My inquiries on the several reservations of the Senecas, at Tonewanda,
Buffalo, Cattaraugus and Alleghany, did not result in detecting a
single person who was either deaf and dumb, an idiot or a lunatic. As
the Senecas are seven-fold more numerous than the highest in number
among the other cantons, this result, if it should be verified by
subsequent and fuller inquiries, after more thoroughly explaining
the object of the information sought for to each band, would offer a
remarkable exemption from the usual laws of population. There are no
means of instruction for this class of persons on the reservations. The
care of the three individuals above designated, calls for the same
disproportionate tax on time, which is elsewhere necessary, and the
admission of these persons to the State Lunatic Asylum, and the Deaf
and Dumb Institute at New-York, free of expense, would seem to be due
to them.
Among the St. Regis, which is the only tribe I did not visit and take
the enumeration of, it is not known whether there be any persons of
either class.
One or two additional facts may be added to the preceding statistics in
this connection.
I found three saw mills, with twenty-one gangs of saws, on the
Alleghany reservation, and also two council houses and two public
schools, constituting public property, belonging exclusively to this
reservation, which were valued by the appraisers, under the treaty of
1842, at $8,219.00.
On the Cattaraugus reservation, there is the church, council house and
farms, connected with the schools, being the property of the Indians
and not the missionary society, which were valued together, by the same
appraisers, at $3,214.50.
There is on the Buffalo creek reservation, a saw mill, valued at
$404.75, a church built originally at an expense of $1,700, valued at
$1,200, and a council house, valued at $75; making a total amount of
public property, including all the preceding, of $13,113.25.
The total amount of private valuations on the Buffalo and Tonewanda
reservations, under the treaty of 1842, was not exactly ascertained,
but it is about $80,000. This is entirely Seneca property and funds.
Its payment to individuals, in the sums awarded, is based on their
removal to Cattaraugus and Alleghany, agreeably to the terms of the
compromise treaty of 1842.
The Onondagas possess one saw mill, well built and in good repair,
which is of some value to them, and might be rendered more so, under a
proper system of management.