Background: John Burroughs, born on a farm near Roxbury (Delaware County, NY) in 1837, witnessed some events of the Anti-Rent conflict as a boy.  He later became a prolific and well-known nature writer.

The excerpt below is from John Burroughs Talks, by Clifton Johnson, Houghton-Mifflin, 1922. On pages 6 to 19, Mr. Burroughs recalls his boyhood, available on this website under Family and Daily Life: Excerpts from John Burroughs Talks. The cover of the book, shown below, depicts Slabsides (Burroughs' retreat near the Hudson River).  The location of the boyhood family farm of John Burroughs is shown on the 1856 map of Delaware County by Jay Gould.

Excerpt from Page 19

“I was about seven years old when we had an anti-rent war in the Catskills. A great many of the farms there were leased land. Back in Colonial times the English King had granted immense sections of that region to certain of his court favorites, who divided it up among favorites of their own. All this land had to pay the heirs of those old favorites a tax of a shilling an acre. Of course they never had anything to do with the land, but settlers took it and improved it and made their homes on it.

“The people who lived on the land thought the tax was unjust. So they took the law into their own hands and said they weren’t going to pay this tax any more. They got the idea of disguising themselves as Indians. They wore leather caps pulled over their faces, and were all paint, fur, and feathers -- dreadful-looking creatures! Father sympathized with their side, and they used to call at our house, and we would give them apples and other things to eat or drink. They were usually just out on a lark.

Page 20

It was all foolishness, and didn’t amount to anything; but the feeling was very bitter and divided the neighborhood.

“The down-renters, disguised as Indians, did most of their roaming round nights, but they would come together any time of day at the signal of the blowing of a horn. They gave orders that nobody should blow a horn except as a summons for them to gather. Jay Gould’s father lived in our same district, not much more than a mile away, and he was one of the up-renters, or “Tories” as their opponents liked to call them. He was a stiff-necked old fellow, and he declared he was going to blow his horn to call his men to dinner, whether or no. So blow it he did, and the first thing the old gentleman knew he had his house full of those hobgoblin Indians threatening to tar and feather him.

“On another occasion, when news had got round that the sheriff was going to sell out a man who wouldn’t pay his rent, the Indians gathered at the sale and shot the sheriff.

“They became so lawless that the legislature had to take the matter in hand and try to suppress the Indians and imprison their leaders. I’d see the sheriff and his posse ride past -- twenty or thirty or even fifty men galloping pell-mell -- and I was scared. They’d go rushing along on their horses, flourishing swords and muskets. It was a terrible sight for a youngster. My fears were the greater

Page 21

 because the posse represented the law, and my sympathy, of course, was with my own people. I wasn’t so afraid of the down-renter Indians.

“Father thought the posse was after him one day, and he ran over to Gran’ther Kelly’s and got under a bed. We had great fun over that, for it was said that his feet stuck out, and that his hiding wouldn’t have done him any good if the sheriff’s men had really been after him, which they weren’t. But they did try to lay hands on a neighbor who was a leader among the down-renters. He got away to Michigan and stayed there several years before he dared to come back.

“I went to a great down-renter meeting one time. The horns blew long and loud over the hills, and the men put on their Indian disguise and started for the meeting-place. Their leather caps were something like a bag with holes cut for the eyes, nose, and mouth. There were horns on the caps, and a fringe round the neck, and a cow’s tail tied on behind, and I don’t know what-all. Oh! those caps were hideous-looking things -- perfectly infernal -- and no two were alike. The Indians had blouses of striped calico, belted at the waist, and some of them had pants of the same material or of red flannel. Take a hundred men together dressed up in that style, and it made a sight to behold.

“The meeting was held in a big empty hay-barn. I went and peeked through the cracks, and the

Excerpt from Page 22

Indians stuck out straw at me. They had their orators, and it seemed to me that the affair was something tremendous. There was such a lot of them I was convinced they’d carry everything before them.

“But they didn’t go at the matter in the right way. Their lawlessness and outlandishness hurt their cause, and the farmers still have to pay rent. Our old farm, like the rest, has to pay its yearly shilling an acre just as it did when I was a boy.”

Transcribed for this website by Terri Ahrens.

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