Chapter VI: In the Wonderful Lake Region

It began to rain on Sunday shortly after the battle firing was over, and the next day, Monday, August 30, was a day of rest.

It was also necessary, in consequence of the very poor and insufficient provisions, as well as the want of enough pack horses, to cut down to one-half the rations of flour, salt and meat. However, as the country through which they were to march was rich in vegetable food, Sullivan issued orders, stating the facts, and asking that “the troops will please to consider the matter and give their opinion as soon as possible.” So late that afternoon the whole army was drawn up in the separate brigades and regiments. Then the question was put whether they would advance, taking the risk of hunger.

“Without a dissenting voice, the whole army cheerfully agreed to the request of the General, which was signified by unanimously holding up their hands and giving three cheers.” Neither the remembered horrors of Valley Forge, nor the risk of possible starvation could discourage the army. With many a laugh and joke, the men moved forward to their “Succotash Campaign.” They were happy to know that the heavier artillery, the two howitzers and brace of six pounders were to be sent back. The labor of drawing ammunition wagons and heavy cannon up and down hills would be much reduced. Nevertheless, the four three pounders and caissons, taken along with the Coehorn, meant much chopping in the woods to make a path.

On Tuesday, the line of march was taken up through the broken, swampy, and mountainous country. For their night’s camp the men were happy to find a level plain, but the next day they had to go through Bear Swamp, which was then a horrible dark quagmire six miles long. Having a clay bottom, the black mire held the water which flowed tortuously through the spongy soil, in which the vegetation of centuries had made a peaty mass, which the recent rains had made as unstable as a jelly and slippery as soap. Here was the divide of waters between the Susquehanna and the Saint Lawrence rivers, flowing into the Atlantic at Labrador or Hatteras. The Indian trail through this soggy country passed through defiles, over mounds and through ravine after ravine, rough and scrubby, while through all meandered a stream of dark water. Only with the most tremendous toil were the Continentals able to get through, and the rear guard did not reach hard ground until long after noon next day. The cannon were pulled through only by the toil of hundreds of men at the drag ropes, or by laying on the worst places corduroy, or a rough road of trees and brushwood. Many horses were mired and abandoned, and scores of packs with precious bags of flour and ammunition were lost. Altogether it was a most terrible experience, much worse than in the Pennsylvania swamp, called “The Shades of Death,” which they had traversed.

For years afterwards, that horrible night formed the blackest memory and gave the most disturbing element to the dreams of the old soldiers. In our time, as we travel through this drained and dry valley between the green walls of the hills on either side, we wonder as we look over the celery gardens where Bear Swamp was. Within half a century after Sullivan’s march and return, the forests were cleared and the Chemung canal, bearing millions of cubic feet of timber to the great cities, and especially to build the Maryland privateers for the War of 1812, traversed and drained the swamp. To-day smiling farms and vegetable gardens on either side of the well laid beds of the steam railway and electric trolley line fill the sunny and beautiful valley.

Just beyond this horrible swamp of 1779 lay the village of Sheaquaga, or “French Catherine’s town,” three miles from Seneca Lake, on the site of the present town of Havana, or Montour Falls. It was the capital of the Indian Queen Catherine Montour, and contained her “palace.” It consisted of about forty “long,” or apartment, houses of timber and bark, with splendid cornfields, orchards, and fenced enclosures, in which were horses, cows, calves and hogs. It looked as though the army would have, for a little while at least, meat rations. Here had been the home of Catherine, sister of Queen Esther and granddaughter of Adam Montour, who was the offspring of Count Frontenac. A Dutch family had also lived here among the Indians. It seemed strange to our men to find feather beds and other evidences of civilization so far in the wilderness. Some of it was the plunder from Cherry Valley and Wyoming.

The town was deserted, but our troops had to wait all day Thursday for the pack horses and cattle that emerged one by one, or in parties, from the darkness of the dreadful swamp. They found an old squaw, whom they compelled to give information about the Indians. Then they built for her a hut and left her some provisions. Moving northward along the eastern shores of Seneca Lake, through open woods and level country, they found corn roasting in the fire, their supper left untasted and all the evidences of the hasty movement of a large body of Indians.

The next day they moved as far as North Hector, to a village consisting of one very large apartment house with several rooms and fires. To this day the new timber, grown up in the place of the old forest cut through for the artillery, can be easily discerned. Resuming their march, they came on Sunday, September 5, to Kendaia, or Apple Town. This was an Indian village of the first class, over twenty large, long apartment houses built of timber and bark, some of them well painted. There were apple and peach orchards, with many hundreds of trees ripening their fruit, and a cemetery, in which there were tombs erected to the chiefs and made of hewn and painted planks. Here they met with a white captive, Luke Sweetland, whom the Indians had kept employed in making salt. All this lake region is underlaid with beds of the purest chloride of sodium, and in times of peace the Senecas and Onondagas drove a thriving trade with the other tribes in this necessity of life. They made their salt by boiling the brine from salt springs. To-day at Ithaca and Ludlowville the white crystals fill daily a freight train.

On the sixth of September the evening gun sounded at Indian Hollow. On the seventh day they reached the great Seneca town of Kanadesaga, lying on both sides of Castle Creek near what is now Geneva, N. Y. Here had dwelt Old Smoke, the Indian King, and his son who married a daughter of Catherine Montour. In 1756, during the Old French War, Sir William Johnson had built a fort, or stockade, in this town, which was regularly laid out with the open square, in which the fort stood, in the center. Orchards and gardens were plentiful, especially on the north and northeast. Although Sullivan had expected to fight a battle here, and had deployed his regiments for assault, yet the town was found to be entirely deserted, except that a little white boy three years old, captured from one of the settlements, was found playing, though nearly starved. The circular mound, on which the councils of the chiefs and orators were held, still stands, a monument of a nearly vanished race. Gleefully the troops marched in and through the town, with pumpkins and squashes skewered on their bayonets.

The Continentals were now in that renowned lake region of New York famous among the Indians not only for its salt springs, but for its abundance of fish and fruit, and the general fertility of the soil. The forest was still dense all around them, except the more frequent openings, but the Indian villages were numerous and with luxuriant vegetable gardens. In these, onions, peas, beans, squashes, potatoes, turnips, cabbages, cucumbers, watermelons, carrots and parsnips were plentiful, while great cornfields stretched farther off into the clearings and to the very edge of the forest, and orchards of apple, peach and mulberry trees were within easy reach.

It was this great store of vegetable food found everywhere ready that decided Sullivan and his brigade commanders, after a council of war, to push on further westward, despite the very scanty supplies of meat and flour rations. So the horses and the men unable to proceed further by reason of sickness or lameness, were sent back to the fort at Tioga Point, Captain Reed of Massachusetts with fifty men forming the escort. Thence he was to return again, as we have seen, to Kanawaholla, near the present city of Elmira, with supplies for the army on its return.

The main army, facing the setting sun, camped at Flint Creek September 9, and on the next day at noon reached Canandaigua, so named because here the trading Indians on the trail, or red commercial travellers on the road, “took off their pack” to rest. It was an Indian town of twenty-three large houses, with standing crops, all of which, as at the other places, were given to the torch. It is said that the women and pappooses hid themselves on Squaw Island, in the lake near the town. On Saturday, September 11, the Stars and Stripes were unfurled at the foot of Honeoye Lake, where stood the Indian village of twenty long houses. All these except one, selected for a fortified storehouse, were set on fire. The walls of this strongest dwelling were still further strengthened with kegs and bags of flour, and a ditch dug and _abatis_ made. Then two three pounders were mounted and their black noses poked out of the port holes cut through the walls. Here the sick and disabled, amounting to nearly three hundred, were left, in camp. The weakest found quarters in the rooms and bunks of the Indian house. Then the whole army, now able to move as a light armed corps, pressed forward to the goal, which was the big Indian town in the Genesee river valley, near what is now Cuylerville, below Geneseo, N. Y. Delayed by storm and rain next day, only eleven miles were made to Adjuton, a village of eighteen houses, near Conesus Lake, where had lived two celebrities, Captain Sunfish, a negro, and Big Tree, a Seneca chief. The fresh evidences of savages near at hand, were very manifest on the Indian path leading to the Genesee town.

It may be wondered what had become of the motley British force after their defeat at Newtown. As a matter of fact, two hundred fresh Indian warriors had joined Brant just after the battle. They were clamorous to advance at once against the Americans, but those who had a taste of grape shot and bursting bombs were unwilling to make a stand. So the whole force of red and white allies of King George had retreated to the north and west, making camp near Avon, in Livingston County. Keeping out their scouts on the hilltops, they were well informed of Sullivan’s movements.

Now, knowing that he had left Conesus, evidently to attack the big town of the Senecas, Brant and Butler chose a strong position. It was remarkably like that of Braddock’s field, in Pennsylvania, wherein the pride of England’s infantry were changed, from red-coated soldiers, in the glory of lusty life, to heaps of bleaching bones. On a bluff, parallel with the western side of Conesus Lake, well forested, but full of deep ravines, Butler posted his men in ambush. He hoped that Sullivan would advance with his men up the well known trail between two ravines. He had broken down the old, rude bridge over the stream, but he knew that the Continental pioneers would be likely to build another out of the oak and hickory which abounded here. Here he expected to post his men and watch for the opportunity when the scouts should announce the nearness of Sullivan, who was without artillery. With his fresh reinforcements Butler was confident of victory.

WILLIAM ELLIOT GRIFFIS.

ITHACA, N. Y.

(_To be continued._)

THE LIBERTY OF THE PRESS

IN THE AMERICAN COLONIES BEFORE THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR, WITH PARTICULAR REFERENCE TO CONDITIONS IN THE ROYAL COLONY OF NEW YORK.