three o'clock in the afternoon
But we failed to come up with him , and to this day I do not know whether any of this information we received was indeed correct . It was the first day of August when we heard of Butler 's presence near Johnstown ; we had been lying at a tavern called `` The Brick House , '' a two-story inn standing where the Albany and Schenectady roads fork near Fox Creek , and there had been great fear of McDonald 's renegades that week , and I had advised the despatch of an express to Albany asking for troops to protect the valley when I chanced to overhear a woman say that firing had been heard in the direction of Stanwix . The woman , a slattern , who was known by the unpleasant name of Rya 's Pup , declared that Walter Butler had gone to Johnstown to join St. Leger before Stanwix , and that the Tories would give the rebels such a drubbing that we would all be crawling on our bellies yelling for quarter this day week . As the wench was drunk , I made little of her babble ; but the next day Murphy and Elerson , having been in touch with Gansevoort 's outposts , returned to me with a note from Colonel Willett : `` FORT SCHUYLER -LRB- STANWIX -RRB- , `` August 2d , `` DEAR SIR , -- I transmit to you the contents of a letter from Colonel Gansevoort , dated July 28th : '' ` Yesterday , at three o'clock in the afternoon , our garrison was alarmed with the firing of four guns . A party of men was instantly despatched to the place where the guns were fired , which was in the edge of the woods , about five hundred yards from the fort ; but they were too late . The villains were fled , after having shot three young girls who were out picking raspberries , two of whom were lying scalped and tomahawked ; one dead and the other expiring , who died in about half an hour after she was brought home . The third had a bullet through her face , and crawled away , lying hid until we arrived .