On Western Avenue, two miles from the hamlet of West Charlton,in Saratoga County, NY, stands a blue and gold historic marker recalling a tragedy from nearly 250 years ago:
GONZALEZ HOME
HERE, IN 1782, JOSEPH
GONZALEZ AND SON EMANUEL
WERE KILLED AND SCALPED BY
ST REGIS INDIANS, HIS SON
JOHN WAS TAKEN CAPTIVE
Fleeing persecution for their religious beliefs, Don Manuel Gonzalez brought his family to America in 1690 and settled along the Hudson River.
A grandson of this early settler, Joseph Gonzalez left Dutchess County for the wilderness west of Schenectady in the early 1770s. Here he settled with his family in the southwest corner of what is now the Town of Charlton, on a 1500-acre tract in the Kayaderoasseras Patent.
This area, at that time still a part of Albany County, was known to early settlers as the “Woestyne,” or what today would be called “wilderness.” For the next ten years, Joseph Gonzalez and his family carved a farm out of this wilderness.
Living in an area where many settlers were loyal to the British, Joseph Gonzalez was well known for siding with the Patriots.
In early 1782, a group of soldiers were sent from Schenectady to arrest a Loyalist who lived in the vicinity of the Gonzalez homestead. After convincing the soldiers of his innocence, the Tory invited them to stay in his home for the night.
In an act of treachery, the man left his sleeping guests and proceeded to the Gonzalez home where he told Joseph and his sons that the men were Torys and asked for assistance in murdering them while they slept.
Gonzalez refused and the next morning the man was arrested. The prisoner was taken to Schenectady, where he was tried and sentenced to be hung, with Joseph Gonzalez interceding for the man, convincing the court to grant him a pardon.
Only a few months after this incident, a group of St. Regis Mohawk who had spent the winter hunting in Northern New York, raided the home of the Gonzalez family.
On an April morning in 1782, Joseph and his sons Emanuel, John, and a younger son, also named Joseph, along with a hired servant, were burning a field when they approached.
The elder Joseph, assuming that the group was friendly, extended his hand in greeting, only to be immediately cut down by a tomahawk. John and Emanuel were quickly seized, with Emanuel fighting off his attacker and fleeing but was fatally shot while climbing a fence.
While all of this was happening, one of the attackers, allowed Joseph to escape to the house where his mother, sister Dorcas, and eighteen-year-old brother David were hiding.
Before the attackers had time to regroup, David hitched up a wagon and drove the family seven miles to Cranesville on the Mohawk River. From there the family continued their flight to safety and headed east another eight miles along the Mohawk River to Tinker Hill in Glenville, the fortified home of Militia Captain Teunis Swart.
Swart immediately called the militia together to pursue the attackers. Concerned for the safety of their families, the men refused to leave that day but agreed to move out in the morning.
Unwilling to wait, Captain Swart and David Gonzalez immediately returned to the scene of the attack. Here they located the lifeless bodies of Joseph Gonzalez and his son Emanuel in the field where they had fallen and brought them to the family’s log home where they kept vigil for the night.
The next morning the militia arrived, bringing with them Mrs. Gonzalez. Joseph and Dorcas. Together they buried father and son on the family farm.
The pursuit of the attackers was immediately taken up in hopes of releasing John Gonzalez and the family servant who had also been taken captive in the raid.
Unfortunately, after two days the trail was lost somewhere in the vicinity of Fish House on the Sacandaga River when heavy rain erased all evidence of the path the attackers had followed as they headed northward.
Fearful of pursuit, the attackers moved quickly toward Canada. For days, the group went without food, with the threat of death forcing the two captives to keep up the fearful pace.
Once in Canada, John was separated from his father’s hired man, who was never seen or heard from again. On reaching a garrison of the British Army, John was forced into service of the Crown, though he was never made to actively participate in any campaign for fear he might escape.
At that time, his surname was recorded in the military record as Consalus, a name that he continued to use for the rest of his life. As a captive of the British, he was required to make cartridges, though often substituting charcoal for much of the gunpowder to render them ineffective.
In the spring of 1785, two years after the war was over, he was finally released and headed back to the Mohawk Valley.
When he finally made his way back home, John searched for his remaining family, only to find that his mother had passed away only months after his capture. The first family member he located was his older sister, Rebecka, who had married Emanuel DeGraff and was then living in Schenectady.
His brother David had also settled in Schenectady, with his sister Dorcas having married and moved with her husband to Saratoga. As there had been no way to pay on the contract for the Gonzalez homestead, the property had been taken from the family.
In the years after his return, John began buying back pieces of the property on the eastern edge of the tract his family had first settled. In 1792 John married Dorcas Hogan of Albany, and together they raised 12 children. His descendants continued on the property until 1926.
Today Consaul Road off of Route 67 in Charlton marks the location of this early farm.
Photo: Gonzalez Historic Marker (Dave Waite).
This essay is presented by the Saratoga County History Roundtable and the Saratoga County History Center. Follow them on Twitter and Facebook.
Very interesting article personalizing the dangers of life on the frontier even after the supposed end of the Revolutionary War following Yorktown in 1781. A part of our history often overlooked by historians focused on “the Big Picture.”
I’m a descendant of Manuel Gunsolus-duk, and this is the first time that I’ve ever seen the name spelled Gonzalez, although there are many variations, i.e. Gonsalus, Gunsolus, Gonsales, Consalus, Consaulus, etc. The first Manuel has always been referred to as a Spaniard, but as far as I know no one really knows from whence he came. Some believe that he arrived near Albany from Curacao, and although he was married twice here, I’ve had a report that he was first married in Brazil and that his will was contested by his Brazilian heirs. The man remains a mystery.
This Gonzalez Family Story is fascinating and raises many questions. Dave Waite writes: “Fleeing persecution for their religious beliefs, Don Manuel Gonzalez brought his family to America in 1690 and settled along the Hudson River.” I wish Waite had included more information on the origins and journey of Don Manuel Gonzalez. His story is similar to those of Sephardic Jews fleeing persecution from the Spanish Inquisition and finding refuge, especially, in the Netherlands. Since the Dutch West Indies Company was interested in business, not religion, it welcomed Sephardic Jews to New Amsterdam, where many thrived and continued to do so in New York City after the British takeover. If Don Manuel Gonzalez was a refugee or a descendant of such refugees, his story would be very similar to that of Luis Moses Gomez, a Sephardic Jew. (The Hudson Valley Magazine published an article on the Gomez family and the Gomez Mill House. https://hvmag.com/life-style/gomez-mill-house/ My information comes from this and other sources, e.g., http://www.gomez.org and https://jewishstandard.timesofisrael.com/the-house-that-gomez-built/.While well worth the read, the HVM author attributed the Millhouse to Orange County. Listed on the National Register Historic Places, it is located on the outskirts of Marlboro in Ulster County.) Luis Moses Gomez’s father fled with his family from Spain and sought refuge first in France and then England. His son, Luis Moses Gomes, traveled to Brazil and then to New York City in 1714, and with his sons ventured into the wilderness of the Hudson Highlands, purchasing a tract of land that he increased from 1,000 to 4,000 acres. He and his sons traded with Native Americans and built the Gomez Mill House, a fieldstone blockhouse. While conducting business in lumber, furs, and limestone, Luis Moses Gomez continued his residence in Manhattan and retained his Jewish faith and identity. “In 1727 he was the financial leader behind the construction of the Mill Street Synagogue in lower Manhattan…. He served as the first president of the Congregation, which totaled 300 to 400 families at that time.” Dave Waite does not refer to the Gonzalez family’s religion. Perhaps they were conversos who had accepted Catholicism to survive the Inquisition and continued as Christians in America. I wonder if the Gonzalez Family knew the Gomez family.
You might find A PROMISED LAND: Jewish Patriots, the American Revolution, & the Birth of Religious Freedom by Adam Jortner (2024) of interest.