USA > New York > Livingston County > A history of Livingston County, New York: > Part 12
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and silk cravat. His rifle, a noted piece, his toma- hawk, belt and several other articles, lie beside him. His grave is a couple of rods east of the road, marked by a grassy hillock which the plow has never dis- turbed. * Four other natives-Stump-foot's wife, Westfall, and two others sleep beside him. It is recollected that Montour's wife was an estimable woman, and that his two children, Judy and Bill, possessed more than ordinary comeliness of person.
Quawwa, whose Indian name was Deo-dyah-do-oh- hoh, and whose correct English name was James Brewer, disappeared as soon as he learned that Mon- tour was fatally injured. Horatio Jones and Jellis Clute entered complaint, and an officer was sent to the Buffalo reservation in search of him. The officer was advised to call on Thomas Jemison and Kennedy, who would assist him. They took hold promptly, and found the fugitive at his sister's, aiding her in making maple sugar. He was brought to Moscow and examined before a justice of the peace, and com- mitted to jail. As he was leaving for Geneseo his squaw, standing near Lyman's store, called out to him very piteously, "Quawwa !"-"Quawwa !" and kept it up long after he had disappeared from sight. He was indicted for murder and tried at the March term of 1831, Judge Addison Gardiner presiding ; convicted of manslaughter in the second degree, and sentenced to four years in Auburn prison.t He was troubled with the King's evil or scrofula. The dis- ease developed very rapidly after his incarceration. His death was regarded as imminent, and, on the
* See engraving on page 86.
+ Geo. Hosmer and Orlando Hastings appeared for the people; Judge Mason and A. A. Bennett, for prisoner. Horatio Jones was the sworn in- terpreter. Widow Rough-head, widow Johnny Johns, and Tom Cayuga were among the Indian witnesses.
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representation of friends, Governor Throop pardoned him out in February, 1832. He was taken to Buffalo reservation, where he died in two or three days. Quawwa had many friends among the whites, especially among the younger men, who regarded him as faithful to the last degree. Captain Jones and Jellis Clute, although they entered the formal com- plaint, became bail for Quawwa's appearance at the trial, the Captain adding "I have no fear but that Quawwa will be on hand just as he promises, even though his own neck's in danger," and he was not disappointed.
De-gi-wa-nahs,* or Mary Jemison, more commonly known as the White Woman, was born of Irish parents, about the year 1743,. on the ocean voyage to this country. Her father, Thomas Jemison, a man of godly character, settled in a wilderness portion of Pennsylvania. The French and Indian wars com- pelled him to seek a less exposed spot, and he removed to Marsh creek. One fine day, in the spring of 1755, Mary was sent to a neighbor's for a horse. On her way thither she appears to have had a present- iment. A white sheet seemed to descend and catch her up and save her from a danger that impended over others. Returning early the next morning, she found her father shaving an axe-helve near the door. Her two elder brothers were at the barn, and her mother and three children and a soldier's wife, who was on a visit with her three children, were in the house pre- paring breakfast. On Mary's arrival, the soldier took the horse to bring a bag of grain, but in a short time the discharge of guns alarmed the household, and, the man and horse were presently seen lying dead near
* Meaning " Two females let words fall." Her Indian name is often given thus, De-he-wa-mis. Her mother's maiden name was Jane Irwin.
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the door. A band of six Shawnee Indians and four Frenchmen soon entered the house, made captives of all,* and hastened the breakfastless group with blows, into the woods. The father lost heart at the outset, but the mother preserved a cheerful spirit and spoke words of hope to the forlorn family. Mary's shoes, and those of the soldier's son, were soon removed and replaced with moccasins. From this the mother concluded that the others would be put to death, and addressed words of advice, never to be forgotten, to her poor child. In an hour's time Mary was torn from her mother and carried into the bushes with the boy, who begged her to attempt escape with him, but she refused, as she knew the effort would be fruitless. Mary never more saw aught of them save the bloody scalps of her parents. The band went down the Ohio, where Mary was adopted by two sisters who had lost a brother in the war. The ceremony so frightened the little captive that, for a time, she was deprived of speech. Her clothing, torn to rags in the journey, was thrown into the river and replaced with Indian raiment. Light work was assigned her and she was treated with great kindness. She sought to repeat, in secret, the prayers taught by her mother, but, by degrees, these, with her English tongue, faded from her memory. Many years passed happily away, when a young Delaware, of goodly person and approved courage, named She-nin-jee, came to the village and her foster sisters told her she must marry him. A child was born to her "at the time that the kernels of corn first appear on the cob," but it lived only two days. Its loss occasioned the keenest grief to the youthful mother. Sickness, which
* The two boys, who were at the barn, escaped into Virginia, as Mary learned after the Revolutionary war.
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proved well-nigh fatal to the young captive, followed, but "by the time the corn was ripe," she recovered. Two years later, she became the mother of a son, whom, in honor of her father, she named Thomas Jemison. Her Indian mother lived on the Genesee, and hither, with her foster sisters, she now repaired. Her husband was to pass the winter down the river in fur hunting, and join her in the spring. Various mishaps attended the journey hitherward, but, late in the fall, they arrived at Beardstown, where a friendly welcome awaited the white girl from her Indian mother, whose friendship never relaxed. But her husband did not return, and at length the news was brought that She-nin-jee had sickened and died. About this period the British authorities offered a bounty for the surrender of prisoners taken during the French war. A Dutchman, who often visited the Indian villages, proposed to Mary to carry her to Niagara, but she had now become attached to the Indians, and she knew nothing of the whereabouts of her relatives, if, indeed, any survived. So she deter- mined not to go. The Dutchman, with the bounty in view, sought to take her by force. While in her corn-patch one day, she saw him running toward her. Dropping her hoe, she made for the village at full speed, and escaped him. Some months later, the principal Chief of the village, resolved to carry Mary to Niagara. Her Indian brother determined that she should not go against her will, and high words ensued. He told the Chief that she should die by his hand sooner than be surrendered. Mary's sisters, in great consternation, hid her and her child in some high weeds that grew near by, agreeing that if the decision should be unfavorable, the fact should be indicated by placing a small cake on the door-step of her hut. A few hours after, Mary crept to the place,
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and, to her great distress, found the cake. Creeping back, she placed her three year old boy on her back and ran for a certain spring, as agreed, which she reached, greatly exhausted .* Here she remained, anxious and fearful, until the Chief started for Niagara, when her Indian brother sought her and brought her to the village where she was received with joy. Soon after this she married Hio-ka-too, who was a warrior of note. By him she had four daughters and two sons, all of whom she named after her rela- tives. The girls were called Jane, Nancy, Betsey and Polly, and the boys John and Jesse. Jane died just before the Big Tree treaty, aged 29 years. The other daughters married and had families. More than a dozen years of peace had come and gone after her second marriage, when quiet was rudely broken by the Indians taking up arms for the British in the war of the Revolution. Mary's hut became the stop- ping place of Butler and Brant whenever they chanced at Beardstown. She often pounded corn from sun-set to sun-rise for her warrior guests. When the Beardstown families retreated before Sullivan, Mary, with her children, accompanied them to Fort Niagara, and was among the first to return to the Genesee. But destitution prevailed at Beardstown. She, therefore, took her children, one afternoon, and, on foot, went to Gardow, where she engaged to two negroes, who alone occupied the place, to husk their corn on shares. After the war was over she was again offered her liberty. Thomas was anxious for her to accept it, but she had Indian children. Should she have the fortune to find her relatives, they might be received with coldness ; hence she resolved to spend her days among the Senecas. At the Big Tree treaty
* The spring is located on the farm of Hon. John H. Jones, in Leicester .
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the Indians set apart a large tract of land at Gardow, for Mary. Red Jacket opposed the grant with great earnestness, and, even after it was made, he delayed moneys due her. Family troubles gathered around her. Thomas and John had long disagreed. The former charged the latter with practicing witchcraft. He married two wives, and this greatly offended Thomas, who urged that bigamy was a violation of wholesome laws. Early in July, 1811, Thomas, who had been drinking, came to his mother's house in her absence, and there found John, whom he began to, pound. The latter, in a moment of anger, seized Thomas, dragged him to the door and killed him by a blow of his tomahawk. Grief overwhelmed the mother. The chiefs met, heard the case, and acquitted the murderer. In November of the same year, Hio-ka-too died of consumption at the age of more than a hundred years, during fifty of which he had lived with Mary. He was a leading warrior, taking part in the expedition to Wyoming, and was noted for strength, and, in his younger days, for fleet- ness. In May following, John's hands were again imbrued in a brother's blood. This time Jesse, the youngest and favorite son, was the victim. The two, with a brother-in-law, had spent the day in sliding a quantity of boards into the river for a raft. Some difficulty arose between John and a workman. Both had been drinking. Jesse had started homeward. His brother's delay caused him to turn back, and he. too became involved in the quarrel. John threw him, and, drawing his knife, plunged it several times into his heart. Either stab would have been fatal. The mother never recovered from the shock. A rude inquest was held, and John escaped punishment. He continued to reside at Gardow, devoting himself to. the practice of medicine, in which he had skill. Five
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years after Jesse's death, he was sent for to a distant Seneca village. During his absence, the great land slide occurred, near his house. On his return he became impressed with the belief that it was ominous of his end. He told his sisters he should live but a few days. A week or two later, in visiting Squakie Hill, he quarrelled with two Indians, who followed him a short distance, dragged him from his horse into the bushes, and dashed his brains out with a stone. He was essentially a man of violence. Turner mentions seeing him on his way to the Buffalo reservation, at the head of a small band of Senecas, to kill the black- smith Reese, who had cut off Young King's arm with a scythe in an altercation. Jemison was armed with a war club and tomahawk, his face covered with red paint; and long bunches of horse hair dyed red, hung from his arms. Under the advice of friends, Mary procured the passage of an enabling act, and sold a portion of her great landed reserve; and, in 1823, she parted with all save a tract two miles long and one mile wide, lying on the river. This she continued to occupy until her removal to the Buffalo reservation, where, after a life of vicissitudes, her death occurred in September, 1833. She was held in high esteem by the Indians, for during a large portion of her life she formed the principal medium of communication between the whites and the Senecas. According to Indian ideas she always conducted herself virtuously, and was discreet in the observance of native customs. The late Elder John Wiley, of Springwater, spent a day with her shortly before she left Gardow. He found her lively and intelligent. "I have seldom seen an old lady so smart and active, or one whose eyes were so bright," said he. She was small in per- son, her eyes were blue, and her hair was then quite gray. She never spoke the Indian language with
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entire fluency. The use of the English tongue was so far recovered by her, that she conversed, with much freedom with Yankees as she always styled the whites. She died on the Buffalo reservation near where Little Johnson then lived .* John A. Ken- nedy, t who visited the Seneca burial place on the Buffalo Reservation in 1840, and saw the grave of Mary Jemison, was there again in 1848, when every external vestige of it had disappeared. The grounds had been plowed over and the field was then planted to corn. "The grave-yard I saw in 1840," continues Mr. Kennedy, "suggested to my mind that the Mound Builders kept burying their dead on the same spot, one tier above another. It was about half an acre in size, quadrangular, on a level plain, and was four and a half to five feet high, the four sides sloping outward at the bottom. Except where graves were raised it was perfectly level on top ; the grass grew on the sides as though they had been sodded. There were probably a dozen tomb-stones on it, one of which was the White Woman's. The theory I formed was that it began to be used while on a level with the surrounding ground and when the area was filled up, earth enough was brought to make another story of graves, and so on, one story above another, until the mound was com- pleted, diminishing toward the top as the work of inhuming mortality proceeded .;
* The Indian name of her eldest son, Thomas, was Yah-do- an-gweh; of John, Gen-yah-neh-gweh; and of Jesse, Gash-ye-un-dwe-geh.
+ Late Superintendent of metropolitan police, New York.
# Mr. Kennedy gives this as the outline of the general burial place alluded to in the text
The White Woman's tomb-stone bore the following inscription :
" In memory of Mary Jemison, daughter of Thomas Jemison and Jane
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HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY.
Thomas Jemison, So-sun-do-waah, or Buffalo Tom, as he is called on the reservation, was a native of Squakie Hill, where he resided until 1828, in a house yet standing. His step-father told him he was born between Christmas and New Year's, and was nearly two years old at the treaty of 1797. His father was Thomas, the eldest child of the White Woman by Sheninjee, her first husband, and his mother was Sally, the daughter of Indian Allan. He went to the Buffalo reservation in 1828 and to the Cattaraugus reservation in 1846, where he bought a farm of Hank Johnson, as he was generally called, a white man who was taken prisoner in the Revolution and mar- ried a Delaware woman. At Johnson's death the property reverted to the Seneca nation ; hence Jemison lost his rights, and returned to Buffalo, where he -opened a tavern on the reservation. After remaining away fourteen years, he went back to the Cattaraugus reservation, where he has a fine farm which he culti- vates with exemplary industry and success. He has several houses and lots in the city of Buffalo. His eldest son graduated at the State Normal school in Albany, and married a white wife, and his eldest daughter has a white husband. Jemison himself has all a white man's notions of thrift and economy. He recollects, with great interest, the years he spent at Squakie Hill. His memory is remarkably clear and his form erect, although his age is now nearly seventy-five. In appearance he strongly resembles Thurlow Weed. "His word," says Governor Patter-
Irwin. Born on the ocean between Ireland and Philadelphia in 1742 or 3; taken captive at Marsh creek, Pa., in 1755, carried down the Ohio, adopted into an Indian family. In 1759 removed to Genesee river; was naturalized in 1817. Removed to this place (Buffalo reservation) in 1831, and having survived two husbands and five children, leaving three still alive, she died September 19, 1833, aged about 91 years, having a few weeks before ex- pressed a hope of pardon through Jesus Christ."
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HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY.
son, "was as good as any white man's note in the valley. If he bought property on credit, it would be paid for the day it fell due, without grace." His English is as pure as any Yankee farmer's.
Philip Kenjockety, Ska-dyoh-gwa-dih,* was the last survivor of the Genesee river Indians, whose per- sonal recollections extended back to the invasion of General Sullivan. His grandfather was a member of the almost mythological race, the Kah-kwas, and was adopted into the Senecas. His father acquired influ- ence among the latter nation and became a chief, and it was through his representation that the Senecas ยท were induced to settle upon the banks of the Niagara river, when driven from the Genesee. Philip's parents were residing at the Nunda village when the war of the Revolution broke out, and when the resi- dents of that village removed to Beardstown, Philip's family went also. I saw him at the Cattaraugus res- ervation in the fall of 1865. . He then claimed to be one hundred and twenty years old. He had come down to the mission-house at my request to give his recollections of the Genesee country. For a person of his age he possessed great vigor of body. His mind was clear and his memory proved to be marvel- ously correct. When the subject of Sullivan's expe- dition to this region in 1779, was mentioned, he seemed to forget his age and everything else in the interest revived by the associations of that period. "Yes, he recollected the Wah-ston-yans," (that is
* The changes in Kenjockety's name afford an instance of the difficulties attending Indian biography. O. H. Marshall, says, that when a youth, he was called Ji-ya-go-waah, meaning "large dog." After the war of 1812, another name was conferred upon him, as is customary among the Indians, to wit: Gat-go-wah-dah, that is "dressed deer skins," from the fact that Philip, being a good hunter, kept himself supplied with deer skin sometime after the rest of his tribe were unable to obtain it. Ska-dyoh-gwa-dih means " Beyond the multitude."
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"Bostonians," as the colonial or Yankee troops were called by the Senecas) " He was large boy then, large enough to shoot small birds with a gun. The Yan- kees got as far as Conesus lake, all was consternation at Beardstown ; it rained ; the warriors went out ; the air grew heavy with rumors; even the birds brought tidings of the enemy's doings."* After our interview, as he was bidding good bye, he took the hand of my son, and pointing to the clasped fingers, said, through the interpreter, "this bridges be- tween three generations, between that long past and the generation under the new order." He described the face of the country in this region with great accuracy and added essential facts to its history. He died on the first of April, 1866, aged fully a hundred and ten years. The Academy of Art in Buffalo has preserved a fine portrait in oil of the venerable Kah- kwa, the last of his generation.
There were a number of Indians of lesser note, who, forty years ago, were well known to the settlers. Among these were Blinkey, a red man of much shrewdness, who had lost an eye, and thus secured an expressive name ; Canaday, the brother of Blinkey, a fine looking Seneca, whose hut stood near the high- way leading to High-banks, on the north side of the river, at Squakie Hill; and Big Peg, who usually lived at Big Tree village. The latter possessed much good sense, was a speaker, and had no little force of char- acter. Accident secured him his name, as it often secures the names of other personages of more conse- quence. Green Blanket lived at Little Beardstown, and acquired his title from always wearing a blanket of a particular color, to which he was very partial.
* I have incorporated his recollections in the chapter on Sullivan's Expe- dition.
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HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY.
Of the leading warriors of the Senecas of this region, whose fame rests mainly on tradition, a sketch will scarcely be expected here, especially as Colonel Hosmer has so felicitously preserved their deeds in verse. The renowned chieftain, Old Can-ne-hoot, led the Senecas against the Marquis De Nonville, and, for the purposes of fiction, the poet has allowed him to die on the field of battle after the conflict .* Con- esus, whose romantic career has been so well given in Hosmer's Legends of the Senecas, is another. His name was a terror to the Chippewas, and often, with his band of braves, he chased the Adirondacks to their mountain lodges. A small island near Avon, formed by the sweeping bend of the Genesee, was the home of this warrior chief, who, often in the dim and shadowy past, "belted for the fight" with western tribes.t The list might easily be extended, but the limit I had assigned to Indian history is already more than reached.
* Yonnondio.
" Old CAN-NE-HOOT arose at last, And back his shaggy mantle cast-
" While proud as became a king, Presiding in monarchal state, His glance surveyed the tawny ring Of counsellors that round him sate.
" His eloquence of look and word Dark depths of every heart had stirred; And 'twas no time in dull debate For other tongues of war to prate."
t The poet thus speaks of the chieftain's wood-embowered island home, near Avon :
"Yon aged group of maples Long, long ago CONESUS made His dwelling in their graceful shade.
" His tribe could many a chieftain boast, Far-famed for deeds, but loved him most: Not by hereditary right Rank did he win above them all, But forced his way by skill in fight, And wisdom in the council-hall."
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CHAPTER VI.
JESUIT MISSIONS-DE NONVILLE'S EXPEDITION.
The Jesuits, true to their zealous spirit, were first among religious societies to establish missions in the Seneca villages. In 1616, Le Caron, a missionary of the order of Franciscans, passed through what is now known as the Genesee country, and other portions of the territory occupied by the Iroquois, but made no attempt to propagate his faith. A score of years later these inland tribes of aborigines became known, by personal intercourse, to the Jesuits, who, as early as 1635, make particular mention of the Senecas.
In August, 1656, Father Chaumonot left the Onon- daga lodges to establish the mission of St. Michael, or Gan-na-go-rae, in the present town of East Bloomfield. When the Father arrived at the village the chiefs assembled a council to receive him and hear his message. He told them that his church intended to establish a mission in their country. He then gave them some presents. The way thus opened, he said, writes Marshall: "I offer myself as a guarantee of the truths which I utter, and if my life is deemed insufficient, I offer you, in addition, the lives of all the French I have left at Onondaga. Do you distrust these living presents ? Will you be so simple as to
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HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY.
believe that we have left our native country, the finest in the world, to come so far, and to suffer so much, in order to bring to you a lie ?" They were moved by this appeal, and the council, after solemn deliberation, resolved to receive the missionaries, and allow the Senecas to be instructed in their mysteries. The Jesuit visited the other villages with similar success, in one of which he found the principal sachem of the nation (Ga-no-ga-i-da-wi) bedridden with disease. Him he converted to the faith, and the distinguished chief, having subsequently recovered, became a pow- erful friend of the French and Jesuits. The name which he bore, and by which he is always mentioned by the French, is the title of a sachemship, still pre- served among the Senecas, and which belongs to a chief now residing among the Tonawandas.
In 1668 came Father Fremin to St. Michael's, to minister regularly at this most prosperous of the Iroquois missions. The field of his labors, however, embraced at least three of the four Seneca villages of that day, one of which was Dyu-do o-sot, situated near East Avon A contagious fever broke out among the natives soon after his advent among them, and much of the good missionary's time was spent in respond- ing to the physical needs of the sick. His skill in the treatment of disease not only tended to mitigate the ravages of the fever-of which one hundred and fifty died in the four villages-but secured the favor of the natives as well. De Nonville mentions the fact that Fathers Fremin and Garnier had been stationary missionaries for twenty years at the four Seneca villages destroyed by him, prior to his invasion in 1687. The two other Seneca missions were called La Conception and St. James. Dablon, rector of the college of Quebec, and Superior of the Jesuit mis- sions in New France or Canada, says, in 1672, that
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