on a hill near Stanton Place in Florida, perhaps twenty miles
from Fort Paris, when he heard that that fort was to be attacked the
next morning. 'Tis said he sent a messenger with a letter to Colonel
Brown and another to Colonel Dubois at Fort Plain, telling Brown to
march out of the fort at nine o'clock the next morning and hold the
enemy in check, while Dubois and he with his force were to co-operate.
Furthermore, it is said, Brown's officers and men advised him to
disobey the order, as that was not the time to leave the fort.
However, he marched forth at the head of his detachment, but, being
deceived by the false advice of persons pretending to be patriots, he
was led to turn aside from the road upon which he marched out into a
somewhat narrow clearing in the forest near a small work called Fort
Keyser, and was killed nearly two miles from Fort Paris, being
attacked on every side in what amounted to an ambuscade.

Captain John Ziele, of the Second Regiment of Tryon County militia,
Colonel Klock's Regiment, had charge of Fort Keyser that day; and
after Brown's defeat George Spraker, John Wafel, Joseph and Conrad
Spraker, William Wafel, and Warner (?) Dygert, with two or three other
young men, were ready to defend the place from attack, but the enemy
fled, whereupon William Wafel, Joseph and Conrad Spraker, and W.
Dygert proceeded to where Brown lay and carried his body to Fort
Keyser. His scalp was entirely removed, and he was stripped of all
his clothing excepting a ruffled shirt. After hard fighting, thirty
men or more being killed, some of his men got back to Fort Paris and
defended themselves successfully, thus saving the refugees therein
from harm. Major Root was in command, and acted skilfully and bravely.
Mr. Grider describes the battle as a running or moving fight extending
from the eastward to the south-west at least across six farms, and you
all know how valuable the evidence is showing that the large boulder
with its inscription was the stone behind which six men found refuge
and shelter until surrounded and killed.

Washington wrote to the Continental Congress: "It is thought, and
perhaps not without foundation, that this invasion [of the Mohawk
Valley] was made by Sir John Johnson upon the supposition that
Arnold's treachery was successful."

If Johnson acted upon that supposition, Arnold was in some measure the
cause of Brown's death, but, however that may be, _John Brown died
honorably after living