Tales, Traditions and Romance of Border and Revolutionary Times

by Edward Sylvester Ellis

One night, about twelve o'clock, he made his appearance at the bedside of the jailer, and demanded the key of the jail. The poor frightened official readily gave it up, although he had often declared that he would not surrender it to him, and with it Moody opened the doors and set all the prisoners free. Two of them were condemned to death; one, who was condemned to die for robbery, being unacquainted with the neighborhood, wandered about all night and next day in the woods, and was discovered in a hollow tree the next evening by a party of "coon-hunters," who brought him back; and he was hung in front of the jail, protesting his innocence to the last. He was subsequently proved to be guiltless of the crime for which he suffered; and the wretch who actually committed the deed confessed on his death-bed that he it was who did the act for which another had suffered. On this occasion, Moody was more just than the law, and the prisoner's cause better than his fortune.

Moody, the Refugee.—Page [32].

While the American army was encamped at Morristown, a man very shabbily dressed, and mounted on a broken-down nag, all of whose "points" were exhibited to the fullest extent, was seen one day to enter the camp, and pass leisurely through it, scrutinizing every thing as he went; and although he assumed a perfect nonchalance, and was to all appearance a simple-hearted and rather soft-headed country farmer, yet there was something in his manner which attracted the attention of an officer, who was drilling a squad of recruits in the open air. One of these thought there was something about the face which he recognized, and told his officer so. One of the squad was mounted and ordered to bring him back. Moody—for he it was who had thus boldly entered the American lines and reconnoitered their ranks—shot him dead as he came up, and secreted the body by the side of the road. Another being sent to assist the first, Moody secreted himself in the woods and escaped. Having been driven from his former haunts by the untiring activity of the Whigs, and being too well known to venture much abroad, he determined to join the British army in New York. While attempting to cross to the city with a companion in an open boat, they were captured, brought back to Morristown, and hung as traitors and spies. Moody was said to have come from Kingwood township, Hunterton County, and was employed by the British to obtain recruits in New Jersey among the Tory inhabitants, act as a spy upon the Americans, and by his maraudings to keep the inhabitants so busy at home as to prevent their joining or aiding the American army.

Another desperado of those days was Joseph, or "Joe Bettys," a remarkable character, who figured in the border wars of the Revolution. He was a renegade from the American army, and for a long while was the scourge of the New York frontier. His deeds were marked by an equal boldness and cruelty, that made him the terror of all who had the misfortune to be ranked as his enemies. His principal employment was the abduction of citizens to be conveyed into Canada, for each of whom he received a bounty; and in his expeditions for this purpose, he was always accompanied by small bodies of Indians. His hour for executing his projects was at night, and it frequently happened that his conduct was not confined to the securing of prisoners, but he often reveled in the destruction of property and the infliction of cruelty, and his victims were often tormented by every means his savage ingenuity could devise. Cold-blooded murder, and reckless barbarities of every kind, continually stained his soul. The section of country which suffered from his marauding expeditions, to this day is rife with stories of his daring and ferocity.

In the year 1776, he entered as Sergeant in the New York forces, in which capacity he served his country faithfully, until, being exasperated at the treatment which he received from one of his superior officers, and retorting with threats and menaces, he was reduced to the position of a common sentinel. This was more than he could bear, and he would have deserted, had not Lieutenant Ball, who had before befriended him, anticipating such a step, applied and procured for him appointment as Sergeant on board one of the vessels on Lake Champlain, commanded by Arnold, which he accepted. In an action that ensued, Bettys displayed a wonderful daring and gallantry, which receiving no other notice than the thanks of his General, he conceived himself slighted, and determined to retaliate. In the spring of 1777, he deserted and went over to the British forces, where he was soon elevated to the position of a spy, in which character he carried on the depredations we have spoken of.

Among the prisoners that he secretly seized and carried off in the early part of his career, was Samuel Patchim, afterward a Captain in the army. The account of his captivity and subsequent hardships, as here given, is as it was related by himself:

"I was captured by Bettys, taken into Canada, and confined in Chamblee prison, in irons. I was the only prisoner whom he had on this occasion brought into Canada. There were six or seven more of my neighbors when we started, to whom he gave the oath of allegiance and sent them back. As for myself, he said I had served Congress long enough, and that I should now serve the king. He wished me to enlist in his company, but soon found that this was not agreeable to my feelings. He then swore, that if I would not serve the king, I should remain in irons. I was confined in Chamblee prison four months; then I was removed to Montreal, and thence to an island, forty-five miles up the St. Lawrence, opposite Cadalake Fort. There I remained about one year. There were five prisoners in all, and we were guarded by sixty soldiers, seven sentinels at night. They had left no boats on the island by which we might make our escape, yet we all crawled out of the barracks at night, and went to the river side; there we made a raft by means of two or three logs and our suspenders, on which we sailed down the river five miles, when we landed on the Canada shore. There we appropriated to our own use a boat belonging to the British, and crossed over to the American shore. While going down the rapids, we had lost our little stock of provisions, and for eight days out of twelve which we spent in the woods, we had nothing to eat save frogs and rattlesnakes, and not half enough of them. We were chased eight days by the Indians, and slept every night on the boughs of some hemlock trees. At length we arrived at Northwest Bay, on Lake Champlain, when my companions, unable longer to travel, utterly gave out. I then constructed a raft on which to cross the lake, and having stripped my companions of their clothing, in order to make myself comfortable, left them to die of hunger and fatigue, and committed myself to the wintry waves. When in about the center of the lake, I was taken by the crew of a British ship, and conveyed to St. John's, from thence to Quebec, and finally to Boston, where I was exchanged and sent home."

Bettys seemed to have a particular delight in taking prisoners among his own townsmen, and especially those against whom he held any grudge. On one occasion, having taken one whom he supposed to be the object he sought, and his prisoner managing to escape, he deliberately shot him dead, and then discovered that he had made a fatal mistake, and killed one of his best friends.

But his bloody career was destined to find a retributive end. One day, in the winter of 1781-2, a suspicious-looking person was seen to pass over the farm of one John Fulmer, situated near Ballston Lake, in Albany County. A son of the farmer, Jacob, immediately obtained the aid of three of his neighbors, James and John Cory, and Francis Perkins, and started in pursuit of the suspicious stranger. There was a light fall of snow on the ground, by which means his course was easily tracked. But we will give an account of the enterprise in the words of Jacob Fulmer, one of the party: