Ruttenber, E.M. Footprints of the Red Men: Indian Geographical Names in the Valley of Hudson's River, the Valley of the Mohawk, and on the Delaware. Published in the Proceedings of the New York State Historical Association, Vol. VI. 1906.

In writing the Minister of Marine, Talleyrand explained that " the empire of circumstances, foresight of the future, and the intention to compensate by an advantageous arrangement for the inevitable loss of a country which was going to be put at the mercy of another nation -- all these motives have determined the Government to pass to the United States the right it had …

In his argument, therefore, Livingston dangled before him a picture to feed his hatred -- a picture of Trinidad and Louisiana forming a base from which England might drive Spain from Florida, command the islands of the Gulf, and receive into its ports the riches of the West Indies and the treasures of Mexico. Thus, Livingston's presence becomes a great factor in the sale. It …

Had he known the action of Lucien Bonaparte, who had secured the recession from Spain, and of Joseph's insincerity, upon whom he even depended to help along the negotiation, he might well have taken counsel of his fears ; but the great real estate dealer enjoyed driving a good bargain, and so he argued and held aloof, professing that the United States " had no disposition to …

" It may, if things should take a turn favorable to France," he wrote Madison, April 17, " defeat all we may do, even at the moment of signing You will recollect that I have been long preparing this government to yield us the country above the Arkansas, and I am therefore surprised that our commission should have entirely lost sight of the object." Livingston's fears proved …

At first, he thought he would cede a part of it to the Indians in exchange for their holdings on the east side of the Miseissippi, and " shut up all the rest from settlement for a long time to come." "I have indulged myself in these details," he writes James Dickinson, August 9, 1803, " because the subject being new it is advantageous to interchange ideas on it and to get our …

The Executive in seizing the fugitive occurrence which so much advances the good of their country have done an act beyond the constitution." When such views reached France, Livingston hurried off several letters to Jefferson, assuring him " that were the business to do over again it would never be done. They think we have obtained an immense advantage over them. Though the …

He did not believe the constitution gave Congress power to acquire additional territory ; he dreaded the concentration of power in the executive, and perhaps his teachings did more than all other men to inspire the popular mind with that dread ; but when he discovered that the time required to secure a constitutional amendment, exciting, as it would, a long debate in Congress …

In 1776 the American people not only broke the bonds binding them to old England, but forged other bonds which would bind them to a new political, social and industrial order, and of those who hammered these new ties into harmony with the longing and aspirations of men, Thomas Jefferson stands among the foremost Fathers. He got his light from within. He believed in the people …

Livingston who had the vision. The distinguished Chancellor, however, did not prove as careful and painstaking a lawyer as he was bold and successful as a diplomatist, for in drawing the claims convention, he neglected to include all claims, estimated their total much too low, omitted a rule of apportionment, and, most grievous of all, left the final decision as to what claims …

The scandal growing out of this convention deepened and cankered until Livingston quarreled with the American Claims Commissioners, excited remonstrances from the British government, and nagged the United States consul at Paris into charging him not only with blind and insatiable vanity, with hints of corrupt and criminal motives, but with ^' imbecility of mind." " I …

His dispatches to Madison became a sealed book in the Department of State; his letters to Jefferson were not suffered to shadow the President's halo ; his work, practically completed before Monroe's arrival in Paris, did not reach the eye or the ear of the American people. The great achievement filled the air, rejoicing the country as no other event since the treaty of peace …

But. however this may be, the fact is deeply imbedded in history that Livingston was the first American to suggest the acquisition of that then vast and dimly outlined country which has been known for over a hundred years as the Louisiana Purchase -- stretching west and northwest of the Mississippi, above the winding Arkansas, beyond the waters of the Missouri, across plains …

This paper, diverging somewhat from the beaten higliway of history, has for its purpose, to rescue from threatened oblivion the memory of a noble man and the record of his monumental work. A few months since, while attending a convention held in one of the churches of Easton, the discussion having turned to the subject of temperance, I remarked that it might be proper to state …

My curiosity to learn more was now stronger than ever, and the centennial anniversary of the formation of the association being near, I resolved to unearth, if possible, the full history of the society and the life of its founder. Being utterly in the dark as to any authority upon the subject, I made known my desire for information through the medium of newspapers circulating …

The authors boast of him and his achievement, but, living yet in the dim light of his day, they were evidently unable to perceive fully the grandeur of the moral movement which he had inaugurated. Hence, their works are taken up mainly with discussions of the Maine liquor law, which then agitated much of the country. Armstrong's and Hay's books have become very rare, but …

The classic pages of Tacitus tell us of the unbridled license which the northern tribes of Europe gave to their appetites and of the scenes of drunken riot which characterized their social events. The chase, the battle aind the feast were their delights, and when done with life, their ambition was to reside in the immortal hall of Valhalla. There, each day having fought before …

In a sermon entitled, " On Dissipation," by John Wesley, published in 1788, he opens his discourse with this statement: " Almost in every part of our nation, more especially in the large and populous towns, we hear a general complaint among sensible persons of the still increasing dissipation. It is observed to diffuse itself more and more in the court, the city and the …

So, within some of the more morally sensitive souls of the country, commenced to be experienced an unhappy sense of our degradation and depth of misery. Cries of warning and expostulation began to be heard in the land. One of these rose higher than the others, even echoing down through the years to our own time. It was that of Dr. Benjamin Rush, of Philadelphia. Standing in …

Moreover, the confirmed toper can read the pamphlet, not only without umbrage, but with interest ; for there is an intensity, a directness ol statement in its style w*hich hold the reader, even to this day, with t^he simple art of its literary merit. Besides, there appears running through its pages a quaint humor, which no doubt had much to do with gaining its popularity …

In this connection might be quoted the author's interpretation of a familiar myth : " The fable of Prometheus, on whose liver a vulture was said to prey constantly, as a punishment for his stealing fire from heaven, was intended to illustrate the painful efifects of ardent spirits upon that organ of the body." Here is a curious anticipation of the modern gold cure, as it took …

For Dr. Rush had said : " Let good men of every class unite and besiege the general and state governments, with petitions to limit the number of taverns, to impose heavy duties upon ardent spirits, to inflict a mark of disgrace, or a temporary abridgement of some civil right upon every man convicted of drunkenness. * * * Xo aid the operation of these laws, would it not be …

It is always a pleasure to visit the homes of eminent persons who long since have died. To look upon the scenes that they once beheld ; to walk in the paths that they once trod, is like coming into familiar intercourse with the intimate friend of the honored dead, and we go from the places hallowed by such associations with a sense of having gained almost a personal …

For a period of four years the boy attended the school which afterwards developed into Williams College, at the end of which time the family changed its home to Pownal, Vermont. Of the details of the domestic life of the Clarks, we have no record. Nothing is known of the wife of Ithamar Clark, except that her maiden name was Sarah Simonds, and that she was a daughter of …

His daily occupation was an open book, as thrilling as lurid chapters of fiction, and the letters of it remained upon his soul in characters of unquenchable fire. Abraham Lincoln, when a young man, having gone down the Mississippi as a flat-boatman, visited the slave market of New Orleans. He was deeply aflfected by the harrowing scenes he there beheld, and he registered a vow …

It is interesting to reflect that the living spirit of the great divine may have been a quickening influence in the heart of this thoughtful youth ; that the story of the heroic life of Brainerd may have appealed to his rehgious and enterprising nature ; that the memory of one or both of these devoted men may have contributed to the molding of his mind into the worthy fashion …

Clark had been phenomenal ; from a bartender to the dignity of a profession, and all in the space of four or five years ! Dr. Clark was but twenty-one when he came to Moreau. Having previously satisfied the preliminary requirements, he was advanced to the full privileges of a physician in a license granted by the judge of the court of common pleas for Washington County, in the …

Armstrong seems to attribute the heavy drinking in Moreau to the leading industry, stating that " all the towns and counties in the vicinity of the ever-rolling Hudson were teeming with lumber," Whatever may have been the predisposing cause of the general and excessive use of intoxicants in England, it is not difficult to point out the conditions which contributed to the …

Clark, in all extremities of weather, rode on horseback to the bedsides of his widely separated patients, the burden of the drink-evil weighed heavily upon his mind. . He was a man of energy ; one who was not easily thwarted in the carrying out of his plans. But here was a task that seemed too hard for him. What could one man accomplish in the presence of such indifference and …

The ancients, dimly apprehending this sublime truth, conceived of the universe as a gigantic animal, a cosmic leviathan, vVhole, complete and harmonious in all its parts, while philosophy has ever striven, though in vain, to demonstrate by processes of reason what the higher authority of intuition has proclaimed in all generations. Dr. Rush, by reason of a liberal education …

Clark's own words, " they with one accord began to make excuses and brand our scheme as Utopian and visionary." Previous to this, however, he had taken the initiative in the work among his neighbors, for he says : " I returned to Moreau like a bow well bent that had not lost its elasticity, and resumed the labor there." The determination he exhibited was remarkable, and one …

After riding on horseback about three miles, through deep mud of clay road, in the breaking-up of winter, the doctor knocked at his minister's door, and on entrance, before taking seat in the house, he earnestly uttered the following words: ' Mr. Armstrong, I have come to see you on important business.' Then, lifting up both hands, he continued : ' We shall all become a …

Resolutions were adopted, the chief of whidi was that " in the opinion of t^is meeting it is proper, practicable and necessary to form a temperance society in this place ; and that the great and leading object of this society is wholly to abstain from ardent spirits." A committee, of which Dr. Clark was chairman, was appointed to prepare the Bylaws for the organization, and …

As there exists an apparent contradiction as to the particular roof under which this historic meeting was held, one account stating that it occurred at the Mawney house and another at the neighboring school house, it is proper to say here" that this discrepancy is removed by the statement made in Judge Hay's book, page 22, that the session opened in the Mawney house, but that …

by the scoffs of the intemperate world ; und'iscipHned in arms of even moral suasive tactics for warfare, and unable of themselves to encounter the Prince of Hell, with his legions of instrumentalities * * * vvere, nevertheless, the seed of the great temperance reformation." That Armstrong deplored the narrow ideas which prevailed to the discouraging of woinen from …

Words cannot express, nor the mind conceive, the power of the prodigious enginery which, distributed in a diversity of directions, is being exerted daily, hourly and momentarily by this great association of consecrated women. And here let me say that not only did the temperance reformation come into existence within the borders of our commonwealth, but that the late Frances …

He was now at the age of seventy-three, but enjoyed, with the exception of a gradual failing of the sense of sight, an almost unimpaired mental and physical vitality. But the gloom before his eyes grew remorselessly thicker and thicker until every familiar scene and the faces of family and friends faded from 'his view. In the custody of this great affliction, the spirit of Dr …

While in terms of affectionate banter, alluding to his spirit of determination and his practice of proposing to formulate the mind of public meetings in resolutions, he was sometimes spoken of as " Resolution Billy," the people knew that beneath the crust of self-reliant earnestness dwelt the loving humanitarian and the undying fires of a moral volcano. Unlike the experience …

He said : " I feel, my friends, that Providence calls us to perform no mean office to-day. We are to convey to their final resting place the mortal remains of one who has been a power in tlhe world for great good to the children of men -- whose name will enter into history as that of a benefactor of the community ; and whose influence, as an element in the temperance …

There, two miles from the historic spot where he unfurled the banner of a world-wide moral movement, his as'hes mingled with the soil that his devotion has made of honorable distinction. Thus, have I attempted to disentangle, gather up and lead in continuous discourse the scattered threads which I have found in my study of this neglected subject. If I have rendered more …

Ingalsbe, of Sandy Hill, \viho interested himself in my search for data, and feel myself under obligations to the SchnylerviUe Standard and to the Glen Falls Times for gratuitously publishing my request for information. Commitnications. From the letters relating to the subject in hand which I have received, I glean the following. I might say that the discrepancy which appears …

There was singing, prayer, a poem by Lura Boies, &c." Statement of Judge Lyman H. Northrup, of Sandy Hill, w<ho remembers Dr. Clark : " He always carried upon his countenance a mild, genial, pleasant expression ; dressed with neatness, and appeared to be a good sort of a fellow, and exhibited not; at all that asperity which we associate in our minds with the active reformer." …

Miss Mott is a daughter of James ^lott, who was a co-laborer in the temperance cause with Dr. Clark, and his neighbor at Clark's Corners : " As I remember Dr. B. J. Clark, he was a cultured, refined man, with fine sensibility. He ihad a kind word and look for every one that was worthy of it. He was of medium height and size. His hair and eyes were black ; his foreihead high …

Later, he moved to Glens Falls and was proprietor of a drug store for a number of years in that village. Then he returned to Clark's Corners wifh his daughter, Mrs. Alfred C. Farlin (widow), as housekeeper, and remained at his 132 NEW YORK STATE HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION, homestead for several years. He lost his eyesight and was entirely blind. Then he returned to Glens Falls …

Clark were removed from this, the place of their first burial, and were re-interred at Glens Falls. The site of the Union Meeting House is unoccupied, the present chapel standing on other ground, some distance to the west. The Union Meeting House was Dr. Clark's place of worship, and his pastor, Rev. Lebbeus Armstrong, resided at the parsonage, one-half mile south of the …

The house has disappeared, but the cellar walls stand almost intact. About forty rods south of the corners and on the east side of the road is the site of the school-house in which the Moreau society held its meetings. A dwelling house, the home of Mr. George Haviland, now occupies that plot of ground. The sites of the Union Meeting House, parsonage, Mawney house. Dr. Clark's …

The individual may govern himself after a fashion ; but to govern wisely another man, or, still harder, great masses of men, even where there has been community of public interests, of language, religion and custom -- aye, there has been the rub! Human history has often been called a great tragedy; but no tragic element is more ghastly or more overwhelming than the …

" The hills are shadows, and they flow From form to form ; and nothing stands ; They melt like mists, the solid lands ; Like clouds they shape themselves and go." If this mutation be true of organic changes in the physical earth, working through immeasurable aeons, it is even as dramatically true of organized social life. We are learning to take a new view of history. It is no …

Once the study of history was thought to be hardly more than learning a catalogue of royal djmasties ; tihe names of famous generals and statesmen : of battles lost and won ; of court intrigues ; of the vicissitudes of kingdoms ; of the prowess of pioneers and adventurers ; of " hair-breadth 'scapes i' the imminent deadly breach ;" of the pride, pomp and circumstance of …

We may not be able to agree with Middleton, who says in his life of Cicero, " Human nature has ever been the same in all ages and nations ;" but it is probably true that nothing has changed less in primal qualities than the bases of life. Empires have perished, civilizations vanished, governments have rotted, languages, territorial lines, seeming sit-fast institutions, have …

While its history reeks with blood, carnage, oppression, injustice, cruelty, in which sad facts the pessimist hears '' the eternal note of sadness,''' and unwisely rushes into a denial of the moral order -- it has its sun-bright triumphs of rectitude, and the illuminating picture of the steady and glorious advance of mankind from brutishness into an orderly, moralized life …

Fact will merge in fact; law will melt into a larger law ; one deep of knowledge will call unto another deep ; much that the proudest scientist of our day calls knowledge will vanish away ; many theories now popular will be dissected and pruned and will be found to be " such stuflf as dreams are made on," before the most enlightened humanity of a future age catches any one …

Man, once the companion of the Dragons of the prime That tare each other in their slime, ihas flowered into an intellectual, reasoning, moral being -- " how infinite in faculty ; in form and moving how express and admirable ; in action how like an angel ; in apprehension how like a god." All this progress, however, has cost its price. Step by step has the race advanced from …

The family group, the clan, the tribe, the town, the city, the state, the nation, have been stages in the process of closer and closer co-operation. Confederation, association, combination, require adjustment, compromise, regulation. Hence the germ of government. To live together each man must give way in something to the other. Man is gregarious ; he is naturally social …

The curtain has not yet fallen, and will never fall, upon the last act. We live in a world which is always in process. Nature's genesis is unceasing. " Without haste, witfhout rest," her creative and re-creative processes are always operating. When one undertakes to talk about government he is drawn instinctively to some historic models. As thinking persons realized in every …

He had sat at the feet of the great master of dialectic, and, with the hot enthusiasm of a reformer, painted a picture of the idealized man, living in a community where the supremacy of the intellect was to be recognized as authoritative, where the individual and family were to be absorbed in the state, and where a lofty communism was to be established, and in which Virtue …

It had no place in our work-a-day world. It interests us now chiefly from the superb literary skill with which it was constructed ; a prodigy of intellect and art. But it was not the Democratic Ideal. Aristotle -- fhat other imperial Greek genius, whom Dante called " the master of those that know ;" who had less imaginative mysticism than Plato, but a stronger hold on …

Vast literatures had their birth in his philosophic system. His political theories have become only academic. The world had no use for them. He was far from the Democratic Ideal. No one will deny that Plato and Aristotle are among those Dead but sceptered sovereigns who still rule Our spirits from their urns. Their sovereignty does not come, however, from their contributions …

What more natural than that a new social order should arise, into which should be gathered all classes of men, glorified, purified, ready for the Advent of the conquering Galilean, which was then almost universally anticipated. But alas, the Augustine City of God has never come. It will never come, as a political organization. Its home is in the human heart. It is not Lo here …

One, however, of the world's intellectual sovereigns, who lived in the uplands of the imagination, who traversed the gamut of human experience, and of whom we may say, if of any man, " He saw life steadily and saw it whole ;" in dealing with the relation of man ro the civic order, never indulged in illusion -- William Shakspeare. It has often been said to his reproach that his …

He recognized the fact that society is swayed by selfish interests oftener than by a devotion to high ideals. He read history with a microscopic eye. Dowden, one of his most acute interpreters, says, " Shakspeare studied and represented in his art the world which lay before him. If he prophesied the future it was not in the ordinary manner of prophets, but only by completely …

At last, by action of the inexorable, inescapable moral order, " the wheel is come full circle ;" evil is strangled. To such an equitable intellect, the idea of a Platonic Republic or Bacon's "New Atlantis" would be as impossible as impracticable. He knew too well the plasticity of human adjustments, the shifting, fleeting, rising and sinking of the social order, the …

In spite of all criticisms, his view of life followed more closely than the pretentious systems of closet philosophers, the gleam of the Democratic Ideal -- progression and growth. We may consider government, or rather the social organism, as a working basis on which men manage to live together, receiving from and giving to each other protection for life and property. There is …

We need not analyze the genesis of the force that has kept men under government. There are almost as many theories as there are inquirers. It has been said to be compulsion, physical force by one school of writers ; by another school, agreement, a contractual relation. For many generations a popular theory was that authority is given to rulers by God, or the eternal reason …

The Castle of Indolence seldom has any vacant rooms. The exceptionally strong will, the " monarch mind," is rare. The principle of obedience to authority is strongly developed in the race, especially among nations where the supreme power is supposed to rest upon some religious sanction, as was the case with European governments until recent rears, and as is the case with most …

It is when the people have been ground into hunger by excessive taxation and public extravagance that they have risen, like the blind giant pulling down the temple of Gaza, and swept away dynasties and royal pageantry. Such, it is said, was the mainspring of the French Revolution -- one of the most dramatic events in history. Undoubtedly the economic problem has always been …

Such were the migrations of the tribes of Northern Europe, and of the Asiatic hordes, which were a powerful element in the overturn of the Roman Empire. In late years there has been an increasing interest in the biographies of the great men who have moved the world. 'No view of history is more interesting than this study of personalities. It has sometimes been pushed to an …

In favor of the permanence of any existing order however, there has always been one conserving factor-- habit. Prof. J. M. Baldwin in his instructive work, " Mutual Development," calls authority " that most tremendous thing in our moral environment," and obedience " that most magnificent thing in our moral equipment." Psychologists also tell us that habit, one of the phenomena …

The great social heritage of the past has been the evolution of law and order. There has been through the ages a sweep of collective forces that has taught men self-control, and has constantly raised the ethical standard. A damnosa hereditas of ferocity, selfishness, and brutality, has been a part of the heritage ; but there has been enough of salt in the general character to …

" If you enthrone it (liberty) alone as means and end, it will lead society first to anarchy, afterward to the despotism which you fear," says ]\Iazzini, one of the shining liberators of the last century. "' If every man has all the liberty he wants, no man has any liberty," says Goethe. In other words, the rights of man must be articulat*»d with the duties of man. Freedom …

We are now told that a reaction has set in against democracy ; that the results of the democratic ideal, so far as attained, are a failure ; that the tyranny of the mob has succeeded to that of the single despot ; that in the most liberal governments of the world, even in the United States and England, where the problem of selfgovernment has been most thoroughly worked out …

He also speaks of " the high and dry optimism which presents the existing order of things as the noblest possible, and the undisturbed sway of the majority as the way of salvation." If you care to read the summing up of the tremendous indictment against modern democracy, you will find it in Hobhouse's striking work, " Democracy and Reaction." This thouglitful author claims …

We need no candid, sympathetic, and enlightened critic like James Br>xe, to tell us where our republic is weak, in spite of our Titanic power, immense prosperity, roaring trade, restless energy, chartered freedom. We know that, in many respects, " the times are out of joint." The sordid and incapable governments of many of our large cities ; the venality among those to whom …

These evils are not the result of popular government ; they are incident to our transitional civilization. They have always existed, probably in a grosser form than to-day. Would a return to monarchical government better things? Possibly we have anticipated too much of organized democracy. It is still aiming for its ideal. As we have said of liberty, democracy is not a …

It is not in riot, revolution, anarchy, by frenzied declamations against those who are doing only what nine-tenths of the human kind would do for themselves, if opportunity were aflforded ; but by using the power which free government gives to the people, and correcting the evils by what Gladstone called " the resources of civilization." Out of the roar and brawl of the times …

" The glory of the sum of things " does not come with a flash. There are always remedial agencies actively at work. They have saved civilization again and again, when the economic order seemed about to break down, when eflFete governments have fallen in cataclysms which have almost wrecked the social fabric ; when mankind seemed to be wandering in a wilderness of ignorance …

There is always more good than evil ; otherwise rociety could not hold together. If progress has been slow, it is because it ought to be slow. In our economic order, the trust, the trade-unions -- often in our day instruments of danger -- are factors that in the end will tend to good. They are a part of the great synthetic movement which is unifying the i-ace. They will lead …

The people must perhaps re-cast much of their legislation, to make sure that their public franchises and natural monopolies are not exploited by the few at the expense of the many. In a country where the press is allowed unlimited freedom, and where every man has a share in the government, where laws are flexible and easily modified, there should be little difficulty in …

Whatever is rotten, vulgar, base, corrupt, in our body politic will be eliminated by the same law of progress, moral, physical, social, spiritual, which has brought the race to its present transitional status. Lincoln's ideal of a government of the people, for the people, by the people, will not perish from the earth. Up from the scum and reek of corruption -- unless the …

If there has been neglect in either department, the delinquents must be responsible to the public and these Gentlemen ought to be acquainted with what has been alledged I cannot but repeat my intreaties, that you will hasten your operation with all pofsible dispatch ; and that you will disencumber yourself of every article of baggage and ftores which is not necefsary to the …

This will be accompanied .by Commissions for the four New York Regiments and the 4th Pennsylvania .... in three packages Col. Broadhead has informed me that he h. s a prospect of undertaking an expedition against the Mingoes with the aid of fome of the friendly Indians ; I have encouraged him by all means to do it, if practicable ; fhould it take place, it will be an useful …

He gives the following account of their ftrength, movements & designs .... That the whole force they will be able ten afsemble will not exceed fifteen hundred fighting men whites and Indians, which they themselves conceive will be eqjal to double the number of our men in the woods. . . . That Butler with a party of both sorts was at Conofadago in number 3 or 400. . . . That at …

The informant is a deserter from Cortlandts Regiment who fays he was carried off by force to the Indians and took the present opportunity of leaving them.... He appears not to be destitute of fhrewdness and as his apprehensions were pretty strong I am inclined to think as far as his knowledge extended he was sincere. . . . In my last I forgot to inform you that on the 15th …

The post you may recollect was extremely formidable by nature and ftrongly fortified .... The enemy, it is faid, fupposed it capable of defying our whole force. The opposite point had it not been for fome unavoidable accidents would probably also fallen into our hands .... The enemy from these had time to come to its relief and have fince repofsed ftony point, which we …

By this you will perceive, that he intended to begin his march towards the Seneca Country on the 7th or 8th of last month, and will also fee his reasons for fetting out fo early. On the receipt of your letter of the 13th ulto. I immediately desired the Commissary General to form a magazine for your future supply at fome fafe and convenient place in your Rear, and on receiving …

The latter has promised to make use of every exertion to raise the quota his Brigade is to furnish. He will advise you of the difficulties he has to encounter and I really fear if he should be able to procure the whole number at least (which I have not much reason to believe he will) so much time will elapse that the troops now to the Northward, will be drawn away before any …

About one hundred men will be sufficient at Skenesborough ; twenty-five men at Fort Edward and the Remainder I should advise to be stationed at the Junction of the North Branch of Hudson's River with the Western one or a little to the Westward of it, where the Road cut by the Tories in 1776 from Crown point comes to the River. Those would at once cover the North Western parts …

LETTER OF GOUV. MORRIS. Phila. 26th Jany., 1778. Sir, Permit me to recommend to your Exccrlency's favorable attention and thro you in such manner as you may think most proper to the Legislature an application of the Bearer of this letter. From the conversation I have had with him on the subject his design appears to me well calculated for the purpose of serving in some Degree …

Sir Congress having directed a very considerable part of the Army to be sent home on Furlough, I am pressed exceedingly to make a payment of three months wages, and I am very desirous to accomplish it,but the want of money compells me to an Anticipation on the Taxes by making this payment in notes ; to render this mode tolerably just or useful, the notes must be punctually …

Van Berkel. The confidence I have in the Recommendation of Mr. Boers and my Desire of rendering our Country agreeable to Mr. Hogendorp, leads me to take the Liberty of introducing him to your Excellency and to request that in case he should visit New York, he may be favored with your friendly attentions. I have the Honor to be with great esteem and Regard, Your Excellency's …

I have strongly inculcated this idea upon Congress in every letter since I became thoroughly acquainted with Indian Affairs, and they have now come to suitable resolutions on the subject. God grant that they may be shown proper exertions and crowned with success. The dispatches which accompany this render it needless to be particular. Mrs. Duane joins me in respectful …

Griffith in consequence of a Resolution of Congress, making the Inhabitants of the States subject to tryal by the Civil Law and for his bad behavior since he has been Indulged with a Parole. I arrived here yesterday and to-morrow proceed as to Gov. Trumball. I am. Dear Sir, Your most Obed. Serv't, Israel Putnam. His Excellency, Gov. Clinton. P. S. The three pieces of heavy …

I have therefore thought it advisable to send those already tried to be confined in Livingston Goal, together with Cadwallader Coldon Esquire, wiho> stands charged with the like offense as will appear by the Examination of Jacob Davis taken before the Chairman of the Committee of Shawangonk and now transmitted to you by Lieutenant Rose, who has the care of the Prisoners. One …

I believe the General has endeavored to take every necessary step to supply the Deficiencies which yet remain, Tho from the unavoidable delays of the officers of his Brigade he hath met with much trouble, as I have seen I believe, every letter he has received on the subject. I have ordered Capt. McKean to command all the drafts of Tryon County, as I knew it was agreeable to …

Those Drafts serve as Pilots. The drafts from Colonel Vrooman's Regiment at Schohary with an officer from the same Regiment, I have ordered to a Block Hou:se and Picqueted Fort, which I ordered to be built last Winter at Cobus Kill. Those under Capt. Stockwell and a certain Lieut. Putnam, appointed byColonel McCrea, are ordered to take Post at Skeenesborough and Fort Edwards …

Containing five huivdred acres, lying on the West side of the Wallkill (being part of a tract of land granted by letters Patent to Frederick Morris and Samuel Heath) into two or three Lotts, as it may suit best for Sale, and to sell the same and give a good Sufficient deed for it, and I give and bequeath to my son Charles, four hundred and thirty-three pounds New York Currency …

To have and to hold the said farm with all and singular the Rights, members and appurtenances thereof to my said Son Tames, his heirs and assigns forever, which farm I valued only at Seven hundred pounds, to him, and I give to my said Son, my Negro boys David and Isaac. And I give and bequeath to my Son George the sum of five hundred and Seventy pounds of the money I have at …

Therefore it is my Will She shall be free and I hereby manumit her & make her free from Slavery but so as to Exclude and utterly to Debar all and every person and persons whatsoever from making any Covenant Bargain or agreement with her to enslave or bind her for life or for any Number of years or to use any other way or means to prevent or Defraud her of her time, liberty or …

Pillows and one of my small looking glasses, teatable and Some Chairs for her Room, as she is now about Seventy four years of age and is or Soon will be uncapable to take Care of her Self, therefore It is my Earnest Request that her sons may behave as they have always done in a kind and dutiful and affectionate manner to her While She lives. I give to my Grandson Charles …

It is my Will I be buryed in the Graveyard in my own farm, beside my Daughter Catherine and it is my Will the said Graveyard be made four Rods Square and An open free Road to it at all times, when it Shall be necessary and I nominate and appoint my said three sons Charles, James and George, Executors of this my last will, to see the same Executed accordingly and I order that …

In choosing as its first subject for a memorial marker " The Half-Way Brook," the New York State Historical Association has made a dignified and wise selection, for it may be truly said that no stream in the Adirondack Wilderness is more noted in history and the Annals of the Border, than this, whose appellation " Half- Way " comes from the fact that it was nearly equidistant …

And whether the fleet, moccasined warriors went westward over the Sacandaga trail to the big bend of the Hudson and so on to the Iroquois strongholds, or w^hether they came to the " Great Carrying Place," at what is now Fort Edward, through Lake Champlain and Wood Creek, or chose the trip through Lake St. Sacrament past the site of the future Glens Falls, down to Albany, or …

On an old manuscript map without date in the New York State Library, it is noted as " Sdhoone Creek," while the Earl of Louden's map in 1757 has it marked as " Fork's Creek." ^ Rogers, the famious scout and ranger, called it " Bloody Brook." In Col. James Montresor's Journals, in 1757, it is styled " Half- Way Run." On the Robert Harpur map, in the Secretary of State's office …

Hubbell died from this disease and was buried at that spot. Our Secretary, R. O. Bascom, in his " Fort Edward Book," p. 15, states " this was the first recorded burial in the country." ^ Possibly a corruption of " Skene," from the founder of Skenesborough. ^ The New York World of February 2d, 1896, had a sketch of this powder horn, which, at that time, was in the museum of …

popular name of " Half-Way Brook," bestowed upon it we know not by whom nor when, but which appearing in contemporary diaries, documents, letters and official despatches of " The Seven Years War," has ever since clung to it, and will while its waters run to the sea/ It will be remembered that in the Campaign of 1755, Sir William Joiinson had constructed a corduroy road from …

Holden* in his History of Queensbury, says : " At an early period in the French War, a block house and stockaded enclosure, in which were also several store houses, had been erected at the Half- Way Brook. The date of its construction would seem to have been in 1755, ior in that year the French scouts and runners, reported to their chief that the English had erected posts …

It was capable of accommodating upwards of eight hundred men, and was protected by redoubts, rifle pits, earthworks, and a palisade of hewn timbers." The walls of the fort were pierced for cannon as well as for rifles, or muskets. In passing it may be said that from time to time, this, like all similar frontier forts of the time, was enlarged, strengthened, abandoned …

These latter had with them two small pieces of artillery, and two blunderbusses, and at the narrows, albout eight miles north of Whitehall, they crossed over from Lake George, and succeeded in sinking several of the enemy's boats, and killing several of the oarsmen. A heavy south wind favored the escape of the remainder." ^ During this summer several bloody affrays took place …

Henry at 12 o'clock with Gen'l Webb &c, arrived at the Half-Way at 3, met the carpenter going up that I had sent for, to carry on the work there." It does not appear, however, that anything was done with this fortification on account ■of Montcalm's victory a few weeks later. The Campaign of 1757 teemed with scenes of bloodshed along the frontier, and the history of the Fort …

Holden says, " Captain de Poulharies of the Royal Rousillon regiment, with an escort of two hundred and fifty soldiers, accompanied the survivors of the massacre, upwards of four hundred, with the one piece of cannon, a six pounder, granted by the ninth article of capitulation, as a token of the Marquis de Montcalm's esteem for Lieutenant Coflonel Monro and his garrison, on …

From here he proceeded down Lake George, meeting with disaster and defeat at the hands of seven hundred of the enemy, three days afterward. June 8th, 1758, Lord Howe, the pride and idol of the army and his nation, a nobleman by birth and nature, took command of the forces, which for weeks 'had been gathering at Ford Edward. On June 20th we find him at the " Half- Way Brook " …

On the 22nd this part of the army moved to the lake, and was shortly joined by General Abercrombie and the rest of the troops, making a grand army of fifteen thousand, which was soon to go to disaster and defeat before the rude earth breastworks and felled trees at Ticonderoga, Abercrombie's defeat occurred July 8th, 1758, and he quickly returned to the head of the lake and …

These various diaries speak in many places of work of this menial character (for which these men had not enlisted, and apparently did not care for), at and about " Half- Way Brook." General Putnam in his Journal says, " During our stay at the lake, after our return from Ticonderoga, we were employed in almost everything." The Journal of an unknown Provincial Officer (see …

It also gives the names of a number of people who died from disease and were buried at the " Half -Way Brook." He describes the leturn of the English and Colonials from Ticonderoga, and under date of July 8th, being at the head of the lake that day, there is the following entry in his book : " Saturday, Post came from the Narrows ; and they broug'ht Lord How to ye Fort, who …

One of the several scouting parties sent out by Montcalm to attack and harass the soldiers and convoys on the " Lidius " (Fort Edward) road and to take scalps and provisions, made one of their usual hawk-like descents, falling upon Col. Nichol's regiment, then quartered at the " Half-Way Brook " block house. Pouchet says, the detachment, five hundred in number, was made up of …

Dakin, and Lieut, Curtis and Ensn Davis, and two or three non-commissioned officers and privates, to the number of fourteen men, who were brought into the Fort, all scalped but Ensn Davis, who was killed within 20 or 30 rods from the Fort ; and there was one grave dug, and all of them were buried together, the officers by themselves at one end, and the rest at the other end of …

We have also an account that there are seven of our men carried into Ticonderoga, which make up the number of those that were missing." "21 -- Friday, in ye afternoon, a party of about 150 went out to find more men that were missing, and we found 4 men who were scalped, and we buried them, and so returned ; and at prayer this evening we were laromed by a false outcry. Nicholas …

St. de Luc la Corne, a French-Colonial officer, attacked an English force of one hundred and fifty men consisting of teamsters and an escort of soldiers, while on their way from the station at the Half-Way Brook, to the Camp at the head of the lake. The account here given is as nearly as can be remembered in the language of a Mr. Jones of Connecticut, who was a member of …

As they resumed their march in the morning, and before the escort had fairly cleared the picketed enclosure, they were suddenly attacked by a large party of French and Indians which laid concealed in the thick bushes and reeds that bordered the stream, and lined the road on both sides, along the low lands between the block house and the Blind rock. " The night previously to …

" The provisions and stores had been plundered and destroyed. Among the supplies was a large number of boxes of chocolate which had been broken open and their contents strewed upon the ground, which dissolving in the fervid heat of the summer sun, mingled with the pools and rivulets of blood forming a sickening and revolting spectacle. The convoy had been ambushed and attacked …

While the work of burial was going forward the rangers occupied themselves in searching the trails leading through the dense underbrush and tangled briars which covered the swampy plains. Several of the dead were by this means added to the already large number of the slain. On the Siide of one of these trails, the narrator of these events found the corpse of a woman which had …

Schuyler, near Albany, and the following year was shipped to England as a curiosit)'. Far and wide it was known as ' the scalped ox.' The bodies of the dead were buried in a trench near the scene of the massacre, a few rods east of the picketed enclosure. " The French version of the affair, states the oxen were killed, the carts burned, the property pillaged by the Indians …

Rogers was too late to accomplish his purpose, and on his way back he fell into an ambush near Fort Ann, about a mile from "Clear River" (or the Half-Way), on August 8th, and was badly defeated by M. Marin and his force of three hundred Regulars, Canadians and Indians. In this fight, Israel Putnam was taken prisoner, but was later released from captivity through the …

The diaries of those days show that, as yet, the temperance idea half a century or so afterward to arise in this locality, had no place among the hard drinking, hard swearing, and hard fighting men of that period, as these extracts from the Thompson Journal prove : ''August 28, Monday : Certified that Cape Breton was taken, and 63 cannon shot at Fort Edward and small arms. In …

Under date of Sept. 9th, it says : " Saturday : the picquet guard went to meet the teams ; a Sargeant and four men went forward to tell Half W^v Brook guard that the picquet was coming; and the Indians shot the Sergeant and scalped him before one man got to him ; and then the Indians ran away." "' With the close of the Abercrombie Campaign, and the abandonment of headquarters …

Thompson returned home safely, served at Concord and Lexington, and, his biographer says, finally "became one of the most useful men in the Town of Woburn." To him is attributed the discovery of the " Baldwin Apple," and a monument commemorating this gift to mankind, has been erected to his memory, making applicable in peculiar fashion Milton's lines, " Peace hath her …

Major West was placed in charge of the small garrison, and the post was equipped with artillery and the necessary supplies and ammunition. A number of huts, barracks and log structures were also built here at this time (whose sites were easily traceable in the early thirties), some of which were in existence at the beginning of the Revolutionary War, and were used by the …

In passing the writer wishes to state that the committee in charge of the erection of the memorial tablets, have chosen to give the block house, back of the Parker residence, the name of " The Seven Mile Post," applied to it in Knox's Military Journal under date of June 28, 1759, and to the fort on the " brickyard road," now called Glenwood Avenue, the name of " Fort Amherst." …

Under the dates of July 1st and 4th he writes the following, which is an epitome of the events going on at that time : " From the time that we came to this place till now, nothing remarkablbut e ; bateaux, cannon and all kinds of stores carrying up, forces marching daily to the Lake and duty exceeding hard." " The Artillery was carried from Fort Edward to Lake George and was …

The captures of Forts Ticonderoga and Crown Point, late in July, and the subsequent surrender of Quebec, brought in a great degree, a peace, quiet and safety to the northern frontier to which it had long been a stranger," Some time between 1759 and 1762, at the period following the conquest of Canada, General Amherst granted a permit to ona Geofifrey " Cooper," or Cowper, as …

In September, 1759, James DeLancey, Governor of the Colony of New York, issued a proclamation calling attention to the availability for settlers of " three Several Spotts of cleared Ground, two of them capable of containing half a dozen Families each and the other not less than twelve." These clearings were located on the site of the picket forts at Green's Bridge, where the …

This consisted of a plot of forty-four ten acre lots, six lots deep from north to south, and eight lots deep from east to west, forming an oblong square, intersected by central highways and necessary roads. The center lots being reserved for public buildings. Here, the village was to have been located, but it had been ordained otherwise. ',The settlement was made at " The …

There, too, was located a ford for watering horses and cattle, which was in use up to the present century. According to William L. Stone, the well-known historical writer and authority, General Burgoyne detached Baron Riedesel with three battaHons to *' John's Farm between Forts George and Edward," in order to keep open the roadway between the two places, and also to look …

After the seizure of Fort Edward by General Stark and his command, a fortified camp commanding the Lake George road was constructed by the Americans in the vicinity of Glens Falls, cutting off the possibility of a retreat by Burgoyne to the northward. William L. Stone, in his " Burgoyne's Campaign," says : " This was located on the site of Fort Amherst." The Marquis de …

IX of the Saratoga " Convention," " All Canadians and persons connected with the Canadian Establishment," "Independent Companies" (which included the Tories) and miscellaneous followers of the army were to be conducted by the shortest route to the first British post on Lake George, under the same conditions of surrender as the regular troops. Pursuant to this agreement, soon …

The last massacre of which history has record occurred in June or July of this year, when a man by the name of Koon, from Kingsbury, and three laborers, on their w^ay to Fort George, were found dead and scalped on the highway near the " Half-Way Brook." " In the fall of 1780, Major Christopher Carleton of the 29fch Regiment, with about twelve hundred men, regulars, Tories and …

Thus intimately connecting this spot once more with the stirring events of that time, Holden's History of Queensbury states that lohabod Merritt, son-in-law of Abraham Wing, the founder, and father of Joseph, the first white child born in' this town, erected the first frame house in Queensbury, on one of the sections of the Town Plot, near the *■ Half-Way Brook," which was …

This was destroyed by an act of vandalism about 1870. Lately the Fort Ann "Grange" has set on foot a project to erect another monument in place of the former marker. It would seem to be proper and fitting for this Association to encourage and forward this movement in every possible way. '"Topographically, the "Half-Way Brook" in any State but New York, with its abundant …

Among the more important of the older enterprises on its banks was Forbes and Johnson's Forge in 181 1, for making plough-shares, situated on the Forge Pond, an expansion of the "Half-Way," one and a half miles west of Glens Falls; Jeremiah Briggs' Grist and Saw ]\Iills, at what is now the Brickyard, frequented from far and near, in the early part of the century ; Champlm's …

And so we leave this famous brook, connected with which are the names of many of those brave men who afterward became celebrated in national fields of glory ; and bid adieu to the places made noted by the exploits of the two Putnams, Stark, Schuyler, Warner, Stevens, Waterbury, and a host of lesser military Colonial officers, whose experience, beginning on the shores of this …

At the present time the principal extensive business enterprises brickyards, on thefrom about a mile " Halfthe Way " in site of theWarren old fort,County, are three saw mills and two cider mills. In Washington County at Patten's Mills, there is a grist mill, and at Griswold's Mills, a saw mill and a grist mill. On the " branch " at West Fort Ann, is located a planer and cider …

Lawrence ; but before losing its identity in the surging waters of the North Atlantic, it laves the frowning cliflfs of Quebec, thus forming a shimmering and living band, which unites for all time the valley of the Holy Lake and the Plains of Abraham ; those two eventful spots where the French dominion received its first check and final overthrow, thus placing, in the end, the …

A site for the marker at Half-Way Brook having been decided on at the intersection of Glen Street and Glenw'ood Avenue, on the road to Lake George, a glacial bowlder as a base for the tablet was placed in position there through the kindness and generosity of Henry Crandall, Glens Falls. A legal title to the spot was obtained, and the tablet ordered from W. J. Scales, Glens …

It was burned in 1780 in the Carleton Raid at the time of the "Northern Invasion." REPORT OF COMMITTEE ON MARKING HISTORICAL SPOTS. I9I THE SEVEN MILE POST. Was a block house with a stockaded enclosure which occupied the rise of ground north of the brook and west of the road, near the residence of W. H. Parker, from 1755 to Revolutionary times. During that period it was one of …

HOLDEN, Secretary. PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED. Tourists' Handbook. Rept. of Trustees, Pa. Soldiers' & Sailors' Home. Rept. of the Gettysburg National Park Oommission. Regulations for the Government of the Gettysburg National Park. Officers of the State Society of Cincinnati of Georgia, 1790. Celebration Address of the 25th Anniversary of the Loyal Legion. Military Order of the …

VH, No. i. Annals of Iowa. Third Series, Vol. VII, No. 2, Annals of Iowa. PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED. 1 93 The Essex Institute Historical Collection, 1905. (Two Numbers.) Ohio Archaeological & Historical Quarterly, Vol. XIV, Jan. 1905, No. I. Ohio Archaeological & Historical Quarterly, Vol. XIV, Apr. 1905, No. 2. The Iowa Journal of History and Politics, Vol. 3, July, 1905, No. 2 …

At the top is the coatof-arms of New Amsterdam and a tomahawk, arrow and Dutch sword. At the bottom is shown the seal of New York State. Upon a ribbon, surrounding the centre medallion, is the legend : New York State Historical Association, and the dates 1609 and 1899; the former being the date of the discovery of New York, and the latter the date of the founding of the …

The name of such corporation is the " New York State Historical Association." The principal objects for which said corporation is formed are: First. To promote and encourage original historical research. Second. To disseminate a greater knowledge of the early history of the State, by means of lectures, and the publication and distribution of literature on historical subjects …

The number of directors of said corporation, to be known as the Board of Trustees, is twenty-five. The names and residences of the directors of said corporation, to hold office until the first annual meeting, and who shall be known as the Board C'f Trustees, are : James A. Roberts, Bufifalo. Timothy L. Woodrufif, Brooklyn. Daniel C. Farr, Glens Falls, Everett R. Sawyer, Sandy …

In Witness Whereof, We have hereunto severally subscribed our names and affixed our seals this 21st day of March, in the year one thousand eight hundred and ninetv-nine. DANIEL C. FARR, (l. s.) JAMES A. HOLDEN, (l. s.) ELMER J. WEbf, (l. s.) GRENVILLE M. INGALSBE, (l. s.) MORRIS P. FERRIS. (l. s.) State of New York. County of Warren. On this 2ist day of March, in the year one …

Holden, Morris Patterson Ferris, Grenville M. Ingalsbe, Anson Judd Upson, Robert C. Alexander, Hugh Hastings, William S. Ostrander, William L. Stone, William H. Tippetts, Harry W. Watrous, William O. Stearns. Timothy L. Woodruff, Everett R. Sawyer, Robert O. Bascom. Elwyn Seelye, Frederick B. Richards, Asahel R. Wing, Elmer J. West, Pliny T. Sexton, Sherman Williams, Henry E …