Proceedings of the New York Historical Association [1906]. New York State Historical Association. Meeting
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Troops were slow in coming forward. Supplies were furnished tardily and reluctantly. They were insufficient in quantity and poor in quality. The commissaries were careless and inefficient. The contractors were unscrupulous and dishonest. The authorities complained saying that Sullivan's demands were excessive and unreasonable and they threatened to prefer charges against him. However, all the testimony goes to show that the commissary department was in charge of men who were either utterly incompetent or grossly negligent of their duty. On the 23rd of June Sullivan wrote Washington saying, "more than one-third of my soldiers have not a shirt to their backs." On the 30th of July Colonel Hubbard wrote to President Reed saying, "My regiment I fear will be almost totally naked before we can possibly return. I have scarcely a coat or a blanket for every seventh man."
On the 31st of July Sullivan's army left Wyoming for Tioga Point. A fleet of more than two hundred boats and a train of nearly fifteen hundred pack horses were required to transfer the army and its equipment. Tioga Point at the junction of the Tioga and the Susquehanna rivers was reached on the 11th of August. The army had been eleven days in making sixty-five miles. The route from Wyoming led through Lackawanna (now Coxton) in Luzerne county; Quialutimuck, near Ransom Station, Luzerne county; Hunkhannock; Vanderlip's Farm (now Black Walnut) Wyoming county; Wyalusing, Standing Stone, Bradford county; Sheshhequin, Bradford county.
While waiting for Clinton Sullivan built a fort which was named in his honor, between the Tioga and Susquehanna rivers about a mile and a quarter above their junction at a point where the two streams were within a few hundred yards of each other. The center of the present village of Athens, Pa., is almost exactly at this point.
Early in the spring Clinton with the First and Third New York regiments passed up the Mohawk to Canajoharie. From this point an expedition was sent out against the Onondagas. About fifty houses were burned and nearly thirty Indians were killed and a somewhat larger number taken prisoners.
After this expedition Clinton passed from Canajoharie to the head of Otsego Lake. This was a laborious enterprise as, for a portion of the distance, roads had to be cut through an unbroken forest and there was not a good road any part of the distance. More than two hundred heavy batteaux had to be drawn across from Canajoharie, a distance of twenty miles, by oxen.
Otsego Lake, the source of the Susquehanna, is about twelve hundred feet above tide water, nine miles long with an average width of a mile. The outlet is narrow with high banks. Here Clinton built a dam and raised the water of the lake several feet, sufficient to furnish water to float his boats when the time came for a forward movement.
On the 9th of August Clinton's forces embarked and the dam was cut. The opening of the dam made very high water, flooding the flats down the river and frightening the Indians, who thought the Great Spirit was angry with them to cause the river to be flooded in August without a rain.
During his passage down the Susquehanna, Clinton destroyed Albout, a Scotch Tory settlement on the east side of the Susquehanna, about five miles above the present village of Unadilla; Conihunto, an Indian town about fourteen miles below Unadilla, on the west side of the river; Unadilla, at the junction of the Unadilla with the Susquehanna; Onoquaga, an Indian town situated on both sides of the river about twenty miles below Unadilla; Shawhiangto, a Tuscarora village near the present village of Windsor, in Broome county; Ingaren, a Tuscarora hamlet where is now the village of Great Bend; Otsiningo, sometimes called Zeringe, near the site of the present village of Chenango, on the Chenango river, four miles north of Binghamton; Choconut, on the south side of the Susquehanna at the site of the present village of Vestal, in the town of Vestal, Broome County; Owegy or Owagea, on the Owego Creek about a mile above its mouth; and Mauckatawaugum, near Barton.
On the 28th of August Clinton met a force sent out by Sullivan at a place that has since been called Union because of this meeting. It is about ten miles from Binghamton.
The two forces having joined, all was in readiness for a forward movement. The expedition which at this time had its real beginning, all the previous movements having been in the nature of organization and preparation, was a remarkable one in that it was to pass over hundreds of miles of territory of which no reliable map had ever been made, through forests where no roads had ever been cut, across swamps that were almost impassable to a single individual, with no opportunity to communicate with the rest of the world from the time they set out on their forward movement till their return, no chance to secure additional supplies, no hope of reinforcements in case of disaster, no suitable provision for the care of the sick and wounded, no chance of great glory in case of success, no hope of being excused in case of failure. It was a brave, daring, almost reckless movement. It was successful beyond all expectation, yet its story is almost unknown.
Note.—The New Hampshire troops marched from Soldier's Fortune, six miles above Peekskill, to Fishkill, crossed the Hudson to Newburgh, then across Orange County, N. Y., and northern New Jersey, to Easton on the Delaware. Some New York troops who wintered at Warwarsing in Ulster County, N. Y., passed to Easton also, going through Chester, in Orange County, and down the Delaware River The New Jersey troops who had wintered at Elizabethtown, marched to Easton from this point the united forces marched to Wyoming, on the Susquehanna River. Here they were joined by some of the Pennsylvania troops and the whole force passed up the river to Tioga Point, where they awaited the arrival of Clinton, who had gone up the Mohawk and after destroying some of the Onondaga towns crossed from Canajoharie to the head of Otsego Lake and down the Susquehanna to join Sullivan. The united forces then marched into the Indian country, going to the foot of Seneca Lake, down its east shore, thence to the foot of Canandaigua Lake, then to the foot of Honeoye Lake and across the country to head of Conesus Lake, and from there to Little Beard's Town on the Genesee. From this point the army retraced its steps. From the foot of Seneca Lake a detachment was sent up the west shore a few miles to the Indian town of Kershong. Another detachment under Colonel Dearborn went up the west side of Cayuga Lake and joined the main body at Catherine's Town, at the head of Seneca Lake. A third detachment under Colonel William Butler went up the east side of Cayuga Lake and joined the main army at Kanawaholla, not far from the present city of Corning. All these movements are indicated on the accompanying map.
A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF SULLIVAN'S
INDIAN EXPEDITION.
By Grenville M. Ingalsbe, A. M., LL. B.
Introductory Note: It is with many misgivings that this paper is submitted to the Association. When its preparation was assigned, I assumed that previous compilations had been made, and that my labors would be confined simply to their continuation. Upon investigation, however, I found that while Justin Winsor in his Hand Book of the Revolution, and in his invaluable Narrative and Critical History, and others in various works, had enumerated many titles which, though largely incomplete, would aid in the work, no definitive Bibliography of Sullivan's Expedition had ever been published.
Unfortunately, when these pages shall have been printed, this condition will still exist. I have not been able to command from the duties of an exacting profession, the time required for the preparation of a Bibliography at all satisfactory, even to myself. Moreover, the attention I have been able to bestow upon it has been that of an amateur, which in these days of highly developed scholastic specialization, is very inadequate in results. It is presented, however, with some confidence that it contains material which will aid some historical specialist of the future in the preparation of a complete Bibliography of Sullivan's Expedition.
I have made no attempt to include manuscripts, leaving that for a supplementary monograph, or to some more competent student. The location, however, of all known manuscripts relating to the Expedition is