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FEATHERS OF PEACE By Dorothy M. Williams* A New York State Historical marker, and an early Friends meeting house now mark the spot in the Town of Easton, Washington County, New York where the hilltop meeting house of Saratoga Friends stood in September 1777.1 Here a band of Burgoyne's Indian scouts foraging before the battle of Saratoga, stopped to plunder and remained to pray. At that time all settlers had been warned to leave the area and many had already left. A short time before, in July, there had been two massacres by Indians, one at nearby Fort Edward where Jeanne McCrae was killed and one even closer at Summit Lake in Argyle where the members of the Allen family were slaughtered at the dinner table. Rufus Hall, a founding member of that early Saratoga meeting, wrote in his Journal : They went in haste, some in wagons, others on horseback, others again on sledges on the bare ground, some others on trucks or carriages that run on a sort of wheels made with the end of a large log sawed off and holes made through the middle and put on axletrees—and many more fled away on foot as fast as they could, both men, women and children—all obliged to leave the greater part of their substance. . . . Scouting parties on both sides were almost every day at, or in sight of some of our houses, and we often heard them firing upon one another; but the skulking Indians seemed to strike the greatest dread, the more so because we could not converse with them.2 In the decade before the Revolution Friends from Massachusetts , Rhode Island and Dutchess County, New York came to settle in the Saratoga patent in what is now the Town of Easton, New York.3 In 1773 Smithfield, Rhode Island meeting and the meeting *Dorothy M. Williams is Clerk of the Easton (N.Y.) Friends Meeting. 1.The meeting in Washington County was originally called Saratoga. It was called Easton Meeting in 1794, and a new meeting in Saratoga County was called Saratoga. Easton Monthly Meeting and Saratoga Executive Meeting now constitute Easton and Saratoga Half Yearly Meeting. 2.A Journal of the Life, Religious Exercises and Travels in the Ministry of Rufus Hall, Late of Northampton, Montgomery County in the State of New York. Byberry, Published by John and Isaac Comly, 1840, 16-17. 3.Some Chapters in the History of the Town of Easton, New York, Washington County Historical Society, 1959. 26, 27. 32 FEATHERS OF PEACE33 at Dartmouth, Massachusetts began to seek the care of Nine Partners Quarter on behalf of "divers Friends" from these meetings who had removed to East Hoosack and Saratoga.4 Nine Partners investigated and finally complied by authorizing both groups to worship at East Hoosack. The first meeting was held on 10th mo. 21st, 1774 at the home of Isaac Kiley, notwithstanding the more than thirty miles of wilderness intervening between Saratoga and East Hoosack (Adams, Massachusetts). Soon after a meeting was set up at the home of Zebulon Hoxsie in Saratoga. Zebulon Hoxsie Weis one of the group from Nine Partners in Dutchess County. The earliest written record of the Easton Indian story occurs in the report of a committee to the Meeting for Sufferings of New York Yearly Meeting, 1st mo. 9th, 1787. The committee which included the following Friends: Henry Haydock, Elias Hicks, James Mott, Trip Mosher, Isaac Underbill, Silas Downing, John Hoag, Joseph Delaplaine and Edmund Prior, appointed 3rd mo. 8th, 1785, with George Embree, Henry Post and Oliver Hull being added 1st mo. 9th, 1787, reported in some detail: A party of Indians with two Frenchmen surrounded the [meeting] house; one of the Indians after looking in, withdrew and beckoned with his hand upon which a Friend went out and was asked by signs whether there [were] soldiers there, the Indian shook hands with him and the rest came into die house; they were marked, painted and equipt for War, and it being about the conclusion of the Meeting, they shook hands with Friends, and one Friend having the French tongue could confer widi them with die assistance of die...

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