User:Geo Swan/Jabob Salisbury

Jacob Salisbury was a royal loyalist, or "tory", living in the region near Albany, New York, during the American Revolution.

Accounts of his fate, and accounts of how he expressed his loyalty to the crown vary.

There is a cave high up on the Helderberg escarpment now known as "Tory cave" that is described as his hideout. Albany is visible, in the distance, from the cave. In some accounts he is said to have been able to gather useful intelligence on revolutionary activity from this hideout.

In some accounts Salisbury used the cave to lead raids on farms of families that favored the revolution, and then disappear. In some accounts his hide-out was detected through the smoke from his cooking fire. In some accounts Salisbury was hung by revolutionary forces, in his cave hideout, without benefit of a trial.

But the 1848 "History of Schoharie County and Border Wars of New York" offers a completely different description of Salisbury, quoting a Mrs Eleanor Feeck:

A tory, named Jacob Salisbury, was concealed in a house in the present town of Bern, Albany county, in the latter part of the war, for several months. A hole had been cut in the floor, and covered with a trap door, and in a small space dug beneath the floor, the tory concealed himself whenever any of his neighbors, not in the secret of his burrow, were at the house. His object, it is believed, was to act the spy, but having been discovered, he was arrested and imprisoned.