[FN-5] The facts respecting this expedition have been collected and furnished to the author by John J. Shew, of Northampton, N. Y.
With the opening of the season for active operations—though he was himself never inactive—Thayendanegea had again returned to his former haunts on the Susquehanna—Oghkwaga and Unadilla. He soon proved himself an active and dreaded partisan. No matter for the difficulties or the distance, wherever a blow could be struck to any advantage, Joseph Brant was sure to be there. Frequent, moreover, were the instances in which individuals, and even whole families in the outskirts of the settlements, disappeared, without any knowledge on the part of those who were left, that an enemy had been near them. "The smoking ruins of their dwellings, the charred bones of the dead, and the slaughtered carcasses of the domestic animals, were the only testimonials of the cause of the catastrophe, until the return of a captive, or the disclosures of some prisoner taken from the foe, furnished more definite information." [FN] But there is no good evidence that Brant was himself a participator in secret murders, or attacks upon isolated individuals or families; and there is much reason to believe that the bad feelings of many of the loyalists induced them to perpetrate greater enormities themselves, and prompt the parties of Indians whom they often led, to commit greater barbarities than the savages would have done had they been left to themselves.
[FN] Campbell's Annals.
In support of the foregoing opinion of Captain Brant, the following incident, occurring in the Summer of the present year, may be adduced. A lad in Schoharie County, named William McKown, while engaged in raking hay alone in a meadow, happening to turn round, perceived an Indian very near him. Startled at his perilous situation, he raised his rake for defence, but his fears were instantly dissipated by the savage, who said—"Do not be afraid, young man; I shall not hurt you." He then inquired of the youth for the residence of a loyalist named Foster. The lad gave him the proper direction, and inquired of the Indian whether he knew Mr. Foster? "I am partially acquainted with him," was the reply, "having once seen him at the Half-way Creek." [FN-1] The Indian then inquired the lad's name, and having been informed, he added—"You are a son of Captain McKown who lives in the north-east part of the town, I suppose; I know your father very well; he lives neighbor to Captain McKean; I know McKean very well, and a very fine fellow he is, too." Emboldened by the familiar discourse of the Indian, the lad ventured to ask his name in turn. Hesitating for a moment, his rather unwelcome visitor replied:—"My name is Brant!" "What! Captain Brant?" eagerly demanded the youth. "No; I am a cousin of his," was the rejoinder; but accompanied by a smile and a look that plainly disclosed the transparent deception. It was none other than the terrible Thayendanegea himself. [FN-2]
[FN-1] Bowman's Creek, halfway between Cherry Valley and the Mohawk River.
[FN-2] Annals of Tryon County.
On the other hand, the following tragic circumstance, given on the same indisputable authority, sustains the assertion that the Tories were oftentimes more cruel than their savage associates. While a party of hostiles were prowling about the borders of Schoharie, the Indians killed and scalped a mother, and a large family of children. "They had just completed the work of death, when some loyalists of the party came up, and discovered an infant breathing sweetly in its cradle. An Indian warrior, noted for his barbarity, approached the cradle with his uplifted hatchet. The babe looked up in his face, and smiled; the feelings of nature triumphed over the ferocity of the savage; the hatchet fell with his arm, and he was about stooping down to take the innocent in his arms, when one of the loyalists, cursing him for his humanity, thrust it through with his bayonet, and, thus transfixed, held it up struggling in the agonies of death, as he exclaimed—'this, too, is a rebel!'"
To guard against these painful transactions, nothing short of the most exemplary watchfulness would suffice. Not only their habitations, but those who labored in the fields, were guarded, being themselves armed at their ploughs, like the laborers of the prophet in rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem. Nor was this vigilance confined to any particular location. The inhabitants around the whole border, from Saratoga, north of Johnstown, and west to the German Flats, thence south stretching down to Unadilla, and thence eastwardly crossing the Susquehanna, along the Charlotte river to Harpersfield, and thence back to Albany—were necessarily an armed yeomanry, watching for themselves, and standing sentinels for each other in turn; harassed daily by conflicting rumors; now admonished of the approach of the foe in the night by the glaring flames of a neighbor's house; or compelled suddenly to escape from his approach, at a time and in a direction the least expected. Such was the tenure of human existence around the confines of this whole district of country, from the Spring of 1777 to the end of the contest in 1782.