Slaughter and Massacre at Schenectady, New York, January 11, 1690

1690.  Jan. 11. 
The French reach the trail leading to Corlaer (Schenectady) under Sieur Le Moyne de Sainte Helene and Lieut. Daillebout de Mantet, and decide to attack that place first, rather than Albany, with about 100 men and as many Indians. At 11 o'clock, it being decided because of the severity of the winter night to wait no longer, detachments approach the various city gates, which through laxity were found unprotected. The village was stockadoed with pine logs ten feet high, with gates at the north and south ends of Church street. It is stated that there were within the wall about eighty houses shielding nearly four hundred souls. A stockade fort at the north end of Church street, where it meets Front street, held a garrison detachment of 24 men of Capt. Jonathan Bull's Connecticut company, under Lieut. Talmadge, sufficient to make repulse. The signal of attack was given Indian fashion, when detachments were at each gate, and the torch was applied, everyone being killed by the sword as in midnight fear they rushed from their abodes. Only two houses were standing at the end of two hours, — that of Sander Glen, across the Mohawk, because of previous kindness shown to the French, and of the widow Bratt, whither the wounded M. de Montigny was carried. Pieter Schuyler (in his letter of the 15th, to Gov. Bradstreet of Massachusetts) states: "The whole village was instantly in a Blaze. Women with child (were) ripped open, and their Infants cast into the Flames, or dashed against Posts of the Doors. Sixty Persons perished in the Massacre, and twenty-seven were carried into Captivity. The rest fled naked during the massacre, but twenty-one were lost on the road, Feb. 8. French depart from Schenectady at 11 o'clock on Sunday, taking 30 prisoners, fifty good horses being seized to convey the plunder; but of these only sixteen were to reach Montreal, the others being required for food on return march, Feb. 9. Simon Schermerhorn, wounded and blood-besmeared, arrives in the early morn at Albany on his panting steed, and announces the massacre; following him at intervals, other fugitives arrive from the vicinity of Schenectady and give the alarm that Albany is to be burned as was Schenectady, with the consequence that instead of despatching all the militia at command to help the Mohawk valley inhabitants or to pursue the French, they feel impelled to make a defence at home, and messengers are sent on horse with all speed to Kinderhook, Claverack and Kingston to procure assistance, Feb. 9. Capt. Bull takes a detail of soldiers from Albany companies to Corlear (Schenectady) and inters the bloody, blackened and frozen bodies, at the same time, by orders received, invites the Mohawks to build castles of defence at that place and on the island (Van Rensselaer) for the further protection of Albany, Feb. 9. Convention commissions Robert Livingston and Capt. Geret Teunise to go to Massachusetts and Connecticut to treat with their governors regarding necessity of joining forces to invade Canada, March 2. Jacob Leisler commissions Johannes de Bruyn, Johannes Prevoost and Jacob Milborne to go to Albany with 160 soldiers to possess Fort Orange and control King William's government, March 4. Leisler's claim to administer the government of the province recognized by the city and Pieter Schuyler allowed to retain office of mayor; but Johannes Cuyler is appointed town-clerk in stead of Robert Livingston, April. Leisler at council of war in New York, favors expedition against Canada, May 1. Board of Indian Commissioners constituted. Four persons escaping, who had been taken prisoners at Schenectady, arrive at Albany and relate terrible experiences on their journey back with the French to Canada, they subsisting on dead horses, eating mosses and bark of trees, June 9. The famous "Ballad" of the burning of Schenectady (twenty graphic stanzas) composed by Walter Wilie of Albany, June 12. Leisler appoints his friend Milborne the commander-in-chief of the expedition to be raised by the several provinces to invade Canada ; but the New Englanders of importance decry the appointment for so important a post of one they say is only a trades man of little intelligence, and the government of Connecticut recommends Maj-Gen. Fitz John Winthrop, to which Leisler finally agrees, June. Gen. Winthrop arrives at Albany with his Connecticut troops, commissioned to lead the American forces against the French in Canada, and camps at the Schuyler Flatts, Watervliet, north of city, July 21. Gen. Winthrop, disgusted with the small quantity of men for his expedition, finding that the colonies had not sent half of the promised allotments. New York sending August. Gen. Winthrop joins Col. Pieter Schuyler and his army at the "Great Carrying Place" (Fort Edward) whom he finds busily engaged in making bark canoes for the expedition through the two lakes; but much discouraged by reason of lack of proper transportation for so many, they hold a council at which it is determined to return to Albany, first commissioning Johannes Schuyler (the youngest brother of the Mayor) a captain, who proceeds to accept what militia will volunteer to join his invasion from among the Dutch and Indians, and in the end makes a campaign that is successful in some measure,

57 gruesome stories of Indian capture and torture

Iroquois Prisoners Who Suffered Death at the Torture Stake -Haunt A New York Woods

History of Livingston County, New York, 1870
     Standing near the westerly border of the spring, was the fatal post to which the condemned prisoner was fastened for torture ; and hither, from other Seneca towns, was brought captives of consequence, the prisoners of state. Horatio Jones pointed out to John McKay, the precise spot where the post stood, as the two strolled one evening along the Spring creek. "John," said the former, "do you ever see ghosts after nightfall wandering through these woods? If Indian hunters are to be credited, sights are often seen here that would make your hair, rise." The Indian burial-place was located about twenty rods northeast of the spring, where, in digging, wells and cellars, bones in abundance have been disinterred. A venerable lady, yet living,  while in pursuit of her cows in an early day, passing near the burial-place observed a grass-grown hillock by the foot-path Thrusting in her walking-stick, she disturbed a quantity of bones from their slight covering, doubtless those of poor captives who had suffered torture at the stake. Articles of pottery, bearing curious devices, copper kettles similar in style to those in use among Spanish colonists, and rudely-formed hatchets and arrowheads, have been met with here.

                                              57 gruesome tales of Indian capture and torture

Tales of Frontier Terror in the Ohio River Country

Iroquois Torture and Decapitation of White Captives Described

History of Orange County, New York 1888     

     There has been no more intellectual nation among the aborigines of 
America than the Senecas of Western New York — the most original 
and determined of the confederated Iroquois — but its warriors were 
cruel like the others, and their squaws often assisted the men in torturing 
their captives. When Boyd and Parker were captured in the Genesee 
Valley in the Sullivan campaign of 1779, Brant, the famous half-breed 
chief, assured them that they would not be injured, yet left them in the 
hands of Little Beard, another chief, to do with as he would, and the 
prolonged tortures to which he and his savage companions subjected 
them were horrible. After they had been stripped and tied to trees, and 
tomahawks were thrown so as to just graze their heads, Parker was un- 
intenlionally hit so that his head was severed from his body, but Boyd was 
made to suffer lingering miseries. His ears were cut off, his mouth 
enlarged with knives and his severed nose thrust into it, pieces of flesh 
were cut from his shoulders and other parts of his body, an incision was 
made in his abdomen and an intestine fastened to the tree, when he was 
scourged to make him move around it, and finally as he neared death, was 
decapitated, and his head raised on a pole. 

100 Real Historical Accounts 

New York's Wappinger Indians Fight for Washington in the American Revolution

New York's Wappinger Indians Fight for Washington in the American Revolution

August 31, 1778 upon this field Chief Nimham and seventeen Stockbridge Indians as allies of the Patriots gave their lives for liberty

In the Revolution Nimham and his warriors took an active 
part. Some sixty of them, expert marksmen and skilled in war, 
joined the American forces and fought with a bravery and valor 
worthy of their ancient race, in the days of their glory. Active 
in the campaigns of 1777, they joined Washington again in the 
spring of the following year, and were detached with the forces 
under La Fayette, to check the depredations of the British army 
on its retreat from Philadelphia, and they were afterward trans-
ferred to Westchester county, the scene of some of the most 
hotly contested struggles of the war. 

It was on the 30th of August, 1778, that Nimham and his 
warrior band went forth to the field of their last battle. On 
that day they met with a scouting party of British under Colo- 
nel Emerick, and after a tierce engagement compelled them to 
retreat. On the following morning the whole of the British 
force at Kings Bridge was ordered out and the larger part was 
placed in an ambuscade, while Emerick was sent forward to de- 
coy his assailants of the previous day. In the extreme northern 
part of the annexed portion of the city of New York, is a high 
elevation of land, known as Cortlandt's Kidge. Winding 
through the valleys and emptying into the Harlem River, near 
Kings Bridge, is a stream that has borne from the earliest times 
the name of Tippets Brook. The wooded heights and the 
banks of the stream were the scenes of a most sanguinary con- 
flict. The attempt to draw the Indians into the ambuscade 
failed, and upon their advance the British troops had scarcely 
time to fall into rank. The Indians lined the fences and com- 
menced firing upon the forces under Colonel Enierick. The 
Queen's Rangers moved rapidly to gain the heights, and Tarle- 
ton advanced with the Hussars and his famous Legion of Cav- 
alry. This being reported to Lieutenant-Colonel Simcoe, he 
directed Major Ross to conduct his corps on the heights, and 
advancing to the road arrived within ten yards of Nimham and 
his men. Up to this time they had been intent on the attack 
upon Colonel Emerick. Tliey now gave a yell and fired on the 
advancing enemy and wounded five, including Colonel Simcoe. 

They were driven from the fence, and Tarleton rushed upon 
them with his cavalry and pursued them down Cortlandt"s 
Ridge. Here Tarleton himself had a narrow escape. Striking' 
at one of the fugitives, he lost his balance and fell from his 
horse. Fortunately for him the Indian had no bayonet and his 
musket was discharged. A captain of a company of American 
soldiers was taken prisoner with some of his men, and a company 
under Major Stewart, who afterwards distinguished himself at 
the storming of Stony Point, left the Indians and tied. The en- 
gagement was renewed with the fiercest vigor. The cavalry 
charged the ridge with overwhelming numbers, but were bravely 
resisted. As the cavalry rode them down, the Indians seizing 
their foes, dragged them from their horses, to join them in death. 

     In a swamp, not far from the brook, Nimham made his last 
stand. When he saw the Grenadiers closing upon him and all 
hope of successful resistance gone, he called out to his people 
to flee, but as for himself, " I am an aged tree, I will die here." 
Being attacked by Simcoe he wounded that oificer, but was shot 
and killed by Wright, his orderly Hussar. In this fearful fray 
the power of the tribe was forever broken. More than forty of 
the Indians were killed or desperately wounded in the fight, and 
when the next morning dawned, there, still and cold in death, 
on the field he had defended so bravely, lay the last sachem of 
the AVappingers. 

The place where they crossed Tippets Brook is still known as 
Indian Bridge, and an opening in the Cortlandt woods yet bears 
the name of Indian Field, and there the dead were buried. It is 
said that the spirit of the sachem still haunts the field of his 
last battle, and that the sound of his war cry still rises on the 
midnight air, and greets the ear of the belated traveller as he 
treads on his lonely way. 

From that time the Wappingers ceased to have a name in his- 
tory. A few scattered remnants still remained, and as late as 
ISll, a small band had their dwelling place on a low tract of 
land by the side of a brook, under a high hill, in the northern 
part of the town of Kent,' but all that remained of them have 
Long since passed away, and the fleece that knew them once will 
know them no more forever. 

A person who stands on the high land in Carmel, south of 
Lake Gleneida, sees far to the northwest, three lofty mountains 
that tower above all the country round. To the middle peak, 
which is the highest, we have given the name of the last Sachem 
of the tribe that once ruled all the lands that can be seen from 
'its highest summit: and we trust that in honor of his valor, and 
of the faith sealed with his blood, on the field where he fought 
for the liberty of America, it will bear to all future time the 
name of Mount Nimham. 

'The site of this village is on the farm of Isaiah Booth, about half a mile south 
of the Putnam county road, near the west line of Lot 5.