Miss Land's Midnight Journey
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During the journey from Harpersfield to Niagara, Patchin says Kane boasted that he had killed a Major Hopkins, on an island in Lake George. A party of pleasure had gone to this island on a sailing excursion, and having delayed their departure until too late to return home, determined to spend the night on the island. Kane and his party, perceiving that they were defenseless, proceeded to the place as soon as it was night, and attacked them as they were sleeping around a fire. Several of the Americans were killed, among them a woman. This woman had a babe which was not injured in the least. “This,” said Kane, “we put to the breast of its dead mother, and in that manner we left it. Major Hopkins was wounded, only his thigh-bone being broken. He started up, when I struck him with the butt of my gun on the side of his head. He fell over but caught on one hand. I then knocked him the other way, but he caught on the other hand. A third blow, and I laid him dead. These were all scalped except the infant. In the morning a party of Whigs went over and brought away the dead, together with one they found alive, though scalped, and the babe which was hanging and sobbing at the breast of its lifeless mother.”
Whether the massacre of Bryant Kane's family so wrought upon a nature not originally bad as to convert him into a fiend, or whether his own crimes against his Whig neighbors led to the slaughter of his wife and children, is not known. The feelings which prompted and the motives which actuated the commission of the bloody deeds by the early settlers against their neighbors, will never be unveiled until the day of final reckoning.
After the declaration of peace, Bryant Kane wandered from place to place in the valley of the Delaware. His property was confiscated; and having lost both family and fortune, he sought for consolation in the intoxicating cup, and finally left the country. The time and manner of his death no one can tell.
John Land became so obnoxious to the Whigs that he was arrested and sent to the “New Jersey log jail.” From this he escaped; but was soon retaken, wounded in his head with a sword, and hanged until his life was nearly gone. He was informed that next time he would be hanged in earnest, and after being heavily ironed was once more cast into prison. Subsequently a Whig named Harvey became responsible for his good conduct, and he was permitted to enjoy the liberties of the town. He lived with Harvey until 1783, when he returned to Cochecton. He became a respectable citizen of the United States, although he was stigmatized until the day of his death as “John Land, the Tory.”
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