On the afternoon of October 6, 1780, a band of two hundred Regulars and Indians from Canada landed on the shore of Bulwagga Bay (Lake Champlain); and, guided through the woods by several young refugees from the Ball-Town district, by way of the headwaters of the Sacandaga, suddenly made their appearance in the settlement on the night of the 16 ^th . They were composed in part of Sir John Johnson's corps of rangers, and commanded by Captain Munro, a former merchant in Schenectady. The original design of the expedition was an attack upon Schenectady, but on arriving in the neighborhood of Ball's Town it was deemed prudent to abandon the idea. {This party was a portion of the force of 1,000 men which, in the fall of 1780, Governor Carleton sent from Canada to attack the frontier settlements, under the command of his nephew, Major Carleton. Two hundred of these, as mentioned in the text, landed at Bulwagga Bay, and then proceeded to Ballston, crossing the Sacandaga River near the mouth of Daly's Creek. The larger portion, under Carleton, sailed up the lake to Skeensborough (Whitehall), and thence to Fort Anne, which was taken and destroyed. A detachment was sent from this point across by the "French Mountain," and by a stratagem took Fort George and burned it, capturing prisoners at both forts, and returned to Bulwagga Bay before the Ballston party returned. The father of Hon. George G. Scott, of Ballston, was told the above facts by Nathaniel Mitchell and James Lighthill, who were both captured at Fort Anne on this occasion. The author has reason to suppose, from his other historical investigations, that the route pursued by the Ballston party was the same as that taken by Sir John Johnson, viz., by the foot of "Crane Mountain," near Warrensburgh, Warren County, N.Y.; and thence across the Sacandaga, and through the woods by Lake Desolation to Ballston. - See Life of Sir William Johnson, Bart ., Appendix.} At the time there was a fort at what has since been known as the "Academy Hill," situated on the south-west corner of the square, upon the spot where Peter Roe formerly lived. It was constructed of oak logs, surrounded with pickets, and contained loop-holes for musketry.

The enemy lay encamped for several days in the north-west part of the present town of Milton, during which time they made themselves, through their scouts, thoroughly acquainted with the condition of the fort. To their surprise they found that it had recently been garrisoned by two hundred militia, chiefly from Schenectady. This information changed materially their plans; and, accordingly, they directed their first attack upon the house of General Gordon, on the Middle Line road. {This house stood upon the spot where Major Skinner afterwards lived, being the farm lately owned by William Gordon Ver Planck, and now by Henry Wiswell, Jr.} At about dusk of the evening preceding their appearance at Gordon's, the party halted at the house of a Scotch Highlander, in Paisley Street, named Angus McDiarmid, father of the late John McDiarmid. The Indians were greatly delighted by turning a spinning-wheel, which Mrs. McDiarmid had just been using. The house was so crowded that the floor gave way, and all were precipitated into the cellar.

At early daybreak the following morning, the party were again in motion. They were piloted from the four corners, west of the old Court House Hill, by a Tory named McDonald, who lived in the vicinity. Gordon was roused from his slumbers by the breaking of the windows of his sleeping-room by bayonets thrust through them. He sprang from his bed, in which lay his wife and child, {Mrs. Ver Planck, afterwards Mrs. Waller, who died in Brooklyn, September 14, 1857. She furnished Hon. Judge Scott with the particulars of what took place at her father's, and also with many incidents that occurred during his captivity.} and went into the hall, which by this time was filled with the enemy. As he opened the door, a gigantic savage raised his tomahawk, but before the blow could descend upon his head, the arm of the Indian was caught by one of the officers in command. At this moment the brass clock in the hall struck the hour of twelve, whereupon an Indian standing near shattered it in pieces with his tomahawk, exclaiming, as he did so, "You never speak again!" A scene of indiscriminate pillaging now followed, the squaws especially, who accompanied the party, distinguishing themselves in this part of the performance, and retiring heavily loaded with plunder. The Indians then attempted to fire the house and the barn, but were prevented by the whites in the party. Gordon, Jack Calbraith and John Parlow, servants, and Nero, Jacob, and Ann, negro slaves, were carried off as prisoners. As they were proceeding toward the main road they were met by Stow, Gordon's miller, who, having escaped from his own house, came running toward them, exclaiming, "Colonel Gordon, save yourself! The Indians!" Perceiving the party moving toward him, he hesitated a moment, then turned to the left and ran. An Indian, however, intercepted him, pierced him with a pike, and despatching him with his tomahawk, took his scalp. He thus lost his own life in generously attempting to save Gordon's. Captain Collins, who lived near by, was also taken.

Proceeding up the Middle Line, they made prisoners of Thomas Barnum (who lived where Dorus Hicks now resides), Captain Elisha Benedict and his two sons - one of whom was Caleb {Caleb Benedict came back after the war, but soon returned to Canada. The Indian who had captured him and guarded him during his captivity, heard of his return, and called to see him, manifesting great affection for his former captive. He continued through his life to send Caleb valuable presents.} - Paul Pierson and his son John, Edward A. Watrous, and John Higby and his son Lewis - the latter residing where Pierson Raymond now lives. Moving farther up the road, a detachment of fifty left the main body, and proceeded to the house of George Scott, on the farm where his son, the late James Scott, lived and died. Mr. Scott being awakened by the violent barking of his watch-dog, sprung from his bed, seized his loaded rifle, and opened the outer door. He saw the column advancing in the moonlight, and heard a voice exclaiming, "Scott, throw down your gun, or you are a dead man!" Not instantaneously obeying the command, three Indians threw their tomahawks at his head, each one of which reached its aim, and he fell. They then rushed upon him, and would have taken his scalp, had not Captain Frazer, an old neighbor, and Sergeant Staats Springstead, formerly his hired man, interfered, and with their swords kept the savages at bay. The house was then given up to pillage; but Scott was left behind in, as was supposed, a dying condition. Indeed, when this detachment reached the main body, the prisoners were informed that he was mortally wounded. He, however, ultimately recovered. {The late James Scott, then in his seventh year, saw and ever retained a vivid recollection of seeing his father's face covered with blood. He himself escaped in his night-clothes to the woods, and remained concealed until the party left. He furnished his son, the present Hon. George G. Scott of Ballston, with most of the particulars of this sketch. He died January 18, 1857.}

Enoch and Stephen Wood lived near the site of the late Presbyterian church. Their houses, and a barn containing eight hundred bushels of wheat, were burned; and Enoch and his hired man, named Fillmore, captured. This was the last clearing in that direction with one exception, and that was owned by a Tory. Fillmore, however, managed to escape before the party had proceeded many rods. Elisha Benedict, and his three sons, Caleb, Elias and Felix, were also taken, together with John Davis, living near by. Joseph Morehouse, however, was more fortunate. Being lame, and at some distance from the house, he said: "If I must go, I must get my horse." He then took his bridle, and started for his dwelling. When at a safe distance, he threw away the bridle and escaped. {Nor was it during this Tory invasion alone that the settlers suffered from fear. When Mr. Warren B.B. Westcott, now of Saratoga Springs, was teaching school opposite the house of Mr. Talcott Morehouse, on the east side of Ballston Lake, he would point out to Mr. Westcott the decaying stump of a tree in the ravine a short distance from the school-house, on "Morehouse Creek," and say: "There stood three or four young hemlocks, under whose branches, during the Tory Terror, my mother and Nathan Raymond's wife would hide themselves and their children in the night, expecting hourly to have their house burned to the ground."

In the following May, 1781, the notorious Tory spy, Joe Bettys {The skull of Lovelace, another Ballston Tory and renegade, is now in the possession of George Strover, the father-in-law of Dr. C.H. Payn. He was hung on the bluff near the Schuyler mansion overlooking the scene of the "surrender." Mr. Strover's father witnessed the hanging.} - who was afterwards hung at Albany - with the aid of thirty refugees, made a raid on the Ball Town settlement and captured Samuel Nash, Consider Chard, Uri Tracey, Ephraim Tracey, and Samuel Patchin. They were all taken to Canada, except Nash, who escaped near Lake Desolation. At about the same time, also, Judge White, Capt. Ramsey, the two brothers Banta, and John Fulmer - all living on the east bank of Ballston Lake - were taken by a Tory officer named Waltermeyer and marched off to Canada.

Nearly three generations have passed away. Not even the child {Mrs. Elizabeth Watrous McMaster, mother of the late Robert P. McMaster, of Ballston Spa, was the last survivor of those who were witnesses of this raid. She was a daughter of Edward A. Watrous. She died in the summer of 1870, in her ninety-first year. On the approach of the enemy, her mother escaped with her, then an infant, to the woods east of the house, and avoided capture. For several years she was the last connecting link in her native town with the exciting days of Munro's and Bettys' raids.} before whose eyes those deeds of violence were performed of which the early Ballston settlers were the victims, survives to tell the tale. {Hon. George Gordon Scott - to whom the writer is indebted for the incidents of this sketch - has in his possession the original diary kept by General Gordon during his captivity. It is to be hoped that Judge Scott will give this valuable document publicity through the pages of the Historical Magazine , or some other kindred publication.}

Joseph Gonzalez was the son of Emanuel Gonzalez, and in 1775 married Margaret, a daughter of David Dutcher of Dutchess County, who was a direct descendant in the fourth generation from Anneke Jansen. {Anneke Jansen, the first ancestor of Mrs. General Bullard, came to New Amsterdam about 1612, at the age of seventeen. At that time the Patroon of Rensselaerwyck (now a part of Albany) had a young superintendent of the affairs of the "Colonie," named Roeloff Jansen, who was called to New Amsterdam occasionally on business, finally removing thither. On one of his visits during the administration of Van Twiller, he met Anneke, who, not long after, became his wife. They were both members of the Church in New Amsterdam, presided over by Dominie Everardus Bogardus, the first minister who filled a pulpit in the new Dutch city. He was a faithful, outspoken bachelor of thirty when he came, and baptized the four children of Roeloff and Anneke in regular order. At his death Roeloff left to his young widow, among considerable other property, a small farm running on Broadway, from Warren to Duane Street - sixty-two acres "more or less." The widow had no one to look after her property and assist in training her children, and the dominie had no one to look after his clothes. Mutual sympathy in their destitution begat affection between the dominie and the widow, and they were married. Then the dame bore the honors of the double name of Anneke Jansen Bogardus. Thenceforth her landed property was known as "the Dominie's Bowerie" or farm. They lived happily together until 1647, when Bogardus was lost at sea on his passage home from Holland in September of that year. He left his widow with four more children. The farm had been granted to Jansen by Van Twiller, and it was confirmed to Anneke by Stuyvesant in 1654. After the death of her husband Mrs. Bogardus went to Albany to live, where she died in 1663. Her will is among the public records there, dated January 29, 1663, by which she left her children and grandchildren all her real estate in equal shares, with a prior charge of one thousand guilders in favor of the children of the first marriage, "out of the proceeds of their father's place, viz., a certain farm on Manhattan Island bounded on the North River." The title to this farm was confirmed to these heirs by Richard Nicolls, the first English governor after New Netherland and New Amsterdam both became New York. This is the property (now worth many millions) concerning which there is so much litigation by Anneke Jansen's heirs. The curious reader will find other interesting particulars in relation to this matter in "Humbert vs . Trinity Church," 24 Wendell, page 587. Mrs. Waldo M. Potter (the wife of the late long time-honored editor of the Saratogian ) is also a descendant of Anneke Jansen.} Emanuel Gonzalez was immediately descended from a Spanish Huguenot of that name who came from Holland to New York in his own ship about 1690. The first permanent white inhabitant in Sullivan County, New York, is said to have settled there in the year 1700. His name was Don Manuel Gonzalez, and he is supposed to be the same person. {See French's New York Gazetteer , page 642, ed. 1860. The names of Emanuel Gonzalez and his son are found in a list of the freeholders of Ulster County in the year 1728, when they were living in the town of Kingston - The Documentary History of New York , vol. Iii., page 970.

About 1763 a proclamation was issued offering a reward for the apprehension of Jacobus Gonzalez and six others, all of Dutchess County, charged with high treason (Dunlap's History of New York , Appendix cxciii.) This Jacobus was no doubt grandson of the first Don Manuel and a brother of Joseph, and this proclamation may have induced the removal of Joseph from Dutchess County into the wilderness north of the Mohawk.} His grandson, Joseph, with his family, then consisting of his wife and four sons, with one hired man, was quietly residing upon this farm when the tragedy now to be related occurred.

A few miles east of Crane's Village, Capt. Tunis Swart then resided. On hearing the doleful tale, he lost no time in ordering out his company, but upon their refusing through fear to march, Swart, with young David, returned the same night as far back as the house. This they found undisturbed, but ascertained that the Indians had hastily retreated, bearing with them John and the servant and the scalps of the two victims - the latter being stuck upon two poles and carried in sight of the son. The next morning Swart carried the bodies into the log-house and tenderly covered them with blankets until the rites of sepulture could be properly performed. By this time, the country had been roused, and the settlers and militia, coming up from the Mohawk Valley, followed the retreating Indians as far as the Fish House; but losing the trail at this point, the pursuit was abandoned. {This massacre broke up the Gonzalez family. Rebecca, the oldest daughter, had previously, February 25, 1776, married Emanuel De Graff, who lived two miles east of Amsterdam. The mother and the surviving children removed to Schenectady, and left the farm in the wilderness temporarily abandoned. The younger children continued to reside in Schenectady for many years, but the mother died soon after, broken-hearted on account of the uncertain fate of her son John. The granddaughter of David is now the wife of Commander Constable of the United States Navy, and yet resides in Schenectady. A granddaughter of Rebecca is the wife of Hon. P.R. Toll of Glenville, Schenectady County, N.Y.}

Although peace was declared about a year after his capture, he was forced to remain two years longer in the service of those he detested, obtaining his release in the spring of 1785. Being a youth of great courage, and unusual intelligence and energy of character, he became a favorite with his officers. With a view to encourage settlers, and perhaps also to make a partial atonement for the sufferings which he had undergone, the British authorities offered land to each soldier who chose to remain under the English rule. The land thus offered to young Gonzalez was upon the site of the present city of Kingston. But although only eighteen years of age, he had seen too much of the Tories to cast in his lot with them. He accordingly rejected their offer with contempt, saying: "All I want of your land is enough to walk on until I get off from it!" and, as good as his word, he straightway returned, yet a mere boy, to the Mohawk valley. {His name was entered on the rolls of the British army as Consalus ; and it has been so spelled by his descendants ever since.} The first relative he found was his sister, Mrs. De Graff, whose descendants yet reside on the same farm near Amsterdam.

His father, who met with so tragical an end, had previously contracted for about fifteen hundred acres of the best land in the county of Saratoga, but not having, at the time of his death, made sufficient payment to secure the title, the estate was lost. John, however, on arriving at his majority, bought a portion of the land, where he and his descendants have since resided. He built the first frame building in the south-west portion of the county. In 1791, he married Dorcas Hogan of Albany, by whom he had twelve children, and died October 8, 1823. He was succeeded in the homestead - near the scene of the tragedy - by his son Emanuel, who died January 31, 1872. {Mrs. E.F. Bullard, of Saratoga Springs, is a daughter of this Emanuel.}