Searching for Jonathan Jones: The Saratoga Connection

How does a pivotal battle in the American Revolution - a turning point in the war with Britain; one that will be cited by a war-embattled president two and half centuries in the future - how does a deeply symbolic place in US history connect to a tiny community along the Baddeck River on Cape Breton Island?

The Battle of Saratoga was a series of clashes between the upstart American Patriots and the British Loyalists who ruled the colonial provinces known as the Thirteen Colonies. These fights took place in September and October 1777 in New York, north of Albany at places named Freemans Farm, Bemis Heights and Saratoga (today known as Schuylerville). These communities along the Hudson River were populated with farmers and entrepreneurs, most with Dutch and British ancestry.

The British would lose the battle at Saratoga – badly.  The effect of the powerful Brits surrendering to the upstart American patriots brought France into the fight, bringing with them much needed artillery and funding, bolstering the Americans and leading to eventual victory.

It is late December 2022.  Google Earth is zoomed in on a tiny creek off the Hudson River in upstate New York. I am looking for the location of Jonathan Jones property. Different histories place him near Fort Edward or Glens Falls, but a new document provides a more precise location near Saratoga. In records relating to the evidence gathered by the Loyalist Commission in Halifax in 1783, Jonathan Jones offers testimony regarding his home.

I find Fish Creek, noting on Google maps it is almost exactly 36 miles (58 kilometers) from Albany. Nearby is Saratoga National Historic Park, a community called Victory and a park that commemorates the location where Burgoyne laid down his sword and surrendered. CNN is on in the background as embattled Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has just spoken to the US Congress. In his speech, he mentions the Battle of Saratoga and its importance to the eventual success of the American cause. Jake Tapper reminds viewers that even today, Saratoga and the successes there, remain an important moment in US history which helped lead America toward independence.

Jonathan Jones lived beside Schulyer’s Creek (now Fish Creek), a waterway three kilometers west of the Hudson River in the community of Saratoga (now Schuylerville). A married man in his 30s, he and wife Sarah had four children. He was a member of the New York Colonial County government, was a justice of the peace for Albany County and according to many letters and reports, was an up-standing community member and a leader.

Records show that Jonathan was born in Connecticut, but little has been uncovered about where exactly. Sarah is similarly obscured in history, where she was born is unknown, but a marriage certificate identifies her birth name as Sampson (or maybe Lampson). Based on later records, I was able to determine their first child, William was born in 1769 or 1770. Sons Jonathan Junior and Thomas soon followed. Daughter Esther was 6 months old in the fall of 1777 as the Battle of Saratoga took place around them. Sarah, another daughter, was born at a refugee camp in Sorel, Quebec in 1779.

The clearly defined boundary lines of war, so easy to see from afar, become messy and blurry on the ground where friends and neighbours championed opposite sides. Brothers took up arms against each other. Tar and feathering was often used as a method of intimidation and punishment for those identified as supporting the British.

In 1777, Jonathan Jones had helped to organize a corps of soldiers. He oversaw 22 men as a Captain in Jessup’s Rangers – a specialized unit that collected intelligence in the field and brought vital information back to the highest levels of the British military.  According to a report by Stephen Strach, former historian at the Saratoga National Park in Schuylerville, N.Y., in the early morning hours of October 2, 1777, a patrol of about 150 American troops came upon Jones’ home and mill. Within the American troop were some local men. They knew the farm belonged to Jones and surmised he was supplying the British troops with lumber and grain.

As the sky lit up with the flames, Jonathan Jones was leading a British scouting party on the opposite side of the creek.

Ebenezer Wild, a sergeant in the patrol responsible for lighting the fires described the view from the Patriot side:

Jones, watching in terror as his home, businesses and farm are burned before his very eyes, jumped into the creek and crosses it to find his family. Once he reaches the opposite side, he is immediately taken prisoner. Standing helpless, with his burning home as the backdrop, he witnesses the capture of his wife and children.

Ebenezer Wild reports the American troop seized 18 horned cattle and 12 horses from the farm to be used for their benefit in the war effort.

“After we delivered our prisoners to the guard and …the cattle were taken care of, we marched to the commissary’s store, where there was a gill of rum and one hard biscuit delivered to each man.”

Within two weeks, the British, under general Burgoyne surrendered.  The site is just four kilometres from the location where Jonathan Jones once lived.

It would not be a direct route from Saratoga to Big Baddeck for the Jones Family. There would be more battles ahead, more obstacles and heartbreak before they would find peace. The story continues on August 24.

Notes:

The Incident & Site of Jones Mill on Fish Creek Saratoga County, New York, October 2, 1777, is a report by Historian Stephen Strach for Saratoga National Park, compiled in the 1970s. His conclusion was that although the incident at Jones Farm is “highly representative of the type of activity in which both armies engaged…between Sept 19 and October 7, 1777”, the incident at Jones Farm - as far as telling the American story at Saratoga, is not significant and “has been entirely forgotten by historians”. The story of the Jones family is not included in the interpretation at the Saratoga National Historic Park. Despite this, there are documents in the Saratoga National Park archives, like Mr. Strach’s report, that has provided valuable insight into the search for Jonathan Jones.

Saratoga National Historic Park in New York: https://www.nps.gov/sara/index.htm The website provides much information on the battles around Saratoga, including this virtual tour: https://www.nps.gov/sara/learn/photosmultimedia/virtualtour.htm. The scenery there is reminiscent of Big Farm Road in Big Baddeck, where Jonathan Jones eventually settled on Cape Breton Island.

No Turning Point: The Saratoga Campaign in Perspective (2021) University of Oklahoma Press. Author Theodore Corbett writes that Saratoga was not a turning point for the people that lived in Saratoga, that although Burgoyne had surrendered, the warring factions continued to wage war there, fighting with family, friends and neighbours.