August
and September mark the 225th anniversary of a campaign of destruction and death
that came through Upstate New York.
The year was 1779 and our newly
declared independent country was at war with England. Colonists
were fighting the British Army and British Loyalists on many fronts. Added to
these two foes, in the outlying regions of Pennsylvania and New York — still
unsettled country — groups of Iroquois Indians were aiding the British,
providing them with food and attacking white colonial settlements. Just the
previous year, scores of white settlers died at the hands of Iroquois war
parties, including two high-profile massacres at CherryValley near Cooperstown, and in the
northeastern Pennsylvania settlement of
Wyoming.
Although history shows many Iroquois
were neutral or actually helped the colonials, Commander-in-Chief George
Washington ordered an army into Upstate New York to drive out all Six Nations
of the Iroquois: the Seneca, Oneida, Mohawk, Onondaga,
Cayuga, and Tuscarora. Washington’s
weapon of choice — fire. The campaign was called “Scorched
Earth.”
It was a 150-mile-long path shaped
like a carpenter’s square. The army of 4,500, under the commands of Generals
Sullivan and Clinton was nearly half the size of the entire Iroquois
population. It crossed the Pennsylvania border into New York, near
present-day Elmira. It traveled
up along Seneca and CayugaLakes, through
present-day Geneva, Canandaigua,
Bristol, Honeoye, and
Conesus. Soldiers leveled with fire every Indian village along the way, and
destroyed all crops and orchards.
Bands of soldiers fanned out from
the main army, and repeated this exercise at out-of-the-way Indian villages.
They were to leave no Iroquois building or fruit tree standing, regardless of
that village’s possible neutrality or pro-colonial side.
The army finally reached the Seneca
stronghold at GeneseeCastle, on the GeneseeRiver, at
present-day Leicester, near Geneseo.
In that deserted village, they found two of their comrades brutally murdered
and tied to the now-famous Torture Tree, which still stands there. Here, the
army turned around and headed back home.
You might
wonder what right the colonials felt they had to simply displace the Indians, even if
there had been attacks on white settlements.
Peter Jemison, 21st-century Seneca faithkeeper, book author, and overseer of the Ganondagan Historical Site in Victor, explains the
perspective from which the world was then lived and recorded.
“You have to realize, in the 15th
century, when Europeans began coming here, the Bible was still the source of
all knowledge,” he says. “The settlers arrived here and found us. We were not
in the Bible; our ‘tongue’ was not in the Bible. Therefore we were not seen as
human.”
In fact, Columbus referred to
the natives as “crude” and “stupid,” and the early Spanish settlers in San Salvador raped and
murdered natives. They had contests in open public to see if they could slice a
child in two with one swing of a sword, for sheer entertainment.
“We were named ‘Indians,’ by
explorers who thought they’d landed in India,” Jemison
says. “We were the Haudenosaunee, the ‘true human
beings.’ We had an ‘allodial’ right to, or virtual
ownership of the land, by simply being there.
“A worldwide debate over our humanness ended,”
he adds, “when the Bishop of Spain ruled that we were human.”
Of course, by that time, thousands
of Europeans had landed here. With the opportunities open to those colonists
requiring land, the Bishop’s decree took many years, if ever, to fall on
listening ears.
“We believed we were related to
everyone,” Jemison says. “When we encountered the Europeans, we called them
‘younger brother,’ and were concerned with how we were related to these people
from other shores. We called ourselves ‘true human beings’ because what we did
came from the Great Spirit. Whatever happened was supposed to happen. There was
no bad or good.”
The implication being that the
Indians were naïve, trusting, and inclined to be supportive of the early settlers.
My interest in the Scorched
Earth Campaign was kindled in 1976, when I wrote the Bicentennial History Book
for the Town of West Bloomfield, in OntarioCounty. My research
showed that the area was once rampant with Seneca. When I read what we had done
to the Indians, I felt a responsibility to bring it to light. So, three years
later, in 1979, on the 200th anniversary of Scorched Earth, I walked the trail,
writing a story for a regional upstate magazine.
Now, on the 225th anniversary of the
Campaign, I decided to walk it again. To commemorate this military offensive a
second time might somehow bring the original Scorched Earth Campaign — and
its impact on the Iroquois — ahead in time and make it current.
The 150 miles of muddy lowlands, rivers,
and thick forests that Sullivan’s massive army slogged and hacked its way
through in August and September of 1779 has become mostly paved and bridged —
relatively easy to hoof through in seven days wearing good cross-trainers.
In 1779, there were no white
settlements in Central and Western New York. This was
still the frontier. If this 18th-century military campaign were compared to our
20th-century space program, Tioga, Pennsylvania — just
south of the New York border —
would be NASA’s Cape Kennedy. Newtown, New York — near Elmira — would be
the moon. Sullivan’s troops were staged and launched from Tioga and their
victory at Newtown against the
Indians and British, three days into the campaign, set the pace for Sullivan’s
uninterrupted military success for the remainder of the offensive.
Day
one
Joanne,
my army supply unit for this trek, drops me off in a K-Mart parking lot, just
across the Pennsylvania border from
Waverly, New York. She will
pick me up from time to time and cart me to a motel when I can’t find a
campsite. She will be available by cell phone, but will not provide me with any
news from the outside world, unless we should win the lottery.
I cross over busy Route 17, into New York, and turn
west out of Waverly on a rural road, the ChemungRiver following
along to the south.
August 27, 1779
Sullivan’s
army advances through the Chemung River basin, crossing the New York State
line, approaching the Iroquois stronghold at Newtown.
A party of several hundred Iroquois
and Loyalists, along with 15 British regulars, lies in ambush at Newtown under a relentless sun. They’ve selected a choice site and
have the element of surprise in their favor. They expect by nightfall to rout
the invaders, 12 miles away yet. This miscalculation is their downfall.
Each morning Sullivan’s massive army
rises to cannon fire and reveille, rounds up 1,200 pack horses and 800 head of
cattle, rigs numerous supply wagons — even boats, carried overland for
fording streams — then falls into a hollow square formation and marches ahead
to fife and drum.
The Iroquois wait.
The approaching army covers three
miles the first day; five miles the second day; the final four miles on the
third day.
Two nights fall on the restless
Iroquois with no enemy in sight. Having sent off their food and blankets, they
go to sleep hungry and uncovered on the cold, damp ground. For three
consecutive dawns, they take their positions.
I continue on Old Route 17 toward Newtown. Unlike Sullivan, I cross over, not through, Wyncoop
Creek, now swollen from recent rains. I come upon historical marker
after marker — those familiar blue and yellow state signs, as well as granite
monuments with bronze plaques — denoting the movement of the
“Sullivan-Clinton Campaign.” The phrase “Scorched Earth” is never mentioned.
I have heard of people visiting the
battlegrounds at Gettysburg and being
emotionally moved as they think of what transpired there. I’m getting a Gettysburg feeling when
a man bounces up alongside me on a huge balloon-tired excavator and asks me if
I ran out of gas. I explain myself.
“You have to remember what was going
on in 1779,” says Dave Mazzarese, climbing down so I
can hear him over the diesel engine. “It was the Revolution, and the Indians
were supplying the British.”
Dave lives here in Chemung. Sensing
my surprise at his interest in the subject, he points to a steep hill near us.
“According to local legend, this hill was important to the Indians; they could
look east and west from on top,” he says. “They call that Katydid Hill, because
of the flowers that grow on it; this section of the road, here, is Katydid
Curve.”
He pauses for a moment then offers,
“I know the Indians’ land may have been taken from them and treaties may have
been broken, but back then they were helping the enemy; you don’t want to help
the enemy.”
I continue along and pass a marker:
“Chemung — 1775
to 1779 — Iroquois war town. From this hidden stronghold British,
Indians, and Tories ravaged the frontier…”
I’m getting closer to the battle
site and the semis bouncing along on nearby Route 17 sound a lot like marching
military drummers.
I come to two signs within sight of
each other. One marks the front line of the soldiers, “Line occupied by rifle
corps under General Hand at opening of battle August
29, 1779.” The other, the “Line of rude
breastworks” of the Indian ambuscade.
The signs are 320 paces apart,
separated by several trees and a slight valley with a creek running through it.
Next to the creek sits the LowmanMethodistChurch. It’s 6:50
p.m. on Sunday and I hear the small congregation singing through
the open front door.
I can see an obelisk monument up
ahead on the hilltop at Newtown, the village
being protected by those “crude breastworks.” It’s about a mile-and-a-half away
as the crow flies, but it will take me another hour-and-a-half to reach there
on foot because of the steep hills and winding roads.
A few more paces and I come upon an
entrance ramp to Route 17 and what will turn out to be the biggest roadside
stone monument of the Scorched Earth Campaign. It commemorates the Newtown
Battlefield I just passed. It was erected in 1907 by the Newtown Battle
Chapter, Sons of American Revolution. Across the road sits an adult video
store.
I arrive at the former hilltop
Indian village, Newtown, now a public
campground, and rent a cabin.
August 29, 1779
Sullivan is victorious at Newtown.
12 Indians and three colonials die, and dozens are wounded on both sides. The battle
is not large, but psychologically and militarily significant.
The leader of the ambush party,
Colonel John Butler, explains his defeat later in a letter to British
headquarters at Niagara: The three days of waiting caused insubordinate warriors to
make critical changes in the ambush lines. “Several men,” Butler writes, “had the ague [fever] upon them at the very time we
were attacked.”
After
Sullivan’s victory over the Indians at Newtown, Lt. William Barton writes in his diary that he “skinned
two of [the Indians] from the hips down for boot legs; one pair for the Major,
and the other for myself.”
Day
two
I
awake at 6 a.m. Indeed, Newtown and its
neighboring high hills, intertwined by the valley of
the ChemungRiver far below,
cause night temperatures to drop dramatically. From here in 1779, the Iroquois
could see the army coming, all the way across the Pennsylvania border. This
morning, the fog is so thick I can’t see the shower and bathrooms just across
the campsite.
I turn in my cabin key to Eric
Carne, a 20-year-old LeMoyneCollege student from Horseheads who works here summers. Quiet, thoughtful, and
laid back, his attitude is fitting for his work here at this solemn, historic
site on this remote hilltop.
“I’ve read about Sullivan and the
Indians,” he says, gesturing toward the historical pamphlets on sale. “But I
think people come here because it’s quiet and secluded, not because of the
history.”
And there aren’t a lot of those
people.
“I’ve heard this called ‘ChemungCounty’s best kept
secret.’ In fact, two years ago, when I was a freshman at CorningCommunity
College, a man came to our school just to
recruit people to work here,” Carne says.
A mile and a half back down the
steep hill to Route 17, I’m forced to walk a
seven-mile stretch of the heavily traveled four-lane highway, during morning
rush hour, to Horseheads. As I near Horseheads, a state trooper is parked in the median on
radar duty. He watches me approach, climbs out of his car, walks across the
pavement, and asks if I’m OK.
1779
Spurred by
their victory at Newtown, the colonials pick up speed and continue northwestward,
through what are now Elmira, Horseheads, Big Flats, and MontourFalls, destroying cornfields and burning vacated Indian villages.
The
Indians had scouts who watched for the approaching army. They yelled up to
three miles back to the next scout, who in turn yelled three miles back. This
alarm system, in the case of the massive approaching army, served not only to
alert the Iroquois, but, ironically, to spread panic through their villages.
On Sullivan’s return through Horseheads, following the successful execution of Scorched
Earth, he will order several pack horses shot and left behind. Sixteen years
later, in 1795, when white settlers arrive here, they will find the horses’
skulls bleached white by the sun, and name the place thereafter.
Horseheads
in 2004 is an explosion of chain retailers and restaurants, surrounded by
parking lots, intersections, highway feeder ramps, and still more of each under
construction.
I cut northward towards Watkins
Glen on Route 14, through Millport and MontourFalls, with
Catharine Creek repeatedly meandering out to the road to meet me.
Several markers tell their story:
“The military
route… against the British and Indians of New York.”
“The colonies’ war
with six Indian Nations.”
“The campaign
(that) severed the English-Indian alliance and checked English aggression on
our western frontier.”
“British and Indians retreated to
this place following the Newtown Battle defeat.”
September
1, 1779
At French
Catharine (Montour Falls/Watkins Glen) the army finds an old Tuscarora squaw left behind by her fellow Indians. She is
too feeble to walk. Lt. Erkuries Beatty writes in his
diary that she is believed to be 120 years old. The army has already burned the
village so the troops build another house for the woman and leave her with
provisions.
Twenty-two
days later, passing through again on its return trip, the army will leave her more
supplies, enough to prompt the lieutenant to remark she will “live in splendour.”
Day
three
I
awake in my motel room in Watkins Glen to the 7
a.m. boom of a factory whistle.
In Tobies’
Diner I’m eating breakfast, checking out the Americana decor —
which includes a wall clock featuring the WorldTradeTowers illuminated
from behind — and wondering who I can find to chat with about the Scorched
Earth Campaign.
At a table behind me I hear, “We
originally came here for religious freedom…”
Three men are talking over coffee.
Forty-six-year-old Dave Gertzen describes himself as
a “Calvinist,” a follower of the laws and principles of the Bible, very much
the mindset of the 18th-century white settlers. Dave lives halfway up the east
side of Seneca Lake — along the path I am taking — where he’s a part-time
housepainter, eBay entrepreneur, and caretaker, or sexton, as he calls it, for
a small community church.
Moving out front to where Dave’s
motor scooter is parked at the curb, I feel as if he may have been waiting for
me to come along.
“Nobody set out in 1779 to
annihilate the ‘savages,’ they wanted to make the Indians a burden on the
British. The Indians were killing and scalping settlers — selling the scalps
to the British,” he says. “Man is basically evil with the proclivity for good;
nowadays people say the opposite, ‘man is basically good with the proclivity
for evil.’ There is no inhumanity that man won’t commit on another.”
“Those fellas
in the militia — those who came out here in 1779 — need a voice,” he
continues. “They believed Washington was doing the
best with what he had and didn’t mean for anyone to get shot who shouldn’t. But
history’s been re-written since the 1860s, and he who controls the media
controls the past and the future. Now it’s turned around to where the Indians
helped the first settlers, that the settlers held the
first Thanksgiving to thank them. No, they held it to thank God.”
I head north out of Watkins Glen and
pass the busy entrance to Cargill Salt, where tractor trailers from Connecticut and Ohio are pulling
out and a rig from Wegmans is pulling in. A huge sign
in the front yard reads: “1,198 days since our last lost-time accident —
Imagine/Believe/Achieve.”
Thirty minutes later, on a steep
hill climbing out of Watkins Glen, I’m suddenly cognizant of the whine of a
motor scooter coming up behind me on the opposite side of the highway.
Freelance Calvinist, Dave Gertzen, is now on his way
home. He drives along slowly and calls across two lanes to me.
“The Holy Spirit wants us to respond
in God’s way…”
Swiiiiiish! A car flies past.
“…Biblical principles…”
Rumble,
rumble! Two town dump trucks loaded with fresh tar work their way up the
hill in low gear.
“God gave man a cultural mandate in
Genesis: ‘Go forth, be fruitful, multiply, and have dominion…'”
Swish,
swish, swish! A line of cars flies past. One is a minivan sporting a yellow
ribbon decal on its rear window.
“…’Dominion,’ that’s a word that’ll
sell newspapers!”
I reach Peach
Orchard Road in Hector. A nearby marker proclaims:
“Ga-di-odji-ya-da, site of Iroquois village, Sullivan
camped here September 3,
1779.” There are peach orchards everywhere.
“Ga-di-odji-ya-da
means ‘peach orchard,'” says William Wickham, 75,
selling peaches under a generous-sized tent. He is the great-great-etc grandson
of the original William Wickham whose name is
mentioned on a nearby marker as the first settler in Hector, in 1791.
I met William, selling peaches in
this very spot, when I walked this trail 25 years ago, but he does not recall
our meeting.
“The Indians were attacking the
colonies,” he says. “In those days you didn’t always sit down and talk about
it…. It was retribution.”
September
5, 1779
To
the soldiers, Appletown (present day Willard/Sampson
Army Depot area) shows signs of being recently vacated.
Lt.
Beatty writes, “The houses was chiefly all pulled down [by the soldiers] for
firewood. The Appletrees which is a good number and
very old was either cut down or killd, likewise the peachtrees.”
Beatty
also describes what seems to be the burial site of a chief: It stood “four foot
high… painted very curious with great many Colours
[and] in each end of the Casement was a small hole where the friends of the
Deceased or any body might see the corpse when they pleased.”
The Iroquois word for Appletown is “Kendaia.” On Route
96 there’s a stone marker and a couple of picnic tables denoting this site.
Across the highway is an air-control tower for the now-closed Seneca Army
Depot.
By cell phone I confirm with the Yale
Manor Bed & Breakfast that I am within an hour of arriving. The owners and
guests at Yale Manor, as well as the people I continue to meet along the way,
tell the continuing story of the never-ending history of Upstate New York.
Next week:
Sullivan’s army marches through Geneva, Canandaigua, Bristol, Honeoye, Canadice, and Hemlock.
Sixteen colonials die in an Indian ambush at ConesusLake; two more are brutally murdered at the Torture Tree in Leicester.
Rich Gardner follows the trail.
This article appears in Aug 11-17, 2004.
