“Black with Cruelty, and Crimsoned with Blood” — The Many Myths of the Wyoming Massacre

Don Troiani, Ensign Downing's Escape, Wyoming, July 3, 1778

Early in the summer of 1778, a combined force of Butler's Rangers led by Major John Butler¹ and Seneca², led by Sayenqueragtha and Cornplanter³, descended the Susquehanna River to attack settlements in the Wyoming Valley in northeastern Pennsylvania. The Rangers quickly captured two smaller forts but the demand for the surrender of Forty Fort near Wilkes-Barre was rebuked.

In the afternoon of July 3, a column of between 300 and 400 Patriots commanded by Colonel Zebulon Butler and Colonel Nathan Denison marched out of Forty Fort to engage the enemy a few miles away. After firing three unanswered volleys, the Patriots advanced to within 100 yards of Major Butler’s position, unaware that they were being flanked. After a devastating volley from the Seneca and Rangers, the Seneca broke cover and attacked the American left with tomahawk, maul and spear. An attempt to fall back and reform the Patriot line became a panicked rout. Many of the fleeing soldiers were overtaken, killed and scalped. Some were taken prisoner by the Seneca and later executed, and some were tortured to death. Fewer than 70 Patriots are believed to have survived the battle and its aftermath.

Forty Fort, Wyoming in 1778

Forty Fort surrendered without bloodshed on July 4. In the days that followed, houses and barns throughout the Wyoming Valley were plundered and burned by Major Butler’s “savage allies.” Mills were destroyed and livestock was driven off. The inhabitants of the valley fled, either east through the Great Swamp and the Pocono Mountains to Fort Penn (Stroudsburg) or by rafting down the Susquehanna to Fort Augusta (Sunbury).

In his report to the British commander at Fort Niagara, dated July 8, Major Butler wrote:

But what gives me the greatest satisfaction is that I can, with great truth, assure you that in the destruction of this settlement not a single person has been hurt of the inhabitants but such as were in arms. To those, indeed, the Indians gave no quarter.

The Shawnee war chief Cheeseekau is thought to have said, "When a white army battles Indians and wins, it is called a great victory, but if they lose it is called a massacre." In the American imagination the Battle of Wyoming quickly became the Wyoming Massacre, not because of the deaths of the fleeing soldiers, but because of fabricated claims of butchered women and children.

There was no massacre of women and children in the aftermath of the Battle of Wyoming. But despite the preponderance of evidence that supports this, some amateur historical writers continue to perpetuate the incendiary myth that such a slaughter occurred.

Two examples are an earlier Wikipedia article on the battle, and a biography of Captain Walter Butler that appeared in the Journal of the American Revolution.⁴ Until recently, the Wikipedia article cited a tertiary source that wrongly claimed, “360 American men, women, and children lost their lives, and many who escaped to the forests died of starvation or exposure.” The Butler biography uses a quote from an obscure source to assert that the Rangers and Seneca, “put to death all the inhabitants of both sexes and every age, some thousands in number, enclosing some in buildings which they set on fire, and roasting others alive.”⁵

Pennsylvania Packet, July 30, 1778

These myths largely originate from the sensationalist “Poughkeepsie” account thought to have been written by New York Journal publisher John Holt. In the weeks following the battle, Holt’s report was published in numerous newspapers including the Connecticut Courant, Boston Gazette, and the Pennsylvania Packet. Holt claimed a British strength of “near sixteen hundred,” that John Butler was a cousin of Zebulon Butler, and that when Denison asked for terms the reply was “the Hatchet.” Holt wrote that after the capitulation of Forty Fort, “about seventy of the men ... they inhumanly butchered, with every circumstance of horrid cruelty; and then shutting up the rest, with the women and children in the houses, they set fire to them, and they all perished together in flames.”

Holt included many other lurid details, alleging that Thomas Hill “with his own hands” slaughtered his mother, father-in-law, sisters, nephews and nieces; and that Partial Terry, “murdered his father, mother, brother and sisters, stripped off their scalps, and cut off his father’s head."⁶

Although Holt later issued a retraction, acknowledging that women and children had not been massacred, the genie had been let out of the bottle. Holt’s gruesome account fuelled the conviction among many Americans that independence from Britain was justified, and was undoubtedly a factor in George Washington’s decision to launch a genocidal campaign against the Haudenosaunee the following summer.

In the years following the Revolution, many writers treated Holt’s account as historical fact. William Gordon’s The History of the Rise, Progress, and Establishment, of the Independence of the United States, published in 1788, repeated Holt’s false assertions that the Patriots were vastly outnumbered, and that a request for terms was answered “with more than savage phlegm in two short words — the hatchet!” Gordon wrote that women and children were burned alive at Forty Fort and across the river at Wilkes-Barre, and that the two familicides had indeed occurred. Gordon also falsely asserted that the Mohawk war chief Thayendanegea (Joseph Brant), “of desperate courage, ferocious and cruel beyond example,” was present at Wyoming.

Mercy Otis Warren, in her History of the Rise, Progress and Termination of the American Revolution, published in 1805, began by proclaiming the pre-war Wyoming Valley to be an idyllic paradise. She wrote that the surrender of Forty Fort was preceded by “the horrid display of a great number of scalps, just torn from the head, and yet warm with the blood, of their nearest friends and relations." According to Warren, Butler “had nothing human about him, except a rough, external figure of a man,” and that his men “enjoyed the infernal pleasure of seeing them [women and children] perish promiscuously, in the flames lighted by their bloody hands,” while "others were cruelly and wantonly imbuing their hands in the blood of their parents." Warren avowed that she recorded these events “agreeably to most authentic accounts at the time."

That same year, the fourth volume of Chief Justice John Marshall’s influential Life of George Washington was published. Marshall attributed to John Butler “more than cannibal ferocity” as he repeated the hatchet myth and the claims of familicide. He wrote that at Wilkes-Barre, soldiers were “hacked to pieces” while women and children “shared the fate of their brethren” at Forty Fort and “perished in the flames.” Many years later Marshall admitted that he had been gravely misled by Gordon’s History.

George Romney, Joseph Brant, 1776,
National Galley of Canada

When Scottish poet Thomas Campbell wrote his epic poem Gertrude of Wyoming in 1809, he decided that Thayendanegea, who he called “Monster Brandt,” would be the main antagonist. Campbell later “apologized” to Thayendanegea’s son since neither Thayendanegea nor the Mohawk were at Wyoming.

The notion that Thayendanegea and the Mohawk were present is one of the more persistent myths of the Wyoming Massacre. Despite being debunked by William Leete Stone in his Life of Joseph Brant, published in 1838, it is still possible to find references to Mohawk participation in recently published work. For example, an online article published in 2010⁷ and cited by the Wikipedia article, includes statements such as “hundreds of Mohawk warriors came storming out of the nearby woods” and “the slaughtering was done exclusively by the Mohawks.” While Thayendanegea is not named, neither are the Seneca, so it is possible that the author was mistakenly using Mohawk as a synonym for “Indians.”

While Isaac Chapman’s Sketch of the History of Wyoming, published posthumously in 1830, reduced the size of Butler’s forces to a more reasonable 800, he repeated the claim that Brant was present. According to Chapman, Forty Fort’s garrison of precisely 368 men left the fort at dawn on the third. In the battle and subsequent massacre 300 men were killed including a militiaman murdered by his “Tory” brother. Chapman states that “all kinds of barbarities” were committed after the capitulation with many women and children taken into captivity.

Early American textbooks also propagated the false narrative that women and children were massacred. In his History of the United States, published in 1836 “for the use of schools and academies” John Frost wrote that Butler’s forces “massacred a great part of the inhabitants,” and “to save themselves the trouble of murdering individually their vanquished enemies, with the women and children, shut them all up in the houses and barracks, set fire to the buildings, and with savage exultation, saw them all perish in the flames.” Subsequent editions of his history omitted the horrid details and only maintained that inhabitants were massacred.

Massacre of Wyoming from John Frost's
Thrilling Incidents of the Wars of the United States

Ten years later, Frost published A Pictorial History of the United States, followed by Thrilling Incidents of the Wars of the United States in 1848. A Pictorial History repeated Holt’s claim that John Butler, a “kinsman” of Zebulon Butler, had 1600 men with him, and that Butler, “inhumanly massacred all of the poor inhabitants, men, women, and children.” Frost also made the outrageous assertion that the total number of deaths among the inhabitants was 3000.

In Thrilling Incidents, Frost reduced the size of Butler’s forces to 1100 and gave precise but inaccurate number for those who marched into battle and for those who escaped. While he no longer maintained that a massacre followed the capitulation, the accompanying illustration still showed Seneca warriors slaughtering settlers among the burning buildings of Wilkes-Barre.

Missing from these earlier “histories” are references to primary sources apart from Holt’s flawed account. The Library of Congress defines primary sources as “the raw materials of history — original documents and objects that were created at the time under study.” It took decades before historical writers such as Stone and Charles Miner interviewed survivors and sought out letters and journals as well as the “official” reports written by Nathan Denison, Zebulon Butler and John Butler.

In 1841, Stone published The Poetry and History of Wyoming. Stone was unequivocal in asserting that Thayendanegea was not present and that “no lives were taken by the Indians after the surrender.” A few years earlier Stone had visited the Seneca elder Gaondowauna who had fought at Wyoming and affirmed the absence of Thayendanegea and the Mohawk.

But while Stone refuted Brant's presence, he wrongly contended that a detachment of the “Royal Greens” participated in the battle.⁸ He included Chapman’s story of the fratricide and gave his readers an account of an indigenous woman executing prisoners. A marker erected at “The Bloody Rock” by the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission in 1962 tells the story:

On the night of July 3, 1778, after the Battle of Wyoming, fourteen or more captive American soldiers were murdered here by a maul wielded by a revengeful Indian woman, traditionally but not certainly identified as "Queen Esther."

Charles Miner in his History of Wyoming, published in 1845, clearly refuted the idea that women and children were massacred. He described Marshall’s account as “exceedingly erroneous,” and referred to other early accounts as “black with cruelty, and crimsoned with blood.” He described the fratricide and expanded upon the story of "Queen Esther and the Bloody Rock." Miner, however, still clung to the possibility that Thayendanegea was at Wyoming, and claimed no more than 160 Patriot deaths, and no fewer than 40 deaths for the “Tories” and “Indians.”
 
Miner based his work on the oral histories which he collected from survivors. Sarah Bidlack née Gore was at Forty Fort when it surrendered, and lost several family members in the battle. She reported that the Seneca treated them kindly but plundered “everything but the clothes they had on.” Martha Myers née Bennett noted how the Indians “robbed, plundered, burned and destroyed” but did not physically harm anyone. Both said that Major Butler “exerted himself to restrain the savages.”

James Charles Armytage, The Fratricide at Wyoming, 1860,
The Lilly Library, Indiana University Bloomington

Drawing on Stone and Miner was George Peck’s Wyoming; Its History, Stirring Incidents, and Romantic Adventures, published in 1858. Peck’s approach was to tell the stories of individuals who were there. The account of Lieutenant Matthias Hollenback, as told by his daughter-in-law, describes how he escaped death by swimming the river. Martha Bennett’s story is retold while Deborah Sutton related that her family built a raft and floated down the Susquehanna to safety. Joseph Marcy boasted how his mother managed to fight off a Seneca warrior who was trying to steal a loaf of bread. Sylvia Stevens, who was at Forty Fort when it surrendered, provided the anecdote of a Seneca warrior who poisoned himself by drinking a bottle of camphor oil.

According to Peck, the execution of prisoners by Queen Esther was “undoubted historical fact” and referred to her as the “priestess of the hellish orgies of Bloody Rock.” In his chapter “The Fratricide,” Peck wrote that “according to reliable evidence,” John Pencil fled to Canada after the murder of his brother Henry and was forced to live in the wilderness until he was eaten by wolves.⁹

Peck also provided transcriptions of John Butler’s report dated July 8, and Zebulon Butler’s report dated two days later. Peck extensively footnotes the former and called it “a perfectly bald caricature of the famous expedition of its author.” Meanwhile, he accepted Zebulon Butler’s report without question. To his credit, Peck recognized that the account of the Battle of Wyoming in Gordon and Marshall were “not mere exaggerations, but downright falsehoods.”

In his letter to the Board of War, Zebulon Butler reported 200 Patriots killed and an “uncertain... but considerable” number of enemy casualties. He wrote:

“I have heard from men that came from the place since the people gave up that the Indians have killed no persons since, but have burned most of the buildings, and are collecting all the horses they can, and are moving up the river. They likewise say the enemy were eight hundred, one half white men.”

Colonel Butler’s report is collaborated by a letter written a few weeks later by Denison to Governor Jonathan Turnbull of Connecticut: “The number of enemy that came against us did not exceed seven or eight hundred at the most by the best information I can get.” He added, “the number killed on our side can not be certainly known. but I believe not far from two hundred. He makes no mention of the execution or torture of prisoners, and collaborates Butler’s statement that after the surrender of Forty Fort, “no person was hurt by the enemy.”

Other first-hand accounts accompanied the Petition of the Sufferers of Wyoming sent to Congress in 1839. Catharine Kennedy, who was twelve at the time, related that her family travelled through the wilderness with a large group of refugees and that a child was born on the three-day trek. A similar account was provided by Eleazer Blackman, while Jose Rogers reported that his grandmother had died soon after his family had travelled downriver to Fort Augusta.

Denman Fink, The Flight of the
Survivors, 1902, Scribner's Magazine

These testimonies do not support claims that hundreds of refugees died as they fled through the wilderness. While Stone wrote that “numbers of women and children perished in the dismal swamp on the Pokono range of mountains,” later “authorities” popularized the idea that many refugees had succumbed to exposure and hunger. The accounts, however, do not speak of women and children forced to flee "barefoot and almost naked" or becoming lost in the mire of the Great Swamp.  For the most part, the refugees that followed the paths east through the Poconos arrived at Fort Penn exhausted and hungry but otherwise healthy.

The accounts also contradict claims of a sudden mass exodus. While Anderson Dana’s family left on the fourth, Sarah Gore reported that her family “stayed almost two weeks before they were obliged to flee.” Bertha Jenkins’s family left three days after the battle. Martha Bennett left the valley by canoe on the fifth, but her father waited a week longer before leaving. Deborah Sutton’s family didn’t depart until after Major Butler’s forces had left the valley on the eighth.

Ishmael Bennett's statement provides evidence that the Seneca tortured their prisoners. He reported that his father, “could see naked white men running round the fires; could hear the cries of agony; could see the savages following with their spears, and hear their yells; it was a dreadful sight.” 

Accounts of the Battle of Wyoming are also found in the journals kept by several of the participants in the 1779 Sullivan Expedition against the Haudenosaunee. Captain James Norris of the 3rd New Hampshire Regiment recorded that at Wyoming the “unhappy people... were attacked by a merciless band of savages, led on by a more savage Tory, the Unnatural monster Butler: their Houses were plundered and burnt, their cattle of effects convey'd away after they had capitulated; the poor helpless Women [and] children obliged to Sculk in the Mountains and perish or travel down to the Inhabitants, hungry, naked & unsupported.” Norris also related the story of John Pencil murdering and scalping his brother, calling it “a deeper Tragedy than has been acted since the Days of Cain.”

Colonel Henry Dearborn, commanding the 3rd New Hampshire, recorded that there were 200 Patriot deaths during the battle, and that the “Savages burnt & destroyed the whole country & drove off the cattle & horses & strip’ed the women & children of every comfort of life.”

Detail from William Scull's 1770 Map of Pennsylvania, Library of Congress

The most detailed narrative, however, is that of Reverend William Rogers who was a brigade chaplain during the Sullivan expedition. Like Norris and Dearborn, Rogers described crossing the Great Swamp between the Susquehanna and Delaware Rivers, and passing through the densely forested area known as the Shades of Death. Although many writers attributed the name to the alleged deaths among the Wyoming refugees, the toponym was in use well before the Battle of Wyoming and appears on William Scull’s 1770 map of Pennsylvania.

While the brigade was at Wyoming, Rogers visited the battlefield and was the told the tale of the fratricide by Colonel Zebulon Butler. Rogers was shown where the bones of “fourteen wretched creatures” were found lying in a circle several weeks after the battle, and wrote that Queen Esther “scalped and tomahawked with her own hands in cool blood eight or ten persons.”  

Rogers reported between 70 and 80 “of the butchering foe” were killed. While he does not explicitly claim that women and children were massacred at Wyoming, he accused the British of encouraging “the savage tribes to kill and wretchedly torture to death, persons of each sex and of every age—the prattling infant, the blooming maid and persons of venerable years.”

Accounts of the Battle of Wyoming from a Loyalist perspective were slow to appear. While George Peck included Major Butler’s report, he labelled it a “gross exaggeration.” Richard Cartwright’s Memorandum of Indian Operations, which he wrote in 1780, did not appear in print until 1878, while a transcription of Richard McGinnis's journal did not appear until 1972.

In Loyalists of America and Their Times, published in 1880, Egerton Ryerson reviewed the contradictory narratives of the “Massacre of Wyoming” contained in four published histories of the United States written by “accredited historians.” His conclusion was the Battle of Wyoming:

...has been the subject of more misrepresentation, more declamation, more descriptive and poetic exaggeration, and more denunciation against the English by American historians and orators than any other transaction of the American revolution.

Ernest Cruikshank’s The Story of Butler’s Rangers and the Settlement of Niagara, published in 1893, is still considered the definitive history of the regiment. His relatively brief but straightforward account of the battle refreshingly lacks the jingoism of earlier American narratives. Cruikshank does not tackle the alleged fratricide or the accusation that an indigenous woman executed prisoners, but he does attribute the myth of a wholesale slaughter to the Wyoming refugees themselves rather than the fertile imagination of early historical writers:  

Those who fled from the valley told a far different story of death and desolation, which their fears prompted them to embellish with blood-curdling and wholly imaginary details. This tale of horror was eagerly circulated to throw odium upon the loyalists, and has been repeated with little variation down to the present day. Undoubtedly there was a “massacre” at Wyoming, but it was of strong men flying from a lost battle, and not of prisoners or helpless women and children as they represented.

Richard McGinnis, a private in Butler’s Rangers, wrote in his journal that before leaving Fort Niagara, Major Butler convinced the Seneca to refrain from “Murdering the Woman and Innocent.” He recorded that the Seneca “Did Not Comit any thing of the Kind to My Certain Knowledge In Our Way through the Savage Country.” According to McGinnis, nine hundred head of cattle were driven back to Tioga, while of the two Rangers wounded in the battle, one later died of his wounds.

Richard Cartwright's Memorandum is perhaps the most accurate account from the British perspective. Cartwright, who was Major Butler's civilian secretary, described the battle as “a very warm engagement” after which “the rebels retreated with precipitation.” He recorded that in addition to the scalps taken by the Seneca, several Patriots drowned trying to escape across the Susquehanna. He wrote that houses were set afire and cattle driven off, and confirmed that the Seneca engaged in plunder but did physically harm any the inhabitants except for the prisoners taken by them during the battle:

All this was done without any acts of cruelty being committed by the savages; for the deliberate murder of prisoners after they are brought into their camp is not, it seems, reckoned among acts of cruelty by these barbarous wretches.

American author's estimates of the number under Major Butler’s command vary widely, Warren's outrageous claim of 2000 to Chapman's more reasonable 800. Many authors overestimated the number of “Tories” while underestimating the number of “savages” present. Although Miner tried to provide an accurate account of the battle based on primary sources, he still inflated the number to 1100 “Tories, Royal Greens, and Indians,” a number which also appears on the memorial plaque located near the site of the battle. It is as if those writing from the American perspective could not accept that their men-in-arms were annihilated by a force not much bigger than their own.

Journal of Richard McGinnes,
Library and Archives Canada

Those writing from the Loyalist perspective gave much smaller numbers. Major Butler stated he had 500 under his command. Cruikshank quoted Butler’s number and provided a breakdown of 200 Rangers and 300 Indians. McGinnis wrote that they set out from Niagara with 70 Rangers and 300 Indians. Perhaps the most accurate number, however, was recorded by Cartwright who claimed 110 Rangers and 474 Indians.

It can be deduced from the pay lists found in the Haldimand Papers that the total strength of Butler’s Rangers at the time of the battle was no more than 210 men. Not everyone listed, however, would have been at Wyoming. Walter Butler, for example, was at Quebec, having escaped from captivity in Albany a few months earlier.

Estimates of the number of Patriot casualties vary as well. Denison and Zebulon Butler claimed not more than 200 in their reports. John Butler reported that 227 scalps were taken and wrote that Denison, “assures me that they have lost one Colonel, two Majors, seven Captains, thirteen Lieutenants, eleven Ensigns, and two hundred and sixty eight privates.”

While Denison reported, “the numbr of the Enemy killed not far from Eighty,” Major Butler wrote, “On our side are killed one Indian; two Rangers and eight Indians wounded.” McGinnis noted, “The loss on our side was one Indian killed and two white men wounded. One of the white men, Willson by name, died of his wound, it having mortified.” Cartwright recorded “seven wounded, two of whom died of their wounds.” William Smy in An Annotated Nominal Roll of Butler’s Rangers identified the two who died as Francis Willson and John Carlock.

Williams College art historian Michael Lewis recently observed:

...the false account of the Indians driving the women and children into the fort and then setting it ablaze was too good a story not to repeat. It is one of those false but indestructible stories we have learned to call “urban legends.” And while, by 1845, the story had already been scrupulously corrected in Charles Miner’s History of Wyoming, authors and artists continued to dine out on the more exciting sham version.

One such “sham version” was presented at the 1878 commemoration of the “Battle and Massacre of Wyoming.” Steuben Jenkins made a jingoistic speech about “the valour and patriotism of that little band of heroes who went forth to stay the march of the ruthless invaders.” He insisted Brant was present and falsely accused the British of paying for the scalps taken. Although he reluctantly admitted that there was no massacre of women and children after the surrender of Forty Fort, he regaled his audience with John Franklin Meginness’s hyperbolic account of an earlier “massacre” on the West Branch of the Susquehanna:

Children were murdered before their parents’ eyes; husbands were compelled to witness the horrid deaths of their wives—and in turn children were compelled to gaze upon the mangled bodies of their parents. Neither age, sex, nor condition was spared. The wails of helpless infants; the imploring cries of defenceless women, failed to awaken a chord of pity in adamantine bosom of the tawny savage—he laughed their pitiful appeals to scorn, and with a fiendish grin of pleasure, plied the knife, and tore the reeking scalp from their heads.

According to Jenkins, Major Butler commanded British provincials, Tories, Royal Greens, and indigenous warriors “thirsting for conquest and blood.” While his account of the battle is fairly straightforward, his story of the ensuing massacre dwelt on the more gruesome details. He repeated the narrative of “Queen Esther’s Bloody Rock,” but surprisingly asserted that the story of the fratricide was untrue, before falsely claiming that the refugees who fled into the wilderness were persued:

Many were slain by the pursuing savages in their flight, some died of excitement and fatigue, others of hunger and exposure, while many were lost who never found their way out. Hundreds were never seen again after they turned their backs on Wyoming. By what sufferings and torture they died the world will never know.

Oscar Jewell Harvey was able to draw on both American and Canadian sources for his two volume History of Wilkes-Barre, published in 1909. Harvey noted that unfamiliarity with the uniforms of provincial regiments had caused many writers to assume that the “Royal Greens” were there, and concluded that any “Tories” present were enlisted in Butler’s Rangers. Harvey traced how the Poughkeepsie account had been rehashed and repeated for decades until being thoroughly demolished by Stone and Miner.

Harvey accepted accounts of an indigenous woman killing Patriot prisoners but questioned whether Queen Esther was the culprit. He argued that the murder of John Pencil by his brother Henry was “more indisputably authenticated than many other incidents.” Perhaps Harvey’s only notable failure was clinging to the belief that many Wyoming refugees died in the Shades of Death.

Howard Pyle, Queen Esther, 1902,
Scribner's Magazine

In stark contrast to Harvey’s unbiased and fairly accurate account is Alfred Matthews’s A Story of Three States, published in 1902 and excerpted in Scribner’s Magazine. Matthews resurrected long discredited myths and invented others. He asserted that the Rangers under “Indian” Butler were accompanied by “Royal Greens,” a “rabble of Tories,” Seneca, Mohawk, and “a swarm of squaws.” He insisted that all the inhabitants were slaughtered except for a few children taken into captivity, and that Queen Esther was the overall leader.

What makes Matthews work notable is not the misinformation but the full-page illustrations that accompanied it.  Denman Fink’s The Flight of the Survivors of the Wyoming Massacre shows a group of exhausted refugees trudging through the Shades of Death. Frederick Yost’s The Indians Departing after the Massacre of Wyoming shows the Seneca burden with plunder and mounted on stolen horses. Most remarkable, however, is Howard Pyle’s Queen Esther who is depicted wearing a flaming red skirt as she incites the indigenous warriors while Thayendanegea and Major Butler look on.

The most famous illustration of the Battle of Wyoming, however, is Alonzo Chappel’s 1858 Massacre of Wyoming. At the centre of what Lewis calls a “turbulent scene” and “a senseless chaotic maelstrom,” a solitary Seneca warrior scalps a wounded Patriot while around him “Royal Greens” and Rangers attack the fleeing militia with musket and tomahawk. Chappel’s illustration reflects the erroneous belief that the “Tories” significantly outnumbered their Seneca allies and were largely responsible for the massacre.

Alonzo Chappel, Massacre of Wyoming, 1858, Chicago History Museum

A far more accurate portrayal is Don Troiani’s 2012 Ensign’s Downing’s Escape which shows Daniel Downing watching helplessly from his hiding place as his compatriots are slaughtered on the banks of the Susquehanna.

Recent scholarship has focused on the willingness of a society to embrace historical myths such as the Wyoming Massacre. In Savage and Bloody Footsteps through the Valley, William Tharp examined how narratives where a slaughter of women and children took centre stage, and where John Butler was demonized, were displaced by a narrative where "a fury in the form of a woman" brutally executed prisoners. He concluded that the apocryphal story of Queen Esther was very much the product of the antebellum society in which it developed.

Lisa Francavilla demonstrated how contradictions in the stories of the Battle of Wyoming reinforced the need to “question the reliability not only of secondary sources but of the primary sources on which they depend.” She noted that while historians have traditionally tried to determine what actually happened, they have often neglected to ask why variations in accounts of historical events occur:

Yet, how a story is told is just as important as what it says, and why a story continues to be believed, despite its debatable or insupportable elements, reveals much about a society that clings to it and perpetuates it.

In 1710, the essayist and satirist Jonathan Swift wrote: “Falsehood flies, and truth comes limping after it, so that when men come to be undeceived, it is too late.” The persistence of the myths surrounding the Battle of Wyoming is clear proof of Swift’s wry observation.

It is difficult to understand why in the face of unequivocal evidence some historical writers still embrace the myths of the Wyoming Massacre. But they are in fact myths. Thayendanegea was miles away. Major Butler's forces numbered less than 600. There were no "Royal Greens" or Mohawk present. Hundreds of women and children did not perish from hunger or exposure in the Shades of Death. And the inhabitants of the Wyoming Valley were not massacred after the surrender of Forty Fort. To maintain otherwise is sheer folly.

Notes:

¹ Many sources refer to John Bulter as a Lieutenant Colonel, however, at the time of the Battle of Wyoming he was Major Commandant of the provincial corps known as Butler’s Rangers. His commission as Lieutenant Colonel is dated February 14, 1780.
² Small contingents of Cayuga, Onondaga and Munsee Delaware warriors were also present.
³ Sayenqueraghta (d. 1786) was known as Kaieñkwaahtoñ or Gayahgwaahdoh in the Seneca language, and was also known as Old Smoke. Cornplanter was known as Gaiänt'wakê or Kaiiontwa'kon in the Seneca language.
⁴ Werther, Richard. “Walter Butler—The Dastardly Loyalist,” Journal of the American Revolution, August 25, 2022. Captain Walter Butler (1752–1781) was the son of Major John Butler and a company commander in Butler’s Rangers, but was in Quebec when the battle occurred. https://allthingsliberty.com/2022/08/walter-butler-the-dastardly-loyalist/
⁵ This quote is from James Gordon’s The Historical and Geographic Memoir of the North American Colonies and Its Nations and Tribes, published in Dublin in 1820, and appears in Howard Swiggert’s War out of Niagara as an example of the gross exaggerations that appeared in print after the Revolutionary War.
⁶ Parshall Terry (1756-1808) was a Loyalist who served in Butler’s Rangers and later became a political figure in Upper Canada. He drowned in 1808 while crossing the Don River in York (Toronto). His father, Parshall Terry (1734-1811), was a patriot who served in the 24th Regiment of Connecticut Militia and who outlived his son by three years.
⁷ Fairchild, Michael. "Neighbor vs. Neighbor in the Wyoming Valley." Pennsylvania Centre for the Book. Pennsylvania State University, 2010. http://pabook2.libraries.psu.edu/palitmap/BattleWyoming.html
⁸ “The Royal Greens” was the American name for the King’s Royal Regiment of New York, a British provincial unit raised in 1776 and commanded by Sir John Johnson. None of the regiment were present at the Battle of Wyoming. Captain William Caldwell, who Miner believed commanded the Greens at the battle, was a company commander in Butler’s Rangers.
⁹ The real John Pencil served with Butler’s Rangers until it was disbanded in 1784. He settled with other Loyalists in Fredericksburg Township in the Bay of Quinte region and was living there as late as 1797 when he successfully petitioned the government of Upper Canada for additional land.

Sources:

Butler, John. Letter to Lt. Col. Mason Bolton, July 8, 1778, Haldimand Papers, Library and Archives Canada, Add MSS 217610, Vol. B.100, pp. 38–43.

Butler, Zebulon. Letter to the Board of War, July 10, 1778. Wilkes University Archives, Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. https://archivepublic.wilkes.edu/repositories/2/archival_objects/13305

Cartwright, Richard. "Memorandum of Indian Operations from 1778 to 1780, Made at Niagara in 1780." in Cartwright, Conway Edward (ed.) Life and Letters of the late Hon. Richard Cartwright, member of Legislative Council in the first Parliament of Upper Canada. Toronto, 1876. https://archive.org/details/lifelettersoflat00cart/

Chapman, Isaac. A Sketch of the History of Wyoming. Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, 1830. https://archive.org/details/sketchofhistoryo00inchap

Cook, Frederick, editor. Journals of the Military Expedition of Major General John Sullivan against the Six Nations of Indians in 1779. Auburn, New York, 1887. https://archive.org/details/cu31924095654384

Cruikshank, Ernest. Butler's Rangers and the Settlement of Niagara. Welland, Ontario, 1893. https://archive.org/details/storyofbutlersra00cruiuoft

Denison, Nathan. “Letter to Jonathan Trumbull, July 28, 1778,” Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, Vol III (Second Series), October 1887, pp. 342–4. https://www.jstor.org/stable/25079665

Francavilla, Lisa A. The Wyoming Valley Battle and ‘Massacre’: Images of a Constructed American History. M.A. thesis, College of William and Mary, 2002. https://scholarworks.wm.edu/etd/1539626377

Frost, John. History of the United States: for the Use of Schools And Academies. Philadelphia, 1836. https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/008586749

Frost, John, and William Croome. The Pictorial History of the United States of America: From the Discovery by the Northmen In the Tenth Century to the Present Time. Philadelphia, 1846. https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/008371698

Frost, John. Thrilling Incidents of the Wars of the United States: Comprising the Most Striking And Remarkable Events of the Revolution, the French War, the Tripolitan War, the Indian War, the Second War With Great Britain, And the Mexican War. Philadelphia, 1848. https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/008650105

Gordon, William. The History of the Rise, Progress, And Establishment, of the Independence of the United States of America: Including an Account of the Late War ; And of the Thirteen Colonies, From Their Origin to That Period. Vol. 3. London, 1788. https://archive.org/details/historyofrisepro03gordrich

Harvey, Oscar Jewell. A History of Wilkes-Barre, Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, Vol. 2. Wilkes-Barre: Wyoming Historical and Geological Society, 1909. https://archive.org/details/historyofwilkesb02harv_0/

Hayden, Horace Edwin (ed.). The Massacre of Wyoming: The Acts of Congress for the Defense of the Wyoming Valley, Pennsylvania, 1776-1778: With the Petitions of the Sufferers by the Massacre of July 3, 1778, for Congressional Aid. Wilkes-Barre, 1895. https://archive.org/details/massacreofwyomin00pennrich

Jenkins, Steuben. Historical Address at the Wyoming Monument, 3d of July 1778, on the 100th Anniversary of the Battle and Massacre of Wyoming. Wilkes-Barre, 1878. https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/011205755

Lewis, Michael J. "The Wyoming Massacre: On Stone and in Memory." Nineteenth Century: The Magazine of the Victorian Society in America, Vol. 40, No. 1 (Spring 2020) pp. 34–41. https://victoriansociety.org/nineteenth-century-magazine/

Marshall, John. Life of Washington, Commander in Chief of the American Forces...and First President of the United States, Vol. 4. Philadelphia, 1805. https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/008726318

Matthews, Alfred. "A Story of Three States," Scribner's Magazine, Vol. 31, No. 4 (April 1902) pp. 408-19, and No. 5 (May 1902) pp. 558-570.

Mathews, Alfred. Ohio and her Western Reserve, with a story of three states leading to the latter, from Connecticut, by way of Wyoming, its Indian wars and massacre. New York, 1902. https://archive.org/details/ohioandherweste00mathgoog

McGinnis, Richard. Journal of Richard McGinnis. Library and Archives Canada, R12039-8-6-E, Vol. 37.

Meginness, John Franklin. Otzinachson: or, A History of the West Branch Valley of the Susquehanna. Philadelphia, 1857. https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/001263045

Miner, Charles. History of Wyoming in a Series of Letters from Charles Miner, to his son William Penn Miner. Philadelphia, 1845. https://archive.org/details/historyofwyoming01mine

Peck, George. Wyoming; Its History, Stirring Incidents, and Romantic Adventures. New York, 1858. https://archive.org/details/wyomingitshistor01peck

“Poughkeepsie July 20,” Pennsylvania Packet, July 30, 1778, pp. 1, 4.

Ryerson, Egerton. The Loyalists of America And Their Times: From 1620-1816, Vol. 2. Toronto, 1880. https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/010110446

Smy, William A. An Anotated Nominal Roll of Butler’s Rangers 1777-1784: with Documentary Sources. Friends of the Loyalist Collection at Brock University, 2004.
https://archive.org/details/annotatednominal0000smyw

Stone, William Leete. Life of Joseph Brant—Thayendanegea. New York, 1838.
https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/009576615

Stone, William Leete. The Poetry and History of Wyoming: Containing Campbell's Gertrude. New York, 1841. https://archive.org/details/poetryhistoryofw00leet

Swiggett, Howard. War Out of Niagara: Walter Butler and the Tory Rangers. Columbia University Press, 1933. https://archive.org/details/waroutofniagaraw00swig

Tharp, William R. Savage and Bloody Footsteps Through the Valley: The Wyoming Massacre in the American Imagination. M.A. thesis, Virginia Commonwealth University, 2021. https://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=7764&context=etd

Warren, Mercy Otis. History of the Rise, Progress and Termination of the American Revolution, Vol. 2. Boston, 1805. https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/000363098

Gravestone Art: The Mandeville Family of Woodhouse

Although relatively common in England, very few gravestones in Ontario are as ornately carved as this monument from Woodhouse United Church Cemetery near Simcoe, Ontario. Carved from sandstone, the stone marks the grave of John Mandeville who died in 1845.

John, the son of James Mandeville and his second wife, Maria Debow, was born in Pompton Plains, Morris County, New Jersey, even though his parents were residents of Woodhouse Township in Upper Canada. The records of the Dutch Reformed Church of Pompton Plains give John's date of birth as January 22, 1835.

John Mandeville (1833-1848)

Close to John's grave is the grave of his father who died in 1876 at the age of 80. Also nearby is the gravestone of Margaret Van Ness, James's first wife who died in 1820.

Margaret van Ness, daughter of Jacob Van Ness (1772–1822) and Christiana Mead (1774–1840), was born in Pompton Plains on January 2, 1796. While a marriage has not been found, James and Margaret's daughter Margaret, born in 1818, was baptised at the Dutch Reformed Church of Pompton Plains on August 15, 1819. The baptism register notes that her mother, Margaret Van Ness, was deceased, which conflicts with the year of death inscribed on her gravestone.

James and Margaret may also have had a daughter, Elizabeth, who married Samuel Harris Ryerse (1815-1890) in Woodhouse in 1839. Census data indicates that Elizabeth was born in 1820 in Upper Canada. Elizabeth was the mother of at least six children, and died in Woodhouse in 1899.

James Manderville married Maria Debow at Pompton Plains on October 2, 1827. Maria, the daughter of John Debow (1780–1841) and Sarah Drummond (1775–1820), was born on December 26, 1806 and would have died sometime before 1849.

Maria and James had a daughter, Clarrisa, who was born at Pompton Plains in 1833, and another son, Nicholas, who was born in Woodhouse about 1838. There may have been other children who died young.

Margaret Van Ness (1798–1820)

James Mandeville married for the third time around 1849. Esther Mann had been previously married to Thomas Richardson and had seven children. James and Esther's daughter Agnes was born in 1850 and appears with her parents, her half-brother Nicholas, and her seven Richardson step-siblings in the 1852 Census. Esther was 20 years younger than James and died before 1861.

Agnes Mandeville died on June 28, 1866, at the age of 16, and was buried at Doans Hollow Cemetery. Her half-brother Nicholas married Sarah Scarlett (1837–1929) in 1858 and had four children. Nicholas died in 1873, three years before his father, and is buried at the Culver-Collver Cemetery. Nicholas's sister Clarrisa married Philander Bagley in 1850 and had at least two children. She died in Woodhouse in 1910, and was buried at the Port Dover Cemetery.

James Hendrick Mandeville, the son of Hendrick Mandeville and Sophia "Fytje" Gillalin (1775–1830), was born in Pompton Plains on December 28, 1796. It is unknown when he first emigrated to Upper Canada, however, he made at least two extended trips back to Pompton Plains. Census data shows James living in Woodhouse Township, Norfolk County in 1852, 1861 and 1871.

Sophia's name appears as Sopiha Gilldan on her gravestone, as Fyche Cjillelen on the record of her marriage to Hendrick in 1794, and as Fytje Gillalin on the record of James's birth. James had eleven siblings, and in the baptism register of the Dutch Reformed Church of Pompton Plains, Sophia Gillalin is how the name usually appears. Fytje is a diminutive of Sophia.

Mandeville researchers have often claimed that Hendrick's father was David Mandeville (1746-1824) who emigrated to Upper Canada before the War of 1812 and who settled in Southwold Township in the London District. The problem with this theory is that while David and his second wife had a son named Hendrick, he wasn't born until 1797.

Hendrick was likely the son of Johannes Mandeville (1739-1805) and Claesje Mandeville (1742-1831). Johannes and Claesje were cousins. Hendrick's oldest son was named John and he also had a daughter named Claesje (1802-1818).

The Mandeville family can trace their ancestry back to Yellis Jansen de Mandeville (1626–1701). In 1659, Yellis emigrated with his wife and four children from the Dutch province of Gelderland to New Amsterdam, a few years before the settlement was captured by the British and renamed New York.

Sources:

Akerly, Lucy Dubois. "Yellis Jansen de Mandeville of Garderen, Holland, and Greenwich Village on Manhattan Island and Some of His Descendants", New York Genealogical and Biographical Record, Vol.38 (1907), pp. 284-93.

Ancestry.com. U.S., Dutch Reformed Church Records in Selected States, 1639-1989 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2014.

Ryerson, Albert Winslow. The Ryerson Genealogy. Chicago, 1916.

Misfortune and Distress: Alida Vrooman (1747– ?)

The Isles of Montreal, 1761.
Source: Bibliothèque de l'Université McGill

The trial and execution of Lieutenant Henry Hare during the Revolutionary War is well documented in both primary and secondary sources. Far less has been written about what happened afterwards to his wife, Alida, and to their seven children.

Alida Vrooman, the daughter of Barent Henry Vrooman and Volkje Wemple, was baptised at Schenectady, New York on June 17, 1747. On April 15, 1765 at Stone Arabia, she married Henry Hare, son of John and Mary Hare. Henry was born about 1742 near Fort Hunter in the Mohawk Valley. During the Seven Years War (1754–1763) he briefly served in Captain Wendell's company of Roger's Rangers before joining the British Indian Department under Sir William Johnson.

Henry rejoined the Indian Department during the Revolutionary War and appears as a Lieutenant on the Indian Department's pay lists beginning on May 19, 1776. This date corresponds with the day that Sir John Johnson and his supporters fled Johnstown for Canada.

In February 1777, Henry and a "faithfull Indian" were dispatched from Point Claire on the Île de Montréal back to the Mohawk Valley where they were to wait for letters addressed to Johnson. A month later they started back to with "Several large Packets of Letters" but became separated when they "were pursued and fired upon by a Number of People on Foot and some on Horseback." Henry's native companion destroyed the letters and thinking Henry was dead, returned to the Île de Montréal by a circuitous route. Hare, however, had escaped his pursuers and had arrived safely back at Point Claire two days earlier.

A number of secondary sources wrongly claim that Henry spent several months in jail in Hartford. For example, in his history of the King's Royal Regiment of New York (KRRNY), Ernest Cruickshank wrote:

On May 2 [1777] the arrival was announced of Frederick and John Dochstader with Lieut. Henry Hare, who had been confined for seven months at Hartford in Connecticut, but had escaped. Hare in company with an Indian had been given three large packets of letters for Sir John Johnson and Gray at Johnstown on March 18, but being hotly pursued the Indian had destroyed the letters and parted from his companion.

Cruickshank's source is a report found in the Haldimand Papers, dated April 23, 1777, prepared by Major James Gray who was temporarily in command of the KRRNY. The awkward grammar used by Gray led Cruickshank to conclude that Hare was jailed as well as Frederick and John Dochstader. Cruickshank's date is also nine days later than the date of Gray's report.

Henry would likely have been at the Siege of Fort Stanwix and the Battle of Oriskany in August 1777. Officers from the Indian Department were also present at the Battle of Wyoming in July 1778, and the Cherry Valley Massacre in November 1778.

Detail from Map of the County of Albany c. 1762
Source: British Library

Meanwhile, Alida and her children remained at home in the Mohawk Valley. Several years before the war, Henry had purchased 109 acres on the south side of the Mohawk River opposite Fort Johnson. By 1775, 40 acres had been cleared and "improved." Their farm had a house, barn, and stable, as well as six cows, five horses, nine sheep, 16 hogs, and a waggon.

Alida and Henry had seven children. Ally, John, Faulky, William, Peter, Barent, and Catey appear on the undated "List of Prisoners in the Hands of Congress" found in the Haldimand Papers and believed to have been prepared by Captain Walter Butler in March 1779.

Catey is a diminutive of Katherine. Barent, who was named after Alida's father, may have been born Barent Barnabas Hare. Barent is an uncommon given name in Dutch so he went by Barnabas which would be more familiar to English and French speakers. Faulky is a misspelling of Volkje (Alida's mother). Her birth name may have been Volkje Maria Hare and she later went by Mary. Ally (Alida) died before May 1780, while Peter died sometime between August 1788 and June 1798.

In their 1798 Upper Canada Land Petition, John, Barnabas, William, Mary, and Katherine identified themselves as "the children of Lieutenant Henry Hare who was made prisoner last American War and Hung as a Spy."

Henry's activities in the months prior to his execution are known. In the spring of 1779, in response to intelligence that the Americans were planning an expedition against the Haudenosaunee, Major John Butler had brought his Rangers from Fort Niagara to Canadasago, a Seneca village located between the northern ends of Seneca and Canandaigua lakes. At the same time, parties of Indigenous warriors accompanied by Indian Department officers were sent on reconnaissance missions to the Mohawk and Susquehanna River valleys.

On May 1, 1779, Captain Dietrich Brehm, aide-de-camp to Governor Frederick Haldimand, reported from Carleton Island: "Mr. Hair an Indian Officer arrived from a Skout at Fort Stanwix with a prisoner."

Three weeks later, Butler reported from Canadasago: "I daily expect to hear from Lieutenant Henry Hare who is gone down to Fort Hunter."

On June 4, Henry again set off from Canadasago for the Mohawk Valley in company with Sergeant William Newberry and 19 Mississauga warriors. On June 19, Henry and Newberry were captured by Patriot militia and brought to Canajoharie where they were tried the next day. Henry was executed the following morning, while Newberry was executed a week later.

Many accounts of Henry's hanging claim that while his primary mission was to spy on the enemy, a secondary "domestic" mission was to bring gifts for Alida. The first version of this story appears in Jeptha Root Simms's History of Schoharie County And Border Wars of New York, published in 1845:

Hare brought home for his wife several articles of clothing, such as British calicoes, dress-shawls, Indian mocasons, &c., and on the very day he set out to return to Canada, she was so imprudent as to put them on and go visiting.

It is highly unlikely that Henry carried a calico dress in his knapsack for several months as he travelled through the wilderness spying for the British. It is even more unlikely that Hare acquired such an item at Fort Niagara or Carleton Island, or had found the time to visit a dressmaker in Montreal.

Keeping the British forts on the Great Lakes supplied with provisions, gunpowder, and other goods was challenging. Stores had to be transported by bateau from Lachine on the Île de Montréal up the St. Lawrence River to Carleton Island. At Carleton Island goods were transferred to one of His Majesty's vessels which would then sail to Fort Niagara. For five months of the year, ice on the St Lawrence River prevented any resupply. Military stores had priority, and there was little room for luxury goods.

Both Butler and Lieutenant Colonel Mason Bolton, the officer commanding at Fort Niagara, frequently mentioned the scarcity of provisions and clothing in their reports to Governor Haldimand. Following Butler's return to Fort Niagara in September 1779, Bolton sent Haldimand a list of items needed that included hundreds of blanket coats, shoes, shirts, and stockings, as well as sugar, cheese, tobacco, quills and writing paper.

Richard Cartwright, who was with Butler at Canadasago, wrote to Francis Goring, an employee of Cartwright's uncle at Niagara, "I wish you could send me soon a couple of Pairs of Trousers as I am beginning to grow ragged." Later than year John Warren, commissary at Fort Erie, wrote to Goring, "For God's sake keep three or four pair of women's shoes till I come, for our folks are barefoot."

More recently, a number of researchers have added that the gifts were for Alida's birthday. The records of the Dutch Reformed Church of Schenecdaty, however, only show that Alida was baptised on June 17, 1747. Her date of birth is unknown.

According to Sergeant Newberry's testimony, Alida actively helped her husband spy on the enemy. During his trial he stated that "Hairs wife went backwards and forwards every day to gain Intiligence for us."

At some point following Henry's execution, Alida and her children abandoned their home and fled to Montreal. On May 10, 1780 she submitted a petition to Governor Haldimand:

     That Your Petitioner, is a Poor Widow, with six small Children, without any means to support them, the want of Every necessary of life and the Continual Insults of the Rebels obliged her to leave the Province of New York and Come off to this place.
     Your Petitioner's Husband, two Brothers and nephew, distinguished themselves as friends to Government, On the Breaking out of the present Rebellion and Entered into his Majesties Service—One of the said Brothers, a Capt in the Indian department, was killed at Fort Stanwix in 77, (the other, is now a Capt. in Leuit. Col. Butlers Rangers,'' and the nephew a Leuit. in said Corps—Your Petitioners, Husband and three Brothers served during the last War, in the Indian Department, under the late Sir William Johnson Bart. And your petitioners said Husband being Ordered on a Scout, last Summer, was taken by the Rebels: who Charged with being a Spy—Tryed him for the same, an Unjust Tryal Condemn'd him, in Consequence of which, he was Executed, whereby your Petitioner is Rendered Miserable, poor and Needy—her Situation emboldens her to Crave your Excellency Support and Protection Humbly praying, Your Excellency will take the same into Consideration, and Allow such a Yearly supply or Aid, as your Justice may see fit, in Order to Assist her and her Distressed Children.
     And Your Petitioner, will Ever pray, as in duty bound
     Montreal the 10th May 1780

In consideration of Alida's "misfortune and distress," Haldimand authorized a yearly pension of £20.

On the Return of Loyalist Refugees dated November 24, 1780, Alida was recorded at Montreal as "Mrs. Hare" and was receiving rations for herself and five children. At fourteen years of age, her son John, was considered a "man grown" capable of sustaining himself. John joined Butler's Rangers as a volunteer the following spring.

Sometime between April 1781 and September 1781, Alida married Adam Empey, son of Philip Empey (1726–1795) and Maria Elizabeth Barbara Schultz. Adam was born at Stone Arabia on 16 Apr 1755. In May 1777 he left his home in the Mohawk Valley, made his way to the Île de Montréal, and enlisted in the KRRNY. He would later be joined by his five brothers, two cousins, and his father.

It is frequently stated that Alida "married First Sergeant Adam Empey" even though "First Sergeant" is not a rank in the British Army. Surviving records of the KRRNY show that Adam was a corporal in 1781 and 1782. Adam refers to himself as a corporal in an 1784 petition, however, a petition submitted in 1804 by Alida refers to "the late Adam Empey who served His Majesty in the Capacity of Sergeant in Sir John Johnsons Regiment."

Adam participated in the Siege of Fort Stanwix in August 1777, the Raid on Johnstown in May 1780, and the Battle of Klock's Field in October 1780. He served with the KRRNY until December 24, 1783 when the first of the regiment's two battalions was disbanded.

In June 1784 the discharged soldiers of the KRRNY began to settle the newly surveyed townships on the north side of the St Lawrence River west of Montreal. Over 1400 men, women, children made the arduous journey upriver from Lachine to the site of New Johnstown (present day Cornwall). To determine where their grant of land would be each Loyalist drew from a hat a slip of paper which contained the location of a lot. Then began the process of taming the wilderness—cutting down trees to clear the land and provide the material needed to built log houses in what in 1787 became known as Lancaster, Charlottenburg, Cornwall, Osnabruck, Williamsburg, and Matilda townships. In 1788 these six townships became part of the Lunenburg District which was renamed the Eastern District in 1792.

The maps prepared by surveyor Patrick McNiff show that Adam's father and brothers drew lots in Cornwall Township east of the New Johnstown townsite. Adam, however, did not joined the rest of his family at New Johnstown until the following year and therefore did not participate in the initial drawing of lots. 

James Peachey. Encampment of the Loyalists at
Johnstown, 1785. Source: National Gallery of Canada

In April 1784 Adam was in Montreal where he petitioned Governor Haldimand requesting permission to trade in dry goods and liquor at Cataraqui (present day Kingston) and Niagara. Adam wrote that he "finds it very difficult to support his large family, having the care of the children of the late Lieut Hare, who met with an untimely fate amougst the Rebels, the widow of the aforesaid Lieut Hare being the wife of your excellencies petitioner."

Entries in the Repertoires de Notares (notarial catalogs) for the District Judiciaire de Montréal show that in September 1784, Adam leased a house and lot in Saint-Joseph-de-Soulanges (Les Cedres), on the St. Lawrence River west of Montreal.

Adam does appears on the 1785 Muster Roll at Cornwall, and on the 1786 Provisioning List at Lake (Lancaster) Township. At some point he acquired 200 acres in Osnabruck Township west of New Johnstown (Lot 12 Concession 3). Alida refers to this property in her 1804 Upper Canada Land Petition. Although patent was granted in 1802, the east half of the lot was impounded by the Crown and given to William Mattice.

In his Lower Canada Land Petition, dated August 30, 1788, Adam states that he "had married the widow of Lieut. Henry Hare of the Indian Department. She has five children by her late-husband as well as four by the petitioner, all of which he has to maintain." A list of names was attached: John, William, Barnaby, Peter, and Catherine Hare; and Philip, Sally (Sarah), Elizabeth, and Elatta (Alida) Empey. Missing from the list is Mary Hare who had married in 1784.

In his petition, Adam requested a grant of 500 acres for himself, and 100 acres for each of Henry children. Adam had been under the impression that he had been given permission to select land at Carillon on the north side of the Ottawa River, only to discover that the land was reserved for officers of the Royal Highland Emigrants. In June 1789, Adam and "the heirs of Lieutenant Henry Hare" were approved for a grant of 500 acres on the Ottawa River, however, the Crown never undertook the required survey.

Osnabruck Patent Map
Source: Archives of Ontario

In their 1798 Upper Canada Land Petition, John, Barnabas, William, Mary, and Katherine Hare claimed that "your Petitioners are all married and Settled in the Eastern District and have never drawn any lands." While Katherine and Mary were firmly established in Upper Canada, it is doubtful that John, Barnabas, and William were actually residents. As well, both John and Barnabas had been granted land in Upper Canada in 1790.

In 1781, John travelled from Montreal to Fort Niagara and enlisted as a volunteer in Butler's Rangers. His uncle, Peter Hare, was a Captain in the Rangers, while a cousin, John Hare, was a Lieutenant. Two other cousins, William and Peter, served as volunteers. In an August 1781 letter to Governor Haldimand, Brigadier General Henry Watson Powell, who succeeded Bolton as officer commanding at Niagara, wrote that John "joined lately and is too young to be promoted."

After Butler's Rangers was disbanded in June 1784, John remained at Niagara for at least a year before rejoining his family. After a few years in Canada, he returned to the Mohawk Valley where he married his cousin, Annatje Vrooman, the daughter of Hendrick Vrooman and Margaret Vanderwerken. Their daughter Margaret was born on November 1, 1790, and baptised at the Dutch Reformed Church of Caughnawaga a month later. Their next two children, Alida and Henry, were baptised at Williamstown east of Cornwall. Their son Barney Vrooman Hare was also born in Upper Canada. By 1798, John and Annatje were back in the United States where their daughter Maria was born. John appears in the 1790, 1800, and 1810 censuses living in Montgomery County, New York.

What motivated John to return to the Mohawk Valley is unclear but the family's difficulties obtaining land in Upper Canada may have been a factor. John's father would have been entitled to a grant of several hundred acres had he survived, however, there was no clear policy about assigning land grants to the widows and children of deceased soldiers.

As late as 1815, Alida's son-in-law Jacob Weegar, wrote the government about 1000 acres in Binbrook Township, Wentworth County that had apparently been set aside for Hare's widow and children in 1791 but had reverted back to the Crown in 1811. Apparently the family was unaware that this land had been available to them.

John Hare's 1790 Petition

As a volunteer with Butler's Rangers, John was entitled to a grant of land in his own right. A petition from "John Hare late soldier in Colonel Butler's Rangers" was signed at Cornwall and dated on April 1, 1790. John was recommended for 200 acres by the Lunenburg District Land Board. He appears on the patent map of Osnabruck Township at Lot 2 Concession 4. Patent for this lot was granted on September 1, 1797.

John and Annatje may have returned to Upper Canada after the War of 1812. Their son Henry and daughter Catherine both married and made their homes in Matilda Township, west of Cornwall. Some of their other children, notably Margaret and Alida, remained in the United States.

In 1849, six of John and Annatje's children petitioned for monetary grants as the sons and daughters of an United Empire Loyalist. These petitions hint that John was alive and living in Cornwall at this time. The 1836 petition of his daughter Catherine, however, refers to the "late John Hare."

In 1794, Katherine Hare "of the Cedars" and David Summers (1767–1846) were married at the Williamstown Presbyterian Church founded by Rev. John Bethune in 1787. Katherine and David lived in Osnabruck Township and had eight children. As a result of the 1798 Petition, Katherine was granted 200 acres in Winchester Township and received patent on June 30, 1801. She died in Osnabruck on July 23, 1831.

Her sister, Mary Hare, married Jacob Weegar (1755–1827) at Christ Church Cathedral in Montreal on October 21, 1784. Mary and Jacob lived in Williamsburg Township and had 13 children. Mary petitioned unsuccessfully for land in 1791, but as a result of the 1798 Petition, received 200 acres in Winchester Township. She died in Williamsburg on September 6, 1854 at the age of 83.

Barnabus Hare petitioned for land in 1790 at the same time as his brother John. He was granted 200 acres in Matitda Township and received patent on May 27, 1797. He does not seem to have received any additional land as a result of the 1798 petition.

Barnabus married Anna Vankleek and was living in Soulanges in 1804 and in 1825. The parish register for Soulanges records the 1807 baptism of their son, William Henry Hare. Entries in the notarial catalogs also record that Barnabus was a blacksmith (forgeron a Soulanges). Barnabas was buried in 1852 at the age of 82 at Basilique Notre-Dame, Montreal.

As a result of the 1798 petition, William received 200 acres in Winchester Township with patent granted on June 30, 1801. The parish register for Soulanges records the burial of William in 1806.

Few details are known about the children of Alida and Adam. Only Alida and Elizabeth Empey are named in the 1804 Upper Canada Land Petition which Alida Vrooman and her son-in-law Jacob Weegar submitted on behalf of her minor children, which suggests that Alida's other two children may have died before then.

Alida, also known as Adelaide, was born on November 28, 1787 and was baptised at Montreal's Christ Church Cathedral on January 3, 1788. She married Jean Baptiste Lalonde on 25 Nov 1805 at Soulanges. Adelaide died in childbirth on December 23, 1809—eleven weeks after the death of her three-year-old daughter. She was buried at Soulanges on December 25.

Her sister Elizabeth married Francois Veronneau (1784–1835) at Soulanges on May 11, 1807, but died shortly after her marriage.

Adam Empey died at Soulanges in early 1796. A notarial record dated February 18, 1796 refers to the feu [late] Adam Empey and Alleda Vrooman sa veuve [his widow]. Three years later Alida married widower Pierre Bougis. A marriage contract between ""Le Sieur Pierre Beaugis et La Dame Alleda Vrooman veuve Empey" was notarized by Joseph Gabrion of Montreal on 8 May 1799.

Both Pierre and Alida had their testaments (wills) notarized on 3 May 1824 and were living in Soulanges in 1825.

Pierre was buried at Soulanges on 14 Jan 1826. Entries in the Quebec notarial catalogues indicate that Alida survived him but her date of death is not known.

Sources:

Cruickshank, Ernest and Gavin K. Watt. The History and Master Roll of The King's Royal Regiment of New York, revised edition. Global Heritage Press, 2006.
archive.org/details/historymasterrol0000crui

Crowder, Norman. Early Ontario Settlers: A Source Book. Genealogical Publishing, 1993. ancestry.ca/search/collections/48451/

"Empey Family." Herbert Clarence Burleigh Fonds, Queens University Library. archive.org/details/hcbempey

Green, Ernest. "Notes on the Empey (Impey) Family of Stormont." Ontario Historical Society Papers and Records, vol. 27, 1931.

Kipp, Edward, and Anderson, George. An Index to the 1786 McNiff Maps of the Townships of Lancaster, Charlottenburgh, Cornwall, Osnabruck, Williamsburg and Matilda (The Loyalist Maps). Orleans, Ontario: Edward Kipp, 2007.

Library and Archives Canada, Francis Goring Fonds, MG24, D4 heritage.canadiana.ca/view/oocihm.lac_mikan_105975 

Library and Archives Canada. Haldimand Papers, MG21. heritage.canadiana.ca/view/oocihm.lac_mikan_105513

Library and Archives Canada. Land Petitions of Upper Canada, 1763-1865. RG 1 L3. bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/discover/land/land-petitions-upper-canada-1763-1865/Pages/land-petitions-upper-canada.aspx

Library and Archives Canada. Land Petitions of Lower Canada, 1764-1841. RG1 L3L. bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/discover/land/land-petitions-lower-canada-1764-1841/Pages/land-petitions-lower-canada.aspx

Loescher, Burt Garfield. Rogers Rangers Privates Roster, 1755-1761. Unpublished Manuscript, Ticonderoga Historical Society. nyheritage.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p16694coll98/id/603/rec/1

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