TEKAKWITHA'S SPRING.
THE LIFE AND TIMES
OF
KATERI TEKAKWITHA.[1]
[1] Pronounced Kat'-e-ree' Tek-a-quee'-ta. Kateri is the Iroquois form of the Christian name Katherine. The meaning of Tekakwitha is given in Chapter IV. For various ways of spelling the name, see [Appendix, Note B.]
CHAPTER I.
TEKAKWITHA'S SPRING.
IN the valley of the Mohawk, near the present great highways of the State of New York, is a quiet forest nook, where a clear, cold spring gurgles out from the tangled roots of a tree. Connected with this spring is the story of a short girl-life, pure, vigorous, sorrow-taught. It is written out in authentic documents; while Nature, also, has kept a record of an Indian maiden's lodge beside the spring. There on the banks of the Mohawk River, at Caughnawaga, now called Fonda, in Montgomery County, dwelt the Lily of the Mohawks two centuries ago, when the State had neither shape nor name. She saw her people build a strong, new palisaded village there. She saw, though at rare intervals, the peaceful but adventurous traders of Fort Orange, and the blackgowns of New France pass in and out on friendly errands. Mohegans came there also in her day to lay siege to the village, but only to be met with fierce defiance and to be driven back. Marks of that very Indian fort can still be found at Fonda, where the Johnstown Railway now branches from the New York Central, and turns northward along the margin of the Cayudutta Creek. The smoke of the engine, as it leaves the town of Fonda, mounts to the level of a plateau on which the Mohawk Castle [2] stood. The elevated land, or river terrace, at that point is singularly called the "Sand Flats."