Backtracking: Back to the Revolution in New York

Hello readers! For the past 15 weeks, I've been engaged in researching and writing my graduate thesis. My thesis is about the social changes that the general public had to endure during the throws of the Revolution in New York State. During my time spent researching and writing, I've uncovered some little-known pieces of my local history, and I'm going to take the time here to share it with you. I hope you all enjoy this post about the murder of Jane McCrea.

John Vanderlyn's "Death of Jane McCrea", 1804

In Upstate New York, few tragedies have the cache that the Jane McCrea murder has obtained. This infamous tragedy would have a major effect on the American Revolution as it happened in New York and would also have an impact on the war in general.

New York would declare independence from Britain in 1776, but Upstate New York would not truly feel the effects of the war until 1777 when the British and the Continental armies found themselves heading towards Saratoga. For this reason, the people in Upstate New York were content to live their lives as if there was no war. The revolutionary fervor that was present in Manhattan was not present in the frontier lands of Upstate New York; however, in the summer of 1777, the armies of General Burgoyne and his Iroquois mercenaries were pressing southward from Canada through New York with the goal to divide the American colonies.

On July 27, 1777, a young woman named Jane McCrea was scalped in the vicinity of Fort Edward, New York. There are different stories about what happened that day. The first story is that Burgoyne’s Iroquois mercenaries were ravaging towns in the area and stopped near the garrison town of Fort Edward; upon seeing the mercenaries, Jane and her friend Sara McNeil hid in a closet or the basement of their house but the mercenaries found them and scalped them both. The second story and the most well-known was that Jane and Sara were making a journey north to a British camp to meet Jane’s fiancé David Jones so the pair could wed. Burgoyne heard about this and sent a pair of scouts to escort the women to the camp; however, as the scouts were escorting the women to the camp another set of mercenaries appeared and the Iroquois argued over who should bring the women to the camp. In the fighting, Sara was taken to the camp alone and Jane was scalped; when the mercenaries returned to the camp with the scalps, Sara recognized Jane’s distinctive hair and told Burgoyne what had happened. Burgoyne ordered an inquest and that Jane’s killer be brought to him; Wyandot Panther was brought to Burgoyne and told a different story than these: that Americans had ambushed the group and Jane had been killed by an American musket ball. David Jones recovered Jane’s body and she was buried near Fort Edward; however, her body would be moved a few times and examined by archaeologists before finally resting in the Union Cemetery in the Village of Fort Edward.

          The murder of the young Loyalist bride Jane McCrea would cause controversies between both sides of the Revolutionary conflict and on both sides of the Atlantic, changing the public perceptions of the home front war. The American leader General Gates would write Burgoyne a scathing letter, blaming him for the tragedy that befell Jane McCrea. Even Sir Edmund Burke, a Whig member of British Parliament, would use the tragedy to rail against the policies of the Crown, particularly when it came to allowing their generals and Native mercenaries run amuck. The Iroquois were seen as being indiscriminate killers and struck fear into everyone as it was unsure where their true loyalties lie if they were killing those who sided with the British cause, an act that would be repeated at the Cherry Valley Massacre in November 1778. The murder of Jane McCrea was used as propaganda against the British who had claimed that they would protect Loyalists from violence.

          Jane McCrea's murder would inspire New Yorkers to take up the Patriot cause and would grow the ranks of the Continental Army at a time when desertion was otherwise high; the death of this young Loyalist woman was highly sensationalized in the media that existed at the time, and the outrage surrounding her death grew so strong that many people in Upstate New York would choose sides when they were known for not having chosen sides earlier in the conflict—going from Loyalist or neutral parties to Patriots; to them, the Loyalist cause was no longer a cause worth supporting. This rush of enlistments would lead, in part, to the many Continental victories within the Saratoga Campaign.