USA > New York > Saratoga County > History of Saratoga County, New York : with historical notes on its various towns > Part 4
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Next above the Potsdam and Calciferous sand-rocks there appears stretching across the country a narrow belt of the Trenton period.
First in order, overlapping the Calciferous sand-rock or abutting against it, come the Birdseye, Black River and Trenton limestones. The Chazy limestone seems to run into the others of the group before it reaches the Hudson river. on the borders of the county.
In this period the sea-weeds are the only fossil plants. Two species are found, the Buthotriphis gracilis and B. succulosus.
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The seas of the Trenton period were densely populated with animal life. With the Trenton period first appear species of undoubted polyps, the true coral animals of the sea.
The different species of the lower forms of animal life shown in the fossils of the lime- stone period are too numerous to name in this article.
Covering all the southeastern part of the county of Saratoga, as the Laurentian rocks cover the northwestern, lie the strata of the slates and shales of the Hudson river group. Between these wide beds of slate and shale and the equally wide beds of the Laurentian formation run the narrow strips of the Pots- dam Calciferous sandstones and Trenton lime- stones.
The life, both animal and vegetable, of the Hudson river period, is quite identical with the life of the Trenton period, none of which, the reader will bear in mind, rises higher in the scale of being than the sub-kingdom of Articulates.
IV. - CENOZOIC ERA -AGE OF MAMMALS.
The next period that attracts our attention in studying the geology of Saratoga is the Post-tertiary period, which ushers in the pres- ent state of things on the earth's surface.
After the highest strata of the Hudson group of rocks had been deposited in the primordial ocean's bed, there came the upheaval of the land above the waters in the region of the Hudson valley, leaving these rocks high and dry. But countless centuries of time inter- vened before the age of man upon the earth.
The Post-tertiary period in America includes two epochs :
I. The Glacial, or that of drift.
2. The Champlain.
Next follows (3) the Terrace epoch, in the course of which the peculiar Post-tertiary life ends, and the age of man opens upon the world.
The Drift period is well represented in all the central and western parts of Saratoga county.
The term Drift includes gravel, sand, stones, boulders, forming low hills, and covering even the mountain tops in many places.
The Drift is derived from the rocks to the north of where its beds occur, and is supposed to have been transported by the ice fields of the glacial period. In many places the sur- face rocks of the limestones are worn smooth and marked by the scratches and grooves caused doubtless by the passage over them of heavy beds of ice filled with stones, sand and gravel.
The Champlain and Terrace epochs are well represented in Saratoga county by the exten- sive beds of what are called "Saratoga Sands," and the clay hills of the river valley, which it would seem were deposited along the receding shore of a later ocean that had again covered the land during the Post-tertiary period. It is quite evident that the long, narrow bed of Saratoga sands, which runs across the county from northeast to southwest, was once but the shifting sands of the ocean's beach, when its waters washed the foot-hills of the Adiron- dacks in the Post-tertiary world.
V. - THE ORIGIN OF THE MINERAL SPRINGS.
The principal mineral springs of Saratoga county occur mostly in the villages of Saratoga Springs and Ballston Spa.
The village of Saratoga Springs, where the greater number of the springs occur, is built directly over and extends for its whole length along on both sides of the dividing lines be: tween the two great mountain systems above described -the Laurentian-Adirondack to the north and west, and the Appalachian to the east and south.
This dividing line between the two moun- tain systems, over and along which the village is built, is there characterized by a deep fissure or rift in the underlying rock strata, known to science as a fault.
This fault was doubtless caused by the deep subsidence of the Appalachian strata along the division line, consequent upon the mighty
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OF SARATOGA COUNTY.
upheaval to the eastward when the mountains arose from the Silurian sea.
This profound subsidence of the Appalach- ian strata along the division line sank the bottom waters of the Silurian sea, which cov- ered the land with all its accumulated marine riches into a vast abyss, which now underlies the village to the eastward of the rock fissure.
Out of this reservoir of old marine treasures, the gasses there engendered still force the waters, which bring these marine riches with them, up through the deep fissures in the rifted rocks into the light of day, thus form- ing the natural mineral springs of Saratoga, which rise to the earth's surface in Saratoga county.
A volume could be written upon the ex- tremely interesting geology of Saratoga county of which but a mere outline is here given.
CHAPTER IV.
INDIAN OCCUPANCY-INDIAN NATIONS AND CHARACTERISTICS.
I .- INDIAN KAYADERROSSERA.
The region comprising what is now the county of Saratoga was mostly covered in the old-time by the hunting-ground called Kay-ad- er-ros-se-ra. This hunting-ground was of large extent, covering a part of the southern and all of the central and northern parts of Saratoga county, as well as parts of the adjoining coun- ties on the north and west, and containing more than a million acres. It lay wholly within the "line of property" of the Mohawk nation, and was their favorite hunting-ground. Of a truth Kay-ad-er-ros-se-ra was the Indian hunter's paradise.
Its situation was unrivalled. Its densely wooded primeval forests spread in airy undu- lations widely over the sunny slopes of the northern and western mountain ranges, ending
and bordering on the east and south along the banks of two noble rivers-the Hudson and the Mohawk -in the angle above their junc- tion. In its softer and more genial aspects it everywhere presented a striking contrast to the wild and rugged Adirondack wilderness adjoining it on the north, which the Indians called Couch-sach-ra-ge-meaning the " Dis- mal Wilderness " -- and which was one of the four great hunting grounds of the Five Na- tions, collectively, while Kay-ad-er-ros-se-ra belonged exclusively to the Mohawks.
Its woods swarmed with wild beasts and birds. Its waters were crowded to repletion with fish. Within its deepest shades there bubbled up from the bosom of their Mother Earth the mysterious "Medicine Springs," which these forest children fondly believed were the special gift of the Great Spirit - the " Master of Breath."
So in his wildest dreams the rude imagina -. tion of the Indian could picture, even in the spirit world, no fairer land, no happier hunt- ing-ground than Kay-ad-er-ros-se-ra.
II .- INDIAN SARATOGA.
The old-time Indian hunting-ground of Sa- ragh-to-ga was of much less extent than Kay- ad-er-ros-se-ra. It lay along the banks of the Hudson river, on both sides of the stream. It was about twelve miles in length, and ran back from the river into the woods only about six miles on either side. That part of it which lay on the west side of the Hudson, in Sara- toga county, extended no farther west than within a mile of Saratoga Lake. On the north it reached up as far as a point opposite the Batten Kill, whose Indian name was Di-on-on- de-ho-wa, thus including what is now the village of Schuylerville. On the south it reached as far as the mouth of the Anthony's Kill, thus including a part of what is now the village of Mechanicsville.
It will be seen by the above descriptions that the Saratoga of the old time did not in-
3
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BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY
clude within its boundaries any of the mineral springs now bearing its name, for in the old time they were far within the forest depths of the adjoining hunting-ground -- Kayaderros- sera.
But it included the old historic Saratoga of colonial days (now Schuylerville), and it fin- ally gave its name to the county as well as to the famous mineral springs, while Kay- aderrossera is no longer of territorial signifi- cance.
Morgan, in his "League of the Iroquois," says that the signification of the Indian name Saratoga is lost. Dr. Steele, in his " Analy- sis " (page 13), says the name means "The Hillside Country," the old hunting-ground being situated where the bordering hills crowd down to the river's bank on either side. But Dr. Hough, in his "History of St. Lawrence and Franklin Counties " (page 189), says that an Indian whose name was O-ron-hia-tek-ha, at Caughnawaga, on the St. Lawrence, who well understood the Mohawk language, told him that Saratoga was from the Indian Sa-ra- ta-ke, which means " A place where the track of the heel may be seen," in allusion to a place near by, where depressions like foot-prints may be seen in the rocks.
This last authority has great weight, as the mission Indians of Caughnawaga, on the St. Lawrence, were mostly of the Mohawk nation, and of course were acquainted with what re- lated to Indian Saratoga.
Then, again, Judge Scott, in his Historical Address at Ballston Spa, July 4, 1877, says it means "the place of the swift water," in al- lusion to the rapids in the river near by.
In these two hunting-grounds of Kayaderros- sera and Saratoga "the paradise of the sports- man," the Mohawks and their nearer sister tribes of the Iroquois -the Oneidas and Onon- dagas, and sometimes the farther off Cayugas and Senecas -- built their hunting lodges every summer around the mineral springs, to which the wild animals were attracted in immense numbers by the saline properties of the waters.
They encamped also on the banks of the lakes and streams, in search of fish. The shad ran up the east side of the Hudson and lay in vast schools in the falls and rapids above and below Fort Edward. The herring ran up the west side of the river and up Fish Creek (giving rise to its name) into Lake Saratoga. The sturgeon frequented the sprouts of the Mo- hawk river and sunned themselves in the broad basin below Cohoes Falls.
Thus it will be seen that wild Indian Kay- aderrossera and Saratoga were as famous to the red man as modern Saratoga is to the white man.
III .- TWO FAMILIES OF NATIONS.
The Indians who inhabited the Atlantic slope and the basin of the great lakes were divided into two great families of nations. These two great families were known as the Iroquois and the Algonquin families. They differed radically in both language and lineage, as well as in many of their manners and cus- toms.
The principal nations of the Iroquois family were grouped around the lower lakes. The Five Nations of central New York-the Iroquois proper-were the leading people of this family. To the south of the Five Nations, on the banks of the Susquehanna, were the Anadastes, and to the westward, along the southern shore of Lake Erie, were the Eries. To the north of Lake Erie lay the Neutral Nation and the Tobacco Nation, while the Hurons dwelt along the eastern shore of the lake that still bears their name. There was also a branch of the Iroquois family in the Carolinas -the Tusca- roras - who united with the Five Nations in 1715, after which the confederacy was known as the Six Nations.
Surrounding these few bands of Iroquois were the much more numerous tribes of the Algonquin speech and lineage, to which be- longed the Horicons and the Mohicans and other tribes of river Indians who dwelt along the Hudson, and the Pequots, Wampanoags,
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OF SARATOGA COUNTY.
Naragansetts, and all the other New England tribes.
Northward of the Iroquois were the Nipis- sings, La Petite Nation, and La Nation de l'Isle and the other tribes of the Ottawa. Along the valley of the St. Lawrence were the Algonquins proper -called Adirondacks by the Iroquois - Abenaquis, the Montagnais, and other roving bands around and beyond the Saguenay.
Thus were the Indian nations situated with respect to each other when Samuel de Cham- plain, in the early summer of 1609, entered the territory of New York from the north, and Henry Hudson, in the beginning of the com- ing autumn, approached it from the south.
The valley of the Upper Hudson was the original home of the Mohicans. They were driven from it by the Mohawks before the settlement of the country by the whites. The old hunting-ground of Saratoga originally be- longed to them, and they joined in the deed of the same in 1683. They went first down the river into southern Rensselaer county. Then in 1620 they removed to eastern Con- necticut, where Uncas and his band were the friends of the whites.
IV. - THE IROQUOIS, OR FIVE NATIONS.
Among all the Indians of the New World there were none so politic and intelligent, none so fierce and brave, none with so many germs of heroic virtue mingled with their savage views, as the true Iroquois -the people of the Five Nations. They were a terror to all the surrounding tribes, whether of their own or of Algonquin speech. In 1650 they overrun the country of the Hurons; in 1651 they destroyed the Neutral Nation ; in 1652 they exterminated the Eries; in 1672 they conquered the Andastes and reduced them to the most abject submis- sion. They followed the war-path, and their war-cry was heard westward to the Mississippi and southward to the great gulf. The New England nations as well as the river tribes
along the Hudson, whose warriors trembled at the name of Mohawk, all paid them tribute. The poor Montagnais on the far-off Saguenay would start from their midnight sleep and run terror-stricken from their wigwams into the forest when dreaming of the dreadful Iroquois. They were truly the conquerors of the New World, and were justly styled the "Romans of the West." "My pen," wrote the Jesuit Father Ragueneau, in 1650, in his "Relations des Hurons," " My pen has no ink black enough to describe the fury of the Iroquois."
They dwelt in palisaded villages upon the fertile banks of the lakes and streams that watered their country. Their villages were surrounded with rudely-cultivated fields, in which they raised an abundance of corn, beans, squashes, and tobacco. Their houses were built within the protecting circle of palisades, and, like all the tribes of the Iroquois family, were made long and narrow. They were not more than twelve or fifteen feet in width, but often exceeded a hundred and fifty feet in length. They were made of two parallel rows of poles stuck upright in the ground, suffi- ciently wide apart at the bottom to form the floor, and bent together at the top to form the roof, the whole being nicely covered with strips of peeled bark. At each end of the wigwam was a strip of bark or bear skin hung loosely for a door. Within they built their fires at intervals along the center of the floor, the smoke passing out through openings in the top, which served as well to let in the light. In every house were many fires and many families, every family having its own fire within the space allotted to it.
From this custom of having many fires and many families strung through a long and nar- row house comes the signification of their name for the league, the Ho-de-no-sau-nee-ga, "the people of the long house." They likened their confederacy of Five Nations, stretched along a narrow valley for more than two hun- dred miles through central New York, to one of their long wigwams. The Mohawks guarded
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BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY
the eastern door of this long house while the Senecas kept watch at the western door. Be- tween these doors of their country dwelt the Oneidas, Onondagas and Cayugas, each nation around its own fire, while the great central council fire was always kept brightly burning in the country of the Onondagas. Thus they were, in fact as well as in name, the people of the long house.
Below are given, in the order of their rank therein, the Indian names of the several na- tions of the league :
Mohawks-Ga-ne-a-ga-o-na. " People pos- sessors of the flint."
Onondagas-Onan-do-ga-o-no. "People of the hills."
Senecas - Mun-da-wa-o-no. " Great hill people."
Oneidas-Ona-yote-ka-o-no. "Granite peo- ple."
Cayugas- Gwe-u-gweh-o-no. "People at the mucky land."
Tuscaroras - Dus-ga-o-weh-o-no. "Shirt- wearing people."
V. - GOVERNMENT OF THE IROQUOIS.
It may of a truth be said that this wild In- dian league of the old savage wilderness, if it did not suggest, in many respects it formed the model after which was fashioned our more perfect union of many States in one republic.
The government of this "League of the Iroquois " was vested in a general council com- posed of fifty hereditary sachems, but the order of the succession was always in- the female and never in the male line. That is to say, when a sachem died his successor was chosen from his mother's descendants, and never from his own children. The new sachem must be either the brother of the old one or a son of his sister -so in all cases the status of the children followed the mother, and never the father. Each nation was divided into eight clans or tribes, which bore the following names:
Wolf, Deer,
Bear, Snipe,
Beaver, Heron,
Turtle, Hawk.
The spirit of the animal or bird after which the clan was named, called its To-tem, was the guardian spirit of the clan, and every member used its figure in his signature as his device.
It was the rule among them that no two of the same clan could intermarry. If the hus- band belonged to the clan of the Wolf, the wife must belong to the clan of the Bear, the Deer, and so on, while the children belonged to the clan of the mother, and never to the father's clan. In this manner their relation- ship always interlocked, and the people of the whole league were forever joined in the closest ties of consanguinity.
The name of each sachemship was perma- nent. It was the name of the office and de- scended with it to each successor. When a sachem died the people of the league selected the most competent brave from among those of his family, who by right inherited the title, and the one so chosen was raised in common council to the high honor, and dropping his own received the name of the sachemship. There were two sachemships, however, that after the death of the first sachems of the name, forever remained held vacant.
There was another class of chiefs of inferior rank to the sachem, among whom were the war chiefs whose title was not hereditary, but who were chosen on account of their bravery and personal prowess, their achievements on the war-path or their eloquence in council. Among this latter class were found the most renowned warriors and orators of the league, such as King Hendrick and Red Jacket, but they could never rise to the rank of sachem.
The whole body of sachems formed the council league. Their authority was entirely civil and confined to the affairs of peace. But after all, the power of the sachems and chiefs was advisory rather than mandatory. Every savage to a great extent followed the dictates of his own wild will, controlled only by the customs of his people and a public sentiment that ran through their whole system of affairs, which was as inflexible as iron.
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OF SARATOGA COUNTY.
VI. - RELIGION OF THE INDIANS.
The Indian was a believer in spirits. Every object in nature was spiritualized by him, while over all things in dim and shadowy majesty ruled the one Great Spirit, the supreme object of his fear and adoration, whom he called Ha-wen-ne-ga, "The Father of Breath." There was likewise an Evil Spirit, born at the same time with the Great Spirit, which he called Ha-ne-go-ate-ga, "The Evil-minded." There was also He-no, "The Thunderer," and Ga-oh, "The Spirit of the Winds." Every mountain, lake, stream, tree, shrub, flower, stone and fountain had its own spirit.
Among his objects of worship were the Three Sister Spirits, the Spirit of Corn, the Spirit of Beans, and the Spirit of Squashes. This triad was called De-oha-ko, meaning " Our Life," "Our Supporters." Upon the festival days, sacred to the Three Sisters, they were represented by three beautiful maidens, each one gaily dressed in the leaves of the plant whose spirit she represented.
The Ho-de-no-sau-nee observed five great feasts every year. There was the New Year's Festival or the "Sacrifice of the White Dog," which was celebrated with great pomp for seven days in February. Then, as soon as the snow began to melt, and the sap to flow from the maple trees, and the sugar boiling began in earnest, came the maple feast. The next great festival was the A-yant wa-ta or Planting festival, which came on as soon as the leaves on the butternut were as big as squirrels' ears, indicating the time for planting corn. The third feast was Ha-nan- da-go, the Feast of the Strawberries, which came in the "moon of roses." The fourth was Ah-duke-wa-o, the feast of the "Green Corn Moon," and the last was the Harvest Festival, observed at the gathering of the crops in autumn.
Dwelling forever among the wildest scenes of nature, himself nature's own wildest child, believing in an unseen world of spirits in
perpetual play around him on every hand, his soul was filled with unutterable awe. The flight or cry of a bird, the humming of a bee, the crawling of an insect, the turning of a leaf, the whisper of a breeze, were to him mystic signals of good or evil import by which he was guided .in the most important affairs of life.
The mysterious realm about him he did not attempt to unravel, but bowed submissively before it with what crude ideas he had of religion and worship. To his mind every- thing, whether animate or inanimate, in the whole domain of nature is immortal. In the happy hunting-grounds of the dead the shades of the hunters will follow the shades of ani- mals with the shades of bows and arrows among the shades of trees and rocks in the shades of immortal forests, or glide in the shades of bark canoes over shadowy lakes and streams and carry them around the shades of dashing waterfalls.
In dreams he placed the most implicit con- fidence. They were to him revelations from the spirit world, guiding him to the places where his game lurked and to the haunts of his enemies. He invoked their aid upon all occasions. They taught him how to cure the sick and revealed to him his guardian spirit, as well as the secrets of his good or evil destiny.
The Iroquois were extremely social in their daily intercourse. When not engaged in their almost continual public feasting and dancing they spent the most of their time in their neigh- bor's wigwams playing games of chance, of which they were extremely fond, or in chat- ting, joking, and rudely bantering each other. On such occasions their witticisms and jokes were often more sharp than delicate, as they were "echoed by the shrill laugh of young squaws untaught to blush."
In times of distress and danger they were always prompt to aid each other. Were a family without shelter, the men of the village at once built them a wigwam. When a young
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BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY
squaw was married the older ones, each gath- ering a load of sticks in the forest, carried her wood enough for a year. In their intercourse with each other, as well as with strangers, their code of courtesy was exact and rigid to the last degree.
But the Indian is still the untamed child of nature. "He will not," says Parkman, "learn the arts of civilization, and he and his forest must perish together. The stern, unchang- ing features of his mind excite our admiration from their very immutability; and we look with deep interest on the fate of this irre- claimable son of the wilderness, the child who will not be weaned from the breast of his rug- ged mother. The imprisoned lion in the show- man's cage differs not more widely from the lord of the desert than the beggarly frequenter of frontier garrisons and dram shops differs from the proud denizens of the woods. It is in his native wilds alone that the Indian must be seen and studied."
Such were the occupants of the old-time hunting-grounds of Kayaderrossera and Sara- toga.
CHAPTER V.
THE EXTINGUISHMENT OF INDIAN TITLE TO LANDS IN SARATOGA COUNTY -- INDIAN DEEDS - PROVINCIAL PAT- ENTS.
I .- THE PATENT OF KAYADERROSSERA.
For almost a hundred years after the settle- ment of Albany the old Indian hunting-ground called Kayaderrossera lay an unbroken wilder- ness, its southern border but ten miles away, occupied only by its aboriginal inhabitants and its beasts of prey and the chase.
In the meantime the citizens of Albany had grown rich by trading in furs with the near and remote Indian tribes, and the citizens of New York had become affluent through com- mercial adventures in the East and West In- dian seas.
It was then at the close of the seventeenth and the beginning of the eighteenth century that they began to look eagerly about them for opportunities of indulging their inherited European passion for large landed estates.
The Abarians were content with taking the smaller hunting-grounds of Saratoga, and others lying along the banks of the Hudson and the Mohawk, but the New Yorkers coveted and laid their hands on nothing less than the whole of Kayaderrossera.
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