August 21

August 21, 1841: The bodies of Revolutionary War soldiers Captain Boyd and his men who fought in the Sullivan Campaign against the Seneca Indians are transferred from the battlefield near Cuylerville, NY, where they had been left for 62 years, to Mount Hope cemetery. New York governor William H. Seward travels to Rochester to provide the oration. The Sullivan campaign was ordered by George Washington against the Senecas for "the total destruction and devastation of their settlements" in retaliation for their siding with the British and Loyalists.

 

Sources and Further Reading:

1. History of Rochester and Monroe County, New York (1908); Peck, William F.; page 23
2. Wikipedia: Sullivan Expedition
3. Wikipedia: Boyd and Parker ambush