USA > New York > Madison County > History of Madison County, state of New York > Part 58
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).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61
The village was first known as "Ellenwood's Hollow ;" but Elder Beman, of Peterboro, gave it the Scripture name of Siloam, on account of the medicinal qualities of a spring
728
MADISON COUNTY.
of water here which was resorted to, to some extent, by in- valids. This water has proved very beneficial. It doubtless contains as many medicinal qualities as any other mineral spring of the many in this section of the State, It is still occasionally visited, but no improvements are made around it.
The Baptist Church of Siloam .- The church edifice was built in 1820. Among the first members are Phillip P. Brown and wife, David Coe and wife, William Sloan and wife, John Warren and wife, Nathan Parkhurst and wife, John Stewart and wife, Capt. Joseph Black and wife, and Miss Fannie Wood. The church society was or- ganized January 5th, 1820, with forty-five members. Elder Dyer D. Ransom was the first pastor. Elder P. P. Brown, now of Madison village, was pastor some ten years. When he closed his labors the church members numbered two hun- dred. After he left these dwindled away ; in a few years but a small percentage was left.
The Presbyterian Church of Peterboro was instituted at an early day. Its early membership was not large. The meet- ing house was built about 1820. It was built on an exten- sive plan at great cost, the work being largely aided pecu- niarily by Gerrit Smith. It has recently been changed into the Peterboro Academy.
The Baptist Church at Peterboro was organized about 1810. Meetings were regularly held in school houses and private dwellings until 1820, when the Baptist meeting house was built.
The Methodist Episcopal Church at Peterboro .- This so- ciety was first organized as a class on Mile Strip in Febru- ary, 1830, by Rev. Isaac Puffer, assisted by George Butler, a local preacher. Meetings were held in the school house. About sixty persons were connected with this society. Sub- sequently this society was transferred to Peterboro where they held meetings in the Presbyterian Church. In 1853 the society was reorganized and the same year built their meeting house.
729
STOCKBRIDGE.
CHAPTER XVI.
STOCKBRIDGE.
Boundaries .- Geography .- Home of the Oneidas .- Evidences of an Extinct Race .- Indian Relics .- Early Settlers .- Inci- dents .- Indian Neighbors .- The Oneida Stone .- Prominent Families .- Cook's Corners .- Munnsville .- Stockbridge .- Enterprises .- Churches.
Stockbridge, lying upon the east border of the county north of the center, is bounded north by Lenox and Oneida County, east by Oneida County, south by Madison and Eaton, and east by Smithfield and Lenox.
This town was named from the Stockbridge Indians, and was formed from Vernon and Augusta, Oneida County, and Smithfield and Lenox, of this county, May 20, 1836, which makes it the youngest in the sisterhood of towns. It has an area of 18,721 acres. It embraces a large part of the "Six Mile Tract " granted to the Stockbridge Indians in 1784, and a portion of the Peter Smith Tract. Previous to the forming of this town, the bounds of Madison County did not extend west of Oneida Creek.
The surface of this town is broken by two high ranges of hills extending from north to south, the summits of which are from 500 to 800 feet above the valley of the Oneida Creek. The chief branch of this creek has its source in Smithfield, and enters the valley in the southeast corner of the town. Its course is marked by the wildest scenery. Before entering the valley it pours down a series
730
MADISON COUNTY.
of cascades, low falls and rapids, which for beauty are not surpassed by anything in this part of the country. Numerous visitors are attracted to this romantic spot, which is about one and a half miles south or southwest from Munnsville.
Another branch of the Oneida rises to the southward in among the convolutions of the northern hills of Eaton. These form a fair stream, upon which are many mill sites.
Oneida Valley, deep, and narrow at its head, gently widens as the lofty ranges recede, and at the northern extremity of the town begins to spread out, and merges into the open level country of Lenox. From the low valley the forest capped hights, broken by rugged ledges and rocks white with lime deposits, appear magnificent. The valley, nestling far down at the foot of the hills, seems to rest in perfect quietness and seclusion. In the grand convulsion of nature, which ages ago rent these mountains asunder, there was formed a refuge, a haven of peace, for the races who first sought it for its seclusion.
The soil of this region is a clayey and gravelly loam. Near the falls hydraulic limestone is quarried, while there are other considerable limestone quarries among the hills. Gypsum is found near Cook's Corners. East of Munsville, on the hill road leading from the depot, limestone rock abounds. Where the road winds around the high point,* it forms a wild and picturesque scene,-rocks overhang- ing the base of the cliff hundreds of feet, wide fissures, rough indentations, citing the mind to a period when great commotions of nature agitated this region. Caves, which have never been explored to any great extent on account of noxious gases, are found in this range. Upon the top of this ridge, near the roadside, runs a small stream which falls down among the rocks. Its bed, which shows the stream to have been once much larger than it is now, is full of large flat rocks of different kinds. In one variety there are plainly defined tracks, evidently made when they were in a
* Musquito Point.
731
STOCKBRIDGE.
state of clayey consistence,-tracks of the feet of animals walking across, and of persons stepping about and standing upon them. There are the plain and quite deeply indented footsteps of a woman, and of the foot of a man-we judge from the appearance-and those of a child about eight years of age. The woman's shoes were of a marked fash- ion-narrow round toe, broad across the ball, shapely and small instep and heel, of a size perhaps number four. A slipper we have seen, worn one hundred years ago, is of similar shape. The larger boot, or shoe track, shows a sim- ilar fashion, nothing near so comely in shape, however, and of middling size for a man. There are several impressions, two or three inches deep, as if made by the unshod feet of horses, some of them, however, very large. There are tracks of the parted hoofs of cattle, and some easily distin- guished tracks of deer. The rocks in which these are im- bedded are dark brown, and are of fine grain. Of course the impressions were made when this was soft, and the pet- rifying process could not have been slow, or the action of rain and other causes would have effaced the indentations. We are led to conjecture that these now broad rocks were argillo-calcareous deposits, with an infiltration of silicious earth, which, by some change in the small stream, were but recently left bare when those footprints were made; or, even those very persons by removing some obstructions might have slightly changed the channel of the water, leav- ing these deposits exposed to the air, and which, as they dried, became hardened.
Stockbridge is an old Indian town, older than is general- ly supposed. There are evidences that the whole range of high hill east of Oneida Creek was once thickly peopled with a race of men, many of whom were very large in stat- ure. Their burial grounds have been discovered in several places from the south line of the town to the north, on this range. On the farms of Taylor Gregg and Ichabod Fran- cis, many graves have been found upon which large trees
732
MADISON COUNTY.
were standing, when the country was new. Indian relics were so abundant, and graves were so numerous that it is believed there must have been a great battle fought here in the ages past. Beads could be picked up here and there in considerable quantities ; hatchets, axes,* and many other curious relics, are scattered about, having been covered with the accumulating soil of ages, and which the husband- man's plow brings to the surface. Curiosity seekers have carried off many of these relics, but there is, however, now and then an instance where they are allowed to remain. More than a mile on the road northeast from Munnsville Depot, in the woods, there is an Indian's skull, lying partly exposed among the rubbish of the woods. Sev- eral individuals are now living who noticed this same skull thirty years ago. It being in an out-of-the-way place, it has remained undisturbed till the present time.
Some of the skeletons found in these burial grounds are of extraordinary size. One gentleman remarked that he took one of the large jaw bones and found it sufficiently ample to cover his own lower jaw. Another person stated that he took one of the skulls from which the base had decayed, and found he could place it with ease over the out- side of his own head.
In 1869, before the " Cardiff Giant,"} humbug had been exposed, and while the public were holding "a court of inquiry," individuals having important facts in their pos- session gave them publicity. Among others, Mr. A. Somers, of Vernon, Oneida County, published the following :
" There are rumors that the Indians have a tradition that there has lived in this country a race of tall men unlike themselves ; but said traditional rumor might or might not be true. Good
* One man has a log chain which he had manufactured from axes found in this vicinity.
+ A large statue which was dug from the bed of a swamp in Cardiff, Onondaga County. It was at first supposed to be a petrified human body of an age pre-Ad- amite, or at least of the age when giants existed. It was, however, discovered to be an ingenious work of art placed there by some mercenary individuals, an adventure in which they were successful, so far as hoaxing the public to the amount of large sums of money was concerned.
1
1
1
2 S
t
t t
t
(
733
STOCKBRIDGE.
evidence, however, exists that this tradition is entitled to some credence. About twenty-five years ago, Mr. John Dunlap (since deceased,) father of Edward Dunlap, of Oneida, informed me that when the ground was being prepared for the barn on said Edward Dunlap's farm, which he now owns, in the northeast part of the town of Stockbridge, discovery was made of a deposit of human bones of extraordinary length and size. One of the leg bones was compared with his own by resting it on the ground beside his foot, and said leg bone extended four inch- es above his knee. Mr. J. Dunlap was a man not over medium height, but allowing the framework of the body of which said leg bone was a part, to be in proportion to it, it would equal or more than equal the height of the Cardiff Giant. The narrator of the above did not speak so much of extraordinary size as length. He spoke of one skull being examined in which was an ounce leaden ball. From evidences that were quite reliable, informa- tion was drawn that said deposit of human bones were the remains of men killed in battle, many human bones having been unearthed by the plow from time to time on various parts of the farm, and quite frequently in years past war implements not found or known among the Indians, when the country was set- tled by Europeans, have been plowed up. Some of those war implements are much like those used by civilized nations a hun- dred or two hundred years ago, and some were of a much ruder pattern.
L. H. Warren, Esq., of Augusta, Oneida County, writes upon the same subject under date of Dec. 17, 1869 :
" We add another bit of the same class of information, also indicating that a gigantic race, long since extinct, preceded us here in Central New York. Twenty and more years ago there was a strip of old forest included in the farm of the late Will- iam Smith, Esq., of Stockbridge, along the east side of which was a singular formed ridge, being long north and south, only a few rods wide, and oval. On the centre of this ridge for some distance, in a nearly straight line, numerous graves were formed at an early day, each being distinctly indicated by a little mound, some of them with a forest tree standing over the center, and many others with a tree intruding more or less upon one side. On opening these mounds, those parts of the human anatomy which are said to endure the longest-the skull, jaw, teeth, and the leg and thigh bones-were found well preserved ; some- times a skeleton would be exhumed nearly entire. The rings of the trees over the graves counted from three to four hundred, indicating at least as many years since the remains were deposi- ted there. The Oneida and Stockbridge Indians, so long in
734
MADISON COUNTY.
possession of the same soil, knew nothing of the people who gave these relics sepulture. The place was visited from time to time by mercenary as well as curious people, and the mounds dug open and plundered of other contents than mortal remains, for the mere sake of the plunder, which consisted of small brass kettles, iron hatchets, and various metallic ornaments. The bodies were found to have been buried in a sitting posture, as seems to have been the custom with the Indian tribes long before the advent of white men among them ; and the most of the bones exhumed whole and perfect were found very large as compared with corresponding bones of our day. Some skulls were said to be larger than the living head of the pres- ent white race. The indications are that these were really Indi- an graves and that the people to whom they belonged lived and flourished more than four hundred years ago-before the dis- covery of America by Columbus. This statement can undoubt- edly be verified by many individuals still living in Stockbridge, and the evidences are that some time in the past, a people more formidable than we are as a race, existed in our section at least of the American domain.
" How lived, how loved, how died they?"
There is evidence in the writings of the ancient travelers, and of the Jesuits, to prove that those remains of unusually gigantic proportions, were of a race who existed in Central New York full three hundred years ago, and who were called the Neuter Nation. Charlevoix, a French writer, says, that in the year 1642, "a people larger, stronger and better formed than any other savages, and who lived south of the Huron country, were visited by the Jesuits, who preached to them the Kingdom of God. They were called the Neuter Nation, because they took no part in the wars which desolated the country, but in the end, they could not themselves escape entire destruction. To avoid the fury of the Iroquois, they finally joined them against the Hurons, but gained nothing by the union. The Iroquois, like lions that have tasted blood cannot be satisfied, destroyed indis- criminately all that came in their way, and at this day there remains no trace of the Neuter Nation." The same author tells us that the Neuter Nation was destroyed about the year 1643. La Fiteu another French writer, in his "Maeurs des Sauvages," published at Paris in 1724, writes concern-
735
STOCKBRIDGE.
ing the quarrel between the Senecas and the Neuter Nation, which he had from the authority of Father Garnier, a Jesuit Missionary.
Mr. Schoolcraft assumes that the Senecas warred upon and conquered the Neuter Nation, and came in possession of their territory, twenty-four years before the advent of La Salle,* upon the Niagara River.
Father L' Allemant, a Jesuit Missionary in 1645, wrote that :- " According to the estimate of these illustrious fathers, [Jean De Brebeuf and Joseph Marie Chaumonot,] who have been there, the Neuter Nation comprises about 12,000 souls which enables them to furnish 4,000 warriors, notwithstanding war, pestilence and famine have prevailed among them for three years in an extraordinary manner.
After all, I think that those who have heretofore ascribed such an extent and population to this nation, have under- stood by the Neuter Nation, all who live south and south- west of our Hurons, and who are truly in great numbers, and, being at first only partially known, have all been com- prised under the same name. * They were named by the French, Neuter Nation, and not without reason, for their country being the ordinary passage by land, between some of the Iroquois nations and the Hurons, who are sworn enemies, they remain at peace with both ; so that in times past the Hurons and Iroquois meeting in the same wigwam or village of that nation, were both in safety while they remained. Recently, their enmity against each other is so great, that there is no safety for either party in any place, particularly for the Hurons, for whom the Neuter Nation entertain the least good will.
There is every reason for believing that not long since, the Hurons, Iroquois and Neuter Nation, formed one people, and originally came from the same family, but have in the lapse of time, become separated from each other, more or less in distance, interests and affection, so that some
* La Salle came in 1678.
736
MADISON COUNTY.
are now enemies, others neutral, and others still live in intimate friendship and intercourse. The food and clothing of the Neuter Nation seem little different from our Hurons. They have Indian corn, beans and gourd in equal abund- ance." The writer also speaks of their fruit ; chestnuts and crab-apples such as Hurons have, only somewhat larger. They differ from the Hurons in being larger, stronger and better formed. "They also entertain a great affection for the dead, and have a greater number of fools or jugglers."
Father L' Allemant also speaks of the contest between them and the other nations, and thus adds :- "The war did not terminate but by the total destruction of the Neuter Nation."
From what is derived from these statements it is probable that this nation was once in possession of the soil occupied by the Iroquois till a late period ;* that they dwelt in great numbers in this immediate vicinity, and that in their wig- wams the fierce Huron and the relentless Iroquois met on neutral ground. The evidence is strong that one of the great battles which obliterated the race from the face of the earth, transpired upon the very ground where the white man to-day, in wonder pauses to pick up a splintered arrow, a broken pipe or a quaint ornament, and with strange sensa- tions of awe, discovers those fragmentary parts of massive human beings once clothed with flesh and blood, and en- dowed with life and intelligence.
We have lately come in posession of a tradition which was current among the Oneidas when the first white settlers came. It is related as follows :- Many generations ago the Indians dwelt near Canada and having a difficulty with the Canada Indians fled to this region with the hope that this secure re- treat would not be discovered by their persecutors. For a time they lived on East Hill, but fearing the smoke of their wigwams would betray them should their enemies come up
* One writer believes that the Kah Kwas spoken of by early travelers, are one and the same as the Neuter Nation.
737
STOCKBRIDGE.
the Mohawk Valley, they subsequently removed their fam- ilies to Stockbridge Hill. Upon East Hill they left a few men to watch the eastern country, who made a huge pile of brush, which, in case of the enemy's approach, they were to set on fire to warn the warriors out.
In time, their wary antagonists, by some curious art or instinct peculiar to themselves, tracked these Indians to their hiding place ; the great brush heap was fired, and the warriors rushed to the rescue of the few left on guard. On East Hill a fierce battle ensued in which all were destroyed. Even the women and children, who had rushed to the spot, fell victims to the fury of the Hurons. Here their bodies found interment, and probably the very graves we look upon with so much unsatisfied curiosity to-day, are the sep- ulchers of those unfortunate Indians of whom this tradi- tion tells us.
In 1812 and '13 the Tuscaroras removed here and located mostly in Oneida Valley and vicinity. The Oneidas, who were their immediate predecessors upon the soil, had then mostly congregated at Oneida Castle, when they offered the Tuscaroras a home. These Tuscaroras it is believed planted the large orchard in the southwest corner of Vernon, ad- joining Stockbridge, which was a very old orchard when the first white inhabitants came to Oneida County.
From documents preserved in the State archives we get now and then a faint glimpse of this region and ofits in- habitants. Although dim are the views we gain thereby, yet these have their charm.
We learn how the missionaries sought to educate the Tus- caroras, at the Lebanon School for Indians, in Massachu- setts, and were not generally successful on account of the homesickness of the Indian youths, who pined for their na- tive air. To obviate this difficulty a school was established at the Tuscarora village and Edward Johnson was sent on as school-master. We have only one of his letters to tell us how he fared among the natives. It is dated from Tus- U2
738
MADISON COUNTY.
carora Castle, April 10th, 1782, and is written to Sir Wil- liam Johnson, asking for pecuniary assistance, and describ- ing his trials and dangers. He speaks of two classes among the Indians, one for, and the other against religion, the lat- ter always striving to injure him, sometimes showing a dis- position to take his life. He remarks of having a class of eighteen scholars at Oneida, besides his school at Tuscarora. At this school was David Fowler, a Montauk Indian, and Samson Occum, a Mohegian both, afterwards, celebrated as preachers among their race, here and elsewhere.
There is a tradition among the Indians which refers, un- doubtedly, to Edward Johnson. It is averred that one day a company of Pagans come down upon the quiet Indian set- tlement where the white missionary lived, and captured him, hurried him into a canoe on Oneida Creek, and pushed off, telling him that he did not know how to worship God, and they would now take him to their council and teach him the true way. Presently they were discovered by the Chris- tians, who followed in pursuit along the river bank. A trial of speed ensued, in which the men on foot outstripped the canoes, and succeeded in getting into the river and heading off the boat. A struggle followed, in which the white man was rescued, though not without his life being greatly en- dangered.
The Tuscaroras became quite numerous in the Oneida Valley, and also had settlements on the Susquehanna and at Canaseraga. In 1736, their numbers were estimated by the French to be two hundred and fifty warriors, or one thous- and two hundred and fifty souls. In 1763, Sir William Johnson estimated them at one hundred and forty war- riors or seven hundred souls. During the Revolution a considerable number of them with the Oneidas joined with the colonists in the contest. After the war the Senecas granted them lands within the present limits of Niagara County to which they removed, leaving the Oneida Valley and the hill sides for the Stockbridges who had purchased a six mile tract of the Oneidas.
739
STOCKBRIDGE.
Their removal from here occured in 1784, the Stock- bridges coming on the same year. Soon, all this tract was again peopled with red men, although the Stockbridges were not, at first, so numerous as their predecessors, numbering the first year only four hundred and fifty souls. Rev. John Sergeant came with them, and as a first step toward plant- ing right institutions, formed a church. He built a meeting house which was located at what is now Cook's Corners, and which is yet standing. From its unassuming exterior one may readily judge it to be what it is, a house of antique origin.
Here, Rev. Mr. Sergeant taught the natives to perpetu- ate the name of God, and induced them to further take in- terest in such arts as benefited white men.
About 1794, they built a grist mill and saw mill, nearly on the site of the present grist mill at Cook's Corners.
The Stockbridge Indians increased in numbers, and by the time the first white settlers came to this region, their cabins dotted the whole valley of the Oneida. The productive sheltered valley was, however, tempting to white settlers, and many came in and rented farms of the Indians. By 1812 these renters began to increase in considerable numbers, particularly in the hill sections, as the Indians were loth to part with the valley lands. West Hill, along Oneida Turn- pike, was quite thickly settled before the Stockbridges made their first sale.
In 1818, the State purchased of this nation a tract com- prising 4,500 acres, for which, together with some other lands, they received $5,380, and an annuity of $282.49. West Hill was included in this sale. In 1822, in 1823, in 1825, in 1826, in 1829 and in 1830, treaties were held in which the Stockbridge Indians sold to the State other por- tions of their reservation, usually receiving a part of the sum due at the time of the treaty, the remainder to be paid subsequently under conditions agreed upon. The tracts purchased at these different sales are variously named in
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.