In him terminated the life of one of the most zealous actors in the drama of the American Revolution, in which he was at various times a soldier and an officer, a citizen and a civil magistrate.  “Temperate, ardent and active, of a mind vigorous and energetic, of a spirit bold and daring, nay, even indomitable in its aspirations for freedom, he became at once conspicuous among his brethren in arms, and a terror to his country’s foes.” [97]

[Footnote 97:  Nat.  Intell.  July 31, 1840.]

His grandfather was an Englishman, and had served with reputation under the Duke of Marlborough in some of his famous continental battles, in the days of Queen Anne, and he cherished the military principle with great ardor.  He spoke fluently the German and Dutch languages, and was thus able to communicate with the masses of the varied population, originally from the Upper Rhine and the Scheldt, who formed a large portion of the inhabitants of the then frontier portions of Albany County, including the wild and picturesque range of the Helderbergs and of the new settlements of Schoharie, the latter being in immediate contact with the Mohawk Iroquois.  The influence of the British government over this tribe, through the administration of Sir William Johnson, was unbounded.  Many of the foreign emigrants and their descendants were also under this sway, and the whole frontier was spotted with loyalists under the ever hateful name of Tories.  These kept the enemy minutely informed of all movements of the revolutionists, and were, at the same time, the most cruel of America’s foes, not excepting the Mohawks.  For the fury of the latter was generally in battle, but the former exercised their cruelties in cold blood, and generally made deliberate preparations for them, by assuming the guise of Indians.  In these infernal masks they gave vent to private malice, and cut the throats of their neighbors and their innocent children.  In such a position a patriot’s life was doubly assailed, and it was often the price of it, to declare himself “a son of liberty,” a term then often used by the revolutionists.

He had just entered his seventeenth year when the war against the British authorities in the land broke out, and he immediately declared for it; the wealthy farmer (Swartz) with whom he lived, being one of the first who were overhauled and “spotted” by the LOCAL COMMITTEE OF SAFETY, who paraded through the settlement with a drum and fife.  He was at the disarming of Sir John Johnson, at Johnstown, under Gen. Schuyler, where a near relative, Conrad Wiser, Esq., was the government interpreter.  He was at Ticonderoga when the troops were formed into hollow square to hear the Declaration of Independence read.  He marched with the army that went to reinforce Gen. Montgomery, at Quebec, and was one of the besieged in Fort Stanwix, on the source of the Mohawk, while Gen. Burgoyne, with his fine army, was being drawn into the toils of destruction by Gen. Schuyler, at Saratoga—­a fate from which his supersedeas by Gen. Gates, the only unjust act of Washington, did not extricate him.