Three Rivers
Hudson~Mohawk~Schoharie
History From America's Most Famous Valleys

The Story of Old Fort Plain and the Middle Mohawk Valley
by Nelson Greene
O'Connor Brothers Publishers, Fort Plain, NY 1915

Thanks to James F. Morrison for letting us use his book!

INTRODUCTION

In 1776 an American fort was erected, in the district of Canajoharie of Tryon county, at the then mouth of the Otsquago creek, on a bluff In the Sand Hill section of the present village of Fort Plain. Legend has it that there was some sort of fortification before that date and this is not improbable as here was the beginning of the Otsego trail through the Otsquago valley and the site in question is one naturally suited for defense. The fort built in the year of the Independence declaration was a regular army post and continued as such until Washington's visit in 1783, and for some years after. It is with this fortification that the story deals and with lands adjoining, of which It was a natural center.

Artificial boundaries of territory are often confusing and somewhat ridiculous. The Mohawk forms a natural division between the north and south side sections about Fort Plain and It is fitting that these two neighborhoods should be treated as separate localities. Aside from supposed convenience to the citizens at election times and to facilitate town government, there is no reason whatever why we should try in our minds to conceive the township of Canajoharie as set off in any way from the town of Minden. Walk back on the hills toward Seebers Lane; look off to the east and you will see the stream of the Mohawk separating you from the fertile hills of beautiful Palatine. But where you stand (if it is on the high hill about a mile southeast of Fort Plain village) you will see no line or natural boundary cutting off the farms of Minden from those of Canajoharie. So, in treating of the land, people or events of the valley, it is more vitally important to consider the sections naturally set apart than those which consist solely of imaginary lines drawn upon maps.

In the following chapters, the story of old Fort Plain will be found to be interwoven with that of the old Canajoharie and Palatine districts of Tryon county. The acute mind of Sir William Johnson, in his division of the districts of Tryon, merely drew on his map the natural boundaries which ran through the county. This middle region of the Mohawk valley is set off from the upper part to the west of Little Falls by the range which cuts squarely across the Mohawk, known by the name of Fall Hill. To the east a similar barrier exists in the picturesque hill formations which rise from the Mohawk flats on each side, known as The Noses. The Mohawk here breaks through a high ridge which separates this mid section from the eastern part of the valley. Johnson fittingly named this region north of the river, Palatine, and that to the south Canajoharie, and these formed the Palatine and Canajoharie districts of Tryon county. The name Canajoharie had probably been applied to its section from early Indian times. Five districts were set off and the other three were Mohawk, on both sides of the river from the line of Schenectady county west to the Noses, and from Fall Hill west, Kingsland to the north of the Mohawk and German Flats to the south. The districts north of the river were supposed to run to the Canadian line, while those to the south embraced territory to the northern boundary of Pennsylvania. However, most of the population was gathered along the Mohawk river and its tributary, the Schoharie, and the history of Tryon county is in reality that of the Mohawk valley; which is another instance where actual natural territory and boundaries must be considered rather than the dot and dash divisions of the maps.

These two districts mentioned extend along the Mohawk for a distance of about twenty miles. The townships of Montgomery county that form part of old Canajoharie and Palatine are Minden, Canajoharie, part of Root (to the west of the Big Nose), Palatine and St. Johnsville. This publication deals with these five towns, as well as the older districts, and, as Fort Plain is approximately at their geographical center, it is fitting that the title of this narrative should be "The Story of Old Fort Plain." So the object of this work is to tell the tale of the Mohawk country between the Noses and Fall Hill and to relate as well all that can be gathered of importance with reference to the chief and central Revolutionary fortification of the territory in question, which was known as Fort Plain.

It is interesting to realize that we have a prior authority, for the consideration of local history from this point, in that eminent New York state historian, Benson J. Lossing, particularly adapted to his task by being a descendant of the first Holland settlers. In his wonderfully interesting "Pictorial Field Book of the Revolution," he says: "At Fort Plain I was joined by my traveling companions * * * and made it my headquarters for three days, while visiting places of interest in the vicinity. It being a central point in the hostile movements in Tryon county, from the time of the flight of St. Leger from before Fort Stanwix until the close of the war, we will plant our telescope of observation here for a time, and view the most important occurrences within this particular sweep of its speculum." To do exactly this and. In addition, to continue our view of life and events from the Revolutionary time to the present, Is the mission of "The Story of Old Fort Plain."

The need has been felt of a continuous narrative of the fort and the conditions existing in its surrounding territory. The former chronicles of events and life about here were largely obscure and what could be obtained was imbedded in a mass of other material in local history. Fort Plain was next to Forts Dayton and Herkimer, the most advanced New York frontier post, during the last years of the war and seems to have been the most important. From here Willett issued on his heroic marches to victorious battles; here was the headquarters of the chief officers concerned in the Klock's field battle; here and within cannon shot occurred some of the most tragic and thrilling incidents of the Revolution in Tryon county. From here was heard Brown's brave stand at Stone Arabia, and from here was seen the glare from Currytown's burning farm-houses. Here was heard the rattle of the rifles of the victorious Americans on Klock's Field. This fort housed the settlers fleeing from the tomahawk and torch of the Indian and Tory. It was once, by Fort Plain's women, successfully defended by a feminine ruse. It remained a tower of patriot strength during the whole contest and finally at Its close housed the great commander-Washington himself. Here came Gansevoort, Gov. Clinton, Col. Dayton, Gen. Clinton, the despised Van Rensselaer, probably Gen. Arnold, as well as many members of the committee of safety and of the county militia. Here commanded the mighty Willett and the sterling warrior Clyde. Through the dreadful, bloody struggle, which decimated the population and almost destroyed a thriving farming section, Fort Plain stood a tower of strength to keep alive in a great territory the soul of American liberty and the spirit of American civilization and culture. This it did and, when the horrors of the conflict were past and its dead buried, some back of the church near by, the batteaux again floated on the river at its feet, within its sight blackened ruins were replaced by houses and barns and the plowman was once more seen tilling the neglected fields on the distant slopes. Civilization resumed its work in the valley and the task of old Fort Plain was done. But Its story still remains for those who wish to learn it.

The placing of the fortification was evidently largely a matter of geography. Its hill was capable of defense on all sides and was commanded by no higher ground which could be used as a base of attack at that time. It could be provided with its necessary water from a good spring directly under Its walls. It had a view of the country for miles in all directions. The road from Fort Stanwix to Schenectady ran along the foot of the hill. It, of course, was of easy access from the river at its base and commanded this highway of freight traffic, and a ferry was here then as at a later date. Its location at the beginning of the Otsego trail or carry, as mentioned, probably influenced its site and here then the Otsquago flowed into the Mohawk. Boys who swam in the river before the beginning of the Barge canal remember "the low," as they called it and this shallow in the river, then about opposite the knitting mills, was undoubtedly the remains of the rift which always existed in the Mohawk below the outlets of contributory streams. The mouth of the Garoga valley, penetrating a great extent of the country to the north, lay about two miles away and at that point the old Indian trail from Canada, by way of Lake George, joined the Mohawk river trails. Furthermore Fort Plain was located in the midst of the Palatine settlements of which Fort Herkimer and Fort Dayton defended the western and Fort Hunter the eastern end. Everything made this the natural site of what was later an important frontier post and the base of several military operations vitally affecting the settlers of the Mohawk valley. Here at Sand Hill, was a Reformed church, a river ferry, one or two traders and probably a tiny hamlet at the time of the erection of this defense. Of course the fear of invasion of the state by British forces and Indian allies, from Canada through the Mohawk valley, was the prime reason for the renovation of Forts Stanwix and Herkimer and the building of Fort Dayton diagonally opposite, at the present site of Herkimer, and of Fort Plain in the center of the Canajoharie district in the year of the Declaration of Independence.

The time dealt with lends added interest to a sketch of its people, places and events on account of its remoteness. Although we are separated from it by only about a century and a half of time (since the date of the erection of Fort Plain), the vital changes of that period have given American life an absolutely different phase. Up to the building of the Erie canal the details of human existence had been the same, practically, for centuries. Today we live in a different world from our American forebears of 1776.

The main part of these sketches is founded upon "Beer's Illustrated History of Montgomery and Fulton Counties, 1878," Lossing's "Field Book of the Revolution" and Simms's "Frontiersmen of New York." Large parts of these works have been used bodily. Other authorities whose material has been made use of are Lossing's "Empire State," Benton's "History of Herkimer County" and the "Documentary History of New York." While no claim is made for especial originality in its preparation, a great mass of material has been arranged In proper chronological sequence, which, the writer believes, is the first instance of its having been done in relation to the Revolutionary history of Fort Plain and the region about it. In order to make a continuous narrative, dealing with the men of this territory, the Oriskany campaign is included. It is presumed about half of the provincials concerned in this movement came from these two districts and the history of the men themselves of old Canajoharie and old Palatine is fully as vital as the study of events and places. An endeavor has been made to give a picture of different periods and, to this end, much detail has been necessary.

The history of the middle Mohawk valley can, for convenience, be divided into four sections.

The first is from its discovery about 1616, to the formation of Tryon county in 1772. This is the time of Indian life and of white settlement. The second period is from 1772 to 1783, embracing the Revolutionary war. The third is from 1783 to the division of Montgomery county into Fulton and Montgomery counties in 1838, covering the years of highway improvement, bridge building, canal digging, railroad construction and early town development. The fourth is from 1838 to the present day, and it is hoped that teachers and parents will, in future years, carry on this story for the young reader up to the time in which he or she reads this book.

Many people have the Idea, that local history means, almost entirely, the events transpiring about here during the Revolution. That such an impression Is erroneous is shown by the fact that, in this work, the recital of events here-abouts, during the War of Independence, occupies only about one-third of the space. Conditions have been so varied and so many elements have entered into the story of this valley of the northland that there is much to scan beside the tragedies, conflicts and life of the first war with England. Our chronicle is not alone local but touches at every point the development of our national life, and this Is particularly true because the valley has always been, from the earliest times, one of the great highways of traffic, trade and travel between east and west.

No section of our country affords more glowing historical pictures than the Mohawk country. Here are found all the elements that go to the making of the story of man from the stone age to the present era of a complicated civilization. The French priests and the Dutch traders discovered here red savages, who were living under conditions similar to those of prehistoric man in Europe. Of the latter we have only the most fragmentary knowledge, but, of their equivalent brethren in America, we know as much as we do of our own frontier ancestors. In the earliest days in the valley, of which we have historical knowledge, we find much of the Mohawk Indian life centered in the old Canajoharie district. This lends to the study of the most warlike tribe of the powerful Iroquois republic an added and poignant local interest.

The story of this great and beautiful valley of the Mohawk is soon told in brief. While it has been ages In the making, the reader can close his eyes and, in less time than it takes in the telling, its varied and colorful pictures sweep before his mental vision.

Centuries, probably, after the great glacial ice sheet started ebbing toward the north, it turned the waters of some of the Great Lakes down through the valley to the Hudson sea inlet, making our river a great rushing torrent, large in volume and magnificent to the view. Before the mighty stream dwindled to its present course, back, through the great forest covering the old glacial bed and along the river, came slinking red human beings close, in brain and body, to the beasts they slew for food and clothing. Here, in the ages before the dread ice came slowly and irresistibly from the dead and frozen north, perhaps had been men not unlike them, living wild lives in the wilderness among the stranger wild animals of that distant day.

Gradually these savages, of the period after the great ice sheet, grew in the ruder arts of civilization; while, outside of their immediate bands, their lust for human blood and love of cruel spectacles probably increased. Then came red warriors from the north down upon the homes of these valley barbarians and began a bloody war of extermination. Suddenly from the forests, these vermilion-faced, befeathered, naked savages rush out and with club and arrow, with stone axe and knife, they murder the startled people of the Mohawk villages. A hideous spectacle ensues-men, women and children are stabbed, struck down, brained and scalped, only a few escaping to later burn and agonize for the bestial enjoyment of the red raiders. To save themselves, the Mohawks, with their brethren of the other four tribes, join in the great league of the Iroquois family. They drive back their foes. Inflicting equally murderous and inhuman punishment, and become the virtual rulers of the red men of the entire eastern country.

Years after this, but upon a long ago day, a Mohawk stood in front of his village on a slope overlooking the bright and winding stream. Bronzed and naked to his breech cloth and deerskin leggins, with knife in belt and bow in hand, his sharp eyes scanned the summer scene. At his feet lay the flatlands of the valley, green with the promising crop of Indian corn. Gently back from these open spaces sloped the giant hills clad in a glorious forest unbroken to the summits of the fartherest ridges. In the distance a herd of deer stepped lightly to the river edge and drank, and far on high an eagle soared in the milky blue sky. A pleasing sight-a view of primeval nature undisturbed. Entered, upon this quiet scene, a man in a canoe. Around a willow-bordered bend in the placid river he came paddling down stream and the red man saw that he was clad in strange garments and that he was white-a sight which filled him with superstitious amazement-which meant the end of his race in the valley. This was the first of the French priests whose mission of religion brought them among the valley Iroquois.

As the river and its banks move quickly by, to this silent, serious white man, so the scene changes rapidly after his advent. The Dutch traders, in still stranger clothes, bring guns and rum to exchange with the Indians for their splendid wilderness furs. After them follow red-coated soldiers and traders of another race-the English. Then come, tolling painfully, up the banks of the river, sturdy, patient men of a brother blood-the Germans. The Mohawks begin to lose their lands and we soon find them, few in numbers, confined to two villages, one at the Schoharie creek and the other in the western Canajoharie district. To them the white men seem to come in swarms. They fell the trees and clear and till the land while the smoke from the burning prostrate forest giants clouds the sky. White women, little children, and strange new animals follow these woodsmen, who build yet larger houses of stone, who make wagon paths through the woods and who bring their flatboats, up and down the river, laden with grain, furs and many kinds of goods. These valley Europeans eat, drink, play, dance, love, sing, breed, work and die, like people the world over.

Then, as now, spring comes to the Mohawk, flooding the white and grey valley with sudden warmth, making every tiny rivulet a rushing torrent and filling the river with its yearly flood of brown turbid water and rushing ice. The rough clearings are plowed and planted and heavy crops soon cover the fertile soil. Forest, field, hillside-all are green, green in every shade; green everywhere is the valley, except the winding river reflecting the whitish blue sky. Then the harvest time dots the verdant landscape with fields of brown and yellow and through flatland and meadow resounds the swish of scythe and cradle. Autumn colors the woods with a riot of scarlet, yellows and browns and the open spaces and the river margin sparkle with the azure and sheen of aster, golden rod, wild sunflower. Corn shocks rustle and nod and yellow pumpkins glow like giant oranges amidst the stubble. Now is the beauty of the vale of the Mohawk at its best, while the air is filled with subtle haze and the glorious autumn landscape drowses in the noontide of a perfect Indian summer. Mohawk and white hunter bring home deer and wild turkey; the small boy scours the woods for hickory and butter nut. In the branches chatters the thrifty squirrel as the quiet air is startled by the crack and boom of rifle and gun. In the cabins and stone houses, wives and daughters bake and brew for autumn feasts and merry makings At night the great harvest moon, full-orbed, hangs in the sky flooding, with its greenish yellow light, a landscape of mystery, through which gleams the winding ribbon river-a scene inspiring that pensive seriousness which seems to possess the valley, even in its gayest autumn or tenderest springtime phases.

And now down again conies the soft mantle of snow and the great hills and vales are once more wrapped in their white winter slumber.

And so, for years, runs along the life of the pioneer beside the Mohawk. But after a time these white men of different nations begin to differ among themselves and fall to quarreling violently. The velvet and red-coated turn upon the men of homespun and buckskin; war to the death, breaks out, while the valley reeks with horrid slaughter.

The embittered Indians join the red coats, glad of a foe on whom to wreak vengeance for their stolen hunting grounds. As is usual the payment for this dread struggle of the Revolution is made in the lives of tender children and loving women as well as In those of enraged men. What had once been strong men of Tryon county lie rotting, to the number of two hundred on the field of Oriskany.

Here particularly are shown all those revolting horrors of war which, when generally and constantly realized, will eliminate such bloody struggles from the life of civilized peoples-war which is no more essential to the development of nations than Indian barbarities are requisite to the cultivation of intrepid manhood.

But the naked Indian, the velvet and the red coat are driven back. Sadly, the men of homespun and buckskin drop their guns, bury their dead, rebuild their burned and plundered homes and turn again to the task of tilling their neglected fields.

Such is nature that, In ten year's time, the Mohawk skirts a country again smiling with plentiful harvests, and through the trees along its banks show solid houses and barns filled with corn and wheat and all the bountiful products of a fertile soil. Then men tire of the hardships of boating on the river and dig themselves a canal in which to float still larger freight craft, and great is the rejoicing when it is done. Bridges are built across the Mohawk and soon, close along its edge, the engine of steam on iron tracks goes rushing by, before the gaze of the astonished farmer and his affrighted family. Villages with smoking factories dot the twin courses of the Mohawk and the Erie, broad cultivated fields have replaced the giant forest which live only in a few scattered woods. And here is the valley of our day, from whence, at the trumpet's blare which proclaimed a nation's peril, thousands of our men fare forth to fight and die on southern fields.

Here is the valley of four hundred thousand people, where were but ten thousand when St. Leger came down upon Fort Schuyler; our valley which has always been a great highway, by land and water, since the day of the Indian trails and the river flatboat-great and growing greater with its railroads over which hundreds of trains speed dally; its highways traversed by countless automobiles; its barge canal, soon to carry a large share of the country's east and west commerce: our valley, with its schools, societies, clubs, churches, theaters, fairs, factories, stores, bustling villages, great cities, tiny hamlets, fertile farms -with its restless, discontented human population, sharing in the trouble and perplexity of the nation's Industrial and political problems-but yet withal our northland valley of old, shorn of its noble forest but with the same everlasting hills rising in slope on slope, from the winding river to noble heights along the horizon.

This in brief, is the story of the Mohawk. And what of the future-who knows what it may be, before the great green forest of yore again comes back over these rolling hills, yes and before that day when the dread cold encompasses it all once more-perhaps forever.

NELSON GREENE.
Fort Plain, New York, September 16, 1912.