USA > New York > Pioneer history of the Holland Purchase of western New York : embracing some account of the ancient remains > Part 2
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Kienuka,
26
Kah-Kwahs .. 30
Kirkland's Visit to Genesee, ..
36
Kirkland's Observations on Indian
Remains, .
37
Kirkland, Rev. Samuel. 238
Kelsey, Jehiel. 383
Kemp, Burgoyne.
387
L'Allemant,
65
Letters Patent, 81
Leon, Ponce De 90
Loyola, Ignatins. 95
La Salle,
116
L'Archiveque.
131
La Hontan's Account of De Nonville's
Expedition, . . 147
La Hontan's Account of Niagara Falls, 157
La Force, (note). 210
Lindsay, . 246
Laincourt, La Rochefoucauld. 318
Land Titles,
325
337
Lewiston, .
420
Loomis, Chauncey 485
Lost Boy,
486
Le Couteulx, .
501
Lockport, Prominent Settlers 551
Lovejoy, Mrs ..
599
Mountain Ridge, 26
Missions among the Iroquois, 41
Marriage Regulations, 54
Marquette, 112
Mercer, Col .. 201
Montcalm, .. 202,
214 Murray, Gen'l. 217
Massacre of Wyoming, 274.
Mountpleasant, John. 314
Morris, Robert. 3.49
Morris Purchase. 396
Morris's Reserve, 397
McKay, John. 381
Mile Strip, 409
McKain, James. 487
Morrison, Major John. 494
Molyneux, William. 496
Mather, David.
498
Marshall, Mrs ..
510
McMahan, Col. James 511
Maxon, Joseph .
534
Methodist Church, .
547
McCall, James. 536
Mathews, James
555
Mix, Ebenezer
567
McClure, Gen
589
Names of the Iroquois Confederacy, .. 40
Naming of children, .
58
Nenter Nation, .
65
Number of Jesuit Missionaries, .
103
North West Company, .
223
Noble, Russell.
468
New Amsterdam,.
500
Niagara County,
582
Newark,
589
Original Nations of the Iroquois, 40
Order of the Jesuits,
95
Oswego, . . 175, 202
Oglethrop, Gen.
176
Onondagas, destruction of .. 281
Otto, Jacob S.
441
O'Fling, Patrick
467
Olean Point,.
506
Organization of Courts,.
521
Oil Springs,
539
Oak Orchard,
558
Orleans County,
581
Poem,
28
Power and bravery of the Iroquois, . . Periods of holding Council Fires, .. 60
43
Plymouth Company, . 81
Protestant Missionaries of New Eng- land, 99
Pallisades of Fort Niagara,. 134
Pitt, William.
203
Prideaux, Gen. 206
Pontiac,
218,
235
Palatines,.
245
Palatine Committee,
254
Parrish, Jasper.
292
Pickering, Timothy. 307
Progress of settlement westward after the Revolution,. 304
Pemberton, James. 316
Phelps and Gorliam's purchase, 325
Pultney, Sir William. 327
Phelps, Oliver.
328
Porter, Augustus. 358, 489
Porter's Narrative, 361
Pitts, Capt. Peter. 385
Pine Grove, .
446
Palmer, James R. 454
Palmer, Joseph.
466
Peters, T. C ...
547
Pioneer Settler upon the Holland Pur-
. hase and his progress, . .. 562
Phelps and Chipman's purchase,. 481
Peacock, William
569
Porter, Peter B
611
Page.
Lessee Company's Claims, (note).
INDEX. XV
Page.
Ring Fort,
29
Romans of the West,.
47
Tonti,
118
Representatives of the Iroquois, 49
Roche, Francis De La 79
Raleigh, Sir Walter
80,90
Ralle, Father.
105
Reminiscences of Fort Niagara, .
188
Rogers, Major.
218
Red Jacket and Lafayette, (note) 305
Ransom, Asa and Elias. 453
Rhea, Alexander
467
Ridge Road,
497
Rushford, .
535
Rawson, Solomon
537
Riddle, Lieut.
598
Structure of the Iroquois Confederacy, 48
Senecas and Eries,
69
Smith, John .. 81
Slowness of Colonization, 89
Schenectady,
164
Shirley, Gov. 201
Seige of Fort Niagara,
206
Stanwix, Gen'l.
205
Schlosser, Fort (note). 227
Stedman, John.
229
\'t. Leger, Gen'l. 269
Schuyler, Gen'l ..
267
Schuyler, Han Yost. 272
Sullivan's Expedition, 277
Steuben, Baron.
338
Simcoe, Governor
341
Scotch Colony.
380
Surveys, .. 404
Stevens, James
474
Sheldon, ..
482
Slayton, Joshua.
495
Salt Works,
558
State of the frontier at the beginning of the War, 585
St. John, Mrs.
599
Sortie of Fort Erie,
606
Tonawanda Island,
34
Territory of the Iroquois,
41
Treatment of Prisoners among
the
Indians, .
45
Tradition of the Senecas,
46
Ta-do-da-hoh, ..
50
Tribes of the Iroquois,
53
Canal Villages, .
653
Ancient Remains,
663
Clerks in Land Office, .
663
Black Rock, £53
Brant's Birthplace,
664
Brace, Orange
665
Battle of Buffalo,
665
Deduction of Title from Robert Morris
to Holland Company,
646
Ellicott's Monument,
659
Page.
Trails,
62
Tuscaroras,. . .
177
Treaty of 1763,
219
Treaty of Fort Stanwix, 1784, 304
Tax Roll, ..
390
Turner, Roswell
481
Turner, Otis ...
557
Topography of the Holland Purchase, 570
Unanimity of the Iroquois Council, .. 61
Utrecht, treaty of.
174
Verrazana
72
Victor,
145
Vaudreuil,
170, 216
Van Schaick,
281
Van Campen
288
Variation of the Magnetic Needle, (note, 407
Vander Kemp, John J.
429
Van Horn, Judge.
551
Washington, (note,).
200, 619
Williams, Col. Ephraim
200
Wolfe, Gen. James
205, 213
Walpole, ..
177
West, Dr. Joseph 188
Womp,
240
Willett, Col.
271, 282
Williamson, Charles
329, 417
Wayne, Gen.
344
Wilkenson, Gen. James 446
Winne, ..
418
Walthers, Frederick .. 420
Warren, Gen. William
473
Warren, Mrs.
488
Wilder, John.
479
Walsworth, James 517
Wilson, Reuben 548, 593
Whitney, Gen.
559
Wyoming County,
580
Wadsworth, Gen ..
587
Walden, Judge ... 598
Watson, Elkanah.
620
Wilkeson, Samuel
643
Yonnondio,
152
Young, John
469
INDEX TO APPENDIX AND NOTES.
Albion,.
658
xvi
INDEX.
Page.
Expeditions of Gen. Sullivan and Col. Brodhead-Cotemporary Records in
possession of D. W. Ballou, Jr .... 660 Ellicott's Ancestors, . 665
Fort Portor,
666
German Emigrants,
662
Islands in Niagara River, .
663
Indian Burial at Black Rock,
664
Joncaire's Sons,
664
Joncaire and the Oil Springs,
666
Lockport,
654
Middleport,
657
Medina, . .
658
Middlebury Academy,
664
Page.
Marshall's Communications to the
Historical Society, .
664
Ogden Pre-emption,
662
Pioneer Printers upon the Holland
Purchase,
663
Sequel of Holland Company's Invest-
ment, ...
661
Smith, Richard ..
662
Sainted Seneca Maiden,.
664
Sources of Morris's Biography,
665
Townships of the Holland Purchase,. 651
Tonawanda, .
653
Williamson, Charles
665
Warren, Gen.
665
PART FIRST.
CHAPTER I.
THE ANCIENT PRE-OCCUPANTS OF THE REGION OF WESTERN NEW-YORK.
THE local historian of almost our entire continent, finds at the threshold of the task he enters upon, difficulties and embarrass- ments. If for a starting point the first advent of civilization is chosen, a summary disposition is made of all that preceded it, unsatisfactory to author and reader. Our own race was the suc- cessor of others. Here in our own region, when the waters of the Niagara were first disturbed by a craft of European architecture -when the adventurous Frenchman would first pitch a tent upon its banks, there were "lords of the Forests and the Lakes" to be consulted .- Where stood that humble primitive "pallisade," its site grudgingly and suspiciously granted, in process of time arose strong walls-ramparts, from behind which the armies of successive nations have been arranged to repel assailants. The dense forests that for more than a century enshrouded them, unbroken by the woodman's axe, have now disappeared, or but skirt a peaceful and beautiful cultivated landscape. Civilization, improvement and industry, have made an Empire of the region that for a long period was tributary to this nucleus of early events. Cities have been founded-the Arts, Sciences taught; - Learning has its temples and its votaries; History its enlightened and carnest enquirers. And yet, with the pre-occupant lingering until even now in our midst, we have but the unsatisfactory knowledge of him and his race, which is gathered from dim and obscure tradition. That which is suited to the pages of fiction and romance, but can be incorporated in the pages of history, only with suspicion and dis- trust. The learned and the curious have from time to time enquired of their old men; they have set down in their wigwams
2
18
HISTORY OF THE
and listened to their recitals; the pages of history have been searched and compared with their imperfect revelations, to discover some faint coincidence or analogy; and yet we know nothing of the origin, and have but unsatisfactory traditions of the people we found here, and have almost dispossessed.
If their own history is obscure; if their relations of themselves, after they have gone back but little more than a century beyond the period of the first European emigration, degenerates to fable and obscure tradition; they are but poor revelators of a still greater mystery. We are surrounded by evidences that a race preceded them, farther advanced in civilization and the arts, and far more numerous. Here and there upon the brows of our hills, at the head of our ravines, are their fortifications; their locations selected with skill, adapted to refuge, subsistence and defence. The up- rooted trees of our forest, that are the growth of centuries, expose their mouldering remains; the uncovered mounds masses of their skeletons promiscuously heaped one upon the other, as if they were the gathered and hurriedly entombed of well contested fields. In our vallies, upon our hill sides, the plough and the spade discover their rude implements, adapted to war, the chase, and domestic use. All these are dumb yet eloquent chronicles of by-gone ages. We ask the red man to tell us from whence they came and whither they went? and he either amuses us with wild and extravagant traditionary legends, or acknowledges himself as ignorant as his interrogators. He and his progenitors have gazed upon these ancient relies for centuries, as we do now,-wondered and consul- ted their wise men, and yet he is unable to aid our inquiries. We invoke the aid of revelation. turn over the pages of history, trace the origin and dispersion of the races of mankind from the earliest period of the world's existence, and yet we gather only enough to form the basis of vague surmise and conjecture. The crumbling walls-the " Ruins." overgrown by the gigantic forests of Central America, are not involved in more impenetrable obscurity, than are the more humble, but equally interesting mounds and relics that abound in our own region.
We are prone to speak of ourselves as the inhabitants of a new world; and yet we are confronted with such evidences of antiquity ! We clear away the forests and speak familiarly of subduing a " virgin soil;"-and yet the plough up-turns the skulls of those whose history is lost ! We say that Columbus discovered a new
.
,
19
HOLLAND PURCHASE.
world. Why not that he helped to make two old ones acquainted with each other ?
Our advent here is but one of the changes of TIME. We are consulting dumb signs, inanimate and unintelligible witnesses, gleaning but unsatisfactory knowledge of races that have preceded us. Who in view of earth's revolutions; the developments that the young but rapidly progressive science of Geology has made; the organic remains that are found in the alluvial deposits in our vallies, deeply embedded under successive strata of rock in our mountain ranges; the impressions in our coal formations; history's emphatic teachings; fails to reflect that our own race may not be exempt from the operations of what may be regarded as general laws? Who shall say that the scholar, the antiquarian, of another far off century, may not be a Champollion deciphering the inscrip- tions upon our monuments,-or a Stevens, wandering among the ruins of our cities, to gather relics to identify our existence ?
" Since the first sun-light spread itself o'er earth ; Since Chaos gave a thousand systems birth ; Since first the morning stars together sung ; Since first this globe was on its axis hung ; Untiring CHANGE, with ever moving hand,
Has waved o'er earth its more than magic wand."*
Although not peculiar to this region, there is perhaps no portion of the United States where ancient relics are more numerous. Commencing principally near the Oswego River, they extend westwardly over all the western counties of our State, Canada West, the western Lake Region, the vallies of the Ohio and the Mississippi. Either as now, the western portion of our State had attractions and inducements to make it a favorite residence; or these people, assailed from the north and the east, made this a refuge in a war of extermination, fortified the commanding eminences, met the shock of a final issue; were subject to its adverse results. Were their habits and pursuits mixed ones, their residence was well chosen. The Forest invited to the chase; the Lakes and Rivers to local commerce, -to the use of the net and the angling rod; the soil, to agriculture. The evidences that this was one at least, of their final battlegrounds, predominate. They are the for- tifications, entrenchments, and warlike instruments. That here was a war of extermination, we may conclude, from the masses
* "Changes of Time," a Poem by B. B. French.
20
HISTORY OF THE
of human skeletons we find indiscriminately thrown together, in- dicating a common and simultaneous sepulture; from which age, infancy, sex, no condition, was exempt.
In assuming that these are the remains of a people other than the Indian race we found here, the author has the authority of DE WITT CLINTON,-a name scarcely less identified with our litera- ture, than with our achievements in internal improvements. In a discourse delivered before the New-York Historical Society in 1811, Mr. Clinton says :- "Previous to the occupation of this country by the progenitors of the present race of Indians, it was inhabited by a race of men much more populous, and much farther advanced in civilization." Indeed the abstract position may be regarded as conceded. Who they were, whence they came, and whither they went, have been themes of speculation with learned antiquarians, who have failed to arrive at any satisfactory conclu- sions. In a field, or historical department, so ably and thoroughly explored, the author would not venture opinions or theories of his own, even were it not a subject of enquiry in the main, distinct from the objects of his work. It is a topic prolific enough, of reflection, enquiry and speculation, for volumes, rather than an incidental historical chapter. And yet, it is a subject of too much local interest, to be wholly passed over. A liberal extract from the historical discourse of Mr. CLINTON, presents the matter in a concise form, and while it will serve as a valuable memento of a venerated Scholar, Statesman, and Public Benefactor; the theories and conclusions are far more consistent and reasonable than any others that have fallen under the author's observation :-
"I have seen several of these works in the western part of this state. There is a large one in the town of Onondaga, one in Pompey, and another in Manlius; one in Camillus, eight miles from Auburn; one in Scipio, six miles, another one mile, and one about half a mile from that village. Between the Seneca and Cayuga Lakes there are several-three within a few miles of each other. Near the village of Canandaigua there are three. In a word, they are scattered all over that country.
"These forts were, generally speaking, erected on the most commanding ground. The walls or breastworks were earthen. The ditches were on the exterior of works. On some of the para- pets, oak trees were to be seen, which, from the number of con- centric circles, must have been standing 150, 260, and 300 years; and there were evident indications, not only that they had sprung up since the creation of those works, but that they were at least a
21
HOLLAND PURCHASE.
second growth. The trenches were in some cases deep and wide, and in others shallow and narrow; and the breastworks varied in altitude from three to cight fect. They sometimes had one, and sometimes two entrances, as was to be inferred from there being no ditch at those places. When the works were protected by a deep ravine or a large stream of water no ditch was to be seen. The areas of these forts varied from two to six acres; and the form was generally an irregular elipsis; and in some of them frag- ments of carthenware and pulverized substances, supposed to have been originally human bones, were to be found.
"These fortifications, thus diffused over the interior of our country, have been generally considered as surpassing the skill, patience, and industry of the Indian race, and various hypotheses have been advanced to prove them of European origin.
"An American writer of no inconsiderable repute pronounced some years ago that the two forts at the confluence of the Muskin- gum and Ohio Rivers, one covering forty and the other twenty acres, were erected by Ferdinand de Soto, who landed with 1000 men in Florida in 1539, and penetrated a considerable distance into the interior of the country. He allotted the large fort for the use of the Spanish army; and after being extremely puzzled how to dis- pose of the small one in its vicinity, he at last assigned it to the swine that generally, as he says, attended the Spaniards in those days-being in his opinion very necessary, in order to prevent them from becoming estrays, and to protect them from the depredations of the Indians.
" When two ancient forts, one containing six and the other three acres, were found in Lexington in Kentucky, another theory was propounded; and it was supposed that they were erected by the descendants of the Welsh colonists who are said to have migrated under the auspices of Madoc to this country, in the twelfth century; that they formerly inhabited Kentucky; but, being attacked by the Indians, were forced to take refuge near the sources of the Missouri.
"Another suggestion has been made, that the French, in their expeditions from Canada to the Mississippi, were the authors of these works; but the most numerous are to be found in the territory of the Senecas, whose hostility to the French was such, that they were not allowed for a long time to have any footing among them .* The fort at Niagara was obtained from them by the intrigues and eloquence of Joncaire, an adopted child of the nation.t
" Lewis Dennie, a Frenchman, aged upward of seventy, and who had been settled and married among the Confederates for more than half a century, told me (1810) that, according to the traditions of the ancient Indians, these forts were erceted by an army of Spaniards, who were the first Europeans ever seen by them-the
* 1 Colden, p. 61.
t 3 Charlevoix, letter 15, p. 227.
22
HISTORY OF THE
French the next-then the Dutch-and, finally, the English; that this army first appeared at Oswego in great force; and penetrated through the interior of the country, searching for the precious metals; that they continued there two years, and went down the Ohio.
"Some of the Senecas told Mr. Kirkland, the missionary, that those in their territory were raised by their ancestors in their wars with the western Indians, three, four, or five hundred years ago. All the cantons have traditions that their ancestors came originally from the west; and the Senecas say that theirs first settled in the country of the Creeks. The carly histories mention that the Iro- ' quois first inhabited on the north side of the great lakes; that they were driven to their present territory in a war with the Algonkins or Adirondacks, from whence they expelled the Satanas. If these accounts are correct, the ancestors of the Senecas did not, in all probability, occupy their present territory at the time they allege. "I believe we may confidently pronounce that all the hypotheses which attribute those works to Europeans arc incorrect and fanciful -first, on account of the present number of the works; secondly, on account of their antiquity; having from every appearance; been erected a long time before the discovery of America; and, finally, their form and manner are totally variant from European fortifica- tions, either in ancient or modern times.
"It is equally clear that they were not the work of the Indians. Until the Senecas, who are renowned for their national vanity, had seen the attention of the Americans attracted to these erections, and had invented the fabulous account of which I have spoken, the Indians of the present day did not pretend to know anything about their origin. 'They were beyond the reach of all their traditions, and were lost in the abyss of unexplored antiquity.
" The erection of such prodigious works must have been the result of labor far beyond the patience and perseverance of our Indians; and the form and materials are entirely different from those which they are known to make. These earthen walls, it is supposed, will retain their original form much longer than those constructed with brick and stone. They have undoubtedly been greatly diminished by the washing away of the earth, the filling up of the interior, and the accumulation of fresh soil: yet their firm- ness and solidity indicate them to be the work of some remote age. Add to this, that the Indians have never practiced the mode of fortifying by intrenehments. Their villages or castles were pro- tected by palisades, which afford a sufficient defence aginst Indian weapons. When Cartier went to Hochelaga, now Montreal, in 1535, he discovered a town of the Iroquois, or Hurons, containing about fifty huts. It was encompassed with three lines of palisadoes, through which was one entrance, well secured with stakes and bars. On the inside was a rampart of timber, to which were ascents by ladders; and heaps of stones were laid in proper places to cast at
23
HOLLAND PURCHASE.
an enemy. Charlevoix and other writers agree in representing the Indian fortresses as fabricated with wood. Such, also, were the forts of Sassacus, the great chief of the Pequots; and the principal for- tress of the Narragansets was on an island in a swamp, of five or six acres of rising land: the sides were made with palisades set upright, encompassed with a hedge of a rod in thickness .*
"I have already alluded to the argument for the great antiquity of those ancient forts to be derived from the number of concentric cir- cles. On the ramparts of one of the Muskingum forts, 463 were ascertained on a tree decayed at the centre; and there are likewise . the strongest marks of a former growth of a similar size. This would make those works near a thousand years old.
"But there is another consideration which has never before been urged, and which appears to me to be not unworthy of attention. It is certainly novel, and I believe it to be founded on a basis which cannot easily be subverted.
" From the Genesee near Rochester to Lewiston on the Niagara, there is a remarkable ridge or elevation of land running almost the whole distance, which is seventy-eight miles, and in a direction from east to west. Its general altitude above the neighbouring land is thirty feet, and its width varies considerably; in some places it is not more than forty yards. Its elevation above the level of Lake Ontario is perhaps 160 feet, to which it decends with a gradual slope; and its distance from that water is between six and ten miles. This remarkable strip of land would appear as if intended by nature for the purpose of an easy communication. It is, in fact, a stupen- dous natural turnpike, descending gently on each side, and covered with gravel; and but little labour is requisite to make it the best road in the United States. When the forests between it and the lake are cleared, the prospect and scenery which will be afforded from a tour on this route to the Cataract of Niagara will surpass all competition for sublimity and beauty, variety and number.
"There is every reason to believe that this remarkable ridge was the ancient boundary of this great lake. The gravel with which it is covered was deposited there by the waters; and the stones every- where indicate by their shape the abrasion and agitation produced by that element. All along the borders of the western rivers and lakes there are small mounds or heaps of gravel of a conical form, erected by the fish for the protection of their spawn; these fishbanks are found in a state that cannot be mistaken, at the foot of the ridge, on the side towards the lake; on the opposite side none have been dis- covered. All rivers and streams which enter the lake from the south have their mouths effected with sand in a peculiar way, from the prevalence and power of the northwesterly winds. The points of the creeks which pass through this ridge correspond exactly in appearance with the entrance of the streams into the lakes. These
* Mather's Magnalia, p. 693.
24
HISTORY OF THE
facts evince beyond doubt that Lake Ontario has, perhaps, one or two thousand years ago, receded from this elevated ground. And the cause of this retreat must be ascribed to its having enlarged its former outlet, or to its imprisoned waters (aided, probably, by an carthquake)foreing a passage down the present bed of the St. Law- rence, as the Hudson did at the Highlands, and the Mohawk at Lit- tle Falls. On the south side of this great ridge, in its vicinity, and in all directions through this country, the remains of numerous forts are to be seen; but on the north side, that is, on the side towards the lake, not a single one has been discovered, although the whole ground has been carefully explored. Considering the distance to be, say seventy miles in length, and eight in breadth, and that the border of the lake is the very place that would be selected for habitation, and consequently for works of defence, on account of the facilities it would afford for subsistence, for safety, and all domestic accommodations and military purposes; and that on the south shores of Lake Erie these ancient fortresses exist in great number, there can be no doubt that these works were erected when this ridge was the southern boundary of Lake Ontario, and, consequently, that their origin must be sought in a very remote age.
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