CHAMPLAIN'S ASSAULT ON THE FORTIFIED TOWN OF 



THE ONEIDAS, 1615 



BY ARTHUR C. PARKER 



In viewing Nichols pond and the region about it we behold a spot 

 over which many disputes have raged and about which much has 

 been written and said. Unfortunately for the historian, however, 

 the written story of this ancient site is all too meager, yet the careful 

 student possessed with imagination is able from the facts which are 

 available to weave a romantic tale of adventure. 



Surely, there are much more thrilling episodes in our colonial 

 history than the narrative of Nichols pond, and yet there are events 

 connected with this spot that have drawn the attention of the 

 historian to it and made it worthy of record. 



The first conflict here was that of the Iroquois for possession of 

 the country; and later that of the Oneidas to reclaim a portion of 

 the wilderness for their homes and farms. The next conflict was 

 the attempt of Champlain and his allies to devastate the fields and 

 burn the Oneida town that stood here. The third struggle was 

 that of the English settlers to acquire title to the land and occupy it 

 by right of treaty with the Oneidas, who were virtually forced into 

 an agreement to part with their ancestral homes for a few cents 

 an acre. The last conflict concerning the land abutting these shores 

 is that of the historian: for it must not be supposed that when the 

 centuries had obscured the written record, it was easy to determine 

 that Nichols pond deserved a place in history. For how modest 

 this shallow pool, now grown to swamp land, and how little to suggest 

 the clamor of battle, the cry of the Huron savage and the angry 

 commands of a captain of the French army ! 



Parkman, who wrote so charmingly of the great war party, makes 

 no attempt to tell us where Champlain and his party of Hurons 

 engaged the Entonhonorons. 



O. H. Marshall, the historian of the Genesee and of colonial 

 western New York, from his interpretation of the Champlain 

 accounts, was confident that the scene of Champlain 's battle of 

 October 10, 161 5 was on the south bank of Onondaga lake, but 

 Brodhead, with equal assurance, places the spot at the north end 

 of the same lake near the present site of the village of Liverpool. 

 Geddes, on the other hand, inclines to the opinion that the fight took 

 place at Fort Saint Mary's. 



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