650 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



gate on the west and a smaller one on the northeast side. A cache 

 was mistaken for a well and near *** the western gateway were found 

 several pieces of timber, having the marks of iron tools upon them." 

 Pottery and shells were abundant. He also described an open 

 village on lot 83 south of Elbridge village where he said *' hundreds 

 of grooved stone axes had been found, and numerous arrowheads 

 as well as a stone for sharpening tools" (Clark, 2:324). Grooved 

 axes are so rare in New York that the writer made special inquiries 

 and found that this was an error. None is known there (Beau- 

 champ). 



Ontario County 



General occupation. Ontario county and the region about it was 

 one of the most important regions occupied by the Seneca Indians 

 during the middle colonial period, as is attested by the several villages 

 and the many evidences of occupation. A review of the sites in this 

 county shows that there were places occupied in precolonial times 

 by the Senecas, the best known site of this earlier period being that 

 on the Reed farm in the town of Richmond, and on the outlet of 

 Hemlock lake. So important a portion of the Seneca county or 

 Sonontouan was this territory that the various French invaders who 

 sent their troops against the Iroquois directed much of their energy 

 to the destruction of the Seneca villages and farm lands in Ontario 

 county. The French missionaries as early as 1655 undertook to 

 record some information about the number and character of the 

 Seneca towns ; this work was carried on by Father Chaumont and 

 Dablon. In the Jesuit Relations we are told that the account of the 

 Sonontouans contained two large villages and a number of small 

 ones besides the Huron village of St Michel. A later record by Father 

 Jocques Fremin in 1668 names four villages within the jurisdiction 

 of St Michels mission. The three villages which he named out of 

 the four are Gandachiragon, Gandougarae, Gandagora. The second 

 named was composed of refugees and captives from three extin- 

 guished nations, the Neuters, Hurons and the Onontiogas. 



In 1669 Brehant de Galinee, one of the companions of Count 

 LaSalle, described one of the principal villages of the Senecas as 

 being on the brow of a hill and in a clearing about 2 leagues in 

 circumference. This town he said was coni])ose(l of a " lot of cabins 

 surrounded with palisades of poles, 12 or 13 feet high, fastened 

 together at the top and planted in the ground, with great piles of 

 wood the height of a man behind these palisades, the cabins being 

 not otherwise flanked, merely a simple inclosure, perfectly square." 

 Sonontouan, in liis description, was " composed of four villages. 



