Betrayed by a Mason? The Tragic Mission of Lieutenant Thomas Boyd
by Michael Karpovage - Author of Crown of Serpents
Moments before deploying on the longest military campaign of the Revolutionary War,
Freemason Thomas Boyd was given a final ultimatum by his repeatedly spurned and
pregnant lover. In front of his superior officers she warned Boyd, a lieutenant
with Morgan’s Rifle Corps of the Continental Army, “If you go off without marrying
me, I hope and pray to the great God of heaven that you will be tortured and cut
to pieces by the savages.” An embarrassed Boyd, his pride tarnished, responded by
drawing his sword and threatening to stab her unless she removed herself.[1] She acquiesced.
Unfortunately for the young lieutenant, he should have heeded her ominous prediction
for that was exactly the fate that befell him.
Thomas Boyd’s death was one of the most heinous acts of torture and murder recorded
during the Revolutionary War. Did it really occur because of the curse of a scorned
lover? If you believe that centuries’ old quote, “Heav’n has no rage, like love
to hatred turn’d, nor Hell a fury like a woman scorn’d,”[2] then you might believe
there was a divine retribution against Boyd.
But historical evidence, direct from battlefield participants, tells a different
story. Boyd’s death was not the result of a spurned lover’s curse; rather it was
a classic example of Masonic brothers pitted against each other on opposite sides
of a battle. Their beliefs, duties, and loyalties were put to the ultimate test
to uphold Freemasonry’s most sacred tenet: relief of a distressed brother. For upon
Boyd’s capture at the end of his ill-fated final mission, he made the ultimate gesture
of a Freemason when he feared for his life. He asked a highly unlikely enemy Freemason
for protection and surprisingly he received it. However, his relief was short-lived
when another enemy Freemason stepped into the picture. Soon thereafter Boyd experienced
exceedingly brutal acts of torture and finally, death. And herein lies the question:
was Thomas Boyd – along with the most sacred tenet of Freemasonry – deliberately
betrayed by a fellow Mason whose loyalties to a King meant more than saving the
life of a brother?
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Military portrait of England’s King George III by Sir William Beechey.
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The Mission
In the summer of 1779, Major General John Sullivan marched his 5,000 Continentals
into the Finger Lakes region of New York. Known as Sullivan’s Expedition, it was
ordered by General George Washington as an invasion into Iroquois Confederacy lands
in retaliation for several brutal massacres by British Rangers and Indian warriors.
This enemy force had conducted a terror campaign against American frontier settlements
supporting the fledgling rebel army. Washington wanted all enemy villages and crops
destroyed – a scorched earth policy to disrupt the Tory’s, and their Indian allies’
ability to wage war. Sullivan had, for the last two months, executed his orders
to the fullest by destroying over 40 villages and soundly defeating his enemy at
the Battle of Newtown on the New York-Pennsylvania border. His foes had since retreated
back into their wilderness lands. Leading Sullivan’s troops, acting as his eyes
and ears, were the famous scouts of Morgan’s Rifles. Thomas Boyd led a company of
these marksmen and pushed miles ahead of the main army on the heels of their fleeing
enemy, sometimes entering villages where corn still boiled in a kettle.
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Military portrait of England’s King George III by Sir William Beechey.
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On September 12, 1779 the army marched toward the Seneca Indian stronghold of Genesee
Castle – also known as Little Beard’s Town, after the Seneca chief who lived there.
It was their last campaign objective. Upon reaching Conesus Lake the army halted
and encamped because of a destroyed bridge over a marshy area. Across that bridge
and leading west up a forested ravine-filled bluff ran several Indian trails to
the objective. But the correct path remained unclear to Sullivan because of inaccurate
maps and unreliable intelligence. A nighttime reconnaissance mission to locate the
proper trail was ordered.
Sullivan knew the scout leader Boyd was a man of daring disposition and summoned
him to his tent. He gave Boyd specific orders to select four of his most trustworthy
scouts to locate the correct path to the objective, make no enemy contact, and report
back before daylight. Although described as reliable, courageous, and honorable,
Boyd was also reckless, cocky, and overconfident. On this assignment his latter
character traits resulted in a series of deadly mistakes. Instead of taking the
specified four men, Boyd defied direct orders and took 26 men and two Oneida Indian
guides – hardly the stealthy unit called for. This fateful decision led to the deaths
of most of the men in his party.
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A Brant Volunteer and a Butler Ranger. Painted by Garth Dittrick, 1984.
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On the opposite side of the battlefield, positioned in the area Boyd was about to
penetrate, was Colonel John Butler, a Tory and the leader of Butler’s Rangers. Butler
was a Freemason. His unit was based out of Fort Niagara with an area of operations
that included the western New York and the Pennsylvania wilderness. His son, Walter,
was a captain with the Rangers and was notorious for his inhumane acts on battlefield
victims.
Allied with the Rangers were Brant’s Volunteers, a contingent of Iroquois warriors
and white Tory frontiersmen, led by Chief Joseph Brant, a Mohawk Indian and captain
in the British Army. He was also the first Native American on record to become a
Freemason.[3] Prior to their defeat at Newtown, the Rangers and Indians were undeniably
the fiercest combination of guerilla fighters in the Revolutionary War. But Brant
often did not get along with Butler, due to the barbarous acts at the hands of the
younger Walter. Although they distrusted each other and vied for power, they worked
for a common cause – to kill rebel soldiers and civilians who supported independence
from King George III’s colonies. During their reign of terror, these guerillas murdered,
dismembered, scalped and kidnapped many American settlers. They slew livestock and
burned down villages. Yet the leaders blamed each other for the atrocious acts of
the troops under their command. They became infamous figures despised by the Americans,
each earning a price on his head. It wasn’t until the massacres at Wyoming Valley
in Pennsylvania and Cherry Valley in New York that George Washington finally issued
orders for an allout campaign to destroy this continued threat. In his orders to
Sullivan, Washington directed him “to lay waste all the settlements around…that
the country may not be merely overrun but destroyed [emphasis in the original].”[4]
Boyd’s party of 29 scouts set out on the path west toward Genesee Castle on the
early morning hours of September 13. At the same time, Butler and Brant had planned
an ambush on that same bluff above Sullivan’s army; when the engineers had fixed
the bridge and the Continental troops proceeded up, they would pounce. After cresting
the bluff, the trail split and fate took over. In the darkness, Boyd’s men actually
passed the Rangers and Indians on a parallel trail traveling in the opposite direction,
neither knowing of the other’s presence.
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1879 map showing Sullivan’s march on last objective and Boyd ambush, named after town of Groveland. Labels in red added by author.
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Six miles behind enemy lines – still in darkness – Boyd’s party discovered a recently
deserted Indian village with fires still burning inside the huts. Fatigued from
the long night march, they hunkered down for the night. When daylight broke, Boyd
and his two best sharpshooters, the famous Indian fighter Timothy Murphy along with
James Elliot, snuck close to the village and observed two Indians approaching. One
Indian was on horseback. The other led a cow. Murphy and Elliot fired simultaneously.
Murphy killed the walking Indian – an old Tuscarora. The other, though seriously
wounded, escaped.[5] Murphy then ran up on his victim and took his thirty-third scalp.
It is not known if Boyd ordered his men to shoot. Regardless, contact with the enemy
was made under his leadership. It would be his second fatal mistake. Realizing his
position was compromised, he sent two runners back to report the location of the
village, the killing of the Indian, and the return of his detachment.[6]
As the scouting party retraced their path back east and just two miles from the
safety of the main army, Hon Yost, one of their experienced Oneida Indian guides,
found a different trail leading off to the southeast. He urged Boyd to take this
route instead of their original one north toward the ravine, but Boyd disregarded
his advice.[7] Their party then discovered five enemy Indians retreating from them
in plain sight. Yost knew this was a ruse to invite pursuit and urged Boyd not to
follow for fear of ambush. Again, Boyd overruled his guide – the third fatal error.
The party gave chase and Murphy caught up and fired a ball in the trailing Indian’s
back. He then coolly pulled another scalp and stole his victim’s leggings, which
were of good scarlet colored cloth.[8] The chase continued. The Indians successfully
lured Boyd’s party closer to their main force laying in wait for ambush not a mile
up from the repaired bridge. Among the British forces, Butler heard the approaching
firing on his right flank and thought his ambush had been discovered. He shifted
his men and to his surprise found a rebel detachment running toward him. Before
he was aware of it, Boyd blindly led his own men into the embrace of 500 Rangers
and Iroquois warriors; he was surrounded.
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Morgan’s Rifle Corps reenactor in similar dress of Boyd’s scouts.
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Boyd’s party took cover in a small grove on a knoll with clear fields of fire. He
realized his only chance of escape was to compact his force and strike in mass at
a given point to cut through the enemy line. The first volley downed many of the
enemy without the loss of a single scout. But the enemy ranks closed. After the
second volley and return fire, the scouts started dropping. Handto- hand combat
ensued. The firing was so close that the black powder of the enemy’s muskets was
driven into their flesh.[9] With the majority of his men now dead and Boyd injured
with a shot through his side, he ordered a final charge. Murphy led the rush and
tumbled a larger Indian warrior who blocked his path before several of the scouts
beat their way through and ran for their lives. Two Indians pursued Murphy; he eventually
outran them but not before pausing to cut off his earlier stolen leggings, which
proved too small and hampered his flight. Again set upon by another bloodthirsty
warrior, Murphy put a ball through his breast, killing him instantly before finally
reaching the safety of the main camp and raising the alarm. Two other scouts hid
under a log in the tall grass back on the knoll and went unnoticed before also making
their way back to the main army.[10] Boyd tried to follow through the breach but his
wound hindered his escape. He and two other men, Sergeant Michael Parker and their
guide Yost, were taken prisoner. Yost’s own Indian brother (who fought with Brant)
recognized him and a confrontation ensued. Chief Little Beard stepped up and slammed
a tomahawk in Yost’s skull.[11] He was then hacked to pieces by the vengeful Indians
for being a traitor. It was at this moment that Boyd asked for an audience with
Brant, whom he knew to be a Freemason, in a last desperate attempt to save himself
from death. The Rangers and Indians ripped scalps off Boyd’s fallen men, picked
up their wounded and dead, and started a hasty retreat back to Genesee Castle. Boyd
found himself in the clutches of his enemy and fearing for his life.
The Sign
Continental Army First Sergeant John Salmon, a friend and fellow soldier in Boyd’s
company, described the incident. “When Lieut. Boyd found himself a prisoner, he
solicited an interview with Brant, whom he well knew commanded the Indians. This
chief, who was at that moment near, immediately presented himself; when Lieut. Boyd,
by one of those appeals which are known only by those who have been initiated and
instructed in certain mysteries, and which never fail to bring succor to a ‘distressed
brother’, addressed him as the only source from which he could expect a respite
from cruel punishment or death. The appeal was recognized, and Brant immediately,
and in the strongest language, assured him that his life should be spared.”[12]
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Joseph Brant portrait by George Romney, 1776.
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This
account was confirmed by Brant’s adopted nephew and close confidant British Major
John Norton is his 1816 journal when he wrote, “Capt. Brant used every endeavour
to save Capt. Boyd.”[13]
Salmon’s well-documented letter, one of the main sources
of Boyd’s Masonic appeal, appeared in the appendix of Life of Mary Jemison, the
White Woman, a best-selling memoir originally printed in 1824. It was said, but
not proven, that Salmon was one of the scouts who escaped the ambush. But there
is no evidence to suggest he was an actual witness to this important exchange, rather
he may have simply passed the story along. However, Mary Jemison, who was kidnapped
at the age of 15 and raised by the Seneca Indians, was living at Little Beard’s
Town at the time. She knew the Butlers, Brant, and many of the Rangers and Indian
warriors. She was 36 years old when this incident occurred and did witness the torture
deaths of Boyd and Parker. Her account corroborates Salmon’s letter.
Boyd’s gamble that Brant would uphold the sacred tenet of the fraternity was well
founded. Brant was known as a worthy brother Mason who kept his word through his
actions. Raised and educated in Tory schools, Brant was a man of many quality attributes:
civilized, intelligent, charismatic, and a persuasive English orator. He was also
a brave and brutal war chief, a battlefield leader of men, and loyal to the British
cause. He was considered the epitome of the noble savage and had even visited London
where he was received as the “Indian King.” On April 26, 1776 Brant was initiated
into the fraternity at Hiram’s Cliftonian Lodge No. 417 in Leicester Fields, London.[14]
He had the distinct honor of having his Masonic apron presented to him from the
hand of King George III himself.[15]
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Butler’s Rangers and Brant’s Volunteers during the Wyoming Valley Massacre of 1778. Painting by Alonzo Chappel, 1858.
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Brant’s legend of upholding Masonic honor on the battlefield came from an earlier
incident following the Battle of the Cedars in late May 1776. He was alleged to
have saved a rebel Mason from execution after the surrender of American troops.
Captain John McKinstry, wounded and facing burning at the stake, recalled that Brant
was a Freemason and gave the Masonic sign of a brother in distress. Brant accepted
the sign and secured McKinstry’s release and resulting fair treatment. After the
war they remained good friends. Brant was even honored at McKinstry’s Hudson Lodge
No. 13 in Hudson, NY.[16] Members of McKinstry’s family vouched for this story during
author William Stone’s research for his biography Life of Joseph Brant-Thayendanegea.
However, there is one major fallacy to this account: Joseph Brant was clearly in
England at the time! In fact, he was about to set sail from Falmouth on the merchantman
Lord Hyde. He arrived back to British-held Staten Island in New York on July 29,
1776.[17] Another possible explanation was that the saving of McKinstry did not occur
at Cedars in Canada but instead at the Battle of Oriskany in New York on August
6, 1777 where Brant was definitely present on scene.
Two more stories were attributed to Brant saving his rebel prisoners before death.
One story came directly from Lieutenant Jonathan Maynard. On May 30, 1778 he was
captured by Brant’s Mohawks and said that Brant recognized a Masonic tattoo on his
arm and interceded.[18] The other story revolved around Captain John Wood on July
22, 1779. He was the sole survivor of 40 dead after an engagement between Brant’s
Indians and American militia on the Delaware River. After being taken prisoner he
supposedly gave the Masonic hail sign and Brant personally intervened and saved
him, as well. However, after finding later that Wood was in fact not a Mason Brant
treated him with contempt. Years later, Wood’s son said that his father had inadvertently
given the signal.[19] In both cases, Brant sent the prisoners of war to Canada where
they were held for several months and then exchanged for British prisoners. One
of the first acts that Wood did upon his return was to become a Freemason.[20]
Torture Death
Boyd and Parker were escorted back to Genesee Castle where the rest of the Rangers
and Indians had retreated after Sullivan’s forces responded to Boyd’s surprise ambush.
Inexplicably, their protector Brant disappeared from the scene. Salmon described
what happened next,
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After their arrival at Beard’s Town, Brant, their generous preserver, being called
on service which required a few hours’ absence, left them in the care of the British
Colonel, Butler, of the Rangers – who, as soon as Brant had left them, commenced
an interrogation to obtain from the prisoners a statement of the number, situation,
and intentions of the army under Gen. Sullivan; and threatened them, in case they
hesitated or prevaricated in their answers, to deliver them up immediately to be
massacred by the Indians, who, in Brant’s absence, and with the encouragement of
their more savage commander, Butler, were ready to commit the greatest cruelties.
Relying, probably, on the promises which Brant had made them, and which he undoubtedly
meant to fulfill, they refused to give Butler the desired information. Butler, upon
this, hastened to put his threat into execution. They were delivered to some of
their most ferocious enemies, who, after having put them to very severe torture,
killed them by severing their heads from their bodies.[21]
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In the recollection of eyewitness Mary Jemison, 80 years old during interviews for
her memoir, she described the torture of Boyd:
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Little Beard, in this as in all other scenes of cruelty that happened at his town,
was master of ceremonies, and principal actor. Poor Boyd was stripped of his clothing,
and then tied to a sapling; where the Indians menaced his life, by throwing their
tomahawks at the tree directly over his head, brandishing their scalpingknives around
him in the most frightful manner, and accompanying their ceremonies with terrific
shouts of joy. Having punished him sufficiently in this way, they made a small opening
in his abdomen, took out an intestine, which they tied to the sapling, and then
unbound him from the tree, and drove him round it, till he had drawn out the whole
of his intestines. He was then beheaded, his head was stuck upon a pole, and his
body left on the ground unburied. Thus ended the life of poor Thomas Boyd, who,
it was said, had every appearance of being an active and enterprising officer, of
the first talents. The other was, if I remember distinctly, only beheaded, and left
near Boyd.[22]
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Another account described the torture in even greater detail.
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The prisoners were seized, stripped and bound to trees, and severely whipped with
prickly ash boughs. The Indians commenced a series of horrid cruelties directed
especially toward Thomas. When all was ready Little Beard lifted his hatchet, stained
with recent blood, and with steady aim sent it whistling through the air and in
an instant it quivered within a hair’s thickness of Thomas’s head. The younger Indians
were now permitted to follow the chief ’s example, and from right, front and left
their bright tomahawks cleaved the air and trembled above the unflinching persons
of the victims. Wearied at length of this work a single blow severed Parker’s head
from his body, and mercifully ended his misery. Poor Thomas however was reserved
for a worse fate. An incision was made in his abdomen and a severed intestine was
fastened to a tree. He was then scourged with prickly ash boughs, and compelled
to move around until the pain was so great that he could go no farther. Again pinioned
his mouth was enlarged with a knife, his nails dug out, his tongue cut away, his
ears severed from his head, his nose hewn off and thrust into his mouth, his eyes
dug out and the flesh cut from his shoulder, and then sinking in death after their
enormities, he was decapitated and his disfigured head after being partly skinned
raised by the frenzied savages upon a sharpened pole and a knife stuck into body
when it was found.[23]
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The Betrayal?
Was this atrocity the result of a deliberate act of betrayal? There is substantial
evidence to suggest that Boyd was not the resolute Patriot he was portrayed to be
but instead broke under interrogation after being threatened with death. According
to this letter excerpt from Butler to the commandant of Fort Niagara, Lieutenant
Colonel Mason Bolton, on the day after the killings Butler specifically reported,
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I found that a Scout of the Rebels, 30 in number had fallen in with the Right of
our Line, and 22 of them been killed by the Rangers & Indians in that Quarter. A
Lieut. who commanded the Party and a Private were taken. The Officer who is a very
intelligent Person Says, their Army consists of near 5000 Continental Troops- 1500
of which are Rifle Men, commanded by General Sullivan and Brigadiers Hand, Poor
and Clinton. They have but a month’s Provisions, and intend, according to his account,
to come no further than Genesee- They have four Pieces of Cannon (the largest a
Six Pounder) a Cohorn [mortar] and a Howitzer- They are building a strong Fort at
Tioga and mean to keep a large Garrison there.[24]
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Colonel John Butler.
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Butler clearly stated that Boyd gave him the intelligence, which refuted Salmon’s
account. So why then, if Butler gained this crucial intelligence, would he still
turn Boyd over to the Indians? Some historians suggested that in the absence of
Brant he was forced to hand the captives over. It is possible he could not control
the Indians who were intent on revenge.25 However, if that were the case, it begs
the question: why didn’t the Indians allow Boyd and Parker to leave the ambush alive?
Another theory claimed the Indians wanted revenge on Boyd specifically for the “unnecessary
and cruel” killing of the old Tuscarora by Murphy in the deserted village. Yet the
Indians themselves killed men, women, and children by the same means. They stalked
them unseen, put a bullet or knife in their back, and then scalped them to show
how brave they were. No historical evidence backs up this claim.
However, the evidence clearly shows that Butler knew of Boyd’s Masonic protection
by the following justification: he said that any Masonic obligations were overruled
by the duty of an army officer to serve his King, and must not be invoked to protect
rebels.26 This was in direct defiance of the sworn obligation of a Freemason to
never deprive a fellow brother of his life or property, regardless of state loyalties.
The “savage” Brant comprehended and embraced that tenet. Butler did not. He never
played by the rules. He saw only one loyalty and that was to the British monarchy.
He and his son Walter had never confirmed nor denied responsibility of Boyd and
Parker’s deaths. According to Isabel Thompson Kelsay’s biography, Joseph Brant,
Man of Two Worlds, “Butler said nothing, then or later. The two Butlers, father
and son, never wanted to talk about atrocities they had seen.”27
In his 1901 book The Mohawk Valley, author W. Max Reid issued a scathing indictment
of Butler and his son.
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When their acts are compared with those of Joseph Brant, their deeds are the deeds
of savages, and Brant’s the acts of a noble, generous man. The Butlers appear to
have been, not only arrogant and supercilious in a high degree, but barbarous, treacherous,
revengeful, ferocious, merciless, brutal, diabolically wicked and cruel; with the
spirit of fiends they committed cruelties worthy of the dungeons of the Inquisition.
No wonder their lives are not attractive to historians.28
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Butler made another exculpatory statement. He claimed that after the examination
Boyd was escorted to Niagara, but as he passed through Genesee, “an old Indian rushed
out and tomahawked him.”29 Why fabricate this story when many individuals witnessed
and participated in the actual torture killing? Was this a way to cover the betrayal
he committed? The Continental soldiers who found the bodies the next day wrote of
the many marks of torture inflicted, but none remarked on a single tomahawk wound.
A direct contradiction to Butler’s claim that one Indian tomahawked Boyd came a
year later from the mouth of the Indian who said he led the party that captured
Boyd. In George Beck’s Wyoming, written in 1858, this condensed version asserts:
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On the 27th of March 1780, a party of Indians captured Lebbeus Hammond, Thomas Bennet
with his son Andrew, a lad of thirteen or fourteen years of age, in the Wyoming
Valley of Pennsylvania….The lead Indian said he led the party that took Thomas Boyd
up near the Genesee River, and he further said, ‘Boyd brave man – as good a soldier
as ever fought against the red man.’…He said they tortured Boyd, cut off his fingers
and toes, plucked out his eyes, etc., ‘still brave Boyd neither asked for mercy
nor uttered a complaint. Ah! ‘brave Boyd’ knew very well the character of the Indians…He
then brought out a sword and said, ‘There, Boyd’s sword.’ Hammond examined the sword
and discovered the initials of Thomas Boyd’s name stamped on the blade near the
hilt…That night Hammond, Bennet, and his son rose up on their captors, killed five
of seven of them as they slept, and made their flight safely back to Wyoming [Valley.]
The sword was brought away by Lebbeus Hammond, and was afterward presented to Lieutenant
Boyd’s brother, Colonel John Boyd.30
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Whatever way this tragedy is viewed, whether it was a woman’s curse or Boyd’s fatal
mistakes, the historical evidence showed that Butler was the key person ultimately
responsible for sentencing Boyd to death by the Indians. Ironically, the one person
who tried to save Boyd’s life was an Indian.
The day after this tragedy the Continentals entered Genesee Castle. There, as dogs
gnawed at the remains, they found the mutilated bodies of Boyd and Parker. They
were given a ceremony and buried on the bank of Beard’s Creek under a copse of wild
plum trees. Sullivan gave orders to burn everything in sight. Over 120 houses and
several hundred acres of crops were razed. The long arduous campaign was over. It
forever broke the back of the once mighty Iroquois Confederacy.
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Boyd's grave marker.
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Thomas Boyd’s remains and the bodies of his fallen men were disinterred and transported
to Rochester, NY in 1841 where they were reburied with honor on Patriots Hill in
Mount Hope Cemetery.
Show Footnotes
and Bibliography
Footnotes
[1]. W.P. Boyd, “The Life and Parentage of Lieut. Thomas Boyd Who Was Massacred Near
Cuylerville, September 13, 1779” (abstracted from a paper that appeared in the
published minutes for the thirteenth annual meeting of the Livingston County
Historical Society, Livonia, NY, Tuesday, January 8, 1889).
[2]. William Congreve in The Mourning Bride of 1697.
[3]. Albert G. Mackey, Encyclopedia of Freemasonry, Part 1 (Chicago: The Masonic History
Company, 1909), 482.
[4]. John C. Fitzpatrick, ed., The Writings of Washington from the Original Manuscript
Sources, 1745-1799 (New York: Greenwood Press, 1970), 190.
[5]. John Joseph Henry, Journal of John Joseph Henry, Esq. Campaign Against Quebec in
1775 (Lancaster: William Greer, 1812), 117.
[6]. William Barton, Journal of Lieutenant William Barton (published in Proceedings of the
New Jersey Historical Society, Volume II, 1846-7), 11.
[7]. John Sullivan, Major General Sullivan’s Official Report (republished from a reprint of
the Maryland Journal and Baltimore Advertiser, October, 1779), 300.
[8]. John Niles Hubbard, Sketches of Border Adventures in the Life and Times of Major Moses
Van Campen (Bath: R.L. Underhill & Co., 1842), 164. Firsthand survivor account of the
Boyd ambush received immediately by Van Campen upon return of Timothy Murphy.
[9]. A. Tiffany Norton, History of Sullivan’s Campaign Against the Iroquois (Lima: Published
by the author, 1879), 155.
[10]. Norton, 157.
[11]. Edward Eggleston and Elizabeth Eggleston Seelye, Brant and Red Jacket (New York:
Dodd, Mead & Company, 1879), 282.
[12]. Ralph Adams Brown, ed., Notices of Sullivan’s Campaign, or the Revolutionary Warfare
in Western New York (Port Washington: Kenikat Press, 1970, first published in 1842), 173.
[13]. John Norton, The Journal of Major John Norton, 1816 (Toronto: Champlain Society,
1970), 277.
[14]. Mackey, 482.
[15]. George L. Marshall, Jr., “Chief Joseph Brant: Mohawk, Loyalist, and Freemason,”
Early America Review (1998), http://www.earlyamerica.com/review/1998/brant.html
[16]. Marshall, 1998.
[17]. Isabel Thompson Kelsay, Joseph Brant 1743-1807 Man of Two Worlds (New York:
Syracuse University Press, 1984), 175.
[18]. William R. Denslow, 10,000 Famous Freemasons (Richmond: Macoy Publishing &
Masonic Supply Co., Inc., 1957), 156, 178.
[19]. Kelsay, 251.
[20]. William L. Stone, Life of Joseph Brant-Thayendanegea (Albany: J. Munsell, 1865), 419.
[21]. Brown, 174.
[22]. James E. Seaver, Life of Mary Jemison, the White Woman (Buffalo: Matthews Bros. &
Bryant, 1880, first published in 1824), 121, 122.
[23]. Boyd, 1889.
[24]. Prepared by the Division of Archives and History, The Sullivan-Clinton Campaign in
1779, Chronology and Selected Documents (Albany: University of the State of New York,
1929), 148, 149.
[25]. Kelsay, 267.
[26]. Jasper Ridley, The Freemasons (New York: Arcade Publishing, Inc., 1999), 103.
[27]. Kelsay, 267.
[28]. William Max Reid, The Mohawk Valley: Its Legend and Its History (New York:
The Knickerbock Press, 1901), 227.
[29]. William W. Campbell, Annals of Tryon County; or, The Border Warfare of New York,
During the Revolution (Cherry Valley: Cherry Valley Gazette Print, 1880), 137.
[30]. George Beck, Wyoming; Its History, Stirring Incidents and Romantic Adventures
(New York: Harper & Brothers, 1858), 291.
This article was first published by The Plumbline:
A Quarterly Bulletin of the Scottish Rite Research Society.
Fall 2010, Volume 17, No. 3. Visit www.scottishrite.org
Copyright © 2010 Michael Karpovage, mkarpovage@gmail.com for reprint permission
Written by Michael Karpovage. If you have questions or comments on this article,
please contact Michael Karpovage at:
mkarpovage@gmail.com.
About the author:
Michael Karpovage is the author of the mystery thriller
Crown of Serpents, the backstory of which involves
the discovery of Lt. Thomas Boyd’s campaign journal.
Karpovage is a graduate of RIT and a Mason with Hobasco
Lodge No. 716 in Ithaca, NY. He lives in Atlanta, GA.
Visit www.CrownofSerpents.com
Published online: 08/14/2011.
* Views expressed by contributors are their own and do not necessarily represent
those of MHO.
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