USA > New York > Pioneer history of the Holland Purchase of western New York : embracing some account of the ancient remains > Part 4
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69
The following are among some reflections of Professor DEWEY of Rochester, who has reviewed Fort Hill at Le Roy, and fur- nished Mr. SCHOOLCRAFT with his observations. They may aid the reader, who is an antiquarian, in his speculations :-
"The forest has been removed. Not a tree remains on the quad- rangle, and only a few on the edge of the ravine on the west. By cultivating the land, the trench is nearly filled in some places, though the line of it is clearly seen. On the north side the trench is con- siderable, and where the bridge crosses it, is three or four feet deep at the sides of the road. It will take only a few years more to obliterate it entirely, as not even a stump remains to mark out its line.
From this view it may be seen, or inferred,
1. That a real trench bounded three sides of the quadrangle. On the south side there was not found any trace of trench, palisadoes, blocks, &c.
2. It was formed long before the whites came into the country. The large trees on the ground and in the trench, carry us back to . an early era.
3. The workers must have had some convenient tools for exca- vation.
4. The direction of the sides may have had some reference to the four cardinal points, though the situation of the ravines naturally marked out the lines.
5. It cannot have been designed merely to catch wild animals, to be driven into it from the south. The oblique line down to the spring is opposed to this supposition, as well as the insufficiency of such a trench to confine the animals of the forest.
6. The same reasons render it improbable that the quadrangle was designed to confine and protect domestic animals.
7. It was probably a sort of fortified place. There might have been a defence on the south side by a stockade, or some similar means which might have entirely disappeared.
By what people was this work done?
The articles found in the burying ground here, offer no certain reply. The axes, chisels, &c. found on the Indian grounds in this part of the state, were evidently made of the green stone or trap of New England, like those found on the Connecticut river in Mas-
3
34
HISTORY OF THE
sachusetts. The pipe of limestone might be from that part of the country. The pipes seem to belong to different eras.
1. The limestone pipe indicates the work of the savage or aborigines.
2. The third indicates the age of French influence over the Indians. An intelligent French gentleman says such clay pipes are frequent among the town population in parts of France.
3. The second, and most curious, seems to indicate an earlier age and people.
The beads found at Fort Hill are long and coarse, made of baked clay, and may have had the same origin as the third pipe.
Fort Hill cannot have been formed by the French as one of their posts to aid in the destruction of the English colony of New-York ; if the French had made Fort Hill a post as early as 1660 or 185 years ago, and then deserted it, the trees could not have grown to the size of the forest generally in 1810, or in 150 years afterwards. The white settlements had extended only twelve miles west of Avon in 1798, and some years after, (1800,) Fort Hill was covered with a dense forest. A chestnut tree, cut down in 1842, at Rochester, showed 254 concentric circles of wood, and must have been more than 200 years old in 1800. So opposed is the notion that this was a deserted French post.
Must we not refer Fort Hill to that race which peopled this country before the Indians who raised so many monuments greatly exceeding the power of the Indians, and who lived at a remote era."
Upon the upper end of Tonawanda Island, in the Niagara River, near the dwelling house of the late STEPHEN WHITE, in full view of the village of Tonawanda, and the Buffalo and Niagara Falls Rail Road, is an ancient mound, the elevation of which within the recol- lection of the early settlers, was at least ten feet. It is now from six to eight feet, -circular-twenty-five feet diameter at the base. In the centre, a deep excavation has been made, at different periods. in search of relics. A large number of human bones have been taken from it, -arrows, beads, hatchets, &c. The mound occupies a prominent position in the pleasure grounds laid out by Mr. White. How distinctly are different ages marked upon this spot! Here are the mouldering remains of a primitive race-a race whose highest achievments in the arts, was the fashioning from flint the rude wea- pons of war and the chase, the pipe and hatchet of stone; and here upon the other hand, is a mansion presenting good specimens
NOTE .- The title of this chapter would confine these notices to Holland Purchase. The author has gone a short distance beyond his bounds, to include a well defined specimen of these ancient works.
3.
HOLLAND PURCHASE.
of modern architecture. Commerce has brought the materials for its chimney pieces from the quarries of Italy, and skill and genius have chiseled and given to them a mirror-like polish. Here in the midst of relics of another age, and of occupants of whom we know nothing beyond these evidences of their existence, are choice fruits, ornamental shrubbery, and graveled walks.
Directly opposite this mound upon the point formed by the junc- tion of Tonawanda creek with the Niagara River there would seem to have been an ancient armory, and upon no small scale. There is intermingled with at least an acre of earth, chips of flint, refuse pieces, and imperfect arrows that were broken in process of manu- facture. In the early cultivation of the ground, the plough would occasionally strike spots where these chips and pieces of arrows predominated over the natural soil.
On the north side of the Little Buffalo Creek, in the town of Lancaster, Erie County, there is an ancient work upon a bluff, about thirty feet above the level of the stream. A circular embankment encloses an acre. Thirty years ago this embankment was nearly breast high to a man of ordinary height. There were five gate-ways distinctly marked. A pine tree of the largest class in our forest, grew directly in one of the gate-ways. It was adjudged, (at the period named,) by practical lumbermen, to be FIVE HUNDRED YEARS OLD. Nearly opposite, a small stream puts into the Little Buffalo. Upon the point formed by the junction of the two streams, a mound extends across from one to the other, as if to enclose or fortify the point. In modern military practice, strong fortifications are invested sometimes by setting an army down before them and throwing up breast-works. May not this smaller work bear a similar relation to the larger one ?
About one and a half miles west of Shelby Centre, Orleans county, is an ancient work. A broad ditch encloses in a form nearly circular, about three acres of land. The ditch is at this day, well defined several feet deep. Adjoining the spot on the south, is a swamp about one mile in width by two in length. This swamp was once, doubtless, if not a lake, an impassable morass. From the interior of the enclosure made by the ditch, there is what appears to have been, a passage way on the side next to the swamp. No other breach occurs in the entire circuit of the embankment. There are accumulated within and near this fort large piles of small stones
36
HISTORY OF THE
of a size convenient to be thrown by the hand, or with a sling .* Ar- row heads of flint are found in and near the enclosure, in great abundance, stone axes, &c. Trees of four hundred years growth stand upon the embankment, and underneath them have been found, earthen ware, pieces of plates or dishes, wrought with skill, pre- senting ornaments in relief, of various patterns. Some skeletons almost entire have been exhumed ; many of giant size, not less than seven to eight feet in length. The skulls are large and well devel- oped in the anterior lohe, broad between the cars, and flattened in the coronal region. Half a mile west of the fort is a sand hill. Here a large number of human skeletons have been exhumed, in a perfect state. Great numbers appeared to have been buried in the same grave. Many of the skulls appear to have been broken in with clubs or stones. "This," says S. M. BURROUGHS, EsQ, of Medina, ( to whom the author is indebted for the description, ) "was doubt- less the spot where a great battle had been fought. Were not these people a branch of the Aztecs? The earthen ware found here seems to indicate a knowledge of the arts known to that once powerful nation."
The REV. SAMUEL KIRKLAND} Visited and described several of these remains west of the Genesee River. in the year 1788. At that early period, before they had been disturbed by the antiqua- rian, the plough or the harrow, they must have been much more per- fect, and better defined than now. Mr. KIRKLAND says in his journal, that after leaving " Kanawageas." } he travelled twenty-six miles and encamped for the night at a place called "Joaki," | on the
* These piles of small stone are frequently spoken of in connection with these works, by those who saw them at an early period of white settlement.
t Mr. K. was the pioneer Protestant Missionary among the Iroquois. The Rev. Dr. Wheelock, of Lebanon, Conn., who was his early tutor, in one of his letters to the Countess of Huntingdon, in 1765, says : - " A young Englishman, whom I sent last fall to winter with the numerous and savage tribes of the Senecas. in order to learn their language, and fit hin for a mission among them ; where no missionary has hitherto dared to venture. This bold adventure of his, which under all the circumstances of it is the most extraordinary of the kind I have ever known, has been attended with abun- dant evidence of a divine blessing." Connected as was the subject of this eulogy with other branches of our local history, he will be frequently referred to in the course of this work.
# Avon,
|| Batavia, or the " Great Bend of the Tonnewanta," as it was uniformly called by the early travellers on the trail from Tioga Point to Fort Niagara and Canada. [J' See account of Indian Trails. Batavia was favored with several Indian names. In Sen- eca, the one used by Mr K. would be Racoon.
37
HOLLAND PURCHASE.
river "Tonawanda." Six miles from the place of encampment, he rode to the "open fields."* Here he "walked out about half a mile with one of the Seneca chiefs to view" the remains which he thus describes : -
" This place is called by the Senecas Tegatainasghque, which imports a double fortified town, or a town with a fort at each end. Here are the vestiges of two forts; the one contains about four acres of ground; the other, distant from this about two miles, and situated at the other extremity of the ancient town, encloses twice that quantity. The ditch around the former (which I particularly examined) is about five or six feet deep. A small stream of living water, with a high bank, circumscribed nearly one third of the en- closed ground. There were traces of six gates, or avenues, around the ditch, and a dug-way near the works to the water. The ground on the opposite side of the water, was in some places nearly as high as that on which they built the fort, which might make it nessessary for this covered way to the water. A considerable num- ber of large, thrifty oaks have grown up within the enclosed grounds, both in and upon the ditch; some of them at least, appeared to be two hundred years old or more. The ground is of a hard gravelly kind, intermixed with loam, and more plentifully at the brow of the hill. In some places, at the bottom of the ditch, I could run my cane a foot or more into the ground; so that probably the ditch was much deeper in its original state than it appears to be now. Near the northern fortification, which is situated on high ground, are the remains of a funeral pile. The earth is raised about six feet above the common surface, and betwixt twenty and thirty feet in diameter. From the best information I can get of the Indian Historians, these Forts were made previous to the Senecas being admitted into the confederacy of the Mohawks, Onondagas, Oneidas and Cayugas, and when the former were at war with the Mississaugas and other Indians around the great lakes. This must have been near three hundred years ago, if not more, by many concurring accounts which I have obtained from different Indians of several different tribes. Indian tradition says also that these works were raised, and a famous battle fought here, in the pure Indian style and with Indian weapons, long before their knowledge and use of fire arms or any knowledge of the Europeans. These nations at that time used, in fighting, bows and arrows, the spear or javelin, pointed with bone, and the
* The openings, as they are termed, in the towns of Elba and Alabama ; lying on either side of the Batavia and Lockport road, but chiefly, between that road and the Tonawanda Creek. The antiquarian who goes in search of the ancient Tegatain- asghque, will be likely to divide his attention between old and new things. It was a part of Tonawanda Indian Reservation. About twenty-five years since, it was sold to the Ogden Company ; and the ancient " open fields " now present a broad expanse of wheat fields, interspersed with farin buildings that give evidence of the elements of wealth that have been found in the soil.
38
HISTORY OF THE
war club or death mall. When the former were expended, they came into close engagement in using the latter. Their warrior's dress or coat of mail for this method of fighting, was a short jacket made of willow sticks, or moon wood, and laced tight around the body; the head covered with a cap of the same kind, but commonly worn double for the better security of that part against a stroke from the war club. In the great battle fought at this place, between the Senecas and Western Indian's, some affirm their ancestors have told them there were eight hundred of their enemies slain; others include the killed on both sides to make that number. All their historians agree in this, that the battle was fought here, where the heaps of slain are buried, before the arrival of the Europeans; some say three, some say four, others five ages ago; they reckon an age one hundred winters or colds. I would further remark upon this subject that there are vestiges of ancient fortified towns in various parts, throughout the extensive territory of the Six Nations. I find also by constant enquiry, that a tradition prevails among the Indians in general, that all Indians came from the west. I have wished for an opportunity to pursue this inquiry with the more remote tribes of Indians, to satisfy myself, at least, if it be their universal opinion.
"On the south side of Lake Erie, are a series of old fortifications, from Cattaraugus Creek to the Pennsylvania line, a distance of fifty miles. Some are from two to four miles apart, others half a mile only. Some contain five acres. The walls or breast-works are of earth, and are generally on grounds where there are appearances of creeks having flowed into the lake, or where there was a bay. Further south there is said to be another chain parallel with the first, about equi-distant from the lake.
" These remains of art, may be viewed as connecting links of a great chain, which extends beyond the confines of our state, and becomes more magnificent and curious as we recede from the northern lakes, pass through Ohio into the great valley of the Mis- sissippi, thence to the gulf of Mexico through Texas into New Mexico and South America. In this vast range of more than three thousand miles, these monuments of ancient skill gradually become more remarkable for their number, magnitude and interesting variety, until we are lost in admiration and astonishment, to find, as Baron Humboldt informs us, in a world which we call new, ancient institutions, religious ideas, and forms of edifices, similar to those of Asia, which there seem to go back to the dawn of civilization."
"Over the great secondary region of the Ohio, are the ruins of what once were forts, cemeteries, temples, altars, camps, towns,
NOTE .- The traditions given to Mr. Kirkland at so early a period, are added to his account of the old Forts, to be taken in connection with adverse theories and conclusions upon the same point. As has before been observed, many of the Senecas who have since been consulted, do not pretend to any satisfactory knowledge upon the subjects.
39
HOLLAND PURCHASE.
villages, race-grounds and other places of amusement, habitations of chieftains, videttes, watch-towers and monuments."
"It is," says Mr. Atwater,* "nothing but one vast cemetery of the beings of past ages. Man and his works, the mammoth, tropi- cal animals, the cassia tree and other tropical plants, are here repo- sing together in the same formation. By what catastrophe they were overwhelmed and buried in the same strata it would be impossible to say, unless it was that of the general deluge."
"In the valley of the Mississippi, the monuments of buried nations are unsurpassed in magnitude and melancholy grandeur by any in North America. Here cities have been traced similar to those of Ancient Mexico, once containing hundreds of thousands of souls. Here are to be seen thousands of tumuli, some an hundred feet high, others many hundred feet in circumference, the places of their worship, their sepulchre, and perhaps of their defence. Similar mounds are scattered throughout the continent, from the shores of the Pacific into the interior of our State as far as Black River and from the Lakes to South America." t
So much for all we can see or know of our ancient predecessors. The whole subject is but incidental to the main purposes of local history. The reader who wishes to pursue it farther will be assisted in his enquiries by a perusal of Mr. Schoolcraft's Notes on the Iroquois. But the mystery of this pre-occupancy is far from being satisfactorily explained. It is an interesting, fruitful source of the- ories, enquiry and speculation.
* Atwater's Antiquities of the West.
tYates and Moulton's History of New York.
.
40
HISTORY OF THE
CHAPTER II.
CHE IROQUOIS, OR FIVE NATIONS.
Emerging from a region of doubt and conjecture, we arrive at another branch of local history, replete with interest - less obscure, - though upon its threshold we feel the want of reliable data, the lights that guide us in tracing the history of those who have writ- ten records.
The Seneca Indians were our immediate predecessors - the pre-occupants from whom the title of the Holland Purchase was derived. They were the Fifth Nation of a CONFEDERACY, termed by themselves Mingoes, as inferred by Mr. Clinton, Ho-de-no-sau- nee,t as inferred by other writers ; the Confederates, by the Eng- lish ; the Maquaws, by the Dutch; the Massowamacs, by the Southern Indians ; the IROQUOIS, by the French ; by which last name they are now usually designated. in speaking or writing of the distinct branches of the Aborigines of the United States.
The original Confederates were the Mohawks, having their prin- cipal abode upon that river ; the Oneidas, upon the southern shore of Oneida Lake ; the Cayugas near Cayuga Lake ; the Senecas, upon Seneca Lake and the Genesee River. Those localities were their principal seats, or the places of their Council fires. They may be said generally, to have occupied in detached towns and vil- lages the whole of this State, from the Hudson to the Niagara River, now embraced in the counties of Schenectady, Schoharie, Montgomery, Fulton, Herkimer, Oneida, Madison, Onondaga, Cay- uga, Seneca, Wayne, Ontario, Livingston, Genesee, Wyoming, Monroe, Orleans, Niagara, Erie, Chautauque, Cattaragus, Alle-
* The " Five " Nations, at the period of our earliest knowledge of them -the " Six " Nations after they had adopted the Tuscaroras, in 1712.
t " The People of the Long House," from the circumstance that they likened their political structure to a long tenement or dwelling.
41
HOLLAND PURCHASE.
ghany, Steuben and Yates. A narrower limit of their dwelling places, the author is aware, has been usually designated ; but in reference to the period of the first European advent among them- 1678- it is to be inferred that their habitations were thus extended, not only from the traces of their dwellings, and the relics of their rude cultivation of the soil, but from the records of the early Jesuit Missionaries. Their missions were at different periods, extended from the Hudson to the Niagara River, and each one of them would seem to have had several villages in its vicinity. Each of the Five Nations undoubtedly had a principal seat. They were as indicated by their names. And each had its tributary villages, extended as has been assumed. It was plainly a coming together from separate localities - a gathering of clansmen - to resist the invasion of De Nonville; and it is to be inferred from the journal of Father Hen- nepin that there were villages of the "Iroquois Senecas" in the neighborhood of La Salle's ship yard on the Niagara River, and the primitive garrison or "palisade," at its mouth. The Missionaries who went out from the "place of ship building," and from the "Fort - at Niagara " from time to time, upon apparently short excursions, visited different villages. The Jesuit Missions upon the Mohawk, and at Onondaga would seem to have been visited, each by the inhabitants of several villages. The author rejects the conclusion, that the Tonawanda, and the Buffalo Indian villages, were not founded until after the expedition of General SULLIVAN ; and con- cludes that these and other settlements of the Iroquois existed prior to the European advent, west of the Genesee River. While some of the Seneca Indians assume the first position, others, equally intelligent, and as well instructed in their traditions, do not pretend to thus limit the period of settlement at these points.
Their actual dominion had a far wider range. The Five Nations claimed "all the land not sold to the English, from the mouth of Sorrel River, on the south side of Lakes Erie and Ontario, on both sides of the Ohio till it falls into the Mississippi ; and on the north side of these Lakes that whole territory between the Ottawa River and Lake Huron, and even beyond the straits between that and Lake Erie." * And in another place the same author says : - " When the Dutch began the settlement of this country, all the Indians on Long Island, and the northern shores of the Sound, on
*Smith's History of New York.
42
HISTORY OF THE
the banks of the Connecticut, Hudson, Delaware, and Susquehannah Rivers, were in subjection to the Five Nations, and acknowledged it by paying tribute. The French historians of Canada, both ancient and modern, agree that the more Northern Indians, were driven before the superior martial prowess of the Confederates." " The Ho-de-no-sau-nee, occupied our precise territory, and their council fires burned continually from the Hudson to the Niagara. Our old forests have rung with their war shouts, and been enli- vened with their festivals of peace. Their feathered bands, their eloquence, their deeds of valor have had their time and place. In their progressive course, they had stretched around the half of our republic, and rendered their name a terror nearly from ocean to ocean ; when the advent of the Saxon race arrested their career, and prepared the way for the destruction of the Long House, and the final extinguishment of the Council Fires of the Confederacy .* " At one period we hear the sound of their war cry along the Straits of the St. Mary's, and at the foot of Lake Superior. At another, under the walls of Quebec, where they finally defeated the Hurons, under the eyes of the French. They put out the fires of the Gah-kwas and Eries. They eradicated the Susquehannocks. They placed the Lenapes, the Nanticokes, and the Munsees under the yoke of subjection. They put the Metoacks and Manhattans under tribute. They spread the terror of their arms over all New England. They traversed the whole length of the Appalachian Chain and descended like the enraged yagisho and megalonyx, on the Cherokees and Catawbas. SMITH encountered their warriors in the settlement of Virginia, and LA SALLE on the discovery of the Illinois." t "The immediate dominion of the Iroquois -when the Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas, and Senecas, were first visited by the trader, the Missionary, or the war parties of the French- stretched, as we have seen, from the borders of Vermont to Western New York, from the Lakes to the head waters of the Ohio, the Susquehannah and the Delaware. The number of their warriors was declared by the French in 1660, to have been two thousand two hundred ; and in 1677, an English agent sent on pur- pose to ascertain their strength, confirmed the precision of the state- ment. Their geographical position made them umpires in the
* Letters on the Iroquois, by Shenandoah in American Review.
+ Schoolcraft.
43
HOLLAND PURCHASE.
contest of the French for dominion in the west. Besides their political importance was increased by their conquests. Not only did they claim some supremacy in Northern New England as far as the Kennebeck, and to the south as far as New Haven, and were acknowledged as absolute lords over the conquered Lenappe, - the peninsula of Upper Canada was their hunting field by right of war; they had exterminated the Eries and Andastes, both tribes of their own family, the one dwelling on the south-eastern banks of lake Erie, the other on the head waters of the Ohio; they had triumphantly invaded the tribes of the west as far as Illinois ; their warriors had reached the soil of Kentucky and Western Virginia ; and England, to whose alliance they steadily inclined, availed itself of their treaties for the cession of territories, to encroach even on the Empire of France in America." *
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.