Page:History of Delaware County (1856).djvu/111

 DELAWARE COUNTY. 87 returned with him to the Delaware, to remove their families to a place of greater security. They removed first to Schoharie, thence to Albany, and afterward crossed the river to Green- bush, where they resided several years. About 1792, he came back to the Delaware near its source, and erected the first grist- mill on that stream, about a quarter of a mile below where the Catskill Turnpike crosses the Delaware. He also purchased a saw-mill situated about half a mile below Lake Ulsayantho. In 1794, he removed his family from Grreenbush into a house which he had recently erected near his grist-mill, and where he resided till his death, which took place in 1797.* It is a prominent trait of Indian character, to measure out revenge for wrongs, whether real or imaginary : it is indeed a custom they venerate — a vital part of their religion ; and many of the fatal examples on record of Indian barbarity and cruelty are attributable to this same source. And accordingly it is presumed that a party of Indians were sent out to revenge the lives of their three brethren who were sacrificed, as the price of Cowley and Sawyer's freedom. Shortly after the fami- lies of those men had been removed to Schoharie, a party of Indians came up the Delaware, and proceeding to near Tlobart, followed up a small stream, the outlet of OdelFs Lake, where they had been informed a whig by the name of McKee was living, but who had that day gone to Schoharie to learn the news and procure some fioi^ for his family. It was a dark and dismal night when the war-whoop sounded the death-knell of the inhabitants of that peaceful dwelling. The members of the family rushed out of the house to escape, if possible, the certain doom which awaited them should they remain within. As Mrs. McKee rushed from the house with is doubtless ascribable to the inaccuracy of his informant. Sawyer died many years afterward at Williamston, Mass.
 * Simms' History gives the place of Cowley's death, as Albany, which