attending to the business of reorganizing the militia, until nine days after the battle, when his leg had to be amputated. It was done in the most unskillful manner, the leg being cut off square without allowing flesh enough below the bone to cover the wound. Colonel Willet called to see him soon after the operation and found him sitting up in his bed, cheerful as ever, smoking his pipe. A hemorrhage followed, and toward evening of the same day Herkimer felt that his end was near. He called for his Bible, and in the presence of his family read the thirty-eighth Psalm. His voice gradually grew weaker, the book slipped from his fingers, and death overtook him. "It was Herkimer," said George Washington, "who first reversed the gloomy scene" of the Northern campaign. The pure-minded hero of the Mohawk Valley "served from love of country, not for reward. He did not want a Continental command or money." "Before Congress' had decided how to manifest their gratitude he died of his wound; and they decreed him a monument. Gansevoort was rewarded by a vote of thanks and a command; Willett, by public praise and an 'elegant sword.""

1

The results of the battle of Oriskany were far greater than the small number of men engaged might indicate. Had not the Palatines of the Mohawk Valley stopped the advance of St. Leger, the rich harvests of their farms would have been used to feed the army of Burgoyne. St. Leger's auxiliary forces, with the Mohawk Valley

1 Nicholas Herkimer (correctly spelled Nikolaus Herckheimer), though twice married, had no children. He was very wealthy and left his estate to his relatives, who were numerous and influential in the valley. In the genealogical work of P. S. Cowen, The Herkimers and Schuylers, an historical sketch of the two families with genealogies, etc., the descendants of George Herkimer (the ancestor who arrived in 1721 from the Palatinate) are enumerated.

2 Bancroft, vol. v, p. 170.

accessible to them, would probably have prevented Burgoyne's surrender. The other far-reaching result was the effect the battle had on the Indians. They had not expected such obstinate resistance nor such severe losses. They grew discontented with their allies, the British, and the latter considered their Indian allies a failure. Official information went home to the effect that the red men "treacherously committed ravages upon their friends; they could not be controlled; they killed their captives; that there was infinite difficulty to manage them; that they grew more and more unreasonable and importun

ate." i

During the whole of 1777 and until the summer of 1778, the Valley of the Mohawk was not troubled by the Indians and Tories. The farmers could peacefully till their fields and bring in their harvests. But their repose and unpreparedness invited new troubles. The numbers in the militia companies had shrunk since the battle of Oriskany from nine to seven companies. Fort Stanwix lay thirty miles distant from the last German settlements, so that it could easily be passed by small war-parties. An enemy like Joseph Brant, the Mohawk chieftain, was quick to see the defenseless condition of the Valley and arouse in his warriors their natural lust for booty. Even when subsequently Fort Stanwix was given up, and the main defensive strength was placed in Fort Dayton (the present Herkimer), Brant, who knew every trail and opening in the Valley, could easily pass in and out as he pleased. The Mohawk chief opened hostilities in 1778, attacking the small settlement of Andrustown, in the southeastern part of present Herkimer County. Four men were killed, others led off captive. The inhabitants of the German Flats

1 Bancroft, vol. v, p. 170.

started in pursuit, but succeeded only in taking revenge upon a Tory friend of Brant. The next expedition, more ambitious, was directed against the German Flats, protected on the north side by Fort Dayton and on the south by Fort Herkimer. The German Flats were at that time inhabited by about one thousand Palatines, men, women, and children. They were no match, however, for the large band of Tories and Indians mustered by Brant: The settlers had just gathered in their harvests, an opportune moment chosen by Brant for his attack. Three of the four messengers whom the Germans had stationed as scouts were killed, and only one, Helmer, brought the news of Brant's approach. The attack was so sudden that the settlers could only retreat hastily to their forts, leaving their possessions a prey to the marauders. Sixty-three houses, seventy-five barns, three grist-mills, and two saw-mills with their contents were set on fire by the invaders, who drove off with them two hundred and thirty-five horses, two hundred and twenty-nine head of cattle, two hundred and sixty-nine sheep, and ninety-three oxen. Brant did not attack the forts, and escaped as suddenly as he had come, eluding the three to four hundred soldiers who started in pursuit. This story of sudden attack, robbery, and escape was repeated month after month and year after year along the whole frontier of New York. No help was received of an effective kind until the punitive expedition under Sullivan devastated the villages of the Six Nations. This happened in 1779 after the Wyoming massacre' (July 3, 1778) in

1 One of the German settlers of Wyoming County was Judge Matthew Hollenbach. He refused offers of British agents to play the traitor, and joined the patriot army as lieutenant in New Jersey. He was very successful in getting recruits from the Wyoming Valley. At the time of the massacre of the Wyoming settlers Hollenbach suffered severe property losses. Cf. Der deutsche Pionier, vol. i, pp. 262 ff.

2

Pennsylvania, and that of Cherry Valley (December 10, 1778) in Otsego County, New York. In both of these massacres the German settlers suffered with the rest.1 It would be wearisome to rehearse the agonizing details of border warfare on the Mohawk. A striking proof of the monstrous cruelty of the Indians at this time, and of the stoic sufferings of the frontier settlers during the Revolutionary War, is furnished by the following inventory of scalps taken by the Seneca Indians, which accidentally fell into American hands. There were eight items as follows: Lot 1, forty-three scalps of soldiers of Congress killed in battle, also sixty-two scalps of farmers who had been killed in their houses; lot 2, ninety-eight scalps of farmers killed in their houses surprised by day, not by night as the first lot. The red color applied to the hoops of wood, which were used to stretch the scalp, indicated the difference; lot 3 contained ninety-seven scalps of farmers killed in their fields, different colors denoting whether killed by tomahawk or rifle-ball; lot 4 contained one hundred and two scalps of farmers, most of them young men ; lot 5 contained eightyeight scalps of women, those with blue hoops cut from the heads of mothers; lot 6 contained one hundred and ninetythree scalps of boys of different ages killed with clubs or hatchets, some with knives or bullets; lot 7 contained two hundred and eleven scalps of girls, large and small; and lot 8, one hundred and twenty-two scalps of various

1 In 1769 there were about forty or fifty families, mostly of those called Scotch-Irish, and as many more in the vicinity consisting of Germans and others. See "Four Great Rivers," the Journal of Richard Smith, 1769. Edited by F. W. Halsey. (New York: Scribner's Sons, 1906.)

2 Kapp, Geschichte der Deutschen im Staate New York, chap. xii, pp. 255–279, gives a very good account of this terrible struggle, basing it upon authentic records.

8 Kapp, supra, pp. 276-279. Based on Campbell's Annals of Tryon County, pp. 67-70 (appendix).

kinds, among them twenty-nine babes' scalps carefully stretched on small white hoops. The entire bundle, including the total of 1062 scalps, fell into the hands of a New England expedition against the Indians, and a prayer was found, accompanying the inventory, addressed to the British governor (Haldimand): "Father, we wish that you send these scalps to the Great King that he may look at them and be refreshed at their sight-recognize our fidelity and be convinced that his presents have not been bestowed upon a thankless people." The scalps represented the work of the three years preceding February, 1782, and were taken from the frontier settlers of New England, New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia.1

Among the numerous stories of heroism on the frontier there is none more memorable than that told of Johann Christian Schell. He lived with his wife and six sons about three miles to the northeast of Fort Dayton, in what was called Schell's Bush. It was in August, 1781, when most settlers had retreated for safety to the forts, or to more easterly settlements. He decided to breast the storm, relying upon his sure eye and brave arm. Schell's blockhouse was strong, well built, and well adapted for defense against ordinary attacks. His house was stored with weapons and ammunition. He was at work in the field with his sons one day when the enemy appeared. The two youngest sons, twins eight years of age, could not follow their father and elder brothers fast enough, were taken captive, and dragged off to Canada. It was two o'clock in the afternoon when about forty-eight Indians and sixteen Tories attacked the house. Their leader was Donald Mac

1 Cf. Kapp, p. 278. The explanatory letter was written by James Crawford (spelled Craufurd), January 3, 1782, from Tioga, seeming to indicate that most of the scalps came from the New York frontier.