhile, Colonel Lyman, as soon as all
the dilatory troops arrived, left at Fort
Edward a garrison of 250 Connecticut Pro
vincials and five companies of the New York
regiment, 1 and with the rest of his force joined
the camp at Lake George on September 3d,
bringing with him all the heavy artillery.
1 We have used the term "regiment" in speaking of the
New York contingent. But besides Schuyler s regiment of
ten companies there were four independent companies, com
manded by Captains Davis, Ten Eyck, Munro (Rangers), and
Vrooman.
142
Braddock s Defeat
Johnson had expected to be joined at the lake
by many more warriors of the Six Nations.
He expected at least 600, although he had re
ceived tidings from Hi-o-ka-to and informa
tion from Captain Montour, who had then
arrived with his small detachment at his
camp, that there was little hope of the full
Seneca contingent of 400 being available. In
the meantime, de Vaudreuil, who had just
succeeded Duquesne as Governor-General of
Canada, learned by papers, taken at the wreck
of Braddock s army, of Shirley s proposed ex
pedition against Niagara, and as a counter-
movement he had arranged an attack upon
Oswego, but learning subsequently that Sir
William Johnson s expedition was advancing
by way of Lake George against Crown Point,
he changed his purpose. He called back the
French force already on its way to Oswego,
and sent them under Baron Dieskau to meet
Sir William s forces.
The baron left a large force about 1,200
men at Crown Point, and taking with him
280 French regulars of the Regiment de la
Eeine, 800 Canadian militia, and between 600
and 700 Indians, proceeded up Lake Cham-
plain and landed at the head of that lake, with
the intention of marching across the country
and attacking Fort Edward in Johnson s rear,
143
Sir William Johnson
with a view of cutting off his retreat and in
the hope of thereby annihilating his army.
If he should be able to accomplish this, the
route to Albany and the lower settlements on
the Hudson would be open and undefended.
On the fourth day, however, after leaving the
head of Lake Champlain, the French army
found itself on the road to Lake George, in
stead of to Fort Edward, and Dieskau dis
covered through his scouts that he was only
four miles from the fortified camp which Sir
William Johnson had made on the bank of
the lake. Here Dieskau halted and sent for
ward a party of Indians, under the direction
of Captain de St. Pierre, to reconnoiter. In
the course of their reconnaissance they en
countered and killed a courier whom General
Johnson had sent to warn the garrison at
Fort Edward of their danger. Dieskau, dis
covering from this fact that Sir William was
on the alert, gave the Indians under his
command the choice of either attacking the
fort or marching against Sir William s camp
at the lake. The Indians, who never had any
stomach for artillery, and having been told by
a prisoner that the camp at the lake had no
cannon, positively refused to attack the fort,
but expressed their desire to be led against
the fortified camp. Dieskau thereupon
144
Braddock s Defeat
marched through the forests toward Lake
George, and encamped that night on the banks
of a small pond a little to the eastward of the
Lake George road, and at the southern foot
of French Mountain.
About nightfall on the 7th of September,
Johnson learned through his scouts that a
large body of men were marching toward his
camp. Early the next morning he sent out
about 800 Provincials under Colonel Ephraim
Williams, and the whole force of Hendrick s
Iroquois warriors, led by the venerable chief
himself, to find the enemy. What we have
called "a fortified camp " was simply an aba
tis or rough log breastwork, made by felling
trees across the foot of the camp and lopping
down their branches. There was no earth
work or other pretense of regular fortifica
tion, excepting that places were cleared
through the log-slashing to form a kind of
embrasure for the four cannon that he had
with him at the lake. Dieskau, advised by his
Indian scouts of the movement of Colonel
Williams and Hendrick, arranged an ambus
cade, and the detachment, when about two
and a half miles from the camp, walked right
into it, the column being led by Hendrick and
his warriors. Dieskau had ordered that his
men should reserve their fire until the Provin-
145
Sir William Johnson
cials and Iroquois were entirely within the
half circle of his ambush, but before the de
tachment had gone that far, one of the ene
my s muskets went off accidentally, where
upon the attack began. Volley after volley
was poured with murderous effect upon the
Indians in front and upon the left of Will
iams column of Provincials. Hendrick, who
was riding at the head of his column a large,
corpulent man, and wearing a brilliant uni
form formed a conspicuous mark for the
enemy s bullets, and was killed at the first
fire.
The venerable warrior was in his eightieth
year when he fell in battle. Colonel Will
iams was also killed a few minutes after Hen
drick, being shot through the head as he was
in the act of mounting a rock in order better
to direct the movements of his men, his horse
having been shot under him a few minutes be
fore. The Provincials and Indians now broke,
and retreated in some confusion, the enemy
following close at their heels, yelling and fir
ing. Beaching a small pond near the road to
the lake, Lieutenant-Colonel Cole of the Mas
sachusetts Provincials succeeded in rallying
two hundred or more of them in a favorable
position, and stationing his men behind trees
at a point where the road ran close to the
146
KING HEXDRICK OF THE MOHAWKS.
Braddock s Defeat
pond, forming a sort of defile, checked the
pursuit. Sir William, as soon as he heard
the firing, had sent Cole with 300 men to
cover the retreat, subsequently reenforcing
them with 200 more under Major Whiting.
The check given the advancing enemy at this
little pond which has ever since been known
in the local phrase as " Bloody Pond " en
abled the survivors of the force of Williams
and Hendrick to reach the fortified camp, into
which they clambered pell-mell over the fallen
trees and brush, weary, dejected, and dispir
ited. Had Dieskau been able, as he had in
tended, to take advantage of the confusion
produced in Sir William s camp by the arrival
of these panic-stricken fugitives, and while
his own men were completely flushed with
success, he might possibly have made a grand
rush and carried the improvised barrier or
abatis by storm; although, notwithstanding
the demoralization at the first onset, the sub
sequent proceedings indicate that even this
would have been doubtful. It was not be
lieved by the Indians and Canadians that Sir
William had any artillery in his camp at the
lake, but when they arrived in sight of the
breastwork they saw that he had four guns
mounted, whereupon they halted and took
shelter in the woods. This left only the
147
Sir William Johnson
French regulars for attack, and before Dies-
kau could rally and reinspire his Indians and
Canadians, the Provincials had found time in
which to improve their defenses and recover
from their previous demoralization.
As soon as Dieskau had rallied and
brought his Canadians and Indians to the
front again, the 280 French regulars attacked
Sir William s flimsy defenses in the center,
advancing rapidly and firing by platoons.
The Provincials, however, stood firm, and the
regulars, after losing about 70 men in attack
ing the center, were withdrawn. Dieskau
then made an attack with his Canadians on
the left flank of Johnson s camp, but with no
better effect. Finally, discovering that there
was a gap of about 20 or 25 yards between
the right of the slashing which covered John
son s camp and the bank of the thickly wooded
and impassable swamp that defended his
right flank, Dieskau determined upon a des
perate charge of his regulars in column of
platoons to get through this gap. Had this
succeeded, it would have turned Johnson s
right. The regulars, of whom about 210 were
now left, charged at this gap as they might
have charged at Fontenoy, Dieskau leading
them in person. He had expected an easy
victory, but now the stubbornness of the resist-
148
Braddock s Defeat
ance and the comparative feebleness of the
attacks which his Canadian militia had made
filled him with forebodings. He could not
bear the idea that he, the favorite pupil and
at one time chief aide-de-camp to the great
Marshal Saxe, should be beaten in the for
ests of America by an army of backwoods
men, commanded by a f aimer !
It may, perhaps, be fortunate for the des
tinies of the Anglo-Saxon race in this coun
try that this, the only practicable open
breach in Sir William s line of defense, was
held by four companies of the New Hamp
shire Provincials, and they were commanded
by their senior captain, who, though senior to
the other captains in rank, was junior to them
all in years. The four companies of New
Hampshire Provincials numbered about 260
to 280 men. The fighting in the breach was,
for the most part, hand-to-hand. Perhaps
half of the New Hampshire men had bayo
nets; those who had none used the butts of
their muskets, as there was no time to reload.
This desperate combat lasted perhaps seven
or eight minutes. At its end the French
commander-in-chief, Dieskau, was mortally
wounded and a prisoner. Of his 210 magnifi
cent French regulars belonging to "de la
Eeine " the most famous regiment in the
149
Sir William Johnson
French army only 41 escaped unhurt. The
loss of the New Hampshire Provincials
was between 90 and 100 out of say 260
to 280.
It may not be uninteresting to know that
the unflinching young senior captain of the
New Hampshire Provincials, who held his
"embattled farmers " to their deadly work in
that breach against the flower of the French
regulars, was John Stark, then only twenty-
seven years old. Further comment does not
seem necessary.
The battle was over. Dieskau s army,
abandoning all its baggage, and many of his
men throwing away their guns, fled toward
Crown Point. The Provincials were ex
tremely desirous of pursuing them, but Sir
William Johnson, knowing that a large re
serve had been left behind at Crown Point,
and also realizing the exhausted condition of
his troops, who had suffered very consider
able losses, did not deem pursuit prudent,
and though urged by Colonel Lyman to per
mit a strong advance, peremptorily forbade
it, and ordered his troops to rest on their
arms. In fact, Sir William himself had
received a severe wound in his efforts to
rally the Indians when they retreated to the
breastwork after the death of Hendrick. He
150
Braddock s Defeat
was outside the breastwork on horseback, 11
shouting to the Indians in their own tongue,
and to a considerable extent restoring confi
dence and order among them. Wishing to
look behind him for a moment, he put one
hand upon the pommel and the other upon
the cantle of his saddle, and rising up in his
stirrups, he turned half round. Just as he
did so a bullet from the French line in the
woods struck him in the left hip back of the
joint, grazing the bone, passing through the
fleshy part of the hip, to the right and upward
afc an angle of about 45 degrees, and lodging
in the large muscle just below the small of
the back, making a very severe and painful,
though not dangerous, flesh wound. Painful
as this wound was, Sir William kept his sad
dle until the crisis was over. When he did dis
mount his left leg was quite paralyzed, and his
left boot full of blood. He did not even let his
1 A curious incident occurred in this battle. Sir William
had taken with him in the campaign a magnificent imported
thoroughbred stallion which he used as a charger in parades,
reviews, etc. He had two other horses of more common and
less valuable kind that he used in battle. At the beginning
of this action he had one of his orderlies take the stallion to a
place near the shore of the lake where he would be, as was
supposed, out of range ; but a stray bullet struck the blooded
stallion in the head and killed him, while the plebeian nag
Sir William rode in the thick of the melee came out unhurt 1
The stallion was worth 1,000, the nag perhaps 20.
151
Sir William Johnson
men know that he had been hit. Fortunately,
it was an Indian bullet only about half the
size of the ounce-ball of the regulation musket.
Curiously enough, he and the French com
mander, Baron Dieskau, were taken to the
surgeons at the same time, and Sir William
directed them to dress the wounds of his
fallen antagonist before they attended to his
own. The bullet that wounded Sir William
a half-ounce ball from an Indian s gun
lodged just beneath the skin at the lower end
of the great muscle on the left side of the
small of the back, and was easily extracted by
cutting through the skin.
There was at the time considerable criti
cism in military circles of Sir William s fail
ure to follow up this victory more closely, and
he himself used to say in reply to these criti
cisms, that if he had not been disabled, the
probability is that he would have yielded to
the importunities of Colonel Lyman and other
officers to pursue the retreating enemy. His
force was considerably superior numerically
to the French and Indians. The highest esti
mate we have ever seen of Dieskau s force
was that it amounted to 1,800 men, of whom
about 1,100 were whites or half-breeds 280
or 300 French regulars and 800 Canadian
militia, together with about 700 Indians. Sir
152
Braddock s Defeat
William had under his command at the begin
ning of the action not less than 3,000 to 3,200
men, of whom about 500 were Indians ; but he
knew that a reserve of at least 1,200 good
troops regulars and Canadian militia had
been left at Crown Point ; and as the distance
between that place and this battle-field was
less than a day s forced march, there was dan
ger of a counter attack which, falling as it
must have done upon raw troops thoroughly
tired out and considerably shaken by their
losses, might have proved disastrous.
Stone says that when Colonel Lyman
begged that he might take the Massachusetts
and the New York troops, with such of the
Indians as might be rallied to follow him, and
pursue the enemy, Sir William replied:
"Much as I admire your spirit and honor your
purpose, colonel, I have reason to expect that
the reserve left at the Point will join the force
we have been contending with, during the
night, and then the attack on this position is
likely to be renewed to-morrow. Therefore,
I consider it dangerous to weaken my force
by dividing it." The question whether this
view of the situation was sufficient to justify
his refusal of Lyman s request is, of course,
purely a matter of speculation. It was one
of those cases where there can be no rule of
11 153
Sir William Johnson
action except the judgment of the command
ing officer on the spot. One thing is to be
said of Sir William Johnson, however, and
that is, in whatever capacity of life or in what
ever emergency, private or public, civil or
military, he was always cool and cautious,
and if in any military operation he committed
an error, it was always sure to be on the side
of prudence. "The proof of the pudding,
etc.," is exemplified in his case. He com
manded two very important expeditions dur
ing the old French war the one under con
sideration and the one which resulted in the
capture of Fort Niagara and it must be said
of him that if he never won any great, bril
liant, or startling victory, he never got
whipped !
No farther advance was made by the
forces under Sir William Johnson toward
Crown Point. It was getting late in the sea
son. After deducting the losses in the battle
of Lake George, and taking account of the fact
that most of the Indians returned to their
homes soon afterward, thus reducing John
son s force to less than 2,400 all told, it ap
pears reasonable that he should pause at the
idea of attempting to storm or even besiege
a regular fortification like Crown Point with
that number of men, none of whom were regu-
154
Braddock s Defeat
lar troops, when the work itself was sure to
be defended by a force very nearly equal, and
likely to be largely reenforced from Canada.
The cooperating colonies of New York, Mas
sachusetts, Connecticut, and New Hampshire
showed no disposition to reenforce Johnson.
So that on the whole we think it may justly
be said that, in pursuing the course he did
that is to say, of fortifying the positions he
had gained, and of making sure of his lines of
communication in his rear Sir William dis
played in a marked degree that virtue which
is generally described by the aphorism that
"discretion is the better part of valor." At
any rate, the king and the Duke of Cumber
land appeared to be perfectly satisfied with
what he had achieved, because, as soon as the
news of the battle of Lake George reached
England, he was made a baronet of the hered
itary class, and promoted to the rank of
major-general in the British regular army,
on the Colonial establishment.
One of the best expressions I have seen
with regard to the real value of Sir William
Johnson s victory at Lake George was made
by Cortlandt Van Rensselaer. He said the
principal value of this victory was its influ
ence in rallying the spirits and restoring the
confidence of the American colonies. Much
155
Sir William Johnson
had been expected from the three expeditions
planned at Alexandria and sent against the
French. Disappointment and sorrow had
already followed Braddock s terrible defeat.
A different though not less bitter feeling had
been experienced at the failure of Shirley s
expedition against Fort Niagara. While
General Johnson had not achieved the ulti
mate object of his expedition which was to
take Crown Point he had inflicted a terrible
and destructive defeat upon a powerful
French force, led by the best general the
French had on this side of the ocean, in which
that general was himself placed liors de
combat forever. Not only were the colonies
filled with rejoicing, but the influence of the
triumph went over to England, and the deeds
of the Provincials at Lake George became
familiar to the ears of royalty and were ap
plauded by the eloquence of orators on the
floor of Parliament. The moral effects of a
battle, in which the forces arrayed against
each other were comparatively small, have
rarely been greater or more decisive in the
whole range of military annals. Viewed
simply in its military aspect, the battle of
Lake George was the only successful achieve
ment in all the thirteen colonies during the
campaign of 1755.
156
Braddock s Defeat
Although General Johnson s expedition,
as already remarked, failed in its ultimate
object in reducing Crown Point, it still had a
glamour in the brilliant success of a hard-
fought and well-won pitched battle. In war
success in one direction may and does often
overbalance reverse or shortcoming in an
other. At the very least, or at the minimum
of its importance, it was, after all, the one
great event of the campaign of 1755. Above
all, it was purely an achievement of the yeo
manry of New York and New England. Not
a single British regular was there, either offi
cer or enlisted man, and certainly not the
least, if not, indeed, the greatest of its values,
was the lesson it taught to the military
world that American Provincials could suc
cessfully face and overcome French regulars.
Sir William Johnson s wound practically
disabled him for about three months, and for
the rest of his life he always walked with a
slight halt or limp in the left leg. However,
he did not leave the camp, but continued in
command, giving his personal attention to his
duties. As soon as his wound was suffi
ciently healed to enable him to leave his
bed, it was his habit to be carried about
on a litter, inspecting the fortifications of
the base of operations he had gained, di-
157
Sir William Johnson
recting the movements of scouting parties
and forays into the enemy s country
in short, commanding his forces quite as
actively and as efficiently as he might have
done had he come out of the battle unscathed.
He did not return to his home at Mount John
son until after winter set in. Then Colonel
Lyman now promoted to the regular rank
of brigadier-general on the colonial establish
ment was left in command of the northern
line of defenses, and no further operations
were attempted until the following spring.
After the death of Hendrick he was succeeded
as principal sachem of the Mohawks by the
elder Brant, whom we have previously called
Nicklaus. In the battle at Lake George,
Brant succeeded Hendrick in command of the
Indians. Sir William s influence may have
had something to do with this selection, be
cause there was another prominent candidate
for the succession. At this time the elder
Brant may have been considered Sir Will
iam s "father-in-law," because, a little more
than a year previously, he had made Brant s
daughter Mary the object of his affections
and mistress of his household. As to the
other and more exalted distinction which Hen
drick had so long held that of senior chief
of the Iroquois Confederacy, which was an
158
Braddock s Defeat
elective position, not hereditary was left
vacant for twenty years, until in 1775 Joseph
Brant was chosen to fill it.
Joseph Brant was present in this battle,
though only thirteen years old. In his de
scription he says: "When the firing began I
was so overcome that I had to seize hold of a
sapling to steady myself. But I instantly
thought that such feelings were not those of
a warrior, and went on loading and firing the
small gun I had, the same as the others.
. . . My father, seeing me standing in an
open space, somewhat roughly ordered me to
get behind a tree which I hastily obeyed,
though I had not before thought of taking
cover."
In January, 1756, Sir William, having
fully recovered from his wounds, went to New
York city to lay his annual report before the
Governor and confer with the Committee of
Supply, whose custom it was to have him
explain in detail his recommendations for
Indian appropriations. We have already
noted that during the campaign of 1755 some
friction occurred between Sir William and
Governor Shirley. After the death of Brad-
dock, Shirley resumed the position in which
the former had superseded him that of com-
mander-in-chief in British North America.
159
Sir William Johnson
He set up the singular contention that, as Sir
William had been appointed and commis
sioned by Braddock to be General Superin
tendent of Indian Affairs at Large, his
authority ended with Braddock s life, and
must be renewed or approved by his suc
cessor!
Acting upon this theory, Shirley had, at
the beginning of the year, served upon Sir
William a new commission, accompanied
with a mass of "instructions/ all of which
were unnecessary and most of which were
absurd. Sir William determined now to set
tle the matter once for all. He replied po
litely to Shirley, and as he always did every
thing openly and aboveboard, he informed
him of his intention to lay the whole affair
before the king and ministry. He did this
in two letters one to Secretary Fox of the
Board of Trade and the Colonies, the other
to the king himself. In due time Secretary
Fox addressed to him a letter containing a
royal commission as "Agent, Sole Superin
tendent of the Six Nations and all other Indi
ans inhabiting British territory, north of the
Carolinas and the Ohio River," with a fixed
salary of 600 per annum, and a like amount
for official expenses. At the same time the
ministry addressed circular letters to all the
160
Braddock s Defeat
Colonial governors, enclosing copies of Sir
William s new commission, informing them
that "it was the act of the king himself
through an order in council," and "forbidding
any Colonial governor to transact any busi
ness with the Indians or hold any communi
cation with them except through Sir William
Johnson."
This action settled his status for all time,
and he henceforth had a free hand. Shirley,
ignominiously snubbed, had to content him
self with a personal hatred toward the baro
net, which he ever afterward ardently cher
ished. 1 Shirley was an active, energetic man,
of considerable ability in many directions.
But he was full of vanity, subject to small jeal
ousies and petty piques. These traits weak
ened and seriously compromised the efficiency
of an otherwise strong character and fertile
mind. He could never forgive Sir William
1 Shirley s subsequent splenetic and impotent hatred was
amusing rather than inconvenient to Sir William. In one of
his letters to Gen. Jeffrey Amherst in 1759, between whom
and the baronet the warmest friendship existed, he says :
"Shirley hates me. I am sorry for him; I almost pity
him. He has many good traits that are good and useful, but
he has also a few small traits that are bad and harmful more
to himself than to any one else. His trouble lies in his tend
ency to subordinate the great traits to the small ones. I do
not know of another instance where the makings of a great
character have been so spoiled by foibles."
161
Sir William Johnson
for winning the battle of Lake George
against Dieskau, the French commander-in-
chief, while he (Shirley) was retreating in
disorder from Oswego, pursued by a French
colonel !
162
^s^ ^fM^tM^l
tiM^^Kml
;\jj*lf ;.- < rO ! ;* .wfe!
CHAPTER IV
SERVICES IN THE LAST PART OF THE WAR
1756-1761
WE may pass rapidly over the events of
1756 and 1757. There never were two drear
ier years in the history of the British Empire.
Corruption and imbecility, incarnate in the
ministry of Newcastle, seemed to have
reached the uttermost dregs of defeat, dis
grace, and disaster. And nowhere were the
effects so humiliating or so disheartening as
in the American colonies. The worst of these
effects took the shape of three generals sent
over during that period. They were Lord
Loudoun, General Abercrombie, and General
Webb.
Loudoun was a titled prig, with no knowl
edge whatever of the conditions of warfare
in America, and very little anywhere else.
He was equally ignorant of the spirit of the
colonists or the genius and working of
their institutions. The only things he ever
did, or apparently knew how to do, were to
163
Sir William Johnson
display pomp, procrastinate, and find fault.
He despised the Provincial soldiers, held
the Colonial governments in contempt, and
seemed to think that his orders ought to re
peal laws. It is difficult to imagine such
utter perversity of conception or such fla
grant degeneracy of mental process in a man
raised under British institutions as were in
carnate in this empty, vapid, puffball of Eng
lish aristocracy. Fortunately he did not last
long. But while he did last, he contrived to
bring the war to its most desperate stage, to
make French success almost universal from
Lake Champlain to the Ohio, and to enshroud
the hopeless colonies in a gloom that trenched
closely upon the borders of despair. Eng
land has raised a big brood of worthless
"noblemen" (so-called). But she had never
before, nor has she ever since, quite dupli
cated the pattern of Lord Loudoun.
Abercrombie was a bluff but dull soldier,
whose sole idea of warfare was the paste
board system then in vogue on the continent
of Europe. He was brave, even to rashness,
but his courage was that of stupidity rather
than of reason. He always wanted to do
everything with the bayonet, and was appar
ently too obtuse to see any difference in the
chances of that weapon between the open
164
Services in Last Part of the War
plains of Europe and the tangled woods of
America.
His one effort was the assault of Fort Ti-
conderoga with 14,000 men, about half of
whom were British regulars. Montcalm de
fended the works with 3,600, of whom less
than 2,000 were French regulars. Abercrom-
bie lost 2,000 men in half an hour, inflicting
on his adversaries a loss of less than 50.
Though he had over twelve thousand men left
and a heavy train of siege-artillery that had
not been used at all, he made no attempt at
regular siege, but retreated precipitately to
his base of operations. Sir William John
son was present with Abercrombie s army at
the head of 450 to 500 Indians, but they were
not permitted to do anything, and shared the
disheartenment of their white comrades.
Abercrombie, like Loudoun, was of short du
ration. His strut upon the American stage
was very brief. But while he strutted he
managed to paralyze the largest and best-
appointed army that had ever been assembled
on American soil.
And now we come to Webb. The sole ex
ploit of this "general " was to hold his army
in firm leash at Fort Edward, while Montcalm
at his leisure besieged and took Fort Wil
liam Henry, only a few miles away, his Indi-
165
Sir William Johnson
ans massacring many of the garrison after
the surrender. The only help he could vouch
safe to Colonel Munro. commanding the fort,
was in the shape of a letter advising him to
surrender. But we may let Sir William de
scribe Webb. He said to Colonel Peter
Schuyler at Albany, in a talk about the mas
sacre of Fort William Henry shortly after
Schuyler s return from Canada on parole :
Webb s malady is constitutional. If he had let
me go, I believe I could have compelled the French
to raise the siege. If he had supported me with his
whole force, I believe we could have beaten Mont-
calm. We had nearly seven thousand effective
troops, and Munro had about sixteen hundred more
in his garrison and fortified camp. Montcalm had
no more than six thousand effective. But Webb,
instead of marching to the relief of Munro, sent
him a letter advising him to surrender on the best
terms he could get. You know the rest. I hate
to say it, but the truth must be told. Webb en
joys a solitary and unique distinction. He is the
only British general in fact, I may say the only
British officer of any rank I ever knew or heard
of who was personally a coward.
That Webb was and is such, no one who served
with him or under him could fail to perceive. He
was nearly beside himself with physical fear after
the fall of Fort William Henry. His army was
in good spirits, anxious to fight. The general alone
166
Services in Last Part of the War
was panic-stricken! The fate of Braddock, who
was an old comrade of his in the Guards, almost
upset his mind. At his headquarters in Fort Ed
ward, when I was present, the subject of Brad-
dock s expedition came up, and Webb spoke with
almost puerile fear of the horrors of falling into
the hands of the Indians. He declared he was
sure they would burn him at the stake if they ever
caught him, because they knew he was the most
dangerous enemy they ever had! (sic.)
It was different on the French side.
While the English colonies were sweltering in
the agony of imbecile command and sweating
bloody sweats under the pompous inanity of
Loudoun, the brutal stupidity of Abercrombie
and the indescribable buffoonery and pol
troonery of Webb, the French had their Mont-
calm! This man was a wonder. We must
judge what he did by our knowledge of what
he had to do it with. When, in 1756, he took
the supreme command of the French forces
in Canada, in succession to the Baron Dies-
kau, defeated, wounded, and captured by Sir
William Johnson at Lake George, Montcalm
found himself almost wholly dependent on the
resources of the colony itself. The impo-
tency of the Newcastle ministry had, indeed,
sufficed to paralyze the military arm of Eng
land in America on the land. But not even
167
Sir William Johnson
the Newcastle blight could wholly wreck or
even seriously cripple the sea-power of Eng
land.
So it happened that while, under Loudoun
and Abercrombie and Webb, disaster trod on
the heels of disaster by land, the navy of old
England proved irrepressible, and with its
Hawkes, its Boscawens, and its Howes, made
the ocean path between old France and New
France all the time well-nigh impassable, and
most of the time wholly so. Indeed, the
French sixty-gun ship that Montcalm himself
came over in was twice in the midst of Howe s
squadron between Cape Race and Bay Cha-
leur, and escaped only by reason of dense
fogs. But, if they did not happen to catch
Montcalm, they proved abundantly able to
intercept most of his supplies and to capture
or chase back to France all, or nearly all, of
the transports bringing reenforcements.
The result was that when Montcalm as
sumed command he instantly saw that he
must fight it out with such resources in men
and supplies as the colony already held, and
that he could place no reasonable dependence
upon further reenforcement or succor of any
kind from the parent state. Here, in this
situation, the sea-power of England doubtless
wrote the brightest chapter in its history
168
Services in Last Part of the War
brighter, even, in the splendor of its contri
bution to the sum-total of success and vic
tory, than the page on which are inscribed
the words "Nelson" and "Trafalgar."
For, in the final act of the drama, which
was a play for the sovereignty of a continent,
while such generals as Amherst, Wolfe,
Forbes, and Sir William Johnson were strik
ing their fatal blows at French dominion on
land, the omnipresent and inevitable fleets of
Hawke, Boscawen, and Howe were choking
French dominion to death on the sea.
As soon as Montcalm had gotten fairly in
the stirrups in 1756, he planned and executed
an attack on the important English post of
Oswego. This was the key of the western
Iroquois country, the principal entrepot of
the English fur-trade in that region, and a
base from which Lake Ontario might be com
manded by a naval force. It had, in 1756, a
garrison of 1,500 or 1,600 men, and a small
population of civilian traders, with a few
women and children. Montcalm crossed the
lake from Oswegatchie, and in August, 1756,
invested Oswego with about 2,000 French
regulars, 2,000 Canadian militia, and 1,000
Indians the latter commanded by the after
ward famous Pontiac. After a brief resist
ance the small garrison surrendered at
12 169
Sir William Johnson
discretion. The Indians at once desired to
indulge in a general massacre, and ap
proached the place where the prisoners were
under guard.
Montcalm, determined that the glory of
his arms should not be tarnished by cruelty
to prisoners, ordered his French regulars to
protect the captives at the point of the bay
onet. They obeyed to the letter, but it was
not until after they had killed six of the Indi
ans and badly wounded eighteen or twenty
more that the savages desisted. The able-
bodied men of the garrison were taken to Can
ada as prisoners and the women and children
sent to Onondaga Castle under a guard of
French regulars. The approach of this escort
spread consternation through the Mohawk
Valley. The people thought it was the van
guard of an invasion in force. Montcalm,
however, destroyed the forts and other build
ings, sent belts of peace-wampum to the west
ern Iroquois, and invited them to a conference
with the Governor-General at Montreal. He
then returned with his whole force to Canada.
The French archives contain evidence that
Montcalm s first intention really was to in
vade New York by way of the Mohawk Val
ley. But upon a closer reconnaissance, he
concluded that the transportation of supplies
170
Services in Last Part of the War
by that route would present insuperable dif
ficulties. After the fall of Oswego he had
conferences with certain Seneca, Cayuga, and
Onondaga chiefs, from whom he gained the
impression that in consequence of the recent
demonstrations of strength on the part of the
French, and weakness of the English, they
would remain neutral in the future.
Montcalm, upon his return to Canada, dis
posed his forces for an invasion of the north
ern colonies by way of Lake Champlain early
the next spring, and made no other movement
of importance during the season of 1756. The
Canadian Government, however, actively pro
moted and instigated Indian forays upon the
New York, Pennsylvania, and New England
border settlements, whereby the whole winter
of 1756-57 was kept hideous with ravage and
massacre from the Kennebec to the Susque-
hanna.
Early in 1757 Montcalm moved up Lake
Champlain, and on the 18th of March made a
demonstration against Fort William Henry,
using the ice on Lake George as a roadway
of approach. Finding the place too strong
to be taken by coup de main, he retired to
Crown Point, and awaited the opening of
navigation. Meantime he began the building
of the formidable works known as Fort Ti-
171
Sir William Johnson
conderoga, as an advanced post some miles
south of the Point.
As soon as the lakes were clear of ice he
transported a force of about 6,000 l men
3,000 regulars, 2,000 Canadian militia, and
1,000 Indians in 250 bateaux, to the head of
Lake George, and on the 4th of August in
vested Fort William Henry and the fortified
camp under its guns, held by Colonel Munro
with something over 1,600 men. General
Webb was at Fort Edward, less than a good
day s march distant only 14 miles with
4,500 men, about half of whom were regulars.
Munro asked for assistance, but Webb be
lieved that Montcalm had at least 14,000 men,
and cowered behind the parapets of Fort Ed
ward. Two days after the formal investment
of Fort William Henry, Sir William Johnson
joined Webb from Albany with nearly 2,000
Provincials and 500 to 600 Indians. He
asked Webb to give him another thousand
men and let him march at once to the relief of
Munro. Webb at first assented, but when
Johnson s head of column had got about four
1 A detachment 1,200 or 1,400 strong under M. de Levi
inarched down the western shore of the lake. This was a
ruse of Montcalm to impress the garrison when they should
see de Levi s detachment approaching by land that it was a
reenforcement.
172
Services in Last Part of the War
miles from Fort Edward, peremptorily re
called him, saying Montcalm was too strong,
and expressing fear that Johnson would
share the fate of Braddock.
In vain Sir William assured him that his
scouts, both Indians and Stark s Rangers, had
informed him that the French force did not
exceed 6,000. In vain he entreated and ex
postulated. Webb was firm. Irresolute in
everything else, he could be firm only in his
poltroonery and consistent only in his cow
ardice.
Montcalm contented himself with destroy
ing Fort William Henry. That fort had been
made the depot of ordnance intended for the
movement contemplated against Crown Point.
Montcalm found there a siege-train of twelve
heavy guns, several mortars, and a large sup
ply of ammunition and stores. These he took
away and retired to Ticonderoga, making no
attempt on Fort Edward, though his Indians
killed and scalped several of Webb s soldiers
within sight of its ramparts. Montcalm has
been criticized for his failure to follow up
this success. But his force was too small.
He had only a little over seven thousand
men, including the garrison of Crown Point.
Webb had nearly as many.
Montcalm naturally shrank from attack-
173
Sir William Johnson
ing a strong fortification like Fort Edward
with a force little if any larger than that of its
defenders. Had he been better acquainted
with Webb this consideration might not have
had so much weight in his mind. Owing to
the failure of Governor-General de Vaudreuil
to send a promised convoy of wagons and
pack animals to him, he was deficient in
means of land transport. And besides all
this, he knew that the militia of New York,
Connecticut, and Massachusetts would be
mobilized at once to support Webb. This, in
fact, occurred; more than 12,000 militia as
sembling within striking distance of Fort
Edward, a few weeks after the fall of Fort
William Henry. Montcalm did all that his
resources permitted.
Only one other "great operation " oc
curred during the season of 1757. Late in
the summer Lord Loudoun sailed from Hali
fax with eleven thousand troops and a fleet of
sixteen sail of the line. under Admiral Hoi-
born, to attack Louisburg. But just as the
fleet was fairly under way, a vessel sent out
to reconnoiter arrived with information that
the garrison of Louisburg had just received
reenforcements, and that the French fleet
there was superior to Admiral Holborn s by
one ship of the line. His lordship thereupon
174
Services in Last Part of the War
countermanded the orders for Louisburg and
sailed with his troops for New York !
Arriving in New York, his lordship spent
the rest of his valuable time while in the col
ony trying to bully the Governor and Assem
bly, and oppressing the inhabitants by billet
ing his troops upon them. There was no
earthly pretext for this outrage, because he
had plenty of stores and camp equipage, and
was amply prepared to make comfortable
winter quarters for his army in camp. His
conduct can be attributed to nothing but his
arrogance, his ignorance, and his malignity.
As a bully and a despot, Loudoun was a great
success. In every other capacity he was a
failure that beggars language to describe.
But while there was a dearth of large
operations in 1757, the tomahawk and scalp-
ing-knife were busy along the whole frontier,
the most conspicuous foray being that against
German Flats on the Mohawk, in November
of that year. The thriving village was
utterly destroyed and its inhabitants, with a
few exceptions, butchered or carried into cap
tivity. It was the most atrocious massacre
known since Count de Frontenac s ravage of
Schenectady in February, 1690.
When the attack on German Flats was
made, Sir William, recently returned from the
175
Sir William Johnson
northern frontier, was prostrated by the
breaking out of his old wound received at
Lake George. But he instantly arose, mus
tered about 300 militia and 250 Indians under
Nicklaus Brant, and started to meet the
French and Indians, supposing that they
would continue their advance down the val
ley. But they, in their turn, hearing of Sir
William s preparation to meet them, hastily
retreated to Canada without further effort at
destruction, except two or three isolated mur
ders. The forays continued all the winter by
small parties, but on the whole not as destruc
tively or through so wide a range as during
the previous winter.
The most disastrous effect of all these re
verses, so far as Sir William s duties were
concerned, was the disaffection they inspired
among the western Iroquois. The Senecas
and Cayugas openly revolted against Eng
lish influence. We have noted that Mont-
calm, when he took Oswego, invited those
tribes and the Onondagas to send delegates
for a conference with the Governor-General
at Montreal. In August, 1757, soon after
they learned the fate of Fort William Henry,
the Senecas, Cayugas, and Onondagas sent
delegates to meet de Vaudreuil. The Onei-
das did not send regular delegates, but sev-
176
Services in Last Part of the War
eral members of the tribe, including the half-
breed chief Antone, went on their own re
sponsibility as they afterward explained
to Sir William, " not to speak with two
tongues, but that our brother Warragh-i-ga-
hey might have eyes and ears there to see
and hear."
This was probably true, because the Onei-
das, though admitted to the sessions of the
conference, were regarded by the western
Iroquois delegates with suspicion, and were
closely watched. The Mohawks and Tusca-
roras alone remained firm in their fealty to
the English. Sir William was perplexed by
these events, but he did not despair. In
October, 1757, he wrote a letter to the
Duke of Cumberland, which he requested
the duke to show to his royal father. In
this letter he said:
. . . But besides all other ill-effects of our
reverses during these two years past, is the very
important consideration that they have weakened
our alliance with the Six Nations almost to the
breaking point. The Indian respects nothing so
much as power and success, and nothing so little as
apparent weakness and reverses. As they say at
the race-course, the Indian is always shrewd in
picking out the winner. Judged by their prot
estations to me after the Battle of Lake George,
177
Sir William Johnson
one would have thought that no vicissitudes of
fortune could cause these Indians to waver. But
the victories of Montcalm and the apparent in
ability of our generals to make the best use of the
resources they have, are causing .the Indians
that is, the Western Iroquois to believe that the
French are going to win in this contest.
The result is that my influence over them, per
sonal as well as official, is almost gone, and I have
no power of my own to restore it. But it could be
at once restored by a great victory here for our
arms. I do not wish to criticize individuals who
are my superiors in rank, but in a general way I
must say that the commanders we have in the Colo
nies now are not adapted to the peculiar responsi
bilities cast upon them, and while they may be
exceedingly competent under the conditions of war
fare in Europe, they do not and apparently can
not grasp the special military problems presented
by our modes of war in the woods. Your Boyal
Highness is well aware that ours is a kind of war
fare that in the main may be termed irregular ; and
while regular troops, properly commanded and
handled, are of great value in its operations, only
disaster can result from attempts to apply the teach
ings of Marlborough and Frederic of Prussia to
the problems presented by our war in the wilder
ness. I am sure there are generals in His Majesty s
army who could quickly and effectively adapt
themselves to our peculiar conditions, but none of
them has as yet been sent here.
178
Services in Last Part of the War
Thus closed the second of the two dreary
years 1756 and 1757. The handful of French
men in Canada appeared about to vanquish
the multitude of Britons in the American col
onies, and the " balance of power " that the
Indians held seemed gradually but surely
slipping over into the French side of the
scale. Henderson, in his Historical Mem
oirs of the Duke of Cumberland, says that
much of the great change which soon occurred
in the management of affairs in America was
indirectly due to him.
At last, the puny and pusillanimous min
istry of the Duke of Newcastle came to an end.
He resigned, with great reluctance, in Novem
ber, 1756, after being decisively beaten on three
or four important votes in the House of
Commons. William Pitt succeeded him, and
at once began comprehensive measures for
the restoration of England s failing prestige.
Pitt held the premiership only five months
till April, 1757 but during this brief period
he sowed the seeds of success broadcast.
However, after Pitt resigned the king found
himself unable to form a ministry, and when
England had been nearly three months with
out a government, Newcastle and Pitt formed
in the early part of July, 1757, a coalition
Cabinet, of which the duke was figurehead,
179
Sir William Johnson
without a portfolio, and Pitt, in the joint
capacity of Secretary for Foreign Affairs
and for War, was the actual premier.
Of course, it required some time for this
great change to produce results. There were
no cables under the ocean then, nor could the
sailing ships of those days make definite time-
schedules like the steam transports of our
era. Therefore, some delay was inevitable
before Pitt s genius could express itself across
three thousand miles of sea, with only the
wings of sailing vessels to carry its inspira
tions. But toward the end of 1758 the ex
pression of Pitt s genius began to be felt, not
only in America, but in India in other
words, all the way from the Ganges to the
Ohio. Pitt brought forth a Jeffrey Amherst
where Newcastle had a Lord Loudoun; a
Wolfe where Newcastle had an Abercrom-
bie, and a Forbes where Newcastle had a
Webb!
Before the end of 1758, Amherst had taken
Louisburg at one end of the line and Forbes
had occupied Fort Duquesne at the other end.
The only disaster that year was the bloody
repulse of Abercrombie s assault on Ticon-
deroga, on which sufficient comment has al
ready been made in our brief sketch of that
general. Late in 1758 General Sir Jeffrey
180
Services in Last Part of the War
Amherst became Commander-in-chief of all
the British forces in North America, and from
that moment the tenor and spirit of the con
duct of the war on the part of the English
changed.
General Amherst was peculiarly adapted
to the situation more so, doubtless, than any
other officer of his rank then in the British
army. He was a man of plain, unaffected
manners. In all his transactions he was
straightforward, frank, and sincere. He had
passed several years of his early military life
1735 to 1743 in Colonial garrisons, was
widely acquainted in Colonial society, intelli
gently comprehended the political institutions
of the colonies, respected their rights, and ad
mired the pluck which they had so long dis
played under incompetent leadership and con
sequent disaster. He liked the Provincial
officers and men, and they liked and confided
in him. Prior to his time the rule had been
that no Provincial officer should command
regular troops.
One of Amherst s first acts was an order
to the effect that when regulars and Provin
cials were serving together, the ranking offi
cer in actual grade should command, whether
regular or Provincial, with the reservation
only that when a regular and a Provincial
181
Sir William Johnson
officer of the same grade were operating
together, the regular should have the prece
dence, irrespective of date of commission.
General Amherst was methodical some
times almost to the point of slowness, but he
was sure, and as the sequel proved, his sturdy
prudence served the cause better than bril
liant audacity might have done. He has
been severely criticized for failing to push
on to Canada and reenforce Wolfe after his
capture of Ticonderoga and Crown Point in
July, 1759, had opened the road. But Isle
aux Noix was still formidable, and besides,
the French had four quite respectable brigs-
of-war on Lake Champlain, while the English
had no naval force there whatever. As it
turned out, Wolfe did not need his help. Am
herst said this himself, and remarked that
"Wolfe s behavior at Louisburg, as his sec
ond in command, had satisfied him of that
general s ability to shift for himself." More
over, to reach Quebec from the foot of Lake
Champlain, a considerable land march had to
be made, and Amherst was very deficient in
land transport.
The effects of this turn of fortune were
soon apparent among the western Iroquois.
In the fall of 1758 Sir William Johnson was
invited by a number of chiefs of the Senecas,
182
Services in Last Part of the War
Cayugas, and Onondagas to meet them in
grand council at Onondaga Castle, the loca
tion of the "Long House," or what might be
called the "Federal Capital " of the Six Na
tions. On this he asked the advice of Am-
herst, who was then at Albany. The general
advised Sir William not to go to Onondaga
Castle, but send a counter-invitation to the
chiefs to meet him at his own headquarters,
Mount Johnson.
"It is clear that they are beginning to see
the turn of the tide, my dear Sir William,"
wrote Amherst, "and while we must forgive
their conduct these two years past, we must
not let them forget that it is they, and not we,
who are on the stool of repentance. They
will come to your house. And when they do,
they will respect you more and have a deeper
sense of your dignity than if you went to
theirs."
The baronet took the general s advice, and
the conference, attended by over a hundred
Indians, among whom were the principal
chiefs of the western Iroquois, was held at
Mount Johnson, with the happiest results.
During the winter of 1758-59 General
Amherst matured his plans for a comprehen
sive invasion of Canada. The taking of Lou-
isburg and Fort Duquesne at each extrem-
183
Sir William Johnson
ity of the long military frontier had clipped
the wings of French power.
The French, however, still held the im
portant frontier posts of Ticonderoga, Crown
Point, and Fort Niagara. Early in Decem
ber, 1758, Amherst sent an outline of his plans
to Pitt. These plans involved expeditions by
land for the reduction of Ticonderoga and
Crown Point on Lake Champlain, and of Fort
Niagara on the Niagara Eiver. So long as
the French held Ticonderoga and Crown
Point they could command the approaches to
Canada by Lake Champlain, and Fort Niag
ara was the key to communication by the
Great Lakes. Amherst s plans also contem
plated a direct attack upon Quebec itself by
sea. He gave Pitt his judgment in detail as to
the number of troops that would be required
for these expeditions, and he also suggested
commanders for them.
For the command of the expedition
against Quebec he named General James
Wolfe, who had been his second in command at
the reduction of Louisburg the previous sum
mer. For command of the expedition to Ni
agara he recommended Sir William Johnson,
and he himself undertook to command the
operations against Ticonderoga and Crown
Point. His recommendation of Wolfe was at
184
Services in Last Part of the War
once adopted by Pitt and confirmed by the
king.
At that time the genius of British military
education and thought ran largely to gravity
and slowness. Wolfe was everything but
grave and slow, and for that reason, although
his career had been thus far brilliant wher
ever he had an opportunity, he was looked
upon in the sage and solemn councils of the
Horse Guards as a dare-devil, if not a hair-
brained sort of fellow capable of great
things under command of some one else, but
hardly fit to be trusted with grave responsi
bilities of his own. Indeed, when his appoint
ment to command the Quebec expedition be
came generally known, several prominent men
remonstrated with the king himself, and one
of them, whose name has not been given to
history, declared that Wolfe was a madman.
The supposition is that the author of this re
mark was the Duke of Newcastle himself,
though Lord Hervey in his Historical Mem
oirs of George II does not say so. But, who
ever it may have been, the old king, who had
become thoroughly disgusted with the conduct
of affairs in the American colonies, angrily
responded in the decided Dutch brogue he
had: "Yell, den, if Volfe is mat, I hope he yill
pite some of my udder chenerals ! "
13 185
Sir William Johnson
All of Amherst s recommendations were
adopted, except that Pitt thought it would be
best to place a British regular officer of high
rank in command of the Niagara expedition,
and make Sir William Johnson second in com
mand. The man selected for the command
of the Niagara expedition was General John
Prideaux, a soldier who had served for many
years in the Grenadier Guards and had
achieved a high reputation in the war of the
Austrian Succession, and also in the opera
tions on the continent of Europe during the
war under consideration. The selection of
Prideaux proved happy, like all the rest of
Pitt s acts. As soon as he arrived in this
country and took command of his expedition,
which had already been organized by Sir
William Johnson, he frankly told the baronet
that he should rely upon his experience and
judgment implicitly that he himself "knew
nothing of the conditions of warfare in the
woods of America, and he was not going to
pretend that he did." He told Sir William
that he should hold him responsible for
proper suggestion and advice every day, and
that whenever he (Sir William) advised or
suggested anything, he might consider it as
done.
Under these circumstances, a force assem-
186
Services in Last Part of the War
bled at Oswego under command of Prideaux
at the end of June, consisting of 1,200 Brit
ish regulars, 1,800 Provincials mostly New
Yorkers and 700 Indians under Sir William
Johnson. Before the expedition left Oswego
Sir William was joined by 280 more Indians,
mostly Senecas and Cayugas. The whole
force, therefore, assembled at Oswego was
3,000 white troops and 980 Indians. On the
1st of July General Prideaux, leaving Colo
nel Haldimand with about 200 regulars and
550 Provincials to hold Oswego, sailed with
2,250 white troops and 980 Indians for Fort
Niagara, landed on the 6th of July below the
fort, with but trifling resistance, and on the
7th formally invested it. The siege went on
without incident of special note until the 19th
of July, when General Prideaux was instantly
killed by the premature bursting of a shell
upon the discharge of a Cohorn mortar,
whereupon the command devolved upon Sir
William Johnson. Here it is worth while to
call attention to the absolute fairness and
sense of justice which animated Sir William.
In his report of the campaign to General Am-
herst he said: "Much, in fact most, of the
credit of this achievement belongs to the late
General Prideaux, because I had carefully
studied his plans, which he imparted to me
187
Sir William Johnson
with perfect freedom, and I executed them
with all the precision and skill of which I am
capable, departing from them only when com
pelled to do so by circumstances which he
could not have foreseen."
In the meantime Colonel d Aubrey, com
manding the western district of Canada, gath
ered from the posts at Detroit, Venango, Fort
Leboeuf, and Presque Isle, all their garri
sons, abandoning them entirely. By this
means he assembled a force of about 1,200
men, of whom perhaps 200 were French regu
lars and 1,000 Canadian militia. With these
and some 500 Indians, he hastened from
Presque Isle across Lake Erie, and ap
proached Niagara, with the intention of rais
ing the siege. Sir William, however, was
well informed of d ? Aubrey s movements by
his Indian scouts, and on the 20th of July,
knowing that the French commander had
reached a point about eight miles from the
fort, left a sufficient force in the trenches to
prevent the garrison from making a success
ful sortie, and then marched out with the rest
of his army to meet the enemy. The force
which he took to meet d Aubrey consisted of
800 British regulars, about 700 Provincials,
and all of the Indians, the total strength be
ing a little over 2,300. He disposed his forces
188
Services in Last Part of the War
with the British regulars in the front and
center, closely supported by the Provincials;
on the right he placed the whole contingent of
Senecas and Cayugas, some 400 strong, under
Hi-o-ka-to and Jean Montour ; and on the left
flank the rest of his Indians, about 500 strong,
commanded by the Onondaga chief Onasdego,
and the Mohawk chief Nicklaus Brant.
It is worthy of remark that in this battle
young Joseph Brant, son of the chief, though
only seventeen years old, served as lieutenant
in the Canajoharie company of Mohawks.
It happened that Sir William s Indians
forming his two flanks came in sight of the
enemy s Indians, similarly formed, a few min
utes before the white troops got sight of each
other. The field of battle was mostly a grove
of large trees, without much underbrush, and
there was little impediment to the maneu-
vring of infantry. The two forces of Indi
ans charged each other furiously, making the
scene hideous with their yells. At the same
time the British regulars, advancing rapidly
through the most open part of the timber,
suddenly struck the Canadian militia, who
were somewhat demoralized by the fact that
their Indian allies began to give way on either
flank. The regulars, led by Sir William in
person, fired one volley, and then charged
189
Sir William Johnson
through the open timber with the bayonet.
In less than half an hour cP Aubrey s troops,
French regulars, Canadians and Indians
alike, were totally routed, and fled in the most
bewildering confusion, furiously pursued by
Sir William s Indians, who, for more than
three miles, strewed the ground with their
bodies. In this action 146 of the French were
killed and 96 soldiers and 17 officers taken
prisoners, among whom was the commandant
d Aubrey himself. The number of wounded
was not stated in Sir William s report, but it
undoubtedly exceeded 300. The force which
d Aubrey had brought to raise the siege was
completely dispersed, and was never reor
ganized.
Sir William then returned to his lines at
the fort, and at sundown of the same day sent
Major Harvey of his staff to the commander
of the fort, informing him of the result of the
battle, and advising him to capitulate. Sir
William concluded his letter as follows: "I
desire not only to avoid further useless ef
fusion of blood, but I must also warn you that
if you force me to extremities and compel me
to storm your works, I might not have it in
my power to restrain my Indians, who would,
by an obstinate and fruitless resistance on
your part, become too much enraged to be
190
Services in Last Part of the War
withheld." The French commander, Pouchet,
yielded to this advice, and at seven o clock the
next morning (July 25th) the garrison, con
sisting of 618 of all ranks, surrendered at dis
cretion. The fort was occupied by Sir Will
iam s troops, and the male prisoners were
escorted by a detachment of the Forty-fourth
Eegiment of British regulars to Oswego ; from
there they were sent to New York, and from
New York to England. The women and chil
dren, or at least such of them as desired to
do so, were allowed to go to Montreal.
It is worthy of remark that, although in
this operation Sir William had under his com
mand nearly a thousand Indians, almost half
of whom were Senecas and Cayugas at that
time among the savagest of Indian tribes, so
far as methods of warfare were concerned
and who were, besides, extremely wrought up
by the loss of several of their braves, includ
ing two popular chiefs yet not the least in
jury or insult was offered by them to the cap
tured garrison, nor did they take any of the
private property of the French troops, or of
the families that were in the fort. They took
only such plunder as Sir William Johnson
allotted to them in the way of legitimate
spoils. By this exploit Sir William Johnson
then already decorated by the victory at
191
Sir William Johnson
Lake George became among the most fa
mous men in all the colonies and in England.
General Amherst wrote him a most compli
mentary letter, praising the skill of his com
binations and the efficiency of his execution
of them. The Duke of Cumberland also
wrote a letter to him saying, in allusion to
Sir William s total lack of regular military
education or training, that "if all of His
Majesty s gentlemen subjects were like your
self, there would be no need of military
schools."
The principal strategical consequence of
the reduction of Fort Niagara was to sever
the last link of communication between the
eastern and western possessions of France in
North America, and its importance to the gen
eral plan of operations was but little if any
less than the taking of Fort Ticonderoga and
Crown Point about the same time by the main
army under General Amherst.
Sir William was extremely attached to
General Prideaux. When that officer first
arrived in the colony in the spring, while the
expedition was forming, he was Sir William s
guest at Mount Johnson for several days. In
a letter of condolence to the general s rela
tives in England, Sir William said, among
other things :
192
Services in Last Part of the War
Brief as our association and acquaintance were,
I had no friend whose friendship I valued more
than that of General Prideaux. He was the soul
of honor and courtesy, both in official and personal
intercourse. He had no vanities or jealousies or
small traits whatsoever. It was his constant custom
to spend most of his time in the trenches among
the soldiers a habit indeed to which his untimely
death was due. He was as popular among the com
mon soldiers and as much beloved by them as by
the officers who had the honor and pleasure of
most intimate association with him. By his death
the King has lost one of the brightest ornaments
of his service.
After the surrender of Fort Niagara, Sir
William remained there about two weeks, re
pairing fortifications and arranging for the
comfort of the sick and wounded, both of his
own force and of the prisoners, who were un
able to be taken away. Then he left Colonel
Farquhar in command of the fort, with a gar
rison of 700 men, and returned by the lake
to Oswego, where he arrived on the 7th of
August. In a short time Brigadier-General
Gage of the regular arrny came to Oswego,
and as he ranked Sir William, assumed the
command.
Sir William used to say that no incident
of this campaign was more gratifying than
193
Sir William Johnson
the opportunity it gave him to lead a consid
erable force of British regulars in a decisive
action a privilege that no Provincial officer
up to that time had enjoyed. This was due
to General Amherst s order previously noted.
Under the conditions that formerly prevailed,
Colonel Haviland of the Forty-fourth regu
lars would have succeeded General Prideaux,
notwithstanding that Sir William Johnson
was a major-general on the Colonial estab
lishment.
Various schemes were at once set on foot
for the reduction of posts on the north side
of Lake Ontario, and at the head of the St.
Lawrence, including the forts of la Galette,
Oswegatchie, and Frontenac. For some rea
son, General Gage did not approve these
plans. Some time later, when General Am-
herst was apprised of them, and informed
that Sir William had vigorously advocated
the movement, he coincided with him, and
criticized the inaction of Gage, saying, among
other things, that a movement of that kind,
whether successful or not, must have ab
sorbed the attention of a considerable part of
the forces which, in the absence of such at
tack from the head of the St. Lawrence, were
left free to strengthen the hands of Montcalm
at Quebec. However, nothing further was
194
Services in Last Part of the War
accomplished on the lake frontier during the
rest of the summer, and in October Sir Will
iam disbanded his Indians and returned to
his home at Mount Johnson.
It is not within the scope of this work to
describe Wolfe s campaign against Quebec,
except in the most general terms. In fact, it
hardly needs a new description, because few
actions in modern warfare have been more
widely chronicled, more thoroughly analyzed,
or more permanently committed to fame than
that. Hardly ever was there so dramatic a
battle ; hardly ever have such momentous con
sequences hung upon the issue of one. Every
thing about it was dramatic. The stealthy
scaling of the steep declivities up to the
plateau of Abraham by Wolfe and his sol
diers, under cover of night and fog ; the sur
prise and almost dismay of Montcalm when
the rising sun disclosed that his adversary
had outwitted him ; then the desperate effort
of the French to retrieve their fortunes ; the
steady, indomitable tenacity with which the
English held their advantage; the final rout
of the French; the mortal wounding of both
commanders, and the last words of each;
Wolfe saying, when his aide-de-camp told him
that the French were fleeing: "I am now con
tent to die " ; Montcalm, when told by his sur-
195
Sir William Johnson
geon that he had but a few hours to live, and
hearing the tramp of his beaten and retreat
ing troops through the streets of Quebec: "I
am glad of it, for I shall not live to witness
the surrender of Quebec." All these episodes
have made the battle of Quebec not merely
a theme for history, but an inspiration of
poetry as well.
The forces that Wolfe deployed on the
plateau of Abraham were about 5,600 strong
all regulars; one regiment, however, the
"Royal American Regiment of Foot," of which
the first battalion formed part of Wolfe s
army, though in all respects borne on the
Regular Establishment, was wholly recruited
and mostly officered from the colonies the
only natives of Great Britain serving in it
being the lieutenant-colonel in command, a
major, two captains, and the surgeon. So far
as is known, every enlisted man in it was of
colonial birth or citizenship.
Montcalm s force consisted of about 3,500
French regulars and 2,000 to 2,500 Canadian
militia. The loss of the British army has
been estimated variously at from 800 to 1,000
men killed and wounded. The French loss
was never reported. Montcalm s army was,
however, practically dispersed. The surviv
ing regulars made their way to Montreal, and
196
Services in Last Part of the War
the militia, for the most part, disbanded and
went to their homes.
With the fall of Quebec on the one hand,
and Fort Niagara on the other, together with
the expulsion of the French garrisons from
Ticonderoga and Crown Point, the power and
dominion of France in Canada was now nar
rowed down to the remnants of different
forces which assembled at Montreal under
command of the Governor-General, the Mar
quis de Vaudreuil. The season, however,
was too far advanced for any further opera
tions in the latitude and climate of Canada.
General Amherst therefore put all his regular
forces in winter quarters, and furloughed his
Provincials, that they might spend the winter
at their homes. In the meantime he laid his
plans for an attack upon Montreal as soon as
spring should open in 1760, with the entire
disposable British force in the northern col
onies.
Nothing of particular note occurred dur
ing the winter. In his plan of campaign,
General Amherst projected a simultaneous
attack on Montreal from three points. Gen
eral Murray was to come up the St. Lawrence
from Quebec. Colonel Haviland, in command
of the force which garrisoned Ticonderoga
and Crown Point during the winter, was to
197
Sir William Johnson
move down Lake Champlain and the Kiche-
lieu River reducing Isle aux Noix on his way
and then march across the country to Mon
treal; while General Amherst was to assem
ble the main army at Oswego and move across
Lake Ontario to the head of the St. Lawrence,
reducing the forts at la Galette and Oswe-
gatchie, and thence to descend the St. Law
rence to Montreal. The troops under com
mand of General Stanwix, forming the De
partment of the Ohio, were recalled, and the
garrisons of the smaller forts in the colony
of New York were all brought together and
made part of General Amherst s grand army
at Oswego. He was detained somewhat
longer than he had contemplated, mainly by
the slowness with which the Provincial troops
reassembled. "The colonial troops," he wrote
Sir William Johnson, "come in slow. ... I
hope you will do everything in your power
to hasten their arrival."
Sir William explained in reply that the
delay was greatly due to the drought which
prevailed that spring, by which the waters of
the Mohawk and Oneida rivers became so low
that navigation upon them, which was neces
sary for the transportation of stores, was
greatly retarded and almost suspended.
However, all arrangements for the campaign
198
Services in Last Part of the War
were completed by the 12th of June, and Gen
eral Amherst proceeded to Oswego, where an
army of 6,000 Provincials and 4,000 British
regulars was assembled. On July 25th Sir
William Johnson joined him with 650 war
riors, and the day before the expedition sailed
it was further increased by 700 Senecas and
Cayugas, with whom was a considerable
number perhaps 200 of Oswegatchie and
Caughnawaga Iroquois, who had previously
been under the influence of the French. This
made the whole number of Indians under the
command of Sir William Johnson, 1,350 the
largest force of that race ever assembled on
this continent up to that time. 1 General Am-
1 In this campaign Sir William had his Indians organized
in what might be called a "brigade" of two "regiments."
One "regiment" was composed of the eastern Iroquois
Onondagas, Mohawks, Oneidas, Tuscaroras, and "River Indi
ans " ; the other of the Senecas and Cayugas, or western Iro
quois. The "eastern regiment" was something over 600
strong and commanded by the elder Brant (Nicklaus). The
"western regiment" was 700 strong and commanded by the
redoubtable Hi-o-ka-to, with Captain Montour and Young
Cornplanter in command of its two wings. Sir William said
that Hi-o-ka-to s command of western Iroquois was the finest
body of men in the physical sense that he ever saw assembled.
"What a pity it is," he wrote to General Amherst, "that
these magnificent Indians could not have seen the right war
path for their interests earlier in the struggle ! "
An interesting episode of this campaign was that John
Johnson, then eighteen years old, accompanied his father s
199
Sir William Johnson
herst sent Colonel Haldimand with a command
of a thousand men to clear the head of the St.
Lawrence of any obstructions that might im
pede safe navigation, and on the 10th of
August embarked from Oswego with his
whole army. La Galette and Oswegatchie
were reduced without serious resistance,
although la Galette, which was defended by
Fort Levi, a regular fortification, held out
until the 25th of August, when the comman
dant, Pouchet, surrendered at discretion. He
was the same officer whom Sir William John
son had captured the year before at Fort
Niagara, and who had been exchanged.
When Fort Levi surrendered the Indians
found in the deserted huts of the enemy a few
division as a lieutenant of Provincials, while Joseph Brant,
also eighteen years old, served under his father Nicklaus as
captain of the Mohawk Indian company of Canajoharie Castle.
General Amherst s main army as it sailed from Oswego
was in three divisions, each about 4,000 strong. The first,
composed mainly of regulars, was commanded by General
Gage; the second, composed of a battalion of regulars and
the New England Provincials, was commanded by Colonel
Haldimand; and the third, composed of all the New York
Provincials and all the Indians, was under the command of
Sir William Johnson. Captain John Stark s Rangers, in two
companies, were attached to Sir William s headquarters and
reported directly to the commander of the division. Though
the Indians had been organized in companies in the Niagara
campaign the year previous, this was the first time they had
ever been "brigaded" or subjected to regular discipline.
200
K1XG HENDRICK AND SIR WILLIAM JOHNSON.
Bronze statue at the State Park, Lake George.
OFTHE
UNIVERSITY
OF
Services in Last Part of the War
Mohawk scalps, and raising the war-whoop
or scalp-yell, desired at once to commence a
general massacre.
Sir William immediately suppressed this
outbreak in a most peremptory fashion,
threatening that if the Indians persisted in
their purpose, he would instantly ask General
Amherst to back him up with a strong force
of British regulars and Provincials, and the
fierce intentions of his warriors were thor
oughly quelled before they had done any
damage. This was the first and last time he
ever had occasion to resort to drastic disci
pline in handling his Indians.
On the 31st of August General Amherst
again embarked his army, and proceeded care
fully down the St. Lawrence Eiver reconnoi-
tering at every step of his progress, and af
fording the enemy no opportunity for a sur
prise. The boats passed the rapids of the St.
Lawrence above Montreal, though not with
out some casualties. Several boats were
crushed against the rocks and 46 men were
drowned. On the 6th of September Am-
herst s army arrived within sight of the
church spires of Montreal, and so well had his
plans been concerted and matured, that, sin
gular as it may seem. General Murray, on
the same day, approached it in the other
14 201
Sir William Johnson
direction from Quebec. The next day Colonel
Haviland also joined the main army with his
division from Ticonderoga and Crown Point.
General Amherst now completely surrounded
the city and sent a message to the Marquis
de Vaudreuil, informing him of the exact
strength of his army, which, after the junc
tion of the three forces, his own, Murray s,
and Haviland s, was over 18,000 strong, ex
clusive of Sir William Johnson s Indians. He
assured the French Governor-General that his
most ardent desire was to prevent useless
shedding of blood, that he knew exactly the
force under the Governor-General s command
and the elements of which it was composed,
and stated them in his letter with an exact
ness that startled the marquis.
So far as his own force was concerned, as
a proof of his good faith, he invited the mar
quis, if he so desired, to come to his camp and
review it himself. Coming from some men,
this sort of thing might have been classed as
bravado, but in the case of Sir Jeffrey Am
herst it was nothing more than the prompt
ings of his absolute integrity and his perfect
sense of honor. General Amherst sent his first
communication to the Governor-General late
in the afternoon of September 6th. Early in
the morning of the 7th de Vaudreuil replied,
202
Services in Last Part of the War
assenting in the main to the propositions the
General had advanced, but requesting two
days for deliberation and consultation with
his subordinate officers. This General Am-
herst cheerfully granted, but the Governor-
General did not consume the whole of the time
given him. At noon, the 8th of September,
he sent a letter to the British commander
incorporating the terms of a capitulation that
he was willing to sign. This capitulation
provided that the French troops then under
arms in Montreal should be permitted to
march out with the honors of war, retaining
their colors and personal effects; that their
arms should be stacked in their quarters and
not laid down; that they should not be held
as prisoners of war, but should be paroled
until such time as they could be transported
to France; that within a reasonable time all
other French prisoners of war held by the
British should be released and allowed to
return to France; that all British prisoners
of war held by the French should be immedi
ately given up; that all captives held by the
Indians hitherto in alliance with either party
should, as far as practicable, be returned
to their homes on both sides ; that private
property of every kind should be respected,
and that the British commander should take
203
Sir William Johnson
the responsibility of maintaining order in the
city and its environs.
To these terms General Amherst added
the stipulation that Canada, with all her
dependencies, should be surrendered to the
Crown of Great Britain, and all claims of
France to dominion over any part of Canada
or her dependencies should cease. Upon the
exchange of these terms, an interview was im
mediately arranged between General Amherst
and the Marquis de Vaudreuil. In this inter
view General Amherst was supported by Gen
eral Murray, Sir William Johnson, General
Gage, and Colonel Haviland. The Governor-
General by only a single aide-de-camp. There
was litt le discussion in this interview. Sir
Jeffrey Amherst and the Governor-General
passed the usual formalities of politeness,
and then General Amherst handed to the mar
quis his response to the letter embodying the
proposed terms of capitulation. He agreed
to all of them, but said that it would be neces
sary to get up some method of distinguishing
public from private property, concerning
which the Governor-General had made no sug
gestion. To this the marquis agreed, and a
commission was appointed, consisting of Sir
William Johnson and General Gage on the
British side, and Colonel Levi and another
204
Services in Last Part of the War
officer on the French side. Little difficulty,
however, was experienced in arriving at the
desired distinction. Arrangements also had
to be made for provisioning the troops
forming the French garrison. When all
these preliminaries were settled, de Vau-
dreuil sadly led his dejected and dilapidated
forces out of Montreal, and the town was
occupied by a British garrison under Gen
eral Gage. General Murray was sent back
the day after the completion of the capitu
lation to Quebec with 4,000 men as a gar
rison.
When the town was about to be occupied
by the British forces, General Amherst wrote-
a note to Sir William Johnson requesting him
to take the greatest pains to restrain his Indi
ans from any excesses that they might be dis
posed to commit. Sir William s characteris
tic response, much appreciated by Amherst,
and which he was afterward fond of relating
as a good joke, was as follows :
CAMP BEFORE MONTREAL, September 9tli, 1760,
MY DEAR GENERAL: Replying to your note of
this date, I take pleasure in saying that I shall not
only cheerfully hold myself personally responsible
for the behavior of every one of my Indians, but if
you desire it, I will detail a suitable detachment of
my Senecas to act as provost guard in the town !
205
Sir William Johnson
When we consider that the Senecas were
notoriously the worst Indians Sir William
had, the humor of this proposition will be
apparent. History does not record that Gen
eral Amherst accepted the generous proposi
tion.
On the 12th of September General Am
herst left Montreal for New York, and the
next day Sir William embarked with his 1,300
Indians in bateaux, in which they returned
by easy stages to Oswego, where they were
disbanded.
During this campaign, the same as during
the Fort Niagara expedition, the Indians in
service received the same pay and allowances
as the Provincial troops. When disbanded
at Oswego they were paid off, loaded with
presents, each Indian receiving, among other
things, a new blanket taken from the French
public stores captured at Montreal. This
event practically terminated the old French
War, and brought the entire continent of
North America east of the Mississippi River
and, generally speaking, north of the vast ter
ritory subsequently included in what is known
as the Louisiana Purchase, under British
rule.
The French still occupied Detroit, Mack
inaw, St. Mary s (Sault Ste. Marie), and one
206
Services in Last Part of the War
or two other small forts in the country of the
upper lakes.
Major Rogers, commander of the Inde
pendent Battalion of Scouts, which bears his
name, together with his second in command,
Captain John Stark, were sent with a suitable
escort to notify the garrisons of these posts
of the situation. They took with them certi
fied copies of the capitulation signed by the
Governor-General, also the orders of the Brit
ish commander for the temporary regulation
of affairs at those posts until a permanent
government should be established. This duty
was accomplished without difficulty worthy of
note. 1
General Amherst went to New York,
where he was received with all possible pub
lic demonstrations of joy, and all the honors
due to his achievement were bestowed upon
him. He was afterward raised to the peer
age in England under title of his own name as
Baron Amherst.
1 When near Detroit Rogers and Stark were met by Pon-
tiac, who demanded to know why they entered his country
with an armed force. He had already been apprised by Indian
runners of the capitulation at Montreal, but said that de Vau-
dreuil had no right to surrender him! After some parley,
however, Pontiac was appeased and Rogers and Stark went
on to Detroit, which was at once surrendered by its comman
dant, d Aubrey.
207
Sir William Johnson
Sir William Johnson, after disbanding
and paying off his Indians at Oswego, re
turned to his home at Mount Johnson, his
military career now being at an end.
General Amherst, however, did not con
sider the work complete, and as soon as the
demonstrations in his honor at New York
were over, he immediately planned a cam
paign to begin at once against the French
settlements in Louisiana. To this end,
knowing that the climate in that region would
be unfavorable for the operations of British
or Northern Provincials before the month of
January, he proposed to sail from New York
about the 1st of December with a fleet of 20
sail of the line and a force of about 6,000
British regulars. At the same time he pro
posed that an expedition, composed of Pro
vincial troops from New York, Pennsylvania,
and Virginia, should rendezvous at Fort Pitt,
at the head of the Ohio, and before the close
of navigation proceed down the Ohio and
Mississippi rivers. This force, he thought,
ought to be at least 4,000 strong, and he pro
posed that it should be placed under the com
mand of Sir William Johnson.
This project, however, was not carried out.
Although General Amherst was commander-
in-chief of all the forces, and practically in
208
Services in Last Part of the War
that capacity viceroy of all the North Ameri
can colonies, yet his advisers in New York
counseled him that it would not be wise to un
dertake such an expedition without the express
consent of the ministry, in view of the fact
that during the whole war the British had
made no attempt whatever upon the Louisiana
colony, and that colony had, so far as any
one knew, done nothing to oppose the British
arms. General Amherst argued that it would
take at least three months before the project
could be laid before the ministry, considered
by them, and an answer returned. By that
time, he said, it would be too near spring
for British and northern Colonial troops to
operate safely in that latitude and climate.
Thereupon, for some reason that never has
been explained in history, the whole project
was dropped. France was allowed to retain
her sovereignty over Louisiana until a day or
two before the signing of the definitive treaty,
when she ceded all of her possessions known
as the colony of Louisiana to the Spanish
Crown.
While the subjugation of Canada and the
expulsion of French rule gave rest to the offi
cers and troops who had been so arduously
and so long engaged accomplishing the result,
it only served to vastly enlarge the sphere of
209
Sir William Johnson
Sir William Johnson s duties and augment
his responsibilities as general superintendent
of all the North American Indians. Hereto
fore he had practically only the Iroquois to
deal with; now he was called upon to pacify
and bring into compliance with the terms
of the new situation the great number of In
dians in the numerous tribes who inhabited
the great west and northwest, and who had
previously been wholly under French influ
ence. He foresaw at once that in this task he
must encounter at the outset a very great and
embarrassing difficulty. He foresaw that Eng
lish traders would undoubtedly make great
efforts to get control of the Indian trade in
those regions, and that, in consequence, trou
bles were likely to arise between them and
the French traders, who had so long controlled
that commerce, and doubtless difficulties with
the Indians themselves would ensue.
The ink was hardly dry on the articles of
capitulation of Montreal when Sir William
went to New York to consult with General Am-
herst on this subject. By this time he and
the general had become the closest of friends,
each confiding absolutely in the other s judg
ment, and each taking counsel of the other in
every great emergency. Sir William ex
plained to the general that in his judgment
210
Services in Last Part of the War
the best policy for the British to pursue was
to let the French residents of Canada as much
alone as possible, and not to interfere with
their trade or their personal relations with
the Indians. He said he was satisfied that
they would all become loyal and faithful sub
jects of the king, and that their good-will
should be sedulously cultivated, and the as
sistance of their influence with the Indians
freely invoked. He also held that it would
be unwise to make any attempt at changing
the religious influences that had so long been
exerted over the Canadian Indians. He ar
gued that any effort to interfere with the
influence of the Catholic priests would create
distrust among the Indians, whether con
verted or not. On the whole, he told General
Amherst that he believed the best policy for
the British to pursue would be now that they
possessed the governing power in Canada
to leave all other conditions as nearly in
statu quo as possible. To every one of these
propositions General Amherst gave hearty
assent; and as, in view of the practical veto
upon his proposed invasion of Louisiana, he
intended soon to sail for England, he prom
ised Sir William that he would exhaust his
influence with the ministry and the king to
have Sir William s ideas carried into effect.
211
Sir William Johnson
It is hardly necessary to add that the policy
pursued by the British Government toward
the French and Indians in Canada, from that
day to this, has been based practically upon
the system advocated by Sir William John
son in January, 1761.
Filled as he always was with a profound
sense of the responsibilities of his position,
and realizing that not only the interests of his
government, but that the comfort and well-
being of the Indians depended almost wholly
upon the management of their affairs, Sir
William lost no time in making himself ac
quainted with the nature and volume of the
new duties which the change of rule in Canada
had brought upon him. Early in the spring
of 1761, in fact, immediately after his return
from New York and his interview with Gen
eral Amherst, previously mentioned, Sir Will
iam sent a considerable number of his most
trustworthy Indian runners, mostly Mohawks
and Oneidas, with some Senecas, to travel all
through the country of the Canadian Indians,
and those farther west, with messages and
belts of peace-wampum, inviting them to send
their chiefs and delegates to meet him at a
grand council, which he proposed to hold at
Detroit some time in August of that year. He
set out from Fort Johnson for Detroit on the
212
Services in Last Part of the War
5th of July, 1761, accompanied by his son,
John Johnson afterward Sir John then a
youth of nineteen, and his nephew, Lieutenant
Guy Johnson. During this journey Sir Will
iam kept a journal, in it almost daily record
ing every incident worthy of historical note
that occurred. Among the pleasant duties he
had to perform at the outset of this journey
was to assemble at the principal castle of each
tribe all the Indians who had accompanied
General Amherst s expedition to Montreal,
for the purpose of distributing to them
medals which he and the general had per
suaded the Assembly of New York to have
struck off for them. Having performed this
pleasant duty, which consumed several days,
and having attended at the Seneca capital a
grand ceremonial in memory of the Indians
of that tribe who were killed in the battle of
Niagara in 1759, he went on to Niagara, and
from there to Detroit. The necessary limits
of this volume do not admit of any extended
extracts from his extremely interesting jour
nal. By way, however, of exhibiting the fact
that in the midst of the most important pub
lic duties Sir William never forgot his home
or domestic responsibilities, we quote one
entry dated Wednesday, October 21, 1761.
The following is the exact text :
213
Sir William Johnson
Wednesday, 21st. A fine morning, a warm day.
Embarked at eight o clock. At the Three River
Rift met Sir Robert Davis and Captain Ethering-
ton, who gave me a packet of letters from General
Amherst, and a copy of a treaty made at Easton in
August by Mr. Hamilton, of Philadelphia, with
some scattering Indians who remained about that
part of the country all of little or no consequence.
Encamped in the evening about three miles above
the Three Rivers. Captain Etherington told me
Molly was delivered of a girl that all were well at
my house, where they stayed two days.
In this mission to Detroit Sir William was
exceedingly successful; in fact, as he states
in the journal from which we have just
quoted, he was suprised at the alacrity with
which the western and northwestern Indians
accepted the new state of affairs. Arriving
at Detroit, he held a council, or rather a series
of councils, lasting eighteen days. He did not
have, nor was it his purpose to have, all the
Indians together at one time. He preferred
to deal with them tribe by tribe, if possible,
or at any rate in numbers not sufficient to
form an unwieldy assemblage. While at De
troit he was visited by, and had conferences
with, representatives of all the tribes of any
importance east of the Mississippi and north
of the Ohio. He had no trouble with any of
214
Services in Last Part of the War
them, and they all seemed willing to meet the
British at least half-way. Some of them,
notably the Ottawas and Hurons, who were
well aware of the British propensity to gain
possession of the lands of the Indians, and
whose location in Canada that is to say, in
that rich country embraced in the triangle
formed by Lakes Erie and Ontario on the
south, the Ottawa River on the northeast, and
Lake Huron, Lake St. Glair, the Detroit and
St. Clair rivers on the west appeared anx
ious on that subject, and pressed Sir William
for assurances that their new Great Father,
the British king, who had so recently become
their guardian, would cause his people to
maintain the same land policy toward them
that had been for nearly two hundred years
maintained by their former Great Father, the
king of France. Undoubtedly these were
embarrassing propositions for Sir William,
because he knew what the British land-hunger
meant for the Indians as well as the Indians
themselves did. He admits in his journal
that he was nonplussed at having this, which
had always been the most crucial question
in the Indian policy of the British, thrust
at him by the Ottawas and the Hurons on
the occasion of his first visit to them, but
he does not enlighten us as to how he an-
215
Sir William Johnson
swered their proposition, or, perhaps, how he
evaded it.
While at Detroit, Sir William employed as
interpreters in dealing with the Hurons, Otta-
was, Chippewas, and other Canadian tribes,
the Jesuit Fathers St. Martin and Pottier.
Father St. Martin was the leading Jesuit of his
time. He was the author of the History of
New France, referred to in a previous chap
ter, though it had not been printed at that
time. However, Sir William knew all about
his rank as an ecclesiastic and his influence
over the Indians particularly the Ottawas,
Hurons, and Chippewas. Therefore, the
baronet was quite attentive to Father St. Mar
tin. The priest was at that time over sixty
years of age, and had passed forty years of
his life among the Indians. In 1761 he lived
at the Old Huron Mission, a few miles from
Detroit on the shore of Lake St. Clair. On
the 17th of September Sir William visited
him at the mission, recording the event in his
journal :
Thursday, 17th. . . . Arrived at the Huron
castle soon after 4 o clock, where the Indians
were drawn up and saluted me. Encamped here.
Visited the Mission Priest, Pierre Pottier. Supped
with Saint Martin, the famous Jesuit, M. La Bute,
and others. Then went to the council room of the
216
Services in Last Part of the War
Hurons, where they had everything in good order
and three fires burning. . . .
It would appear that Sir William ex
hausted his powers of diplomacy upon the
good old French priest. Father St. Martin
had made up his mind to return to France and
pass the rest of his life there. Sir William
besought him to stay in Canada, where all his
life-work had heen done, and to use his vast
influence with the Indians in the interests of
peace under the new regime. The priest ex
pressed fear of interference by the English
conquerors with the Catholic institutions, so
long established among the Indians. Sir Will
iam persuaded him not only that there would
be no such interference, but that it would be
the policy of the English to sustain the priests
in their efforts to Christianize and civilize the
Indians. Finally, Father St. Martin agreed
to remain in Canada, arid he was afterward
extremely useful under the British rule.
A year or two later he went to France to ar
range for the printing of his book, but
returned to Canada and remained there until
his death, some twenty years later. He was
the last of the school of Father Marquette, La
Salle, Joliet, and Hennepin.
After this visit to the Huron mission, Sir
15 217
Sir William Johnson
.William set out on his return journey the 20th
of September, and arrived at Mount Johnson
the 30th of October, having made several
stops on the way to visit various forts and
Indian villages. Among other things during
this trip, the baronet regulated the number of
troops to be maintained in the several garri
sons required in western Canada, the total
being about 1,200 regular troops. He also
provided for a force of Indian or half-breed
runners and scouts, to be employed in the pay
of the king at the several forts and trading-
posts.
218
CHAPTER V
PONTIAC S WAR AND SIR WILLIAM S ESTATE
1761-1770
AFTER the treaty or treaties of Detroit
in 1761 the Indians, both in the older English
colonies and the newly acquired domain of
Canada, remained quiescent for two years.
In view of the vastly increased scope of his
duties, both as to the number of Indians and
as to the extent of territory to be dealt with,
Sir William found it necessary to operate in
all ordinary or routine affairs through depu
ties. He already had one deputy superin
tendent, who had held the position for several
years, with headquarters, after 1758, at Fort
Pitt, and having charge of the Indians in the
Ohio Valley. He now appointed two more
deputy superintendents. One was his son-in-
law, Colonel Daniel Claus, husband of his
daughter Nancy; and the other his nephew,
Colonel Guy Johnson, who was soon to be
married to his daughter Mary both by his
white wife. Croghan remained in charge of
219
Sir William Johnson
the Ohio Indians, with headquarters as be
fore, at Fort Pitt. Colonel Glaus was placed
in charge of the Canadian Indians west of the
Ottawa River, with headquarters at Detroit.
Colonel Guy Johnson took charge of the Iro-
quois and the Canadian Indians east of the
Ottawa, with headquarters at Oswego. This
arrangement relieved the baronet of all minor
details of Indian administration, leaving him
free to devote his time to questions of general
policy and to the adjustment of differences
among the Indians themselves. It was not
easy to make such hereditary enemies as the
Iroquois and Algonquins comprehend the idea
of living in peace under control of the same
superintendent. Affairs, however, progressed
without much jarring until 1763.
We have remarked that Sir William ac
quired in 1751 or 1752 a large tract of land,
patented to himself u and others " in 1753 as
the "Kingsboro Patent," and located a little
distance north from the Mohawk Eiver, in
the region round about the present city of
Johnstown, N. Y. Among the " others " men
tioned as parties in this tract was Arent
Stevens, a widely celebrated Indian trader
and interpreter. Sir William gradually
bought out his associates, one by one, until
the entire tract came into his possession. It
220
Pontiac s War
embraced about 26,000 acres. 1 From time to
time he made substantial improvements on
this tract, clearing considerable areas, build
ing sawmills and a grist-mill, and settling
upon it a considerable colony of tenants,
mostly Scotch-Irish and Highland emigrants.
About 1760 or 1761 it had become more
valuable and important than his smaller
estate at Mount Johnson, and he decided to
remove to it. During the years 1761-62 he
built a manor-house on this estate, to which
he gave the name of "Johnson Hall." It is
still standing, near the present city of Johns
town which he, at the same time, founded.
In the early spring of 1763 the new manor-
house was completed, and Sir William moved
into it, leaving Mount Johnson and the estate
connected with it in possession of his eldest
son and heir afterward Sir John Johnson
then just arrived at the age of twenty-one.
Johnson Hall was and is a large, commo
dious mansion, and at that time the most im
posing edifice west of the Hudson Eiver. It
consisted of a main building of wood, weather-
1 The total area was much more than 26,000 acres. But
many settlers were already within its boundaries, having built
houses and cleared farms. They had no valid titles, but Sir
William gave them deeds for nominal consideration and did
not disturb any of them.
221
Sir William Johnson
boarded in a fashion to resemble blocks of
hewn stone much like Washington s resi
dence at Mount Vernon. It had two wing-
buildings in the same style of architecture,
though smaller and built of stone.
Sir William had by this time accumulated
a large family. It consisted of his two
daughters by Katharine Weisenburg Nancy
and Mary then about twenty-two and twenty
years old, respectively, the former recently
wedded to Colonel Daniel Glaus, and the
latter soon to be married to his nephew,
Colonel Guy Johnson. Besides these his
children born in wedlock there were Char
lotte and Caroline Johnson, his half-breed
daughters by Caroline Hendrick, these about
fourteen and eleven years of age, respectively,
and the five little half-breeds that Molly Brant
had borne to him in the nine years of their
life together. The sixth of Molly Brant s
children, a girl named Mary, was born at
Johnson Hall, not long after its occupation
by the family. Sir William s half-breed son
by Caroline Hendrick, young William John
son, did not make his home at the mansion,
but lived at Canajoharie, part of the time with
his grandfather, the sachem Abraham, and
part of the time with his uncle, "Little Abe."
However, at this particular time, young Will-
222
Pontiac s War
iam Johnson was attending Dr. Wheelock s
Academy at Lebanon, Conn., along with his
cousin, Joseph Brant, who graduated in the
spring of that year. 1
It was at his new residence of Johnson
Hall that Sir William received the first inti
mations of Pontiac s conspiracy in the sum
mer of 1763. He was not apprised of it until
just before the storm burst. This was the
first time in his twenty years experience in
dealing with the Indians that the baronet had
been taken off his guard. The secrecy with
which Pontiac s plot had been hatched, con
sidering its vast extent and thorough organi
zation, was marvelous. For more than a year
its arrangements had been in progress, car-
1 Joseph Brant used to relate with much relish an anecdote
of his high-spirited young half-breed cousin, who was seven
or eight years his junior. Young Kalph Wheelock, the rev
erend doctor s son, had a saddle pony, and one day, thinking
to make young William Johnson "fag" for him, ordered the
half-breed boy to go and saddle up the pony and bring it
around to the door. "I won t do it," said young Johnson.
"A gentleman s son, as I am, does not perform menial serv
ice for the sons of common people ! "
" What is a gentleman ? " inquired young Wheelock rather
superciliously.
"A gentleman," quickly responded the young half-breed,
" is a man who lives in a big mansion, has a great lot of land,
keeps race horses, and drinks Madeira wine at his dinner
and your father doesn t do a single one of those things I "
Young Wheelock saddled the pony himself.
223
Sir William Johnson
ried out among many tribes, and covering a
vast territory; yet, with all Sir William s
elaborate system of information through his
scouts, traders, and runners, the first out
break took him completely by surprise. This
outbreak was the attack on Detroit, the best
fortified post west of Niagara.
It was garrisoned by two companies of
British regulars, having 128 men and 8
officers, of Gage s light infantry. The first
effort of Pontiac was to take it by stratagem,
which was frustrated by the vigilance of
Major Gladwyn, the commandant. The major
had a pretty Chippewa half-breed girl as
housekeeper and companion, and she, over
hearing the conversations of the Indians in
their own tongue, discovered their intentions
and informed her protector just in the nick
of time. Gladwyn at once took precautions,
refused to admit the Indians inside the stock
ade, and on the 7th of May, when they tried to
force their way in, killed two of their chiefs
with his own pistols right in front of the main
gate.
Pontiac, observing that his plot was de
tected, then settled down to a close siege,
which was maintained, with many vicissi
tudes, until November 15, when the Indians,
worn out, dejected, and discouraged, not only
224
Pontiac s War
abandoned the siege, but sued for peace.
Pontiac, deserted by Ms warriors, sullenly
returned almost alone to his village, declaring
his intention to try it again.
Almost simultaneously with the attack on
Detroit a large force of Ohio Indians Shaw-
nees, Wyandots, Miamis, Delawares, and Min-
goes invested Fort Pitt. The garrison at
this post was four companies of the Eoyal
Americans, and the real commandant was
Major George Croghan, Deputy Superintend
ent of Indian Affairs. As soon as tidings of
the attack reached the settlements of Pennsyl
vania, east of the mountains, General Am-
herst sent Colonel Bouquet, with 500 regulars,
mostly Highlanders, to raise the siege. Dur
ing his march Bouquet was joined by 280 or
300 Pennsylvania and Virginia frontiersmen.
Among these was a company of about fifty,
from the upper Potomac and Shenandoah val
leys, who came up the Cumberland Valley and
joined the expedition at Carlisle or where
that town is now. There was nothing par
ticularly remarkable about these fifty Vir
ginia backwoodsmen, except that their cap
tain was a man of the name of Daniel Mor
gan!
They were nearly all hunters and trap
pers ; men from whom the Indians themselves
225
Sir William Johnson
could learn lessons in woodcraft and the art
of bush-fighting.
The 5th of August, 1763, when Bouquet s
force was within a few miles of the fort, the
savages laid an ambuscade for him at a place
called Bushy Run, on a plan much similar to
the ambush into which Braddock had marched
eight years before. But Bouquet was not
Braddock. Apprised of this ambuscade by
some of his Pennsylvania backwoodsmen,
whom he kept in advance as scouts, he was not
taken by surprise. The scout who first dis
covered and reported the presence of the In
dians in force was Lewis Wetzel, then a youth
hardly twenty years old, but who subse
quently became one of the most bloodthirsty
and successful "Indian-killers " known to
American history. A most desperate battle
ensued, resulting in the total rout of the sav
ages, who lost over 300 out of about 700. The
loss of Bouquet s force was 8 officers and 115
enlisted men killed or wounded, nearly one-
third of the latter mortally. Bouquet then
marched without further opposition to the
fort, the besieging Indians fleeing down the
river in their canoes.
Several attempts against Fort Niagara
were made by a force mainly composed of
renegade Senecas, with some Ottawas and
226
Pontiac s War
Ohio Indians. They surprised and massa
cred two or three small parties in the neigh
borhood of the fort, but did not attempt to
besiege it. While these events were in prog
ress the Indians attacked, with more success,
the smaller and slenderly garrisoned posts of
Lebceuf, Venango, Presque Isle, St. Joseph,
Maumee, Mackinaw, Sandusky, and St.
Mary s, butchering their unfortunate garri
sons almost to a man.
However, before the end of 1763 the main
force of Pontiac s rebellion was crushed, and
though spasmodic outbreaks occurred for a
year afterward, it never again assumed for
midable proportions. General Amherst was
disposed to deal in a conciliatory spirit with
the Canadian Indians. But he was bitter
ly incensed at the conduct of the Senecas,
and informed Sir William, in the winter
of 1763-64, that it was his intention in the
early spring to take a force of regulars
and Provincials which he proposed to com
mand in person and, as he expressed it,
"wipe forever from the face of the earth
that faithless, cruel tribe, who have already
too long debauched the good name of the
Iroquois Confederacy by pretending to be
long to it!"
In a memoir of Lord Amherst, published
227
Sir William Johnson
anonymously in London in 1798, about a year
after his death, appears the following :
General Amherst objected to any fur
ther negotiation with the Senecas. They were, he
said, destitute of honor, faithless, treacherous, and
a race of natural-born criminals and murderers.
They cumbered the ground. He could make no use
of them but exterminate them as a warning example
to all other Indians. He at once formulated a gen
eral order for concentration of all the British forces
in North America against the Seneca nation. He
called for 10,000 militia to be furnished by Massa
chusetts, New Hampshire, Connecticut, New York,
Pennsylvania, and Virginia in appropriate quotas.
Of the 11,000 British regulars then in the colonial
garrisons he ordered 6,500 to take the field. He
also directed that the services of friendly Indians,
if proffered, should be declined, as this was to be
purely a white man s war! He proposed to move
against the Senecas in four columns. General Bou
quet with the Pennsylvania and Virginia militia
and the 700 regulars in the Ohio District alto
gether about 3,500 strong was to move from Fort
Pitt up the Allegheny River and French Creek to
attack from the southwest. General Haldimand
was to assemble at Fort Niagara .a force of 3,000
regulars drawn from the Canadian garrisons and
assail the Western Senecas. Sir William Johnson,
with the New York and Connecticut militia and 500
regulars altogether about 3,500 strong was to
228
Pontiac s War
move down the Susquehanna and up the Chemung
against the southeastern towns. While General
Amherst in person, with the Massachusetts and New
Hampshire militia and 2,500 regulars, forming a
force of about 6,000, was to invade the Seneca coun
try from the east by way of the Mohawk Valley and
Onondaga. " No male Seneca capable of bearing
arms will be spared," he said. " The women and
children will be taken prisoners and afterward dis
tributed among the other tribes. The Seneca nation
as an organized tribe must disappear ! Every habi
tation in the Seneca country will be razed to the
ground. Their crops will be destroyed and their
live stock killed or driven off. It is my intention to
destroy the tribe and completely desolate their
country. After that is done their lands will escheat
to the Crown and will at once be opened to white
settlement.
That General Amherst was able to accomplish
his purpose is beyond question. The force he pro
posed to mobilize was about 16,000. The total pop
ulation of the Seneca nation was not more than
10,000 or 11,000, and they could not, even by levy
en masse, muster over 1,500 fighting men. In fact,
any two of his proposed four columns of invasion
could have crushed the tribe. That the Senecas
merited condign punishment for their perfidy and
cruelty is quite clea.r. But that they deserved the
dire fate General Amherst threatened to visit upon
them is not so apparent.
There is, however, circumstantial evidence that
229
Sir William Johnson
the commander-in-chief did not intend to be as
savage as his word. No militia was actually em
bodied except the Mohawk regiment under Colonel
Glaus and three independent companies of Scho-
harie and the Susquehanna. The only movement of
regulars was a transfer of the second battalion, Six
tieth Royal American Foot, about 800 strong, from
the garrison of Quebec to Oswego. Moreover, the
tenor of General Amherst s orders was, by some
mysterious agency, made known in the Seneca vil
lages almost as soon as at the colonial capitals. . . .
If, as seems plausible, it was a threat on a grand
scale, the effect was all that could have been desired,
because the Senecas abjectly sued for mercy and
peace and never again made any trouble.
Sir William vigorously opposed this pol
icy. He declared that what the Senecas had
done was not their act as a tribe, but the inde
pendent, unauthorized, and much-regretted
action of their bad or misguided young men.
The Senecas, on their part, hearing of Gen
eral Amherst s project, sued in the most
abject manner for peace, and promised to
deliver up the prime instigators of the de
fection among them. Upon this, Amherst
relented. They gave up to him nineteen of
the " instigators," and after hanging two of
the worst of them at Onondaga Castle, by
way of an "object-lesson," the general aban-
230
Pontiac s War
doned his declared intention of "extermina
ting the tribe " !
"In all my long and happy acquaintance
with him," says Sir William in his journal,
"this was the first time I ever saw General
Amherst display real anger. But on this oc
casion he was thoroughly roused, and all his
usual placidity of temper seemed to have van
ished. In truth, it was with difficulty at first
I could induce him to listen to my expostula
tions."
The hanging of the two sub-chiefs of the
Senecas by General Amherst at Onondaga
Castle was the first exhibition the Indians had
seen of the Anglo-Saxon mode of punishing
murderers. In order to make the spectacle
more impressive, the general ordered the
bodies of the culprits to be sunk in Onondaga
Lake with stones tied about their necks, as
food for the fishes. And he forbade any
mourning or other funereal rites for them in
the tribe, threatening to hang any one who
should attempt to offer any rites to their
memory. The fact is that, but for Sir Will
iam s intercession, Amherst would have
hanged the whole nineteen renegades who
were delivered up to him. As it was, he took
the other seventeen to New York and kept
them in jail there until every vestige of Pon-
231
Sir William Johnson
tiac s conspiracy had disappeared. They
were not released until Pontiac himself form
ally surrendered in 1766. During their two
years of imprisonment eight out of the seven
teen died. The fates of these renegades
cowed the Senecas for all time.
It was, perhaps, fortunate for the restora
tion of tranquillity between the white people
and the Senecas, that General Amherst was
appointed Governor of Virgina at the end of
1763, and left the New York frontier in the
spring of 1764 to take up his new duties
shortly after the events just noted. His de
parture left Sir William Johnson in complete
control of the situation, and he soon succeeded
in bringing the Senecas to a status of perfect
obedience and amity. However, the un
wonted spectacle of publicly hanging two of
their chiefs on the same gallows was a lesson
that sank deep into their memories. To them
it was an infinitely severer punishment than
even burning at the stake. " That way of kill
ing a warrior with a rope," they said, "chokes
him so he can not sing his death-song. He can
sing his death-song at the stake, but not when
he is being choked to death by a rope ! "
As we have remarked, Pontiac himself did
not surrender until 1766, nearly three years
after the outbreak of his plot, and two years
232
Pontiac s War
after its complete suppression. Finally,
after much negotiation and correspondence,
Pontiac agreed to meet Sir William at Oswego
to smoke the great calumet of peace and
pledge his fealty to the King of England. On
the 23d of July, 1766, the great chief and Sir
William met face to face at Oswego. Stone
gives a striking description of their meeting :
As it was now the warmest of summer weather,
the council was held in the open air, protected
from, the rays of the sun by an awning of ever
greens. . . . At one end of the leafy canopy the
manly form of the Superintendent, wrapped in his
scarlet blanket bordered with gold lace, and sur
rounded by the glittering uniforms of British offi
cers, was seen with hand extended in welcome to
the great Ottawa, who, standing erect in conscious
power, his rich plumes waving over the circle of his
warriors, accepted the proffered hand with an air
in which defiance and respect were singularly
blended. Around, stretched at length upon the
grass, lay the proud chiefs of the Six Nations,
gazing with curious eyes upon the man who had
come hundreds of miles to smoke the calumet with
their beloved Superintendent.
From Oswego Sir William went to Niag
ara, where he held a grand council with dele
gates from all the western and Ohio tribes
that had been implicated in Pontiac s con-
16 233
Sir William Johnson
spiracy. He was detained at Niagara for
some time by delay in arrival of delegates
from the tribes farthest west, and he says that
he "took advantage of this waiting-spell to in
dulge in his favorite sport of gunning for wild
fowl which, at this time of the year, swarm
upon the waters of the river, bay, and lake."
Finally, in September, Sir William re
turned to his home at Johnson Hall.
The events just related practically ended
his direct personal attention to Indian affairs.
The treaties he made at Oswego and Niagara
included every Indian tribe hitherto under
French dominion or influence, together with
the Ohio tribes Shawnees, Wyandots, Mia-
mis, Mingoes, Delawares, and the remnant of
the Piquas or Piankeshaws. Most of the
southern Indians were also represented at the
Niagara council; Cherokees from western
North Carolina and northern Georgia ; Chick-
as aws from what is now middle and northern
Alabama; Yemassees from the uplands of
South Carolina ; Catawbas from northwestern
North Carolina and the southern part of what
is now West Virginia. No delegates were
present from the Creeks of southern and mid
dle Alabama and Georgia, or from the Choc-
taws and the Natches of what is now Missis
sippi. Some of these latter tribes, notably
234
Pontiac s War
the Creeks and Choctaws, were still tinder the
Spanish and French influence, yet dominant
in Florida and Louisiana. But, on the whole,
the era beginning with the surrender of Pon-
tiac was one of peace between the two races
that lasted until the outbreak of the Revolu
tion.
The deputy-superintendent system worked
well. To the three deputies already in office
Croghan, Glaus and Guy Johnson Sir
.William now added a fourth in the person of
Colonel Thomas Polk, of Mecklenburg, N. C.,
who assumed charge of the southern tribes,
with headquarters where the city of Augusta,
Ga., now stands.
From this time on the baronet retained
under personal supervision only his faithful
Mohawks, Oneidas, Oghwagas, and Tusca-
roras. But these had almost ceased to be
Indians. Most of them could speak English,
and many of them could read and write. The
Mohawks, now thoroughly intermingled with
the white population of the valley that bears
their name, had farms which they cultivated
as thriftily as their white neighbors. In some
what less degree the same was true of the Onei
das. The Oghwagas and Tuscaroras in the
Susquehanna Valley, from the Unadilla to
Chenango Point, and in the Great Bend, had
235
Sir William Johnson
many fertile clearings, orchards, and com
fortable log-cabins. In these tribes the sys
tem of landholding was similar to that of the
white people. Each Indian farmer owned
and cultivated his separate farm. The west
ern Iroquois Onondagas, Cayugas, and Sen-
ecas had a good deal of land cleared and
under cultivation, with numerous orchards,
and for the most part lived in cabins made of
logs, or wattles plastered with clay and roofed
with bark. But these tribes still adhered to
the ancient usage and cultivated their lands
in common. All were tranquil and appar
ently contented. Sir William had little to do
in the official way but keep in touch with his
deputies and watch the fruition of the work
to which he had so long given his energies,
and which he had conducted with such marvel
ous skill, patience, and courage. He now had
under his control, or within the scope of his
official authority, nearly two hundred thou
sand Indians.
The state of civilized comfort which the
Iroquois had reached in the eighteenth cen
tury, though often described, is hardly real
ized by modern readers. In 1765, after the
suppression of Pontiac, the British Govern
ment determined to make a road practicable
for artillery and all kinds of wagon or sleigh
236
Pontiac s War
traffic from the upper Mohawk to Fort Niag
ara. Sir William Johnson, being directed to
make this road, organized a surveying party
to lay out its route. The party consisted
of Simon Metcalf, Philip Burlingame, Ezra
Buell, James Ogden, and Sir William s half-
breed son, William Johnson, who, having
"graduated " at Dr. Wheelock s Lebanon
Academy, had decided to learn the art of sur
veying. In his Narrative, Ezra Buell de
scribes several of the towns through which
they passed. We select his description of the
"Old Castle Town," at the foot of Seneca
Lake, near the present site of Geneva, N. Y. ;
Here, he says, is a clearing about two miles
long and more than a mile wide, bounded on the
southeast by the lake shore. In the midst of it,
about 60 rods from the lake, is the Old Castle, a
strong log building, with a parapet around the roof
well loopholed for musketry and the whole sur
rounded by a substantial log stockade. There is a
spring inside the stockade and the whole structure
will shelter a garrison of at least 300 to 350 men.
From the Old Castle in both directions, east and
west, is a broad street, I would say a hundred and
fifty feet wide. On both sides of this thoroughfare
are built, at distances of one or two hundred feet
from each other, one-story log houses, having fire
places with chimneys made mostly of wattles filled
in with clay, though some are of stonework. In
237
Sir William Johnson
many of the fireplaces I noticed swinging cranes to
hang kettles on, the same as in white people s houses.
They have plenty of cooking utensils kettles, spi
ders, skillets, Dutch ovens, and roasting-spits. In
some houses the floors are of hard-beaten clay; in
others of puncheons (split logs), neatly fitted and
smoothed off, and deer and elk skins, tanned with
the hair on, are made to serve as carpets. The
houses are built one room wide and in lengths ac
cording to the needs of the family. Some of them
are four rooms in length, the rooms being generally
from 12 to 14 feet square. The fireplace is usually
in the middle room.
The cleared land is tilled in common, each fam
ily getting its share of the whole product. The
crops are corn, pumpkins, melons, apples, pears,
peaches, beans, and lately they raise some pota
toes and turnips. They have a good many horses
and a few cattle. But cattle need too much
care and feeding in winter to suit the Indians.
Besides, they have plenty of wild meat, and as they
do not wish for milk, they have little need of cattle.
In the village are 72 inhabited houses besides six
log huts, roofed over, used as storehouses for corn
and other provisions for winter. The total number
of inhabitants is 427, of whom about 50 are half-
breeds.
An important article of food with them is fish,
with which the lake and Seneca River actually
swarm trout of several varieties, whitefish, pike,
pickerel, and many other species. The Indians
238
Pontiac s War
catch them mostly by spearing in the night, with a
light at the bow of their canoes, which attracts the
fish to the surface. They use a three-pronged spear
and are very expert with it. These fish they salt
down or smoke such as they do not eat fresh.
They get salt from the springs at Onondaga, where
they go two or three times a year to make it by
boiling the water in kettles or leaving it to evaporate
under the hot sun in shallow troughs. Much of the
timber about here is hard maple, from which they
make quantities of molasses and some sugar of an
inferior kind. They make cider by mashing apples
in a large mortar and then letting the pulp or pum
ice ferment in large troughs hollowed out of logs.
When the pulp gets soft they squeeze out the juice.
It seems to agree with them, but our party suffered
diarrhea from drinking it. ... Altogether, the
Senecas at Old Castle live as well as most of the
white settlers in a new country. But I could see
that they have no ambition for improvement beyond
a certain point, as white settlers have. As soon as
certain creature wants are satisfied they are done.
Here, at Old Castle Town, they appear to have
reached the end of their ambition and are content.
The great war-chief, Cornplanter, lives here. He
is the half-breed son of an old Indian trader by
name of Abiel and a Seneca woman. Cornplanter s
wife is a white woman, young and neat. He does
not allow her to work, but keeps two or three squaws
to be servants for her. He is a fine, stalwart fel
low, very sensible, keeps open house for his friends,
239
Sir William Johnson
and is true to the King as steel. Here also resides
the famous Council Chief, Kay-ag-sho-ta. He is
reputed the best orator and wisest counselor in the
Seneca nation. He always represents them in
councils and conferences with the Government peo
ple. He made some mistakes at the beginning of
Pontiac s war, but his glib tongue has got him
safely out of them !
Three families of white people live here. They
are the agent for the Eastern Senecas, Captain Mc-
Master, his wife and two children; the licensed
trader, Mr. Forman, his wife and three children;
and the gunsmith, a Switzer, by name Drepard.
The gunsmith is the most important personage here.
The Indians often bring their broken guns a hun
dred miles to have him repair them. They have
plenty of firearms. Every Indian able to carry a
gun has one and some have two or three, taken from
the enemy in the last war. A few of them have
creased rifles, which they obtain in trading expedi
tions down the Susquehanna, whither they often go
as far as Lancaster in Pennsylvania. This gun
smith was put here by Sir William Johnson through
agreement with the Indians in 1759. His wife is a
handsome young half-breed woman and they have
one small child. . . .
Most of the Indians here dress after the fashion
of white people. The men wear blue or green
hunting-shirts, braided and fringed, and cloth or
deer-skin leggings and moccasins. They are fond
of the uniform coats of British or Provincial sol-
240
Pontiac s War
diers. They do not wear the blanket as a garment,
as wild Indians do, except in very cold weather.
The women wear gaudy-colored jackets, pro
fusely braided and beaded, and flannel petticoats
reaching a little below the knee, with leggings of
fawn-skin and moccasins. . . .
The Post is half a mile east of the village on
the lake shore. It has four good-sized log houses
of two stories the agent s house, the trader s
house, the trader s store, which also contains the
gunsmith s shop, and the gunsmith s house all
surrounded by a strong palisade of logs set deep
in the ground. It is a busy place, many Indians
from distant towns being always here to trade, or
to see the agent, or get their guns mended.
It is worthy of note that the trader s two clerks
are both young Indians educated at Canajoharie,
one a half-breed, the other a full-blood.
About the time under consideration Sir
William made a report to the Colonial Office
in London, giving an enumeration of all the
Indian tribes within his sphere of control or
influence. This was in detail of the several
tribes, and stated only the number of able-
bodied men in each. But lie explained that
the grand total of all ages and sexes could be
ascertained by considering the number of able-
bodied men or warriors as one to every ten. 1
1 Not all of the able-bodied men in any Indian tribe were
rated as warriors. A considerable number were always pro-
241
Sir William Johnson
The Six Nations and eastern Canadian In
dians lie estimated at 3,960 warriors, indica
ting a population of about 40,000. The Ot
tawa Confederacy at 3,800 warriors, or 38,000
total. The various branches of the Chippewa
Nation at 4,000 warriors, or 40,000 in all.
The southern Indians Cherokees, Creeks,
Choctaws, Chickasaws, etc., at 6,000 warriors,
or 60,000 all told. All other remnants of
tribes, about 1,000 able-bodied men, or 10,000
total population. No Indians living west of
the Mississippi were included. In a note ap
pended to this estimate Sir William said :
West of the Mississippi and north of the Mis
souri rivers are many large tribes subject to His
Majesty s government by the territorial terms of
the Treaty of Paris properly construed. But I
must say it is quite evident to me that the framers
of that treaty were in sore need of a scholar in
geography. As for the numbers of these far-west
ern tribes, I can get no accurate information. They
have been visited only by the Jesuit Brothers and
the French and half-breed voyageurs and coureurs
des bois, none of whom pays much attention to sta
tistical matters. All I can get from them is that
many tribes inhabit that country, and some of them
fessional hunters, and these never took the war-path in dis
tant expeditions ; in fact, were not expected to fight unless
in defense of their villages. On an average the professional
hunters were about one-fifth of the able-bodied males.
242
Pontiac s War
are very numerous. The Jesuit Father, St. Martin,
and his attendant, Jacques la Bute, whom I met
at Detroit in 1761 and who interpreted for me
there with the Hurons, jib ways, and other north
western nations, had been as far to the northward
and westward as the Mandan country a few years
before. They believed there were more Indians
west of the Mississippi than east of it; but said
they were exceedingly primitive, had no fire-arms,
and were not settled in more or less permanent vil
lages like the Indians who live in the forest coun
try to the eastward, but roamed in a nomadic fash
ion over all the great treeless plains in that region.
They declared their belief that these far-western
Indians must be 250,000 in number.
These estimates are probably the source of
Professor Donaldson s calculation, that in the
third quarter of the eighteenth century there
were half a million Indians in North America,
north of the Rio Grande and Gila rivers.
After 1766, Sir William s life was, in the
main, reposeful. His four deputies trans
acted the business of their respective districts
with signal ability and success. In 1768 Colo
nel Polk accomplished the hitherto impossi
ble task of making a treaty with the Creeks ;
a transaction with which Sir William had
nothing to do, except approve the action of his
subordinate and secure the royal signature.
243
Sir William Johnson
The last great public work of the baronet s
lifetime was completed also during the year
1768. That was the ratification of a definite
boundary between the territory of the Six
Nations and the colony of New York, with an
actual survey and delimitation known to
history as the "Fort Stanwix Treaty Line."
This line began at Wood Creek, near Fort
Stanwix, ran thence southeast to the Forks of
the Unadilla River; then followed that river
to its confluence with the Susquehanna; then
ran due south to the present site of Deposit,
N. Y. ; thence southeast to the Pennsylvania
line which was the Delaware River; thence
west-northwest to the Susquehanna at Owego ;
thence down the latter river to the mouth of
Towanda Creek; and from that point it was
projected in an air line on the point of com
pass required to strike the confluence of the
Allegheny and Monongahela at Fort Pitt or
Pittsburg. This is the line traced on the map
compiled with great care and accuracy by the
author of The Old New York Frontier, Francis
Whiting Halsey. It corresponds with the
field-notes of Ezra Buell, who was assistant to
the chief surveyor, Simon Metcalf. But Ezra
says in his narrative that "the easterly jog in
the line was never observed by the whites or
insisted on by the Indians." As to purchase
244
MAP SHOWING
FT.STANWIX TREATY LINE,
NEGOTIATED B*
Sir William Johnson
. IN 1768.
76
Pontiac s War
of lands, and actual settlement, he says the
Susquehanna River formed the real bound
ary, from the mouth of the Unadilla 1 to the
mouth of Towanda Creek. "The purpose of
the easterly jog in the line," Buell says, "was
to include the Oghwaga and Tuscarora vil
lages on the Susquehanna, between Cuna-
hunta (now Oneonta) and Chugunut (now
Choconut), within the Indian domain. But
many whites were already there, a good part
of them married to or living with Indian
women, and the Oghwagas and Tuscaroras
freely sold their lands to these whites. By
1774 there were almost as many whites and
half-breeds in this valley as full-blood In
dians."
With the Fort Stanwix treaty and the run
ning of the boundary-line consequent upon it,
the active public career of Sir William John
son in the broad sense practically ended. The
rest of his life was devoted to study, cor
respondence, the education of his children,
and the general management of his personal
1 Ezra Buell spells what we now call "Unadilla" "Tian-
anderha," which was really the nearest equivalent in English
letter sounds to the pronunciation of the name of the river in
the Oneida dialect of the Iroquois tongue. Other forms of
the word in early papers are Teyonadelhough, Cheunadilla,
and Tunadilla, the latter being the spelling Joseph Brant
employed.
245
Sir William Johnson
estate. Occasionally he settled disputed ques
tions between his deputies and the Indians
within their jurisdiction; but such disputes
seldom occurred.
At the period now under consideration
(1769) he received under charter from the
king a tract of land known as the "Royal
Grant." This land had previously been con
veyed to him (in 1760) by the Council of Mo
hawk Sachems for the consideration of 3,000
in money and about as much more in merchan
dise. But the grant was not approved by the
king until 1769. It embraced all the land on
the north bank of the Mohawk Eiver between
the mouths of Cayadutta (now East Canada)
and Canada (now West Canada) creeks. Its
total area was something over 100,000 acres,
but between 1760 and 1769 a good many set
tlers had cleared and improved farms within
its borders. Sir William at once gave quit
claims to all these, at the rate of threepence to
a shilling per acre, according to the value of
their holdings by reason of location.
When all these deductions were made, the
"Kingsland Grant" 1 embraced about 90,000
1 Most historians of this epoch adopt the legend that Sir
William obtained this grant by what might be described as a
"game of competitive dreaming" between him and old Hen-
drick. The legend was that Hendrick, visiting him one day
246
Pontiac s War
acres. The next year (1770) Sir William
acquired by purchase from the original pat
entees under Governor Clinton, whose patents
had been confirmed by the king in 1761, a tract
embracing the valley of the Susquehanna
from the mouth of Charlotte River to that of
the Unadilla. This tract was twenty-three
miles long by four miles wide two miles back
from the river on each side and embraced
about 92 square miles or, say, 58,000 acres.
It was his intention to settle on this tract a
numerous colony of Scotch-Irish emigrants
from the counties Down, Armagh, and An
trim. But he did not live to accomplish his
purpose. The acquisition of this tract made
him the largest landholder in America and
perhaps in the world; his total possessions
when he had on the uniform of a British major-general, in
formed him that he (Hendrick) had dreamed the night before
that he himself was clad in a uniform exactly like it. Sir
William, the legend says, gave Hendrick a major-general s
uniform. Then, visiting Hendrick a day or two afterward,
he told the chief he had dreamed that the Mohawks gave him
a tract of 100,000 acres of land. The legend further recites
that Hendrick gave him the land, but said, "Don t let s dream
any more ! " This is not a bad story ; but the fact is that the
tract was not offered to Sir William by the Mohawk Council
until 1760. Hendrick was killed at Lake George in 1755.
The alleged "competitive dreaming" on his side therefore
must have been done by his ghost! The real fact is that the
legend was a pure invention from beginning to end.
n 247
Sir William Johnson
amounted to about 200,000 acres, after buying
up all the smaller patents embraced within
the limits of the Royal Grant.
Of this vast area all except the Susque-
hanna tract was more or less improved, and
the Mount Johnson and Johnstown tracts
were, for those days at least, thickly settled.
By 1770 the village of Johnstown, which he
founded about 1760 or when he began build
ing Johnson Hall had grown to be a smart
little town of over a hundred dwellings and
about 500 people, with several stores, black
smith s, gunsmith s, and carpenter s shops, a
good-sized flour-mill, two sawmills and a
wagon-shop. It also had a flourishing manor-
school, and an Episcopal chapel, both built
wholly by the baronet. Two years later
(1772), when Tryon County was formed from
the western part of Albany County, Johns
town was made the shire town, or county-seat.
In 1770 Mary Brant bore to Sir William
her last child. It was the ninth in seventeen
years 1754-1770 inclusive. Eight of these
lived, and one died quite young. The baronet
was now fifty-five, and Mary Brant thirty-six
years of age. Mary, though in her girlhood
as trim-built and supple as a young deer, grew
stout and matronly in her later years, but lost
none of her charms of manner or vivacity of
248
Pontiac s War
spirit. General Scmiyler was a guest at
Johnson Hall frequently between 1768 and
1774, and in his papers he says :
Mary Brant was a most accomplished mistress
of such an establishment, and her numerous flock
of little half-breed Johnsons forms as interesting
a family as one can see anywhere. They attend
the Manor school at Johnstown, and I am told
they are among the smartest of the pupils. Sir
William is exceedingly proud of them, and loses
no opportunity of exhibiting their graces and
acquirements to his guests. He intends to send
his two half-breed boys to the new King s College
in New York [now Columbia University], and the
girls he will educate as they grow up in Mrs. Par-
dee s school for young ladies at Albany.
Among the last public enterprises of Sir
William, and one in the success of which he
found much satisfaction, was the introduction
of the manufacture of rifles in New York.
Prior to 1768 Lancaster, Pa., had practically
monopolized the making of rifles in this coun
try. The few that found their way into the
hands of the New York settlers or Indians cost
exorbitant prices. Sir William s experience
had taught him that the rifle, either for hunt
ing or for war, was much superior to the light
smoothbore gun he himself had designed for
the Indian and frontier trade twenty-five
249
Sir William Johnson
years before. He therefore determined to do
mesticate rifle-making in the Mohawk Valley.
But none of the gunsmiths there understood
the art of rifling, and they were unwilling to
undertake it. Not to be balked, Sir William
induced several skilled rifle-makers to leave
Lancaster and set up shops in New York.
Among them were the Palm brothers, Jacob
and Frederick, who established their shop at
Old Esopus, Ulster County, and made excel
lent rifles there for many years ; Henry Haw
kins, who selected Schenectady for his place
of business, and John Folleck, whose shop was
at Johnstown. Hawkins was not only a great
rifle-maker himself, but his sons and grand
sons succeeded him in later years, establish
ing shops at Rochester, Louisville, Detroit,
and St. Louis, until, during the last quarter
of the eighteenth and first half of the nine
teenth century, the "Hawkins rifle " was as
famous all through the West as the Win
chester is now.
Originally Sir William induced these pio
neers of rifle-making to locate in New York
by advancing money for the building of their
shops and purchase of tools and then agree
ing to take at a fixed price all their product
that did not promptly find market elsewhere.
This began in 1769. The market soon became
250
Pontiac s War
brisk and other rifle-makers came in. By
1775 most of the settlers on the New York fron
tier and many of the Indians had discarded
their old smoothbores for the new rifles, and
though the industry was only about six years
old, New York was second only to Pennsyl
vania in the manufacture of what we com
monly term "the national American weapon."
The author of this work has a Palm rifle, made
in 1773, in perfect preservation, flint lock, and
as effective now as it was when it left the shop.
It is 40 inches long in the barrel which is
octagonal 55 inches over all, full-stocked
with curly-birch root, carries 45 spherical
balls to the pound of lead, and weighs 10J
pounds. It saw service in Morgan s Riflemen
and was in the battle of Oriskany.
Sir William s success in starting the manu
facture of rifles in New York was as complete
as in his other undertakings, and was due to
the same causes : the energy which he always
brought to bear on any project and the un
stinted freedom with which he was willing to
spend his money to accomplish his object; and
in this respect it was immaterial to him
whether the object was the public welfare or
personal profit.
251
CHAPTEE VI
SIR WILLIAM S CHARACTER AND DEATH
1769-1774
AFTER concluding the Fort Stanwix treaty
and supervising the running of the boundary
line, which was completed in 1769, Sir William
passed most of his spare time in reading, and
in writing papers on public topics. He had
accumulated one of the best private libraries
in the colonies ; having begun to import books
from England as early as 1740, or as soon as
he had means of his own to afford it. At the
end of his life he had over two thousand vol
umes, which in those days was an extraordi
nary private collection.
To indicate generally the character of his
selections, I give two orders, selected at ran
dom from a number. These orders were sent
to London in 1749. They embraced Sir Isaac
Newton s complete works; Desagulier s
Course of Experimental Philosophy, in two
volumes, illustrated; Chambers s Dictionary,
two volumes ; Battles of Alexander the Great,
252
Sir William s Character and Death
by LeBrun; Ehoderick Random; the Whole
Proceedings in the House of Peers Against the
Three Condemned Lords; Historical Review
of Transactions in Europe from the Com
mencement of the War with Spain ; the Gentle
man s Magazine; the Family Magazine; A
Large Globe; All Recent Pamphlets on Po
litical or Scientific Subjects; Review of the
Services of His Majesty s Navy Since the
Accession of William III ; Life of the Duke of
Marlborough, 3 volumes, by Ledyard; Mili
tary History of Prince Eugene and the Duke
of Marlborough, 2 volumes, by Campbell ; Life
of William III, translated from the Dutch of
Montanus; Life and Reign of King William
III, by Harris ; History of France Under the
Reign of Louis XIV, translated from the
French of de Larrey ; Life of Louis XIII, by
Howell; Life of Queen Anne, by Oldmixon;
An Account of the Conduct of the Duchess of
Marlborough, by Hooke ; Life of Peter the
Great, 3 volumes, by Mottley; Life of the
Prophet Mohammed (in Latin), by Gag-
nier; Translation of the Koran (in Latin),
with Notes, Anon. ; and lastly, Pictures of
Some of the Best Running Horses at New
Market.
Besides such special orders, from time to
time, he had a standing order with the prin-
253
Sir William Johnson
cipal bookseller in London to send to him
"all new books on History, Philosophy, and
the Lives of Men Worth Heading About," as
they came from the press.
His own literary ability can be judged
only by his voluminous correspondence. As
a sample, I offer some extracts from a long
and comprehensive letter written by him to
Arthur Lee, at the request of the Royal Philo
sophical Society, under date of February 28,
1771:
g IR . JOHNSON HALL, Feb. 28, 1771.
... I am apprehensive that any account in
my power respecting inquiries amongst the unlet
tered Indians will prove inadequate to the expecta
tion formed in your letter; for, notwithstanding
my long residence in this country, the nature of my
office and the most diligent inquiries into these vari
ous particulars, I find all researches of that sort,
for which I shall give reasons presently, involved
in such difficulty and uncertainty as to afford but
slender satisfaction at least far short of my
inclination to gratify your desires thereon. How
ever, I shall endeavor to make some atonement by
giving you some account of these difficulties,
together with such other hints as, from the motives
of enquiry suggested in your letter, may, I flatter
myself, be of some use or amusement to you.
It will be unnecessary to enlarge on the want
of laws, government, letters, or such other particu-
254
Sir William s Character and Death
lars as are to be found in most authors who have
treated of the American Indians. . . .
I must therefore observe that the customs and
manners of the Indians are in several cases liable
to changes which have not been thoroughly con
sidered by authors, and therefore the description
of them at our particular period must be insuffi
cient; and I must further premise that I mean to
confine my observations to those of the Northern
Nations, with whom I have the most acquaintance
and intercourse.
In all inquiries of this sort we should distin
guish between the most remote tribes and those
Indians who, from their having been next to our
settlements several years, and relying wholly on
oral tradition for the support of their ancient
usages, have lost a great part of them and have
blended some customs amongst ourselves, so as to
render it extremely difficult, if not impossible, to
trace those customs to their origin or to discover
their application. Again those Indians who are a
degree farther removed have still a good deal of
intercourse with our traders, and having altered
their system of politics, though they still retain
many ancient customs, they are much at loss to
account for them ; whilst those who are far removed
from any intercourse with the whites (a few tra
ders excepted) are still in possession of the greater
part of their primitive usages. Yet these cannot
give a satisfactory account of their original signifi
cation ; and having so blended the whole with fable
255
Sir William Johnson
as to render it a matter of great difficulty to sepa
rate truth from it. Add to this that above a cen
tury ago they had French Jesuits among them
who, partly for religious purposes, but chiefly to
secure particular ends in the wars they often
fomented, introduced some of their own inventions
which the present generation [of Indians] con
found with their ancient ceremonies. . . .
With respect to your questions concerning the
chief magistrate or sachem and how he acquires
his authority, I am to acquaint you that there is
in every nation a sachem or chief, who appears to
have authority over the rest and it is greatest
amongst the most distant nations. But in most of
those bordering upon our settlements, the chief s
authority is hardly discernible, he seldom assuming
any power before his people. Indeed, this humility
is judged the best policy; for, wanting coercive
power, their commands would perhaps occasion
assassination, which sometimes happens.
The sachems of each tribe are usually chosen in
a public assembly of the chiefs and warriors, when
a vacancy happens by death or otherwise. They
are generally chosen for their sense and bravery
from among the oldest warriors and approved of
by all the tribe, on which they are saluted sachems.
There are, however, several exceptions; for some
families have a kind of heredity in the office, and
are called to this station sometimes in infancy.
The chief sachem is so either by inheritance or
by a kind of tacit consent, the consequence of his
256
Sir William s Character and Death
superior abilities and influence. The duration of
his authority depends on his own wisdom, the num
ber and consequence of his relations and the
strength of his particular tribe (if in a Confed
eracy). But in those cases where the office de
scends (by inheritance) should the successor
appear unequal to the task, some other sachem is
sure to possess himself of the powers and duties of
the station. I should have observed that military
services are the chief recommendation to this rank.
And it appears pretty clearly that heretofore the
chief of a nation had in some small degree the au
thority of a sovereign. This is now the fact among
the most remote Indians. But, since the introduc
tion of firearms they no longer fight in close
bodies, but every man is his own general; and I
am inclined to think that this is calculated to lessen
the power of a chief. . . .
The chief sachems form the Grand Council and
those of each tribe often deliberate apart on the
affairs of their particular tribe. All their delibera
tions are conducted with extraordinary regularity
and decorum. They never interrupt him who is
speaking or use harsh language, whatever may be
their thoughts.
The chiefs assume most authority in the field,
but this must be done even there with extreme cau
tion. . . .
They are severe upon those guilty of theft, (a
crime indeed uncommon among them) ; and in
cases of murder the relatives are left to take what-
257
Sir William Johnson
soever revenge they please. In general they are
unwilling to inflict capital punishments.
On their hunts, as on all other occasions, they
are strict observers of meum and tuum and on this
pure principle, holding theft in contempt, they are
rarely guilty of it though tempted by articles of
much value or ardently coveted. Neither do the
strong oppress the weak or attempt to seize their
prey of the chase or anything else of their property.
And I must do them the justice to say that unless
heated by liquor or inflamed by revenge, their
ideas of right and wrong and their practices in
consequence of them would, if more known, do
them much honor. . . .
As to your remark on their apparent repug
nance to civilization, I must observe that this is not
owing to any viciousness of their nature or want
of capacity, as they have a strong genius for arts
and uncommon patience. I believe they are put in
English schools too late in life and sent back too
soon to their people, whose political maxim, Spar
tan-like, is to discountenance all pursuits but war,
holding all other knowledge as unworthy the dig
nity of man and tending to enervate and divert
them from that warfare on which they conceive
their liberty and happiness depend. Such senti
ments constantly instilled into the minds of youth
and illustrated by examples drawn from the con
temptible state of domesticated tribes, leave lasting
impressions that can hardly be eradicated by an
ordinary school education. . . .
258
Sir William s Character and Death
With regard to language, there is so remarkable
a difference between the tongue of the Iroquois and
all the rest, as to afford some ground for inquiry
as to their distinct origin. The Indians north of
the St. Lawrence and north and west of the Great
Lakes and those who live in the Valley of the Ohio,
notwithstanding the differences between them in
other respects, speak a language radically the same,
and can, in general, communicate their wants to
each other, while the Iroquois who live in the midst
of them are incapable of conveying a single idea
to their neighbors; neither can they pronounce a
word of their language correctly. There is some
difference in dialect among the nations of the Iro
quois themselves, but there is little more than may
be found in the different provinces of large states
in Europe. . . .
I am Sir, your very Humble Servant
WM. JOHNSON.
We have reproduced the foregoing rather
as a sample of Sir William s literary style
than for the sake of the information it con
tains. All the facts stated in it are well
known now ; but they were not so familiar to
the reading public in 1771. Only about one-
third of the whole letter appears above. It
was, in fact, a paper, and was printed as such
in the Proceedings of the Philosophical Soci
ety. Most modern critics would call the style
somewhat involved and, perhaps, ponderous;
259
Sir William Johnson
but after all Sir William managed to make
his points clear.
Sir William Johnson, though not college-
bred, as intimated in the first chapter, was
well educated. He was particularly well
versed in Latin, and his library was well
stocked with the classics of that tongue, and
also with more modern works written in it.
He often received letters in Latin from
French priests in Canada, after the conquest,
because they could not write English and he
could not read French. It was his habit to
make notes of his own and attach them to all
important letters when he put them on file;
and examination of his manuscripts showed
that his notes on the letters in Latin were al
ways in that language. He was an excep
tionally good mathematician, and could make
and plot a land survey as well and as accu
rately as any professional surveyor.
Though he never had the slightest military
training in his youth, and though his first
actual experience in warfare was the com
mand of a considerable force, he "took to the
trade " intuitively, and became, by great odds,
the ablest and most successful of all the Pro
vincial generals, excepting, perhaps, Sir Will
iam Pepperell. In battle he exhibited the
most daring bravery, but in the general han-
260
Sir William s Character and Death
dling of his troops, maneuvring, etc., he was
cool and cautious, even to the extent as some
of his contemporaries thought of over-pru
dence.
On this point, however, he used to say him
self that, as he had large responsibilities of
command thrust upon him without adequate
military experience or training, he was often
in doubt ; and when so situated, always deter
mined that any error he might commit should
be on the safe side ! " I was always," he once
said, "on the lookout for an ambush, and was
resolved that, whatever else my fate might
be, it should not be that of Braddock ! "
When commanding Indians he always let
them fight their own way; never attempting
to do anything except encourage them by his
presence and example. Leading white troops
he observed the tactical methods then in
vogue ; but in woods-fighting was much more
flexible in his generalship than British regu
lar officers usually were.
On this point General Amherst once said
to another British officer of high rank Gen
eral Gage "We can all learn something from
Johnson in the style of fighting we have to
practice here ! "
In the ordinary affairs of life he was so
ciable, free from pretension, easy in manner,
261
Sir William Johnson
decorous in speech, and temperate in all
things. Singular as his domestic relations
were for the greater part of his life, he was
always devotedly attached to his home, and
exceedingly fond of his Indian companions
and of their half-breed children. In business
matters he was shrewd, but invariably honest
to a penny, and withal a generous creditor.
His benevolence was proverbial, and no other
man in the colonies during his time gave half
as much in charity as he did. Though form
ally a member of the Church of England, he
viewed other creeds with equal favor, and
built several chapels for his Lutheran neigh
bors or tenants, besides mission school-
houses for missionaries of other denomina
tions than his own. He was not very strict in
his own religious observances, but always
insisted that his family particularly his
girls, white and half-breed alike should be
close Conformists in all the rites and ceremo
nies of the Protestant Episcopal Church.
His favorite pastimes were gunning, fish
ing, and horse-racing. He was in the habit
of inviting the whole countryside either to
Mount Johnson or Johnson Hall several
times a year for all kinds of athletic sports,
of which his own favorites were boxing and
wrestling at both of which, in his younger
262
Sir William s Character and Death
days, he was exceedingly expert and formi
dable. On one occasion a militia company
in his own regiment, when electing officers,
voted a tie for the position of second lieu
tenant. They appealed to him to decide.
"Let them strip," he said, "and box it out.
I want the best man to have the commis
sion!"
On the whole and without further anal
ysis, we think it clear that Sir William John
son possessed a masterful mind, of quick in
tuitions and wide versatility; fertile in
resource and keen in perception; prompt in
decision and tremendously energetic in execu
tion. Not, perhaps, amounting to what is
rather indefinitely termed "genius," but well-
balanced, steady, and safe.
There can be no doubt that Sir William s
last years were made gloomy by the growing
contentions and rapidly widening breach be
tween the colonies and the mother country.
Politically, he was an ardent Whig, and as
such naturally opposed the policies of the
Grenville and North ministries toward the
colonies. But in his public utterances and in
his correspondence at the time he was con
servative to the point of being non-committal.
In a letter to General Gage, dated September,
is 263
Sir William Johnson
1765, after deploring the "riotous conduct"
of certain colonists, he says :
Having a large property to lose I cannot be
supposed to think differently from the real inter
ests of America ; yet, as a lover of the British Con
stitution, I shall retain sentiments agreeable to it,
although I should be almost singular [alone] in
my opinion, and I have great reason to think that
the late transactions and what is daily expected
in other Colonies, will be productive of dangerous
consequences. But I do not enter into their de
bates nor suffer myself to be led by artful con
structions of the law.
A more significant expression occurs in a
subsequent letter to Dr. Cadwallader Golden,
where he uses the more epigrammatic, though
still ambiguous, phrase: "For my part, I
neither wish us here more power than we can
make good use of, nor less liberty than we
have a right to expect."
In another letter he "congratulates his
correspondent on the repeal of the Stamp
Act," and in another says: "Unless they alter
the Stamp Act, we shall all be Republicans ! "
General Schuyler, whom he visited at Al
bany in 1773, on the occasion of placing two of
his half-breed daughters in a private semi
nary there, records him as "using language
concerning the attitude of the ministry, and
264
Sir William s Character and Death
also its personal make-up, which I should have
hesitated to use myself ! " But Schuyler does
not quote him doubtless because it was a
dinner-table conversation. In April, 1774,
he visited New York city, and said to Philip
Livingston, in the course of a friendly chat :
If the Colonies unite in revolt and the people
are unanimous or nearly so in it, I do not be
lieve the Crown can subdue them. The regular
troops will find it very different if they have our
Old Provincials against them instead of with them.
I believe, notwithstanding the extreme lengths to
which the troubles have proceeded, there is yet one
chance left for reconciliation. But I fear it can
never be accomplished by His Majesty s present
advisers !
His last recorded utterance on the subject
was early in July, 1774, not more than a week
before his death. Dr. Wheelock was visiting
him, as he habitually did during vacations.
The doctor records him as saying :
All this trouble must lead to blows before long.
A serious collision may happen any day now. The
Colonists cannot retreat, and the King, apparently,
will not. I am filled with forebodings. I dread the
coming of a struggle that must shake the British
Empire to its foundations. For my part I can
only say now that I shall not be found on the side
of the aggressor!
265
Sir William Johnson
Governor Seymour, who had seen the
above in the Wheelock MSS. and copied it, in
terpreted it as a guarded declaration of intent
to espouse the American cause, and invariably
expressed the belief that he would have done
so had he lived to hear the news from Bunker
Hill.
The nearest approach to positive testi
mony that I have ever seen occurs in a state
ment made by Colonel Daniel Glaus, Sir Will
iam s son-in-law, which has never before been
published, so far as I know, and for a copy
of which I am indebted to W. Max Reid, au
thor of the History of the Mohawk Valley.
For brevity I may premise that after their
defeat at Oriskany and the slaughter they suf
fered there, followed so closely by the sur
render of Burgoyne, the Iroquois became
deeply dejected, and many of them, particu
larly the Senecas and Cayugas, seriously con
templated neutrality, if not making terms with
the American colonists and abandoning the
British cause. This situation called forth all
the resources of the great chief, Joseph Brant,
to keep the Indians faithful to the king. On
this subject Colonel Claus says :
Brant was ably seconded in his efforts by the
tears and prayers of his sister Molly, who had been
driven from her home at Danube by the enraged
266
Sir William s Character and Death
Americans after the battle of Oriskany. The
Americans had not expelled Molly in 1776 at the
time the Royalists were driven out, but had left
her in peace at the Indian Castle at Danube, where
she took up her residence with her family, when
Sir John Johnson occupied Johnson Hall after the
baronet s death.
Shortly after the battle of Oriskany the Amer
icans found out that when St. Leger and Brant
were besieging Fort Schuyler, Molly sent a mes
sage by an Indian runner warning Brant that a
body of nearly a thousand Militia under General
Herkimer were on the march to relieve the garri
son of that Fort. She was then obliged to leave
the Mohawk Valley, and she went for safety among
the Five Nations, where she was assisted by her
brother and the people, and among whom she took
asylum. Every one of them pressed her to stay
with them, but she fixed upon Cayuga as the center,
and having relations among them by whom she was
kindly received. After General Burgoyne s sur
render she found them, in general, very fickle and
wavering, particularly the Head Chief of the
Senecas, Cayenguorrahton, with whom she had a
long conversation in council. She reminded the
Chief of the great friendship between him and the
late Sir William Johnson, whose name she could
never mention without tears, which always greatly
affect the Indians.
She told the Chief that she had often heard
Sir William declare his fixed intention to live and
267
Sir William Johnson
die a firm adherent of the King of England and all
his friends ; together with other striking arguments,
which had such an effect upon the Chief and other
Sachems present that they promised henceforth
truthfully to keep their engagements with her late
friend the Baronet; for she is considered and
esteemed by them as his relict, and one word from
her would go further than a thousand from any
white man whatever, because the white man must
generally purchase the friendship of the Indians
at a high rate. In fact they attached much more
importance to her advice than even to that of her
brother Joseph, whose prominence, zeal and activ
ity rather occasioned envy and jealousy with many
of the Indians.
It is fair to presume that Colonel Glaus
reported Molly s interview with the Seneca
chief correctly. There might, perhaps, be
some question as to Molly s own accuracy in
quoting Sir William, or in the representations
she made of his opinions and his decision.
She was at that time undoubtedly in a most
revengeful mood toward the Americans. She
desired, above all things, that the Indians
should remain true to the cause of the king.
She realized that nothing but the success of
the Royal cause could restore to her and
her children the fortune bequeathed to them
in Sir William s will. Under these condi
tions she may have been, and probably was,
268
Sir William s Character and Death
what the lawyers called an interesting wit
ness.
Yet, if Sir William ever expressed any
such views, she was quite as likely to hear
them as any other person then living. It may
be mentioned as a strange fact in connection
with this matter, that neither Sir William s
son, Sir John Johnson, nor his two sons-in-
law, Colonel Glaus and Guy Johnson, ever
pretended to have heard him make any posi
tive expression on the subject.
Whatever deductions we may draw from
this conflicting testimony, one thing alone is
certain : to the day of his death he held scru
pulously aloof from the debates and the coun
cils of both sides, taking no part whatever in
the agitation; and he was invariably equally
kind and hospitable to the Sons of Liberty,
and to the officials of the Crown. If he had
really made up his mind, he took his decision
with him to the tomb.
For my own part, I venture no opinion.
But it seems quite justifiable to say that had
he lived and adhered to the American cause,
the fate of the "Old New York Frontier," in
respect to the warfare of Indians and Tories
on the settlers, would have been vastly differ
ent from what it was ; because the only man
who could have swerved the Iroquois from
269
Sir William Johnson
their ancient covenant with the king was Sir
.William Johnson.
He died as he had lived in harness. On
the llth of July, 1774, he made a long speech
nearly two hours to about six hundred
Indians, mostly Iroquois, who had assembled
at Johnson Hall to invoke his influence to pre
vent the invasion of the Indian country on the
Ohio known as "Dunmore s War," which cul
minated in the defeat and destruction of a
considerable force of Indians mostly from
the Ohio tribes under the chief, Cornstalk,
by a superior army of Virginia, Maryland,
and Pennsylvania frontiersmen under Gen
eral Andrew Lewis at Point Pleasant the
confluence of the Ohio and Great Kanawha
rivers.
He was at this time much weakened by
dysentery, and exposure to an extremely hot
sun, together with the excessive mental and
physical strain of the long speech, brought on
prostration by heat, which soon developed into
cerebral apoplexy. He died at six o clock P. M.,
July 11, 1774, about two hours after finishing
his speech. His last words were spoken to
Joseph Brant, who, with others, carried his
limp form into the Hall. They were: "Jo
seph, control your people control your peo
ple ! I am going away ! "
270
Sir William s Character and Death
These words, spoken to Brant in the Iro-
quois tongue, were echoed through every
village of the Six Nations, from the Lower
Mohawk Castle to Niagara. Unquestionably
they, more than any other influence or more
than all other influences combined caused
the almost unanimous election of Brant to be
grand sachem or senior chief of the Iroquois
Confederacy not long afterward. The Indi
ans interpreted the words to mean that Sir
William, with his latest conscious breath, be
queathed his mantle to Joseph Brant, and the
magic of his power over them was not im
paired by death itself.
Sir John Johnson was at his home the
Mount nearly ten miles away, when his
father was stricken. An express sent by the
hands of young William Johnson, the half-
breed son, mounted on the fleetest horse in Sir
William s racing-stable, reached Sir John
about five o clock young William ruining the
blooded horse he rode. Sir John instantly
saddled his own best race-horse an Irish
steeplechaser named Royal Duke, the most
valuable stallion then in the colonies and
covered nine miles of the distance in thirty
minutes. The steeplechaser fell dead with
in a mile of Johnson Hall, and Sir John
borrowed the horse of a farmer who hap-
is* 271
Sir William Johnson
pened to be in the road when his own stal
lion fell, and soon arrived at the Hall. But
his father, though still breathing, was un
conscious, and in a few minutes passed
away.
272
APPENDIX
WORKS CONSULTED
Life of Sir William Johnson .
Life of Sir William Johnson .
Life of Sir William Johnson .
Life of Sir William Johnson (Canadian) .
Life of Joseph Brant ....
The Old New York Frontier .
The Mohawk Valley
History of Herkimer County .
History of Chenango County .
History of Otsego County
History of the Five Nations
History of Herkimer County .
A Voyage to North America, 1772 .
Memoir of Rev. Dr. Wheelock
Dr. Wheelock s Narrative of the Indian
School at Lebanon, Conn. .
Settlement of the Genesee Country .
Gazetteer of New York State, 1821 .
Historical Gazetteer of New York, 1860
History of Schoharie County .
Narrative of Mary Jemison
Life of Mary Jemison .
Annals of Tryon County .
Early Times on the Susquehanna .
Montcalm and Wolfe ....
Pontiac s Conspiracy .
History of Braddock s Expedition .
Narrative of Ezra Buell . . . .
New York Colonial Documents
History of Montgomery County
273
William L. Stone.
William E. Griffis.
Claus.
Anon.
William L. Stone.
Francis W. Halsey,
W. Max Reid.
Benton.
Anon.
Anon.
Cadwallader Golden.
Beers.
Peter Kalm.
McClure.
Auto.
Williamson.
Spofford.
French.
Jephtha R. Simms.
Auto.
Seaver.
Wm. W. Campbell.
Mrs. Perkins.
Francis Parkman.
Ibid.
Sargent.
Auto.
Public Print.
Beers.
Sir William Johnson
The Iroquois League ....
Eight Years in America. Journal of an
Officer s Wife
Narrative of James Smith. Six Years
Captivity
Journal of Jean Franois Joncaire .
Journal of Father Joliet ....
Journal of Father Moline
Journal of George Washington. Ohio
Expeditions
Journal of Captain Orme. Braddock s
Expedition
Reports of the Marquis Duquesne.
Operations in New France, 1753-1755 .
History of New France. (Histoire de la
Nouvelle France)
The Holy Cross in America. Collection
of Narratives of Jesuit Fathers .
Life of General John Stark
Life of General John Stark
History of the Seneca Nation .
Rites and Social Customs of the Iroquois.
(By a daughter of Sir William Johnson)
Public Correspondence of Sir William
Johnson
History of the Fur Trade
Half a Century of Conflict
Essays of Voltaire.
The Defeat of Braddock ....
Memoir of Father Picquet
The Montours, Mother, Sons, and Grand
sons .......
Memoir of the Comte de Frontenac
Diary of Admiral Sir Peter Warren . -j
Sketch of Sir William Pepperell
Journal of Dr. Williams, with Letters to
his Wife
274
Lewis H. Morgan.
Mrs. Julia Grant.
Auto.
Auto.
Auto.
Auto.
Auto.
Auto.
Auto.
St. Martin.
Anon.
Caleb Stark.
Edward Everett.
Parker.
Mrs. Kerr.
Sir John Johnson.
Heath.
Francis Parkman.
Dumas.
Anon.
Mackenzie.
By his Grandson.
Navy Records Soci
ety, of England.
Wilson.
Auto.
INDEX
ABE
A BERCROMBIE, General James,
-- in French war, 163, 164 ; at
tack on Fort Ticonderoga, 165,
180.
Abraham, Chief, 44, 49, 52, 54 ; at
Albany conference, 65.
Aix-la-Chapelle, treaty of, 1748, 33,
38, 114.
Albany, grand council at, 62 ; visit
of chiefs to Governor Clinton at,
78 ; convention of Colonial dele
gates at, in 1754, 89.
Alexandria, Va., conference of Co
lonial governors with General
Braddock at, 133.
Amherst, General Sir Jeffrey, 161
note, 169 ; character and ability,
181 ; takes Louisburg, 180; orders
respecting Colonial officers, 181 ;
capture of Ticonderoga and
Crown Point, 182, 184, 192 ; cam
paign against Montreal, 197 ;
capitulation of Montreal, 202 ;
plans expedition against Louisi
ana, 208 ; bitterness toward the
Senecas, 227 ; raised to the peer
age, 207 ; compliments Sir Will
iam Johnson, 192 ; opinion of Sir
William Johnson, 261.
Amsterdam, N. Y., 13.
Anasthose, Chief, in command of
Indians at Braddock s defeat, 106,
129.
Anne, Queen, reign of, 2.
BRA
Austrian Succession, War of the,
effect on American colonies, 31.
TDARCLAY, Mrs., 48.
-L* Beaujeau, Captain, 120; de
feats Braddock, 127.
Blanchard, Colonel J. A., 137.
Boquet, Colonel Henry, relieves
Fort Pitt, 225.
Boscawen, Admiral Edward, 168.
Braddock, Major-General Edward,
chosen for the American com
mand, 124 ; arrival in America,
124 ; reappoints Sir William John
son, 125 ; plans for the campaign,
133 ; campaign, defeat, and death,
126 ; Braddock s defeat, effect on
the colonies, 156 ; effect on Indi
ans, 137.
Brant, Joseph, 20, 48, 53, 69 note ;
education, 223 ; in campaign
against Crown Point, 139 ; at
Lake George, 159 ; in Fort Ni
agara campaign, 189 ; in St. Law
rence campaign, 200 note ; after
battle of Oriskany, 266 ; final ad
vice of Sir William to, 270.
, Mary, relations of Sir William
Johnson with the Indian woman,
48, 52, 55, 61, 248 ; after battle of
Oriskany, 266.
, Chief Nicklaus, 44, 49, 53, 57 ;
on Seneca expedition, 86 ; suc
ceeds Hendrick, 158 ; after Ger-
275
Sir William Johnson
BUE
man Flats massacre, 176 ; in Fort
Niagara campaign, 189.
Buell, Ezra, 21, 237, 244.
, Simon, 20.
Butler, John, 22.
Byrne, Michael, 53.
/"CANADA, French, population of,
^-^ 94 ; commercial records of,
99 ; preparations for the war in,
117.
Caroline (Hendrick), relations of
Sir William Johnson with the In
dian woman, 44, 49, 61 ; death, 57.
Cayugas, 28, 58, 65 ; disaffection of,
176 ; conference at Mount John
son in 1758, 183.
Claus, Colonel Daniel, deputy su
perintendent of Indian affairs,
219, 222, 235 ; on Sir William s at
titude toward the Revolution, 266.
Clauzun, Mile., marries Jean Fran-
gois Joncaire, 106.
Clauzun-Joncaire, Jean Francois,
106, 132 note.
Clinton, George, Governor of New
York, 15 ; correspondence with
Sir William Johnson on Indian
question, 15, 25, 29, 34; Albany
conference, 64; and Hardenburgh
affair, 74 ; receives delegation to
protest Sir William Johnson s
resignation as superintendent of
Indian affairs, 78.
Clinton, General Sir Henry, 15.
Cole, Lieutenant-Colonel, at Lake
George, 146.
Colonial troops, value of, 157 ; con
trasted with French Canadian
militia, 111 ; at first capture of
Louisburg, 33 ; in Braddock cam
paign, 126 ; in campaign against
Crown Point, 136 ; under Sir Jef
frey Amherst, 181.
Colonies, English, in America, in
1715, 3, 93.
DIN
Colonies, French, in America, 93.
Contrecoeur, Captain, receives sur
render of Captain Trent, 84 ; at
Fort Duquesne, 130.
Cornplanter, Chief, domestic life of,
239.
Croghan, Major George, in com
mand at Fort Pitt, 225 ; deputy
superintendent of Indian affairs,
219, 235.
Crown Point, movement of 1746
upon, 32 ; of 1747, 34 ; expedition
for the reduction of, 134 ; Mont-
calm at, 171 ; captured by Gen
eral Amherst, 182, 184, 192.
Cumberland, Duke of, Commander-
in-chief of British army, 122, 179 ;
praise of Sir William Johnson,
D AUBREY, Colonel. French
commander, defeated at Ni
agara by Sir William Johnson,
188.
De Jumonville, French command
er, Washington s fight with, 84.
De Lancey, James, Chief-Justice,
23, 25 ; the Hardenburgh affair, 74.
, Stephen, 9, 23.
, Susan (Lady Peter Warren), 9
note.
Detroit, Sir William s visit to, 108 ;
grand council at, in 1761, 212 ;
Pontiac s attack on, 224.
De Vaudreuil, Marquis, Governor-
General of Canada, 143 ; in com
mand at Montreal, 197, 202.
De Villiers, French commander, re
ceives capitulation of Fort Neces
sity, 85.
Dieskau, Baron, attack upon Sir
William Johnson at Lake George,
143 ; after battle of Lake George,
167.
Dinwiddie, Robert, Governor of Vir
ginia, 84.
276
Index
DON
Donaldson, Professor, quoted, 50,
243.
Dunbar, Colonel Thomas, 123, 126.
Dunmore s War, 270.
Duquesne, Marquis, Governor-Gen
eral of Canada, 94, 117, 120.
T71NGLAND, colonies in America,
-L^ 3, 93 ; claim to the Ohio Valley,
81 ; preparations for the French
War, 122.
Tj^OLLECK, John, rifle-maker,
-JP 250.
Fontenoy, battle of, 119.
Forbes, General John, captures
Fort Duquesne, 1C9, 180.
Fort Cumberland, 126.
Fort Duquesne, 121 ; captured by
General Forbes, 180. See Fort
Pitt.
Fort Edward, site of, 39 ; estab
lished, 138 ; General Webb at, 165.
Fort Le Boeuf, 87, 121 ; massacre
at, in Pontiac s War, 227.
Fort Necessity, capitulation of, 85,
122.
Fort Pitt, 219 ; attack on, in Ponti-
ac s War, 225. See Fort Du
quesne.
Fort Stanwix, 86.
Fort Stanwix Treaty Line of 1769,
22, 244.
Fort William Henry, demonstra
tion against, 171 ; capture and
massacre at, 172, 165.
France, colonies of, in America, 93 ;
claim of, to the Ohio Valley, 81 ;
preparations for the war, 117.
Frontenac, Comte de, 68 note ; at
Schenectady massacre, 175.
GAGE, General Thomas, in com
mand at Oswego, 193 ; in
Montreal campaign, 204.
German Flats, massacre of, 175.
IND
Gist, Christopher, explores the
Ohio, 84
Gladwyn, Major, in command at
Detroit, 224.
Grant, Mrs. Julia, visit to Mount
Johnson, 43.
Great Meadows, Washington s
skirmish at, 84.
Griffis 1 s, " Life of Sir William John
son, 11 quoted, 59.
HALF-BREEDS, importance of,
in French war, 113.
Halket, Sir Peter, 123, 126.
Hardenburgh, Sir William John
son 1 ^ affair with representative,
73.
Haviland, Colonel, in Montreal
campaign, 197, 202.
Hawke, Sir Edward, in French
War, 168.
Hawkins, Henry, rifle-maker, 250.
Hendrick, Chief, 36, 44, 52, 54, 65 ;
protests against Sir William
Johnson^ resignation, 78 ; in
campaign against Crown Point,
139 ; death of, at Lake George,
145, 158.
, Caroline. See Caroline (Hen
drick).
Hi-o-ka-to, chief of Senecas, 63, 72 ;
visit to, 86 ; in campaign against
Crown Point, 137 ; in Fort Niagara
campaign, 189 ; in St. Lawrence
campaign, 199 note.
Holborn, Admiral, 174.
Howe, Sir Richard, 168.
TNDIAN affairs, condition of, in
-- early eighteenth century, 14 ;
Sir William Johnson s service in,
16, 25 ; superintendent of, 34 ; re
signs, 77 ; reappointed by Brad-
dock, 125.
Commissioners, Board of, 26 ;
abolished, 34.
277
Sir William Johnson
IND
Indians, customs and habits, 44, 57,
254 ; domestic life, 19 ; number,
241 ; hospitality, 85 ; missions to,
27, 101 ; French and English
methods of dealing with the In
dians, 97 ; in first campaign
against Crown Point, 36, 38 ; in
French War, 97, 100, 107 ; under
French at Braddock^s defeat,
129 ; assembly at Mount Johnson
in 1755, 135; at battle of Lake
George, 147 ; status after the
French War, 209.
"Indian trade smooth bore, 11 in
vented by Sir William, 71.
Iroquois, number of the, 102 ; na
ture and customs, 50 ; compara
tive civilization, 235.
confederacy, 19, 27 ; importance
of, 42 ; in French and Indian
War, 101, 136 ; in Fort Niagara
campaign, 187.
Isle aux Noix, 182.
JEAN COEUR. 11 See Joncaire,
^ Jean Francois.
Jemison, Mary, 63.
Jesuits, labors and influence of the,
with the Indians, 101 ; schools in
Canada, 106; after the French
and Indian War, 211.
Johnson, Anne (Warren), mother
of Sir William, 4.
, Anne, daughter of Sir William
by Katharine Weisenburg, 17, 46 ;
marriage, 219, 222.
, Anne, daughter of Sir William
by Mary Brant, 55.
, Caroline, daughter of Sir Will
iam by Caroline (Hendrick), 52,
56, 222.
, Charlotte, daughter of Sir Will
iam by Caroline (Hendrick), 52,
56,222.
, Christopher, father of Sir Will
iam, 4.
278
JOH
Johnson, Elizabeth, daughter of
Sir William by Mary Brant, 55.
, George, son of Sir William by
Mary Brant, 55.
, Colonel Guy, nephew of Sir
William, 213, 219, 222, 235.
, Sir John, son of Sir William by
Katharine Weisenburg, 17, 46 ; iu
St. Lawrence campaign, 199 note ;
at Detroit conference, 213 ; suc
ceeds to estate at Mount John
son, 221, 271.
, Katharine (Weisenburg), wife of
Sir William, 16 ; died, 46.
, Magdalene, daughter of Sir
William by Mary Brant, 55.
, Margaret, daughter of Sir Will
iam by Mary Brant, 55.
, Mary, daughter of Sir William
by Katharine Weisenburg, 17, 46;
marriage, 219, 222.
, Mary, daughter of Sir William
by Mary Brant, 55, 222.
, Peter Warren, son of Sir Will
iam by Mary Brant, 55.
, Suzanne, daughter of Sir Will
iam by Mary Brant, 55.
, William, son of Sir William by
Caroline (Hendrick), 52, 54, 55,
271 ; education, 222, 237.
, Captain Warren, brother of Sir
William, 18, 23 ; at siege and cap
ture of Louisburg, 33.
, Sir William : parentage, 4 ; birth
and boyhood, 4 ; school life, 6 ;
personality, 43 ; character, 261 ;
scholarship, 260 ; military ability,
260 ; knowledge of Indian cus
toms, 14, 254 ; marriage to Kath
arine Weisenburg, 16 ; domestic
life, 43, 46 ; children, 17, 46, 52,
55 ; estate, 246 ; library, 252 ;
stock-raising, 30 ; slaves, 31 ; ar
rival in New York, 9 ; method of
distributing land, 18 ; corre
spondence with Governor Clin-
Index
JOH
ton on the Indian question, 15, 25,
29, 34 ; laud titles, referee in re
gard to, in Mohawk Valley, 25 ;
wounded at Lake George, 150 ;
designs gun for Indian trade, 71 ;
king s magistrate, 30 ; colonel of
militia, 29; commissioned colonel,
34 ; major-general, 155 ; receives
baronetcy, 155 ; death, 270.
Hall, removal to, 221.
, Mount. See Mount Johnson.
Johnstown, N. Y., founded, 221 ;
growth of, 248.
Joncaire, Chabert or Chaubert, 104,
131.
, Captain Jean Francois, 104, 69
note, 102, 120 ; meets Sir William
at Kanandegea, 87 ; at Braddock s
defeat, 128 ; last days, 131 note.
TT" AY-AG-SHO-TA, father of Red
-"- Jacket, 240 ; at Albany con
ference, 66.
Kanaudegea, principal town of the
Senecas, 85.
Kaskaskia, 111., established, 115.
Kerr, Mrs., daughter of Sir William
and Mary Brant, 56.
King, George, 53.
" King George s War," 32.
LA BUTE, Jacques, 216, 243.
La Galette, capture of, 200.
La Gallissoniere, Count de, Govern
or-General of Canada, 117, 120.
Lake George, arrival of Sir William
Johnson at, 141 ; battle of, 143.
Lawrence, Governor Charles, of
Nova Scotia, 134.
Lewis, General Andrew, defeats
the Indians at Point Pleasant, 270.
Liquor, laws in regard to selling,
to Indians, 27.
Little Abe, Chief, 53.
Loudoun, Lord, in French War, 163,
180 ; retreat from Louisburg, 174.
MOR
Louis XIV, wars with William of
Orange, 1.
XV, reign of, 3; attitude
toward Canada, 11G.
Louisburg, Cape Breton, 98 ; cap
tured by Provincial soldiers, 32 ;
threatened by Lord Loudoun,
174 ; captured by General Am-
herst, 180 ; Wolfe at, 182.
Louisiana, expedition planned
against, 208.
Lyman, General Phineas, 47, 137,
140 ; at Lake George, 150.
MACKINAW, massacre at, in
Pontiac s War, 227.
Militia, reorganization of Albany,
40 ; French Canadian, 111.
Missions, Jesuit, to the Indians,
27 ; Protestant, to the Indians,
27.
Maumee, massacre at, in Pontiac s
War, 227.
Metcalf, Simon, chief surveyor of
Fort Stanwix treaty line, 22, 237,
244.
Mohawk, early settlements on the,
8, 13, 18, 30.
Monroe, Colonel, massacred at Fort
William Henry, 166, 172.
Montcalm, General Louis Joseph,
111 ; character and ability, 167 ;
defense of Fort Ticonderoga, 165 ;
takes Oswego, 169 ; takes Fort
William Henry, 172 ; defense of
Quebec and death, 195.
Montour, Andre, 68 note.
, Catharine, 68 note.
, Jean, 68, 78 ; in campaign
against Crown Point, 137 ; in Fort
Niagara campaign, 189.
Montreal, 98 ; retreat of the French
forces to, 196 ; final campaign of
General Amherst against, 197;
capitulation of, 201.
Morgan, General Daniel, 53, 225.
279
Sir William Johnson
MOU
Mount Johnson, 13, 17, 43 ; Indian
visitors, 43, 58 ; assembly of In
dians at, in 1755, 135 ; Indian con
ference at, in 1758, 183 ; removal
from, to Johnson Hall, 221.
Hurray, General James, in Mon
treal campaign, 197, 202.
NAVY, English, work of, in
French War, 168.
Newcastle, Duke of, Prime Min
ister, 37, 122, 163; end of min
istry, 179.
Niagara, Fort, General Shirley s
campaign against, 134, 143, 156,
162 ; General Prideaux s and Sir
William Johnson s expedition
against, 184, 186 ; attacks on, in
Pontiac s War, 226; visit to, in
1766, 131 note ; grand council at,
in 1766, 233.
/~\GHWAGA. See Oquawgo.
^- Ohio Land Company, 81.
Ohio Valley, French and English
claims to the, 82, 114 ; first cam
paigns in the, 84.
Onondagas, disaffection of, 176 ;
conference at Mount Johnson
with the, in 1758, 183.
Oquawgo or Oghwaga, trading-
post at, 19.
Oriskany, battle of, 54, 266.
Orme, Captain, Braddock s chief of
staff, 126.
Oswegatchie, capture of, 200.
Oswego, captured by Montcalm,
169; General Gage in command
at, 193; assembly of troops at,
for St. Lawrence campaign, 199 ;
Pontiac s surrender at, 233.
TDALM, Frederick, rifle-maker,
-^ 250.
Palm, Jacob, rifle-maker, 250.
Parkman, Francis, provincial bias
of, 46 note.
SAI
Pepperell, Sir William, at siege and
capture of Louisburg, 33 ; in com
mand at Albany, 1747-48, 36 ; at
beginning of French War, 123;
military ability, 260.
Pitt, William, accession to the min
istry, 179.
Polk, Colonel Thomas, deputy su
perintendent of Indian affairs, 235.
Pontiac, at Braddock s defeat, 129 ;
with Montcalm at Oswego, 169;
meets Rogers and Stark near De
troit, 207 ; Pontiac s War, 69 note,
131, 223 ; formal surrender, 232.
Pettier, Father Pierre, Jesuit mis
sionary to the Indians, at Detroit
conference, 216.
Pouchet, French commander at
Fort Niagara, 191 ; at La Galette,
200.
Presque Isle (Erie, Pa.), 120, 121;
massacre at, in Pontiac s War,
227.
Prideaux, General John, expedition
with Sir William Johnson against
Fort Niagara, 184, 186; killed, 187.
QUEBEC, 98 ; Wolfe s campaign
against, 184, 195.
Queen Esther, 69 note.
"DANDALL, Henry, 53.
- 1 - * Reid, W. Max, History of the
Mohawk Valley, quoted, 17, 51.
Revolution, the American, Sir Will
iam Johnson s attitude toward,
263.
Rifle manufacture in America, 70 ;
introduced into New York, 249.
Rogers, Major Robert, expedition
to Detriot, 207.
ST. CHARLES, Mo., established,
115.
St. Genevieve, Mo., established, 115.
St. Joseph, massacre at, in Pon
tiac s War, 227.
280
Index
SAI
St. Martin, Father, Jesuit mission
ary to the Indians, History of
New France, 108; at Detroit
conference, 216, 243.
St. Mary s, massacre at, in Pon-
tiae s War, 227.
St. Pierre, Captain Jacques Legar-
deur de, 131, 144.
Sandusky, massacre at, in Pon-
tiac s War, 227.
Schenectady, 8; massacre at, in
1690, 175.
Schuyler, Colonel Peter, 26.
Senecas, 28, 58, 65 ; disaffection
among the, 85, 101, 176 ; and news
of Braddock s defeat, 137 ; con
ference at Mount Johnson with
the, in 1758, 183 ; in Montreal
campaign, 199 note ; in Pontiac s
War, 226 ; General Amherst s bit
terness toward, 227.
Shirley, Governor William, of Mas
sachusetts, 90; controversy with
Sir William Johnson, 138, 159 ;
at beginning of French War, 123 ;
expedition against Fort Niagara,
134, 143, 156, 162.
Spencer, Thomas, 54.
Stark, John, in campaign against
Crown Point, 140; at Battle of
Lake George, 150; in St. Law
rence campaign, 200 note ; expe
dition to-Detroit, 207.
rpHAYENDANEGEA. See Jo-
-*- seph Brant.
Ticonderoga, Fort, built by Mont-
calm, 171 ; Abercrombie s attack
on, 165, 180; captured by Gen
eral Amherst, 182, 184, 192.
Trent, Captain, expedition to the
Ohio, 87 ; surrender, 122.
WOL
VAN COURTLANDT, Philip,
72.
Van Ness, Rev. Mr., 27.
Venango, French fort at, 121 ;
Washington s visit to, 87; mas
sacre at, in Pontiac s War, 227.
Vincennes, Ind., established, 115.
TTTARREN, Anne. See Anne
V * (Warren) Johnson.
Warren, Admiral Sir Peter, 5, 8, 11 ;
fortune of, 23 ; at siege and cap
ture of Louisburg, 33.
Warrensburg, orWarrensbush, first
settlement at, 10, 13.
Washington, Augustine, 82.
Washington, George, in early Ohio
River campaign, 84 visit to Ve
nango, 87; capitulation of Fort
Necessity, 85, 122; in General
Braddock s campaign, 126; esti
mate of Braddock, 132.
Washington, Lawrence, 82.
Webb, General, incapacity of, 163,
165, 180; Fort William Henry
massacre, 165, 172.
Weisenberg, Rev. Jacob, 16, 26.
Weisenburg, Katharine. See Kath
arine (Weisenburg) Johnson.
Wetzel, Lewis, Indian fighter, 226.
Wheelock, Dr. Eleazar, 58; acad
emy at Lebanon, Conn., 223, 237.
Whiting, Major Nathan, at Lake
George, 147.
William of Orange, wars with Louis
XIV. 1 ; debt of England to, 2.
Williams, Colonel Ephraim, death
of. at Lake George, 145.
Williams, Major Thomas, 140.
Wolfe, General James, 169, 180;
Quebec campaign, 184, 195;
death, 195.
THE END
281
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY
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