Remembering the Sacrifice of a True Patriot

Denise Doring VanBuren, President General

It was a privilege for me to participate in recent ceremonies that honored a Patriot of the American Revolution who was born six miles from my home, lost his life in the service of the Continental Army and sacrificed his son to the cause. He had first-hand experience of the difficult trials of life under the British – having even traveled to England to plead the case for return of ancestral lands. Yet his people would be pushed all the way to Wisconsin by the mid-1800s. For Chief Daniel Nimham (also Ninham) (1726–1778) was the last sachem of the Wappinger. He was the most prominent Native American of his time where I live in the lower Hudson Valley. And he lost his life in support of the Patriot cause.

Nimham’s son, Abraham (born 1745), was appointed captain of a company of military scouts who served the Continental Army based in Stockbridge, Mass. During the American Revolution both Daniel and Abraham Nimham served/fought with the Stockbridge Militia, alongside George Washington at Valley Forge, in the Battle of Saratoga and at the Battle at Cambridge. They also supported troops led by Gen. Marquis de Lafayette.

On Aug. 31, 1778, along with their fellow Wappinger Indians, Daniel and Abraham found themselves surrounded by Loyalists under the command of British Lt. Col. John Simcoe in the Battle of Kingsbridge at Cortland's Ridge (now Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx). All of the men lost their lives; fatality estimates range between 17 and 40 Native Americans died that day.

Hessian captain Johann Von Ewald sketched a Stockbridge warrior based on one of the dead. The picture is the only known contemporary depiction of a Revolutionary-era Stockbridge militiaman. Von Ewald described the Indian casualties after his examination:

“Their costume was a shirt of coarse linen down to the knees, long trousers also of linen down to the feet, on which they wore shoes of deerskin, and the head was covered with a hat made of bast. Their weapons were a rifle or musket, a quiver with some twenty arrows, and a short battle-axe, which they know how to throw very skillfully. Through the nose and in the ears they wore rings, and on their heads only the hair of the crown remained standing in a circle the size of a dollar-piece, the remainder being shaved off bare. They pull out with pincers all the hairs of the beard, as well as those on all other parts of the body.”

The bodies of the Indians were left on the battlefield and then buried in a mass grave. By the 19th century the spirit of their sachem was said to haunt the land of "Indian Field."

On August 31, members of the Col. Benjamin Tallmadge Chapter of the Bronx and New York State Regent Patrice Birner joined with other community organizations to honor these men in ceremonies conducted at the battle site. Members of the since-disbanded Bronx Chapter had been there before us in 1906, erecting this marker:

AUGUST 31, 1778
UPON THIS FIELD,
CHIEF NIMHAM AND SEVENTEEN STOCKBRIDGE INDIANS,
AS ALLIES OF THE PATRIOTS,
GAVE THEIR LIVES FOR LIBERTY.
ERECTED BY THE BRONX CHAPTER
DAUGHTERS OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION
MOUNT VERNON, NEW YORK.
JUNE 14, 1906

How had Chief Nimham come to be here to fight that fateful day?

Born in 1726, Nimham was the last sachem of the Wappinger Indians and the chief of the Nochpeen band. A native of the Fishkill (derived from the  Dutch word for stream: kill), he lived on land that was part of the 85,000-acre Rombout Patent, property that was acquired from Native Americans by Francis Rombout, Gulian Verplanck and Stephanus Van Courtland. Rombout’s daughter Catharyna inherited the land and with her husband Roger and lived in harmony with their Wappinger Indian neighbors. Nimham became a good friend and historians believe that’s likely how he became fluent in English. My own chapter, Melzingah, has owned and operated the Bretts’ home as a house museum since 1954.

Nimham was a fierce advocate for his people, and the story of his (failed) fight to retain their lands is moving. New York City merchant Adolph Philipse purchased property from two squatters, a large amount of which was Wappinger-owned land. At the time, 300 Wappinger Indians had joined Roger’s Rangers, a provincial company from New Hampshire that was attached to the British Army during the French and Indian War. When they returned they found their land rented to tenant farmers by Philipse.

Nimham contested the validity of the Philipse deed, going as far as to travel to England in 1766 to present his case to the Lords of Trades. Though reportedly sympathetic to his argument, British officials referred him back to New York, where the claims were dismissed -- fearing that the return of lands would set an adverse precedent with regard to similar disputes. The decision likely led to Nimham’s determination to fight against the British in support of the American cause.

This October, the Town of Fishkill will dedicate an 8-foot bronze statue of Chief Nimham in order to honor his staunch advocacy and valiant courage -- for both the Wappinger tribe and the American cause.

P.S. Interesting in reading more about this Native American who dies in support of our independence? Search for “The Road to Kingsbridge” in the Fall 2017 American Indian Magazine published by the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian. You will find additional information about his appeals to England here: https://www.hhlt.org/land-heist-in-the-highlands/.

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