He prepared for a wider sphere of influence by improving his land north of the Mohawk River. He began the erection on it of a strong and roomy stone house,—one of the very few edifices made of cut stone then in the State, and probably the only one west of the Hudson River. This house is still standing, and kept in excellent repair by its owner and occupant, Mr. Ethan Akin. It is two and a half stories high; its dimensions are 64 by 34 feet; the walls, from foundation to garret, are two feet thick. There is not to-day a flaw in them, nor has there ever been a crack. The roof, now of slate and previously of shingles, was at first of lead, which was used for bullets during the Revolutionary War. Part of the house seems to have been sufficiently finished for occupancy by the summer of 1742, for here, on the 5th of November, his son John was born. Around the house he planted a circle of locust-trees, two or three of which still remain. His grist-mill stood on Chucktununda Creek, which flowed through his grounds; and near it was the miller’s house. This branch of his business—flour manufacture—was so soon developed that cooperage was stimulated, and shipments of Johnson’s Mohawk Valley flour were made to the West Indies and to Nova Scotia. Grand as his stone dwelling was, a very patroon’s mansion,—and it is probable that one of Johnson’s purposes in rearing what was then so splendid a mansion was to impress favourably the Indians,—he became none the less, but even more, their familiar and friend. He joined in their sports, attended their councils, entertained the chiefs at his board, feasted the warriors and people in his fields, and on occasions put on Indian costume. In summer this would mean plenty of dress and liberal painting, but in winter, abundance of buckskin, a war-bonnet of vast proportions, and a duffel blanket. Yet all this was done as a private individual and a merchant, having an eye to the main chance. He as yet occupied no official position. His domestic life in these early days at the Mohawk Valley must have been very happy; and here were born, evidently in quick succession and probably before the year 1745, by which time the stone house was finished, his two daughters, Mary and Nancy. About sixty yards north of the mansion was a hill on which a guard-house stood, with a lookout ever on the watch. On account of this hill the place was often spoken of as “Mount” Johnson. In time of danger a garrison of twenty or thirty men occupied this point of wide view.

Despite his many cares, Johnson enjoyed reading and the study of science. He ordered books and periodical literature regularly from London. His scientific taste was especially strong in astronomy. To the glorious canopy of stars, which on winter nights make the mountain-walled valley a roofed palace of celestial wonders, Johnson’s eyes were directed whenever fair weather made their splendours visible. In autumn the brilliant tints of the sumach, dogwood, swamp-maple, sassafras, red and white oak, and the various trees of the order of Sapindaceæ filled the hills and lowlands with a glory never seen in Europe. His botanical tastes could be enjoyably cultivated, for in orchids, ferns, flowering plants, and wonders of the vegetable world, few parts of North America are richer than the Mohawk Valley.

[2] The young and charming Lord James Radcliffe, Earl of Derwentwater, the idol of the Jacobites, was beheaded 24th of February, 1716; that is, on the very day, it is claimed by Col. T. Bailey Myers, that Sir William Johnson was born, and the wild fervour of a Jacobite loyalty was still alive when Sir John was a boy.—De Peyster’s Life of Gen. John Johnson, Introd., p. xvi.
[3] Mr. E. F. De Lancey, the well-known writer on American history and genealogy, knew personally the grandchildren of Sir William Johnson, and has embodied valuable information about him and them in his notes to Jones’s “History of New York during the Revolutionary War.” In his letter to the writer, dated March 28, 1891, he kindly sent a transcript from a letter in Mrs. Bowes’s own handwriting—“Information my father gave me when with him. Catharine Wisenberg, a native of Germany, married to Sir W. Johnson, Bart. in the U. States of America, died in 1759.” Mrs. Bowes was a daughter of Sir John Johnson, who was a son of Sir William Johnson. It is probable that the spelling Wisenberg is only the phonetic form of Weissenburg. The local gossip and groundless traditions, like those set down by J. R. Simms, are in all probability worthless.

CHAPTER III.
THE SIX NATIONS AND THE LONG HOUSE.

The military nerves of the continent of North America lie in the water-ways bounding, traversing, or issuing from the State of New York. Its heart is the region between the Hudson and the Niagara. In these days of steam-traction, when transit is made at right angles to the rivers, and thus directly across the great natural channels of transportation, New York may be less the Empire State than in the days of canoes and bateaux. Yet even now its strategic importance is at once apparent. In the old days of conflict, first between the forces of Latin and Teutonic civilization, and later between British king-craft and American democracy, it was the ground chosen for struggle and decision.

Before the European set foot on the American continent, the leading body of native savages had discovered the main features of this great natural fortress and place of eminent domain. Inventors of the birch-bark canoe, the red man saw that from this centre all waters of the inland ocean made by the great lakes, the warm gulf, and the salt sea, could be easily reached. With short land-portages, during which the canoe, which served as shelter and roof at night and house and vehicle by day, could be carried on the shoulders, the Indian could paddle his way to Dakota, to Newfoundland, or to Hudson’s Bay on the north, or the Chesapeake and the Mississippi and the Gulf of Mexico on the south. In his moccasins he could travel as far. From New York State the pedestrian can go into twenty States and into two thirds of the territory of the United States without leaving the courses of valleys. No other State can so communicate between the east and the west without overcoming one or more mountain ridges. The T-shaped Hudson-Mohawk groove in the earth’s crust unites the valleys east of Massachusetts. With such geographical advantages, added to native abilities, the Iroquois were able to make themselves the virtual masters of the continent of North America.

Here, accordingly, was built the Long House; that is, was organized the federation of the Five Nations. Like the Pharaohs, Sultans, Mikados, and European princes of the world which we call old, because of its long written history, these forest sovereigns named their government after their house. The common edifice of the Iroquois was a bark structure fifty or more feet long, and from twelve to twenty feet wide, with doors at either end. In each dwelling lived several families.

So also, in the Great Long House, stretching from the Hudson to the Niagara, dwelt at first five families. The Mohawks occupied the room at the eastern end of the house, in the throat of the Mohawk Valley, the schenectady, or “place just outside the door,” being on the “mountain-dividing” or Hudson River. More exactly, the place of “Ye treaties of Schenectady” was at the mouth of Norman’s Kill, a little south of Albany. Here was the place of many ancestral graves, where multitudes of the dead lay, and where Hiawatha, their great civilizer, dwelt.