250 Years Ago Torch and Tomahawk - Ravage Cobleskill Part 4

COBLESKILL - This report was sent to General Stark the day following the battle:

Schoharry, 30th, May 1778:

Hon’ble Sir, As part of our Regiment of Milia with the Continental Troop have been attached by the Tories and Savages and being not able to stand them, they gave way and eleven or twelve of the Continental Troops are returned, the Cap’t. & Lieut. Are killed and how many of the milia are missing we are not able to give an exact account, but shall as soon as we are able. Cobus Kill is destroyed. We hope you will send us Reinforcements as soon as possible’ ,and some ammunition as we are much in want of it. We have a small Field Piece. I hope you will send Grape shot for it and we remain Your most humble Serv’ts.

William Dietz, Esq.

Thomas Chesin, Major

Jost Becker, Major

N,. B. the number of the Enemy as near as we can Learn is about three or four hundred.

One O’clock at night.

Col. Abram Wemple of the Schenectady milia came to Schoharie with 119 men and wrote the following to Gen. Abraham Ten Bock:

I have buried the Dead at Cobus Kill, which is 14 in number; found five more burnt in the ruins of the house of one Yurry Wianer [Warner] where the engagement has been; they were Butchered in the most Inhuman manner; burnt 10 houses and Barns, Horses, Cows, Sheep &c, lay dead all over the fields. 

I shall leave a guard of 70 men at the lower fort of Schoharie, all the rest of my force I shall keep at the upper part of the Settlement. Please to send the bearer 2 quire of paper.

I am D”r Genl. Your Ob’t Serv’t

A’bm Wemple

Schohary 6th, June 1778

D’r Sir, I forgot to mention in mine of this date that the people of Cobus Kill, whose houses and Effects are burnt, only came off with what they had upon their backs, have apply’d to me for provisions. I shall be glad to know wether they can draw out of public stores of so.

“Something like a reign of terror prevailed” on the frontier following the Cobleskill raid, wrote Alexander Flick, the state historian, in his History of the State of New York. The Mohawk Valley was in panic and Albany also feared an attack. All available state militia were ordered to Schoharie Valley by Gov. George Clinton and Fick said that parts of eleven regiments were sent.

“The raids made so deep an impression on the inhabitants that in June when nearly a hundred Tory families assembled in the vicinity of Fort Hunter, they were allowed to march toward Canada unmolested” wrote Francis P. Kimball in The Capital Region on New York State.

In Albany, the commissioners for Detecting and Defeating Conspiracies met on June 9 and considered reports of desertion.

Whereas it appears probable in the opinion of this Board, that divers of the Subjects of this State, have lately gone over to and joined a party of Savages who have [lately] committed the Depredations at Schohary

Therefore Resolved That it be and it is hereby most earnestly recommended to the Call, or Commanding officers of the respective Militia Regiments in this County to order the Captains or Commanding Officers of Companie to make immediate returns to this Board of the Names of such persons of their respective Companies who have during the Alarm at Schoharry been and are still absent from their respective Places of abode.

The raids continued: Mayfeild and Springfield in June and German Flatts in September. Although these were individually small raids, they spread panic over a wide area.

The Battle of Cobleskill had repercussions for weeks, from Albany west. Fort Dubois was built at Cobus Kill between April 6 and July 11, 1779. It was located on a height east of land then owned by Jacob Shaffer on the present-day Main Street, about a mile from Cobleskill's center. The fort covered nearly three acres and was commodious enough to accommodate all the Cobus Kill valley inhabitants. A natural stream fed water into the moat surrounding the fort’s palisades. Shaffer’s house was also picketed.

On June 11, Congress authorized a military expedition to protect the New York Frontier. The expedition was to start in 1778 but on Aug 22 it was postponed. On November 11, Cherry Valley became the seventh New York State community destroyed that year. On Feb. 25, 1779, the expedition to the west was re-authorized by Congress. That summer, generals John Sullivan and James Clinton led the march west through the Seneca territory. Destroying crops and villages and forcing the natives to Niagara.

A year later loyalists and Indians retaliated with another chapter in Schoharie County history; the Johnson-Brant raid on the Schoharie Valley.