THE ARCIIEOLOGICAL HISTORY OF NEW YORK 523 



58 Extensive village site of the mound-builder culture discovered 

 by E. R. Burmaster on the Newton farm a mile southwest of Irving. 

 The village of Irving covers another site of a similar nature. 



59 Fortification reported on Walnut creek near Silver Creek. 



60 Camp site and caches on Bear lake. 



61 Kecent village sites of the Seneca. 



NOTES ON THE ABORIGINAL OCCUPATION OF THE CASSADAGA VALLEY 



By Obed Edson 



Stockton. Perhaps the greatest variety, most abundant and most 

 interesting evidences of aboriginal occupation in the county have 

 been found at the head and along the borders of the valley of the 

 Cassadaga. Like the Conewango, the Cassadaga creek has its sources 

 in a number of little lakes not far away from the shore of Lake 

 Erie, but more than 700 feet above its waters. It flows southward 

 through the more central part of the county and is a crooked and 

 slow-running stream. It courses through the Cassadaga valley a 

 distance of about 18 miles by a direct line, and nearly twice that 

 distance following the windings of the stream, discharging its waters 

 into the Conewango. The valley of the Cassadaga extends through 

 the central portion of the county. It is a level and picturesque coun- 

 try of green and gently sloping hills. The Dunkirk, Allegheny Val- 

 ley and Pittsburgh Railroad traverses its whole length. The town of 

 Stockton includes the northern extremity of the valley. 



In this town around the northerly lakes and near and in the little 

 village of Cassadaga were many of these ancient aboriginal remains, 

 which the writer often visited in past years and which were known 

 to him as early as the year 1849. 



At the extremity of a cape extending from the south side far into 

 the lower one of these lakes is a curious and prominent mound. Its 

 longest diameter is about 7 rods, its shortest 5. Its summit is about 

 12 feet above the level of the lake and is about 8 feet above the low 

 neck of land that connects it with the wider and higher part of the 

 cape. It is a natural mound but seems to have been anciently occu- 

 pied, for the usual relics have been found there in great abundance. 

 Extending across this cape for 20 rods along the northern brink of 

 a plateau that rises about 12 rods in the rear of this mound was 

 formerly an eastern breastwork, traces of which were visible in 1870 

 when I first examined it. Some distance south of this and extending 

 nearly from shore to shore across the cape was another breastwork. 

 Several acres were embraced within these earthworks and the two 

 shores of the lake. Here much pottery and many stone utensils have 

 been found. Between the northern shore of the lake and the main 



