The fort’s parsonage was built a mile to the east and there the Mohawk leader, Joseph Brant, translated the ‘Anglican Book of Common Prayer’ into the Iroquois language. When war broke out, Deserontyon and the parsonage was garrisoned while the fort was one among the British network that ran the length of the valley. Sir William Johnson died from a stroke in 1774 and the management of his estates and the militia fell to his son John while his nephew Guy Johnson managed Indian affairs. Both men headed units of the New York’s Tyron County Militia. Joseph Brant served as Johnson’s secretary in his role as superintendent of Indian affairs.

To the American military there was little doubt that Brant, Guy Johnson and Deserontyon would remain Tories. All had been beneficiaries of the largess of Sir William Johnson and the British. In the spring of 1775 the local Committee of Safety issued a reprimand to Guy Johnson for his ‘aggressive and partisan acts’; with this order, the Patriots forced both Brant and Johnson men out of their command of New York militias. Guy was forced to move up the Mohawk Valley to the German Flats on the premise he was calling an Indian parlay. From there, along with Brant and 30 other Mohawks and 120 settlers, he escaped to Canada. Deserontyon joined them but not before he ensured the Queen Anne silver was buried and hidden from oncoming Patriots. In going to Canada, he left all that he owned in America: a substantial house, over 80 acres of rich arable farmland and all its accompanying tools and equipment, plus personal possessions equal to the value of the farm.

Deserontyon returned the next year to aid Sir William Johnson’s son and successor Sir John Johnson, who along with other Loyalist families dug in at Johnson Hall in an uneasy peace with the rebels. Eventually the New York congress and committee of safety ordered General Philip Schuyler to march with 3000 men to disarm Johnson and the other Tories the Mohawk Valley. He did so in January 1776 and Johnson was arrested but released on parole on an oath that he would cease forming Loyalist militia. The cagey patrician from a venerable New York family, General Philip Schulyer, suspected Johnson’s loyalty to the Crown would trump his oath and eventually lead to his recapture and imprisonment.