On September 5, 1778, a small contingent of colonial militia from Fort Honk near present day Napanoch, were ambushed near where the Chestnut Brook flows into the Pepacton Creek in what is today the town of Neversink, but was part of Ulster County at the time.

The incident has become known as the Battle of Chestnut Woods, and to this day remains one of the most confusing events of the Revolutionary War.

It is not particularly unusual for various accounts of occurrences that took place during the Revolutionary War to differ in detail, but few incidents have resulted in such widely disparate versions as what transpired that day at Chestnut Woods.

The series of events began with a Loyalist attack on a settlement known as Pine Bush. This is not the current hamlet with that name, but an older place in the town of Rochester. The attack resulted in the death of two men from the settlement, some destruction of the buildings there, and a possible kidnapping of a young boy. Many accounts of this attack place the responsibility for it on the Mohawk Joseph Brant and his marauding band of Loyalists and Iroquois, but although the means and methods employed during the attack bear some resemblances to Brant’s tactics, it is most unlikely that it was his work.

As often happens throughout history with personalities that are larger than life, Brant became a bogeyman, with many atrocities unjustly assigned to him. But the discrepancies do not stop there.

Most sources tend to agree that troops were ultimately dispatched from Fort Honk, led by Lt. John Graham (or was he a sergeant?). The men under Graham’s command numbered either 18 or 19 or 20 or perhaps even 21.

In relating what is now generally regarded as a highly questionable account of the incident in his 1873 “History of Sullivan County,” James Eldridge Quinlan wrote that “there were several hundred troops stationed at a fort on Honk Hill. Their commander, on learning what had occurred, at once resolved to dispatch a part of his men to intercept the savages at the Chestnut Woods, about thirteen miles from Napanoch. Volunteers were called for, when an officer named John Graham, stepped forward, and offered to go with a sergeant’s guard, consisting of eighteen privates and a sergeant and corporal. He was offered more, but refused to take them. But one of those whom he proposed to lead on a hazardous expedition, was an expert Indian-fighter. The name of this man was Abraham Van Campen, and he was a near kinsman of the noted Major Moses Van Campen. The others were from the old settlements east of the Shawangunk, and unused to border-warfare.”

Although most accounts of the battle, including the marker and the bronze plaque on the site, list just three men killed at Chestnut Woods, Quinlan records that all but three of the men in the contingent, including Graham, were killed. That would mean 18. The best research into the events of that September suggests that neither of those numbers is accurate.

To complicate matters further, two of the men listed on the bronze plaque, erected by the citizens of the county in 1920, apparently did not exist. The plaque lists John Graham, Adam Ambler, and Robert Temple as the deceased, but there are no military records for either of the latter two names. In all likelihood, they are Adam Embler and Robert Semple. Curiously, Adam Embler is also listed among those killed at the Battle of Minisink on July 22, 1779. Given the difficulty of finding accurate accounts of incidents like Chestnut Woods, such inaccuracies are understandable, but nonetheless frustrating.

Quinlan writes that the tragic debacle was in large part the result of the inexperience of Graham, who led the men into an ambush by encamping in a place that was easily surrounded by the enemy.

“No rat ever walked more unconsciously into a trap than did the brave but rash Graham. Without knowing it, he and his party were as completely in the power of the enemy as if they had been a covey of partridges under a fowler’s net. The Indians and Tories occupied the elevations on every side, where they were securely posted behind tree trunks, and awaited the signal of death from their leader.”

In a dispatch to NY Governor George Clinton written on September 9, 1778, Colonel John Cantine, who had ventured to survey the scene of the carnage when the men did not return to Fort Honk, had a slightly different take. He wrote: “But what could have induced them to choose a place so disadvantageous to themselves I cannot account for. The place in my opinion was neither calculated for Defence [sic] or to save a Retreat. They had been there about half an hour, and heard the enemy coming. An Indian came about thirty Yards before the rest, and when he came opposite to them, he perceived them, as they were in no way properly concealed. The Indian on seeing them squatted, and then Abraham Vancamp shot at him. Several of the others came within forty Yards of our men, who then discharged their pieces upon them, but I believe did little or no Execution, at Least I could see no signs thereof.”

So exactly what happened at Chestnut Woods that September in 1778 is still a mystery, and it would be fitting to clear it all up now that the county— and the nation— has begun the commemoration of the 250th anniversary of the Revolutionary War.

Stay tuned.

John Conway is the Sullivan County Historian and a founder and president of The Delaware Company. Email him at jconway52@hotmail.com.