RETROSPECT
by John Conway
July 16, 2010
 
IN THE SHADOW OF HOSPITAL ROCK
 
Morgan Van Keuren is not quite ten years old, yet he already has an avid interest in the Revolutionary War. His appetite whetted by his recent completion of the fourth grade curriculum at Liberty Elementary School, he was anxious to learn more about Sullivan County’s own connection to the long ago struggle for independence, so last week he talked his grandfather into touring him around the Minisink Battlefield just north of Barryville.
 
Once there, his attention was riveted, especially upon his approach to Hospital Rock, where the Goshen physician, Dr. Benjamin Tusten, a lieutenant colonel in the militia under siege by Joseph Brant and his band of Mohawks, Senecas, and Tories, attempted to treat some of the badly wounded soldiers under his command. Despite Tusten’s valiant efforts, none of those wounded survived the battle, and the good doctor himself was ultimately killed, as well.
 
Morgan took his time surveying the shadowy scene at the base of the boulder, formulating his own ideas for what must have motivated Tusten, and the men who took part in the battle.  He said he came away with a better understanding of their need to defend their families, their community, their country.
 
The Battle of Minisink has been recorded as one of the bloodiest battle of the Revolutionary War, and it was a devastating defeat for the Colonists. While perhaps strategically insignificant, the battle and the events leading up to it emphasized the vulnerability of the settlements on the frontier, and prompted General John Sullivan to be dispatched by George Washington to drive Brant and his men out of the country.
 
Two days before the July 22, 1779 battle on that desolate hilltop, Brant’s band of marauders had attacked for a second time in two years the settlement known as Minisink, or Peenpack some twenty-seven miles to the south, murdering the men of the community and plundering its assets with impunity. When word of the attack reached Goshen, Lt. Col. Tusten ordered all available militia to meet him at Fort Decker.
 
The Goshen militia, made up of farmers and merchants and clerks, was soon on the trail of the raiders. The traveling was slow and torturous, the terrain nearly impassable in places. Still, the militia pressed on, determined to recapture the plunder and exact a toll on the enemy that would cause them to think twice before embarking on future raids.
 
"The excited militia men took up their line of march, and followed the old Cochecton trail seventeen miles, when they encamped at Skinner’s mill, near Haggie’s Pond [present day Highland Lake], about three miles from the mouth of Halfway Brook," James Eldridge Quinlan recounted in his "History of Sullivan County." "This day’s march must have nearly exhausted the little army. How many men of Orange and Sullivan, in these effeminate days, can endure such a tramp, encumbered with guns and knapsacks?"
 
Despite the rigors of the pursuit, the militia was in high spirits, according to historian Isabel Thompson Kelsay, in her book, "Joseph Brant: Man of Two Worlds." They were full of contempt for the Native Americans they were chasing, and were confident Brant’s men would abandon their loot and run when confronted.
 
"On July 22, two days after the raid, the two parties were close enough together to be aware of each other’s presence," Kelsay writes. "They had come about twenty-seven tangled, rock-strewn miles. On the right a mountain rose darkly and on the left was the rippling Delaware. In the distance loomed the far-ranging Catskills. There was not a wilder, lonelier place on the whole frontier, a place where the wolves gathered by night, but men are seldom seen."
 
That was the backdrop for the Battle of Minisink, fought between the rocks and trees on a hilltop outside present day Barryville. Brant, an adroit strategist, was able to outmaneuver the militia, and despite inferior numbers, possessed the more experienced contingent. Hours of fighting, first with rifles, and then hand to hand, left the Colonials routed and Brant and his force, smaller by just three men, resumed their journey to the Susquehanna Valley. Six more of his men, wounded in the battle, would die on the way.
 
Forty-five colonials, including Dr. Tusten, were killed that day. Saddest of all, however, was the fact that their remains were left on the desolate battle field for forty-three years before they were recovered for burial. That gruesome detail merely serving to punctuate the devastation of the Battle of Minisink.
 
The battlefield was long ago preserved by Sullivan County officials and today serves as a reminder of the devastation that took place there. And each year, the Sullivan County Historical Society makes the long trek up the hill to the scene of the battle for commemorative services, this year to be held tomorrow, Saturday, July 17.
 
The commemoration will get underway at two P.M. and will feature a presentation on "So Many Brave Men: A History of the Battle at Minisink Ford," the first book written about the battle in thirty years. The Navasing Long Rifles re-enactors will be encamped on site, as well, and will discuss life in colonial times. The keynote address, by historian George Fluhr of Shohola, PA, will be at four o’clock.
 
John Conway is the Sullivan County Historian.  He lives in Barryville and can be contacted by e-mail at jconway52@hotmail.com .