OHAPTEK XX. 



REMINISCENCES OF COKNPLAKTEK. 



Few names are more distinguished in the frontier 

 history of Pennsylvania than that of Cornplanter. 

 His Indian name was Ganiodienh, or handsome Lake. 

 He was born at Conewaugus, on the Genesee River, 

 being a half-breed, the son of a white man named 

 John O'Bail, a trader from the Mohawk valley. In 

 a letter written in later years to the Governor of 

 Pennsylvania, he thus speaks of his early youth : 

 "When I was a child I played with the butterfly, 

 the grasshopper and the frogs ; and as I grew up I 

 began to pay some attention and play with the In- 

 dian boys in the neighborhood ; and they took notice 

 of my skin being of a different color from theirs, and 

 spoke about it. I inquired of my mother the cause, 

 and she told me that my father was a resident of 

 Albany. I still ate my victuals out of a bark dish. 

 I grew up to be a young man, and married me a 

 wife, and I had no kettle or gun. I then knew 

 where my fattier . lived, and went to see him, and 

 found he was a white man, and spoke the English 

 language. He gave me victuals while I was at his 

 house, but when I started to return home, he gave 

 me no provisions to eat on the way. He gave me 



