The year of 1778 marked a terrible epoch in the annals of our Revolution. Sir John and Guy Johnson, with the Butlers and other native Tories of New York State, had vigorously co-operated with Brant, Queen Esther and Gi-en-gwa-tah, whose united influence gave almost the entire strength of the Six Nations to the British. With all these unnatural combinations at work on the frontier—with Brant perpetrating his barbarities on one hand, Sir John Johnson sweeping down from his refuge in Canada, devastating wherever he went, and the regular army too busily occupied on the seaboard for any hope of succor from that source, the isolated towns and villages of what was then the “far west” became the scenes of the most ruthless system of warfare ever perpetrated among civilized nations.
But all the cruelties that had commenced in 1777 were nothing compared to those now in preparation, when the savages were ready to take up arms in masses, after their own ruthless fashion, and the exiled Royalists, driven out from their homes, had become more vindictive, if possible, than their savage allies.
The Valley of Wyoming was that year peculiarly exposed. Its strongest men were serving in the general army, but those who were left not only foresaw the peril which lay before them, but prepared against it to the extent of their ability. Wintermoot’s Fort was nothing less than a stronghold of the enemy, and the resort of Tories who had fled or wandered from the interior of New York, for the real natives of the valley were true patriots, almost to a man.
With prompt energy these men went to work, strengthening their defences. Block-houses, already made, were put in repair; stockades were planted, new forts were built, till the river above and below Wintermoot’s Fort was, to every possible extent, fortified against the common enemy.
But this military work was done in connection with the usual agricultural labor. While forts were building, seed was put into the earth, and on the first of July, 1778, every acre of land as yet redeemed from the wilderness was rich with a springing harvest.
Each farmer, as he worked, held himself ready for military duty. Ready to seize his axe or scythe at the blast of a horn, or the summon of a conch-shell, in the hand of an old woman or child, if peril threatened either, and lay down life, if need was, in their defence. In those days men carried their muskets to the meadow, or plough-field, regularly as they went to work.
The women of Wyoming rose and took their places bravely upon the hearthstone, ready to defend the children who clung to their garments, when the son or father fell upon the door-step. They worked like their husbands; impending danger gave them quick knowledge, and women whose ideas of chemistry had never gone beyond the ash-leech and cheese-press fell to manufacturing saltpetre. They tore up the floors of their cabins, dug up the earth, put it in casks, and, mingling the water, drained through with ash-lye, boiled it above their fires, and when the compound grew cold in their wash-tubs, saltpetre rose to the top, and thus a supply of gunpowder was obtained. Nor did the women of Wyoming stop here. While the young men were carried off to the Continental army, and old silver headed men were left to till the earth and muster in companies for defence, delicate women and fair young girls took to the field and worked, side by side, with the old men, whose strength was scarcely greater than their own. It was a brave, beautiful sight, which the American woman of our twentieth century will do wisely to remember.
That doomed valley might well be on the alert. The Six Nations had receded entirely from the solemn pledges of neutrality and, in connection with Brant, the Johnsons, and Colonel John Butler, were fighting upon the upper waters of the Susquehanna. Many of the Tories from about Wintermoot’s Fort had fled to them with complaints of harsh treatment from the patriot Whigs. In vain these doomed people had petitioned Congress for help. Then, as now, Congress was slow to act, while the enemy was prompt and terrible.
Thus lay the Valley of Wyoming when our story returns to it.
The first signal of the mustering storm came suddenly one afternoon, about the first of July, when Walter Butler, whom every one had thought a close prisoner at Albany, appeared at the head of eight or ten mounted savages, and, with his young Indian wife galloping by his side, swept up the valley towards Wintermoot’s Fort.