Various

“ As to the Lone Buffalo, he is never seen even by the most cunning hunter, excepting when the moon is at its full. At such times he is invariably alone, cropping his food in some remote part of the prairies; and whenever the heavens resound with the moanings of the thunder, the red man banishes from his breast every feeling of jealousy, for he believes it to be the warning voice of the Lone Buffalo. ”

“ The glad work of chopping away the dam was begun on Sunday night when the water rushed out, so filling the lower channels of the river as to afford easy passage for the boats. The Tuscaroras dwelling in the valley looking upon the swollen stream and their inundated cornfields, deemed themselves under the wrath of the Great Spirit, and fled in alarm. After every defeat the savages, according to their custom, hung up white dogs to avert the anger and beg for the pity of their gods. ”

“ During a summer storm a bolt of lightning split the tablet over the door of the largest church, on which was engraved “Endraacht maakt macht”—union makes strength. Taking this as a sign from heaven, Dr. Froeligh proclaimed in his sermon on the following Sunday, “It is our belief founded on what we have seen and know of this people that, according to the sign given on July 10, the Triune God has made them two. The fire of divine grace is on one side, and the fire of discord and rage is on the other.” ”

“ But in Massachusetts a distinction seems to have been early established between a criticism of the proceedings of the General Court as such, and a criticism of the policy of the government. In Pennsylvania this view was only in the latter period arrived at; in New York the General Assembly was constantly taking offense at writings appearing in the newspapers or distributed in the form of pamphlets; while in Virginia the question never arose because there was no criticism.
Everywhere we find that there was, as time goes on, a general advance towards freedom of discussion. ”

“ Morning dawned and a Pawnee village was in ashes, and the bodies of many hundred men, women and children were left upon the ground as food for the wolf and vulture. The Sioux warriors returned to their own encampment when it was ascertained that the nameless leader had taken more than twice as many scalps as his brother warriors. Then it was that a feeling of jealousy arose, which was soon quieted, however, by the news that the Crow Indians had stolen a number of horses and many valuable furs from a Sioux hunter as he was returning from the mountains. ”

“ One has but to study the map of Eastern Pennsylvania, a region rich in swamps, rocks, hills and mountain ranges, to see what difficulties awaited the general who was to move a large body of troops, with artillery and wagon trains, from Easton to Wyoming. To go up the Lehigh Valley was impossible, for between its headwaters and the Susquehanna were hills insurmountable. On the steel tracks of to-day a double force of engine power is required. ”

“ Indeed, it was one of the counts in the Declaration of Independence that the colonies were justified in their war of independence, because George III. “has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers the merciless Indian savages whose known rule of warfare is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.” There were several hundred white men aiding and abetting the Indians in the arts of war and in methods of fortification. ”

“ In the following year, however, on April 19, Colonel Van Schaick leading, 558 men of the First New York regiment made a forced march of 180 miles in six days against the Onondagas. He burned three of their towns with their storehouses of food, slew twelve and took prisoners thirty-three of the savages. With the Onondagas was the hearthstone of the confederacy, and a terrible humbling done to the Iroquois pride was the extinguishing of the council fire.
Pennsylvania was also active in clearing the path for Sullivan. ”

“ In almost every Iroquois village there were store houses made of bark or timber, in which the grain was saved.
The dwellings or long houses were made of wooden framework covered with bark and built in the form of a modern compartment house. Each had a long hall or passageway through the middle, with rooms on either side, one for each family, with a fireplace in the center and the sleeping bunks against the wall. The walls of these rooms were decorated with bows and arrows, guns and equipments, and the prizes of the chase, which all hunters love, and of war, over which warriors gloat. ”

“ In the rivers, nature provided the only highways, though the Iroquois during centuries of war, trade and travel had made many trails. From Tioga Point the Continentals were to march up the Chemung Valley and thence into the wonderfully fertile lake country of Central New York. Along the ridge overlooking Seneca Lake they would pass, in order to strike the Tory headquarters and center of supplies at the lake’s northern end, where then stood a big Indian village, and now not far away is the city of Geneva. ”

“ As the Iroquois raised and stored corn and other vegetable foods, they were able to wage systematic war and go on long campaigns. Thus they excelled and conquered the other savages. When they left the stone age, by obtaining guns from Europeans, their lust of conquest was fired more than ever. 305When the white men of Pennsylvania and Virginia paid the Indians for lands, the avarice of the Iroquois was still further excited. Many tribes, even as far as Canada and the Mississippi Valley, were vassals of the confederacy. In the Iroquois we see the highest type of pagan man. ”

“ Entering the country of the Mingoes and the Muncey tribes in Western Pennsylvania, and the Seneca towns in Southwestern New York, he desolated their houses and corn fields.
“The parings of scalps and the hair of our countrymen at every warrior’s camp on the path,” wrote Colonel Brodhead to Washington, “are new inducements to revenge.” Although his men on their return, September 14, were bare-footed and in rags, and had had no pay for nine months, he offered to lead an expedition to Detroit. Of two soldiers whom he sent to General Sullivan, he heard nothing. ”

“ In 1779 there were only a few settlements of the white man outside of a thin line in the Hudson and Mohawk Valleys. The Six Nations of Iroquois, the Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas, Senecas and Tuscaroras, were federated together and usually acted as a whole. Many of the Mohawks living near the settlements were friendly to the American cause, and almost the entire Oneida tribe had been won over to loyalty to the Continental Congress through the efforts of Dominie Kirkland, afterwards a chaplain in Sullivan’s army and the founder of Hamilton College. ”

“ Several hundred road builders, mostly Continental soldiers, under Colonels Spencer and Van Cortlandt, did the work in parties, while guarded by outlying scouts and riflemen. To-day the turnpike road and the iron rails and bridges of the great railway companies traverse the region in which “The Sullivan Road” once was, but the achievements of the modern engineers are in no way more wonderful. In five days the three brigades of Poor’s New Hampshire men, Hand’s Pennsylvania Light Corps and Maxwell’s New Jerseymen, with Proctor’s artillery and the wagon trains, made the march over the new road. ”

“ In 1609, two men, each representing a different civilization, penetrated the inland waters of America. Henry Hudson, an English captain in a Dutch ship and with a Dutch crew, sailed up the river that now bears his name and made the friendly acquaintance of the tribes of Northern New York. Samuel Champlain, from France, came down the lake that bears his name, acting not only as friend, but as ally to the Algonquins, who were ever at war with the Iroquois. The boundary line between these two kinds of Indians was drawn at Rock Regio, in Lake Champlain, near Burlington, Vermont. ”

“ The Iroquois method of raising corn was very ingenious. On the lands in river valleys this was easy enough, yet they could win crops even in the forest. This they did by “girdling.” They cut round the tree trunk near the ground, and again about ten feet higher, and then stripped off the bark between the spaces girdled by the knife or hatchet. This caused the tree to wither and the leaves to fall, quickly letting in the sunshine on the ground. Thus, the Indian without the trouble of chopping down the trees and clearing the land got at once the benefit of the soil. ”

“ Side by side in fifty hitherto peaceful, united, and prosperous villages rival congregations began a bitter warfare. Accusations against the teaching character and morals of ministers and laymen were published. In the church courts notable trials were held. In some cases the peace of the State was broken, and the civil authorities invoked. Indeed, the actions at law caused by this secession in New York and New Jersey led to the establishment of principles as to the rights of members in church property that are to-day the basis of the ecclesiastical law in both States. ”

“ Roughly speaking, we may think of Schenectady, Utica, Syracuse, Elmira, Geneva and Ithaca as being the centers of the six tribes mentioned in their order, the central council-fire being with the Onondagas, near Syracuse.
The Senecas were, in 1779, the largest and most active of the tribes, and “the Seneca country” was a general name for the great region which Sullivan was to traverse. Our soldiers were to enter the Long House through the southern door, at Tioga Point, near which, on the fertile slope of the valley, was Esthertown, or the Indian Queen Esther’s country and castle. ”

“ Here they planned to attack Wyoming, a settlement, chiefly of Connecticut people, from which most of the able bodied men were absent in Washington’s army, only old men, boys, women and children being at home. After the battle and massacre of July 3 another skillfully planned attack on Cherry Valley in New York was made, and on the 11th of October this settlement was reduced to ashes and the people murdered or taken prisoners to Canada.
These atrocities decided Congress and Washington to chastise the savages, desolate their country and paralyze the activity of the Tories. ”

“ But people of this description are too selfish and disputatious to foster the peace of any neighborhood. It is well that their children should ignore and forget the ways of their fathers.
Now all that is left of the True Dutch Church are some ten dying 337congregations. Each year or so one of these is disrupted. Civil and sometimes criminal actions at law follow, and the costs of the proceedings absorb the remainders of the property. But the remnant still cling to their name and glory in their history; for they still invoke the shades of Doctor Solomon Froeligh. ”

“ We came through ten miles of Virginia swamp this morning to get to it, and we’d have to pole through ten miles of North Carolina swamp if we tried to get out through the other side across the lake there.”
“What sources feed Lake Drummond?” asked the Spinster, shaking herself free from the abstraction that had preceded Alphonso’s entrance upon the scene.
“Nobody knows,” returned the guide, shaking his head. “Nobody knows where it comes from nor where it goes. The black folks around here say that the lake belongs to the devil and the scientific people say it’s of volcanic origin. ”

“ Of one thing we may be confident. In no colony would the Governor, as representing the Crown, permit a criticism of its actions to pass without censure, and, if possible, punishment. When the Evening Post of Boston (vide p. 14) published in 1741 the paragraph in regard to the expected overthrow of the Walpole Ministry, the Attorney-General was at once ordered to file an Information against the printer, Thomas Fleet, and although no further proceedings were ever taken, the omission was due rather to want of confidence in the Massachusetts jury than to any leniency on the part of the Governor. ”

“ To this day the Indians call the governor of New York “Corlaer,” and Queen Victoria, their ruler, “Kora Kowa,” or the Great Corlaer.
When, under King George, the colonists in America and the corrupt British parliament and court quarreled and began war, Congress hoped to keep the friendship or neutrality of the red men. In August, 1775, the first conference and treaty was made at Albany. Later General Schuyler was sent into the Mohawk Valley to treat with the Iroquois and met a council of chiefs at German Flats. ”

“ Washington’s plan was to have a right and a left wing to the main body. While Sullivan advanced through the Susquehanna country, Clinton’s New Yorkers, with part of the Sixth Massachusetts, were to move up the Mohawk river and valley with two field pieces and a fleet of two hundred 302boats. At Canajoharie he was to load his stores and boats on wagons, each drawn by eight horses, and march over the hills to Otsego Lake, thence to descend the outlet and enter the Susquehanna at Chenango Point where Binghamton now stands. ”

“ In South Carolina the press was encouraged, liberal inducements being held out to any printer who would settle in the colony. As a result of this policy we find the printing press in operation from the year 1730, a newspaper being published in 1731. In the early period of the history of the press in the colony the only cause of serious trouble that we find was one involving Peter Timothy, of the Gazette, who had published a letter by one Hugh Bryan in which occurred the statement that “the clergy of South Carolina broke their Canons daily.” ”

“ It is so obvious that the standard of a periodical depends on the growth of its subscription list, that he alludes to it only to emphasize the fact that an historical periodical is particularly so dependent, as advertising receipts from such an one can never be large—advertisers as a rule seeking only those of great circulation. ”

“ There’s been some talk of puttin’ up a hotel on the shore of Lake Drummond for a health resort, and cuttin’ a channel wide enough for a steamboat to run regular, but I hope they won’t get to it in my time. I can’t hope that the Swamp’ll last much longer,” he continued, with a sigh. “You see how black and rich the ground is, and if it was drained and cleared it would be mighty productive. Some capitalists are already talking of doing that and dividing it off into farms.” ”

“ Herds of cattle had been driven from Kingston, N. Y., by the great western route through the Catskill mountains, to furnish fresh beef. The soldiers enjoyed their camp life in the fragrant woods, though eager to move against the enemy.
An engineer and the father of the “father of the Erie Canal,” General 310Clinton’s first object was to provide enough water to float his boats down out of the lake and into and along the shallow Susquehanna, in order to make junction with Sullivan at Tioga Point. ”

“ In 1818 the classes of Bergen and Paramus, into which it was divided, reported 2,400 communicant members, and more than 15,000 persons in the congregations. At this later date some of these churches were larger than those in the cities of New York and Albany.
For many years the most influential man in the region, and in the estimation of his admirers in the Dutch Church, was Dr. Solomon Froeligh, minister of the Collegiate Churches of Hackensack and Schraalenburgh. Born near Albany in 1750, he had spent his boyhood in Walkill valley. ”