Produced by Margo Romberg, Curtis Weyant and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
NOTES:
1. On pp. 72-73 a passage from a document with many superscripts is
quoted. These are indicated, for example, as "y^e" for "the", or
"w^{th}" for "with".
2. On p. 307 some letters have a diagonal strike-through to indicate
letters omitted. These are indicated, for example, as [/A].
THE LIFE AND TIMES
OF
KATERI TEKAKWITHA,
The Lily of the Mohawks.
1656-1680.
BY
ELLEN H. WALWORTH,
AUTHOR OF "AN OLD WORLD, AS SEEN THROUGH YOUNG EYES"
BUFFALO:
PETER PAUL & BROTHER.
1891.
_Copyright, 1890_,
BY ELLEN H. WALWORTH.
PETER PAUL & BRO.,
PRINTERS AND BINDERS,
BUFFALO, N. Y.
To my Uncle,
THE REV. CLARENCE A. WALWORTH,
RECTOR OF ST. MARY'S CHURCH,
ALBANY, N. Y.,
THIS VOLUME IS MOST AFFECTIONATELY
DEDICATED.
PREFACE.
The life and surroundings of "The Lily of the Mohawks," as an
undeveloped theme in literature, was first suggested to me by my uncle,
the Rev. Clarence A. Walworth. My interest and enthusiasm were at once
aroused. The thought of a mere Indian girl reared in the forest among
barbarians, yet winning for herself such titles as "The Lily of the
Mohawks" and "The Genevieve of New France," recurred to my mind again
and again, until it led me to a fixed determination to explore so
tempting a field of romance and archaeology. The fact that it lay amongst
the hills and valleys of my native State, and was little known except to
solitary scholars and laborious historians, incited me still more to the
task. I became ambitious to gather from the records of two centuries ago
every detail relating in any way to my Indian heroine. While engaged in
this work unexpected opportunities opened to gather exact information
about her, and more especially concerning the localities connected with
her early childhood, and her conversion and baptism in the Mohawk
Valley.
If this book, embodying the result of my researches, should fail to
interest the reader, it will not be for any lack of enthusiasm on my
part, or of kind encouragement and competent assistance from others.
When beginning the work my first call for advice was upon Dr. John
Gilmary Shea, so well versed in Indian annals, as also in the general
history of this country. I found him full of interest in my subject.
Guided by the information received from him, and also by the directions
of the Rev. R. S. Dewey, S. J., who has long been familiar with the
missionary and Indian traditions of the Mohawk Valley, I went to
Montreal and secured from the courteous kindness of Father Turgeon, S.
J., rector of the Jesuit College there, the use of all the manuscripts I
desired. The Sisters of the Hotel Dieu furnished me with a room in their
hospital, to which the good Rector allowed me to transport the entire
CARTON O. This contained all the unprinted materials relating to my
subject that belonged to the college library.
There, at the Hotel Dieu, delightfully located with the sisters of an
order whose history is closely bound up with that of Montreal, I copied
at my leisure the manuscripts most valuable to me.
In Montreal, also, my good fortune gave me interviews with M. Cuoq, the
distinguished philologist of St. Sulpice, whose Indian dictionaries and
grammars I had already seen in my uncle's library. Much I owe besides to
Soeur St. Henriette, librarian and keeper of the archives at the Villa
Maria. It was on the boat which shoots the Lachine Rapids that I met Mr.
Hale of Philadelphia, the learned author of the "Iroquois Book of
Rites," and enjoyed a long conversation with him on matters of deep
interest to us both and to my work. My first visit to the Iroquois
Village at Caughnawaga, P. Q., occurred at this time. Here my uncle and
I found hospitable entertainment for several days at the Presbytery of
the church, presided over by the Rev. Pere Burtin, O. M. I. Besides the
valuable information acquired from the library of books and manuscripts
in his possession, I gathered much from the acquaintance then
established with the Iroquois of the "Sault" and in particular with
their grand chief, Joseph Williams.
La Prairie was only nine miles distant, with its scholarly cure, Pere
Bourgeault, and his valuable collection of ancient maps; and about half
way between Caughnawaga and La Prairie lay the grave of Tekakwitha, with
its tall cross looking over the rapids of the St. Lawrence. An author
with a theme like mine in such localities and with such guides was,
indeed, in an enchanted land.
In Albany I received valuable assistance and advice from Mr. Holmes and
Mr. Howell, of the State Library, also from Mr. Melius, of the City
Clerk's Office, and others.
I have reserved for a most especial and grateful acknowledgment the name
of Gen. John S. Clark, of Auburn, N. Y. My work is indebted to him for a
treasure of information which he alone could give. In the knowledge of
Iroquois localities in New York State, particularly those of two
centuries ago, and the trails over which missionaries from Canada
travelled so painfully to villages where they labored so hard and yet
successfully,--he is the undoubted pioneer. Almost all we know in this
branch of archaeology is owing to him. It was my privilege in company
with my uncle, and with Gen. Clark for pilot, to spend a memorable week
in search of Indian localities along the Mohawk, from the mouth of
Schoharie Creek to the farthest castle of the wolf clan opposite Fort
Plain. We visited and verified, under the General's direction, no less
than eleven sites in this one week. An account of the most important of
these sites can be found in the contributions of Gen. Clark, as
explanatory footnotes, to "Early Chapters of Mohawk History." This work
consists of translations into English of selected letters from the
_Relations Jesuites_. For these translations we are indebted to the
lamented Dr. Hawley, late pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in
Auburn. Guided by the wise advice of General Clark, I was able
afterwards to make other independent journeys, and familiarize myself
with Indian trails passing near my native town, above all those followed
by Tekakwitha in her escape to the "Sault." I owe to Gen. Clark's
kindness the valuable map of Mohawk Castle Sites, to be found in this
book and drawn expressly for it by his hand.
Lastly, I recall with pleasure a conversation with the Rev. Felix
Martin, S. J., a well known authority in Canadian and Indian archaeology.
To this venerable author, the editor of the famous "Jesuit Relations,"
the biographer of Isaac Jogues, of Chomonot and of Tekakwitha, I owe a
large debt of gratitude. His biography of her, entitled "Une Vierge
Iroquoise," is still in manuscript, never having been published. He was
the first to gather and keep together all the manuscripts extant giving
contemporary accounts of the Iroquois maiden. He laid a foundation of
accumulated facts for others to build upon. I sought him out in Paris in
1885, and found him with some difficulty. The hiding place of this
learned old man was in an obscure corner of the city. The schools of his
order all broken up, separated from his companions, his books and his
manuscripts, and from his old beloved home in the New France, which he
would never see again,--how his eyes glistened when I came to him from
the western world, a child of the Hudson and Mohawk, to speak to him of
Tekakwitha, bringing him even the latest news of archaeological
discoveries in those valleys! His face beamed with delight at every new
detail. It pleased him much to know that Dr. Shea was, at that very
time, translating into English his (Martin's) French Life of Jogues, and
to learn that I was writing, and hoped soon to have published a full
account of Kateri Tekakwitha for my own countrymen of the United States.
He gave his blessing to me and to my work, a blessing which I prize most
highly. His hearty approval is especially gratifying, since I have had
occasion to use much of the material he had gathered for publication in
French under his own name. Alas! scarcely had I recrossed the Atlantic,
when the news of his death reached me.
In conclusion, let me say: I am conscious of many defects in this work.
Others may yet be found better able than I to do justice to my theme,
but not any one, I think, who will come to the task more anxious to make
known to all the whole truth of history concerning the rare and
beautiful character of this lily of our forest.
ALBANY, N. Y., January 2, 1891.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER PAGE
I. TEKAKWITHA'S SPRING 1
II. THE MOHAWK VALLEY AND THE MOHAWKS AT THE TIME OF
TEKAKWITHA'S BIRTH 12
III. A CRADLE-SONG.--CAPTIVES TORTURED.--FLIGHT OF THE FRENCH
FROM ONONDAGA.--DEATH IN THE MOHAWK LODGES 26
IV. TEKAKWITHA WITH HER AUNTS AT GANDAWAGUE 36
V. TEKAKWITHA'S UNCLE AND FORT ORANGE, OR THE BEGINNINGS OF
ALBANY 44
VI. AN ARMY ON SNOW-SHOES 62
VII. DE TRACY BURNS THE MOHAWK CASTLES.--FALL OF TIONNONTOGEN 75
VIII. TEKAKWITHA'S CHRISTIAN GUESTS.--RAWENNIIO 85
IX. CAUGHNAWAGA ON THE MOHAWK.--FATHERS FREMIN AND PIERRON 96
X. THE MOHEGANS ATTACK THE NEW CASTLE.--BATTLE OF
KINAQUARIONES.--THE FEAST OF THE DEAD 110
XI. WILL TEKAKWITHA MARRY? 128
XII. THE NEW COLONY OF CHRISTIAN INDIANS ON THE ST. LAWRENCE.
-- THE "GREAT MOHAWK" GOES TO CANADA 142
XIII. TEKAKWITHA MEETS DE LAMBERVILLE.--IMPOSING CEREMONY IN THE
BARK CHAPEL 152
XIV. PERSECUTIONS.--HEROIC CALMNESS IN A MOMENT OF PERIL.
--MALICE OF TEKAKWITHA'S AUNT 163
XV. HOT ASHES PLANS TEKAKWITHA'S ESCAPE 174
XVI. FROM THE OLD TO THE NEW CAUGHNAWAGA 183
XVII. AT THE SAULT ST. LOUIS 192
XVIII. THE HUNTING-CAMP 206
XIX. KATERI'S FRIEND,--THERESE TEGAIAGUENTA 216
XX. MONTREAL AND THE ISLE-AUX-HERONS, 1678 226
XXI. "I AM NOT ANY LONGER MY OWN" 243
XXII. KATERI'S VOW ON LADY DAY, AND THE SUMMER OF 1679 253
XXIII. KATERI ILL.--THERESE CONSULTS THE BLACKGOWN.--FEAST OF
THE PURIFICATION.--THE BED OF THORNS 260
XXIV. KATERI'S DEATH.--"I WILL LOVE THEE IN HEAVEN!"--THE
BURIAL.--HER GRAVE AND MONUMENT 270
XXV. THE MEMORY AND INFLUENCE OF KATERI TEKAKWITHA AFTER HER
DEATH.--MODERN CAUGHNAWAGA 285
CONCLUSION 293
* * * * *
APPENDIX.
NOTES, TOPOGRAPHICAL AND HISTORICAL 301
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
PAGE
TEKAKWITHA'S SPRING xiv
THE MOHAWK VALLEY FROM FONDA, N. Y. 6
MAP OF MOHAWK CASTLE-SITES, BY GENERAL CLARK 38
OLD ALBANY--DOMINIE SCHAATS' HOUSE 52
SITE OF CAUGHNAWAGA CASTLE, FONDA, N. Y. 103
MAP SHOWING THE MIGRATIONS OF THE MISSION VILLAGE OF THE SAULT 194
STREET SCENE AT CAUGHNAWAGA, IN CANADA 279
MODERN CAUGHNAWAGA, P. Q. (_from the Landing_) 299
[Illustration: TEKAKWITHA'S SPRING.]
THE LIFE AND TIMES
OF
KATERI TEKAKWITHA.[1]
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Pronounced _Kat'-e-ree' Tek-a-quee'-ta_. _Kateri_ is the Iroquois
form of the Christian name _Katherine_. The meaning of _Tekakwitha_ is
given in Chapter IV. For various ways of spelling the name, see
Appendix, Note B.
CHAPTER I.
TEKAKWITHA'S SPRING.
In the valley of the Mohawk, near the present great highways of the
State of New York, is a quiet forest nook, where a clear, cold spring
gurgles out from the tangled roots of a tree. Connected with this spring
is the story of a short girl-life, pure, vigorous, sorrow-taught. It is
written out in authentic documents; while Nature, also, has kept a
record of an Indian maiden's lodge beside the spring. There on the banks
of the Mohawk River, at Caughnawaga, now called Fonda, in Montgomery
County, dwelt the Lily of the Mohawks two centuries ago, when the State
had neither shape nor name. She saw her people build a strong, new
palisaded village there. She saw, though at rare intervals, the peaceful
but adventurous traders of Fort Orange, and the blackgowns of New
France pass in and out on friendly errands. Mohegans came there also in
her day to lay siege to the village, but only to be met with fierce
defiance and to be driven back. Marks of that very Indian fort can still
be found at Fonda, where the Johnstown Railway now branches from the New
York Central, and turns northward along the margin of the Cayudutta
Creek. The smoke of the engine, as it leaves the town of Fonda, mounts
to the level of a plateau on which the Mohawk Castle[2] stood. The
elevated land, or river terrace, at that point is singularly called the
"Sand Flats."
A rude fort of palisades, well equipped for defence, was completed about
the year 1668 on a narrow tongue of this high terrace, between the
Mohawk River and the creek. The approach to it is very steep; but in one
place a wagon-road winds up the hill to what is now a field on Veeder's
farm. Here unmistakable signs of Indian occupation are to be found. A
spring is close at hand in a clump of trees. The castle at that spot was
known as "Caughnawaga," meaning "At the Rapids,"--a name still applied
to the eastern part of the present town of Fonda. The Mohawk River runs
swiftly as it passes this spot, and large stones obstruct its course.
The spring at the castle site on the west side of the creek is
Tekakwitha's spring; for there beside it she grew to maidenhood, behind
the shelter of the palisades, and beneath the shadow of the overarching
forest. Tekakwitha was the Lily of the Mohawks, and afterwards known as
"La Bonne Catherine."
In the Mohawk Valley, the great artery of our nation's life, the tide of
human travel now ebbs and flows with ever-swelling force; here the New
York Central Railway levels out its course of four broad tracks; here
the great canal bears heavy burdens east and west; here the West Shore
Railway skirts the southern terrace; here the Mohawk River winds and
ripples, smiling in an old-time, quiet way at these hurrying, crowded
highways. They have wellnigh filled the generous roadway, cut through
high plateaus and mountain spurs in ages past by this same placid river.
That was in its younger, busier days. Now it idles on its way from side
to side, among the flats or bottoms, with here and there a rapid, till
at last it gathers force at far Cohoes for one great plunge before it
joins the Hudson. Then the mingled waters of the two rivers sweep on
past the stately Capitol, where once the Indian trading-post, Fort
Orange, stood. From Albany, the broad-bosomed Hudson bears floating
palaces and long lines of canal-boats strung together like great beads
of wampum. Let its current move them southward, while we turn back to
the valley whence these strings of wampum came. Let us follow up the
windings of the Mohawk River westward. At Schenectady it lingers among
islands in pretty, narrow ways, where college boys can take their
sweethearts rowing. Right playfully it kisses the feet of the old Dutch
town in summer, and in winter its frozen bosom sounds with the merry
thud of the skater's steel. Farther west the valley narrows, and on a
height near Hoffman's Ferry, Mohawk and Mohegan fought their last
fierce battle. Tekakwitha heard their war-whoop at the castle of
Caughnawaga, just before the final conflict came; but she never saw Fort
Johnson, which is higher up the river. Old Fort Johnson is too modern
for our story. Amsterdam now looms up an important factor in the valley.
Two centuries ago a joyous stream cascading down to meet the Mohawk was
its only landmark. Tekakwitha knew the spot, however, and had good
reason to remember it, as we shall see. Westward still, and up the
valley from Fort Johnson, a broader gleam of water comes in sight. It is
where the Schoharie River creeps in from the south between the dripping
archways of a bridge, over which canal-boats pass. Here the Mohawk shows
its teeth in a ridge of angry rapids; and here we enter what was once
the home country of its people, the fierce Mohawks. We are near the spot
where brave Father Isaac Jogues, the discoverer of Lake George, was
killed, in 1646. In the southwest angle of the Mohawk and Schoharie
Rivers, on the upper terrace, higher than the modern hamlet of
Auriesville, was the eastern castle of the Mohawks, known to Jogues as
Ossernenon.[3] Here three times the hero-hearted blackgown came; first,
a mangled, tortured captive, dragging out the weary months in slavery
until the Dutchmen at Fort Orange ransomed him; next, as an ambassador
of peace, bearing presents, making treaties; and lastly, as envoy of
the Prince of Peace, and wedded to his "spouse of blood,"--for so
Jogues styled his Mohawk mission. Never was a truer bridegroom, never
stranger wedding rites. Bits of his flesh were cut off and devoured,
while the savage high-priest cried, "Let us see if this white flesh is
the flesh of an _otkon_ [spirit or devil.]" "I am but a man like
yourselves," said Jogues, "though I fear not death nor your tortures."
His head was placed on the northern palisade, looking toward the French
frontier, and his body thrown into the stream; but his blood and his
earnest words sank deep into the land and the hearts of its people. From
Jogues' mystic union with the Mohawk nation, trooping from the "Mission
of the Martyrs," came the Christian Iroquois. One of these--a bright
soul in a dusky setting, and a flower that sprang from martyr's
blood--was Tekakwitha. She grew up, says one who knew her, "like a lily
among thorns." Ten years after Ondessonk[4] had shed the last drop of
his blood to make these Mohawks Christians, she was born among the
people who had seen the blackgown die, in the Village of the
Turtles,--some say in the "cabin at the door of which the tomahawked
priest had fallen."
This same stronghold of the Turtles was rebuilt higher up the river
during Tekakwitha's lifetime. Near Ossernenon, the earliest known site
of the Turtle Castle, there is a great bend or loop in the Mohawk River
and Valley. It extends from the mouth of the Schoharie River on the east
to the "Nose" near Yost's and Spraker's Basin on the west. The Nose is
at a point where river, railways, and canal are crowded in a narrow pass
between two overlapping ridges of high land. "Two Mountains
approaching," or Tionnontogen, the Indians called it; and there behind
the shelter of the hills, they built their largest and best fortified
town, the Mohawk capital or Castle of the Wolves. Other villages and
their central Castle of the Bears, called Andagoron, they also built and
rebuilt within the great bend. At its northern point, where the river
now flows between the high-perched Starin residence and the town of
Fonda, the next important railway-station west of Amsterdam, are the
rapids and the large stones in the water which gave rise to the name of
Caughnawaga. From the hills at Fonda one can see for miles both up and
down the river.
Here, as has already been said, just west of Fonda, on the north side of
the Mohawk is the Indian village site where Tekakwitha lived. Here is
the beautiful hill that was once crowned by the palisaded castle of
Caughnawaga. It is a spot that any one who lived there must have loved.
To-day the plough turns up the rich soil where long Indian cabins stood,
and what we see are only darkened patches left to tell us where the
hearthfires of the Mohawks burned two hundred years ago. These patches
of dark soil still glisten with the pearly mussel-shells brought up by
the Mohawks to their village from the river that still bears their name.
The pipe-stems sold to them by the Dutch are strewn in fragments through
the field. From graves near by, thrown out on the roadside by the spades
of workmen loading their carts with sand, the author has seen Indian
bones, more crumbled than the silly beads and rusty scissors buried with
them, which they bought so dearly. In a wood near by, on the brow of a
ravine, there is a row of hollow corn-pits where the Caughnawaga people
stored their charred corn. Low down in the fertile river-flats,
southward from the ancient village site, a sunburned farmer, owner of
both hill and valley, still works with horses and with iron implements
the very corn-fields that the squaws hoed with clumsy bone-tools. This
once castled height breaks abruptly on its eastern side to let the
Cayudutta Creek wind through. It hurries by on its way to meet the
Mohawk, and then lags through the flat, lost to sight just long enough
to pass round the skirts of the Ta-berg, or Tea Mountain. This in a
grassy cone topped with pines, and so named by Dutch settlers who there
in wartimes made a tea from a wild plant. It partly blocks the entrance
to the pretty Cayudutta valley, and separates it from the modern town of
Fonda; but the farmers' daughters and the village people who now live in
sight of Fonda Court House know well the little valley of the Cayudutta.
Any one of them can point out its brightest gem, the never failing
spring that issues from a set-back in the hill and so regular in shape
as to suggest an amphitheatre. This spring wells out from under an old
stump hidden in a clump of trees, whose topmost branches are below the
level of the castle site. Its waters rest a moment in a little shady
pool, a round forest mirror; then brimming over, break away and wander
down the steep descent to the creek. The path to the spring leads
downward from the higher ground above it, known as the Sand Flats. The
field where the castle stood is now often planted thick with grain; but
when this has been cut and the ground again ploughed, the Indian relics
are readily found. At any season of the year, however, the limpid spring
that has not ceased to flow for centuries will serve to indicate the
spot.
[Illustration: THE MOHAWK VALLEY FROM FONDA, N. Y.
(_Tekakwitha's Birthplace in the Distance._)]
Standing then, at the brink of this spring in the Mohawk Valley, let the
reader cast a look backward, and over the intervening space of two
hundred years, to the days of Tekakwitha. Let it be understood, however,
that while the imaginative faculty is thus to be called into play, it is
not for the contemplation of an imaginative but of a real character. For
whatever side lights may color the narrative, they are used to bring
out, not to impair, the picture. Many details of time and place, of
manners and customs, of dress and the arts of industry, will be woven
into an actual scene, rather than given in a tedious enumeration.
The scene about to be described and others which follow depicting the
early life of Tekakwitha are not to be found actually recorded in so
many words in the history of her life and times, yet they must have
occurred; for they are based on the known facts of her life as related
in various official and private documents, together with such inferences
only as may fairly and reasonably be drawn from those facts when brought
under the strong light of contemporaneous records.
Above the spring at Fonda, on the high plateau where is now the
well-tilled farm, stood, two centuries ago, the log-built palisades of
ancient Caughnawaga. In tall and close-set ranks they serve to hide from
view and shield from ambush the long, low Indian houses, twenty-four in
number. "Double stockadoed round, with four ports," as when the
traveller Greenhalgh saw the place in 1677, "and a bow-shot from the
river," stands the strong Mohawk castle. The blackened stumps that now
dot the sunny hillside of the Cayudutta change into the old-time, mighty
forest, and present a scene that is full of life; for down a well-worn
footpath come the Indian girls to fill their jugs at the
spring,--afterwards to be known as Tekakwitha's Spring.
These dusky Caughnawaga maidens have the well-known Indian features
strongly marked,--the high cheek bones, the dull red skin, and soft dark
eyes; but Tekakwitha shields hers with her blanket from the light.
Unlike the rest, there is an air of thoughtfulness about her and a touch
of mystery. Excessive shyness in the Lily of the Mohawks is strangely
blended with a sympathetic nature; and with a quiet force of character
she leads their chatter, half unconsciously, to channels of her own
choosing.
"A manuscript of the time," says Shea, "describes the Indian maiden with
her well-oiled and neatly parted hair descending in a long plait behind,
while a fine chemise was met at the waist by a neat and well-trimmed
petticoat reaching to the knee; below this was the rich legging and then
the well-fitted moccasin, the glory of an Iroquois belle. The neck was
loaded with beads, while the crimson blanket enveloped the whole form."
This, in general, is the costume of the merry group with Tekakwitha at
the spring. The upper garment, however, is a kind of tunic or simple
overdress; nor can it be said that all are equally neat in their
appearance. Some have their dark, straight hair tied loosely back and
hanging down, or else with wampum braided in it. A few are clothed in
foreign stuff, bought from the Dutch for beaver-skins and worn in
shapeless pieces hung about them with savage carelessness. On their dark
arms the sunlight flashes back from heavily beaded wrist and arm bands,
begged or borrowed from their more industrious companions. Not like
theirs is Tekakwitha's costume. It is made of deer and moose skins,--all
of native make, and stitched together by a practised hand, as every one
of the pretty squaws well knew. Her needle was a small bone from the
ankle of the deer, her thread the sinews of the same light-footed
animal, whose brain she mixed with moss and used to tan the skins and
make the soft brown leather which she shaped so deftly into tunic,
moccasins, and leggings. Her own skirt was scarce so richly worked with
quills of the porcupine as that of her adopted sister there beside her,
though both were made by Tekakwitha's hands.
The Indian girls about her like her for her generous nature and her
merry, witty speeches. She makes them laugh right heartily while she
stands waiting for her jug to fill up at the trickling spring.
These daughters of the Iroquois are bubbling over with good spirits, and
their pottery jugs with water, when all at once they spy a band of
hunters coming homeward down the Cayudutta valley from the Sacondaga
country. Knowing there is one among them who but waits his chance to lay
his wealth of beaver-skins at Tekakwitha's feet and take her for his
wife, they turn girl-like to tease her; but the quick and timid orphan,
dreading the license of their tongues, has bounded up the hill, and
hastens to her uncle's cabin with her jug, leaving her companions to
bandy words with the young hunters as they stop beside the little pool
for a draught of refreshing water.
Of all the people in the ancient Caughnawaga village, the only story
that has been written out in full and handed down in precious
manuscript, brown with age, is the story of her who bounded up the hill
and left her comrades at the spring. In a double sense she left them.
She was far above them. She stands to-day upon a mystic height; and
many, both of her race and our own in these our days, do homage to her
memory.
May her home at Caughnawaga, high above the stones that lie imbedded in
the Mohawk River, and close beside the spring that trickles downward to
the Cayudutta,[5] soon become familiar ground to all who honor
Tekakwitha!
FOOTNOTES:
[2] The Indian forts or palisaded villages, called "castles" by the
early Dutch settlers of New York State, were stoutly built of logs and
bark, and were effectual barriers of defence until the artillery of the
white men was brought to bear upon them.
[3] Megapolensis, the Dutch dominie at Fort Orange, who befriended
Jogues, the French Jesuit, in his captivity, writes the name of this
Mohawk town or castle, Asserue or Asserne. It was just at the spot where
a shrine has been recently elected to honor the memory of Isaac Jogues
and of his companion Rene Goupil, both of whom were tomahawked in that
vicinity by the Mohawks.
[4] Jogues' Indian name.
[5] See Appendix, Note A, where in a letter dated March 3, 1885, Gen.
John S. Clark, of Auburn, N. Y., the well-known archaeologist, mentions
this spring as marking the site of Gandawague (or Caughnawaga) on the
Cayudutta Creek, northwest of Fonda, N. Y. For date of the removal from
Auriesville to that site, see his letter of June 29, 1885, also given in
Note A, with other proofs as to the location of Mohawk villages at the
time of Jogues and Tekakwitha.