asting a
crabapple, it is said, Brant puckered up his mouth, and exclaimed, "It
is as bitter as a Presbyterian!" While in other parts of the country
many churchmen espoused the cause of American independence, it happened
that in the Susquehanna region the patriots were generally Calvinists.

[Illustration: JOSEPH BRANT

From the portrait by Romney]

Another contributory cause of trouble between the Indians and
frontiersmen had to do with the lands around the Mohawk villages,
concerning which there had been frequent disputes since the Fort Stanwix
treaty.[36]

In May, 1777, Brant established himself with a band of Indian warriors
and some Tories at Unadilla, driving out the settlers, and serving
notice upon all that they must either leave the country or declare
themselves for the English cause. At a conference held among officers of
the American forces it was decided that General Nicholas Herkimer, the
military chief of Tryon county, (which then included the region that
later became Otsego county), should go to Unadilla to parley with the
Indians. Herkimer, with 380 men, came down from Canajoharie through
Cherry Valley to Otsego Lake, and thence along the Susquehanna River to
Unadilla, which he reached late in June. Thus the Indian trail which
passed near Council Rock was first used as the path of the paleface
warriors.

The conference at Unadilla found the Indians fully determined for the
British cause, and came to an abrupt termination, beneath darkened
skies, amid a hubbub of Mohawk war-whoops and the rattle of a sudden
hailstorm that swooped down upon the assemblage. Herkimer marched his
men back to Cherry Valley.[37]

Six weeks later the battle of Oriskany was fought, a victory for the
militia of Tryon County, but a costly victory, for it inflamed their
hitherto lukewarm Indian enemies with the spirit of revenge, and set in
motion the forces of border warfare which during the next five years
desolated the frontier. The forays along the border had a direct
relation to the central conflict of the Revolutionary War. With the
Indians for allies it was the policy of the British to harry the
settlers on the frontier, in order to draw away to their defense forces
that were essential to the strength of the Americans in the Hudson
Valley. Aside from motives of private vengeance among Indians and
Tories, this was the military purpose which determined the burning of
Springfield, at the head of Otsego Lake, in June, 177