The Iroquois Indian Museum, Howes Cave, NY

While we were in Schoharie County, rambling through the deep, mysterious recesses of the subterranean (Howe Caverns!), I discovered another attraction nearby: Iroquois Indian Museum. I grew up in New York State, ancient land of the Iroquois Nations, so their history has been drilled into my skull endlessly since my school years. As a homeschooling mom (and New York traveler extraordinaire), the Iroquois history has become familiar territory. We’ve been to the Shakowi Cultural Center in Oneida, gone on an extensive search for the Oneida Stone, learned about the history of Hamilton College (originally built to educate local Indians and white settlers for the ministry) and Reverend Samuel Kirkland‘s house, paid our respects at the Oriskany Battlefield monument, and on and on and on!

The Iroquois Indian Museum is unlike any of the other places I visited. The artifacts and art displays mingled Indian culture and it’s development with the history of the Iroquois. In case you have never heard of the Iroquois, allow me to briefly introduce you. The Iroquois Nation consisted of five (then later, six) tribes of the Eastern Woodlands natives of North America: the Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Senecas, Cayugas, and later, the Tuscaroras from Carolina. These tribes make a peace agreement with each other and were allotted tracts of land stretching across the untamed wilderness of what we now know as Upstate New York– the Mohawks were the “keepers of the door” near Albany and the Senecas maintained the other end of the land.

What made the Iroquois so unique was their form of self-government. When other tribes across the land were still hunting and gathering and slaughtering buffalo and each other, the Iroquois made a pact and recorded it with wampum (a belt of beads made from seashells).

The Iroquois Indian Museum is an amalgam of modern Indian art from local artists and artifacts discovered throughout New York State. Oh, how I remember as a little girl, digging in my yard looking for arrowheads!

An old Mohawk pot, reconstructed from shards.

A modern work of art crafted from a deer antler.

This is an amazing sculpture from a moose antler!

Indian beadwork from the late 1800s. The ladies of the Iroquois nations still make such lovely beadwork. I saw many such items for sale at the New York State Fair this year.

Wampum beads. It was difficult to tell what articles were new and what were historic.

Iroquois women used to decorate their pottery just like ladies still love to do, today. The placard said that you could always tell what tribe pottery came from because the designs were unique to the groups.

The Iroquois Indian Museum has two levels. One is filled with such amazing artifacts and art work. The lower level is for kids. There’s a big turtle pond that my son loved– the turtles were rather friendly and swam up to him. Or maybe my son just has this *knack* with turtles, I don’t know. There are “hands on” activities, tables with coloring sheets, a few televisions playing Iroquois-related documentaries, and a booth for dressing up.

We did not take advantage of it due to the cold, rainy weather, but the Iroquois Indian Museum has 45 acres of wilderness trails in the back. The area is a real wilderness, with a stream, lush forests and wildlife. It’s a popular place for birdwatching, beaver watching and searching for Natty Bumpo and Uncas. Haha, kidding about that last part, although my kids are CONVINCED we’ll find them someday.

There is an admission fee to the museum, and the museum closes January 1st. It reopens in May and is open every day except Monday until November.

Hamilton College Library: Kirkland & Hamilton Stained Glass

We took a little jaunt out to the Hamilton College campus recently, braving the sub-zero temperatures. There was something we wanted to see.

Lovely, aren’t they? These two stained glass windows are of General Alexander Hamilton and Reverend Samuel Kirkland. Rev. Kirkland founded the college in 1793 as the Oneida-Indian Academy. It was chartered in 1812 as Hamilton College. We are great admirers of Rev. Kirkland and Mr. Hamilton. You can read some of our travels about the college and to Rev. Kirkland’s home– type “Kirkland” in the search bar to the side, and you will see a flurry of posts I’ve written, with photos.

The stained glass windows first decorated the chapel at Hamilton College in 1899, but were removed after a renovation in 1949. Here’s a brief history of the windows, from the Hamilton College website:

The display of the windows was created in 2009 by designer Ted Anderson from Exhibition Alliance in Hamilton, New York, with the support of the Clarence E. ’45 and Ruth F. Aldridge Chapel Fund.

The windows have a long history at Hamilton College. In 1898, by way of special recognition of the two key leaders in launching what became Hamilton College, it was decided to honor them with stained glass memorial portraits, installed in the College Chapel. By that time the Chapel had been “Victorianized,” its interior decor featuring dark oak pews and paneling. The portraits, Hamilton in Continental Army uniform and Kirkland in clerical garb, were placed in the round window spaces to the left and right of the pulpit at the gallery level on the west end of the Chapel. Other, smaller stained glass memorial windows honoring various College worthies were later added on the sides.

The Hamilton and Kirkland portrait windows were installed in 1899, and they would remain in place for a half-century until the Chapel’s interior was extensively renovated to honor Hamilton alumni who had sacrificed their lives for their country during World War II. In 1949, the Chapel was stripped of its dark wood and took on the now whitewashed look of a traditional New England chapel. It was intended to return the building to its original simplicity, and the stained glass windows were deemed to be out of place with the new décor. Consequently, they were removed and put in storage. Only the Hamilton and Kirkland windows were much later placed on display, in the sunken lounge of the Beinecke Student Activities Village after its construction in 1993. The windows will now be enjoyed by all visiting Burke Library, and provide a beautiful vocal [sic] point on the second floor.

While at the library, something else caught my eye: a long display of elegant woodcuts.

I was completely intrigued. I asked the librarian about them. She said they were wood carving replicas of old printer’s seals, the seals a printer would stamp on the inside of the book to signify who printed it. They are lovely!

I could find no further information about them, not even on the Internet. If you know more about these and who did them, please leave your information in the comments.

I’ve Found the Oneida Stone!

My quest has ended. I have finally seen the historic Oneida Indian Nation Stone! I extend my heartfelt and sincere thanks to the Oneida Indian Nation, who contacted me about the Stone and allowed me to see it. I am truly honored! It is always so thrilling to tangibly encounter history like this.

The Oneida Stone now rests on the Oneida Indian Nation land, that 32-acre tract of land south of Oneida, NY. It has been quiet the New York Traveler, as well! It has been located in various Oneida Indian camps since the Oneidas first settled in this area (400+ years ago), was given to White Men for safekeeping in 1849 and rested on a granite pediment in Utica, NY, for many decades; and then was deemed back to the Oneida Nation in the 1970s, when the tribe began to express interest in returning to their ancestral lands. (My statements are a VERY condensed version of a tangled, detailed history of the Oneidas and of New York State!).

I first became interested in the Oneida Stone after seeing the Skenandoah Boulder outside the city limits of Oneida Castle, NY. My kids and I have a great interest in Skenandoah, because we have a great interest in early American history, of Alexander Hamilton and Reverend Samuel Kirkland, of Chief Skenandoah of the Oneida Indians, and how their histories (and ours) is entwined. As I researched the Skenandoah Boulder, I learned about the great Chief Skenandoah himself, how he became a Christian under the ministry of missionary Samuel Kirkland (who founded Hamilton College in Clinton, NY, and is buried there beside Skenandoah); and how Skenandoah rallied his people to support the Americans against the British in the Revolutionary War. The Oneidas were the only Iroquois tribe to join us, so it was with great sacrifice that the Oneidas fought beside us.

After the Revolution, the Oneidas were promised that a large tract of land in Central New York State– the land of their ancestors– was solely theirs, and the State could not claim it. Unfortunately, the Oneidas dwindled in numbers, and New York State (starting in the late 1700s but especially in the 1800s) began to bamboozle and litigate the Oneidas out of their lands. This problem remains with us today: WHO owns that land? It’s still in the courts, I believe. So all the things from 250 years ago are still as relevant today as they were then.

Well, back to the Oneida Stone. I did extensive research on the history of this very odd stone– it’s not native to Central New York and the Oneidas say the stone “moved” as the Oneidas moved from camp to camp. This is why the Oneidas are called “People of the Turning Stone,” and it’s where the Turning Stone Casino in Vernon, NY, (owned and run by the Oneida Indian Nation) gets its name.

So the Oneida Stone, that ancient stone that the Oneidas revered as sacred, has seen a lot of action, both on Indian land and White Man’s land. The history is riveting. I’ve tried my best to condense it and provide photos of all the places I’ve been. You can click the links for more about the Oneida Nation, the Oneida Stone, the Skenandoah Boulder, Samuel Kirkland, and Hamilton College.

Hamilton College Cemetery, Clinton, NY
Hamilton, Smith, and the Turning Stone Casino
People of the Standing Stone: The Skenandoah Boulder in Oneida
The Shako:wi Oneida Indian Cultural Center
Return to Shako:wi, and Where’s the Stone?
Playing Detective for the Oneida Stone
Oneida Indian Settlement, Nichols Pond, in Smithfield
Forest Hill Cemetery, Utica, NY
The Oneida Stone and Things Worth Knowing About Oneida County

The Oneida Stone and Things Worth Knowing About Oneida County

Aha! I am one marvelous step closer to my hunt for the Oneida Stone! I am thrilled! Look what my daughter discovered while surfing Google Books!

That is a very old photo of the Oneida Nation sacred stone, taken sometime over 100 years ago, when the Stone sat on a pedestal at the Forest Hill Cemetery in Utica, NY. I’d visited the Cemetery a few summers ago, looking for the Stone, but all I found was an empty granite stand where it had once rested.

The story of the Oneida Stone and my search for it is a long one. I’ve written about in times past. The Oneida Stone is a glacial erratic, not native to the area of Upstate New York. It once sat where the Oneidas (one of the Five Nations of the Iroquois League) settled. Their oral history says it “appeared” one day, so they considered it sacred. The Oneida name for themselves, Haudenosaunee, means People of the Standing Stone.

My quest– a long one with many twists and turns–  began a few years ago when I stopped my car on Route 5 near the city of Oneida to inspect the curious Skenandoah Boulder. It seemed so lonely at a four corners, with only a faded old historic marker and whizzing traffic to keep it company.

I wanted to read the plaque and know why it was there. You can click the link to read the extensive history I found about this boulder. In researching it, I learned about another boulder, the Oneida Stone. I became intrigued with the Oneida Stone, especially because of its curious migration to the area of Central New York, and its subsequent disappearance after the White Man had taken it and returned it to the Oneidas.

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.

…Tradition ascribes their origin to a stone [the Oneida Stone, it is called today], 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.

The Skenandoah Boulder is not the Oneida Stone. When I asked around about where the Oneida Stone rests today, it seemed no one knew where it had gone. Even when I asked the Oneida Indians at the Cultural Center in Oneida, NY, they had no answers. Weird. Where did the Stone go?

I traced it’s history. And I found out that there were quite a few Oneida Stones. There is a very large stone here at Nichol’s Pond in Madison County, in Smithfield, NY, near Stockbridge. This is an ancient settlement of the Oneidas, their old lands. The area here was very wild, very creepy– there’s a swamp and some excavated ancient grain pits. Click the link to read more.

It was here in the Smithfield/Stockbridge area, in 1615, that Samuel de Champlain and his allies the Huron Indians traveled from Canada, to attack the Oneidas. The Oneidas managed to ward off the attack, but their settlement was later abandoned and the people moved slightly westward. (They eventually settled in the area known as Oneida Castle, in 1784.)

As you can see, that’s a mighty big stone. But this wasn’t “the” Stone I was looking for, that sat on the little plaque at Forest Hill. So while I was very happy we’d discovered the ancient settlement of the Oneidas, and a stone, I still wondered where the smaller Oneida Stone, that glacial erratic, was located.

That smaller Oneida Stone has a long history. Apparently, it used to be in the area of Smithfield/Stockbridge (incidentally, I am a direct descendant of the first white settler to live in this area of the Oneidas, talk about coincidence!), but was removed from the Oneida Nation land in 1849, when it was thought that the tribe was nearly extinct and dissolved. (It was also at this time that New York State abandoned her treaty with the Oneidas and started confiscating the Indian lands– a hotly contested legal entanglement that continues to this day).

So the Oneida Stone was taken from the Oneidas and placed here at Forest Hill Cemetery in Utica, during the cemetery’s opening ceremony. I went to Forest Hill to see the place where it sat, and to see if perhaps the cemetery records had any mention of it’s removal. Nothing. No one at the cemetery knew of it. But the granite display stand with the plaque was still there, since 1849!

It was just all so puzzling. Then, I read that the Oneida Stone had been given back to the Oneidas, in 1974. According to Anthony Wonderley in his book, Oneida Iroquois Folklore, Myth, and History, the stone now sits at the Oneida Nation council house, on their historic land given to them after the American Revolution (on the old Honyoust tract).

I went to that area, and did not find it. I asked around, and no one knew, either. I don’t know where the old Honyoust tract is, though; so I suppose that is my next step.

Back to the beginning of this post and that marvelous old photo my daughter found– this is the first time I have ever seen the Oneida Stone! So now I know what the stone looks like! I do believe this may be the ONLY existing photograph of the Stone, too. Believe me, I have searched! She found the photo and more information about the Oneida Stone in an old book, Things Worth Knowing About Oneida County by William Walker Canfield and J. E. Clark. Ya gotta love Google Books for this! It’s a treasure! The history of the Oneidas is especially riveting in the book.

P.S. Here’s a bit of trivia for you: Did you know that Hamilton College in Clinton, NY, was founded by a reverend missionary (Samuel Kirkland) to serve the Oneida Indians? The school was started as a means for educating young men– Indians and white settlers alike– who lived out in the “boonies” of Upstate New York.

And did you know that one of Samuel Kirkland’s converts to Christianity, an Oneida Indian Chief named Skenandoah, was influential in getting the Oneidas to side with the Americans during the American Revolution? The Oneidas were the only tribe of the Iroquois who sided with us. They suffered total devastation as a people because of it; it is because of their sacrifices that President George Washington made a treaty with them, guaranteeing the Oneidas their sacred lands as long as they remained a united tribe.

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 Cemeteryin 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!

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