"A list of Men's Names that were killed in this fight:
"Capt. Ebenezer Jones of Washington (of diarist's company). Capt. (Samuell) Dakin of Sudbury. Lieut. Samuel Curtice of Ditto (Curtis). Private (William) Grout of do. Lieut. Simon Godfrey of Billerica (of diarists Company). Capt. (Thomas) Lawrence of Groton. Corp. ____ Gould of Groton Gore. Private Abel Satle (Sawtell) of Groton. Private Eleazer Eames of Groton. Do. Stephen Foster Do. Serg. Oliver Wright, Westford. Private Simon Wheeler Do. Ensn. ____ Davis of Metheun. Sergt. ____ Russell of Concord. Private Abraham Harden (Harnden?) of Pembroke. Private Payson, of Rowley. Private (Jonathan) Patterson, of Sudbury.
"We have also an account that there are seven of our men carried into Ticonderoga, which make up the number of those that were missing.
"21—Friday, in ye afternoon, a party of about 150 went out to find more men that were missing, and we found 4 men who were scalped, and we buried them, and so returned; and at prayer this evening we were alarmed by a false outcry. Nicholas Brown died and was buried; and Moses Haggit died."
This account thus corroborates in detail the French official dispatches and Pouchet's description of the attack.
Under date of Friday, July 28th, Lieut. Thompson, who that day had been down towards the Narrows, "to peal bark for to make camp," returned to Lake George and says: "In the evening there came news that the Indians had killed a number of teams and their guard below ye Halfway Brook, and there was a scout fitting to go after them."
As this massacre to which the Thompson Diary so briefly refers, is probably the most important event which took place at the "Half-Way Brook," we quote fully from Holden's History of Queensbury, concerning it:
"On Thursday the twenty-seventh of July, a detachment of four hundred men, consisting of Canadians and Indians, under the command of M. St. de Luc la Corne, a French-Colonial officer, attacked an English force of one hundred and fifty men consisting of teamsters and an escort of soldiers, while on their way from the station at the Half-Way Brook, to the Camp at the head of the lake. The account here given is as nearly as can be remembered in the language of a Mr. Jones of Connecticut, who was a member of Putnam's company which arrived on the ground soon after the affray took place. In the year 1822 he related the circumstances as here recorded, to the late Herman Peck of Glens Falls, while on a visit to Connecticut. It is from Mr. Peck that I obtained the narrative, which corresponds so completely with the French version of the affair that there can be no question whatever as to its general accuracy and reliability.
"A baggage train of sixty carts, loaded with flour, pork, wine, rum, etc., each cart drawn by two to three yoke of oxen, accompanied by an unusually large escort of troops, was despatched from Fort Edward to the head of Lake George to supply the troops of General Abercrombie, who lay encamped at that point. This party halted for the night at the stockade post at the Half-Way Brook. As they resumed their march in the morning, and before the escort had fairly cleared the picketed enclosure, they were suddenly attacked by a large party of French and Indians which laid concealed in the thick bushes and reeds that bordered the stream, and lined the road on both sides, along the low lands between the block house and the Blind rock.
"The night previously to this ambuscade and slaughter, Putnam's Company of rangers having been to the lake to secure supplies, encamped at the flats near the southern spur of the French mountain. In the early morning they were aroused from their slumbers by the sound of heavy firing in a southerly direction, and rolling up their blankets they sprang to their arms and hastened rapidly forward to the scene of action, a distance of about four miles. They arrived only in time to find the slaughtered carcasses of some two hundred and fifty oxen, the mangled remains of the soldiers, women and teamsters, and the broken fragments of the two wheeled carts, which constituted in that primitive age the sole mode of inland transportation.