USA > New York > Schoharie County > History of Schoharie county, and border wars of New York > Part 3
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thirty-eight years. He had nine children by that marriage, and several of them are now settled near him in Carlisle. Mrs. Brown, his present wife is, if memory serves me, twenty-two years younger than her husband. She was a Van Arnein from below the Helleberg, and has been married about twenty-six years. Her father was a captain of militia ia the continental service. Brown had no issue by his second wife. He was among the first settlers in Carlisle, and, in common with the pioneers of that day, endured his full share of privations and hardships. He was a firm patriot, and a captian of the Tryon county militia in the revolution; he received a cut in one knee with a drawing-knife during the war, from which he ever after went very lame. Subsequent to receiving the injury mentioned, he sent a messenger to Gov. G. Clinton, informing him of his lameness; at the same time signifying a wish to resign his commission. He received in return a very civil letter from His Excellency, in which he expressed much regret at his misfortune; assuring him also that his services could not be dispensed with, or his commission returned; but that if he could not walk to command his company he, (the governor,) would send him a horse that he might ride.
When Otsego county was organized, Brown was one of the commission- ers for laying out several public roads in that county; and when Schoharie county was formed, he was again called on to discharge the same duties. The commissioners associated with him in Otsego county, were Mr. Hudson and Col. Herrick, who together laid out twenty seven public roads. Mr. Brown was appointed by the governor and council of appointment, third judge of the first bench of the Schoharie county courts. He was three times a candidate for member of assembly, and once lost his election by only two votes. Considering his limited opportunities in early life, he was an intelligent man. That he never obtained a pension while many others less deserving did, was to him a source of no little mortification and grief. Judge Brown died in the fall of 1838 or 39.
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Schoharie tribe, save what has been already related; I trust the reader will indulge me in carrying it a little farther. The revo- lution in England in the latter part of the seventeenth century, which placed William and Mary upon that throne, was followed by a general war in which several nations of Europe were en- gaged. Nor were the colonies of America idle spectators of the tragedy. From Europe the grand theatre of that war, the crim- son art was brought into the wilds of North America. The Ca- nadas, then French colonies, with the Algonquin Indians within their own territory, were fiercely engaged with the British co- lonies and the Five Indian Nations then their allies, along the borders of New England and New York. The Mohegans,* who, as we have already seen, made a part of the Schoharie tribe, it is not improbable were engaged in considerable num- bers with the people of New England, and at the close of the war or soon after joined Karighondontee : as I suppose that chief to have been made prisoner in that war. The Mohegans, to whom war or the chase may have discovered the Schoharie valley, finding it to be a country sparsedly settled-equal in beauty to the banks of the Thames in Connecticut, from whence they emigrated-where game was plenty, and where, too, they would not be surrounded by the "pale faces" and amenable to their laws, may have been induced to settle there; or they may there have sought an asylum from motives not dissimilar to those which brought hither the Mohawk.
I suppose the time of Karighondontee's settlement to have been within about twenty years of the first German settlement in Schoharie ; and conclude so from the fact that the tribe was not then more formidable in numbers ; for the Tuscarorast could. not have joined it until about the time the Germans located, as they did not leave Carolina in numbers till near that period.
. A part of the Mohegan and Stockbridge Indians, migrated and joined the Five Nations before the revolution -Morse's Gazetteer.
t This tribe came from North Carolina about 1712, and joined the confede- racy of the Five Nations, themselves making the sixth. See Lewiston, where they still have a village .- Spafford's Gazetteer of N. Y.
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HISTORY OF SCHOHARIE COUNTY,
It may not perhaps be improper to say a few words respecting the Six Nations of Indians. At the time our pilgrim fathers first landed in America, a confederacy existed between the five most powerful Indian Nations then living in the state of New York. They were called by the French the Iroquois; by the English the Confederates, or Five Nations ; by the Dutch, more particu- larly those in the Mohawk valley, the Maquaas; and by them- selves, Aganuschioni, or United People. Their government in many respects was republican. At what time and for what pur- poses this confederacy was formed, is unknown. It may have originated in conquest, the weaker nations in turn being subdued by the most powerful one; or, from a natural desire to resist and conquer a common foe, that existed from the alliance of other powerful nations. Whatever may have originated this union of Indian strength, it must have existed for a great length of time; for when the Europeans came here, it is said the Confederates all spoke a similar language. The Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga and Seneca nations formed the confederacy-the Tusca- roras joining them, as has been shown, at a subsequent period. Says the historian Trumbull, " Each of the Five Nations was sub- divided into three tribes or families. They distinguished them- selves by three different ensigns, the Tortoise, the Bear, and the Wolf. Whenever the sachems, or any of the old men, signed any public paper, they traced upon it the mark of their respective fa- mily." The same author, giving Roger Williams for authority, says the word Mohawk imports cannibal, and is derived from the word moho, to eat. This is undoubtedly a popular error. The Mohawk nation took its name from the river along which it dwelt, called the Mohawk's river-as the Dutch have it, the Ma- quaas' river-which signifies, in plain English, the muskrat's ri- ver. Many ancient Indian land titles have so called the stream in English, writing it in the possessive case; and to this day muskrats are numerous along its shores, hundreds being killed in the valley at every spring freshet.
The Mohawk, which was the most eastern of the Five Nations, had in the latter part of its existence as a nation, three castles-
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AND BORDER WARS OF NEW YORK.
all of which were on the south side of the Mohawk river. The lower, or eastern castle, was at Icanderago,* afterwards called Fort Hunter, near the junction of the Mohawk and Schoharie rivers ; the central or Canajoharie castle, as then called, stood on the brink of the prominence at the east end of the present village of Fort Plain; which hill was called by the Indians Ta-ragh-jo- res, signifying hill of health ;t and the upper and most western was in the present town of Danube, not far distant from St. Johns- ville. The Caughnawagas, who resided at the Tribes' hill, oppo- site Icanderago, and the ancient village which still bears their name, were a family of the Wolf tribe of Mohawks.
When the Dutch first located at Albany, they courted the friendship of the Confederates; and by furnishing them with fire arms and ammunition to war against their northern enemies, they secured their trade and friendship-the latter proving of most es- sential service to the colony of New York, in her subsequent wars with Canada. At the beginning of the American revolution, a majority of the Confederates, owing in a great measure to the un- bounded influence of the Johnson family over them, remained true to the British interest, removed to Canada with the Johnsons and Butlers, and fought for Britain-proving a terrible scourge to our frontier settlements. Most of the Oneidas, however, and a part of the Tuscaroras, either remained neutral or sided with the Americans; rendering them, as guides and runners, very important services ; on which account lands have been re- served to them in the state. The Oneida Reservation is in Ver- non, Oneida county, and the Tuscarora in Lewiston, Niagara county, where they still have villages. Their numbers are fast
. McAuley, in his History of New York, gives this as the Indian name for the estuary of the Schoharie river.
t Peter J. Wagner, Esq., who learned the site of this castle, the name of the hill and its signification, from Col. John Frey, an early settler in the valley, who spoke the Mohawk dialect well. A territory extending from Spraker's Basin to Fort Plain, a distance of six miles, was originally ealled Canajoha- rie ; indeed the town of Canajoharie now covers nearly the same extent on the river, and the castle stood on land still within the extreme limits of that town.
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HISTORY OF SCHOHARIE COUNTY,
diminishing, and their national character departing ; and the time is probably not very distant when it will be said of this once powerful confederacy, which often led to victory its thousands of warriors-it has been, yet is not. If such a writer as Washing- ton Irving would write a history of the North American Indians, the world would owe him a debt of gratitude. Surely such a work would not detract from the merited literary fame of the au- thor of Columbus, to say nothing of the well-emptied saddle-bags of that splenetic old gentleman, Sir Deidrich Knickerbocker.
The Schoharie tribe of Indians seems to have been made up of the fractional parts, or refugees from different nations, some of which may have been compelled to flee from the council fires and hunting grounds of their fathers; and perhaps might not have been inaptly termed by other nations, a tribe of refuge, since it corresponded in some degree to the cities of refuge established by Moses, among the tribes of Israel. That Schoharie was settled if only for indefinite periods to suit the convenience of the na- tives for hunting and fishing, long before its settlement by Ka- righondontee, there can remain no doubt; for to this day are found many flint arrow-heads, and not unfrequently other relics of savage ingenuity, which the contiguity of the whites at the time he settled was calculated to obviate the necessity of their re- taining in use; for Schenectada and Albany were both within thirty miles of his location by the paths then traveled. It is true, bows and arrows were still used by some of the Indians after the Germans arrived there, but many of them possessed fire-arms and well knew how to use them long before.
It is astonishing to what perfection the aborigines of the United States had carried the manufacture of their wooden and stone in- struments for defence and domestic utility, before the Europeans found their way hither ; since history informs us that they were not the possessors of even a knife, or any instrument of iron. To look at a flint arrow-head, see the regularity of its shape, and to what delicate proportions it has been wrought from so hard and brittle a substance, it seems incredible that it could have been formed by art, without the aid of other implements than those
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AND BORDER WARS OF NEW YORK.
of stone. One would almost suppose the Indian to have been capable of softening the flinty rock by some chemical agent, previous to its being wrought into such beautiful forms. The ca- binet of the antiquarian will exhibt them of various dimensions and a variety of colors ; pipes, hatchets, wedges, and culinary vessels, all ingeniously formed from different kinds of stone, are likewise often found at the present day near the site of ancient Indian villages-giving additional evidence of the perfection to which necessity will carry certain arts.
The abundance of Indian relics formerly found there, the small- ness of the tribe and its comparatively brief existence, are facts on which I predicate an opinion, that the Mohawks and Delawares, in times of peace, dwelt in and about Schoharie. This conclusion seems not only plausible but very probable, as the former, who were called the true heads of the Confederacy, lived along the Mohawk valley, and the latter inhabited along the Delaware- the Schoharie valley being to them the natural route of inter- communication.
Some twenty-five years ago, there might have been seen nearly a mile north of the Schoharie Court House, a deep pit, in which was observed a heavy, upright, wooden frame. Its location was on a knoll, in an old apple orchard upon the farm now owned by John L. Swart : which orchard seems, at least in appearance, to merit an existence coeval with the first German settlements. For what purpose that frame was there sunk, or by whom, tradition breathes not even a whisper. Judge Brown said he remembered having seen it, but assured the author that persons then living in the vicinity much older than himself, could give no clew to its ori- gin. This artificial cavern, which is said to have been apparent- ly fifteen or twenty feet deep, by those who looked into it, was discovered at the time alluded to, by the accidental caving in of the earth near one corner of it. The opening has long since been closed, without an interior examination of the pit. Its origin must be left entirely to conjecture. It may have been an under ground place of refuge ; or, it may have served as a depository for treasures; or,-but I leave to the curious the solving of its mysteries.
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HISTORY OF SCHOHARIE COUNTY,
Indians have generally believed in the existence of a God or Great Spirit, and a future state. They worshiped a plurality of imaginary deities, such as the heavenly bodies, fire, water and the like-indeed any thing mysterious or superior to themselves. In New England, says Trumbull, although they believed in one su- preme God, or a being of infinite goodness, still they paid most of their devotion to the evil spirit, whom they called Hobom- ocko : thinking, no doubt, that if they made peace with their enemy, they were safe.
Little is known of the Schoharie tribe of Indians until the Ger- mans came into their midst. Their general customs and habits were as similar to those of neighboring tribes, as the multigener- ous nature of their own would allow. The customs of the Caro- lina, Connecticut, New York and Pennsylvania Indians, from which the Schoharie tribe was principally composed, no doubt differed as much, perhaps more, than would those of an equal number of the present white population, if collected from the same sections of the Union. The refugees from some of the tribes lived together when their numbers would admit, and they doubtless kept up in a measure their own national character. Time is required in all cases, where people from distant countries form a settlement, to sink into one general custom or habit, the diversified manners of their native land. The Mohegans settled near the mouth of the Little Schoharie kill in the present town of Middleburgh, and were living separate from the main body of the tribe, long after Conrad Weiser and his German brethren lo- cated in their immediate vicinity. One good reason for this, was the fact that they spoke a different language from the principal part of the tribe. They also had a small castle near the present residence of Henry Mattice.
It is said by historians that Indians arc invariably born white : if so, I must presume this freak of nature found its way to the Schoharie tribe. " Indian lovers generally live together on trial before marriage :" and I have no reason to believe it was other- wise here. Among the Five Nations, history assures us, polyga-
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AND BORDER WARS OF NEW YORK.
my was not customary, but the Indians in general, Solomon like, kept many concubines-and never thought they had too many women. As the Schoharie tribe was deficient in numbers, I readily conclude it placed as much dependence on women to in- crease the number of its warriors, as did any of the Six Nations. In Virginia, it is said, the Indians had altars of stone whereon they offered a sacrifice of blood, deer's suet and tobacco. Now I dare not suppose that Karighondontee or any of his tribe were equally religious ; but I may say, I have never heard that any people ever appropriated tobacco to a much better use-surely it were far better thus to burn, than masticate it : while its fumes, I do not scruple to believe, would ascend to heaven with as grate- ful odor-if neatness and health are called in question-as from the lips of that individual, whose taste is so perverted as to smoke it.
That the Schoharie Indians had many customs and habits in common with other nations, the author has obtained satisfactory proof : such as the burial of treasures with the dead-holding councils when on the eve of some momentous undertaking-cele- brating victories-face painting-(from whom some modern la- dies have possibly borrowed the disgusting habit)-scalping the fallen foe-wearing trinkets about their persons-compelling their women to do the drudgery-requiting hospitality with kind- ness, and secretly revenging insult with the tomahawk. What civilized people call society was rarely ever found among the ab- origines of the United States. Unless engaged in war or the chase, their favorite employ-they led lives of indolence and in- activity. A custom once prevalent among the Indians of New England and New York, was that of burying the dead in a sitting posture facing the east : it was also customary among the In- dians, of eastern New England, for such as had taken prison- ers, to kill as many of them as they had relatives or friends killed in battle .- See Drake's Church's life of Benjamin Church.
Besides the village of the Mohegans already located, the Scho- harie tribe had several others: one of which was on the farm formerly owned by Alexander Vrooman-on the west side of the
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HISTORY OF SCHOHARIE COUNTY,
river. Nearly opposite that, on the other side of the river, they had another ; and a distance of several miles farther up the val- ley, on the farm of the late Peter P. Snyder, a third. At each of the two former they had a small castle ; and at the latter, where they dwelt for many years after the two northern villages were abandoned, they had a burying ground. Those villages were all within four miles of the present site of the Court House. With- in the recollection of some now living, twenty-one wigwams were yet standing upon the Snyder farm ; and a few old apple trees still to be seen there, are supposed to have been planted by the natives. Near this orchard many burials are said to have been made at their place of sepulture : nor, indeed, were the manes of nature's children without companions, to share the pot- age* taken along at their death ; as a portion of the consecrated ground was set apart, for the defunct slaves of the early Germans.
The fifth, and most important village of the tribe, where dwelt Karighondontee and his principal chiefs, was in Vrooman's land : where they had a strong castle, and a place of burial. This cas- tle was built by John Becker, who received from Sir William Johnson, as agent for the British government, eighty pounds for its erection. It was built at the commencement of the French war, and constructed of hewn timber. The Indians held some four hundred acres of land around it, which they leased for sever- al years. Contiguous to this castle, along both sides of the river, could have been counted at one time seventy huts ; and relics of savage ingenuity are now often plowed up near its site. An an- gle of land, occasioned by a bend in the river, on which this cas- tle stood, was called the Wilder Hook, by the Dutch who settled near it, and signified the Indian's Corner. Among the old people in that vicinity, it is still known by the same name.
The Indians gave names to most of the mountains and promin-
* It was not only customary for the aborigines of this country to bury the implements of war, and treasures of the warrior with his body ; but also a kettle of food, such as beans or venison, to serve him on his journey to the delectable hunting grounds, whither he believed himself going. There he expected to find plenty of wild game, handsome women, and revel eternally in voluptuousness.
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ent hills in the county, among which were the following: On the west side of the river, directly opposite the brick church in Middleburgh, is a mountain rising several hundred feet, and covered with timber of stunted growth. The traveler will readily notice this, as being the highest of the surrounding peaks, which hem in the river and valley for a considerable distance on either side. This mountain the natives called Ou-con-ge-na, which sig- nified, Rattle-snake Mountain, or Mountain of Snakes. It was literally covered with rattlesnakes in former times. The next peak above on the same side of the river, which has a very bold termination towards the valley, they called O-nis-ta-gra-wa, and spoke it as though written O-nis-ta-graw-waugh! It signifi- ed the Corn Mountain. Between that and the river was the Wilder Hook: at which place the flats are well adapted to the cultivation of Indian corn. It was this consideration which gave to this mountain its significant name. The next hill above the Onistagrawa, now known as Spring Hill, the Indians called To- wok-now-ra-its signification is unknown.
At Middleburgh, two valleys meet; the one through which the Schoharie wends its way, and the other through which the Little Schoharie kill runs some distance before it empties into the former. Consequently, on the south-east side of the river as it there courses, the mountain ridge which confines the river to its limits on the eastern side, suddenly terminates, and again ap- pears east of Middleburgh village. The termination of the hill alluded to, which lies south-east of the Onistagrawa and distant perhaps two miles-was called by the Mohegans who dwelt at its base, the Mo-he-gon-ter, and signified Falling Off, or Termin- ation of the Mohegan Hill. It served not only to designate the locality, and preserve the name of the Connecticut Indians, but, like many of their words which have a twofold meaning ; it de- noted a hill terminating at a valley. A fraction of the Stock- bridge tribe of Indians, who emigrated from Massachusetts, also dwelt near the Mohegans.
I have no data by which to estimate the whole number of Schoharie Indians, except the statement in Brown's pamphlet,
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HISTORY OF SCHOHARIE COUNTY,
which sets down the number of warriors at about three hundred. Now by supposing that each of those warriors, on an average, had two women, that there were two children to each woman- that there were fifty men unfit for warriors from age or infirmity, and as many old women ; the tribe would then number two thou- sund two hundred souls. This estimate may be thought too large ; but if so, the reader has the same right and means to lessen its numbers, that I have to increase them. And whether he is a Yankee or not, he may guess at their numbers with impunity ; although it is hardly a supposable case, still there may have been here and there a warrior to whom Cupid had not revealed Ovid's art; there are few of nature's children who are strangers to love.
The coat of arms, or ensign of the Schoharie tribe, was a turtle and a snake. Figures representing those animals, they were careful to place on all deeds or writings-which were to prove an evidence of faith. Nor were they confined to placing them on paper or parchment; for whenever they deeded land, trees serving as bounds or land-marks, bore the characteristic emblem of the tribe.
Brown enumerates the five following foot-paths as being in use by the Schoharie Indians, when the whites first settled among them. The first he mentions began at Catskill, and followed the kill of that name up to its source at the Vlaie, from whence it continued down to Middleburgh. Over a part of this path now runs the Loonenburg turnpike. The second began at Albany and led over the Helleberg, down Foxes creek valley, and terminated in Schoharie. By this path the Germans traveled, who first set- tled Schoharie. The old road, as now called, from thence to Albany, follows very nearly the route of that path. The third commenced at Garlock's dorf, and led to Schenectada through Duanesburgh. By this path, the Dutch who first settled in Vroo- man's Land, proceeded from Schenectada. This path was much used for several years by the Schoharie Germans, who went to that ancient city with grists upon their backs to get milling done ! The fourth led from Kneiskern's dorf down the Schoharie to Sloansville, from thence through the towns of Charleston and
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AND BORDER WARS OF NEW YORK.
Glen to Cadaughrity and ended at Fort Hunter. This path was much traveled by the natives, who went from the Mohawk to the Susquehanna valley. The fifth led from Kneiskern's dorf north-west to Canajoharie. This path, says Brown, was much traveled by the early Germans, who often went to visit relatives at the German Flats. It continued in full use, he adds, until af- ter the year 1762, at which time Sir William Johnson reviewed a brigade of militia, of which he was general-near the upper Indian castle of the Mohawks. Besides those enumerated, the Indians must have had other paths, perhaps of less notoriety, leading in different directions from Schoharie. One traversed not a little by the Indian hunter, led directly up the Schoharie to near its source, and from thence to the Susquehanna and Genesee valleys. While another of some importance to the hunter, must have led up the Cobelskill to it source, and from thence to Otsego lake.
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