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Spring 2009, Volume 8, Number 4

Broadway's Brassy Lassie - Caryl Flinn
Big voice, big star:  Ethel Merman was Queen of Broadway for forty years, and her three-dozen professional scrapbooks prove it.

The World's First Video Game - Mona S. Rowe
Fifty years ago, an atomic scientist on Long Island invented a computer game for the public - and started an entertainment revolution.

When the Giants Left Town - Charles F. Howlett
The Yankees, the Dodgers, and the Giants - that was baseball during its Golden Age, and at least for awhile, all of them played it in New York.

The Buckwheat and Dandelion - G. William Beardslee
In the late nineteenth century, forty-nine miles of the Unadilla Valley were served by a short line railroad with a fanciful nickname.

New Yorkers at York - Robert Malcomson (PDF)
In the War of 1812, the first town to suffer from enemy-laid fires was York, Canada's capital, and some New Yorkers helped in the burning.

A Novel is Born in New York's Archives - Firth Haring Fabend
An eighteenth-century Dutch family saga in the Hudson Valley comes to life again through a blend of fiction and fact.

Featured Article:

New Yorkers at York - Robert Malcomson
During the War of 1812, each side set the other's capital aflame. Washington burned - but so did York, the capital of Upper Canada.

Probably no event from the War of 1812 has been a “hotter” topic than the burning of Washington. Although it involved the conflagration of only a few public buildings (one of which was the president’s mansion) and a few private structures, the incident on August 24 and 25, 1814 has been the subject of constant study and portrayal for nearly two centuries. Some publishers have even referenced the event to enhance book sales. George Cockburn, the British admiral who earned American disdain for his order to set the fires, had a long and illustrious career, yet a recent biography of him was entitled The Man Who Burned Washington. A book about the fighting at Fort Erie in Ontario during the summer of 1814 appeared on the shelves as While Washington Burned.

However, the first town during the War of 1812 to suffer from enemy-laid fires was not even in the United States. The town of York was the capital of the province of Upper Canada, and it was set afire by Americans. Toronto, the capital of Ontario Province, sprang up from its ruins and now sprawls around Historic Fort York, which stands on just about the only ground from that event that has been preserved.

Expedition York
The Americans attacked York on Tuesday, April 27, 1813 in a “first-time-ever” expedition that combined operations of both the U.S. Army and Navy. It involved a perfect landing on the Canadian shore, defeat of the defenders, and probably a march to victory. But then the British blew up their own massive artillery magazine. The explosion rained deadly stone, timber, and iron down on the American column and killed or wounded one man in seven. Soldiers and sailors from New York were there that day and witnessed the battle, but they have never been thoroughly identified. Thus one of the goals of my research was to find out not only who was present at the burning of York—British, Canadian, Native, and American alike—but also the New Yorkers who served.

About 2,600 officers and men participated in the April 25 expedition that left Sackets Harbor, New York on Lake Ontario in thirteen armed vessels and one transport. Although large portions of the naval crews came from various Atlantic ports, New Yorkers served on board. One of the best-known men in that squadron was Lieutenant Melancthon Woolsey, born in Plattsburgh in 1780 and accepted into the Navy twenty years later. He had opened the Navy’s first center on the Great Lakes at Sackets in 1811 and was the senior officer on the lakes until Commodore Isaac Chauncey arrived in September 1812. Woolsey’s service before, during, and for years after the attack on York showed a clear and honorable devotion to duty.

Woolsey had overseen the construction of the U.S. brig Oneida at Oswego in 1809, but when the war started he was allowed to increase naval strength by purchasing merchant vessels and turning them into gunboats. The schooner Conquest was typical of these newly armed lakers, having been launched at Ogdensburg as the Genesee Packet in 1810. Like the rest of the true warships constructed at Sackets, Conquest was built of solid white oak by local craftsmen who joined the shipwrights sent inland from the coast.

The Conquest was under the command of sailing Master Francis Mallaby, a native of New York City. While naval records show other officers aboard who were also New York residents, data needed to identify the origins of the seamen is not easy to find. But it is known that by the time of the attack on York, there were eleven former merchantmen in the squadron, including Midshipman Robert Nichols, who was born in Brooklyn and was on the Conquest on April 27.

New York Regulars…
The Army soldiers on board represented two different aspects of the American military. Most of them were regular members of the Army, officers with commissions and enlistments. Others belonged to “volunteer regiments” organized by federal legislation before the war.

Major General Henry Dearborn, the senior military officer on the York expedition, gave command of the attack to Brigadier General Zebulon Montgomery Pike. At thirty-four years of age, Pike was full of zeal and patriotism and would certainly have become a leading officer in the Army had he not been mortally wounded at York by the British magazine explosion. His fame today is based almost entirely around his exploration of Pike’s Peak (named for him) at Colorado Springs in 1806.

In Pike’s brigade were four companies of the 6th Infantry, numbering about 300, most of whom had enlisted in New York. They went ashore from the squadron but missed out on the sharpest fighting of the morning. One of Pike’s company captains was Whites Young, a New Yorker who landed under fire, survived the explosion, and was sent as one of the first officers to begin surrender negotiations with the British. Other New Yorkers were members of Pike’s staff and were wounded at the same time he was, including Lieutenant Donald Fraser of the 15th and Captain Charles Jones of the 29th.

Another company commander had long waited for the opportunity to distinguish himself on the field of battle: New York-born Captain John Walworth, who wrote to his father-in-law on April 6 that “I am in hopes you will hear of me in His Majesty’s Dominions in less than three weeks.” Walworth’s company overran a weakly defended battery and ended within range of the murderous deluge from the magazine that wounded him and 103 others, killing thirteen on the spot. The 6th’s surgeon, William Beaumont, born in Connecticut but a longtime resident of New York, spent weeks treating the horrifically wounded men. The story of his battlefield experiences has been told widely; he later earned international fame as the “father of gastric physiology.”

…and New York Volunteers
A small force of federal volunteers from New York was also on the expedition. Congress had enacted the creation of these units early in 1812 as a means of raising effective corps that would cost less than additions to the Army. They consisted of officers and men from elite state militias who were paid and partially equipped by the federal government.

The New York volunteers were headed by Colonel Francis McClure, an Irish-born resident of New York City with political connections to republican Governor Daniel Tompkins. McClure had easily won the governor’s approval to raise a unit known as McClure’s Volunteers (or alternately as the Albany Greens, Albany rifles, or simply the Greens). It consisted of about ten companies, one of which was captained by James Maher, who was said to have been a wholesale grocer, a strong Catholic, and a Republican. Maher had risen through the militia, just as McClure and all the other officers had, and starting in the autumn of 1812 commanded a company that joined McClure.

McClure, some of his staff officers, and Maher’s company sailed with Major General Dearborn for York, along with one other company, which itself included members of yet another volunteer company that had marched from Baltimore, Maryland to join the campaign. Its commander was Captain Stephen Moore and it was known as the Baltimore Volunteers.

The fact that one state’s military company would join another state’s reflects only some of the difficulties with the volunteer plan, which was ultimately done away with. The payrolls for Moore’s company are among McClure’s records, all of which are found in the files of the Adjutant General’s Office and are held by the New York State Archives. These records finally clarified the mysterious reference that had puzzled researchers for years: “Col. McClure’s regiment, consisting of the N. York, Albany and Baltimore Volunteers.”

McClure’s Volunteers trailed behind or beside Pike’s column and missed out on the action at York—except for Moore, who was with the general when the explosion occurred and was wounded along with several of his men. But no information has yet come to light regarding McClure’s actual role in the expedition, or what Maher saw and did.

Both Capitals in Flames
During their 1813 attack on York, the Americans burned the province’s two legislative buildings, although who actually set the torch has never been proven. Military buildings and storehouses and some private storehouses also went up in flames. In addition, houses, shops, farms, and barns throughout the countryside were plundered by the Americans, and the following July they returned briefly to plunder and burn some more, terrifying the locals, although no clear evidence exists to show that New Yorkers were directly involved.

Storytellers have always linked the burning of York with the burning of Washington, but between the two events, conflagrations of villages and towns occurred numerous times and with worse effects. Nevertheless, like Washington, York was a capital in flames. It was bravely defended by British regulars, Canadian militia, and Native allies, but poorly supported by the commander in chief at Quebec and the province’s commander, Major General Sir Roger Sheaffe. Local families suffered through the experience, but luckily retained their homes and later set the pioneer town on its way to becoming Canada’s largest and most important city. Yet part of the story of Toronto, Canada includes the role played by the men of New York, U.S.A., who followed their orders that day in 1813 and went ashore intent on their duty.

 

 

 

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