Jonathan-Claire - Person Sheet
Jonathan-Claire - Person Sheet
NameBRONSON, Rhoda 
, 8G Grandmother
, 8G GrandmotherBirth Date30 Mar 1729
Birth PlaceWaterbury, New Haven, Connecticut
Death Date16 Sep 1807 Age: 78
Death PlaceSalisbury, Addison County, Vermont
Spouses
1GRAVES, Joshua , 8G Grandfather
, 8G GrandfatherBirth Date1723
Birth PlaceOld Saybrook, Middlesex County, Connecticut
Death Date23 Aug 1803 Age: 80
Death PlaceSalisbury, Addison County, Vermont
Misc. Notes
Joshua moved with his father from Saybrook to New Cambridge about 1743. He bought and sold property in New Cambridge and vicinity and was taxed in that town from 1748 to 1761. In 1764 he describes himself as of Sharon, CT.
Joshua moved to Vermont and first settled in Arlington, but went with his son Jesse to Salisbury and "pitched" a hundred acre farm where his descendant, Columbus Smith, subsequently lived in the spring of 1774. They built a log house and cleared and planted a few acres of land, the first clearing for agricultural purposes in Salisbury.
He brought his family to Salisbury in 1775, but his house was burned by the Indians in the spring of 1776. He built another that same year and his family returned to it in the spring of 1777.
Joshua and one of his sons were captured by Indians in June 1777 and taken to Montreal but were released to the British as they were engaged in peaceful pursuits when captured.
The family then retired to Rutland, VT, remained there until the close of the Rev. War, and returned to their home in Salisbury in 1783. That year he built the first framed barn in Salisbury. He was exempted from military and jury duty because of his deafness.
Four of his sons, Jesse, Simeon, Chauncey, and Asa, are all listed on the rolls of those serving in the militia in defense of the frontier area north of Rutland, and the first three received pensions in their old age.
“History of Salisbury, Vermont, by John M. Weeks, pub. in 1860, gives the following account of their capture: “
After the commencement of the revolutionary war, Joshua Graves moved back as far as Rutland, but remained there but a short time before he and his boys returned to their farm in Salisbury again, (this was in the summer of 1776), and built another house in the place of the one destroyed by the Indians, harvested their wheat which had been sown the year before, prepared their land and sowed another crop, and in September, returned again to their family in Rutland.
Mr. Graves, not regarding this hazardous experiment of settling a new country in time of war, moved his family again to his farm, early in the spring of 1777, with the intention of making a permanent settlement. He planted corn on the interval land near Otter creek, and while hoeing it one day, sometime in the month of June of that year (WE HAVE THE STORY FROM THE MOUTH OF JESSE GRAVES), he and his boys suddenly discovered a large party of Indians coming upon them from the north.
It would have been an easy matter to conceal themselves, if they had had a minute's notice of the approach of the enemy, but being occupied with their work, and their sight being intercepted by the woods on the north, before they were aware of it, the Indians were close upon them, some approaching by land, but the greater number by bark canoes in the creek. There was a boy at work with them, about fourteen years old, who started to run, but Mr. Graves ordered him to stop, as the savages would be more apt to shoot him while endeavoring to make his escape.
The Indians soon came up and ordered them all, Joshua Graves, Jesse Graves and the boy, to give up their work and go along with them. So they all went on together up the creek, and stopped overnight on the farm now called the Kelsey place. Here the Indians found a pair of oxen, and butchered one of them to provide their evening and morning meal. From this place they passed up the creek and made a halt at the house of Jeremiah Parker, who then lived on the farm now (in 1860) owned by Ebenezer Jenny.
On looking over Mr. Parker’s house, the Indians found a quantity of maple sugar, about two hundred pounds, which they took out of doors, and, having assembled around it, held what they called a “pow-wow.”
The party being large, numbering about two hundred and fifty, the sugar was nearly exhausted in eating and wasting, before the journey was resumed. Nothing was taken from Mr. Parker except the sugar, and his house was left without having suffered any damage…
Having regaled themselves at Mr. Parker’s expense, the Indians made a captive of him, and all set out for the south, no one of the captives knowing for what they were taken, or where they were going. They soon arrived at Neshobe, (Brandon), where they were placed under the care of an Indian guard, and conducted to Lake Champlain, near Ticonderoga, where they, together with a part of the guard, were placed on board a British vessel and taken to Montreal. Here the Indians demanded of the chief officer of the British forces at that place, the bounty for “rebel heads;” but the officers, after examining the case, found that these men had been taken by the Indians while in the quiet and peaceable prosecution of their labors as farmers, and decided that the prisoners ought to be allowed to return to their homes. This decision caused a good deal of murmuring on the part of the Indians, who thought they ought at least be permitted to take the scalps of their captives as reward for their trouble.
The prisoners, being released, were allowed to find their way back to their families the best way they could, which they did after a long and tedious journey, having been absent about three weeks.
These Indians treated their prisoners well while they had charge of them, imposing no burdensom tasks upon them, and allowing them the same rations as themselves, which consisted of one tablespoonful, daily, of pounded parched corn. This was all the food the prisoners or the Indians had, with the exception of what they so unceremoniously took just as they started, until they were placed on board the vessel, when the officers in the British command gave them a more generous diet. So far as these men traveled with this party of Indians, they could discover no indication that this excursion was made for the sake of booty or mischief; the Indians burnt no houses, nor did they maliciously destroy any property nor steal or pillage anything, except what they wanted to eat. After learning the character and disposition of the red men of Vermont, the Messrs.
Graves concluded that settling a new country in time of war was too hazardous an undertaking for them, and determined, as soon as practicable, to leave the country until the war was over. They returned to Rutland early in September of that year, having first made a “cache” in the ground, in which they deposited their pewter ware, which consisted of platters, plates, basins, spoons, and a variety of other domestic utensils, of which they had a good supply, and also a few farming tools. But on their return in 1783, after the war, the place of their improvements had become so changed, it being overgrown with brush and briers, that they were unable to find any of their things thus deposited, nor could any of the family determine exactly where the “cache” was made. It is not improbable that it was discovered and robbed, and the place afterwards gradually filled up and overgrown with brushwood.”
Joshua moved to Vermont and first settled in Arlington, but went with his son Jesse to Salisbury and "pitched" a hundred acre farm where his descendant, Columbus Smith, subsequently lived in the spring of 1774. They built a log house and cleared and planted a few acres of land, the first clearing for agricultural purposes in Salisbury.
He brought his family to Salisbury in 1775, but his house was burned by the Indians in the spring of 1776. He built another that same year and his family returned to it in the spring of 1777.
Joshua and one of his sons were captured by Indians in June 1777 and taken to Montreal but were released to the British as they were engaged in peaceful pursuits when captured.
The family then retired to Rutland, VT, remained there until the close of the Rev. War, and returned to their home in Salisbury in 1783. That year he built the first framed barn in Salisbury. He was exempted from military and jury duty because of his deafness.
Four of his sons, Jesse, Simeon, Chauncey, and Asa, are all listed on the rolls of those serving in the militia in defense of the frontier area north of Rutland, and the first three received pensions in their old age.
“History of Salisbury, Vermont, by John M. Weeks, pub. in 1860, gives the following account of their capture: “
After the commencement of the revolutionary war, Joshua Graves moved back as far as Rutland, but remained there but a short time before he and his boys returned to their farm in Salisbury again, (this was in the summer of 1776), and built another house in the place of the one destroyed by the Indians, harvested their wheat which had been sown the year before, prepared their land and sowed another crop, and in September, returned again to their family in Rutland.
Mr. Graves, not regarding this hazardous experiment of settling a new country in time of war, moved his family again to his farm, early in the spring of 1777, with the intention of making a permanent settlement. He planted corn on the interval land near Otter creek, and while hoeing it one day, sometime in the month of June of that year (WE HAVE THE STORY FROM THE MOUTH OF JESSE GRAVES), he and his boys suddenly discovered a large party of Indians coming upon them from the north.
It would have been an easy matter to conceal themselves, if they had had a minute's notice of the approach of the enemy, but being occupied with their work, and their sight being intercepted by the woods on the north, before they were aware of it, the Indians were close upon them, some approaching by land, but the greater number by bark canoes in the creek. There was a boy at work with them, about fourteen years old, who started to run, but Mr. Graves ordered him to stop, as the savages would be more apt to shoot him while endeavoring to make his escape.
The Indians soon came up and ordered them all, Joshua Graves, Jesse Graves and the boy, to give up their work and go along with them. So they all went on together up the creek, and stopped overnight on the farm now called the Kelsey place. Here the Indians found a pair of oxen, and butchered one of them to provide their evening and morning meal. From this place they passed up the creek and made a halt at the house of Jeremiah Parker, who then lived on the farm now (in 1860) owned by Ebenezer Jenny.
On looking over Mr. Parker’s house, the Indians found a quantity of maple sugar, about two hundred pounds, which they took out of doors, and, having assembled around it, held what they called a “pow-wow.”
The party being large, numbering about two hundred and fifty, the sugar was nearly exhausted in eating and wasting, before the journey was resumed. Nothing was taken from Mr. Parker except the sugar, and his house was left without having suffered any damage…
Having regaled themselves at Mr. Parker’s expense, the Indians made a captive of him, and all set out for the south, no one of the captives knowing for what they were taken, or where they were going. They soon arrived at Neshobe, (Brandon), where they were placed under the care of an Indian guard, and conducted to Lake Champlain, near Ticonderoga, where they, together with a part of the guard, were placed on board a British vessel and taken to Montreal. Here the Indians demanded of the chief officer of the British forces at that place, the bounty for “rebel heads;” but the officers, after examining the case, found that these men had been taken by the Indians while in the quiet and peaceable prosecution of their labors as farmers, and decided that the prisoners ought to be allowed to return to their homes. This decision caused a good deal of murmuring on the part of the Indians, who thought they ought at least be permitted to take the scalps of their captives as reward for their trouble.
The prisoners, being released, were allowed to find their way back to their families the best way they could, which they did after a long and tedious journey, having been absent about three weeks.
These Indians treated their prisoners well while they had charge of them, imposing no burdensom tasks upon them, and allowing them the same rations as themselves, which consisted of one tablespoonful, daily, of pounded parched corn. This was all the food the prisoners or the Indians had, with the exception of what they so unceremoniously took just as they started, until they were placed on board the vessel, when the officers in the British command gave them a more generous diet. So far as these men traveled with this party of Indians, they could discover no indication that this excursion was made for the sake of booty or mischief; the Indians burnt no houses, nor did they maliciously destroy any property nor steal or pillage anything, except what they wanted to eat. After learning the character and disposition of the red men of Vermont, the Messrs.
Graves concluded that settling a new country in time of war was too hazardous an undertaking for them, and determined, as soon as practicable, to leave the country until the war was over. They returned to Rutland early in September of that year, having first made a “cache” in the ground, in which they deposited their pewter ware, which consisted of platters, plates, basins, spoons, and a variety of other domestic utensils, of which they had a good supply, and also a few farming tools. But on their return in 1783, after the war, the place of their improvements had become so changed, it being overgrown with brush and briers, that they were unable to find any of their things thus deposited, nor could any of the family determine exactly where the “cache” was made. It is not improbable that it was discovered and robbed, and the place afterwards gradually filled up and overgrown with brushwood.”