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Baptism of Rachel Quackenbus, June 4, 1738 from the Register of Baptisms, Marriages, Communicants & Funerals begun by Henry Barclay at Fort Hunter, January 26th 1734/5. Source: New York Historical Society |
One of Sherlock Holmes most memorable lines is: “When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” When researching family history in Colonial New York, eliminating the impossible is a reasonable strategy to follow.
On June 21, 1765, Rachel Quackenbush, a widow, married William Heer, a widower, at the Reformed Dutch Church of Stone Arabia in the Mohawk Valley region of New York. William Hare (c. 1731–1773), the son of John Hare of Fort Hunter, was a Captain in the British Indian Department under Sir William Johnson. He married Elizabeth Clement in 1759 and had two children: John, born in 1760, and Peter born in 1762. Elizabeth is believed to have died in childbirth in 1764.
Rachel is something of a mystery. It is uncertain if Quackenbush was her maiden name or the surname of her first husband, although it seems that in the marriage records of the Reformed Dutch Church the maiden name was consistently used.
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| Detail from Map of the N.W. Parts of New York, 1750 Source: Library of Congress |
The first is the Rachel Quackenbush who married Isaac Gallier at Stone Arabia on February 16, 1765. She is emphatically not the Rachel who married William Hare at Stone Arabia four months later. Isaac Collier (1742-1818) and Rachel had four children baptised at Stone Arabia in the years following their marriage. This Rachel was likely the daughter of Jeremias and Susanna Quackenbush who was baptised at Fort Hunter on February 24, 1745.
The second is Rachel, daughter of Abraham Quackenbush and Maria Bowen, who was baptised at Fort Hunter on June 5, 1738. If this is the Rachel Quackenbusch who married Wiljam Nukerk at Schoharie on July 12, 1762 then it is possible that three years later she married William Hare. The evidence for this is circumstantial. William's sister Catharine was baptised at Fort Hunter in 1739, which suggests that the two families were at least acquainted, and both William Newkirk and William Hare were fur traders at Fort Niagara.
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| Mark Peckham, Fort Hunter Source: Schoharie Crossing State Historic Site |
William was at Fort Niagara in April 1762 when the the rum that he and others had in good faith purchased to trade with the indigenous population was confiscated on orders of Major General Sir Jeffery Amherst, Governor of the Province of Quebec. A letter to Sir William Johnson protesting the confiscation was signed by Collin Andrews, William Newkarke and ten others: "... this Rum is taken from us without a Receipt and put in the Kings Store, with strict orders not to let an Indian have a Drop." The traders were concerned that without rum there would be no trade.
A letter from Major William Walters at Fort Niagara to Johnson explained why the rum had been confiscated: "I am to acquaint you that I Received an order from General Amherst not to suffer the Traders to sell any Rum or spirituous Liquor to the Indians on any pretense."
Three months after his marriage, William Newkirk was murdered by two Delaware warriors. The circumstances were described in a letter from Johnson to Amherst dated November 12, 1762:
Just now One Allen from Niagra Arrived here in Company with two Seneca Indians; he Informs me, that about a Fortnight ago, he being in Company with One William Newkirk of the Mohawk Country, & his own Servant, were met on the Banks of the Seneca Lake, near to Castle of that Nation, called Canussadagey1 by Two Indians of Kanestio, a Village towards the Ohio, who Shook hands with Newkirk, and after passing them by, Immediately Faced about, and Fired upon them, by which Newkirk & the Servant were Killed, and Allen's Horse Shot under him, & Himself made Prisoner; That the Indians of the Seneca Castle freed him, and after Expressing great Concern for what had happened, they sent two Indians with him hither, one of them Charged with Several Belts of Wampum, Excusing themselves from having any part therin, or being Privy thereto.
Efforts to bring the perpetrators to British justice were unsuccessful. The murders may have been a factor when early in 1764, during Pontiac's War, Sir William Johnson ordered an attack made against the Delaware. A force led by Andrew Montour, William Hare, and John Johnston burned Kanestio and several other Delaware villages on the Susquehanna, Chemung and Tioga Rivers.
Finally, there is the possibility that William married the Rachel Quackenbush who had been a child captive during King George's War (1744–1748).
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| Len Tantillo, Saratoga 1745 Source: L. F. Tantillo Fine Art |
Rachel, the daughter of Jacob Quackenbush and Geertruy Van der Werken, was baptised at Schnectady on April 13, 1740. When Rachel was five years old, she and her family were taken captive by the French and their indigenous allies during an attack on Saratoga in November 1745. The attack was led by Lieutenant Paul Marin de La Malgue who commanded a force of 280 French and 229 Abenaki, Kahnawake Mohawk, and Kanesatake Mohawk against the undefended settlement. Marin's expedition destroyed Saratoga, killing some of the inhabitants, and taking 50 Anglo-Dutch and 60 African slaves as captives to Canada.
Accounts of the attack on Saratoga appear in David Preston's Colonial Saratoga: War and Peace on the Borderlands of Early America, Samuel Drake's A Particular History of the Five Years French and Indian War, and in John Henry Brandow's The Story of Old Saratoga And History of Schuylerville. Brandow describes the aftermath of the attack:
Thus what we saw to be a busy, thriving hamlet on the 27th of November was a scene of blackened ruins and utter soliture on the 28th. The prisoners, men, women, and children, many of them half clothed and barefooted, were collected, bound together and head toward the frowning north, doomed to a fate which, to many of them, was worse by far than death. Some died in prisons. A few were ransomed from the Indians and returned, but most of them never saw the old home-land again.The captivity of Rachel's family is well documented due the journals kept by a few of the prisoners of war at Quebec's Casernes prison. The most relevant of these are those written by Captain William Pote Jr. and the Reverend John Norton. Norton was captured when Fort Massachusetts surrendered to the French in August 1746, and was held at the Casernes from September 1746 until July 1747. In 1748, he published his journal as The Redeemed Captive. Captain Pote was master of the merchant vessel Montague when it was boarded in the Annapolis Basin on May 15, 1745. He was imprisoned at the Casernes from July 1745 until July 1747, having been brought there by his Maliseet captors by canoe. His journal was discovered in Geneva, Switzerland in 1890 and published in 1896.
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| Len Tantillio, Quebec, New France c. 1745 Source: Minnesota Marine Art Museum |
Conditions in the Casernes, a former military barracks, were stark but tolerable. Prisoners were provided bedding and clothing, and the food (mainly bread, salt beef, salt pork, dried cod, and dried peas) was adequate, but many prisoners still succumbed to disease. Pote recorded over 75 deaths in the two years he was a captive, including the death of Rachel's uncle on December 2, 1746. In the entry for December 7, Norton recorded that Rachel's sister Martha [Machtel] Quaquinbush "a girl taken at Sarratago" died "of a long and tedious sickness."
After an accidental fire severely damaged the Casernes in April 1747, the captives were moved to a hastedly constructed camp outside the walls of Quebec where they were housed in tents.
Jacob and Isaac Quackenbush, father and son, died on the same day in May 1747. Pote provides additional details:
May ye 26 Died Jacob Quacinbush and his Son Isaac, aged about 20 Year of age a Likely Young man who has been Sick But a few Days, ye wife Said Jacob Quacinbush is Now Sick at ye hospital and has Lost Since In this place, her husband and Son aforsd and a Dughter aged about 12 Years and her Brother aged about 30, and has now a Daughter of about 18 years of age with ye Indians, and her father and mother with us at this time In Prison aged about 75 Years EachGeertruy recovered from her illness and in July received an unexpected visitor. Her daughter Maria had escaped from her Abenaki captors and had made her way to Quebec. Pote writes:
7th Fair this Day Came Into our Camps a Girl about 16 Years of age ye Daughter of widow Quacinbush She made her Escape from ye Indians in whos hands She have been these 20 months by Getting a Connew and Crossing ye River at a place Called ye 3 Rivers about midway Betwen this and montrial from whence She have Travelling this 4 or 5 Days and ye french assisted her till She arrived to this place where she was Conducted to a Gentlemans who Clothed her and brought here here to See her mother but She is to Remain in ye Town.The Intendant of New France, Gilles Hocquart, intervened and Maria was able to accompany her mother and grandparents when the French repatriated prisoners-of-war that summer. On July 25, 1747, 172 men, women, and children embarked aboard the La Vierge-de-Grace, a French vessel bound for Boston under a flag of truce. The arrival of the La Vierge-de-Grace on August 16, 1747 was reported in the Boston Gazette, accompanied by a list of names of the freed captives.
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Francois-Pierre Rigaud de Vaudreuil (1703-1779) Source: Musée National des Beaux-arts du Québec |
Rachel, however, remained behind in New France. Within a few months of her capture, Rachel had been ransomed from the Abenaki by Francois-Pierre Rigaud de Vaudreuil, the future Governor of Trois Rivieres, and likely placed in the care of Charlotte Taschereau.
Rachel was baptised into the Catholic Church at Trois Rivieres on April 9, 1746 as Marie Charlotte Archamboe (Archambault). The baptismal record notes that she was English by nationality, taken at Saratoga in November, and about 5 years old. Rigaud and Taschereau were named as her godparents.
In March 1747, Rachel was brought to the Casernes to see her parents. Pote recorded the visit in his journal:
March ye 16th Came to Prison two Gentlemen and two Ladys, and Brought with ym ye Daughter of one Quacinbush, yt was Taken Near albeney, this Child had been with ye French, Ever Since She was Taken with her Parents, which is about 18 months, there was her Father & mother Granfather and Grandmother In this prison, they Endeavourd to make her Speak with ym. But She would not Speak a word Neither In Dutch nor English.
A second visit occurred in July 1747, as preparations were being made to release the Casernes prisoners:
July ye 18th ... Quacinbushs Child who has Lived with a Gentlewoman In this town about 18 months was this Day brought to our Camps her mother Endeavoured by all possible means to have her Delivered up but ye Gentleman that Came with her would not Consent and Demanded a Sum of money for her Redemption that they had paid the Endians Capt Doane offered to Be the womans Security and that the money Should be paid at our arrivel at Boston but Could not prevail by any means I observed the Child was So taken up with the French that She would not Come nigh her mother but Seemed as much afraid of her as though She had been an Indian. So that I Believe She will Stay hear behind if we go.In 1750, Lieutenant Benjamin Stoddard was sent by Governor George Clinton of New York to Canada to repatriate any remaining British prisoners of war. Rachel Quackenbus appears on the return of prisoners dated June 26, 1750 with the comment: "Has abjured2 and desires to remain in the Colony; Mr Stoddert has spoken to her repeatedly, without being able to persuade her to accompany him."
Two years later, Nathaniel Wheelwright and Phineas Stevens were sent to Canada by Massachusetts Lieutenant Governor Spencer Phips on a similar mission. Once again Rachel refused to leave. In their report, Stevens and Wheelwright state that Rachel had been: "Ransomed from the Indians by Monsieur Rigaud with whom she is absolutely resolved to stay it being quite to her mind."
Although a marriage or burial record for Rachel has not been found, it is highly unlikely that she returned to the Mohawk Valley and married not once but twice.
Of the three Rachels born in the Mohawk Valley region around the time of William Hare's birth, the most plausible candidate for his second wife is the Rachel who was born in 1738 and married William Newkirk in 1762. While it cannot be proven, the evidence suggests that was the case, as it is neither impossible nor improbable.
Notes:
1Kanadaseaga
2To abjure is to renounce Protestantism and become Catholic.
Sources:
A Documentary History of the State of Maine, vol. 23. Portland, 1916. catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/007474281
Brandow, John Henry. The Story of Old Saratoga And History of Schuylerville. Albany, 1900. archive.org/details/storyofoldsarato06bran
Documents Relative to the Colonial History of the State of New York, vol. 10. Albany, 1858. catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/006784538
Dobbelaer, Avril. Indian Captivity: A Tool in the Battle for Souls and Power. Senior thesis. University of North Carolina at Asheville, 2008 toto.lib.unca.edu/sr_papers/history_sr/srhistory_2008/dobbelaer_avril.pdf
Drake, Samuel G. A Particular History of the Five Years French and Indian War in New England and Parts Adjacent. Boston, 1870. archive.org/details/particularhistor00drak
Gray, Colleen. Captives in Canada, 1744-1763. 1993. Master's theses, McGill University. escholarship.mcgill.ca/concern/theses/cn69m4994
Norton, John. The Redeemed Captive, being a narrative of the taking and carrying into captivity the Reverend Mr. John Norton, when Fort Massachusetts surrendered to a large body of French and Indians, August 20th, 1746. Boston, 1748. archive.org/details/cihm_11372/
Pote, William. The Journal of Captain William Pote, Jr. During His Captivity in the French and Indian War from May, 1745 to August, 1747. New York, 1896. archive.org/details/journalofcaptain00pote
Preston, David L. Colonial Saratoga: War and Peace on the Borderlands of Early America. National Park Service, 2018. oah.org/site/assets/files/10292/sara_nhp_-_colonial_saratoga_war_and_peace_on_the_borderlands.pdf
Quackenbush, Gail Richard. The Quackenbush Family in America. Wolfe City, Texas: Henington Publishing, 1987.
Skilton, Susan Kay. "Correcting the Identification of Rachel Quackenbush, Child Captive in the French and Indian War." The New York Genealogical and Biographical Record, vol. 148, no. 3, July 2017, pp. 165-172.
Sullivan, James, ed. The Papers of Sir William Johnson, 14 vols. Albany: The University of the State New York, 1921-1965. ancestry.ca/search/collections/20216/
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