the author has used him as he did Brant, as the principal figure in illustrating the history of the Six Nations down to the conclusion of the treaty for the sale of the residue of the Seneca lands, in the autumn of 1838. That treaty, since carried into execution, extinguished the confederacy of the A-QUA-NU-SCHI-O-NI, or United People,-a confederacy, the duration of which is lost in the shadowy obscurity of tradition for ages before the sound of the white woodman's axe rang upon the solemn stillness of the forest continent. The Life of Red Jacket, therefore, may be considered as the continuation and conclusion of the History of the Six Nations. While, however, the lives of Johnson, Brant and Red Jacket, taken together, are intended as a complete history of the Six Nations from the year 1735 to 1838, and, as such, have been printed uniformly, yet each work of the series forms in itself a distinct narrative.

One division of the work meditated by the author remains to be executed, viz: the yet earlier history of the Iroquois Confederacy, from the discovery down to the year 1735, when Mr. Johnson first settled among the Mohawks in the valley of their own beautiful river. This work it is my hope to write as soon as circumstances will permit.

"In regard to the present volume," says Mr. Stone in his preface to the first edition of this work, "the author can only say that he has made it as full and perfect as the materials which he has been able to collect would allow. The subject of the memoir, it must be remembered, could speak but very little English, and could not write at all. He could therefore maintain no written correspondence, and

And yet it is

consequently left no letters, or other written memorials, to aid his biographer. Such was not the fact in the case of Brant, whose papers were of vast assistance. It must also be kept in mind that Brant was a man of war, and Red Jacket a man of peace. Hence in a memoir of the latter a far smaller amount of stirring and bloody incident is to be anticipated, than in one of the former. Indeed in this respect the books are widely dissimilar. hoped that it will be found not altogether devoid of interest. The name of Red Jacket, as the great orator of the Six Nations, is among those most familiar to the American ear; and this volume is the first complete record of his forensic efforts that has ever appeared. Neither diligence nor expense has been spared to make the collection perfect of all the chieftain's speeches, and notes of speeches, that have been preserved. These have been arranged in the text, according to the dates of their delivery, and in connexion with the history of the occasions and events which called them forth. The author is aware that to this feature of his arrangement some may object that the text of the narrative should not be thus interrupted, and that the speeches might better have been thrown back into an appendix. But he thinks differently. Had they been thus disposed of they would not have been read, such being the usual destiny of speeches, letters and documents crowded together at the end of almost every book of history. And certainly when they are read, they are likely to be better understood and appreciated, if taken in their proper historical connexion-illustrating the occasions or

events by which they were elicited, and in turn receiving such illustrations from the historian as seem to be required.

In several instances the narrative, notes and appendix have been made fuller in the present edition than in the former. This the editor has been enabled to do by the aid of manuscripts collected by the author after the work had passed through the press.

As the Life of Red Jacket was the last historical work which Mr. Stone lived to complete, it has been deemed not inappropriate to accompany the present volume by a sketch of his life and writings. This has accordingly been written by his son, who, with this explanation, now offers a new edition of Red Jacket to the public.

Saratoga Springs, January 1st, 1866.

WILLIAM L. STONE.

THE

LIFE AND

AND WRITINGS

OF

WILLIAM LEETE STONE.

The father of the subject of the present memoir was the Rev. William Stone, a congregational clergyman, and a great grand-son of Governor Leete of Connecticut, well known in connection with the regicides, Goffe and Whalley. He was a native of Guilford, and was directly descended, on the side both of father and mother, from two of the Puritan band of colonists, who, in 1639, planted that town. Never was there a settlement formed of more rigid Puritans than that of Guilford, and there is no town in New England where the peculiarities of that noble race of men have been more faithfully transmitted from father to son than in that. In his habits of thinking, his style of writing, and his undeviable principles of civil and religious liberty, he belonged more to the age of the Pilgrims than to his own. He was, moreover, a soldier of the revolution, as well as of the church militant. In the earlier part of the war he left his books and went into the army to relieve a brother who was in ill health. The brother died, but patriotism, in those days, was something more than a name, and the love of country induced him to enlist for the additional term of three years, during which he saw much service. He was at the battles of White Plains, Brandywine and Monmouth; suffered with the American army during that dreary winter at Valley Forge; and was present at the execution of Andre. "I shall ever remember your grand-father," said the late General Wilcox of Killingworth to the writer, "for in the army he

always carried a Hebrew Bible and the whole works of Josephus in his knapsack." When peace was declared and the army disbanded, he retired, like a great majority of the soldiers, poor in the goods of this world, but rich in those noble sentiments which the revolution had inspired. He, however, completed his studies at Yale, married, and accepted a parish in the then extensive town of NewPaltz, Ulster county, New York - the Reverend Stanley Griswold (afterward governor of Michigan under Mr. Jefferson) preaching the ordination sermon.

While at New-Paltz, his son, the subject of the present sketch, was born on the 20th of April, 1792; and shortly after he gave up his parish, and, removing into the valley of the Susquehanna, began clearing a piece of land which he had recently purchased. The country was at that time a complete wilderness, full of savage men and savage beasts; and the adventures of young Stone, during his early pioneer life, formed the material which was afterward wrought up by him into stirring border tales. During his boyhood his days were passed in cultivating his father's farm, and his nights in acquiring a knowledge of Latin and Greek under the supervision of his father, who was a thorough master of the ancient languages. When seventeen years of age, chancing to see in a newspaper an advertisement for a printer's apprentice, he with difficulty obtained permission of his parents who could ill spare him to apply for the situation. The sun was just sinking behind the hills, when, with a single Mexican quarter in his pocket and a small bundle of clothes in his hand, he set out on his journey through the woods to Cooperstown, which he reached the next morning at sunrise, having walked forty miles during the night. Colonel John H. Prentiss, the

1 In connection with his early pioneer life Mr. Stone used to relate the following amusing anecdote - various versions of which have been frequently given in school reading books. One day, while eating his dinner in a saw-mill which he tended for his father, he descried a bear coming down upon him full tilt. Having no weapon by him he left his dinner on the saw-log, and forgetting to stop the saw, clambered up onto a rafter. The bear came into the mill, and seating himself on the log began eating the dinner. Presently the log carried the bear to the saw, which grazed the animal's back. He gave a growl and moved a little. Again the saw scratched him, and again he moved. At length, upon the saw repeating its familiarity the third time, he turned, hugged the saw with a defiant growl, and, before he could extricate himself, was sawn half in two. The meat furnished the family with food for several weeks.