I returned to Little Falls toward evening, and the lengthened shadows of the hills and trees heightened the picturesque beauty of the scene. The view, on approaching
* Joseph Brant (Thayendanegea) was a Mohawk of pure blood. His father was a chief of the Onondaga nation, and had three sons in the army with Sir William Johnson, under King Hendrick, in the battle at Lake George in 1755.
* Joseph, his youngest son, whose Indian name was Thayendanegea, which signifies a bundle of sticks, or, in other words, strength, was born on the banks of the Ohio in 1742, whither his parents immigrated from the Mohawk Valley.
* His mother returned to Canajoharie with two children, Mary, or Molly, who became the concubine of Sir William Johnson, and Thayendanegea. His father, To bowaghwengaraghkwin, a chief of the Wolf tribe* of the Mohawks, seems to have died in the Ohio country.
* According to Colden, each of the original Five Nations was divided into three tribes, the Tortoise or Turtle, the Bear, and the Wolf. Others affirm that there were eight divisions in each, the other tribes being the Crane, the Snipe, the Hawk, the Beaver, and the Deer. The first three seem to have been preeminent; and among the Mohawks, with whom the whites had more direct and extensive business and social intercourse than with any others, these only were known.
* Title deeds to lands, and other papers, now in the office of the Secretary of State at Albany, have the signatures or marks of the chiefs of these three tribes attached. The annexed cuts are fac-similes, which I copied from the originals. No. 1 is the mark of Teyendagages, or Little Hendrick, of the Turtle tribe; No. 2, that of Kanadagea, or Hans, chief of the Bear tribe, and is intended to represent a bear lying on his back; No. 3 is the signature and hieroglyphic of Great Hendrick, the celebrated chief of the Wolf tribe, who was killed near Lake George in 1755. Kanadagea sometimes made a simple cross.
* Little Abraimm, or found upon several papers the name of Daniel, a chief of the Tortoise tribe, often associated with that of Little Abraham and of Hans. The signatures of the chiefs of all the three tribes appear to have been essential in making those deeds or conveyances legal. Besides the eight totums here named, there appears to have been, at an earlier date, three other tribes, the Serpent, the Porcupine, and the Fox. Giles F. Yates, Esq., of Schenectady, one of our most indefatigable antiquaries, discovered a document having the marks of twenty-one chiefs and that of a woman (Eusena) attached. Among them are those of Togwayenant, of the Serpent; Sander, of the Porcupine; and Symon, of the Fox tribe. The date of the document is 1714. It is not my province, neither have I the apace, to pursue this interesting subject further, in this connection.
* His mother, after her return, married an Indian called Carribogo (news-carrier), whom the whiles named Barnet; but, byway of contraction, he was called Barnt, and, finally, Brant was ealled Joseph, and was known as Brant's Joseph, or Joseph Brant. Sir William Johnson sent young Brant to the school of Dr. Wheelock, of Lebanon Crank (now Columbia), Connecticut, and, after he was well educated, employed him as secretary, and as agent in publie affairs. He was employed as missionary interpreter from 1762 to 1765, and exerted himself for the religions instruction of his tribe. When the Revolution broke out, he attached himself to the British cause, and in 1775 left the Mohawk Valley, went to Canada, and finally to England, where his education, and his business and social connection with Sir William Johnson, gave him free access to the nobility. The Earl of Warwick caused Romney, the eminent painter, to make a portrait of him for his collection, and from a print after that picture the engraving on the preceding page was made. Throughout the Revolution he was engaged in warfare chiefly upon the border settlements of New York and Pennsylvania, in connection with the Johnsons and Butlers. He held a colonel's commission from the king, but he is generally ealled Captain Brant. After the peace in 1783, Brant again visited England, and, on returning to America, devoted himself to the social and religious improvement of the Mohawks, who were settled upon the Ouise or Grand River, in Upper Canada, upon lands procured for them by Brant from Sir Frederic Haldimand, governor of the province. The territory embraced six miles on both sides of the river, from its mouth to its source. He translated the Gospel of St. Mark into the Mohawk language; and in many ways his exertions for the spiritual and temporal welfare of his people were eminently successful, and endeared him to his nation. He died at his residence at the head of Lake Ontario, November 24th, 1807, aged 65 years. One of his sons (John) was an officer in the British service, on the Niagara frontier, in the war of 1812. His daughter married William J. Kerr, Esq., of Niagara, in 1821, and, I believe, is still living.
Return to Little Falls.—Cole's Pictures.—Scenery at Little Falls.—Evidences of a great Cataract.—Remarkable Cavity.
from the west, changes from the quiet beauty of a rolling plain, enriched by the cultivator's art, and enlivened by a gently gliding river, to the rugged grandeur of lofty hills, craggy steeps, and turbulent cascades. It reminded me of two of Cole's beautiful pictures in his "Voyage of Life," wherein is depicted the course of an ambitious youth. He is out upon a placid stream, so full of self-confidence that his guardian angel is left behind. All around is beauty and repose. The stream meanders on without a riff, but in the distance it sweeps with a majestic curve around a woodland into a mysterious region. Onward speeds the bark of the youthful voyager upon the gentle current, until the valley becomes narrower, the waters run swiftly, the tall trees and beautiful flowers upon its banks disappear, high and barren rocks wall in his view, and just before him is the wild leap of a cataract into a fearful gulf below.