Brant died in 1807, at the age of sixty-four years, leaving unfinished his work for the security of the Mohawks in the full possession of their lands. Among his last words he said to the chief, Norton: "Have pity on the poor Indian; if you can get any influence with the great, endeavor to do them all the good you can."
A few years before the chief's death he had built a large house on a tract of land at the head of Lake Ontario, a gift from the King. He had a number of Negro slaves whom he had captured during the war and who lived with him in contentment, it is said, satisfied with the Indian customs.
The great chief was buried beside the church which he had built at Grand River, the first church in upper Canada. There is a monument over his grave, said to have cost thirty thousand dollars, with the following inscription:
"This tomb is erected to the memory of Thay-en-da-ne-gea, or Capt. Joseph Brant, principal chief and warrior of the Six Nations Indians, by his fellow-subjects, admirers of his fidelity and attachment to the British crown."
On the death of Joseph Brant, his youngest son, John, became chief, and head of the confederacy. He was a gentlemanly young man and distinguished himself on the British side in the war of 1812, and was given a captain's commission.
In 1832 he was elected a member of the Provincial Parliament for the county of Haldiman.
He and his youngest sister, Elizabeth, lived in their father's house in civilized style, but their mother preferred to live among the Indians in the Mohawk village at Grand River. A gentleman and his daughters who visited them in 1819 found the parlor carpeted and furnished with mahogany tables, the fashionable chairs of the day, a guitar, and a number of books. Miss Brant proved to be "a noble-looking Indian girl." The upper part of her hair was done up in a silk net, while the long lower tresses hung down her back. She wore a short black silk petticoat, with a tunic of the same material, black silk stockings and black kid shoes. She was remarkably self-possessed and ladylike. She afterward married William Johnson Kerr, a grandson of Sir William Johnson, and they lived together happily in the Brant house.
[CHAPTER VIII.]
RED JACKET, OR SA-GO-YE-WAT-HA,
"THE KEEPER AWAKE"—THE INDIAN DEMOSTHENES—CHIEF OF THE SENECAS.
The subject of this sketch was certainly the greatest orator of the Six Nations, and it is doubtful if his equal was ever known among all the American Indians. His birth is supposed to have taken place about the year 1750, under a great tree which formerly stood near the spring of water at Canoga point on the west shore of Cayuga Lake, in Western New York.