| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| James N. |
Posted - November 22 2009 : 3:06:10 PM
In what is a very modern-looking cemetery on the northern outskirts of the town of Fort Edward, N. Y. there is a plot containing the graves of two legendary but otherwise-unrelated characters, Major Duncan Campbell and Jane McCrea. Campbell, of the 42d Highlanders and mortally wounded in Abercrombie's foolhardy head-on assault on Montcalm's works at Ticonderoga in 1758, was the subject of a famous "ghost story" and subsequently a once well-known poem by Robert Louis Stevenson. It tells how his death at some then-unknown location with that strange name was foretold by the ghost of a murdered relative whose death he failed to avenge.
The twentysomething ( NOT 17, like it says on her headstone! ) Jane McCrea figures large in the Saratoga campaign as the fiance of a Tory officer with Burgoyne's invading army who was apparently murdered by the very Indians sent to bring her safely to the British camp. ( There is also the possibility she was killed by a stray shot from an American rifleman, then scalped by her erstwhile "protector", called the Wyandot Panther, who couldn't resist taking her scalp. ) In either case, the scalp was recognized by her fiance who protested in vain to Burgoyne for justice. The upshot of it all is that at the directon of the American commander Horatio Gates, her death was made a rallying cry for the militia who flocked to his army to "avenge" her despite her Tory leanings; one of the first instances of successful "wartime propaganda"!
Both sleep today here in the same plot beneath what I was surprised to discover are brand-NEW headstones which mimic the originals I'd seen before. ( Presumeably to protect and preserve them - I'd seen quite a bit of the evidence of acid rain on some of these old stones. ) The text has been copied faithfully, including the mistake about her age. Campbell's was a typical late 18th century stone; McCrea's dated from the mid-19th century. A little further south in the town are two monuments, one showing the location of the house she was in when taken by the Indians; and only a few yards away another shows where she died.
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A little farther south on the way out of town stands a rather modest-looking structure known as the Old Fort House due it supposedly having timbers and other matierials from Ft. Edward used in its construction. Built in the 1770's following the F&I War by a Tory named Smyth, its visitors list reads like a "Who's Who" of the Revolution: It served successively as headquarters for Generals Schuyler and Gates while commanding the Northern Department, and was visited by Benedict Arnold and John Stark. When the Americans retreated after the fall of Ticonderoga, it was occupied by Burgoyne as British headquarters during the advance to Saratoga, hosting among others, Baron Riedesel, commander of the German contingent, and his vivacious Baroness ( known to the British troops as "Red Hazel" ) and their 3 daughters! Still later, "George Washington slept here" during a tour of the northern battlefields in 1783.
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| Kan-Tuck-EE |
Posted - November 22 2009 : 9:46:47 PM
Thanks James! Very interesting! |
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