PIONEERS OF THE MOHAWK AND THE HUDSON
If a stranger from a distant land should come to New York, he might
take an elevated train at the Battery and ride to the upper end of
Harlem. He would then have seen Manhattan island, so named by the
Indians, who but three hundred years ago built their wigwams there and
paddled their canoes in the waters where great ships now wait for their
cargoes. If the visitor should stay for a time, he might find that
Harlem used to be spelled Haarlem, from a famous old town in Holland.
He might walk through Bleecker street, or Cortlandt street, or see
Stuyvesant square, and learn that these hard names belonged to old
Dutch families; and if he studied history, he would find that the town
was once called New Amsterdam and was settled by Dutchmen from Holland.
They named the river on the west of the island the Great North river,
to distinguish it from the Delaware, or Great South river, and they
planned to keep all the land about these two streams and to call it New
Netherland.
Rocks and trees covered most of Manhattan island at that time, but the
Dutch had a small village at its south end, where they built a fort
and set up windmills, which ground the corn and made the place look
like a town in Holland. The Indians did not like the windmills with
their “big teeth biting the corn in pieces,” but they were usually
friendly with the settlers, sometimes sitting before the fireplaces
in the houses and eating supawn, or mush and milk, with their white
friends. Little did the Indian dream what a bargain he offered to the
white man when he consented to sell the whole island for a sum equal to
twenty-four dollars; and the Dutchman, to do him justice, was equally
ignorant.
All this came about because Henry Hudson with a Dutch vessel, the _Half
Moon_, had sailed into the harbor in 1609, and had explored the river
for a long distance from its mouth. Hudson was an Englishman, but with
most people he has had to pass for a Dutchman. He has come down in
stories as Hendrick instead of Henry, no doubt because he commanded a
ship belonging to a Dutch company, and because a Dutch colony was soon
planted at the mouth of the river which he discovered.
Hudson spent a month of early autumn about Manhattan and on the river
which afterwards took his name. Sailing was easy, for the channel is
cut so deep into the land that the tides, which rise and fall on the
ocean border by day and night, push far up the Hudson and make it like
an inland sea. In what we call the Highlands Hudson found the river
narrow, with rocky cliffs rising far above him. Beyond he saw lowlands
covered with trees, and stretching west to the foot of the Catskill
mountains. He went at least as far as the place where Albany now
stands, but there he found the water shallow and turned his ship about,
giving up the idea of reaching the Indies by going that way. He did
not know that a few miles to the west a deep valley lies open through
the mountains, a valley which is now full of busy people and is more
important for travel and trade than a dozen northwest passages to China
would be.
[Illustration: FIG. 6. HENRY HUDSON]
It was not long before this valley which leads to the west was found,
and by a real Dutchman. Only five years after Hudson’s voyage Dutch
traders built a fort near the spot where Albany now stands. Shortly
afterwards, in 1624, the first settlers came and founded Fort Orange,
which is now Albany. Arent Van Curler came over from Holland in 1630
and made his home near Fort Orange. He was an able man and became
friendly with the Indians. They called him “Brother Corlear” and spoke
of him as their “good friend.” A few years ago a diary kept by Van
Curler was found in an old Dutch garret, where it had lain for two
hundred and sixty years. It told the story of a journey that he made
in 1634, only four years after he came to America. Setting out on
December 11, he traveled up the valley of the Mohawk until he reached
the home of the Oneida Indians in central New York. He stayed with them
nearly two weeks, and then returned to Fort Orange, where he arrived
on January 19. This is the earliest record of a white man’s journey
through a region which now contains large towns and is traversed by
many railway trains every day in the year.
No one knows how long there had been Indians and Indian trails in the
Mohawk valley. These trails Van Curler followed, often coming upon some
of the red men themselves, and visiting them in a friendly way. They,
as well as the white settlers who followed them, chose the flat, rich
lands along the river, for here it was easy to beat a path, and with
their bark canoes they could travel and fish. The Indians entertained
Van Curler with baked pumpkins, turkey, bear meat, and venison. As the
turkey is an American bird, we may be sure that it was new to the Dutch
explorer.
These Indians, with whom Van Curler and all the New York colonists had
much to do, were of several tribes,--the Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas,
Cayugas, and Senecas. All together they were known as the Iroquois
(ĭr-ṓ-kwoi´), or Iroquois Nation, a kind of confederation which met in
council and went forth together to war. They called their five-fold
league The Long House, from the style of dwelling which was common
among them,--a long house in which as many as twenty families sometimes
lived. The Iroquois built villages, cultivated plots of land, and
sometimes planted apple orchards. They were often eloquent orators and
always fierce fighters. Among the surrounding tribes they were greatly
feared. They sailed on lake Ontario and lake Erie in their birch-bark
canoes, and they followed the trails far eastward down the Mohawk
valley. Before the white men came these fierce warriors occasionally
invaded New England, to the terror of the weaker tribes. Sometimes they
followed up their conquests by exacting a tribute of wampum. After Fort
Orange was founded they went there with their packs of beaver skins and
other furs to trade for clothes and trinkets.
In fact the white man’s principal interest for many years was to barter
for furs. The Dutch, and soon afterwards the English, bid for the trade
from their settlements on the Hudson, and the French did the same from
their forts on the St. Lawrence and the Great Lakes. Thus there was
much letter writing and much fighting among the colonists, while each
side tried to make friends of the Indians and get the whole of the fur
trade. The result was that either in war or in trade the white men and
the savages were always going up and down the Mohawk valley, which
thus was a well-traveled path long before there were turnpike roads,
canals, or steam cars.
When Van Curler made his journey into the Indian country, he did not
reach the Mohawk river at once on leaving Fort Orange, but traveled for
about sixteen miles across a sandy and half-barren stretch of scrubby
pine woods. He came down to the river where its rich bottom lands
spread out widely and where several large islands are inclosed by parts
of the stream. South and east of these flats are the sand barrens, and
on the west are high hills through which, by a deep, narrow gap, the
Mohawk flows. The Indians called this place “Schonowe,” or “gateway.”
It was well named, for entering by this gate one can go to the foot of
the Rocky mountains without climbing any heights.
A few years before his death Van Curler led a small band of colonists
from Fort Orange, bought the “great flats” from the Mohawk Indians,
and founded a town, calling it Schenectady, which is the old Indian
name changed in its spelling. No easy time did these settlers have,
for theirs was for many years the frontier town and they never knew
when hostile savages might come down upon them to burn their houses
and take their scalps. In 1690, twenty-eight years after the town
was founded, a company of French and Indians from Montreal surprised
Schenectady in the night, burned most of the houses, and killed about
sixty of the people, taking others captive. But Dutchmen rarely give up
an undertaking, and they soon rebuilt their town. It was an important
place, for here was the end of the “carry” over the pine barrens from
the Hudson, and here began the navigation of the river, which for a
hundred years was the best means of carrying supplies up the valley and
into central New York.
The traveler of to-day on the New York Central Railway sees on Van
Curler’s “great flats” the flourishing city of Schenectady, with
its shops and houses, its college, and its vast factories for the
manufacture of locomotives and electrical supplies.
[Illustration: FIG. 7. SIR WILLIAM JOHNSON
See Fort Johnson, Fig. 9]
It is true that the Dutch pioneers played an important part in the
early history of the state and are still widely represented by their
descendants in the Mohawk valley, but the leading spirit of colonial
days on the river was a native of Ireland who came when a young man to
manage his uncle’s estates in America. This was in 1738, nearly fifty
years after the Schenectady massacre. The young man, who was in the
confidence of the governor of New York and of the king as well, is
known to all readers of American history as Sir William Johnson.
He built a fine stone mansion a short distance west of the present city
of Amsterdam and lived there many years. He also founded Johnstown, a
few miles to the north, now a thriving little city. He dealt honestly
with the Indians, when many tried to get their lands by fraud, and he
served as a high officer in the French and Indian wars.
As the Dutch settled the lower Mohawk valley, so the upper parts were
taken up and the forests cleared by Yankees from New England. One of
these was Hugh White, a sturdy man with several grown children. He left
Middletown, Connecticut, in 1784, and came by water to Albany, sending
one of his sons overland to drive two pair of oxen. Father and son met
in Albany and went together across the sands to Schenectady, where they
bought a boat to take some of the goods up the river. Four miles west
of where Utica now stands they stopped, cut a few trees, and built a
hut to shelter them until they could raise crops and have a better
home. Thus the ancient village of Whitesboro was founded. White was one
of many hardy and brave men who settled in central New York at that
time, and they doubtless thought that they had gone a long way “out
West.” Certainly their journey took more time than the emigrant would
now need to reach California or Oregon.
To cut the trees, build cabins, guard against the savages, and get
enough to eat and wear gave the settlers plenty to do. Only the
simplest ways of living were possible. Until a grist mill was built
they often used samp mortars, such as the Indians made. They took a
section of white ash log three feet long, and putting coals of fire
on one end, kept them burning with a hand bellows until the hole was
deep enough to hold the corn, which was then pounded for their meals
of hominy. By and by a mill was built, and here settlers often came
from a distance of many miles, sometimes carrying their grists on their
backs. A dozen years after White came, General William Floyd set up
another mill in the northern part of what is now Oneida county. He was
one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence.
One settler cleared several acres and planted corn with pumpkin seeds
sprinkled in. The pigeons pulled up all the corn, but hundreds of great
pumpkins grew and ripened. Since the crop was hardly enough, however,
for either men or beasts, the latter had to be fed the next winter on
the small top boughs of the elm, maple, and basswood.
Much use was made of the river, for the only roads were Indian paths
through the woods on the river flats. People and freight were carried
in long, light boats suited to river traffic and known as bateaux
(bȧ-tō̟s´). These could be propelled with oars, but poles were
necessary going upstream against a stiff current. It was impossible
to go up the Mohawk from the Hudson above Albany, on account of the
great falls at Cohoes; hence the long carry to Schenectady. From that
place, by hard work, the boatmen could make their way up to Little
Falls, where the water descends forty feet in roaring rapids. Here the
loads and the bateaux had to be carried along the banks to the still
water above, where, with many windings and doublings on their course,
the voyagers could reach the Oneida Carrying Place, or Fort Stanwix.
There they unloaded again, and for a mile or more tramped across low
ground to Wood creek, a little stream flowing into Oneida lake, and
thence into Oswego river and lake Ontario. The city of Rome stands
exactly on the road followed by the “carry.” This was an important
place, and was called by the Dutch Trow Plat, while to the Indians it
was De-o-wain-sta, “the place where canoes are carried across.” Several
forts were built there, of which the most famous was Fort Stanwix. We
should think Wood creek a difficult bit of navigation. It was a small
stream, very crooked, and often interrupted by fallen trees. In times
of low water the boats were dragged up and even down the creek by
horses walking in the water.
[Illustration: FIG. 8. GENESEE STREET, UTICA
Part of the old Genesee road]
The first merchant of old Fort Schuyler (Utica) was John Post, who
had served his country well through the Revolution. In 1790 he
brought hither his wife, three little children, and a carpenter from
Schenectady, after a voyage of about nine days up the river. Near the
long-used fording place he built a store, at the foot of what is now
Genesee street. Here he supplied the simple needs of the few families
in the new hamlet, and bought furs and ginseng of the Indians, giving
in exchange paint, powder, shot, cloth, beads, mirrors, and, it must be
added, rum also. Thus the fact that the river was shallow at this point
and could be passed without a bridge or a boat led to the founding of
the city of Utica.
The first regular mail reached the settlement in 1793, the post
rider being allowed twenty-eight hours to come up from Canajoharie,
a distance of about forty miles, now traversed by many trains in
much less than an hour. On one occasion the Fort Schuyler settlement
received six letters in one mail. The people would hardly believe this
astonishing fact until John Post, who had been made postmaster, assured
them that it was true. Post established stages and lines of boats to
Schenectady, and soon had a large business, for people were pouring
into western New York to settle upon its fertile lands.
All the boats did not go down to Oswego and lake Ontario. Some turned
and entered the Seneca river, following its slow and winding waters to
the country now lying between Syracuse and Rochester. But these boats
were not equal to the traffic, for the new farms were producing grain
to be transported, and the people needed many articles from the older
towns on the Atlantic coast. Hence about a dozen years after Hugh White
built his first cabin by the river, the state legislature took up the
question of transportation and built a great road, a hundred miles
long, from Fort Schuyler, or the future Utica, to Geneva, at the foot
of Seneca lake.
The road as laid out was six rods wide. It was improved for a width
of four rods by the use of gravel and logs where the ground was soft
and swampy, as much of it was in those days, being flat and shaded by
trees. Over the famous Genesee road, as it was called, thousands of
people went not only to the rich valley of the Genesee in western New
York but also on to Ohio, and even to the prairies of the Mississippi
river. Genesee street in Utica and Genesee street in Syracuse are parts
of this road. The historian tells of it as a triumph, for it was an
Indian path in June, and before September was over a stage had started
at Fort Schuyler, and on the afternoon of the third day had deposited
its four passengers at the hotel in Geneva. After this wagons and
stages began to run frequently between Albany and Geneva. A wagon could
carry fourteen barrels of flour eastward, and in about a month could
return to Geneva from Albany with a load of needed supplies. In five
weeks, one winter, five hundred and seventy sleighs carrying families
passed through Geneva to lands farther west.
Geneva was quite a metropolis in those days, when there was nothing
but woods where Syracuse and Rochester now are. Regular markets were
held there, for there were fine farms and orchards about the beautiful
shores of Seneca lake. It is recorded as remarkable that one settler
had “dressed up” an old Indian orchard and made “one hundred barrels of
cyder.”
We might think that the founders of the city of Rochester would have
come in by the Genesee road, but they did not. Far to the south,
at Hagerstown in Maryland, a country already old, lived Colonel
Rochester. He heard of the Genesee lands and at last bought, with his
partners, a hundred acres by the falls, where the city now stands.
When the little family procession passed down the street and entered
upon the long journey up the Susquehanna valley to western New York,
Rochester’s friends in Hagerstown wept to see him go. They thought
that he had thrown his money away in buying swamp lands where only
mosquitoes, rattlesnakes, and bears could live, but he saw farther than
they did. If he had been unwilling to take any risk, he would never
have laid out the first streets of the prosperous city which now bears
his name.
[Illustration: FIG. 9. OLD FORT JOHNSON, AMSTERDAM, NEW YORK
Built by Sir William Johnson, 1742]
Syracuse, like Utica and Rochester, had its own way of beginning. We
can truly say that at first salt made the city. The beds of salt are
not directly under Syracuse, but are in the hills not far away. The
water from the rains and springs dissolves some of this salt, and as it
flows down it fills the gravels in and around the town. While all was
yet forest the Indian women had made salt from the brine which oozed up
in the springs. So long ago as 1770, five years before the Revolution,
the Delaware Indians went after Onondaga salt, and a little of it was
now and then brought down to Albany. Sometimes it was sold far down the
St. Lawrence in Quebec.
[Illustration: NEW YORK
NEW YORK, LAKE ERIE AND WESTERN RAILROAD ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
DELAWARE, LACKAWANNA AND WESTERN RAILROAD ...........
NEW YORK CENTRAL AND HUDSON RIVER RAILROAD -----------
NEW YORK, ONTARIO AND WESTERN RAILROAD -·-·-·-·-·-
DELAWARE AND HUDSON RAILROAD -+-+-+-+-+-
ERIE CANAL (old location) ===========
]
The pioneers first made salt there in 1788. This was several years
before the Genesee road was cut through the woods. One of these men, a
Mr. Danforth, whose name a suburb of Syracuse now bears, used to put
his coat on his head for a cushion and on that carry out a large kettle
to the springs. He would put a pole across crotched sticks, hang up the
kettle, and go to work to make salt. When he had made enough for the
time he would hide his kettle in the bushes and bring home his salt.
By and by so many hundreds of bushels were made by the settlers that
the government of the state framed laws to regulate the making and
selling of the salt, and as time went on a town arose and grew into a
city. Many years later rock salt was found deep down under the surface
farther west, and since that discovery the business of Syracuse has
become more and more varied in character.
The history of the state of New York shows well how the New World was
settled along the whole Atlantic coast. The white men from Europe found
first Manhattan island and the harbor. Then they followed the lead of
a river and made a settlement that was to be Albany. Still they let a
river guide them, this time the Mohawk, and it led them westward. They
pushed their boats up the stream, and on land they widened the trails
of the red men. Near its head the Mohawk valley led out into the wide,
rich plains south and east of lake Ontario. Soon there were so many
people that a good road became necessary. When the good road was made
it brought more people, and thus the foundations of the Empire State
were laid.