Noble Warrior of Peace

Clash of Empires

The Native American tribes played an interesting role in the American War for Independence. In some ways, the tension caused by the westward expansion of European settlers contributed to the strain between the colonists and the British authorities in London, who saw the Indian Territory west of the Alleghanies as a buffer zone against Spain. Americans moving westward posed a potential risk as future allies of Spain or even as a cause of war with Spain. The tribes found themselves caught in the middle, especially in the Carolinas and western New York.

In New York, the British had built strong trade and political alliances with the Six Nations of the Iroquois Confederation, who served as powerful military allies during the French and Indian War. Most of the tribes sided with the British. Among them was the Seneca nation. And among these proud people rose a leader who would earn fame in war and praise in peace. His name was Gyantwakia, which in English was Cornplanter.

Seneca Chief

Cornplanter was born in 1740 to a Dutch trader named John Abeel and a Seneca woman in the village of Conawagaus, now known as Avon, New York. He was raised as a Seneca, living among his mother’s influential family, the Wolf Clan, which was a warrior clan. He led a war party in support of the British during the French and Indian War, and by the start of the American Revolution in 1775, he was an established war chief, having gained his experience as a young warrior. The Iroquois were among the most skilled warriors of all the native tribes, and both sides sought their support. Cornplanter, showing notable caution, urged neutrality in the conflict between the white settlers.

                                                           Gyantwakia aka Cornplanter

Raising the Tomahawk

However, as the struggle grew more intense, he could not keep the Seneca on the sidelines. In August 1777, the Seneca joined their former allies, the British, in taking up the tomahawk. By that time, the war in New York was at its peak, with General John Burgoyne’s three-pronged campaign to capture New York already in progress. In many ways, this campaign would determine the outcome of the war.

                                                   The War Chief addresses the Wolf Clan

Valley of Death

Once committed, Cornplanter was fully involved. He soon led a Seneca war party in support of Lieutenant Colonel Barry St. Leger’s expedition east through the Mohawk Valley. Standing between him and his goal, Albany, was the small outpost known as Fort Stanwix. In this role, he participated in the siege of Fort Stanwix, New York, and later helped plan the ambush of Colonel Nicholas Herkimer’s relief column in the dense woods near Oriskany on August 6, 1777. 

The ambush was a typical Indian warfare tactic. Cornplanter’s warriors surprised and destroyed the column, mortally injuring Herkimer. However, the approach of another column under Benedict Arnold forced the British to withdraw their regular forces from New York and switch to hit-and-run guerrilla raids against frontier settlements.

                                    Seneca ambush at Oriskany mortally wounds Col Herkimer

Frontier on Fire

Cornplanter led many raids against American settlements, especially at Wyoming Valley, Pennsylvania, where on July 3, 1778, his warriors ambushed and defeated a pursuit force of 400 militia commanded by Colonel Zebulon Butler. In November, his Seneca allies supported Loyalist Captain Walter Butler (unrelated to Zebulon) in a brutal attack on Cherry Valley, New York. 

These Indian and Loyalist raids caused such significant damage to American lives, property, and morale that General George Washington ordered a punitive campaign against the Six Nations the following year.

                                                              Cherry Valley Massacre

Yankee Retribution

American retribution arrived with the 1779 expedition led by General John Sullivan, who launched a punishing attack on August 28, defeating the Iroquois and Loyalists at Newtown (Elmira), New York. Sullivan then carried out a scorched earth campaign to punish Iroquois villages in the region. 

Under pressure, he and the Seneca stood down for the winter, but the next summer, Cornplanter was back on the warpath with raids against Canajoharie and the Schoharie Valley, New York. At Canajoharie, his band took his father, John Abeel, prisoner. Cornplanter offered to make him a guest of his clan, but Abeel declined, so the dutiful son released him.

                                                                   Wolf Clan attacks

Smoking the Peace Pipe

At the end of the Revolutionary War, the Iroquois faced complications as they tried to adapt to the new American government. Cornplanter participated in numerous treaty signings, which gradually led to the loss of his people’s land. 

The Iroquois had little influence against the victorious Americans, who never forgot their wrongdoings in support of the British. Cornplanter defended his nation and clan with calmness and resolve. This led more aggressive leaders like Red Jacket to criticize him and strongly oppose land sales, hoping to improve their own standing among the clans.

                                                           The  Senecas and the rest of the 

                                                                Six Nations stood down

A Moderate Influence

The Ohio (Northwest) Territory ignited with conflict as tribes along the Ohio River grew restless over American expansion and British interference. These tribes formed a Great Confederation led by figures like Little Turtle and initially achieved victory, notably defeating an American army led by Revolutionary War General Arthur St. Clair in 1791.

 Due to his reputation and prowess as a warrior, the new American government appointed him to represent them in negotiations with the tribes at a major peace conference, known as the Council on the Auglaize. However, Cornplanter and other moderate native leaders were unsuccessful. 

The fierce fighting persisted until former Revolutionary War leader Anthony Wayne defeated the confederation at the Battle of Fallen Timbers, leading the Ohio tribes to sign a peace treaty at the Treaty of Greenville. In recognition of his efforts to unite the western tribes, Pennsylvania rewarded Cornplanter with a large land grant on the Allegheny River.

    Treaty of Greeneville settled Indian Affairs 

in the Northwest Territory

Smoking the War Pipe

With the outbreak of war with Britain in 1812, the now elderly Chief Cornplanter offered his services to the United States but was refused. However, his son, Henry O’Bail, served with some distinction. Cornplanter, one of the fiercest Seneca warriors, lived peacefully on his land grant for another two decades.

                                                   Monument to Chief of the Wolf Clan

When he died on February 18, 1836, the great war chief was widely mourned as a man of peace. Many decades later, in 1871, Pennsylvania chose to honor the noble Seneca by erecting a marble shrine on his grave as a symbol of respect and admiration.

 

Stone Arabia

The Place

The lead-in title might make you think of a Crusader-era battle cry or pot advocates targeting the Middle East. But it’s actually about a place—a location in central New York with fertile fields and lush forests, bordered by freshwater and settled by Germans. The name itself, spelled and pronounced in various ways, has long sparked curiosity, speculation, and myth—and may always do so. The terms Stone Arabia, Steen Rabi, or Steen Raby, in their Dutch spellings, are found in Dutch writings long before they appeared in America. 

Regardless of its origins, Stone Arabia, in the eastern Mohawk Valley, became a land of promise for different groups of settlers, especially Germans from the Palatinate and Swiss who arrived in the 17th and 18th centuries. Interestingly, the name was sometimes used to describe areas on the west side of the Hudson near Kingston, the site of today's North Troy, and finally the central Mohawk Valley. According to land records, just before the Revolution, Stone Arabia referred to a region later called the Palatine District, stretching from the Nose to the Falls and northward to Canada. However, on March 8, 1773, it lost this broader meaning, and from then on, the name was limited to the land patent in the Mohawk region.

The Valley

Sir William Johnson, His Majesty's agent to the Indians
of New York

The Mohawk Valley was controlled by Sir William Johnson, a well-known British representative to the Indians in central New York. From the early 1700s until the start of the American Revolution, the area experienced white settlement and frequent conflicts with the native Iroquois. British policy aimed to limit settlement by whites and to pacify the Indians. Johnson generally succeeded in carrying out this policy. However, tensions between the natives and settlers always simmered just below the surface and sometimes erupted into violence. Sir William's influence over both whites and Indians helped keep the peace, though he had to work hard to maintain order, restrain unruly settlers, and calm the natives when their pride or sense of justice was offended. 

To the Indians, as well as to Johnson and his British superiors, the white settlers appeared land hungry. Johnson sought to curb land settlement and maintain a balance with the natives. These tensions set the stage for violent conflicts when the American War for Independence broke out, making Stone Arabia the western edge of the fighting. By the time the Revolution started, Stone Arabia was well populated and its economy thriving. Churches, schools, stores, mills, blacksmith shops, lime kilns, taverns, and boatyards dotted the landscape along the Mohawk. Each farm boasted an orchard, often serving as the family’s burial ground. Crops such as wheat, flax, potatoes, corn, fruit, hemp, hay, peas, and oats were cultivated, with wheat being the primary crop. The wheat flour from the Valley was worth more in New York City than any other product. The first homes were built of logs; later ones were made of frame or stone. The area was a diverse melting pot of German, Dutch, English, and Indian influences—often called the Mohawk Dutch.

The Revolution Comes to the Valley

Many settlers of Stone Arabia became members of the Valley militia of New York. Before the war, they met regularly for training and were subject to call to arms during emergencies. The Stone Arabia company was part of the 2nd battalion of the Palatine militia. When the struggle for independence broke out, Stone Arabia's settlers were generally patriots. In fact, almost two years before the declaration of independence, the Stone Arabia farmers drafted their own declaration of American Principles on August 27, 1774, at the White Tavern, owned by Adam Loucks. These resolutions read in part as follows:

III [in part]. That We think it is our undeniable Privilege to be taxed only with our own Consent given by ourselves (or by our Representative). That Taxes otherwise laid and exacted are unjust and unconstitutional....
IV. That the Act for blocking up the Port of Boston is oppressive and arbitrary, injurious in its principles and particularly oppressive to the Inhabitants of Boston, who we consider as Brethren suffering in the Common Cause.
V (in part). ...that we will join and unite with our Brethren of the Rest of this Colony in anything tending to support and defend our Rights and Liberties.

A Major Zielly and Andrew Dillenback (who was later killed at Oriskany) were appointed to a committee to gather material for war. In keeping with the spirit of pre-war revolutionary fervor, the people of Stone Arabia stayed alert and informed. And for good reason: they would soon find themselves at a key location in the struggle's Northern Department. The fertile Mohawk Valley and the fields, especially in Stone Arabia, served as supply sources for the Continental Army throughout the long war. In 1780, Washington relied on the wheat and oats of Stone Arabia to feed his army and was determined to prevent them from falling into the hands of the British Loyalists in the area. This set the stage for a small but fierce conflict whose only goal was destruction.

The Fighting Frontier

Mohawk Valley settlers were defeated
 at the Battle of Oriskany in 1777

The region played a key role in the British campaign of 1777, with many Palatinate Dutch serving at Fort Stanwyck and fighting at Oriskany. Two forts, Keyser and Paris, were built on Stone Arabia soil. Fort Keyser, a stone house from the 1740s built by Johannes Keyser, was palisaded and garrisoned by militia troops under Lt. John Zeiley. Fort Paris, originally built in 1737 by Isaac Paris, was a fortified farmhouse and trading post. Inside the palisade, there was also a barracks for 100 men and a blockhouse. Despite—or because of—the forts, the Loyalists and Indian allies struck Stone Arabia twice. The first attack was the Ephratah-Dillenburgh raid in 1778. 

On April 20, 1778, while a small company of twenty militia was drilling, a band of Indians and Loyalists appeared and began destroying homes and barns. Most of the militia went to defend their homes, but a few pursued the attackers. In a skirmish, several militiamen, including a boy of four, were killed. The Loyalists withdrew, but stragglers from the band took a boy captive at Kringsbush and killed a young woman in sight of Fort Klock. These raids, along with others north of the Mohawk River, so frightened the inhabitants that most of those missed by the Indians and Tories moved into the Mohawk Valley to seek protection in the forts. As for the northern slope of the valley, the British effort to scare people away from their farms was a great success.

Fort Klock, Home of Colonel Jakob Klock
of the Palatine Regiment of the Tryon County Militia

Battle of Stone Arabia

Map of the Johnson Raid on Stone Arabia, 1780

Sir John Johnson

On October 19, 1780, Sir John Johnson, William's son and a controversial Loyalist leader, led an army of 900 Loyalists and British Regulars in an invasion of the Mohawk Valley. After following a winding route across southern New York State, they moved north through the Schoharie Valley, entering the Mohawk Valley at Fort Hunter, where the army turned west toward the Canajohary and Palatine Districts. The invaders camped on the evening of October 18 near the Noses, a geological feature that marks the great divide in the Appalachian Mountain chain. 

The next day, they crossed the Mohawk River at Keator’s Rift. They burned Jellis Fonda’s mill before proceeding to attack the settlement of Stone Arabia, located a mile and a half north of the Mohawk River in the Palatine District. Colonel John Brown of the Massachusetts Militia marched his 380 militiamen out of Fort Paris to meet the enemy on a field about a mile from the fort. Outnumbered nearly 3 to 1, he was shot from his horse, and his men fled the field. Brown, who had served at Fort Ticonderoga in 1775 and participated in the Quebec invasion, died on the battlefield. With its defenders defeated, Stone Arabia was completely destroyed by the enemy, including the twin Dutch Reformed and German Lutheran churches. Both churches were rebuilt after the war ended and still stand today.

Left in ashes by the raid, the Dutch Reformed Church
was rebuilt in 1788

The Legacy

The raid of 1780, with its widespread destruction, delivered a significant blow to the cause. It is worth noting that there was greater unity among the Palatine farmers in opposition to the British policy than in some other districts in the Valley. However, hardly a family was not split between loyalty to the crown and loyalty to the cause. 

Despite this, we find New York Governor George Clinton (later the 4th Vice President of the U.S.) giving a fitting testament to the spirit of the Stone Arabia settlers in 1781: "Most of Tryon and Schoharie have been destroyed. They are not however abandoned; the inhabitants having recovered themselves, continue to improve their farms and assist in the general defense."

NY Gov Clinton

Stone Arabia exemplified many of the hundreds of localized conflicts that made up a significant but often overlooked part of the American War for Independence. The political struggles and fierce fighting among British, Loyalists, Indians, and Patriots in and around Stone Arabia played a crucial role in early New York history and in shaping an independent America.