USA > New York > Wayne County > History of Central New York : embracing Cayuga, Seneca, Wayne, Ontario, Tompkins, Cortland, Schuyler, Yates, Chemung, Steuben, and Tioga Counties, Volume I > Part 3
USA > New York > Cayuga County > History of Central New York : embracing Cayuga, Seneca, Wayne, Ontario, Tompkins, Cortland, Schuyler, Yates, Chemung, Steuben, and Tioga Counties, Volume I > Part 3
USA > New York > Seneca County > History of Central New York : embracing Cayuga, Seneca, Wayne, Ontario, Tompkins, Cortland, Schuyler, Yates, Chemung, Steuben, and Tioga Counties, Volume I > Part 3
USA > New York > Ontario County > History of Central New York : embracing Cayuga, Seneca, Wayne, Ontario, Tompkins, Cortland, Schuyler, Yates, Chemung, Steuben, and Tioga Counties, Volume I > Part 3
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CHAPTER II INDIAN OCCUPATION.
ALGONKINS-IROQUOIS-THE SIX NATIONS-THEIR FORM OF GOVERNMENT-CUS- TOMS-TREATIES-LAND GRANTS AND PURCHASES-LAST PAYMENT TO IN- DIANS BY STATE-NOTABLE INDIANS: CATHERINE MONTOUR, "OLD SMOKE," HIAWATHA, CORNPLANTER, LOGAN, RED JACKET, JOSEPH BRANDT-INDIAN CAPTIVES.
Before the dawn of recorded history, the eleven counties of Central New York were occupied by a group of Indians known as Algonkins. The name Algonkin has been erroneously inter- preted in many writings, but it is probably from the word al- goomeaking or algoomaking, meaning "at the place of spearing fish and eels from the bow of a canoe."
Where these simple people came from or where they vanished is one of the mysteries that still lies locked in the soil of the region, hidden from all save the archaeologist. According to Donald A. Cadzow, representing the Museum of the American Indian in New York, field director of the Pennsylvania Indian Archaeological Survey and field director of the American An- thropology, of Cambridge University, England, these people were primitive. They made crude arrowpoints and other utilitarian objects out of bone, almost Eskimo-like in appearance. As ma- terial culture advanced, they became experts in chipping and rubbing stone into tools.
The art of pottery making slowly developed until, in the sixth or last known period of their occupancy of the district, they made large, crudely decorated vessels of baked clay. This art appears to have advanced farthest upon an Algonkin site at the foot of Owasco Lake, now Enna Jettick Park. Here the largest and finest pottery was excavated and is now in the Museum of the American Indian.
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Mr. Cadzow himself from the whispering shores of little Frontenac Island in Cayuga Lake unearthed crushed and crum- bling Algonkin skeletons telling of an ancient race. The Algon- kin were mainly sedentary and agricultural, he says. A little crop of corn and other food stuff, together with the meat and fish brought in by the hunters, satisfied their simple needs. Oc- casional war parties probably ventured into surrounding terri- tory, returned and were satisfied with their own.
The Algonkin men were tall, averaging about five feet, seven inches to five feet ten inches in height. They had the typical Indian nose and heavy cheekbones. While these people lived contentedly and serenely in their garden spot among the lakes, invaders came. The Algonkins sought to defend their own. They made stockaded forts on hilltops. But the invaders, coming probably from the north, pressed on.
Though numerous rich Indian finds have been made through- out the entire Central New York area, none has more signifi- cance than relics unearthed on the Fred H. Sherman farm, a mile and a quarter east of Levanna, Cayuga County. First in- dications of the secrets hidden beneath the unplowed soil of the farm came in 1929, when Harrison Follett and George B. Selden, representing the Rochester Municipal Museum, dug up a por- tion of what appeared to be a giant effigy of some animal, made of fire stones from the fire pits of the Indians. That year it appeared little more than a sort of pavement of the stones.
Then in the summer of 1932, the two archaeologists returned under sponsorship of the Cayuga County Historical Society and completely uncovered the stone creation. It proved to be a giant effigy of a bear, fifteen feet long and six feet across. Near it, within a radius of seventy-five feet, were found other stone effigies, including those of a bird and a panther. All were grouped about and faced a stone altar about which twined the roots of an ancient hickory tree.
The archaeologists proclaimed the relics indicative of the site of an ancient Algonkin village, which probably existed 1,000 years ago. Of 500 sites excavated by him in New York and Pennsylvania, Mr. Follett proclaims that in Levanna far the
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most interesting. "It is unique throughout America," he de- clared. Underlying the entire site, covering an area 300 feet long and 100 feet wide, were found ashes, indicating the Al- gonkin village may have been burned by the invasion of Iroquois who destroyed the earlier Indian civilization.
Because of the rarity of relics found, plans are under way for completely restoring the Algonkin village, even to the bark huts, fire pits and other appurtenances of village life. Later the huts will be peopled with paper mache figures of Indians and the place converted into the only outdoor museum of its kind in America. The archaeologists have entered into a five-year lease, with privilege of indefinite extension, as a first step in the development of the plan, which will make the Levanna site one of the interesting objectives for sightseers throughout Cen- tral New York.
The location is a natural fortification, between the beds of two creeks and commanding a view of Cayuga Lake. About it once was a big stockade, according to the scientists, who have found many other evidences of the early life of the Algonkin there, including human bones in firepits, indicating the red man once practiced cannibalism, either as a ceremonial or for food. Already thousands have visited the spot, where permanent win- ter headquarters are being set up to preserve the relics whose size prevents their removal.
The Iroquois (Irinakhoiw, "real adders") had come to snatch the garden spot of Central New York and make it their own. The Algonkins probably equaled the Iroquois in bravery, but they lacked the constancy, solidity of character and capability of organization which belonged to their conquerors, who until the white man came were to have their seat of power in the heart of the Empire State.
A confederacy of nations, which for 300 years or almost twice the age of the United States, held sway without a single internal conflict was this new Iroquois people who expelled the Algonkins. At first they were called the Five Nations, embrac- ing the Mohawks, Oneidas, Cayugas, Onondagas and Senecas. In 1722 the Tuscaroras were added, making them the Six Na-
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tions. Annals of mankind do not provide on the same grade of civilization any parallel to the political system of the Iroquois.
Charlevoix saw them as early as 1706 and said "these Ameri- cans are perfectly convinced that man is born free and that no power on earth has any right to restrict his liberty, while noth- ing can make up for its loss."
Iroquois domination was not through brute force of numbers. Their strength in fighting men was placed at 2,150 by Courey, agent of Virginia in 1667; 2,000 by DeNoville, governor of Can- ada in 1687; 2,030 by the census of Sir William Johnson in 1763 ; 1,789 by Pouchot in 1789 and 1,900 by Rev. Samuel Kirk- land in 1783.
As early as 1678 Father Hennepin, who visited the Confed- eracy, said: "The Iroquois, whom the Swedes, then the Dutch and the English and the French have furnished with firearms, are reckoned as the most savage of all savages yet known. They have slain the best warriors among the Hurons and forced the rest of the nation to join with them to make war together against all their enemies, situated five or six hundred leagues distant from their cantons. They have already destroyed about two million men."
The sachems of the Six Nations were elected in public as- sembly though some held hereditary office. They were in peace times the supreme civil authority while in war they were but counselors to the war chiefs who held dictatorial power. The women of the tribes were influential factors in tribal affairs, holding the right to nominate sachems, while they never spoke in council.
The tribes had various clans given animal names such as the bear, wolf, beaver, turtle, deer, plover, heron and hawk. All members of a clan were considered near relatives. One might not marry in his clan, and as children followed the mother's origin, father and child were never of the same clan. With such a simple but effective system of economics the Six Nations held sway over the main portion of this continent east of the Missis- sippi for two centuries. From the Everglades of Florida to the
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northern sources of the St. Lawrence and the Great Lakes their power was felt.
The Iroquois received tribute in taxes from the Indians of Long Island; they were a source of power as far away as Maine; they ran in expeditions far to the south and west of the Alle- ghanies and received embassies from Nova Scotia to the Gulf. Truly they were the Romans of the West, going in conquest farther than Greek arms were ever carried and to distances which Rome surpassed only in the days of her culminating glory. For 150 years the Iroquois held the French in check, driving them seven times within the walls of Montreal. Courted by both French and English long before the Revolution, these red warriors threw their strength to the British, assuring for all time English rather than French dominance in the new world.
These Spartans of the lake country lived in houses, cultivated grain, fruits and vegetables, practiced skilful fortification, had horses, swine, cattle and fowl and were the arbiters for other tribes. They had learned oratory and diplomacy that later matched the skill of European statesmen in making treaties.
Commerce today runs in no paths over the eastern part of this continent, where the moccasined feet of the Iroquois had not previously marked out the courses of power and control. The Six Nations of Central New York were the tribes which held the mastery of the continent and worked out for themselves the ini- tial problems of government before the Mayflower sailed and before the New Netherlands fought the fight of liberty.
Today from this brave race, there are approximately 5,500 in New York State. At the close of the Revolution the Mohawks removed to Canada and in 1779 sold all their claims for $1,600. The lands of the others were gradually purchased and the rem- nants of the tribes located on reservations, seven of which are in this state.
The Onondaga reservation near Syracuse contains 7,300 acres; the Tonawanda-Seneca reservation, in Erie and Genesee counties, 7,548 acres; the Allegany-Seneca in Cattaraugus County, 30,469 acres; the Cattaraugus-Seneca, in Erie, Catta- raugus and Chautauqua counties, 21,680 acres; the St. Regis,
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who entered the Confederacy after the Revolution to replace the Mohawks, in Franklin County, 14,030 acres; Tuscaroras in Ni- agara County, 6,249 acres. Of the Oneidas, a part live near Green Bay, Wisconsin, and there is an Oneida reservation of 400 acres four miles south of Oneida. The Cayugas are scat- tered among the different tribes, the larger part of them living with the Senecas at Cattaraugus.
When peace was proclaimed in 1783, England made no terms for her Indian allies, but Chief Cornplanter brought about a peace treaty with the United States at Fort Stanwix, near Rome, in 1784. Councils between the Iroquois and the United States were held at Tioga in 1790 and at Painted Post in 1791 and the last one at Canandaigua in 1794, where the reservations al- lotted to the Indians were confirmed. The treaty of Big Tree, at Geneseo in 1797 extinguished the title of the Six Nations to their ancient possessions, with the exception of the reservations. The treaty was made between the Seneca nation and capitalists, the precursors of white settlement.
The last sizable payment made by the state to the Indians for their lands was announced by Governor Franklin D. Roose- velt in November, 1931. It was the settlement for $247,609 of a claim by the Cayuga nation. The governor said he acted under the 1920 recommendation of the land office and with authority given him by the laws of 1909. "It marks a milestone in the relations of the state with its Indian wards," he declared.
By 1789 the western boundaries of New York State were definitely settled by agreement with the states of Massachusetts and Pennsylvania and in that year the Cayugas settled on a reservation of 100 square miles bordering Cayuga Lake near its foot, and were granted an annuity. Because of the encroach- ments of white settlements on the reservation, subsequent treaties from time to time were entered into. In 1795 the chiefs of the tribe negotiated with Governor George Clinton for sale of their reserved 100 square miles, excepting two small parcels compris- ing 3,200 acres.
The land was purchased at fifty cents an acre and sold by the state to whites at $1.50. Shortly before the War of 1812 the
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Cayugas sold the remaining 3,200 acres and most of them left the area. Although the Cayugas in Canada fought against the United States in 1812, those in New York State stood loyal, but their annuity of $2,300 remained the same. The claim settled in 1931 was presented first to the governor and Legislature in 1853 by Dr. Peter Wilson, grand sachem of the Six Nations, who claimed that the tribe had been cheated when they sold the land at fifty cents an acre in 1795, and that the Indians should have the extra dollar the state made on the deal when it resold. Two years later a claim was presented in the Senate, but it failed of passage. In 1890, 1891 and 1895, however, the Senate passed similar bills, but they never got through the Assembly.
The Legislature in 1906 authorized the Land Board to look into the tribe's claims and two years later a representative of the board held that the claim was not enforceable. He pointed out, however, that the homeless condition of the Cayugas set up a moral obligation upon the state and upon this Governor Roosevelt acted.
In any study of the Iroquois, chief interest centers in the great personalities-the warriors, the diplomats, the leaders-of the red men. No history has given sketches of all these Indian notables of Central New York, but scores of volumes make refer- ence to them. From many books, isolated facts have been gath- ered, and from this compilation, brief outlines of the part great Iroquois played in early American history of this section are here given.
Catherine Montour: Catherine Montour, for whom Montour Falls was named, has been confounded by many writers with Madame Montour and by others with Queen Esther of Wyo- ming notoriety. She was the daughter of French Margaret and grand daughter of Madame Montour. Her husband was Thomas Hudson, alias Telenemut, one of the most noted of the Seneca chiefs. She had a son named Amochol and two daughters. Queen Esther was her sister, as also was Mary, wife of John Cook, another Seneca chief, who lived on the Alleghany and Ohio. Catherine was living after Sullivan's raid in 1891 "over the lake not far from Niagara."
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Madame Montour was a noted personage in the Colonial his- tory of Pennsylvania and about 1749 when old and nearly blind removed to the vicinity of Lake Erie.
Queen Esther, notorious as the "fiend of Wyoming," was a daughter of French Margaret and granddaughter of Madame Montour and a sister of Catherine. She lived six miles south of Tioga Point in 1772 when she moved six miles north, founding a new town which was destroyed in 1778, when she probably removed to Chemung. She had a son, who was killed a short time previous to the Wyoming massacre, which doubtless prompted her fury at that time.
After her husband's death in battle Catherine ruled the tribe, superintended the tilling of nearby fields, growing maize, beans and pumpkins, an orchard of apple trees and on the meadows the raising of horses, cattle and swine. She attended the war councils of the Six Nations and even accompanied the chiefs to Philadelphia to lay some grievance before the Continental Con- gress. Here her wondrous beauty and dignity of bearing made a great impression. She spoke French and English besides the Indian dialects. Upon the approach of Sullivan's expedition she fled to Canada and died there.
"Old Smoke": Old Smoke, known in the Indian tongue as Sayenquerghta and also as Guiyahgwahdoh, is said by many historians to have been the leader of the Indians in the Wyo- ming massacre. His home was at Kanadesaga, the Indian vil- lage on the site of Geneva, destroyed by Sullivan.
Hiawatha: Hiawatha, immortalized in the poem of Long- fellow, was an Indian reformer, statesman and founder of the great Confederacy of the Six Nations, but through a singular complication of mistakes has by many historians been classed as a mythological personage and a deity of the Indian. Dates of his work vary as much as a thousand years in various accounts. But probably the most authentic record is the Iroquois Book of Rites, handed down by the record keepers of the red men and translated and correlated in 1883 by Horatio Hale.
This authority shows that Hiawatha, then a middle aged chief of the Onondagas, conceived about 1450, or nearly a half
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century before Columbus discovered America, the idea of uniting the warring tribes of Central New York into a league for uni- versal peace. His plan was for a permanent league that ulti- mately should expand until it embraced every tribe of red men on the continent.
He presented the project to his own Onondaga tribe, but three times failed in his appeal, because of the opposition of Atotarho, tyrannical war lord of the Onondagas. Then he took his plan to the Mohawks, bearing with him a wampum held as the sign of peace. Hiawatha means "He Who Seeks the Wampum Belt." The great chief Dekanawidah warmly received the idea, dispatching ambassadors to the Oneidas, who promised their de- cision within a year. At the expiration of the time a treaty was ratified between the Mohawks and the Oneidas and the Onon- dagas were once more asked to join. Concessions of power to the formidable Atotarho at last won his support. The Cayugas and Senecas were next easily induced to band together, and on the shores of Onondaga Lake the great chiefs met in conference, with Hiawatha as adviser, to nominate the first council. Hia- watha was adopted by the Mohawks as one of their chiefs.
The strength of the league spread until an alliance was formed even with the distant Ojibways. The pact remained inviolate for 200 years until French influence undid this portion of Hiawatha's work. Hiawatha thought beyond his time and beyond ours. For more than three centuries the bond he welded held and the terri- tory of the Iroquois spread. It was the "Great Asylum" for many tribes. The Tuscaroras, expelled from North Carolina, became the Sixth Nation. Eries, Hurons, Tuteloes, Nanticokes, Mohegans, Mississagas and others received the hospitable protec- tion of the Iroquois League and many were adopted. Our own reverence for the Constitution pales before the great gratitude of the Six Nations for the "Great Peace" created by Hiawatha and his colleagues.
Cornplanter: Cornplanter, orator and leader of the Senecas, was born about 1742, the son of John Abeel, a young fur trader and the son of a former mayor of Albany. His mother was a Seneca Indian princess named Aliquipiso, whom Abeel, then
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SARAH WEY TOMPKINS HALL, ELMIRA COLLEGE, ELMIRA, N. Y.
CARNEGIE LIBRARY, ELMIRA, N. Y.
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under twenty, married in a red man's ceremony after a forest courtship in the wilds of the lake region. The name Cornplanter is a free translation of his native cognomen, Kailiontwakon', meaning The One Who Plants.
No more romantic tale of the frontier exists than that in which Cornplanter saved his white father's life. The father left his home with the Indians and married Mary Knouts, a German girl and was living with her when the Revolution broke out. In October, 1780, a year after Sullivan's invasion of the Finger Lakes, he was taken prisoner by the Indians. He looked for death, but a young warrior, Cornplanter, called him father. He was given liberty to return to his white family. Later Corn- planter visited his father, and there, with his stepmother and half brothers and sisters, was cordially received.
Cornplanter derived his authority not by succession but through recognition of his natural abilities as a leader. He was one of the most prominent Senecas of military rank. As late as 1792, Chief Cornplanter, referring to the destruction by the Sullivan Expedition, made this eloquent address to Washington in person :
"Father, the voice of the nation speaks to you, the great coun- selor, in whose heart the wise men of the thirteen fires have placed their wisdom. It may be very small in your ears and we therefore entreat you to hearken with attention, for we are about to speak to you of things which to us are very great. When your army entered the country of the Six Nations, we called you the Town Destroyer; and to this day, when that name is heard, our women look behind them and turn pale, and our children cling close to the sides of their mothers. Our counselors and warriors are men and cannot be afraid, but their hearts are grieved with fear for their women and children, and desire the past may be buried so deep as to be heard no more."
Logan: The mediator, the lover of peace, the orator-that was Logan, the Indian whose most famous speech has been trans- lated into many languages and has become a model of eloquence for American schoolboys. Generally classed as a Cayuga, he was reputed to have been born where Auburn stands, and died
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two years after the Sullivan expedition. But his memory re- mains enshrined in Central New York as the friend of the white man. In 1852, almost three quarters of a century after his death, there rose in the ancient Indian fortress, now Fort Hill Cemetery, Auburn, New York, a great stone shaft in his mem- ory-a monument of esteem reared with the free will gifts of Auburnians to an Indian of whom Judge William Brown of Pennsylvania once said: He "was the best specimen of human- ity I ever met with, either white or red."
It was in 1749, when he was but twenty-two years old, that Logan inherited from his father almost unlimited jurisdiction over the tribes of Pennsylvania, north of the Long House among the Finger Lakes and west as far as the crest of the Alleghanies. It was not long until the general council of the Onondagas raised him to a Sachem of the Shamokims and he was elected Sachem of the Cayugas as well.
In 1754 he represented the Six Nations at a meeting with the proprietaries at Albany on the sale of lands. Then opened the long list of broken treaties and while the French and English and the Indians were in strife, Logan kept to his cabin. In 1770 he moved to the Alleghany and Ohio river region. Still further down the Ohio he went, finally stopping at Yellow Creek.
There his troubles began. Cap. Michael Cresap, a land job- ber, heading a body of ruffians, fired upon a canoe full of Indians paddling along the Ohio, massacring them all. The same evening in bloody debauch Cresap visited an Indian encampment and his gang ambuscaded the red men without provocation.
A few days later on April 13, 1774, while Logan was away on a hunting trip, a party of thirty-two whites invited five braves, several squaws and a two months old baby across Yellow Creek to a tavern, feigning hospitality and offering drink. Un- armed, all the Indians save the baby were killed and most of them scalped. These unprovoked massacres wiped out the whole family of Logan. In the last killing were his brother and sister, the mother of the baby.
When Logan returned, vengeance sent him on the warpath. Thirty white scalps adorned his belt. But humanity was still
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in his heart. On July 12, 1774, with eight warriors he attacked a settlement on the Muskingum and captured two prisoners. His mates prepared the pair for torture. But Logan cut the cords of one. The man was saved from severe torture.
In his bitterness Logan debauched freely and is said to have been shot in 1791 by his own nephew in a drunken brawl. The name Logan is believed to have been taken from the benevolent James Logan, friend of the Indian chief's father and of William Penn.
It was in 1774 that Logan's career was at its zenith and he delivered his historic speech. Beneath an ancient elm, on the plains of Pickaway, six miles south of Circleville, Ohio, he met Col. John Dunmore of Virginia and agreed to end the last great war between the Indian and the white man in the Ohio Valley. Thomas Jefferson in speaking of his address there beside the Scioto River declares it to challenge the art of Cicero, Demos- thenes and European and American statesmen. Logan said:
"I appeal to any white man if he ever entered Logan's cabin hungry and I gave him not bread; if ever he came cold and naked and I gave him not clothing. During the course of the last long and bloody war, Logan remained in his tent, an advocate of peace. Nay, such was my love for the whites that those of my own country pointed at me as they passed and said, 'Logan is the friend of white men.'
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