[Editor's Note: This article appeared in the 1st Issue of the Journal of the Orange County Historical Society. It is being republished on the website as part of the ongoing activities surrounding the 250th Anniversary of the Revolutionary War. The footnoted version is contained in the 1971 Journal which is available for purchase. JAC]

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==== Written for the 193rd Anniverary of the Battle, 22 July 1972 ===

The war of the American Revolution took its toll on the inhabitants of Orange County. Especially vulnerable were the frontier settlements near the Delaware River. These settlements suffered tragic raids by Loyalists and Indians - plundering, burning, killing, scalping. The best-known raid was followed by the Battle of Minisink, which occurred on July 22, 1779.

In the spring of 1779, General Washington decided to send a strong force into the Indian country of western New York, for the purpose of "chastising" the Indians and their Tory allies so thoroughly that the settlements on the Mohawk and the upper branches of the Susquehanna might be free from attack.

General John Sullivan was placed in overall command, and personally led the division which ascended the Susquehame from Wyoming, Pennsylvania, while General James Clinton commanded the forces that penetrated the Indian country from the mouth of the Canajoharie. It was arranged to unite the two divisions at Tioga. Colonel Butler and Joseph Brant, of the British forces, soon observed the preparations of the American army and did everything possible to divert Sullivan and Clinton.

Who was Joseph Brant? Born in 1742, he was a Mohawk Indian and a protege of Sir William Johnson, the great Indian Agent of the British Crown. Sir William sent Brant to the school of the Rev. Eleazer Wheelock in Connecticut and, after he was educated employed him as secretary, and as agent in public affairs. Brant was a missionary interpreter from 1762 to 1765, and translated the Gospel of St. Mark into the Mohawk language.

Sir William died in 1774, and Brant visited England shortly thereafter. During the Revolution, Brant was engaged in warfare chiefly upon the border settlements of New York and Pennsylvania, in connection with the Loyalist Johnsons and Butlers. He held a colonel's commission from the king, but was generally called Captain Brant.

It was decided that Brant would leave Oquaga (near present-day Binghamton) with a party of Loyalists and Indians, and descend the Delaware River as far as the Minisink region (near present-day Port Jervis). Brant left Oquaga on July 8th and attacked the Minisink settlement on July 20th.

According to a detailed contemporary report, the attackers burned Major Decker's house and barn; Samuel Davis' house, barn and mill; Jacobus Van Vieck's house and barn; Daniel VanAuken's barn (here two Indians were shot, from a little fort around the house, which was saved); Esquire Cuykindall's house and barn; Simon Westfall's house and barn; the old Maghaghkemack church; Peter Cuykindall's house and barn; Martinus Decker's fort, house, barn, and saw-mill: and Nehemiah Patterson's saw-mill.

They killed and scalped Jeremiah Van Auken, Daniel Cole, Ephraim Ferguson, and one other, and took with them a great number of horses, cattle, and valuable plunder.

Daniel Van Auken and his "little fort" evidently gave a good account of themselves. Brant, in his official report said: "We have burnt all the settlement called Minnesink except one fort, which we lay before about an hour and had one man killed and one wounded." Two days later, Colonel Pawling, at Marbletown, told Governor George Clinton: "By accounts this moment received...I hear the Enemy have burnt Minisink & surrounded Fort Van Aken; where this Fort is or what Men are in it, I know not."

Brant continued: "We destroyed several small stockades and forts and took four scalps and three prisoners, but did not in the least injure women and children. The reason we could not take any more of them was owing to the many forts about the place, into which they were always ready to run like ground-hogs.”

News of this disaster, accompanied by urgent appeals for assistance, reached General Sullivan at Wyoming, but he firmly refused to be turned aside from his main purpose, He said in reply: "Nothing could afford me more pleasure than to relieve the distressed, or to have it in my power to add to the safety of your settlement, but should I comply with the requisition made by you, it would effectually answer the intention of the enemy and destroy the grand object of this expedition." Brant had failed in his main purpose -- to divert General Sullivan.

Brant's report then says, "I left this place (Minisink) about 8 o'clock next day and marched fifteen miles. There are two roads, one through the woods, the other along the river. We were coming up this way the next morning, and I sent two men to examine the other road, the only way the rebels could come to attack us. These men discovered the enemy's path, not far from our camp, and discovered they had got before us to lay in ambush. These two rascals were afraid when they saw the path, and did not return to inform us, so that the rebels had fair play at us."

Mowberry Owens, previously "a deserter from one of our state regiments," was probably one of the two who now deserted Brant. Owens made a statement before Henry Wisner that he left Chemung on July 8th in company with twenty-seven Tories and about sixty Indians, that Joseph Brant had the command of the party, and he heard Brant give orders that they should not kill any women 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."

Owens enlisted on May 27, 1777, in Colonel Philip Van Cortlandt's Second New York Regiment of the Continental Line. He deserted in August 1777, participated in Brant's Minisink raid of July 1779, rejoined his Continental Regiment in December 1779 and was mustered to January 1782 - an interesting case of changing sides, not once but twice. In 1790, he was living in Warwick. Was he a "double agent" or simply an opportunist who managed to change sides and survive?

News of Brant's attack quickly reached Goshen and Warwick. In the words of Colonel John Hathorn of Warwick: "I received an order from his Excellency General Washington to furnish one hundred men of my Regiment for to guard the British Prisoners (captured at Stony Point) on their way to Easton, (and) at the same time received an Express from Minisink that the Indians were ravaging and burning that place." Colonel Hathorn ordered three companies of his regiment to assemble for the purpose of guarding the Stony Point prisoners, and the other three companies to march immediately to Minisink.

Colonel Hathorn arrived at Minisink, with part of his regiment, where he found Lt. Col. Tusten (Benjamin Tusten, Jr.) of Goshen, and Major Meeker of New Jersey, with parts of their regiments. Tusten and Meeker, with about eighty men, had marched a mile up the river. Hathorn joined this party with about forty men, the whole amounting to one hundred and twenty men, officers included, according to Hathorn's report. A spy probably Mowberry Owens) came in and informed Hathorn that, about four hours earlier, the enemy was at Mongaup, six miles distant.

Colonel Hathorn says: "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 piunder over the river (to the Pennsylvania side). They had almost effected getting their Cattle and baggage across when we discovered them at Lackawack, 27 miles from Minisink, some Indians in the river and some had got over."

Brant concludes his report of the battle with these words: "They fired at the front of our people when crossing the river. I was then about four hundred yards in the rear. As soon as the firing began, I immediately marched up a hill in their rear, with forty men and came around on their backs. The rest of my men were all scattered on the other side (of the Delaware); however, the rebels soon retreated and I pursued them until they stopped upon a rocky hill round which we were employed, and very busy, for nearly four hours before we could drive them out. We have taken forty odd scaips and one prisoner, a captain John Wood of the Goshen militia (who remained a prisoner until July 31. 1783). I suppose the enemy have lost near half their men and most of their officers; they all belonged to the militia and were about 150 in number."

Behind a rock on the battleground, Tusten dressed the wounds of his neighbors, but this was no protection. In the final assault, the Indians rushed to the spot and killed him and the wounded men under his care, seventeen in number.

As might be expected, accounts of the battle vary. Colonel Hathorn said: "The number of Indians and Tories is not ascertained; some accounts say 90, others 120, others 160. Col. Seward of New Jersey, with 93 men, was within five or six miles of the action, on the Pennsylvania side, (but) did not hear the firing."

The Rev. Nathan Ker, Pastor of the Goshen Presbyterian Church, wrote to Governor George Clinton: "A Party of 240 Set out on Saturday (two days after the battle) & we marched that day within 2 miles of the place of action, but the Rain on Sunday made it imprudent to stay, as many were not prepared to be out after such a wet day, nor was it in our Power to keep our Arms dry."

An extract of another letter from Orange County, dated July 28th, appeared in a contemporary newspaper: "Parson Ker, with a number of others, went up to bury the dead, but after marching about 12 miles the other side of Minisink, and within 12 miles of the defeat, they halted, for fear the enemy were still there. They found two who were scalped and mangled most cruelly."

Brant's biographer says: "The widows of the killed made an attempt to recover the remains. They set out on horseback for the battlefield, but owing to the difficulties at- tending the undertaking, were forced to return to their homes."

Public interest was revived in 1820 and 1821, a meeting was held in Goshen on November 14, 1821, and a committee was named, to gather up the remains from the battleground. The following is taken from the Independent Republican, Goshen, April 29, 1822: "All the bones that could be found of the brave men who fell in the battle of Minisink were collected from the battleground on Wednesday last, and brought to the village on the day following."

The bones were buried in Goshen on July 22, 1822, with elaborate ceremonies. It was estimated that 12,000 persons were present on this occasion. A monument was erected. with the inscription: "Erected by the inhabitants of Orange County, July 22, 1822. Sacred to the memory of Forty-four of their Fellow Citizens, who fell at the Battle of Minisink, July 22. 1779."

In 1861, this monument, having become much defaced, Dr. Merrit H. Cash bequeathed $4,000 for the purpose of procuring a new one. The people of the county added another $1,000 and the present Goshen monument was dedicated on July 22, 1862.

About twenty years after the remains were collected in 1822, other bones were found by hunters and were brought to Barryville, where they were buried in the churchyard, and about 1847 a complete skeleton was found and was buried on the opposite side of the Delaware, at Lackawaxen. Also, workers on the Delaware and Hudson Canal found Indian burials near Lackawaxen, perhaps the remains of the three men Brant says he lost.

This is the story of Brant's raid on July 20th and the Battle of Minisink on July 22, 1779. The Minisink settlement was destroyed and the militia suffered tragic losses. But Brant failed in his man objective, to divert the forces poised to attack the Indians. Sullivan and Clinton swept through the Indian country in August in a punitive expedition, from which the Indians never recovered.