BUFFALO SOCIETY OF NATURAL SCIENCES 285 



they had aided the British, and their chiefs and warriors were 

 prominent in the border raids of that period. In 1779, General 

 Sullivan and General Clinton were instructed to direct a punitive 

 expedition against them. During the summer of that year the 

 Colonial forces under these two leaders devastated the whole 

 Seneca country. Villages and scattered hamlets were burned, 

 orchards were cut down, and the growing crops and stored corn 

 were destroyed. That winter the Senecas faced a famine, and 

 for aid they fled to Fort Niagara, then the headquarters of the 

 British forces on the Frontier. Over five thousand camped on 

 the plains about the fort and along the river as far as Eewiston. 

 After a winter of terrible hardships during which hundreds died, 

 a great number of the refugees, rather than return to their deso- 

 lated homes, selected land along Buffalo Creek and its branches; 

 and there they established new homes. 



Most of these exiles were Senecas, but accompanying them 

 were some Onondagas and Cayugas. The main body of Senecas 

 settled between Buffalo Creek and Cazenovia Creek, along what 

 is now Seneca Street and Abbott Road in Buffalo. They grouped 

 themselves for the most part on what is now Indian Church Road. 

 Another party established itself at what is now Gardenville, where 

 a group of cabins grew up, later called "jack Berry's Town." A 

 small party settled half a mile east of Blossom and another on the 

 "Big Flats" at Elma. A considerable party settled along Buffalo 

 Creek on lots 4, 11, 12, 14 and 15, in Elma township, near East 

 Elma, and just east of this, a mile and a half southwest of 

 Marilla a small settlement was formed, (l). 



The Onondagas went up Cazenovia Creek and established 

 themselves on both sides of the Creek at the ford just west of 

 Ebenezer. The Cayugas built a few cabins just north of the 

 Seneca village on what is now William Street, Cheektowaga. 



It seems more than a mere coincidence that the Seneca set- 

 tlements grew up on, or in very close proximity to, ancient village 

 sites. The main body established itself about the ancient site on 

 Buffum Street, Buffalo; while the smaller party at East Elma re- 

 occupied the land cultivated by the people of the three ancient 

 villages at that point. Their cabins stood too, on the old sites on 

 Barnard Street, Buffalo, and on the Eaton Farm and the Hart 



i. For villages at Elma see Warren Jackman's "History of the Town 

 of Elma." 



