Legends of the Shawangunk2 JR.pdf - Friends of the Sabbath ...

Minisink Battle. 49
MINISINK BATTLE.
BRANT and his fighting men were the scourge of the Shawangunk region during the
entire War of the Revolution. His name was a terror to the inhabitants of that locality;
and deeds of blood and cruelty, performed by him and under his direction, are told to this
day that are too harrowing for belief.
Historians differ as to whether Col. Joseph Brant was a half-breed or a pureblood
Mohawk. The traits of character developed in his career would seem to indicate the latter
as being nearer the truth. He had one sister, Molly, who became the leman of Sir William
Johnson. Brant was placed, through the influence of Sir William, at a school in Lebanon,
Connecticut, where the lad was educated for the Christian ministry. It would appear,
however, he adopted an entirely different mode of life. At the age of twenty he became
the secretary and agent of Sir William, through whose influence he was induced to
espouse the cause of Great Britain in the revolutionary trouble that was brewing.
Through the same influence he was created a Colonel of the British army; and by reason
of his birth was a warrior-chief of the Iroquois. Having had the advantages of a liberal
education, he became, in consequence, an influential personage among them, and was
treated with much consideration by the British monarch. He organized and sent forth the
predatory bands of Indians which devastated the frontier from the Water-Gap to the
Mohawk river. Same of these irruptions he commanded in person, particularly those
which visited Wawarsing (Ulster county) and Minisink. In 1780 he boasted that the
Esopus border was his old fighting ground.
His personal appearance is thus described: “He was good looking, of fierce aspect,
tall, and rather spare, and well-spoken. He wore moccasins elegantly trimmed with
beads, leggings, and a breech-cloth of superfine blue, a short, green coat with two silver
epaulets, and a small, round laced hat. By his side was an elegant, silver-mounted
cutlass; and his blanket of blue cloth (purposely dropped in the chair on which he sat, to
display his epaulets) was gorgeously adorned with a border of red.”
Brant has been denounced as an inhuman wretch. Even an English author attributes
to him the atrocities of Wyoming. Although in battle he generally gave full scope to the
murderous propensities of his followers, it cannot be denied he endeavored to mitigate
the horrors of war whenever he could do so without destroying his influence with his own
race.
During the summer of 1779, Brant with about three hundred Iroquois warriors set out
from Niagara. About the middle of July they appeared on the heights on the west of
Minisink, like a dark cloud hanging on the mountain tops, ready to break upon the plain
below. Just before daylight, on the morn-