evening, they forced open the doors, and to their utter astonishment found every house empty.*

Previous to the Revolution, white settlement did not advance beyond the lower Mohawk valley. The period of the early settlement of Schenectady will have been noticed.

The pioneer emigrants, that began the march of civilization and improvement, west of Schenectady, were as the Plymouth colonists of New England, refugees for the sake of religion and conscience. "Early in the eighteenth century, near three thousand German Palatines emigrated to this country under the patronage of Queen Anne; most of them settled in Pennsylvania; a few made their way from Albany, in 1713, over the Helleberg, to Schoharie creek, and under the most discouraging circumstances, succeeded in effecting a settlement upon the rich alluvial lands bordering upon that stream. Small colonies from here and from Albany, and Schenectady, established themselves in various places along the Mohawk, and in 1722, had extended as far up as the German Flats, near where stands the village of Herkimer; but all the inhabitants were found in the neighborhood of those streams; none had ventured out in that unbroken wilderness, which lay to the south and west of these settlements."†

This branch of the emigrating Palatines, (there were three thousand, in all, that arrived in New York,) consisted of about seven hundred persons. Their location, "began on the little Schoharie kill, in the town of Middleburg, at the high water mark of the Schoharie river, at an oak stump burned hollow, which is said to have served the Mohegan and Stockbridge Indians, the purposes of a corn-mill; and ran down the river to the north, taking in the flats on both sides of the same, a distance of eight or ten miles, containing twenty thousand acres." They settled in Indian villages, or dorfs, under the direction of seven individuals, as captains, or commissaries. As these were primitive adventurers, in this direction—and as their names are associated intimately, with early times; and even now are blended with almost every reference to the valley of the Mohawk, and especially "Old

Manuscript history, of the Rev. J. W. Adams, Syracuse.

+ Campbell's Annals of Tryon County.

Simm's History of Schoharie and the Border Wars.

Schoharie," the author inserts such of them as he finds in Mr. Simm's history:-There were the Keysers, Boucks, Richards, Rightmyers, Warners, Weavers, Zimmers, Mathers, Zeks, Bellingers, Borsts, Schoolcrafts, Kryslers, Casselmans, Newkirks, Earharts, Browns, Merkleys, Foxes, Berkers, Balls, Weidhams, Deitzs, Manns, Garlocks, Sternbergs, Kneiskerns, Stubrachs, Endorses, Sidneys, Bergs, Houcks, Hartmans, Smidtz, Lawyers.

Their lands were granted them by the Queen, as were provisions, while emigrating; but after leaving Albany they had to depend upon their own resources, and they were as few perhaps as were ever possessed by any forest pioneers, in the settlement of a new country. Upon game, ground-nuts, fish, and a little grain they could procure by going on foot to Schenectady, pursuing an Indian path, they contrived to subsist for the first year, when getting a little ground cleared, they managed to raise some wheat and corn, without any ploughs or teams to use them with. They raised the first wheat in 1711. It was cultivated with the hoe, like corn. For several years, when going to Schenectady to mill, or upon other errands, they went in large parties, as a precaution against the attacks of wild beasts.

In 1735, small settlements of Germans had been made at Canajoharie and Stone Arabia.

In 1739, a Scotchman by the name of Lindsay, who had obtained by assignment from three other partners, a tract of 8000 acres of land, which is embraced in the town and village of Cherry Valley, became a resident there. His family consisted of his wife and father-in-law, a Mr. Congreve, and a few domestics. His location was named "Lindsay's Bush." The proprietor cultivated the friendship of the Indians. His nearest white neighbors, were fifteen miles off, upon the Mohawk, and he had no way of approaching it except by a difficult Indian trail. He was a Scotch gentleman; a taste for the romantic-a fondness for the chase, which was fully gratified by abundance of wild game in that region, had prompted him to adopt a back-woods life; but he soon began to experience some of its hardships. The snow fell to a great depth in the winter of 1740,—he was short of provisions, and could not get to the settlements for a supply. He was relieved by a friendly Indian, who making his journeys on snow shoes, obtained food for him and his house-hold, for the winter. In 1741 he was joined by the Rev. Samuel Dunlop, David Ramsay,

Willam Galt, James Campbell, William Dickinson, and one or two others, with their families; in all about thirty persons. In 1744, they had a grist and saw-mill, and an increasing, flourishing settlement. It was however harrassed, during the French and English war, by some portions of the Six Nations, in the French interests. Its inhabitants were frequently, during the war, called out to defend the northern frontiers. This was the germ of the settlement of a large district of country, which in our early histories, was included under the name of Cherry Valley.

SIR WILLIAM JOHNSON.

The year 1740, is signalized by the advent upon the Mohawk, of one who was destined to exercise an important influence, and occupy a conspicuous place in our colonial history. Sir William Johnson was a native of Ireland. He left his native country in consequence of the unfavorable issue of a love affair. His uncle, Sir Peter Warren, an Admiral in the English navy, owned by government grant, a large tract of land—15,000 acres—within the present town of Florida, Montgomery county. Young JOHNSON became his agent, and located himself in the year above named, at Warren's Bush, a few miles from the present village of Port Jackson. He now began that intercourse with the Indians which was to prove so beneficial to the English, in the last French war that soon followed, the influences of which were to be so prejudicial to the colonial interests, in the war of the Revolution. He made himself familiar with their language, spoke it with ease and fluency; watched their habits and peculiarities; studied their manners, and by his mildness and prudence, gained their favor and confidence, and an unrivalled ascendancy over them. In all important matters he was generally consulted by them, and his advice followed. In 1755, he was entrusted with a command in the provincial service of New York. He marched against Crown Point, and after the repulse of Col. Williams, he defeated and took Diesku prisioner. For this service the Parliament voted him five thousand pounds, and the King made him a Baronet. The reader will have noticed his effective agency in keeping the Six Nations in the English interests, and his military achievement at Niagara.

From the following notice, which appeared in a contemporary

publication—the London Gentleman's Magazine, for September, 1755—it will be seen how well adapted he was to the peculiar offices and agencies that devolved upon him. It is an extract of a journal written in this country:—

"Major General Johnson (an Irish gentleman,) is universally esteemed in our parts, for the part he sustains. Besides his skill and experience as an officer, he is particularly happy in making himself beloved by all sorts of people, and can conform to all companies and conversations. He is very much of the fine gentleman in genteel company. But as the inhabitants next him are mostly Dutch, he sits down with them and smokes his tobacco, drinks flip, and talks of improvements, bear and beaver skins. Being surrounded with Indians, he speaks several of their languages well, and has always some of them with him. His house is a safe and hospitable retreat for them from the enemy. He takes care of their wives and children when they go out on parties, and even wears their dress. In short, by his honest dealings with them in trade, and his courage, which has often been successfully tried with them and his courteous behaviour, he has so endeared himself to them, that they chose him one of their chief sachems or princes, and esteem him as their common father."

Miss Eleanor Wallaslous, a fair and comely Dutch girl, who had been sold to limited service in New York, to pay her passage across the ocean, to one of his neighbors, soon supplied the place of the fair one in Ireland, whose fickleness had been the means of impelling him to new scenes and associations in the back-woods of America. Although taking her to his bed and board, and for a long period acknowledging her as his wife, he was never married to her until she was upon her death-bed, a measure necessary to legitimatize his three children, who afterwards became, Sir John Johnson, Mrs. Guy Johnson, and Mrs. Col. Claus. His next wife, was Molly Brant, sister of the conspicuous chieftain of that name. He was married to her a few years before his death, for the same purpose that was consummated in the previous instance.

Colden says of Sir William, that "he dressed himself after the Indian manner, made frequent dances after their customs when they excite to war, and used all the means he could think of, at a considerable expense, to engage them in a war against Canada."

The liberal patronage of the English government, and the facility with which he could procure grants of the Indians, made him an extensive land-holder. He obtained one grant, in a manner

which has made it the subject of a familiar anecdote, from HENDRICK, a Mohawk chief, of one hundred thousand acres, situated in the now county of Herkimer. He had before his death laid the foundation of perhaps as large an individual landed estate, as was ever possessed in this country. His heirs, taking sides against the colonies, in the Revolution, at its close, the whole estate was confiscated.

The Johnson family are so mingled with our early colonial history, and the border wars of the Revolution, that most readers will be familiar with a subject that has been introduced here, only to assist in giving a brief sketch of the progress of settlement west of the Hudson previous to the Revolution; and to aid a clear understanding of some local events in that contest.

Sir William Johnson died on the 24th of June, 1774—having for nearly thirty-five years, exercised an almost one man power, not only in his own immediate domain, but far beyond it. In his character were blended many sterling virtues, with vices that are perhaps to be attributed in a greater degree to the freedom of a back-woods life,— the absence of the restraints which the ordinances of civilization imposes,—than to radical defects. His talents, it must be inferred, were of a high order; his achievements at Niagara alone, would entitle him to the character of a brave and skillful military commander; and in the absence of amiable social qualities, he could hardly have gained so strong a hold upon the confidence and respect of the Six Nations, as we see he maintained up to the period of his death.

He died just as the great struggle of the colonies commenced. Had he lived to have participated in it he would probably have been found on the side of the mother country. In his case, to the ordinary obligations of loyality, were added those of gratitude for high favors and patronage. Though it has been inferred that in anticipation of the crisis that was approaching, he was somewhat wavering in his purposes. Mr. Simms, the local historian of the Mohawk Valley, upon information derived from those who lived at that period, and in the vicinity, favors the conclusion that he died by his own hand, to escape a participation in the struggle, which his position must have forced upon him:-"As the cloud of colonial difficulty was spreading from the capital of New England to the frontier English settlements, Sir William Johnson was urged by the British crown, to take sides with the parent country. He