USA > New York > Cayuga County > History of Cayuga County, New York > Part 20
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stitions but this danger passed and he lived and labored among the Cayugas for sixteen years.
Father DeCarheil writes from Cayuga under date of June, 1670, that this canton has three important boroughs or villages; Cayuga, Thiohero and Ontare or St. Rene.
In 1671, Father DeCarheil on account of ill health, was obliged to take a rest for a year. Father Refeix of the Seneca Mission supplied his place during this time.
In concluding the history of the missions of Cayuga, so long the scene of Father DeCarheil's labors, it is unfortunately true that in spite of the fact that he labored so faithfully for their good they at last plundered him of everything, in 1684, and drove him from the country.
The two head chiefs of the Cayuga canton, Orehaoue and Sarennoa, instigated doubtless by English intrigue, led this move- ment in 1683. Colonel Thomas Dongan, governor of New York, had so far succeeded in destroying the influence of the French with the Iroquois, and though himself a Catholic, he directed all his efforts to expel the Canadian missionaries, and to inspire the Indians against them. He promised to send them Jesuits in- stead and build them churches; as a result the Oneida and Seneca missions were broken up a year before the expulsion of Father De- Carheil.
The Jesuit Fathers found the Cayugas to be the fiercest, the boldest, the most politic and the most ambitious savages to whom the American forest has ever given birth and nurture. They called themselves the "People of the Long House" and they were the most renowned and formidable of all the native tribes of this country. In stature they were erect and commanding ; in demeanor reserved and haughty; cool, deliberate and cunning. The great Iroquois Confederacy continued until its power was broken by the War of the Revolution. The Cayugas had several towns and many large villages laid out with considerable regularity. They had
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large square houses with compartments and each house contained many families. They were comfortable and substantial. Colonel Stone in his Border Wars of the American Revolution states that "In some instances the Indians had frame houses which were painted. As they did not have saw mills I think their 'frame houses' were simply of hewn timber."
We learn from the journals kept by officers of the Revolution who participated in the Border Wars, that the fatigue parties who were sent out to destroy the Indian villages found at the towns apples, peaches, potatoes, turnips, onions, pumpkins, squashes and vegetables of various kinds and great plenty, and Mons Fellows, in his journal, informs us that they found not only what are men- tioned above but peas, beans, cabbage, carrots, parsnips, cucumbers and watermelons. At Kushong they found fowls which they confiscated. As their lakes and rivers were filled with the choicest fish (among which was the salmon) and as their forests abounded with game in endless variety, the Indians, evidently, had some of the luxuries of life. Mary Jemeson includes in her losses sustained by the Indians when Sullivan's army was in the Genesee County, horses and cattle; other writers mention hogs and milch cows. In 1687, DeNonville, Governor of Canada, made a raid upon the Senecas, with an army of French and Indians. In that raid it was claimed they destroyed 1,200,000 bushels of corn.
Wonder is often expressed as to how those Indians acquired their agricultural habits and the knowledge of house building. It must not be forgotten that the Jesuit Fathers began to teach them considerably more than a century before Sullivan raided their country, and it may be presumed with perfect safety that the missionaries endeavored to teach the Indians how to build houses and raise crops. Also French traders mingled with the Indians, some of them even married squaws, and for their own advantage would build cabins which the Indians would imitate.
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CHAPTER XIII.
Sullivan's Raid-Reservations.
The punishment of the Iroquois having been ordered by Congress, in 1779 General Washington planned a campaign to cut off their settlement, destroy their crops, and inflict on them every other injury which time and circumstances would permit. General Sullivan's army did its work well among the Senecas and Cayugas and while the slain were comparatively few, this campaign was dis- asterous in its consequences to the doomed Iroquois.
On September 20, 1779, six hundred men under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel William Butler were sent out. They camped one night where Waterloo now stands. The next morning at seven o'clock they broke camp and marched nine or ten miles to the foot of Cayuga Lake, where they crossed by wading in the water up to their breasts. The lake or outlet was about seventy rods wide at that point. This portage was some three miles north of Cayuga village. It was part of the great Indian trail, and where the crossing of the northern turnpike was subsequently located. There was on the east side a town called by the Indians Ti-o-he-ro, and by the Jesuits, St. Stephen, which was destroyed. That after- noon they reached Ge-waw-ga, (now Union Springs) having marched eighteen miles that day. In Thomas Grant's journal I find: "Sep- . tember 22nd, marched this day at 6:00 A. M., about two miles to the Cayuga Castle, an Indian town of that name, containing in number about fifteen very large square houses. I think the buildings supe- rior to any we have yet seen."
Our old ideas of bark cabins and cheerless wigwams as the homes of the Indians may be correct as regards some tribes and sections,
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but are evidently far from the truth so far as the Senecas and Cayugas are concerned. The troops found near Great Gully not only the town we have mentioned but two others: Upper Cayuga (so named by General Clark of Auburn) was on the south side, about two miles back from the lake; East Cayuga (so named by General Clark) was on the north side in the southeast corner of the town of Spring- port. We find this in one of the journals: "September 23rd. This day the troops were employed till three o'clock in finishing the destruction of the corn, and burning the aforesaid mentioned towns within." Another writer gives us this: "The most part of the day taken up in destroying scattering towns, corn, etc., within two or three miles, all around this town" which he in a former sentence mentions as "large and commodious," consisting of "fifty houses mostly well built." He evidently regarded Cayuga Castle, Upper Cayuga, and East Cayuga as one town. They constituted without doubt Goi-o-gou-en, the capital town of the Cayugas where the Jesuits had a mission in the seeventeenth century. There are evidences which prove quite clearly that after Sullivan's army passed through here, the site of their capital town was changed and was at one time about two miles north of Union Springs. There is in the rooms of the Cayuga County Historical Society a map drawn by a brother of Colonel Hardenbergh about 1794, and we find thereon, in the vicinity of the plaster mills, "Present site of Cayuga Castle." It could have remained there only a few years for we shall find that after 1795, the Richardson lands were outside of the reservation of the Cayugas. Their castle was certainly near Great Gully in 1779 and after 1795.
At three o'clock on the afternoon of the 23rd, the army resumed its march and went three or four miles to Chonodote or Peach Town, remarkable for a large peach orchard. One writer states there were one thousand five hundred peach trees besides apple trees and other fruit trees. Chonodote or Peach Town stood on the present site of
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the beautiful village of Aurora. A journal reads: "September 23rd. This town contained about twelve or fourteen houses, chiefly old buildings; part of the corn destroyed this evening. September 24th. This morning the troops were employed in finishing the de- struction of the corn and peach trees. At 10:00 o'clock in the forenoon fire was set to the town, and the detachment once more took up the line of march." The journal continues "September 24th, marched this day sixteen and a half miles and encamped on a pleasant hill, near a fine creek, about an hour after dark." The "fine creek" mentioned was Salmon Creek and the pleasant hill was north or west of Ludlowville.
Under date of September 24th: "Nine miles from Chonodote, we crossed a stream of water, which fell over rocks eighty feet perpen- dicular; three miles from this, we crossed a second stream, which fell about fifty feet perpendicular, which empty themselves into Cayuga Lake." The first fall mentioned was in Genoa, the other was southwest of Lake Ridge. These falls clearly define the route which the army followed in passing through this section. The Kings of Genoa have always claimed that one of Butler's men died and was buried on their lands by the Indian trail, near the lake, and that his grave, now obliterated, was for many years known and marked. We take but little stock in traditions, but this one prob- ably is true. The army certainly passed through their lands. If this tradition is reliable this nameless soldier who sleeps in his un- marked grave was the first white man who died within the limits of our county, of whom we have any knowledge.
Once more and for the last time we come back to this journal: "September 25th. Marched this morning about 6:00 o'clock and encamped at an Indian town nine and one-half miles above the head of Cayuga Lake"-which was about two miles above Ithaca on the inlet. On the morning of the 26th they marched southwesterly, and rejoined the main army on the 28th at Elmira.
General Sullivan in his report sums up the result of Colonel
16
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Butler's raid as follows: "He destroyed in the Cayuga Country five principal towns and a number of scattering houses, the whole making one hundred in number exceedingly large and well built." He also destroyed two hundred acres of excellent corn with a number of orchards one of which had 1,500 trees. The red men were driven from their beautiful country, their habitations left in ruins, their fields laid waste, their orchards uprooted, and their altars and the tombs of their fathers overthrown. Some one has said when the invaders entered the land of the Cayugas and Senecas the Garden of Eden was before them: but behind them they left only wilderness. We who have applauded Sherman's "March to the Sea" cannot criticise Sullivan's expedition, or the great general who ordered it.
Sullivan's expedition played an important part in our early settlement. The soldiers who came into this matchless country in 1779, must have been charmed with its beauty and fertility. In fact some of the soldiers selected large ears of corn and carried them home in their knapsacks to New England and hence when the lands in the "Military tract" were allotted to the soldiers of the Revolu- tion, "Soldier's rights," as they were called were much sought for, and soon this lovely section, which had been the home of the Indians was changed from a wilderness to the abode of civilization, by the hardy pioneer.
The condition of the Cayugas, when Sullivan's army had finished its work was sad and hopeless ; as they were without houses to protect them or food to sustain life, they went to Niagara where the British had a fort. Having lost everything in their efforts to serve the Crown, it was in honor bound to aid them; consequently huts were built for them near the fort, and their wants partially supplied ; but the winter of unusual severity which followed, combined with scurvy, fire-water and other causes, largely reduced their numbers while they were supported by the British on the border. Early in the war, Sir Guy Carleton, who represented the British Government, promised the Mohawks that their losses should be made good to
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them; and subsequently General Haldimand ratified the agreement. Accordingly during or about the close of the war, a large tract of land was ceded to them, on the Ouise or Grand River, which flows into Lake Erie about forty miles west of the Niagara Falls in Canada. When asked how much they wanted the Mohawk chief laconically replied "Six miles on each side of the river from its mouth to its source;" and there they went under the leadership of Brant. Many of the Cayugas, weary of their miserable condition at Buffalo Creek, joined the Mohawks and settled with them permanently.
England acknowledged the independence of the Colonies in 1783. In 1784 a treaty of peace was made with the Indians at Fort Stan- wix; and the Cayugas (excepting those who had made a settlement in Canada) returned to their old home.
On February 25, 1789, the Cayugas at a treaty held in Albany ceded their extensive territory within our limits to the State for the consideration of $50.00 in silver, $1,125.00 to be paid them June Ist, and the annual payment of $500.00 which they were to receive forever. But they reserved ninety-eight square miles upon Cayuga Lake, also one mile on each side of Seneca River at Ski-yase (now Waterloo) "where the Cayugas have heretofore taken eel" and one mile square near Canoga, for the Cayuga chief, called Fish Carrier. It is said Fish Carrier was opposed to the treaty, and the fact that this land was given to him suggests that it was used like Credit Mobelier Stock in Congress, "where it would do the most good." The treaty provided that "the Cayugas and their posterity forever, shall have the free right of hunting in every part of said ceded lands and of fishing in all the waters within the same." It was also stipulated that "the Cayuga Salt Spring and the land to the extent of one mile around the same" was to remain for the common use and benefit of the people of the State of New York and of the Cayugas and their posterity forever. The amount which the Cayugas received for their lands ceded did not equal one cent an acre. When the reservations were made, the Cayugas petitioned
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that a generous grant of land should be made to Peter Ryckman, a Dutchman, who they claimed was their adopted son. The State accordingly gave him a mile square near Cayuga village; also 15,680 acres on the west bank of Seneca Lake. The entire tract of land last mentioned was twenty-five square miles; but of this three hundred and twenty acres were given to Joseph Poudre, a French trader, who had married a Cayuga maiden and who resided at Kaghsion Creek, south of Geneva.
As nearly as can be described the reservation of the one hundred square miles was located as follows: "Beginning on the east side of the town of Ledyard in the center of the highway running from Sherwood's Corners to Aurora, and running thence west to a point about three miles west of Cayuga Lake, thence northerly to the village of Seneca Falls thence along Seneca River to the Cayuga Salt Springs, below the village of Montezuma, thence south- easterly to a point in the town of Aurelius in line with the east line of the town of Springport and thence south to the place of begin- ning, containing one hundred square miles (exclusive of the water of Cayuga Lake). Excepting and reserving therefrom the mile square gift to Fish Carrier, and Peter Ryckman's mile square."
We have found that in 1789, the Cayugas had a reservation of one hundred square miles; of this in 1795, by a treaty held at Cayuga Ferry, they ceded to the State all but two small reservations, one containing four square miles in the southwest corner of Springport and the northwest corner of Ledyard. It is distinguished in some old maps as the "Resident Reservation." The other was a mile square some two or three miles northeast of Union Springs and was called the Mine Reservation. For the lands ceded in 1795, the Cayugas were paid $1,800 and were to receive $1,800 annually forever. The price fixed by the State for the land to be given up was four shillings per acre-and the annuity was to be at the rate of six per cent. The law provided that the purchased lands should be surveyed into lots of two hundred and fifty acres, that white citizens who were in
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possession of any one of said lots January 1, 1795 under a lease from the Indians, or by their free and voluntary consent, should have a pre-emptive right of purchase of it, that the remainder should be sold at Albany at public vendue, lot by lot, provided that none of said lots shall be sold for less than sixteen shillings per acre. A purchase of sixty thousand acres or more at fifty cents per acre, which by the law could not be sold for less than two dollars (and for which we did realize on the sale thereof in the following year, over eight hundred per cent. profit looks like a profitable transaction on the part of the State but a little rough on the helpless "wards of the nation."
By the law of 1795 those who had a pre-emptive right of purchase were to pay for their lands the average price of the lands sold at auction. On May 30, 1807-eighteen years after the large reserva- tion was formed, and twelve years after the treaty of 1795, the Cayugas parted with their last acre for on that day they ceded the Mine and Residence reservations to the State which paid them forty-eight hundred dollars. The Oneidas, Onondagas, Senecas and Tuscaroras still retained their reservations-in part at least- they are not landless. But the Cayugas have not within their native boundaries even a burying ground which they can call their own.
BOUNDARIES OF THE CAYUGAS.
The boundary lines between the several Indian tribes were as clearly defined as between larger nations but were sometimes changed. In 1779 the Senecas occupied all of New York west of Seneca Lake. The lake formed the western boundary of Cayuga and Lake Ontario the northern, its eastern was a line running between Owasco and Skaneateles lakes. The southern line was in Pennsylvania. In view of these facts, when Butler and Dear- born were sent out from Sullivan's army with their detachment, one to go on the east side of Cayuga Lake and the other on the west, they went on the same mission-to lay waste the Cayugas.
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CHAPTER XIV.
Early Settlers-Military Tract-Land Grants.
Captain Roswell Franklin of Litchfield, Conn., has the repu- tation of having been the first settler in Cayuga County. Unfor- tunately he settled on the Reservation. It seems that quite a number who came about the same time also located there. The Indians complained to Governor Clinton, who issued a proclamation directing them to remove, but they disregarded it; he sent a sheriff's posse in 1791 to eject them, and some fourteen families were forced to vacate. This was a serious loss to them. Roswell Franklin committed suicide and was buried near Payne's Creek, south of Aurora but all trace of his grave was lost long ago.
The earliest settlement of Cayuga County and Sullivan's expe- dition are linked together by a little romance. One morning in November, 1778, the family of a Mr. Lester, residing at Nauticoke on the Susquehanna, was awakened by the dread war-whoop. A band of Senecas had come on its mission of death. Mr. Lester was murdered and his wife and little child were taken into captivity.
When our army was in the Genesee country in 1779, Mrs. Lester escaped, came into camp with the child in her arms, and returned with the expedition. She subsequently became the second wife of Roswell Franklin, moved here with him and was the first white woman who had a home in our county.
Captain Roswell Franklin's first wife was murdered by the Indians and his family taken captive at the Wyoming Massacre. After many vicissitudes in 1789, he located together with a number of his friends upon the land lying between the Cayuga and Owasco
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lakes, having leased them from the Indians. Captain Franklin, Elisha Durkee and others in the fall of 1788 had made a survey of these lands, dividing them into lots of one hundred and sixty acres each. This company was known as the Little Lessee Company, to distinguish it from the one which about the same time had leased, from the Indians, lands west of Cayuga Lake. Captain Franklin erected a rude structure as a temporary shelter. It consisted of a simple framework of poles covered on three sides with split slabs, and a roof of bark. In September of this first year, the hut of poles and bark gave place to a substantial log dwelling which has been properly distinguished as the first house erected by a white man within the limits of Cayuga County. It is said that every white man within the present bounds of the county, was present and took part in its erection, seventeen in all, and that it required two days to complete the work. The names have been preserved with that of the master builder, John Harris. The complete list is as follows : Roswell Franklin, Sr., Joseph Atwell, Levi Atwell, H. Spaulding, Ebenezer White, John White, Job Pixley, Daniel Guthrie, Ebenezer Guthrie, Seth Phelps, John Richardson, Thomas Manchester, Edward Payne, Hulbert Atwell, John Harris, - Harris, Dona Brownwell.
Their nearest grist mill was Tioga Point, over eighty miles of crooked Indian path-one foot wide. "The coast was clear and the land was good." Everything put in the ground grew, and the situation of these early settlers began to be cheerful and flattering. But as yet they had no title to their land. The lease obtained from the Indians was void, as the State had obtained by treaty and pur- chased the territory known as the Military tract and had divided it up into lots and apportioned it to soldiers of the Revolution. Moreover, it was found that when the state surveyors came on to lay out the lots according to the treaty his house and half his improvements fell within the Indian line. Many of the settlers had located on the Reservation. The Indians complained to the
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governor who issued a proclamation warning the people to leave the reserved lands. No attention was paid to this order. The Indians continued their complaint until Governor Clinton sent a sheriff and a posse of fifty men to dispossess the intruders. They did it thoroughly-turned some fourteen families adrift and burned their homes. Franklin was near the line and petitioned the sheriff to let him remain until Spring, this was granted provided he could satisfy the Indians. Before the time had expired he had agreed with a neighbor in whom he reposed confidence to procure a title to that part of the lot not within the forbidden limits with the understanding that the man was to have half the land for his trouble. It turned out that the whole lot of six hundred and forty acres which Franklin supposed was to be negotiated for, was bought under him and measures instituted to dispossess him. Tired of carrying the burden he had borne so long and bravely, one day early in the spring of 1792 he took his gun with him into a neighbor- ing woods and shot himself dead.
The first settlers of this county, and of this part of the state suffered greatly from the uncertainty of their land titles, being frequently ousted from their possessions by previous claimants, but despite this fact, twelve years after the first settlers came within the present limits of Cayuga County more than one thousand five hun- dred inhabitants had located here. Many came from Pennsylvania and the New England States. Among the earliest settlers from Pennsylvania were Roeliff Brinkerhoff, Jacob Brinkerhoff, Luke Brinkerhoff, Thomas Johnson, Abraham, Bodine, Charles Van Tine, James Dales, Isaac Parcell, Jacob Loyster and Andrew Johnson with their families, who left Gettysburg April 30, 1793. They reached this county on the Fourth of July, having been two months and four days on the way. They eventually settled near the foot of Owasco Lake. Other residents of whom we find account were Adam Fries, Daniel Miller, Elija Price, Benjamin Depuy, Andrew
ABIJAH FITCH
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Van Middlesworth and Jacob Van Dorn. They organized a religious society connected with the Dutch Reformed Church.
Emigrants came into the new settlement quite rapidly in 1795-6, and in the summer of 1797 they erected a church edifice. It was built of hewn logs, twenty-five by thirty feet with a gallery on three sides with slab seats. It stood a few rods south of the bridge on Brinkerhoff Point, six miles from Auburn, and was the first church edifice erected in this county. A number of Quakers or Friends headed by Paulina, wife of Judge Walter Wood, located at Aurora in 1795. Benjamin and Mary Howland came in 1798 "bringing a family of five children, and a herd of twenty cattle," also sheep. In the front room of Benjamin and Mary Howland's new home which they built about two miles west from Poplar Ridge on the state road, the first Friends meeting in this county was held in 1799. The following persons including their family circle assembled twice a week: Allen Mosher, and Hannah, natives of Dartmouth, James Wood and his wife, from Aurora, William and Hannah Reynouf from New York, Sylvanus and Lydia Hussey from Dartmouth, Content Hussey, called Aunt "Tenty", from Dartmouth, Samuel Haines from New Jersey, John and Dina Wood, Jethero and Sylvia Wood, Joshua Baldwin, his mother and Anna and Elizabeth his sisters from New York, Isaac and Ruth Wood, parents of Judge Wood, from Dartmouth. After a year the rooms proving too small, a log house was fitted with partitions, to be closed during meetings for discipline and thither the meeting was removed, to remain until the meeting house was built in 1810.
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