Solomon Binkus in his talk with Colonel Hare had signalized the arrival of a new type of man born of new conditions.  When Lord Howe and General Abercrombie got to Albany with regiments of fine, high-bred, young fellows from London, Manchester and Liverpool, out for a holiday and magnificent in their uniforms of scarlet and gold, each with his beautiful and abundant hair done up in a queue, Mr. Binkus laughed and said they looked “terrible pert.”  He told the virile and profane Captain Lee of Howe’s staff, that the first thing to do was to “make a haystack o’ their hair an’ give ’em men’s clothes.”

“A cart-load o’ hair was mowed off,” to quote again from Solomon, and all their splendor shorn away for a reason apparent to them before they had gone far on their ill-fated expedition.  Hair-dressing and fine millinery and drawing-room clothes were not for the bush.

An inherited sense of old wrongs was the mental background of this new type of man.  Life in the bush had strengthened his arm, his will and his courage.  His words fell as forcefully as his ax under provocation.  He was deliberate as became one whose scalp was often in danger; trained to think of the common welfare of his neighborhood and rather careless about the look of his coat and trousers.

John Irons and Solomon Binkus were differing examples of the new man.  Of large stature, Irons had a reputation of being the strongest man in the New Hampshire grants.  No name was better known or respected in all the western valleys.  His father, a man of some means, had left him a reasonable competence.

Certain old records of Cumberland County speak of his unusual gifts, the best of which was, perhaps, modesty.  He had once entertained Sir William Johnson at his house and had moved west, when the French and Indian War began, on the invitation of the governor, bringing his horses with him.  For years he had been breeding and training saddle horses for the markets in New England.  On moving he had turned his stock into Sir William’s pasture and built a log house at the fort and served as an aid and counselor of the great man.  Meanwhile his wife and children had lived in Albany.  When the back country was thought safe to live in, at the urgent solicitation of Sir Jeffrey Amherst, he had gone to the northern valley with his herd, and prospered there.

Albany had one wide street which ran along the river-front.  It ended at the gate of a big, common pasture some four hundred yards south of the landing which was near the center of the little city.  In the north it ran into “the great road” beyond the ample grounds of Colonel Schuyler.  The fort and hospital stood on the top of the big hill.  Close to the shore was a fringe of elms, some of them tall and stately, their columns feathered with wild grape-vines.  A wide space between the trees and the street had been turned into well-kept gardens, and their verdure was a pleasant thing to see.  The town lay along the foot of a steep hill, and, midway, a huddle of buildings climbed a few rods up the slope.  At the top was the English Church and below it were the Town Hall, the market and the Dutch Meeting-House.  Other thoroughfares west of the main one were being laid out and settled.