The Journal of Lieut. John L. Hardenbergh of the Second New York Continental Regiment from May 1 to October 3, 1779, in General Sullivan's Campaign Against the Western Indians / With an Introduction, Copious Historical Notes, and Maps of the Battle-field of Newtown and Groveland Ambuscade

by John Leonard Hardenbergh

From the autumn of 1776 to the winter of 1780, Lieutenant Hardenbergh was identified with the Second New York, sharing its fortunes, and participating in the important battles in which it was engaged, when the five New York regiments were consolidated into two, in which arrangement he fell into that class of officers who were retained in service but not attached to any battalion. But in July 1782 he was made Captain of Levies under Lieut. Col. Weissenfels, in which capacity he continued for the remainder of the war.

In the summer of 1781, he is accredited in the chronicles of the time, with a daring exploit, which indicates the kind of service in which he was engaged after he ceased to be attached to the Second New York. A body of three hundred Indians and ninety Tories under Captain Cauldwell, an officer in Butler's Rangers, appeared on the frontier of Ulster County, in the neighborhood of Warwasing, having passed unobserved the stockade forts at the north of Lackawaxen and Neversink, expecting to surprise the settlements and repeat the scenes of massacre which had desolated other regions in the vicinity. Captain Hardenbergh, at the time, was stationed with a guard of nine[6] men, near the house of J.G. Hardenbergh,[7] and at a point some three miles distant from a small fortress at Warwasing. As the enemy passed the fort just before the break of day they were fired upon by the sentinel. The report alarmed Captain Hardenbergh, who with his little band proceeded immediately in direction of the sound, and on his way met the enemy directing their course toward the settlement, which is now called Rochester. Nothing daunted he gave them battle; but being closely pressed he soon discovered that his retreat was cut off by a party of Indians who had gained his rear. In this dilemma the Captain resorted to stratagem which admirably answered the purpose. It was as yet barely light, and turning aside in the woods with the little company, to conceal the smallness of his force, he took off his hat and huzzaed with all his might, at the same time advancing toward a small stone house near by, and in face of the Indians, who supposing that the troops were coming up from Pinebush, took the alarm and skulked off in every direction. But no sooner had Hardenbergh and his company reached the house, when the Indians discovering the ruse, poured a shower of bullets after them just as they were safely within the door. Here they found six militia men besides, making sixteen in all, and being well armed, made all preparations to hold their position against the invaders. With an ax they broke a series of loop-holes in the rear of the house and through the sides of the steep roof, thus commanding its approaches on all sides. The enemy advanced several times to carry the house by assault, but as some of their number were doomed to fall at every onset, they as often gave way, and at length were compelled to relinquish the attack, leaving thirteen dead upon the field. In the meanwhile the firing had aroused the neighborhood, and Col. Henry Pawling with a detachment of State Levies, stationed about six miles from the scene of action, hastened forward, but arrived too late to have a brush with the enemy, and only in season to capture a straggler, who had lingered for fruit, near an apple orchard. Cauldwell was in full retreat, and though pursued by Colonel Pawling with his regiment of Levies and Colonel Cantine with a regiment of State Militia, for some days, finally escaped. The enemy, however, suffered severely and besides losing a number of men, were so near starvation that they were obliged to eat their dogs before they reached Niagara, the point from which they had started on their errand of pillage and murder. This was the last attempt of the kind made upon the frontier settlements, which had suffered so severely from repeated invasions of Indians and Tories during the Revolution. It was designed to be a finishing blow upon that region, and as we have seen, it was largely due to the bravery and military tact of Captain Hardenbergh that the stroke was averted.[8]

At the close of the war, during the entire period of which he had been in active service, he returned to his native place, to share the fruits of Independence with peace, which he had done so much to secure. He had justly acquired the reputation of a brave and skillful officer, and his name still appears on the Roll of Honor in the cabinet of Revolutionary memorials kept at Washington's Head-Quarters at Newburgh. He was for a time on Washington's staff; and his whole record is that of a devoted patriot and a faithful soldier, at a time when the country needed every heart and hand for its defence.

In 1789, the Indian titles to most of the lands in the State of New York, having been extinguished, the Legislature provided for the survey of a certain portion of these lands, already set apart for the soldiers of the State, who had served in the war of the Revolution. This tract embracing 1,680,000 acres, and denominated the Military Tract, included the present counties of Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca and Cortland, also the larger part of Tompkins with portions of Oswego and Wayne. It was surveyed into twenty-eight townships, containing each one hundred lots of six hundred acres. Each private soldier and non-commissioned officer had one lot assigned him. The officers received larger shares in proportion to their rank. Colonel Hardenbergh was appointed on this survey, in immediate association with Moses Dewitt, brother of Simeon Dewitt, at the time Surveyor-General of the State, and was occupied in this work during the years 1789-90. His field books, neatly kept and carefully preserved, are now in possession of the Cayuga County Historical Society, one of several valuable donations from the family to the Society's archives. The lands which fell to him on the assignment of military bounties, were located in Onondaga, disposing of which, he purchased lot Forty-Seven, within the present limits of Auburn, from Ogden and Josiah Hoffman, and originally patented to Captain Thomas Doughty also of the Second New York. The deed bears date Feb. 16, 1792, and the consideration was one hundred and eighty pounds N.Y. currency. Colonel Hardenbergh was familiar as a surveyor with its comparative advantages, for a settlement, and especially with its superior water power, and had already indicated the lot on his map of survey as a "good mill site." He came on to his lands the same year (1792) bringing with him several negro slaves, and built a bark shelter near the site of the present Hardenbergh mansion, and on the spot where the City Hall now stands. He made a visit in the fall or winter of that year, to Rosendale and was united in marriage to Mary Bevier, also of one of the most substantial and prominent families of that part of the State, and soon after returned to make further preparations for a permanent home. This year also he received a commission as Major in the Battalion of Herkimer County, having previously been appointed a Captain in a Battalion for Montgomery, which until 1791 included the counties of Herkimer and Tioga. He was also appointed, in 1793, by Governor George Clinton, his old Brigade commander on the Hudson in the beginning of the war, an Associate Justice for Herkimer County, and designated the same year as one of the three Commissioners to lay out and construct the Genesee Turnpike. His last military promotion was that of Lieutenant Colonel of a regiment of Militia in Onondaga County, in April, 1796, by Governor John Jay, and gave him the title of Colonel, by which he is most commonly known in the early annals of Auburn.

In 1794 he had completed a saw and grist mill, on the Owasco Outlet, near where the Stone Mill now stands, opposite the junction of Genesee and Market Streets, thus forming the nucleus of a settlement known as Hardenbergh's Corners until 1805, when it took the name of Auburn.

The death of his wife occurred in the Spring, a little more than a year after their marriage, leaving an infant daughter, and before his arrangements were complete for bringing them to their new home in the wilderness.

In 1795 a colony of ten families from Gettysburgh, Pa., made a settlement about three miles up the Owasco Lake, and at once organized a Reformed Protestant Dutch Church, which subsequently took corporate form and title, Sept. 23, 1796, at a meeting held at the house of Colonel Hardenbergh, who identified himself with this society in the faith and order of which he had been educated. His copy of the New Testament with the Psalms in a single volume, and in the Dutch language, is still preserved; and bearing on the fly-leaf, under his own signature, the same date with that of his first army commission, it shows the signs of ordinary use not only, but the unmistakable marks of the exposure and hardships incident to a soldier's life.

His second marriage, in 1796, was with Martina, daughter of Rœliff Brinkerhoff, one of the first deacons of the Owasco church, and the names of his two children by this marriage, Maria and John Herring, appear on the baptismal register of that church for the years 1798 and 1800. The only son, John H. Hardenbergh, was in subsequent years one of Auburn's most prominent and public spirited citizens. As the heir to the landed estate of his father, originally covering a large section of the territory now occupied by the city, his wise and generous policy toward purchasers of lots and tenants, contributed much to its growth and prosperity. The lot, in the centre of the city, on which stands the First Presbyterian church, one of the most substantial and elegant structures of the kind in the State, if not in the country, was his gift, before he had become of age; as were also eight acres of land comprised in the spacious grounds occupied by the Auburn Theological Seminary. These and similar deeds of generous foresight, together with an amiable character and a blameless Christian life, preserve in esteem and honor the name so closely identified with the origin of our favored city.

Colonel Hardenbergh died after a brief illness, on the 25th of April, 1806, in the 59th year of his age, and was buried with military honors in the North Street Cemetery. The Rev. David Higgins, then pastor of the Congregational Church of Aurelius, and the founder of the First Presbyterian Church of Auburn, preached the funeral sermon from the Epistle to the Philippians, iii; 20, 21: For our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall change our vile body that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself. The horse bearing the sword and uniform of the deceased officer, was led by Harry Freeman, one of the Colonel's slaves to whom he had given his freedom. A long procession of military and citizens followed the remains to the grave. The whole scene was imposing, as a sincere tribute of the respect and esteem cherished for the man who had braved the perils of the then recent struggle for national independence, and with generous hand had laid the foundations, in the wilderness, of a well-ordered community. He had passed thirty years of his life as a soldier, a surveyor, and a pioneer settler, and had occupied the most responsible trusts in the rising settlement which owed to him its origin. He was moreover a great favorite with his fellow pioneers, and with all who were seeking new homes in the immediate vicinity, ambitious rather for the thrift of the place than for personal gains, or the promotion of selfish ends—forward and generous in all plans to establish religion, education, justice and good order, with whatever tended to the permanent prosperity and true character of the infant settlement. He was not always careful of his own interests, and was sometimes imposed upon by those in whom he confided as if they were as trustworthy as himself. If a neighbor wanted a bushel or two of grain, he might be trusted to measure it himself and render his own account. In this way and in others characteristic of him, he doubtless now and then lost pecuniarily, but they gave him a strong hold upon the better and larger class of his co-pioneers, and a leading influence at this forming period in our history. Indeed, Auburn owes very much to the spirit, foresight and enterprise of its founder.

In person, Colonel Hardenbergh was tall, of swarthy complexion, robust frame, and is said to have been a most commanding figure on horseback, in his regimentals, on military occasions. He took an active part in the politics of the day, and was decided and open in the expression of his opinions. He was a warm friend and ardent supporter of Governor George Clinton, under whom he had served in the first year of the war, and whose confidence he largely shared in the distribution of military promotions and civil appointments. A sturdy patriot, a brave soldier, a civilian, honored and trusted in public station and in private life, he has fairly won the gratitude with which communities are wont to remember their founders.