Jan 10
The British purchase a 20-by-30-mile tract of land on Lake Ontario's Irondequoit Bay, but do not settle it.

Feb 9
Mohawk Valley landowner William Johnson writes to his uncle Peter Warren, using the address of Mount Johnson instead of Warrensburg, at the top.

Mar 18
The home of the Royal governor in New York City's Fort George, along with the nearby Dutch church, is destroyed by fire.

Jun 8
A daughter, Ann, is born to William Johnson and his current mistress Catherine Phillips.

Feb 28
The Manhattan tobacco shop of Robert Hogg is burglarized. The money is later found at Hughson's Alehouse and rumors spread of a slave insurrection - the "Alehouse Plot". By the time calm is restored, four whites and 25 blacks will have been executed.

Mar 18
The 1640 Dutch church on Manhattan is destroyed by rebellious slaves.

Apr 7
Journeymen bakers go on strike in New York City, are prosecuted for criminal conspiracy.

City
The city forms a volunteer firefighting company.

Pennsylvania
Andrew Ellicott, grandfather of surveyor and land speculator Joseph Ellicott, dies of pleurisy, leaving behind five sons, including Jo, father of the Ellicott brothers.

Feb 7
A son, John, is born to William Johnson and Catherine Phillips.

Sep 29
Iroquois representatives begin arriving at Upper Mohawk Castle (Canajoharie) to meet with William Johnson.

Oct 2
Johnson is adopted into the tribe and given the name Warraghiyagey, The Man Who Undertakes Great Things.

State
Future governor John Taylor is born in New York City.

Dec 17
Mamakating named for an Indian chief, is made a precinct by the General Assembly, encompassing Sullivan County and a portion of Orange.

State
Governor George Clinton takes office.

Indian Captives
The approximate date Mary Jemison is born in Pennsylvania.

Oct 14
Mary Johnson is born to trader and superintendent of Indian affairs William Johnson and his mistress Catherine Weisenberg, their third child.

City
Stephen Bayard is appointed mayor for six consecutive one-year terms.

Nov 28
French military forces out of Canada, accompanied by 220 Caughnawaga Mohawk and Abenaki Indians, attack and burn the English settlement at Saratoga. The 101 inhabitants are either killed or taken prisoner. Albany will be thrown into a panic.

Dec 12
U. S. Supreme Court chief justice and New York State governor John Jay is born in New York City to Peter and Hannah McVickar Jay. He is baptized at Trinity Church.

State
The French raid Fort Edward. ** Frederick Philipse adds a brick north wing to the Philipse Manor Hall in Yonkers. ** The approximate date Avon co-founder Doctor Timothy Hosmer is born in Connecticut.

July
Mohawks gather in war council near Mount Johnson. William Johnson gains their allegiance to the British cause.

Aug 11
Johnson, along with Iroquois chiefs Tiyanoga and Wascaugh, at the head a large party of Indians, marches into Albany, the warriors saluting governor George Clinton as they pass the fort.

Aug 15
A small patrol of Captain Daniel Ladd's New Hampshire militia is surprised by a war party of pro-French Indians and Canadian voyageurs, in New York near Lake Champlain's Crown Point. Another patrol arrives to find five mutilated bodies and one survivor, learn that two others were carried off. Ladd heads to his base in Rumford for replacements. He encounters 14-year-old Robert Rogers there.

Aug 19
The Albany Indian Congress convenes, with over 700 Indians in attendance.

Aug 31
Tiyanoga returns to Johnson Hall from a journey to Montréal, where he was entertained by French governor Galissonière, who he told what the official wanted to hear, then went on to visit Caughnawaga chiefs, who expressed dissatisfaction with the French. On the way back he and his party killed one French soldier near Crown Point and captured another. Tiyanoga tells Johnson his story then leaves for Canajoharie.

Nov 25
Ten of Johnsons' scouts and 12 Mohawks arrive at Albany with the scalps of a man, two women and a boy, and eight white prisoners, a French militia captain, two Canadians, two women and three French girls - the Vitry sisters. Johnson will leave on a sloop for New York City with the prisoners later in the day.

December
William Johnson takes Angélique Vitry as his mistress.

City
The Evening Post begins publication, puts out a few issues.

Aug 28
Indian agent William Johnson leads a force of 650 (350 of them white, the remainder Iroquois), on an expedition against the French at Lac St. Sacrement (Lake George). They will arrive to find the enemy gone.

Oct 10
William Johnson learns the Albany militia refuses to serve under him, writes governor George Clinton, warning that their Indians allies will be disappointed if he is not provided with supplies for them.

City
Edward Holland is appointed mayor for the next ten consecutive one-year terms.

State
Daniel Joncaire, Sieur de Chabert, visits Indians in the Black Rock area. ** Governor George Clinton promises Mohawk chief Tiyanoga he will put William Johnson in charge of Indian affairs for the colony and terminate the Assembly position of Indian Commissioner.

Literature
William Livingston of New York, publishes Philosophic Solitude; or The Choice of a Rural Life.

March
William Johnson confers with governor George Clinton in New York. ** Six Mohawks scouting north of Mount Johnson, New York, are surprised by a party of Caughnawaga and Abenaki Indians, and French rangers. Two Mohawks (including Gingego) are killed and three captured, including Chief Nichus (father of Molly and Joseph Brant). The sixth escapes to Teantontalogo but finds an insufficient force to give chase. When they return two days later with William Johnson they find the mutilated remains of the two dead. They later learn the three who were captured were taken to Montréal.

Apr 11
William Johnson, Mississaugi chief Tiyanoga, fifty volunteers and 13 Mohawks leave Mount Johnson on a 200-mile swing through Iroquois country.

Apr 23
Johnson and Tiyanoga arrive at Onondaga. In council Johnson hears Chief Red Hand's concern that the British show no signs of an attack on Canada and that the tribes have neglected their own interests for two years while waiting for action. He promises to reply in the morning.

Apr 24
Johnson tries to convince the chiefs to not travel to Montreal to retrieve their captives, but to let the English government exchange them for French prisoners, even though he has no authorization for such an offer. They promise him an answer the following day.

Apr 25
The reply comes from Chief Canassatego. The Iroquois will let Johnson try to exchange French prisoners for their fellow tribesmen.

Apr 26
Johnson and Tiyanoga leave Onondaga for Mount Johnson.

Aug 10
Johnson writes to governor Clinton, reports the Indians have all left Mount Johnson with the exception of the Seneca Grota Younga, who stayed behind to have an ulcerous leg tended to.

State
William Johnson begins building a new Mount Johnson residence along the Mohawk, a mile from the old Mount Johnson, in the autumn.

Albany
Swedish naturalist Peter Kalm visits the city, comments adversely on the water supply. He remains in the area into next year.

Indians
The French found a Suplican Mission in the Ogdensburg to woo the Iroquois.

Jan 1
Hampshire Grant (Vermont) governor Benning Wentworth creates the township of Bennington, first settlement in the grant, claimed by New York State.

Apr 28
William Johnson returns to Mount Johnson after a five-week tour of Iroquois villages, where he found the more western tribes wary of English promises. He dispatches a report to Governor George Clinton.

Jun 2
Antoine-Louis Rouillé, Comte de Jouy, French colonial minister, writes to Canadian governor, the Marquis de Galissonière from Versailles, backing his plan to use the natives to destroy Fort Oswego. He then writes to Galissonière's upcoming successor Jacques Pierre de Taffanel, the Marquis de Jonquière, still in France, encouraging the future use of the Iroquois. ** Galissonière issues orders to officer Pierre-Joseph Céloron de Bienville to lead a force to the Ohio Valley, burying tin sheets carrying the French coast-of-arms along the way.

Jun 25
Céloron emerges from the rapids of the St. Lawrence, arrives at the mouth of the Oswegathchie River, and visits Fort Presentation.

Jun 26
Céloron's forces leave the Oswegathchie, continuing up the St. Lawrence. Two hours after they leave Presentation the fort is burnt in an Iroquois attack.

July
Céloron de Bienville and his party, traveling across the western part of the state, reaches Fort Niagara. They will proceed to the Ohio Valley via Chautauqua Lake, depositing lead markers at each important river mouth.

Jul 25
Céloron reaches Kanaouagon (today's Conewangeo) Creek.

Jul 31
Johnson writes to governor Clinton threatening to resign if held accountable to the New York Assembly. He then sends messengers to Indian villages warning of French incursions into the region.

Oct 17
North American land office agent Paolo Busti is born in Milan, Italy.

Oct 21
New York State land agent and politician Oliver Phelps is born in Poquonock, Connecticut.

State
William Johnson writes to Governor George Clinton proposing a settlement on Irondequoit Bay, to shut out the French trying to buy English land. ** 193 Indian canoes bring 1,385 packs of fur to Oswego to trade with the British. In modern currency the pelts would be worth nearly $2,000,000. ** Suplican father Francis Picquet establishes La Presentation, an Indian mission, at the mouth of the Oswegatchie River in the northwestern Adirondacks.




© 2001 David Minor / Eagles Byte


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