Part 1
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Transcriber's Note:
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This work includes parts of journals of Maj. Erkuries Beatty, Thomas Grant, George Grant, and Col. Henry Dearborn.
COLLECTIONS
OF
CAYUGA COUNTY
HISTORICAL SOCIETY.
NUMBER ONE.
1879.
THE JOURNAL
OF
LIEUT. JOHN L. HARDENBERGH
OF THE
SECOND NEW YORK CONTINENTAL REGIMENT
FROM MAY 1 TO OCTOBER 3, 1779,
IN GENERAL SULLIVAN'S CAMPAIGN
AGAINST THE
Western Indians
With an introduction, copious Historical Notes, and Maps of the Battle-field of Newtown and Groveland Ambuscade
BY GEN'L JOHN S. CLARK
And parts of other Journals never before published.
ALSO A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
BY REV. CHARLES HAWLEY, D.D.
President of the Society.
Auburn, N.Y. 1879.
TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY COPIES.
Number 7
KNAPP & PECK, Book, Job and Commercial Printers, AUBURN, N.Y.
CONTENTS.
Pages.
BIOGRAPHICAL, 7 to 19
INTRODUCTION TO JOURNALS, 20 to 22
BATTLE OF NEWTOWN, MAP, 44 to --
HARDENBERGH'S JOURNAL AND NOTES, 23 to 59
GENERAL JAMES CLINTON'S MARCH, 60 to --
BEATTY'S JOURNAL AND NOTES, 61 to 68
GROVELAND AMBUSCADE, MAP, 50 to --
EXPEDITION AGAINST THE CAYUGAS, 69 to 70
THOMAS GRANT'S JOURNAL AND NOTES, 70 to 73
GEORGE GRANT'S JOURNAL AND NOTES, 73 to 75
COLONEL DEARBORN'S MARCH, 76 to 77
DEARBORN'S JOURNAL AND NOTES, 77 to 81
INDIAN TOWNS DESTROYED, 82 to 87
LIST OF JOURNALS AND NARRATIVES, 88 to 94
BIOGRAPHICAL.
John Leonard Hardenbergh, the author of the following Journal, was a native of Rosendale, Ulster County, in the Province of New York, born in the year 1748. He was the son of Leonard and Rachel Hardenbergh, and the youngest of seven children. The family name is one of the oldest in the State, and is prominent both in its colonial and revolutionary annals. As early as 1644, Arnoldus van Hardenbergh a "free merchant" emigrated from Holland to New Amsterdam "with a cargo of wares for sale in the colony." He was soon after selected as one of the original Nine Men of New Netherland, and served in this board from 1647 to 1650.[1] He was followed in, or about, the year 1652, by his brother Johannes van Hardenbergh, also a merchant from Amsterdam, who at this date was purchaser of "a house, lot and garden" on Manhattan Island. (Calendar, Hist. MSS. in office of the Secretary of State, Albany, Part I, vol. iii).
The branch of the family that was subsequently settled at Rosendale, is traced to the year 1706, when Johannes Hardenbergh, with six others, obtained from the crown of Great Britain a grant of land which comprised, as computed at the time, 1,500,000 acres, located in Northern Ulster, then including a portion of the present county of Sullivan,--the western boundary extending to, or near the head of, the Delaware river. The terminal syllable of the name, _bergh_, indicates that the earlier ancestors in Holland were from the hills; and it was quite natural that their descendants should have found permanent location in the hilly districts of Shendaken and Shawangunk, stretching westward from the valley of the Hudson; neither is it surprising that they should have loved freedom and have given their best efforts for its establishment in their adopted land.
At the outbreak of the Revolution, Col. Johannes Hardenbergh, Jr. was placed at the head of the Committee of Safety for Ulster County--Kingston, its chief town, being at the time the seat of the New York Provincial Congress of which he was also a member. He had ranked as Colonel in the English colonial service, and been active in military affairs as early as 1748, when Sir William Johnson was in command of the New York troops for the defence of the frontier against the French and Indians. He was also given command by the Provincial Congress of one of the earliest regiments raised for the immediate defence of the Hudson above the Highlands, at the opening of the war of Independence, and from his experience and position was enabled to render distinguished service at that critical period. In 1786, three years after the return of peace, he removed from his farm in Rosendale to New Brunswick, N.J., to spend the remnant of his days with his son, Rev. Dr. Jacob R. Hardenbergh, the first President of Rutger's College.
Leonard Hardenbergh, a younger brother of Col. Johannes, Jr., and the father of the subject of this sketch, died July 7, 1776, only three days after the adoption of the Declaration of Independence, and as his neighbors of the hardy yeomanry of Ulster, were leaving their harvests ungathered and marching to the defence of Fort Montgomery, one of the principal fortifications guarding the passes of the Hudson. In the official returns for the same month (July) the name of John L. Hardenbergh appears as First Lieutenant in the Second New York Militia under command of Col. Morris Graham, and assigned to the Brigade of Gen. George Clinton, who had remained in the Continental Congress to vote for the Declaration, when he hastened home to his command. Having served several months in this regiment raised under special call, Hardenbergh was commissioned Nov. 21, 1776, First Lieutenant in the Second New York Continental Regiment, under Col. Rudolphus Ritzema,[2] who was superseded Nov. 30, 1776, by the appointment of Col. Philip Van Courtlandt, a gallant officer and a personal friend of Washington whose confidence he shared to an unusual degree.[3] The regiment had the previous month been in the battle of White Plains, under Lieutenant-Col. Weissenfels, where it did some hard fighting; and was ordered by Washington to Fishkill for the winter, to be recruited and disciplined, and thus ready for active service in the Spring. But few enlistments, however, were obtained, though several recruiting parties were sent out for the purpose; and in the Spring of 1777, it was ordered to Peekskill, a point for the collection of military stores, and where at this time large quantities had been gathered under protection of General McDougall's brigade. Soon after, a fleet of ten British ships or transports appeared in Peekskill Bay, and landed a force of five hundred men with four pieces of artillery, which compelled Gen. McDougall, who had scarcely half that number of troops, to retreat to Gallows Hill, about ten miles in the rear, leaving what stores could not be removed, in the hands of the enemy, who remained in possession of the town until McDougall was reinforced, when they retired to their ships and returned to New York.
After several weeks of hard and perilous service, Col. Van Courtlandt with his regiment, was ordered to Albany and thence to the relief of Fort Stanwix, then besieged by Colonel St. Leger with a party of Indians; but on information that the enemy had retired, he joined General Poor, then on the advance to Stillwater, to whose brigade the regiment became attached, and thus made a part of General Arnold's command, forming a portion of the left wing in the first battle of Stillwater, which was fought on the 19th of September. The loss of killed and wounded of the Second New York was two out of eleven, which was a larger proportion than of any other regiment engaged, the next largest being that of Col. Cilley's First New Hampshire, which was one out of seven, all of General Poor's Brigade.[4] At the second battle, which occurred on the 7th of October, the regiment sustained its reputation for determined bravery and hard fighting, and thus bore an honorable part in the most important engagement, thus far, of the war, the results of which changed the whole aspect of the American cause.
After the battle of Stillwater, which compelled the surrender of Burgoyne, and rendered fruitless the previous successes of the enemy along the Hudson, the regiment returned to Fishkill, and soon joined the army under Washington, then confronted by the British forces under General Howe, in the vicinity of Philadelphia. It shared the privations and sufferings of the terrible winter encampment at Valley Forge, (1777-8) the march to which of the half naked, half-starved, shoeless army might be tracked in blood through the December snows. It appears from an orderly book[5] found among the papers of Colonel, afterwards Gen. Henry Dearborn, also in the Sullivan expedition, that at Valley Forge, Hardenbergh was Lieutenant and Adjutant of his regiment and often served as Adjutant of the Day at Head Quarters. The whole encampment consisted of about eleven thousand troops; and when it was broken up the following Spring, upwards of three thousand men unfit for duty were left behind, under charge of Colonel Van Courtlandt, while his regiment proceeded with the main army, and participated in the battle of Monmouth, June 28, 1778, winning commendation for bravery and good behavior in that hotly contested engagement.
While at camp with the main army at White Plains the same season, the Second New York Regiment was sent to guard the frontiers in Ulster County against the depredations of the Indians under Brant, who had already destroyed several houses and murdered men, women and children. It remained in the neighborhood of Laghawack, on this duty, during the winter of 1778-79; and in the Spring while on the march to surprise Brant stationed on the Delaware with about one hundred and fifty Indians, an express from General Washington overtook the regiment with orders to proceed to Fort Penn, there to await orders from General Sullivan. It is at this point that the Journal of Lieutenant Hardenbergh, herewith published, dates.
On its return from the Expedition, the regiment proceeded to Easton, Pennsylvania, and from thence to Morristown, N.J., where it was hutted for the winter. In the spring of 1780 it was sent to Fort Edward for temporary service, and in June proceeded to West Point, and in expectation of an attack from the enemy, was posted on the mountain west of Fort Putnam. This proved, however, to be a feint to cover an invasion of the Jerseys. During the treason of Arnold the regiment was at Tappan, whither Andre was taken after his capture, and where he was tried and executed.
From the autumn of 1776 to the winter of 1780, Lieutenant Hardenbergh was identified with the Second New York, sharing its fortunes, and participating in the important battles in which it was engaged, when the five New York regiments were consolidated into two, in which arrangement he fell into that class of officers who were retained in service but not attached to any battalion. But in July 1782 he was made Captain of Levies under Lieut. Col. Weissenfels, in which capacity he continued for the remainder of the war.
In the summer of 1781, he is accredited in the chronicles of the time, with a daring exploit, which indicates the kind of service in which he was engaged after he ceased to be attached to the Second New York. A body of three hundred Indians and ninety Tories under Captain Cauldwell, an officer in Butler's Rangers, appeared on the frontier of Ulster County, in the neighborhood of Warwasing, having passed unobserved the stockade forts at the north of Lackawaxen and Neversink, expecting to surprise the settlements and repeat the scenes of massacre which had desolated other regions in the vicinity. Captain Hardenbergh, at the time, was stationed with a guard of nine[6] men, near the house of J.G. Hardenbergh,[7] and at a point some three miles distant from a small fortress at Warwasing. As the enemy passed the fort just before the break of day they were fired upon by the sentinel. The report alarmed Captain Hardenbergh, who with his little band proceeded immediately in direction of the sound, and on his way met the enemy directing their course toward the settlement, which is now called Rochester. Nothing daunted he gave them battle; but being closely pressed he soon discovered that his retreat was cut off by a party of Indians who had gained his rear. In this dilemma the Captain resorted to stratagem which admirably answered the purpose. It was as yet barely light, and turning aside in the woods with the little company, to conceal the smallness of his force, he took off his hat and huzzaed with all his might, at the same time advancing toward a small stone house near by, and in face of the Indians, who supposing that the troops were coming up from Pinebush, took the alarm and skulked off in every direction. But no sooner had Hardenbergh and his company reached the house, when the Indians discovering the ruse, poured a shower of bullets after them just as they were safely within the door. Here they found six militia men besides, making sixteen in all, and being well armed, made all preparations to hold their position against the invaders. With an ax they broke a series of loop-holes in the rear of the house and through the sides of the steep roof, thus commanding its approaches on all sides. The enemy advanced several times to carry the house by assault, but as some of their number were doomed to fall at every onset, they as often gave way, and at length were compelled to relinquish the attack, leaving thirteen dead upon the field. In the meanwhile the firing had aroused the neighborhood, and Col. Henry Pawling with a detachment of State Levies, stationed about six miles from the scene of action, hastened forward, but arrived too late to have a brush with the enemy, and only in season to capture a straggler, who had lingered for fruit, near an apple orchard. Cauldwell was in full retreat, and though pursued by Colonel Pawling with his regiment of Levies and Colonel Cantine with a regiment of State Militia, for some days, finally escaped. The enemy, however, suffered severely and besides losing a number of men, were so near starvation that they were obliged to eat their dogs before they reached Niagara, the point from which they had started on their errand of pillage and murder. This was the last attempt of the kind made upon the frontier settlements, which had suffered so severely from repeated invasions of Indians and Tories during the Revolution. It was designed to be a finishing blow upon that region, and as we have seen, it was largely due to the bravery and military tact of Captain Hardenbergh that the stroke was averted.[8]
At the close of the war, during the entire period of which he had been in active service, he returned to his native place, to share the fruits of Independence with peace, which he had done so much to secure. He had justly acquired the reputation of a brave and skillful officer, and his name still appears on the Roll of Honor in the cabinet of Revolutionary memorials kept at Washington's Head-Quarters at Newburgh. He was for a time on Washington's staff; and his whole record is that of a devoted patriot and a faithful soldier, at a time when the country needed every heart and hand for its defence.
In 1789, the Indian titles to most of the lands in the State of New York, having been extinguished, the Legislature provided for the survey of a certain portion of these lands, already set apart for the soldiers of the State, who had served in the war of the Revolution. This tract embracing 1,680,000 acres, and denominated the Military Tract, included the present counties of Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca and Cortland, also the larger part of Tompkins with portions of Oswego and Wayne. It was surveyed into twenty-eight townships, containing each one hundred lots of six hundred acres. Each private soldier and non-commissioned officer had one lot assigned him. The officers received larger shares in proportion to their rank. Colonel Hardenbergh was appointed on this survey, in immediate association with Moses Dewitt, brother of Simeon Dewitt, at the time Surveyor-General of the State, and was occupied in this work during the years 1789-90. His field books, neatly kept and carefully preserved, are now in possession of the Cayuga County Historical Society, one of several valuable donations from the family to the Society's archives. The lands which fell to him on the assignment of military bounties, were located in Onondaga, disposing of which, he purchased lot Forty-Seven, within the present limits of Auburn, from Ogden and Josiah Hoffman, and originally patented to Captain Thomas Doughty also of the Second New York. The deed bears date Feb. 16, 1792, and the consideration was one hundred and eighty pounds N.Y. currency. Colonel Hardenbergh was familiar as a surveyor with its comparative advantages, for a settlement, and especially with its superior water power, and had already indicated the lot on his map of survey as a "good mill site." He came on to his lands the same year (1792) bringing with him several negro slaves, and built a bark shelter near the site of the present Hardenbergh mansion, and on the spot where the City Hall now stands. He made a visit in the fall or winter of that year, to Rosendale and was united in marriage to Mary Bevier, also of one of the most substantial and prominent families of that part of the State, and soon after returned to make further preparations for a permanent home. This year also he received a commission as Major in the Battalion of Herkimer County, having previously been appointed a Captain in a Battalion for Montgomery, which until 1791 included the counties of Herkimer and Tioga. He was also appointed, in 1793, by Governor George Clinton, his old Brigade commander on the Hudson in the beginning of the war, an Associate Justice for Herkimer County, and designated the same year as one of the three Commissioners to lay out and construct the Genesee Turnpike. His last military promotion was that of Lieutenant Colonel of a regiment of Militia in Onondaga County, in April, 1796, by Governor John Jay, and gave him the title of Colonel, by which he is most commonly known in the early annals of Auburn.
In 1794 he had completed a saw and grist mill, on the Owasco Outlet, near where the Stone Mill now stands, opposite the junction of Genesee and Market Streets, thus forming the nucleus of a settlement known as Hardenbergh's Corners until 1805, when it took the name of Auburn.
The death of his wife occurred in the Spring, a little more than a year after their marriage, leaving an infant daughter, and before his arrangements were complete for bringing them to their new home in the wilderness.
In 1795 a colony of ten families from Gettysburgh, Pa., made a settlement about three miles up the Owasco Lake, and at once organized a Reformed Protestant Dutch Church, which subsequently took corporate form and title, Sept. 23, 1796, at a meeting held at the house of Colonel Hardenbergh, who identified himself with this society in the faith and order of which he had been educated. His copy of the New Testament with the Psalms in a single volume, and in the Dutch language, is still preserved; and bearing on the fly-leaf, under his own signature, the same date with that of his first army commission, it shows the signs of ordinary use not only, but the unmistakable marks of the exposure and hardships incident to a soldier's life.
His second marriage, in 1796, was with Martina, daughter of Roeliff Brinkerhoff, one of the first deacons of the Owasco church, and the names of his two children by this marriage, Maria and John Herring, appear on the baptismal register of that church for the years 1798 and 1800. The only son, John H. Hardenbergh, was in subsequent years one of Auburn's most prominent and public spirited citizens. As the heir to the landed estate of his father, originally covering a large section of the territory now occupied by the city, his wise and generous policy toward purchasers of lots and tenants, contributed much to its growth and prosperity. The lot, in the centre of the city, on which stands the First Presbyterian church, one of the most substantial and elegant structures of the kind in the State, if not in the country, was his gift, before he had become of age; as were also eight acres of land comprised in the spacious grounds occupied by the Auburn Theological Seminary. These and similar deeds of generous foresight, together with an amiable character and a blameless Christian life, preserve in esteem and honor the name so closely identified with the origin of our favored city.
Colonel Hardenbergh died after a brief illness, on the 25th of April, 1806, in the 59th year of his age, and was buried with military honors in the North Street Cemetery. The Rev. David Higgins, then pastor of the Congregational Church of Aurelius, and the founder of the First Presbyterian Church of Auburn, preached the funeral sermon from the Epistle to the Philippians, iii; 20, 21: _For our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall change our vile body that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself._ The horse bearing the sword and uniform of the deceased officer, was led by Harry Freeman, one of the Colonel's slaves to whom he had given his freedom. A long procession of military and citizens followed the remains to the grave. The whole scene was imposing, as a sincere tribute of the respect and esteem cherished for the man who had braved the perils of the then recent struggle for national independence, and with generous hand had laid the foundations, in the wilderness, of a well-ordered community. He had passed thirty years of his life as a soldier, a surveyor, and a pioneer settler, and had occupied the most responsible trusts in the rising settlement which owed to him its origin. He was moreover a great favorite with his fellow pioneers, and with all who were seeking new homes in the immediate vicinity, ambitious rather for the thrift of the place than for personal gains, or the promotion of selfish ends--forward and generous in all plans to establish religion, education, justice and good order, with whatever tended to the permanent prosperity and true character of the infant settlement. He was not always careful of his own interests, and was sometimes imposed upon by those in whom he confided as if they were as trustworthy as himself. If a neighbor wanted a bushel or two of grain, he might be trusted to measure it himself and render his own account. In this way and in others characteristic of him, he doubtless now and then lost pecuniarily, but they gave him a strong hold upon the better and larger class of his co-pioneers, and a leading influence at this forming period in our history. Indeed, Auburn owes very much to the spirit, foresight and enterprise of its founder.