Friends of the Clyde Blockhouse
Land of the Iroquois
The area that is now the Town of Galen was once part of the Iroquois Confederacy. The area's history is closely tied to that of Sodus Bay. The boundary between the Seneca and Cayuga Nations was a line drawn south from Sodus Bay, then known as the “Bay of the Cayugas”. The line crossed the Clyde River at or near the present Village of Clyde. The river was shown on maps as early as 1657. It was in that year that the French Jesuit mission of Saint Rene was founded near the Iroquois town of Onontare, in what is now the Town of Savannah. The mission of St. Rene was short-lived, as the French fought intermittently with the Iroquois for many years. In the summer of 1687 the Marquis Denonville led a French army of 3,000 soldiers, militia and Indian allies against the Senecas. The army camped at Sodus Bay on July 8th, and built a fort at Irondequoit Bay on July 12th. On July 13th, the French fought a battle with the Seneca at Ganondagan (Victor, NY) and destroyed over 100 Indian houses and large amounts of corn. Following the French invasion, the Seneca Indians relocated their principal village near the foot of Seneca Lake, and the Indian trail shifted to the Clyde River. In 1701, the Iroquois made peace with the French and remained neutral during Queen Anne’s War (1702-1713). In 1709, the French Indian agent Louis-Thomas Chabert De Joncaire assassinated another Frenchman named Louis Couc Dit Montour, on the orders of the governor of New France. Montour, who was half French and half Algonkian, was employed by the English to bring"Far Indians" from the Upper Midwest to trade at Albany. Montour's murder, which nearly caused war between the Iroquois and French, took place at “Ossaroda”, which was “upon the Creek that lyes opposite Cayouge”. This creek was the Clyde River, and Ossaroda (Sodoms) was the rendezvous and campsite of French fur traders, now known as Clyde.
Governor Burnet's Expeditions, 1721-26
In 1721, Governor Burnet of the Province of New York sent an expedition to the interior of New York to make a settlement and establish trading posts for the opening of a fur trade with the western Indians. He dispatched Capt. Peter Schuyler, Jr., Lt. Jacob Verplank, Gilleyn Verplank, Johannis Visger, Jr., Harmanus Schuyler, Johannis Van den Bergh, Peter Groenandyck, and David Van der Heyden with orders to encourage trade with both the Indians and renegade French traders known as coureur des bois. The expedition left Albany in the fall of 1721 and built a blockhouse known as Fort Schuyler at Irondequoit Bay, staying during the winter of 1721-1722. During the summer of 1722, the expedition established a post at Sodus Bay. Captain Schuyler had heard of the place called Ossaroda, and on July 8th, he sent a party south into the woods led by some Onondaga Indians. Within a few hours they were upon the shore of a stream called “Muddy Waters” by the Indians, by settlers Ganargua or Mud Creek, and still later the Clyde River. They spent about a week putting up a blockhouse and then returned to the bay. A few days later, Capt. Schuyler received information of a plan to attack him at the bay by a party of French and Huron Indians. He left there and retook possession of the blockhouse, preparing for its defense (this probably involved building a log palisade). The party remained only a week, then went east down the river, guided again by Onondaga Indians. Immediately upon their return to Albany in September, 1722, another expedition was sent out, led by Major Abraham Schuyler. This party of 13 men was similarly instructed to trade among the Indians for a year, and to entice French traders. The Blockhouse was evidently built for their use and that of subsequent trading expeditions.
French & Indian War
The French and Indian War broke out in 1754. Having sided with the British, the Iroquois were concerned about another possible French invasion, and were persuaded to have forts built in their territory for defense. In 1756, several such forts were built by Sir William Johnson, at Canadesaga (Geneva) and other locations. The Cayugas were the last of the Six Nations to request such a fort, and the site chosen was Sodoms (Clyde). This strategic location guarded the trail from Sodus Bay, and a Cayuga Indian village was soon settled close by. The fort was built to the same plan as the one at Canadesaga. It was a rectangular stockade, about 100 feet by 200 feet, with walls 12 feet high and pierced with loopholes every 4 feet. It had a main gate of 3-inch thick planks and iron hinges. There were two 24’ square blockhouses with overhanging upper stories, at opposite corners of the stockade. Two 10’ square “half bastions” were located at the northeast and southwest corners, opposite the blockhouses. The fort was built for a garrison of 40 soldiers. Small cannon, called “swivel guns”, were to be installed at the fort. Such guns were usually 18” to 36” long, with a bore of 1” to 2”, and were often used at stockades. In about 1837, a similar gun was ploughed up in a field in Rose, 5 miles north of Clyde, on the old trail to Sodus Bay. This gun may have come from the fort at Clyde, or may be related to the Sullivan Campaign. Construction of the fort was begun around July 1756. Although it was substantially complete by September, it was not ready for troops. The fort was evidently completed in 1758 and garrisoned during the Niagara Campaign of 1759. The post was abandoned by January, 1764. The 1722 blockhouse was probably replaced in 1756, though it may have been repaired and re-occupied to save time and expense. Sodoms was described in the 1786 Geographical and Historical Dictionary of America and the West Indies as "A settlement of Indians of the province and country of the Iroquees [sic]; where the English have a fort and establishment, between the lake Ontario and river Seneca."
Revolutionary War
During the Revolution, the old fort fell into the hands of Butler’s Rangers, British Loyalists who, with their Indian allies raided the Colonial frontier. The Rangers’ main base of operations was at Fort Niagara, but they also had a military storehouse and barracks at Canadesaga. The Rangers used the Clyde Blockhouse as a depot for supplies brought from Canada via Sodus Bay. In the summer of 1779, a large American army, led by Gen. John Sullivan, was sent into Iroquois territory to destroy their homes and the corn that helped feed British forces. The Tories and Indians were routed in a battle at Newtown, near Elmira, and the American army quickly marched through the region, razing 40 Iroquois towns. An early tradition at Clyde, as was told by old trappers, is that in September 1779 a part of the American army proceeded to Lake Ontario, and on their return came through Galen. They said that Sullivan’s troops pursued a party of Butler’s Rangers, who apparently fled upriver in boats. About a mile west of the Blockhouse, and during a possible skirmish, the Rangers were forced to sink a cannon in the Clyde River. In the early years of settlement it was well known that a cannon was lost just west of Clyde “by Butler's men”, and that raftsmen passing through had touched it with their poles. Many residents claimed to have seen the cannon and in about 1840, several men went in search of the relic, but couldn’t find it. The swivel gun found in Rose also may have been left by Butler’s Rangers, or by Sullivan’s own troops; it was found under the roots of a tree dating to c. 1783. Though the main part of Sullivan’s army was no closer than 12 miles to Clyde, scouts are known to have ranged far and wide. Sodoms was shown on maps of the period, and the Ganargua Creek was mentioned during planning for the expedition. In his official report, Sullivan stated: “Every creek and river has been traced”. An entry in the journal of Lt. Beatty, dated Sept. 20, 1779, mentions an old French and Indian War fort located “on a brook”, and this may be a direct a reference to the Clyde Blockhouse. In March of 1781, Joseph Brant and a party of 150 Tories and Indians captured sixteen Patriots near Fort Stanwix. Heading to Ft. Niagara, the group camped “between Waterloo and Lyons”, perhaps in Galen.
Destruction of the Blockhouse
In 1781, New York authorized the “Military Tract” of two million acres to be reserved for veterans of the Revolutionary War. Some of those veterans had served in the Sullivan Campaign, and were drawn to the region by its fertile land and natural beauty. The area of Clyde was reserved for veterans of the Medical Corps, and that is the reason that the Town of Galen got its name, from the ancient Greek physician. After the Revolution, the British continued to hold a number of forts along the frontier, including Fort Ontario at Oswego. Indians still lived in the region, and it wasn’t surveyed until 1789. Prior to this, a group of land speculators, smugglers and former Tories, supported by a body of armed men, occupied the old blockhouse and squatted in the vicinity. In 1787 this group, the “Lessee Company”, signed a 999-year lease with the Indians. The State of New York, hearing of the group’s activities, passed a law in 1788 to nullify the land claim. The State then sent militia, led by Sheriff William Colbraith, to evict the group and destroy their buildings. Some of the squatters were arrested and the others driven away. During the raid, the blockhouse was burned. The first trickle of authorized settlers began arriving in 1789, and it was that same year that John Fellows of Sheffield, MA went on a trading expedition to Canada. He was turned away by the British at Oswego, and forced to head down the Seneca River to the Clyde River. Arriving at the site of the Blockhouse, he is said to have repaired the blockhouse and used it to store his goods while clearing a path to Sodus Bay to haul his boat. Fellows' bateau was the first American craft on the Great Lakes. Afterward, the location was used as a camping place by boatmen, hunters, trappers and other smugglers. The British at Oswego employed spies and armed patrols in an effort to thwart the smuggling, and prior to 1794 the site was visited by “marauding British soldiers”. The British relinquished Fort Ontario in 1796, and in 1798 the Clyde River or “Mud Creek” was declared an official highway. Settlers poured into the region, settling in Clyde circa 1809.