USA > New York > Niagara County > Biographical and portrait cyclopedia of Niagara County, New York > Part 3
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"On the south side of Lake Erie are a series of old fortifications from Cattaraugus creek to the Pennsylvania line, a distance of fifty miles. Some are from two to four miles apart, others half a mile only. Some contain five acres. The walls or breast- works are of earth, and are generally on grounds where there are appearances of creeks having flowed into the lake, or where there was a bay. Further south there is said to be another chain parallel with the first about equi-distant from the lake.
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" These remains of art may be viewed as eonneeting links of a great ehain which ex- tends beyond the confines of our State, and beeomes more magnificent and eurions as we reeede from the northern lakes, pass through the Ohio into the great valley of the Mississippi, thence to the Gulf of Mexico, through Texas into New Mexico and South Ameriea. In this vast range of more than three thousand miles, these monuments of ancient skill gradually become more re- markable for their number, magnitude and interesting variety, until we are lost in ad- miration and astonishment, to find, as Baron Humbolt informs us, 'in a world which we call new, aneient institutions, religions ideas, and forms of edifices, similar to those of Asia, which there seem to go back to the dawn of civilization.'
"Over the great secondary region of Ohio, are the ruins of what onee were forts, cem- eteries, temples, altars, camps, towns, vil- lages, race grounds, and other places of amusement, habitations of chieftains, vi- dettes, watch-towers, and monuments."
The Monnd-builders' age stands as the twilight of America's earliest civilization. On its elose fell a night of barbarism, rest- ing all over the land and extending to the coming of Columbus, the dawn of America's latest, and the world's brightest civilization.
Savage Period: Indians .- Twilight deep- ens - the Monnd - builder is retreating. Night darkens-the Indian is advancing. Whence eomes he? One theory credits the Indians as being descendants of the Jews. Succeeding theories blended them with the Carthagenians, traced them to the Phoni- eians, derived them from the Egyptians, rendered them of the Grecians, established them of the Romans, gave them origin of Northmen, and made them natives of the
soil. The best supported and most plausible theory of their origin is that they are of Mongolian extraction ; that while the wave of population in the old world was from east to west, in the new world it was from north to south; that the Indian was the second wave of population from Asia follow- ing in the track of the first wave, -the Mound-builder, who was then leaving this country and sweeping southward to the plains of Mexico and Pern.
The first fact in favor of the Indians being of Mongolian extraetion is that all their traditions state that they came from the North.
The second is the grammatical affinity of all the Indian languages constituting the sixth or Ameriean group of languages, which in principle of formation and gram- matieal construction bears unquestionable resemblance to the Tartar or third group of languages, which is one of the two great language families of the Mongolian raee.
The Indian ocenpation of the United States admits of two theories : first, a peace- able possession ; seeond, a forcible posses- sion. The first is the most likely, as the Mound-builders were a semi-civilized raee, and from their great works it is fair to pre- sume as strong in numbers as the Indian invaders. But it is fair presumption, that between the inferior-advancing and the superior-retreating races, the clash of mor- tal conflict would be inevitable. The with- drawal of the Mound-builder from the field of battle after repulsing his Indian foe, to resume his southward journey, would give to the Indian the idea that his enemy had fled ; and on this his tradition of conquest, repeated to white prisoners in 1754-55, was undoubtedly founded.
The Indian copied after the Mound-
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BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY
builder. He used flint to make his arrow and spear-heads, and stone to make his tomahawks, hammers, pestles and orna- ments; clay and shells to make his pottery ware, but failed to work copper, and had lost all trace of the mines left by the Mound-builders. The stone-grave chamber of the Mound-builder suggested the stone- pile grave of the Indian. Stones of me- morial constitute the second class of Indian stone heaps. They were thrown up in heaps at the crossing of trails, and on the summit of some mountain, and each Indian that passed. added a stone. " Lawson's Carolina," published in 1709, at page 309, makes mention of the Indians in the South piling up these memorial heaps. They were piled up in Asia by the Hindoos, according to "Coleman's Hindoo Myth- ology," page 271.
The earliest mention we have of me- morial stones was when the Children of Israel passed over Jordan, and Joshua pitched twelve stones as a memorial heap in Gilgal, to commemorate Israel's passing over on dry land. Joshua 4: 22. And the earliest mention we have of stones piled over the dead is in IT. Samuel 18: 17, when Absalom was cast into a great pit and a heap of stones laid on him.
Stone circles existed as the third class of the Indians' stone-heaps, being stones piled in a great circle and sometimes placed stand- ing, inside of which the East Virginia Indians gathered and went through a great many ceremonies, according to Berkley's History of Virginia, page 164.
The Indians east of the Mississippi were tall, and straight as arrows, with long, coarse, black hair, which they generally kept shaved off, except the scalp lock; high cheek bones and black piercing eyes. Their
limbs were supple by exercise and their muscles hardened by constant exposure to the weather.
Their dress was the skins of wild animals, smoked or tanned with the brains of the animals killed. Their wigwams were poles stuck in the ground and bent together at the top, covered with chestnut and birch bark. Their weapons, war-clubs, bows and arrows and stone tomahawks, until they procured iron tomahawks and guns from the white traders. Their boats were log and birch bark canoes.
Their religion was the worship of the Great Spirit, and they believed there was a happy hunting-ground in the spirit-land beyond the mountains of the setting sun, where brave warriors went at death and pursued the chase for ever and ever; but which no coward was ever permitted to enter.
Their laws were the customs handed down in the traditions of the old men. An offence against custom was punished by ex- clusion from society. If the offence was murder, it was punished by the nearest kinsman of the slain. Their legislation was enacted by the grand council called to- gether by the chief of the tribe upon the urgency or necessity of the occasion, where the disposition of all questions rested upon the votes of the whole tribe, and where, commencing with the chief, all had a right to speak.
Each tribe had its head chief or sachem. The succession of this office was sometimes hereditary, even in the elvation of a queen ; sometimes was bestowed for ability and bravery upon a warrior of another tribe, if he was living with them and was brave and daring. Each tribe had its medicine man, who, in addition to gathering herbs to effect
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cures, was its historian, teaching the young braves the traditions of their fathers, and to count time by the moon - as so many moons ago such a thing happened. Sonie tribes could only count up to ten, others up to ten thousand. The medicine man and the old men taught the young brave never to forgive an injury or to forget a kindness. They tauglit him that sternness was a virtue and tears were womanish, and if captured and burning at the stake to let no torture draw a groan or sigh from him; but to taunt his enemies, recite his deeds of prowess, and sing his death-song. He was also taught that the great object of life was to distin- guish himself in war and to slay his enemies. He was taught to be faithful to any treaty he made; and to use any deccit or practice any treachery upon an enemy was honor- able, and that it was no disgrace to kill an enemy wherever found, even if unarmed.
Marriage among thie Indians was attended with but little ceremony. An Indian could have several wives at one time if he wished, but seldom had more than one. The hus- band furnished the meat by hunting, and the wife or squaw raised the corn and did all the work. The husband when at honie did not labor, so his limbs would not be stiffened, but would remain supple for war and the chase. The husband could leave his wife when he pleased, but on separation the children remained with the wife, and she kept the wigwam and had the privilege to marry again.
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 intelli- gent and advanced, and also the niost terri-
ble 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 savage, yet a finished and developed savage. IIe 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 ficrcest and most numer- ous of these tribes was the Seneca, who oc- cupied as far west as the Genesee river.
The Iroquois were bound together by a remarkable league, which was the secret of their power and success. They constituted a confederacy, in some respects like our federal union, in which the nations repre- sented States, to which were reserved gen- eral 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 faith- fully respected and preserved by all. Their grand councils were held in the Long House, in the country of the Onondagas, by a con- gress, consisting of fifty sachems, of which the Mohawks were entitled to nine repre- sentatives, 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 regula-
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BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY
tions in the administration of their affairs, showing great wisdom, and which eontrib- uted 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,
Deer, Snipe, Heron, Hawk.
"The division of the people of each na- tion into eight tribes, whether pre-existing, or perfected at the establishment of the eon- federaey, did not terminate in its objeet with the nation itself. It became the means of effecting the most perfeet union of sepa- rate nations 'ever devised by the wit of man.' In effeet, 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. Be- tween 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 in- dissoluble bonds. The Mohawk of the Bea- ver tribe recognized the Seneea of the Beaver tribe as his brother, and they were bound to each other by the ties of eonsanguinity. In like manner the Oneida of the Turtle or other tribe, received the Cayuga, or the Onondaga of the same tribe, as a brother ; and with a fraternal welcome. This eross- relationship between the tribes of the same name, and which was stronger, if possible, than the chain of brotherhood between the several tribes of the same nation, is still pre- served in all its original strength. It doubt- less furnishes the chief reason of the tenacity
with which the fragments of the old eon- federaey still eling together. If either of the Five Nations had wished to cast off the alliance, it must also have broken the bond of brotherhood. IIad the nations fallen into collision, it would have turned Hawk tribe against Hawk tribe, Heron against IIeron, in a word, brother against brother. The history of the Hodenosaunee exhibits the wisdom of these organic provisions ; for they never fell into anarehy during the long period which the league subsisted ; nor even approximated to a dissolution of the con- federaey from internal disorders.
"The confederaey was in effect a league of tribes. With the ties of kindred as its principal union, the whole raee was inter- woven 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. With- out those elose inter-relations, resting as many of them do, npon the strong impulses of nature, a mere allianee between the Iro- quois nations would have been feeble and transitory.
"In this manner was constructed the Tribal League of the Hodenosaunee; in itself, an extraordinary speeimen of Indian legislation. Simple in its foundation upon the family relationship; effective in the last- ing vigor inherent in the ties of kindred; and perfeet in its suecess in achieving a lasting and harmonious union of the na- tions; it forms an enduring monument to that proud and progressive raee, who reared under its protection, a wide-spread Indian sovereignty.
" All the institutions of the Iroquois have regard to the division of the people into tribes. Originally, with reference to
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marriage, the Wolf, Bear, Beaver and Tur- tle tribes were brothers to each other, and cousins to the remaining four. They were not allowed to inter-marry. The opposite four tribes were also brothers to each other, and cousins to the first four, and were also prohibited from inter-marrying. Either 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 vio- lated these laws of marriage incurred the deepest detestation and disgracc. In pro- cess of time, however, the rigor of the sys- tem was relaxed, until, finally, the prohibi- tion was confined to the tribe of the indi- vidual, which among thie residue of the Iroquois is still religiously observed. They can now marry into any tribe but their own. Under the original, as well as the modern regulation, the husband and wife were of different tribes. The children always fol- lowed the tribe of the mother."
The wisdom of this social and political organization of the Iroquois made them the strongest of Indian nations, and the great- cst 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 de- feated the Hurons, under the eyes of the French. They put out the fires of the Gah- Kwas and Eries. They eradicated the Sus- quehannocks. They placed the Lenapes. the Nanticokes and the Minesees under the yoke of subjection. They put the Metoacks and Manhattans 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 encoun- tered their warriors in the settlement of Virginia, and La Salle on the discovery of Illinois." Such was the prowess of the Iroquois.
The Senecas seemed to have been the in- habiting tribe of the territory of Niagara county, and after the extermination of the Neutral nation west of the Niagara river, and the total destruction of the Erie nation along the southern border of Lake Erie, they were undisputed masters of the soil until the coming of the white man.
Their principal road was the Great Can- ada or Niagara trail which ran from the Hudson through the long house to the Niagara. It entered the county from the Tonawanda swamp, "nearly southeast of Royalton Center, coming out upon the Lockport and Batavia road in the valley of Millard's brook, and from thence it contin- ned upon the Chestnut ridge to the Cold Springs. Pursuing the route of the Lewis- ton road, with occasional deviations, it struck the Ridge road at Warren's. It followed the Ridge road until it passed Hopkins' marsh, when it gradually ascended the mountain ridge, passed through the Tuscarora village, and then down again to the Ridge road, which it continued on to the river," where it crossed from the site of Lewiston to the site of Queenston. A branch trail went down the Niagara river from the site of Lewiston to the site of Fort Niagara.
The Ontario trail came from Oswego by the way of Irondequoit bay, "pursued the Ridge road west to near the west line of the town of Hartland, where it diverged to the southwest, crossing the cast branch of the Eighteen-mile creek, and forming a junction
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BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY
with the Canada or Niagara trail at the Cold Springs."
We have no account by the early histor- ians of the names or location of Seneca villages in the county, unless Canoenada and Keint-he villages mentioned in 1677 as thirty-five miles southwest of Lake Ontario were in Niagara county. In 1781, the Tuscaroras located on a square mile of land on that part of the mountain ridge now in the town of Lewiston. This tract was assigned them by the Senecas, and they in- creased it by a grant of two square miles and a purchase of 4,329 acres in 1804 from the Holland Land Company. They came from North Carolina, and paid the land company $13,722. They became thrifty farmers, were good neighbors to the first white settlers, and have excellent farms, good orchards and fine cattle. The tribe now numbers between 400 and 500.
We find no account of any Indian trail or war path to the south, and the Senecas must have used Lake Erie for a southern high- way, or else went east until they struck the great "Catawba war-path," which ran from central New York south through Pennsyl- vania and Virginia to the Carolinas.
French Explorations .- When Cartier, in 1535, had ascended the St. Lawrence as far as the site of Montreal, he was informed by the Indians of the great lakes of Ontario and Erie, and the Falls of Niagara. Nearly a century later, the Recollect priest, Daillon, in 1626, became, so far as history records, the first white man to set foot upon the soil of what is now Niagara county. No account is preserved of his labors among the Indians for their conversion to the Christian re- ligion. For the next half century, French traders seemed to have visited the country frequently to purchase furs of the Indians,
but no exploration or settlement was at- tempted by the French, who were now thickly clustered along the St. Lawrence as high as Montreal, and claimed that New France extended south and west to the gulf and the ocean.
In 1665, Father Allouez, a Jesuit mis- sionary, explored Lake Superior, discovered the picture rocks, and learned of the eopper mines along that great body of water, while endeavoring to Christianize the Indians in that section of country. These wonderful discoveries aroused the ambition of Robert Cavalier de la Salle, one of the most re- markable French leaders in North America, and the pioneer navigator of the great lakes. He was one of the boldest and most snecess- ful explorers that ever visited any unknown portion of the globe. La Salle's idea was to explore the great lakes, and to the south and west of them, to the Ohio and the Mis- sissippi, of whose existence, size, and direc -. tion he had learned from the Indians. On July 6, 1669, he left La Chine, Canada, coasted along the southern shore of Lake Ontario, to Irondequoit bay, from whence he journeyed to the Genesee river. He then abandoned his idea of penetrating south to the Ohio river, and turning west, passed through the territory of Niagara county, crossed the Niagara river into Upper Can- ada, where he went into winter quarters. In the spring he coasted along the northern shore of Lake Erie, and returned to the French eolonies, on the St. Lawrence, where he arrived on June 18, 1670.
In this expedition he obtained considera- ble definite information from the Indians concerning the country lying between the Allegheny mountains and the Mississippi river, and originated the bold design of uniting Canada with the valley of the Miss-
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OF NIAGARA COUNTY.
issippi by a line of forts, which at the same time would completely hem in the English settlements to the Atlantic seaboard. Im- bued with this grand idea for the advance- ment of French power on the North American continent, he set about securing permission from Louis XIV., "the Grand Monarche," to inaugurate and carry forward his mighty project.
This permission was finally obtained, and he returned to Canada, where he organized an expedition, which was accompanied by the Franciscan Father Hennepin, who became its historian. He dispatched a ten-ton craft manned by a party of sixteen, and made preparations to follow this small vanguard with a larger and better equipped force. On the 18th of November, 1768, the advance vessel, a brigatine, left Fort Fontenac (Kingston), and after a dangerous and diffi- cult voyage over Lake Ontario on account of unusual rough winter weather, it cast anchor on the 5th of December, at the mouth of the Niagara river, which the brigantine entered the next day. The French sang the Te Deum and received a present of three hun- dred white fish from the Seneca Indians, inhabiting a small village near the mouth of the Niagara river. The French ascended the river, and were probably the first Euro- peans, beyond a straggling fur hunter, to view the wondrous Falls of Niagara.
On the east side of the Niagara river one account, at its junction with Lake Ontario, and another authority says on the site of Lewiston, this small handful of bold adven- turers, on the 17th of December, 1678, broke ground for the first military post of the great chain of forts which La Salle purposed to stretch down the Ohio to the Mississippi. Their defensive work was nothing but a strong cabin, enclosed with palisades, and
named Niagara, in honor of the river on whose bank it stood. They afterward sent a party to the Seneca village of Tegarondies, near the site of the village of Victor, in Ontario county, to obtain permission from the Indians to occupy and hold their fort, which was to be a trading post, and a point where the Indians could get their arms repaired. After a week's visit the permis- sion was granted, and thus civilized man made his entrance into western New York, and the name of Fort Niagara passed into the colonial history of North America, where it was to occupy an important place for nearly one hundred and fifty years.
The following description of the arrival of La Salle and the building of the Griffin, the first vessel to sail on the great lakes above the Niagara river, we deem to be most interesting, as given by Father Hennepin, who says :
"On the 14th day of January, 1670, we arrived at our cabin at Niagara, to refresh ourselves from the fatigues of the voyage. We had nothing to eat but Indian corn. Fortunately the white fish, of which I have heretofore spoken, were just then in season. This delightful fish served to relish our corn. We used the water in which the fish were boiled in place of soup. When it grows cold in the pot it congeals like veal soup.
"On the 20th I heard, from the banks where we were, the voice of the Sieur de La Salle, who had arrived from Fort Frontenac in a large vessel. He brought provisions and rigging necessary for the vessel we in- tended building. above the great fall of Niagara, near the entrance into Lake Erie. But by a strange misfortune that vessel was lost through fault of the two pilots, who disagreed as to the course.
"The vessel was wrecked on the south
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BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY
shore of Lake Ontario, ten leagues from Niagara. The sailors have named the place La Cap Enrage (Mad Cap). The anchors and cables were saved, but the goods and bark canoes were lost. Such adversities would have caused the enterprise to be abandoned by any but those who had formed the noble design of a new discovery."
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