Ebenezer Hawley and the French and Indian War

Many of the British who came to the great wide uncertain expanse of the new world came for new opportunity, for a fresh start and to leave the crowded urban areas of England.

For in the new world lay riches, life and hope, where many of the colonials could apply their trade and talent unrestricted by the outmoded rules of the British isles and the conflicts of aristocratic succession.

The official consolidation between England and Scotland would not happen until 1707 with the act of union, but one could just sense that political change was in the air, change so great that a clean slate seemed a good idea. Yet the poblems of the old world, of power politics followed them across the Atlantic.

This is the background of the Seven Years War, known in America as the French-Indian War of 1754-1763, and our neighbor, New York, was the front line in the battle for dominance between France and Great Britain.

No less that the future of the continent was on the line, in the struggle between the French fur trappers and the english merchants.  Had the Kingdom of Louis XV prevailed, a completely different culture would have taken hold, including New France with its european legal traditions would have resembled Quebec City.

Washington, DC would have never existed and the French monarchy would in all probability been spared the age of revolution, but France lost and in 1763, Britain acquired all territory east of the Mississippi. 

Few people realize that residents of the town now called Trumbull (back then, North Stratford) fought in the conflict for God and country and because their very living depended on the wars successful conclusion. The political stakes demanded action.

When Connecticut was still a royal colony, before the United States became a nation in its own right, one young resident, barely out of his teenage years, Ebenezer Hawley, a local merchant by trade, signed up and found himself face to face with destiny.  

Ebenezer Hawley we know was to join Captain Jabez Fitch's Company of independent volunteers, a provincial militia grouping which comprised part of Col. Jonathan Hoyt's army organized at Stamford. Fitch, from Greenwich, was an executor, administrator of wills and a Justice of the peace and for a time may have served as local town clerk.

Hoyt was a deacon at the Congregational church in Stamford and performed many weddings of prominent families throughout Fairfield co. Once stability had returned to the region, and peace had been signed at Paris, Jonathan Hoyt would represent Stamford in the State Legislature in the late 1760s.

The French and Indian war was North America's theatre in the global Seven Years war. The conflict was so named because it pitted the English versus the French regulars, militia and Native American allies who also were involved in their trading interests and their manufacturing of furs, including the trapping and dying of the materials they aquired in the forests of New France.

On the global stage, the Seven Years' War was fought between, on one side, Great Britain, Prussia of Frederick the great, Hanover and Hesse, and on the other included France, Saxony and the Habsburg realm.

Thus the conclusion of the belligerence between the two would set the trend for modern European History, as the victory of Prussia over the Austrians would create a large precedent in the Germanic world, which would help lead to a unified Germany in the 19th century.

We know from Connecticut colonial archives, for there was no federal government at the time, that Hawley served for 16 days and that the service was at a key battle in upstate New York, not far from Lake George, called Fort William Henry.

The main areas of conflict during the war were Pennsylvania, New York and Canada, and the atrocities at William Henry would be told in popular culture through Fennimore Cooper's The Last of the Mohicans.

It appears, therefore, that a member of our community and member of our town's influential Hawley family, not only was witness to history but lived and suffered through it.

We do not know exactly what happened to Hawley in upstate New York, but we do know that his home was later used as a tavern during the  Revolutionary War. Many years later the first professor of chemistry, one of the first American professors of science and namesake of Silliman College at Yale and pioneer in the uses of petroleum, Benjamin Silliman was born at the Hawley homestead.

We also know the story of Fort William Henry.

In August 1755, Sir William Johnson arrives in the area of what was called, at the time Lac St. Sacrement, which he promptly changes to Lake George in honor of George II King of Great Britain. He perceives the area to be a great staging area against France  and their Fort St. Frederic located on Lake Champlain.

Over the coming years, his alliance with the Mohawk indian tribes allow him and the British to establish a solid presence in the wild Adirondack Lakes region of upper New York.

Multiple conflicts erupt including a successful conclusion of the Battle of Lake George, and he decides to establish a military garrison at what becomes Fort William Henry, in line with the urging of individuals such as Sir William Pitt who push for greater military numbers.

By the time the French start to march their way across the frozen lake in March of 1757, command of the military rests with two individuals;  the first being Lt. Col. George Munro, who acts as garrison commander, and the 500 men behind the defensive walls.

Gen. Webb, who is the main commander-in-chief has a separate camp 750 yards to the South east of the Fort, which is a strategic post between New York and New France but is also surrounded by Mohican lands which are in dispute with the Mohawk peoples.

The Fort has an unique design of "square fortifications with corner bastions" and has walls 30 feet thick to protect from Indian assaults.

Its only entry point is through a bridge crossing a moat in the style of late middle ages castles. This is the time when power was a high stakes gamble. Just 30 years earlier, in 1717, the New Haven state house was built on the green to house the legislature when it divided time between Hartford and Southern Connecticut. Could it have been the thought of some in government that the farther from the north and the natives, the better, for the capitol building to be located?

In March of 1757, an admiral named Byng was court martialled and executed by firing squad for his failure in the European theatre, it seems for not "doing his best."  Pressure was on the British officers as well as the colonials who thought that life would be better here.

In June, 1,600 men with the provincial militia companies from Connecticut and New Jersey arrive to reinforce men already at Ft. William Henry. It appears that Ebenezer Hawley may have been with that wave of men or with the group that builts the number of soldiers to 2,300 a few weeks later when it becomes clear that the French are mobilizing for an attack.

Trenches were constructed the first few days in August in Webb's area outside the "walls." Not a moment too soon as Gen. Louis-Joseph de Montcalm arrives within range on Wednesday, Aug. 3. A panic immediately begins as provisions were low, there were no funds in the treasury and the fort was not prepared for seige at this point.

Lt. Col. Munro calls for the reinforcements to prevent the walls from being breached. Heavy bombardment occurs over the next few days and it becomes apperent that the French force is three times the size of the British.

Montcalm showed up with 3,000 regular troops, 3,000 militia men, 36 cannons and 2,000 Native Americans of the Mohican tribe that inhabited the lakes of New York and stretched for miles down into western Massachussetts. The French argued that repeated attacks on their Ft. Duquesne in Ohio compelled them to respond.

Surrounded with few options, Hawley and his fellow soldiers soon found that the defensive benefits to the fort fast became a tomb, as they had been caught unawares. A letter was sent to Munro by Gen. Webb, advising the trapped commander to "make best terms" left in his power, but alas the letter never arrived as the messenger carrying it was killed en route and Munro and his men must have felt abandoned.

For six days the bombardment continued until the army in the Fort capitulated. In all senses the agreement negotiated was a victory in spite of the circumstances. The British and colonials would be allowed to leave the garrison under French supervision, they could even keep their arms but they had to surrender any musketballs they still possessed.

They had to agree that they would not engage in any conflict in the war on the side of the Anglo coalition for 18 months.

What happened next is the stuff of legend, myth, history and cinematic plotlines. What is the truth and what is fiction is not clear. The reality is buried with those who died.

Munro survived the engagement, but mysteriously died three months later while in Albany.  We are not sure what happens to Hawley, but according to his gravestone, he died shortly thereafter at 30 and was buried in Unity Graveyard after what could have been a violent death.

Montcalm presents the aspects of the treaty to his native soldiers and their chiefs. He is certain they understand, but some amongst the tribe are upset. Were they hoping retribution for some prior sin? Were they hoping for booty?

No one is completely certain, but at 5 a.m. one day shortly after the agreement, numerous natives entered the British camp and plundered and butchered, scalped and murdered unarmed men, women and children, who had already surrended.

This massacre resulted in, according to some sources, 1,500 dead and wounded. Is it possible that Hawley was among those murdered in their sleep?

Either way, until the 20th century Native Americans in the states were regarded as savages, untrustworthy monsters as a result of the incident. And hatred toward such "redmen" led to their extinction in large numbers and relocation to reservations.

Centuries of history in perspective, we look back and while standing at the silent grave of Ebenezer Hawley, a simple flag adorning the earth at his ancient stone near those of his kin, I can feel a chill float past. I wonder what truths his bones contain.