FORT MCCLURE
Continuing our genealogy quest, my husband and I
were in Montour Co., PA, to visit the home of my Revolutionary
Ancestor, Martin Rishel. While there we learned that the Fort
McClure Chapter of the DAR in Bloomsburg was having
a festival at their Fort McClure site. Regent Vinniedee McHenry
Hippenstael greeted me warmly and showed me around the building
and the display of gorgeous quilts. This chapter is very
fortunate in having such a location for their meetings and in a
house owned by them! I was also impressed by the fact that each
member provides her own antique chair for meetings it imparts
a true feeling of home. Thank you, Vinniedee, for making me so
welcome on an impromptu visit!
For those of you who do not know the story of Lieutenant Moses
Van Campen, he began his
service in 1777, under Col. John Kelly
at Big Island, on the West Branch of the Susquehanna. In March
1778, he was promoted to Lieutenant and ordered by Col. Samuel
Hunter to proceed with about twenty men to Fishing Creek and
build a fort. In May, when the fort was nearly completed, a
large party of Indians attacked the fort, plundering and burning
the houses, including his parental home. Indian hostilities
increased and the summer of 1778 witnessed the Wyoming massacre.
In 1779, General Sullivan was sent with an army
into Wyoming, and the supply provisions were to be deposited in
storehouses along the Susquehanna. Moses van Campen was
appointed quartermaster and accompanied the army to Tioga Point,
reaching it in early August. General Clinton sent him and
another man to the Indian camp, disguised as Indians, to learn
what they could about numbers and location. On their return the
general requested that he lead the advance to Chemung, but when
they entered the Indian village at daybreak, they found the
inhabitants had flown. They followed the trail up the river
about two miles to Hogback Hill, where they were ambushed and 16
or 17 men killed or wounded. The Indians were subsequently
routed and the patriots returned to camp.
Moses van Campen contracted camp fever and was removed to the
fort he had built in 1778, where his father was still living.
When he recovered his health, his father asked him if he would
go back to their farm about four miles away and help build
another, as well as raise some grain. They had been on the farm
about four or five days, when on March 30th, they were surprised
by a party of ten Indians. His father was pierced with a war
spear and scalped; his brother was tomahawked, scalped, and
thrown into the fire. His uncle was killed and a little cousin
and a man called Peter Pence taken prisoner. They were made to
march up Fishing Creek to Hemlock Creek and then to Little
Tunkhannock Creek. Van Campen convinced the men that the three
of them should attempt to overcome the ten Indians and escape,
which they did. They built a raft and set sail for Wyoming and
the raft gave way as they made for land. They finally reached
Wylusing late in the afternoon and then realized a party of
Indians had halted nearby for the night. Moses crept down the
side of the hill and saw no one about, so they decided to make
off with the Indians’ raft and cross the river, landing on an
island and making a fire in a sinkhole for the night. They
reached Wyoming the next day. They procured a canoe, descended
the river that night and came to Fort Jenkins. After seeing his
mother (who thought he had been killed with his father and
brother!) he went on to Sunbury.
In 1781 he was part of a chain of scouts around the frontier
settlements from the North to the West Branch of the Susquehanna
and it is here in the spring of 1781 that he built a fort on the
widow McClure’s plantation, called McClure’s Fort. He later
married James McClure's daughter. In the summer
of 1781, he was one of the five members of the Grove Party that
was selected to reconnoiter. One night, a little below the Sinnemahoning, they encountered a group of Indians entering
their campground after they had gone to sleep, firing their guns
and raising a war yell.
In December 1781, he was ordered by Gen.
Burgoyne to Lancaster and Reading, Berks County. At the end of
March 1782 he was ordered to Samuel Wallace’s plantation at
Muncy and to rebuild Fort Muncy. Then he was ordered to take 20
or 25 men up the West Branch to Bald Eagle Creek. On the night
of April 16 when they were camped, they were attacked by 85
Indians. Nine patriots were killed and the rest were made
prisoners. They were stripped of their clothing and when they
took off his shirt they discovered his commission. They were
lucky that the chief warrior decided that, instead of executing
them, the men must be taken and adopted into the families of
those whom they had killed. After five days travel they came to
Caneadia village where they were forced to run the gauntlet.
Next they went to Fort Niagara where he was delivered up to the
British. He was adopted, according to Indian custom, into Col.
Butler’s family to supply the loss of his son, Capt. Butler, who
had met his death late in the fall of 1781 by the Americans!
Then the Indians said that they recognized him, that he had been
a prisoner before and had killed his captors. They asked Butler
to substitute him for 14 other prisoners. After
cross-examination, he was told that he could save his life by
joining the British standard. A former schoolmate, a lady who
was married to a captain of the Queen’s rangers came and asked
him the same thing. He apparently replied to both of them give
me the stake, the tomahawk, or the knife, before a British
commission; liberty or death is our motto.
Four days later, he was sent down Lake Ontario
to Carleton Island and on down the St. Lawrence to Montreal. In
prison, he and nine others managed to have some brandy conveyed
to them to celebrate the 4th of July. The British were so
indignant, the ten were taken out, sent to Quebec, down the St.
Lawrence to the Isle of New Orleans, where they remained until
the end of September. They were put on board a British vessel
bound for New York, but when they arrived there was no exchange
for them. General Carleton, in command of the British army at
New York paroled them to return home. In March 1783 he was
exchanged and joined his company in Northumberland, where he was
ordered to march to Wyoming and keep the garrison at Wilkesbarre
Fort. He was there until his discharge in November 1783. (Based
on the 1847 History of Columbia County, Pa by I.D. Rupp)
THE WILDER HOLTON HOUSE, Lancaster, NH
Built by Revolutionary Ancestor, Major Jonas Wilder
My
ancestor, Major Jonas Wilder fought in the Revolution and
commanded Capt. Benjamin Nye’s company and Capt. John Boynton’s
company (Colonel Sparhawk’s regiment). At the time, he was
living in Templeton, Mass. After the Revolution was over, he
decided to settle in Lancaster, NH on Meadow Lots 19 30. The
home that he built in 1780 still stands and is known as The
Wilder-Holton House. It is located on the north end of Main
Street and was the first two-storey frame house in town. It was
used as an inn and a meeting-place until the church was built.
According to Persis F. Chase, in The Lancaster Sketch Book, 1887
(pp 23-26): This house was considered at the time it was built
a very elegant residence; the finest in the county. It was built
by Major Jonas Wilder...on the 22d of February 1732...Major
Wilder ... bought a mile square of land extending from the
Holton house to Israel’s River. A small house was built for a
temporary home, near the riverbank. Remains of this building can
still be seen on the Holton meadow, with some land cleared and
planted with corn. On the 19th of May, 1780, memorable as the
dark day they commenced digging the cellar for the great house,
but by eleven o’clock it became so dark that the men were
obliged to discontinue the work. The frame of this house was
raised on the 26th of July 1780.
Two
Hundred Years, Lancaster, New Hampshire, 1764-1964, written
by the Bicentennial committee, refers to the same events (p.
11): Times have changed since the well-known Dark Day, May
19, 1780 when Major Jonas Wilder started to dig the cellar hole.
It was feared by some that this was the end of the world but
when Christendom received a reprieve, however undeserved it
might have been, they went on with their work. All the work was
done by hand, the nails being wrought on the blacksmith’s anvil.
For a number of years this house doubled as a tavern during the
week and a church on Sunday. Somewhere it is written that Major
Wilder, as a hospitable host, dispensed a drink called flip. In
this day and age we would have a good idea what the effect of
that would be. There was a rumor that this house was one of the
underground stations in the days of slavery and that there was a
tunnel running from the cellar to the Connecticut River.
In 1807 this home was sold by Major Jonas Wilder’s son, Artemus
Wilder Jr. to Timothy Holton. The home continued in possession
of the Holton family until 1965 when was sold by them to the
Lancaster Historical Society.
GEORGE WASHINGTON’S HEADQUARTERS
Vice Regent Beverley Straub Watkins
April 16, 2005
It
is well documented that General George Washington used many homes
and buildings as a "headquarters during the American Revolution.
I had the opportunity to visit two of them that were linked with
my family during the Revolution.
The Jacob Purdy House was built by Purdy family members,
purchased by the Battle of
White Plains Monument Committee in 1973, and is now located at
60 Park Avenue in White Plains, NY. It was placed on the
National Register for Historic Places in 1979 because it was
General Washington’s headquarters from July 23 to September 16,
1778. Historians also believe it to have been the headquarters
before the Chatterton Hill battle of October 1776.
Samuel Purdy, son of patentee Joseph Purdy, purchased the house
and 132 acres in 1730. Title see-sawed from Samuel to his son
Jacob (who was not the oldest), then back to Samuel and then to
his son Jacob about 1785. One explanation for this vacillation
might be because two of Samuel’s five sons became Loyalists and
fled to Canada! Jacob held title until his own death in 1822.
The Purdy family continued in possession until the house was
sold to Samuel Mott in 1869. There was a historic meeting in the
house on September 1, 1778, when 18 generals attended a council
of war. Among them were Major Generals Lord Stirling, Horatio
Gates, Baron Johann De Kalb, Israel Putnam, and Benjamin Lincoln.
The Brigadier Generals present were Henry Knox, James Clinton,
Anthony Wayne, John Nixon, Peter Muhlenberg, Enoch Poor, and
William Smallwood!
The Jonathan Hasbrouck House in Newburgh, NY, is a beautiful
home, strategically
located on the Hudson River. It was George Washington’s
headquarters from March 31, 1782 until August 1783. The guide
said that when the home was commandeered, Mrs. Hasbrouck and her
teenage daughters went to live with relatives for the duration.
While this home was not built by anyone in my ancestry, it was
from here that the Bill of Attainder was issued against Gilbert
Purdy; and orders signed to take oxen, wheat, flour, and beef
from his widow’s property.
These two visits alone helped me to
realize just how much families had been torn apart during that
struggle.
