History, Natural History & the Arts
In 2021, while browsing the shelves at Berry Hill Bookstore, just outside of Deansboro, in Oneida County, NY, I noticed an old book entitled New York COMMISSIONERS for Detecting and Defeating CONSPIRACIES.
The book described this commission’s origins, powers, and jurisdictional controversies. Among the topics were stories of counterfeiters, deserters, murders, robbers, plunderers and more. [Read more…] about New York’s Commission for Detecting and Defeating Conspiracies
The New York Provincial Congress was one of the first revolutionary bodies to outline a new inter-colonial program to finance the Revolutionary War.
On May 26, 1775, only two weeks after the Second Continental Congress met at Philadelphia, the Provincial Congress wrote to New York’s delegates that it was “clearly impossible” to raise by taxes a sum “adequate to the public service” and that it was equally certain that the existing paper money of the various states could not obtain ‘”universal circulation.” [Read more…] about Financing the Revolution: National, State & Local Currencies
August 6th marks the anniversary of the 1777 Battle of Oriskany. Fought as an American relief column marched to aid the besieged Fort Stanwix, about 800 Tryon County militiamen and 60 allied Oneida warriors under Brigadier General Nicholas Herkimer were ambushed by British, Loyalist, and Indigenous forces (including Mohawk and Seneca warriors). [Read more…] about August 6th Marks 1777 Battle of Oriskany Anniversary
By May 1775 civil war between the American colonies and the British government had begun. The Battles of Lexington and Concord, and the seizures of Forts Ticonderoga and Crown Point told the story of an appeal to arms.
Town, county, city and state committees, as representatives of the people, assumed the functions of government, took the initiative in opposing the objectionable acts of the British parliament, and gradually, perhaps more or less unconsciously, prepared the people for the Revolutionary War. [Read more…] about New York’s Revolutionary Provincial Congresses 1775-1776
The New York Provincial Congress on May 26, 1775, appointed a “standing committee of correspondence” and the next day ordered all the counties in the Province of New York to name committees for the counties, towns and districts and to have the “general association” signed, in order to execute the orders of the Second Continental Congress.
Every citizen was to be invited to sign the “association” and by July 1775, all the non-signers (loyalist, or otherwise) were to be reported to the Provincial Congress. [Read more…] about New York’s Provincial Congress: From Association to State Government
During the controversies over the enforcement of the Navigation Acts, the Sugar Act of 1764 and the Stamp Act of 1765, committees were created in New York to correspond with those of other colonies and to contrive means of opposing those measures. Similar committees were organized elsewhere.
The Townshend Acts of 1767 reawakened the disturbance occasioned by the Stamp Act and furnished a renewed occasion for protests through committees. [Read more…] about The American Revolutionary Committee System: 1765-1775
For a century and a half prior to the American Revolution the people of New York had been accustomed to act through representative committees in order to win one concession after another for self-government.
During the Dutch period the Twelve Men (a committee chosen in 1641 by the residents to advise Willem Kieft on relations with Native Americans), the Eight Men (Remonstrance of the Eight Men, 1644), the Nine Men (Remonstrance of the Commonality, 1649, led by Adriaen van der Donck), and other groups, wrested rights for the people from autocratic New Netherland governors and the West India Company. [Read more…] about New York’s Revolutionary Committee Records: Correspondence, Safety & Conspiracies
Tyonajanegan, who Europeans called Sarah Martin Tyonajanegen or Two Kettles Together, was a mother of four who took up arms alongside her husband as their Oneida Nation chose to support the colonists in the American Revolution.
Almost nothing is known about her early life, although at least one family historian reports that she was “taken prisoner with her sister Katy from the Shawanoes, & remained with the Mohawks.”
However, she and her husband and his family had significant roles in early New York history. [Read more…] about Two Kettles Together: Sarah Martin Tyonajanegen
In January 1776, American Revolutionaries disarmed and arrested those accused of Loyalist sympathies in Johnstown, NY. Some would remain under watchful parole. Others were brought to Albany or sent out of the Province of New York for imprisonment, far from home and family. [Read more…] about Dealing With British Loyalists in Johnstown During the Revolution
In 1775, rumors of a catalyzing crisis had reached Schenectady, NY. By this point, there had long been disputes between Britain and the American Colonies.
In January of the previous year, many people in Schenectady had taken to the streets to raise a Liberty Flag, a statement of vague but spirited resistance to the distant dictates of Parliament. [Read more…] about A Call to Arms: Schenectady’s Committee of Correspondence
On October 25, 1781, an American militia under the command of Col. Marinus Willett fought a British raiding party under the command of Maj. John Ross and Capt. Walter Butler in Johnstown (Tryon, later Fulton County). It’s known as the Battle of Johnstown.
The American Battlefield Trust has launched a campaign to save 58 acres of Battle of Johnstown battlefield land that connects with Johnson Hall State Historic Site. [Read more…] about Battlefield Trust Hopes to Acquire 1781 Battle of Johnstown Lands
What is now New York State saw multitudes of American settlers moving inland from the Atlantic seaboard, especially those “locusts of the east” from New England. Traveling long distances overland before the 20th century was however, difficult to say the least.
In the 1600s their movement was constrained by topography, and settlements were limited to areas in the Hudson and Mohawk valleys previously inhabited or improved by Indigenous People. Some Indigenous portage trails were described by the earliest settlers as wide paths that a capable ox team and wagon could manage. [Read more…] about Early Upstate New York Roads: Some History
The Ballston Raid of 1780 was one of three coordinated raids launched primarily out of Canada in late September 1780 which struck upstate New York targets in Albany, Tryon, and Charlotte counties, including present-day Saratoga County, NY.
Ballston resident William Fraser was Captain of a group of 34 Loyalists known as Fraser’s Rangers. They were part of a 200-man force commanded by Captain John Munro of the King’s Royal Regiment. [Read more…] about The Ballston Raid of 1780: A New Documentary
Samuel Adams, using the pseudonym “Valerius Poplicola,” wrote to the Boston Gazette on October 5, 1772: “Let Associations & Combinations be everywhere set up to consult and recover our just Rights.”
A few weeks later he presented his plan to oppose Britain’s “Plan of Slavery” at a meeting in Boston organized for that purpose. This was the birth of the “Committees of Correspondence” or “Committees of Safety” which spread throughout the colonies in early 1773. [Read more…] about Mohawk Valley Preparations for the American Revolution
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