Canadian Notabilities, Volume 1 by John Charles Dent
page 6 of 138 (04%)
page 6 of 138 (04%)
|
admitted in after years that he was seized with such a tremor when the
firing began at that battle that he was obliged to steady himself by seizing hold of a sapling. This, however, was probably the first and last time that he ever knew fear, either in battle or out of it. The history of his subsequent career has little in it suggestive of timidity. After the battle of Lake George, where the French were signally defeated, he accompanied his patron through various campaigns until the close of the French war, after which he was placed by Sir William at the Moor Charity School, Lebanon, Connecticut, for the purpose of receiving a liberal English education. How long he remained at that establishment does not appear, but he was there long enough to acquire something more than the mere rudiments of the English language and literature. In after years he always spoke with pleasure of his residence at this school, and never wearied of talking of it. He used to relate with much pleasantry an anecdote of a young half-breed who was a student in the establishment. The half-breed, whose name was William, was one day ordered by his tutor's son to saddle a horse. He declined to obey the order, upon the ground that he was a gentleman's son, and that to saddle a horse was not compatible with his dignity. Being asked to say what constitutes a gentleman, he replied--"A gentleman is a person who keeps racehorses and drinks Madeira wine, and that is what neither you nor your father do. Therefore, saddle the horse yourself." In 1763, Thayendanegea, then twenty-one years of age, married the daughter of an Oneida chief, and two years afterwards we find him settled at Canajoharie Castle, in Mohawk Valley, where he for some years lived a life of quiet and peaceful repose, devoting himself to the improvement of the moral and social condition of his people, and seconding the efforts of the missionaries for the conversion of the Indians to Christianity. Both missionaries and others who visited and were intimate with him during this |
|