FairfieldAttacks

Discovering the Mohawk Valley leads down many paths, not the least of which are the many books written about the history of towns, counties and events that took place in the valley over the years. But like paths winding through the woods, books can lead the explorer astray. Part of the fun and frustration of discovery is recognizing which path leads to the best sources of information.

The enemy traveled on snowshoes in March 1778 when they attacked the farms in what is now the southern section of the Town of Fairfield. They bypassed the Multanner Spring settlement that was located in this valley.

While researching the Revolutionary War attacks on farmers near present day Fairfield, I started down the wrong path when I read the following on page 238 of T. Wood Clarke's 1940 book The Bloody Mohawk.

"The first place to feel the fury of the raiders, or, as they came to be known, "the destructives," was the small settlement of Fairfield, perched on top of the hills eight miles north of Herkimer and three miles east of West Canada Creek. This town located in Sir William Johnson's Royal Grant property had been divided in its politics, having a considerable element devoted to the Johnsons. As feelings became bitter these left their homes shortly after the Johnsons fled, and joined the latter in Canada. In the middle of March 1778, a party of Indians and Tories, led by one of the former residents of the town, named Caselman, suddenly appeared on snowshoes, killed and scalped one boy, took a dozen men prisoners, burned the houses, and departed to the northeast, picking up one or two more prisoners near Salisbury. Apparently in this raid no women were either killed or taken prisoner.
"Two weeks later, again under the same leadership, a party of fifty Tories and Indians struck in the town of Manheim, or Snyders Bush, four miles southeast of Fairfield, and the same distance north of Little Falls. In this raid no one was killed and no private houses destroyed. Eight men were taken prisoner, and a mill was burned. One man, ill in bed, and the women were left undisturbed. Again on the way north more captives were taken near Salisbury."

Multanner Spring provided a source of water for the first settlers in this area. The "destructives," killed or captured members of the Multanner, Goodbrodt and Shafer families, and destroyed their farmsteads during the 1779 attack.

While much of Clark's information about this attack was "accurate", I had learned from previous research (Kuyahoora-Discovering West Canada Valley} there was no Fairfield in the Mohawk Valley in the 1770s, and it was not a "small settlement perched on top of the hills eight miles north of Herkimer and three miles east of West Canada Creek." That is the location of the present Village of Fairfield. At the time of the Revolution there were some long established farmsteads in what is now the southern section of the Town of Fairfield on the Glens Purchase Patent. The lands in the northern section were part of the 90,000 acre Royal Grant and were owned by Sir William Johnson's family. Several years before the war, a few families settled on these lands near the present village of Fairfield.

I recalled the following reference on Page 158 in The History of Herkimer County by Beers - 1879.

There was no mention of the farms and families that were attacked in the southern part of the town that were noted in Clark's book, but I had no doubt his writings were based on other sources. Anytime I need information about Fairfield, I turn to Fairfield Historian and Author, Jane Dieffenbacher. She suggested Volume 2 of Frontiersmen of New York by Jeptha R. Simms. Although this book was published in 1883 it was based on interviews conducted by Simms from as far back as 1845. On page 558 I discovered the following:

Fairfield Historian, Jane Dieffenbacher, who quoted both Beers and Simms
in her 1996 book This Green and Pleasant Land - Fairfield, New York,
added from her intimate knowledge of the area, that the site of the 1779
attack is located on the Robinson Farm.

"Invasion of Fairfield.--- About the Middle of March, 1778 a party of the enemy, Indians and tories, made a sudden irruption upon and broke up the Fairfield settlement. A surprise thus unlooked for, was accomplished by journeying upon snow shoes, and just at a time when some of the settlers were endeavoring to find less exposed situations. Cobus Mabee was in the act of removing his family to the vicinity of Indian Castle. His children then were two sons and two daughters. He, had, with most of his household effects, accompanied by his wife and two younger children, gone to the Mohawk Valley, leaving John and Polly, his oldest children, to take care of the premises until his return, on the following day. As the invaders scattered about the settlement, Hess, who was at the murder of the Mount boys, and another Indian, who was well known to the Mabee family---probably Cataroqua---visited the premises, expecting, as believed, to kill or capture Mr. Mabee.
    "As the two Indians came there, they saw John near the house in the act of cutting potatoes for cattle, and ran directly to him. Hess held out his left hand, with a salutation of friendship, while the right hand grasped a sharpened tomahawk. As the lad took the proffered hand, he read his fate in the significant look, so peculiar to the defiant eye of the Indian, and discovering his sister at the moment a little distance off, his voice, in German, sounded the caution---"Polly, take care of yourself, or "---the sentence remained unfinished upon his lips. She saw the gleam of the weapon that, as it cut short his warning to herself, fell heavily upon the skull of her brother, fled and effectually concealed herself under some corn-stalks. Her brother's scalp was torn off, the dwelling which afforded little plunder was soon on fire, and the Indians were on their way to find other exposed victims.
    "Returning to his former residence after the enemy left it, Mr. Mabee found his unfortunate son---then 15 years of age still alive, and receiving the caresses of his sister, two years younger than himself. As stated, these children had been sent from home to school, and well improved their time. They were devotedly attached to each other, and John was considered the most promising boy in the settlement. Placing his son upon the sled, where Polly again acted the nurse, he drove as carefully as possible to the Mohawk Valley, but soon after arriving at the castle, the boy was released from his suffering.
    "Of the Fairfield settlers surprised and carried into captivity, were Conrad Jacob, Adam and Joseph Klock; Mabus Forbush, Ronald Ough, Adam and Rudolph Furrie, Henry Shafer and son Henry. Shafer had married the widow of Jacob Moyer after his death, and at the time of his surprise, was preparing to move on the place Cobus Mabee was vacating. Indeed, his son Henry had been sent thither with a load of some kind, and was captured on his way. No females, it is believed, were killed or captured in this settlement at this time; and the father of Forbush, who was too old to make the journey , and too bald to afford a bounty-paying scalp, was, by a freak of humanity or some other motive, left behind. On leaving Fairfield the enemy crossed over to the East Jerseyfield road, and there captured John Keyser and his sons Michael and John, burned his buildings, and from his sheep and cattle they replenished their larder. Calvin Barnes, who was married into the Keyser family after the war, was living on the Keyser place in 1850. The prisoners received their share of suffering on the way to Canada, and probably all came back. Some of the dwellings in the settlement, from motives of policy, were not burned until a later invasion of the enemy."

Simm's book was obviously the source of Clark's account, but it provides a much more detailed and accurate account of what happened. It also provides a better understanding of the terrible ordeals these families endured during the Revolutionary War.