USA > New York > Niagara County > Biographical and portrait cyclopedia of Niagara County, New York > Part 2
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Next in order in the Niagara group is the Niagara shale, a fine bluish-gray rock which weathers into a gray marly clay. This shale is over eighty feet in thickness, and is succeeded by the Niagara limestone. It is the outcrop along the summit of the escarp- ment, known as the "Mountain Ridge," and extends from Lewiston past Lockport to Cold Spring cemetery. This limestone is one hundred and sixty-four fcet thick at the Falls of Niagara, where it forms the edge and has preserved for hundreds of
years that wonderful cataract. This rock was largely quarried and used in the build- ing of the locks on the Erie canal in this county. The Niagara limestone affords some of the finest mineral specimens in the world, among which are beautiful pieces of gypsum, selenite, chestite, and spar. The fossils of the Niagara group are principally in the Niagara shale, where six species of trilobites and nine species of crinoids have left their organic remains. Many species of shells have been found in this shale, besides several small branching forms of the coral.
The Selina and Helderburg groups of the Upper Silurian age are wanting in Niagara county, and Dr. Tryon states that it was a lonely ocean which spread its dreary waste of waters over the land, and on whose waves never fish or reptile sported, while on its banks no plant grew and no bird or beast was ever seen.
When the Archean ocean withdrew its heavy mantle of waters from the land, geo- logical causes soon covered the northern part of the county with waters of Lake Ontario, which held sway as far south as the "Mountain Ridge " for several centuries.
Niagara Falls .- We shall not attempt any eloquent description of Niagara Falls, but refer our readers to the various guide books and the many beautiful and able accounts given by a score or more of cele- brated authors who have visited and been awed by the grandeur and sublimity of this great wonder. We shall endeavor to sup- ply a plain and accurate account, and endeavor to make it intelligible to the com- mon reader, after prefacing it with the first written description of the falls in 1678 by Father Hennepin, which is as follows :
" Betwixt the lakes Ontario and Erie there is a vast and prodigeous cadence of
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BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY
water, which falls down after a surprising and astonishing manner, insomuch that the universe does not afford its parallel. 'Tis true Italy and Switzerland boast of some such things, but we may well say that they are sorry patters when compared with this of which we now speak. At the foot of this horrible precipice we meet with the river Niagara, which is not a quarter of a league broad, but is wonderfully deep in some places. It is so rapid above the de- scent that it violently hurries down the wild beasts while endeavoring to pass it to feed on the other side, and not being able to withstand the force of its current, which inevitably casts them headlong above six hundred feet high. This wonderful down- fall is compounded of two great cross streams of water and two falls into an isle sloping along the middle of it. The waters which fall from this horrible precipice do foam and boil after the most hideous man- ner imaginable, making an outrageous noise, more terrible than that of thunder; for when the wind blows out of the south, their dismal roaring may be heard more than fifteen leagues off. The river Niagara having thrown itself down this incredible precipice, continues its impetuous course for two leagues together, to the great rock above mentioned (Hennepin Roek, Queens- ton), with an inexpressible rapidity. * From the great fall unto this roek, which is to the west of the river, the two banks are so prodigeous high that it would make one tremble to look steadily over the water, rolling along with a rapidity not to be im- agined."
On issuing from Lake Erie the Niagara river is only three-fourths of a mile broad, and after flowing rather swiftly for two miles, it divides and passes around Grand
Island, widens and assumes the tranquility of a lake, which it preserves until it reaches the commencement of the rapids, where it narrows and makes a descent of fifty-two feet to the mile until its waters are precip- itated over a lofty chasm. The width of the river before making the leap is 4,750 feet, but the center is oceupied by Goat Is- land, which rises about forty feet above the water, and has a width of about 1,000 feet. The height of the fall on the American side is one hundred and sixty-four feet, and on the Canadian side one hundred fifty feet, while the discharge of water is about eigh- teen million cubic feet per minute. At the present site of the falls, the edge of the cataract is formed by strata of hard lime- stone reaching to a depth of eighty feet, while by the action of the spray the softer shaly strata beneath have been hollowed out so as to form the "Cave of Winds," which may be entered from the Canadian side. It has been generally held that the falls were one at the gorge at Lewiston, when the river first commenced to flow, prior to the great Ice age. A more compli- cated theory has been, however, established, by which the gorge has been made older than the Ice age, and thus the age of the modern river has been reduced from several hundred thousand years to one tenth of that time. Two hundred and fifty yards below the falls the river is crossed by a sus- pension bridge for foot passengers, and a mile and a half farther down the river is erossed by two railway bridges, not over one hundred yards apart, - one of which has a carriage way eighteen feet below, while the other, which is a eantilever bridge, completed in 1883, carries a double line of rails. In 1535 Jacques Cartier visited the falls and deseribed them in his printed
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reeord of his voyage of that year. Its po- sition was mentioned in 1613 by Samuel Champlain, and in 1678 Father Hennepin made his famous visit to the great cataract.
The waters of the falls plunge into an abyss of about one thousand feet wide, and the river during the next seven miles makes a descent of one hundred and four feet through a deep ravine, with perpen- dieular banks rising to a height of three hundred and fifty feet, while the breadth of the river varies from two hundred and fifty to four hundred yards. Three miles below the great falls the whirlpool rapids are formed by a sudden turn in the channel, causing the waters to impinge against the Canadian shore, where they have made a deep indentation, and to rush baek to the American side in a great whirl or eddy, ren- dered more furious by the uneven bed of the river, and the narrow space into which it contracts. After issuing from the gorge at Lewiston the river enters on a tranquil course, which continues to Lake Ontario.
Mound- Builders .- The history of Niagara county, New York, naturally divides itself into three distinct periods, each of which is characterized by a peculiar inhabiting race, as follows :
1. Aboriginal Period - Mound-builders.
2. Savage Period-Indians.
3. Civilized Period - White race.
There is but little known of the ancient history of the North American continent, despite the most exhaustive researches. Four centuries ago, when human eyes in the track of the morning sun-rays first be- held the forest shores of America, it was as if a great curtain had rolled away from the western world of waters.
But back of it lay a continent with only the Mound-builders' ruins and the Red men's
traditions. No history in volumes traced, no record in rock-written inseription, to tell where the one race with a civilization but no history had gone, or the other race with a tradition but no civilization had come. Of the Mound-builders' origin and mysteri- ous fate-first we have supposition, next theory from relics, then speculation, and that is all.
Came they from Asia when Abram so- journed in the land of Egypt? Came they at a later date across the traekless wilds of inhospitable Siberia, passing over the Behr- ing strait on its ice-bound floor; or did they, in the northern winter land's sickly smile of summer, coast along the chain of the Aleutian islands stretching from Asia to America; or left they fabled Atlantis, when it was sinking in earthquake throes, to plant themselves on the North American shore? No one can tell. Mexican and Indian traditions and relies found in the mounds favor the hypothesis of their migra- tion from Asia by Behring strait or the Aleutian islands, and that they were the ancestors of the Toltecs and Aztecs of Mexico.
The earliest traces of human life found in America indicate an age corresponding with the age of the mammoth and reindeer of Europe. Corresponding with the stone age and the beginning of the bronze age of Europe, was a semi-civilized state of life in America-a race of people who were mound-builders, and who undoubtedly built all the great mounds in the United States. As to how far back this period extended, none can tell. David Cusick, an educated Indian, in a work entitled "Ancient History of the Six Nations," states an Indian tradi- tion assigning the Mound-builders back twenty-two centuries before the landing of
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Columbus. Were they strong in numbers ? Undoubtedly. As no traces exist of their possessing domestic animals, it must have taken great numbers of men long periods to build the great works whose ruins re- main to this day.
These great works were of two kinds: first, mounds; second, fortifications. The mounds may be considered in regard to form and use; in form they were round, oblong and pyramidal; as regards use, they may be divided into four classes :
Temple Mounds. - The first great class is pyramidal, in form they were round; in the west they are from fifty to ninety feet high and from three hundred to seven hundred feet long, with terraces or steps ascending to their summits, where clear traces and un- mistakable signs of former buildings are to be found, indicating the past dwelling of ehief or priest.
Altar Mounds .- The second great class in form is round, and found to be from two to four. feet high, and five to eight feet across. On the top is always a depression in a layer of hardened clay ; and in this de- pression, ashes; and in these ashes, · evi- dences of burnt sacrifices; while every object found in them is broken and has suffered from fire.
Effigy Mounds. - The third great class in form body forth rude representations of different animals, and north of the Wiscon- sin river are some representing the human form. Representing animals, they are about two hundred feet long, four feet high, and twenty-five feet wide.
Tomb Mounds. - The fourth great class of mounds in form is round and oblong, their dimensions widely varying in different localities. One close to St. Louis is forty feet high and three hundred feet long.
They are far more abundant than those of the other classes. They are of two kinds: first, interment mounds ; and second, battle mounds, where the slain were piled up and the earth heaped over them. These mounds in the Ohio valley are larger, and the bones in them, by an advanced stage of decom- position, show them to be older than the mounds of the Atlantic States. A careful examination of the interment mounds in many places gives unmistakable and indis- putable evidence of the practice of crema- tion rites.
Fortifications. - The second kind of these great works may be considered in regard to form, as circular, square, or elliptical; in re- gard to use, they may be considered as of two classes.
Old Forts-The first great class, existed all over the Mississippi valley, enclosing from a few yards up to several acres of land. Red Stone Old Fort at what is now Brownsville, Pa., stood on the site of the Mound-builders' old fort. They were of different shapes, and stood on the banks of some water. They were earth structures, east of the Mississippi; while west, stone was extensively used in their construction.
Fortified Heights-The second great class, in the east are chiefly found in Georgia; where, in one section of the State, all de- fensible mountains were fortified by this extinct race. Mt. Yond, 4,000 feet high, and Stone Mountain, 2,360 feet high, were fortified with stone rolled and heaped, and built into defensive walls.
What tools did they employ in the con- struction of their great works ? Revealed by the plow-share, unearthed from the mound, brought up from the half-hidden pit and concealed hiding-place, they are comprised, according to material, of two classes : stone
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and copper. Of stone, a rude flint chipped in shape of a spade, to which a handle was attached, was used for digging. Flint spades, axes, tomahawks, chisels, wedges, and knives, constitute their tools of stone; while as weapons of stone, they had arrow and spear-heads, besides pipes, tubes, pestles, pendants, sinkers, and ornaments. Of copper, rudely hammered out, were tools, such as axes, hammers, and spoons, weapons and ornaments obtained by working mines on Lake Superior, where a block of copper weighing six tons was discovered some years ago, that they had commenced to take out, with their rude stone and copper tools lying by its side. They used bone and horn to make cups and spoons, clay and shells to make ceramic ware, and wood to make clubs and rude mauls.
Why left this mighty race this great em- pire ? Did war from the Indians, famine or fever, waste them? Or sought they a sonthern clime more warm than glows beneath our northern skies ?
None with certainty can tell. Cusick gives us Indian tradition, that the Indians drove them south 2,000 years before Colum- bus came, and that the Mound-builders came from the south; which might have been Louisiana or Mexico; but there are many things to impair the story. Theory favors, but certainly does not stamp, the conclusion that the Mound-builders were the ancestors of the Aztecs and Toltecs, and obeying a migratory impulse, sweeping for- ward and southward to the plains of Mexico and Pern, established themselves under the reign of emperor and the rule of inca.
Leaving this country, these mounds may have been the rude model-structures of ideas they developed into those wonderful struc- tures that greeted the greedy eyes of Cortez
and Pizarro. The introduction of stone into their mound-structures here must have represented an idea of progress-an ex- perimental mode of a proposed change, whose consummation might have been achieved in the great halls, cities, temples, and aqueducts of the Montezumas.
In these Mound-builders, whom he calls fort builders of centuries ago, Mr. School- craft finds the "Ancient Alleghans" who left their name upon the Allegheny moun- tains. He says: "This ancient people who occupy the foreground of our remote aborignal history, were a valiant, noble and populous race, who were advanced in arts and the policy of government, and raised fortifications for their defense. While they held a high reputation as hunters, they cultivated maize extensively, which enabled them to live in large towns; and erected those antique fortifications which are ex- tended over the entire Mississippi Valley, as high as latitude 43 degrees and the lake country.
If we fix upon the 12th century as the era of the event of the fall of the Alleghan race, we shall not probably overestimate the event. They had probably reached the Mississippi Valley a century or two before having felt in their original position, west and south of that stream, the great revolu- tionary movements which preceded the over- throw of the Toltec and the establishment of the Aztec empire in Mexican America."
Schoolcraft thus ably described the Mound- builders in Niagara; yet some writers who mistook the effect for the cause when in- vestigating the palisaded fortifications of the New York Indians ignore the Mound- builder and ascribe his work to the Indian. From the Mound-builder the Indian copied, and these well-meaning but badly mistaken
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BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY
authors denied the original because they found an improved copy.
The Mound-builders of Niagara county, from what little account that has been pre- served of their mounds and forts, seemed to have stretched all of their defensive works along what is now known as the old " Ridge Road," and which was then, ac- cording to the geologists, the rocky southern shore of Lake Ontario. The past histor- ians while particular in many cases in secur- ing views and locating farm residences and barns, yet have neglected to locate this great Ridge road, and the most accurate descrip- tion which the writer can procure at this writing is De Witt Clinton's reference to it in his history of the Iroquois, in which he says: "On the south side of the great ridge, in its vicinity, and in all directions through the country, the remains of num- erous forts are to be seen ; but on the north side, that is, on the side toward the lake, not a single one has been discovered, although the whole ground has been care- fully explored. Considering the distance to be, say, seventy miles in length and eight miles in breadth, and that the border of the lake is the very place that would be selected for habitation, and consequently for works of defense, on account of the facilities it would afford for subsistence, for safety and all domestic accommodations and military purposes, and that on the south shore of Lake Erie these ancient fortresses exist in great numbers, there can be no doubt that these works were erected when this ridge was the southern boundary of Lake Ontario, and, consequently, that their origin must be sought in a very remote age."
From this discription we find out that the ridge is eight miles south of Lake On- tario and runs northwest through the county.
Of the great number of forts and mounds mentioned by Clinton we can only find record of four or five by any of the writers who have described the county.
One of these forts, whose site has been preserved by the labors of Schoolcraft, is the Citadel of Kienuka in the town of Lew- iston. Schoolcraft describes it as follows: "The term Kienuka is said to mean 'the stronghold or fort from there is a sublime view.' It is situated about three and a half . miles eastward of the outlet of the Niagara gorge at Lewiston, on a natural escarpment of the ridge. Immediately after crossing a little ravine, and rising to the level of the plain, we enter the fields and rock fortress of Kienuka."
An Indian mound near the ferry ravine in Lewiston, is described by one writer, and while it may have been used by them as a receptacle for the dead by the Indians, but in all probability it was thrown up as an interment mound by the Mound-builder, as the Indian never made a record as a builder of mounds of any kind.
In 1823 Eliakim Hammond discovered while hoeing on his farm in the town of Cambria, some five miles west of Lockport, the bones of a child. Eli Bruce induced Mr. Hammond to make a further investiga- tion, and they unearthed a burial pit twenty- four feet square by four and a half feet deep in which reposed the bones of over 4,000 persons of both sexes, all ages. The dry loam had kept the bones in good preserva- tion beneath its covering slabs of lime- stone. A maple tree which stood over the pit was cut down, and its concentric circles gave it an age of two hundred and fifty years and showed the pit was made prior to the discovery of Columbus. In the face of this fact of age the writer recording it
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OF NIAGARA COUNTY.
states that the date of its construction is within our period because some metal tools were found with a French stamp. This pit was undoubtedly of Mound-builder origin and in all probability afterwards was used by the Indians, while some French discoverer examining it could have left his tools more easily that he could have come here before the discovery of America by Columbus to have built it, as the age of the tree is evi- denee of age that can not be gainsayed.
At the head of a deep gorge, which is now closed up by an embankment of the Central railroad, one mile west of Loek- port, was a circular raised work or fort whose walls were plainly visible in the early part of the century. Leading from this fort was a covered way to a spring of water in a fissure of a rock some sixty feet down the declivity.
In the town of Hartland, on the Castle farm, was a circular fortification with an opening for ingress and egress on the north side. The early white settlers found trees growing on its embankments as large as any trees of the surrounding forest. Earth- enware of ancient make, arrow heads and other antique relics were found in and about this fortifieation, which was known for years as "Fort Peace."
Just outside the south side of Lockport in an early day was an irregular space on which there was then to be seen over one hundred circular pits, which were from twelve to fifteen feet in diameter with an average depth of four feet. The excavated matter around them consisted of sand which is found only in a stratum beneath the sur- face at a depth of from three to six feet. Large oak trees were growing on the em- banked matter around the mouths of these pits when first discovered, but now the last
vestige alike of tree and pit has been swept away.
When the pioneers first visited western New York and the Ohio and Mississippi valleys, these remains were more distinct than now. Rev. Samuel Kirkland, the prin- cipal founder of the academy that subse- quently beeame Hamilton college, a cele- brated and early missionary among the Oneida Indians, whose influence during the Revolutionary war induced them to remain neutral, or to join the American cause, vis- ited several of these ancient remains west of the Genesee river as early as 1788. The description that he has given of those visited by him near the present village of Batavia is valnable because of his intelligence as an observer, and the excellent opportunity that he had to examine them at that early day, before they were disturbed by the plow or harrow. He came to a place in Genesee county, on the river Tonawanda, where now is the village of Batavia, called by the In- dians "Joaki," which means in the Indian tongue "Raccoon." Thence he walked out six or seven miles with a Sencea chief to view the ancient fortifications to be seen there, which he describes as follows :
"This place is called by the Seneeas Tegatainasghque, which imports a double fortified town, or a town with a fort at each end. Here are the vestiges of two forts ; the one contains about four acres of ground ; the other, distant from this about two miles, and situated at the other extremity of the ancient town, encloses twiee that quantity. The diteh around the former (which I par- ticularly examined) is about five or six feet deep. A small stream of living water, with a high bank, circumscribed nearly one-third of the enclosed ground. There were traees of six gates or avenues around the ditel,
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BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY
and a dug-way near the works to the water. The ground on the opposite side of the water was, in some places, nearly as high as that on which they built the fort, which might make it necessary for this covered way to the water. A considerable number of large, thrifty oaks had grown up within the enclosed grounds, both in and upon the ditch; some of them, at least, appeared to be two hundred years old or more. The ground is of a hard, gravelly kind, inter- mixed with loam, and more plentifully at the brow of the hill. In some places at the bottom of the ditch I could run my cane a foot or more into the ground, so that prob- ably the ditch was much deeper in its origi- nal state than it appears to be now. Near the northern fortification, which is situated on high ground, are the remains of a fun- eral pile. The earth is raised about six feet above the common surface, and betwixt · twenty and thirty feet in diameter. From the best information I-can get of the Indian historians, these forts were made previous to the Senecas being admitted into the con- federacy of the Mohawks, Onondagas, Onei- das and Cayugas, and when the former were at war with the Mississangas and other Indians around the great lakes. This must have been near three hundred years ago, if not more, by many concurring accounts which I have obtained from different Indians of several different tribes. Indian tradi- tion says also, that these works were raised and a famous battle fought here, in the pure Indian style, with Indian weapons, long before their knowledge and use of fire-arms, or any knowledge of the Europeans. These nations, at that time, used in fighting bows and arrows, the spear or javelin, pointed with bone, and the war-club or death-maul. When the former were expended, they came
into elose engagement in using the latter. Their warrior's dress or coat of mail for this method of fighting, was a stout jacket made of willow sticks, or moon wood, and laced tight around the body ; the head cov- ered with a cap of the same kind, but com- monly worn double for the better security of that part against a stroke from the war- club. In the great battle fought at this place between the Senecas and western Indians, some affirm their ancestors have ·told them there were eight hundred of their enemies slain ; others include the killed on both sides to make that number. All their historians agree in this, that the battle was fought here, where the heaps of the slain are buried, before the arrival of the Euro- peans. Some say three, some say four, others five ages ago. They reckon an age one hundred winters or colds. I would further remark upon this subject that there are vestiges of ancient fortified towns in various parts throughout the extensive ter- ritory of the Six Nations. I find, by constant inquiry, that a tradition prevails among the Indians in general, that all Indians came from the west. I have wished for oppor- tunity to pursue this inquiry into the more remote tribes of Indians, to satisfy myself, at least, if it be their universal opinion.
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