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The Story of Cooperstown. Ralph Birdsall
Читать онлайн.Название The Story of Cooperstown
Год выпуска 0
isbn 4064066226473
Автор произведения Ralph Birdsall
Жанр Языкознание
Издательство Bookwire
The fruit trees would indicate permanent though late occupation of this site by Indians; "stone hatchets in great abundance" would suggest that a prehistoric village was here. But it is difficult to understand how so little trace should now remain of the one-time "great abundance" of hatchets. Such is not the case at any other permanent prehistoric site in the general region, where pestles and hatchets continue to be found even in streets, as well as in yards, and well-tilled gardens.
Every few years the inhabitants of ancient villages in the east were wont, for various reasons, to build new cabins on new ground, though not far removed from the old. Not all the sites of ancient Otesaga, if ancient Otesaga existed, can have been covered by Cooperstown. Some fields should still produce something out of "an abundance" of village debris. Yet only one hatchet has come, in many years, from all the foot of the lake.[5] Many points, spear and arrow, have been found on all shores of Otsego; for beyond doubt the lake, from very early time, was a resort for aboriginal hunters and fishermen. But points indicate only camp sites.
On the whole, by reason of the notable absence at this time of stone relics indicating permanent residence, it seems possible that the statement concerning their original abundance was exaggerated, and there is no good reason for supposing, on the strength of this statement alone, that there was a prehistoric village on the site of Cooperstown. Perhaps in early times, during the contests with Southern Indians, the place lay too much in the way of war parties. But the apple trees, concerning which there is no doubt, would indicate rather conclusively an occupation by Indians within the historic period, which, as in the case of many another of the later villages, might have left small trace.[6]
In 1895 two young men of Cooperstown who afterward adopted callings in other fields of science, Benjamin White, PhD., and Dr. James Ferguson, conducted amateur archeological expeditions which resulted in the discovery of a regular camp site formerly used by the Indians. This lies within the present village of Cooperstown, on a level stretch along the west bank of the Susquehanna, in what used to be called the Hinman lot, but now belongs to Fernleigh, a few rods south of Fernleigh House. It includes an even floor of low land not far above the level of the river, containing a spring on its margin, and forming a plot perhaps two hundred yards in length and half as much in breadth. The ground begins thence to rise rather steeply toward the north and west, sheltering from wind and storm the glen below, while affording points of observation, looking up and down the stream.
The young explorers went carefully over the surface of this ground, digging to a considerable depth in some parts, and using an ash-sifter for a thorough examination of the debris. "We found spearheads, game and war points in large numbers," says Dr. White, "as well as drills, punches or awls, scrapers, knives, hammer-stones, and sinkers. Deer horn, bones, and thick strata of ashes were found, the latter in one place only. Whether or no this was the site of an Indian village, I cannot say. Altogether it must have yielded six or eight hundred implements of various sorts. Fernleigh-Over, Riverbrink, and Lakelands yielded arrow-heads and sinkers, but no other implements. The present site of the Country Club was a profitable field for arrow-heads."
Dr. Ferguson, referring to the same spot, writes, "I have long had an idea that there had been a small Indian village located in what we knew as Hinman's lot. After the land was ploughed we found many arrow-heads, awls of bone and flint, and fragments of pottery. There were several areas where fires had been located, the soil being well baked, with mingled charcoal and burned bones. There were also about the fire sites fragments of deer horn, bears' teeth, and much broken pottery. Spear heads were rather few, sinkers and hammer-stones more numerous. I never found any perfect axes, but did find fragments."
The great number of imperfect arrow-heads and flint chips found here, as well as on the flat northeast of Iroquois Farm house, and on the low land between the O-te-sa-ga and the Country Club house, shows the frequent occupation of these places as Indian camps.
In 1916 David R. Dorn conducted a more intensive examination of the plot explored by Dr. White and Dr. Ferguson. His investigation revealed a site that showed two distinct layers of Indian relics, the lower and more ancient being of Algonquin type, while the signs of later occupancy were Iroquois. At about eighteen inches beneath the surface was found the complete skeleton of an Iroquois Indian. With the skeleton was unearthed a pipe, of Iroquois manufacture, which Arthur C. Parker, the State archeologist, declared to be one of the most perfect specimens known.
Taking all the evidence together, it may be asserted that the present site of Cooperstown was from ancient times the resort of Indian hunters and fishermen, and at a later period, more than a generation before its settlement by white men, as indicated by the size of the apple trees which they found, included a settled Indian village.
On Morgan's map of Iroquois territory as it existed in 1720, he shows a village at the foot of Otsego Lake to which he gives the Indian name Ote-sa-ga.[7] Our present form, Otsego, is a variant of the same original. Morgan wrote the word in three syllables, adding the letter "e" after the "t" merely to make sure that the "o" should be pronounced long. It seems certain that Morgan never pronounced the word as "O-te-sa-ga." This form of the name, however, when the third syllable carries the accent and a broad "a," is defensible on the ground of its majestic euphony, for it should be permitted to take some liberties with a name that has been spelled by high authorities in a dozen different ways.
The explanation of Otsego, or Otesaga, as signifying "a place of meeting" has been generally abandoned by scholars, in spite of the vogue which Fenimore Cooper gave it along with the interpretation of Susquehanna as meaning "crooked river." But as to the latter the doctors disagree, some claiming that Susquehanna, which is not an Iroquois but an Algonquin word, means "muddy stream"; others, following Dr. Beauchamp, that it is a corruption of a word meaning "river with long reaches." It must be confessed that Cooper credited the Indian words with intelligible and appropriate meanings, so that, in the absence of agreement among the specialists, the interpretations which he made popular will continue to satisfy the ordinary thirst for this sort of knowledge.
Assuming the existence of an Indian village on the present site of Cooperstown, before the coming of the white man, the question of the probable character of its inhabitants opens another field of study. Most of the relics found in this region belong to the Algonquin type. On the other hand Otsego is an Iroquois word, and it seems to be generally agreed that the Otsego region was included, in the historic period, in the possessions of the Iroquois, as the league of the Five Nations was called by the French. The league included the Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas, and Senecas; and took in also, in the eighteenth century, as the sixth nation, the Tuscaroras.[8] While the village at the foot of the lake would properly be called Mohawk, owing obedience to the council of the original Mohawk towns, it might well have been composed largely of Indians from other tribes. Fragments of shattered tribes found refuge