Kasonda.
Mr. I. Keeler says that he cut a large oak tree, near the site of the old fort, two and a half feet through. In re-cutting it, at his door, a bullet was found, covered by 143 cortical layers. It was still some distance to the centre. If this tree was cut in 1810, the bullet was fired in 1667. Consult “Paris Documents,” 1666, treaty with the Onondaga Iroquois.
The Goulds say that the fort was a square, with bastions, and had streets within it. It was set round with cedar pickets, which had been burnt down to the ground. Stumps of them were found by the plough.
Nearly every article belonging to the iron tools of a blacksmith shop have been ploughed up at various times—an anvil, horn, vice screw, &c.; Indian axes, a horse shoe, hinges, the strap hinge. A pair of these hangs the wicket gate to his house.
A radius of five to six miles around the old fort would cover all the striking remains of ancient occupancy in the towns of De Witt, Lafayette and Pompey.
Webster told the Goulds that the French who occupied this fort, and had the nucleus of a colony around it, excited the jealousy and ire of the Onondagas by the hostility of some western tribes in their influence. Against these the Onondaga warriors marched. The French then attacked the red men, &c. This led to their expulsion and massacre. All were killed but a priest who lived between the present towns of Salina and Liverpool. He refused to quit peaceably. They then put a chain around a ploughshare, and heating it, hung it about his neck; he was thus, with the symbol of agriculture, tortured to death. His hut was standing when the county was settled.
The attempt to settle western New-York by the French was in the age of chivalry, (the 16th century,) and was truly Quixotic.