388 THE SENECA NATION 



came for worship to the new chapel of St. Michel at Gandouga- 

 rae, now rebuilt after the fire. To fill the evident need of a 

 spiritual guide in so large a community, Father John Pierron 

 was sent to the Seneca country "to take charge of a large vil- 

 lage", wherein 1676 he baptized ninety persons, nearly all dying 

 children. (*1) 



Notwithstanding frequent baptisms by the priests, the 

 Christian Faith was falling more and more into disfavor. The 

 Senecas had defeated their troublesoms enemies, the Andastes, 

 in 1674 or 1675, and as a consequence, were more than usually 

 insolent and overbearing, threatening even to make war upon 

 Canada. A hired assassin was to have killed Father Gamier, 

 but his plans miscarried. The next year the priests were in 

 constant danger. Drunken Senecas pursued them with hatchets, 

 overturned and destroyed their chapel, and in all ways perse- 

 cuted them almost beyond endurance. An epidemic of influenza, 

 with a great mortality increased the misery. But, as usual in 

 the epidemics, the harvest for the Faith was correspondingly 

 large. Father Gamier baptized forty children and fourteen 

 adults, all of whom died immediately afterward. Sixty children 

 died in one month in La Conception, (Totiakto). (*2) 



Insolent as the Senecas were toward the French, they 

 seemed to have little animosity towards their English neighbors 

 at Albany. In 1677, their country was visited in a friendly 

 manner by Wentworth Greenhalgh, the first and for many years 

 the only Englishman to leave a written record of first hand ob- 

 servation of Seneca life and customs. (*3) 



Mr. Greenhalgh left Albany May 20th, 1677, to visit the 

 cantons of the Iroquois He passed westward through the vil- 

 lages of the Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas and Cayugas, finally 

 reaching the villages of the "Senecques". He reached Albany 

 on his return on July 14th of the same year. While there is no 

 record of the purpose of his journey, it was evidently an official 

 one, probably to ascertain the fighting strength of the Iroquois, 

 for his report is of the scantiest nature, giving a few details only 

 of the location of the towns or "castles" of the different nations, 

 with an estimate of the number of their warriors. In "Cana- 



*l Jesuit Relations, Burrows ed., LIX, 77. 

 *2 Jesuit Relations, Burrows ed., LX, 175. 

 *3 Doc. History of New York. 



