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People of the Standing Stone: The Skenandoah Boulder in Oneida

We’ve been by it countless times. Every time we zip by it, we grab a fleeting glimpse and wonder aloud to each other what is etched on it, what is it’s significance, and why it is there. Today I finally got to get up very close and snap a photo of the words written on the plaque!

I’m talking about the Skenandoah Boulder, on Route 5 outside of Oneida Castle village limits. There is a stone resting on the side of the road, by a very busy four corners area, with an old historical marker punctured in the lawn next to it. “Skenandoah Boulder” is all the historical marker says.

I’d finally stopped a few months ago (in December) to get a photo of it, but the snow had been too high and too slushy for me to read what the plaque says. That photo is all I could get from my quick exploit.

The stone was tantalizingly near, but I couldn’t get closer than that!

The stone (about the size of a small couch, or loveseat) has an old copper plaque affixed on it (it’s now green). The print is small– too small for any passer-by to read even one word. Stopping the car on the side of this busy road is done at one’s own risk. I’ve always either been in a hurry or haven’t felt brave enough to stop the car and get a closer look.

Now that it is spring, I could park my car more safely, meander the very busy highway, and step onto the green grass.

This is what the plaque reads:

This marks the site of the last home of SKENANDOAH Chief of the Oneidas, “The White Man’s Friend.” Here he entertained Governor DeWitt Clinton 1810, and many other distinguished guests, and here he died in 1816 aged 110. He was carried on the shoulders of his faithful Indians to his burial in the cemetery of Hamilton College, Clinton, NY, and laid to rest beside his beloved friend and faithful teacher Rev. Samuel Kirkland.

“I am an aged hemlock; the winds of an hundred winters have whistled through my branches . I am dead at the top. The generation to which I belonged have run away and left me.” Skenandoah.

Erected 1912 by Skenandoah Chapter, N.S.D.A.R. Oneida, NY

We’d visited Rev. Kirkland’s and Skenandoah’s gravesite are Hamilton College; you can see photos and my post about it here.

I had done some research on this boulder and the Oneidas a few months ago. It only made the stone more intriguing. It is fitting to have a large boulder here, as it’s related to the Haudenosaunee and the meaning of their name: Oneida, People of the Standing Stone.

Oneida legend says that the Oneida were led to these lands by following a moving stone; where it stopped, they settled. There is another ice-age linkage here because glaciers move staggering amounts of loose stone and boulders (glaciers are made up of about one-third stone and two-thirds ice) and deposit these stones as erratics. Erratics are non-native stones and boulders which can be found all over New York. Syenite is one type of erratic and is frequently found in Oneida territories. The Skenandoah Boulder is perhaps the largest syenite erratic. It is named for a very famous Oneida Chief Skenandoah… As you pass through village of Oneida Castle, on NY 5, note that this was once the site of the principal Oneida village, known as Kanonwalohale.

We know about the great Oneida Chief Skenandoah– that close friend of Samuel Kirkland (founder of Hamilton College). Under Kirkland, Skenandoah became a Christian who influenced his tribesmen to join the Americans in the Revolutionary War.

His history– and the history of that stone– and his history in relation to that stone– is absorbing. This page taken from The History of Chenango and Madison Counties, 1880, by James H. Smith tells of the little-known history of the Oneidas and the first white settlers to the region.

Thus they were known as the people of the stone set in the fork of a tree. Tradition ascribes their origin to a stone, which, says Schoolcraft, “is a large, but not enormous, boulder of syenite, of the erratic block group, and consequently geologically foreign to the location,” there being “no rocks like this till we reach the Adirondacks.” “This stone,” says the same author, “became the national altar,” and “when it was necessary to light their pipes and assemble to discuss national matters, they had only to ascend the hill through its richly wooded groves to its extreme summit,” an eminence in the town of Stockbridge, where, he says, this stone, and the first castle of the Oneidas was located.

And who is “Schoolcraft”? I could find no reference to him on the website. Is this a reference to a relation of James Schoolcraft Sherman of Utica, vice-president during the Taft administration?

Another source I found says that this largest boulder of syenite rested at Forest Hill Cemetery in Utica, New York. Does it remain there, somewhere? Or was this stone removed to the four corners at Route 5, that same stone in the photo above? (Incidentally, Forest Hill in Utica is where James Schoolcraft Sherman is buried).

Before the door of an old chief, resting upright on the ground, stood the palladium of the clan, a stone of some size, declared by Mr. Kirkland to have been an object of idolatrous worship to many of the people. It was “a cylindrical stone of more than two hundred pounds weight, and unlike any other stone in that region.” From the earliest records, the Oneidas were spoken of as the “People of the Stone.” Onia is their word for a stone, and Oniota-aug means the people of the stone. The French called them Oneséionts; with the Dutch and English they were Oneidas.

Tradition declared that wherever the tribe moved, this cylindrical stone of mystery followed them. A strong man could carry it forty or fifty rods without resting; in this way, as the missionary says, it may certainly have followed them in their wanderings. It would seem to have been an essential of this ancient stone of the Oneidas that it could be lifted by the sinews of their warriors into “the crotch of a tree.” and when placed in that position, it rendered their braves invincible. Such is the tradition given by Mr. Kirkland, who was thoroughly familiar with the language and habits of the Oneidas.

There was another stone of much greater size, in the Oneida country, about which mysterious traditions hover. It was of considerable size and weight, and lay on the summits of a commanding height, overlooking the country on the Oneida Creek, as far as the lake, which on a bright day can be seen in the distance.

At one period the principal Oneida village lay near a fine spring in a valley beneath the height. There are vague rumors connected with this boulder of syenite, shadows of the uncertain past, which claim for it the dignity of a tribal altar. Of this larger stone Mr. Kirkland makes no mention.

It was removed in 1850, from the height on which it lay, to Forest Hill Cemetery in Utica. It is said that there is no stone of the same geological character nearer than the Adirondack Mountains. Its weight has been variously stated at from one to three tons.

We’ve been to the Munnsville Museum in the Stockbridge/Munnsville area. I was researching genealogy information on my ancestor Nathan Edson (a survivor of the Battle of Lexington) and learned that he had been granted the area of Stockbridge for his war services. The Indians of that area had moved to Oneida Castle, NY, in 1784. I am surprised and mystified about all the historical connections, and now there is a personal connection. If I ever had to explain why history is such a fascinating subject, then this is why!

The Salt Museum in Syracuse

Late summer, we took a trip out to Syracuse to visit the Rosamond Gifford Zoo (more on that later) and to the Salt Museum. The Salt Museum in along the Onondaga Lake (the Onondaga Lake Thruway). We drove through the city to the Salt Museum and ate our picnic lunch at the comfortable park there.

A friendly seagull landed near my van window while I munched my sandwich. I tossed him a piece of my potato chip and he let me snap his photo.

While we ate, I briefed the kids on a little history of Onondaga Lake. This lake was once extremely polluted. As a kid, it was a miserable trip to pass the lake on a humid summer day– the stench of sewage rose up and sat at the bottom of one’s throat for the rest of the drive through the city. In the 80s, a movement was made to clean up the lake. >>> Read more of ‘The Salt Museum in Syracuse’

Hamilton College Cemetery, Clinton, NY

We visit the campus of Hamilton College from time to time. My eldest, The Historian, loves their library– Burke Library– and knows a few of the professors there. The place is steeped in American history. Although Alexander Hamilton never visited the campus, he whole-heartedly supported this venture begun by Reverend Samuel Kirkland, a Connecticut native who came to wilds of Upstate New York to bring Christianity to the Iroquois. The Historian is quite the Samuel Kirkland expert; someday I hope she writes a biography of him. Kirkland’s history is truly fascinating. She includes a brief history about the college below my entry.

Modern Hamilton College was in the mainstream headlines a year ago, mostly due to their decision to host a lecture by Kook of the Year, Ward Churchill. Nutsy Churchill was thankfully pressured out of the schedule by outraged Hamilton alumni and the public. However, there remain the strangest and disconcerting associations for the college, such as the college visiting professor Brigitte Boisselier, a member of the Raelian Cult Movement (who claim to have cloned a human and that we descend from aliens). It’s really weird for an Ivy League college to do some of the things it does. Yow. Poor Sam Kirkland– his vision of “solid American education for Christian boys” is in the toilet.

We love the college for its history and its inception by Rev. Kirkland as an out reach for Indians. The kooky leftward tilt of the college is tragic. But there are some great professors in the history department who do still preserve the honor and dignity of it’s history and mission.

My girls and I have attended a few lectures at the campus, one by author Ron Chernow. He was there to speak about his book, Alexander Hamilton. It was an interesting lecture. Chernow didn’t deny Hamilton’s obvious religious convictions by calling him a deist, as many modern authors do. However, Chernow’s insinuations in his book that Hamilton was homosexual or was a British spy went too far.

My daughter wants to someday pick up where Hamilton left off politically, and perhaps get involved in some kind of Christian Constitutional Society, the brain child of Hamilton. After his tempestuous time as Secretary of the Treasury, Hamilton had given some thought to the existing political parties of his time, and he and George Washington both saw the danger of a two-party political scene. Hamilton also saw the degeneracy and corruption of politicians within the system, and believed only Christianity could keep our nation together under liberty.

“I have carefully examined the evidences of the Christian religion, and if I was sitting as a juror upon its authenticity I would unhesitatingly give my verdict in its favor. I can prove its truth as clearly as any proposition ever submitted to the mind of man.” –Alexander Hamilton

Infamous Aaron Burr ended Hamilton’s plan for a new political society, in July 1804.

We paid a visit to Samuel Kirkland’s grave site. The kids are very patriotic.

Buried next to Kirkland is Oneida Indian Schenando (also known as Skenando, Skenandoah, or Shenandoah).

Skenandoah was instrumental in persuading the Oneida Indians to resist the British and join the American Patriot cause. The Oneidas were the only members of the Iroquois nation to fight with the Americans. Skenandoah had become a devout Christian under the teaching of his “father,” Samuel Kirkland.

From The Annals of Tryon County:

From attachment to Mr. Kirkland he had always expressed a strong desire to be buried near his Minister, and Father, that he might (to use his own expression) “Go up with him at the great resurrection.” At the approach of death, after listening to the prayers, which were read at his bed side by his great granddaughter, he again repeated the request. According the family of Mr. Kirkland having received information by a runner that Skenando was dead, in compliance with a previous promise, sent assistance to the Indians that the corpse might be carried to the village of Clinton for burial.

You can read a little more about the mysterious Skenandoah Boulder that we visited a month or two ago.

Elihu Root, Secretary of War for McKinley and Roosevelt, and holder of other distinguished titles and accomplishments, is buried nearby, as is Ulyssess S. Grant III!

The Mohawk Valley is indeed very, very rich in history. It was George Washington who referred to New York as the “Seat of the Empire,” probably giving us our nickname “The Empire State.”

From The Historian: Hamilton College in Clinton New York is one of the oldest colleges in New York State. The college was first founded by the Reverend Samuel Kirkland in 1793 as an academy (an institute to help aspiring young men prepare for higher education in universities). The academy would admit and instruct young Oneida Indian men and young white men from around the country.

As an experienced Christian missionary and diplomat among the Iroquois tribes of New York, Kirkland believed that this academy would be a great educational aid to the Indians, since they were “to be instructed in the principles of human nature, in the history of civil society, … and in the principles of natural religion, the moral precepts, and the more plain and express doctrines of Christianity.” Kirkland also expressed the hope that by educating white and red men together, this would create a stronger tie of friendship between the two peoples than they had been able to enjoy much before.

In 1793, Samuel Kirkland traveled to Philadelphia (the unofficial capitol of the United States at that time) to solicit financial and influential aid from Alexander Hamilton, signer of the Constitution, co-author of The Federalist Papers, and the then current Secretary of the Treasury. In his journal, Kirkland records that Hamilton agreed to lend the college any power in his aid and to become a premier trustee, which post he served till his death in 1804.

In honor of its benefactor, the institution was named the Hamilton-Oneida Academy, and, since Hamilton never received an opportunity to visit the grounds of the site, the noble Baron von Steuben laid the cornerstone of the first building on campus.

Kirkland anticipated the growth of the academy, and although neither he nor Hamilton (who never set foot upon the grounds of the institute) never lived to see it, the academy received its charter as a college in 1812.