* "By command of Sir W. Johnson."
** Among the amusements invented by Sir William were foot-races, in which the competitors had meal-bags drawn up over their legs and tied under their arms; a hog, with its tail greased, would be offered as a prize to the one that should catch it by that extremity; a half pound of tea was a prize offered to the one who could make the wryest face; a bladder of Scotch snuff to the greatest scold of two old women; and children might be seen exploring pools of muddy water, into which the baronet had cast several pennies.—Simms, 121.
*** At this place lived Garret Putnam, a very active Whig, and his house was the first one assailed. Unknown to the invaders, Putnam had rented his house to two Englishmen named Gort and Platto, stanch Tories. The assailants broke into the house, scalped the two men, who had not time to reveal their characters, and it was not until daylight that they discovered their victims to be their own friends instead of Putnam and his son, as they had supposed.
Capture of the Sammons Family.—Cruelties and Crimes of the Invaders.—Johnson's Retreat—Recovery of his Negro and Plate
whole family, among the most active and intrepid patriots in Tryon county. Sir John had always respected Mr. Sammons, and still held him in high estimation, but he was determined to carry him and his family away prisoners, if possible, and thus lessen the number of his more influential enemies in the Mohawk Valley. It was not yet light when a Tory, named Sunderland, with a resolute band, surrounded the house of Sammons, and the first intimation the family had of danger was the arrest of Thomas, the younger of three sons, as he stepped out of the door to observe the weather. * The father and three sons were made prisoners, but the females of the family were left undisturbed, after the house was plundered of every thing valuable. The marauders then marched with their prisoners to the mouth of the Cayudutta, and both divisions went up the valley, burning, plundering, and murdering. A venerable old man, named David Fonda, was killed and scalped by an Indian party attached to the expedition, and in its march of a few miles nine aged men, four of them upward of eighty years old, were murdered. Returning to Caughnawaga, the torch was applied, and every building, except the church, was laid in ashes. From Caughnawaga they proceeded to Johnstown ** by way of the Sammonses, on whose premises every building was burned, and the females, bereft of their protectors and helpers, were left houseless and almost naked. Seven horses that were in the stables were taken away, and that happy family of the morning were utterly destitute at evening.
Toward sunset Johnson perceived that the militia of the neighborhood were gathering, under the direction of Colonel John Harper, and resolved to decamp. Several Loyalists had joined him, and he succeeded in obtaining possession of twenty negro slaves whom he had left behind at the time of his flight, in the spring of 1776. Among these was the faithful negro who buried his chests of plate. With his prisoners, slaves, and much booty, he directed his course toward the Sacondaga. The inhabitants seemed so completely May 22, 1780 taken by surprise, and were so panic-stricken by the suddenness and fierceness of the invasion, that he was unmolested in his retreating march, and reached St. John's, on the Sorel, in safety. The captives were sent to Chambly, twelve miles distant, and confined in the fortress there. ***
* Thomas Sammons, who was then a lad, lived until within a few years, and furnished much of the interesting matter concerning this irruption of Sir John, to the author of the Life of Brant, from whose pages I have gleaned much of the narrative here given. Mr. Sammons was a representative in Congress from 1803 to 1807, and again from 1809 to 1813.
** I have before mentioned that the silver plate and other valuable articles belonging to Johnson were buried by a faithful slave. When the Hall and other property were taken possession of by the Tryon county Committee, under the aet of sequestration, the elder of Mr. Sammon's sons became the lessee, and the purchaser of the slave William, who had buried the plate. This slave Sir John found at the Hall, and while he tarried there for several hours on the day in question, the negro, assisted by four soldiers, disinterred the plate, which filled two barrels. It was then distributed among forty soldiers, who placed it in their knapsacks, the quarter-master making a memorandum of the name of each with the article of plate intrusted to him, and in this way it was carried safely to Montreal. Johnson Hall, with seven hundred acres of land, had been sold by the commissioners to James Caldwell, of Albany, for $30,000, the payment to be made in public securities. To show the real value of such securities—in other words, the state of public credit of the colonies about 1779, it may be mentioned that Mr. Caldwell immediately resold the property for $7000, $23,000 less on paper than he gave for it, and then made money by the operation. He had bought the securities for a trifle, and received hard cash from the man who purchased from him.
*** While halting on the day after leaving Johnstown, the elder Mr. Sammons requested a personal interview with Sir John, which was granted. He asked to be released, but the baronet hesitated. The old man then recurred to former times, when he and Sir John were friends and neighbors. "See what you have done, Sir John," he said. "You have taken myself and my sons prisoners, burned my dwelling to ashes, and left the helpless members of my family with no covering but the heavens above, and no prospect but desolation around them. Did we treat you in this manner when you were in the power of the Tryon county Committee? Do you remember when we were consulted by General Schuyler, and you agreed to surrender your arms? Do you not remember that you then agreed to remain neutral, and that upon that condition General Schuyler left you at liberty on your parole? Those conditions you violated. You went off to Canada; enrolled yourself in the service of the king; raised a regiment of the disaffected, who abandoned their country with you; and you have now returned to wage a cruel war against us, by burning our dwellings and robbing us of our property. I was your friend in the Committee of Safety, and exerted myself to save your person from injury. And how am I requited? Your Indians have murdered and scalped old Mr. Fonda, at the age of eighty years, a man who, I have heard your father say, was like a father to him when he settled in Johnstown and Kingsborough. You can not succeed, Sir John, in such a warfare, and you will never enjoy your property more!" The appeal had its effect. The baronet made no reply, but the old gentleman was set at liberty, and a span of his horses was restored to him. A Tory, named Doxstader (whom we shall soon meet again at Currytown), was seen upon one of the old man's horses, and refused to give him up. After the war he returned to the neighborhood, when Mr. Sammons had him arrested, and he was obliged to pay the full value of the animal. The two elder sons of Mr. Sammons, Frederic and Jacob, were taken to Canada. At Chambly they concerted a plan for escape by the prisoners rising upon the garrison, but the majority of them were too weak-hearted to attempt it. The brothers, however, succeeded in making their escape a few days afterward, and the narrative of their separate adventures, before they reached their homes, forms a wonderful page in the volume of romance. It may be found in detail in the second volume of Stone's Life of Brant. Jacob, after a toilsome journey from St. John's to Pittstown, in Vermont, through the trackless wilderness, reached Schenectady in safety, a few weeks after his capture, where he found his wife and children. But Frederic was recaptured, and it was nearly two years before he returned. His adventures in making his escape from an island among the St. Lawrence rapids, above Montreal, and his subsequent travel through the wilderness from the St. Lawrence to the Mohawk, with a fellow-prisoner, partake of all the stirring character of the most exciting legendary fiction. Almost naked, and with matted hair, they entered the streets of Schenectady, a wonder and a terror to the inhabitants at first, but, when known, they were the objects of profound regard. A strange but well-attested fact is related in connection with the return of Frederic. After the destruction of his property upon the Mohawk, the elder Sammons and his family returned to Marbletown, in Ulster county, whence they had emigrated. On the morning after his arrival at Schenectady, Frederic dispatched a letter to his father, by the hand of an officer on his way to Philadelphia. He left it at the house of Mr. Levi De Witt, five miles distant from Mr. Sammons's. On the night when the letter was left there, Jacob dreamed that his brother Frederic was living, and that a letter, announcing the fact, was at Mr. De Witt's. The dream was twice repeated, and the next morning he related it to the family. They had long given Frederic up as lost, and laughed at Jacob for his belief in the teachings of dreams. Jacob firmly believed that such a letter was at De Witt's, and thither he repaired and inquired for it. He was told that no such letter was there, but urged a more thorough search, when it was found behind a barrel, where it had accidentally fallen. Jacob requested Mr. De Witt to open the letter and examine it, while he should recite its contents. It was done, and the dreamer repeated it word for word! Frederic lived to a good old age, enjoying the esteem and confidence of his fellow-citizens. He was chosen an elector of President and Vice-president in 1837.
Pursuit of Johnson.—Incursion of Ross and Butler.—Action of Willett.—Battle at Johnstown.—Adventures of the Sammonses.