Fort Ticonderoga History: Jane McCrea Bibliography

The Death of Jane McCrea, July 26, 1777

A Fort Ticonderoga Bibliography, © Fort Ticonderoga

Current: May 23, 2000

These works in the Fort Ticonderoga research collections in the Thompson-Pell Research Center may be studied by appointment on weekdays. The library collections do not circulate. The condition of certain volumes may prohibit photocopying
Most of the unique manuscripts in the Fort Ticonderoga collections have been reprinted in The Bulletin of the Fort Ticonderoga Museum, published since 1927. The Bulletin may be found in state historical society libraries in the Northeast and in major university libraries. Some back issues are still available.
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Key Names

Jane McCrea
Mrs. McNeal

From the Collections of the Fort Ticonderoga Museum

Asher B. Durand, "The Murder of Miss McCrea," c. 1839

The Bulletin of the Fort Ticonderoga Museum, vol. III, no. 5 (January 1935)

Scrapbook, vol. 5, p. 35.

Frederick C. Yohn, "The Death of Jane McCrea," c. 1910

1912 calendar for the Glens Falls Insurance Company.

George W.A. Jenkins, "The Death of Jane McCrea," [after Vanderlyn], oil on canvas, 32" x 26" [PEM #59; FT #29.76]. Presented to Fort Ticonderoga before 1960.

The Bulletin of the Fort Ticonderoga Museum, vol. VI, no. 3 (January 1942)

Jane McCrea Iconography in Other Collections

John Vanderlyn (1755-1852), "The Murder of Jane McCrea," 1804, Paris. (Oil on canvas; 32-1/2" x 26-1/2") Wadsworth Atheneum. First exhibited as Une jeune fille massacré par deux sauvages au service des Anglais dans la guerre d’Amérique. (Originally The Murder of Lucinda, illustrating a passage in the Sixth Book of Joel Barlow’s The Columbiad.) Another copy is in the collections of the New York State Historical Association, Cooperstown.

* * * * *

Adler, Winston, ed., Their Own Voices: Oral Accounts of Early Settlers of Washington County, N.Y., Collected by Dr. Asa Fitch [1830s], Interlaken, NY., Heart-of-the-Lakes Publishers, 1988. [pb]

Bloodgood, S. DeWitt, The Sexagenary; or Reminiscences of the American Revolution, Albany, Joel Munsell, 1866, pp. 67, 124. [FTA #3629: Benson J. Lossing’s copy].

Letter of William Weeks, August 1777, concerning the Indian threat, quoted in extended footnote in John H. Brandow, The Story of Old Saratoga: The Burgoyne Campaign, to which is Added New York’s Share in the Revolution, Albany, 1919, pp. 105-107. [FTA # ].

Burns, Brian, "Massacre or Muster? Burgoyne’s Indians and the Militia at Bennington," Vermont History, vol. 45 no. (summer 1977), pp. 133-144.

Cohen, Patricia Cline, The Murder of Helen Jewett: The Life and Death of a Prostitute in Nineteenth-century New York, New York, Knopf, 1998. Discusses the symbolic impact of Vanderlyn’s 1804 painting, "Murder of Jane McCrea," hanging in Ms Jewett’s bordello. Discusses relationship of art patronage and sexuality in early 19th-century America.

Cutshall-King, Joseph, "If Robert Rogers needs a DNA test, shouldn’t Jane McCrea?" Glens Falls Post-Star, 20 May 2000, B-1, 5. [FTA research files].

Edgerton, Samuel Y., Jr., "Asher B. Durand’s Painting, ‘The Murder of Miss McCrea’ and Vattemare’s ‘System of International Exchange,’" The Bulletin of the Fort Ticonderoga Museum, vol. XI no. 6 (September 1965), pp. 336-342.

Edgerton, Samuel Y., Jr., "The Murder of Jane McCrea: the Tragedy of an American History," Art Bulletin, vol. 47 (December 1965). Copy in Fort Ticonderoga Scrapbook, 1966, p. 3.

Ellett, Elizabeth F., The Women of the American Revolution, 3 vols., New York, 1848-1850. Reprinted in 2 vols., New York, Haskell House, 1969.

Fitch, Asa, "Notes for a History of Washington County, New York," New York Genealogical and Biographical Record, vol. LXXIII no. 1 (January 1942), pp. 1-25. [FTA #P-4075]. Oral histories collected beginning in 1847 from Revolutionary War veterans and their children. This segment deals largely with Jane McCrea.

Hill, William H., Old Fort Edward, Fort Edward, 1929. [FTA]. See esp. "Addenda," published as a separate volume in 1957.

Hilliard-d’Auberteuil, Michel René, Miss McCrea: A Novel of the American Revolution, Brussels, 1784. Reprinted and trans. by Eric LaGuardia, Gainesville, Florida, Scholars’ Facsimiles, 1958, 64 pp. Author visited New York State in 1777. See also John T. Flanagan, "An Early Novel of the American Revolution," New York History, vol. XXXII (1951), pp. 316-322.

Holden, James Austin, "The Influence of the Death of Jane McCrea on Burgoyne’s Campaign," New York State Historical Association Proceedings, vol. XII, 1913, pp. 249-310. (exhaustive bibliography, pp. 295-310)

Hovey, Rev. Ivory, Letter to his father, Ivory Hovey, from Fort Miller, [N.Y.], July 27, 1777. Collection of the New England Historic and Genealogical Society.

Namias, June, White Captives: Gender and Ethnicity on the American Frontier, Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press, 1993. [FTA] Chapter 4: "Jane McCrea and the American Revolution," pp. 117-144.

Oedel, William Townsend, "John Vanderlyn: French Neoclassicism and the Search for an American Art," Ph.D. diss., University of Delaware, 1981. See esp. pp. 213-238.

Pell, Stephen, "Jane McCREA," The Bulletin of the Fort Ticonderoga Museum, vol. II no. 6 (July 1932), pp. 209-219. (illus.)

Pell, Stephen H.P., Fort Ticonderoga: A Short History, Fort Ticonderoga Museum, 1935+, pp. 82-85. (illus.)

Pritchard, Kathleen Moss, "John Vanderlyn and the Massacre of Jane McCrea," Art Quarterly, vol. 12 (Autumn 1949), pp. 361-65.

Weeden, William B., ed., Diary of Enos Hitchcock, D.D., A Chaplain in the Revolutionary Army, Publications of the Rhode Island Historical Society, no. XXVIII, 1900, pp. 106-134, 147-163. April through November 1777. Jane McCrea episode: pp. 122-123. [FTA #4053]

Wilson, David, The Life of Jane McCrea, with an Account of Burgoyne’s Expedition in 1777, New York, 1853.

Justin Winsor, The Reader’s Handbook of the American Revolution, Boston, Houghton, Osgood, 1880. [FTA #3730]. For Jane McCrea, see pp. 138-139.

"A Journal of the Carleton and Burgoyne Campaigns," The Bulletin of the Fort Ticonderoga Museum, vol. XI no. 6 (September 1965) pp. 307-335 [24 June 1777-17 August 1777]. Entry for 27 July, pp. 324-325. Original in the collections of the United States Military Academy.

James Phinney Baxter, ed., The British Invasion from the North: The Campaigns of Generals Carleton and Burgoyne from Canada, 1776-1777, with the Journal of Lieutenant William Digby, of the 53d, or Shropshire Regiment of Foot, Albany, Joel Munsell and Sons, 1887; Jane McCrea, pp. 235-239. [FTA #4049]; reprinted 1970.

Wasmus, J.F., An Eyewitness Account of the American Revolution and New England Life: The Journal of J.F. Wasmus, German Company Surgeon, 1776-1783, Helga Doblin, trans., Mary C. Lynn, ed., Westport, Conn., Greenwood Press, 1990, p. 66. [FTA #1990.100].

Ref.: bibs/mccrea