HISTORY OF STEUBEN COUNTY, NEW YORK. 



25 



king, and Onusseraqueta, their chief warrior, and every 

 prisoner, deserter, Frenchman and negro among them.' 



"The names of the King of Canisteo and the captain of 

 his forces above given (if we may be allowed to infer from 

 the meagre records of the affair, that the Canisteo clan is the 

 party referred to in the report) are the only names preserved 

 to us of the defendants in the English governor's very sum- 

 mary proceeding. In 1765 we find our dethroned monarch 

 and his lieutenant attending a conference of the Six Nations 

 at Johnson Hall. Sir William Johnson soundly berated 

 the Chenussios for their failure to deliver up the prisoners, 

 deserters, etc., together with a pair of red guerrillas named 

 Squash-Cutter and Long-Coat. Onusseraqueta answered, 

 saying among other things : ' Brother, it is a long time 

 since you shook me by my head to bring me to my senses. 

 I must confess we were out of our senses, but we are now 

 resolved to act no more foolishly.' The Delawares sought 

 to appease the governor with profuse apologies, but he was 

 not to be put off by their palaver, and lectured them in 

 cutting and peremptory terms, and refused to shake hands 

 with them till the two reprobates, Squash-Cutter and Long- 

 Coat, should be surrendered to him as hostages for the 

 delivery of the prisoners, etc., according. to the agreement. 

 This was done, and affairs came to an adjustment in a 

 treaty in May, 1765, which bears among other signatures 

 the signs manual of Atweetsera and Onussaraqueta, that of 

 the former being a loon^ and that of the latter a heaverT 



Doty, in his history of Livingston County, refers to a 

 battle between the Canisteo and Seneca Indians* as fol- 

 lows: 



" In a battle which took place between the Canisteo Indians 

 and Senecas, on a hill three miles to the northeast, a noted 

 Seneca chief was killed. To mark the spot where he fell 

 an excavation several rods in extent, shaped like a man 

 with arms extended, was made by his tribesmen. An In- 

 dian trail led by this novel memorial, and the natives, in 

 passing, were in the habit of clearing therefrom with ten- 

 der regard the leaves and brush which the wind had drifted 

 into it. The chief's remains were brought to Ganosgago 

 for burial, and singularly enough now lie under the altar 

 of the Lutheran Church, a Christian memorial to a pagan 

 warrior. A rude monument, consisting of a pile of small 

 stones brought hither one by one by the Indians from a 

 hill a mile distant, was worked by the white man's hands 

 into the church foundation wall." 



At the time of the battle this village was the frontier 

 post of the Senecas in a southward direction, and stood as 

 a menace to the Canisteos on this side of the hills. The 

 Indian trail which led from the Genesee to the Canisteo, 

 and thence to Eastern Pennsylvania, may yet be traced in 

 places, especially at a point half-way up Big Hill, where 

 the path intersects the highway leading from Dansville to 

 Hornellsville. For many miles below the latter place its 

 deeply-worn course is yet plainly visible. 



Ganosgago, the village referred to, is laid down on Pou- 

 chot's map as Kanouskegon ; it was established after De 

 Nouville's invasion of 1689.f 



* At Ganosgago, on the site of the present village of Dansville; a 

 small Seneca town of comparatively modern date, 

 f Doty's History of Livingston County. 



4 



CHAPTER V. 



PERIOD OF THE REVOLUTION. 



Massacre of Wyoming — Campaign of General Sullivan — Celebration 

 at Newtown — Expeditions up the Chemung — Operations within this 

 County. 



Two incidents of no little importance to our local history 

 occurred within the limits of this county during the period 

 of the Revolution : one was the fitting out of the expedi- 

 tion to Wyoming in the summer of 1778 ; the other the 

 movements of certain detachments of the Sullivan cam- 

 paign the following year. 



The Indians and Tories who planned the attack upon 

 Wyoming, acting under the authority of the British oflScers 

 in command of the garrison at Fort Niagara, followed the 

 well-trodden Indian trail across the Genesee Valley to the 

 upper Canisteo, or place of putting in the canoes.\ Fol- 

 lowing the course of the stream eastward to within a few 

 miles of the present village of Hornellsville they there cut 

 down large pine-trees, which grew upon its bank, and con- 

 structed the canoes which carried them down the swift cur- 

 rent into the Chemung, and thence to the scene of that 

 bloody and ever-memorable tragedy of the 3d of July, 

 1778. The valley of the Chemung from Painted Post to 

 Tioga was at this time occupied by Indian settlements of 

 more or less importance. Their lodges, villages, and corn- 

 fields were scattered along the banks of the .river for nearly 

 the whole distance down which the expedition passed to 

 their bloody work in the beautiful Wyoming Valley. How 

 many of these Indians joined the party on their way down 

 the river, or what aid and comfort they rendered the expe- 

 dition, is not known, but it is certain that the massacre of 

 Wyoming was the immediate cause of the planning and 

 execution of the campaign intrusted to Gen. Sullivan dur- 

 ing the following summer. 



It has been remarked by a late writer on this subject, 

 that " the terrible scenes and slaughter at Wyoming, July 

 3, 1778, extorted a wail from every colony in the land, and 

 roused a feeling of vengeance so deep and imperative that 

 even the great and magnanimous heart of Washington, 

 whose aff*ections and desires were all enlisted in the uplift- 

 ing of the Indian, was checked in its generous impulses, 

 and he calmly and wisely drew the plan of the Sullivan 

 campaign." It was no less than meeting the Indians on 

 their own ground, and adopting their own desolating tac- 

 tics, — to lay waste their country, destroy their villages, burn 

 their crops, cut down their orchards, and thus break their 

 power for future operations against the colonists. 



The chief command of the expedition was intrusted to 

 Gen. Sullivan, though at first it was proposed to give it to 

 Gen. Gates. The army was to march from their winter 

 quarters on the Hudson to Wyoming, thence up the Sus- 

 quehanna to Tioga, where another division under Gen. James 

 Clinton, marching by the way of Otsego Lake, after a di- 

 version into the country of the Onondagas, was to efi'ect a 

 junction, when the combined army, consisting of four 



;|: Meaning of the word Canisteo, place of putting iti the canoes, or 

 head of navigation. The name which at first only meant the launch - 

 ing-place in a little while came to be applied to the whole river. 



