History of Livingston County, New York, from its earliest traditions to the present together with early town sketches, Part 8

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 8

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Ga-nos'-ga-go occupied the site of the village of Dansville. It was a small Seneca town, of comparatively modern date, and for some cause had ceased to be occupied as a winter village at the advent of the early pioneers, "though fifteen or twenty huts were standing when white settlements commenced, and several Indian families lingered for some years in the neighborhood "1 Main street cuts through the Indian burial ground, which covered two or three acres including the site of the Lutheran church. In sinking wells in the vicinity, a number of Indian relics and skeletons were exhumed, and about fifty years ago workmen engaged in digging a cellar, near the southerly part of this burial ground, came upon two skeletons of giant sized Indians, which lay side by side. They had evidently long reposed there, some favoring element in the soil having preserved them beyond the ordinary limit.

In a battle that took place between the Canisteo Indians and the Senecas, on a hill three miles to the northeast, a noted chief of the Senecas was killed. To mark the spot where he fell, an excavation, several rods in extent, shaped like a man with arms extended, was made by his tribesmen. 2 An Indian trail led by this novel memorial and the natives in passing were in the habit of clearing therefrom. with tender regard, the leaves and brush which the winds had drifted into it. The chief's remains were brought to Ga-nos'-ga-go for burial and, singularly enough, now lie underneath the altar of the Lutheran church, a Christian memorial to a pagan warrior. A rude monument, consisting of a pile of small stones brought hither, one by one, by the Indians, from a hill a mile distant, was worked by the white man's hands into the church foundation walls. The Indian trail, which led from the Genesee to the Canisteo river and thence to eastern Pennsyl- vania, may yet in places be traced, especially at a point half way up Big Hill, where the path intersects the highway leading from Dans- ville to Hornellsville; and for many miles below the latter place its deeply worn course is yet visible. Ga-nos'-ga-go was established after DeNonville's invasion of 1689. In Pouchot's map, as will be seen, it appears under the name of Ka-nons-ke-gon, a Frenchman's mode of

1. Conrad Welch's Recollections. [See Turner's, Phelps & Gorham, 359.] The meaning of the Indian word Ga-nos-ga-go is "among the milk-werds."

2. The spot cannot be found, though some of the early settlers were heard to speak of the exca- vation which they had seen.

HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY

indicating in writing the Indian spoken name. The two trails, pass- ing up either side of the Canaseraga connected the village with the towns along the river.

Sho-no'jo-waah-geh1 occupied both sides at Damon's creek, which runs on the northerly edge of the village of Mount Morris. The resi- dence of John M. Hastings, Esq., occupies a portion of the site. The name signifies Big Kettle's town, and is derived from the circum- stance of General Mills bringing a copper still or kettle into the place to put into a distillery. In opening Grove street, hatchets, knives and beads were discovered in considerable quantities, Samuel Magee, who visited the Indian village in 1795, found the town quite compact, and the natives, who were enjoying themselves upon the green, very civil. Magee, then a pioneer youth, and until then holding the red man in no little fear, lost his dread and grew fond of their company. When Jesse Stanley came to Mount Morris in 1811, an Indian mound, nearly a hundred feet in diameter and from 8 to 10 feet high, covered the site of the late General Mills' residence. The mound had long been crowned by a great tree, which had recently fallen under the axe, the stump remaining, though much weather beaten. Deacon Stanley was told that when freshly cut it disclosed a hundred and thirty concentric circles or yearly growths. About the year 1820, the mound was re- moved, and, in its removal, arrow heads, a brass kettle and knives were thrown out. A number of skeletons were also disinterred. Among the bones was a human skeleton of enormous size, the jaw bone of which was so large that Adam Holtslander placed it, mask - like, over his own chin and jaw, although he was the largest man in the settlement, and his face was in proportion to the rest of his body. Metal, in the form of rude medals, a pipe and other articles, were picked out of the earth thrown from the excavation. Sho-noh-jo-waah- geh was generally called Allen's Hill by the whites; and the flats directly to the east, cultivated by the Indians, they called Allen's flats, deriving the name from Ebenezer Allen, or Indian Allen, as he was generally called, the Blue Beard of pioneer history. This notori- ous character had acquired possession of a large tract of land where Mount Morris now stands, and of which the village is nearly the

1. Literally, Sho-noh-jo-wnah, Big Kettle, and geh, the location or town of, hence " the town of Big Kettle." Morgan says that the famous Seneca orator, Big Kettle, once resided here, but this is probably an error.

HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY

geographical center, 1 occupying for residence and also for business purposes a long log house that stood within the bounds of Mr. Has- tings' grounds.

Kan-agh-saws, or Conesus, was a small Seneca town, situated halt a mile south of the head of Conesus lake, on the flat between Hender- son's creek and the inlet, though nearer the former than the latter stream. Sullivan's invading army breakfasted at this village on the morning of the 13th of September, 1779, and there spent the earlier half of that day. They found it to consist of twenty-five houses, and the surrounding bottom lands covered with patches of corn, ripening melons, squash and beans. Close at hand was an orchard of apple and peach trees. The army, with the exception of the light corps which encamped a mile in advance, had bivouacked on Richard. son's farm at a late hour the previous evening. After marching all the afternoon through drizzling rain and over muddy paths, a scanty supper and short supply of water, added to damp garments, had not rendered the night one of comfort, and the men were glad enough to move forward at early dawn to a spot which, like this, promised bonn- tiful rations of seasonable vegetables, good water and an opportunity to dry their clothing by the heat of the burning cabins of the little town. Arms were also to be examined and prepared for use against the enemy, who were expected to be found gathered in force near their villages, which lay at no great distance beyond the brow of the wooded hills in full sight to the westward of Kan-agh-saws. 2 Sullivan says in his report. "Here we found some large cornfields, which part of the army destroyed while the other part were employed in building the bridge" across the inlet. When the army broke camp to move over the temporary bridge, cabins, crops and orchards had disappear. ed. The destruction of every species of property had been effected under the eye of Sullivan himself and was complete. The Indian vil- lage was never rebuilt. The Senecas have a tradition that a fort belonging to their tribe once occupied the site of this town, but it is

1. Called the Mount Morris tract. See reference to this in Chapter >, and copy of grant to Allen's daughters in the appendix.

2. See appendix to Marshall's Expedition of DeNonville. Sullivan gives the orthography of Conesus thus- Kaneghsaus ; Col. Hubley spells it Kanaghsus and Major Norris, of the New Hampshire regiment, gives it Kanrysas or Fucksca. The name is also said to be derived from the old scoop net fishing ground at the outlet of the lake, but this would apply quite as well to the old fortitied place near Bosley's or Olinsted's Mills.

HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY

more than probable that this has reference to the fortified place near Bosley's Mills. Its name is derived from the abundance of sheep berries which formerly grew on the western border of the lake. Pouchot gives the name Oni tade.

Dyu-hah-gaih1 was the village of the Oneida Indians. It will be recollected that the Oneidas, as a tribe, took sides with the colonists in the Revolutionary struggle. A few families, however, clung to the British cause. Of the latter. a portion removed to the Genesee, retreating thence to Niagara at the approach of Sullivan. When the Senecas returned. a remnant of the Oneidas, consisting of 15 or 20 families, also came back and established their homes on the easterly side of the river, a mile below Gilmore's mill. Near the site of their village, the river banks are quite bold. The Oneida youths were expert swimmers and often astonished the pioneers by their daring leaps into the water. Charles Shackleton said they could dive as deep and stay as long beneath the surface as a fish. The spot became quite noted as a bathing place, and, on a warm afternoon, the river was frequently alive with their black heads. The whites were on good terms with them, and often visited the ground to play ball with the natives. The Senecas of the upper villages imagined that the Oneida town harbored two or three witches, and about the year 1800 one of the suspected squaws was secured and taken to Beardstown, where, it is said, she was burned. This village was the occasional residence of two or three of the more noted Seneca wise men. It was among the first to be abandoned after the treaties.

Chenussio was until 1768 the "Western door of the Long House" and was in existence as early as 1750 and as late as 1770; at the time of Sullivan's campaign it had ceased to exist or had dwindled into an insignificance unworthy of mention. It was located on the east side of the river at its confluence with Canaseraga Creek, a little south of Williamsburg, on the Colonel Abell farm, now owned by Major William A. Wadsworth. A small grove standing between the site of the old tavern (Allen's Tavern) and the Fitzhugh mansion "Hampton" now the residence of James W. Wadsworth, junior, marked. it is believed, the precise location of this village. Colonel William Jones recollected visiting the spot when about ten years of age, and could then trace

1. Meaning "the stream or current devours it." that is, the bank. There is some uncertainty as to the correctness of this name when applied to this village, though it is believed to be accurate as given.

HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY

the remains of eight or ten Indian huts. Samuel Magee said that from the town square as originally laid out, to the river, was about eighty rods, and that, about halfway between the square and river, was quite a large Indian burial ground. In 1806 a number of the Indian graves were opened and rifled of brass kettles, tomahawks and other property usually buried with the dead. Agriculture has long claimed the spot, and the surface now presents no evidence of aboriginal occupancy, though occasionally articles of Indian handiwork are found in breaking up the soil. This village appears on the Guy Johnson map of 1761 as Chenussio; on the Pouchot map of 1758 as Sonnechio, in both cases at the point described and where Mary Jemison's narrative says it was in her day. In 1750 it was visited by Cammerhoff and Zeisberger, two Moravian missionaries, who called it Zonnesschio and describe it as then containing forty houses. All of these names are dialectical and orthographical variations of the modern word Genesee, signifying the beautiful valley. Gaustavan, a celebrated Seneca chief, was for many years a leading spirit of the town, and during the French and Indian war, being thoroughly in the interests of the French. it required all the diplomatic ability of Sir William Johnson and the influence of the other natives of the league to neutralize his efforts. In 1768 it had ceased to be the western door. which honor was then held by the great town of Chenandoanes-Little Beard's town-on the west side of the river.

Chenussio was the town that Boyd was sent to reconnoitre, and which Major Norris says General Sullivan expected to find on the east side of the river and two miles north of Gathtsegwarohare. Writers have confounded it with Little Beardstown, and it greatly perplexed the General in his examination of the maps. It was near this village that both Schoolcraft and Cusick fix the place of the bloody battle between the Kah-kwas, who had been sent into the Seneca country by their female chief, and the latter tribe.

Gaw-she-gweh-oh,1or Gathtsegwarohare. was located about two miles above the confluence of the creek and river, and is described in a sub- sequent chapter.

1. Samuel Magee gave the name as Llahutan. An old seneca. samuel Wilson, who was raised on the Genesee, said Gau-she-guch meant a spear, and that O-she -guch-unt meant rattlesnake. When the place was first occupied by the Indians, the point, at the confluence of the Genesre and the ('anaseraga creek, abounded with rattlesnakes. They would lay curled up on the point, basking on sunshiny days, from which fact the town took its name.

HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY

Sga-his-ga-aah was a modern Seneca town occupying the site of the present village of Lima. The name signifies, "it was a long creek, " and had reference to the stream which flows at the foot of the ridge whereon the Indian town was located and which leads to one of the tributaries of Honeoye creek.1 The importance of Sga-his-ga-aah con- sisted mainly in its convenience as a halting- place between the Indian village at Caledonia spring and that which lay near Geneva, on the line of the great central trail connecting the Hudson and the Niagara rivers. The village had entirely disappeared in 1797, when Matthew Warner came to the Genesee country. Fifty years ago Franklin Carter found traces of five lodges, in plowing his orchard lot situated on the easterly slope of the ridge. The lodges appeared to have stood a couple of rods apart, fronting on a straight line.2 Evidences of a large aboriginal population here have, from time to time. appeared. The Indian burial ground must have been quite extensive. as we may judge by the portions of it that have been disturbed by the plow and spade. Miles Bristol, in the first two years' plowing of his orchard lot in early days, found Indian axes in such quantities that their sale more than covered the cost of tillage; and William A. Bristol ·on different occasions, found in the same lot, situated upon this ridge back of his residence, a number of Indian skulls and bones; full fifty brass kettles, the bottoms of which were generally rusted out : pipes, with the bowls ornamented by such devices as the human face and the heads of deer and other animals; beads and arrow heads, and several quarts of parched corn and beans. Many years ago, when the yard in front of the Presbyterian church was graded, Indian skeletons were discovered by the hundred, as reported by those who then saw them. Fifty years since an excavation was made at the corner of Main and Rochester streets, which exposed the bones of a number of aborigines and articles usually found buried with them. The spot originally belonged to the church lot and it is a coincidence worthy of mention.

1. This ridge runs east and west, parallel with Main street. The central portion of the Indian town was a few rods south of the American Hi del.

2. The precise spot, where the remains of these Judges was found, is about twenty-five rods to the rearof the American Hotel. Morgan, in his " Longue of the Iroquois," gives an engraving of an Indian pipe found at Lima. It was of black pottery, well finished, und nearly as hard as marble. Col. Geo. Smith was in Lima in 1798. There were then traces of an old fortification on the ridge where the In- dian village had been located, the west end of the ditch crossing the present highway on the ridge. a short distance west of the centre of the modern village, and remained visible for some years after 179%.

HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY

that the Indian burial grounds at Dansville and two or three other places in the county are used by Christian churches as cemeteries for white men. Another, though smaller, Indian burial ground is known to exist about one mile north of the village of Lima, where hatchets, knives and other weapons have been occasionally found side by side with skeletons. In 1822 citizens discovered remains of Indians here, in a sitting posture, with earthen pots in their laps filled with corn and bones of squirrels. About the same period large trees, which grew over Indian graves, were cut away. Sullivan makes no mention of Sga-his-ga-aah, and, most likely, he was unaware of such a town, which, if then a winter habitation, had already been deserted for safe- ty, the families probably uniting with those of Beardstown or Cana- waugus, as was the case with many Seneca towns lying east of the river.

Ga-non'-da-seeh was a favorite place of resort for the Indians in the season of pigeon shooting. The name signifies "New Town," and was located near the modern hamlet of Moscow, though never used for winter occupancy.

The site of Deo-wes-ta is known to the whites as Portageville. It lay upon the neck of land on the easterly side of the river between Portageville and the lower falls.

At or near the site of the present village of East Avon, was located a modern Seneca town called Gah-ni'-gah-dot, which signifies "the pestle stands there. "

It would be quite impossible to embrace, in a single chapter, every spot associated with Indian occupancy, for there is scarcely any portion of the county where traces of aboriginal villages or burial places of the red men, have not been found. Oftentimes these consist of mounds of inconsiderable extent, or are the remains of temporary villages only. It is sought to preserve, with some particularity, a record of the places which belong to history. An instance of the many minor relics of In- dian abode is found near the village of Geneseo. Within a narrow circuit a mile west of the village, three small mounds may yet be traced, one of which occurs about forty rods south west of the Big Tree farm. This is three feet in height and near twenty five feet across ; underneath a great oak, close by the old dairy house is a second, somewhat smaller in diameter, and about half as high as the former; and, near the Jones bridge, on the easterly side of the river, is a third. When the railroad

HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY

was being constructed. the skeletons of four Indians were exhumed from the latter. These spots are venerated by the Senecas, who, within the last half century, were in the habit of visiting them and spending hours in mourning over the ashes of their dead there buried. Gen- eral James S. Wadsworth met every suggestion to have the mounds leveled, with a peremptory refusal. "Let the dead rest." he would say, and the same regard continues to be observed. Strangely, indeed. is the dust of the red man and the white being mingled in our midst.

HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY

CHAPTER V.

T HE Jesuits, true to their zealous spirit, were first among relig- ious societies to establish missions in the Seneca villages. In 1616, Le Caron, a missionary of the order of Franciscans, passed through what is now known as the Genesee country, and other portions of the territory occupied by the Iroquois, but made no attempt to propagate his faith: A score of years later these inland tribes of aborigines became known, by personal intercourse, to the Jesuits, who, as early as 1635, make particular mention of the Senecas.

In August, 1656, Father Chaumonot left the Onondaga lodges to establish the mission of St. Michael, or Gandongare, in the present town of East Bloomfield. When the Father arrived at the village, the chiefs assembled a council to receive him and hear his message. He told them that his church intended to establish a mission in their country. He then gave them some presents. The way thus opened, he said, writes Marshall: "I offer myself as a guarantee of the truths which I utter, and if my life is deemed insufficient, I offer you, in addition, the lives of all the French I have left at Onondaga. Do you distrust these living presents ? Will you be so simple as to believe that we have left our native country, the finest in the world, to come so far, and to suffer so much, in order to bring to you a lie ?" They were moved by this appeal, and the council, after solemn deliberation, resolved to receive the missionaries, and allow the Senecas to be instructed in their mysteries. The Jesuit visited the other villages with similar success, in one of which he found the principal sachem of the nation (Ga-no-ga-i-da-wi) bedridden with disease. Him he con- verted to the faith, and the distinguished chief. having subsequently recovered, became a powerful friend of the French and Jesuits. The name which he bore, and by which he is always mentioned by the French, is the title of a sachemship, still preserved among the Senecas

In 1668 came Father Fremin to St. Michael's, to minister regularly at this most prosperous of the Iroquois missions. The field of his

HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY

labors, however, embraced at least three of the four Seneca villages of that day, one of which was Dyu-do o-sot, situated near East Avon. A contagious fever broke out among the natives soon after his advent among them, and much of the good missionary's time was spent in responding to the physical needs of the sick. His skill in the treat- ment of disease not only tended to mitigate the ravages of the fever- of which one hundred and fifty died in the four villages-but secured the favor of the natives as well. De Nonville mentions the fact that Fathers Fremin and Garnier had been stationary missionaries for twenty years at the four Seneca villages destroyed by him, prior to his invasion in 1687. The two other Seneca missions were called LaCon- ception and St. James. Dabłon, rector of the college of Quebec, and Superior of the Jesuit missions in New France or Canada, says, in 1672, that the Fathers count two or three thousand souls at these three stations.

Father Fremin addressed letters to the general of the order of the Jesuits at Rome, giving an account of the progress of spiritual things among the rude converts here, thus opening communication between this land of forest and wigwam and that ecclesiastical centre, which, for so many centuries, swayed the political, as it sought to sway the religious, destinies of the civilized world. Garnier writes to Dablon in July, 1672, of the Senecas, who had threatened his life. He says their minds being ill-disposed. the devil uses every occasion to make them speak against the faith and those who preach it. An old man, he adds, who, some years before, came from the country of the Cayugas, a pragmatical fellow of big words, does what he likes with the Senecas, and passes among them for a prodigy of talent, has per- suaded some of them that our religion causes them to die, and cites instances. Breviaries, ink horns and manuscripts were considered as so many instruments of sorcery, and their prayers as magical incan- tation. A niece of one of the chiefs was sickly, and the chief was suspicious that the missionary, who spent much time in the rude chapel, was plotting with some demon for the death of the girl.

Bishop Kip says, "There is no page in our country's history more touching and romantic than that which records the labors and suffer- ings of the Jesuit missionaries. In these western wilds they were the earliest pioneers of civilization and faith. The wild hunter or the adventurous traveller, who, penetrating the forests, came to new and

HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY

strange tribes, often found that, years before, the disciples of Loyola had preceded him in the wilderness. Traditions of the 'Black robes' still lingered among the Indians. On some mossgrown trees they pointed out the traces of their work, and in wonder he de- ciphered, carved side by side on its trunk, the emblem of our salva- tion and the lilies of the Bourbons."

Without arms or other compulsory means, but simply by kindness, the Jesuits sought to secure the desired end. Music, knowledge of the healing art, assimilation to the peculiarities of the strange people among whom they labored, and curiosity, too, had their influence. Father Fremin says : "I neither see, nor hear, nor speak to any but the Indians. My food is very simple and light. I have never been able to conform my taste to the meal or the smoked fish of the say- ages, and my nourishment is only composed of corn which they pound, and of which I make each day a kind of hominy, which 1 boil in water." Sometimes he was compelled to live on acorns.

Father Fenelon, afterward famous as the Archbishop of Cambray. and author of Telemachus, was engaged for a short period at St. Michael's.

One of the good Father's letters to Rome gives this incident: "A woman being surprised by the falling sickness, cast herself into the middle of a large fire. Before they could extricate her she was so badly burnt that the bones of her hands and arms fell from her one after the other. As I was not then in the village, a young French- man whom I have with me, and who performs worthily the functions of Dogique, hastened to her, and finding her in possession of her senses, spoke to her of God and His salvation, instructed her, caused her to perform all the religious offices necessary upon such an

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History of Livingston County, New York, from its earliest traditions to the present together with early town sketches, Part 8

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