New-York tribune., 1922-09-03

Hv 4 Cl tieSu . AeaA aNS'saeAi Aea $500 $3.50, -
sn;rit. relief from the self-made con-
Il a;css Of capital and labor over the spoiis
II industrial warfare, draw sight draft
{ :. sour imagination and travel back 100 years
!. NJ beautiful Mohawk Valley to Johnstown,
: 81 tifen our western frontier.
Those were the days when old Tryon County,
....sa after the most remorseless Tory OF
...ra all. earned the name Of THE Dark and
,,.,ar Ground; when Scotch, Irish and Eng
,:.h Dutch, Indians and Germans in an ago
.s,ins struggle gave birth to nation; when
~ fought hunger, cold and sudden death
u av,hnsh and struggled with nature for
..&sxsar;es. their shotguns always handy
Il nav make your easy chair feel bit un-
..,sfortable. and il SO buy ticket to Johns
.own, where historic pageant will be staged
= septenber 8 and that will make you see
marc vividly still those pre-Revolutionary days
raov French and Indians were the dreaded
soss and there Sir William johnson IN l76l
hr;I+ for himself stately hone buttressed
-. h,o.tbouses Of stone, with loopholes and
underground passages but more completely
nrotectea by the trust and affection won from
tbs indians by his fair dealing, wisdom and
personal charm.
The 150th anniversary Of the building of
Yhs AID courthouse in Johnstown and the found
,rc of Tryon County is the occasion for this
,aosant. for Sir William brought it to COM
nJetjon on September 8, 1772. Built of Hol-
land brick, the first brick building built west
II Albany, it is the only courthouse of such
Vas for many year the only one in the strip
of country between Albany and the Pacific.
Those were the days before there was an
American flag, SO there will be no Stars and
Stripes flying in the two days. pagenatry, and
perhaps nothing could keep it so poignantly in
mind as this historical absence.
For Tryon County, at the siege Of Fort
stanwix in 1777, saw the first unfurling Of
the Stars and Stripes after its adoption by the
Continental Congress on June ID. Shirts wer,
torn up for the white stripes, bits of scarlet
cloth used for the red and the cloth coat of
stanch German captain, Abraham Swartwout,
furnished blue for the mosaic-work standard
Of the beleaguered garrison. Note, too, in pass
ing that the first Liberty pole in the Mohawk
Valley went up on German Flats" and was
cut down by the Tories. History certainly
makes stranger bedfellows than politics!
But we must get back to Sir Williams time,
strongly as the Revolutionary echoes of Johns
town may lure one. 1t was his personality,
astuteness, never-failing fairness and his quiet
dignity that gave William Johnson, baro-
net, his power over the Indians-a power that
was one of the largest determining fac
tors in the English victory in the French and
Indian War, victory which decided that
North America should be Anglo-Saxon rather
than Latin. 1t is said that his word was
law among the red men and that he was the
only white man they ever implicitly trusted
and that in August, 1850, more than thousand
roquois, the largest force of the kind ever
assembled, moved with Sir William in the
expedition against Montreal, the last French
foothoId.
10 complete his power the great Ottawa
chieI surrendered to him in 1866, after ter
rorizlng the frontier for three years, and
aoAy Brant daughter of a Mohawk chief
'ain ana granddaughter of one of the Indian
A.nss VINO accompanied Colonel Philip Schuy-
'ef 70 England during Queen Anne's time)
Presided Ike the beauty and princess she was,
over Sir Williams home for manv wears as
.'' common law wife, bearing him nine chill
dren. This alliance further cen,en+ed +be bond
ss'"eeh tne Indians and the wise Sir William.
snd peace reigned in the valley whore terror
aad been.
Later the disgraceful murder of notable
-A1'shs oy certain lawless whites in the Ohio
sectlon, IN violation of all treaty
sieethents' caused the Mingo and shawanese
s'sAs 70 Deg their brothers, the Iroquois of
- OK Nations, to take up the hatcheto
rsa'Ass tne whites. But they would make no
s'iahe with the Western tribes until they
adQ cOunSead u,;tL