1687. History of Livingston County, New York, with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers

Front matter

WH SAMSON. |

Qass

Book o III

Contents

CHAPTER I.— Aborigines — Pre-Historic Period — face The Iroquois Confederacy — Its (Origin and Organization — Tribal Relations — Secret of Its Power — Its Superiority and Supremacy — Its Degeneracy !i

CHAPTER II.— Indian Habits and Usages— Indian Dwellings— Indian Towns — Social Usages — Dress and Habits — Law of Marriages — Experimental Marriages — Family Discipline — Amusements— Dances and Feasts — The War Dance— Stated Annual Festivals — Medical Feasts — Dreams — "Wizards and Witches — Burials — Wampum — Hospitality 20

CHAPTER III.— Early Discoveries— European Competition in the Western Continent — Settlements and Conflicting Claims of the Dutch, French and English — The English Supercede the Dutch in New Netherlands — Iroquois and Early Colonists — Cham plain's Invasions of 1609 and 1615— Location of the Fort attacked by Cham plain in 1615 — Iroquois make Peace with French — Iroquois Conquests aud Supremacy 32

Introduction

IN THE preparation of the history of the county treated of in this volume the authors have endeavored to confine themselves to a concise and truthful statement of facts, leaving deductions and moralisms, except where such were necessary to a proper elucidation of the subject, to the individual reader; and in gleaning these facts they have laid under contribution every available source of information in the effort to arrive at correct data. This, however, has not always been possible, for much is given that rests for its authority entirely upon verbal statements, which, even among the best informed, are subject to the lapses of memory. When conflicting statements have been observed, as was to be expected there would be in so broad a field of inquiry, an honest effort has been made to reconcile them and make them conform to the probable fact ; for while each individual expects the record of a fact to conform to his remembrance, it is notorious that all do not retain precisely the same recollection of it. To this end also, records have been consulted where such existed and were accessible, both to supplement and establish a verbal fact, and as an original source of information. These, however, were often fragmentary, sometimes entirely wanting, and while their incompleteness was perplexing, their frequent indefmiteness was even more so, so that it was often necessary to supplement them by verbal information.

The materials for such a work were widely scattered. They laid mainly in the imperfect town, county, church, school, society and private records, and in the vague and faded memories of individuals. Much time, labor, diligent research and patient inquiry have been required to gather these materials and collate them into systematic order. Every town has been visited, and its records and well-informed citizens have been consulted. In addition to these, the files of local and other papers have been scrutinized, and the works of numerous authors laid under contribution ; but as the latter have generally been referred to in the text, especially when quoted, we do not deem it necessary to enumerate them here. A few local gleaners, of acknowledged ability, in this field of historic inquiry, had rescued from oblivion much that has served to embellish the annals of Livingston. The fruit of their labors was kindly placed at our disposal.

Much more might have been given, enough to swell the volume to twice its present size, by the multiplication of details which some would regard with interest and others as unimportant ; much indeed was prepared and still more gathered, but it was found necessary to eliminate it to bring it within the scope of this work. In discarding matter we have aimed to retain that which seemed most important — most worthy of preservation.

An earlier preparation of the work would have lessened the labor and produced more satisfactory results ; would have given access to the personal experience and relations of the very first settlers, with whom have died facts and incidents which are now beyond recall. But few of the first generation of those who settled and subdued this wilderness are now left with us, and fewer still of that sacred remnant retain their faculties sufficiently to relate coherently and positively the interesting incidents of that early period ; but we still have their ••oft told tales " from the lips of their immediate descendants, and have thus been able to collect and chronicle, with a close approach to accuracy, the facts of early history. It must, therefore, be obvious that the time for the publication of this work had fully come, and that a longer delay would only have added to the obscurity of the facts and the difficulty of their acquisition.

Happily the very full and scholarly "Relations" of the faithful Jesuits and other French missionaries give us a minute and definite account of the manners and customs of the American Indians, the supposed aboriginal occupants of this country, with whom they mingled as early as the forepart of the last half of the seventeenth century, though they are chiefly concerned with the relation of their efforts to Christianize them, and to engraft upon their rude natures some of the arts and usages of civilization in their time. Numerous evidences of this intercourse have been disclosed by means of the plow and other agencies in this county, which for a considerable period was the home of several cantons of the most numerous and powerful of the tribes of the Si\ Nations, the Senecas. These consist of gaudy trinkets and other articles of use and adornment, which possessed an intensely magnified value in the eyes of the untutored savage, and were the means by which these zealous missionaries sought to ingratiate themselves with the natives and prepare the way for the successful accomplishment of their ulterior object. The mural remains, now mostly obliterated by the agency of the plow, and other economic and sacred relics which were familiar objects to the first white settlers in the Valley of the Genesee, bore abundant testimony to the fact that Livingston county was long the seat of a numerous Indian population.

Though this county is not as rich in historical incidents fraught with tragic interest as the counties which bordered on the confines of civilization during the French and Indian wars, the sanguinary struggle of the Revolution, and the more recent but memorable war with the mother country, which etched in lines of blood the history of their eventful scenes, it witnessed one of the most pathetic and memorable incidents of the Revolutionary struggle, and the culmination of an event which was fraught with the most important results affecting the development of Central and Western New York. Its soil is hallowed by blood shed to establish those principles which, eighty-two years later, its sons so nobly fought to perpetuate. It has, too, a pacific history to which many will recur with interest — yea, with reverence.

The authors take this opportunity to tender their grateful acknowledgments .to the many who, in various ways, have so kindly aided them in this laborious work, and to testify to the uniform courtesy which was extended to them, and the cordiality with which their labors were seconded by the hosts from whom it became their duty to solicit information.

HISTORY

OF

Livingston County.