USA > New York > Chautauqua County > History of Chautauqua County, New York > Part 16
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HISTORY OF CHAUTAUQUA COUNTY, N. Y.
son, and to Onas a town and land on the Delaware. We have been driven from our lands on the Mohawk, the Genesee, the Chemung, and the Una- dilla. And from our western door, we have been pushed from the Susque- hanna ; then over the great mountains ; then beyond the Ohio, the Allegany. and Conewango ; and now we are here on the borders of the great lakes ; and a further push will throw me and my people off the log.' The chief, in con- clusion, with a sad and anxious countenance, asked the question, ' where are we to go ?' The only response made was the sighing of the wind through the leaves of the forest ; the traveler was silent."
The traveler is supposed to be the Rev. Samuel Kirkland, who, for many years previous to the Revolutionary War, was a missionary among the Six Nations, and whose name and services are during and after the Revolution recorded in connection with Indian history.
That we may have an understanding of the rights the Indians had ac- quired by occupation and use as hunting and fishing grounds in the lands included in the Holland Purchase, we will give some account of the settle- ments that the Sonecas had made in western New York and northwestern Pennsylvania, more particularly in the region in which lies the county of Chantauqua. When the Iroquois first became known to Europeans, their villages and hunting grounds were confined to central New York. The fierce wars which they subsequently waged, and by which kindred nations, the Hurons, Neutrals, Fries, and Andastes, were successively vanquished, secured to them an extensive territory to the west and south of their domains including the mountainous region of New York and Pennsylvania traversed by the Allegany river. Their enterprise soon led them to new hunting grounds, and finally to establish villages in this conquered territory. The Senecas, who dwelt at the western limits of the confederacy, were its most numerous and warlike nation. The greater number of their villages were situated along the Genesee. They ultimately became the chief colonizers of the confederacy. They did not extend their settlements directly westward or along the shore of Lake Erie until near the close of the Revolution, except- ing only in the immediate vicinity of Fort Niagara. They seemed to prefer the rivers and their tributaries, and the shores of the smaller lakes. They extended their towns up the Genesee to Caneadoa. A broad Indian trail joined this settlement with the Upper Allegany at Olean. They then planted their villages along the Allegany and its tributaries to its mouth, and thence down the Ohio. The Seneca villages were the most numerous along the Upper Allegany. As early as 1724, the Munsey or Wolf tribe of the Dela- wares, who had previously dwelt in northeastern Pennsylvania but had been crowded out by the encroachments of the whites, were allowed by the Six Nations to settle along the Lower Allegany and Upper Ohio. The Indians of these different tribes were often found living peaceably together in one village, observing different customs, and obeying different laws.
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THE INDIAN TITLE.
The first accurate knowledge acquired by Europeans concerning the Indian settlements along the Allegany, was obtained during the expedition of Celoron in 1749. Celoron found on the right bank of the Allegany, occu- pying the site of Warren, an Indian village called " Kanaongon." It was inhabited by Senecas, and Loups, or Munseys. This village was called Con- awago by Colonel Brodhead when he visited the place thirty years later. Celoron found on the right bank about six miles below this town on a bean- tiful prairie that has been owned by Dr. William A. Irvine and just below the mouth of the Broken-Straw creek, a Seneca village which he called Paille Coupee, or Cut Straw. Its Seneca name was De-ga-sy-o-ush-dy-ah-goh, mean- ing Broken-Straw ; referring it is said by Alden to the accumulation of straw and driftwood in the waters of the creek ; but more likely, as we are informed by General Callender Irvine who preempted the land at the confluence of the Broken-Straw and Allegany in 1795 and was familiar with the Indians and carly traditions of that region, to the broken straws and drooping plumes of the tall wild grass that stood thickly on the meadows after the storms of antumin had swept over them. This Indian village was called Buckaloons by Colonel Brodhead.
Four French leagues below this town Celoron came to a village of teu houses on the left bank of the river, inhabited by Delawares and Renards. These Indian houses usually contained more than a single family. Four or five leagues further down he passed a village of six houses on the right bank of the river. This may have been situated near Hickory Town in Venango county, and identical with the Indian village familiar to the Moravians as Lawanakana, meaning Middle branch or stream, or "where the waters meet." He next passed a village of ten houses, probably that afterwards known to the Moravians as Gosh-gosh-unk or Place of Hogs, where Rev. David Zeisberger a Moravian missionary commenced in 176; to teach the Indians. He and his coadjutor Br. Gotlob Senseman daily preached the Gospel to their red hearers, who came with faces painted white, black and vermillion, and heads decorated with fox-tails and feathers in great numbers to listen. The missionaries brought with them several Moravian families, built a blockhouse, and established a regular mission. The magicians and old women among the Indians violently opposed the Moravians. " They aver- red that the corn was blasted ; the deer and game began to retire from the woods ; no chestnuts and bilberrys would grow, because the missionaries preached a strange doctrine, and the Indians were changing in their way of life ; so Ziesberger was compelled to remove 15 miles farther up the river to Lawanakana, where he gathered around him a little settlement, built a . chapel, and placed in it a bell, the first heard in Venango county ; and here for two years he prosecuted his pious efforts.
Celoron then came to an Indian village of ten houses, later called Ven-
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HISTORY OF CHAUTAUQUA COUNTY, N. Y.
ango by the English, a corruption of the Indian word In-nun-gah alluding to rude and indecent figure that the Senecas found carved upon a tree when they first came to this region. This town was situated near the site of Franklin, at the month of the Riviere Aux Boeufs, now called French creek. Nine miles below Franklin there still remains a large rock covered with cur- ious Indian carvings, close to the water's edge on the eastern side of the river, which has excited the interest of passers by from the earliest French and English explorers to the raftsmen of the present day. It is called the "Indian God," and near it Celoron buried his second leaden plate. Passing a river having on its upper waters some villages of Loups and Iroquois, Celo- ron came to Attique, a large village of twenty-two houses, situated on or near the Kiskiminitas river. Below this town he passed an old Shawneese vi !- lage upon the right bank of the river, and came finally to a village of Dela- wares, the finest seen, and which is supposed to have been situated at or near Pittsburgh.
The old Indian town of Cattanyan stood where now is Kittaning. In September 1756 this town was surprised by Col. John Armstrong and burned. The Delaware Indians who occupied it made desperate resistance ; thirty or forty of them were slain, including their resolute chief Captain Jacobs. Hugh Mercer, afterwards a distinguished American general, and who fell at the battle of Princeton, accompanied Col. Armstrong on the expedition.
When Col. Brodhead in 1779 marched up the Allegany, he found five miles above Kinzua in Warren county, Pa., a large Seneca town called Yah- roon-wa-go, extending for several miles along the Allegany river. Near where once was the center of this town, Cornplanter made his residence. At the mouth of Cold-Spring creek in Cattaraugus county was the village of Che-na-shun-ga-tan, at the mouth of Little Valley creek the village of Buck- tooth, at the month of the Great Valley creek Kill-bucks town, and in Car- rollton Tu-ne-un-gwan.
Mrs. Mary Jemison imparted much information to the white men respect- ing the Indians and some of their settlements in western New York. She was known by the carly settlers as the " White Woman." She was captured by the Indians in her youth during the French and Indian wars. She was so kindly treated by the Indians after her captivity, that she adopted their customs and married an Indian husband, and lived with them the remainder of her days. She died in Buffalo, September 19, 1833, at a very advanced age, much esteemed for her goodness and intelligence by both whites and Indians. In :759, with her little son on her back, and with her three adopted Indian brothers, she journeyed from Ohio to Little Beardstown, on the Gene- see. She says :
" When we arrived at the mouth of French creek, we hunted two days, and thence came on to Conewango creek, where we staid eight or ten days
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THE INDIAN TITLE.
in consequence of our horses having left us and strayed into the woods. The horses, however, were found, and we again prepared to resmne our journey. During our stay at that place, the rain fell fast and raised the creek to such a height, that it was seemingly impossible for us to cross it. A number of times we ventured in, but were compelled to return, barely escaping with our lives. At length we succeeded in swimming our horses, and reached the opposite shore, though I and my little boy but. just escaped from being drowned. From Sandusky the path that we traveled was crooked and obscure, but was tolerably well understood by my oldest brother, who had traveled it a number of times when going to and returning from the Chero- kee wars. The fall by this time was considerably advanced, and the rains, attended with cold winds, continned daily to increase the difficulties of travel- ling. From Conewango we came to a place called by the Indians Che-na- shun-ga-tan, on the Allegany river, at the mouth of Cold Spring creek, and from that to Twa-wan-ne-gwan, or Tu-ne-un-gwan (which means an eddy not strong) where the early frosts had destroyed the corn, so that the Indians were in danger of starving for want of bread. Having rested ourselves two days at that place, we came to Caneadea."
At the close of the last century, along the Allegany and French creeks, scattered through northwestern Pennsylvania and western New York were other Indian towns. In Chautauqua county upon Kiantone creek in Kian- tone, was the small Indian village of Kyenthono. In 1795 when Col. James McMahan came up the Conewango on his way to the north part of the county this settlement was in existence and there were fields of corn and wig- wams occupied by the Indians. At the site of this Indian village when the first settlers came afterwards, the form of cornhills were visible upon lands that appeared once to have been cleared and which had since grown up to small shrubbery of thorns and red pluim. When William Bemus first came to Ellery at Bemus Point umnistakable evidences remained that an Indian settlement had recently existed there. More than fifty acres along the creek embracing the site of the present cemetery and the woods adjoining showed plain marks of previous cultivation. The more elevated parts appeared to have been abandoned, and had grown up to brush with here and there a large tree. Where the cemetery is situated were decayed remains and traces of Indian dwellings. On Bemus creek were two fields each ahout ten acres in extent. The lower one was at the Point and mostly cast of the lake road, the other was half a mile up the creek. Where these improvements were, wild plum trees grew ; and there were remains of brush inclosures, which William Bemus repaired, enabling him to secure several tons of hay the first years of his settlement there. Cornhills were visible, and potatoes of the lady finger variety, that had been perpetuated from year to year were grow- ing, some of which were gathered and planted by Win. Bemus. Below Bemus' at Griffith's Point were similar signs of Indian occupation. About four acres had been cleared but grown up to a thick growth of oak, chestnut,
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HISTORY OF CHAUTAUQUA COUNTY, N. Y.
soft maple and hickory, none more than six inches in diameter. Cornhills were visible over the entire tract. The remains of what appeared to have been a wigwam was found upon a mound. Another field of about one acre . existed at the foot of Bear lake in Stockton. It is probable that some of these places were sites of villages referred to in the agreement made between the Indians and Pennsylvania on January 9, 1789. There may have been other tracts within the county that had been carlier occupied by the Senecas. Samuel A. Brown says there were " several traets of considerable extent overgrown by a thick growth of trees nearly as large as the forest trees, which the oldest Indians informed the first settlers were used by their fathers for planting grounds."
After the close of the Revolution that numerous portion or clan of the Seneca nation residing along the Allegany valley were under the control of the war chief Cornplanter, sometimes called John O'Beel. Their domain included Chautauqua county and the rude improvements found here were the results probably of the occupation by these Indians, who undoubtedly, during the last century, had homes within the county. This clan was often referred to as the Seneca- Abeel ; and in a map published by Reading Howell, 1794, the country of the upper waters of the Conewango and Chautauqua lake is designated as " O'Beel's Cayentona." This map is among the Pen- sylvania Historical Collections.
Some of the old Indian settlements were abandoned immediately after the expeditions of Sullivan and Brodhead in 1779, and new ones established in this region. Among these were those made in the spring of 1780, near the month of the Buffalo and Cattaraugus creeks by Senecas and other Indians. The Indian villages often contained houses sufficiently large to accommodate many families. Between these villages, or leading from them to their favor- ite hunting grounds and fishing places, were well-trodden pathways, several of which passed through the county of Chautauqua. A broad and well worn Indian trail led from Cattaraugus creek through the lake towns to the Penn- sylvania line. Another commenced near the mouth of Cattarangus creek, and passed over the ridge in Arkwright and Charlotte at its lowest point then through Charlotte Center and Sinclairville southerly in the direction of the Indian towns on the Allegany river. This trail had the appearance of much nse : the roots of the trees along its margin were marred and callonsed ; and at certain points it was worn deeply into the ground. It was used by the early settlers as a highway or bridle path in going from the center to the northeastern part of the county, and by the Indians subsequently to the set- tlement of the county. Another Indian path commenced at the Indian set- tlement near the mouth of Cattarangus creek, and passed down the Cone- wango Valley, through the eastern parts of Hanover, Villenova, Cherry Creek and Ellington. This path was used by white men in the settlement of these
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THE INDIAN TITLE.
towns, and by the Indians subsequently. Other Indian trails traversed the county. In Carroll there was a well worn path that led from the Cone- wango easterly up Case Run and through Covey Gap and Bone Run to the Allegany river near Onoville in Cattaraugus county. This trail and the fence constructed by the Indians to aid them in killing deer is mentioned in a letter hereafter referred to written in 1798 by John Thompson to Amzi Atwater.
For the purpose of extinguishing the Indian title so founded upon ancient and actual possession of the lands included in the Holland Purchase, a coun- cil was convened at Big Tree on the Genesee. The history of this council and some very interesting facts respecting the Oil Spring Reservation is con- tained in an address delivered by Judge Daniel Sherman, of Forestville, before the Chautauqua Society of History and Natural Science at Jamestown, January 20, 1885. Judge Sherman was for many years the agent of these Indians and familiar with the facts related, some of which have never before been published. We extract from his address :
" By the treaty at Big Tree on Genesee river, September 15, 1797. between Robert Morris, and Red Jacket, Complanter, Governor Blacksnake, Little Beard, Captain Pollard, Hot Bread, Captain Bullet, Young King, John Jemison, and thirty-seven other chiefs and sachems of the Seneca nation, the Senecas sold to Morris all their lands in western New York, containing 3,750,000 acres, for $100,000, being at the rate of two and one-half cents per acre (excepting certain reservations,) which funds are held in trust and invested by the treasurer of the United States, and interest thereon paid aumnally in annuities by the United States Indian agent to the heads of families of the Senecas. The Senecas reserved the following ten reserva- tions : Cattaraugus reservation, containing 26,880 acres in the counties of Chautauqua and Erie ; Allegany reservation in Cattarangus county, contain- ing forty-two squares miles ; Buffalo Creek reservation in Erie county, con- taining one hundred and thirty square miles ; Tonawanda reservation in the counties of Erie, Genesee and Niagara, containing seventy-one square miles ; Conawaugus reservation, containing two square miles ; Big Tree reservation, containing two square miles; Little Beard's reservation, containing two square miles ; Squawky Hill reservation, containing two square miles ; Gor- dean reservation, containing twenty eight square miles ; Ka-own-a-de-au reservation, containing sixteen square miles; in all 337 square miles. The Senecas intended to reserve also the Oil Spring reservation, one mile square, containing their famous oil spring three miles west of Cuba in the counties of Allegany and Cattaraugus. It is a muddy, cirenlar pool of water about thirty feet in diameter, on low, marshy ground, without outlet and appar- ently without bottom. The Indians have gathered oil from it from time innnemorial, called Seneca oil, which they have used for medicinal pur- poses. They have a tradition that many centuries ago a very fat squaw fell into this pool and sank never to rise, and ever since 'that event Seneca oil has risen to the surface of the water in considerable quantities. It is with- out doubt the same oil spring mentioned in the letter of instruction, dated
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HISTORY OF CHAUTAUQUA COUNTY, N. Y.
Albany, September 3, 1700, of Lord Belmont to Colonel Romer, his majesty's chief engineer in America, with respect to locating the British fort at Onon- daga, in which letter his lordship instructed Colonel Romer about locating the fort, and that he was to visit the country of all of the Five Nations, and says : " You are to go and visit the well or spring which is eight miles beyond the Senecas' further castle, which it is said, blazes up into a flame when a lighted coal is put into it." It is stated that Colonel Romer did as he was instructed, and that from that time forward the Five Nations were entirely devoted and wedded to the interests of the English.
" The Oil Spring reservation not being reserved by the treaty at Big Tree, the legal title to it passed from the Senecas to Robert Morris, with the other lands of that purchase, and through him to the Holland land company and its grantees by the regular chain of title to Benjamin Chamberlain, Sta- ley N. Clarke and William Ghalliger, land owners at Ellicottville, who also owned the lands surrounding it. They however supposed that it was an Indian reservation, and had treated it as such until after Mr. Clarke was sent to Congress as representative from this district, when, upon examining his book of treaties in the congressional library, he first discovered, to his great surprise, that the Oil Spring reservation was not mentioned as reserved to the Senecas in the treaty, and that the legal title to it was in him and his two partners. They immediately took formal possession of it, and surveyed it into four equal parcels ; one quarter of it was sold and conveyed to ex-governor Horatio Seymour of Utica, but the quarter containing the oil spring they con- veved to one Philonius Pattison, who cleared up and fenced about eighty acres, erected a house and barn and set out an orchard. This was in 1856, when I was attorney for the Senecas by appointment of the governor of the state. The Senecas, indignant at the action of the land agents, in council directed their attorney to immediately bring an action of ejectment to recover the possess- ion of the off spring, which they had always claimed as their own, using the oil for medicinal purposes, and selling timber from it, and using it every year for camping purposes in going back and forth between their reserva- tions on the Genesee river and the Allegany reserve. I immediately com- menced an investigation to find evidence of the title of the Senecas to this reservation, particularly to find the first map of the Holland Company of their lands in western New York, made by Joseph Ellicott about 1801. I made search for this map in the land offices at Ellicottville, Batavia and Mayville but in vain ; I visited the oldest chiefs and Indians on the reserva- tions to find the map and learn of them what they knew about the treaty at Big Tree in 1797. I found three Indians who were present at the treaty. One of these was Governor Blacksnake then one hundred and thirteen years old, whose Indian name was To-wa-a-u, signifying " chainbreaker." His English name, Governor Blacksnake, was given to him by President Washington on the occasion of the first visit of this famous war chief of the Senecas and Complanter on business for their people to the then seat of gov- ernment at Philadelphia. I found Blacksnake, on the occasion of my visit to him, at his residence on the banks of the Allegany river, two miles below Coldspring, confined to his bed from a fall, that dislocated his hip and from which he never recovered. I asked him, through my interpreter, Harrison Halftown, what he knew about the treaty at Big Tree. He said he was
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THE INDIAN TITLE.
there and knew all about it ; that it was agreed upon all around that the oil spring should be reserved one mile square ; that when the treaty was read over in presence of all the chiefs it was noticed and mentioned that the oil spring had been left out of the treaty, and that then Thomas Morris, who was the attorney for Robert Morris, drew up a paper which he described as about three inches wide and twice as long, and handed it to Pleasant Lake, a lead- ing Seneca sachem, and stated to the chiefs that that paper contained the oil springs. Blicksnake said he did not know what became of this paper, that Pleasant Lake soon after went to Onondaga and died there. I asked him if he had ever seen a map of . the Seneca reservations. He said he had one in his chest under the bed on which he was lying. He told Harrison Halftown iny interpreter, to pull out the chest, which he did, and opening it, we found what I had long searched for, the first map of the Holland purchase, made in ISot by Joseph Ellicott, the surveyor of the Holland company and its first agent at Batavia, and who was present at the Big Tree treaty and signed the treaty as a witness. I asked Governor Blacksnake how he came by that map. He said that Joseph Ellicott presented it to the Senecas in a general council of the chiefs and warriors at the Tonawanda reservation about 18o1, that Ellicott made a speech to the Senecas, in which he stated that that map contained a correct description of the eleven reservations reserved to the Senecas by the treaty at Big Tree, four years previously ; that the eleven places marked in red on the map belonged to the red men. Among the places so marked was the Oil Spring reservation. Blacksnake said that this map was entrusted to his care and keeping by the Seneca chiefs, and that he had had it in his possession ever since. On this occasion Governor Black- snake exhibited two silver medals which had been presented to him at differ- ent times by President Washington. On one, dated 1796, there was engraved the picture of a white man and Indian chief shaking hands. One, as he said, was his great father, George Washington, and the other Governor Blacksnake. There is some uncertainty about the exact age of Governor Blacksnake. He died September 29, 1859. Nathaniel T, Strong, a leading educated Seneca, a graduate of Union college, during many years clerk and counselor of the Seneca nation, and who delivered an able lecture upon Red Jacket, before the Buffalo Historical Society a few years since, says in an article published over his signature in the New York Sun in 1850, that Governor Blacksnake was born in 1737, and was 122 years old at his death. This is pretty good authority ; but Harrison Halftown, another leading educated Seneca, now living, and who was a near neighbor to and very intimate with Governor Blacksnake, says that he was born in 1742, and that his opinion is formed from data of certain well-known events which Blacksnake had often stated to him, and among others that he was thirteen years old at the time of Brad- ock's defeat in 1755, and was, therefore, of the age of 117 years at his death. I first saw Governor Blacksnake in 1852. He was then a tall, slim man, straight as an arrow, with very keen, piercing, black eyes, of commanding presence, hair slightly gray, the deep furrows in his face indicating great age. Four years later, when confined to his bed by sickness, he was subjected to a rigid cross-examination as a witness in the Oil Spring snit, and exhibited great clearness of recollection and vigor of mind. This map is on file, with the testimony of Blacksnake taken on the trial of the action to recover the
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