Free downloads of historical novels inspired by Upstate New York history

In this time of the corona virus epidemic when so many of us are confined to our homes, I wanted to make available free downloads of the Kindle version of five my novels. They are all appropriate for high school students as well as adults. Relying on Amazon guidelines, the books below will be available at no charge  for five days each from now into the middle of April. Each is closely based on the historical record of figures from our local history who were maligned and misunderstood in their own times.

March 22 to March 26, 2020

Neither Rebel Nor Tory is the story of Hanyost Schuyler who grew up near Little Falls, NY among the Mohawks and who was regarded as "feeble minded" by his white neighbors. His affinity with Mohawk culture allowed him single-handedly to cause the British and their allies to break off the siege of Fort Stanwix in 1777. The novel also features a close look at the Battle of Oriskany and the role played by Hanyost's uncle, Nicholas Herkimer.



March 27 to March 31, 2020

The River That Flows Both Ways is the story of Harmen van den Bogaert, the first European to visit the Mohawk heartland in the 17th century. An explorer and surgeon, he played a central role in building the relationship between the first people and the Dutch settlers at Fort Orange, now Albany.
Later, his same-sex relationship with his African slave Tobias came to the attention of the Calvinist Dutch authorities and he fled to refuge among the Mohawks, only later to perish in another escape attempt. His story is told in the voice of Matouac, a Mohican boy taken as a servant by Bogaert.




April 1 to April 5, 2020

Roxy Druse and the Murders of Herkimer  County is based on a notorious murder case which attracted national attention in 1880s. Roxy Druse was convicted and hung at Herkimer for killing and dismembering her husband on an isolated farm in Jordanville, NY. Although branded as "a female fiend" by the press, this novel paints a more sympathetic picture of Roxy Druse, told in the voice of an actual journalist of the time, W.H. Tippett. The volume also includes Tippett's own history of the Druse and many other murders in Herkimer County.



April 7-11

The True History of Joseph Smith is a re-telling of the life of the Mormon prophet through the eyes of his sister Sophronia. She is very devoted to him as a boy and, like the rest of the Smith family, is in awe of his cleverness. As he grows into adolescence, she learns to make excuses for each new act of fraud, or perhaps imagination, which he initiates. Although she tells her granddaughter, who is the audience for her narrative, that she completely believes all of her brother's stories about visions and angels and golden books, the very details she chooses lead to less generous interpretations.

Every character and incident is patterned closely on the historical record of the remarkable young man from Palmyra, New York.


April 12-16

The Red Nurse is a story of the 1912 textile strike in Little Falls, New York through the eyes of one of its leaders, the public health nurse M. Helen Schloss. The strike by the largely female workers burst out in response to wage cuts and soon drew in the leading radicals of the age. Mayor George Lunn of Schenectady led his socialists to support the women while Big Bill Haywood and Carlo Tresca came with the far more radical International Workers of the World. When the professional and male organizers were jailed, Helen Schloss and IWW organizer Matilda Rabinowitz led the strikers to an arbitrated vistory.

New edition of Judge Benton's 1856 History of Herkimer County

 

 

A new edition of Judge Nathaniel Benton’s 1856  A History of Herkimer County is now available for free download as a PDF and in a non-profit paperback edition at $5.45. Both versions are available at Wilderness Hill Books and are intended for students of local history.

 The new edition contains the historical narratives of the Colonial and Revolutionary period but omits sections on the European history of the Palatine Germans, family histories and later events. 

Those interested in consulting the complete book can find it on this link at Google Books.  Chapter VIII will be of interest to genealogists and includes sketches of some of the main Palatine families such as the Bellingers,Caslers, Helmers, Herkimers, Dockstadters, Bowmans and Folts. Chapters IX and X cover historical and local political events from 1791 down to 1855.

In the seven chapters of the Wilderness Hill edition, Judge Benton  traces the arrival of the Palatine Germans in the early 1720’s through the growing storm of the Revolution in the 1770’s and concludes with the aftereffects of that bloody struggle. He  himself was a major political figure in the county during the first half of the 19^th century but does not draw on his experience at all in this book. Born in New Hampshire, he served in the U.S. Army during the War of 1812, where he rose to adjutant general and presided over two courts martial. He came to Little Falls in 1816 to study law under George Feeter, and served as county surrogate judge, U.S. Attorney for the northern district, New York State Senator from 1828-1831, and Secretary of State of New York from 1845 to 1847. In his later years he devoted himself to composing his history of Herkimer County, drawing on old records and the memories of the few who still survived from the early years of the republic, or their children.

 

The author shares relatively few of the racial and gender prejudices of his own time, and his book is a reliable source for many otherwise unrecorded incidents from the colonial and Revolutionary eras. His observations on Iroquois culture, for example, are quite candid on the freedoms enjoyed by Iroquois women in contrast to the second class citizenship of American women of his own era:

 

"Another peculiarity marked these people. The matrons of the tribe, in council, could always propose a cessation of hostilities, and this could be done without compromising the warriors and chiefs. For this purpose a male functionary, the messenger of the matrons, who was a good speaker, was designated to perform an office which was deemed unsuitable to the female. When the proposition to drop the war club was resolved upon, the message was delivered to this officer, and he was bound to enforce it with all the powers of eloquence he possessed.

    Marriage among the Iroquois was a mere personal agreement between the parties, requiring no particular sanction and in no respect affected the rights of property, if the wife had any. Whatever goods, effects or valuables of any kind the wife had before marriage, she continued to hold absolutely, and if a separation took place, the wife was entitled to take with her all her property."

 

It is the Palatine Germans who most concern Benton and he goes to some length describing the many legal and political difficulties which these pioneers faced in attempting to escape from indentured servitude in the Hudson Valley and gaining their own land in the Schoharie and Mohawk Rivers in the 1720s. And he is very compassionate in describing their hard lives and the violent attacks they experienced, first from the French in 1757-1758, and from the British and their allies during the Revolution.

 

The Oriskany Battlefield

 

 

Although he admired Nicholas Herkimer, Judge Benton’s description of the subsequent battle of Oriskany in 1777 acknowledges that the general’s decisions cost the lives of hundreds of local militiamen who followed him:

 

 

"All previous accounts had fixed St. Leger's forces at 2000 strong, nearly half of which were Indians led by Brant, a brave, active and artful Mohawk sachem. Herkimer knew this, and he no doubt believed, as well he might, that a force superior to his own, could be sent against him, which would select its own battlefield, without in any way interfering with the investment of the fort. But noisy insubordination prevailed, and precipitated the little band of patriots into the jaws of death. Smarting under the repeated accusations heaped upon him, and irritated no doubt, the General gave orders to take up the line of march, which was received with cheers by the men, who proceeded rapidly on their way, two deep, having thrown out the usual advanced and flanking parties.

     At 10 o'clock, on the 6^th, the main body of troops passed over a causeway on a marshy ravine, the advance having commenced an ascent of the westerly slope, when a well directed fire from the enemy, in front and on both flanks, accompanied with the dismal Indian war-whoop, unfolded to the American general that his division had become involved in an almost inextricable ambuscade. Retreat was impossible, for the causeway over the marsh was already blocked up with teams; and the rear guard, just commencing the descent of the eastern declivity, commanded by one of the officers who in the morning had taunted his general with cowardice, turned a fled on the first fire of the enemy. But light did not save them from the fate that awaited their comrades on the west side of the ravine; the enemy, knowing well the ground, had gained the rear, and shot down the fugitives as they ran away from their companions. As might well be expected, the suddenness of the attack and the intensity of the enemy's ire, not only produced great disorder among the provincials, but annihilation seemed almost inevitable for a time.

 Hanyost Schuyler's mother pleads

with Benedict Arnold

(from 1877 Harpers Magazine)

 

Annihilation was averted, although losses were very high among the militia force of about a thousand. According to Benton, American reports listed 200 dead while British listed 400 Americans dead and 200 captured. The British only retreated from Fort Stanwix due to a clever ruse perpetrated on them by Herkimer's nephew, Hanyost Schuyler, popularly thought to be a madman:

 

"Hanyost Schuyler was the instrument made use of to scatter the besieging forces surrounding Fort Schuyler, and send them helter-skelter back to Canada in double quick time. The home of this strange and singular being, was near the upper Mohawk Indian castle in the present town of Danube, where he resided with his mother and brother Nicholas, and hence in early life had much intercourse with the Indians. He is described as coarse and ignorant, and but little removed from idiocy, and still possessing shrewdness enough to be made the instrument of accomplishing an important object. Hanyost was somewhat tainted with loyalty, and had been captured at Shoemaker's with Walter N. Butler, and others' he was tried by a court martial and sentenced to death. Hi mother and brother, on hearing this sad new, of course hastened to headquarters to intercede for his life. For a time their efforts were unavailing, but finally it was proposed he should repair to St. Leger's camp with a friendly Oneida Indian, and so manage to alarm the enemy as to produce an abandonment of the siege.

     Hanyost gladly embraced the alternative, leaving his brother as a hostage for the faithful execution of his mission; being assured that Nicholas should die if he faltered in the enterprise. Schuyler having procured sundry shots through his garments, that he might show he had run for dear life, departed with his Indian comrade for the enemy's camp. They had arranged between them to approach St. Leger's position from opposite directions, and were not to appear acquainted with each other, if they should meet. This affair was wisely planned, and most skillfully and adroitly executed. The instrument was well chosen. He was well known as a loyalist, and the parties to whom he first addressed himself were no unwilling auditors, no in an unfavorable mood to be deeply impressed and even awed by his ambiguous language and mysterious manner. The native American Indians, like the followers of Mahomet, were ever inspired with a peculiar respect and even reverence for idiots and lunatics. Fraternal regard strongly prompted Hanyost to apply all his energies and to leave no effort untried to secure the complete success of his mission, and relieve his brother from the fate that was hanging over him. He was completely successful, and having followed the retreating enemy to Wood Creek, he there left them, and returned to Fort Schuyler the same evening, and gave Col. Gansevoort the first intimation of Arnold's approach. It was not until Schuyler's arrival at the fort, that its commandant was able to solve the problem of St. Leger's sudden departure and precipitate flight."

 

 

I do not share the Judge’s estimation of Hanyost and made him the protagonist of my novel, Neither Rebel Nor Tory, which includes much of the same history included in Benton’s book, also available in paperback at Wilderness Hill Books and on Kindle.

 

 

The Judge's  history also has good descriptions of the Tory and Iroquois raids which followed the British defeats at Fort Stanwix and at Saratoga. This period paralleled 20^th century colonial conflicts in that the British could attack the American insurgents, freely engaged in war crimes and atrocities, but could not hold any territory.  Looked at another way, the Tories and the Iroquois raiders proved to be as elusive as the Viet Cong or the Taliban, striking from a sanctuary in Canada. which their enemies would not breach.

 

A year after Oriskany, the massacre at Andrustown in the town of Warren was intended as a prelude to a full-scale assault on Valley settlements but John Adam Helmer managed to outrun Brant’s marauders in time to warn the settlers to flee into the forts at German Flatts – thus becoming the Paul Revere of this part of the country.

 

A monument marking the massacre site near Jordanville is on Route 167 about half mile north on the left from Holy Trinity Monastery.

 

 

 

 Site of the 1780 mill in Little Falls

In July of that same year about 60 Tory/Iroquois raiders attacked Rheimenschneiders Bush, a small settlement and grist mill north of Little Falls. According to Benton, 19 captives were carried off to Canada. And according to legend, the raiders also carried off two small brass cannons but abandoned them in the forest somewhere near Stewarts Landing at the outlet of Canada Lake.  (I have searched for both Rheimenschnieders Bush and for the lost cannons, without success)
 

Benton  describes the attack on the mill at Little Falls and the dramatic escape of several local residents:

 "In June, 1782, a party of the enemy, Tories and Indians as usual, appeared at the Little falls for the sole purpose of destroying a gristmill at that place, for they do not seem to have achieved any other valorous exploit that way. The grist mill on the falls of the Mohawk became quite important to the inhabitants of the upper valley, as well as to the garrisons of Forts Herkimer and Dayton, after the destruction of those at German Flats, by Brant, a year and a half before. The enemy came upon the party at the flouring mill at night, and accomplished their designs without much difficulty. At any rate, only a few shots were fired, and one man, Daniel Petri, was killed. When the Indians entered the mill, the occupants attempted to escape the best way they could. Two of them, Cox and Skinner, secreted themselves in the raceway, under the waterwheel, and escaped death and captivity; but two others, Christian Edick and Frederick Getman, jumped into the raceway, above the mill, and there endeavored to conceal themselves, but the burning mill disclosed their hiding place and they were taken prisoners. After burning the mill the enemy retired, taking with them several prisoners."

 
Judge Benton's memory is preserved today by Benton Hall Academy and Bentons Landing in Little Falls. His stately residence on Garden Street in Little Falls, the longtime home of the YWCA, fittingly serves as the usual meeting place for the town’s historical society.

 

 

 

Fort Stanwix and the Oriskany Battlefield

Last week the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation, and Historic Preservation issued a press release  detailing which state parks and historic sites would be closed in response to what Governor David Patterson has called an unprecedented budget gap. Among the sites to be closed is the Oriskany battlefield, where hundreds of New York state patriots fought and died in 1777 in order to halt a British army intent on smashing the newly declared republic.

In an era like ours when the once economically vibrant Mohawk Valley has been sadly depopulated as its industries were destroyed and sent overseas, it is time to recall the heroism of those who gave their lives in the defense of freedom.

As the fires of revolution broke out in 1775, the largely German settlers in the valley were among the strongest supporters of independence. Nicholas Herkimer, a wealthy landowner living near Little Falls, emerged as the leader of the local militia.  Even before independence was offically declared, the patriots had driven off to Canada hundreds of those who chose to side with King George III, including the powerful Johnson family whose seat was at Johnson Hall in Johnstown. (Herkimer's home and Johnson Hall are also among the sites proposed for closure.)

The revolution in the Mohawk Valley became a civil war in which the King's supporters, including five of the six Iroquois tribes, took up arms against their former neighbors and families. The British government, eager to destroy the republic, planned an invasion that would bring the Tories and their Iroquois allies back into the valley in order to wreak a bloody vengeance.

Only a single fort protected the valley from invaders who could follow water routes south from the British base at Oswego, and that was the dilapidated Fort Stanwix. This site is now part of the national park system and thus, thankfully safe from the budget axe. The Fort Stanwix National Monument  in Rome, NY  features a museum and a careful reconstruction of the fort on its original site. 

Interior of restored fort

exterior of restored fort, with dry moat

Colonel Peter Gansevoort,

American commander at Fort Stanwix

General Barry St. Leger,

commander of the British at Fort Stanwix

Barry St. Leger, a career officer in the British army, was promoted to general for purposes of the expedition he led south from Canada in July, 1777 as one prong of a triple attack designed to split and destroy the new American republic. A second prong, to be launched from occupied New York City, never took place, due to either to the British commander's lethargy or to a communications failure. The main force of 8000 troops, led south from Montreal by General James Burgoyne, was defeated at Saratoga a couple months after the events at Stanwix and Oriskany. American victory, and the independence it protected, may well have been due to the ignominious retreat of St. Leger from Fort Stanwix. But  this eventual victory was nowhere in sight as the mixed force of British soldiers, colonials who had joined the royal side, and a large force of allied Mohawk and Seneca warriors surrounded the fort.

Rome, NY today

Now at the center of the small city of Rome, the site of Fort Stanwix controlled the strategic point where the Mohawk River was only a couple miles from Wood Creek which led to Oneida Lake and other waterways  to the west.  The fort was built twenty years earlier duing the war with the French, but had fallen into disrepair by the time the Revolution broke out. Gansevoort and his force had made only partial repairs and had limited artillery when the British and their allies arrived from the west in late July.

The British had relied on small boats to carry them up the Black River from their gathering point at Oswego, down to Oneida Lake and up Wood Creek, now a small rivulet visible from bridges on West Dominick and West Liberty Streets. Gansevoort directed his men to fill in the Wood Creek channel with logs and debris, to block St. Leger's ability to bring up his artillery and heavier supplies. Despite these delaying tactics, Gansevoort's troops, along with many women and children, were soon surrounded in the fort, and fearful that they could not long withstand the siege. The murder and scalping of two girls as they gathered berries near the fort in the days before the battle,  let the besieged know that surrender was not an option.

View of Fort Stanwix restoration from

site of  the British lines in 1777

(present day East Dominick Street)

Bastion of the fort, with sentry box 

As the siege continued, Colonel Gansevoort sent out desperate appeals for help. With the new American Army under General Washington far to the south, only the local militia was able to respond. Assembling under  Nicholas Herkimer at Fort Dayton (now Herkimer, NY) this force of about a thousand men, joined by allies from the Oneida Nation, set off to rescue their countrymen. The amateur nature of this brave force was nowhere more evident than their rapid advance straight into a trap.

Oriskany Battlefield, site of the Military Road

Six miles east of the fort a thick primeval forest then covered an area of low rises and ravines along the south bank of the Mohawk River, now accessible from state route 69 between Rome and Utica. As the militia trudged along a track in the woods, called the military road, they reached a ravine. Herkimer reportedly wanted to send out flanking scouts but was stung by accusations of cowardice from his unruly troops, eager to press on to Fort Stanwix. These accusations were sharpened by the fact that Herkimer's own brother Johann had joined the Tory(or Loyalist) Americans who comprised a large part of the force besieging Stanwix.

Whatever the reason, Herkimer led his men straight into the ravine where a mixed force of Tories and their Iroquois allies lay in ambush, under the leadership of Herkimer's former neighbor, the Mohawk war chief known to the whites as Joseph Brant. In the first volley Herkimer's leg was smashed and the militia suffered fearful losses. Retreating to a low rise above the ravine, Herkimer directed his men to form a circle and fight back. After a day of continuous battle amid the ancient trees, the American lost anywhere from 500 to 700 of their original force, their enemies considerably less. The militia retreated back to present day Herkimer, NY while St. Leger continued the siege.

The ravine where the militia was ambushed

The site from which Herkimer directed the battle

Herkimer directing his troops at Oriskany

(Painting by E.N. Clark,

courtesy Utica Public Library)

Thayendenega, also known as Joseph Brant,

 commanded Iroquois and Tory  forces at Oriskany

(painting by Glibert Stuart, courtesy

 of NYS Historical Association)

As the battered militia retreated from the scene of battle on the evening of August 4, 1777, the survivor must have feared that their struggle for independence was a futile and doomed effort. The only armed force protecting the settlements of the Mohawk Valley was now shattered, and Herkimer himself died of his wounds shortly after the battle. The only regular U.S. troops anywhere near were dug in near present day Saratoga, awaiting the advance of a formidable force of regular British soldiers and hired Hessian mercenaries, and under the command of General Philip Schuyler. (whose home in Albany is also slated for closure) 

The defenders of Fort Stanwix, running low on food and ammunition, could not hold out for long and when the fort fell, St. Leger would surely unleash his allies on the unprotected settlements, stretchng east from near present day Utica to Schenectady. And the British would be free to attack the Continental army from two directions at once. The rich farmlands of the valley, which provided much of the food for Washington's army, would be in enemy hands, and defeat  of the independence movement would be only a matter of time. Britain's "counterinsurgency strategy" would have paid off.

What prevented this disaster? What saved our young republic from perishing only a year after its independence was proclaimed?

For one of several possible answers to such questions, I have to recommend my own historical novel, Neither Rebel Nor Tory, available at amazon.com.

The book is also available at the Herkimer County Historical Society, the Little Falls Historical Society, and the Blackwood & Brouwer bookshop in Kinderhook, NY.

The novel is closely based on the life of Hanyost Schuyler, Herkimer's nephew, who  was long regarded as possibly insane, a turncoat, and a shameless opportunist who fought variously for the patriot and loyalist sides. All historians agree, however, that Hanyost played a key role in persuading St. Leger and Brant to suddenly break off the siege and flee back to Canada, leaving Burgoyne to face defeat on his own.

My vision of Hanyost Schuyler, only 21 in 1777, is that his upbringing among the Mohawks near Little Falls gave him a deep affinity with native culture that made him resist taking part in the war on any side. Trapped in the middle of a battle he did not choose, Hanyost was uniquely placed to do what his uncle and no military force alone could do.