The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924100210974 In compliance with current copyright law, Cornell University Library produced this replacement volume on paper that meets the ANSI Standard Z39.48-1992 to replace the irreparably deteriorated original. 2005 CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY FROM The Utica Public LroraTy (in exchange) LITM BY Ln Cvrms fU LA fA TRENT0N FALLS, HY- V^^STO;^^ -OF- ONEIDA COUNTY, NEW YORK. t-^=»WITH<=5_> fllit»trai{0ns and |||i0gra^ltttal Slteklie^ t-g=aOF«=^_> SOME OF ITS PROMINENT MEN AND PIONEERS. PHILADELPHIA: -1878, PRESS OF J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO., PHILADELPHIA. CONTENTS. HIISTOILIO^L. HISTORY OF ONEIDA COUNTY, NEW YORK. OHAPTEE FAOE OHAPTES PAOB XXIII. — Augusta 409 I. — Physiottl Features .... 9 XXIV.-Ava .... 417 II. — Pre-Historic Eaeea .... 14 XXV.— Boonville 419 III. — Indian Occupation 15 XXVI.— Bridgewater 427 IV. — Protestant Missions 29 XXVII.— Camden 432 V. — French Discoveries 36 XXVIII.— Deerfield . 439 YI.— Settlements in the Mohawlt Valley 45 XXIX.— Florence 447 VII.— Land-Titles 53 XXXT- Floyd . . . . 449 Vni.— The Revolution 67 XXXI.— Forestport . 452 IX. — Second Meeting of the Continental Congress SI XXXII.— Kirkland . . 464 X. — Burgoyne'a Campaign 91 XXXIII.— Lee . . 472 XI. — St. Leger's Proclamation .... 101 XXXIV.— Marcy . . 480 XII.— Relief of Fort Stanwix 115 XXXV.— Marshall . 484 XIII. — Surrender of Burgoyne 131 XXXVL— New Hartford . 487 XrV. — Sullivan's Campaign . . . . 141 XXXVII.— Paris . . 495 XV.— Civil Organization 167 XXXVIII.— Remsen . 507 XVI. — Internal Improvements 174 XXXIX.— Sangerfleld . . 616 XVII.— The Oneida Civil List . 185 XL. — Steuben : . 526 XVIII.— The Learned Professions 191 XLI.— Trenton 534 XIX.— Statistical 239 XLII. — Vernon 670 XLIII.— Verona . 580 HISTORY OF THE VILLAGE AND CITY HF XLIV.— Vienna . 687 UTICA. XLV.— Western .... . 593 XX.— The Village of Utica . . 257 XLVI.— Westmoreland . 600 HISTORY OF THE TOWNS AND VILLAGES OF XLVII.— Whitestown . . 610 ONEIDA COUNTY. XLVIII.— Biographical 628 XXr. — City of Rome .... 363 XLIX.— Military History and Rosters . . .639 XXII.— Annsville 403 ILIL.TJST:E2/.A.TIOnsrS. PAGE View of Trenton Falls (Frontispiece) . . facing Title- Page. Map of Oneida County . ^ facing 9 Portrait of Rev. Samuel Kirkland .... "29 Map Oneida County, showing Patents, Land Grants, 1829 " 63 Portrait of Joseph Brant (Tbayendanegea) . . "70 Plan of St. Leger's March 93 Portrait of Peter Gansevoort 95 Plan of the Siege of Fort Stanwix . .... 102 " " Battle of Oriskany 105 View of County Infirmary, Rome .... facing 234 " N. T. State Lunatic Asylum, Utica . . " 234 Plan of Rome, in 1810 382 Baron Steuben Monument facing 637 Portrait of CoL Marinus Willett .... "638 CITY OF UTICA. Portrait of Francis Keman facing 257 Residence of Thomas Hopper " 264 " the late John Butterfield . . between 264, 265 Portrait of John Butterfield .... •• 264, 265 " Hiram Greenman facing 276 " Silas C. Greenman " 276 " Josiah Eathbun « 294 " James Benton ...... " 298 " Horatio Seymour (steel) . . , , " 299 " Ellis H. Roberts "301 " Do Witt C. Grove "303 Ballon Block Portrait of John J. Francis " E. B. Shearman Utica City Library Hackett's Block . Portrait of C. Haokett (steel) " John Carton " Owen O'Neil Faxton Hospital Portrait of H. Barnard " E. S. Barnum " Wm. J. Bacon " Robert Middleton (steel) " Thomas Hopper " " T. S. Faxton " " Hiram Greenman " " B. J. Richardson " " Patrick Cassidy " Wm. H. Watson (steel) " Ebenezer Leach " Jacob Hunt (steel) . " Alonzo Churchill (steel) " Alfred Churchill " John (Jean) B. Marchisi " William Russell (steel) " G.A.Foster . " C. H. Hopkins . facing FACE 307 312 318 " 320 between 320, 321 320, 321 facing 330 334 " 335 338 " 341 . 347 between 348-349 " 348-349 facing 349 between 350-351 " 360-361 . 361 facing facing facing 362 363 354 355 365 357 358 369 359 CONTENTS. IL3LTJSTI?.^TIOlNrS. Portrait of Stephen Thorn . " John B. Wells (steel) " Philo Grldley . FAQH . 360 facing 360 . 362 CITY OF ROME. Residence of A. Sthridge .... " Henry Patrick, with Portrait Portrait of A. Ethridge .... " N. Hyde Leffingwell " L. Zenana Lef&ngwell Residence of D. M. Crowell, with Portraits Portraits of Elijah Crowell and Wife Residence of Jonathan Talcott " E. B. Armstrong, with Portrait " George Ahhe, with Portraits Portrait of Harold H. Pope " Roland S. Doty <• D. M. K. Johnson (steel) " M. C. West (steel) . ANNSVIIiLE. Portraits of Nelson Dawley and Wife " Harrison Lillybridge and Wife Portrait of W. J. Lasher .... AUGUSTA. Residence of George W. Dodge " ■ W. G. Strong BOONVILLE. Portrait of Thomas TrafTam Residence of John M. Fisk, with Portraits Portraits of Walter Booth and Wife . Residence of Samuel Johnson, with Portrait " B. 0. Jackson, with Portraits Portrait of A. L. Hayes .... " P. B. Shultz .... BKIDGEWATER. Residence of S. Bailey " W. N. Southworth Portrait of Silas B. Wood . " Nehemiah N. Peiree Old Homestead of Jesse Ives CAMDEN. Residence of E. B. TTpson " J. G. Dorranoe, with Portrait McCall Bros. Canning-Factory Portraits of Francis Skinner and Wife DEERFIELD. Residence of Archibald Blue (double page) " L. C. Schermerhorn " Allen L. Blue ... Portrait of Duncan Blue .... " Allen L. Blue .... Residence of Peter Walker " James M. Cox, with Portraits " Stephen Northup (double page) " Robert Coventry . " Franklin S. Davis (double page) , " Giles Smith .... Portrait of Alexander Coventry " Robert Coventry " Aaron Barnes .... " Pratt Smith .... facing 364 " 365 " 368 " 370 " 370 between 370, 371 " 370, 371 facing 371 " 386 " 387 " 392 " 396 " 401 " 402 facing 404 " 406 . 408 facing 412 " 413 facing 420 " 422 " 423 " 424 425 " 426 " 426 facing 428 " 428 « 429 " 430 " 432 facing 432 " 436 " 437 . 439 between 440, 441 . " 440, 441 . " 440, 441 . " 440, 441 . " 440, 441 . " 440, 441 . " 440, 441 . " 440, 441 facing 442 between 442, 443 facing 443 . 444 . 445 . 445 . 446 FLORENCE. Residence and Tannery of W. W. Graves . between 448, 449 Portraits of W. W. Graves and Wife . . " 448, 449 FLOTD. Portrait of Ingham Townsend . facing 450 FORESTPORT. Forestport Steam Mills (Denton .,. S C, A ivr T. ,E io. rmiclivdlleUir ^ ^'A.Z -entcaiFaJlii =1 ( »V, /TJ^T^'^nilSB^ ^j^JC^UL. Bennett's Car's f O eEBO "NewYOTk_, tatjcaCoHoiuV: :i\,X E ^'^ u A\0 A&Suata'.\Centaf? i'j^ fetaP Qrist I'fc? I . , \Tlle Sta>N entire r.:>]^^^^_ _ icbftelA I Sto 11 Sett liiirDX ^^CH FIELD I 'CO. HI ST O E Y OP Ol^EIDA COUNTY, NEW YORK. BY SAMUEL W. DURANT. CHAPTER I. PHYSICAIi TEATUHES. GEOGRAPHT. The geographical position of Oneida County is a re- markable one. Situated in the centre of the State, it forms the keystone of that magnificent arch of wealthy and populous counties whose extremities rest upon Long Island Sound and Lake Erie, and including the beautiful and historic valleys of the Hudson and Mohawk Rivers, the group of charming lakes having the Oswego River for their common outlet, and taking in the fairest and richest portion of the famous " Genesee Country," the granary of the State. The commercial metropolis of the county, the beautiful city of Utica, may well be termed the " central city," for it stands very near the geographical centre of the Common- wealth, and in the most delightful portion of the Mohawk Valley. Rome, in the centre of the county, and its demi- capital, is distant 110 miles from Albany, and stands immediately on the water-shed which divides the head- streams of the St. Lawrence and the Hudson, the gateway through which pa-sses the mighty stream of commerce and travel between the Atlantic and the great West. Within the borders of the county are the springs from whence flow in various directions the waters that mingle with the Gulf of St. Lawrence, the Chesapeake Bay, and the Atlantic Ocean at New York. The principal streams are the Mohawk and Black Rivers, and Wood and Oneida Creeks, with their affluents. The Mohawk River and its branches, West Canada, Sauquoit, Oriskany. Nine-Mile, and Lansing Kill Creeks, drain the central and eastern portions of the county ; Black River the extreme nortlieastern portion ; Wood Creek and its branches, FLsh Creek, Mad River, and Little River, the northwestern ; and Oneida Creek the southwestern por- tions. In the western part of the county lie a portion of Oneida Lake, the towns of Vienna and Yeroua, includ- 2 ing about 10,000 square acres of its area, whose total is given in the Gazetteer of the State at 57,000 acres. In the town of Forestport is a cluster of small lakelets, the largest of which are Long and White Lakes, each contain- ing perhaps a square mile of surface ; and there are natural ponds in Ava, , Boonville, New Hartford, Sangerfield, Vienna, and perhaps other towns. Three of the great canals of the State are partly within the county, the Erie, Black River, and Chenango, and the Black River feeder, which runs from the State reservoir, in the town of Forest- port, to tlie village of Boonville, a distance of 12 J miles. Area. — The superficsal area of the county, according to the State Gazetteer (a vary reliable authority), is 1215 square miles, equivalent to 777,600 square acres, being not far from the area of the State of Rhode Island.* Brjuiidaries. — Oneida County is bounded on the north by Lewis and Oswego, on the South by Otsego and Madi- son, on the east by Herkimer, and on the west by Madi- son and Oswego Counties. The latitude and longitude of the two principal towns, Utica and Rome, are approximately as follows : Utica, latitude 43° 06' north, longitude 1° 41' east from Wash- ington. Rome, latitude 43° 15' north, longitude 1° 30' east from Washington. PcQuUaritics. — The beautiful valley of the Mohawk is perhaps the most remarkable in the United States, and in some respects in the world ; not on account of its extent or productions, though these are by no means insignificant, but from its peculiar geography and topography, its re- markable geological structure and development, and its wonderful history. Generally speaking, the county of Oneida lies upon the dividing ridge of highlands which runs through the State in a northeast and southwest direction, and separates the waters which flow into the St. Lawrence, the Missis.sippi, the Susquehanna, the Delaware, and the Hudson Rivers. In pre-historic times, and during its occupancy by the * This estimate of course covers the waters of the county. 9 10 HISTORY OF ONEIDA COUNTY, NEW YORK. Iroquois Confoderacy, its eentral valley was a great high- way. Upon its diverging waters the painted warriors of the Ho-dt -no-san-nee launched their bark canoes and went forth to conquer in all directions. It was a strategical base of operations from whence military expeditions could penetrate by natural channels a vast surrounding region, and to this fact more perhaps than to any other the famous Confederacy of Central New York owed their supremacy. The great trail connecting the Hudson River and the lakes passed along the Mohawk, and thence westwardly by the most practicable route to Lake Erie ; and it is a singu- lar fact, and vastly to the credit of the Indian "path- finders," that in after-years the first turnpike-road of the white man followed substantially the war-path of the savage, as did " Braddock's road" and the great national highway, the celebrated Indian path through Pennsylvania, known as " NemacoUn's trail." When the European appeared on the scene, the territory now constituting Oneida County lost nothing of its impor- tance as a great thoroughfare. It rather became still more prominent, and its strategical importance, commanding as it did the gateway between the East and the West, was speedily recognized, and fortifications were erected at an early day along the carrying-place between the Mohawk River and Wood Creek. From 1727, the date of the building of the first fortification at Oswego, or Chouagaen, down to 178;?, it was alike the war-path of the savage and the Gaul, the Briton and the American ; and even so late as 1812-15 it was the great military highway for the transportation of armies and munitions destined to operate on the northern and western frontiers of the nation. Upon the completion of the Erie Canal, in 1825, it became the route of the greatest tide of emigration known to modern times; and when the railway followed, the amount of travel and trafiic passing through it became simply enormous. This has continued to the present time, and since 1840 the transportation of grain, provisions, and merchandise has grown to such proportions that it is ex- tremely doubtful if it is equaled in any part of the world. The vast emigration from Europe, and the wonderful movement of grain and provisions from the agricultural regions of the West, nearly all take this route, and the necessities of commerce have compelled the enlarging of the Erie Canal, and the building of a railway with four steel tracks ; and the end is not yet. Chicago is the primary collecting-point whence is sent forth 100,000,000 bushels of grain annually, and thousands of tons of stock and meats; and New York City is the great emporium from whose docks depart the thousand " white-winged ships," freighted with the necessaries of life to feed the millions of laborers in European lands. The line of traffic between these two great cities of the East and West is along the Mohawk Valley, and generations yet to come shall still behold the mighty tide roll on. For civil and political purposes the county is divided into twenty-six towns, two municipalities, having city or- ganizations, and ten incorporated villages. These are again subdivided into school and road districts, etc., for local accommodation, educational purposes, and neighborhood convenience. TOPOGRAPHY. The distinguishing topographical features are a broad, central valley, extending through the county from west- northwest to east-southeast, and high table-lands rising towards the north and south, cut by the valleys of numer- ous streams. These table-lands rise in the northern portion of the valley to elevations varying from 800 to 1300 feet above the central valley, culminating in " Penn Mount," in the town of Steuben, which reaches an altitude of about 1727 feet above the sea ; the height of the Mohawk above tide- water at Albany being 427 feet.* Starr's Hill, in the same neighborhood, is also very high. The highest point south of the Mohawk, and also in the county, is called Tassel Hill, from a Dutchman named Van Tassel, who formerly lived near it. It is near the corners of the four towns Marshall, SangerfiolJ, Bridgewater, and Paris, and is said to be 1800 feet above the Mohawk at Rome, or over 2200 feet above the sea. The height of the lowest pass between the Black and Mohawk Rivers is 1120 feet above tide. The northeastern part of the county reaches the wilderness region, which is wholly underlaid by the primary, or Archaean formation. The central valley, including large tracts in the vicinity of Oneida Lake and the Mohawk Valley, is comparatively level, while the remaining portions are more or less uneven or hilly. The valleys of the streams are highly cultivated, finely improved, and beautiful. The ranges of hills are parallel with the streams, and are more abrupt in the northern part of the county than in the southern, and con- sequently better adapted to grazing than general cultiva- tion. The central valley has a soil composed of sandy and gravelly loam and alluvium. The southern portions have a mixture of clay with sand and gravel. Oneida is one of the best agricultural and dairy counties in the State. A large share of its surface was originally quite heavily timbered with a great variety of deciduous trees, and there was also considerable pine, cedar, and hem- lock. The great bulk of the timber has been cut away, and the people depend largely upon the anthracite region of Pennsylvania for fuel. There is little doubt but at one period several quite ex- tensive lakes occupied what are now some of the finest agricultural sections of the county. Oneida Lake, at some period, undoubtedly covered a very much larger territory than at present, and the valley of the Mohawk above Little Falls very possibly constituted a long, narrow lake, extend- ing as far west as Rome ; and the two may have been united in one body. Of course this .speculation refers to a late period in the earth's history, when the whole region of the State had been lifted above the shallow sea that once overspread it. GEOLOGY. The geological features of Oneida County and the imme- diate resjion are araonj; the most remarkable in the world. Within a distance of thirty miles, measured from northeast to southwest, from the Black River valley, in the town of Remsen, to the valley of Oiiskany Creek, in the southern » This is claiuiod to be the lowest pass through the main Appala- cliian system. HISTORY OF ONEIDA COUNTY, NEW YORK. 11 part of the county, there is an outcrop of nearly every for- mation from the Archsoan, or primitive, to the Carboniferous. To illustrate: commencing with the primary rooks of the Adirondack region, mainly composed of gneiss, we find in succession, as we go south, the great limestone system known as the Trenton (including the Birdseye, the Black River, and the Trenton proper) formations, with their wonderful fossil remains ; the Utica slate ; the Lorraine shales, or Hudson River group (known in the west as the Cincinnati group) ; the Oneida conglomerate ; the Medina sandstone ; the Clinton group ; the Niagara shale and lime- stone ; the Onondaga salt group ; the Helderberg lime- stone ; the Oriskany sandstone ; and the Hamilton and Chemung shales and sandstones. It is very probable that below the Trenton group, lying between that and the pri- mary rocks, the Potsdam and Calciferous sandstone, and the Chazy limestone, may all be found, as they outcrop in various other directions, — north, east, and south from the primary system. Trap-dykes and veins do not occur in the county ; or if found they are exceedingly diminutive, as may be seen in the limestone at Trenton Falls, on West Canada Creek. Of these various formations, the Trenton limestone, Utica slate, Oneida conglomerate, the Clinton group, and the Oriskany sandstone received their names from their fine development in this county. " Of useful minerals, the county has the lenticular clay iron ore of the Clinton group ; bog ore, in the swamps near Oneida Lake ; and pcssibly magnetic ore, in the northeast part, where there is abundance of iron-sand. Marl and peat have been found in some places, and water-lime and gypsum quarries have been worked to some extent. Build- ing-stone in great variety, and of superior quality, has been extensively quarried. Mineral springs are found in several places."* The Arehjean, or primitive rocks, are supposed to have a thickness of 50,000 feet, and are known to geologists as the Laurentian system, from their grand development in the St. Lawrence region. Another formation of the primitive, known as the Huronian system, from its development in the vicinity of Lake Huron, estimated at from 10,000 to 20,000 feet in thickness, is by many supposed to be of sub- sequent formation to the Laurentian, but still belonging to the primitive. The granular limestone and iron-bearing region of St. Lawrence County is sometimes referred to the Huronian. Professor Helmholtz, the eminent scientist, has made an approximate calculation of the length of time required to cool this granite mass into a solid, and estimates the period at 350,000,000 years. The Archaean region of Northern New York covers an area of about 12,000 square miles, and is composed mostly of granite, gneiss, hypersthene, etc., depending upon the pro- portions of the ingredients which compose it, — quartz, feld- spar, hornblende, and mica. This formation lifts its highest points (Mount Marcy and others) more than 5000 feet above the sea, while in Pennsylvania the same formation is more than 7 miles below the surface, being overlaid by a maximum thickness of sedimentary rocks to the depth of * State Gazetteer. 42,000 feet. These sedimentary or secondary rocks are entirely wanting in the Adirondack region of New York, which proves conclusively that either the primary system uprose before the secondary was begun, or, if since, that the latter has been entirely worn away and carried to distant regions. It is the general belief that the Adirondacks were elevated before the formation of the sedimentary rocks be- gan, and that they constitute a portion of the most ancient uplift on the globe. The outcropping formations of the State of New York represent the Arch^an, the Silurian, the Devonian, and (partly) the Carbonifekous ages. In the Archaean no animal life was known to exist, and there is no positive evidence that vegetation had yet appeared. In the Silurian the Invertebrates appeared, and plants of the Algese. family; in the Devonian, various fishes were repre- sented, and new forms of vegetation ; in the Carboniferous, amphibious animals made their appearance, and among plants Acrogens and Conifers, which contributed so largely to the coal formations. The thickness of the stratified or sedimentary rocks in the State, above the Arohasan, is about 13,000 feet. In Pennsylvania, as before stated, it reaches 42,000 feet, and in Virginia a still greater thickness, while in the Western States it does not, in some places, exceed 4000 feet. In Europe it reaches 100,000 feet. These facts would evi- dently show that the American continent was much older in its uplift than the European. In America, also, east of the Mississippi, there is very little rock formation left above the Carboniferous, while in Europe the formation reaches a thickness of 25,000 feet, showing that the later formations in the United States have been disintegrated and worn away through an immense lapse of time, while the European for- mations of a similar character are comparatively fresh and new. The various strata in New York lap over one another like the leaves of an open book, and dip towards the south or southwest, increasing in thickness through Pennsylvania and Virginia. It will be obvious to every one that if the Archaean system has a uniform thickness over the globe, the thinnest crust of the earth is found where the primary has never been overlaid by the secondary formations ; hence earthquakes would be more likely to afifect the surface in the Archaean regions. Taking the maximum thickness of the primary system at 50,000 feet, it will be seen that the Adirondack region of New York is 40,000 feet thinner than the forma- tion in Pennsylvania, or only a little more than one-half the total thickness in the latter State. The Potsdam sandstone, which lies directly upon the primary formation, contains here and there a few forms of animal life which existed in the seas during the period of its formation ; and as we come up into the Calciferous and Chazy formations, these increase both in species and indi- viduals, and the Trenton group is almost wholly composed of animal remains, especially its upper strata. The magnificent gorge of the West Canada Creek, at the celebrated Trenton Falls, is cut for three miles through the Trenton limestone to a depth varying from 60 to 200 feet, and here the seeker after nature's truths can study the countless forms of animal life, from the minutest Brachio- 12 HISTORY OF ONEIDA COUNTY, NEW YORK. pods to the gigantic Ortliocerata family, some of whose members attained a length of 15 feet. Here, also, are magnificent, glossy specimens of the Trilohite species, nearly a foot in length, which lived in the days when the primor- dial rocks were being slowly deposited in the bottom of the ancient sea. Taking a section of rock at the lowest cutting of this gorge, in the vicinity of the " High Fall," where it is about 200 feet in perpendicular height, and estimating the stream to have worn away the limestone at the average rate of two feet in a century, we have ten thovsand years consumed in this excavation ; which, however amazing it may seem, is as nothing compared to the time required in the deposi- tion of the rock. The immense accumulation of organic remains in the Trenton and kindred formations has given rise to a theory regarding the vast petroleum deposits of Pennsylvania, which is certainly not obnoxious to sound reasoning. As outlined and, possibly, originated by n prominent citizen of Oneida County, it is this: This vast accumulation must have produced prodigious quantities of oily matter, which has in some way disappeared from the place of deposition. The strata of the Silurian and Devonian formations are known to dip at a certain angle towards the south and south- west, in a direction nearly parallel to the trend of the Ap- palachian Mountains. The oil as it became liberated from the decomposing remains gradually found its way along the sloping strata to the sand, or sand-rock formation of the present oil regions, where it accumulated in such quantities that the whole world can draw from it ad libit urn. In other words, the oil deposits of Pennsylvania are the drainage of the limestone and shale formations of the regions to the north. The oil is invariably found in what is technically known by the miners as " pebble rock," and the quality varies from the fine lubricating or amber oil to the crude petroleum, according to the fineness or coarseness of the grain of the rock, which holds it as a sponge holds water. Oil is still found in the limestone and shale formations of the State, but not in large quantities. In the Trenton formation it is occasionally found in pockets, and burns readily. It is also found in the Niagara limestone, notably in the vicinity of Chicago, Illinois, in the Utica slate and shale, in the Genesee shale, and in the Corniferous limestone. Since the discovery of oil in 1859, more than $400,000,000 have been paid for the production of Pennsylvania alone ; and the whole vast deposit may have been drained from the New York fonnations. Black River, in the northeastern part of the county, runs very nearly on the line dividing the primitive from the secondary formations. On the east is granite,' or kindred formations, and on the west the Trenton limestones ; and this condition exists as far north as Carthage, in Jefferson County, where the " long falls" of Black River break over the ancient rocks. The Trenton rocks cover an area (oul/ crop) of 100 or 150 square miles in Oneida County. Extensive quarries are worked at the gorge below the village of Prospect, in Trenton. The new government building in Utica is being constructed of this material. The thickness of the Trenton limestone is, in Oneida County, about 300 feet; along the Appalachian Mountains, to the south, it reaches, according to Rogers, 2000 feet. The Trenton period of geologists includes the Black River and Trenton limestones, the Utica shales and slates, and the Hudson River and Cincinnati groups of limestones and shales. Overlying the Black River and Trenton formations, next in order, is the Utica shale, which extends in a narrow band along the Mohawk Valley, and reaches a thickness of 15 to 35 feet at Glen's Falls, 250 feet in Montgomery County, and, probably, 300 feet in Oneida County. This formation abounds in combustible material, though it contains no coal. The percentage of this material in the Mohawk Valley is from 12 to 14 of the whole mass, according to Professor Whitney. It outcrops in the towns of Boonville, Steuben, Western, Floyd, Trenton, Rome, Marcy, and Deerfield. It is of no value for building purposes, being thin and brittle. Succeeding this is the Hudson River group of the Cin- cinnati epoch ; variously known as Hudson River, Pulaski and Lorraine shales, and reaching a thickness in Lewis County of 300 feet. It is similar in its nature to the Utica shale, and both abound in fossils. The formation occasion- ally contains thin layers of limestone. It is found in the towns of Boonville, Ava, Western, Lee, Annsville, Rome, Whitestown, and Utica, and extends down the valley of the Mohawk, on its southern side, to the valley of the Hudson. It also covers a large area in the counties of Lewis, JeflFer- son, and Oswego. Those formations close the Lower Silurian Age. In speaking of this period, Dana, in his " Manual of Geology," says, " The seas of the Trenton period were densely populated with animal life. Many of the beds are made of the shells, corals, and crinoids, packed down in bulk ; and most of the less fossiliferous compact kinds have probably the same origin, and diifer only in that the shells and other relics were pulverized by the action of the sea, and reduced to a calcareous sand or mud before consolidation." It is not necessary in this connection to enter into a technical description of the various forms of life which then existed. The curious will find them minutely de- scribed in various geological works. It is sufficient to state that animal remains constitute a large proportion of the various limestone formations, amounting in the aggregate to many thousand feet in thickness. The best locality for the study of this subject is around Trenton Falls. Upper Silurian Age. — At the close of the Lower Si- lurian age there were great changes in the earth's crust, and an immense destruction of animal life. The changes occurred slowly through long periods, and in the beginning of the Upper Silurian age many new forms of animal life appeared. The Upper Silurian includes the Niagara, Salina, Lower Helderberg, and Oriskany formations. The Niagara group includes the Medina, Clinton, and Niagara subdivisions, and the Medina includes the Oneida Conglomerate and Medina Sandstone. The lower member of the Medina epoch is a pebbly sandstone or grit, and called the Oneida Conglomerate from its development in Oneida County. It extends through the towns of Florence, Camden, Annsville, and in a narrow strip into Herkimer County, where it thins out and dis- appears. It varies from 20 to 120 feet in thickness. This HISTORY OP ONEIDA COUNTY, NEW YORK. 13 formation is known under the name of Shawangnnk grit in Ulster County, and the celebrated Esopus millstones are manufactured from it. It is 500 feet thick in the Shawan- gunk Mountains. The upper formation of the Medina epoch is known as the Medina Sandstone, which is a red or mottled argilla- ceous sandstone. It is from 300 to 400 feet thick along the Niagara River, and gradually becomes thinner as it ex- tends east and disappears in the central portions of Oneida County. It is found in Camden, Vienna, and Rome. According to Dana, " where fullest developed in New York the Medina group includes four divisions, as follows : red marl or shale, and shaly sandstone, banded and spotted with red and green ; flagstone, — a gray, laminated, quartzose sandstone, called ' grayband' ; argillaceous sandstone and shale, red, or mottled with red and gray ; argillaceous sand- stone graduating below into the Oneida Conglomerate." Above the Medina group appears the Clinton Sandstone, which stretches from the neighborhood of Schoharie Creek, in the county of the same name, westward through Herki- mer and Oneida Counties, and on across the Niagara River at Lewiston, through Canada and Michigan. Near Canajo- harie its thickness is 50 feet. In the town of Stark, Herkimer County, the rock contains a bed of gypsum. It extends through Oneida County, with a width of from six to ten miles. Oneida Lake lies wholly in this formation. Its thickness in this county is from 100 to 200 feet. An extensive quarry has been opened in this rock in the town of Verona. It is spoken of by Hon. P. Jones, in " Annals of Oneida County," as consisting of blue and yellowish strata, mostly very hard, and breaking witli a uniform cleavage, making it a superior stone for building purposes.* Iron ore abounds in this formation. It is of the kind known as lenticular or oiilitic. The Niagara formation proper overlaps the Clinton, and extends from Herkimer County through Oneida in a narrow belt, outcropping in the towns of Paris, Kirkland, and Ver- non.f It is very thin in this section, but at Niagara Falls, which it forms, is about 80 feet in thickness. This rock outcrops in Ohio, Canada, Michigan, Northeni Illinois, and Iowa, and has a thickness in the West of about 100 feet. Professor Worthen, of the Illinois State Geological Survey, says this limestone near Chicago is completely saturated with mineral oil, though it is not capable of being collected to advantage. The color of this rock is commonly a dark bluish-gray. Its structure is often nodular or concretion- ary, and sometimes abounds in chert or hornstone. It occasionally contains gypsum. The rocks of the Niagara period, like those of the Tren- ton, abound in fossils: Radiates, Molhishs, Onnoids, Braclii- opods, LametlibrancJdates, Gasteropods, and Crustaceans. The Salina Period. — Next in succession comes the Salina formation, or Onondaga salt group, which aifords the brines of Central New York. " In Onondaga County the beds in the lower half are tender, clayey deposits (marlytes) and fragile, clayey sand- ® The red and green shales which extend through the south part of the county belong partly to this formation and partly to the Onon- daga salt group. f It is finely developed in this town along the Sconondoa Creek. stones, of red, gray, greenish, yellowish, or mottled colors ; and in the upper half calcareous marlytes and impure, drab- colored limestone, containing beds of gypsum, overlaid by hydraulic limestone. The rock is sometimes divided by columnar striations, like the Lockport limestone, the origin of which is probably the same as for those in that rook. The seams sometimes contain a trace of coal or carbon. "| Serpentine, mica, and hornblende are occasionally found. The gypsum-beds of Michigan are located in this forma- tion. The beds are from 700 to 1000 feet thick in Onon- daga County, but diminish towards the east, and are only a few feet on the Hudson. This formation is almost des- titute of fossils, but abounds in sulphuric and carbonic acids. Lower Helderberg Period. — This formation of lime- stone immediately overlies the salina-beds, and extends through the State from the Hudson to Lake Erie at Buf- falo. This is also called the Water-lime group, and is a drab-colored or bluish, impure limestone, in thin layers. It abounds in fossils, exceeding even the Trenton and Niagara groups in this respect, over 300 species having been named ahd described, belonging to the Protozoans, Radiates, Mol- hisks, and Articidntes. The Upper Helderberg series extend as far west as Ontario County, but are very thin. The whole thickness of the Helderberg formation is 400 feet in Eastern New York. This formation passes through Paris, Marshall, Augusta, and Vernon. Oriskany Sandstone. — This is the upper formation of the Silurian age, and its strata constitute the passage-beds between the Silurian and Devonian systems. It extends from Central New York; in the neighborhood of Oriskany, in Oneida County, southwestward along the Appalachians, and spreads over a large area in the Mississippi Valley, where it is partly limestone. It thins out towards the Hud- son River. It was formerly classed as the lowest of the Devonian system, but is now referred to the Upper Silurian on account of the relation of its fossils. " In New York it consists either of pure siliceous sands, or of argillaceous sands. In the former case it is usually yellowish or bluish, and sometimes crumbles into sand suitable for making glass. The argillaceous sandstone is of a dark-brown or reddish color, and was once evidently a sandy or pebbly mud. In some places it contains nodules of hornstone."J This for- mation is supposed to have been deposited in an open bay of the sea, after the uplifting of the Green Mountain region, and when the highlands of Northern New Jersey constituted an island or reef During this formation sea-weeds were not uncommon, but there have been found no traces of terrestrial animals. The waters abounded with mollusks of various species. The total number of the different species of fossils in the Silu- rian formation, described up to 1872, is 10,074, of which Trilohites form 1579 varieties. Devonian Age. — This system was so named by Mur- chison and Sedgwick, from Devonshire, England, where it occurs, and abounds in organic remains. In America this formation includes the Corniferous, Ham- ilton, Chemung, and Catskill periods. % Dana. 14 HISTORY OF ONEIDA COUNTY, NEW YORK. The Coi-niferous includes the Cauda Gall!, Schoharie, and Corniferous epochs. The Hamilton includes the Mar- cellus, Hamilton, and Genesee shales. The Chemung in- cludes the Portage and Chemung groups ; and the Catskill forms only a single system of rocks, — the red sandstone. The first two divisions of the Corniferous period of the Devonian outcrop only in the eastern half of the State. The Schoharie grit may possibly reach Oneida County. Both divisions thicken towards the Hudson River. The upper divisions, the Onondaga and Corniferous limestones, may possibly be found in Oneida, as they certainly exist forther west.* The thickness of these latter formations is about 20 feet for the Onondaga, and 50 feet for the Cor- niferous. The latter is of a dark grayish color, and occasion- ally black. " The limestone of this period in some places abounds in mineral oil. AtTerre Haute, Ind., a well 1500 feet deep, into Corniferous limestone, yields two barrels of oil a, day, and a second, 1775 feet deep, twenty-five barrels."f This formation abounds in fossil plants and animals. " The remains of Vertebrates, under the form of fishes, appear first, in America, according to present knowledge, in the rocks of the Corniferous period. "■j' The Corniferous is so named from the Latin words cornu (horn) aiid fero (I bear), alluding to the seams of horn- stone (flint-like quartz) with which it abounds. It is full of fossil corals, and here, also, the Conifers and Ferns, an- ticipating the Carboniferous age, began to appear. Among its various forms of animal life were several varieties of Se- lacMims, or the Shark tribe. Their remains have been found in Ontario County, N. Y. During the Corniferous period the continent, from Eastern New York westward, was covered with an immense shallow coral-bearing sea. This formation outcrops near Waterville. Above the Corniferous period comes in the Hamilton, which includes the epochs of the Marcellns, Hamilton, and Genesee shales. " The Marcellus shale is, for the most part, a soft, argillaceous rock ; the lower part is black, with carbonaceous matter, and contains traces of coal or bitumen, so as sometimes to afibrd flame in the fire. The Hamilton beds, so named from the town of Hamilton, in Madison County, consist of shales and flags, with some thin lime- stone-beds. The excellent flagging-stone in common use in New York and some adjoining States, often called North River flags, comes from a thin layer in the Hamilton. The Genesee shale is a blackish, bituminous shaly rock, overly- ing the Hamilton. "f The Marcellus shale is about 50 feet in thickness, the Hamilton 1000 to 1200 feet, and the Genesee about 150 feet in Central New York. The last two formations are finely exposed along the banks of the Seneca and Cayuga Lakes. The Hamilton flagging-stone is the best in the country, and is remarkable for the abundance of its ripple-marks and wave-lines, which may be noticed everywhere in the side- walks of Utica. The Black shales are impregnated with oil to the extent of fifteen to twenty per cent. It is ob- tained from the rock by distillation of its carbonaceous substances. It often gives out gas from the borings in the * Outcrop in Sangersfield. j" Dana. oil regions. It also contains great quantities of Pyrites, and abounds in sulphur springs. The shales contain abun- dant fossils of plants, but very few animal remains. The Hamilton beds contain many animal fossils. Overlying the Hamilton group is the Ciie.mung Peeiod, which includes the Portage and Cliemang lilpoCHS. The Portage group consists of shales and laminated sandstones. This formation has a thickness of 1000 feet on the Genesee River, and 1400 feet near Lake Erie. It is developed in the neighborhood of Cayuga Lake, but does not appear in the eastern part of the State. The Chemung group covers a large area of the southern portion of the State, and hag a thickness of 1500 feet south of Cayuga Lake. It is made up of sandstone and coarse shales in various alternations. The Chemung period and the Catskill, which overlies it, are not developed in Oneida County. These close the De- vonian Age. The Carboniferous formation, overlying the last mentioned, is not found, except in its lower por- tions (the sub-carboniferous), in the State of New York. Oneida County afibrds a fine field for the study of the pri- mary and primordial rocks, and the various formations up to the close of the Upper Silurian. The region covered by it abounds in drift, — boulders, gravel, sand, clay, marls, etc. ; and it has all the features of a semi-mountain region, — lofty hills, wide and narrow valleys, deep ravines and gorges, thundering waterfalls, swift-flowing streams, and its charac- teristic vegetation. It also has its broad table-lands, its extensive alluvial bottoms, its beautiful lakes, its charming vales, and level plains. One of the finest collections of minerals and fossil re- mains in the country is that of Mr. M. Moore, proprietor of the hotel at Trenton Falls. The Trilobite specimens in his cabinet are among the most beautiful and perfect to be found in any country in the world. They vary in size from nine inches to a half-inch in length, and form a most interesting study. CHAPTER IL PRE-HISTORIC HACB3. There is no tangible evidence in the form of mounds, earthworks, bone-pits, etc., within the pre.sent limits of Oneida County, going to show the occupation of this region by the pre-historic people who once undoubtedly spread over a large portion of the present United States territory, and the centre of whose civilization, according to the evidence, was in the Ohio and Mississippi Valleys. But, according to the best authorities,! '''^ evidence is abundant in nearly all the counties lying north, south, and west of Oneida that the race spread over a large portion of Western New York, though some authorities refer the ancient works to a period not anterior to the Iroquois occupation. Mr. Squier, in his valuable and interesting work, de- scribes ancient remains in St. Lawrence, Jefferson, Oswego, Onondaga, Madison, Otsego, Chenango, Cayuga, Chemung, X Antiquities of the Stn,te of New York, by B. G. Squier; Anieri- cun Antiquities, by A. AV. Bradford; Ancient America, by Jolin D. Baldwin. HISTORY OF ONEIDA COUNTY, NEW YORK. 15 Ontario, Monroe, Livingston, Genesee, Orleans, Erie, Chau- tauqua, and Montgomery Counties, but ruakes no mention of any found in Oneida. The worlis examined by Mr. Squier consisted of palisaded inclosures, mounds, earth- works, bone-heaps, etc. The largest is described as being located in the town of Pompey, Onondaga Co., and is esti- mated to cover 500 acres. It is supposed to have marked the site of a fortified town. Altogether about 260 of these works were visited in the counties named by Mr. Squier. The works generally in the State of New York are far less extensive than those found in the Ohio and Mississippi Valleys, and the presumption naturally follows that if they belonged to the ancient race they were upon the borders of its civilization, which here failed to reach that prominence which characterized its existence in the Western States. Theories without number have been advanced as to the origin and duration of these ancient people. By some they are supposed to have been from Asia, and progenitors of the red race found occupying the continent at the period of European discovery in the sixteenth century, who are sup- posed to have degenerated from the civilization of their an- cestors. Other writers contend that the semi-civilized races of Central America and Mexico, found occupying those countries by the Spaniards in the early part of the six- teeulh century, were descendants of the " Mound-Builders." The ancient people of Central America and Mexico were known by various names : Colliuas, Tullccs, Nahuas, Aztecs, etc. These people had an old tradition that their ances- tors came from a country fur to the northeast, called by them Uue-llue, Tlijpalan, which was believed by the eminent French scholar, Brasseur de Bourbourg, to have been the valley of the ftlisbis^ippi and its branches, or, in other words, the country of the " Mound-Builders.'' This tradition related that after many years' occupation they were driven out at the end of a protracted struggle and sought a new home in the regions of Central America, — many of them coming in ships. The terrible race who finally forced them from their country was called the Chicluinics. The period of this exodus is supposed to have been at least 1000 yeai-s previous to the Christian era, and some writers place it as far back as 2500 years. It has been ingrained into the descendants of Europeans in America that the first, or primitive, human beings ap- peared on the Eastern Continent, and many ingenious theo- ries have been constructed to prove the position. The Copper I'accs of America have been compared, times with- out number, with the people of Eastern Asia, with the gypsies of Egypt, with the supposed ten lost Jewish tribes, and many others. Their language has undergone the same critical examination and comparison, and there have been very few. writers until recently who have ques- tioned the theory. But recent investigations in geology and palaeontology have shaken the confidence heretofore reposed in the stereotyped traditions of the past, and men are beginning to be convinced that neither the Sequoias of California, the tulip-tree of Indiana, the sugar-maple of the North, nor the palmetto of the South have emigrated from the slopes of Lebanon or the valley of the Euphrates. Neither has the bison of the prairies, the wild turkey of the central forests, or the rattlesnake of the rocks come from some far- off land. And MAN, the crowning glory of animal life, is just as likely to have appeared on the American as the Asiatic continent, or rather he may have sprung into exist- ence simultaneously in various places thousands of miles asunder. Why not? Geologically, the American is probably the older of the continents, and it is demonstrable that before even the lowest of the land animals appeared the sea was teeming with myriad life, that extended to every part of the globe. The rocks bear unmistakable evidence of this fact ; and the time is not far distant when the belief will be common that every form of life — vegetable and animal — has gradually appeared whenever and wherever the surroundings were fitted for its existence. From the best evidence which can be obtained there is every indication that the American continent has produced its own Fauna and Flora, and consequently the belief is gaining ground every day that the first human race of the continent was really both ahorlgiual and indigenous. The Indians knew very little of the ancient remains : and, although they were familiar with them, they could never give any satisfactory idea of their origin. The famous Mohawk chieftain, Tliay-en-daii-e-gea (Joseph Brant), being interrogated, stated that " a tradition pre- vailed among the different nations of Indians throughout the whole extensive range of country, which had been handed down time immemorial, that in an age long gone by there came white men from a foreign country, and by consent of the Indians established trading-houses and set- tlements where these tAimnll are found. A friendly inter- course was continued for several years ; many of the white men brought their wives, and had children born to them ; and additions to their numbers were made yearly from their own country. These circumstances at length gave rise to jealousies among the Indians, and fears began to be entertained in regard to the increasing numbers, wealth, and ulterior views of the new-comers, apprehending that, becoming strong, they might one day seize upon the country as their own. " A secret council, composed of the chiefs from all the dif- ferent nations from the St. Lawrence to the Mississippi, was therefore convoked ; the result of which, after long deliberation, was a resolution that on a certain night designated for that purpose all their white neighbors — men, women, and children — should be exterminated. The most profound secrecy was essential to the execution of such a purpose ; and such was the fidelity with which the fatal determination was kept, that the conspiracy was suc- cessful, and the device carried completely into effect. Not a soul was left to tell the tale."* CHAPTER II L INDIAJSr OCCUPATION. Tub first well-authentic ited visits of Europeans made to the territory now comprising the flourishing and popu- lous State of New York were those of Sir Samuel Cham- - Tins tradition possibly refors to a settlement made by tile French at Poni|icy, Onondiigii, County, N. Y., in 10(16. 16 HISTORY OF ONEIDA COUNTY, NEW YORK. plain and Sir Henry Hudson, in the year 1609 ; the former, via the St. Lawrence and Sorel liivera and Lake Cham- plain, in July, and the latter on the Hudson River, as high up as Albany, in September following. At that date the region of country extending through the centre of the State, from the Hudson River on the east to Lake Erie on the west, was occupied by the most famous and powerful Indian confederacy of which history makes mention, — the celebrated Iroqaoise* of the French, and Five (subsequently Six) Nations of the English ; but by themselves called the Ho-de'-no-sau-nee, or, literally, the " People of the Long House.'' These tribes or nations were ranged in the following order, commencing on the Hudson River and reading towards the west : jMohawks, Oiteidas, Onondtigas, Cayitgas, Senecas. The Tascaronis, said to be a kindred tribe, upon their expulsion from North Carolina about 1712, applied for and were granted admission into the Confederacy, but not upon equal terms with the original members. They were a.ssigned territory to the south of and adjoining that of the Oiieidas and Oiiundagas, lying mostly within the present county of Chenango. The actual population of this confederation has never been positively known. La Hontan, a French writer of some celebrity, but of much uncertainty in his statements, esti- mated it at 70,000. An estimate made by Colonel Coursey at Albany, in 1677, placed it at 15,000. Bancroft estimated it, including the Tascaroras, at 17,000. Sir William John- son, about 1763, computed their number at 10,000. A tradition among the Seiiecas, as related by Morgan in his work entitled " League of the Ho-de'no-suu-nee-" states that at the period of their greatest prosperity the Sciiecas took a census of their people by placing a kernel of corn for every Seneca in a corn-basket, supposed to hold about ten or twelve quarts, which, if filled, — a matter about which nothing is said, — would give, according to an estimate made, 17,760 grains ; but the story is told in such an uncerUiin way that it amounts to very little. Morgan considers that the Confederacy was at the zenith of its power about 1G50, and estimates the population at that period at 25,000, divided among the different nation- alities as follows: Sencais, 10,000; Cayugas, 3000; Oauiidfigas, 4000 ; Oneidas, 3000 ; Muhawks, 5000. At the date last mentioned their empire, if the term is ad- missible, extended nominally from the mouth of the St. Lawrence to the Mississippi River, and from Hudson's Bay to the valley of the Tennessee ; though the country they really occupied was confined to something less than the area of the present State of New York. About the year 1700 their conquests had extended over the Abenakis nations of New England, the Algunqaias proper, the Adlroiidacks, the Muntagiials, the Ilurons, the Tobacco nation, and the Neutral nation of British America. They had conquered the Lenid Lenape, or Delaionres, the Andastes, the Erlei, and other nations of Pennsylvania and New York, aud had carried their arms and the terror of their name over all the nations living in Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, and Illinois. In the latter State, towards the ^ Now generally written Iroquois. Tlie origin of the word is in- volved in much obscurily, and its i-eal uieauing uot certainly known. close of the seventeenth century, they had nearly extermi- nated the once powerful nation known as the lUiiii, or lllliiois. The conquered nations paid an annual tribute to their masters, who, holding, as it were, the keys of all the great natural thoroughfares, sat like the eagle in his eyrie, and kept them all in subjection. From 1609 to the close of the French war of 1754-60, with few exceptions, they were the most inveterate and troublesome enemies with whom the French had to deal, and often carried destruction aud carnage to the very walls of Montreal aud Quebec. Through the influence of the French Jesuits, considerable numbers of them were from time to time persuaded to leave their kindred and settle around missions in Canada, or on its immediate borders, upon territory then occupied by the French. The most considerable of these colonies was the one founded by the Abbe Picquet in 1749 at Oswegatchie, or Swe-ga-chie, now Ogdensburg. About the year 1759 this colony consisted of some 3000 souls, mostly drawn from the Onondagas and Muhawks. It was broken up in 1760 on the approach of Amherst's army to Montreal, and its people scattered in various directions. Durin" the war of the Revolution, the Six Nations, vrith the exception of the Oiieidas and Tuscaroras, and one village of the Muhawks, threw their fortunes into the scale with the English, and their war-parties were a con- tinual terror to the border settlements from Lake Cham- plain to the Delaware. Under the celebrated Mohawk chief, Tlwy-en-dan-e-gea, better known by his English name, Joseph Brant, their warriors took part in nearly every skirmish and battle fought within the limits of New York, Pennsylvania, and Canada, and their name is legion. The military expeditions directed against them by the American Congress, under Colonels Willett and Van Schaick, and Generals Sullivan and Clinton, nearly put an end to their Confederacy and their power; and the rapid influx of immigration following the close of the war speedily com- pelled the hostiles to give up nearly all their lands, and reduced the friendly tribes to the condition of a few isolated and circumscribed communities. The bulk of the Muhawk nation removed to Canada at the beginning of the war, settling at first in the neighbor- hood of the Bay of Quints, from whence they subsequently mostly removed to the Valley of Grrand River, near Lake Erie. The Oiieidas, notwithstanding their friendship for the Americans, fared little better than the rest of their brethren of the Six Nations. Their lauds were eventually purchased by the State at various times, until little remained of the once extensive territory occupied by them. A portion of the nation migrated to Canada, and settled on the river Thames. Another body removed to the neighborhood of Green Bay, Wis., and a remnant still remains near their ancient council-house, or castle, in Oneida County. The history of the Onondagas is similar, though in some respects they have been the most fortunate nation of the league. A large share of their lauds were sold to the State, and many of them removed to Canada ; some took refuge with the Seiiecas, and a considerable body still reside on their original lands in the towns of Onondaga and La Fayette, in Onondaga County. HISTORY OF. ONEIDA COUNTY, NEW YORK. 17 The Oii/iiffas, perhaps, fared the worst of all, for as early as the year 1800 they had entirely abandoned their lands and removed, some to Green Bay, Wis., and some to San- dusky, Ohio, from whence they subsequently wore removed to a reservation west of the Blississippi. A small portion settled among the Seiiecas. The Tttscnroras removed from the Oneida territory, originally granted them in 1712, and settled about the Niagara River about 1780-85: The Seiicciis, long the most foi-midablo nation of the Confederacy, have had a similar experience. The greed of the white man — the . Christian — has gradually encroached upon their once extensive domain, until they are at present confined to three small reservations situated in the counties of Genesee, Chautauqua, and Cattaraugus. The number of Indians residing within the State by the census of 1875 amounted to 5117, of whom 64 were Oneidns, living mostly on their reservation in the town of Vernon, only four being off from it. They are generally engaged in cultivating the soil in the suuimer season ; in the winter they visit various parts of the country, selling the bead-work and other products of their household man- ufactures. THE IROQUOIS CONFEDERACY. As this most important of all the North American nations and confederations of the people living in the Hunter State was centrally located in the territory com- prising the present county of Oneida and its immediate vicinity, and as the earliest known history of tlie region begins with the first knowledge obtained by the French missionaries among them, a brief outline of their origin, laws, customs, and confederation is deemed of sufficient importance to be inserted in this connection. Their history h;is been compiled, more or less completely, by various writers, among the best of whom are Morgan, Parkman, and Colden. Ttie very thorough work, entitled " League of the Ho-de'-no-sau-nee," by Lewis H. Morgan, and pub- lished in 1851, is probably the most comprehensive and valuable, as it was compiled under peculiarly favorable circumstances. It does not, however, enter specially into the military history of the Confederacy, confining itself rather to a most elaborate and particular description of their laws, customs, mode of living, religion, etc. Colonel Wm. L. Stone's " Life of Joseph Brant," published in 1838, is devoted almost exclusively to the mihtary history of the Six Nations during the wars from 1754 to 1815, and is a most valuable work, containing probably more in- formation connected with this branch of their history than any other work ever issued from the press.* The origin of this peculiar people is involved somewhat in obscurity, like everything else depending upon Indian tra- dition. According to Morgan, their tradition tells us that previous to their occupation of the State of New York they resided along the northern shore of the St. Lawrence River, in the vicinity of Montreal, where they were under *■ In the following ficcount of the Confederacy we have followed Morgan mostly, and altogether in the orthography of names, with the single exception of Brant's Indian name, which wc take from hia own signature. 3 the rule of the Adiromlacks, a branch of the great Algon- qvi.n family, then holding possession of the whole region lying north of that stream. At (hat time the Iioqiiois formed but one nation, and were few in number. From their masters they learned the arts of war and husbandry, and in the course of time increased to such numbers as led them to think they might become independent. They fintiUy made the attempt to establish themselves as an inde- pendent nation, but were overpowered by the AdiromlncJcs, and obliged to flee from the country to escape extermination. The period of their migration from Canada cannot be determined.f Tradition informs us that they ascended the St. Lawrence to Lake Ontario, coasted along its eastern and southeastern shore to the mouth of the Oswego River, which stream they entered and followed to the central parts of New York. Forming but a single nation, they settled, it is supposed, upon the Seneca River, where, for a time, they dwelt amicably together. Subsequently they divided into bands and spread over the country, east, west, and south. One band, crossing over to the head-waters of the Mohawk River, established itself at G'd-ne'-gn-liii'-g'd, be- low the city of Utioa. This division after the lapse of years became the Mohawk nation. For some time the Oiieidas and Onondngas were one nation, but a part of them eventually settled at Ga-no-a-lu'- lidle, east of Oneida Lake, and formed the Oiieula nation, while the remainder, establishing themselves among the Onondaga hills, eventually became the Onoudnga nation. The C'ljgiigds and Senecas likewise continued as one people for some time, but at length separated like the others and formed the remaining nations. These nations have each a legend among them of a miraculous origin, which is en- titled to the same credence as similar legends among the Jews and other nations. According to the sttitements of the Moravian missionary Heckewelder, who was familiar with many of the Indian tribes and nations inhabiting the States of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York, and Ohio, a tradition existed among the Lenni Lenapi, or Delawares, and others, that their ancestors and those of the Mengwe, or Six Nations, origi- nally dwelt far to the westward, beyond the Rocky Moun- tains, and that in process of time both nations emigrated towards the east, but rather by a slow process of settlement than a sudden and complete exodus. After the lapse of many years they reached the banks of the Mississippi, called the Nama-Sepee, or river of sturgeon. To the eastward of the great river they found a vast region occu- pied by a race which they termed Tal-laga-we, or Al-le- ghe-ioi, from whence is supposed to have sprung the musical word Allegheny. These people are represented to have been well advanced in the arts of civilization, and to have dwelt in great walled cities and fortified towns. They are also represented to have been a powerful race physically, and many of them of gigantic stature. The Leivtpe applied to them for liberty to cross the Nnma-Sepee and settle near by. The AUcgliewi were willing they should pass over, provided they passed beyond f It is probable that it dates back to 1500, as they were not in Canada at the time of Cartier's visit, in 1535, 18 HISTORY OP ONEIDA COUNTY, NEW YORK. the bounds of the great nation and settled to the eastward. Upon these conditions the Lenapi began crossing over, but the Allegliewi becoming alarmed at their numbers, attacked them in transit, and drove them back with severe loss. The Leniipi now applied to the Mengwc, who had approached the river farther to the north, for counsel. A treaty, offensive and defensive, was finally entered into, by which they bound themselves to stand or fall together, — to attack the strangers, and, if victory crowned their arms, to drive them out and divide the country equitably between thempelves. A terrible war, lasting for many years, followed, but the Alle.glie-ioi were finally conquered and driven away to the southward, and the conquerors proceeded to divide the newly-acquired teriitory, the Lenapi choosing the region about the Ohio River and its branches, and the Mengwe possessing themselves of the great lakes and adjacent terri- tory. In the process of time these nations, traveling to- wards the east, reached the great valleys of the Susque- hanna, the Delaware, the Hudson, and the St. Lawrence. Eventually they became estranged, and finally bitter ene- mies, and as such the Europeans found them upon their first arrival in this country. From this tradition it would seem that the originals of the Irogiwis passed over the countries afterwards occupied by them in the State of New York, and subsequently re- turned thither when driven out of Canada. The strong probabilities are that the Hurons, Ei-ies, Algnnquins, An- dfistes, and other nations were a part of the same great fixraily, and that the subsequent wars of the Iroquois were with people of their own lineage left along the route of settlement and migration. It has been conjectured that the Allegheioi of Lenape tradition were none other than the Mamid- Builders, who, driven out before these Chic7cime.es of Mexican tradition, eventually formed colonies in Central America, where they built the great cities of Mayapan, Quirigia, Copan, Palen- que, Kaba, and Uxmal, whose gigantic ruins have been the wonder of travelers for more than three centuries. After the separation, as related by Morgan, the five dis- tinct nations or tribes at length became jealous of each other, and this jealousy resulted in open war, which lasted, with desolating effect, for a long time, and seriously reduced their numbers and strength, and promi.?ed at no distant day to end in their total destruction, if not by their own dissen- sions, by the hands of surrounding enemies. At length a wise man of the Onondagas, whose name, tradition tells us, was Da-ga-no-we'-dd, conceived a plan of confederation, and a grand council of all the nations was held on the northern shore of the GU-nun'-tn-ah, or Onon- daga Lake, and after a long and careful debate the ground- work of the Iroquois system, as found by Europeans, was adopted, and from henceforth the hitherto hostile nations became as one, forming the most powerful league that, so far as known, ever existed among the Indian races. " Their traditions inform us that the Confederacy, as framed by this council, with its laws, rules, inter-relationships of the people, and mode of administration, has come down through many generations to the present age with scarcely a change, except the addition of an inferior class of rulers. called chiefs, in contradistinction to the sachems, and a modification of the laws in relation to marriage.'* From that date the united nations took the name of Ho- de'-no-snn-nee, which is translated to mean literally in Eng- lish, " People of the Long House," in allusion to the location of the five separate nations in one long line, having five dis- tinct council-fires, like one of their bark lodges, divided into five compartments, each having its fan)ily and fire. The five nations forming this remarkable confederation occupied, as near as can be ascertained, each the following territory : At first the westernmost nation, the Senecns, extended only to the valley of the Genesee River ; but after the ex- pulsion of the Neuter nation, the Je-go'-sii-sa, from the region of the Niagara River, and the Erics, or Gii-qiiil'-ga- o-no, from the country between the Genesee River and Lake Erie, the first in 1643 and the second in 1655, they extended their jurisdiction to the lake and Niagara River. The boundary between them and the Cnyugas commenced at the southern extremity of Sodus Bay, and ran thence in nearly a direct line south to the present boundary line between New York and Pennsylvania, which it crossed a little to the east of the city of Elmira. The Seuecas were the hereditary "Door-keepers'' of the " Long House," and were styled in their expressive language the " first fire,'' and so on to the MoJinwJcs, who were styled the fifth. The Cayugas occupied a strip of country lying next east of the Senecas, and about twenty miles in width, including Cayuga and Owasco Lakes. Their eastern boundary line commenced near the mouth of the Oswego River, on the west side, and crossed the Pennsylvania line near the centre of Tioga County, on the south side. Between the Onondagas and Oiieidas the boundary ran directly south from the Deep Spring, called by the Indians I)e-o-song'-wn,f near Manlius, in Onondaga County, to the Pennsylvania line. North from the Deep Spring it deflected to the west, so as to leave Oneida Lake wholly in the terri- tory of the Oneidas, and thence, curving around the lake to the longitude of the spring, it ran nearly north to the St. Lawrence River. The Tuscaroras, upon their admission as the sixth member of the Confederacy, were assigned a portion of the Oiteiila territory lying between the Unadilla and Chenango Rivers, and bounded on the south probably by the Susque- hanna. Two other bands, the Muliehunnuhs and the New Eng- land Indians, also occupied portions of the Oneida territory. The boundary between the Oneidas and Mohawks was substantially a north and south line, crossing the Mohawk River about five miles below the present site of Utica, and extending thence north to the St. Lawrence, and south indefinitely.^ The great central council-house was at On- ondaga. In addition to the abundant means of communication by water channels, important trails§ by land were laid out and '^■" League of the Ho-de'-no-sau-nce. t Written also Dc-o-u'd-dii-i/a'-nh, "the spring in the deep hasin." X After the removal of the Mohawks to Canada, in 1775, the Onei- das claimed all of Northern New York. § Called in the Seneca tongue, Wiih-a-ijwcn'-nc->/i:h. HISTORY OF ONEIDA COUNTY, NEW YORK. 19 occupied for centuries by the league, which were so judi- ciously chosen from a picogViiphical and commercial point of view as to deserve mention. The principal trail of course was the one connecting the different nations, and it extended from the Hudson River on the east to Lake Erie, at the mouth of Buffalo Creek, on the west, and was so well chosen that the great turnpikes and railways of the white man have been constructed upon almost the idcntrcal line adopted by the red man, whom we are prone to call n sav- age. Other important trails were those upon the Susque- hanna and Chemung Rivers, which converged upon Tioga, and thence, descending the main Susquehanna, led south- ward through Pennsylvania and Virginia. Still others led northward by way of the Hudson River and Lake Champlain, and by the Mohawk, West Canada Creek, and Black River, to the valley of the St. Lawrence, and thence into the heart of Canada. Sachems. — At the institution of the league there were created fifty permanent sachemships, with each its appro- priate name, and in these were vested the supreme powers of the Confederacy. These sachemships were made hered- itary under limited and peculiar laws of descent. The sachems were equal in rank and authority, and, instead of being invested with independent powers in a limited terri- tory, they acted together as a joint body. " As a safeguard against contention and fraud, each sachem was 'raised up,' and invested with his title by a council of all the sachems, with suitiible forms and ceremo- nies. Until this ceremony of confirmation or investiture, no one could become a ruler. He received, when raised up, the name of the sachemship itself, as in the case of titles of nobility, and so also did his succes.sors, from generation to generation. The sachemships were distributed unequally among the Five Nations, but without thereby giving to either a preponderance of political power. Nine of them were assigned to the IL/hawJc nation, nine to the Oiieidn., fourteen to the Onondiiffa, ten to the Gii/iiga, and eight to the Seneca. The sachems, united, formed the council of the league, the ruling body, in which resided the executive, legislative, and judicial authority. It thus appears that the government of the Iroquois was an oligarchy, taking the term at least in the literal sense, ' the rule of the few ;' and while more system is observable in this than in the oligarchies of antiquity, it seems, also, better calculated in its frame-work to resist political changes."* The original Indian names of the Five Nations, in the Seneca language, according to Morgan, were: Ga-ne-a'- GA-O-NO, or .¥o7taic/i:s; O-na-yote'-qa-O-no, or Oneidas; O-nun-Dah'-ga-O-no, or Onondagas ; Gue'-u-GWEII-O- NO, or Cayugas ; Nun-da-wah'-o-NO, or Seneca.i. " The Onondaga nation being situated in a central posi- tion, were made keepers both of the Council Brand and the Wampum, in which the structure and principles of their government, and their laws and treaties, were pre- served. At stated periods, usually in the autumn of each year, the sachems of the league assembled in council at Onondaga, which was in effect the seat of government, to legislate for the common welfare. Exigencies of a public * Morgfin. or domestic character oflen led to the summoning of this council at extraordinary seasons, but the place was not confined to Onondaga. It could be appointed in the ter- ritory of either of the nations, under established usages. Originally the object of the general council was to raise up sachems to fill vacancies. " III the course of time, iis their intercourse with foreign nations became more important, it assumed the charge of all matters which concerned the league. It declared war and made peace, sent and received embassies, entered into treaties of alliance, regulated the affairs of subject nations, received new members into the league, extended its protection over feeble tribes, — in a word, took all needful measures to pro- mote their prosperity and enlarge their dominion. " Notwithstanding the equality of rights, privileges, and powers between the members of this body of sachems, there were certain discriminations between them, which rendered some more dignified than others. The strongest illustra- tion is found in the Onondaga sachem. To-do-da -lin, who has always been regarded as the most noble sachem of the league. As an acknowledgment of his eminence, two of the Onondaga sachems were a.ssigned him as hereditary counselors. The great respect and deference paid by the Iroqnou to this title has led to the vulgar error that Tu- do-d'd'-ho was the king or civil head of the Confederacy. He possessed, in fact, no unusual or executive powers, no authority which was not equally enjoyed by his peers ; and where the light of tradition is introduced, to clear up the apparent anomaly, it will be seen that the reverence of the people was rather for the title itself than for the person who held it, as it was one of their illustrious names. At the establishment of the league, an Onondaga by the name To-do-dd' -lio had rendered himself a potent ruler by the force of his military achievements. Tradition says that he had conquered the Gii/ngas and Senecas. It represents his head as covered with tangled serpents, and his look, when angry, as so terrible that whoever looked upon him fell dead. It relates that, when the league was formed, the snakes were combed out of his hair by a Mohawk sachem, who was hence named Ilii-j/o-roent'-hd, ' the man who combs.' To-do-dd'-ho was reluctant to consent to the new order of things, as he would thereby be shorn of his abso- lute power, and placed among a number of equals. To remove these objections in some measure, and to commem- orate his magnanimity, the first sachemship was named after him, and was dignified above the others by special marks of honor ; but such, however, as were in perfect con- sistency with an equal distribution of powers among all the sachems as a body. Down to the present day, among the Iroquois, this name is the personification of heroism, of forecast, and of dignity of character ; and this title has ever been regarded as more illustrious than any other in the catalogue of Iroquois nobility."^ The fifty sachemships or titles, save two, established at the origin of the league, according to Morgan, have been held by as many sachems in succession as generations have passed away since the formation of the league. The class- name of these sachems was Ilo-yar-na-go' -war, which sig- nifies " counselor of the people." •[■ Morgan. 20 HISTORY OF ONEIDA COUNTY, NEW YORK. The Seiiecns were made the door-keopers of the Long House, and the eighth sachem, Do-ue-lio-gil' -iceh, was as- signed to the duty of watching the door ; and to assist liim in his duties a sub-sachem was appointed, who was raised up at the same time as his superior. His duty was to stand behind the sachem on all public occasions and act as his runner or attendant, as well as counselor. The Onondaga sachem, Ila-no-tce-nd'-lo, who was made keeper of the wampum, also had an assistant. Several other sachems, to whom were confided special duties and respon- sibilities, were likewise allowed sub-sachems to assist them. Next in importance to the fifty sachems was an inferior class, denominated chiefs, who were called into existence by the force of circumstances many years after the formation of the league. The office of chief, Ila-seh-no-wa-neh, signifying " an elevated name," was made elective, and the reward of merit, but without hereditary descent, the title, in all cases, terminating with the death of the individual upon whom it was bestowed. The number was not limited. The powers of this class, at first limited to local matters, gradually extended with tlieir increase in numbers, until they became nearly equal in many respects with the origi- nally ordained sachems themselves. Their election, to be binding, must be ratified by the general council of sachems. The powers and duties of the sachems and chiefs were en- tirely confined to the affairs of peace. The war-chiefs of the difi"erent nations do not seem to have been either hereditary or appointed. Their positions as Iciiders depended solely on their prowess and success in leading small parties against the enemy, and if any chief became famous and the acknowledged military leader, like T/iay-cti-dan-e-gi-a, of the Muhaivkn, or Tc-gtni-i-so'-rens, of the Onomhigas, it was simply because the warriors rec- ognized their superior abilities and fitness as military com- manders. None of the chiefs, either civil or military, ever attained to the dignity uf sachems among the Iroqiiola : not even the famous ScM'ca orator, Sii-go-ye-wat' -lul (Red Jacket),* perhaps the most gifted of any Indian of modern times, could ever attain to a position higher than that of chief, and this title ended at his death. Any individual who possessed the requisite courage and ability to enlist a war-party could go out to war on his own account, and it would appear that a majority of their mili- tary operations were of this character. One nation of the league might be carrying on n war while all the remainder were at peace, though it is probable that from the time t!ie Confederacy was formed to the end of the French war of 1754-60, the intervals of peace " were few and far between." To guard against the possibility of dissensions in case of a gencrai war wherein all the members of the league were engaged, two supreme military chieftaincies were established. The individuals occupying these responsible po.'iitions wore expected rather to take the chief direction and supervision of military affairs than a command in the field, though they were not debarred from assuming it if they saw fit. These offices were made hereditary, like the sachemships, and va- cancies were filled in- the same manner. When the Senecas were made the door-keepers, the pre- » So nnmed from the color of a waistcoat given liim by the British. sumption was that being situated to the westward of all the others they would be liable to be first attacked by their enemies, as there seemed to be no danger anticipated from the New England Indians, or at least nothing comparable to that from the Western and Northwestern nations. These superior chieftainships were therefore conferred upon that nation ; and it was expected and required of them to be always f-eady to take the war-path. " The first of these was named Ta-\0(in'-ne'-avs, ' Needle-Breaker,' and the title made hereditary in the Wolf tribe; the second was named So-no'-sowa, ' Great Oyster-Shell," and the office assigned to the Tui'fle tribe." To these great chieflains was intrusted the supreme com- mand of the military forces of the league, and the general management of military affairs. Daring the war of the American Revolution, Thay-en- dan'-c-gca' (Joseph Brant) commanded the principal war- parties of the Mohawks, and from his conspicuous position was generally supposed by the whites to have been the mil- itary leader of the league, but it appears from the testi- mony of the Indians themselves — even the Mohaiohs — that this was not the case. He was a great military leader, and may very possibly, by a sort of tacit consent, have been, for the time being, considered as their principal commander, but it was only in consideration of his distinguished abilities and successes, and not because of any authority given him by the league, or any hereditary right possessed by him.'l' Religious functionaries were not recognized by the league, or, at least, none were raised up or invested with special powers as officers or representatives of the Confederacy. " In each nation, however, there was a class, styled Un-nvn-de'- uiit, or ' Keepers of the Faith,' who were regularly ap- pointed to officiate at their festivals, and take the general supervision of their religious affairs." To the foregoing list of officers was intrusted the man- agement of the affairs of the league, and of the different nations comprising it. But the league partook greatly of the republican or democratic form of government, and the powers of tho.se in authority would seem to have been in many instances rather advisory than executive. There were no written records, but the wampum-keeper was expected to preserve carefully the insignia of councils and treaties, with which was connected everything of importance pertaining to national afliiirs ; and these keepers familiarized them- selves so perfectly with the meaning of the archives, so to speak, that a minute and astonishingly accurate knowledge of all important transactions was transmitted from genera- tion to generation. Tlie conquered nations were sometimes given the privilege of uniting with their conquerors, and thi^s preserving their individual existence, though their former nationality would of course bo lost ; and it is said that, in the case of the Erics and the Neuter nation, they were given the alterna- tive of union or annihilation. By this peculiar process there is no doubt the Iroquois kept their numbers (con- stantly diminished by their incessant wars) up to an aver- age standard, and probably increased them. At all events, their empire increased and enlarged until, nominally, it covered a territory equivalent to a million square miles. f See League of the Inir[uuis, jiagc 71. HISTORY OF ONEIDA COUNTY, NEW YORK. 21 In summing up the peculiarities of this remarkable league, Morgan uses the following language: ..." A blending of the national sovereignties into one government was sought for and achieved by these forest statesmen. The league made the Jfo-de'-no-sau-nee one people, with one government, one system of institutions, one executive will. Yet the powers of the government were not so entirely centralized that the national independ- ence disappeared. . . . The crowning feature of the league, as a political structure, was the perfect independence and individuality of the national sovereignties in the midst of a central and all-embracing government, which presented such a cemented exterior that its subdivisions would scarcely have been discovered in the general transactions of the league." The Tribes. — The same writer states that each nation was subdivided into eight tribes, arranged in two divisions, and named as follows : WoLP, Bear, Beaver, Turtle. Deer, Snipe, Heron, Hawk. But there seems to be some doubt about the precise num- ber in a part of the nations, for in a foot-note a little farther on, he says the Tuscuroras had seven, the Oiieidas three, and the Molicncks three; and their traditions seem to confirm the statement. Of the origin of these tribal divisions very little is known. Tradition declares that the Bear and Deer were the original tribes, and that the re- mainder were subsequent subdivisions. It is said that, to insure a perfect and self-perpetuating structure, an indissoluble union, each of the tribes was sub- divided into five parts, and one-fifth placed in each nation, thus weaving the whole Confederacy together with the closest ties of consanguinity. It was simply a league con- structed upon family relationships, and probably the most indestructible form of union ever devised by any people. Mnriiage. — In order to perpetuate this remarkable structure, a curious marriage relation was adopted. Mem- bers of the Wolf, Bear, Beaver, and Turtle tribes, being considered as brothers and sisters, were not allowed to in- termarry, but they were free to choose partners from either of the four remaining tribes. Whoever transgressed this rule was held up to everlasting scorn and contempt. In process of time, however, as circumstances changed, the rigor of this law was somewhat relaxed, and marriage was allowed with any tribe but thuir own, and this rule is strictly adhered to at the present time. One of the most remarkable features of the confederation was the law which vested all rights, titles, and property in the female line. " By the opei'ation of this principle, also, the certainty of the descent in tlie tribe of their principal chiefs was se- cured by a rule infallible ; for the child mu.st be the son of its mother, although not necessarily of its mother's hus- band. If the purity of blood bo of any moment, the law- givers of the Iroquois established the only certain rule the case admits of, whereby the assurance might be enjoyed that the ruling sachem was of the same family or tribe with the first taker of the title."* ^- Morgan. At all their councils the nations wore divided info two classes, and arranged upon opposite sides of the council-fire. The Onondaxjas, Moluncks, and Senecas, who were re- garded as brothers, and fathers of the otlier nations, were ranged upon one side, and the Oneidas and Cnyngas, and subsequently the Tiiscaroras, who were likewise regarded as brothers, but children of the others, upon the other side. Order of precedence. — In enumerating the nations, for some unexplained reason the Mohaivks were first named. In the general councils they were styled Da-gd-e-o'-gii, which is interpreted to mean " Neutral," and sometimes " the Shield," which latter seems the more appropriate, on account of their location. This designation finally became their national title. The Oiiouddgns were placed next in the order of pre- cedence, and were known in the council by the title or appellation of IIu-dJ-.SLni-no-ge-tii, which is translated to mean " Name-Bearer," conferred in commemoration of the fact that the Onotuhigas bestowed names upon the fifty original sachems. Next iu order were the Senecas, who were proud of their national designation, 7/w-Han-)je-Ao'-o»?, or the "Door- keepers." They were the hereditary guardians of the door of the " Long House," and in the many wars waged with the Iliirons and other Canadian nations, as well as with the French, probably suffered more than the other nations. The Oneida nation occupied the fourth place, but orig- inally had no special appellation. At a comparatively re- cent period the name Ne-ar-de-un-dar-go'-war, signifying " Great Tree," was conferred upon them, it is supposed, from some circumstance occurring at a treaty with the people of Was-tuw, or Boston. Among the 'five original nations the Coyugas occupied the lowest rank, or at least were placed last in the list. Their appellation in the council was So-uees'-ho-gwii-to-tcnr, signifying " Great Pipe," said to have been bestowed be- cause the leading Cayuga chief, at the great council which formed the league, smoked a pipe of uncommon dimensions and beautiful workmanship. Blorgan states that the Tiiscaroras had no national desig- nation in the councils of the league, but in another con- nection he also states that they were called Dus-ga-o'-weh, meaning " shirt-wearing people," a name which is said to have been adopted by them before their expulsion from Carolina. The signification of the names of the different nations, according to Morgan, is as follows : Gil-ne-ii' -ga-o-no, or Mohmoks, signifies " the possessor of the flint," but the real meaning is not certainly \inderstood. The O-na-yute'-ga-o-no, or Oncidns, .signifies " the people of the stone," or perhaps more literally " the granite people," from the fact that their territory extended into the region of the primary formation. O-nmi-diilil -ga-o-no, the Indian name of the Onondagiis, is said to signify "the people of the hills," and it would seem to have been very properly bestowed. Guc'-u-gioeh-o-no, the name of the Cayngas, signifies " the people of the nmcky land," in allusion to the marshy region of their country. Nun-da-wali'-o-no, the Seneca name, was the name of HISTORY OF ONEIDA COUNTY, NEW YORK. their oldest village, situated upon a hill at the head of Can- aiidaigua Lake, and literally means " the great hill people ;" Nun-da-wdh' meaning " great hill," and the terminal syl- lables o-no signifying "people." Dus-ga-o'-wch, the name of the Tuscaroras, means "shirt- wearing people," as before mentioned. The Ojieidds, as heretofore shown, occupied a strip of country which included the present territory of the county of Oneida, and of about the same width east and west, and extending north and south through the State. So far as known, most of their villages were within the limits of the county, their principal one, called Gii-no-a-lo'-hdle, being located at what is now known as Oneida Castle, in Vernon Township. They were very fortunate in the allotment of territory, possessing as they did some of the finest agricul- tural districts in the State, interspersed with beautiful scenery. They occupied the head-waters of the streams which flow into the Mohawk, Black, Susquehanna, and Oswego Rivers, and controlled the " carrying-place" between the east and the west. Their hunting- and fishing-grounds extended from the Pennsylvania line to the St. Lawrence and the Adirondacks, and from the centre of their domain they could travel in their bark canoes' into the territory of every one of the Six Nations. Geologically speaking, their territory covered the outcrop of every formation, from the Archican to the Permian, a feature not to be found perhaps in any equal extent of country on the globe. Here are the oldest formations of the earth's crust and the latest addi- tions to the structure. Here are granite, and sandstone, and limestone, and slates, and shales ; here are lime, and salt, and gypsum, and clays, and roofing materials; and, over all, a soil yielding bountifully of food for animals and men. A richer country, naturally, can scarcely be found, and lying as it does in the great highway of travel and commerce, it would seem that under a beneficent form of government it must continue for ages to be the " seat of empire." In Volume III. of the "Documentary History of New York" is the journal of Wetitworth Grecnhalgh, written while on a journey through the Mohawk Valley, in May and June, 1077. He relates that the llnqiiaes, or Muhawks, had then four towns, Co-haa-i-a-ga, Caii-a-go-ra (_Caii-ago- rh(i), Ti-oii-clo-gue, and a fourth, not named. He estimates the Muhawlc fighting force at 300 men. The Oiieidas then occupied a single town, located about 30 miles from the Mohawk River, and about 20 miles .south of Oneida Lake, on a small river which runs into Oneida, or Tcsh-i-rogiie, Lake. According to his description it was then a newly-settled town, fortified by a double stockade, and well calculated for defense against anything except artillery. The Oiieidas did not seem to be cultivating the land very extensively, and were accustomed to purchase their corn of the Oiioiidijgas. Their village, or town, contained about 100 houses, and they could muster 200 warriors. The Oiwndagas had one town, containing about 140 houses, and he estimates their warriors at 350. This nation were cultivating the soil, and had abundance of corn. Tlieir town was situated on a very large hill, and was not fortified. The Cai-ou-gas {Cai/iigas) were occupying three towns, altogether containing 100 houses, and had an estimated fighting force of 300 warriors. Their villages were located near Lake Tichero ( Cayuga), and were not at that time for- tified. The Cayitgas also had plenty of corn. The Senecas, or, as he wrote it, Seriecques, had four towns, Caiiagora, Tiotohattoii, Caiiveiiada, and Kienthe. The first two were located within 30 miles of Lake Frontenae (Ontario), and the others farther to the southward. Canagora, the largest town, and evidently the capital of the nation, was, like Onondaga, located on a high hill, and contained 150 houses. Tiotohatton was situated about 30 miles to the west of the first-mentioned town, and contained 120 houses, some of which were from 50 to 60 feet in length, and contained 13 or 14 fires. Gauvenada contained 30 houses, and Kienthe about 24. This nation also culti- vated their lands quite extensively along the Genesee River, and had a large store of corn. He estimates their warriors at 1000, making them by far the most powerful of the nations, and mustering nearly as many warriors as all the others combined. The names given these nations by the French, according to this writer, were as follows : Mohawlcs, Les Aniiiez ; Oiieidas, Les Oiwi/anis ; Oiioiidagns, Les Muiitagneurs, or OiiHOiitagues ; Cayiigas, Les Petaneurs ; Senecas, Les Piasaiis. The date of this visit was about 34 years previous to the admission of the Tascarora nation, and about 23 years after the first Jesuit missionaries had visited them. The following additional particulars concerning the In- dians who formerly resided, or at preset! t do reside, in the county of Oneida, is taken from Hon. P. Jones' ''Annals of Oneida County." " Early travelers and writers speak of the Oiieidas as the most polished, possessing the finest forms, and as being the most prepossessing in manners and appearance of any of the Iroquois tribes. Smith, the historian, quotes from a letter written in 1748 by the Rev. Mr. Spencer, a mission- ary among the Oiieidas at Oqiingo (formerly a village in the town of Windsor, Broome County), as follows: 'The dialect of the Oiieidas is softer than that of the other nations, and the reason is because they have more vowels, and often supply the place of harsh letters with liquids.' " According to the tradition of Cusick, the Oiieidas first settled upon one of the head-waters of the Susquehanna, called Kaw-uaw-law-te-rnh, about ten miles south of Oneida Castle. The earliest recollected residence of the Oiieidas was upon the southern .shore of Oneida Lake, near the mouth of the Oneida Creek. Here they constructed forti- fications, remains of which have been found since the country was settled by whites. From the last-named place the Oiieidas removed to the neighborhood of the recent* location of the Stone, in the present town of Stockbridge, Madison County, to a place called Ca-nagh-tn-sagh-ga-sagli. From similarity in the names, there is some reason for suppos- ing that this is the location mentioned by Cusick in the tradi- tion of the origin of the tribes. It is believed that their removal to this place was before the formation of the Iro- giiois Confederacy. Pyrlaus, a Dutch missionary among the Mohawks at Fort Hunter, wrote, between 1742 and 1748, » Wi'ittcn in lS."i1. HISTORY OP ONEIDA COUNTY, NEW YORK. 23 that the result of his best conjectures and information was that the Iroquois league or confederacy was formed about ' one age, or the length of a man's life,' prior to the arrival of the Dutch, in 1609,* which would fix the date at about 1530-35. The town of the Onddas at this place was in a valley south of the commanding eminence upon which the Sloiie rested, but in the immediate vicinity. " The corn-hills upon their ancient fields are still (1851) visible, although a new forest has grown up since those fields were cultivated. Upon counting the rings showing the annual growth of trees in this forest, we are taken back to the year 1 550, showing that it is over 300 years since the Oneulas ceased to cultivate those fields. The next remove of the Oncidas was to Ca-vo-ii:a-lo-a,'f the site of Oneida Castle. The signification of this name is ' enemy's head on a pole,' and it is impelled in a great variety of ways by diiferent persons. The Oneidas resided in this place when the Dutch settled upon the Hudson, in 1609 (1613). " The Iroquois all believed in witches, and about 1805 oc- curred the last execution in Oiieidti for witchcraft. Two women suffered for this supposed crime. Han Yost, an Indian somewhat noted in the Revolution, was chosen exe- cutioner, and he entered their lodge and tomahawked them according to a decree of council. " Celebrated Oneida Chiefs. — If the pages of history do not show as long a list of most distinguished chiefs and warriors of the Oneida nation as some of the others, it is because the names and deeds of their great mf n have not been preserved. Early writers upon the Iroqnuis speak of the Oneidas as displaying the greatest talents in council and diplomacy, while in prowess and courage they were the equals of any of the Six Nations. According to tradition, 0-tat-sclieclc-ta was the chief or delegate from the Oneidas who aided in forming the Confederacy of the Five (original) Nations ; and the Good Spirit, who presided over and directed their councils, addressed the Oneidas in concluding the ceremonies : ' And you, Oneidas, a people who recline your bodies against the eveilusting stone that cannot be moved, shall be the second nation, hecanse you give wise counsel.' In 1655, Atonelntochan is mentioned by the French as a distinguished Oneida chief, who had visited Canada and exerted 'a powerful influence among the Iro- quois.' ' At the great Indian treaty at Fort Stanwix in the au- tumn of 1768, the articles were signed on the part of the Oneidas by Ca-nagli-qui-e-son., who must have been at the time principal chief of the nation, for this was a very im- portant treaty. lu August, 1775, a delegation from the Six Nations held a conference at Albany with the Commis- sioners for Indian affairs, General Philip Schuyler, Colonel Wolcott, Colonel Francis, and Mr. Douw. At this confer- ence Sevgh-na-gen-rat, an Oneida chief, spoke in behalf of the Six Nations. " Among the chiefs who aided in enlisting the Oneidas in behalf of the Americans during the Revolution was one who has usually worn the souhriquet of Plattcopf. He was the junior of Slcanandoa, and is said not to have ex- '*' Date of Hudson's voyage. "I" Morgan gives this name G ii-no-alu' -hille, "head on a |iole." erted an equal influence; but notwithstanding, by the fire of his eloquence and the force of his reasoning, he often bound the attention and swayed the passions of the Oneida nation. British gold and ancient friendships often tempted the cupidity and loyalty of the Oneidas, but were as often met by the appeals and invectives of their orators, who served the cause of truth and justice by a recital of the wrongs, injuries, and rights of the colonists. Messrs. Kirk- land and Dean kept these orators fully prepared with ma- terials for their speeches. " But the name which stands more prominently upon the page of history, and which will be remembered until the original (?) inhabitants of the country are forgotten, is that of Slcanandoa, ' the white man's friend.' He was born about the year 1706, but of his younger days little or nothing is known. It has been stated, but upon what author- ity the writer does not know, that he was not an Oneida by birth, but was a native of a tribe living a long distance (o the northwest, and was adopted by the Oneidas when a young man. J In his youth and early manhood Skanandoa was very savage and intemperate. In 1755, while attending upon a treaty at Albany, he became excessively drunk at night, and in the morning found himself divested of all his ornaments and clothing. His pride revolting at his self-deg- radation, he resolved never again to place himself under the power of 'fire-water,' a resolution which it is believed he kept to the end of his life. In appearance he was noble, dignified, and commanding, being in height over six feet and the tallest Indian in his nation. He possessed a powerful frame, for at the age of eighty-five he was a full match for any member of his tribe, either as to strength or speed of foot, and his powers of endurance were equal to his size and physical power. But it was to his eloquence and mental powers that he owed his reputation and influence. His person was tattooed or marked in a peculiar manner. There were nine lines, arranged by threes, extending downwards from each shoulder and meeting upon the chest, made by introducing some dark coloring matter under the skin. He was in his riper years one of the noblest counselors among the American tribes; he possessed a vigorous mind, and was alike sagacious, active, and persevering. As an enemy he was terrible, as a friend and ally he was mild and gentle in his disposition and faithful to his engagements. His vigi- lance once preserved from massacre the inhabitants of the little settlement at German Flats, and in the Revolutionary war his influence induced the Oneidas to take up arms in favor of the Americans. " Soon after Mr. Kirkland established his mission (1706) ^^ Mr. Jones snys he mny have belonged to a tribe called Necitn'n- gnae, who lived north of Mackinaw, but we are unable to find such a tribe named. They are said to have joined the Iroqiioia in 1722. Shenaitdoa was the head of an embassy which visited Col. Van Schaiok at Fort Schuyler (Rome), in April, 1799, on the occasion of the destruction of the Omnidaga villages. It is stated in Col. Stone's Life of Brant, vol. i. p. 401, in a foot-note, that on the 9th of April, 1779, Congress passed a resolution granting captains' eonnnissions to four of the OneithiB and TuaravoraK, and eight commissions as lieutenants. A few of the commissions were subsequently issued. The most of them served faithfully, and several were killed. Three of the lieutenants deserted to the encm}', and exchanged their com- missions for those of a like rank in the Briiish service. 24 HISTORY OP ONEIDA COUNTY, NEW YORK. at Oneida Skmiandoa embraced the doctrines of the gospel, and for the rest of his life lived a consistent Christian. He often repeated the wish that he might be buried by the side of his old teacher and spiritual father, that he might ' go up with him at the great resurrection ;' and several times in the latter years of his life he made the journey from Oneida to Clinton, hoping to die there. " Although he could speak but little English, and in his extreme old age was blind, yet his company was sought. In conversation he was highly decorous, evincing that he had profited by seeing civilized and polished society, and by mingling in good company in his better days. He evinced constant care not to give pain by any remark or reply. Upon one occasion he was visited by a party of young ladies, who found him at home, reclining upon a couch. He was then bliud. After the introduction by Miss Kirkland, who was one of the party, Shanandoa aske], 'Are these ladies married f Upon being ai;swered in the negative, he responded, '/« is well, for there are many bad men.' Miss Kirkland, who had seen mucli of the chief, said to her friends that if he had received an affirmative answer he would probably have responded, ' It is well, if you have got good husbands.' To Professor Norton, of Hamilton College, upon receiving a similar answer, he responded, 'It is lOcU ; tliere are many bad women!' " To a friend who called upon him a short time before his death, he thus expressed himself by an interpreter; ' I am an aged hemlock ; the winds of a hundred years have whistled through my branches ; I am dead at the top. The generation to which I belonged have run away and left me. Why I live the Great, Good Spirit only knows. Pray to my Jesus that I may have patience to wait for my appointed time to die.' An eloquence and beauty of sentiment which have been admired by millions in many lands, and which have been seldom equaled by the most eloquent and best of ancient or modern times. " After listening to the prayers road at his bedside by his great-granddaughter, Skanandoa yielded up his spirit on the 11th of March, 1816, aged about one hundred and ten years. Agreeably to a promise made by the family of Mr. Kirk- land, his remains were brought to Clinton and buried by the side of his spiritual father. Services wore attended in the Congregational meeting-house in Clinton, and an ad- dress was made to the Indians by Dr. Backus, president of Hamilton College, interpreted by Judge Dean, and after prayer, and singing appropriate psalms, the corpse was car- ried to the grave, preceded by the students of the college, and followed in order by the Indians, Mrs. Kirkland and family, Judge Dean, Rev. Dr. Norton, Eev. Mr. Ayrcs, offi- cers of the college, citizens. "S/canandoa was buried in the garden of Mr. Kirkland, a short distance south of the road leading up to the college. A handsome monument stands in the college burying-ground, with the following inscription : " SKENANDOA.* " This monument is erected by the Northern Missionary Society, in testimony of their respect for the memory of Skammiita, who died in the peace and hope of the Gospel, on the llth of March, IS16. Wise, eloquent, and brave, he long swnyed the councils of his tribe, whose confidence and affection he eminently enjoyed. In the war * The name is variously written. which placed the Canadas under the crown of G-reat Britain, he was actively engaged against the French; in that of the Revolution he espoused that of the colonies, and ever afterwards remained a firm friend of the United States. Under the ministry of the Rev. Mr. Kirk- land he embraced the doctrines of the Gospel ; and, having exhibited their power in a long life, adorned by every Christian virtue, he fell asleep in Jesus, at the advanced age of one hundred years." The following description of the annual Indian fishing- feast, at the forks of Fish creek, is from Hon. P. Jones' "Annals of Oneida County" : " It was held in the opening of the year, when the leaves on the trees had acquired the size of a fox's ear. In their estimation it was an occasion of importance, and was con- ducted with much ceremony. Every family in the tribe was expected to be present by one or more representatives. Until after the feast, by their laws, none were allowed to fish for salmon. When the whole party had convened, op- erations were commenced by driving a row of sticks across the stream, just below the fishing-ground, and filling the inter-stioes with brush, so as to entirely prevent the escape of a fish. They then went quite a distance above the fish- injj-ground, and by various devices searched out and drove all the salmon down to the ground selected. Then another row of stakes and brush, like the first, was placed across the stream, above the fish. All being thus made ready, the taking of the fish commenced. The old men, women, and children were stationed at the lower obstruction and along the margin of the stream to secure the wounded and dying, while the more effective portion of the party, with spears and sharpened stakes, commenced taking their now doomed captives. Their aim was to spear them and carry them ashore; but, from the imperfection of their instruments, they more frequently failed than were successful, and se- curing the wounded at the lower weir was an operation full as exciting to the old men and boys as was the spearing to the fishermen in the stream above. When all were taken that were within the inclosure, — which frequently amounted to hundreds, — the cooking and feasting commenced. It was comparatively a feast of ' first fruits,' and lasted until all were satisfied with the boiled, roasted, and broiled, when the remnant was apportioned to each family in the tribe, according to its number of souls." The following paragraphs, illustrative of various expe- riences with the Indians, are also extracted from Mr. Jones' work. " In March, 1787, Moses Foot, Esq., with eight other families, removed from New England to the village of Clinton, and commenced the settlement of that section of the county. A short time after their arrival they held a council with the chiefs of the Oneida tribe, which resulted in the following covenant : ' If the cattle of the whites, for the purpose of grazing in the woods, went on the In- dian grounds, or the cattle of the Indians came on the lands of the whites, that were not inclosed, they were not to be molested ; but should the cattle of either party stray away and the other party know where they were, notice was to be given to the owners, that the cattle might be reclaimed. Either party might dig ginseng on the other's land, but neither party was to cut any timber belonging to the oppo- site party.' " One or two years afterwards, a party of the Oneidas, HISTORy OF ONEIDA COUNTY, NEW YORK. 25 headed by the oelebi-alod Sauoy Nick, came and fonned a camp about two miles west of the village, for the purpose of digLrinii; ginseng, where they remained several days. One of the settlers missed a fine fat steer, and on making search found some of the offals secreted near the Indian camp, but the birds had flown, — not an Indian was to be found. " This was on the morning of the day appointed for the inspection of the militia. The Governor, to prevent the trouble and expense of going some thirty or forty miles to meet their regiment at the German Flats, had issued his orders that a major should attend at Clinton, and inspect the two small companies, then all the organized military in the State west of the said German Flats. The.se two com- panies were the germs of the 20th and 134th Regiments, the two oldest regiments in the county. On the news of the Indian depredation reaching the settlement, a party of some ten or twelve armed young men started in pursuit. '' They soon got upon their trail, and followed them up the Oriskany Creek to some point above the forks, where they had crossed over, crossing the south branch near the present site of Waterville ; they then returned on that side of the creek, passing but a short distance in the rear of Clinton, pursuing their course for the trading-house of John Post, near Fort Schuyler (now tlie city of Utica). When the pursuers came to the Sauquoit Creek, near the site of New Hartford, the indications were such they were confi- dent the Indians were but a few minutes in advance. They, therefore, divided their party ; one-half, the mo.st active, taking a circuitous route, to get in front, while the rest were to follow in the rear. The plan succeeded admir- ably, for in a short time they had the whole party prisoners. The Indians at first stoutly denied having any knowledge of the steer, but the whites not being so easily duped, pro- ceeded to search their packs, when, on opening that of Saucy Nick, the hide and bell of the missing animal made their appearance. The proof being now too convincing to render any further denial beneficial, some of them frankly confessed to having killed and eaten tlie steer. The In- dians were, therefore, all taken back to Clinton as pris- oners. " At some point of time after the capture, Saucy Nick being very obstinate, one of the party by the name of Cook, a large, athletic man, became so exasperated that he was about to strike him with his rifle, which another of the party prevented by seizing the rifle ; yet Cook succeeded in giving him a blow with his cane. '•Notwithstanding the length of the pursuit, the military had not dispersed when the party with the prisoners re- turned to the settlement. The Indians then requested the favor of letting one of their number go to Oneida to acquaint their chiefs of the situation in which they had placed tliomselves ; engaging that the messenger should return tlie next morning by the time the sun was an hour high, and that the rest of them would remain under guard as hostages. " The request was granted, and the rumier fijrthwith des- patched. The messenger punctually returned the next morning at the time specified. " In the course of the forenoon Scanandoa, Beechtree, and about twenty other Oncidn chiefs arrived, and re(iuested a 4 council with the whites. The princi[ial settlers were called together, and the council agreed upon the llcv. Mr. Kirk- land to act as interpreter. Esquire Foot to be chief speaker on the part of the whites, and Beechtree on the part of the Indians. " The council was held in the old log church which stood near the centre of the village of Clinton, the Indians occu- pying one hide of the building and the whites the other. After the preliminaiies were all arranged, and the parties had taken their seats, some fifteen or twenty minutes of silence was allowed to intervene. In view of the savage, it is a very great departure from dignity and decorum to show any impatience or haste in opening the council. Beechtree now aro.se and commenced : " ' Will our brothers hearken ? When our father (Esquire Foot) and the pale-faces came from towards the ri.sing sun and set themselves down here in the valley of the River of Nettles (Oriskany is the Indian name, and signifies ' River of Nettles'), we made a covenant with him. (Here he set forth the covenant substantially as I have stated it in the commencement of this article.) This covenant our father and his people have kept ; with them it is very strong ; they have not broken it; our father and his people dealt in good faith with their red brothers. About six suns ago some of our people came to dig ginseng; they knew the covenant, for we had told them ; but they were very bad people ; with them the covenant was like the pipes that we get of the white traders, — very easily bjoken ; they killed and ate the young ox of the white man ; tliey broke the covenant. Will our father inform his red children what they must do to mend the broken covenant? It must be mended.' He then sat down. " Esquire Foot now rose and told them that to mend the broken covenant their bad men must pay the owner for the young ox. They must also p.iy his young men for the time spent in [jursuit of those who broke the covenant. " Beechtree again rose and .said : ' Our father has said well ; the young ox must be paid for, and the young men must be paid ; we do not u.se oxen ; we have cows ; we know how much they are worth, but we do not know how much the young ox was worth ; will our father tell us?' " Esquire Foot told him that the young ox was worth as much as the best cow at Oneida, as it was very fat and good. " Beechtree then said, ' The owner of the young ox shall have our best cow ; will our father tell us which it is ?' " Esquire Foot, knowing the cows at Oneida, told Beech- tree that a certain brown, white-faced cow would be accepted by the owner of the young ox. " Bjechtree again said, ' Our father is very wise, — he knows the best cow ; before the .setting of the sun to-mor- row our young men will drive and deliver that cow. Will our father tell us how much his young men must have?' " Esquire Foot now informed him that his red brolhei's, the chiefs present, wore good men ; that they mended the covenants that their bad people broke ; that they might give his young men what they thought would be right. " Beechtree now said, ' Will our brothers again hearken ? Our bad men who broke the covenant were digging gin- seng; they had gathered some, which they have in their 26 HISTORY OF ONEIDA COUNTY, NEW YORK. pncks ; will our futlicr look at it and say how much it is ■worth ? Post, who keeps the trading-house at Fort Schuy- ler, will buy it.' " Es(]uire Foot examined the ginseng, and informed Beeuhtree that it would bring a certain sum, -which he named, it being a very liberal one. " Beochtree said, ' It is a fair price, but it is not enough to pay the young men. Tliey may take it at that price, and about the first of next snow Mr. Taylor, the agent, will be here, to pay us the money for the twenty townships we sold at Albany ; we will give you a paper directing him to pay you a certain sum (which he named) ; we will make our cross on the paper, — we cannot write ; Sir. Taylor will then pay you, and when he pays us the rest of the money to divide among our people, we shall not give any to tho.se who broke the covenant, so that when they see they lose their best cow, have their ginseng taken from them, and have no money given them, they will be punished ; they will be careful not to break the covenant any more.' This proposition was agreed to, and the writing made out and signed. Beechtree then said, ' If the covenant is mended, let us again be friends.' Esquire Foot told him that if the cow was delivered the next day, the covenant would be made good, and they would all be good friends again ; and the council then broke up with much good will and satis- faction on both sides. " It is proper here to remark that the cow was punctually delivered the next day, and the draft was duly honored by Mr. Taylor. During the whole sitting of the council, Beechtree, before he made or accepted any propo.sition, had a consultation with the other chiefs, and Esquire Foot had frequent conversations with and the advice of the settlers. " But there was one proud and revengeful spirit in that council which did not give an assent to their being again friends. I allude to Saucy Nick. lie had, during the whole sitting, ,?at witli his head down in sullen silence, the blow which he had received from Cook while a prisoner still raTikling and festering in his bosom. When the rest left the house he went away with them without uttering a word, but inwardly vowing revenge, as might be seen by the close observer in the snake-like glances of tlie eye towards Cook. A few weeks later, Cook had occasion to go to Fort Schuyler witli his cart and oxen. While there and s^tanding near his team. Saucy Nick made at him with his drawn knife. Cook had barely time to elude the blow by jumping into his cart and defending himself with the butt of his whip. Sauuy Nick soon gave over the attempt at that time. Not long afterwards, as Cook was ehopping on his lot, an arrow whizzed by him but a few inches i'rom his body. The arm that drew the bow was not to he mis- taken. It was also a warning to Cook tliat nothing but his heart's blood would wi]ie oft' the disgrace of the blow given ■with the cane. He had now learned the character of the savage; that his attempts would never be given over until his aim was sure ; that length of time would never heal his revenge or deter him from his pnrpo.se. Cook, therefore, with the advice of his friends, sold out his ' betterments' and rennivcd back to Connecticut. '■ It has been said, and very generally believed, that the savage never forgave a real or supposed injury or insult, but carried his resentment to his grave. In the following in- stance it is presented in a .somewhat difFereiit point of view : " Major Barnabas Pond, who now in his eighty-fourth year, a good and green old age,* on his farm, near Clinton, at an early day in its settlement, kept a public-house in said village. One morning, a young Oneida chief (who spoke tolerably good English), of some twenty-three or twenty- four years of age, in company with his wife, came into the tavern and called for some rum ; Major Pond told him he did not let Indians that were intoxicated have any lii^uor,* but, as he appeared perfectly sober, if he would not drink too much, he might have .some. The Indian promised to be cautious, and after getting the rum, drank very sparingly, giving a part to his wife. After sitting a few minutes they went away. " In the course of the afternoon they returned with five other Indians. The young chief was now evidently excited with liquor. He stepped up to the bar and called for a half- pint of rum. Major Pond told him he should not let him have any ; that he had already drank too much, and that he informed him in the morning he did not let drunken Indians have liquor. The chief replied, that he did not want it for himself, he knew that he had drank enough, — that he had drank too much, — he wanted it for the Indians with him ; they were his friends, and he wanted to treat them; that he would not taste a drop of it; at the same time showing a piece of money he had, tied up in a hand- kerchief With this promise the major let him have the rum. He was true to his word, for, without ta.sting it, he gave it to the others, who drank it off. After the liquor was drank some said it was time to be going, when they all started. Major Pond now told the chief he had not paid for the rum ; he replied that he had no money and could not pay. The major told him it was not so; he had money and had .shown it; that he now told a falsehood in denying having money. The chief now flew into n passion, saying, ' What you say, I lie?' and approached the major, at the same time drawing his knife. " The m;ijor, a .-jtrong, athletic man, now thought it time to act on the defensive; he therefore struck the knife arm between the elbow and shoulder a blow ■with the edge of his hand, which caused the knife to fly over the chief's head across the room ; he then, in the same manner, struck him another blow across the throat, at the same time giving him a trip, which bi'ought him to the floor, or, to use the major's own words, 'he fell like an ox knocked down in a slaughter-house.' The Indian, however, soon commenced catching for breath, and in a .short time was able to ri.se up and stand upon his feet. After standing for a short time to recover liim.-.elf, he took the handkei chief that contained the money, and threw it to the major, who took his pay and offered to return it, together with the knife, ■which he had picked up. The Indian refused to take the articles, without assigning any reason. The major then took them to the chiefs wife, who likewise refused them, well knowing that if she accepted thorn after her husband had refu,sed she would have given him very great ofi'cnse. They all soon went away. ■* Written in 1851. HISTORY OF ONEIDA COUNTY, NEW YORK. 27 " Some few weeks afterwards, the young chief came again, and was very penitent; he begged the major's pardon, said he behaved very bad when in liquor ; that he had served him right in Icnoclving him down ; he hoped he .should be forgiven, and that they would be friends again. The major frankly forgave him, and promised his friendship if he behaved well in future, and then went and got the handker- chief and knife, and again offered them to the owner. They were again refused, he stating as a reason that he had for- feited his knife, and would not carry it. He behaved so very bad when he was intoxicated, he was afraid he should do some mischief with it. The matter here ended, and the young chief, who was afterwards frequently in Clinton, never showed any ill will towards our landlord.'' The Titscaroras. — This nation formerly dwelt in North Carolina, but becoming involved in a war with the whites, about 1711, they suffered very severely, and were reduced from an estimated population in 17U8 of 6000 souls to about 1250. After the war they migrated northward, and claimed a home among the celebrated Five Nations, to whom they were probably allied by ancient family ties. They became the guests of the Oneidas, who assigned them a portion of their territory lying between the Unadilla and Chenango Rivers. About 1780 a portion of this nation removed to the neighborhood of the Niagara River, where they were partly subsisted for a time by the British government. In 1783 the lands formerly occupied by them in the Oneida territory wore disposed of to the State for 811,500. They afterwards settled among the Seaecas, who granted them a tract of land about one mile square, which w;is reserved to them in 1797, when the Senecas sold all their lands to the State. The Tascaroras subsequently recovered a consid- erable sum from their lands in North Carolina, and with the proceeds purchased, in 1804, for 113,7:^2, a tract of 4.329 acres of the Holland Land Company, which, with the amount before granted them by the State and the said com- pany, made up a total of 0249 acres, which they now hold and cultivate. It lies on the Niagara River. The population of this nation in Niagara County, ac- cording to the census of 1865, was 414. The Stockhridge Indians. — " The Stockbridge Indians were named after the town of Stockbridge, Mass., where they formerly resided. In 1735 the Legislature of Mas- sachusetts granted a township six miles square, to be laid out on the Housatonic River, for the use of these Indians and such others as might join them. The object of the colony was to collect them together in this place, where they could have the benefits of the Christian teacher and of schools. Previously they had lived in scattered clans in the western part of the colony. " They have very generally been known as the JLi-he-kaii- neews, and a corruption of their name is variously written Mah-lie-ka-neew, JIuh-he-kan-ock, signifying ' the people of the great waters continually in motion.'* By the early English colonists they were called ' River Indians' (most probably because they lived near the Connecticut River). ^^ It is not well defined who these Indians were. Mr. Jones says they were not Mohicans^ They were probably remnants of a Cunncetieut Uiver tribe. " In 1736 these Indians removed to the township thus granted them (the present towns of Stockbridge and West Stockbridge), which was .soon after confirmed to them, their heirs and assigns. A meeting-house and school-house were erected for them by the colony, the first of which was opened for worship Nov. 29, 1739. In 1734 a mission had been commenced among these Indians by John Sargent, Sr., then a candidate for the ministry, assisted by Deacon Timothy Woodbridge, as a schooluiast-er, under the patronage of the board of commissioners for Indian affairs in Boston. Mr. Sargent was then a tutor in Yale College, but relin- quishing his place, was, on the 31st of August, 1734, ordained at Deerfield, Mass., as a gospel minister. Upon the occasion of his ordination, Grjvernor Belcher, a committee of both branches of the Legislature, and a large number of Indians from several tribes, were present. The Stockbridge or Housatonic Indians, as they were then called, formally ac- cepted him as their missionary. The Indians at Stock- bridge in a few years numbered from 400 to 500. "In 1741, Mr. Sargent projected a manual labor semi- nary and boarding-school for the education of Indian youth, but which, from the dangers and excitements that followed the first French war, did not go into successful operation for several years. This school became highly popular with the Indians and inhabitants generally, and enjoyed the confi- dence and aid of many of the best men in England, among whom were Dr. Isaac Watts, Captain Coram, etc. "Such were the benefits the Stockbridge Indians received from this school, that the Six Nations became interested in the education of their children, and held a council at Stockbridge to consider the plan of sending their children here to school. Rev. Mr. Sargent died July 27, 1749, aged thirty-nine years. He was a native of New Jersey, a graduate of Yale College in 1729, and lived to see the Stockbridge Indians increase from eight or ten families to more than fifty, with u, number of fr.imed houses and con- siderably advanced in agriculture. He left three children, the youngest of whom, John Sargent, Jr., will be named hereafter. Rev. Jonathan Edwards succeeded him in the school. " The last French war destroyed the hopes of the Six Nations with regard to this school, but to the Stockbridge Indians it was the source of many blessings. Jan. 4, 1758, Mr. Edwards resigned his charge for the presidency of Princeton College, but died on the 22d of March following. In 1759, Rev. Dr. Stephen West became the missionary and teacher of the Indians, — a post which he filled until 1775. " Prior to this time a tract of land, six miles .square, called New Stockbridge, had been granted to this tribe by the Oneidas, but the war of the Revolution prevented their removal to it for several years.f During the last French war the Stockbridge Indians took sides with the English, and were many of them received as .soldiers by Bla-ssachusetts. At the commencement of the Revolution they declared their attachment for the Americans, and raised a company of minute-men,' who subsequently acted I A Finall portion of tliem removed prior to the war, probably in 1775. See address to Governor Trumbull iu that year, Chapter VIII. of this work. 28 HISTORY OP ONEIDA COUNTY, NEW YOKK. iis rangers in the vicinity of Boston, oonmiaiided lay Cap- tain Timotliy Yokun, one of tiieir chieft. A full company went to White Plains under Captain Daniel Niniham, another chief, where four were killed and several died of disease. At the close of the war General Washington directed a feast to be prepared for the Indians in considera- tion of their good conduct, and an ox was roasted whole, of •which the tribe partook, — the men first and then the women and children. Rev. John Sargent, Jr., and Judge Dean presided at the table. '■ In 1775, upon the resignation of Dr. We.st, Rev. John Sargent, Jr., son of tlieir first missionary, took charge of the mission and school. He had received an education at Newark, N. J., and perfectly understood the language of the Indians. In 1783 a portion of the tribe removed to New Stockbridge; in 1785 another portion ; and the residue of the tribe in 1788. In 1785 the Indian members of the churcli at Stockbridge, sixteen in number, took letters of dis- missal, and immediately formed a church at their new home. At this time the tribe numbered about four hundred and twenty souls. Mr. Sargcmt was ordained pastor of the infant church, and regularly spent six months in the year at New Stockbridge until 1790, when he removed his family thither. He continued his labors with this people up to the time of his death, Sept. 8, 1824, at the age of seventy-seven years. " In 179G the Legislature granted a tract of land, one mile square, adjoining Stockbridge, to Rev. Mr. Sargent, known as Sargent's Patent. In 1818 the Stockbridge Indians num- bered 438 souls, and owned about 17,000 acres of land in Oneida and Madison Counties. Nearly one hundred and fifty* years ago the Miamis granted the Stockbridge, Dela- ware, and 31iiiisie tribes the right to occupy forever a large tract of land upon the White River, in Indiana. The Dela- wares wont many years ago and took posses.sion. In 1818 about one quarter of the Stockbridge tribe went we.st, by invitation of the Dclawares, to reside upon this land, the remainder of the tribe intending to follow soon ; but before those who started had arrived at their new home, they learned that the Ddawarcs had sold tlie whole tract to the government of Indiana. In 1821 the Six Nations and the Stockbridge, St. Regis, and Miint:ic tribes purchased of the Meiuiminces and Winnehagoes a large tract of land upon Green Bay and the Winnebago and Fox Rivers, in Wis- con.sin. In 1822 a large part of the tribe remaining re- moved to that territory, and the rest .soon followed. There they have made considerable advance in civilization, and are in general sober and industrious." Tlic Brotherton Indians. — " The Brotherton tribe of In- dians was composed of the remnants of various tribes who had resided in New Jersey, upon Long Island, and the northern shore of Long Island Sound. Many of them at the settle- ment of the country were powerful tribes, but all of them had become reduced to mere wrecks and remnants. The Oneidas invited them to come and reside upon their territory, and the State government also aided in collecting them together and settling them at their new homes. The tribes which " This was written about 1861, and would fix the offer as early as 1700, which is c.\trouicly doubtful. at diflFercnt periods have thus been consolidated to form the Brothertons were the Nanticokes, Narrri\ilegefi, and to subjugate the eolonics to arbi- trary power. From a confidence in your att.tehtncnt to the cause of liberty ami your country, wo now transmit to you the enclosed ad- dress, and desire you will deli\'er it to the sachem of the Muhuicki triba, to be oommunieatod to the rest of the Six Nations; and that you will use your influence with them to join with ns in the defon^o of our rights; but if you cannot prevail with them tu take an active jiiirt in this glorious cause, that you will at Ica^t engage them to stand neuter, and not by any means to aid and assist our enemies; an I as wc are at a loss for the n;inie of the sachem of the Molnnrk tribe, we have left it to you to direct the address to him, in such way as you may think proper."* Though Mr. Kirkland was not forcibly removed from his mission, he was, by Johnson's influence, prevented from returning to the Oneida town. The following letter from Mr. Kirkland to the committee at Albany gives an insight into the situation at that date, and shows that he already anticipated the result which was brought about through Guy Johnson in the spring of 1775 : "CiiERRY Vai,i.rv, .Tanuary 9, 1775. " GEXTLE■^(EX, — I am much embarrassed at present. You have doubtless beard that Colonel Johnson has orders from government to remove the dissenting missionaries from the Six Nations till the dif- ficulties between Great liritain and the colonies are settled ; in conse- quence of which he has forbidden my return to the people of Oneida. lie has since given encouragement that I may revisit them after tlio Cungre-:? is closed; but, to be plain, I have no dependence at all on his promises of this kind. ][e iippears unrt-asoniibly jealous of me, and has forbidden my speaking a word to the Indians, and threatens me with confinement if I tran-^gress. All he has against me I suppose to be a suspicion that I have interpreted to the Indians the doings of the Continental Congress, whleh has undeceived them, and too much opened their eyes for Colonel Johnson's purposes. I confess to yuu, gentlemen, that I have bjen guilty of this, if it be a transgres- sion. The Indians found out that I had received the abstracts of said Congress, and insisted upon knowing the contents. I could not deny them, notwithstanding my cloth, though in all other respijcts I have been extremely cautious not to meddle in matters of a political nature. I apprehend that my interpreting the doings of the Congress to a number of their sachems ha."^ done moi'c real good to the cause of the country or the cause of truth and justice than £.300 in presents would have effected. "f Mr. Kirkland was appointed by Congress at some period of the Revolutionary war a chaplain in the array, and served at Fort Stanwix, and other posts in the vicinity. He was chaplain of the fort at the time of its siege by St. Leger, but was not present, being absent on di^tached ser- Tice. In 1779 he was chuplain of one of the brigades in General Sullivan's army which laid waste the country of the hostile portion of the Six Nations, and continued with the army until late in the autumn, when he made a visit to his family at Stockbridge, Mass. Subsequent to this expe- dition, wliile the war lasted, he was stationed mostly at Gd-no-a-lo'-lidlc (Oneida Castle) and Fort Stanwix. In 1784 he returned to his labors as a missionary among the Oucidtts, under the auspices of the Boston Board of Missions for the rf n tish society, with the latter of whom his connections appear to have been amicable even duritig the war, though they refused to pay him a salary while he was under a commission as chaphiin fi-om the Continental Congress. ■ Stone's Life of Brant, [>p. i 5 t Ibid., 11. 01. In Octobor, 1784-, he atteiidud a greut council of the Six NiUions, held at Fort Stanwix, at which coinmissioners of the United States were present, and negotiated a treaty by whii-h the Six Nations ceded all the country east of a line drawn from Johnson's landinir-place on Lake Ontario, and keeping four miles east of the carrying place between that lake and Lake Erie to the mouth of 2h-Iio-se-ru-ruii, or Buffalo Creek, and thence south to the north line of Penn- sylvania, and down the Ohio, to the United States. Mr. Kirkland acted as interpreter at this treaty, and rendered other valuable services. In 1786 a great religious awakening occurred among the Oneidas, and some seventy persons made profession of a belief in the Christian religion. The excitement con- tinued for several months, and it is said that for the space of two-thirds of a year subsequently not an instance of drunkenness was known in the village. But this event was very near proving dis;istrous to the missionary, for the Pagan portion of the nation were greatly annoyed, and ulti- mately much exasperated, and finally laid a plan to take his life, in which they were frustrated by the Christian party, and the Pagans were eventually subdued and forced to beg his pardon. During the years 1786-87 it would appear from his jourruils that his labors were eminently satis- factory to the home society in Scotland. During the residence of his family in Stockbridge, Mass., he had four children born to him, — Samuel, Jerusha, Sally, and Eliza. In January, 1788, while he was on a visit to his family, his wife sickened and died. " She was an excellent woman, wife, and niotlicr. This was a severe blow to the mission, to the missionary, the husband, and the father, and his plan of removing his family to Oneida the following spring was frustrated ; he therefore rolurnod, solitary and alone, to his labors."! In the summer of 1788 he visited among the Indians of the Confederacy, journeying as far west as Buffalo Creek, and was present at a treaty held there in that year. He had interviews during the council with every branch and village of the Six Nations, and renewed many interesting acquaintances, some of them going back to 1765. From information gathered during this trip, he estimated the population of the Six Nations, exclusive of the MukawJcs who had settled on the Grand River, in Canada, at 4350. Here he also had an interesting interview with Joseph Brant, the acknowledged leader of the Six Nations, in which the chieftain informed him that he had been trying to unite the Indians in an independent confederacy. He stated that a delegation from the Six Nations had visited twenty tribes, who had sent belts announcing compliance with his plans. The principal object of the council held at Buffalo Creek was the extinguishment of the Indian title to a tract of 6,14:J:,000 acres, familiarly known as the Genesee country, and covering all the western portion of the State, and equal to one-fil'th of its entire area. This immense region was claimed under colonial titles by the State of Massachusetts, and was confirmed to that State, subject only to the Indian X Jones. 34 HISTORY OP ONEIDA COUNTY, NJ]W YORK. title and tlie right of govenimont of the State of New York in J 786. The entire tract was subsequently sold by the State of Massachusetts to Messrs. Oliver Phelps and Nathaniel Gorhani for $1,000,000. For his services at this important treaty Messrs. Phelps and Gorham after- wards, in April, 1792, deeded Mr. Kirkland a tract of 2000 acres in Ontario County ; located, according to Mr. Jones, in town 7, range 7, of the Phelps and Gorhani tract. " In December, 1788, the State of New York and the Indians (OneiJas), conjointly, made a grant to Mr. Kirk- land and his two eldest sons of large and valuable tracts of land in the neighborhood of Oneida, amounting in all to about 4750 acres.''* In August, 1788, Mr. Kirkland resumed his labors among the Onei'dan. About this period a series of incidents oc- cun-ed, which interfered to a considerable extent with his usefulness. In the spring of 1789 a French Catholic priest (said to have been a Jesuit) came to Oneida, and located near the lake. He claimed to be acting under the direction of the French ambassador at New York. He was accompanied by a notorious Freijch adventurer, named Peter Penet,-|- and the two very toon gathered quite a party among the natives favorable to their interests. Matters wont on until a serious feud between the " French" and "American'' par- ties resulted; and although Blr. Kirkland carefully avoided meddling with the Frenchmen, the ill feelings engendered rose to such a point that serious trouble was anticipated. Mr. Jones, in his Annals, relates the following incident : "The author of this work ('Annals of Oneida County') recollects of hearing, when but a small lad, his father state that this quarrel at one time bad risen so high that nineteen Indians of one party and twenty of tlie other, all armed to the teeth, met with the determination to settle the matter by trial of battle, and for this purpose they liad chosen a large room, where they had all met, and were about to commence their murderous contest, which, had they proceeded with their purpose, would have eventuated in the almost entire extermination of the whole party, so equally balanced were they as to strength and numbers, when Mr. Kirkland by some means heard of the meeting of the parties and its object, and at once went to them and obtained admission. He then proceeded in one of his most glowing speeches to depict the wickedness and folly of shedding each other's blood, and with such effect upon his savage auditors tliat they were induced to forego the work of slaughter." During these difficulties each party, it seems, had written Governor Clinton, who returned the following sensible reply, which was translated and delivered to a full council of the nation : "New YoiiK, Sept. 12, 1789. " Bi!OTHEK.s, — I have received your letters, and shall give you an answer. Mr. Penet is only to be considered among you as an adventuring merchant, pursuing his own interest. He holds no *' In the memorial volume of Hamilton College, page O."?, in a foot- note, it says, "Mr. Kirkland's Patent was two miles square.'' This " Patent" could not have inoUulcd the whole of his grants from the government and the Indians, as two miles square (four square miles) would give only 2500 .acres. f See chapter on land titles. office, nor does he sustain any public character in this country. He attempts to deceive you, therefore, when he says he is sent by the King of France and the Marquis La Fayette to transact business with you. You ought not to listen to his speeches, nor pay any attention to his dreams. | " The King of France is our good ally, and he has an ambassador here (whom you saw with me at Fort Stanwix last fall) to transact business and maintain friendship with the United States ; but he has nothing to do with any particular State or the Indians residing in it. You must not, therefore, believe Mr. Penet when he says he is sent among you by the ambassador. I believe the priest now among you came at the request of Mr. Penet and his friends. They have a right to worship God in a manner most agreeable to them; but I approve of your determination to adhere to your old minister, for I fear the preaching of different doctrines among you will only serve to perplct and puzzle your understandings; and divisions, either in respect to your temporal or spiritual concerns, may prove dangerous to your welfare and prosperity. " Brothers,— I am happy to hear you are firmly united as to our late agreement, and you may bo assured that it will be faithfully adhered to on the part of the State. "Let me exhort you to sobriety and industry, for it is this alone, by the blessing of the Great Spirit, that can secure to you comfort and hn]>piness. "I am your friend and brother, "GnouGE Cmxtox." This letter had a salutaiy effect upon the Indians, for it satisfied them of the character of Penet, and thwarted, to a good degree, his .speculative operations. The sole purpose of his location among the Oiieidns was to favor his own in- terests, and he very cunningly introduced tlie priest for his own special advancement among them. In January, 1791, Mr. Kirkland made a short visit to his children in Mas.sachusetts, but soon returned to his post in the wilderness. Durhig this year a difficulty of long •standing between the Wo!/ tribe and the Turtle and Bear tribes, said to have been caused by the intrigues of the French traders, was settled peaceably by Mr. Kirkland. In a letter to General Knox, then Secretary of War, he advised the sending of Captain Hcndrick, a Stockbridge Indian, upon a peace mission to the Western tribes. The suggestion was accepted and the captain sent to endeavor to preserve peace among them. But the effort proved unsuccessful ; war followed, and the bloody defeat of St. Clair occurred in November following. In January, 1792, at the request of General Knox, Mr. Kirkland attended a council of the Six Nations, held at Geneseo, on the Genesee River, now the county-seat of Livingston County. The object of the council was to in- duce the Confederacy to send a delegation of their principal men to Philadelphia, then the seat of government for the United States. This object was accomplished by Mr. Kirkland after surmounting many difficulties, and in the latter part of March, of the same year, a delegation of forty reached Philadelphia. " Mr. Kirkland's conduct was entirely approved by the War Department. Indeed, the credit of bringing this large representation of the Six Nations to the seat of government is due, and the success attending the measure attributable, mainly to his efforts and influence with the Indians. Its \ Penet pretended to have dreamed that the Oiieidut gave him a tract of laud ten miles square. It was afterwards given him in Jefferson County, and is still known as " Ponot Square." This man Penet will appear again in the subject of land titles. HISTORY OF ONEIDA COUNTY, NEW YORK. 35 results were highly important, for there had been previously a strong disposition among the Six Nations, with the excep- tion of the Oneitlds, to make common cause with the West- ern Indians in their hostility to the United States. Had they done so, the frontiers of New York and Pennsylvania, instead of the territory northwest of the Ohio, would have been the seat of savage warfare and barbarity. Such a calamity was averted by the visit to the seat of government of so many cliiefs. " Mr. Kirkland returned to Oneida about the middle of May, rejoicing in being able to return to the immediate duties of his mission, but with a consciousness that he had been in the way of his duty, and had rendered some service to his country, to the Indians, and to the cause of human- ity."* In October, 17'Jl, Jlr. Kirkland renioved his family to the land granted him by the Indians and the State. " After his return from Philadelphia, in May, 1792, he spent the summer in the discharge of his mi.ssionary duties, and in superintending the measures adopted by government for the instruction of the Indians in agriculture and the arts of civilized life. Additional oxen, plows, and other farming implements were puroha.scd : nd distributed. ""t" In August of this year he attended the Commencement of Dartmouth College, taking along with liim an Oneida chief named Onondaga, but called by the whites " Captain John." In the course of the exercises. President Wheclock addressed the captain, to which he replied, and in closing his remarks addressed the graduating class in a manner worthy the most profound scholar in the land. In October, 1792, he had the misfortune to injure one of his eyes while riding through the forest between Clinton and Oneida; and, in December following, bis cyasigbt and general health became so seriously aflFectcd that his pliysi- cians advised him to consult experienced oculists in New York and I'biladelpbia. He was the more willing to make the journey, as it promi.sed him the opportunity of maturing a plan to which he had already given much thought. This was the establishment of a high school or academy in con- nection with his mission, to be located near the boundary line between the whites and Indians, where each could par- take of its advantages.^ The school was established in 1793, and was the last important public business of his life. The Penet party managed to produce considerable trouble at Oneida, and in 1794 undertook to have Mr. Kirkland superseded. The Rev. Drs. Belknap and Slorse were ap- pointed a committee by the board to investigate the matter, who, after a careful examination, reported in his favor, and the board thereupon dismissed the complaint. In 1795, Mr. Kirkland was severely injured by the stumbling of his horse, being thrown upon the ground with great violence. From the effects of this accident he suffered for a number of years, and never fully recovered from them. In 1797 the connection between Mr. Kirkland and the missionary society in Scotland was dissolved, and the society ceased, to a great extent, its operations in America. * Jonos. ■\ Jones' Annals. X Sec History of Hamilton College, in tlic chapter devoted to education. In the years 1S05-6 additional misfortunes overtook him in the death of his sons, of whom his youngest — Samuel — died in Boston, in the former, and Greorge W. in Jamaica, in the latter year. He continued his labors at Oneida, so far as his health permitted, through life. The church at that place, so long as he survived, considered him as their missionary and pas- tor ; but the toils and exposures in tlie wilderness for forty years had produced their legitimate result, and the fiithfnl teacher had literally worn himself out in the service of the cause which he loved. We quote from Mr. Jones : " In oni; of his last communications to the society he says, ' Whether I hold the office (of missionary) or not, while I live and have capacity for service I nmst do much of the duty. I know their language and manners: I love them, and they me. I have learned to bear with their ignorance, their perverseness, their dullness, and not be angry or de- spondent. They must and always will come to me, and expect to receive counsel, instruction, sympathy, and hospi- tality.' He frequently expended the whole of his salary in his hospitality to them ; and it was no unusual thing for him to furnish 70, 80, and even 100 meals in a single week to the Indians. Even after his death they seemed to expect, and claimed almost as a right, the same attention and hospitality they had ever received in his lifetime.'' He died, after a brief but severe illness, of pleurisy, on the 28th of February, 1808. His funeral was attended at the church in Clinton, where a .sermon was preached by the Rev. Dr. Norton. His remains were interred on his own land, near his dwelling. According to Mr! Jones, his second wife (who survived him a number of years), and his daughter, and the celebrated chief Skenandoa were buried beside him. The memorial volume upon Hamilton College, published in 1862, does not mention a second wife. The remains of the family, together with those of the chief, were exhumed and re-interred in the college cem- etery on the 31st day of October, 185G. Three sons and three daughters were born to him. Two of the sons, as before .stated, died young and uinuarried. Dr. John Thorn- ton Kirkland, president of Harvard College, left no children. Of the daughters, Jerusha, the eldest, married John H. Lothrop,of Utica, in 1797 ; Sarah married Francis Amory, of Boston, in 1804 ; and Eliza, the youngest, married Rev. Edward Robinson, D.D., in 1818, then a professor in Ham- ilton College, and subsequently known as an Oriental trav- eler, and professor in Union Theological Seminary of New York City.§ UEV. DAVID AVERY. This gentleman was born in Norwich, Conn., April 5, 1746. He was converted to Christianity when quite young, under the preaching of the celebrated Rev. George White- field, aiid soon after set about preparing himself for a min- ister of the gospel. He attended Rev. Dr. Wheelook's missionary school at Lebanon, Conn., where he remained for two years, and bore the reputation of an industri- ous and promising student. During his sojourn at this 2 Tlio materials for tllis sltetoli of Mr. Kirkland are mostly from Mr. Jones' Annals, but partly from the raemorial volume of Hamilton Collei'c and Stone's Life of Brant. 36 HISTORY OF ONEIDA COUNTY, NEW YORK. school he became acquainted with the famous Joseph Bnint ( Tliiiyendnnegea'), the Muhawk chief, who was also attend- ing the school. Mr. Avery soon after entered Yale College along with Timothy Dwight and Dr. Strong, of Hartford, both of whom subsequently became chaplains in the army. A por- tion of his junior years was spent among the Six Nations as a missionary. After finishing his college course he entered upon the study of divinity with Dr. Wbeelock, of Hanover, N. H., and was ordained in 1773, and spent a year with Rev. Mr. Kirkland as missionary among the Oneidas at Ga-no-a-lu'- liiile, or Oneida Castle. He afterwards preached on Long Island with great success. Subsequently he removed to Vermont, where he was settled at the time of the battle of Lexington, upon hearing of which he immediately enlisted a company of twenty men and marched at their head to Boston. He served with distinction in the Revolutionary army as chaplain of Colonels Sherburn and Patterson's regiments, and often took a musket (as at Trenton) and did good ser- vice in the ranks. He was present and active at the battle of Bennington, wliere he settled after the war and remained until his death. We have been unable to procure any special information touching his missionary labors with the Oacidus. PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL. In 1816 a mission was established by this denomination at Oneida, under the patronage and direction of Bishop Hobart, and Mr. Eleazer AVilliams was selected to take charge of the mission. He was the (reputed) son of Thomas Williams, a distinguished chief of the Mohawk branch of the St. Regis Indians, and was a descendant of Rev. John Williams, who, with his family and many others, was taken captive by Jlajor Hertel de Rouville's party of French Cimadians and Indians who destroyed the town of Deerfield, Mass., Feb. 29, 1704.* He was also the same person whom rumor reported as the natural son of Louis XVI. of France. Mr. Williams had been liberally edu- cated, in order that he might bo useful to his people. He was at first a Presbyterian, but changed to the Episcopal faith, and was selected by the bishop to serve among the Oneidas as a catechist, lay reader, and school-teacher. Previous to the year 1816 a large proportion of the na- tion had continued firmly attached to the religion of their fathers, and were known to Christians as the Fuffan Parti/. But Mr. Williams had such remarkable success among them that, in 1817, a large number sent an address to Governor De Witt Clinton abjuring paganism, and de- claring their adhesion to the doctrines of Christianity, and requesting henceforth to be known as the " Second Chris- tian Party of the Oneida Nation." The address was adopted in council, and subscribed to by eleven chiefs and principal men. On the 13th of September, 1818, Bishop Hobart visited the mission and confirmed 89 young people, and in the next year 56 additional. Altogether during the continuance of the mission upwards of 500 were confirmed. '^' The daughter of Rev. John AVilliams (Eunice) remained a captive among the Indians, and married one of them. In 1818 the Second Christian Party sold a piece of land and from the proceeds erected a chapel, which was consecrated by Bishop Hobart on the 21st of September, 1819, under the title of "St. Peter's Church." In 1822 Mr. Williams removed, with a part of the Oneidas, to Green Bay, Wisconsin, and was succeeded at Oneida by Rev. Solomon Davis. Mr. Williams, in 1826, while on a visit to Oneida, was ordained a deacon, and in 1829 Mr. Davis was admitted to the order of priests. In 1833 Mr. Davis, with another portion of the nation, removed to Wiscon.sin, where the missions have been succes.sfully con- tinued. The chapel at Oneida was sold, in 1840, to the Unitarian society of Vernon, who removed it thither, and have since occupied it. METHODIST EPISCOPAL. A Methodist mission church was organized at Oneida in 1829, with a membership of 24 Indians. It had but in- different success until 1841, when Rev. Rosman Ingals was appointed to take charge of the missions at Oneida and Onondaga, preaching three Sabbaths at the former and one at the latter place each month. Mr. Ingals remained until August, 1846, when he was succeeded by Rev. Daniel Fancher, who also ministered to both nations. Under his ministration the missions were very prosperous. A house of worship was erected in 1841, but the land on which it stood was sold in 1843, and in 1844 a new building was erected. A Rev. Mr. Jenkins succeeded Mr. Kirkland as mLssion- ary at Oneida, but his ministration was not satisfactory to the Indians, and he only remained a short time. Rev. John Sargent was located among the Stoekbridge Indians for some time, and was granted a tract of land in 1796, one mile square, for his services among them. It adjoined the Stoekbridge reservation on the northeast. See histories of towns for additional items. CHAPTER V. FRBBTCH DISCOVERIES. Champlain — The Franciscans and Jesuits — Wars with the French and Canada Indians from 1609 to 1727. The French were the first Europeans, according to au- thentic history, to penetrate the valley of the St. Lawrence. As early as 1534, one Jacjues Cartier, a, citizen of St. Malo, in France, visited the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and the following year he explored the great river as far as the present site of Montreal, to which locality he gave the name Mount Royal, from the extensive and beautiful view which he obtained from the top of the mountain situated on the island where the city stands. Transient settlements and trading stations wore com- menced from tiiue to time at the mouth of the Saguenay and at Quebec, but it was not until 1608 that a permanent settlement was established on the site of Quebec, by Sir Samuel Champlain, and not until 1611 that the same ad- venturer founded Montreal. The latter place was merely a HISTORY OF ONEIDA COUNTY, NEW YORK. 37 trading-point until 1G42, when the first permanent buildings were erected. In the month of May, 1609, Champlain, who had entered into a sort of alliance, offensive and defensive, with the Harons, Montaffnais, and other Canadian nations, against the Iroquois, started up the St. Lawrence with a band of the latter nation, expecting to find a large war-party of the former, but they had not arrived up to the middle of May, and after waiting a short time, he set forward, impatient of the delay. After going a short distance up the river, he found his allies in camp, and they, being anxious to look upon the white men's settlement at Quebec, the whole party descended the river to the latter place, where a grand feast and dance was given them, and the whole closed with the discharge of the new and terrible firearms of the French. When the jubilee was over, Champlain embarked in a small shallop, with eleven French soldiers clad in armor, and armed with the arquebuse, a clumsy weapon, some- what after the model of the Spanish blunderbuss, and, ac- companied by swarms of his dusky allies, proceeded up the river to the mouth of the outlet of Lake Champlain, since variously known as the Rivifere des Iroquois, Richelieu, St. John, Chambley, St. Louis, and Sorel. Following up this stream to the falls, he was obliged to send back his shallop with nearly all his French soldiers. His Indian allies, too, had left him in great numbers, and when he launched his canoes above the rapids he found them diminished to twenty-four, containing sixty Indians. With this force he pushed on up the long lake to which he gave his name, and on the morning of July 29 encamped on the western shore, near where the French long after- wards built Fort St. Frederick, subsequently called by the English Crown Point. The party had been traveling only by night since they had arrived in the vicinity of the enemy. Embarking again in the evening, they encountered a war-party of 200 Iroquoia, most probably of the Mohawk nation, who immediately landed and fortified themselves. Champlain and his party remained in their canoes until the dawn, when they went on shore, and a pitched battle was fought among the giant forest-trees, in which, with the aid of the firearms of the three Frenchmen, the Canadian savages gained a great victory ; after which they re-embarked and returned to their homes, carrying numerous prisoners and trophies along with them. This was most probably the first visit of Europeans to the country of the Iroquois, and the French long after rued the first encounter, which was but the prelude to a century and a half of warfare with these formidable children of the forest. In September of the same year, Sir Henry Hudson, an Englishman in the employ of the Dutch, then the greatest commercial people in Europe, sailed up tlie majestic river which bears his name in his little vessel, the " Half-Moon," as far as the site of Albany, and sent a boat still farther. Dutch settlements followed at Fort Orange and Manhattan (Albany and New York), in 1613, and thus were two dia- metrically opposite systems of civilization introduced nearly simultaneously into the region bordering on the Iroquois Confederacy. The one representing bigotry and absolutism, the other the most advanced principles of toleration and popular government. The former hostile to every form of religion and government which failed to recognize the " right divine'' of monarchs and the tenets of the " Mother Church," the latter granting political and religious equality to all classes, without distinction of name or race. The Dutch traders who established themselves along the Hudson very judiciously made friends of the Iroquois, and thus laid the foundation of that alliance which existed al- most unbroken from 1613 to the close of the American Revolution between them and the Dutch, and subsequently the English, a period of one hundred and seventy years. Through their intercourse with the Dutch the Iroquois became possessed of the destructive weapons of the white man, and by means of these they were for a long period the most formidable enemies of the French in America, and took a fearful revenge for their first defeat by Cham- plain on the banks of the lake that bears his name. In the autumn of 1615, Champlain, who had penetrated, via the Ottawa River, to Lake Huron, raised an amiy of between 2000 and 3000 men, — Huron-Algonqnins, — and, descending the river Trent, emerged upon tlft waters of Lake Ontario, which he crossed at its northeastern extrem- ity, and landed, most probably, in one of the numerous arms of Naioura, or Black River Bay, 'whence the motley host, hiding their canoes in the forest, proceeded on foot around the southeastern extremity of the lake and fell.upon a village of the Seneca nation, probably near the outl(* of Canandaigua Lake.* Accompanying this army of painted savages, besides Champlain, were about a dozen French soldiers clad in the armor and armed with the weapons of the time. The village which this army attacked was strongly forti- fied, having a quadruple row of palisades or stockades, formed of trunks of trees, thirty feet high, set aslant in the ground, and their tops intersecting each other. Near the top of this formidable barricade was a gallery, defended by shot-proof timber, and furnished with wooden gutters for quenching fire. The lake was hard by, from which an abundant supply of water was obtained ; and the galleries were well provided with stones and implements for defense. The Senecas made a brave defense, and the Franco-In- dian army, after spending five days in the vicinity, and having seventeen men, including Champlain, wounded, withdrew fi'om the region, and sullenly retraced their steps towards home. Thus within the space of a little more than six years Champlain had twice attacked the Iroquois, once upon their right and once upon their left flank, making the attempts upon the two strongest and most warlike of the nations. An army of Iroquois of equal strength would probably have marched across the continent. There was one very curious feature connected with this assault upon the Seneca town, which has not attached to any other military operations within the area of the United States and Canada. It was a feature characteristic of the early and middle ages, having been employed at least from » The locality of tliis village is in dispute, but Dr. O'Calliighun locates it on Canandaigua Lake. There is little douiit but it was a Seneca town. The Ontonoranuna of Champlain were undoubtedly Ihc Senecas. 38 HISTORY OF ONEIDA COUNTY, NEW YORK. the days of the Trojan war down to the be.ainiiing of the seventeenth century. This was the employment of wooden towers, upon and behind which tlie assault was carried on in the same manner as that employed by Alexander the Great at the siege of Tyre, three hundred years before the Christian era. THE FRANCISCANS AND JESUITS. The first Christian missionaries who came to Canada for the purpose of laboring among the Indians were four friars of the Recoliet Order of the Franciscans, viz. : Denis Jamet, Jean Dolbeau, Joseph le Caron, and Pacific du Plessis, who arrived at Quebec in May, 1615, under the patronage of Champlain. Before the close of that year Dolbeau had commenced his labors among the Montagmus Indians about Tadoussac, and Le Caron had penetrated the wilderness along with Champlain, Dja the Ottawa River and Lake Nipissing, to the borders of Lake Huron. Two more members of the order were subsequently added to the mission, and the six labored in the vast field set apart for them as best they might; but their task was herculean, and, in despair * the prospect before them, they at length applied for assistance to the followers of Loyola, the Jesuits. It is a singular fact that these six Franciscan friars were sup- ported at the expense of a zealous Calvinist and Huguenot, Emery de Caen, who was no doubt of a somewhat more liberal nature than the founder of his sect, or this never could have occurred. The powerful order of the Jesuits, strong in numbers as in discipline, at once and gladly accepted, and responded to the call, and in 1025 three of their brotherhood, Charles Lalemant, Enemond Massi, and Jean de Breboeuf were dispatched to Canada. In a very short time the entire con- trol of religious matters passed into their hands. The order was somewhat broken up and scattered during the occupancy of Quebec by the English, — 1629-1(332, — but upon the restoration of French supremacy they revived, and from that time carried on their mission work with a zeal and perse- verance almost unparalleled. However much we may differ with them in their principles and religious tenets, we can but admire their heroic courage, their self-denying zeal, which led them to a life of seclusion and hardship, and finally to the most terrible of deaths, — torture at the hands of the savages. For many years subsequent to Champlain's inroad in 1615 very little was heard from the Iroqtiuis, but the in- juries they had received on the banks of Champlain and at Canandaigua they had not forgotten, and about 1622 they made themselves felt by an attack upou the settlement of Quebec, and attempted to capture the Recollet convent, on the river St. Charles, by assault. Their favorite system of warfare was to lie in wait along the St. Lawrence, and capture the trading-parties of the Ilarons and other Western nations, as they descended with their fur-laden canoes to Quebec, or returned with goods and trinkets to their homes in the forests of the Ottawa and Lake NipLssing. The first visit of a Jesuit missionary to the country of the Jivqiiois was a compulsOrj' one. On the morning of Aug. 2, 1642, twelve Huron canoes, carrying about forty persons, among whom were Isaac Jogues, the martyr missionary of after-years, and two assistants, Rene Goupil and Guillaume Couture, were making their way across the Lake St. Peter near its western end, where it is filled with islands. Jogues was on his return to the Hm-nn missions with supplies. As they nearod the shore they were suddenly attacked by a war-party of about seventy Iroquois, and nearly all taken prisoners. A few were killed, and a few escaped. The missionaries were among the prisoners. The Iroquois, taking their prisoners and spoils, immedi- ately set out for their own country on the Mohawk River. Their route was up the river Richelieu (the outlet of Lake Champlain), and up the lake to the future site of Ticon- deroga, and thence via Lake George, called by the Mohawks, according to Jogues, An-di-ar-ta-roc-te (place where the lake closes), and from its southern extremity overland to the Mokawk towns or castles. The prisoners had been terribly maltreated when first taken, the savagos beating them with clubs and tearing out their finger-nails with their teeth. On the journey south they were loaded with a heavy burden at all the carrying- places, and when they arrived at Te-o-non-to geu,* ^Vwh. appears to have been the third or upper town of the nation, situated within the present limits of the town of Danube, Herkimer County, they were nearly exhausted; and when forced to run the gauntlet they emerged at the farther end of the double row of savages more dead than alive, and covered with blood and bruises from head to foot. Here again they underwent the torture upon a scaffold erected so that all could see them. Couture, who in the moment of his capture had slain an Iroquois, was, after severe torturing, adopted as one of their nation on account of his bravery, and from thenceforth was comparatively safe. But Jogues and Goupil were less fortunate, and a, few days after their arrival the latter was murdered, and his body thrown to the wild animals. Both had been tortured terribly, by having their thumbs cut off with a dull clam- shell, being hung suspended by the wri.'its, and by every hellish form of torture which could be thought of without seriously eudangoring life. Jogues remained with the Indians for about a year, and during his captivity he continued to teach them the prin- ciples of his religion, and to baptize the aged and the young, and up to the last of July had baptized about seventy. He also taught them something of astronomy, in which they took a far greater interest than in his religion. He was allowed great freedom, and traveled through all their vil- lages preaching and baptizing, and quite likely may have visited the region now included in Oneida County. At the end of July he went with a fishing-party to a place on the Hudson River about twenty miles below Fort Orange (Albany). He soon after, in company with a small party, visited the Dutch settlement, which then consisted of a miserable little log fort, standing on ground now occu- pied by the Phcenix Hotel,"!' surrounded by some twenty or thirty houses, built of rough boards and roofed with thatch. '^ Known in Morgan's Lcngue of the Iroquois as (Jii-ue-ga-ha-'ja. f Parliuian's Josuits in North Auieriea. IIISTOEY OP ONEIDA COUNTY, NEW YORK. 39 There was also a small church where Dominie Megapolensis held forth to the people, who amounted to about one hun- dred souls, mostly farmers and tenants of the patroon of the Van Rensselaer manor. Here was the principal post of the Dutch traders, where they exchanged guns, knives, hatchets, kettles, cloth, and trinkets, at very moderate rates, for the furs of the Indians. It is to the everlasting honor of these Protestant Dutch that, notwithstanding the persecutions they had endured in Europe at the hands of the Catholic leaders, they took compassion upon Jogues, and eventually succeeded in res- cuing him from the savages, though at great risk to them- selves, and sent him to the Governor of Manhattan, Kieft.* Here, where now stands the great coinniercial emporium of America, was then a small trading village, containing some 500 people. As an evidence of the religious toleration of the Dutch in that day, when toleration was the exception in both Europe and America, it may be stated that Kieft informed Jogues that eighteen different languages were spoken there; and those heterogeneous tongues represented every shade of religious belief known to the Christian world. The distressed and ragged Jesuit was furnished with a new supply of clothing, and sent in a trading-vessel to Eng- land, from whence he .sailed for France in a French ship, and reached the Jesuit College of Rennes in January, 1U44. The Iiiiqiiois continued their predatory warfare against the French and their Indian allies, and in May, 1644, Jo- seph Bressani, an Italian Jesuit, on his way to the Hiiran country, was captured and taken (most probably) to one of the Muliinclc towns, where he was terribly tortured and maimed, and then given over to an old sijuaw, who traded hiui to the Dutch, who, with their accustomed generosity, clothed him and took care of liim until he was able to travel, when they sent him to his own country on board a vessel bound to Roehelle. On the 30th of March, 1044, a war-party of Iroquois attacked the fort at Villemarie, on the Island of Montreal, but they were so roughly handled by the French com- mander, Clioniedey de Maisonneuve, that they sullenly retreated from the vicinity, bearing the body of their chief, who had been slain by Mai-sonneuve, along with them. Notwithstanding their audacity and ferocity, the advantage was not always on the .side of the Iroquois, and more than one Huron band returned from forage into their country loaded with spoils. Piskaret, an Algonquin, who had be- come a Christian, was a famous leader and performed many wonderful exploits against his hereditary enemies ; at one time stealing into an Iroquois village alone and remaining for three days hid near by, and sallying from his hiding- place by night and killing and .scalping the sleeping enemy. In Jul}', 1645, a treaty of peace was signed between the Iroquois and the French, and prisoners upon both sides were given up. Guillaume Couture, who had been taken along with Jogues, and kept a clo.se prisoner, was among those delivered up by the Mohawks. Ki-ot-s