Territory of the Five Nations 1650

Kerr's Creek [Rockbridge Co., VA] Massacre: Part 1

Guest Post


When delving into the mid-1700s, especially on the Virginia frontier, one becomes accustomed to unanswered questions.  People were too busy trying to survive to keep records.  So many times, the researcher must admit there’s just no way to resolve the unknown.

But in looking back to the Kerr’s Creek Massacre, more than one crucial question makes this a puzzle with numerous missing pieces.

Historians in the late 1800s and early 1900s, apparently the first time anyone thought to confine the legends to paper, couldn’t be certain of the dates of the two Indian raids.

Both the Rev. Samuel Brown (possibly the son of Mary Moore Brown who spent three years in captivity after her family was killed in Southwest Virginia) and Rockbridge County History author Oren Morton disagree.

Possible dates are 10 Oct. 1759 for the first raid and Sunday, 17 July 1763, for the second raid. Or the 1763 date for the first raid and October 1764 or 1765 for the second raid and/or possibly even a third raid.

For everyone, the 1763 date seems agreeable for the Big Spring massacre story.  But Brown says the McKee family’s tragedy occurred in conjunction with the big massacre at the spring, while others say the McKee incident came at the end of the first (or last) raid.  Everyone agrees that the Shawnees, under Chief Cornstalk, invaded Kerr's Creek twice.

Looking at the dates and the scope of action, the Kerr's Creek raids possibly tie the area with all three wars in the last half of the 1700s--the French and Indian War (1756–1763); the Pontiac Conspiracy (1760–1763); and the American Revolution--when the influence of the Kerr's Creek incidents incited a local militiaman to sneak into a blockhouse and assassinate the imprisoned Cornstalk in 1777.

While I have tried to be sensitive to the Native American’s part in this story, this was a land at war in the 1700s.  As in all wars, political factions often take advantage of simple folks on both sides who’d rather live in peace.  On both sides, the forgotten dead are the heroes.

So much of what has been written about that time is from legends told and retold around supper tables and fireplaces.  While the facts may not all be true, the honor paid to the lives lived and lost create a legacy that reminds us where we have been and makes us think about who we are.


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Most of the story is from the Weekender of Lexington, Virginia appearing December 6, 1997.  The Weekender story came to me by piecemeal, but I believe that it is complete but may be mixed with another account.  I reprint the story with permission of the editor of the Weekender; they did not have a copy of the story from which I could give a complete and accurate reproduction.

Rockbridge County, VA, what I call "God's Country" is a serene area consisting of several small cities and towns with many hamlets scattered here and there. But, it was not always calm and peaceful, for in the early 1700's Rockbridge County was in the budding stages of development and many Indians lived there. The true story of the Kerr's Creek Massacre (pronounced Carr) has been handed down through the generations. Although it's been over two hundred years ago, many folks in Rockbridge County still talk about it as if it happened yesterday.

From an entry in the old family Bible of J. T. McKee's grandfather, as follows: His wife Jennie died July l7th, 1763. She was killed in the first invasion. The second visitation of the savages was a little more than. two years after the first, on the tenth of October, 1765.

The number of Indians in the first visit was 27, as counted by Robert Irvine, who was on a bluff near the road at the head of the creek. Both invasions were of the Shawnee tribe, who, most of all the savages, harassed the whites. The first band of these blood-thirsty warriors who visited Rockbridge in 1763, I think I have satisfactorily ascertained, were a part of a much larger company who had been on a war expedition against the Cherokees or Catawbas of the South, and were then on their return to their towns north of the Ohio River. They came up byway of the Sweet Springs and Jackson's River. Some knowledge of their approach had been obtained, and they were met by a company of men under the command of Capt. Moffit, at or near the mouth of Falling Spring Valley in Allegheny County.

The Indians, who were aware of the approach of the whites, had posted themselves in ambush, behind the comb of a ridge along which Moffit's men were moving, and suddenly their whole force opened fire from their concealed position. The whites were taken by surprise, thrown into confusion and a total defeat followed. A number of men were slain, amongst whom was James Sitlington of Bath County, an uncle of the families of that name, at present living in that county. He was a recent immigrant from Ireland, and was highly esteemed and useful, on account of his intelligence and exemplary life. After the rout, all of the Indians went some miles down Jackson's River, and came up the valley of the Cowpasture.

On the plantation owned by Colonel Thomas Sitlington, there lived a black-smith by the name of Daugherty. He and his wife barely made their escape to the mountains with their two children. The house and shop were burned, with all their contents, except a flax hackle, which the Indians took out of the house and laid on a stump. Daugherty removed to the South, and in after years rose to considerable distinction.

In one of General Jackson's military reports, he is favorably mentioned as the "Valuable General Daugherty." After the burning of his house, the Indians came up on the river where Old Millboro now stands and where they divided their company, the larger part setting out for the Ohio River, and the smaller one of 27 turning their faces for the destruction of the peaceful settlement or Kerr’s Creek.


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When Blood Flowed In Kerr's Creek

By Deborah Sensabaugh



Editors note:  This is the first of three parts on the early history of the Kerr's Creek area of Rockbridge County which, in the mid 1700s, was the site of two Indian raids that left many early area settlers dead.


They barred their doors on Kerr's Creek in 1759.  What with the howling wolves and the fall leaves crunching into October, the distance between the two and three-room cabins.  They primed their flintlocks and latched their shutters, straining at soft footfalls outside.  A snuffling bear, a snorting buck, a painted Shawnee brave with ready tomahawk.

And they died on Kerr's Creek anyway.  War on the frontier showed no favorites, granted no mercy.

The talk up and down the settlement had been of war more than crops or new babies or acres cleared.  That and the families already moved eastward or south to the Carolinas where the dreaded Ohio River and its tributaries ran red with French and British blood.

Trouble began in 1754 when the French crept south from Detroit to Montreal.  Already posted along the Mississippi to New Orleans, they had only to secure the trans-Alleghany frontier to form a barrier to all British expansion.  Then, using their Indian allies, they could push Britain and her colonists into the sea.

Pawns in a game of colonial domination, the naïve Native Americans and the feisty Ulster Scotch-Irish were lured into place.  The English had battled the Irish and Scots for years.  With an offer of free land on the frontier, the tenacious Scotch-Irish would die defending hearth, home and British land investment.

Meanwhile, over peace pipes, cheap trade goods and watered whiskey, the French bought the Indians with promises.  Help us destroy the settlements and we’ll return your land.  We don’t want to colonize, but to build trading posts.

The French and Indian War blazed up and down the frontier.

At first, British losses stacked like cord-wood in winter.  Virginia Governor Robert Dinwiddie had sent a young surveyor, George Washington, to warn away the French in what is now western Pennsylvania.

In 1754, the French captured a half-finished fort at the Ohio triangle, named it Fort Duquesne (now Pittsburgh).  In July, Washington surrendered his hastily constructed fort called Necessity.  A year later, British General Braddock was defeated in the wilderness below Duquesne.

But in 1757, the tide turned when William Pitt took charge of the British war effort in the Colonies.  For two years, his troops conquered fort by fort across the frontier.  In 1759, Wolfe defeated Montcalm.  By 1760 the British captured Montreal and by February 1763, the Treaty of Paris ended the French and Indian War.

But the treaty wasn’t signed soon enough to save the settlers on Kerr's Creek.

When Joseph Tees, founder of Waynesboro, followed the old Indian trail toward the Alleghany Mountains, he and his sons William and Charles paused in a breathtaking valley opening at the foot of a long western ridge.  Meandering in a shallow S-curve along a bold creek, the valley contained enough flat land to invite settlement.  Later Francis McCown received a patent of 928 acres on Tees Creek.  In 1746, he sold parcels to Hugh Martin, Robert Erwin and Samuel Norwood.

Other early settlers at the foot of North Mountain were the Gilmores, McKees, Hamiltons and Logans.  Three Cunningham brothers arrived with their families – Hugh, James and John.  The eldest, Hugh, bought a tract from Benjamin Borden in 1748 near John Carr’s.  He called it Big Spring after the numerous springs that gathered into a pond and created an ideal cabin site.  In 1762, he sold the land to his son, Jonathan, who had married Mary McKee.

In the fall of 1759, the two Telford boys walked home, possibly from school.  Their walk turned into a run.  Breathless, they told of a naked man they saw hiding behind a tree.  No one thought twice about their tale until later.  Several weeks passed.  The trees topping North Mountain and House Mountain bled down the hillsides in red and gold, as a party of 60 Shawnee warriors followed their chief, Cornstalk, from the Ohio.  Winding through the mountains, they split outside the Greenbrier settlements.  Acting friendly, the larger band worked their way down the Greenbrier, gaining the settlers’ confidence before attacking and killing most of them.

From what is now Millboro in Bath County, 27 of the warriors slipped over Mill Mountain about two miles north of the present Midland Trail near where Interstate 64 now cuts toward Clifton Forge.  A pile of stones said to be placed there by Indian warriors through the years marked the mountaintop.  The stones were dozed away with the building of 64.  Workers hoping to find graves or artifacts under the rock pile were disappointed.

Near the head of the creek atop a bluff, Robert Irvine scarcely breathed as he counted the war party on the trail.

At the first cabin along the creek at present day Denmark, Charles Daugherty (husband of Rebecca Cunningham) and his family was killed.  Next was the Jacob Cunningham cabin.  With Cunningham away, his wife was killed, his 10-year old daughter knocked unconscious and scalped.  She later came to and survived to face the Indians a second time on Kerr’s Creek.

Next came the home of Thomas Gilmore, the elderly Gilmore and his wife were leaving to visit a neighbor when they were killed and scalped.  The rest of the Gilmores escaped.

Five of the ten members of the Robert Hamilton family next fell victim.  By that time, the community was alerted to the danger, with residents scrambling for safety everywhere.

Harry Swisher, who owns the old Laird homestead that previously was the McKee farm, says the old log cabin still exists under the clapboards of a renovated 1910 farmhouse.  “The logs are huge,” Swisher says, spreading his arms to illustrate early log construction.  When he and his family remodeled the old house, they discovered the central log portion.  With two rooms up and down, a shallow fireplace and a ladder to a loft, the cabin appeared easily fortified.  A small window between the floors allows a view of the hillside behind, and Swisher says from the round top of the hill, the entire valley, with Big Spring, is visible.

“I remember my dad saying survivors scrambled up that hill where they could see where the Indians were going.  They could hide there,” Swisher says.

Since the house is up a hollow where U.S. 60 now comes from Lexington, Swisher believes the old house could be the McKee home spoken of in the raid stories.

John and Jane or “Jenny” Logan McKee had six children whom they’d sent to Timber Ridge for safekeeping.

 When the alarm sounded through the neighborhood, the McKee’s fled their home (one account says up a wooded hillside in back, agreeing with Swisher’s father’s story).  One account says their barking dog gave them away, another said a black servant sounded the alarm with her cries of fright.  Mrs. McKee could not run quickly (one account says she expected a child) and John had left the house without his gun.

As the Indian pursuit neared the McKee’s, Jenny begged John to run on.  “Otherwise, our children will have no parents.”

It’s said McKee paused, helping his wife to hide in a sink hole on the Hamilton farm.  His parting words were “God bless you, Jinney.”  It’s also said as he looked back from his race, he saw the tomahawk fell his wife.

With Indians almost close enough to catch him, and encouraged by his wife’s sacrifice, he bounded on.

When the Indians gave up chasing him, McKee hid until dark when he returned to find his wife.  She lay in the sink hole, having survived long enough to wrap her kerchief around her head wound.  He buried her where she lay and wrote her name in the family Bible.  John McKee lived to rear his motherless children whose descendants were numerous along Kerr's Creek and in westward expansion.

Another account, published in The McKees of Virginia and Kentucky, related John was at a neighbors tending to some sick children.  When he returned home, he found his wife killed and scalped.

The settlers listed in the cemetery records as killed in the first raid on Oct. 10, 1759, and possibly interred in the McKee Cemetery near Big Spring are:  Isaac Cunningham, Jacob Cunningham (son of James and Mattie), the Charles Daugherty family, four of the John Gilmore family, Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Gilmore, ----- Gray (no first name listed), five Robert Hamilton family members, James McGee, Alexander McMurty, Robert Ramsay, James Stephenson, Thomas Thompson, Samuel Wilson and John Winyard.

Since most accounts stress that no captives were taken on Kerr's Creek during the first raid and many men were killed, perhaps many of the men took a stand while their families escaped.

Charles Lewis of the Cowpasture raised three companies of militia (about 150 men). Charles Lewis led one company, John Dickenson and William Christian headed the other two. These three companies of militia went after the Indian warriors. They overtook the tribesmen near the head of Back Creek in Highland County. The Captains decided to attack at three points.

Two white scouts were sent ahead as an advance. They were ordered to shoot if the enemy realized the soldiers were nearby. The scouts came upon two braves, one leading a horse, the other holding a buck across the back of the horse. In an attempt to get the upper hand, the scouts fired and Christian’s company charged with a yell. The other companies were still miles behind the advance group. The Indians escaped with very little loss. The militia companies caught up with the Shawnee at Straight Fork, four miles below the present West Virginia line, their campfires revealed their location.  About twenty Indians were killed. The booty they were carrying was retaken and sold for $1200.00. Thomas Young was the only white man killed, and Capt. Dickenson was wounded.

Source:  The Weekender, Lexington, Virginia (December 6, 1997), p. 1, pp. 4-5.

Kerr's Creek Massacre: Part 2

Death Stalks The Banks Of Kerr's Creek

Guest Post

By Deborah Sensabaugh


Nearly 30 years ago, Clarence Tardy decided to clean out Big Spring, make a pond there, get rid of the overgrown marsh, let the many springs flow freely.

“We moved 30,000 yards of mud,” recalls Tardy.  “Know what the workmen brought up?  Pieces of big old logs, all black where they had been burned.”

Tardy saved some of those pieces, all that’s left of the Cunningham cabin the Shawnees burned in 1763.

As log cabins went on the frontier, Cunningham’s was one of the sturdiest around.  Some historians refer to it as a blockhouse, big enough to afford some protection to a number of settlers.

Tardy surmises it sat near the edge of the spring, not where the brick Federal style house sits now.

When the Treaty of Paris ended the British and French struggled for Colonial domination, the French pulled out.  The British claimed all the territory east of the Mississippi except for some French Caribbean islands.  As the French retreated, tribes along the Great Lakes and through the Ohio Valley watched their chances shrivel.  The British long advocated colonization and the Indian nations had felt the squeeze. 

Scarcely had the treaty ink dried before a powerful Ottawa chief named Pontiac began uniting the tribes throughout the Ohio.  Said to have been instrumental in Braddock’s defeat near the opening of the French and Indian War, Pontiac had become a brilliant strategist who realized that without a united front the Native Americans were doomed.  In a short time, he’d recruited from all the tribes from Lake Superior to Mexico.  Each tribe in the confederation was to choose its best warriors.  In May 1763, the warriors were to attack 14 British garrisons along the frontier.  Of those 14, all but four were captured.  One of the four was Detroit, Pontiac’s personal goal.  That summer, war raged up and down the frontier.

Once again, the Shawnee Chief Cornstalk was assigned the area he knew well, the eastern Alleghanies, the Cowpasture and Jackson rivers, Botetourt, Kerr's Creek, Augusta.  Small forts dotted the frontier from the French and Indian War.  A confident Cornstalk knew he could take them all.

As the warriors gathered supplies and weaponry and set their faces south and east, the Kerr's Creek farmers broke ground for the ’63 season.  They’d rebuilt the last cabins burned in 1759.  Families stowed empty chairs in lofts or along walls, and realized the frontier belonged to the living.  In the little cemetery overlooking the spring, mounded graves sank level with the thick grass.  But in many cabins, visions of death and destruction still replayed in the dark, woke children, sent shivers through the stoutest settler.

June greened the young crops.  July scattered fireflies among the trees at the edges of farm clearings.  Nights hummed with cicadas.

Atop North Mountain again, Cornstalk’s warriors lounged beside a spring and watched the comings and goings in the valley.  Some historians believe they were waiting reinforcements.  The final total of warriors is estimated between 40 and 60.  Someone from the settlement saw moccasin tracks in a cornfield and told everyone what he found.  Next, a hunter spied the Indian encampment from the top of a hill and rushed to spread the alarm.  That’s when the warriors swooped toward Big Spring.

July 17th, a Sunday, marked special meetings at the Timber Ridge Presbyterian Church.  Many of the settlers had traveled there.  But other accounts say the special church meeting was at Jonathan Cunningham’s cabin.  Still others say the settlers had fled to Cunninghams and were saddling horses and organizing a flight to Timber Ridge where the men carried their guns to church.  No one knows for sure, but other than the McKee cabin, which could have been attacked first, the Shawnees seemed intent on the Big Spring farm.

William Gilmore and another man turned toward the mountains to scout for Indians.  Concealed nearby, the Indians shot the two men and swooped upon the nearly 100 men, women and children milling around.  Two or three younger men advanced toward the enemy, and lost their lives immediately.

In one account, when the Shawnees sprang from cover, Mrs. [Alexander] Dale grabbed a stud colt that had never been ridden and swung onto its back.  Managing to balance her baby and cling to the horse, she fled the pursuing Indians.  Outrunning them, she dropped her baby in a rye field and hid herself in the brush, obviously sending the horse on.  Later, she returned and found the baby unharmed in the rye.

She said the terror-stricken people ran in every direction, trying to hide.  The Indians chased first one, then another, killing everyone in their path.  Another account says even the cattle were shot, bristling with arrows.

Mrs. Dale recounts that some people threw up their hands, entreating for mercy.  The Shawnees killed most, spared some.  Any man resisting was shot immediately.  Some whites fled for the spring pond, hiding both in the water and in the weeds along the banks.  The warriors found them, killed them and tossed the bodies in the pond.

Thomas Gilmore had died defending his family.  His wife, Jenny [sic: Elizabeth], stood over his body, grappling with a tomahawk-wielding Indian.  When a second ran up to kill her, the first threw up his hand, sparing her life for her bravery.  She was led off, with her son James, and two daughters, into captivity.

Before torching the Cunningham cabin, the Shawnees killed Jonathan Cunningham and his wife.  Cunningham had a distillery and the Shawnees carried off all the whiskey they could find.

Margaret Cunningham (Jacob’s daughter), the 10-year old girl who survived scalping in the first raid, was captured along with James, Betsy and Henry Cunningham.  One account says when she arrived at the Shawnee town, a warrior brought out a scalp and sat it on her head, communicating that it was her own hair.

Also taken were Archibald, Mary and Marian Hamilton.  Another account, however, says Mary Hamilton was among the dead.  When her fiancé John McCown discovered her body, he went into a depression and died two years later of a broken heart.  His family buried him beside her on the little hillside in the McKee cemetery.  Another account says Mary Hamilton had a baby in her arms when captured.  She dropped it in the weeds and, later, when she was ransomed and returned home, she found its bones.

During the church service at Timber Ridge, rumor was given of trouble at Big Spring, but in an age of slow communications, rumors often were disregarded.  When someone else rushed breathlessly into the service and told of the raid, the settlers rushed about gathering family and friends.  Many fled into the Blue Ridge Mountains, since no one knew where the Shawnees might hit next.

One account says the Indians paused for the night at the spring near the head of Kerr's Creek, where they had been camped.  There, the prisoners spent the night listening for rescuers.  After drinking Cunningham’s whiskey, the war party would have offered little resistance to a rescue party, but the area had been thrown into so much confusion no militia was raised at that time.  The next day, William Patton and others ventured to the Big Spring to bury the dead.  They were attacked by Indians, but Mrs. Dale said one of the burial party rode up the valley, and a small party of Indians shot at him.

The Shawnees marched their captives toward the Ohio.  Those later returned told of the march, during which one fretful infant was killed and thrown on the shoulders of a girl.  She was killed the next day.  Another infant was impaled on a spear and left as a threat to pursuers as the captives walked on.

The afternoon of the massacre, the Indians returned to their camp on North Mountain. They sat around and drank the whiskey they had stolen from Cunningham's still. They became so intoxicated they could have put up little resistance. There was little to fear, [as] most of Rockbridge was in a panic. On the following day, two Indians went back, either to see if they were being followed, or to look for more whiskey. Mrs. Dale saw them shoot at a man as he rode up the valley. The man wheeled his horse and the Indians clapped their hands and shouted.

At one of the encampments, some of the prisoners found some leaves of a New Testament, and being anxious to preserve them, were drying them at the fire, when one of the Indians snatched them up and threw them in the fire, no doubt thinking they were some communication which they wished to send home.  However, a few days later, Jenny Gilmore was asked to sing a hymn.  She chose Psalm 137, singing “On Babel’s stream we sat and wept, When Zion we though on, In midst therof we hanged our harps, The willow trees thereon; For then a song requested they, Who did us captive bring, Our spoilers called for mirth, and said A song of Zion sing.”

Numerous captives from the Cowpasture (Bath and High county areas) were brought as more returning Shawnees swelled their ranks with plunder.

Years later, the Rev. John D. Shane interviewed Mrs. Jane Stevenson about the Kerr's Creek raids.  She told one story of some children on Kerr's Creek who were out picking haws.  One child lagged behind.  When the others were taken by the Indians, she was not discovered. . .

Mrs. Stevenson says the raid took about two hours since the Indians had the land “all spied out.”  Jane Stevenson lived seven miles from Kerr's Creek and her mother, Jane Warwick, was killed by Indians in 1759.

She also told of James Milligan, captured at Kerr's Creek.  He escaped on Gauley Mountain (now in West Virginia) and said he counted 450 total prisoners from the region.

Once on the Chillicothe [OH], the Shawnees separated to their villages, with the captive Kerr's Creek families [being] separated as well.  Jenny Gilmore and her son John were sent to one village, her two daughters to another.  She never saw them again.

For the Shawnees and Delawares, Pontiac’s war ended when Colonel Bouquet treatied with them on 9 Nov. 1764.  In August the next year, Pontiac’s other allies treatied at Oswego, confirming the treaty up and down the frontier in 1766.

Conditions of the treaty included return of all white captives.  Jenny Gilmore had been sold to a French trader at Fort Pitt.  She came home.  Her son, John, who had been living with the Shawnees, was brought back to Bath County by Jacob Warwick.  Eventually John and his mother reunited and moved back to the Gilmore homestead on Gilmore’s Creek, which empties into Kerr's Creek near Big Spring.

The fate of the other captives and families is not known.

With the treaty signed, the Delawares moved their villages further west.  The American Revolution was around the corner, during which most Delaware tribes sided with the British in a last attempt to regain conquered lands.  The Shawnees were among the last to bury the war hatchet with the whites.

Kerr's Creek Massacre: Part 3

Kerr's Creek Carnage May Have Led To The Birth Of Rockbridge County

Guest Post

By Deborah Sensabaugh

Editors note:  This is the final part of a look at the early history of the Kerr's Creek area of Rockbridge County which, in the mid-1700s, was the site of two Indian raids that left many early area settlers dead.


Big Spring is still a good place for going back.  Melancholy in winter, the lapping water gropes like fingers toward the banks where the cabin stood, where the people fell like broken dolls.  In the mist you think you see them, and then realize it’s only cedar trees.

The graves on the hillside, the tales of school children, fear driven to run past the blood fields.  Suddenly, the crow calls are the cries of the lost and a warm breeze turns chill across the interstate, cutting east on the Midland Trail.

In 1777, Kerr's Creek’s past seemed determined to prove the Biblical adage, “Those that live by the sword shall die by the sword.”  For the Shawnee sachem Cornstalk, death rode seven bullets from a Kerr's Creek gun, and maybe gave rise to a new county that proved to the frontier she would take care of her own.

Once the treaty at Oswego (New York) ended the Pontiac Conspiracy in 1765-66, border warfare skipped like wildfire here and there.  Kentucky, newly opened for settlement, came under attack, as did Southwest Virginia, the Ohio Valley and the Conococheague Valley in what is now western Maryland.  The lack of a concentrated Native American federation, however, made skirmish and guerrilla warfare the norm.

Then, in 1744, British influence began growing on the frontier.  In October, armies under Andrew Lewis (from Lewis settlement, or Staunton, later founding a settlement at Salem) and Charles Lewis (Bath County) marched from Fort Union (present Lewisburg) to Point Pleasant where the Kanawha empties into the Ohio.  Other colonial forces, under Virginia Gov. Dunmore (British agent), were to converge from Fort Pitt (now Pittsburgh) and squeeze the Indians away from the western Virginia settlements.

Kerr's Creek’s old archenemy, now a great strategist and chieftain, drew warriors from near and far.  Cornstalk was ready to meet the foe with an ace in his headband.  Lord Dunmore, unbeknown to the frontier militia, had agreed to stay away from the Point Pleasant rendezvous point....

Instead, the Lewis army engaged the enemy, and while the militia finally won the day, more than 70 died.  Cornstalk lost 20.  Some historians consider this the first battle of the American Revolution, since the British supposedly had conspired with the Indians against the colonists.  While that point is debated by many, history indicates the struggle for Indian allegiance progressed rapidly from that point.  The British, like the French, knew if they could make enough political promises to the Ohio Valley nations, those warriors would fight the colonists to the death.

At Point Pleasant, Fort Randolph was constructed and garrisoned as the Revolutionary War loomed over the Transalleghany.

By 1777, the British had united the Ohio Valley tribes, with the exception of the Shawnees whose overall chief was none other than the Kerr's Creek nemesis.  For some reason, however, Cornstalk opposed uniting with the British and warring with the settlers.

Later, Cornstalk’s sister, known as the Grenadier Squaw, petitioned both Indians and Whites for an end to the war.  She often warned settlements of impending Indian attacks, and her contemporaries accepted she was a Christian who had come to believe war was wrong.  No one knows whether her brother also had accepted her faith, but in his later years, Cornstalk had an unexplainable change of heart that set him at odds with his entire nation and led to his death.

When Cornstalk saw even his influence wouldn’t keep the Shawnees from allying with the British, he left for Fort Randolph with Red Hawk (possibly a Delaware) and another Indian.

Capt. William Arbuckle received the Indians and heeded Cornstalk’s warning that “as the current set so strongly against the colonies, even [the Shawnees] would float with the stream in spite of [Cornstalk’s] endeavors to stem it.”  The chief was adamant.  The hostilities would begin immediately.

Arbuckle made two quick decisions.  He detained Cornstalk, thinking a hostage wouldn’t hurt possible negotiations.  And he told the troops that Virginia’s new government was rising, and that all hell was about to break loose on the frontier.  The preceding month, the official cry for volunteers had seen companies raised, reluctantly on the settler’s part, for Fort Randolph.

Locally, Col. George Skillern led three or four companies.  The Botetourt and Augusta militia included men from Kerr's Creek, Collier's Creek and the Buffalo.  Locals were under command of Capt. James Hall from the Buffalo.  They combined with Capt. John Paxton’s men from Short Hill, rendezvousing at Collierstown on Oct. 7.  They marched into Fort Randolph on Nov. 5, and they were spoiling for a fight.

At Fort Randolph, the volunteers awaited General Hand, who was to march from Fort Pitt with men and supplies for war on the Ohio Valley nations, much as Lord Dunmore had planned three years earlier.

Imprisoned in comparative comfort in a cabin in Fort Randolph, Cornstalk drew maps and acquainted the officers with all the Ohio country.  Cornstalk’s son El-li-nips-i-co, concerned at hearing nothing from his father, arrived at Randolph and moved in.

Next day, supplies being short, two of Hall’s men crossed the Kanawha to hunt.  Their names were Robert Gilmore and Hamilton, and it is likely their families had been in the middle of the Kerr's Creek carnage.  After the hunt, Gilmore and Hamilton returned to their canoe on the riverbank when two Indians who had been hiding opened fire.  Gilmore fell and was scalped.

Capt. Arbuckle and Capt. Stuart of the Greenbriar company stood on the opposite bank wondering why the hunters were shooting so close to the fort when they had been commanded not to.  At that moment, Hamilton ran down the bank, crying that Gilmore had been killed.  Hall’s men immediately sprang into action.  Leaping into a canoe, they paddled furiously to Hamilton’s rescue, retrieving both him and Gilmore’s corpse.  Even before they landed on the Fort Randolph side of the river, the cry, “Let us go and kill the Indians in the fort” arose.  They assumed the warriors on the riverbank had accompanied Cornstalk’s son.

Hall led his men when Arbuckle and Stuart stepped in front of them, they drove them back with drawn muskets.  With Hall were William Roane, Hugh Galbreath, Malcolm McCown and Adam Barnes.

The interpreter’s wife had recently returned from Indian captivity and had exhibited great respect for the Shawnee chief.  She ran to the cabin to warn El-li-nips-i-co and Cornstalk. El-li-nips-i-co denied the Indians on the riverbank had accompanied him.

Ever the dignified chief Cornstalk reassured El-li-nips-i-co,  “My son, the Great Spirit has seen fit that we should die together and has sent you here to that end.  It is His will and let us submit; it is all for the best.”  Cornstalk then turned to meet Hall and his men.  Tall and commanding, the 50-year old chief opened his shirt to present a symbolic target to the soldiers.  He was shot seven times and fell without a sound.  His son, likewise, accepted his fate with dignity.  Red Hawk, hiding himself in a chimney, was found and killed as well.

It is said Cornstalk had a premonition of his death.  Just the day before, he had spoken in a meeting with the officers, “When I was young and went to war, I often thought, each might be my last adventure, and I should return no more.  I still lived.  Now I am in the midst of you, and if you choose, may kill me.  I can die but once.  It is alike to me, whether now or hereafter.”

His Shawnees, upon hearing of his fate, resolved to avenge their chief, and immediately sided with the British.  Another bloody war was about to begin on the frontier.

Within days, General Hand arrived from Pitt but without the troops and supplies.  The militia disbanded.  The volunteers returned home.  But, for Capt. Hall, the return home was bittersweet.  He had led the soldiers who killed the perpetrator of the Kerr,s Creek massacres, personally participating in the second.  But Hall also had disobeyed the orders of the fort’s commandant and had led his men in the same.  He was to be tried far from home, in Fincastle, where the memory of the mutilated bodies on Kerr's Creek fields meant little.

In October that year, the Virginia legislature granted that Rockbridge County be formed from Botetourt and Augusta lands.  On 7 April 1778, the first Rockbridge court was held at Samuel Wallace’s home.  Capt. Hall was called for examination.  He didn’t show.  On April 28th, however, Hall came to court.  This time, there were no witnesses for the commonwealth and he was acquitted.

The Cornstalk incident supposedly took place in November, with Rockbridge being approved as a county in October.  But the Philadelphia Record says the whole scheme was to keep Hall’s trial among those who remembered Kerr's Creek firsthand.

Kerr's Creek, fate and a great Shawnee chief who found wisdom too late became tied in one bundle with ropes of hatred, revenge and a group of men pushed too far in a terrible war.”

Writers note:  In recounting this story, I used several references.  I’ve found inaccuracies in some, but when dealing with events in the distant past, accurate records are few. 

Sources:

Withers’s Chronicles of Border Warfare
Morten’s Rockbridge County History
Strickler’s Roanoke Times, “Death of Indian Had Part In Founding Rockbridge”
Dunlap’s 1936 “Scrapbook”
a 1944 Hart newspaper account (including Rockbridge court records)
Diehl papers from the Washington and Lee Leyburn Library collection

Source:  The Weekender, Lexington, Virginia (December 13, 1997), pp. 1-3.

Reprinted with the permission of the News-Gazette

Portage des Sioux, St. Charles Co., MO

This township, including the islands, contains about eighty square miles, and embraces the point of land lying between the Missouri and Mississippi rivers. It is about twenty-two miles in length, and a little more than six miles in width at its widest part. The township, however, between the two rivers, at Portage des Sioux, is not more than two miles across.

Portage des Sioux with Mississippi River at flood; the statue is Our Lady of the Rivers

The surface of the land is almost entirely level, it being what is called "bottom" land, and is remarkably productive. The staple products are wheat and corn. The corn grown here is of a superior quality, and is known as the "St. Charles White," being excellent for grits and meal. It commands, in the St. Louis market, from one to one and a half cents more on the bushel than any other corn shipped to that city. The farmers are in good circumstances, many of them cultivating large tracts of land, from which they have annually gathered abundant crops which have made them wealthy. A portion of the township is subject to overflow in extreme high water.

The forest which originally covered these bottoms were dense and luxuriant; much of it has been cleared away for farms and firewood; much of it has been cut into cordwood, sold to steamboats and shipped to St. Louis, and still the timber is not only inexhaustible, but of an excellent quality. The township has no running streams, but contains a few small lakes, the largest of which is Marais Temps Clair.

PORTAGE DES SIOUX

Of the early settlements in the county, perhaps Portage des Sioux retains the traces of its peculiar more closely than any other. It is only of late years that the French population, which at one time composed the entire settlement, has been broken in upon by the representatives of other blood. In the latter part of the summer of 1799, Francis Leseuer, then a resident of St. Charles, in a hunting excursion to the lakes in the prairie bottoms, visited an Indian village a short distance from the Mississippi, and in company with some of the Indians came as far as the river, where there was another Indian settlement. The neighborhood pleased him so much as a site for a village, that on his return to St. Charles a colony was organized to settle the locality. Lieut.-Gov. Delassus, then at St. Louis, made a grant of land the same fall, and a number of families, principally from St. Charles and St. Louis, erected their tents on the site of Portage des Sioux. Francis Saucier was appointed commandant, a position which he continued to hold until the change of government.

Prairie wildlife at Marais Temps Clair Lake, Portage des Sioux

The colony remained during the winter of 1799-1800, hewed timber, and in the spring built some houses. From a petition drawn in October, 1803, for a grant of "Commons," we gather the following names as the original settlers of Portage des Sioux: Francis Saucier, Francis Leseuer, Simon Lepage, Charles Hibert, Julian Roi, Augusta Clairmont, Etienne Pepin, Abraham Dumont, Louis Grand, Jaques Godefroi, Bapiste Lacroix, Brazil Picard, Patrice Roi, Joseph Guinard, Antoine Lepage, Pierre Clermont, David Eshbough, Charles Roi, Thomas Whitley, Matthew Saucier and Solomon Petit. The first white child born in the settlement was Bridget Saucier, a daughter of the commandant. She was born in March, 1800, and afterwards married Stephen De Lile [sic: Etienne Bienvenue dit De Lisle] and was living in the town in 1875.

Portage des Sioux was formerly a celebrated stopping place for the Indians on their voyages up and down the river. Frequently the Mississippi, in front of the town, would be covered with fleets of canoes, while the village would swarm with swarthy voyageurs. During the Indian troubles the inhabitants were not molested. About 1808, however, one of the residents was killed by a drunken Indian. The assassin was at once surrendered to the whites and was taken to St. Louis, where, however, he either escaped or was set at liberty.

The place was of some importance during the War of 1812. A force was stationed here to intercept the enemy on their way to St. Louis. Along the river below the town stood a fort, the site of which disappeared in one of the inundations of the Mississippi. There was also a block-house at the head of the island below the town.

An Indian village, belonging to the tribe of Kickapoos, stood about two and a half miles south-west of the town; and another called Lassowris, from the name of an Indian chief, was below on the Mississippi. The treaty of peace between the United States government and the confederate tribes, who had engaged in the war under Tecumseh, the Missouri and Illinois were present in large numbers. General Clark acted in behalf of the United States government. The flat below the town was the place for holding the council.

The name of Portage des Sioux had been given to the place by the Indians, and was adopted by the French settlers. Here the distance between the Missouri and Mississippi is scarcely two miles. Bands of Indians on their journeys were accustomed to disembark, carry their canoes across the narrow neck from one river to the other, and thus save the long journey of twenty-five miles around the point of land, which runs up from the confluence of the two rivers. For many years after the settlement of the country the old trail could be distinctly traced. Perhaps an incident, which tradition still preserves, was of service in establishing the name, particularly in reference to the tribe of Sioux.

"The Osage Indians occupied a village on the Missouri, at or near the mouth of the Kansas. The Sioux lived on the Mississippi, above the mouth of the Des Moines. A hunting party of the Osage wandered over towards the country of the Sioux, and fell in with some hunters of that tribe, and killed one or more of their number. This greatly incensed the Sioux, and they resolved on Indian revenge. They formed a war party, fitted out a fleet of bark canoes, descended the Mississippi to the mouth of the Missouri, and ascended the latter river to the neighborhood of the Osages. Here they secreted their canoes and made a night attack upon their unsuspecting enemies, of whom they massacred a large number. Their revenge was signal, terrific and complete.

a, scalping-knife; b, ditto, in sheath; c, d, war-clubs; e, e, tomahawks; g, whip.

"The Sioux then returned to their canoes and fled, but in less time the Roderick Dhu could marshal his ready clansmen, a strong war party of Osages was formed, who, panting and thirsting for vengeance, launched their canoes upon the dark waters of the Missouri, and gave chase to their retreating foes. Both tribes were distinguished for their skill in water craft. The race was a contest for life and death. On they sped, the pursued and the pursuers. Each party employed all its skill and strength and cunning -- the fugitives prompted by the love of life and hope for escape -- the pursuers urged on by the desire for revenge and thirst for blood. The Sioux made great speed down the muddy river, but the Osages gained on them.

"The signs of the chase freshened; neither party stopped for rest, nor flagged; on, on they sped for days, the Osages still gaining, until, in one of the long stretches of the river, they came in sight of the Sioux. A loud, wild cry of exultation from the pursuers rang out upon the welkin, and was echoed back by a shout of defiance from the Sioux. The last trial of strength and skill was now made, and every nerve strained to its utmost capacity. On they sped until a certain bend of the river concealed the fugitives from their pursuers.

"Under this cover they soon reached a point on the Missouri, about twelve miles above its mouth and only a mile from the Mississippi, nearly opposite a point on the Mississippi where Portage des Sioux stands, and, taking advantage of this sudden turn of fortune, disembarked, withdrew their canoes from the water, and concealed themselves from their pursuers. Soon, however, the party of Osages came, noiselessly, yet swiftly as an arrow in its flight, gathering new life and fresh courage from the glimpse of a broken paddle, as it glided by them on the turbid waters, or some useless article of which the Sioux had disencumbered themselves in their flight.

"A moment of breathless suspense, into which was crowded an age of hope and fear and anxiety, is now experienced by the fugitives as their pursuers near the place of their concealment -- another moment and their pursuers are passed and lost to view in the next curve of the river. Manitto has smiled on the Sioux--the Osages are foiled.

"Hastily gathering up their canoes they bear them on their shoulders across the narrow portage, relaunch them on the Mississippi and resume their flight up that river, while the Osages continue down the Missouri to its mouth and then up the Mississippi. This successful strategem enabled the Sioux to gain on their pursuers some 20 or 30 miles, and secured their escape. The point where they re-embarked is the sight of Portage des Sioux, the portage of the Sioux, by which name it has ever since been known.

"The seal of the town is a circle with two bands encircling a field, with an extended view representing a portion of that plane of country immediately above the junction of the rivers. The "armorial chievement" is simple, yet highly suggestive, and commemorates the incident above related. It consists of a party of Sioux with canoes on their shoulders, courant, comme le diable, and is surrounded with the words "Seal of the town of Portage des Sioux." [1]

Ebenezer Ayers came from one of the Eastern States and settled on what is known as "the point" in St. Charles county at a very early date. He built the first horse-mill in that region of country. He was also a large fruit grower, and made a great deal of butter and cheese. He lived in a large, red house, in which the first Protestant sermon in "the point" was preached. In 1804 he and James Flaugherty and John Woods were appointed justices of the peace for St. Charles district, being the first under the American government. Mr. Ayers had four children, one son and three daughters. Two of the latter died before they were grown. The son, Ebenezer Davenport Ayers, married Louisiana Overall, and settled where Davenport, Iowa, now stands, the town being named for him. His surviving sister, Hester Ayers, married Anthony C. Palmer, who was a ranger in the company commanded by Capt. James Callaway. Mr. Palmer was afterward elected sheriff of the county, and served one term. He had a good education, was an excellent scribe, and taught school a number of years.

Samuel Griffith, of New York, settled on the point below St. Charles in 1795. He was therefore one of the very first American settlers in the present limits of the State of Missouri. Daniel M. Boone had been here previous to this arrival, and the rest of the Boone family must have come about the same time that Mr. Griffith did. They all came the same year at any rate. Mr. Griffith was married in North Carolina, and had four children: Daniel A., Asa, Mary and Sarah. Daniel A. married Matilda McKnight, and they had five children. Asa married Elizabeth Johnson; they had five children. Mary married Wilson Overall, and Sarah married Foster McKnight.

Alexander Garvin, of Pennsylvania, married Amy Mallerson, and settled in St. Charles county, Mo., in 1819. His cabin was built of poles, and was only 16x18 feet in size, covered with linden bark weighted down with poles. The chimney was composed of sticks and mud. The house was built in one day, and they moved into it the next. Mr. Garvin and his wife had seven children: Amy, Margaret, Permelia, Alexander, Jane R., Julia A. and Fannie D. Amy, Julia and Permilia all died single. Margaret was married first to Thomas Lindsay, and after his death she married Joles Dolby, and is now a widow again. Alexander married Elizabeth Boyd. Jane R. married Robert Bowles. Fannie D. married Robert Roberts.

[1] Atlas Map of St. Charles County.

--from The History of St. Charles County, Missouri, p. 261-281

The Midnight Ride of Symon Schermerhorn

Most Americans are familiar with the famous ride of Paul Revere, who warned Bostonians of the impending British invasion on 18 April 1775 during the American Revolution.  Paul Revere had it easy. It was springtime; he was in robust health; and, presumably, so was his horse.  Not so for Symon Schermerhorn.

But few people know about Symon's famous ride that took place 85 years before in the Dutch village of Schenectady on the banks of the Mohawk River.  The Schermerhorn family--consisting of the children of Netherland emigrant Jacob Janse Schermerhorn--had settled in the fortified village of Schenectady {from the Mohawk word meaning "beyond the pines"} about the year 1685.

The eldest son Reyer "built a house with bricks and sash brought from Holland and put up five mills on a creek, which he dammed up," according to his descendant, J. Crane Schermerhorn. Schermerhorn Mills consisted of five mills. The first was a flouring or grist-mill, and the others a saw-mill, a hat factory, a fulling mill and a wool-carding mill. 

Reyer's original house has long been since demolished, but J. Crane Schermerhorn described having visited the house numerous times over the years, including the cellar. "The cellar was divided by iron doors, so that they could keep things secure from the Indians, as well as from their negroes, who had a portion of the cellar to themselves.

"One of the young negroes was scalped by the Indians on one of their raids and the Indian bound up his head and carried him away to Canada, a prisoner, for he wanted to get double price for him. But he got nothing, for they grew careless as they neared the Canada line and the negro got up one night when the Indians were all asleep, took his scalp and started for home, all alone through the deep snow. He got back all right and was quite a hero. When my father was a little boy, he saw the scalp and I think, the negro boy, who was then an old man."

The second son, Symon, had married in 1683 Willempsje Viele, the daughter of Arnout Cornelisse Viele, another early New Netherlands settler.  They had two sons: Johannes, baptized 23 July 1684 in Albany, and Arnout, baptized 7 Nov. 1686, in Albany.  Also probably living with Symon at the time were his younger brother Cornelius as well as his sister Jannetje.

 It was a bitter cold mid-winter night with heavy snow falling since earlier in the day.  Undoubtedly, Symon and his family--along with the other inhabitants of the village--had gone to bed hours before, snug in their homes.

But a war party of  over 200 French soldiers, Christianized Mohawks and voyageurs was approaching the sleeping village, determined to avenge the wrong they felt had been done the year before when a combined party of English and Dutch had attacked Montreal.  In silence, the enemy crept into the stockade, gave a loud war whoop and began the attack.

Symon himself was roused by his great dog Negar. When he opened the shutter he saw, almost in disbelief, a column of men in strange uniforms, followed by a file of Indians.  Rousing his brother Cornelius, Symon is supposed to have recognized the French uniform and told his family he was going to ride to Albany and give the alarm.

From 5 to 7 foes burst through the cabin door, shooting without warning. Johannes, not yet 6, Symon's oldest son, died that night, probably shot by an intruder.  So did three of Symon's African American slaves.  How Arnout Schermerhorn and his mother Willempsje escaped the Schenectady Massacre is not fully known. A family tradition says that four-year-old Arnout was wrapped up in a blanket by his father and he and his mother hid in a snowdrift, out of the path of danger. Cornelius and Jannetje also escaped. The rest of the family, living some distance away from the scene of the destruction, were also unharmed.

Not dressed for the weather outside, Symon was still able to saddle his horse and get to the north gate before he was fired upon. He was shot through the thigh and a bullet also wounded the horse. His route passed close to the river and through Niskayuna, where there was no doctor. He had to pull his mare down to walk because of the pain.

Meanwhile, the snowstorm raged.  Symon had escaped with his life on a wounded horse and rode through the cold winter's night, warning the inhabitants as he passed through the outlying settlements.  It took him six hours to accomplish his ride--today it takes only 20 minutes by car.  It is said Symon actually covered about 36 miles on his circuitous route, but finally he turned down the Crooked Road (Old Niskayuna Road) and on down the hill to the stockade gate. Numbed by the cold and weak from loss of blood, Symon could barely stammer, "Schenectady - French - Indians - Fire - everything afire."

Then Symon fainted.  His horse died at the stockade gate.  But he had managed to deliver the warning. 

Symon eventually recovered from his wound and, soon after the Schenectady Massacre, moved to New York. On 4 Sept. 1691, his wife was admitted to the Reformed Dutch Church of that town. Symon and his wife Willempsje added two more children to their family, both girls: Jannetje, baptized 24 March 1693 and Maria, baptized 5 July 1693.

Arnout grew up in New York and married Maritje Beekman.  He undoubtedly followed a ship-master's life from early youth in New York and traded between Boston and New York and probably between Charleston, S. C., and New York, as did his son John.  He also traded largely in New York real estate, as is indicated by the city records.

As for Symon, he became master of a vessel navigating the Hudson and a record shows that on 23 June 1693, he transported soldiers from New York to Albany. He may have been following a vocation connected with his father's former interests at this time or the business may have been his private venture.

Symon's brother Cornelius had been previously a skipper on the Hudson and continued at this occupation for many years, so the indications are that the trading interests of their father, Jacob Janse Schermerhorn, were to some extent kept up by his sons after his death. Symon's descendants followed the shipping business for many generations.

 Symon died in 1696 in New York City and his widow married Levinus Van Schaik Winne on 20 June 1699. She and Levinus had two children: Maria, born in 1700, and Benjamin, born 1705.  Levinus died in 1706 and Willempsje married a third time to Johannes Van Hoesen on 19 June 1709.  She died in Albany in 1712.

To commemorate Symon's ride, each year the Mayor of Schenectady re-enacts the ride in period clothing, although in some years the mayor has chosen to ride in a car rather than on horseback.  His ride is also remembered with a  mural on the wall on the second floor of the Albany City Hall.

1690 Schenectady, NY, Massacre

The 1690 Schenectady, NY, Massacre was an attack by the French and their Indian allies on the Dutch and English settlement at Schenectady in New York on 8-9 February 1690. The attack came in retaliation for a series of devastating Iroquois raids on Canada, which had essentially stopped the French fur trade for two years. 

 In much of the late 17th century, the Iroquois and the colonists of New France had engaged in a protracted struggle for control of the economically important fur trade in northern North America. In August 1689, the Iroquois had launched one of their most devastating raids against the French frontier community of Lachine. This attack occurred after France and England declared war on each other but before the news reached North America. New France's governor the Comte de Frontenac organized an expedition from Montreal to attack English outposts to the south, as punishment for English support of the Iroquois, and as a general widening of the war against the northernmost English colonies. The expedition was one of three directed at isolated northern and western settlements, and was originally aimed at Fort Orange (present day Albany).

Led by Jacques Le Moyne de Sainte-Hélène and Nicolas d'Ailleboust de Manthet, the raiding expedition consisted of about 160 Canadiens, mostly frontier-savvy coureurs de bois, with 100 Indians, primarily christianized Mohawk, Sault and Algonquins. They made their way across the ice of Lake Champlain and Lake George toward the English communities on the Hudson River.

A march from Montreal to Schenectady — a distance of 200 miles, was one of extreme labor, requiring great pluck and endurance.  Between the St. Lawrence and the Mohawk rivers, there was then an unbroken wilderness without a single habitation.  In mid-winter, the snow lay in the forest from three to six feet deep and could be traveled only on snow-shoes.  In addition to their heavy muskets and ammunition, the French were forced to carry provisions for the march of 22 days. Such were the conditions of an attack upon Schenectady — only possible in winter without a flotilla of canoes to cross the lakes.

 Fort Orange appeared to be well defended and a scouting reported on the 8th of February that no one was guarding the stockade at the small frontier community of Schenectady. Schenectady and Albany were politically polarized in the wake of the 1689 Leisler's Rebellion and the opposing factions had not even been able to agree on the setting of guards.

They started from Montreal on the 17th of January and, after suffering incredible hardships on the way, arrived in sight of the town about 11 o'clock at night on the 8th of February. 

 

The village at this time lay mainly west of Ferry street and was stockaded with palisades of pine logs ten feet high. It had at least two gates. One at north end of Church street opened out to the highway [Front street], which led to the eastward to Niskayuna. Another at south end of Church at State opened out to Mill lane and the Flats and the Albany road [State street].

The only dwellings outside the stockade were built on the northerly side of State street, extending as far southeast as Lange gang (Centre Street). It is said there were 80 good houses in the village and a population of 400 souls, both numbers doubtless greatly exaggerated.

In the northerly angle of the village on the Binnè kil (near corner Washington and Front Streets) was a double stockaded fort garrisoned by a detachment of 24 men of Capt. Jonathan Bull's Connecticut company under the command of Lt. Enos Talmadge. Thus fortified and garrisoned, the inhabitants should have repelled any ordinary attack or at least held the enemy at bay until help could reach them from Albany.

"The destruction of the place was occasioned by divided counsels and a fatal apathy. The whole Province was then divided into two factions—the Leislerians and the Anti-Leislerians—the short hairs and swallow-tails. Divided feelings and counsels ran so high in Albany and Schenectady as to counteract the sense of self preservation. Both parties were determined to rule, neither was strong enough to take the lead," wrote Jonathan Pearson in his history of Schenectady Patent. 

But Schenectady and Albany were politically polarized in the wake of the 1689 Leisler's Rebellion and the opposing factions had not even been able to agree on the setting of guards.  The animosity was so great between the two that those who were supposed to serve as guard for that night instead built snowmen for guards in their places.  One gate, it was reported, could not be closed due to the heavy snow that had fallen throughout the day.

Plan of Schenectady

It was the French and Indians' intention to make the attack later, but the intense cold forced them to enter the town at once. In the midnight attack which followed, the invaders burned houses and barns, and killed men, women and children. Most were in night clothing and had no time to arm themselves. 

 According to the French report sent to Canada describing the raid, "Messieurs de Sainte Helene and de Mantet were to enter at the first [gate] which the Squaws pointed out, and which in fact was found wide open. Messieurs d'Iberville and de Montesson took the left with another detachment, in order to make themselves masters of that leading to Orange. But they could not discover it, and returned to join the remainder of the party. A profound silence was everywhere observed until the two commanders, who separated at their entrance into the town for the purpose of encircling it, had met at the other extremity.

"The signal of attack was given Indian fashion and the whole force rushed on simultaneously. M. de Mantet placed himself at the head of a detachment and reached a small fort where the garrison was under arms. The gate was burst in after a good deal of difficulty, the whole set on fire, and all who defended the place slaughtered.

"The sack of the town began a moment before the attack on the fort. Few houses made any resistance, M. de Montigny discovered some, which he attempted to carry sword in hand, having tried the musket in vain. He received two thrusts of a spear — one in the body and the other in the arm. But M. de Sainte Helene, having come to his aid, effected an entrance and put every one who defended the place to the sword. The massacre lasted two hours. The remainder of the night was spent in placing sentinels and in taking some repose.

"The house belonging to the minister was ordered to be saved, so as to take him alive to obtain information from him; but as it was not known, it was not spared any more than the others. He was slain and his papers burnt before he could be recognized."

A number of the townspeople escaped, during the fury of the attack, and hid in the woods or made their way over the Albany Road to Albany. Some had suffered wounds by the enemy and others had their hands and feet frozen in the terrible 16-mile night journey through the snow and bitter cold.

By the morning of the 9th of Feb., the community lay in ruins — more than 60 buildings were burned. Most of the residents were dead or taken prisoner, with some survivors managing to flee as refugees to the fort at Albany. Symon Schermerhorn was one of these. Although wounded, he rode to Albany to warn them of the massacre.  

Through two feet of snow and great drifts, Schermerhorn galloped over the River road to Niskayuna, warning the settlers on his way. After covering over thirty miles, in a six-hour ride in the bitter cold of the February night, Symon reached Albany with his dreadful message. His horse fell dead at the city gateway and Schermerhorn fainted from exhaustion and his wound.

The clerk's office of Albany county contains the reaction of the inhabitants when Schermerhorn arrived in Albany:

"This morning about 5 o'clock ye alarm was brought here by Symon Schermerhoorn who was shott threw his Thigh yt ye french and Indians had murthered ye People of Skinnechtady; haveing got into ye Towne about 11 or 12 a Clock there being no Watch Kept (ye Inhabitants being so negligent & Refractory) and yt he had much a doe to Escape they being very numerous. They fyred severall times at him at last throw his Thigh and wounded his horse and was come over to Canatagione (Niskayuna) to bring ye news.

"Severall ye People haveing Escaped ye Cruelty of ye french and there Indians came Running here & told us ye Village was a fyre and yt they had much a doe to Escape for all ye streets were full of french and Indians & yt many People were murthered and yt ye enemy were marching hither which news was Continually Confirmed till afternoon....Some horse men sent out to Discover ye Enemies force and there march but were forced to Return ye snow being so Deep yet some were sent out again who got thither...Lawrence ye Indian with ye Maquase[s] yt were in Towne were sent out also to Skinnechtady to Dispatch posts to ye Maquase Castles for all ye Indians to come downe but unhappily sad [sic: said] Indians comeing to Skinnechtady were so much amazed to see so many People murthered and Destroyed...."  Apparently even the Indians were startled by the savagery of the attack and failed to send for their fellow tribesmen.

  

Approximately 60 people were killed in the raid on Schenectady, including 10 women and 12 children. After the fighting ceased, all the houses and barns--save a few--were set on fire and the blood-stained raiders filed eastward from the burning town, with their pack train of booty and line of dejected prisoners. The little band of survivors stood helpless around their flaming dwellings, while some wept and wailed over the gory corpses of those who, a few hours before, had been their living loved ones. Even the Mohawks were shocked at the slaughter and destruction done by the enemy. The work of thirty years of human industry went blazing skyward and the night of that far off midwinter Sunday closed over the blackened ruin of what had once been the busy, thriving and comfortable little village of Schenectady.

The French began their retreat at eleven o'clock Sunday morning. They took with them 27 prisoners, men and boys, and 50 of the settlers' horses, which served them in the double stead of pack animals and of food when their provisions ran out on the terrible winter march of over 250 miles. Had it not been for this traveling meat supply, the raiders would have perished of starvation or would have been overtaken and destroyed by the force which went out in pursuit from Schenectady. 

Capt. Johannes Sanderse Glen (known to the Dutch as Sanders Glen), who lived in Scotia across the river from Schenectady, prepared to defend his house with the aid of his Negro slaves and some Indians. Kryn, the Mohawk chief, and a French officer went alone across the river on the ice and told Glen that he was safe because of the many kindnesses he and his wife had shown French captives. The raiders not only spared Glen's house and family, but they went with him to the stricken town and gave up to him such captives and their possessions as he claimed to be his kin. "The Indians grumbled that Glen's kinsfolk were astonishingly numerous." 

Through the Captain's pleadings, many lives and several houses were thus saved. It is said that the French officers ate breakfast at Glen's from a round mahogany table now in the possession of the Glen-Sanders family in their Scotia mansion. Glen claimed as many survivors as he could and the raiders took the rest to Canada. Typically those captives who were too young or old or ill to keep up along the arduous journeys were killed along the way.

An old Dutch Bible of the Glen-Sanders family has the following account of the massacre, written at the time in Holland Dutch by a son or daughter of Capt. Glen.

"1690. tusschen de 8 & 9 Februarie is de droovige mort gedaan hereop Schenectady by de Franse en haar Wildes: — alles verdes treurt en Verbrant * * * op 5 huysen naer maer; maer op Schotieage neen quaet gedaen by akpresse order van haer governeur, Voor het goet doet myn grootvader mynvader en Oem aan een gevange paep priest & verscheiden anderen gevangen gedaen hadde in de oorlogh tussche onse Wildet & de Franse."

Following is a translation:

"1690 — between February 8 and 9 the regrettable murder has been committed here at Schenectady by the French and their savages; everything destroyed and burned * * * but for five houses; but in Scotia no harm was done by the express order of their Governor. For the good my grandfather, my father and uncle did to a captured papist priest and several other prisoners in the war between our savages and the French."

The writer's "grootvader" (grandfather) was Alexander Lindsay Glen, known to the Hollanders of Schenectady as Sander Leenderste Glen. "Mynvader" was the writer's father, Capt. Johannes Glen, and his "oem" (uncle) was Sander Glen. The "good" these Glens did the French priest and other prisoners consisted in assisting them to escape or in saving them from torture.

The Glen property originally included Sanders Lake and two small river islands called Spuyten Duyvil and Kruisbessen (Gooseberry) Island. Sanders Lake is probably an old cut off river channel and is the only natural lake or pond lying along the Mohawk's course from its source to its mouth—a distance of 135 miles. The military camp ground known as "the Camp" lay to the westward of the Glen mansion on the Mohawk flats. Nearby, on higher ground, the Mohawks had a favorite place for torturing the victims which they had captured and there brought to the river.

On one occasion, the Mohawks captured a French priest and bound him and then came to Alexander Glen for firewater. He supplied them so liberally that they were soon all sound asleep, whereupon "Sanderse" loaded an empty hogshead on a cart and put the French captive in it, sealed up the head, leaving the captive the bunghole for air, and then sent the driver across the ferry and on to Albany with his concealed passenger. 

When the savages awoke from their debauch, they were furious at the escape of their prisoner, but Glen assured them that the priest was in league with the devil and had escaped by magic. This humane act became known in Canada and was the reason why Glen's house was spared in the massacre of 1690.

The Schenectady raid had been part of a three-pronged French attack on isolated northern and western settlements. The two other prongs of the attack were at Salmon Falls, New Hampshire, where 30 were killed and 54 prisoners were tortured to death and Fort Loyal (today Portland, Maine), where the inhabitants were killed or taken prisoner.

Reynier Schaets and his son were among those killed in the Schenectady raid. Schaets was a son of Gideon Schaets, dominie of the Dutch Reformed Church at Albany. Reynier was a surgeon, who had been appointed Justice at Schenectady by acting-governor Jacob Leisler on 28 Dec. 1689. Reynier's wife Catharina Bensing and three other children-- Gideon, Bartholomew and Agnietje--survived.

Nineteen Frenchmen were killed or captured on this retreat by the war party of 140 non-Christian Mohawks and 50 Albany militiamen, part of whom followed the enemy to the gates of Montreal. The pursuit could not overtake the main body because the raiders hitched their captured horses to sleds and so outdistanced their pursuers over the ice of Lake Champlain. The pursuing Mohawks and militia cut off several parties of stragglers and, in one skirmish, killed six Frenchmen. The Mohawks brought back 13 captured Frenchmen to their castles along our river, where the victims suffered a terrible retribution by being tortured and burned.

A few days subsequent to the massacre at Schenectady, Pieter Schuyler, mayor, and Dirk Wessels Ten Broeck, recorder of Albany, and Kilian Van Rensselaer, Patroon of Rensselaerswyck, addressed the following appeal to the Governor Bradstreet and Council of Massachusetts. 

"Albany ye 15th day of febr, 1689/90.

"Honrd Gentn.

"To our great greeffe and Sorrow we must acquaint you with our Deplorable Condition there haveing never ye Like Dreadfull massacre and murther been Committed in these Parts of America, as hath been acted by ye french and there Indians at Shinnectady 20 miles from Albanie Betwixt Saturday and Sunday Last, at 11 a clok at night. A Companie of Two hundred french and Indians fell upon said village and murther'd Sixty men women and Children most Barbarously, Burning ye Place and Carried 27 along with them Prisoners, among which the Leift [Lt.] of Capt. Bull Enos Talmadge & 4 more of sd Company were killed & 5 taken Prisoners ye Rest being Inhabitants and above 25 Persones there Limbs frozen in ye flight.

"The Cruelties Committed at sd Place no Penn can write nor Tongue Expresse, ye women big with Childe Rip'd up and ye Children alive throwne into ye Flames, and there heads Dash'd in pieces against the doors and windows.

"But what shall we say we must Lay our hands upon our mouth and be silent. It is Gods will and Pleasure and we must Submitt, it is but what our Sinns and Transgressions have Deserv'd. And since Generally humane things are Directed by outward means, so we must ascribe this sad misfortune to ye factions and Divisions which were amongst ye People and there great Dissobedience to there officers for they- would Obey no Commands or keep any watch, so yt ye Enemie haveing Discovered there Negligence and Security by there Praying maquase Indians (who were in sd Place 2 or 3 Days before ye attaque was made) Came in and Broak open there verry doors before any Soule knew of it, ye Enemy Divideing themselfs in 3 severall Companies Came in at 3 severall Places no gate being shutt, and Seperated themselfs 6 or 7 to a house and in this manner begunn to Murther spareing no man till they see all ye houses open and masterd, and so took what Plunder they would, Loading 30 or 40 of ye Best horses and so went away about 11 or 12 a Clock at noon on Sabbath day.

"Dear neighbours and friends we must acquaint yu yt never Poor People in ye world was in a worse Condition then we are at Present, no governour nor Command no money to forward any Expedition and Scarce men enough to maintain ye Citty and we must Conclude there only aim is this Place which once being attaind ye 5 nations are Rent from ye English Crown & in Stead of being a Bulwark to these Dominions as hitherto they have Proov'd will help to Ruine and Destroy the Countrey and Lay all waste. We have here Plainly Laid ye Case before yu and doubt not but you will so much take it to heart and make all Readinesse in ye Spring to Invade Canida by water. We Pray God Continually for ye arriveall of our Govr without which we can doe but litle haveing enough to doe to keep ye Indians to our side with great Expense; for these Distractions and Revolutions at N: Yorke hath brougt us into a miserable Condition, That without yr assistance and the 50 men from N. Yorke we should not be able to keep ye Place if any Enemy came wee begg an answer with al haste yt we may Satisfy ye Indians, we write to N: Yorke and oyr Parts of our mean Condition. We long much to hear from yr honrs haveing sent an Indian Expresse ye 15 January last with what papers Related to ye Indians at yt time, since when our messengers are come from onnendage and ye Indians al declare to be faithfull to this governmt. We have writt to Col Pynchon to warn ye upper townes to be upon there guarde feareing yt some french & Indians might be out to Destroy them. We have no more to add in these Troublesome times but yt we are Honble gent.

Your most humble & obedt servts
ye Convention of Albanie

Pr Schuyler, Mayor"

As a result of the attack, the Albany Convention, which had until then resisted Jacob Leisler's assumption of power in the southern parts of the colony, finally acknowledged his authority.  The attack forced New York's political factions to put aside their differences and focus on the common enemy. 

 

Leisler then organized, with the assistance of Connecticut authorities, an expedition from Albany to attack Montreal. Led by Connecticut militia general Fitz-John Winthrop, the expedition turned back in August 1690 due to disease, lack of supplies, and insufficient watercraft for navigating on Lake Champlain.

An interesting footnote: On 27 Oct. 1887, the Albany Journal reported, "Three skulls were dug up in Schenectady recently by workmen excavating for a house.  Two of the skulls are now in the possession of Walter P. Van Vorst, of that city, have fractures that look as though they were made by a tomahawk.  It is thought the skulls belonged to victims of the Schenectady massacre in 1690."

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Sources:

Greene, Nelson, History of the Mohawk Valley: Gateway to the West 1614-1925 (Chicago: The S. J. Clarke Publishing Company) 1925.

http://www.schenectadyhistory.org/

Pearson, Jonathan, et al., A History of the Schenectady Patent in the Dutch and English Times; being contributions toward a history of the lower Mohawk Valley, edited by J. W. MacMurray, A. M., U. S. A. (Albany, NY: J. Munsell's Sons, Printers) 1883. 

"The Schenectady Massacre" (New York Times, 2 Nov. 1887)