Last updated: December 6, 2022
Person
Nicholas Bovee
National Park Service/Dan U.
Quick Facts
Significance:
Nicholas Bovee was a private in the Continental Army. A year into his service he was attacked and wounded by an enemy force.
Place of Birth:
Hoosick, Colony of New York
Date of Birth:
circa 1757
Place of Death:
Schenectady, NY, United States of America
Date of Death:
March 11, 1796
Nicholas was born circa 1757, to Ryckert and Marytje Huyke Bovee in the British Colony of New York. He had at least five siblings including a sister, Sarah. He was 5 feet 4 inches tall with brown hair.
While still living with his parents in Hoosick, NY in August of 1776, Bovee first enlisted Captain John Brandt’s Albany County Rangers, and then in Captain Garrett S. Veeder’s Company of the 4th NY Regiment. These were likey 3-month terms. At about the same time, a brother-in-law left to serve on behalf of the British. Immediately after Bovee’s second term expired, he reenlisted on January 2, 1777, into Captain Aaron Aorson’s Company of the 3rd NY Regiment for the duration of the war. This was to be a much shorter term than expected.
In spring of 1777, the regiment marched up the Mohawk River to be stationed at American Fort Schuyler (formerly Stanwix). As summer set in, British allied forces lead by Walter Butler began to harass the garrison; and on July 3 of that year, Bovee and 16 other men were ambushed while cutting sod for the walls a mile to the west of the fort. One soldier was murdered and mutilated, another wounded mortally, and six captured. Bovee himself was shot twice through his right arm, tomahawked in his right hip, scalped, and left for dead. When he was found a little later by fellow soldiers John J. Schermerhorn, James Lighthall, and Gideon Vanderheyden, they were shocked to see him alive. He was rushed to the fort’s hospital and received treatment by Doctor Hunloke Woodruff. Of his injuries, his hip wound was said to be the worst. The medical treatment for scalping was simple, bandage it and make the victim as comfortable as possible, as infection would surely set in and they'd be dead in a few days. Defying the odds, Bovee survived.
Just the day after the attack, Colonel Peter Gansevoort, commader of the fort, invoked it in a letter addressed to General Schuyler detailing why the fort needed reinforements. On July 28, Bovee was shipped to Schenectady, NY with the other wounded, sick, women, and children in preparation for an anticipated British attack upon Fort Schuyler (the Siege of 1777). In October of 1777, he was sent to Albany, NY where his mother and an uncle retrieved him. On April 1, 1779, he was placed on the “Invalid Pension” rolls in consequence of his disability and received a total of $60 a year. From that point on his friends and neighbors referred to him as “Sculpennick,” or “Scalped Nick” in Dutch. He suffered from mobility problems for the rest of his life.
Bovee married Polly Cotrel in White Creek, NY on April 15, 1779, in a small ceremony presided over by Reverend William Waite and attended by Bovee’s mother, sister Sarah, and a brother and some of Polly’s family and friends. His mother was said to have objected to the marriage because of his disability. Despite his new marriage and likely much to his mother’s chagrin, Bovee spent much of the next 18 months at the General Hospital at Albany, still suffering from his injuries. He was not officially discharged until 1781 when New York consolidated its military.
Bovee and Polly had ten children: Phillip, Elizabeth, Daniel, Jacob, Catharine, Sally, John, Harper, Esther, and Isabel. Philip died in infancy. Over the years they lived in Montgomery County, Mapleton, and Schenectady, NY. He died there on March 11, 1796, at the approximate age of 40. Twenty years later, while being interviewed for a widow’s pension, Polly claimed his death was in direct consequence of the injuries suffered on that fateful July day in 1777. Polly went on to marry another Revolutionary War veteran and was deposed to prove her claim of a widow’s pension. Much of Bovee’s story came from these records.