[FN] In a deed of 1685 is the entry: "Opposite a place called Jucktumunda, that is ye stone houses, being a hollow rock on ye river bank where ye Indians generally lie under when they travel."
[Onekee-dsi-enos] is of record in a deed of land purchased by one Abraham Cuyler of Albany, in 1714, "from the native owners of the land at Schohare, on the west side of Schohare creek, beginning on the north by a stone mountain called by the Indians Onekeedsienos." (Cal. N. Y. Land Papers, 110.) The name is probably an equivalent of Bruyas' Onueja-tsi-entos, a composition from Onne'ja, "Stone"; tsi or dsi, augmentative, "Very hard," such as stones used for making hatchets, axes, etc., and entos, plural inflection—"very hard stones," or "where there are hard stones." The location has been claimed for Flint Hill at Klein, Montgomery County, which, it is said, the name correctly describes. Positive identification, however, can only be made from the lines of the survey of Cuyler's purchase. It has also been claimed that the Mohawk castle called Onekagoncka by Van Curler in 1635, and the Osseruenon of 1642, was located at Klein, about eight miles east of Schohare Creek. This claim is based on what is certainly an erroneous computation of Van Curler's miles' travel, but particularly on the location on Van der Donck's map of Carenay directly north of a small lake now in the town of Duane, Schenectady County. Van der Donck's map locations are merely approximative, however, and of no other value than as showing that the places existed. On an ancient map reprinted by the War Department at Washington, the lake and the castle are both located east of Schenectady. The old maps are from traders' descriptions in general terms.
[Onuntadass,] Onuntasasha, etc., "six miles west from Schoharie between the mountains of Schoharie and the hill called by the Indians Onuntadass" (Cal. N. Y. Land Papers), describes a hill or mountain—Ononté—with adjective termination es or ese, meaning "long" or "high." Jonondese, "It is a high hill." The hill has not been located. The name could be applied to any long or high hill.
[Schoharie,] now so written as the name of a creek and of a county and town, would properly be written without the i. The stream came into notice particularly after 1693-4, when the Tortoise tribe retreated from Caughnawaga and located their principal town on the west side of the stream a short distance south of its junction with the Mohawk, taking with them their ancient title of "The First Mohawk Castle," and where its location became known by the name of Ti-onondar-aga and Ti-ononta-ogen; but later from the location on the creek about sixteen miles above its mouth of what was known in modern times as "The Third Mohawk Castle," more frequently called "The Schohare Castle," a mixed aggregation of Mohawks and Tuscaroras who had been converted by the Jesuit missionaries and persuaded to remove to Canada, but subsequently induced to return. "A few emigrants at Schohare," wrote Sir William Johnson in 1763. In the same district was also gathered a settlement of Mahicans and other Algonquian emigrants. From the elements which were gathered in both settlements came what were, long known as the Schohare Indians. The early record name of the creek, To-was-sho'hare, was rendered for me by Mr. J. B. N. Hewitt, of the Bureau of Ethnology, T-yoc-skoⁿ-hà-re, "An obstruction by drift wood." [FN] In Colonial History, "Skohere, the Bear," means that the chief so called was of the Bear tribe. He was otherwise known by the title, "He is the great wood-drift."
[FN] "Schoharie, according to Brant, is an Indian word signifying drift or flood-wood, the creek of that name running at the foot of a steep precipice for many miles, from which it collected great quantities of wood." (Spofford's Gazetteer.)
[Ti-onondar-aga] and Tiononta-ogen are forms of the name by which the "First Mohawk Castle" was located after the Tortoise tribe was driven by the French from Caughnawaga in 1693. The castle was located on the west side and near the mouth of Schohare Creek, as shown by a rough map in Doc. Hist. N. Y., iii, 902, and also by a French Itinerary in 1757, in the same work, Vol. i, 526. [FN-1] For the protection of the settlement, the government erected, in 1710, what was known as Fort Hunter, by which name the place is still known. The settlement was ruled over for a number of years by "Little Abraham," brother of the Great King Hendrick of the "Upper Mohawk Castle," at Canajohare. Its occupants were especially classed as "Praying Maquas," and had a chapel and a bell and a priest of the Church of England. In the war of the Revolution they professed to be neutral but came to be regarded by the settlers as being composed of spies and informers. So it came about that General Clinton sent out, in 1779, a detachment, captured all the inmates, and seized their stock and property. [FN-2] There were only four houses—very good frame buildings—then standing, and on the solicitation of settlers, who had been made houseless in the Brant and Johnson raids, they were given to them. It was the last Mohawk castle to disappear from the valley proper.
Ti-onondar-ága and Te-ononte-ógen are related terms but are not precisely of the same meaning. The first has the locative particle ke, or acu, as Zeisberger wrote it, and the second, ógen, means "A space between," or "between two mountains," an intervale, or valley, a very proper name for Schohare Valley. It is a generic composition and was also employed in connection with the "Upper (Third) Mohawk Castle" (1635-'66).
[FN-1] The settlement included "Some thirty cabins of Mohawk Indians" in 1757. as stated in the French Itinerary referred to, Rev. Gideon Hawley described it, in 1753, as on the southwest side of the creek "Not far from the place where it discharges its waters into Mohawk River." The place is still known as "Fort Hunter," although the fort and the Indian settlement disappeared years ago.