About the year 1810, he felled an oak, near the site of the fort, measuring two feet six inches in diameter. In recutting it for fire wood, after it had been drawn to his door, a leaden bullet was found, covered by one hundred and forty-three cortical layers. From its position, embedded as it was in the compact wood, it was still some distance to the heart of the tree. He thinks this tree may have been a sapling when the bullet was fired. Whether this conjecture be true or not, one hundred and forty-three years appear to have elapsed since the bullet assumed its position. This would give A. D. 1667 as the era.
In 1666, the Governor of Canada concluded a treaty with the Onondaga Iroquois, as is seen from the “Paris Documents” obtained by Mr. Broadhead. Colden’s history of the Five Nations, which has been the principal source of information heretofore, after a brief summary of traditionary matter,[59] in the first chapter, opens with the transactions in 1665. This matter is more fully and satisfactorily stated by Charlevoix in his history of New France, from whom it is presumable, Colden drew his information of the former power and pre-eminence of the Adirondacks.
[59] The States General of Holland surrendered New-York to the English crown in 1664.
During this year De Traci came out as viceroy of New-France, and the same year Monsieur Coursel, who is notorious for his perfidy in executing the Iroquois sachem, Agariata, arrived with the commission of Governor-General of Canada. But there is little to be found bearing directly on the subject before us.
It would appear from the journal of the Jesuit, Father Le Moyne, as given in the missionary “Relacions,” that the country of the Onondagas was not discovered and explored until the year 1653. Facts disclosed by him in the same letter denote, however, prior negociations with the French authorities, and we are probably to understand only that as yet, no missionaries from his or any other order, had visited, or been established amongst this tribe. In this view, and from the incidental light which he throws on some other topics, such as the new breaking out of the war with the Eries, the discovery of the salt springs, and the existence of the buffalo in the country, this letter is important to the early Iroquois history, and a translation of it is hereto appended. It is certain that no mission or fort had then been introduced. A footing may, however, have been gained by the French within the next fourteen years, that is, at the time of the apparent date of the existence of the old fort on the right banks of the Kasonda.[60]
[60] Fire-arms began to be first introduced among the Iroquois in 1609, the very year that Hudson explored the river now bearing his name. In this year, Champlain, heading the Algonquins, with some regular troops, in lake Corlear, (since called Champlain,) defeated the Mohawks by the use of fire-arms.
Where history fails, we may appeal to tradition and to the proofs drawn from antiquarian remains. Isaac Keeler, who is above mentioned, exhibited to me one-half of the brass circle of a dial plate, three inches (less two-tenths) in diameter, which had been ploughed up by him on the site of the fort, or from that general area. This circle had engraved, in good Roman characters, the numbers II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII. He likewise exhibited the box of a small brass pocket compass, with a screw lid one inch and two-tenths in diameter. From this instrument the needle had been removed and its place supplied by vermillion, the highly prized war pigment of the Indians. When plowed up and found at the bottom of a furrow, it was encrusted with oxide, but restored by washing and friction to its original color and even surface. On being opened, it was found to contain the pigment, of which I examined a portion. It appeared to me to have been, not the Chinese vermillion of the trade, but the duller red article, which is, I believe, a peroxide of lead prepared by the Dutch.
Among the articles which he had preserved were the following:
1. A crucifix of brass of two inches in length, ornamented by a human figure, and having a metallic loop for suspending it.
2. An octagonal medal, four-tenths of an inch, of the same material, bearing a figure with the name “St. Agatha,” and the Latin word “ora”—a part of the Gregorian chant.