NO. 15 ROLL CALL OF IROQUOIS CHIEFS — FENTON I3 



According to the latter record Andrew Spragg was born in 1867, 

 and there is a discrepancy of 6 years in Averson's birth date. 



The Current Census of the Cayuga Tribe (p. 487) bears entry 

 "No. 146 B. 1888/ Spraggie, A. Averson/ D. June 8, 1937/ w. Lavina 

 Williams." These are substantially the same dates as given on his 

 grave slab in the cemetery at Lower Cayuga Longhouse. At the 

 Indian Office A. Averson is believed to be the same person as 

 Patterson.^ 



To cross-check we looked up Andrew's wife Betsy (Old Book, 



p. 177)- 



Betsy 29 1503 To self 177 



Martha 



Averson 



Rosa V. Bill 



Lavina Williams 



The last, at least, appears above as wife of Averson. 



From this we may conclude that Andrew Spragg was born about 

 1865 and died about 1921. He married a woman named Betsy, some- 

 what younger than himself, and they had a daughter Martha and a 

 son Averson. The latter, who is also known as Patterson, was born 

 between 1888 and 1894, depending on who kept the book, and he 

 had a son Raymond born in 1927; the father died in 1937. Averson's 

 relation to Rosa V. Bill and Lavina (or Louisa) Williams is not 

 clear, but one was his wife or both were. 



Andrew Spragg is remembered by his neighbors. Elliott Closes 

 (Delaware) as a lad of 18 worked out on the same farm with Spragg, 

 whom he remembers as 



a typical raw-boned Indian of about six feet. He was said to be the last full- 

 blood on the reserve. One day at table Andrew remarked that he had taken his 

 son out of Mohawk Institute (a boarding school for Six Nations Indians at 

 Brantford) because, as Andrew alleged, the boy was only learning to swear. 



Andrew's English became somewhat inverted in the telling, which 

 amused those present and caused Mr. Moses to remember the incident. 

 That Spragg spoke English imperfectly assumes importance because 

 it therefore appears unlikely that he read with sufficient facility to 

 have been influenced by what he had read about Iroquois ceremonials. 

 Yankee Spring had said that Andrew Spragg owned a copy of 

 Morgan's "League." 



8 I am very much indebted to Hilton M. Hill, for many years Clerk of the 

 Indian Office and Interpreter, to whose friendship I was fortunate to succeed 

 after the late J. N. B. Hewitt, for identifying the vital records on his Iroquois 

 brethren; and Miss Henderson of the Indian Office recalled to mind Spragg's 

 living descendants. 



