ple trees, and where Colonel Croghan, in 1769, had
built his hut, now became the scene of a military encampment. Lieut.
Beatty's journal describes the location of the various regiments in Camp
Lake Otsego, as it was called. Croghan's house, which stood near the
site of the present Clark Estate office, was used as a magazine, and
around it was encamped a company of artillery, under Capt. Thomas
Machin. Here also the stores were gathered. On the right of the
artillery, facing the lake, the Fourth Pennsylvania Regiment was
encamped, while on the left were the tents of Colonel Peter Gansevoort's
Third New York Regiment. At the latter's rear, in the second line, was
the Fifth New York, under command of Col. Lewis Dubois; behind the
artillery camp lay Col. Alden's Sixth Massachusetts Regiment; and the
Fourth New York, under Lieut.-Col. Weissenfels, occupied the space at
the rear of the Fourth Pennsylvania. A few Oneida Indians came with Col.
Alden's regiment and encamped on the banks of the lake, where "they all
soon got drunk," says Beatty, "and made a terrible noise."

On the Fourth of July, which fell upon Sunday, the third anniversary of
the American Independence was celebrated at Camp Lake Otsego, General
Clinton "being pleased to order that all troops under his command
should draw a gill of rum per man, extraordinary, in memory of that
happy event." The troops assembled at three o'clock in the afternoon and
paraded on the bank at the south end of the lake. The brigade was drawn
up in one line along the shore, with the two pieces of artillery on the
right. The ceremony of the occasion is described by Lieut. van
Hovenburgh as a "fudie joy."[43] A salute of thirteen guns was fired by
the artillery, and three volleys from the muskets of the infantry, with
three cheers from all the troops after each fire. The troops were then
drawn up in a circle by columns on a little hill, and the Rev. John
Gano, a Baptist minister, chaplain of the brigade, preached from Exodus
xii, 14: "This day shall be unto you for a memorial ... throughout your
generations." After the dismissal of the troops, Col. Rignier, the
Adjutant General, gave an invitation to all the officers to come and
drink grog with him in the evening. "Accordingly," says Lieut. Beatty,
"a number of officers (almost all) assembled at a large Bowry which he
had prepared on the bank of the lake. We sat on the ground in a large
circle, and closed the day with a number of toasts