USA > New York > Chautauqua County > Biographical and portrait cyclopedia of Chautauqua County, New York : with a historical sketch of the county > Part 85
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Extensive remains exist where now is situa- ted Sinclairville. A mile south of that vil- lage when that region was first settled, was
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an old earthwork, circular in form, enclosing several acres. After the forest trees were re- moved, many .Indian relics in flint and stone were found, and so many skeletons as to excite the superstition of the people living there. Some fifty years or more ago, one or more burial pits were discovered, in which it was said were found the bones of fifty human beings, mingled together without order. Twenty years later, and near this earthwork, twenty-five human skeletons were disinterred; they were buried in two ranks, and in a sitting position. The greater part of their intrenchment was ob- literated by the plow. About one hundred feet of its eastern wall still remains. Two hundred feet away, where a grove of maple trees until lately grew, a low mnound about twelve feet in diameter was discovered in the spring of 1888, which mound upon being opened, disclosed the presence of skeletons which by actual count exceeded fifty in number. Above them, was a thin covering of earth. They were mingled together in all positions, evidencing the con- fusion in which they were gathered to their final rest. No arrows, pottery, or other relics were found with them, save the tooth of some large animal. Richard Reed, Dr. G. F. Smith, of Sinclairville, and others, were present on the last, and the writer on the two last occasions mentioned.
The condition of these bones do not indicate that many centuries have passed since they were buried. Other relies, found at various points within the county, seem to indicate a much greater antiqnity. Some of the arrows, stone axes and other articles, have a ruder finish, and seem to be the implements of an older people. It does not follow that they are the works of a contemporaneous people. It is not impossible that man was here, when the great glacier that once overspread this region was retiring before the warmth that followed the Ice Period, and it is not wholly improbable that he may at some future time be proved to have existed in our
county at the close of the Glacial and during the Champlain periods, cotemporaneous with the mastodon and elephant, whose bones have occasionally been found within the limits of the connty ; that the rude implements that he used at that early period, may be found at some future time imbedded in the Great Terminal Morain, that bounded the lower limits of the Great Glacier, which it has been ascertained ex- tended into the southern border of our county. There can be but little doubt, that relics found here are not the works of one people, but of suc- ceeding races who have inhabited tlie county. Who were the authors of the more recent of these remains, we are able to determine to a reasonable certainty, by the light of the records that have been preserved by the Jesuits who two hundred and fifty years ago, traversed the wilds bordering on the great lakes, and by the help of knowledge obtained from other sources, that we have of the tribes of Indians that inhabited this county since then.
When the interior of this continent first be- came known to Europeans, the Huron-Iroquois family who lived here, were composed of the most warlike tribes that inhabited North Amer- ica. They possessed all of Upper Canada, Northern Ohio, nearly all of New York, in- cluding Western New York, the greatest part of Pennsylvania, and a portion of Lower Can- ada, a compact region of which Chautauqua county formed a part. They spoke in the same generic tongue, called the Wyandot. The affill- ity between their languages, their traditions, and the light which history has thrown upon .the subject, prove their ancestors to have been tlie same people ; that later, as their numbers in- creased, dissensions arose among them, the hive swarmed, and in process of time independent nations were the result, between whom, as often happens among kinsmen, bitter fends existed, and savage wars were waged. The Huron-Iro- quois were greatly superior in intellect, courage and military skill, to all the other Indians o
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North America. They dwelt in permanent vil- lages, situated in defensible positions, rudely fortified with a ditch, and rows of palisades. They practiced agriculture to a limited extent, frequently by a long and laborious process of burning and hacking with axes of stone, cleared extensive tracts of land, which they rudely cul- tivated with hoes of wood and bone. They raised corn, beans, gourds, pumpkins, sunflow- ers, hemp and tobacco. By reason of their rel- ative superiority, and their having fixed places of abode, they became more advanced in the arts of life than the other wandering tribes of North America.
Entirely surrounding this family of warlike nations, but always shrinking before their fierce valor, was a greater number of independent tribes, speaking in languages bearing a close affinity to each other, but radically different from the Wyandot. The affinity between their languages, and the general resemblance that has been found to exist in their practices and cus- toms, has caused them to be classed under the' general name Algonquin. They were usually nomadic in their habits, subsisted more by hunt- ing and fishing, and less by cultivating the soil, than the Huron-Iroquois people. To this race belonged the Pequots, Narragansetts and Mo- hicans of the New England States, the Del- awares of Pennsylvania, the Miamis, Illinois, and the Chippewas of the West, and a great number of other tribes that dwelt in the United States and Canada. The Shawnees are an ex- treme type of this race, representing their wandering propensities in a marked degree. Beyond the territory of the Algonquins, in the southern and western portions of the United States, were still other tribes and races speaking in languages radically different from either that of the Algonquins or the Wyandot.
The Huron-Iroquois family of tribes were sub-divided into several formidable nations ; of these the Hurons dwelt in many villages npon the small peninsula lying between the Georg- :
ian bay of Lake Huron, and Lake Simcoe in Upper Canada. Near to, and south of the Hurons, among the Blue mountains of Canada, dwelt the Tobacco nation. South of the Huron and Tobacco nation, was the country of the Neutral nation or Kahkwas, as called by the Senecas. Their territory extended one hun- dred and twenty miles along the northern shore of Lake Erie, and across the Niagara river into the state of New York, as far east as the west- ern limits of the Iroquois. They dwelt in forty villages ; three or four of which were east of the Niagara river and Lake Erie. One of their villages was located, it is believed, on a branch of the Eighteen Mile creek, near White Corners, in Erie county, in this State. The A'ndastees dwelt upon the lower Susquehanna. The most famous of the Huron-Iroquois were the Iroquois who dwelt in New York.
The remaining member of the family was the Eries, or the Nation of the Cat. The Eries dwelt south and east of Lake Erie. They oc- cupied northern Ohio, northwestern Pennsyl- vania and southwestern New York as far east as the Genesee river, the frontier of the Senecas. They were the first occupants of the soil of Chautauqua county, of whichi we have an ac- count. Bagueneau, the Jesuit, say they were there in 1648. The Jesuits never had a mis- sion among them. Etienne Brule, Champlain's enterprising interpreter, is said to have visited them in the summer of 1615, over two hundred and seventy-five years ago. If so, he was the first white man, of whom we have any account, that ever penetrated the region in which lies Chautauqua county. Flint, a Frenchman, is said to have visited this region as early as 1626. The Jesuits, Le Mercier and Bagueneau, fre- quently refer to this nation. The latter informs us that its name is derived from the multitude of wild cats found within their territory. The Eries were noted warriors, and fought with poisoned arrows, and were long a terror to the Iroquois. They were finally, totally destroyed
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in a great war with the Iroquois, an aeeount of which will be given hereafter. After the de- struetion of the Eries, no Indians inhabited Chautauqua county, exeept small bands of Sen- eeas, who at a few points, on the shore of Chau- tauqua lake, and in the valley of the Cone- wango near the Pennsylvania line, eultivated small traets of land. It is consequently quite probable that the burial places that we have de- seribed, the earth works last eonstrueted, and the more distinet remains seattered over the country, were the works of the Eries. But as the remains exist in that part of the Eries' do- mains that were nearest to the territory of the Neutral nation, and also near to the Andastees, who inhabited east of the Allegheny river in the State of Pennsylvania, there remains a little doubt that they may not have been their work. An abundance of proof exists, which the writer of this paper has gathered from various sources, relating to the eustonis and ceremonies of the Wyandot speaking nations, to show that the later remains found in our county were their work.
Brabeuf, an early Jesuit who resided for many years among the Hurons, of whom the Eries were probably an off-shoot, has given a full , account of their burial ceremonies and the manner in which they interred their dead. He informs us that the Hurons first laid the bodies of their dead upon a scaffold, and sometimes buried them in the earth, but that was only a temporary disposition. That at intervals of ten or twelve years the Huron tribes gathered their dead, removed what flesh remained upon their bones, and buried them with great ceremonies, which were participated in by all the nation. from six hundred to twelve hundred skeletons He witnessed one of these great funerals at the ; of both sexes and all ages, all mixed together principal Huron town, Ossossane, on the Notta- promiseuously.
wassaga bay, in 1636, over two hundred and fifty years ago. They gathered the bones and eorpses of the dead, and arranged them in order in the largest houses of the different villages of the nation, amid weeping and howling mourn-
ers, who believed the souls of the dead resided with their bones until this general burial. Bra- beuf deseribed the funeral feast that followed : The march of the Indians from the different villages through the dark and tangled forest to the place of burial at Ossossane, bearing the bones of their kinsmen in bundles on their shoulders, and the corpses of their recent dead upon litters, elianting wild dirges as they slowly filed along the forest trails. He described the great eoneourse that assembled from the different villages at this principal town to participate in the funeral games, aeeording to their eustom ; filling the houses full to overflowing, or gather- ing around the countless eamp-fires that illumi- nated the surrounding woods. Brabenf informs us that the place of burial was in the midst of a large field near Ossossane, in which was dug a large pit. He described the weird seene that oeeurred when the funeral gifts and the bones of the departed were being suspended from the eross-poles which extended over the grave ; the frightful seenes that followed when a bundle of bones happened to fall before its time into the pit, lastening the ceremonies to a elose; the wild outery as the actors frantically discharged the bones of their aneestors and kinsmen into the common grave, falling in a hideous shower around the men who were hastily arranging them in their final resting-place with poles; and, finally, the eovering of the bones with earth and stones and logs. Tlcse rites have also been deseribed by Charlevoix and other Jesuits. The deseription by Lafitan is illustrated with engravings. Sixteen bone-pits have been examined in the Huron country, that contained
There is no doubt that the Eries buried their dead in like manner, and the collection of bones that are found at various points within the eounty, were not those of warriors killed in battle, but the usual burial places of the raee,
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where the burials have been made in accordance with the custom above mentioned.
INDIAN WARS .- The Huron-Iroquois family of nations were the most powerful of any dwelling on this continent at its discovery. Of these, the most formidable were the Iroquois. They excelled all others for their courage and sagacity. They were the most intelligent and ad- vanced, and also the most terrible and ferocious. Such was their eloquence and energy of character, and the extent of their conquest, that Volney, the French historian, called them " The Romans of the West." Parkham says : "The Iroquois were the Indians of Indians-a thorough sav- age, yet a finished and developed savage. He is perhaps an example of the highest elevation which man can reach without emerging from his primitive condition of the hunter." The Iroquois were often called the Five Nations, and after they were joined by the Tuscaroras in 1812, the Six Nations. They called themselves Ho-de-no-sau-nee, or People of the Long House. Their original home was wholly in New York. Their territory extended through the State from East to West in the following order : Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga and Seneca. The fiercest and most numerous of these tribes was the Seneca, who occupied as far west as the Genesee river.
The Iroquois were bound together by a re- markable league, which was the secret of their power and success. They constitued a confed- eracy, in some respects like our Federal Union, in which the nations represented States, to which were reserved general powers of control, that the several nations exercised with great independence of each other, while certain other powers were yielded to the confederacy as a whole, for the general good, and which were faithfully respected and preserved by all. Their Grand Councils were held in the Long House, in the country of the Onondagas, by a congress, consisting of fifty sachems, of which the Mohawks were entitled to nine representatives,
the Oneidas nine, the Onondagas fourteen, the Cayugas ten, and the Senecas eight. They had some very curious customs respecting their methods of life, and regulations in the adınin- istration of their affairs, showing great wis- dom, and which contributed in a remarkable degree to perpetuate their union, and make them powerful and formidable.
" In each nation there were eight tribes, which were arranged in two divisions, and named as follows :
Wolf, Bear, Beaver, Turtle, Decr, Snipe, Heron, Hawk.
" The division of the people of each nation into eight tribes, whether pre-existing, or per- fected at the establishment of the Confederacy, did not terminate in its object with the nation itself. It became the means of effecting the most perfect union of separate nations 'ever devised by the wit of man.' In effect, the Wolf tribe was divided into five parts, and one- fifth of it placed in each of the five nations. The remaining tribes were subjected to the same division and distribution ; thus giving to each nation the eight tribes, and making in their separate state, forty tribes in the confederacy. Between those of the same name-or in other words, between the separate parts of each tribe -- there existed a tie of brotherhood which linked the nations together with indissoluble bonds. The Mohawk of the Beaver tribe rec- ognized the Seneca of the Beaver tribe as his brother, and they were bound to each other by the ties of consanguinity. In like manner the Oneida of the Turtle or other tribe, received the Cayuaga, or the Onondaga of the same tribe, as a brother; and with a fraternal welcome. This cross-relationship between the tribes of the same name, and which was stronger, if possible, than the chain of brotherhood between the sev- eral tribes of the same nation, is still preserved in all its original strength. It doubtless fur- nishes the chief reason of the tenacity with which the fragments of the old confederacy still
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cling together. If either of the Five Nations had wished to cast off the alliance, it must also have broken the bond of brotherhood. Had the nations fallen into collision, it would have turned Hawk tribe against Hawk tribe, Heron against Heron, in a word, brother against brother. The history of the Hodenosaunee ex- hibits the wisdom of these organic provisions ; for they never fell into anarchy during the long period which the league subsisted ; nor even ap- proximated to a dissolution of the Confederacy from internal disorders.
--
" The confederacy was in effect a league of tribes. With the ties of kindred as its prin- cipal union, the whole race was interwoven into one great family, composed of tribes in its first sub-division (for the nations were counterparts , of each other); and the tribes themselves, in their sub-divisions, composed parts of many households. Without those close inter-relations, resting as many of them do, upon the strong impulses of nature, a mere alliance between the Iroquois nations would have been feeble and transitory.
" In this manner was constructed the Tribal League of the Hodenosaunee; in itself, an ex- traordinary specimen of Indian legislation. Simple in its foundation upon the family rela- tionship ; effective in the lasting vigor inherent in the ties of kindred ; and perfect in its suc- cess in achieving a lasting and harmonious union of the nations; it forms an enduring monu- ment to that proud and progressive race, who reared under its protection, a wide-spread Indian sovereignty.
of the first four tribes, however, could inter- marry with cither of the last four; thus Hawk could intermarry with Bear or Beaver, Heron with Turtle, but not Beaver and Turtle, nor Deer and Deer. Whoever violated these laws of marriage incurred the deepest detestation and disgrace. In process of time, however, the rigor of the system was relaxed, until, finally, the prohibition was confined to the tribe of the individual, which among the residue of the Iroquois is still religiously observed. They can now marry into any tribe but their own. Under the original as well as modern regulation, the husband and wife were of different tribes. The children always followed the tribe of the mother."
The wisdom of this social and political organi- zation of the Iroquois made them the strongest of Indian nations, and the greatest conquerors. Schoolcraft says :- " At one period we hear the sound of their war cry along the Straits of St. Mary's, and at the foot of Lake Superior. At another, under the walls of Quebec, where they finally defeated the Hurons, under the eyes of the French. They put out the fires of the Gali- Kwas and Eries. They eradicated the Susque- hannocks. They placed the Lenapes, the Nan- ticokes and the Minesees under the yoke of subjection. They put the Metoacks and Man- hattans under tribute. They spread the terror of their arms over all New England. They traversed the whole length of the Apalachian chain, and descended like the enraged yagisho and megalonyx on the Cherokees and Catawbas. Smith encountered their warriors in the settle- ment of Virginia, and La Salle on the discovery of Illinois." Such was the prowess of the Iroquois.
" All the institutions of the Iroquois have regard to the division of the people into tribes. Originally, with reference to marriage, the Wolf, Bear, Beaver and Turtle tribes werc When the first mission was established among the Hurons by the Jesuits, they found them and the Iroquois implacable foes. The wars between them continued during the residence of the Jesuits among them, until 1648, when they were brothers to each other, and cousins to the remain- ing four. They were not allowed to intermarry. The opposite four tribes were also brothers to each other, and cousins to the first four, and were also prohibited from intermarrying. Either ; overthrown, and the missionaries residing among
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them and many of their people massacred. The Hurons were driven from their villages, and ceased to exist as a nation. The Wyandots, of Ohio, are the last remnant of this race.
Although the neutrals maintained a strict neutrality between the Hurons and Iroquois during these wars, it did not save them. In 1650 the latter commenced a savage war upon them. The destruction of the neutrals was so great as to wholly wipe them out as a nation. The scene of their final overthrow is believed to have been near the city of Buffalo.
The Iroquois now turned their attention to the Eries, who then occupied the soil of our county. The accounts of this war are given in the relations of the Jesuits Le Moyne, Le Mercier, Du Quen, Chaumonot and Dablon. Its cause, as related by these Jesuits, was as follows :- The Eries had sent a deputation of thirty of their principal men to the Senecas, to confirm a treaty of peace. A Seneca happened to be killed in a casual quarrel with one of the Eries, whereupon the Senecas rose up and mur- dered the thirty ambassadors. A war ensued. A famous Onondaga chief was captured by the Eries, who resolved to give him to the sister of one of the murdered ambassadors. The sister, by the Indian law, had it in her choice to receive him as her brother or to cause him to be put to death. She choose the latter, against the remon- strances of her people, who feared the con- sequences. The chief was bound to the stake and burned. The whole Iroquois confederacy prepared themselves for revenge. In 1656 from 1200 to 1800 Iroquois warriors moved into the territory of the Eries, who withdrew at their approach, with their women and children. The whole of this fierce horde of Iroquois embarked in canoes upon Lake Erie, and coasted along the shore of Chautauqua. A more wild and savage scene cannot well be imagined than this ferocious gathering of barbarians, as they proceeded on this bloody expedition of revenge. They found the Eries gathered in a position, the location of
which is now unknown. The Iroquois were first repelled by the poisoned arrows of the Eries. They renewed the assault with such savage fury as to enable them to carry the fort, and a slaugh- ter so terrible ensued as to wholly destroy the Eries, and now no trace remains of this warlike and powerful tribe, that once possessed the terri- tory of this county, but their name. This fierce battle occurred somewhere in Northern Ohio, Northwestern Pennsylvania or Western New York. It may have occurred within the limits of Chautauqua county.
LA SALLE .- Robert Cavalier de la Salle, was the pioneer navigator of our great lakes ; one of the boldest and most remarkable explor- ers that ever visited this continent. To follow La Salle in his journeyings through the wilds of North America, during the twenty years fol- lowing 1667, would be regarded at this day, with all the modern facilities for travel that exist along the route of his wanderings, as no small achievement.
The Jesuits and other missionaries who came from France were most excellent men. In their zeal to Christianize the Indian, they became the pioneers of the Northwest. One of their num- ber, Allouez, in 1665, explored the country about Lake Superior, and taught the Indians there. He first discovered the Pictured Rocks, and learned of the copper mines. La Salle, inspired by the discoveries and adventures of these early pioneers, resolved to explore these regions and the vast prairies of the West, and to reach the Ohio and Mississippi, of which the Indians had informed him. July 6, 1669, he left La Chine in Canada, ascended the St. Law- rence, coasted along the southern shore of Lake Ontario to the Irondequoit Bay, and thence penetrated into the State of New York to the Indian villages of the Senecas, near the Genesee river, with a view of traveling further in that direction, until he should reach the headwaters of the Allegheny and Ohio. After remaining here awhile he abandoned this design, and with
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his companions from thence traveled west, crossed the Niagara river into Upper Canada, and passed the winter of 1669 and 1670 on Grand river, near to the shore of Lake Erie. In the spring following he coasted along the northern shore of the lake, west, to the east side of Long Point; and thence he returned to Montreal by the circuitons route of Sault de St. Marie and the Ontario river, where he arrived June 18, 1670.
La Salle first conceived the design of uniting : the French possessions in Canada with the val- ley of the Mississippi, by a line of military posts, to secure its commerce to his country, and at the same time completely eneircle the British Colonies of North America. Having obtained the sanction of Louis XIV. to his projects, in the fall of the year 1678, he, with a party of Frenchmen, in a large canoe entered the Niagara river and established at its mouth, on its eastern bank, a trading post, which he inclosed with palisades. This constituted the first occupation of Western New York by civilized men, and the founding of Fort Niagara-a fortress which, for nearly a century and a half, filled an im- portant place in the history of Canada, the northern portion of the United States, and of the Indian tribes dwelling in that region.
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