Previous: Lafayette’s Farewell Tour: The State Of Greater Western New York In 1825
At the turn of the 19th century, a dense forest covered the southwest corner of New York State—what is now Chautauqua County. A rough trail that followed the Lake Erie shore represented the only visible evidence of human occupation. Except for what appeared to be remnants of a chimney right on the lake.1 The trail was brutal. Settlers journeying to Connecticut’s lands in the future state of Ohio preferred to take the water route over Lake Erie from Black Rock, just off Buffalo Creek.2
That chimney might well have been the ruins of what Sir William Johnson described as a Continue Reading “Lafayette’s Farewell Tour: The Making Of The Buffalo And Erie Road”
William French and the Westminster Massacre
Self-named by Benning Wentworth, Governor of New Hampshire, Bennington became—in 1741—the first township granted west of the Connecticut River. It was a fact that would soon matter far more than anyone expected.
French headed to Westminster, a small hamlet on the west side of the Connecticut River, nestled in the broad curve of the oxbowing waterway, in the fertile eastern valley beneath the Green Mountains.
That afternoon, French walked along King’s Highway to the farmhouse of Capt. Axariah Wright, an eccentric old patriot. There he met Daniel Houghton and nearly 100 other men. They were there to confront a problem they believed could no longer be avoided.Continue Reading “William French and the Westminster Massacre”