ABORIGINAL OCCUPATION OF NEW YORK 26 



It is said that the Mahikans had a fort on an island at Albany 

 when the Dutch came there. Messrs Bankers and Sluyter visited 

 the remains of a fort at the end of an island, thought to have been 

 built by the Spaniards. This they did not believe but said " That a 

 fort has been there, is evident enough from the earth thrown up." 

 It has been recently claimed that this was a French fort, built in 

 1540. — Weise, p. 12. This is supported by a note found on the map 

 of 1614, thus translated: "But as far as one can understand from 

 what the Maquas say and show, the French come with sloops as 

 high up as to their country to trade with them." There is no men- 

 tion here of a fort, and the reference seems to be to the visit of 

 Jacques Cartier to the Mohawks^ in 1535, when they dwelt at Hoche- 

 laga in Canada. They came into New York late in that century. 



Allegany county. i Caneadea, the last Seneca village on the 

 Genesee, was at the mouth of Caneadea creek. — Morgan, p. 436. In 

 the Smithsonian report for 1879^ E. A. Byrnes reported a ceme- 

 tery near Caneadea and at the mouth of Black creek. E. M. 

 Wilson of Belfast wrote in 1896, "Between 15 and 20 years ago Mr 

 Byrnes and I visited an old Indian cemetery which had been opened 

 at that time near the village of Houghton in Caneadea. With the 

 exception of one stone pipe nearly everything found in the shape 

 of implements was made by white men." 



2 The Seneca village of Karathyadirha in 1766 was at Belvidere, 

 on the Genesee and at the molith of Van Campen's creek. — Doc. hist. 

 N. Y. 7:72^. E. M. Wilson furnished the plan of fig. 14, on a 

 scale of 200 feet to the inch. It is an earthwork in Angelica, one 

 and one half miles north of the N. Y. L. E. & W. railroad station of 

 Belvidere, 80 rods west of the Genesee river, and on a partly inclosed 

 plateau. A stream is on the west, and the river flats on the east. It 

 is a half circular bank, with a gate in the center and an outside ditch. 

 The plateau is about 60 feet high, and the wall 450 feet long. It is 

 an early site, with stone implements and pottery. 



3 Near Phillipsville, now Belmont, and in Amity, not far from 

 Belvidere were three forts. On the largest of these were eight old 

 trees, on one of which was painted a turtle over a canoe. — Barber, 

 p. 86. Mr Wilson knew of only one work near Belmont. Dr E. E. 



