The Chenango and Unadilla Valleys Fifty Years Ago
by S.S.Randall
Chenango Telegraph, March 27, 1872
Twenty-two years since, my esteemed and highly gifted young friend Hiram C. Clark, gave to the public in one of the local papers, a series of articles pertaining to the early settlement of the county, which were afterwards republished under the title of "History of Chenango County"--a work, I suppose, now scarcely accessible, but comprising a mass of very curious and valuable information, although somewhat defective in arrangement. Finding recently a copy of this rare collection on the top shelves of my library, I have re-perused it with great interest; and propose devoting this number, and perhaps one or two of its successors to a brief review of its principal features, supplying such additional and supplementary matter, as may, from time to time, have come within my own knowledge, or been communicated to me, by the "ancients" of my native county. Where the narrative of the historian coincides with or crosses the track of the reminiscences I have already given in these sketches, or with facts derived form other sources of information, I shall make no apology for an occasional repetition or statement varying, perhaps, in some respects, from my own recollections as heretofore given.
[In 1872] It is now over eighty years since the first white men arrived as the pioneers of the settlement of Chenango Valley. "Here," says Mr. Clark, "they found another people in possession of the soil, who held divided empire with the panther, the bear, and the wolf--all of whom had a very early occupancy--long prior to the landing of the pilgrims upon Plymouth rock. The inhabitants, so far as we know, were of the Oneida tribe of savages, interspersed, perhaps, with a scattered few of the Tuscarora Indians. There are some traces, however, of a very early class of native inhabitants in this region, which may have been dispossessed by the Oneidas, or some other tribe, centuries ago." Here follows a description of the old Fort, on the east side of the Chenango river in the center of the present village of Oxford, and of the "Castle" about one and a half miles south of Norwich, on the east side of the river on the site of the old Thomas Hall farm--as contained in a paper of Gov. DeWitt Clinton, upon the antiquities of the State, communicated in 1817, to Doct. Samuel L. Mitchell, of New York. "The Indians," observed Gov. Clinton, "Have a tradition that the family of the Antones, which is supposed to belong to the Tuscarora nation, are the seventh generation from the inhabitants of this fort (Fort Hill); but of its origin they know nothing." The Castle--the neighborhood of which, seems to have been a favorite resort of the Indians at the time of the arrival of the first white settlers, was evidently of much more modern date than the Oxford fort. Vestiges of a fortification however, appeared in the vicinity of the former--and more recent excavations have brought to light flint arrow points in considerable numbers, of a triangular shape, of large size, and curious construction.
Abram Antone was the last survivor of the Tuscarora Chiefs, and was executed at Morrisville, Madison county, in 1823 or 24, for the murder of a white man. This tribe appear to have formed an alliance, as early as 1714 with the Oneidas one of the original Five Nations, or Iroquois, and to have been incorporated thenceforth as the Sixth member of that great confederacy. One of the villages of the combined Oneidas and Tuscaroras was situated in Oneida county, near the lake of that name, and another on the Susquehanna river, near Binghamton. The present Chenango county was, therefore, situated directly upon the route between the two villages; and from time to time stragglers from both nations were numerous in the valley. In the year 1677, the Oneidas numbered two hundred warriors; and half a century later, the Tuscaroras were estimated by the Provincial Governors of New York, at two hundred and fifty fighting men. As late as 1774, the Oneida tribe comprised only about fifteen hundred men, women and children.
At the period of the first arrival of the white settlers at Norwich, between 1780 and 1790, the Indians were in the actual occupancy of the "Castle," and here they were accustomed to hold councils, and courts for the trial of delinquents or offenders against their laws and the customs of their tribe--to attend upon their Chief, and to entertain guests or visitors from other tribes. Numerous wigwams dotted the level plain on the river, and large patches of land were under cultivation for maize or Indian corn.
Another favorite resort of the natives of this region, appears to have been the "Indian Fields" on the west side of the river, a little farther down, and now known [in 1872] as the old Randall farm. The present site of Norwich village was then known by the Indians as the Canasawacta country." The red men cleared off the [lands] on the Indian Plains and extended their [settlements] from the Chenango to the Unadilla or Tianaderha river on the east.
Mr. Clark refers to a tradition concerning a powerful Tuscarora chief called Thick Neck, an ancestor of Abram Antone, who possessed himself of the Fort at Oxford, and for many years kept the Oneidas at bay--destroying all their hunters and slaying their boldest warriors. Several unsuccessful attempts were made to decoy this formidable usurper from his strong hold; but after many failures, the Oneidas effected an entrance in his absence, cutting him off from the fort, and compelling him to retreat. In the marshes surrounding what is now know at Warn's pond, six miles below Oxford, he was shortly after discovered and slain, and the remnant of his tribe adopted by his conquerors.
To be Continued
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