Boyd and Parker ambush

On September 13, 1779, forces clashed in what is today Groveland, New York, in an engagement of the American Revolutionary War that would come to be known as the Boyd and Parker ambush. The confrontation was a small one, involving a scouting patrol from the Sullivan Expedition that found itself surrounded by Loyalist troops under Major John Butler along with Seneca allies commanded by Cornplanter and Little Beard.

Background

After Native American war parties struck settlements across Upstate New York, General George Washington dispatched Major General John Sullivan into the Finger Lakes Region, along with several thousand troops. Their orders called for driving out the Seneca and Cayuga, laying waste to their villages, crops, and stores of food, and eliminating the danger these communities posed to settlers.

Prelude

To hold Seneca lands, Butler and the Seneca war chiefs could call on some 800 men, Butler's Rangers among them. On the other side, Sullivan had set out from Easton, Pennsylvania, made his way to the Wyoming Valley, and then followed the Susquehanna River upstream until it met the Chemung River.

Once Butler's forces were beaten back at the Battle of Newtown, Sullivan turned his march northward, driving into the heart of Seneca country. His brigades traveled along the eastern shore of Seneca Lake as far as Kanadaseaga, then turned west toward Chenussio, a place also called Little Beard's Town.

By Sunday, September 12, 1779, Sullivan's forces had pushed on from Honeoye Lake and set up camp near what would become Foot's Corners in Conesus. That evening brought new orders for Lieutenant Thomas Boyd: assemble a party to find and scout out Chenussio. Though told to bring only a small number of men, Boyd instead gathered 26 soldiers, Sergeant Michael Parker among them, along with an Oneida guide known as Thaosagwat, or Han Yost.

At the same time, roughly 400 Rangers and their warrior allies lay in wait, planning to strike the front of Sullivan's advancing army as it pushed through the swampy ground south of Conesus Lake. Neither side realized that Boyd's scouts had already slipped past them under cover of darkness.

Ambush

At dawn Boyd's men came upon a deserted settlement he took for Chenussio. Four messengers were dispatched to inform Sullivan of their position before four Seneca were spotted entering the empty settlement, sparking a short exchange of fire in which one Seneca lost his life. With that, Boyd chose to lead his men back toward Sullivan's encampment.

Along the way they came across five Haudenosaunee, who turned and ran at the sight of them. Thaosagwat cautioned against pursuing the fleeing men, but Boyd paid no heed to this advice. The patrol pressed forward and walked directly into the waiting enemy formation. Trapped and vastly outnumbered, the group lost fourteen men in the fighting that followed. Seven managed to break free and escape, but Boyd, Parker, and Thaosagwat fell into enemy hands. Little Beard had Thaosagwat put to death without delay.

Aftermath

Once captured, Boyd and Parker were brought before Butler at Chenussio for interrogation. Butler left the scene afterward, and it was then that Little Beard subjected the two prisoners to torture, mutilation, and beheading. A tradition dating back to Mary Jemison's 1824 account claims that the men's entrails were fastened to a tree and that they were made to walk around it until their insides had been pulled free. Yet none of the journals kept by soldiers on the Sullivan Expedition, despite their graphic descriptions of the disfigured remains, mention this specific detail.

Today, an oak believed by tradition to be the very tree Boyd was tied to still stands in Leicester, New York, within Boyd and Parker Park, where it bears the name the Torture Tree.

On September 14, Sullivan's men came upon the remains of Boyd and Parker and gave them a burial with complete military honors. The settlement of Chenussio was burned to nothing, and its surrounding fields, rich with corn and vegetables, were laid waste as well. With this accomplished, Sullivan reversed course and led his troops back toward Seneca Lake. It was not until two days later that the bodies of Thaosagwat and the fourteen soldiers slain in the ambush were finally found.

Beyond Boyd, Parker, and Thaosagwat, twelve more of the dead are identified by name on a memorial standing at the ambush location in Groveland, New York. Among those listed is Corporal Calhoun, whose name marks a soldier who succumbed to wounds sustained in a different clash occurring that same day.