PROLOGUE
It had taken nature eons of activity—of covering and uncovering earth, of thawing and refreezing an enormous glacial ice cap—to carve and sculpt the Mohawk Valley’s distinctive features of rock masses, rolling hills, and stately forests guarding and feeding its grand river.
From its humble beginnings in the northern hills, the Mohawk River—called by the aborigines “the river flowing through mountains”—gently and surely flows along the valley’s flat, narrow strips of rich, fertile land. Other cool, clear streams careen through and around narrow, jagged cataracts, plunging down over waterfalls, then through deep gorges before joining the Mohawk. The river then races over rocky falls of varying heights near carrying places and eventually finds its way to another great river: the Hudson. Ultimately, both rivers empty their waters into the Atlantic Ocean.
The Mohawk Valley and its river are nestled between the great Adirondack Mountains on the north and the far-reaching Allegheny plateau and Appalachian Mountain ranges on its southern boundaries. During their early, less settled existence, they were enjoyed by Indians who hunted, fished, and gathered wild plant foods, as had their ancestors for hundreds of years. Separated from the coastal peoples by the mountain ranges, the people of the valley had developed their own language, self-governance, and defense; they lived relatively peacefully along the waterway they called the Mohawk. Collectively, these people were known as the Iroquois, a confederacy of six tribes: the Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca, Tuscarora, and Mohawk. The confederacy appointed the Mohawk as the “Keepers of the Eastern Door” because they were the most easterly situated tribe of the Iroquois nation.
It was during these woodland times, before the white man entered the scene, that the Iroquois began to depend upon agriculture more than did their neighbors, the Algonquin. Through the process of slashing, burning, and clearing fields, they cultivated the valley’s rich soil and harvested its abundant bounty. The Iroquois became renowned for their loghouses, long communal dwellings in which the vast majority of their tribes lived, held council, and even stored some of their food.
The Mohawk Valley and its river remained the Indians’ domain until 16421, when Arendt Van Curler ventured into the area at the request of the Dutch patron, Van Rensselaer. Van Curler was overwhelmed with the valley’s beauty and its resources. In his report to Van Rensselaer he described the valley as “the most beautiful land that eyes of man ever beheld.”
It was later in the seventeenth century that the fur trade lured Dutch colonists into the valley. In 1662 they established the first permanent white settlement, Schenectady, on the river. A very lucrative fur trade developed among the Indians and the Dutch upon the grand Mohawk River and its tributaries, which served as the primary means of transportation in the region.
As more and more white adventurers and settlers arrived, native Indian cultures started to change. The tranquil days of “the most beautiful land that eyes of man ever beheld” were about to end.
The rich, fertile valley had lured many emigrants from southern New York state, as well as from Germany and other European countries. They were encouraged by the English to settle and to develop their farms and crafts, serving as the initial developers of this wild land and also as a buffer between the more established English communities to the east and those of the French and Indians.
Along with these white settlers came their greed, envy, and lust for power, traits that had not been characteristic of the Indians’ culture and with which they were unaccustomed. And with each additional white settler, the Indians and the valley wildlife were pushed farther and farther into the western frontier.
As England and France struggled over control of the grand Mohawk River and its valley, more and more European and Indian blood was spilled upon the valley’s floor, into its river, and along its borders. The military might of England and France clashed until England became the dominant European power. Many of her vast estates in America were larger than some European countries and were owned by men related by birth or by marriage to the English nobility. English forts, already established in other parts of the New World, began to appear throughout the valley.
In 1758, to protect the increasing expansion and demand for land, the English built Fort Stanwix, sometimes referred to as Fort Schuyler, on the westernmost New York frontier. Fort Stanwix was also located at the westernmost end of the King’s Highway, an old Indian trail that white settlers had expanded to a rutted, wooded lane along the Mohawk Valley from the eastern city of Albany, New York. Fort Stanwix was near a strategic “carrying place” that enabled boats and other river transports to avoid rapids in the river. About eight miles east of the fort was the Indian village of Oriska and the Oriskany Creek. This area would later become the site of one of the most strategic battles in the American Revolution.
Another new era for the valley began on the evening of April 18, 1775. This was the day when residents al
