were several stone buildings and a strong stone wind-mill on the point. These were taken possession of by the insurgents toward noon on the 12th of November, 1838. They numbered about two hundred, many of them being from our frontier towns. They came in two schooners, which were towed down the St. Lawrence by the steamer United States, the captain (Van Cleve) supposing them to be, as represented by a passenger, laden with merchandise. As soon as he discovered the character of the vessels, he resolved to go no further, and stopped at Morristown, ten miles above Ogdensburgh. The schooners' lines were cast, and the next morning, filled with armed men, they were at anchor between Ogdensburgh and Prescott. The insurgents landed at Wind-mill Point, and commenced fortifying their position. Recruits from our shores swelled their ranks for the first twelve hours after their landing. Ogdensburgh and Prescott were in great commotion, and before night not a living being was to be seen in the latter place, for there would evidently be the battle-field.
Preparations were immediately made at Fort Wellington to dislodge the patriots, and a British armed steam-boat, lying at Prescott, prepared to co-operate with the garrison. During the evening the steam-boat Telegraph arrived, having on board Colonel Worth, of the United States army, and two companies of troops, with a marshal, to maintain neutrality. Early next morning two armed British steamers arrived with troops, and an assault was commenced upon the patriots by throwing bombs upon the houses and the mill. The field pieces of their battery on shore returned the fire, and, after a fight of an hour, the British were driven back into the fort, with the loss of about one hundred men killed, and many wounded. Many of the patriots had fled in the morning, and when the action commenced there were only a hundred and twenty-eight left on the point, while the government troops amounted to more than six hundred. The insurgents lost five men killed and thirteen wounded. The next day they sent out a flag, but the bearer was shot. On the 15th the British received a re-enforcement of four hundred regulars, with cannon and gun-boats. The patriots were also re-enforced, and numbered more than two hundred. The government troops, with volunteers from Kingston, in all about two thousand men, surrounded the patriots by land and water, and kept up a continual cannonading until the evening of the 16th, when the latter surrendered. A white flag was displayed from the mill, and three or four others were sent out by the patriots, but the bearers were shot down. ** Indeed, there seemed to be but little disposition on the part of the conquerors to give quarter. The dwellings in the vicinity of the wind-mill were burned, and it is asserted that a number of the patriots were consumed in one of them, which stood upon the beach. Other buildings have been burned since, and their blackened ruins, with the wind-mill, battered by cannon-balls, stand there now, gloomy mementoes of an abortive attempt to sever the chains of colonial vassalage.
According to Theller, thirty-six patriots were killed, two escaped, and ninety were made prisoners. The British lost a hundred and fifty men and twenty officers killed, among whom was Captain Drummond. The commander of the insurgents was a young Pole, only thirty-one years of age, named Von Schoultz, who, with ten others, was hung, and a large portion of the remainder of the prisoners was banished to Van Diemen's Land.
At Ogdensburgh we left the British Queen, and went on board the Lady of the Lake, bound for Oswego. Having an hour to pass before her departure, we employed it in a pleas-
* This view was sketched from the steam-boat, when a little below the wind-mill, looking west-northwest. The mill is a strong stone structure, and answered a very good purpose for a fort or block-house. Its narrow windows were used by the patriots as loop-holes for their muskets during the action.
** See "Theller's Canada in 1837-8."
The Oswegatchie.—Old French Fort at Ogdeneburgh.—Putnam's Feats.—Testimony of History.
ant ramble through the town and along the banks of the dark Oswegatchie. It was Sabbath morning, and all was quiet in that pleasant village. We traversed the high banks of the stream, along its majestic course from the bridge to the dam, about half a mile. The declivity of the bank is studded with oaks, sycamores, and pines, and lofty trees shade the pleasant pathway the whole distance, making it a delightful promenade either at hot noon or in the evening twilight. The water is of an amber color when not turbid, and from this one of its chief tributaries, the Black Lake, derives its name.