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Collection

Nathaniel Fuller journal, 1760-1762

100 pages

The Nathaniel Fuller journal is the daily journal of a member of a carpentry team from Boston that built ships on Lake Oneida and Lake Ontario for the British Army during the French and Indian War. The volume also contains miscellaneous entries of accounts for military supplies and payments of wages.

The Nathaniel Fuller journal (100 pages) contains a daily journal of a member of a carpentry team from Boston that built ships on Lake Oneida and Lake Ontario for the British Army during the French and Indian War, from March 13, 1760-October 28, 1760 (pages 1-75). The volume also contains miscellaneous entries of accounts for military supplies, numbers of days worked, and payments of wages spanning from August 1761 to September 1762 (pages 80-86), and throughout 1760 (pages 89-100).

Fuller kept daily entries of their labors, briefly describing distances traveled and their carpentry accomplishments. The group consisted of 20 carpenters and was led by Captain James Barton. They were paid in advance to walk from Boston to Albany. They averaged 20 miles per day and stayed in private homes and taverns at night (March 13-28, 1760). The commanding officer at Albany supplied them with tools and wagons and sent them to Schenectady, New York, where they spent most of April, working seven days a week, calking boats with oakum and pine tar, and building new "battoes" (bateaus). On board four bateaus, the group proceeded up the Mohawk River to the blockhouse on Lake Oneida (May 12, 1760), then to Oswego (May 13, 1760), and finally to the south shore of Lake Ontario to "Nyagary" (Niagara) (May 16, 1760). At the mouth of the river, they built a house for living quarters, a barge, a schooner, and a sloop. Construction involved locating suitable timber, bringing the logs down the river, and cutting them into planks.

On August 14, the group returned to Oswego and built another schooner. On October 3, a British vessel arrived at Oswego from “Swagocha” (Oswegatchie, now Ogdensburg), transporting a commodore and soldiers wounded in the Battle of Montreal. The entire company, including the commodore, wounded soldiers, and carpenters, traveled up the Oswego River to Lake Oneida and arrived at Schenectady on October 16, 1760. Fuller received three dollars from the commodore and received a pass for seven men to proceed on foot to Boston on October 22; they arrived sometime after the last entry of October 28.

Collection

Stephen Cross journal, 1756-1757

60 pages (1 volume)

The Stephen Cross Journal details the Massachusetts shipbuilder's journey to Fort Oswego to help with the French and Indian War effort, his capture after the fall of Fort Oswego in 1756, and imprisonment in Quebec City and Dijon, France.

The Stephen Cross journal consists of 60 pages of entries, spanning March 1, 1756-January 22, 1757. The journal begins with Cross' agreement to travel to Fort Oswego with eighteen others from his town, in order to "build some vessels for the King's service" (March 1, 1756). In mid-March and April, he provided a detailed account of his travel from Newbury, Massachusetts, to Oswego, New York, via Boston, Providence, Newport, Block Island, New York City, and Albany. During this period, Cross frequently described the difficulty of navigating the terrain of upstate New York, his encounters with Native Americans, and the details of his work, which included cutting and hauling timber to construct ships and to rebuild Fort Bull after its destruction by the French (April 27, 1756). On May 12, 1756, Cross mentioned an incident in which friendly Native Americans saluted his party with their muskets, resulting in confusion and a supposition that their greeting was "an ambush laid for us." Luckily, the misunderstanding was quickly discovered.

Cross and his party arrived at Fort Oswego on May 14, 1756, and he subsequently recounted the process of preparing for a siege. On May 23, 1756, he reported a bizarre incident in which a soldier survived a scalping while in a drunken stupor. He also described several desertions (May 30, 1756), the frequent discovery of enemy spies, and occasional skirmishes. On August 14, 1756, he gave a detailed description of the Battle of Fort Oswego and its aftermath, including his capture and the drunken antics of his fellow prisoners.

After his capture, Cross described his experiences as a prisoner of war, including imprisonment in Quebec City, crossing the Atlantic en route to France (August 22, 1756: “[W]e are confined to our dark and wretched hole below both decks, only allowed to come on deck twice a day”), several near shipwrecks, and various plots to escape. On November 20, 1756, he gave an account of the escape of several prisoners from Brest and their eventual return to prison because of starvation. He also noted his dislike of General Shirley's regiment (the 50th Regiment of Foot), consisting of fellow captives on their way to France and, Cross supposed, "convicts" (November 15, 1756). The last entries concern imprisonment in a castle and the kindness of a wealthy widow to the prisoners (December 27, 1756). In January, he expressed his fear of going to the hospital, where an increasing number of men were dying. The journal ends with Cross' admission to the hospital on January 22, 1757.