Cousin Casselman military service

John Johanne Casselman & Eva Nellis written by John Casselman 2012

If Captain John and his wife Anna Eva Cassleman had lived until after 1818 we might be able to enjoy some direct knowledge of John's service during the Revolutionary War. John and Eva died, however, 10 years before the first War Pension Act was enacted in 1818. If either had been living afterward, one of them could have filed an application for pension benefits. Its provisions required the applicant, whether the veteran himself or his widow, to relate as much information about the soldier's service during the War as possible. Applications were filed, however, by some of the men who served under him, including his sons John Jr. and Bartel (Bartholomew) and they provide information enough to comprise a partial and short, yet interesting account of John Cassleman's service during his term as a Captain in Col. Jacob Klock's 2nd regiment of the Tryon County Militia volunteers.

What is known for certain about John is that he was the first born son of Johannes Wilhelm and Anna Margaretha (Saltzman) Cassleman. His father Johannes Wilhelm was the first male Cassleman born in America (1711, West Camp, NY) and among the earliest residents of Stone Arabia after his father Hans Dietrich brought him there in 1723.

John was born in 1734, just 11 years after the land was cleared and the farms of Stone Arabia established. He was baptized as an infant in the faith of his parents and ancestors at Trinity Lutheran Church. In 1758 he married a woman named Anna Eva in that church. Some believe her surname was Nellis (Nelles); considered among the most prominent and prosperous of Stone Arabia families.

When he was a youngster, John knew and no doubt held in high esteem his pioneer grandfather Hans Dietrich and his uncle Andreas, both of whom made the long, torturous journey from Adelshofen, Wurtemberg to America in 1710. He would have attended the funeral and burial of his grandfather from Trinity Lutheran Church about 1744. He bid farwell to his uncle Andreas and his cousins about that same time when they left the Patent for the Virginia colony and settlement along the Potomac River near today's Washington DC.

I surmise John's birthplace and home of his youth was located on lot 26 granted to Hans Dietrich in the second allotment of Patent properties in 1733 and which was probably gifted to John's father, Wilhelm, at his wedding to Anna Margaretha Saltzman the year after. That property was located on the north side of present day Hickory Hill Rd., 7 lots east of State highway 10. The Cassleman house, as with many others in the Patent at the time and for most of the 18th century, would likely have been a very humble dwelling constructed of logs and mud mortar.

John did not attend school as there wasn't one in Stone Arabia at the time of his youth nor for many years after. The philosophy of education in his time until the early 19th century among Stone Arabia residents was that "too much learning would make bad farmers". This means in all likelihood he was illiterate.

He spoke at least two languages; German primarily, and another unique to the Mohawk Valley known as "Mohawk Dutch" which combined words from the Dutch, German, English and Indian languages. I expect he also had to be able to speak or understand at least some English and Dutch in order to participate in the political, land, legal and military affairs of the Patent and Valley and to conduct his business with Albany's grain markets and mills. He was an officer in the Tryon County Militia. He was often under the immediate command of officers like John Brown who spoke primarily English. Lastly, it would have been vital to his position and ability as an officer in the Tryon County militia to be able to communicate with the Indian scouts that reported to him, in their language. John was a Ranger, and he depended possibly more on his Oneida scouts than his own militiamen for intelligence about threats posed to the farms and residents he was charged with protecting.

John's business was farming. His primary crop was wheat as it was for most others on the Patent. Their very successful production of that commodity made most of Stone Arabia's farmers wealthy by the time John was still a youngster. Yet for the remainder of the century those farmers and their families, including John's, chose to live very frugally; saving or investing their earnings in more land and preferring to live in old style log houses. A former, well educated and accomplished Stone Arabia resident, Major Andrew Finck, visited in 1796 in order to build and establish a school in which the children of the Patent would learn English. German and Mohawk Dutch were still the predominant languages. He observed that most Patent residents remained "unprogressive, excluding themselves from the touch of the world, failing to give their children proper instruction, and neglecting to occupy that position to which they (and their wealth) entitled them". Those parents ungratefully and successfully sued to close the school soon after it opened.

By the 1770s the purpose of Hans Dietrich and Anna Kasselmann's great sacrifice and courage in bringing their family to the "Golden Island" of America seemed fulfilled. Stone Arabia and the Mohawk Valley proved to be the peaceful and prosperous place they'd dreamed of and that had been promised by Rev. Kocherthal's Golden Book. By the mid part of the decade, however, it was painfully and dangerously evident that the peace the Valley had enjoyed was surely ending.

When the first shots of the Revolutionary War were fired in Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts in April 1775, the residents of the Mohawk Valley and the Stone Arabia plateau learned of it through their Committee of Correspondance. Possibly in direct response to news of the Lexington/Concord skirmishes the citizens of Tryon County soon re-established it as a Committee of Safety which was one of the first forms of local government in the American colonies. May 19 of 1775, the Committees that were in power throughout the provinces, including the Tryon Committee of Safety, were given the authority by the Provincial Congress to "call out the Militia whenever, and for as long as it saw fit, and to station them where it thought best. All officers were required to give the Committee obedience."

The War of Rebellion in the Valley and Stone Arabia was personal and horrifically brutal. It was not a conflict fought between standing armies as it was in the provinces east of it from Yankee New England to South Carolina. Instead it directly involved all its citizens; men, women and most terribly its children. They, their property and its valuable products were the principal targets of the conflict.

The Revolutionary War years were known in the Valley as "a time of terror". It was also a war that tore many of the Valley's families apart from within because of conflicting allegiances. The Casslemans were not spared that tragic circumstance.

Our Casslemans and many other families of Stone Arabia and the Mohawk Valley were split between those who sympathized with and preferred to live under the ways and rules of the British monarch, King George III and his local proxy, the very powerful Johnson family. They were known as Tories or Loyalists. Their opponents were Whigs and Rebels.

The Rebel cause as embraced by Whig residents of Stone Arabia was reflected in a document selected residents drafted and adopted in a pub known as Whites Tavern located near the corner of present day State Hwy 10 and Stone Arabia Rd. on 27 August 1774. This was two years before the American Declaration of Independence was drafted and adopted by the Continental Congress in Philadelphia in 1776.

It read in part:

III. That we think it is in our undeniable privilege to be taxed only with our consent given by ourselves or our representative. That taxes otherwise laid and exacted are unjust and unconstitutional.

IV. That the Act for blocking up the port of Boston is oppressive and arbitrary, injurious in its principles and particularly oppressive to inhabitants of Boston who we consider as brethren suffering in the common cause.

V. That we will join and unite with our brethren of the rest of this colony in anything tending to support and defend our rights and liberties.

Later, in May of 1775, at Cherry Valley, an Article of Association was drawn up by the Whigs. Those refusing to sign it and pledge their allegiance to the cause of the rebellion stated therein were deemed Tories. It read:

"Whereas the Grand Jury of this County, and a number of the magistrates, have signed a declaration, declaring their disapprobriation of the opposition made by the colonies to the opperessive and arbitrary acts of Parliament, the purport of which is evidently to entail slavery on America; and as the said declaration may, in some measure, be looked upon as the sense of the County in general, if the same be passed over in silence; we the said County (of Tryon), inspired with a sincere love of our country, and deeply interested in the common cause, do solemnly declare our fixed attachment and entire approbation of the grand Continental Congress held at Philadelphia last fall, and that we will strictly adhere to, and repose our confidence in the wisdom and integrity of the present Continental Congress; and that we will support the same to the utmost of our power, and that we will religiously and inviolably observe the regulations of that august body.".

In contrast, the Tory cause seemed to be announced and enunciated on Nov. 7, 1775 by Sir William Johnson's son John. Heavily armed, he broke into the residence of Col. Jacob Klock, the battalion commander of the Palatine district militia, and angrily yelled at Klock and his family "that he was a King's man and promised to bring a force of 500 to burn the Valley". His threat was not an empty boast, but a promise he would keep with devastating and deadly result. "By December 1775 the jail at Albany was so crowded (with Tories) that the Albany Committee of Safety was obliged to provide additional quarters and hire an extra jailer".

"By March 1777 Loyalist property (was) subject to confiscation." Most Tory men not jailed fled their Valley farms and businesses to Canada to escape sure imprisonment. It was always a treacherous, sometimes deadly struggle through trackless forests to find refuge on the northern side of the St. Lawrence River. Because the odds of surviving the journey were slim for any but the hardiest, their wives and children were left behind to face harassment and ill treatment from their Whig neighbors. Many were left destitute when their husband's property was confiscated. Some were imprisoned. News of this kind of treatment and the loss of their property inflamed Loyalist feelings past the boiling point. Their anger took vengeful, deadly aim at their former neighbors and even family members in the Mohawk Valley and the settlements connected to it as far south as the Pennsylvania border. The British took full advantage of their anger and loyalty to the King and channeled it militarily with destructive and deadly effect in units such as Butler's Rangers based in Niagara Falls.

In the Cassleman family of Stone Arabia the Tory cause was fought for by five of Captain John's 7 brothers: Thomas, Dietrich (Richard), Warner, Cephaneus and John William Jr. All had been residents of Stone Arabia or nearby settlements from which they fled to Canada and signed with British sponsored forces there. John's father Wilhelm's sympathy is believed to have been with the Rebels and the fact that he did not leave Stone Arabia during the War seems to confirm it. There is no doubt he would have been forced to leave or imprisoned if his allegiance had been otherwise.

However, it is also thought he left Stone Arabia after the War to be with his Loyalist sons and their families in Canada and died there. My view, unsupported beyond gut instinct, is that he may have maintained a somewhat heartbroken neutrality through it all.

John's sons John Junior and Bartholomew signed the Article of Association and fought for independence from British control. Both served under their dad at various times. Bartholomew was known as Bartel or Pardel and most records used those nicknames instead of his baptismal name. Of John Sr.'s brothers, Peter and Christian signed the Article of Association and soldiered with the Rebels.

4 Regiments of Militia were authorized and called up for Tryon County and eventually a 5th later in the War. Each was responsible for a district. Those districts had been established originally by Sir. William Johnson. They were Canajoharie, Palatine, Mohawk, Kingsland and German Flatts. Each was in the charge of a battalion commander who held the rank of Colonel. Captain John Cassleman's small company of Rangers was part of the 2nd Regiment which was responsible for patrolling and protecting the Palatine District of the Mohawk Valley. Its commander was Col. Jacob Klock, a veteran of the French and Indian War (1754 -1763); elderly by the time the War of Independence began, but considered very capable and in high regard by most who knew him and by those under his command.

The Palatine district included John's Stone Arabia home. John, himself, and his brothers were also veterans of the French and Indian War. This may account for why John was elected to the position of Captain without moving through ranks to attain it. Captain John's subordinate officers were Lieutenant Adam Empie and Ensign George Getman. They oversaw 22 enlisted men. All volunteered for Ranger service. This company was by far the smallest of the 3 Tryon County Ranger companies, the largest of which employed close to 75 men.

Captain John and his officers jobs must have been as challenging as herding cats. Here is an excerpt from the Public Papers of New York State's first governor, George Clinton. "The average Militiaman of the day was an arrogant and insolent fellow, who knew his rights and asserted them with spirit. He was imbued with the idea that his country had more need of his services than he had of the services of his country. He had but little faith in the officers who commanded him and frankly said so. He had native bravery and spirit enough but was conspicuously lacking in every idea that touched discipline." "His farm invariably came before his country for the reason that the farm would compensate him for working on it while he had doubts about what his country would do for him.".

"Nor were his grievances without justification. The pay of the soldier was small; his ration was meager in quantity, often indigestible, and generally uncertain of delivery." "The hardy frontiersman who had patriotically joined the Continental forces of the Militia lived in constant dread of hearing that his farm had been devastated, his wife murdered, his daughter ravished or his baby carried off in captivity to face a fate infinitely worse than torture at the stake."

The Pension applications of men who served under Captain John give us a picture indirectly of his service during the War of Independence. They provide a timeline; describe the purpose and duties of Ranger service; and specify some of the battles his company engaged in.

From the application of Daniel Hart. "Again in the spring of the year 1778 a company of Rangers was raised in the Town of Palatine for the like purposes as the company (Getman's) in the year 1777. He enlisted in the Town of Palatine (Stone Arabia) in said company in the month of April or May. That the company was then commanded by Capt. John Cassleman and Lieutenant Sammons, that same who was Ensign the year before in Capt Getman's company and the company was divided in four parties and each party was out a week at a time and so through the season. They were stationed along the same route they watched the year before and were to look out for Indians and give notice. They were frequently around Sacondaga Lake and they generally went out through Dillebaugh (Tilleborough) to Sacondaga and back home through Mayfield and Johnstown.

That he was in actual service during both the seasons in his depositions mentioned more than one quarter of the time besides being at all times ready and able to be called out as he frequently was. That he does not know to what Regt they belonged or whether they belonged to any. That he served out the whole of said nine months and at expiration therof the company was dispersed."

From the application of John F. Empie, a resident of Eprhatah. "The deponent in 1779 said he volunteered at the commencement of the year and there was snow on the ground. Nine scouts who he had gone with before commanded by Capt. Miller. I went in his service through the summer and fall. They marched to Cherry Valley, Caughnawaga and Herkimer, guarding the frontiers and acting as scouts after he returned he served the whole year service from commencement to its close and this deponent further states that he enlisted in a company of Rangers in the first part of April 1780 for the term of three years. The Captain's name was John Cassleman, the Lieutenant Adam Empie and the Ensign was George Getman. The sergeants were Peter House, John Backus and Audolph Pickert.

The company was divided into several parts so as to aid the whole Regiment in running scouts and some of them were at Fort Paris (Stone Arabia) and some at Fort Schull and some along the Mohawk Valley. The manner the officers got their commissions was from a committee approved for that purpose to raise companies of Rangers. This, however, I am not certain of and when this company was raised there were encouragements held out that after the war was those that were living should have land in their pay. But that this deponent never received any land nor pay of any kind and that he furnished his own clothing and a good part of his provisions.

That in the month of October 1781 we were marched from Fort Paris to Johnstown and put under the command of Colonel Marinus Willet and was in that battle on twenty of that month. In this battle I was wounded in my right leg and broke the bones about the ankle. And the deponent further says that in those years he was in actual service all the while except the time his leg was healing from the wound.

And that they marched from place to place along the Mohawk Valley in the County of Montgomery, then the county of Tryon from Fort Schull to Fort Paris and Fort Herkimer, Fort Plank, Fort Stanwix and Cherry Valley, a distance north and south about twenty miles and East and West a distance of about sixty miles along the Mohawk River."

From the Application of Peter Getman of Ephratah. "That in April of that year (1780) he enlisted in the company of Captain John Cassleman. This was a Company of Rangers raised by the order of the Committee of Tryon County and attached to the Regiment of Col. Jacob Klock. The officers in this company at the time the applicant enlisted was John Cassleman, Captain; Adam Empie, Lieut.; George Getman, Ensign.

That the service rendered while in this company was divided and a part stationed at Fort Paris under Captain Cassleman a part at the forts on the Mohawk River under Lieutenant Empie and a part at the block house in the north settlement of Palatine under Ensign Getman from which stations called scouting parties were sent to range and watch the movements of hostile Indians and Tories and to give an alarm in case of danger that this applicant enlisted in said company for two years and served the full period of said enlistment that while in that company he was the whole time in actual service, going on scouts both in summer and winter or when not in this service was with the company at the forts or in the service as ordered by the captain or other superior officers."

An excerpt from the application of Henry Smith. "That about the 1st of April 1780 he enlisted into the company of rangers under Captain John Cassleman and served in said company nine months the period of his enlistment and was discharged about the 1st of January 1781. The service in this company was ranging the country in small parties (called scouting parties) where duty was to give an alarm in case of danger and was of much service to such of inhabitants as were obliged to leave the forts to attend to agricultural and other pursuits."

From the application of William Smith, Private. "That he served in this company (of Capt. Nicholas Richter) as a private from the time above mentioned until the first day of April 1780, when he enlisted into a company of Rangers commanded by Captain John Cassleman attached to Col. Klock's Regiment. That he served in this company until the first day of January 1781. That the service performed in this company was principally in guarding the Fort at Stone Arabia (Whither the inhabitants principally been obliged to flee for refuge) and ranging the country by small parties called scouting parties that while in this company the applicant was at the Battle of Johnstown and followed the enemy on their retreat towards the East Canada Creek but was taken lame before they (the enemy) were overtaken and went to Fort Herkimer and marched to Fort Stanwix as a guard for boats going to that fort."

Including Captain John, six Casslemans are documented as serving in the Tyron County Militia and fighting for the Rebel cause during the War of Independence. They include Captain John Cassleman's sons John Jr. and Bartel; John's brothers Christian and Peter; and John's nephew John S. who was the son of Captain John's brother, the Loyalist Cephaneus. All except Captain John himself and his brother Peter applied for pension benefits after the War. Captain John, as I indicated earlier, died before the passage of the War Pension Act in 1818. According to those documents, and other service lists, only John Jr. and Bartel served with Captain John.

John Jr.'s application was denied when first submitted in 1818. It was not until after his death, when his third and last wife Catherine (Lepper) Cassleman applied once again in 1840 and was granted a pension benefit of $82.33 per annum. Catherine could only recount very basic information about her husband's service and so we don't know from the application anything about his service under his dad's command.

While Bartel's pension was applied for and granted while he was alive he only indicated in the document that he had served with his dad for three years from the Spring of 1780 to the Fall of 1783. No details about it or his other assignments under other commands were given. He was elderly when he applied and many of the dates and names he gave from memory were incorrect and supplied in the barest terms. Some information about his service is contained in a letter written in 1931 by a Mrs. Harry Swancott of Utica, NY. "While a resident of Stone Arabia, New York, he enlisted and served as a private in the New York troops as follows: from some time in April 1778, in Captain McKeen's company under Colonel Willett or Colonel Henry Van Rensselaar, was in skirmishes with the Indians and Tories on the Mohawk River and was discharged in December, 1778; from some time in April 1779, in Captain John Casselman's (soldier's father) Company in Colonel Klock's Regiment and was discharged January 1, 1780; from the spring, 1780, in Captain Tearce's Company, Colonel Willet's Regiment, was in the battle of Stone Arabia and in the battle just following near Colonel Klock's house, was in the battle of Johnstown and was discharged in the fall, 1783."

John's brother Peter's War experience was unique to all of the Cassleman Rebels in that he was captured by the Tories on August 2, 1780 and imprisoned until November 2, 1781, likely at Fort Niagara. On August 2 it is recorded that, Joseph Brandt, chief of the Iroquois Confederation and his raiding party of Senecas and Blue-Eyed-Indian Tories attacked Canajoharie and then burned and murdered their way through "a swath of land six miles long and four miles wide." I surmise it might have been during that raid that Militiaman Peter Cassleman was captured by Brandt's party. I also think he might have been spared a usual fate-worse-than-death for militia captures because Brandt or others in the party knew that many of his kin were Tories. In fact, some of the Cassleman Tories were well known and feared Valley raiders. Is it possible that one of them might have been in Brandt's raiding party that day? Unfortunately, nothing is known about Peter beyond his imprisonment. He seems to disappear from history after his release.

THE BATTLE OF STONE ARABIA

If Captain John's grandfather, Hans Dietrich Kasselmann, had been alive during October 1780 long suppressed, terror-filled memories would no doubt have overwhelmed him as he helplessly watched crops, barns and homes burn to ground around him; as livestock was stolen; his neighbors tortured and murdered in the same savage, merciless fashion by the same type of marauders who'd pillaged his village of Adelshofen long ago for the same senseless reasons.

His grandson, Captain John Cassleman was stationed at Fort Paris during that October and for a good part of his Militia service. It had been built in 1776-1777 by Christian Getman's Rangers on a slightly elevated parcel of land about a 1/2 mile north of the Stone Arabia churches and a few hundred yards east of today's state highway 10. It was constructed of "solid hewn timbers with the upper story overhanging the lower on all four sides so those inside the fort could shoot directly down on the enemy through the floor." The residents living on the Stone Arabia plateau headed for it from miles around whenever one of the fort's cannons was fired, a warning of impending attack. It's commander in October 1780 was the well known, very highly regarded Colonel John Brown, the officer who'd discovered and reported the treachery of Benedict Arnold. "315 or more men from Berkshire County, Massachusetts manned Fort Paris. Some writers say that Colonel Brown had New York men with him also, and one statement refers to Captain John Kasselman, of Tryon County Rangers, as being in conference with Brown on the day of the battle" (of Stone Arabia).

In the early weeks of October members of a Tory force of between 800 and 1000 men rendezvoused and assembled near the headwaters of Schoharie Creek about 65 miles south of its confluence with the Mohawk River. It included "three companies of Tory Royal Greens, one company of German Yagers, 200 of Butler's Rangers, a company of British regulars and a party of Indians". The raiders were led by Col. John Johnson. His suborindates included Walter Butler, Joseph Brandt and the Seneca war-chief Cornplanter. The intial part of their mission entailed destroying every farm and field in the Schoharie Valley and any Whig be they man, woman or child who did not move out of their path fast enough. Tory farms and residents were to be spared.

The strategy behind this and earlier raids on the Mohawk Valley was formulated by the British commander General Fredrick Haldimand whose job it was to protect Canada from invasion by Rebels. This facet of his plan was to destroy the source of nourishment for the soldiers of the Continental Army, causing the Army's supply lines to lengthen and thereby at least crippling its ability to forcefully and swiftly attack the Canadian forts as it had in the past. The Mohawk Valley was known then, with good reason, as the "breadbasket of the Revolution". If the "breadbasket" was destroyed, the Rebel's army would be forced to rely on farms and mills located much further from the Canadian

border.

Personal motive at this late date in the War was more important to the antagonists than their commander's strategic purpose, however. The Johnson and Butler families had been the largest, wealthiest and most powerful landowners in the New York colony until the War. They were also staunch Loyalists. Until the War Walter Butler and John Johnson had been in line to inherit vast landholdings and the fortunes made by their fathers and grandfathers. Because of the families loyalty to the Crown, John and Walter's potential inheritance evaporated when all of it was confiscated by the Whig authorities. There was no hope of retrieving it by force now or negotiation later. They would instead take their measure of what they believed was stolen from them in revenge on those they held responsible; the Rebel families of the Valley.

Before sunrise the morning of October 17, Johnson's Tory marauders raced stealthfully north from their staging area towards the farms and fields on both sides of Schoharie Creek. Three lightly manned stockades guarded the 18 mile stretch from Fultonham to Sloansville. The residents around the Upper fort near Fultonham were likely taken by surprise as was the small militia contingent stationed there. Some made it to safety. 100 who didn't were slaughtered and scalped; men, women and children. Valley residents who ran fast enough to take refuge behind the fort's palisades, watched from its ramparts, helpless and horrorified as everything they owned and worked like dogs for over many seasons was destroyed in a matter of minutes. The marauders steered clear of the forts, however, keeping their focus on burning and looting and killing those caught in their path.

Every field and structure identified as belonging to a Whig was torched. Tory properties were spared. All provisions stored by the residents for the coming winter were stolen as well as all their livestock. When the sun set on the 17th of October, 16 miles of the once lush Scoharie Valley had been reduced to a smoking, empty wasteland. That morning its residents were prosperous. By evening every one was a pauper and faced with starvation during a fast approaching winter. Furious Whig residents, however, made sure their Tory neighbors shared their predicament by burning their residences, fields and stores soonafter the marauders were out of sight.

Johnson's raiders plundered on north, reaching the Mohawk late on the 18th where they camped on both sides of the river near the prominent landmark known as Anthony's Nose. There they planned and prepared to assault both sides of the Mohawk Valley until they reached the fording point near the tiny south-side village of Sprakers Basin. The raiders on the south would cross the river there; rejoin the rest to form a single force and begin to climb the long, fairly steep wall of the Valley at Homestead Creek for an all-out assault on the farms and residents of Stone Arabia, located just beyond the end of their climb.

In the meantime, the Rebel general, Van Rensselaaer, stationed in Schenectady, worked frantically to assemble militia to try and intercept Johnson's raiders. On the 17th he cobbled together a force of about 800 men and marched them west towards the enemy about 10am the morning of the 18th. The General's force trudged slowly; 16 miles on no sleep; a treacherously rutted road; with empty stomachs all of that day and into the night. During the march, the general's scouts informed him of Johnson's plan to attack Stone Arabia, whereupon he dispatched a messenger to advise Colonel Brown at Fort Paris that his, Van Rensselaaer's, soldiers were on the way to help him and that they would be there in time to attack Johnsons men from the rear. Brown was instructed to leave Fort Paris the morning of the 19th at 9AM to attack Johnson head on thereby effecting a pincer.

On the morning of his 36th birthday, Col. Brown led his force of about 200 - 300 Levies out the gates of Fort Paris mounted on a small black horse. It was 9 AM and he and his men headed south in the direction of the Valley. The enemy was about 3 - 4 miles distant and moving towards him.

Historians have constructed several versions of that day's events. 

The following and perhaps the strangest was an address given in 1884 by a Rev. Barret Roof to the Oneida County Historical Society about Col. John Brown's life and military career. As follows:

"The hour had now nearly arrived when the little band of Colonel Brown, in pursuance of the orders of General Van Renselaer was to march out of the Fort to meet the enemy. It is related, that at about this time several of Brown's officers remonstrated with him against the ordered movement, regarding it as exceedingly injudicious; and that one of the men, well known as a brave soldier, addressed the commander in language of solemn warning, and recited the particulars of a remarkable dream that occurred to him on the night of the 18th, full of fearful forebodings. But the brave Colonel, it seems, had little faith in dreams or supernatural apparitions. No evil genius had appeared to him on the previous night, as it related to have appeared to Marcus Brutus on a certain night before the memorable battle on the plains of Philippi.

And ever prompt in obeying the orders of his superior officer, he gave no further heed to the soldier's dream, than did the first and greatest of the Caesers to the dream of his wife, Calpurnia, or the vaticinations of the soothsayer forewarning him of the danger of the Ides of March." The reverend uses the word "remonstrated" to describe how Col. Brown was warned not to leave the fort. The name of the highly respected officer who offered the warning was not given in Rev. Roof's address. But that word "remonstrated" is used later by others in their description of events and it is followed by the name, Captain Kasselman.

This account and several others indicates Captain Cassleman warned Brown while at Fort Paris and before he and his men left the fort that morning. However, another indicates that Cassleman and his Ranger company were not at Fort Paris on the 19th, but assigned to nearby Fort Keyser, the small outpost and stockade, a few miles south and closer to the edge of the Valley. Fort Keyser was in the command of militia Capt. Zielie that day. However, did Brown assign Cassleman, his Rangers and Oneida scouts to the stockade, neverthless? Did he calculate they would be better able to reconnoiter Johnson's progress, position and strength from the outpost than from the fort which was located about 3 miles north of the Valley's edge? Cassleman's rangers had been the eyes and ears at Fort Paris since 1779. Brown would have known that and I surmise might have used them accordingly. After all, he and his Levies garrisoned at Fort Paris just 2 to 3 weeks before the battle. Cassleman and his men were intimately familiar with the territory. Brown and his Massachusetts Levies were not. Did Cassleman and his men join Brown's force from the stockade on the way to battle?

From The Frontiersman of New York, published in 1883.

" The following particulars were obtained in November 1843 from Maj. Joseph Spraker, of Palatine. Col. Brown left Fort Paris on the morning of his death, with a body of levies and militia; and as he passed Fort Keyser, a little stockade, at which a small stone dwelling was enclosed, perhaps a mile south of Fort Paris, and about two miles distant from the river -- he was joined by a few militiamen there assembled, making his effective force from 150 to 200 men. He met the enemy nearly half way from Fort Keyser to the river. They were discovered on the opposite side of a field which contained some underbrush and which was partly skirted by a forest. As the Indians were observed behind a fence on the opposite side of the field, Capt. Casselman remonstrated with Brown against his leaving the covert of the fence; but the hero, less prudent on this occasion than usual, ordered his men into the field, and they had hardly begun to cross it, before a deadly fire was opened upon them, which was returned with spirit but far less effect, owing to the more exposed condition of the Americans. Brown maintained his position for a time, but seeing the Indians gaining his flank, he ordered a retreat; about which time (nearly 10 o'clock A.M.) he received a musket ball through the heart, as I learned from Jacob I. Ecker. The enemy pressed on so as to render it impossible for his men to bear off his body, and the brave Colonel was left to his fate."

From: "The Story of Old Fort Plain and the Middle Mohawk Valley". "The Tories, British and Indians after this ravaged, plundered and burned all through the Stone Arabia district, among other buildings, burning both the Reformed and Lutheran churches. Few, if any of the inhabitants were killed or captured as all had taken refuge in the forts or in the woods. After the burning and plundering, Johnson collected his men by bugle calls and the blowing of tin horns and pursued his way westward toward the Mohawk."

The most controversial part of this brief battle or rout by the Tories was the tragic absence of General Van Renselaaer's force. The General had led Brown to believe that his men would be coming up the from the River immediately behind Johnson's maurauders and attack from the rear while Brown was holding them with a frontal assault or defense. For various reasons, which were examined during the General's subsequent court-martial over it, they didn't. Brown and his vastly outnumbered force were on their own. While Van Renselaaer was exonerated by that court, bitterness and controversy about Van Renselaaer's apparent abandonment of not only Brown and his men, but Stone Arabia, persisted for generations beyond the destructive and sad event despite his exoneration by a military court.

Captain Cassleman presumably retreated with most of the others to the safety of Fort Paris. His home, fields, his family's personal belongings and the provisions he and his family had stored for the winter months were being destroyed nearby. He could see, hear and smell it and it is painful to imagine the utter frustration and anger he and the other residents of the patent gathered there must have felt. They were vastly outnumbered and helpless to stop it.

After Johnson's men had finished destroying every building and field on the Stone Arabia plateau they hurried west towards St. Johnsville. Late the same day, Van Renselaaer's soldiers finally encountered Johnson's force near that town in what is known as the Battle of Fort Klock. Johnson and his men, taking few losses during the skirmish, escaped nearly unscathed to the south side of the Mohawk and eventual safe haven in Canada.

This excerpt from A.J. Berry's, A Time of Terror, provides a summation of the effect of Tory raids during the War.

"By 1775 a line of frontier settlements stretched westward along the Mohawk Valley 65 miles from Schenectady to German Flatts. Agriculturally rich, the valley served as a major breadbasket for the Patriot cause. Its white population of about 10,000 settlers provided a Militia force of about 2,500 men. As the danger of invasion from Canada increased, Mohawk Valley Settlers began erecting a series of military posts and also built log stockades around a number of stone dwellings and churches until a total of some 24 strong posts guarded the valley. The purpose of these fortified private houses was to provide places of safety where neighboring settlers could seek refuge when bands of raiding Indians and Tories swept through the valley.

In 1781, after six years of constant warfare, conditions in the Mohawk Valley were far different: more than 700 homes had been burned, the white population was reduced to 3,000 and its Militia to 800 men. People fled to Canada or out of the valley, hundreds had been killed or taken prisoner. It was the privately fortified structures such as Fort Klock that enabled the 3,000 still living in the Mohawk Valley in 1781 to survive until the end of hostilities."

Some questions remain with me about Johnson's raid on Stone Arabia. A "John Cassleman" is on the roster list of Butler's Rangers company under Capt. John McDonald. Did he participate in the raids on Schoharie and Stone Arabia? This John is believed to be the grandson of Kristianius Kasselmann (Christian Casselman). Krisitianius was the nephew of Hans Dietrich whose families emigrated from Adelshofen together to America in 1710.

Were other Casslemans participants that October? Here's the long list of Tory Casslemans who were soldiers in the King's Royal Regiment of New York during the time of the raids on the Mohawk Valley. Adam, Martin, Richard (Heinrich - Henry), Suffrenus, Conradt, William, Thomas, Warner.

Did Brown disregard Captain John's advice because of a snob factor? Brown was a graduate of Yale law school and a practicing attorney before his military service. He also had a long list of military accomplishments before his assignment to Fort Paris. Did he consider John a Mohawk-Dutch speaking bumpkin and could not take his warning seriously because of his lofty status? Or because he hardly knew Cassleman? He'd only been assigned to Fort Paris a short time. Cassleman was probably often gone on scouting missions during that time. Or did Brown simply make a snap, from the gut battle-decision which came from his confidence as a battle hardened commanding officer? A decision he had no time to think twice about?

One account of the battle I've read indicates a man approached Brown and his men out of nowhere and claimed to be a deserter from Johnson's force and advised Brown to head for a shallow draw or cut, which unfortunately he did. If that indeed happened, that's no doubt when Cassleman would have been compelled to step forward and tell his commander not to follow that advice, knowing well the lay of the land and the potential for ambush it posed. His instincts as an intelligence officer and an as old hand at spotting trouble would have made him immediately suspicious of the stranger, as well. Whatever in fact happened, we'll never know with any certainty.

The brutality of the event and the nature of the Tory participants is represented in the way the body of Colonel Brown was treated by them. After he was killed, they desecrated his body by completely scalping him (unusual) and stripping him of all his clothing except his shirt. Col. Brown is buried in the cemetery of the Reformed Church in Stone Arabia, and his grave marked by a boulder and plaque dedicated by his son many years ago. I believe the remains of his men also killed that day (about 40) were moved to that cemetery from their common grave near Fort Paris. Eva Cassleman died in 1807 and John a year later in 1808, but not in their birthplace and long time residence of Stone Arabia. The first Federal census shows them living in Caughnawaga, which is today the Mohawk River valley town of Fonda, in 1790. Some time later they moved west about 80 miles to Manlius near Syracuse where they spent their last years. Why and when exactly they left Stone Arabia isn't known. Other Casslemans lived there until the 1820s.

I wonder how the Casslemans and the many other victims of Johnson's raid of 1780 coped with the winter that quickly followed. Winters in Upstate New York can be as cold and as harsh and as long as suffered anywhere in the Country. Did they try to build new dwellings before it set in? The food provisions they'd stored-up were stolen by the raiders or destroyed in the fires they set. If residents stayed, what did they eat? Did many if not most take refuge in the cities of Schenectady and Albany?

Did that include the Casslemans? If they did, I wonder further how they were treated there. How did those cities handle the influx of what must have been at least hundreds if not thousands of refugees from just that one devastating raid? What is known for certain is they were a hardy and stubborn people and they returned from wherever they'd taken refuge and rebuilt and resettled Stone Arabia and the other villages, homes, farms and mills of the Mohawk Valley. Cassleman patriots remaining in the Valley would be called to arms once again during the War of 1812. The Valley residents, however, would never again experience another "time of terror" like that inflicted on them during the War for Independence.

Interesting reading and sources for my story above:

A Time of Terror, 1774 - 1783. by A.J. Berry

So It Was Written. by A.J. Berry.

The Frontiersmen of New York. by Jeptha R. Simms.

The Story of Old Fort Plain and the Middle Mohawk Valley. by Nelson Greene.

Drums Along the Mohawk. by Walter D. Edmonds.

History of Montgomery & Fulton Counties. F.W. Beers & Company.

History of Schoharie County, New York, 1713 - 1882

Oneida Historical Society, Colonel John Brown, His Services in The Revolutionary War, Battle of

Stone Arabia.

Montgomery County's Department of History and Archives, Fonda, NY.

Margaret Reaney Library and Museum, St. Johnsville, NY.

Website: www.threerivershms.com

Oriskany Battlefield, Tryon New York.

The British invasion of New York in 1777 attempted to separate the New England colonies from the southern colonies. Oriskany Battlefield stands at the very heart of the American Revolution in the Mohawk River Valley.