294 



Peter Tenet among the Oneida Indians. 



In 1793, we meet with another reminiscence of Penet, 

 in the journal of some French agents, who were returning 

 from their first visit to the Castorland tract, on the Black 

 river. One of this party was Mark I. Brunei, then a 

 young political exile in America, and who afterwards 

 became illustrious as an engineer in England. These 

 travellers coming to the Oneida village, in the early part 

 of November, were welcomed as Frenchmen, and directed 

 to the house of the venerable Schenando, then seventy-six 

 years of age, who with his aged wife, did their best to 

 extend a hospitable welcome. But the culinary dainties 

 of these kind hearted people, could scarcely be swallowed 

 by their Parisian guests, who managed to complete their 

 repast from some large wooden bowls full of fresh milk. 



In the course of the evening, Schenando, having learned 

 that the party had lately returned from the northern wil- 

 derness, enquired about the lands which the Oneiclas had 

 given to Penet, who had come some years before with 

 some other Frenchmen to settle at Schenectady; he said, 

 that having convened the Indian villages, he made them 

 magnificent promises of an advantageous trade, but that 

 having left America without paying his debts, these lands 

 were sold at ten cents an acre, although the best located 

 in the country. Schenando 1 showed them some property 

 which had belonged to Penet, and lodged them in a bed 

 which he had left. 



The ten-miles-square, granted by the Oneidas to Penet, 

 be selected by his agent, John Duncan, 2 a merchant of 

 Schenectady, the sides of the square corresponding with 

 the principal cardinal points, and the north-west corner 

 resting upon the St. Lawrence at French Creek, the site 



1 Schenando died March 11, 1816. His age was then reported at 110 

 years. There appears to be an error of 11 years somewhere. See Annals 

 Tryon Co., Ed. 1831, p. 28. 



2 Mr. Duncan died aged 69 years, at the Hermitage, three miles south- 

 east of the city of Schenectady, on the 5th of May, 1791, The premises 

 are now owned by Senator Charles Stanford. 



