LIFE ON THE FRONTIER

The Mohawk Valley is one of only three natural corridors across the Appalachian Mountains. This range of mountains provided a  buffer between the French colonies and the English colonies. Consequently, the Mohawk Valley was hotly contested until the end of the French and Indian War in 1763.

Both sides had Indian allies.  The French allied with the "Northern" Indians mostly of Algonquin lineage while the English were allied with the Iroquois.  Frictions with the French colonies grew until February 8, 1690 when a French and Indian raiding party attacked the settlement.  Then, entered the unguarded stockade gate in the middle of the night with a combined force of 114 French and 96 Indians. Inside, they slaughtered sixty of the sleeping residents.

Sixty seven were taken prisoner, the settlers homes were pillaged and burned.   Only four were known to survive.   One of these was Symon Schermerhoorn who rode to warn the settlement at Albany -- twenty miles distant.  Another, Adam Vrooman had to watch as his infant child and wife were brutally murdered.

Again in 1748 the French and Indians ambushed the river crossing settlement of Beukenkaal (three miles west of Schenectady).  This attack is often viewed by historians as the first shot of the later French and Indian war which summarily ended the French Colonial period in North America.

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