USA > New York > Onondaga County > Past and present of Syracuse and Onondaga County, New York : from prehistoric times to the beginning of 1908 > Part 14
USA > New York > Onondaga County > Syracuse > Past and present of Syracuse and Onondaga County, New York : from prehistoric times to the beginning of 1908 > Part 14
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At Philadelphia in 1706 an Indian showed a belt of twenty-one rows "which Belt, he said, was a pledge of peace formerly delivered by the Ononda- goe Indiaus, one of the Five Nations to the Nantikokes, when they made the said Nantikokes tributaries," which was twenty-six years before. the next year they took twenty belts and some strings to Onondaga. As they went the Conestogas told them not to be afraid. "Yon will find the King of the Five - Nations a very great one, and as good a king as any among the Indians." Nearly half a century later the Onondagas removed the Nanticokes to what is
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now Broome county, where the name still occurs. They had the singular practice of exhumming and carrying with them their dead when they formed a new settlement.
In 1704 Baron de Longueuil succeeded Maricourt at Onondaga, he having died. The resuming of Jesuit operations alarmed the New York council, their political influence being feared and in April, 1703, Major Direk Wessel had been ordered to go to Onondaga and report what was going on. Nothing farther was said about this for several years.
French soldiers often deserted and one of these was killed by an Onon- daga in 1708. The French asked redress; the Onondaga replied that they had declared such men already dead, and they had to yield. An Englishman spent some months that year among the Onondagas, Cayugas and Senecas. When he proposed a fort at Gaskonchiagne or Oswego Falls, and another at the head of Lake Thiroguen or Oneida, the Onondagas refused the first request and referred the other to the Oneidas.
Father d'Heu also wrote from Onondaga, May 24, 1708, that two Ononda- gas had gone to the Gannaonans in Virginia, they having had an ambuscade near Onondaga the year before. They carried several belts. They were also troubled over the pretended settlement of Ottawas at Fort Frontenac and Niagara, and the French posts at Niagara and La Galette. All this would be to their disadvantage in case of war. The English blacksmith had returned to Onondaga, but the French party hid the anvil in the priest's house, eventually giving it up. They wanted a French smith. which he thought "would be very important for the good of religion and the French colony."
That year the Indian Montour family attracted attention. The father was a Frenchman who had a son and two daughters by an Indian wife. By Vau- dreuil's order Joncaire killed him in 1721. In 1708 the son brought a party of the Far Indians to trade at Albany, who had come eight Inindred miles. There may have been other families of the name but this seems the notable one.
The active Joncaire could not be everywhere and in 1709 while he was with the Senecas. Abraham Schuyler came to Onondaga to sing the war song. Ile gave the hatchet to the Indians, induced Father Lamberville to report at Montreal. and then persuaded Father de Mareuil that his life was in danger. and took him to Albany. Some Onondagas then pillaged and burned his home and chapel. Joneaire heard of this and returned to the Seneeas, where Father d'Heu then was. De la Chauviniere, however. came to Onondaga the next year and was well received. De Longueuil and Joncaire also made proposals there to the Onondagas and Oneidas in July, threatening to destroy them if they took the English side. Then the Onondagas wished for an English fort. and also that strong drink might be forbidden in their castles. It was destroy- ing them.
De Lonqueuil, Joncaire and others were at Onondaga in April. 1711. to build a trading house, bringing with them six hundred pounds in presents. mostly ammunition. Colonel Schuyler was sent there at once with six men. The Onondagas had given the French a lot in the midst of their castle, and they began work April 19. Sehuyler reached there May 17, but the French had
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stopped work and gone to Kaneenda, at the lake. A council was held next day and Schuyler obtained leave to destroy the block house, which was done the following day, with the lumber that had been sawed for a chapel. The block- house was twenty-four and one-half by eighteen feet, covered with boards and nailed. In the French party were twenty-four officers and men.
Five hundred Iroquois came to Albany, August 24, receiving a salute of five guns as they passed the fort, after the French custom. In the council each nation sat by itself. Lieutenant General Nicholson had brought a set of pie- tures of the four chiefs who had lately visited England, which were in glazed frames, and were to be hung up in the council house at Onondaga. Queen Anne had ordered forts to be built and missionaries sent. She also sent two communion sets, one of which was for the Onondagas, and is now in St. Peter's church, Albany. As there was then no Onondaga chapel the full gift may not have been made, but the following articles were given the Mohawks:
"One Communion Table cloth, two damask napkins, one carpet for the Communion Table, one Altar cloth, one pulpit cloth, one large cushion with tassels for the pulpit, one small ditto for the desk, one Holland surplice, one large Bible, two common prayer books, one wholly for the clerk, one book of Homilies, one large silver salver, one ditto small, two large silver flagons, one silver dish, one silver chalice with four of her Majesty's Imperial Arms painted on canvass, one for the chapel and three for so many castles. Beside which his Grace of Cantebury for their edification and comfort has sent by the Sorling : two large octavo Bibles very finely bound for the use of the two chapels amongst the Mohawks and Onondagas, with two painted tables containing the Lord's Prayer, the Creed and Ten Commandments, at more than twenty guineas expense. To which the Society have added a table of their Seal. finely painted in proper colors to be fixed likewise in the chapel of the Mohawks, with some few sermons in quarto and octavo to be distributed in the Province: all which as per advice of his Excellency Governor Hunter, were safely ar- rived last fall with Mr. Andrews, who, 'tis hoped will not be long without a neighbour and colleague among the Onondagas; for whose chappel when built the like furniture is prepared and sent over by order of her Majesty and power is given to General Nicholson and Governor Hunter to forward a missionary thither, if need be, till the Society shall make other provision."
The above is from the Abstract, of the Society for the Propagation of the gospel, 1712-13. St. Peter's church has added a cup in facsimile. The in- seription on the several pieces of the Onondaga set is "The Gift of Her Majesty Ann, by the Grace of God, of Great Britain, France and Ireland, and of Her Plantations in North America, Queen, to her Indian chapel of the Onon- dawgus." Each of the tlagons is twelve and one-half inches high, with a basal diameter of seven and one-fourth inches. The eup is four and one-half inches across the top; the large paten eight and seven-eighths and the smaller five and three-fourth inches, while the alms basin is just a foot in diameter. Each piece has centrally the British arms without supporters, A being on one side instead and R on the other. The inscription follows the circular outline of the
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alms basin and patens, being on the underside of the smaller. On the flagons and chalice it is in horizontal lines. No date appears on these.
In 1711 a contract was made to build these forts and chapels, all to be completed by July 1, 1713. When the Mohawk work was done the contractors were to "Repair to Onondaga and there Build Another ffort, Chapel and block houses of the same demensions and under the same restrictions and directions as ye aforesaid fort, chaple and block houses in the Mohawks Country, except- ing only that ye chaplee and block houses in Onondage may be singled upon laths instead of boards, and ye ffort, chaple and block houses may be made of such logs as may be conveniently got there, Provided they are good and suffi- eient for that service and the flores to be laid wth splet wood, in ye place and stead of boards."
The specifications referred to were that the fort was to be "One hundred and fifty foot square the curtains made with loggs of a foot square laid oue upon another and pined together till they reach the height of twelve foot. At each corner a block house twenty-four foot square two storyes high, duble loop holes, the rofe to be covered with boards and then shingled, the undermost part or ground room to be nine foot high the upper eight foot, both well floured with boards, the logs of ye block houses to be nine inches square and bedsteads and benches in each B (1) oek house for twenty men and in each block house a chemney towards ye inside of ye said ffort with scaffolds five foot wide along Each cortaiu from one block house to another. And also a chaple in the middle of the ffort of twenty-four foot square, one storye ten foot high with a garret - over it well coverd wth boards & singled & well flowrd. A seller of fifteen foot square under it, covered with loggs and then with earth, the whole ehaple to be well floured."
The Onondaga fort was to be near the town and water, but was not built. At this eouneil the Five Nations wished the war to continue, and De- kanissora said they did not fight like the whites: "When we have war against any nation we endeavor to destroy them utterly." The queen's arms in their eastles would not defend them ; they wanted powder and ball.
In 1712 Joncaire was at Onondaga, and Vaudreuil sent Longueuil and Chanvignerie there, as Peter Sehuyler had been there twice and had brought Madame Montonr and her husband to remove jealousies created by the French. Lawrence Claese went with them. The Delawares also brought thirty-two belts to Onondaga, having been subject to the Iroquois since abont 1650. Some of the Senecas went to Montreal, but the other four nations continued their meetings at Onondaga, and built war canoes. The peace of Utrecht eame and the hatchet was taken out of their hands.
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CHAPTER XI.
FROM THE PEACE OF UTRECHT TO THE WAR OF 1754.
The most important event of 1714 was the settling of the Tuscaroras be- tween the Onondagas and Oneidas, and their reception as the sixth nation of the league, though not on a level with the rest. There were idle reports the next year of an intended French fort at Onondaga, the French still contin- uing their intrigues there. These troubled those in power only as they affected trade, private profit eclipsing publie good.
Longueuil was at Onondaga in 1716, and thought a fort was necessary at Niagara. The next year the Onondaga speaker asked Longueuil and his son, Joneaire, and Chanvignerie to come to their villages freely, they having adopted the last two. In 1721 Longueuil was adopted by the Onondagas, and was much of the time with them. June 20 John Durant, a French chaplain, met Joneaire at Oswego, returning from Onondaga. Ile said he had beaten the bush and De Longueuil would take the birds. Next day Durant met the latter and Chanvignerie above Oswego Falls, and he said four nations had given him good words. These falls had the same name as those on the Genessee river, causing some confusion of places.
At a conucil in 1724 Governor Burnet said that he had kept some young men two years in the Seneca country, with a smith, and heard they had a good house. Others were willing to live among the Onondagas, and would build a house at the month of their river. This led to a fuller examination of Wood creek and the Oneida carrying place. Coklen's papers, that year. helped the founding of Oswego, which Burnet preferred to Oneida lake. Dekanis- sora was still speaker, and was to advise with Burnet on all important matters. Charlevoix described the mouth of Oswego river as be passed in 1721.
In 1725 the Canadian Iroquois sent word that if the Five Nations al- lowed the English to build a fort at Oswego they would make war on them. but they thought better of this. Longueuil met one hundred Englishmen at Oswego Falls, who made him show his pass, on which he told the Iroquois they were no longer masters of their own country. At their town the Onon- dagas told him they had agreed to the English going to Gaskonchiagne, or Oswego Falls, six leagues from the lake. Rules were made about trading there, which were soon transferred to Oswego.
De Vaudreuil had before said "that the English had proposed a settle- ment at the mouth of the River Choneguen. on the banks of Lake Ontario, a territory which had always been considered to belong to France." This mist be prevented, for it meant the loss of Niagara and all the western Indian trade. but if the Onondagas approved of the plan, it could not be stopped. He went to Onondaga in October about this, and got permission to build a stone house at Niagara, and place two vessels on Lake Ontario.
There are some references to Oswego before it was built. De Longueuil. July 26, 1726. ordered his son not to return to Niagara "until the English and
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Dutch have retired from Choueguen, where they have passed the entire sum- mer, to the number of three hundred men, and to have their canoes plundered should he meet any of them trading in the lake." Ilis son replied in September "that there are no more Englishmen at Chouegnen, along the lake, nor in the river." In May, 1726. the Duke of Newcastle wrote to Horatio Walpole (unele of Horace), on the demand of the French governor, for the demolition of a fort built at Oswego by Governor Burnet. Meantime the French proposed erecting a fort there themselves.
The Five Nations had signed a trust deed of their beaver lands in 1701. and now the Onondagas, Cayugas and Seneeas confirmed this, adding another trust deed to the English of their residence lands on the south side of Lakes Erie and Ontario, sixty miles inland. The Mohawks and Oneidas were not parties to this, having no lands along these lakes. Sadegeenaghtie, the Onon- daga chief, who signed the first deed, signed this also.
Governor Burnet got three hundred pounds from New York for building the Oswego house, and commeneed it in the spring of 1727. Being advised that the French might interfere he sent sixty soldiers there, besides the workmen. Two hundred traders were on the spot. The permanent garrison would be an officer and twenty mnen. The walls were four feet thick, and it was finished in August. The French demanded its abandonment and destruction, but the matter was referred to the two crowns.
When Chauvignerie went on an embassy to Onondaga in 1728, then in Onondaga valley, the sachems met him on the lake three leagues from Oswego, and told him he must fire the first salute and lower his flag when he passed the fort. He refused and asked whose land it was. The Onondagas said it belonged to them. He landed, pitched his tent, but refused to enter the fort or strike his flag, which he kept up day and night while he stayed. No salutes were exchanged. and he would not allow an Onondaga to raise a British flag over his canoe. Half a league from Onondaga the chiefs met him, and he marched in under the French flag, placing it over Ononwaragon's cabin. He employed some sachems to bewail that chief's death, that of his nephew and of the Onondagas generally.
Too much rum was carried to the Indians, and in 1730 Jacob Brower. a trader was murdered by an Onondaga at Oswego Falls. The Indians made satisfaction, and testified that he was duly interred. The names of many officers at Oswego might be given, but this is not required here.
The lands belonging to the Onondagas and Cayugas in Pennsylvania now eansed frequent visits there. Sonachahregi and six other Onondagas were at Philadelphia in 1734, and the next year Togohagliski, an Onondaga chief, was sent to persuade the Shawnees to return from the south. Ile was killed. Con- rad Weiser. the Pennsylvania interpreter, was sent on a perilous trip to Onon- daga in 1737, nearly perishing in the snow. He was a favorite with the In- dians, who called him Tarachwagon. A few years later, in a Pennsylvania conneil, Canassatego said they had adopted him and "divided him into two equal parts; one we kept ourselves, and one we left for you. He has had a great deal of trouble with us, wore out his shoes in our messages, and dirtied
ミノル
NEW COURT HOUSE, SYRACUSE.
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his clothes by being among us, so that he is as nasty as an Indian." They therefore gave him money to buy new clothes, and wished the governor to do the same.
This Onondaga chief was both able and witty, and Dr. Franklin told a good story of one of his interviews with Conrad Weiser. The chief said:
.
"Conrad, you have lived among the white people, and know something of their customs. I have sometimes been at Albany, and have observed that once in seven days they shut up their shops, and assemble all in the great house; tell me what it is for; what do they do there?" "They meet there," says Conrad, "to hear and learn good things." "I do not doubt," says the Indian, "that they tell you so; they have told me the same, but I doubt the truth of what they say, and I will tell you my reasons. I went lately to Albany to sell my skins and to buy blankets, knives, powder, rum, ete. You know I used generally to deal with Hans Hanson, but I was a little inclined this time to try some other merchants. However, I called first upon IIans, and asked him what he would pay for beaver. He said he could not give more than four shillings a pound; but, said he, I can not talk on business now, this is the day when we meet together to learn good things, and I am going to the meeting. So I thought to myself, since I can not do any business to-day, I may as well go to the meeting, too; so I went with him. There stood up a man in black, and began to talk to the people very angrily. I did not under- stand what he said, but pereeiving that he looked much at me and Hanson, I imagined he was angry at seeing me there; so I went out, sat down near the house, struck fire, and lighted my pipe, waiting till the meeting should break up. I thought, too, that the man had mentioned something of beaver, and I suspected it might be the subject of their meeting. So, when they came out, I accosted the merchant. Well, Hans, says I, I hope you have agreed to give more than four shillings a pound. No, says he, I can not give so much. Hean not give more than three shillings and sixpence. I then spoke to several other dealers, but they all sang the same song, three and sixpenee-three and six- pence. This made it elear to me that my suspicion was right, and that what- ever they pretended of meeting to learn good things, the real purpose was to consult how to cheat Indians in the price of beaver."
This chief was thus described in 1744: "He was a tall, well-made man. had a very full chest and brawny limbs. He had a manly countenance, mixed with a good-natured smile. He was about sixty years of age, very active. strong, and had a surprising liveliness in his speech." IIe died in 1750.
The Onondagas and Senecas went to Canada in July, 1742, and Onon- waragon, grand sachem of Onondaga, spoke. The Senecas said the Onondagas took down the French flag when they reached Oswego on their way home, and hoisted the English. The Senecas kept up the French flag, shrewdly adding that they had thus worn it out, and wanted another.
The Onondagas had moved westerly some years before, and were now on the east side of Onondaga creek. In 1743 John Bartram and Lewis Evans came there with Conrad Weiser, who was on publie business. They visited Oswego, where Bartram ent his name on the wall of the fort.
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June 22, 1744, there arrived at Lancaster, Penn., two hundred and fifty- two Iroquois to attend a council, of which Witham Marshe gave a full and picturesque account. Some of the squaws and children were on horseback. The men brought their guns, bows and arrows and tomahawks. "They marched in very good order, with Canassatego, one of the Onondaga chiefs, at their head, who, when he came near to the courthouse wherein we were dining sung in the Indian language a song, inviting us to a renewal of all treaties heretofore made, or about to be made. (Materials were supplied for huts.) They will not, on any occasion whatsoever, dwell or stay in houses built . by white people. They place their eabins according to the rank each nation of them holds in their grand council. The Onondagoes nation were placed on the right hand and upper end."
Beside Canassatego and others, Tocanuntie, or the Black Prince of the Onondagas, was a prominent speaker. Marshe described him as a "tall. thin man; old, and not as well featured as Canassatego. I believe he may be near the same age with him. He is one of the greatest warriors that ever the Five Nations produced. and has been a great war captain for many years past." He died while on his way home from Philadelphia in 1749.
War between France and England began again early in 1744, and caused a great fright at Oswego. Governor Clinton said to the Assembly August 20:
"It must be inferred that the province has suffered considerable damage this summer by the precipitate retreat of our Indian traders from Oswego, upon notice of the French war; most of them, you will find, left the place im- mediately upon the alarm, sold what they could of their goods to those few of their brethren that had sense, conrage and resolution to stay behind, and brought the remainder back with them. . . . How mean an opinion must the savages entertain of us when they find our people so easily frightened, as it were, with a shadow."
The treaty of Aix-la-chapelle, October 18, 1744, restored peace for a con- siderable time, and the Indian trade again flourished. Much of it had its way along the Oneida river, and the Onondagas close by watched and profited by this. Oswego could undersell Niagara, and became an important center.
With a new embassy to Onondaga in 1745, confided to Conrad Weiser, came the first Moravians here, Bishop Spangenberg being one of the party. Their visits will be treated separately, being barely noticed in the general history. Of Weiser's aets at this time a full account has been preserved. The route was that of 1743; up the Susquehanna to Owego, and then across the country by way of the Tully lakes to Onondaga. The party left Weiser's May 19 and reached Onondaga June 6. The two journals are quite distinct. The Iroquois would not go to Williamburg, Virginia. It was too far; but they would go to Philadelphia about the Catawba war.
The next year Colonel William Johnson became prominent among the Mohawks, his influence rapidly extending. He reported that a great conneil was to be held at Onondaga in the winter, and was ordered to attend. The French were not idle. Chauviniere went to Onondaga in 1747, to condole those who had died of smallpox. He tried to make peace by a great belt seven
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feet long and six inches broad, but was told the Iroquois had taken up the English hatchet. All along the rivers Canadian scalping parties interfered with supplies for Oswego. In 1748 Johnson got six months' provisions through, holding a council at Onondaga in the spring. It was the hardest trip he ever had taken, but his kind reception made full amends. The Indians, however. were angry and disgusted because of imbecile measures.
In that year Father Picquet chose a spot for a fort and new mission on the . site of Ogdensburg, at the mouth of the Oswegatchie river, where he built a fort and storehouse in 1749. Many Onondagas went there to live, and it be- came a thorn in the side of New York, the military features being more promi- nent than the religious. M. DuQuesne said that Picquet was worth more than ten regiments, and others, that to him the French were indebted for the de- struction of all the English forts. Encouraged by this the French asked leave to build a fort at Onondaga.
In a letter dated September 30, 1750, Weiser spoke of the discouraging prospects at Onondaga, where he then was: .
"Our friend Canassatego was buried to-day before I came to Onondaga. and Soleonwanaghly, our other good friend, died some time before. He that is on the head of affairs now is a professed Roman Catholic, and altogether de- voted to the French. The French priests have made a hundred converts of the Onondagas, that is to say. men, women and children, and they are all . clothed, and walk in the finest clothes, dressed with silver and gold, and I believe that the English interest among the Six Nations can be of no considera- tion any more."
They spoke contemptuously of the English. and especially of the New York colonists. When Weiser arrived there that year, he said: "I took my lodging, as usual. with Tohashwachdiony, a house which stood now by itself. the rest of the Onondagas having moved over the creek, some a mile, two miles, three miles off. Saristquouh came to see me; so did Hatachsogu, two chiefs." His host was the French partisan of whom he had spoken, and of whom Johnson soon made a strong friend. Weiser was allowed to condole Canassatego, and thus do business, though this was unusual so soon after death.
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