Dutch and English on the Hudson Part 10

Owing perhaps to Johnson's precautions and the Indian's knowledge of his character, the fort was not attacked and its owner continued to dwell in the house until 1762, when, having become one of the richest men in the colony, he built on a tract {225} of land in Johnstown a more ambitious, and, it is to be hoped, a more cheerful mansion known as Johnson Hall. This house was built of wood with wings of stone, pierced at the top for muskets. On one side of the house lay a garden and nursery described as the pride of the surrounding country. Here Johnson lived with an opulence which must have amazed the simple settlers around him, especially those who remembered his coming to the colony as a poor youth less than thirty years earlier. He had in his service a secretary, a physician, a musician who played the violin for the entertainment of guests, a gardener, a butler, a waiter named Pontiach, of mixed negro and Indian blood, a pair of white dwarfs to attend upon himself and his friends, an overseer, and ten or fifteen slaves.

This retinue of servants was none too large to cope with the unbounded hospitality which Johnson dispensed. A visitor reports having seen at the Hall from sixty to eighty Indians at one time lodging under tents on the lawn and taking their meals from tables made of pine boards spread under the trees. On another occasion, when Sir William called a council of the Iroquois at Fort Johnson, a thousand natives gathered, and Johnson's {226} neighbors within a circuit of twenty miles were invited to a.s.sist in the rationing of this horde of visitors. The landholders along the Mohawk might well have been glad to share the burden of Sir William's tribal hospitality, since its purpose was as much political as social and its results were of endless benefit to the entire colony.

At last the Indians had found a friend, a white man who understood them and whom they could understand. He was honest with them and therefore they trusted him. He was sympathetic and therefore they were ready to discuss their troubles freely with him. As an Indian of mixed blood declared to the Governor at Albany in speaking of Sir William: "His knowledge of our affairs, our laws, and our language made us think he was not like any other white but an Indian like ourselves. Not only that; but in his house is an Indian woman, and his little children are half-breed as I am."

The English therefore were peculiarly fortunate in finding at the most critical stage of their political dealings with the Indians a representative endowed with the wisdom and insight of Sir William Johnson. Unlike the French, he did not strive to force an alien form of worship upon this primitive people. Unlike the Dutch, he insisted {227} that business should be carried on as honestly with the natives as with the white men. Unlike his fellow-countrymen, he constantly urged adequate preparation for war on the part of the English and demanded that they should bear their share of the burden. In a written report at the Albany congress he strongly recommended that inasmuch as the Six Nations, owing to their wars with the French, had fallen short both in hunting and planting, they should be provided with food from the English supplies. Finally he testified to the sincerity of his convictions by going to the war himself and rendering valuable service first as colonel and later as major-general. After the Battle of Lake George, Johnson was knighted by the King and received a grant of 5000 from Parliament. In the same year he was appointed by the Crown "Agent and Sole Superintendent of the Six Nations and other northern Indians"

inhabiting British territory north of the Carolinas and the Ohio River.

Johnson is described by one who saw him about this time or somewhat earlier as a man of commanding presence, only a little short of six feet in height, "neck ma.s.sive, broad chest and large limbs, great physical strength, the head large and shapely, {228} countenance open and beaming with good nature, eyes grayish black, hair brown with tinge of auburn." His activity took every form and was exerted in every direction. His doc.u.ments and correspondence number over six thousand and fill twenty-six volumes preserved in the State Library. Nor did these represent his chief activities. He was constantly holding councils with the native tribes either at Fort Johnson or at the Indian camps. It was he who kept the Mohawks from joining in Pontiac's conspiracy which swept the western border; it was he who negotiated the famous treaty at Fort Stanwix in 1768. In the midsummer of 1774 he succ.u.mbed to an old malady after an impa.s.sioned address to six hundred Iroquois gathered at Johnson Hall.

He was one of the fortunate few whose characters and careers fit exactly. He found scope for every power that he possessed and he won great rewards. His tireless energy expressed itself in cultivating thousands of acres and in building houses, forts, and churches. He dipped a lavish hand into his abundant wealth and scattered his gold where it was of the greatest service. He loved hospitality and gathered hundreds round his board. He was a benevolent autocrat and nations bowed {229} to his will. He paid homage to his King, and died cherishing the illusion of the value of prerogative. He was fortunate in his death as in his life, for he was spared the throes of the mighty changes already under way, when the King's statue should be pulled down to be melted into bullets, when New York should merge her ident.i.ty in the Union of States, and when the dwellers along the banks of the Hudson and its tributaries should call themselves no longer Dutch or English but Americans.

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BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

The student who has the courage to delve in the _Doc.u.ments relative to the Colonial History of the State of New York_, the _Doc.u.mentary History of the State of New York_, the ecclesiastical records, the pioneer journals, and the minutes of early city councils, will not only reach the fundamental authorities on the history of the settlers on the Hudson, but will find many interesting incidents of which the dull t.i.tles give no promise.

If the reader prefer to follow a blazed trail, he will find a path marked out for him in reliable works such as _The History of New Netherland_ by E. B. O'Callaghan, 2 vols. (1855), _The History of the State of New York_ by J. R. Brodhead, 2 vols. (1871), _The Narratives of New Netherland_, admirably edited by J. F. Jameson (1909), _New York_, a condensed history by E. H. Roberts (1904), John Fiske's _Dutch and Quaker Colonies in America_, 2 vols. (1899), and William Smith's _History of the Late Province of New York_ (first published in 1757 and still valuable).

Many histories of New York City have been written to satisfy the general reader. Among the larger works are Mrs. M. J. Lamb's _History of the City of New York_, 2 vols. (1877; revised edition, 1915, in 3 vols.), Mrs. Schuyler Van Rensselaer's _History of the City of New York in the Seventeenth Century_, 2 vols. (1909), {232} James G. Wilson's _Memorial History of the City of New York_, 4 vols. (1892), and _Historic New York_, 2 vols. (edited by M. W. Goodwin, A. C. Royce, and Ruth Putnam, 1912). Theodore Roosevelt has written a single volume on New York for the _Historic Towns_ series (1910). In his _New Amsterdam and its People_ (1902), J. H. Innes has brought together valuable studies of the social and topographical features of the town under Dutch and early English rule. I. N. P. Stokes's _Iconography of Manhattan Island_ (1915) is calculated to delight the soul of the antiquarian.

One who wishes to turn to the lighter side of provincial life will find it set forth in attractive volumes such as _Colonial Days in Old New York_ by A. M. Earle (1915), _The Story of New Netherland_ by W. E.

Griffis (1909), _In Old New York_ by T. A. Janvier (1894), and the _Goede Vrouw of Mana-ha-ta_ by M. K. Van Rensselaer (1898).

Most rewarding perhaps of all sources are those dealing with the biographies of the prominent figures in the history of the State, since in them we find the life of the times ill.u.s.trated and personalized. E.

M. Bacon in his _Henry Hudson_ (1907) gives us a picture of the great mariner and the difficulties against which he strove. The _Van Rensselaer-Bowier Ma.n.u.scripts_, edited by A. J. F. Van Laer (1908) show us through his personal letters the Patroon of the upper Hudson and make us familiar with life on his estates. J. K. Paulding in _Affairs and Men of New Amsterdam in the Time of Governor Peter Stuyvesant_ (1843) makes the town-dwellers equally real to us, while W. L. Stone's _Life and Times of Sir William Johnson_, 2 vols. (1865), shows us the pioneer struggles in the Mohawk Valley. In the English _State Trials_ {233} compiled by T. B. Howells, 34 vols. (1828), we read the story of the famous pirate Captain Kidd, and find it more interesting than many a work of fiction.

Among the autobiographical accounts of colonial life the most entertaining are _The Memoirs of an American Lady_ by A. M. Grant (1809), _A Two Years' Journal in New York, etc._ by Charles Wolley (1902), and _The Private Journal of Sarah Kemble Knight_, the record of a journey from Boston to New York in 1704 (1901).

Further bibliographical references will be found appended to the articles on _Hudson River_, _New York_, and _New York_ (_City_), in _The Encyclopaedia Britannica_, 11th edition.