After the death of his father, when the revolutionary troubles commenced, William, his youngest son, removed into Lower Canada.  The other children all remained in Albany County, except Christian, who, when the jangling land disputes and conflicts of titles arose in Schoharie, followed Conrad Wiser, Esq. (a near relative), to the banks of the Susquehanna.  He appears eventually to have pushed his way to Buchanan River, one of the sources of the Monongahela, in Lewis County, Virginia, where some of his descendants must still reside.  It appears that they became deeply involved in the Indian wars which the Shawnees kept up on the frontiers of Virginia.  In this struggle they took an active part, and were visited with the severest retribution by the marauding Indians.  It is stated by Withers that, between 1770 and 1779, not less than fifteen of this family, men, women, and children, were killed or taken prisoners, and carried into captivity.[2]

[Footnote 2:  Chronicles of the Border Warfare in North-western Virginia.  By Alex Withers, Clarksbury, Virginia, 1831. 1 vol. 12mo. page 319.]

Of the other children of the original progenitor, James, the eldest son, died a bachelor.  Lawrence was the ancestor of the persons of this name in Schoharie County.  Elizabeth and Helen married, in that county, in the families of Rose and Haines, and, Margaret, the eldest daughter, married Col.  Green Brush, of the British army, at the house of Gen. Bradstreet, Albany.  Her daughter, Miss Francis Brush, married the celebrated Col.  Ethan Allen, after his return from the Tower of London.

John, the third son, settled in Watervleit, in the valley of the Norman’s Kill—­or, as the Indians called it, Towasentha—­Albany County.  He served in a winter’s campaign against Oswego, in 1757, and took part also in the successful siege and storming of Fort Niagara, under Gen. Prideaux [3] and Sir William Johnson, in the summer of 1759.  He married a Miss Anna Barbara Boss, by whom he had three children, namely, Anne, Lawrence, and John.  He had the local reputation of great intrepidity, strong muscular power, and unyielding decision of character.  He died at the age of 64.  Lawrence, his eldest son, had entered his seventeenth year when the American Revolution broke out.  He embraced the patriotic sentiments of that era with great ardor, and was in the first revolutionary procession that marched through and canvassed the settlement with martial music, and the Committee of Safety at its head, to determine who was Whig or Tory.

[Footnote 3:  This officer was shot in the trenches, which devolved the command on Sir William.]

The military element had always commanded great respect in the family, and he did not wait to be older, but enrolled himself among the defenders of his country.

He was present, in 1776, when the Declaration of Independence was read to the troops drawn up in hollow square at Ticonderoga.  He marched under Gen. Schuyler to the relief of Montgomery, at Quebec, and continued to be an indomitable actor in various positions, civil and military, in the great drama of the Revolution during its entire continuance.