Sullivan’s encampment near the Conesus Lake Inlet received word from the sole escapee and they set out toward their destination. They once had visions of a surprise attack on what they expected to be a quaint, small Seneca Village that they intended to obliterate but when they arrived at Little Beard Town on September 14, 1779 what they encountered was something else entirely.

On the trail where most of Boyd’s men had been killed, a few of those who survived were captured and returned to the village. Lieutenant Thomas Boyd and Sargent Michael Parker were among those brought back to the village and questioned by Chief Little Beard, Joseph Brant (a Mohawk who chose an English name) and John Butler (an ‘American’ who was loyal to England.) After Butler and Brant were finished with their interrogation where apparently neither Boyd nor Parker gave up any details on Sullivan’s plans, they left and turned the two over to the care of the Senecas.

Gravesite of Lt. Boyd and Sgt. Parker in Cuylerville, NYBoyd and Parker were directed to what is now known as ‘The Torture Tree‘ where they underwent a trial of excruciating abuses where their finger and toe nails were removed, their genitals mutilated and their backs whipped. While having been stripped naked, their right ears were cut off as well as their noses and their tongues. Each of their right eyes had been gouged from their sockets and left hanging by strands of flesh. In a final show of protest to the settlers taking their land, the Senecas cut open the abdomen of each Boyd and Parker and attached one end of their intestines to the tree and forced each of them to walk around the trunk in circles. Upon final collapse, their hearts were ripped from their bodies and each were beheaded.

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