of modern architecture. Commerce has brought the materials for its chimney pieces from the quarries of Italy, and skill and genius have chiseled and given to them a mirror-like polish. Here in the midst of relics of another age, and of occupants of whom we know nothing beyond these evidences of their existence, are choice fruits, ornamental shrubbery, and graveled walks.

Directly opposite this mound upon the point formed by the junction of Tonawanda creek with the Niagara River there would seem to have been an ancient armory, and upon no small scale. There is intermingled with at least an acre of earth, chips of flint, refuse pieces, and imperfect arrows that were broken in process of manufacture. In the early cultivation of the ground, the plough would occasionally strike spots where these chips and pieces of arrows predominated over the natural soil.

On the north side of the Little Buffalo Creek, in the town of Lancaster, Erie County, there is an ancient work upon a bluff, about thirty feet above the level of the stream. A circular embankment encloses an acre. Thirty years ago this embankment was nearly breast high to a man of ordinary height. There were five gate-ways distinctly marked. A pine tree of the largest class in our forest, grew directly in one of the gate-ways. It was adjudged, (at the period named,) by practical lumbermen, to be Five Hundred Years Old. Nearly opposite, a small stream puts into the Little Buffalo. Upon the point formed by the junction of the two streams, a mound extends across from one to the other, as if to enclose or fortify the point. In modern military practice, strong fortifications are invested sometimes by setting an army down before them and throwing up breast-works. May not this smaller work bear a similar relation to the larger one?

About one and a half miles west of Shelby Centre, Orleans county, is an ancient work. A broad ditch encloses in a form nearly circular, about three acres of land. The ditch is at this day, well defined several feet deep. Adjoining the spot on the south, is a swamp about one mile in width by two in length. This swamp was once, doubtless, if not a lake, an impassable morass. From the interior of the enclosure made by the ditch, there is what appears to have been, a passage way on the side next to the swamp. No other breach occurs in the entire circuit of the embankment. There are accumulated within and near this fort large piles of small stones

of a size convenient to be thrown by the hand, or with a sling.* Arrow heads of flint are found in and near the enclosure, in great abundance, stone axes, &c. Trees of four hundred years growth stand upon the embankment, and underneath them have been found, earthen ware, pieces of plates or dishes, wrought with skill, presenting ornaments in relief, of various patterns. Some skeletons almost entire have been exhumed; many of giant size, not less than seven to eight feet in length. The skulls are large and well developed in the anterior lobe, broad between the ears, and flattened in the coronal region. Half a mile west of the fort is a sand hill. Here a large number of human skeletons have been exhumed, in a perfect state. Great numbers appeared to have been buried in the same grave. Many of the skulls appear to have been broken in with clubs or stones. "This," says S. M. Burroughs, Esq, of Medina, (to whom the author is indebted for the description,) "was doubtless the spot where a great battle had been fought. Were not these people a branch of the Aztecs? The earthen ware found here seems to indicate a knowledge of the arts known to that once powerful nation."

The Rev. SAMUEL KIRKLAND† visited and described several of these remains west of the Genesee River, in the year 1788. At that early period, before they had been disturbed by the antiquarian, the plough or the harrow, they must have been much more perfect, and better defined than now. Mr. Kirkland says in his journal, that after leaving "Kanawageas," he travelled twenty-six miles and encamped for the night at a place called "Joaki," || on the

These piles of small stone are frequently spoken of in connection with these works, by those who saw them at an early period of white settlement.

✝ Mr. K. was the pioneer Protestant Missionary among the Iroquois. The Rev. Dr. Wheelock, of Lebanon, Conn., who was his early tutor, in one of his letters to the Countess of Huntingdon, in 1765, says: “A young Englishman, whom I sent last fall to winter with the numerous and savage tribes of the Senecas, in order to learn their language, and fit him for a mission among them; where no missionary has hitherto dared to venture. This bold adventure of his, which under all the circumstances of it is the most extraordinary of the kind I have ever known, has been attended with abundant evidence of a divine blessing." Connected as was the subject of this eulogy with other branches of our local history, he will be frequently referred to in the course of this work.

‡ Avon,

|| Batavia, or the "Great Bend of the Tonnewanta," as it was uniformly called by the early travellers on the trail from Tioga Point to Fort Niagara and Canada. See account of Indian Trails. Batavia was favored with several Indian names. In Seneca, the one used by Mr K. would be Racoon.

river "Tonawanda." Six miles from the place of encampment, he rode to the "open fields."* Here he "walked out about half a mile with one of the Seneca chiefs to view" the remains which he thus describes:

The

"This place is called by the Senecas Tegatainasghque, which imports a double fortified town, or a town with a fort at each end. Here are the vestiges of two forts; the one contains about four acres of ground; the other, distant from this about two miles, and situated at the other extremity of the ancient town, encloses twice that quantity. The ditch around the former (which I particularly examined) is about five or six feet deep. A small stream of living water, with a high bank, circumscribed nearly one third of the enclosed ground. There were traces of six gates, or avenues, around the ditch, and a dug-way near the works to the water. ground on the opposite side of the water, was in some places nearly as high as that on which they built the fort, which might make it nessessary for this covered way to the water. A considerable number of large, thrifty oaks have grown up within the enclosed grounds, both in and upon the ditch; some of them at least, appeared to be two hundred years old or more. The ground is of a hard gravelly kind, intermixed with loam, and more plentifully at the brow of the hill. In some places, at the bottom of the ditch, I could run my cane a foot or more into the ground; so that probably the ditch was much deeper in its original state than it appears to be now. Near the northern fortification, which is situated on high ground, are the remains of a funeral pile. The earth is raised about six feet above the common surface, and betwixt twenty and thirty feet in diameter. From the best information I can get of the Indian Historians, these Forts were made previous to the Senecas being admitted into the confederacy of the Mohawks, Onondagas, Oneidas and Cayugas, and when the former were at war with the Mississaugas and other Indians around the great lakes. This must have been near three hundred years ago, if not more, by many concurring accounts which I have obtained from different Indians of several different tribes. Indian tradition says also that these works were raised, and a famous battle fought here, in the pure Indian style and with Indian weapons, long before their knowledge and use of fire arms or any knowledge of the Europeans. These nations at that time used, in fighting, bows and arrows, the spear or javelin, pointed with bone, and the

The openings, as they are termed, in the towns of Elba and Alabama; lying on either side of the Batavia and Lockport road, but chiefly, between that road and the Tonawanda Creek. The antiquarian who goes in search of the ancient Tegatainasghque, will be likely to divide his attention between old and new things. It was a part of Tonawanda Indian Reservation. About twenty-five years since, it was sold to the Ogden Company; and the ancient "open fields" now present a broad expanse of wheat fields, interspersed with farm buildings that give evidence of the elements of wealth that have been found in the soil.

war club or death mall. When the former were expended, they came into close engagement in using the latter. Their warrior 8 dress or coat of mail for this method of fighting, was a short jacket made of willow sticks, or moon wood, and laced tight around the body; the head covered with a cap of the same kind, but commonly worn double for the better security of that part against a stroke from the war club. In the great battle fought at this place, between the Senecas and Western Indians, some affirm their ancestors have told them there were eight hundred of their enemies slain; others include the killed on both sides to make that number. All their historians agree in this, that the battle was fought here, where the heaps of slain are buried, before the arrival of the Europeans; some say three, some say four, others five ages ago; they reckon an age one hundred winters or colds. I would further remark upon this subject that there are vestiges of ancient fortified towns in various parts, throughout the extensive territory of the Six Nations. I find also by constant enquiry, that a tradition prevails among the Indians in general, that all Indians came from the west. I have wished for an opportunity to pursue this inquiry with the more remote tribes of Indians, to satisfy myself, at least, if it be their universal opinion.

"On the south side of Lake Erie, are a series of old fortifications, from Cattaraugus Creek to the Pennsylvania line, a distance of fifty miles. Some are from two to four miles apart, others half a mile only. Some contain five acres. The walls or breast-works are of earth, and are generally on grounds where there are appearances of creeks having flowed into the lake, or where there was a bay. Further south there is said to be another chain parallel with the first, about equi-distant from the lake.

"These remains of art, may be viewed as connecting links of a great chain, which extends beyond the confines of our state, and becomes more magnificent and curious as we recede from the northern lakes, pass through Ohio into the great valley of the Mississippi, thence to the gulf of Mexico through Texas into New Mexico and South America. In this vast range of more than three thousand miles, these monuments of ancient skill gradually become more remarkable for their number, magnitude and interesting variety, until we are lost in admiration and astonishment, to find, as Baron Humboldt informs us, in a world which we call new, ancient institutions, religious ideas, and forms of edifices, similar to those of Asia, which there seem to go back to the dawn of civilization."

"Over the great secondary region of the Ohio, are the ruins of what once were forts, cemeteries, temples, altars, camps, towns,

NOTE. The traditions given to Mr. Kirkland at so early a period, are added to his account of the old Forts, to be taken in connection with adverse theories and conclusions upon the same point. As has before been observed, many of the Senecas who have since been consulted, do not pretend to any satisfactory knowledge upon the subjects.

villages, race-grounds and other places of amusement, habitations of chieftains, videttes, watch-towers and monuments."

"It is," says Mr. Atwater,* "nothing but one vast cemetery of the beings of past ages. Man and his works, the mammoth, tropical animals, the cassia tree and other tropical plants, are here reposing together in the same formation. By what catastrophe they were overwhelmed and buried in the same strata it would be impossible to say, unless it was that of the general deluge."

"In the valley of the Mississippi, the monuments of buried nations are unsurpassed in magnitude and melancholy grandeur by any in North America. Here cities have been traced similar to those of Ancient Mexico, once containing hundreds of thousands of souls. Here are to be seen thousands of tumuli, some an hundred feet high, others many hundred feet in circumference, the places of their worship, their sepulchre, and perhaps of their defence. Similar mounds are scattered throughout the continent, from the shores of the Pacific into the interior of our State as far as Black River and from the Lakes to South America."✝

So much for all we can see or know of our ancient predecessors. The whole subject is but incidental to the main purposes of local history. The reader who wishes to pursue it farther will be assisted in his enquiries by a perusal of Mr. Schoolcraft's Notes on the Iroquois. But the mystery of this pre-occupancy is far from being satisfactorily explained. It is an interesting, fruitful source of theories, enquiry and speculation.

*Atwater's Antiquities of the West.

✝Yates and Moulton's History of New York.