Henry Hare: Spy or Murderer?

Mannesvillette Elihu Dearing Brown (1810-1896). View of the
Mohawk River near Little Falls, 1854. Findlay Galleries, New York.

In the summer of 1777, during the Revolutionary War, a significant event occurred at Irondequoit Bay on Lake Ontario. After a lengthy council hosted by John Butler of the British Indian Department, four of the six nations of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy decided to abandon their neutrality and "take up the hatchet" against the American rebels.

For the rest of the war, officers from the Indian Department worked closely with the Haudenosaunee. Some of them acquired a reputation of being "more savage than the savages themselves." One of these officers was Lieutenant Henry Hare.

On July 27, 1777, just prior to the Siege of Fort Stanwix, three girls were picking blackberries several hundred yards from the fort when they attacked by a group of Indigenous warriors. Two of the girls were killed and scalped. The third was wounded but managed to escape.

Nearly two years later, Hare was captured by the Patriots and sentenced to hang as a spy. According to several secondary sources he also confessed to the murder of one of the girls.

Hare was hanged at Canajoharie on 21 June 1779 along with Sergeant William Newberry of Butler's Rangers. Hare was found guilty of spying, however, the record of his trial contains no mention of his having committed murder.

Why then do so many accounts of Hare's capture, trial, and hanging include the accusation of murder? For example, Canadian historian Gavin Watt's in his recent No Despicable Enemy wrote:

Hare was charged with lurking about the camp as a spy. He testified he had come from Canadasaga with nineteen Indians a fortnight earlier.... Newberry gave similar evidence, implicated many local Tories, adding, “Hair’s wife went backwards and forwards every day to gain intelligence for us.” In addition to spying, both men were accused of murder. Hare confessed to killing Caty Steers outside the gates of Fort Stanwix just before the siege of 1777, and Newberry of killing a Mitchell daughter during the Cherry Valley tragedy.... The court found Hare and Newberry guilty and sentenced them to be hanged, which was done at Canajoharie eight days apart.  

The are several contemporary accounts of the attack on the girls but none that specifically mention Hare. In his journal, Ensign William Colbrath of the 3rd New York Regiment wrote:

July 27th—Three Girls belonging to the Inhabitants, being about two Hundred yards from Our Out Centinels, were fired on by a party of Indians, two of whom were killed and Scalped the other wounded in two places, neither of them Dangerously.

Colbrath noted that on the following day:

The Colonel sent off those women which belonged to the Garrison which have children with whom went the Man that was Scalped, the Girl that was Wounded Yesterday, and the Sick in the Hospital.

In a letter to Colonel Goose Van Schaick, dated July 28, 1777, Colonel Peter Gansevoort, the commanding officer of Fort Stanwix, gave the following account:

Yesterday at 3 o'clock in the afternoon, our garrison was alarmed with the firing of four guns. A party of men was instantly dispatched to the place where the guns were fired, which was in the edge of the woods, about 500 yards from the fort; but they were too late. The villains were fled, after having shot three girls who were out picking raspberries, two of whom were lying scalped and tomahawked, one dead, the other expiring, who died in about half an hour after she was brought home. The third had two balls through her shoulder, but made out to make her escape; her wounds are not thought dangerous. By best discoveries we have made, there were four Indians who perpetrated these murders. I had four men with arms just past that place, but these mercenaries of Britain came not to fight, but to lie in wait to murder; and it is equally the same to them, if they can get a scalp, whether it is a soldier or an innocent babe.

Another detailed account was written by Lieutenant Colonel Marinus Willett, who was second-in-command at Fort Stanwix during the siege. Willett's narrative was published in 1831 by his son and although based on Willet's own manuscripts, inexplicably assigns the murders to July 3, 1777:

Sunday, the 3rd of July, being a very warm, clear day, as Colonel Willett lay resting in his room about noon, three guns, fired in quick succession, gave him warning that there were Indians near. He ran to the gate of the fort, and on reaching the parapet of the glacis, saw a sentinel running towards the lower edge of it, and at a short distance from him a girl, also running, holding in her hand a small basket. On their coming nearer, he saw blood running down the breast of the little girl, who, as he afterwards learned, with two other girls, had been picking blackberries, not two hundred yards from the foot of the glacis, when they were fired at by the Indians. Upon going to the spot, Colonel Willett found the other two girls killed and scalped.... The girl who had made her escape, had been shot through the upper part of her shoulder: the wound proved to be slight, and she soon recovered.

Finally there is a letter in the collection of the Fort Stanwix National Monument that identifies the three girls. The letter is thought to have been written by Colonel Gansevoort and sent to the Tryon Committee of Safety a few days after the attack.

One of the Children who was killed & scalped a girl of 13 years of age & daughter of one John Steere who... served the King of Great Britain... an old man and unfit for any kind of Service. yet, that King... has thus requited him for his former Service. The Girl who received the wound in her shoulder is 16 years of age the Daughter of one George Reyter... a soldier in... the 4th Battalion of Royal Americans during the late war... the other is a Servant Girl of... Mr Roof the Principal inhabitant of this place... The Girl's name is Lenea Stephane Age 20 years...

In the afternoon of August 6, while most of the Loyalist and Indigenous forces at the siege were engaged at the Battle of Oriskany, Lieutenant Colonel Willett led a sortie against their encampments. Both Willett and Colbrath list brass kettles, blankets, musket balls, gunpowder, clothing and four or five "colours" among the spoils, however, Colbrath added:

... four scalps the Indians had lately taken being entirely fresh and left in their Camp. Two of the Scalps taken are Supposed to be those of the Girls being neatly Dressed and the Hair platted.

On June 19, 1779, Lieutenant Hare was captured close to his home near Fort Hunter. Sergeant Newberry was apprehended a short time later. The prisoners were brought to Canajoharie where Brigadier General James Clinton had established his headquarters in preparation for that summer's expedition against the Haudenosaunee. A court marshal was held the following day with Colonel Gansevoort presiding.

Details of the trial are found in the journal of Captain Andrew Porter of the 2nd Continental Artillery Regiment who acted as judge advocate. Hare was charged with "lurking about the camp," found guilty, and sentenced to hang. There is no indication in Porter's detailed account that Hare was accused of anything other than spying. Newberry was similarly charged, found guilty, and sentenced to hang, but again there is no indication that he was accused of anything other than spying.

The first published suggestion that Hare may have murdered the daughter of John Speer at Fort Stanwix is a footnote in The Frontiersmen of New York published in 1883:

When Lieut. Hare was in custody, at the request of Gen. Clinton, he was asked by Johannes Roof if he did not kill Caty Steers, at Fort Stanwix, in 1777; "For," said Roof, "you was seen with your hands in her hair." He confessed that he had killed and scalped her.—John Roof, Jr.

The author, Jeptha Root Simms, was an acknowledged authority on the history of upstate New York. In preparation for his earlier History of Schoharie County, and Border Wars of New York, Simms had interviewed many surviving veterans of the Revolutionary War including John Roof, the son of Johannes Roof.

Frederick Coffay Yohn (1875-1933). Herkimer at
the Battle of Oriskany. Utica Public Library

Johannes Roof and Anna Maria Leunhard had settled in the vicinity of Fort Stanwix in 1760. Anna Maria and her five children including 16-year-old John and three-month-old Mary were likely with the group that was evacuated on July 28, 1777. John related to Simms that his family were sheltered at the home of Brigadier General Nicholas Herkimer who was mortally wounded at the Battle of Oriskany. Herkimer had his leg amputated shortly before his death and John claimed to have helped bury it. The following year Roof enlisted in the 1st Regiment of Tryon Militia and served during the Sullivan Expedition in 1779 and the Battle of Johnstown in 1781.

In 1778, Johannes Roof purchased a 325 acres farm in Canajoharie which included a stone building that became known as "Roof's Tavern." In 1779, General Clinton may have used "Roof's Tavern" for his headquarters and housed prisoners there. Johannes Roof may therefore have had the opportunity to speak to Hare, but why would General Clinton ask Roof to conduct an interrogation? And why did Captain Porter not record the fact in his journal if Hare had confessed to the murder?

Roof's accusation is problematic. According to Willett, Colbrath, and Gansevoort, the girls were quite some distance from the fort, and not close to any sentries. The only possible witness, the 16-year-old daughter of George Reyter, was wounded and running for her life, and would have been unlikely to have recognized Hare.

Nor can it be shown that Hare was in the vicinity of Fort Stanwix on the date of the murders. As an Indian Department officer he likely accompanied the expedition commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Barry St. Leger against Fort Stanwix, and may have participated in scouting missions with groups of Indigenous warriors. He is not named, however, in any primary source that documents the expedition. Much more is known about the activities of his older brother, Captain John Hare, who played an active role in the expedition until his death at the Battle of Oriskany.

Before St. Leger's expedition left Lachine, a patrol led by John Hare and Mohawk chief John Deserontyon was dispatched to Fort Stanwix by senior Indian Department officer Daniel Claus. Hare and Deserontyon ambushed a work detail from the fort, and took four scalps and five prisoners including a Patriot officer. Several days later they rendezvoused with St. Leger's expedition on the St. Lawrence between Oswegatichie (Ogdenburg) and Buck Island (Carleton Island).

Only July 24, when the expedition was encamped at the mouth of the Salmon River, St. Leger dispatched John Hare and James Wilson with a group of Mississauga and Seneca to "gather fresh intelligence." In his doctoral dissertation His Majesty’s "Savage" Allies, Paul Stevens theorized that indigenous warriors from this group were responsible for the attack on the girls on July 27.

On July 30, Hare and Wilson met up with Lieutenant Henry Bird's detachment of regulars at Nine Mile Point on Lake Oneida. Bird had been ordered by St. Leger to capture the Lower Landing on the Mohawk River so as to prevent American resupply. This was accomplished on August 2 just after reinforcements, provisions, and stores had reached the fort.

John Hare and James Wilson were both killed at the Battle of Oriskany four days later.

Frederick Bartoli. Cornplanter, 1796.
New York Historical Society

In his Life of Joseph Brant, eminent American historian William Leete Stone identified Seneca chief Cornplanter as the perpetrator of the attack on the girls. In February 1797, Thayendanegea (Joseph Brant), had travelled from Upper Canada to Philadelphia to meet with influential British diplomat Robert Liston. At Canadasaga, Thayendanegea was joined by Cornplanter who was also travelling to Philadelphia. Thayendanegea and Cornplanter journeyed down the Mohawk Valley to Canajoharie where they were hosted by Hendrick Frey.

Another of Frey's guests was Albany physician Dr. Jonathan Eights. Eights related to Stone that Frey and his guests "adjourned" to Root's Tavern where "many of their adventures during the war were recounted." At some point Cornplanter disclosed that he had shot a girl picking berries outside Fort Stanwix, whereupon the landlord "could hardly be restrained from doing violence" against the Seneca chief.

A few weeks after the hangings of Hare and Newberry, General Clinton mentioned the executions in a letter to his wife:

I have nothing further to acquaint you of, Except that we apprehended a Certain Lt. Henry Hare and a Serjt. Newberry, both of Coll. Butler’s Regt., who Confesed that they left the Seneca Country with Sixty three Indians and two white men, which Divided themselves in three parties, one party was to attack Schoharry, another party Cherry Valley and the Mohawk River, and the other party to Sculk about Fort Schuyler and the upper part of the Mohawk River to take prisoners or Sculps. I had them tryed by a Genl. Court Martial for spies, who Sentenced them both to be hanged, which was Done accordingly at Conojoharrie, to the Satisfaction of all the Inhabitants of that place that were friends to their Country, as they were known to be very active in almost all the Murders that were Committed on these Frontiers; they were Inhabitants of Tryon County and had Each a wife and several Children who Came to See them and beg their Lives

Major General Philip Schuyler would later praise Clinton: "In Executing Hare you have rid the State of the Greatest villain that was In It. I hope his abbettors In the County will meet with a Similar Exaltation." Hyperbole, perhaps, as other "villains" such as Walter Butler and Thayendanegea were far more notorious and still active.

The hanging of Henry Hare and William Newberry was but one incident in the "genocidal" Sullivan-Clinton campaign against the Haudenosaunee in the summer of 1779. Over 40 Seneca, Cayuga, and Onondaga villages were destroyed, and more than 5000 refugees fled to Fort Niagara. The expedition, however, failed to curb the Haudenosaunee's ability to raid settlements in the Mohawk Valley.

The following summer, Thayendanegea led a devastating attack on Canajoharie. According to Stone, "the fairest district of the valley was in a single day rendered a scene of wailing and desolation." Over 100 houses and barns, as well as a gristmill, two small forts, and the Reformed Church were set on fire. About 300 head of cattle and 200 horses were killed or taken. At least 14 inhabitants were killed, and many were taken prisoner, although Thayendanegea later released many of the women and children.

American historian Holger Hook describes the Revolution as American's first civil war. It was a war fought between Patriots and Loyalists, and between white settlers and indigenous tribes. It was a war in which injustices and atrocities occurred on both sides. Henry Hare was neither a saint nor a demon, so it is difficult to judge whether his hanging was an injustice or an understandable reaction to atrocity.

Sources:

Bilharz, Joy. Oriskany: A Place of Great Sadness. National Park Service, 2009.

Colbrath, William. Days of Siege: A Journal of the Siege of Fort Stanwix in 1777, edited by Larry Lowenthal, Eastern Acorn Press, 1983

Graymont, Barbara. The Iroquois in the American Revolution. Syracuse University Press, 1972.

Kelsay, Isabel Thompson. Joseph Brant, 1743-1807: Man of Two Worlds. Syracuse University Press, 1984.

Public Papers of George Clinton, First Governor of New York, vol. 5. State of New York, 1901.

Simms, Jeptha Root.  History of Schoharie County, and Border Wars of New York. Albany, 1845.

Simms, Jeptha Root. Frontiersmen of New York, 2 vols. Albany, 1883.

Stevens, Paul L., His Majesty’s "Savage" Allies: British Policy and the Northern Indians During the Revolutionary War — The Carleton Years, 1774–1778. Doctoral dissertation, State University of New York at Buffalo, 1984.

Stone, William L. Life of Joseph Brant, Thayendanegea: Including the Indian Wars of the American Revolution. 2 vols. Albany, 1838.

Watt, Gavin K. Rebellion in the Mohawk Valley: The St Leger Expedition of 1777. Dundurn Press, 2002.

Watt, Gavin K. No Despicable Enemy—1779: The Continental Army Destroys Indian Territory. Global Heritage Press, 2019.

Willett, William M. A Narrative of The Military Actions of Colonel Marinus Willett, Taken Chiefly from His Own Manuscript, edited by William Willett. New York, 1831.