[Senatsycrossy,] written by Van Curler, in 1635, as the name of a Mohawk Village west of Canowarode, seems to have been in the vicinity of Fultonville, where tradition has always located one, but where General John S. Clark asserts that there never was one. It may not have remained at the place named for a number of years. Villages that were not palisaded were sometimes removed in a single night. Van Curler described it as a village of twelve houses. It was, presumably, the seat of a sub-tribe or gens of the Tortoise tribe. Its precise location is not important. A gens or sub-tribe was a family of the original stock more or less numerous from natural increase and intermarriages, and always springing from a single pair—the old, old story of Adam and Eve, the founders of the Hebrews. The sachem or first man of these gens was never a ruler of the tribe proper. They did sign deeds for possessions which were admitted to be their own, but never a treaty on the part of the nation.
[Caughnawaga,] probably the best known of the Mohawk castles of what may be called the middle era (1667-93), and the immediate successor of Onekagoncka of 1635, was located on the north side of the Mohawk, on the edge of a hill, near the river, half a mile west of the mouth of Cayuadutta Creek, in the present village of Fonda. The hill on which it was built is now known as Kaneagah, writes Mr. W. Max Read of Amsterdam. Its name appears first in French notation, in Jesuit Relations (1667), Gandaouagué. [FN] Contemporaneous Dutch scribes wrote it Kaghnawaga and Caughnawaga, and Greenhalgh, an English trader, who visited the castle in 1677, wrote it Cahaniaga, and described it as "about a bowshot from the river, doubly stockaded around, with four ports, and twenty-four houses." The most salient points in its history are in connection with its wars with the French and with the labors of the Jesuit missionaries, who, after the murder of Father Jogues and the destruction of the castle in which he suffered and the peace of 1667, were very successful, so much so that in 1671 the occupants of the castle erected in its public square a Cross, and a year later a very large number of the tribe under the lead of the famous warrior Krin, removed to Canada and became allies of the French. The members of the tribe who remained occupied the castle until the winter of 1693, when it was captured and burned by the French, and the tribe returned to the south side of the river and located on the flats on the west side of Schohare Creek, where they were especially known as "The Praying Maquaas," and where they remained until 1779, when they were dispersed by the Revolutionary forces under General Clinton. Caughnawaga is accepted as meaning "At the rapids," more correctly "At the rapid current." It is from the Huron radical Gannawa (Bruyas), for which M. Cuoq wrote in his Lexicon Ohnawagh, "Swift current," or very nearly the Dutch Kaghnawa; with locative particle -ge or -ga, "At the rapids." It is a generic term and is met of record in several places. As has been noted elsewhere, the rapids of the Mohawk extend at intervals fifteen in number from Schenectady to Little Falls, the longest being east of the mouth of Schohare Creek. The rapid or rift at Caughnawaga extends about half a mile.
[FN] The letters ou, in Gandaouaga and in other names, represents a sound produced by the Mohawks in the throat without motion of the lips. Bruyas wrote it 8. {sic ȣ?} It is now generally written w—Gandawaga.
[Cayudutta,] modern orthography; Caniadutta and Caniahdutta, 1752. "Beginning at a great rock, lying on the west side of a creek, called by the Indians Caniadutta." (Cal. Land Papers, 270.) The name was that of the rock, from which it was extended to the stream. It was probably a rock of the calciferous sandstone type containing garnets, quartz and flint, which are met in the vicinity. "The name is from Onenhia, or Onenya, 'stone,' and Kaniote, 'to be elevated,' or standing" (Hale). [FN] Dr. Beauchamp translated the name, "Stone standing out of the water." The meaning, however, seems to be simply, "Standing stone," or an elevated rock. Its location is stated in the patent description as "lying on the west side of the creek." The place is claimed for Fulton County. (See Caughnawaga.)
[FN] The same word is now written as the name of the Oneida nation. Van Curler's trip, in 1635, extended to the castle of the Oneidas, which he called' Enneyuttehage, "The standing-stone town." (Hale.)
[Canagere,] written by Van Curler, in 1635, as the name of the "Second Castle" or tribal town, was written Gandagiro by Father Jogues, in 1643; Banigiro by Rev. Megapolensis; Gandagora in Jesuit Relations in 1669, and Canagora by Greenhalgh in 1677. The several orthographies are claimed to stand for Canajohare, from the fact that the castle was "built on a high hill" east of Canajohare Creek. It was, however, the castle of the Bear tribe, the Ganniagwari, or Grand Bear of the nation, and carried its name with it to the north side of the Mohawk in 1667. Ganniagwari and Canajohare are easily confused. The creek called Canajohare gave a general locative name to a considerable district of country around it. It took the name from a pot-hole in a mass of limestone in its bed at the falls on the stream about one mile from its mouth. Bruyas wrote "Ganna-tsi-ohare, laver de chaudiere" (to wash the cauldron or large kettle). Rev. Samuel Kirkland, the noted missionary to the Oneidas, wrote the same word "Kanaohare, or Great Boiling Pot, as it is called by the Six Nations." (Dr. Dwight.) The letter j stands for tsi, augmentative, and the radical ohare means "To wash." (Bruyas.) The hole was obviously worn by a round stone or by pebbles, which, moved by the action of the current, literally washed the kettle. Van Curler described the castle as containing "sixteen houses, fifty, sixty, seventy, or eighty paces long, and one of five paces containing a bear," which he presumed was "to be fattened." No matter what may be said in regard to precise location, this castle was east of Canajohare Creek.
[Sohanidisse,] a castle so called by Van Curler, and denominated by him as the "Third Castle," is marked on Van der Donck's map Schanatisse. It is described by Van Curler as "on a very high hill," west of Canajohare Creek, was composed of thirty-two long houses, and was not enclosed by palisades. "Near this castle was plenty of flat land and the woods were full of oak trees." The "very high hill" west of Canajohare Creek and the flat lands remain to verify its position. It is supposed to have been the castle of the Beaver tribe—a sub-gens.
[Osquage,] Ohquage, Otsquage, etc., was written by Van Curler as the name of a village of nine houses situated east of what has been known since 1635 as Osquage or Otsquage Creek. The chief of the village was called "Oguoho, that is Wolf." Megapolensis wrote the same term Okwaho; Van Curler later wrote it Ohquage, and in vocabulary "Okwahohage, wolves," accessorily, "Place of wolves." From the form Osquage we no doubt have Otsquage or Okquage.