Page:The Old New York Frontier.djvu/31



EASONS for writing this history may in some numbers be cited. About one hundred and sixty years before the Revolution—earlier, in fact, than the landing of the Pilgrims—these lands had been visited by white men. Traders had travelled along the Indian trails of the Mohawk and Susquehanna valleys periodically all through that century and a half, while for at least a quarter of a century before the Revolution, missionaries had engaged in constant labor on the Susquehanna. By the missionaries, schools and churches were founded, and a beneficent and fruitful work was well under way when the war put a sudden end to peaceful activities. The lands on the Susquehanna for a considerable time were the frontier of the province of New York, the Unadilla River, one of the tributaries of the larger stream, forming another part of that boundary line between the Indians and the English, which was established by the treaty of Fort Stanwix in 1768. Beyond this line no settlements were made until after the war, when the white man secured his first titles in that fertile region of Central and Western New York.

During the Revolution the upper Susquehanna became a base of operations from which the Indians and Tories, who had fled from the Mohawk and Schoharie valleys, found their way back into the settled parts of New York, and under Joseph Brant, Colonel John Butler, Walter H. Butler, and Sir John Johnson wrought their destruction. After peace returned, the history of these Susquehanna