Fort Plain Museum & Historical Park

The fortified home of Johann Nicolas Dunkle.  This neighborhood refuge was erected in Freysbush during 1779 and 1780.  It was named to honor Canajoharie militia commandant Colonel Samuel Clyde and it was mainly garrisoned by residents and militia from 1780 through 1783.

Excerpt From:
"The Story of Old Fort Plain and the Middle Mohawk Valley" by Nelson Greene

The families of Freysbush who were accustomed to seek safety in Fort Clyde were Nellis, Yerdon, Garlock, Radnour, Dunckel, Wormuth, Miller, Lintner, Walrath, Lewis, Wolfe, Falling, Schreiber, Ehle, Knouts, Westerman, Brookman, Young, Yates and a few others. From the Knouts house the savages went to the home of Johan Steffanis Schreiber, who discovered them approaching and made his escape. They made prisoners of his wife and two or three small children and led them into captivity, a fact recorded on a family powder horn, which is now owned by the state.

Concerning Brant's Minden Raid Greene wrote the following:

One of the numerous small bands, into which Brant divided his force to make destruction more complete, visited the home of John Knouts in Freysbush. The site of the Knouts dwelling may still be seen in the apple orchard on the premises formerly owned by Josiah Roof. Here are also the graves of Mrs. Knouts and her children, slain by the Indians. Knouts was made here a prisoner and murdered on the way north after the savages left the settlement. When the Indians entered the house, Mrs. Knouts was busy outside it and hearing the outcries of her children inside, she ran up just in time to see one of them tomahawked. While begging for her other children's lives, she was struck down and scalped with the other two children. Henry, a boy of eight or ten, was taken from the house, presumably by a Tory neighbor, around the corner and told to run for his life. This he did but was seen by an Indian, struck with a tomahawk, scalped and left for dead. On the day following a party went from Fort Clyde to bury these victims, when they found this little boy still alive and able to tell of the tragedy of the day before. He was an intelligent child and said he was running to get back of the barn and so into the woods. He said: "I should have escaped but an Indian met me between the house and the barn, who knocked me on the head with his hatchet and pulled out my hair," meaning that he had been scalped, of the details of which operation he was evidently ignorant. This brave little Knouts boy was taken to Fort Clyde and carefully treated and, after his wounds had nearly healed, he took cold and died. The mother was found lying in the door yard with the three children murdered with her in her arms. Thus Indians sometimes disposed of their slain, before firing a dwelling, as supposed to strike the greater terror to living witnesses of their hellish cruelty. Her scalp was hanging on a stake, where the Indians had left it, evidently having forgotten it in their great haste to surprise other families. There is a tradition that the Indian who slew her took from her hand a ring having on it a Masonic emblem, discovering which he said: "Had I known the squaw had on such a ring, I would not have harmed her." It is needless to say the buildings on the Knouts place were burned and thus an entire family and their home were wiped out by almost incredible savagery. John Abeel, the Indian trader mentioned elsewhere, had married a Knouts girl, who was probably a relative of this family.