“By what people was this work done?
“The articles found in the burying-ground at F, offer no certain reply. The axes, chisels, &c. found on the Indian grounds in this part of the State, were evidently made of the greenstone or trap, of New-England, like those found on the Connecticut river in Massachusetts. The pipe of limestone might be from that part of the country. The pipes seem to belong to different eras.
“1. The limestone pipe indicates the work of the savage or aborigines.
“2. The third indicates the age of French influence over the Indians. An intelligent French gentleman says such clay pipes are frequent among the town population in parts of France.
“3. The second and most curious, seems to indicate an earlier age and people.
“The beads found at Fort Hill are long and coarse, made of baked clay, and may have had the same origin as the third pipe.
“Fort Hill cannot have been formed by the French as one of their posts to aid in the destruction of the English colonies. In 1689, or 156 years ago, the French in Canada made serious attempts to destroy the English colony of New-York. If the French had made Fort Hill a post as early as 1660, or 185 years ago, and then deserted it, the trees could not have grown to the size of the forest generally in 1810, or in 150 years afterwards. The white settlements had extended ‘only twelve miles west of Avon’ in 1798, and some years after 1800, Fort Hill was covered with a dense forest. A chestnut tree cut down in 1842, at Rochester, showed 254 concentric circles of wood, and must have been more than 200 years old in 1800. So opposed is the notion that this was a deserted French post.
“Must we not refer Fort Hill to that race, which peopled this country before the Indians, who raised so many monuments greatly exceeding the power of the Indians, and who lived at a remote era?”
[g.] Antique rock citadel of Kienuka, in Lewiston, Niagara county.
In the preceding sketches, evidences have been presented of the readiness and good judgment of the aboriginal fort builders of western New-York,[67] in availing themselves of steeps, gulfs, defiles, and other marked localities, in establishing works for security or defence. This trait is, however, in no case more strikingly exemplified than in the curious antique work before us, which is called, by the Tuscaroras, Kienuka. The term Kienuka is said to mean the stronghold or fort, from which there is a sublime view. It is situated about three and a half or four miles eastward of the outlet of the Niagara gorge at Lewiston, on a natural escarpment of the ridge.