bably during the wars between the Hurons and the French and the Six Nations, and was carried into the

Seneca country, where

she married a young chief who was sig-

Catharine had several children by him, and remained a wjdow. Her superior

mind gave her great ascendancy over the Senecas,

and

among them.

she

was a queen indeed

Lasting, i, 357.

O^ HUDSON'S RIPER.

delibe ring of prisoners, who had been arranged at her bidding, to its her victims murdered and of death chanted the rately song

Forts, houses, barns, grain and

cadences in consecutive order. cattle were destroyed.

When Butler and his tories withdrew,

homes of five hundred settlers had been laid waste, their Shielding occupants made fugitives, their dead left unburied. their bloody work, with the name of Brant, and throwing the

the

cause of the attack on the disaffection of the Indians at the

occupation of the valley by the whites, Butler and his tories have been floated on the page of history as endeavoring to re Stripped of their

strain the ravages which they had instigated.

of an exposed settlement, disguise, they now stand as the spoilers without the excuse which a regularly constituted army might offer of harassing an enemy.

Although

Butler

almost

withdrew after

his

from the valley

followers

massacre, he nevertheless

the

left immediately behind him those who had personal grievances to avenge and These were mainly fugitives mercenary rewards to secure.

from the Esopus clans at Oghkwaga, and tories, who, availing themselves of the withdrawal of Count Pulaski and his legion of cavalry from Minnisink, where they had been stationed for the protection of the frontier, made a descent, on the fourth of