Royalton raid | |||||||
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Part of the American Revolutionary War | |||||||
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Belligerents | |||||||
Great Britain Mohawks | Vermont Republic | ||||||
Commanders and leaders | |||||||
Lieutenant Richard Houghton | |||||||
Strength | |||||||
6 members of the 53rd Regiment of Foot 1 grenadier 300 Kanien’kehá:ka (Mohawk Indians) warriors from Kahnawà:ke, Quebec | At Randolph: 300 members of the Republic of Vermont militia | ||||||
Casualties and losses | |||||||
None | 4 killed 26 prisoners |
The Royalton raid was a British-led Indian raid in 1780 against various towns along the White River Valley in the Vermont Republic, and was part of the American Revolutionary War. It was the last major Indian raid in New England. [1]
In the early morning hours of October 16, 1780, Lieutenant Richard Houghton of 53rd Regiment of Foot and a single Grenadier, along with 300 Mohawk warriors from the Kahnawake Reserve in the British province of Quebec, attacked and burned the towns of Royalton, Sharon and Tunbridge along the White River in eastern Vermont. [2] This raid was launched in conjunction with other raids led by Major Christopher Carleton of the 29th Regiment of Foot along the shores of Lake Champlain and Lake George and Sir John Johnson of the King's Royal Regiment of New York in the Mohawk River valley. Four Vermont settlers were killed and twenty six were taken prisoner to Quebec. [3]
By the time the local militia could assemble, Houghton and his command were already on their way back north. The militia caught up with the raiders near Randolph, Vermont, and a few volleys were fired back and forth, but when Houghton said that the remaining captives might be killed by the Mohawks if fighting continued, the local militia let the raiders slip away. A plaque at the East Randolph cemetery marks the site of this event. [4]
The Hannah Handy (Hendee) monument, on the South Royalton town green, is a granite arch honoring a young mother who lost her young son in the raid, crossed the river, and successfully begged for the return of several children. With the assistance of one of the Mohawks, she caught up with Houghton's raiding party and begged him to release the young boys now being held by the Mohawk, partly appealing as a mother of one of the captives and partly by arguing that they wouldn't survive the trip to Canada and stating that their deaths would be on his hands. Houghton subsequently ordered the boys released to the woman for safe return to their families. The names of the boys she saved were: Michael Hendee, Roswell Parkhurst, son of Capt. Ebenezer Parkhurst, Andrew and Sheldon Durkee, Joseph Rix, Rufus and ___ Fish, Nathaniel Evans and Daniel Downer. [5]
The Green Mountain Boys were a militia organization established in 1770 in the territory between the British provinces of New York and New Hampshire, known as the New Hampshire Grants and later in 1777 as the Vermont Republic. Headed by Ethan Allen and members of his extended family, it was instrumental in resisting New York's attempts to control the territory, over which it had won de jure control in a territorial dispute with New Hampshire.
The Mohawk people are the most easterly section of the Haudenosaunee, or Iroquois Confederacy. They are an Iroquoian-speaking Indigenous people of North America, with communities in southeastern Canada and northern New York State, primarily around Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence River. As one of the five original members of the Iroquois League, the Mohawk are known as the Keepers of the Eastern Door – the traditional guardians of the Iroquois Confederation against invasions from the east.
John Butler was an American-born military officer, landowner, merchant and colonial official in the British Indian Department. During the American Revolutionary War, he was a prominent Loyalist who led the provincial regiment known as Butler's Rangers on the frontiers of New York and Pennsylvania. Born in Connecticut, he moved to New York with his family, where he learned several Iroquoian languages and worked as an interpreter in the fur trade. He was well-equipped to work with Mohawk and other Iroquois warriors who became allies of the British during the rebellion.
Butler's Rangers (1777–1784) was a Loyalist provincial military unit of the American Revolutionary War, raised by American loyalist John Butler. Most members of the regiment were Loyalists from upstate New York and northeastern Pennsylvania. Their winter quarters were constructed on the west bank of the Niagara River, in what is now Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario. The Rangers fought principally in New York and Pennsylvania, but ranged as far west as Ohio and Michigan, and as far south as Virginia and Kentucky.
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Lt.-Colonel Christopher Carleton (1749–1787) was born into an Ulster military family in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England. Christopher's parents died at sea when he was only four years old and his uncles, Guy Carleton, the future Governor General of Canada and Commander-in-Chief, North America, along with Thomas Carleton, later the 1st Governor of New Brunswick, saw to his education and upbringing. At the age of twelve, Chistopher joined the British Army as an ensign in the 31st Regiment of Foot. Before his first tour of duty in North America, Chistopher married Anne Howard, whose sister Maria was the wife of Guy Carleton. While in North America, Christopher Carleton met Sir William Johnson and lived among the Mohawk Indians, learning their language and partaking in their customs. He would remark in later life that the time spent living with the Mohawks was the happiest of his life. These skills would serve him well later. Christopher would be back in England when the American Revolutionary War broke out in 1775.
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