19 minute read
The Battle of Minisink
By John L. Moore
> The Delaware River winds through mountainous terrain between Port Jervis, N.Y., and Lackawaxen, Pa.
In colonial times, the 65-mile stretch of the Delaware River from the Water Gap at East Stroudsburg north to the Pennsylvania village of Lackawaxen was known as the Minisink.
During the American Revolution, the name Minisink referred to white settlements in and around present-day Port Jervis, N.Y. At least it did in a report written by the famous Mohawk warrior Joseph Brant after Brant led a force of pro-British Indians and Tories on a raid against the American settlements in July 1779.
Port Jervis is located just north of the confluence of the Delaware and Neversink rivers.
Brant’s raid took place on Tuesday, July 20. Nine days later, the warrior wrote a detailed report of the action to Lt. Col. Mason Bolton, the British commander at Fort Niagara.
. “We have burnt all the settlement called Minisink, one fort excepted,” Brant said “ … We destroyed several small stockade forts, and took four scalps and three prisoners, but did not in the least injure women or children. The reason that we could not take more of them was owing to the many forts about the place, into which they were always ready to run like ground hogs.”
Located within present-day Port Jervis, Fort Decker and Fort Cole were two of these forts. Less than a week after the raid, a Loyalist named Moabary Owen deserted Brant’s war party and wound up in the custody of American militia troops from Goshen, N.Y. The deserter said he had been one of about 26 Loyalists who had accompanied 60 Indians from British territory.
“Joseph Brant had the command,” Owen told his captors.
Owen also said that he heard Brant give orders “not (to) kill any woman or children and if they knew any person to be a Tory not to kill them and any that would deliver themselves up to take them prisoners, but any person running from them to kill them.”
In his letter to the British colonel, Brant said he had hoped to steal a significant number of cows from the farms at Minisink. To do this, he would have needed to reach the farms around daybreak before the farmers let the animals out of the barns to look for food in the nearby woods. “Instead … I did not arrive
Brant apparently wanted the cattle as food for the Indians and Loyalists at his headwaters at Oghwage (present-day Windsor, N.Y.), about 100 miles northwest on the Susquehanna River’s North Branch.
Brant’s marauders “killed sundry persons, burned 11 houses and as many barns together with the Dutch Church, took off some prisoners, cattle, horses, sheep and considerable plunder,” according to Rev. Nathan Ker, pastor of a nearby church at Goshen.
Hardly had the shooting stopped when Minisink residents sent messengers on horseback to neighboring settlements with news of the attack. One rider “was sent over the mountain to Goshen,” about 25 miles east of Port Jervis, according to Theodore D. Schoonmaker in a 1907 account of the raid.
As word of the raid spread, local officials began calling out the local militia. Its members were citizen soldiers who served as a home guard to protect their region against enemy attacks. At Goshen, Colonel Benjamin Tusten of the Orange County Militia ordered his officers to call out “as many volunteers as could be raised,” Schoonmaker said. The next morning, 149 men assembled.
Information Tusten had received erroneously placed the number of Brant’s fighters at about 300. Tusten didn’t want to get into a fight with a force that “outnumbered the Goshen Militia two to one,” Schoonmaker said. Also, “the militia were not well supplied with arms and ammunition, and it were better to wait for reinforcements, which were soon expected.”
But other American officers advocated making an immediate pursuit. They contended “that the Indians would not fight and that it would be an easy matter to recapture the plunder,” Schoonmaker said.
The issue generated a spirited debate, which, Schoonmaker said, ended when a New Jersey Militia officer, Major Samuel Meeker, “mounting his horse and flourishing his sword, called out: ‘Let the brave men follow me! The cowards may stay behind!’ ”
Meeker’s rhetoric ended the discussion. According to Schoonmaker, when the militia troops started for Minisink, everybody went along.
Along the way, the soldiers stopped for breakfast at a farm where the owner treated them to roast pork. Schoonmaker said > The Neversink River flows into the Delaware River at the southern end of Port Jervis, N.Y.
NATIVE AMERICAN ORIGINS OF MINISINK PLACENAMES
Minisink was the name of the chief village of the Munsee clan of the Delawares. It was situated on the eastern side of the Delaware River a few miles southeast of Milford, Pa., nearly opposite Minisink Island,
Also, the name Minisink was given to lands on both sides of the Delaware River, north of the Water Gap, in Pennsylvania , New Jersey , and New York. This region is frequently referred to in the early writings as The Minisinks.
The name signifies “the place of the Minsi.”
Mahackamack was the name of a Native American village at the mouth of the Neversink River at the site of presentday Port Jervis. The point of land between the Neversink and the Delaware was formerly called Mohockamack Fork. … the name of the village is probably a corruption of Mahack or Mohawk, meaning place of the Mohawk.
Neversink is a corruption of Navasink, which means “at the prominatory.” It was the name of a tribe of the Delaware Indians.
Source: George P. Donehoo. Indian Villages and Place Names in Pennsylvania.
> Joseph Brant painting by George Romney, 1776
Joseph Brant was 36 when he led the Minisink raid at modern Port Jervis, N.Y., and two days later defeated the American militia at the Battle of Minisink along the Delaware River in July 1779.
A Mohawk Indian who was born in 1743, the warrior was known as Thayendanegea among the Mohawks. The English and Americans knew him as Joseph Brant.
While visiting England in 1776, Joseph Brant had his portrait painted by London artist George Romney.
Brant could read and write English. As a young man, he attended Eleazar Wheelock's "Moor's Indian Charity School" in Connecticut. The school eventually became Dartmouth College and moved to New Hampshire.
As a teenager, Thayendanegea joined other Iroquois warriors who took part in the French and Indian War.
Years later, when the Mohawks sided with the British during the American Revolution, he organized a band of volunteers and fought against the Americans and their Native American allies. He became well known for leading successful raids against American settlements.
After the British lost the war, Joseph Brant moved to Canada, where he died in 1807. > This sign marks the entrance to
Minisink Battleground Park.
that when it was time for the men to leave, they told the farmer, whose name was James Finch, “not to accompany them, but to stay and have dinner ready for them when they came back, which, they said, would be in the course of a few hours.”
Brant’s raiding party wasn’t far away. It had spent the night of July 20 near Port Jervis. In the morning, the Indians and Tories began herding the livestock north along a road that followed the Delaware’s eastern shore, headed for a well-known ford at Lackawaxen. They only traveled about 15 miles before stopping for the night. Their slow pace provided an opportunity for the Americans to catch up.
Two roads led from Minisink to the ford. Rather than head for Lackawaxen along the river road, the American soldiers took an alternate route, an old Indian trail that Brant said went “through the woods.”
On the morning of Wednesday, July 21, a New York militia detachment commanded by Colonel John Hathorn of Warwick also reached Minisink and started out for Lackawaxen. Hathorn said later that he soon came upon Colonel Tusten and Major Meeker “who had marched with about 80 men up the river a few miles.”
“I joined this party with about 40 men, the whole amounting to 120 men, officers included,” Hathorn said later. Hathorn’s rank was senior to Tusten’s, and he took command.
Soon the Americans sent a spy ahead to watch Brant. He came back with news that the raiders were only about six miles ahead. “We were soon informed that they were on their march up the river,” Hathorn said.
“Our people appeared in high spirits,” the colonel said. “We marched in pursuit with an intention either to fall on them by surprise or to … ambush them” by getting ahead of them.
American scouts informed Hathorn that by nightfall on Wednesday, July 21, the Indians and Tories had “encamped at the mouth of Halfway Brook,” about 19 miles upriver from Minisink and four miles below the ford at Lackawaxen.
At this point the Delaware winds through the eastern Appalachians.
The Americans camped for the night about three miles away with mountainous terrain separating the two forces. “The mountains were so exceedingly rugged and high, we could not possibly get at them,” Hathorn said.
> Fort Decker
The July 1779 raid on Minisink was Joseph Brant’s second foray into the Port Jervis region. The Mohawk warrior had also attacked Peenpack, a nearby village now known as Huguenot, in October 1778.
“The men who accompanied Brant on both raids were tri-racial,” said Judy Gumaer Testa, a local historian, genealogist, and re-enactor who lives near the battlefield. They included Iroquois warriors, mainly Mohawks and Senecas; disenfranchised Loyalists, as well as freed men of color and runaway slaves.
According to Moabary Owen, a Loyalist who deserted Brant’s force, the July raiders included a man named Anthony Westbrook. Gumaer Testa said that Westbrook’s son Andries also took part in the raid.
The Westbrooks had previously lived in the neighborhood, and a year or two before the raid, the father had refused to take the loyalty test required by the patriots. In turn, the patriots had confiscated his property.
When the Westbrooks returned with Brant, “they had it out for John Decker,” Gumaer Testa said. Decker was a major in the local militia. Known as Fort Decker, his stone house was surrounded by a stockade. Before the raiders left the area, they torched his fort and residence.
Following the Minisink raid, Anthony Westbrook’s brother Joel served briefly on the American side, but Joel eventually switched sides. Gumaer Testa said that by 1782, he had joined a Loyalist military unit called Butler’s Rangers.
For Gumaer Testa, the Battle of Minisink becomes family history as well as American history. Anthony and Joel Westbrook are collateral ancestors. “They are nephews of my fourth great-grandfather,” she said.
“I had relatives on the good side, too,” Gumaer Testa remarked. One was “Abraham Cuddeback, a captain of the Ulster County militia. He was engaged as a scout to reconnoiter Brant.”
Cuddeback survived the battle, and died in 1813. He’s buried at Gumaer Cemetery in Godeffroy, N.Y. At daybreak on Thursday, July 22, “after leaving our horses and disengaging of everything heavy, we marched on with intention to make the attack the moment an opportunity offered,” Hathorn reported. “The Indians, probably from some discovery they had made of us, marched with more alacrity than usual with an intention to get their prisoners, cattle and plunder taken at Minisink over the river.”
In his report, Brant said that he sent two scouts to look for the militia along the forest road, which was “the only way the Rebels could come to attack us.” Not only did the scouts discover “the enemy's path not far from our camp,” but they also saw that the Americans had gotten ahead of the Indians and “lay in ambush.” The scouts, whom Brant characterized as “two rascals,” “… did not return to inform us, so that the Rebels had fair play at us.”
In summer, the Delaware is shallow and only about 100 yards wide at Lackawaxen. The Indians and Tories were “crossing the river” when the militia opened fire, Brant said.
“They almost effected getting their cattle and baggage across when we discovered them,” Colonel Hathorn said. There were “some Indians in the river, and some had got over.”
Before giving the order to fire, the colonel directed his men to take specific positions. But an officer in the advanced guard, Capt. Bazaleel Tyler, “unhappily discharged his piece before the division could be properly posted,” Hathorn said. This “put me under the necessity of bringing on the action. I ordered my division to fix bayonets and push forcibly on them, which order being resolutely executed, put the Indians in the utmost confusion. Great numbers took to the river … without returning any fire.”
Hathorn later asserted that many Indians “fell from the well-directed fire of our riflemen and incessant blaze from our musketry.”
Brant acknowledged that the Americans had surprised him. “I was then about 400 yards in the rear,” he said. “As soon as the firing began, I immediately marched up a hill in their rear with 40 men, and came round on their backs. The rest of my men were all scattered on the other side.”
As the Indians and Tories regrouped for a counter-attack, Hathorn realized that elements in the militia were not performing the way he wanted. Some of his men even “fled into the woods,” he said.
There was a steep mountain just east of the river. “I soon perceived the enemy's rally on our right and recrossing the river to gain the heights,” the colonel said. “I found myself under the necessity to rally all my forces, which by this time was much less than I expected.”
Brant’s men had begun shooting back. “The enemy by this time had collected in force and … began to fire on our left,” Hathorn said.
As the Mohawk leader said later, “The Rebels soon retreated, and I pursued them, until they stopped upon a rocky hill,”.
Although Hathorn’s men put up a stubborn resistance, the Tories and Indians chased the Americans up the steep mountainside for nearly a mile. “We returned the fire and kept up a constant … firing up the hill from the river,” Hathorn said.
As the militia climbed the hillside, Captain Tyler fell, mortally wounded. Several other Americans were also wounded. “The (militia) people being exceedingly fatigued obliged me to take post on a height, which proved to be a strong and advantageous ground,” Hathorn said. “The enemy repeatedly advanced in from 40 to 100 yards distance, and were as repeatedly repulsed.”
Brant said later that the fighting on the mountaintop lasted “near four hours before we could drive them out.” He made the statement in a letter to Colonel Bolton written seven days after the battle.
Colonel Hathorn provided a more detailed account of the fighting.
“We defended this ground near three hours and a half. During the whole time, one blaze without intermission was kept up on both sides. Here we had three men killed and nine wounded,” Hathorn said in a report to Gov. George Clinton penned five days later.
Most of the wounded men had been hit “by angle shots from the Indians from behind rocks and trees,” he said.
“Our rifles here were very useful,” Hathorn said. But the Americans were running out of ammunition, and “I found myself under the necessity of ceasing the fire.” He “ordered no person to shoot without having his object sure, and that no shot be lost.”
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> The Delaware River is relatively narrow and shallow at the Minisink Ford at Lackawaxen, Pa. Joseph Brant’s raiders were crossing the river here when the battle began on July 22, 1779.
TORIES AND REBELS
During the American Revolutionary War, a Tory was a conservative person who supported King George III of England and opposed the American Revolution. A Tory was also known as a Loyalist. According to Merriam-Webster. com, the word Tory is derived from old Irish words that meant “outlaw” and “pursuit.”
American liberals who supported the Revolution were called Rebels and sometimes even “Damned Rebels” by other Americans who opposed the war. They called themselves Patriots, but were also known as Whigs. According to Britannica.com, “They borrowed the name Whig from the British party opposed to royal prerogatives.”
WHO WAS WHO AT THE BATTLE OF MINISINK
Joseph Brant was a Mohawk warrior who led a irregular company of fighters called Brant’s Volunteers against the Americans during the American Revolutionary War. the company included Iroquois warriors as well as Loyalists. In 1779, Brant received the rank of captain by the British governor of Canada.
Lt. Col. Mason Bolton was the British commander at Fort Niagara, which was located at the mouth of the Niagara River on Lake Ontario. The fort was used to distribute firearms, ammunition, and supplies to Native American war parties heading out to attack American frontier settlements. Moabary Owen was, alternately, a Loyalist and a Patriot. Official correspondence from 1779 shows that Owen had belonged to and then deserted a New York militia regiment before joining Brant prior to the Minisink raid. It isn’t clear from the documents whether Owen deserted Brant before or after the Minisink raid and battle.
Rev. Nathan Ker was pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in Goshen, N.Y., from 1766-1804.
Theodore D. Schoonmaker was an early 20th century historian and writer who lived in Goshen, N.Y.
Benjamin Tusten of Goshen was a physician who was appointed lieutenant colonel in the Orange County Militia in 1777. He led militia troops from Goshen against Joseph Brant in July 1779.
Samuel Meeker lived in Sussex County, N.J. and was a major in the 2nd New Jersey Regiment, the Continental Army, in July 1779.
James Finch was a farmer who lived at present-day Finchville about 10 miles from Port Jervis, N.Y.
John Hathorn of Warwick was a surveyor and teacher who in 1776 became the colonel of the 4th Orange County Regiment of the New York Militia. He led the attack on Brant’s Volunteers at Lackawaxen on July 22, 1779.
Bazaleel Tyler was a militia captain who served under Col. John Hathorn at the Battle of Minisink on July 22, 1779. A native of Connecticut, Tyler was one of five brothers who all served in the American Revolution.
When this happened, “our people … retreated down the hill, precipitately toward the river,” Hathorn said. The Americans “by this time were so scattered I found myself unequal to rally them again. Consequently every man made choice of his own way. Thus ended the action.”
Brant’s party of 86 raiders had significant losses. “We had eight men killed and 10 wounded,” Brant reported. The Americans losses were much worse. “We have taken 40 odd scalps, and one prisoner,” Brant said. He said “the enemy have lost near half of their men and most of their officers. They all belonged to the militia and were about 150 in number.”
The American survivors included Colonel Hathorn. “I received a wound on my head, one in my leg and one in my thigh,” he said. “The one in my thigh from inattention is a little troublesome.”
For days Americans, many of them wounded, staggered back to the settlements. “I hope others will be yet found,” Hathorn said.
Some were, many weren’t. A 2015 publication of the Minisink Valley Historical Society lists 46 Americans who died in or after the battle. At the top of the list is Col. Benjamin Tusten, the American commander who hadn’t wanted to fight Brant. He apparently was killed during the retreat.
At Goshen, where many men had volunteered to pursue the raiders, clergyman Nathan Ker remarked, “there are not less than 15 or 16 widows by this affair in this congregation.”
John L. Moore continues to pursue his lifelong interests in Pennsylvania’s colonial history and archaeology. The Northumberland writer has published 11 non-fiction books about Pennsylvania’s 16th and 17th century. John’s latest book, 1780: Year of Revenge, is currently available in book stores or from the online bookstore Sunbury Press Inc. This book is the 3rd volume in his Revolutionary Pennsylvania Series and tells the story of Indian raids all across the Pennsylvania Frontier — including the Poconos and Minisinks — in the year following General Sullivan’s 1779 invasion of the Iroquios homeland. Over the years John has participated in archaeological excavations of Native American sites along the Delaware and Susquehanna Rivers. A professional storyteller, he recently took part in the Heritage Festival at Frances Slocum State Park near Wilkes-Barre. He told the true story of Frances Slocum, a 5-year-old girl who lived as a Native American after being kidnapped by Indians during the American Revolution. The park was named for her.
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