[FN-1] General Armstrong.
[FN-2] Chrystie's History of the War in Canada.
[FN-3] General Armstrong's "Notices."
[FN-4] Letter to the author from Colonel William J. Kerr. This singular battle was the subject of much controversy at the time, and of not a little ridicule. The American accounts first published, stated that Boerstler was attacked by five hundred regular troops and one hundred Indians Colonel Bosrstler's own account of the affair dwells largely upon the great odds in numbers against him; but although the reader is left to infer that he fought long against regular troops as well as Indians, yet the fact is nowhere expressly stated. The Colonel maintained that it was an ill-advised expedition, detached in consequence of false information communicated by Major Cyrenius Chapin, commanding a detachment of volunteers. The Major, he averred, behaved like a consummate coward during the engagement. In regard to the battle itself, there is no doubt that the Colonel was out-generaled by Captain Kerr and young Brant, and having been kept at bay for several hours, was at length induced to surrender by stratagem.
After this achievement, young Brant participated in almost all the skirmishes that took place on the Niagara frontier while the American army occupied Fort George and the village of Niagara; and in the summer of 1814 he was engaged in the memorable battles of Chippewa, Lundy's Lane, and Fort Erie, while that post was invested by the British forces. In all these engagements his conduct was such as to command the admiration not only of his own people, but of the British officers—affording promise to all who marked his prowess, of becoming a very distinguished warrior.
At the close of the war, having attained the age of manhood, John Brant, and his youthful sister Elizabeth, the youngest of his father's family, returned to the head of Lake Ontario, and took up their residence in the "Brant House"—living in the English style, and dispensing the ancient hospitalities of their father. Lieutenant Francis Hall, of the British service, who traveled in the United States and Canada in 1816, visited the Brant House, and saw the old lady Chieftainess at that place. He also speaks highly of the youthful Chief, John, as "a fine young man, of gentleman-like appearance, who used the English language agreeably and correctly, dressing in the English fashion, excepting only the moccasins of his Indian habit."—Lieutenant Hall also visited the Mohawk village on the Grand River, where Elizabeth happened at that time to be, and of whom he gives an interesting account in his notice of the Brant family, their situation, and the people as he found them. Speaking of Thayendanegea, this intelligent traveler remarks:—"Brant, like Clovis, and many of the early Anglo-Saxon and Danish Christians, contrived to unite much religious zeal with the practices of natural ferocity. His grave is to be seen under the walls of his church. I have mentioned one of his sons; he has also a daughter living, who would not disgrace the circles of European fashion; her face and person are fine and graceful; she speaks English not only correctly, but elegantly; and has, both in her speech and manners, a softness approaching to oriental languor. She retains so much of her native dress as to identify her with her people, over whom she affects no superiority, but seems pleased to preserve all the ties and duties of relationship. She held the infant of one of her relations at the font, on the Sunday of my visit to the church. The usual church and baptismal service was performed by a Doctor Aaron, an Indian, and an assistant priest; the congregation consisted of sixty or seventy persons, male and female. Many of the young men were dressed in the English fashion, but several of the old warriors came with their blankets folded over them like the drapery of a statue; and in this dress, with a step and mien of quiet energy, more forcibly reminded me of the ancient Romans than some other inhabitants of this continent who have laid claim to the resemblance. Some of them wore large silver crosses, medals, and trinkets on their arms and breasts; and a few had bandeaus, ornamented with feathers. Dr. Aaron, a grey-headed Mohawk, had touched his cheeks and forehead with a few spots of vermilion, in honor of Sunday. He wore a surplice, and preached; but his delivery was monotonous and unimpassioned. Indian eloquence decays with the peculiar state of society to which it owed its energy." [FN]
[FN] Hall's Travels, pp. 135, 136.
Three years afterward, in 1819, James Buchanan, Esq., H. B. M. consul for the port of New-York, made the tour of Upper Canada, accompanied by two of his daughters. In the course of his journey Mr. Buchanan visited the Brant House, of which circumstance he subsequently published the following agreeable account in his little volume of Indian sketches:—