History of Livingston County, New York, from its earliest traditions to the present together with early town sketches, Part 3

Author: Doty, Lockwood R., 1858- [from old catalog] ed; Van Deusen, W. J., pub. [from old catalog]
Publication date: 1905
Publisher: Jackson, Mich., W. J. Van Deusen
Number of Pages: 1422

USA > New York > Livingston County > History of Livingston County, New York, from its earliest traditions to the present together with early town sketches > Part 3

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

Lower Falls of the Genesee at Portage, from Mr. Letchworth's groun ds.

HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY

intellectual advancement, and staunch supporters of the moral and religious movements of the century, and of their patriotism, that rich fruit of all virtues, the record of the great rebellion affords a thousand evidences.

Biographical sketches also claim their place in this work; since actors in historic events, and men who have enjoyed the highest honors of the state and nation, as well as those of less note who impressed their individuality upon the times, have lived here, or, dying, have left their mortal frames to rest in our green and quiet churchyards.

HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY

CHAPTER II

T' HE SENECA nation of Indians were found occupying the region between the Genesee river and Cayuga lake, when it first became known to the whites.1 At what period their abode became fixed here is a question not easily solved, since it is to incidental facts and traditions we are to look for light upon this sub- ject, and these afford but uncertain data.

The country between the Genesee and the Niagara rivers, when first visited by Europeans, was nominally held by the Kah-kwas, or Neutral Nation of Indians, though their villages were situated mainly along the latter river and extended nearly to the eastern shores of lake Huron; their hunting grounds, however, included, as they claimed, the broad belt of debatable land that lay along the Genesee. In this doubtful frontier inroads were frequently made by the Senecas, and conflicts between those two hostile tribes often took place. Soon after our knowledge of them begins, the Kah-kwas, as we shall see, were conquered by the Senecas, and were either driven southward or exterminated.

At the opening of the Revolutionary war, a small band of Oneidas and also a band of Tuscaroras, adhering to the British cause,-though .these two tribes mainly espoused the Colonial side, -left their eastern villages and removed to the Genesee, where each established a town; and a few of the Kah-kwas, descendants of those who had been adopted into the Seneca nation when their tribal organization was broken up. were found residing with the latter by the pioneers.

Of the races that preceded the Senecas and Kah-kwas we have little information, and even that little is derived mainly from local antiqui- ties. This evidence, fragmentary at best, shows that in the far off past nations unlike the red aborigines have arisen, flourished here, and

I The Dutch arrived at New York in 1609, and soon acquired some knowledge of the Western Indians, among others of the Nun-do-waho-no, to whom they gave the name of Senecas; but so unsettled was the orthography of the latter word, that the Colonial documents of our State give it in no less than 63 different ways.

HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY

disappeared. The story is one of missing links and replete with mystery. Morgan says that the remains of Indian art here met with are of two kinds, and ascribable to widely different periods. The former belong to the ante-Columbian, or era of Mound Builders, whose defensive works, mounds or sacred enclosures are scattered so profusely throughout the west; the latter include the remains of fugitive races who, after the extermination of the Mound Builders, displaced each other in quick succession, until the period of the Iroquois commenced. 1

The Senecas, first known to the whites as a part of the Five Nations, have a history of their own, independent of their connection with their associate nations, and, consequently, earlier than the League of the Iroquois. This fact is found in certain special features of their system of consanguinity and affinity, wherein they differ from the Mohawks, Onondagas, Oneidas and Cayugas, and in which they agree with the Tuscaroras and Wyandots, or ancient Hurons, tending to show that they and the two latter formed one people later in time than the separation of the nations from the common stem. ? It is most likely, however, that the Senecas were then north of the chain of lakes.

The Iroquois called themselves Ho-de-no-sau-nee, or People of the Long House. Their League, formed about the year 1450,3 embraced at first the Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas and Senecas. Afterwards the Tuscaroras were admitted into the federation, con- stituting the sixth nation. + Their territory then extended from the Hudson to the Genesee river.

1. It was the opinion of Governor DeWitt Clinton, that previous to the occupation of this region by the progenitors of the Iroquois, it was inhabited hy a race of meu much more populou- and much further advanced in civilization than they. Marshall, however, whose judgment is en- titled to great weight, is not satisfied with the evidence so far produced of the existence in this vicinity of a race preceding the Indian, He thinks the ancient fortifications, tumuli and artifi- cial structures that abound iu Western New York, can all be referred to a more modern race than the Mound-Builders,

2. The Seneca child belongs to the mother's tribe, not to the father's. If the mother is of the clan of the Heron, her children also are Herons, and they call uot only their female parent, mother, but likewise call her sisters mother, either "great" or "little" mother, as the sisters chance to he older or younger than the real mother.

3. The Five Nations were called Magnas by the Dutch; Iroquois by the French; Minges and Con- federates by the English. They were sometimes called Aganuschioni, or People of the Long Cabin.

4. Of these, the Mohawks, Onondagas and senecas are called Futhers: the Cayuga- and Oneidas are called Sons, and in great councils are always thus respectively addressed.

HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY

Their legends say that the League was advised by IHiawatha, the tutelar patron of the Iroquois, on the occasion of a threatened invasion of their country by a ferocious band of warriors from north of the great lakes. Ruin seemed inevitable, and in their extremity they appealed to Hiawatha. He urged the people to waste their efforts no longer in a desultory war, but to call a general council of the tribes. The meeting accordingly took place on the northern bank of Onondaga lake. Here, referring to the pressing danger, Hiawatha said: "To oppose these northern hordes singly by tribes, often at variance with each other, is idle; but by uniting in a band of brotherhood, we may hope to succeed. " Appealing to the tribes in turn, he said to the Senecas: "You, who live in the open country and possess much wisdom shall be the fifth nation, because you best understand the art of raising corn and beans and making cabins." Then addressing all, he con- cluded. "Unite the five nations in a common interest, and no foe shall disturb or subdue us; the Great Spirit will then smile upon us, and we shall be free, prosperous and happy. But if we remain as now, we shall be subject to his frown; we shall be enslaved, perhaps annihi- lated, our warriors will perish in the war storm. and our names be for- gotten in the dance and song." Ilis advice prevailed, and the plan of union was adopted. His great mission on earth accomplished, Hiawa- tha went down to the water, seated himself in his mystic canoe, and, to the cadence of music from an unseen source, was wafted to the skies. 1

The Iroquois owe their origin as a separate people, if not indeed their martial glory, to the encroachments of a neighboring nation more powerful than they. Originally inclined to tillage more than to arms, they resided upon the northern bank of the St. Lawrence, in the vicinity of Montreal. Here, as one nation, they lived in subjection to the Adirondacks. But provoked by some infringement of rights, their latent spirit was aroused, and they struck for independent possession of the country. Failing in this, they were forced to quit Canada, and

I. Longfellow lays the scene of his beautiful Indian Edda, The Song of Hiawatha, among the Ojibways, on the southern shore of Lake Superior, in the region between the Pictured Rocks and the Grand Sahle. In this poem the great bard has preserved the traditions prevalent among the North American Indians respecting this "child of wonder."

street, in his noble epic of Frontenac, has preserved, especially in the notes, no little of inter- est connected with Hiawatha, whom he makes a mute communicating with the tribes by sigus through a fellow-spirit.

HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY

finally found their way into central and western New York, where, on the banks of its fair lakes and rivers, they at length laid the founda- tions of a power compared with which that of every other Indian nation falls far short.

It is said that the Iroquois had planned a mighty confederacy, and it is argued with reason, that had the arrival of the Europeans been delayed a century, the League would have absorbed all the tribes between the St. Lawrence and the Gulf of Mexico; indeed, the whole continent would have been at their mercy.

In principle the League was not unlike the plan of our own federal government. It guaranteed the independence of each tribe, while recognizing the due powers of the Confederation; at the same time personal rights were held in especial esteem. The aboriginal congress consisted of fifty sachems, of whom the Senecas had eight. This body usually met at the council house of the Onondagas, the central nation, where all questions affecting the confederacy were deliberated upon and decided. The business of this rude parliament was conducted with becoming dignity. The reason and judgment of these grave sachems, rather than their passions, were appealed to: and it is said to have been a breach of decorum for a sachem in the great council to reply to a speech on the day of its delivery. Unanimity was a requisite ; indeed, no question could be decided without the concurrence of every member. The authority of these wise men consisted in the nation's good opinion of their courage, wisdom and integrity. They served without badge of office, and without pay, finding their reward alone in the veneration of their people, whose interests they unceasingly watched. Indeed, public opinion nowhere exercised a more powerful influence than among the Iroquois, whose ablest men shared with the humblest in the common dread of the people's frown.

Subordinate to the sachems was an order of chiefs famous for cour- age and eloquence, among whom may be named Red Jacket, 1 Corn- planter and Big Kettle, whose reasoning moved the councils, or whose burning words hurried the braves on to the war path. No trait of the Iroquois is more to be commended than the regard they paid to woman. The sex were often represented in councils by orators known as squaws' men. Red Jacket himself won no little reputation in that capacity.

1. See appendix No. I for a statement of Red Jacket's status in the tribe and an account hy General Parker of political and social relations in the tribes or clans making up the League.

HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY

The Indian women could thus oppose a war, or aid in bringing about peace. In the sale of the soil they claimed a special right to interfere, for, they urged, "the land belongs to the warriors who defend, and to the women who till it." The Iroquois squaw labored in the field, but so did females, even the daughters of princes, in the primitive ages. Rebekah, the mother of Israel, first appears in biblical history as a drawer of water; and the sweet and pious Ruth won the love of the rich and powerful Boaz, as a gleaner of the harvest.

Though broken in power in our Revolutionary war, the Iroquois confederacy remained a distinct people long after the eastern and southern tribes had lost their standing; yet the excellence of their system has served only to delay their complete subversion to the whites, and their gradual extinction as a separate people. From sixteen thousand souls, they are now reduced to a fourth of that number and yet, with a persistency that must gain them at least poetic honors, they still preserve their several national divisions and keep intact their tribal clans or organizations. I The end is sure, however, and, sooner or later, that marvel of pagan wisdom, the Confederacy of the Five Nations, must, even in name, disappear from living institutions. 2

Our scanty information about the early occupants of this region, forces us to complete the page of aboriginal story from traditions. We turn. therefore, to the narrative of the Indian Cusick, and to similar sources. 3 In an account thus derived, dates must be wholly wanting in accuracy. As an instance, Cusick says the final troubles between the Senecas and the Eries took place about the time of the arrival of Columbus, when in truth they did not occur until a hundred and sixty years later.

We pass over Cusick's account of the origin of the Great Island which we call North America, the fabulous rise of the Indian Con- federacy, six centuries before the Christian era, as he says, and other portions of the curious recital, and come down to the period of the

1. These clans are, the Wolf, Bear, Beaver, Turkle, Dees, Snipe, Heron and Hawk-eight in all. An Indian and squaw of the same clan might not marry, as in theory they were brother and sister, but must seek mates from another clan, though not necessarily of another tribe, than their own Each clau possessed its totem or symbol, which is a rude picture of a hawk, turtle or other ap- propriate emblem.

2. See appendix No. 2 for an account of present conditions among the Seneca -.

3. The narrative, to which we are indebted for data here, is by David Cusick, a Tuscarora Indian, whose ancestors came from North Carolina and settled near Lewistown, N. Y See schooler, Arch. of Abor. Knowl., Vol. V

HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY

allotment of homes to the tribes. The Senecas were directed to settle on a knoll south of Canandaigua lake, near the present village of Naples. Indeed, some traditions hold that they sprang from this knoll, hence their name, Nun'-do-wah'-o, which, in their tongue, signifies the Great Hill People.

An agent of the Superior Power was sent to instruct them in the duties of life ; seeds were given, with directions for their use, and dogs to aid in taking game. Villages sprang up and prosperity abounded, but the Divine agent having returned to the heavens, monsters of singular forms invaded the country from time to time, and devoured many persons.

The monsters of the Indian were no borrowed prodigies, but the creation of his own untutored imagination, or natural beings invested by his fancy with supernatural attributes. The Flying Head, a strange creature which, their legends say, invaded the homes of the Iroquois after night fall, to devour the inmates, until the villagers were com- pelled to build huts so fashioned as to exclude it, has no prototype. This bodiless hobgoblin, whose features were those of a man with head, mane and two hairy legs like the lion's, appears to have had a dread of fire, for its disappearance is ascribed to that cause. An old woman, parching acorns in her lodge one night, was visited by a Flying Head. L But, on observing the burning fruit which the squaw appeared to be eating, the Head sunk into the earth, and with it vanished a legion of its fellows, to the great relief of the Indians, who held them in deadly fear.

A great lake serpent traversed the trails from Genesee river to Can- andaigua lake, stopping intercourse, and compelling the villages to fortify against it. Later came Stonish Giants, a cannibal race from beyond the Mississippi, who derived their name from the practice of rolling in the earth until their bodies became encrusted with sand and gravel, which rendered them impenetrable to arrows. Warriors gathered to drive them away, but they overran the country of the

1. The engraving presents Cusick's notion of the monster. The drawing is from a copy of the rare pamphlet edition of Cusick's Narrative. The Indian name of the flying head was Ko-neau-rau-neh-neh.

HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY

Senecas and others, and destroyed the people of several towns. The Holder of the Heavens now returned. By a stratagem he induced the giants to enter a deep hollow, and, as they there lay sleeping. he hurled down upon them a mass of rocks, which crushed to death all save one, who sought asylum in the regions of the north. A snake of great size, having a human head, soon after appeared in the principal pathway leading eastward from the sulphur springs at Avon. This too, was destroyed by a band of braves, selected for their prowess, after a conflict, in which was exhibited, if we credit tradition, some- thing more than mortal valor.

A thousand years before the arrival of Columbus, the Senecas were at war with the Kah-kwas. Battle succeeded battle, and the Senecas were at length repulsed with severe loss. Tidings of their disaster soon reached the great Atotarho, 1 a war chief highly venerated by the League, whose seat was at Onondaga, and he sent an army to their relief. Thus strengthened, they assumed the offensive and drove the enemy into their forts, which, at the end of a long siege, were sur- rendered and the principal chief put to death. The remnant of the tribe became incorporated with that of the conquerors. The latter now established their dominion in the country of the Kah-kwas, and for a time, in that remote age, the Senecas held the southern shores of lake Ontario westward to Oak Orchard creek.

Grave discords appear to have occurred in the League about this period, incited by Atotarho, whose power is symbolized by a body covered with black snakes, and whose dishes and spoons were the skulls of enemies. His claim to a first rank among native dignitaries, was in the end admitted by the several nations, and the title berne by him still remains hereditary in the Onondagas.

Two centuries later, a certain youth living near the original seat of the Seneca council fire, while in the bushes one day, caught a two headed snake, which he carried to his mother's hut. It was quite small, very beautiful, and appeared to be harmless. le fed it on bird's flesh, but its growth was so rapid that the hunters had soon to unite in supplying its ever increasing appetite. Their supplies, how- ever, were not enough to satisfy its voracious cravings, and it took to roaming through the forest and down into the lake in quest of food. At length it went to the hill top and there became inspired with ill

1. Or, more correctly, perhaps, To-do-da-ho.

HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY

will toward its early friend, now a warrior. In dismay the young man removed to a distant village, and thus escaped the fate that was soon to befall his tribesmen. Game grew scarce before the serpent, and not only dreading evil from its wicked disposition, but fearing lest it's enormous appetite would reduce the tribe to starvation, the wise men resolved, in council, to put the monster to death. The hour of daylight one morning was fixed upon for the work. But just as day was break- ing, so runs the legend, the serpent descended with a great noise to the fort wherein the villagers took refuge at night, for security from a race of giants with whom they were at war. 1 So great had become

the monster's size, that, after encircling the fortification, its head and tail are said to have met at the gate-way, and its huge jaws lay distended at the very entrance, thus cutting off all exit. The inmates were paralyzed with fear and did nothing for several days. Finally. driven by hunger, and sickened by the fetid odor exhaled from the serpent's body, they made efforts to climb over it, but all, save a young warrior and his sister, were devoured in the attempt. 2 The young warrior, following the directions given in a dream, succeeded in piercing the serpent's vitals at a particular spot in the huge body, with

1. The giants were called Jo-gah-uh. Credit is due to some extent to John M. Bradford - version of this tradition.

2. Hosmer, following Horatio Jones's version of the legend, says the pair whose live- were saved, were lovers :

-"remained at last

Two lovers only of that mighty throng To chant with feehle voice a nation's funeral song.

-On-wee-ne-you cried, Dropping a golden shaft- - and pierce the foe ('nder the rounded scales that wall his side '

* *

Flame-hned and hissing played its nimble tongue Between thick, ghastly rows of pointed bone.

* * *

A twanging sound !- and on it- errand sped The messenger of vengeance.

* * *

Down the steep hill, outstretched and dead, he rolled Disgorging human heads in his descent :

* And far the beach with spots of foam besprent, When the huge carcass disappeared for ave In depths from whence it rose to curse the beam- of day.

GENUNDEWAH

HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY

a golden arrow delivered to him in a cloud. In its death throes the monster plunged down the acclivity. uprooting trees by its weight, and disappeared beneath the waters of the lake, its course thitherward being marked by a trail of human heads disgorged at each bound, and, for generations afterwards, Indians say, the beach about the spot was whitened with skeletons of its victims. The Seneca council fire was now removed to a spot near Geneva, and afterwards to a mountain ridge west of the Genesee, not unlikely to Squakie Hill, as thought by some.

Four centuries before the advent of Columbus, the Hurons began hostilities against the Five Nations. From these, as from all other contests with western tribes, the Senecas mainly suffered. In one most sanguinary conflict the enemy were repulsed, but at a great sacrifice of lives to the Senecas, and runners were hurried out along the Genesee for reinforcements. A brief delay followed, when the fighting was resumed, the enemy being now routed and driven from the field. Though successful in the end, this war forms a bloody epoch in the traditions of the Senecas.

Notwithstanding their ill fortune, the Kah-kwas appear to have regained power ; for, fifty years later, they once more held the country between the Genesee and the Niagara rivers, and were governed by a female chief named Ya'-go-wa'-ne-a, whose seat of power was at Kienuka, a town situated on a slope of the mountain ridge near the present site of Lewiston. In her keeping was the symbolic house of peace. She received chiefs of other tribes, formed treaties and made alliances. The fiercest strife was hushed in her presence, and warriors whose nations were at feud were bound to stay their quarrel while under her roof. Tradition concedes to her much wisdom, and relates how she long enjoyed peculiar influence, which, however, in a moment of passion, she forfeited. Two Senecas had been received at her castle, and while there smoking the pipe of peace were, in a flagrant contempt of comity, permitted to be murdered for an alleged outrage upon a subject of hers in a distant village. The rash act was followed by instant orders to her warriors to cross the Genesee and fall at once upon the Seneca villages, overpowering, if possible, the new made enemy before they became fully aware of her perfidy.

While these measures were being hastened, a woman of the Kah- kwas, friendly to the Senecas, secretly made her way with the infor-

HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY

mation to the war chief of the latter nation at Canandaigua, who received it with great surprise. As no time was left him for procuring aid from the outlying bands of his own tribe, much less from allies, he drew fifteen hundred warriors from the nearest towns, placed them in two divisions under different chiefs, and set out to meet the Kah- kwas. Halting near the fort at Kan-agh-saws1 (Conesus), the women, children and old men, who had followed with supplies, were allowed to come up, and remained here for safety.

The enemy had already crossed the river in large numbers, as runners, momently arriving, reported. The two divisions of the Senecas were accordingly moved forward and placed in ambush on either side of the pathway, while one of their number, disguised as a bear, was sent along the trail as a decoy. This the Kah-kwas soon met, but, suspecting nothing, chased the false bear into the midst of the hidden braves. Like a whirlwind the Senecas now fell upon them, their terrific yells, the din of war clubs and clash of spears adding to the confusion. A wild scene ensued. The disorder of the Kah-kwas was temporary, however, and the conflict quickly became one of varying fortunes, but the enemy's weight of numbers pushed the first division back upon the second, when the Senecas, inspired by the impending danger, were seized with a war frenzy, and at length drove the enemy from the field. The latter fled across the Genesee, leaving six hundred of their dead behind. The Seneca chief, declining to pursue, returned with his forces to Canandaigua, where he celebrated the victory with savage parade. Tradition fixes the place of this battle in the vicinity of Geneseo, and Schoolcraft, satisfied of the correctness of the location, calls it the Great Battle of Geneseo. 2

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History of Livingston County, New York, from its earliest traditions to the present together with early town sketches, Part 3

Author: Doty, Lockwood R., 1858- [from old catalog] ed; Van Deusen, W. J., pub. [from old catalog] Publication date: 1905 Publisher: Jackson, Mich., W. J. Van Deusen Number of Pages: 1422

Author: Doty, Lockwood R., 1858- [from old catalog] ed; Van Deusen, W. J., pub. [from old catalog]
Publication date: 1905
Publisher: Jackson, Mich., W. J. Van Deusen
Number of Pages: 1422