PREFACE
This book is to be used as a supplement to the Finger Lakes Unit in
Wayland-Cohocton’s Environmental Science Class. It was produced from
research done by Mr. Hughes between 1999-2003 and relies heavily on
the following books by Emerson Klees:
Persons, Places, and Things In the Finger Lakes Region (1993)
Persons, Places, and Things Around the Finger Lakes Region (1994)
People of the Finger Lakes Region (1995)
Legends and Stories of the Finger Lakes Region (1995)
More Legends and Stories of the Finger Lakes Region (1997)
Whenever possible, photographs of selected passages will be used during
class and field trips may be scheduled to visit some of the places
discussed.
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Table of Contents
Geology of the Finger Lakes Region
Page
The Origin of the Genesee River
The Salt Industry in the Finger Lakes Region
Cobblestone Country
3
4
6
The Easternmost Site of the Mound-Builders
Indians of the Woodland Period
The Lamoka Culture
Frontenac Island
8
9
9
10
The Hand of the Great Spirit
The Legend of Hiawatha
11
11
The French Expedition to the Finger Lakes Region
12
The
The
The
The
The
13
13
14
14
16
Native American History
IROQUOIS LEGENDS
European Encroachment in the Finger Lakes
THE SULLIVAN CAMPAIGN
Battle at Newtown
Naming of the Village of Horseheads
Naming of the Village of Painted Post
Massacre at Groveland
Story of the Short Bench
Wine Industry in the Finger Lakes Region
Growing European Grapes in the Region
The Destruction of One-Third of the Ford
Tractors in the Ukraine
Olde Germania’s Ghost
The Finger Lakes
CONESUS
16
18
18
The Legend of the Mosquito
20
The Legend of Onnolee
20
The
The
The
The
The
21
21
22
23
24
CANADICE
CANANDAIGUA
Birth of the Seneca Nation
Serpent of Bare Hill
Ring of Fire
Squaw Island Sanctuary
Tree in Grimes Glen
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KEUKA
The Mysterious Ruins on the Bluff
The Mysterious Ruin North of Branchport
The Brave’s Curse
Anecdotes of Jemima Wilkinson
The Chapel on the Mount
The Tall Fish Story
The Peach Basket from Penn Yan
The Story of Esperanza
24
26
27
28
29
31
32
32
The Drums of Seneca Lake
The Wandering Chief
The Spirit Boatman
The Scythe Tree
A Romantic Tale of Belhurst Castle
34
34
35
35
36
The Origin of the Song of Hiawatha
The Naming of Taughannock Falls
The Legend of the Door at Taughannock
The Taughannock Giant
The Burning of the Frontenac on Cayuga Lake
The Cayuga Bridge
An American Tragedy
The First Ice Cream Sundae
37
38
38
40
41
45
46
47
The Finger Lake That Isn’t a Finger Lake
The Legend of Ensenore
47
48
The Origin of the Blue Waters
49
The Naming of the Land of Oz
50
SENECA
CAYUGA
OWASCO
SKANEATELES
OTISCO
State Parks in the Finger Lakes Region
STONY BROOK
The Legend of Red Wing
LETCHWORTH
51
The Destruction of the Portageville Railroad Bridge 51
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THE ORIGIN OF THE GENESEE RIVER
The Genesee River, the only river that crosses the entire width
of New York State, is one of the few major rivers that flows north. It
meanders for approximately 190 miles from its origin in spring-fed
ponds in Gold, Pennsylvania. The source of the Genesee River is in
Potter County, Pennsylvania, near the headwaters of the Allegheny
River and a branch of the Susquehanna River. The Iroquois
Indians considered the river and its valley together when they
named the river Genesee, meaning “beautiful valley.”
The sea covered the Genesee Valley, as it covered the adjacent
Finger Lakes Region, until 350 to 400 million years ago during the
Devonian Period. When the sea receded from the valley, it left
layers of mud, sand, and silt, which now can be seen as
compressed layers in Letchworth State Park gorge. An extended
period of erosion and weathering followed the Devonian Era. In the
hard rock layers, it created broad escarpments such as those south
of Dansville, and formed lowlands and stream valleys in the softer
layers.
The character of the Genesee Valley and the Finger Lakes was
created by cyclical glacial erosion and glacial deposits, a process
which deepened the north-south valleys and filled the east-west
valleys. The major changes to the Genesee River were in the areas
of Letchworth State Park and Rochester. Glacial residue filled an
older channel from Portageville to Sonyea, and a similar channel
was filled in between Avon and Irondequoit Bay, the original mouth
of the Genesee River.
The Genesee-Canaseraga Valley from Geneseo to Dansville
was a large lake similar to the Finger Lakes. The rich, fertile
farmland in the area today was underwater form much of its
history. After the glacier in the region retreated about 13,000 years
ago, it re-advanced to within five miles north of Geneseo and filled
in the valley near Ashantee with glacial debris that partially
blocked the original outlet of the Genesee River.
With the withdrawal of the glacier in the Wisconsin Ice Age,
the new Genesee River followed its original course from
Pennsylvania to Portageville, where the old northeast pathway to
Sonyea was now blocked by glacial deposits of the Portageville
moraine. From here, the new Genesee River flowed north across
the Letchworth plateau, eventually eroding the plateau into the
gorge that exists today. Similar erosion occurred at Rochester,
when the new channel of the Genesee River to Lake Ontario was
carved in rock older than that in Letchworth State Park.
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The main geological features between Avon and Dansville are
linked with the Genesee River, which meanders across a flat
sediment-filled floor with “ox-bows,” where the river doubles back
on itself. The Dansville trough between Mt. Morris and Dansville
now contains Caneseraga Creek. It was formed by the much larger
“Dansville River,” the east branch of the original Genesee River with
headwaters near the present Canandaigua Lake.
THE SALT INDUSTRY IN THE FINGER LAKES REGION
Livingston County
The salt mine at Retsof in the town of York, owned by the
Netherlands corporation, Akzo, N.Y., was the largest rock salt mine
in the western hemisphere. In 1994, salt pillars supporting the
roof of the mine collapsed allowing water to enter the mine. Large
depressions appeared in the ground over portions of the mine, and
the mine had to be closed.
The Retsof mine, one thousand feet below the surface, was
part of a salt bed that extended from the Province of Ontario to
Virginia, and from Michigan to Syracuse. The mine shafts were
sunk through Onondaga limestone and dolomite about 500 to 600
feet below the surface, bounded above by four types of shale,
Cardif, Skaneateles, Ludlowville, and Marcellus, and below by two
types, Camillus and Vernon.
The mine extended for 6,000 acres under three towns; it had
over 300 miles of tunnels and passageways. Salt mines are
generally safer than other mines; salt is neither flammable nor
subject to explosion and is not considered a health hazard.
Approximately half of the salt mined by Akzo is rock salt, and the
other half is classified as “table salt.” In addition to seasoning food,
table salt is used in the manufacturing of blue dye and elastic, in
oil drilling, and for providing a filler in cosmetics, household
cleaners, laundry detergent, and toothpaste.
The mine at Retzof was established by the Empire Salt
Company in 1885. It was named by the first president of Empire
Salt, William Foster; Retsof is Foster spelled backwards. One of the
early shafts was sunk at Cuylerville and was subsequently closed.
It was considered to be the haunt of the “blue lady.” Many consider
the phenomenon of the blue glow to be escaping methane gas;
others claim to have seen the ghost of a woman carrying a lantern
in search of her husband, who lost his life in the mine.
5
Akzo N.V. bought the Diamond Crystal Salt Company in
1988, merged it with International Salt, and renamed the merged
companies Akzo Salt. Akzo Salt is the largest company in the
world.
Syracuse
Father Simon LeMoyne, a French missionary, recorded in his
journal of August 16, 1654, that he had found a salt spring near
the head of Onondaga Lake. Indians and fur traders took salt from
the springs to both Albany and Montreal. The source of the name
Onondaga was the Indian word On-on-dah-ka, which meant
“swamp at the foot of a hill.”
Comfort Tyler settled in the Syracuse area in the late
eighteenth century. He cleared the first land, and built the first
turnpike road in the region. Tyler was also one of the earliest to
become involved in the manufacture of salt. The Onondaga Indians
called him To-whan-ta-qua, the man who can do two things at
once. James Geddes, another early settler who became involved
early in the salt industry, set up his evaporating kettles on the
southwest corner of Onondaga Lake.
As the demand for salt grew and the surface brine was used
up, wells were sunk 1,200 feet into the salt strata. Beginning in
1821, a solar evaporation method was used to reclaim the salt. In
poor weather, the vats were covered with sliding roofs. Eventually,
over 10,000 shed structures were built. Salt production peaked in
1862, when nine million bushels of salt were shipped. More readily
accessible salt was discovered in the West, and the salt industry in
Syracuse waned.
Seneca Lake
The salt industry began on Seneca Lake in 1892 when the
Glen Salt Company, later the International Salt Company, first
drilled a well on the west shore of the lake, just north of Watkins
Glen. Salt is not mined on Seneca Lake; a different process is used
to extract the salt from the ground. A well is drilled from 1,800 to
3,000 feet deep to reach a salt deposit, water is pumped down one
well to make a brine, the brine is pumped up to the ground level
from an adjacent well, and the brine is transported to large
evaporators. Water is evaporated off using a heating and cooling
process that leaves pure salt in crystalline form, which is virtually
table-ready. Only two ingredients are added; one makes the salt
free-running, and the other is an iodized solution for iodized salt.
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International Salt, now part of the Akzo Salt Compnay, also
makes salt pressed into small cubes called salt buttons for used in
home water softeners, and block salt for livestock.
In 1896, the Watkins Salt Company began operation at the
southern end of Seneca Lake, in the village of Watkins Glen. The
former Watkins Salt Company is now part of Cargill, Incorporated.
The veins of salt under the Seneca Lake region extend northward
through New York State into Ontario, Canada.
Cayuga Lake
The salt industry on Cayuga Lake began when the Cayuga
Lake Salt Company was formed in 1891. In 1899, the Cayuga Lake
Salt Company was consolidated into the National Salt Company,
which subsequently was purchased by Cargill, Inc. The company
mines salt in the Ludlowville/Myers area, where the veins of salt
are 2,000 feet underground.
COBBLESTONE COUNTRY
Cobblestone houses are indigenous to the Finger Lakes
Region and the area just to the west of it. Homes constructed of
cobblestones can be found within a fifty-mile radius of Rochester
but, in significant numbers, nowhere else. Albany, Michigan, Ohio,
and Ontario, Canada, each have a few examples of this type of
architecture and Brattleboro, Vermont, has one. However, these
homes were built by masons who moved there from central and
western New York State. Among the inherent advantages of
building a house with cobblestones are fire- and weather-resistant
and low maintenance.
Cobblestones are water-washed stones that were produced by
glacial activity during the Ice Age. As the glacier advanced, it
ground and smoothed the stones and distributed them along the
shoreline of Lake Iroquois, the region’s glacial lake. Many of the
cobblestones were strewn along the “Ridge,” now Ridge Road.
Farmers removed the stones from their fields and piled them out of
the way of their plows or made fences with them.
Cobblestone architecture is considered a regional expression
of the architecture of the late Greek Revival Period, but it is not a
separate style. Although the Greek Revival style began in the
1790s, the earliest cobblestone homes were built in the mid-1820s.
Cobblestone architecture is divided into three periods: the Early
Period (1825-1835), the Middle Period (1834-1845), and the Late
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Period (1845-1861). With few exceptions, the Cobblestone Era
ended with the beginning of the Civil War.
Although most of the cobblestone homes were built in the
Greek Revival style, some were built in the Post-Colonial Style, and
a few were built in the Victorian Style-the Civil War took place
during the Victorian Period. Many of them were of a transitional
design and had the characteristics of more than one style. The first
cobblestone homes were built in Henrietta, Mendon, and Rush in
Monroe County and in Farmington in Ontario County. Cobblestone
houses were initially built on farms; later they appeared in the
villages.
Stones used in the early cobblestone construction varied
considerably in size and were laid in uneven rows. One of the first
stylistic innovations was to lay the stones in more even rows.
During the Early Period, the stones were from two and a half to
three and a half inches high and from three to six inches long.
Stones were sized by passing them through holes cut in a board or
through iron rings called “beetle rings.”
Smaller stones, from one and a half to two and a half inches
high and from two to four inches long, were used during the Middle
Period. Also, masons began to use stones of one particular color.
Red sandstones were popular during this period.
Small round stones, called lake-washed cobblestones, were
used widely during the Late Period. On the average, they were one
to one and a half inches high and three-quarters of an inch to two
inches wide. The herring-bone pattern was one of the variations
used in the construction of cobblestone houses. The use of
alternate rows of white and red stones was another.
From the beginning, masons used stone quoins at the corners
of the houses. Quoins are rectangular stones used to strengthen
corners and to improve the appearance of the building. Initially,
these were small stone blocks about two or three courses of
cobblestone high. Later, they used square stones twelve inches
high, six to eight inches thick, and sixteen to eighteen inches long.
As the size of the stones selected became smaller, four courses,
then five courses, and, finally, six courses of stones were finished
with a twelve-inch-high quoin at the corners.
It was not a coincidence that cobblestone houses began to be
constructed in the mid-1820s. The Erie Canal was completed in
1825, and masons who built the locks on the canal were looking for
work. They wanted to stay in the area because they liked the
beauty of the region and the reasonable cost of land. The
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availability of labor combined with the availability of material
served to promote a new type of regional construction. This was
particularly noticeable along the Ridge to the west of Rochester.
There are over twenty-five examples of cobblestone architecture in
the twenty-five-mile stretch between Rochester and the village of
Childs.
Limestone blocks and slabs for quoins, sills, and lintels could
be easily and economically transported from area quarries. A sill is
the horizontal piece at the bottom of a door or window opening; a
lintel is the horizontal piece over a door or window that bears the
weight of the structure above it. During the construction of the
Erie Canal, quarries had been established at Albion, Geneva,
LeRoy, Medina, Phelps, and Rochester.
Not only homes, but also churches, schools, and stores were
constructed of cobblestones. In addition, an octagonal blacksmith
shop in Alloway, a factory in Perry, and a Masonic Temple Building
in Pittsford were built of cobblestones. In all, approximately 500
cobblestone structures were erected in the region.
Interest in cobblestone structures tapered off as labor costs
increased. Cobblestone construction was very labor-intensive, and
also the advent of steam-powered sawmills and the availability of
wood from Pennsylvania and from the Adirondacks lowered the cost
of construction with wood.
Although some of the cobblestone houses have been lost,
most of their owners today appear to be maintaining them properly.
They certainly are worthy of being preserved. Rochester architect
Claude Bragdon referred to the Cobblestone Era as “evidence of our
architectural Golden Age.” In his opinion, “Austere and humble as
these buildings are, they show a beauty and integrity of a kind
which made this country great, and should serve as inspiration to
us today.”
THE EASTERNMOST SITE OF THE MOUND-BUILDERS
Fort Hill cemetery in Auburn is the site of an earthen fort
built by the Mound-Builders, or Alleghans, who preceded the
Cayuga Indians in the area. Their Fort Osco on the site of Fort Hill
cemetery had embankments for defense and an earthen altar for
the worship of the sun. The mounds in which they buried their
dead were outside the fortress, about 275 yards north of Fort Hill.
The Alleghan village of Osco appears to have been their
easternmost settlement. Many of their building sites lined the Ohio
9
River, and they built many mounds in Missouri. Their name was
given to the Allegheny Mountains and to the Allegheny River. They
were driven from the region about 1300 by the Iroquois Indians.
INDIANS OF THE WOODLAND PERIOD
The culture of the Owasco Indians was from the late
Woodland period that spanned the years AD 1000-1300, as
determined by carbon dating of hearth charcoal samples from eight
separate sites. The Owascos were farmers, fishermen, and
hunters. They grew herbs and tobacco, and were the earliest
culture in New York State known to grown beans, corn, and
squash. The Owasco people made items such as bone awls and
needles, clay storage and cooking pots, flint projectile points, stone
ax heads and scraping tools, and wooden bowls and spoons.
In 1915, E. H. Gohl discovered pottery and other Indian
artifacts on the site of the twelfth-century Owasco Indian village in
Emerson Park, south of Auburn. The site was excavated later that
year by Dr. Arthur C. Parker, New York State archaeologist and
Director of Emeritus of the Rochester Museum and Science Center.
It was the first excavation in the region that yielded pre-Iroquois
artifacts. Because of many later excavations, the Owasco culture is
the most well-known pre-Iroquois culture in New York State. The
culture was named “Owasco” because of its proximity to Owasco
Lake.
Many bone, stone, and ceramic objects, inclding pipes and
one of the largest pots produced by the Owascos, were excavated.
Most of the material found on the site is now in the New York State
Museum in Albany.
THE LAMOKA CULTURE
People of the Lamoka culture, an Archaic Indian group, lived
in central New York from 3500 BC until well after 2000 BC. The
Lamoka people moved into central New York because of the ample
supply of fish and game. In 1925, one of the earliest and largest
excavations that yielded information about their culture was dug
near Lamoka Lake in the Town of Tyrone in Schuyler County.
Lamoka Lake and its companion, Lake Waneta, straddle the county
road between Hammondsport and Watkins Glen. Waneta Lake,
10
north of the road, is joined to Lamoka Lake, south of the road, by a
three-quarter-mile-long channel that is navigable by boats.
The 1925 excavation site it at the head of Lamoka Lake and is
only several feet above the level of the channel that connects
Waneta Lake with Lamoka Lake. Subsequent excavations were
made at the site in 1958 and 1962. Many antler, bone, and stone
artifacts were found that were helpful in defining the Lamoka
Culture. The stone artifacts included anvils, beveled adzes,
hammerstones, and projectile points.
The Lamoka depended upon hunting, fishing, and the
gathering of wild plants for their subsistence. They were not
farmers like the Owasco and the Iroquois Indians that populated
the region many years later. Their principal food animals were
deer, passenger pigeon, and turkey. The javelin was their main
weapon, and they probably also used snares and traps. The fish
upon which they subsisted included bullheads and pickerel.
Acorns were their most important source of food. Many foodgrinding implements were found that were used to grind acorns
into flour.
The typical Lamoka adult male was of medium height (five
feet, five inches to five feet, six inches tall), had a slender build, and
a long, narrow, oval-shaped head with a narrow nose. The social
organization of the Lamokas was comprised of groups of nuclear
and extended families bound by common needs, such as advisory
capacity was probably the only central authority. Eventurally, the
Lamoka culture was assimilated into other cultures and ceased to
exist as a separate culture after 2000 BC.
FRONTENAC ISLAND
Frontenac Island, which is located one half mile off Union
Springs on the eastern shore of Cayuga Lake, is one of two islands
in the Finger Lakes. The other is Squaw Island at the north end of
Canandaigua Lake. Frontenac Island is just under one acre in
area, and its surface is eight feet above the lake level (380 feet
above sea level).
In 1939-40, a Rochester Museum and Science Center
expedition directed by the New York State archeologist, Dr. William
A. Ritchie, discovered the burial site of an Archaic Indian people
who began to inhabit the island about 3500 BC. The timing of
their occupation was determined from radiocarbon dating of
charcoal samples from hearths in the refuse mantle on the island.
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In 1953, Dr. Ritchie conducted a second excavation in the
southeastern corner of Frontenac Island, again under the auspices
of the Rochester Museum and Science Center.
The two excavations on the island contributed important
information about New York prehistory. They provided most of the
human skeletal discoveries upon which knowledge of the physical
characteristics of early cultures, including the Lamoka, Frontenac,
and Laurentain I cultures, are based. Evidence of the Lamoka
culture on the island includes Lamoka-type arrow and spearheads,
bone fishhooks, stone choppers. The Lamoka people were
assimilated into other cultures and lost their identity as a separate
culture. People of the Frontenac Culture who inhabited the island
appear to have lived in the period between the Lamoka Culture and
the later Laurentian Cultures.
THE HAND OF THE GREAT SPIRIT
It is said that the Finger Lakes were made by the impression
of the hand of the Great Spirit on central New York State. However,
there are six major Finger Lakes; west to east they are
Canandaigua, Keuka, Seneca, Cayauga, Owasco, and Skaneateles.
As told in Iroquois legend, the Great God Manitou wanted to
reward the Iroquois Confederacy for their courage in battle and
their devotion to the Great Spirit. He decided to bring a part of
their happy hunting ground down from the heavens.
According to the legend, there are six Finger Lakes because
the hand of Manitou slipped when he was pushing the portion of
Indian Paradise down from the heavens, causing six indentations
in the earth -- and later six lakes -- instead of five.
THE LEGEND OF HIAWATHA
Hiawatha, the great Iroquois chief and hunter, lived on the
south shore of Cross Lake, west of Syracuse. In his Song of
Hiawatha, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow transported Hiawatha to
the shores of Lake Gitche Gumee in Minnesota and made him a
Ojibway Indian via poetic license.
Hiawatha spoke to the chiefs of the Cayuga, Mohawk, Oneida,
Onondaga, and Seneca Nations, near what is now Liverpool on
Onondaga Lake. The chiefs counted on Hiawatha to lead them to a
more peaceful way of life. He held a single arrow in his
12
outstretched hand and, facing the chiefs, broke the arrow over his
knee. Next he took from his quiver five arrows that had been
bound together with deerskin thongs. The five arrows represented
the five nations of the Iroquois confederacy, and when he tried to
break them over his knee, he couldn’t.
Hiawatha’s demonstration of strength in unity was the
underlying principle of the Iroquois Confederation. The Iroquois
maintained a strong confederacy for over two hundred years, and
hostile tribes, such as the Hurons, provided a lesser threat than
before the confederacy was formed.
THE FRENCH EXPEDITION TO THE FINGER LAKES
REGION
In June, 1687, Marquis Denonville, the Governor of New
France, assembled a military expedition comprised of 2,000 French
Army regulars and 600 Indian allies. The expedition traveled down
the St. Lawrence River across Lake Ontario to Irondequoit Bay in
200 bateaux and 200 canoes. Another force of 180 Frenchmen and
over 300 Indians, commanded by La Durantaye and Tonty, met the
larger force at Irondequoit Bay. Denonville left 300 men to build a
small fort to protect the barges and canoes, and then marched
overland to annihilate the Seneca Indians. His goal was to reduce
his competition in the fur trade.
Denonville followed the Indian trail to Gannagaro, which was
south of the present day Village of Victor. As he approached the
major Seneca village through a ravine on July 13, 1687, his
expedition was surprised by a Seneca ambush and was almost
overwhelmed. Some of the Indian allies fled, but his Mohawk allies
held. Denonville ordered the sounding of trumpets and the roll of
drums, while executing a flanking movement to rout the Senecas.
One hundred Frenchmen and eighty Senecas were killed. In
retreating, the Senecas burned their village, but not their store of
corn. Dennonville’s men tore down the Senecas’ palisades and
completed the destruction. Denonville’s men burned three other
Seneca villages and destroyed their stored corn and beans. His
expedition then marched to their boats at Irondequoit Bay and
returned to Canada. No lasting benefit came to the French from
this military venture. Gannagaro wasn’t rebuilt; the Seneca’s
merely moved farther inland, away from Lake Ontario. A negative
13
result for the French was that the Senecas were driven into
alliances with the English.
THE BATTLE OF NEWTOWN
On February 27, 1779, the Colonial Congress authorized
General Washington to form an expeditionary force to prevent the
Iroquois Confederacy from joining with the Brititsh to attack his
colonial army from the west. Washington chose thirty-nine-yearold Major General John Sullivan, who had distinguished himself at
the battles of Brandywine, Germantown, Trenton, Princeton, and
Butt’s Hill, to lead the expedition.
Sullivan’s army assembled at Easton, Pennsylvania; stopped
at Wyoming, Pennsylvania, to correct supply problems; and
marched to Tioga Point, which is now Athens, Pennsylvania.
Another element of the expedition, commanded by Brigadier
General James Clinton, Sullivan’s second-in-command, started
from Schenectady. They built 212 boats and moved up the
Mohawk River to Canajoharie, where they carried the boats
overland to Otsego Lake. They built a dam at Cooperstown, raised
the level of Otsego Lake by two feet, and proceeded south to join
Sullivan at Tioga Point. Sullivan’s men built Fort Sullivan at Tioga
Point and waited for Clinton’s forces to arrive.
Clinton arrived in late August, and both elements of the
expedition marched to Newton, five miles south of Elmira, where
they were met by a force of 1,000 to 1,500 men. The enemy force
was made up of Canadian Rangers, Tories, and Indians, and was
commanded by the Mohawk chief, Joseph Brant. Brant had been
educated by Eleazar Wheelock, the founder of Dartmouth College.
Sullivan’s scouts had informed him that Brant’s men were waiting
in ambush. The advance information allowed part of Sullivan’s
force to work in behind Brant’s men waiting for them. Sullivan’s
force of 3,000 routed Brant’s army, because Sullivan attacked both
from the front and from the rear. This was the only staged battle of
the Sullivan Expedition.
THE NAMING OF THE VILLAGE OF HORSEHEADS
The origin of the name “Horseheads” is explained in an
inscription on a boulder in Hanover Square at the intersection of
five streets in the center of the village. A brass plate on the boulder
14
contains the incription: “In 1779 near this spot, General John
Sullivan mercifully disposed of his pack of horses worn out by
faithful service in the campaign against the six nations of the
Iroquois. The white settlers entering the valley in 1879 found the
bleached skulls and named the place ‘Horseheads.’”
THE NAMING OF THE VILLAGE OF PAINTED POST
The Village of Painted Post received its name from a carved
oak post erected at the junction of the Cohocton, Tioga, and
Chemung Rivers by the Iroquois Indians. The figures of twentyeight men were cut into the post and painted red. The crudely
carved post also had thirty headless figures carved into it. The
early settlers did not understand the symbolism of the post, but
they named the area “The Lands of the Painted Post.” It is
speculated that the Indians erected the post to commemorate a
victorious battle.
THE MASSACRE AT GROVELAND
In 1779, General Washington ordered Major General John
Sullivan to destroy Iroquois villages and crops to discourage the
Iroquois Confederacy from joining with the British and attacking
the Continental Army from the west during the Revolutionary War.
In their westernmost advance, the army camped near the Indian
village of Conesus at the southern end of Conesus Lake. General
Sullivan detailed Lieutenant Boyd to take a small scouting party of
five of six men and one Indian scout to the Indian village of
Chenussio (near present-day Cuylerville). It was located on the
west side of the Genesee River near where the Canaseraga Creek
flows into the river. Boyd was directed to look for signs of the
Senecas preparing for battle or setting an ambush. He was told to
engage the enemy only to protect his scouting party.
Boyd, an ambitious officer who had distinguished himself at
Otsego Lake, left camp with a light mounted company of twentyeight men, including Sergeant Parker and two Indian scouts. Boyd
and his party proceeded to Chenussio, which means “the beautiful
valley” in the Seneca language. Although Chenussio was a large
village, there were few Indians there. Those that remained were
preparing to leave, as the Iroquois had done all along the route of
Sullivan’s army. Boyd sent three of his men and on of the Indian
15
Scouts back to the main camp with the information that no large
body of the enemy was preparing to fight them.
On the way back to rejoin Sullivan’s army at Conesus, Boyd’s
party encountered four Seneca braves near the small Indian village
of Coshequa, between Chenussio and Conesus Lake. Boyd sent
eight men, led by Private Timothy Murphy, an experienced Indian
fighter, to capture or kill the braves. They killed one and wounded
one, but the other two helped the wounded brave to escape. Boyd
disobeyed his orders in attacking the four braves; he made another
poor decision by deciding to rest where they were, instead of
returning to the main body of the army. Since the army was
heading west, he intended to let the army catch up with him
instead of returning to them.
Boyd’s men again sighted the three braves who had escaped
from them; they were now being used to lead Boyd into an ambush.
Indian leader Joseph Brant, Chief Big Tree, and three hundred
braves had moved into the area from Canawaugus to fight
Sullivan’s army. They decided against it when they realized that
they were outnumbered. However, when they heard of Boyd’s party
of twenty-four men, they decided to attack them instead. Brant
and Chief Big Tree had just watched Sullivan’s men burn the
Indian village at Conesus. The young braves in their party wanted
revenge.
Boyd’s party didn’t have a chance; they were surprised and
quickly surrounded. Most of the men, except Lieutenant Boyd and
Sergeant Parker, were killed immediately. Only Private Murphy
and a few others escaped to tell their story to General Sullivan.
The Senecas took the captured Boyd and Parker to Chenussio,
where they were tortured, mutilated, and killed.
Sullivan found the village at Chenussio deserted. His men
found the bodies of Boyd and Parker nearby. They were buried
with the full military honors alongside Little Beard’s Creek.
Sullivan’s men burned the village, destroyed the crops, and began
their long march eastward. A historical marker at Groveland notes
the site of ambush. Boyd-Parker Memorial Park at Cuylerville, the
site of the “torture tree,” commemorates the deaths of Lieutenant
Boyd and Sergeant Parker.
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THE STORY OF THE SHORT BENCH
During the negotiation of the Big Tree Treaty at Geneseo in
1797, the Seneca chief, Red Jacket, asked Thomas Morris if he
could speak with him. Morris, the son of Robert Morris, the
“financier of the Revolutionary War,” represented his father at the
treaty negotiations. Morris and Red Jacket sat down on the
wooden bench to have their conversation. As they talked, Red
Jacket moved closer and closer to Morris, which forced him to slide
along the length of the bench upon which they sat.
Finally, Morris ran out of bench. He broke off the discussion
and told Red Jacket that if he moved any farther, he, Morris, would
be sitting on the floor. Red Jacket said that he was pleased to see
that Morris finally understood the plight of the Indian. The Indians
had been displaced farther and farther to the west, and now they
were selling their land west of the Genesee River to the white man.
In Red Jacket’s opinion, the Indians had no more bench and would,
symbolically, have nowhere to sit.
GROWING EUROPEAN GRAPES IN THE REGION
Dr. Konstantin Frank, an immigrant to the United States
from the Ukraine, watched grapegrowers in the Finger Lakes
Region plant increasing acreage of French-American hybrid grape
varieties. Dr. Frank, who was an experienced enologist and
viticulturist, asked why Vitis vinifera varieties, European grapes
such as Chardonnay and Riesling, were not being planted. He was
told that the winters were too cold, and that the European varieties
couldn’s survive here.
Dr. Frank had grown Vinifera varieties in the Ukraine, along
the Dneiper River, “where the temperature goes to forty below,
where we had to bury the entire vine in the winter, and where when
we spit, it froze before it hit the ground.” He pointed out that
Vinifera vines didn’t die from the cold, but from disease, such as
mildew and fungus and from vine pests. Furthermore, modern
technology controlled these problems.
Charles Fournier, the presidents of Gold Seal Winery, heard
Dr. Frank’s comments and realized that he might be right.
Fournier had seen Chardonnay and Pinot Noir varieties at Epernay
and Rheims, which are seven degrees of latitude farther north that
Hammondsport. He had also experienced temperatures that
dropped below zero degrees Fahrenheit in the Champagne district
17
of France. In 1953, Fournier hired Dr. Frank as a consultant to
Gold Seal.
Dr. Frank convinced Fournier of the importance of winterhardy rootstock. His research in the Ukraine showed that, in order
to survive the winter, Vinifera vines should be grafted onto roots
that allow the ripening of the wood of the vine before the first freeze
of winter. Dr. Frank and Fournier traveled the Northeast in search
of this type of rootstock, which included trips to Ontario and
Quebec.
They grafted Vinifera vines, such as Cabernet Sauvignon,
Chardonnay, Gewurtztraminer, and Riesling, which they obtained
from the University of California at Davis, onto Canadian rootstock.
Over a four-year period, thousands of grafted vines were planted.
Couderc (3309) was one of their most successful rootstocks. The
winter of 1957 provided a severe test, when temperatures dropped
to twenty-five degrees below zero. The first commercial New York
State Vinifera wines were introduced by Gold Seal in 1961.
Dr. Frank callet it “the second discovery of America.” Gold
Seal continued to increase their planting of Vinifera and had
seventy acres planted by 1966.
Dr. Frank bought property for a vineyard on Middle Road in
Pulteney and planted his own vines. By 1973, Dr. Frank’s Vinifera
Wine Cellars, Ltd., had expanded to seventy-eight acres of
vineyards and had a winery capacity of 60,000 gallons. His
Trockenbeerenauslese 1961 was served in the White House and in
the executive mansion in Albany. Dr. Frank became a U.S. Citizen
and a vocal pro-American. The American flag was always displayed
in the from window of his single-story red brick home on Middle
Road.
Dr. Frank built his winery behind his house and next to his
home maintained a small plot vineyard, which included at least two
vines each about fifty varieties/clones. He planted some littleknown varieties, such as Fetjaske from Hungary, Kara Burni from
Bulgaria, and Sereksia Tschornay from the Ukraine.
Dr. Frank died in 1985. The Frank tradition is being carried
on and expanded upon by his son, Willy, and his grandson, Fred.
Willy asks the same question that his father asked: “Why not the
best?”
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THE DESTRUCTION OF ONE-THIRD OF THE FORD
TRACTORS IN THE UKRAINE
Dr. Konstantin Frank, who showed that Vitis vinifera
(European) grapes could be grown in the Finger Lakes Region,
immigrated to the United States from the Ukraine in 1951. He
studied winemaking and grapegrowing at the Polytechnic Institute
in Odessa and later worked at the Institute of Enology and
Viticulture of the Ukraine.
While working at the Institute, he was responsible for the first
three Ford tractors received in the Ukraine from the United States.
He decided to determine how heavy a load the tractors could pull.
Instead of lining up the tractors side by side, allowing each tractor
to pull one-third of the load, he hooked them up in tandem. The
back of tractor one was connected to the front of tractor two and
tractor three was hitched between the rear of tractor two and the
load.
When all three tractors strained to pull the heavy load, they
were structurally not up to it. Tractor three, attached to the load,
was literally pulled apart and destroyed. Some of the metal parts
were stretched, some were broken, and the tractor was beyond
repair.
This occurred in the 1930s during the reign of Josef Stalin,
and Dr. Frank was concerned about the repercussions of
destroying one-third of the Ukraine’s Ford tractors. He wasn’t sure
how far up the chain of command the information was passed, but
nothing happened; no one ever reprimanded him for the incident.
Perhaps Stalin was too busy purging the officer corps of the Red
Army to pay attention to Soviet agricultural activities.
OLDE GERMANIA’S GHOST
On December 17, 1994, Olde Germania Wine Cellars opened
at 8299 Pleasant Valley Road, Hammondsport, on the site of
Germania Wine Cellars. Germania Wine Cellars had been founded
by Jacob Frey, a Swiss immigrant, in 1870. The winery won many
medals, including an award at the Paris Exposition in 1900.
Subsequently, Germania Wine Cellars became a part of the Taylor
Wine Company.
Jim Gifford headed the group of investors that purchased
Germania Wine Cellars and is restoring it. Gifford, who majored in
food science and oenology at Fresno State, began his winemaking
19
career at the Gold Seal Winery, then owned by Joseph Seagram &
Son, in 1980. When Seagram closed Gold Seal, Gifford continued
working for them in a joint venture with the French champagne
house, G. H. Mumm, in Napa Valley, California. In 1987, Jim left
Seagram to become the winemaker for Glenora Winery of Seneca
Lake. In 1989, he became a wine industry consultant.
The Olde Germania Wine Cellars complex consists of nine
buildings, all built before 1903, including the historic four-story
main building. Above the winetasting area in the main building is
the Great Western Hall of Fame, where the Pleasant Valley Wine
Company held their marketing meetings. The walls are lined with
portraits of Pleasant Valley Wine Company officers and marketing
managers. The room has remained intact, with the exception of a
large oak table that has been removed. The main building, with its
rough-sawn planks, still houses the original ageing tanks and wine
barrels. Three of the barrels came to the United States on a sailing
vessel in 1858.
Many old buildings have ghost stories associated with them,
and this winery is no exception. Evidence of the ghost of Olde
Germainia has occurred on numerous occasions. One Gifford and
his son were using a hose connected to a spigot in the cellar of the
main building. When they checked to see why the water had
stopped flowing, they found that the spigot had been turned off. No
one else was in the building, and neither Gifford nor his son had
turned off the spigot. On another occasion, a wine pump was
turned to a higher speed even though no one had been anywhere
near it.
As a result of these ghost stories, a former Great Western
foreman told Jim that he couldn’t get anyone to work at night in
the cellar, which housed Great Western’s Solera Sherry operation,
and that some of the employees wouldn’t work alone in the cellar
during the day. The carpenter / woodworker who did much of the
restoration heard a strange voice while working alone. Some
residents believe that the ghost of Clarence “Stubby” Taylor haunts
the building, and that the ghost is the source of the mysterious
activities and the voice. Clarence W. Taylor was the second oldest
son of Walter and Addie Taylor, the founders of the Taylor Wine
Company.
The buildings of Olde Germania Wine Cellars were vacant for
a number of years. Apparently “Stubby” is equally at home
whether the buildings are occupied or not. He certainly has chosen
a historic site located in a beautiful valley for his residence.
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THE LEGEND OF THE MOSQUITO
According to Iroquois legend, Conesus Lake used to be
infested with mosquitos. Shodiosko, the Mischief Maker,
destroyed them by building a large smudge fire into which he threw
sacred incense. The mosquitos saw the column of smoke and
combined into one huge mosquito to avoid extinction.
Shodiosko, seeing that both the fire and the mosquito were
larger than he could control, leapt into the column of smoke and
was elevated to the sky. He hoped that the sacred incense would
help to wend him from his wicked ways.
The enormous mosquito flew close to Shodiosko’s village, and
the Great Spirit was concerned for the well-being of the people. He
directed a large bird to sweep down from the heavens to capture
and kill the mosquito. As the bird was flying away with the body of
the mosquito, one of the mosquito’s legs fell toward the earth. A
young brave shot an arrow that pierced the leg. As the blood
flowed from the wound, each drop became a potential mosquito.
However, the mosquitos created from the blood were driven away
by the smudge fire. This is the Indian explanation of why Conesus
Lake doesn’t have much of a mosquito problem; they flew to other
areas to avoid the “big smoke.”
THE LEGEND OF ONNOLEE
The legend of Onnolee predates the time that the Seneca
Indians dominated the country just south of present-day
Rochester. Between 1350 and 1375, a small tribe of friendly
Indians, the Munsees, lived in the area between Hemlock and
Canadice Lakes. They were surrounded by another tribe, the
Mengwees. The Mengwees were a warlike tribe, but the two tribes
lived in peace. However, one night the Mengwees attacked the
Munsees without warning and annihilated them. Onnolee, whom
some said was a maiden and others said was the wife of the bravest
chief, was the only survivor. She was bound to the red belt of
Mickinac, a Mengwee chief, and carried off.
At noon the following day, they rested at a spreading oak to
eat their mid-day meal of parched corn and smoke-dried venison.
While Mickinac was eating, Onnolee grabbed the knife from his belt
and swiftly buried it in his side. The young squaw knew that her
life was forfeited; she ran as fast as she could while arrows whizzed
21
by her from all directions. She reached a craggy bluff overlooking
the nearby lake and, according to the poet, W.H.C. Hosmer:
Regardless of the whizzing storm
Of missiles raining round her
Imploring eye she then upcast,
And a low, mournful death hymn sang;
On hill and forest looked her last,
One glance upon the water cast,
And from that high rock sprang
For over three-hundred years after her leap into the lake to
her death, the form of the beautiful Onnolee could be seen rising
out of the lake in the still of a summer night and either
disappearing into the sky or returning to her watery home.
Other legends say that Onnolee appears in the form of an ice
maiden that can be seen in a nearby waterfall each winter during a
full moon.
THE BIRTH OF THE SENECA NATION
The birth of the Seneca Nation is the foremost legend of
Canandaigua Lake. The Senecas believed that many years ago, the
forefathers of the Seneca Nation appeared out of the side of a
majestic hill, after the Creator opened the earth. That hill is called
South Hill today, but in the past has been called Sunnyside Hill
and Whaleback Hill. It is located several miles north of Woodville
on the east side of the lake, about halfway between Woodville and
Bare Hill.
The Senecas viewed South Hill with awe, since they
considered it to be the birthplace of the Seneca Nation. They
believed that the earth opened and the first Senecas arrived in the
world in an ancient cave in a gorge, adjacent to West River called
Clark’s Gully today. This deep gorge, on the east side of South Hill,
rises 1,100 feet above the valley floor.
THE SERPENT OF BARE HILL
The Senecas lived in peace until one of the young Seneca boys
found a two-headed snake in the woods on Bare Hill, which was
called Genundowa by the Indians. Its summit, 865 feet above the
lake, was the site of Seneca Indian council fires.
22
The young Seneca boy made a pet of the snake, named it
Osaista Wanna, and initially fed it flies and frogs. As it grew, he
gave it raccoons, squirrels, and woodchucks. Soon he was feeding
it large cuts of venison, but the serpent’s appetite appeared to be
unlimited. The boy could not find enough food to satisfy its
appetite, and the tribe began to fear it. They suspected that it was
a monster.
Eventually, the immense snake surrounded the hill. As the
people of the tribe attempted to leave the hill to obtain food, they
were devoured by the large two-headed serpent with the insatiable
appetite. Finally, a young brave and his sister were the only
remaining members of the tribe. One night the young brave had a
dream that if he fletched his arrows with his sister’s hair instead of
feathers, the arrows would possess a lethal power with which to
subdue the serpent.
The next day he fired his charmed arrows into the reptile’s
heart. The snake, which was fatally wounded, writhed in agony as
it rolled down Bare Hill. It tore out all of the bushes and trees
before finally sliding into the lake while disgorging the skulls of all
the Senecas that he had devoured. This is the Indians’ explanation
of the large numbers of round head-shaped stones found at the
base of Bare Hill. It is located five miles north of Woodville on the
east side of Canandaigua Lake and is as bare today as it was at the
time of the Senecas. The shale soil doesn’t permit much cover to
grow there.
THE RING OF FIRE
The Ring of Fire on Canandaigua Lake was resumed in 1954,
the year that the Nundawaga Society produced its first Indian
pageant at the sycamore grove near West River. The East Shore
Owners Association convinced many cottage-owners to light red
flares along the shoreline at sundown on Saturday of Labor Day
weekend to reestablish the Seneca Indians’ annual harvest festival
tradition.
The Senecas began their harvest festivals by lighting bonfires
of tobacco around the shore of the lake upon receipt of a signal
from a large council fire on top of Bare Hill. They believed that
tobacco had a mysterious property, and they burned it as a ritual
to give thanks for a bountiful harvest. The harvest festivals were
daylong celebrations of all the Seneca Tribes around the lake, at
Canandaigua, Naples, Seneca Point, Vine Valley, and West River.
23
The festivals began with singing followed by a thanksgiving to
the Great Spirit (Hawenneya) by the chief of the tribe. A typical
thanksgiving was:
We return thanks to our mother, the earth, which
sustains us. We return thanks to the rivers and the
streams which supply us with water. We return thanks
to all herbs which furnish medicines for our disease. We
return thanks to the corn and her sisters, the beans and
the squashes, which give us life. We return thanks to the
bushes and the trees which provide us with fruit. We
return thanks to the sun that has looked upon the earth
with a beneficial eye. Lastly, we thank the Great Spirit
who embodies all goodness and directs all things for the
good of his children.
Dancing and feasting followed the thanksgiving, and the
festivities were concluded with the Ring of Fire after sundown.
Many leaders of the Seneca Nation, including Indians from
the Allegany, St. Regis, and Tonawanda Reservations, attended the
lighting of the council on Bare Hill at the renewal of the harvest
festival on Canandaigua Lake in 1954. The Ring of Fire has been
held on Canandaigua Lake every year since 1954; it signifies the
end of summer for the cottage-owners and the beginning of the
school year for their children.
Other Finger Lakes also have Rings of Fire. Some of the lakes
have their Ring of Fire on Labor Day weekend like Canandaigua
Lake, while others have the ceremony on the Fourth of July
weekend.
THE SQUAW ISLAND SANCTUARY
Squaw Island, located at the northern end of Canandaigua
Lake, is a one-half-acre island owned by the State of New York. It
is one of the two islands in the Finger Lakes; Frontenac Island in
Cayuga Lake is the other.
The island received its name during General Sullivan’s
expedition against the Six Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy in
1779. The women and children of the Seneca Indian Village of
Kanandarque, which was located on the site of the City of
Canandaigua, hid on the island to escape from General Sullivan’s
army.
A bronze plaque on a large boulder on the island notes why
the island has been of interest to scientists. Because of the high
24
pH at the northern end of the Lake, “water biscuits” formed around
the periphery of the island. The rare water biscuits were formed by
the deposit of carbonate of lime on the pebbles around the shore of
the island. The island was shrinking, suffering from ice damage,
wave action, and wind erosion until 1977, when the New York
Department of Environmental Conservation installed cedar logs
around its shoreline to help preserve it.
THE TREE IN GRIME’S GLEN
In 1882, D. Dana Luther, a Naples biologist, discovered the
fossil of a huge tree at the entrance to Grime’s Glen in Naples. The
tree, which had a trunk eighteen feet in diameter, is thought to be
one of the oldest trees in the world. Geologists believe that the tree
is from the Devonian Period, from 345 to 395 million years ago.
Apparently the tree floated downstream to the waters that covered
the entrance to the Grime’s Glen, became imbedded in silt, and was
fossilized during the Ice Age.
Until Luther’s discovery was made public, geologists believed
that the only plants that existed on earth during the Devonian
Period were small plants, such as ferns. His discovery provided
verification that large plants did exist during that period, millions
of years ago. Paleontologists excavated the fossilized tree in 1887.
“The Naples Tree” is now in the New York State Museum in Albany.
THE MYSTERIOUS RUINS ON THE BLUFF
A site on the bluff that divides the two branches of Keuka
Lake used to be a miniature stonehenge of large, flat stones varying
in width from three to eight feet that were configured in lines up to
500 feet in length. The original investigations were documented by
Berlin Hunt in 1879 and 1880, and were quoted in the Penn Yan
Chronicle-Express:
In the spring of 1880 while making a geological survey of
Yates County with my father, Samuel Hart Wright, we came
upon the remains of an aboriginal settlement near the summit
of the promontory, known as Bluff Point, extending into Lake
Keuka and separating the east and west branches of that lake.
The highway…from Bluff Point Post Office to the end of the
point [Skyline Drive] cuts through the middle of the site which
is at an elevation of approximately 700 feet above the lake.
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The original ruin covered some fourteen acres…The
portion of the ruin east of the road was a cultivated field at the
time of the survey, but the location of the continuations of the
walls still standing on the west side, could be easily followed
in the plowed ground… In some of the compartments stone
slabs were still standing in groups of different patterns, some
in squares and some in arcs, reminding one of Stonehenge in
England, also of unknown origin. At the northwest corner was
a huge monolith standing as a lone sentinel guarding the
community. The great slab, pointed at the tip and about three
and a half feet wide and six inches thick at the base, was fully
eight feet high. All about among the standing slabs were
prostrate ones, more or less covered by soil.
We surveyed the ruin and…at that time an earnest plea was
made to State authorities for the preservation of this unique
remnant of a great aboriginal structure. However, nothing
came of it and today it is all gone.
Considerable speculation exists about the builders of the site
and its purpose. Many people think that the site predates the
Iroquois in this area. Most of the explanations have been ruled
out: that the site was an old Indian burial ground, a fort, a
building, or an artifact of the Mound-Builders. The ground is too
rocky to dig graves, the location is poor for defense, the Iroquois did
not build with stones (they built wood longhouses), and it is out of
the Mound-Builders’ territory.
In 1980, a Penn Yan Chronicle-Express reporter interviewed
Harry Minnerly, an amateur archeologist from Bath, who
postulated that the site may have been built by the ancient Celts as
a signal beacon, or for archeo-astronomy purposes, such as
predicting changes in season and other celestial occurrences. He
cited a similar structure at “Mystery Hill” in New Hampshire, which
contains stones covered with the ancient Celtic writing, Ogam. He
speculated that the site may have been the site of a temple of the
Druids, the ancient Celtic priests.
It is unfortunate that the site wasn’t preserved, but when the
stones got in the way of plows and disk harrows, they were
removed. Many of the slabs were used during the construction of
the Wagener Homestead on the promontory of the bluff and other
homes in the area. The only remnants of the site are two
indentations in the ground, and those slabs that were far enough
from the surface to have escaped removal when the soil was tiled.
26
THE MYSTERIOUS RUIN NORTH OF BRANCHPORT
In addition to the ruins reminiscent of Stonehenge on the
bluff of Keuka Lake, a second set of ruins existed within the town
of Jerusalem. It was located in the northwestern corner of
Jerusalem in the hamlet of Friend, also called “Old Fort,” about one
mile west of the home of the Jemima Wilkinson, the Publick
Universal Friend. Jemima’s house is located on Friend Hill Road,
off Friend Road.
The “Old Fort” was described in 1880 by Dr. Samual Hart
Wright, MD, who was an internationally known biologist and a
surveyor:
An aboriginal earthwork in Jerusalem know as the “Old Fort,”
we find by well recognized works and pointed out by the oldest
inhabitants of the locality, is an ellipse having 545 feet
transverse diameter from north to south and 485 feet conjugate
diameter from east to west. The outside was a raised
earthwork, having twelve gateways nearly equally distributed
around, the narrower being eight feet wide and alternating
with the wider ones about fourteen feet wide. A deep, wide
trench ran around the work. The enclosure contained four and
three-fourths acres, and there were two dwelling houses and a
schoolhouse on this ground. (Later a church has been erected
upon this site.)
A large opening in the enclosure about fifty feet east of the
spring was seventy feet wide, and in front or west of which is
a steep bank of coarse gravel, into which a bay has been dug
out by a large spring which is about eight to ten feet below the
edge of the bank. The land east and north of the spring is a
series of extensive sand banks, the aboriginal enclosure itself
being a low bank and rising everywhere to the center.
We found fragments of Indian pottery in a large quantity of old
ashes nearby, in which was also found recently, by the owner
of the land, a broken bowl of a pipe made of baked clay. A
French gun lock was also found.
In the recollection of many persons these grounds were covered
with a dense forest of pines, and an old stump of old oak
nearly four feet in diameter now stands on the edge of the
embankment.
27
Many years ago a Seneca chief told Bartleson Sherman that
his Nation knew nothing of the origin of the work, and that it
was there when his people first knew of this land.
We surveyed and mapped this work for the Smithsonian
Institution on the 28th of July, 1880.
SAMUEL HART WRIGHT
An unusual fact about this site is that it was built in a region
of sandy loam with no stones in the immediate area. A kneading
board made of fine, compact sandstone was discovered by an early
settler on the site of the ruin. The stone was two and a half inches
thick with a slightly concave surface. The artifact was made of
different material than any geological formation in the region. It
was similar to kneading boards used by the Indians in Mexico.
It appears that specimens of ancient pottery found on the site
were made by a civilized people with knowledge different from that
of the Iroquois Indians in the area. The ruins at “Old Fort” also
appear to predate the entrance of the Iroquois to the region.
THE BRAVE’S CURSE
An old Indian legend about Keuka Lake tells of the occasional
stormy moods of the usually calm and pleasant lake. Years ago,
during the moon of the strawberry harvest, a young Seneca brave
was crossing the lake with his squaw and child when a sudden
storm caused their canoe to capsize. It was dark, and his wife and
daughter slipped under the water before he could save them. The
storm passed on, the lake became calm, and the empty canoe
drifted toward him driven by a slight breeze. The broken-hearted
brave shook his fist in anger at the lake and cursed it:
Today you seemed to smile. Your silky eyes
laughed when my child and my
wife dipped their fingers in you waters.
You seemed to join us in thanking the
Good Spirit for the coming of summer
and the gift of strawberries, first fruit of
the earth. But you lied. You are a snake.
You have taken my family. Therefore, I
curse you always to be hungry when the
fifth moon is in the sky. You with catch
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and drown helpless women and children.
For you will be hungry for them. I curse
you to be unable to eat them. They willl
come to the top of the water and the
wind will blow them to shore. I curse
you always to be hungry when the fifth
moon glows in the sky and strawberries
are ripe in the dark woods.
It is said that when summer storms cause a rare tragedy on
Keuka Lake, the bodies always drift to the shore because of the
brave’s curse.
ANECDOTES ABOUT JEMIMA WILKINSON
Jemima Wilkinson was the first American-born woman to
found a religious sect in the United States. She and the members
of her religious community were pioneers in opening western New
York State. Initially, they settled near Dresden and later moved to
the Town of Jerusalem, north of Branchport.
Jemima had a religious out-of-body experience in her early
teens. She claimed not only to have died and come back to life, but
also to have returned as the second coming of Jesus Christ. She
no longer considered herself to be Jemima Wilkinson, but called
herself the Publick Universal Friend, or just the Universal Friend.
In 1794, Jemima and her followers attended the signing of the
Pickering Treaty with Iroquois in Canandaigua, which assured
peace and promoted further the settlement of western New York.
She addressed the council and was given the name “Shinnewawna
gis tau, ge” by the Indians; it meant “A Great Woman Preacher.”
After her sermon the Iroquois preacher, Good Peter, gave a sermon
in his language. Jemima asked to have it interpreted. Good Peter
objected to being interpreted; he said, “If she is Jesus Christ, she
knows what I said.”
Many of the stories about Jemima involve her ability to walk
on water. At least eight versions were told involving eight bodies of
water, including Keuka and Seneca Lakes. According to one story,
she called a crowd together to convince skeptics of her divine
powers. She preached a sermon on faith and concluded with the
question, “Do ye have faith?” Then she asked, “Do you think I can
do this thing [walk on water]?” The crowd responded, “We believe.”
As she walked away, Jemima said, “It is good; if ye have faith ye
need no other evidence.” In another version of the story, a crowd
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gathered near a lake to see Jemima walk on water. They were
skeptical and demanded proof that she could walk on water. While
walking away, she said, “Without thy faith, I cannot do it.”
One of the tenets of the Universal Friends was a belief in
celibacy, a rule that cost the community many members. Two
stories about Jemima brought her adherence to celibacy into
question. Both of these stories involve one of her early followers,
Judge William Potter. In the first story, Mrs. Potter found the judge
in Jemima’s private rooms. The Publick Universal Friend explained
that she was merely ministering to one of her lambs. Mrs. Potter
responded, “Minister to your lambs all you want, but leave my old
ram alone.”
In the second story, a young lady in the Publick Universal
Friend’s household claimed that she saw Judge Potter climbing
through the window of Jemima’s bedroom in the middle of the
night. She was told that is wasn’t Judge Potter she had seen; it
was an angel. The young lady said that it may have been an angel,
but the angel was wearing the same kind of coat with the same
kind of buttons that Judge Potter wore.
THE CHAPEL ON THE MOUNT
The Garrett Memorial Chapel was built in 1931 by Mr. and
Mrs. Paul Garrett in memory of their son, Charles Garrett, who
died at the age of twenty-six of tuberculosis. Paul Garrett, the dean
of American winemakers in the 1930s, became a multi-millionaire
making and selling wine. He established his first winery, Garrett &
Company, in North Carolina in 1900 and was the father of Virginia
Dare wine made with the scuppernong grape. He was the first
winery executive to promote the blending of New York State and
California wines.
The chapel, which is constructed in the style of sixth-century
Saxon architecture, is located near the tip of Bluff Point overlooking
Keuka Lake. Extensive gardens, irrigated by fifteen miles of
underground water pipes, used to surround the chapel. The
Garrett family owned fifty acres of land on the bluff, including
1,000 feet of lake frontage.
The chapel was designed by Mortimer Freehof. He chose
materials from around the world: the floor of the chapel is
constructed of Rembrandt slate from Holland, the walls are
seamface granite from Pennsylvania, and the terrace floor and the
roof are made of Vermont slate. The reception room walls are
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constructed of crab orchard marble from Tennessee and the crypt
is made of Xanander onyx from Algeria. The steel trusses that
support the roof have the appearance of oak beams.
Each of the stained glass windows, which were made by the
Judson Art Studios in Los Angeles, portrays an incident in the life
of Christ. In planning the windows, the Garretts emphasized the
commandment “Love thy neighbor as thyself” to convey the
message that a civilization that endures is built on a foundation of
the family, with love at the center of family life.
There is much symbolism inside the chapel. In the words of
Paul Garrett:
 The carved stone statue above the chapel entrance
symbolizes youth looking quizzically on the world, which
he holds in his hands as though to see how he could
shape it better; mold it to higher standards of ethical
conduct and right living.
 The carved cherub at the corner of the tower symbolizes
eternal life-rebirth in the spirit of immortal childhood.
 The decorations of the vine, the grape, the oak leaf, the
acorn, the primrose and other symbols of life and growth
are shown in stone and plaster.
 The ship weather vane is the symbol of enterprise and
the discoverer seeking new worlds to discover.
 The love birds, guarding the nest of the young, are
symbolic of family devotion and life.
 The bronze door to the crypt lobby, shows pictorially the
phases of human activities, art and architecture, music
and painting, science and astronomy.
 All are crowed by motherhood, the finest expression of
love.
In designing the stained glass windows, Frederick Wilson of
Los Angeles departed from the stereotyped ecclesiastical designs.
The first window illustrates a picture of immortality in nature
represented by Alfred Loyd Tennyson’s The Brook: “…And men may
come and men may go, but I go on forever.”
The second window portrays Sir Galahad, “whose strength is
the strngth of ten,” seeking the Holy Grail. The border displays
events in the progress of civilization: the star of Bethlehem, the
Norman Conquest, the Bill of Rights, the Magna Carta, the printing
press, the liberty bell, and a Curtiss seaplane developed in
Hammondsport.
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The third window shows the three small children from Eugene
Field’s poem, Wynken, Blynken, and Nod. They are sailing into
their dreams in an old shoe rigged to go “fishing for the stars.”
The theme of the poem, Abou Ben Adhem, by James Henrey
Leigh Hunt is displayed in the forth window with the request to the
angel writing in the Book of Gold: “I pray thee then, write me as one
who loves his fellow men.” And when the angel “showed the names
whom love of God had blessed. And, lo! Ben Adhem’s name led all
the rest!”
The fifth window depicts “Mother Love” with a look of defiance
as she defends her child from the attack of the vulture (sin). A
pelican, who feeds its young with drops of blood squeezed from its
own breast, is in the margin of the window as a symbol of the selfsacrificing love of Christ.
The theme of the next window is Henry Wadsworth
Longfellow’s The Children’s Hour. The children are shown coming
downstairs before bedtime and attempting to delay going to bed by
playing with their parents, who are saying “time to be in bed.” The
children’s blocks contain the pharases: “Carry on,” “Peace with
honor,” and “God is love, love is God.” The border of the window
contains characters from Mother Goose nursery rhymes, such as
“Little Bo Peep” and “The Cow Jumped Over the Moon.”
The Garrett property was deeded to the Episcopal Diocese of
Rochester; the chapel is maintained by an endowment fund. It is
open to the public at scheduled times, including Sunday worship
services during the summer.
THE TALL FISH STORY
One of the frequently-told fish stories about Keuka Lake is
true, although it stretches the imagination somewhat. On the
morning of August 27, 1873, Harry Morse and his mother went
fishing on Brandy Bay in a small skiff. Six-year-old Harry had
come along to keep his mother company; hi didn’t have a fishing
pole with him. He dragged his hand in the water and then, being at
least as inquisitive as other six-year-olds, he bent over the side of
the boat until his face was in the water.
Harry’s mother was watching her line and wasn’t paying
much attention to Harry until he jerked his head back from the
water and screamed. As he clutched his bleeding nose, he and his
mother noticed a six-pound trout flapping around in the bottom of
the skiff. Harry’s nose had looked so appetizing that the fish had
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snapped at it and hung on. The sudden pain caused Harry to jerk
his head back from the water quickly, thus pulling the fish into the
boat.
Harry had his picture taken many times and was the subject
of many newspaper articles. Postcards with his picture were sold
on the excursion steamboats on the lake. The incident was his
fifteen minutes of fame. Harry grew up to become a pilot of one of
the steamers, the Penn Yan. He carried the scars on his nose until
he died, thus giving credence to an unusual fish story.
THE PEACH BASKET FROM PENN YAN
One morning in 1891, Edson Potter of Penn Yan walked into a
large fruit market in New Haven, Connecticut, with a peach basket
under his arm. He was the owner of the Yates Lumber Company,
and the peach basket was a sample of one of his company’s
products. Potter was waiting patiently to talk with the fruit
merchants and to take orders for his baskets when a customer
stopped to take a long look at the sample.
The customer, James Naismith, introduced himself and
explained to Potter that he was working on refinements to a new
indoor sport that he had devised. His goal was to develop a
recreational activity that would be to winter what baseball was to
summer and football was to autumn.
Initially, he used barrels for the goals, but they proved to be
unsuitable. He told Potter, “The peach basket you have has given
me an idea. It may be the answer to what I have been looking for.”
Naismith asked Potter to send him a few peach baskets when he
returned home. Potter sent him a dozen baskets when he arrived
back in Penn Yan.
The first baskets that Naismith used for goals had bottoms in
them. One of the first steps in the evolution to the goals of steel
rims and nets in use today was the removal of the bottom of the
peach baskets. In this way, Penn Yan played a small part in the
development of the game of basketball by James “Jimmy” Naismith
of Springfield, Massachusetts, home of the Basketball Hall of Fame.
THE STORY OF ESPERANZA
Esperanza is an impressive nineteen-room Greek Revival
mansion with two-story Ionic columns and 6,000 square feet of
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space; it overlooks the bluff and the west branch of Keuka Lake
from a hillside north of Route 54A and east of Branchport.
Construction was completed on July 3, 1838, by its owner, John
Nicholas Rose, who purchased over 1,000 acres of land in Yates
County in 1823.
The mansion was a wedding gift to his wife, and the name
Esperanza was his adaptation of the Latin word for hope. He was
the son of Robert Selden Rose and Jane Lawson Rose, who moved
from Virginia to the site of the Rose Hill Mansion, near Geneva, in
1804. They brought their slaves with them, but freed them upon
completion of their home overlooking the east shore of Seneca
Lake.
Two and a half years were spent gathering stone for the cellar
walls of Esperanza, which included boulders weighing up to 1,400
pounds. The walls are twenty-seven inches thick, the windows are
six feet high, and there are seven fireplaces in the mansionincluding one in the basement and two that are plastered over. A
large bake-oven hearth in the kitchen is one of the two that are
“hidden.” Originally, an open staircase extended from the first floor
near the entrance to the attic, which is networked with structural
beams.
Esperanza is constructed of walls of stone with brick pilasters
covered with stucco. Sand for use in mixing the stucco was
brought from the tip of Bluff Point, eight miles to the south, in
Indian canoes. The weight-bearing interior partitions are solid
masonry from the basement to the attic. The Ionic columns on the
portico were made by enclosing large tree trunks in brick and then
covering the brick with stucco.
The mansion has been the subject of a novel and the location
for a movie. It has served as a private residence, a stop on the
underground railroad, a sheep barn, the Yates County Home, an
art gallery, and Chateau Esperanza winery.
In an interview with Bennett Loudon of the Rochester
Democrat and Chronicle, Merrill Roenke, the administrator of Rose
Hill Mansion near Geneva, observed, “It’s a great house…I think
Esperanza is an important building…They’re not building property
like this today. It gives you a reflection of the first half of the
nineteenth century and the life these people led. If you don’t have
that, you don’t know any of the history of it. They are places of
great beauty and we need some beauty in the world.” Amen.
34
THE DRUMS OF SENECA LAKE
The occasional booming sounds along Seneca Lake are
difficult to explain. Many of the residents along the lake have never
heard the “drums of Seneca Lake.” Other lakes have heard the
booming noises many times. The sounds are heard most frequently
around dusk in the late summer and early fall. They have been
heard most distinctly near Dresden, on the west side of the lake,
and near Lodi Point, on the east side of the lake.
Speculation is that the “popping” noises are caused by
natural gas being released from fissures in the rocks at the bottom
of the lake. This theory is supported by the fact that the boom of
the drums was fainter in the 1920s when natural gas fields were
developed around Tyrone, between Keuka and Seneca Lakes.
When the Tyrone gas fields were depleted, the previous volume
returned to the booming sounds along Seneca Lake.
The Seneca Indians who used to live around the lake
interpreted the sound as the sound of drums. They attempted to
explain the sound as the drums of their forefathers, as the outward
expression of evil spirits, or as signals from the God of Thunder.
Many area residents believe that the “drums” or “guns” are loudest
just prior to a natural disaster, such as the severe flooding of
Watkins Glen in 1935.
THE WANDERING CHIEF
One summer day, Agayenthah, a tall young Seneca brave,
known as “The Wandering Chief,” was tracking a bear along a cliff
at the edge of Seneca Lake. A sudden summer storm caused him to
seek shelter under a large tree at the edge of the cliff. Lightening
struck the tree, and both the chief and the tree received a fatal
blow from the God of Thunder. They fell into the lake and floated,
together, out toward the middle of the lake.
On the following day, another storm arose, and the Seneca
Lake drums were heard. The trunk of a large tree was seen floating
on the surface of the lake, riding high in the water and reminding
viewers of a funeral barge. It was seen many times, always in the
calm that precedes a storm. It was seen so often that when the
Seneca drums are heard, people say that the wandering chief is on
the trail again.
35
THE SPIRIT BOATMAN
Indian paintings decorate the rock cliff along the eastern
shore of Seneca Lake, near Hector. As told in Indian legend, the
paintings were drawn by a small Seneca Indian war party that
escaped a much larger contingent of soldiers of General Sullivan’s
Army during the Revolutionary War. According to the story, the
outnumbered braves were pursued and then driven to the top of
the cliffs along the lakeshore, where the soldiers thought that they
had the Senecas trapped.
The Senecas descended to the lake using a narrow path cut
into the rock of the cliff. They risked their lives, but safely reached
the canoes that they had left at the base of the cliff. General
Sullivan’s men decided not to endanger their lives by following the
braves down the hazardous path. The braves were so thankful for
escaping from the soldiers that they went back later and created
the Cliffside paintings to commemorate the incident.
The legend adds that the Spirit Boatman represents a specter
of one of the braves who escaped from General Sullivan’s men. He
appears as a Seneca warrior paddling his canoe near the rocks
along the lakeshore in the moonlight.
THE SCYTHE TREE
In October, 1861, twenty-six-year-old James Wyman Johnson
attended a recruiting rally in Waterloo. Two recruiting officers and
Rev. Dr. Samuel Gridley, pastor of the local Presbyterian church,
spoke to attract recruits for Mr. Lincoln’s army. Johnson awoke
early the next morning and wrestled with the decsion to volunteer
or to stay and help his parents run the farm. He went to the barn,
took his scythe off its hook, and mulled over his decision while
cutting a field of high grass. Finally, he decided that it was his
duty as the oldest son to volunteer. His brother and two sisters
could help his parents run the farm.
He informed his parents of his decision, placed his scythe in
the crotch of the Balm of Gilead sapling (a tree of the poplar family),
and said: “ Leave this scythe in the tree until I return;” he then
walked to Waterloo to join Company G of the 85th New York
Volunteers. He fought in the battle of Fair Oaks, was captured in a
battle at New Bern, North Carolina, and was released in an
exchange of prisoners. At Plymouth, near Albemarle Sound, he
36
was wounded in the thigh and taken to the Confederate hospital at
Raleigh, where he died of his wounds.
His parents refused to believe that their son was dead; they
hoped that he would return to take his scythe from the Balm of
Gilead tree. In 1916, Johnson’s grave was found in a Confederate
cemetery in Raleigh. His remains were moved to the National
Cemetery in Arlington, Virginia. That same year, the Scythe Tree
was struck by lightning, but neither the tree nor the scythe blade
suffered any damage. The wooden handle of the scythe had long
since rotted away.
In 1918, Scythe Tree Farm was owned by the C.L. Schaffer
family. Both sons of the family, Raymond and Lynn, volunteered
for service in World War I. Raymond joined Company F, 33rd
Engineers, and Lynn enlisted in the U.S. Navy. They both placed
their scythes in the Balm of Gilead tree before they left for training
camp. Both Raymond and Lynn returned safely from the war.
They removed the handles from their scythes in the tree, but left
the blades in place several feet above Johnson’s scythe blade.
Scythe Tree Farm is located two and a half miles west of
Waterloo at 841 Waterloo-Geneva Road (Routes 5 and 20),
adjacent to the State Police substation. The tips of two of the
scythe blades, which are about three feet apart, can still be seen
extending from the tree.
THE ROMANTIC TALE OF BELHURST CASTLE
Two centuries ago, a young, blue-eyed blond haired girl from
the lake country of northern Italy sang in the Opera House in
Madrid. When she completed her arias, a rugged-looking young
man walked to the edge of the stage to look into her face. Nearby,
an aristocratic don applauded fervently. His enthusiasm was
noticed by his wife, who sat behind him and glared at him with
hatred from behind her fan. Within several weeks, the sturdy young
man was dead from a dagger wound. The don and the young opera
singer sailed to America to escape the justice of the Spanish courts
and the vengence of s Spanish lady whose indignity had been
offended.
Upon their arrival in America, the fleeing couple joined
trappers who were traveling to the interior. When they reached the
Finger Lakes Region, the young diva was reminded of Lake Como
and Lake Maggiore in her native Italy. She convinced the don to
stay in the lake country. He constructed a home of gray stone for
37
them three miles south of Geneva in a ravine that led down to
Seneca Lake. The don continued to look over his shoulder; he
feared that his wife’s family would seek revenge for the humiliation
he caused her. He built a tunnel from the cellar of their house to
the lake, where he kept a small boat to use for their escape, if it
became necessary.
The couple spent two happy years in the house before the
anticipated visit occurred. They heard men surrounding the house
and calling out in Spanish for them to come out. The don, the
opera singer, and the servants entered the tunnel to escape via the
lake. The Spaniards found the tunnel and followed them. When
they reached the end of the passage near the lake, the don
activated a device that pulled the keystone from the arch over their
heads. However, he didn’t realize that his diva had turned back to
reason with the pursuers. The don and his servants were the only
survivors of the collapse of the stone walls and ceiling of their
escape tunnel.
The broken-hearted don died in a monastery in Rome, where
he had gone after wandering aimlessly for several years. The monks
of the monastery placed a slab over his grave with the inscription,
“Fra Bartolomeo, 1817.”
Tales persist that gray stones have been found at the present
site of Belhurst Castle, south of Geneva, and that the ruins of a
secret tunnel are on the property. Other tales include descriptions
of ghosts, hauntings, and hidden treasures. A brochure describing
Belhurst Castle concludes with the question: “Fact or fancy? No
one knows.”
THE ORIGIN OF THE SONG OF HIAWATHA
The Aurora Inn, established in 1833 as Aurora House, is
located on Route 90 along the eastern shore of Cayuga Lake in
Aurora. One of the more unusual stories about the inn occurred in
1845. The well-known anthropologist, Lewis Henry Morgan, sat in
the parlor of Aurora House and told Henry Rowe Schoolcraft about
an Iroquois Indian legend. Schoolcraft passed the legend on to
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and the legend became Longfellow’s
epic poem, Song of Hiawatha:
Ye whose hearts are fresh and simple,
Who have faith in God and Nature,
Who believe, that in all ages
Every human heart is human,
38
That even in savage bosoms
There are longings, yearnings, strivings
For the good they comprehend not,
The the feeble and the helpless,
Groping blindly in the darkness
And are lofted up and strengthened;
Listen to this simple story,
To this song of Hiawatha!
Hiawatha, the great Iroquois Chief and hunter, lived on the
south shore of Cross Lake, west of Syracuse. In his Song of
Hiawatha, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow placed Hiawatha on the
shores of Lake Gitche Gumee in Minnesota and made him an
Ojibway Indian.
THE NAMING OF TAUGHANNOCK FALLS
Canassatego, an Iroquois chief, insulted the Delaware chiefs
in front of the colonial governor of Pennsylvania. A young Delaware
chief named Taughannock was angered to hear that the Iroquois
chief had called the Delawares cowards because they sold their
lands in Pennsylvania to the white men. Chief Taughannock
brought a force of 200 braves north along the west side of Cayuga
Lake to confront the Iroquois, who were led by Chief
Ganungueuguch. The outnumbered Delawares were driven to the
west shore of Cayuga Lake along the north bank of what is now
called Taughannock Creek. The two bands fought near the edge of
the falls.
Chief Taughannock killed Chief Ganungueuguch and mortally
wounded chief Canassatego before he himself was killed near the
site of the 215-foot-high waterfall. The surviving Iroquois threw the
body of Taughannock over the falls, thus denying him a proper
burial. The highest waterfall in the United States east of the
Mississippi River was named in his memory.
THE LEGEND OF THE DOOR AT TAUGHANNOCK
When observing the 215-foot-high falls from the overlook in
Taughannock Falls State Park, visitors can envision the outline of a
door high on the wall of the ravine to the right of the waterfall. The
Iro quois considered it a mystery of nature that they could not
explain, so they created a legend about it.
39
Chief Ganungueguch and his tribe lived along Taughannock
Creek in the area of the waterfall many years before the white man
entered the region. The Iroquois were continually at war with the
Delawares from Pennsylvania. Chief Taughannock and his
Delawares raided the Cayugas and Senecas in the region and were
defeated. Chief Taughannock and most oh his braves were killed,
but some of the Delawares survived and were adopted by their
captors.
One of the adopted Delaware braves fell in love with White
Lily, a Cayuga maiden. The Cayuga braves were jealous and
watched the pair closely to prevent them from running away
together. One dark night, the two lovers ran toward the Delaware’s
canoe on the shore of Cayuga Lake. They planned to escape
southward to Delaware country. An early alarm frustrated their
attempt to escape. They didn’t know whether a jealous brave gave
the alarm, or the barking of one of the tribe’s dogs alerted the
village. Soon the entire village was chasing them through the pine
forest adjacent to the village.
From the shouts of the braves in pursuit, the couple knew
that they would be overtaken before reaching the ford across the
creek above the falls. They ran from the protection of the pine
forest and could be seen in the moonlight. They stood on the edge
of the falls, embraced, and leapt to what they thought was certain
death on the jagged rocks below. They preferred death to capture
and the torture that would be inflicted on the Delaware brave
according to the code of the Iroquois.
The villagers gathered near the pinnacle from which the two
had jumped, and the squaws of the tribe wailed at the death of the
maiden. When the lamentations subsided, the people returned to
the village. They planned to return to the base on the falls to bury
the young couple in the morning.
When the villagers returned to the site of the young people’s
death after dawn, however, they found no mangled bodies or any
trace of the brave and the maiden. They tribe’s storytellers said
that the Great Spirit was aware of the young couple’s love and of
their attempt to elope. The Great Spirit sympathized with them.
He opened the door high on the side of the ravine, and when they
jumped he ushered them through the secret passageway and
closed the door tightly. The passageway led to a domain where
White Lily and her Delaware lover could live in peace and
happiness forever.
40
THE TAUGHANNOCK GIANT
On July 2, 1879, a road crew was widening the carriage road
to the upper glen of Taughannock Falls, near Trumansbrug. They
had progressed as far as the property of John Thompson, the
owner of a summer hotel, when one of the workmen hit a hard
object with his pick. He thought that he had struck a large rock,
so he began to remove the dirt around it. As he cleared the earth
from the object, he was startled to view what appeared to be a
petrified man.
He called his fellow members of the road crew to help clear
more dirt from around the body. In the hole appeared to be a
seven-foot man with his left leg bent over his right, and his hands
crossed on his right thigh. Around his neck were the roots of an
adjacent tree. The men thought that they had uncovered a
prehistoric man.
News of the discovery spread rapidly, and many spectators
came to see it. John Thompson commissioned a photographer to
take pictures, which were purchased as soon as they were
developed. At Thompson’s request, scientists visited the find, and
broke off small pieces to analyze. Their analysis indicated that this
was, in fact, a petrified man. They conjectured that it was from a
prehistoric era. Thousands of tourists flocked to Thompson’s
property to see the man.
One evening a Trumansburg man, Frank Creque, became
somewhat over-refreshed at a Trumansburg bar and revealed that
the Taughannock man was a hoax. He claimed that it was a
publicity stunt conceived by John Thompson to attract visitors to
his hotel. Thompson had been aided by Ira Dean, a Trumansburg
mechanic, as well as by Creque, in perpetrating the hoax.
Dean studied chemistry to determine the composition of the
human body. He prepared a mixture of beef blood, eggs, iron
filings, and a special cement. He molded the mixture into the
seven-foot man and baked it in an industrial oven.
Thompson, Dean, and Creque transported the 800-pound
man to the site at which it was discovered. They didn’t dig a hole
from the surface to bury the giant; they burrowed horizontally into
a bank and pushed the object in from the side. They wrapped a
tree root around the giant’s neck to make it appear that it had
grown there. The men who discovered the stone body thought that
the soil above it “had not been disturbed for a thousand years.”
Scientists refused to believe that Dean had created the object
of the hoax. They made him create a smaller example to ensure
41
themselves that it was, in fact, man-made. Revelation of the was
the stone man was made created as much public interest as the
initial discovery, but that interest faded quickly. People were
reminded of the Cardiff Giant hoax that had occurred ten years
previously.
The Taughannock giant was dropped and broken when it was
being removed from John Thompson’s property. The pieces were
buried in an orchard near Trumansburg; its location has been
forgotten. Many years from now, workmen excavating in that
orchard may be as surprised as the road crew in 1879.
THE BURNING OF THE FRONTENAC ON CAYUGA LAKE
Before automobiles and trucks began to appear on the few
horse-drawn carriage and wagon roads early in the twentieth
century, steamboats were a principal means of transportation on
the Finger Lakes. Steamboats were a particularly important
method of travel on Cayuga Lake, which, at forty miles long, is the
longest Finger Lake.
In 1819, the Cayuga Steamboat Company was formed to
provide transportation for passengers and cargo on the lake. The
company launched three steamboats during the 1820s: Enterprise
in 1820, Telemachus in 1827, and Dewitt Clinton in 1829. Timothy
Dwight (T. D.) Wilcox owned and operated one of the larger
passenger boat companies on Cayuga Lake. His boats, of which he
purchased some and had others built for him, included the Aurora,
the Beardsley, the Cayuga, the Forest City, and the Howland, the
Ithaca, the Kate Morgan, the Sheldrake, and the Simeon DeWitt.
Wilcox’s largest steamboat was the Frontenac, the flagship of
his fleet. The Frontenac, which was 135 feet long with a beam of
twenty-two feet, was built in 1870 at a cost of $50,000. She was a
side-wheeler propelled by two 27-horsepower engines at a
maximum speed of 15 knots. The Frontenac had a large dining
room and provided cabins for 350 passengers. Apparently, the
steamboat was name for Frontenac Island, which is located off the
eastern shore of Cayuga Lake near Union Springs. Frontenac
Island, in turn, was named for one of the early French governors of
colonial Canada, the Comte de Frontenac.
Wilcox’s passenger line was a highly successful business. In
1888, four years after his death, his heirs sold the company to the
Cayuga Lake Transportation Company. They operated the
business until 1902, when they sold it to Captain Melvin T. Brown
42
of Syracuse. Brown, an experienced steamship captain, had
operated the Jacob Amos on Onondaga Lake for thirty years. When
he bought the business, Brown had the superstructure of the
Frontenac rebuilt and, in 1907, had the boilers replaced at a cost of
$5,000.
According to its schedule, the Frontenac left the dock in
Ithaca at 9:00a.m., made about a dozen stops en route to the
village of Cayuga on the eastern shore near the northern end of the
lake, and began the return trip to Ithaca at 1:15 p.m. In 1907, the
round-trip cost $1.00. Occasionally, the schedule would be
changed to accommodate excursions.
On July, 26, 1907, a special excursion caused the Frontenac
to stay overnight at Cayuga, and the passengers who wanted to
return to Ithaca that Friday afternoon boarded the Mohawk for the
return trip. On Saturday morning the Frontenac left Cayuga with
the passenger who had originally been scheduled to return to
Ithaca on the Mohawk. The Frontenac and the Mohawk met at
Sheldrake at 11:00 a.m. on Saturday to allow both boats to assume
their normal schedules. The passengers going north boarded the
Frontenac, and the passengers going south boarded the Mohawk,
which returned to Ithaca.
Two of the young women who went aboard the Frontenac at
Sheldrake were Marietta Sullivan, a vacationing stenographer with
a Syracuse law firm, and Lida Bennett of Frankfort, who had just
completed a three-week course at the Prang School of Art at
Glenwood. Eight other women who had attended the course at
Glenwood also went aboard the Frontenac at Sheldrake.
The passenger list included the wife of John Genung, the
sheriff of Tompkins County, and their nine-year-old son, Roland;
Mrs. Lena Genung, wife of Dr. Homer Genung of Freeville, and their
four-year-old son, Karl; and Stella Clinton, a manager in an Ithaca
department store.
Three Cornell University summer students also boarded the
Frontenac at Sheldrake: Zalia McCreary of Cohoes, Eliza Tuttle of
Middletown, and Eva Mott of Port Allegany, Pennsylvania. Also
boarding were Mrs. Etta Clark of Seneca Falls and Mrs. John Abel
and her daughter and granddaughter. When the Frontenac left
Sheldrake, she carried approximately sixty passengers-eight or nine
men and the rest women and children. They were scheduled to
pick up forty additional passengers at Aurora.
Captain Brown and crew of six were aboard that day,
including the pilot, engineer, fireman, stewardess, and two deck
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hands. Captain Brown’s wife and their grandson were also on
board. Mrs. Brown helped with the food preparation and service.
The Frontenac crossed the lake in fifty-mile-per-hour winds
from the northwest that caused waves that were six feet high. The
steamboat was unable to dock at either Aurora or Levanna, which
were the next two scheduled stops. The boat steamed north to
Farley’s Point, where a number of cottages lined the shore. The
Ithaca Daily News reported that: “James Ferris…was seated on the
porch of his cottage waiting for the boat. It was to make a landing
at the dock at Farley’s, and in heavy weather he thought there
would be considerable trouble. He said it was just one o’clock
when he saw the boat. ‘There she comes,’ he said, and then saw
smoke and flames. He cried out, ‘My God, she’s on fire!’”
Ferris ran for help. Most of the passengers were below deck
out of the wind, and no one on the Frontenac had yet seen the
smoke and flames. People on the dock called out to the crew and
passengers to attract their attention. Nine-year-old Roland Genung
and his mother were sitting on deck chairs on the upper deck when
the young man saw smoke coming from the pilot house. Mrs.
Genung thought it was steam or smoke from cooking until she saw
the flames.
Roland ran below to warn Captain Brown. Brown ordered the
engineer to start the pumps and ran to the upper deck and trained
the fire hose onto the fire. However, the fire had gotten a good start
and was being fanned by the high winds. When he saw that he was
no gaining on the fire, Brown ran to the pilot house and ordered
pilot Smith to beach the steamboat. Then the captain ran back
and manned the fire hose until he realized that the fire was out of
control.
Brown removed life preservers from their racks and threw the
life jackets down the ladder to the second deck. When the
Frontenac beached, most of the passengers gathered in the bow.
The water was about four feet deep just off the bow. Both the
captain and his wife helped the women and children put on life
preservers. The Captain’s wife and their grandson jumped off the
bow into shallow water. The heat within twenty-five feet of the boat
was so intense that those in the water had to continually duck
their heads under the surface to cool off.
Mrs. Clark jumped into the water and felt herself being
pushed towards the boat by wave action. She kicked and paddled
toward shore until she found herself underwater. Mr. Murphy, an
Ithaca tailor staying at one of the cottages, pulled Mrs. Clark’s head
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up our of the water and guided her toward the shore. Murphy
helped many people survive that day.
The lifeboats caught fire and were of no use to the struggling
crew and passengers. Obviously, those who could swim were at a
decided advantage over those who could not. Miss Lois Reidel of
Utica, who had attended the art session at Glenwood, was one of
the strong swimmers; she helped many passengers reach the shore.
The Frontenac continued to burn rapidly. Those who were burned
cried out in pain.
Unfortunately, the eight or nine male passengers did not do
much to assist the women and children. The Ithaca Daily Journal
quoted Captain Brown, “Had the eight or nine men passengers on
the boat not displayed the worst cowardice I have ever seen in all
my experience on the lake, I doubt if a single life would have been
lost on Saturday.”
Mrs. Clark was quoted in the Utica Herald-Dispatch, “I saw
Mr. Murphy save many other people, doing noble work every
moment. I tell you many of the passengers owe their lives to that
man. He said to me, ‘It makes me sick to see those men coming
ashore in life preservers instead of standing by the boat to get the
women away and started for the shore.’ Those men did nothing but
save themselves.”
Another good Samaritan was the Reverend A.A. McKay of
Auburn who was camping nearby in a tent with seven boys from
his congregation. He helped many people get ashore. Other heroes
were Hart Carr of Union Springs and Mr. and Mrs. Jacob Dill, who
lived on a farm in the area.
By 1:30 p.m., the shore was lined with seven bodies, five
women and two children, for whom valiant attempts to administer
artificial respiration had failed. The children were six-year-old
Grace Abel and four-year-old Karl Genung. Among the women
were Stella Clinton, who returned to the burning boat for her
suitcase, and Zalia McCreary, a Cornell summer student who
drowned after losing her grip on a life float when a wave broke over
her.
Lida Bennett, who had attended the session at Glenwood,
died of exposure. Another victim was Syracuse resident Marietta
Sullivan, who was afraid to jump and sank under the waves as
soon as she entered the water. Eva Mott, another Cornell summer
student, was not identified until response was received to a
description of her in the Auburn Daily Advertiser.
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The source of the fire was never determined, but it is clear
that the wind-whipped fire went out of control almost as soon as it
started. Captain Brown and his crew were exonerated of any
negligence in the disaster. The question was raised as to why the
boat’s whistle, which could be heard for six miles, was not used to
warn people below decks of the fire and to call for help from shore.
The Brown Transportation Company temporarily replaced the
Frontenac with the Comanche, and $50,000 was set aside to build a
permanent replacement at an Ithaca boatyard during the following
winter. Despite the disaster, the volume of steamboat passenger
traffic on Cayuga Lake was not diminished.
THE CAYUGA BRIDGE
Construction of a wooden bridge across the northern end of
Cayuga Lake began in May,1799, and was completed in September,
1800. The bridge, which was one mile and 132 feet long, was the
longest bridge on the North American continent and, in fact, the
western world. Trestles every twenty-two feet supported the bridge,
which was the width of three carriages or wagons. The bridge
connected the Village of Cayuga, on the east side of the lake, with
the hamlet of West Cayuga, later called Bridgeport, on the west
side. The western terminus was about one mile north of Cayuga
Lake State Park.
Unfortunately, the bride designers neglected to consider the
effect of the winter ice on the bridge. In 1807, the bridge supports
began to lean to the west, which ultimately caused the collapse of
the bridge. The remnants of the bridge floated toward the marshes
at the northern end of the lake. The ferry that had been replaced
by the bridge returned to carry loads across the lake. Construction
of a replacement bridge began during the winter of 1812-13 and
was completed in the fall of 1813 at a cost of $36,630.
The second bridge lasted until the 1833, when it was replaced
by a third bridge. The third bridge was used until of section of it
fell into the lake in 1853; it was not replaced. Traffic on the second
and third bridges tapered off dramatically when the Erie Canal was
completed in 1825. The Cayuga Lake bridges filled a definite need
in overcoming the barrier to east-west traffic presented by the fortymile length of the lake and the extensive Montezuma marshes
north of the lake.
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AN AMERICAN TRAGEDY
Theodore Drieser’s novel, An American Tragedy, was based on
incidents in the life of Chester Gillette of Cortland. Chester Gillette
was the oldest child of Frank and Louisa Gillette, who moved from
place to place trying to eke out a living by running various religious
shelters. Chester ran away at the age of fourteen and worked at
odd jobs to support himself. In 1902, Chester was invited by his
uncle, Noah Gillette, the wealthiest man in Cortland, to work in his
petticoat and skirt factory. At the factory, Chester met Grace
Brown, who had moved to Cortland to escape from her family’s
farm in South Otselic.
Through his relatives in Cortland, Chester met many
attractive young women from wealthy families; he began to lose
interest in Grace. When Grace informed that she was pregnant,
Chester invited her to a weekend at Big Moose Lake in the
Adirondack Mountains. He took Grace out on the lake in a canoe,
struck her on the head, knocked her out of the canoe, and rowed
back to shore without her. The police found Grace’s body and
tracked Chester to the Arrowhead Hotel at Eagle Bay. From the
beginning of the investigation, he claimed that he was innocent.
The trial in Herkimer was the top news story of its time.
Chester was found guilty, sentenced, and sent to the Auburn
prison. He was electrocuted on March 29, 1908. He was the last
person to be electrocuted at Auburn; Sing Sing Prison at Ossinning
later took over the function for the State of New York
In Dreiser’s 1925 novel, Chester Gillette was Clyde Griffiths,
Grace Brown was Roberta Alden, Cortland was Lycurgus, and Big
Moose Lake was Big Bittern Lake. In the first half of An American
Tragedy, Dreiser discussed the social system that shaped Chester.
He prepared the reader to believe that Chester could commit the
crime. An American Tragedy was a bestseller for the author, who
was already known for Sister Carrie, Jennie Gerhardt, and The
Financier. The novel was made into a movie, A Place in the Sun,
starring Montgomery Clift and Elizabeth Taylor.
Not only did this incident inspire a novel and movie, but the
following folk song was also written about the incident:
The American Tragedy Song
The dreams of the happy are finished and the score has been
brought in at last.
The jury has sent in its verdict and the sentence on Gillette is past.
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Two mothers are weeping and praying, one is praying that justice be
done.
While the other is praying for mercy, asking God to forgive her dear
son.
Who is now down in Auburn’s dark prison where he soon must give
up his young life.
That might have been filled with great sunshine had he taken Grace
Brown for his wife.
They started out on their vacation, on the beautiful Big Moose Lake
Did she think as she plucked those white lilies that her young and
sweet life he would take?
Away from the ears of the people, where no one could hear her last
call.
And nobody knows how it happened, but Gillette and the Lord
knows it all.
THE FIRST ICE CREAM SUNDAE
Ithaca claims to be the birthplace of the ice cream sundae.
The first one was served to a local minister by C. C. Platt on a
sweltering Sunday during the summer of 1891. The perspiring
minister came into the C. C. Platt drugstore after his morning
service and asked for a dish of ice cream with some syrup poured
over it. The reverend was pleased with Platt’s creation, and
suggested that he taste it and recommend it to others. Platt asked
some Cornell students to try the dish, and a national institution
was born.
THE FINGER LAKE THAT ISN’T A FINGER LAKE
According to an old Indian legend, the Finger Lakes were
created when the Great Spirit blessed the Finger Lakes region by
placing the imprint of his hand on it. This has always raised
questions, because there are six major Finger Lakes, not five. West
to east, they are Canandaigua, Keuka, Seneca, Cayuga, Owasco,
and Skaneateles. The old Indian legend doesn’t fit unless it is
modified, e.g. the hand slipped. If the five major Finger Lakes are
considered, four west of Canandaigua (Conesus, Hemlock,
Canadice, and Honeoye) and one east of Skaneateles (Otisco), and
the legend is interpreted as applying to both hands of the Great
Spirit, there is still one finger, and one lake, too many. However,
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an author who spent his summers on Owasco Lake had an
explanation for this discrepancy. His favorite lake, Owasco, is the
smallest of the major Finger Lakes, but, however one looked at it,
his lake was going to be one of the Finger Lakes. The author was
Samuel Hopkins Adams, who had been a reporter for the New York
Tribune while a student at Hamilton College. After graduation, he
worked for the New York Sun, McClure’s magazine, and Collier’s
magazine, for whom he wrote a scathing expose of the patent
medicine industry.
Several of Adams’ books were made into movies, including
Men in Her Life starring Clara Bow, It Happened One Night with
Claudette Colbert and Clark Gable, and The Harvey Girls in 1942.
One of his last books was Tenderloin, which was about his life in
New York during the time of Diamond Jim Brady. Adams was very
attached to Owasco Lake. His grandfather had built a home on the
lake in 1886 that had become his father’s home and, finally, his
home. He built an addition onto it and named it Wide Waters.
Adams wrote an article for Holiday magazine in which he
explained that the five Finger Lakes were Canandaigua, Seneca,
Cayuga, Owasco, and Skaneateles. He reasoned that Keuka Lake
wasn’t really a Finger Lake because it wasn’t shaped like a finger; it
was shaped like a Y. Owasco’s role as a Finger Lake had been
questioned. Therefore he wanted to ensure that Owasco was
considered a Finger Lake, at the expense of Keuka. Adams was not
a popular author in the villages of Branchport, Hammondsport,
and Penn Yan, on Keuka Lake.
THE LEGEND OF ENSENORE
The legend of Ensenore begins with the destruction of an
Indian village at Schenectady by a marauding band of Cayuga
Indians. Ensenore, a young brave from the village destroyed by the
Cayugas, fought well, but his tribe was outnumbered by the
invaders. After the battle, Ensenore looked for his betrothed,
Kathreen, and was told that she had been carried off by the
Cayugas, who had returned westward toward Owasco Lake.
He followed them, after disguising himself so that the
Cayugas would not associate him with his village at Schenectady.
He wore a fur cap with a red plume, dressed gaudily, painted his
face, and hung pendants from his ears. The Cayugas avoided the
great trail of the Iroquois on their return home, because they
expected to be pursued by a band seeking revenge. When Kathreen
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collapsed with fatigue, the Cayugas carried her on a litter made of
boughs and leaves.
After three days, the Cayuga warriors reached their home on
the shore of Owasco Lake.
Ensenore knew the location of the Cayuga village on Owasco
Lake, so he passed the village and doubled back to approach it
from the west via canoe. He entered that largest wigwam, was
extended the courtesies of a guest, and smoked the ceremonial pipe
as it was passed around. Kathreen did not recognize him. Ensenore
told stories about his tribe, which he said was from far to the west.
The Cayugas told Ensenore of their recent expedition and of
the rescue of a beautiful Indian maiden from an upraised knife by
their chief, Eagle Eye. Eagle Eye told them to treat her as his future
wife. A few days later, Kathreen was permitted to retire to a
secluded spot on the lakeshore to weep alone. The gaudily-dressed
brave approached her to speak with her. She was startled and fled
back to camp before Ensenore could identify himself.
Eagle Eye returned to camp that evening and joined in the
revelry; he told stories about the recent raid and smoked the
ceremonial pipe. During the revelry, Ensenore passed a small
packet identifying himself to Kathreen, who sighed and uttered his
name. On his way out of the wigwam, Ensenore whispered to her to
be ready to leave that night. Kathreen made it past the sentry, but
Ensenore was discovered; the camp was alerted.
When they reached the cove where he had left his canoe, they
found that a slight breeze had caused it to drift our from the
lakeshore. They waded out to the canoe, but were seen from the
shore in the moonlight. Ensenore headed southward, paddling
rapidly, but the Cayugas were right behind them. When the
moonlight went behind the clouds, Ensenore changed direction and
headed toward the northern end of the lake. They escaped the
pursuing Cayugas, and had an uneventful three-day trip back to
Schenectady, were married, and lived happily ever after.
THE ORIGIN OF THE BLUE WATERS
As told in a Skaneateles Lake flood legend, the hills were split
apart when the waters of a major flood subsided, which allowed
drainage toward the sea. The six nations of the Iroquois
Confederation believed that the Great Spirit – the Invisible Hand –
drained the Genesee country of its water, except for the water in
the Finger Lakes.
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Skaneateles is the bluest of the Finger Lakes and, according
to legend, the sky spirits used to lean out of their home to admire
themselves in the mirror of the lake when the heavens were nearer
to the lake than they are now. The lake spirits fell in love with the
sky spirits and absorbed the color of their robes into the water –
thus giving the lake its beautiful color.
THE NAMING OF THE LAND OF OZ
Frank Baum, the author of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and
many other books, was born in Chittenango, not far from Otisco
Lake. When he was five years old, his family moved to Rose Lawn
Farm in what is now the Syracuse suburb of Mattydale. Later in
his life, the story of the land of Oz evolved in his mind long before
he wrote the story.
Baum was a natural storyteller, and he frequently invited the
children of his Chicago neighborhood in for a story. One evening,
he told the children about Dorothy’s travels and her new friends,
the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman. When he paused in telling
his story, a young neighbor girl asked: “Oh please, Mr. Baum!
Where did the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman live?” Baum had
not given any thought to the name of the land where Dorothy’s new
friends lived. He looked around the room, hoping to see something
that would inspire a name. He glanced at the piano, the worn rug,
the pot-bellied stove, the oak dining table, the picture with the gilt
frame, his wife’s chair, and the kerosene lamp; he saw nothing that
helped him find a name. Next, he scanned the headline of that
day’s Chicago Journal announcing Admiral Dewey’s victory at
Manila Bay; the May 7, 1898, issue of the local paper was no help
to him either.
Finally, his gaze focused on an old two-drawer filing cabinet
in the corner of the room. The top drawer was marked with the
letters A-N. The bottom drawer was labeled O-Z. Baum knew that
he had found a name for the land of the wizard. He could think of
no better name for a magical country than the land of Oz.
51
THE LEGEND OF RED WING
Red Wing, the daughter of a Seneca Indian chief, frequently
accompanied her parents on hunting and fishing trips to a place
with rolling hills along the “Trail of the Senecas.” Her favorite spot
on the trail was a cool, moist glen with moss-covered rocks, wild
grape vines, and towering trees that provided a heavy, green
canopy.
Red Wing was courted, in Indian fashion, by two Seneca
warriors, Lone Pine and Sun Fish. Lone Pine was the suitor chosen
by Red Wing, and soon after their marriage they walked along a
trail through Red Wing’s favorite glen with a party of Indians from
their tribe. They arrived at a high, dangerous part of the trail, and
the jealous Sun Fish pushed the unsuspecting Lone Pine over the
precipice. Just before Lone Pine went over the edge, he grabbed
Sun Fish by the ankle and pulled him to death with him.
Before the party realized what was happening, Red Wing
uttered a piercing cry, plunged over the cliff, and was united with
her husband in death. The glen where Lone Pine, Red Wing, and
Sun Fish joined the Great Spirit is in the Stony Brook State Park
near Dansville.
THE DESTRUCTION OF THE PORTAGEVILLE RAILROAD
BRIDGE
A wooden railroad bridge was constructed in 1851-52 at a
narrow point across the Genesee River gorge, near Upper Falls, in
what is now Letchworth State Park. The bridge was built on
thirteen 30-foot-high stone pillars, and 246 acres of timber were
used. It was over 800 feet long with 190-foot-high trestles and 14foot-high trusses; it stood 234 feet above the river bed, including
the height of the stone pillars. It was constructed so that any part
could be removed and repaired or replaced without weakening the
structure.
The dedication ceremony, attended by Governor Hunt and
President Loder and other officials of the Erie Railroad, was held on
August 25, 1852. Guards were posted on the bridge around the
clock to protect it from arsonists and vandals.
Early in the morning of May 6, 1875, one of the guards
discovered a fire at the western end of the bridge and attempted to
use a fire hose to put it out. He was unable to turn on the valve.
The spectacular fire lit up the entire area, and, at 4:15 a.m., the
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superstructure of the western end of the bridge sank into the gorge
with a loud roar.
The Erie Railroad replaced the wooden bridge with one made
of 1,300,000 pounds of iron. Alternate stone pillars were removed,
and the new bridge was built on the remaining pillars topped by
four square feet of additional stone and capped with cast iron
plates. The new bridge, 817 feet long and 255 feet high, was built
on independent spans; the collapse of one span would not affect
the other spans. Allowance for expansion and contraction was
provided by steel rollers placed on a bedplate at the western end of
the bridge. The first train crossed the new bridge on July 31, 1875.
In 1903, 260 tons of iron were replaced by an equal weight of
steel. The Portage Railroad Bridge, billed as a “wonder of the
world” when it was built, is still an impressive sight today. One of
the best views of the bridge is from the Glen Iris Inn.