SIR WILLIAM JOHNSON AND The Six Nations “MAKERS OF AMERICA” SIR WILLIAM JOHNSON AND The Six Nations BY WILLIAM ELLIOT GRIFFIS AUTHOR OF “THE MIKADO'S EMPIRE,” “COREA THE HERMIT NATION,” “MATTHEW CALBRAITH PERRY,” ETC. NEW YORK DODD, MEAD, AND COMPANY PUBLISHERS Copyright, 1891 By Dodd, Mead, and Co. All rights reserved. University Press: John Wilson and Son, Cambridge. Dedication. Like my friend, the late Judge John Sanders, of Scotia, Schenectady County, N. Y., who took off his hat when meeting descendants of the heroes of Oriskany, the bloodiest, the most stubbornly contested, and perhaps the decisive battle in the War of the American Revolution, the writer makes his bow to the people of the Mohawk Valley, and to them, and to the memory of their brave ancestors, dedicates this sketch of one of the Makers of America. P R E F A C E. THE Mohawk Valley in which Sir William Johnson spent his adult life (1738–1774) was the fairest portion of the domain of the Six Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy. In this valley I lived nine years, seeing on every side traces or monuments of the industry, humanity, and powerful personality of its most famous resident in colonial days. From the quaint stone church in Schenectady which he built, and in whose canopied pews he sat, daily before my eyes, to the autograph papers in possession of my neighbours; from sites close at hand and traditionally associated with the lord of Johnson Hall, to the historical relics which multiply at Johnstown, Canajoharie, and westward,—mementos of the baronet were never lacking. His two baronial halls still stand near the Mohawk. I found that local tradition, while in the main generous to his memory, was sometimes unfair and even cruel. The hatreds engendered by the partisan features of the Revolution, and the just detestation of the savage atrocities of Tories and red allies led by Johnson’s son and son-in-law, had done injustice to the great man himself. Yet base and baseless tradition was in no whit more unjust than the sectional opinions and hostile gossip of the New England militia which historians have so freely transferred to their pages.