Production Note Cornell University Library produced this volume to replace the irreparably deteriorated original. It was scanned using Xerox software and equipment at 600 dots per inch resolution and compressed prior to storage using CCITT Group 4 compression. The digital data were used to create Cornell's replacement volume on paper that meets the ANSI Standard Z39.48-1984. The production of this volume was supported in part by the New York State Program for the Conservation and Preservation of Library Research Materials and the Xerox Corporation. Digital file copyright by Cornell University Library 1993.SEVENTH ANNUAL ADDRESS, DELIVERED BEFORE THE 1 PIONEERS’ ASSOCIATION, OF CENTRAL NEW YORK, BY Hon. WILLIAM BARNES, SEPTEMBER 16, 1875. , ' . . ALBANY: WEED, PARSONS AND COMPANY, PRINTERS. . ' '1875. .t Pioneers’ Association of. Central New York At a meeting held at Syracuse on the 16th day of September,' 1875, it was, on motion of Hon.’ George* Geddes, uhanimbusly jresolved that the thanks of .the Association be tendered to Hon. William -Barnes for his''able and interesting Annual, Address, delivered^ this day before the .Association,.and that a copy thereof be requested for publication. ^ H. Cl VAN SCHAICK, T - — ‘ . ' ' . President f* G. Ii. Tkuair, j , 'Secretary; : s ^SEVENTH ANNUAL ADDRESS, DELIVERED BEFORE THE PIOSEEBS’ ASSOCIATION, CENTRAL NE¥ YORK, Hon. WILLIAM BARNES, ■ -±z. * SEPTEMBER 16, 1875. ALBANY: WEED, PARSONS AND COMPANY, PRINTERS. 1875.Mr. President, and Ladies and Gentlemen of the Pioneers'* Associa- tion of Central New Yorlc: Two prior generations of my blood and name are sleeping in the con- secrated soil of Onondaga county. Born in the town of Pompey, more than half a century ago, and reared and nurtured among those whose familiar faces I see about me to-day, it is fitting that in response to your kind invitation I should come back to you again, and on this bright autumnal afternoon rekindle the aspirations and renew the associations of my youth. “ Pioneer a word derived from the Latin Pes, the foot,— trans- formed into the French, Pionnier, and the Spanish Peon, and mean- ing originally a “ foot-soldier,” whose duty it was to go before an army, clearing away obstructions and preparing a road for those who were to follow ; —you have chosen the aptest word in the language to designate your Association! The early settlers of Central JSTew York, emigrating into the wilderness generally on footy removing obstructions, working on entrenchments, sinking mines and fortifying homes; what indeed were they but Pioneers, preparing the way for those who were to come after them ? What was the race, the blood and lineage of the early Pioneers of Central New York? Their ancestors were mainly of English origin, and their characters were inter-penetrated with all the influences and ambitions of the civil and religious conflicts of a thousand years, on British soil. They had left the mother country mainly to secure civil and religious liberty, emigrating to a New England, that they might create therein a new government suited to their own notions of right and wrong. " Austere intellectual conceptions of God and His government of the Universe, naturally entered into and controlled the organization of that earthly government which they hoped might find favor in His sight, and a certain hardness of disposition and uncharitableness of judg- ment necessarily became the characteristics of their lives With them there was no middle ground ; Bight was Right and Wrong was Wrong, and as their own peculiar tenets were the only ones acceptable to God, they were therefore the only ones to be tolerated here on earth.4 A severe climate, a scanty subsistence wrenched from an inhospit- able soil, and their many and bloody conflicts with the neighboring Indians, did not tend to soften the acerbities of their disposition, and then came on the war of the Revolution and the internecine strifes bitter and furious, with Tory neighbors and their savage allies. In this school of hardship were the New Englanders nurtured, who formed the mass of early settlers of Central and Western New York. The wide and varied field of Literature, considered so indispensable to the broader culture of our day, was practically locked and barred to the early Pioneers. Their intellectual food was gathered mainly from the Sacred Scriptures, Doddridge’s Devotions, the formal pages of the Spectator, and the earnest letters of Junius. A strong religious fervor naturally pervaded the community, and those of us who can go back to the early letters of our forefathers, written and sent by private hand to their Eastern relatives and friends (for no postal service existed), must have been impressed, as I have been, by' the tone of intense solicitude which pervades them, regarding the salvation of souls and the building up of the Lord’s Zion in the new community. Notwithstanding their faults, such a valuable and solid, emigration never before went out to colonize any state of our republic, and it can never go out again, either from this country or from any country in Europe. The tables in the Appendix show that after a few years our townships decreased or remained almost stationary in population ; but this depopulation was only the result of the emigration of their sons and daughters to the west, for the purpose of founding new colo- nies and cities, even to the shores of the Pacific ocean, and there is probably not a State in the Union, wTest of Syracuse, but prominently on its roll of honored and valued citizens can be found the name of some son or daughter of Central New York. I know that I shall be sustained by this audience, composed as it is of representative men and women of New York, when I claim that the citizen of this State is the truest and best type of an American. The Eastern man, although loyal in emergencies, never forgets the rook-bound coasts of New England; never takes his foot from the well-worn boulder in the little harbor at Plymouth, and even its east winds that are popularly supposed to sharpen his visage and put an edge upon his wits, are to him more balmy than the airs that blow “ from Araby the blest.” The Southerner has shown on many a battle field how weak to him are national obligations when opposed to the sovereignty of his State; and the Western man, separated by immense distances from the central government, and absorbed in the fierce struggle for the development5 of the material wealth of his own section, is often tempted by the devil of sectional interests to forget the obligations of Federal juris- diction, and the common and best interests of the whole nation. But the New Yorker is always and everywhere an American citi- zen. His State, is swallowed up by his National, pride. Proud of his National history, proud of his National honor, proud of the brilliant record of able and distinguished men, who have sustained the glory of the American name both in Peace and War, and especially proud of the distinctive glory of each and every sister State of the whole Republic. Geographically and politically an “ Empire,” of magnificent pro- portions and strength, the State of New York, through her children, has always been as true in her allegiance to Federal authority, as when, in 1789, she welcomed with enthusiastic loyalty, the first American Congress under the Constitution, and in her Metropolis, and through her distinguished Chancellor (Livingston), inaugurated the first Presi- dent of the United States. Events have so crowded upon the American people during the first century of their existence as a nation, that it is almost impossible for us to recall the general situation of affairs existing in our own State at the close of the Revolutionary war. How can we properly appreciate the labors of our Pioneer fathers, unless we turn back the hands upon the war-emblazoned dial of the Empire State, and while they point to those eventful epochs that illuminate her history, read there the record of their lives. The American colonies after their seven years struggle with the mother country, had, it is true, achieved a nominal and treaty independence, (January 21st, 1.783,) but their resources were exhausted and the peo- ple almost penniless throughout the country. The sacrifice of human life had been great, the sick, the wounded, the disabled hung like an incubus upon their weakened energies, and all the various industries of a young and vigorous nation, feeling the depressing influences of a stagnant market and a depreciated currency, sank into a decline which presaged death. Great Britain, even after the treaty, held the rod of Empire over us. Several northern frontier fortresses still remained in her hands, and at the first favorable moment she was prepared to re-assert her dominion. Upon our western borders, tens of thousands of unfriendly savages stood ready not only to beat back the advancing tide of emigration, but to attack and destroy settlements already formed. We were a nation, but a nation only in name, and from this feeble and disorgan- ized elementary national existence, we were to create a Republic whose6 government “ of the People — by the People, for the People ” — should be a beacon light to the oppressed of all the earth. The State of New York had been specially impoverished by the war, Her territory had been burned over by the camp fires of both armies, her resident Indian population with characteristic ferocity had laid waste her towns and villages, her beautiful bay no longer reflected the white sails of her commerce, and thousands of her bravest sons were sleeping in soldiers’ graves Poverty, therefore, stern and unrelenting, was the legacy left to the early Pioneer when he settled in this region of country. Let us pause for one moment and consider his condition when, after many difficulties and trials, he at last finds himself in his new home. No western prairie, with its teeming soil pregnant with future har- vests, greets his eyes. All is primeval forest, over which broods a stillness that is terrible in its intensity and gloom. He comes with his axe upon his shoulder and his rifle in his hands, to encounter the stub- born forces of Nature, the attack of wild beasts, and the still more dreaded enmity of the Indians, who, half civilized and thoroughly demoralized by their participation in the recent war, still hang upon the flanks of the white men. The forest trees fall before the blows of his ax:e, and in a short time the log house, that first outpost of the army of civilization, stands guard over a little “clearing” with its roughly cultivated patch of potatoes, wheat and corn, wedged in between stumps and tangled roots of trees. Many a millionaire, however, might envy the delight with which the Pioneer enters his rude home, and with his wife and little ones sleeps for the first time beneath the roof-tree reared by his own honest and persevering labor. To enlarge the borders of his “clearing,” the husband and father now toils with renewed energy and with the thews and sinews of a Hercules, displaying the same indomitable courage which he showed at Herkimer and Oriskany, at Saratoga and at Yorktown, and every week sees the mighty monarchs of the woods lying prostrate before his advancing footsteps, a confused mass of birch, maple, hemlock, chestnut and pine. These must be again cut into logs, which can be handled with hand-spike, log-chain and oxen, and the log-heap piled as high as his resources will permit, awaits the approach of the dry season, when the torch is applied to the immense mass of timber, and for weeks together the heavens are lighted by “pillars of fire at night.” But for these peaceful victories over Nature, no widow mourned a husband forever lost, or lonely parents a son, struck down in the morn- ing of his days.7 I need not recount the days when food was scarce in those rude homes of the Pioneer; when sickness weakened the arm and palsied the heart of the father or mother, and privation and exposure sent to an early grave the darling child of the household, whose prat- tling voice had cheered and comforted many a weary hour. Are not all these things familiar to us in the “ oft told tales ” of those who have gone before us, and written in the furrowed cheeks and whitened hairs and faltering steps of those who are still with us, and some of whom I see before me to-day ? Let us hold in grateful remembrance the labors and the sacrifices of those early Pioneers, and in honoring their memories let us honor also the memories of the worthy Wives and Mothers of that day. Compelled as I am to acknowledge the justice of the recent sneer of the .Roman Catholic bishop of Toronto, that, u In the Hew England States an “ ungodly people are exterminating themselves from the face of the 6C earth, and a chaste and God-fearing people are succeeding to their “ inheritance, as the statistics of births show,” I am proud to exonerate these noble women from the horrible charge brought against the present generation. The families of stalwart children, often number- ing ten or even more, that grew up under the same roof and went out from it strong armed and strong hearted, to Christianize and civilize the wildernesses of the west and north-west, testify to the courage, the patience, the deep religious principle that formed the substratum of their character. To the few of these blessed Women who still remain to us, we say—Although no historian records the priceless benefits you have conferred upon this generation, and no poet sings the story of your heroic sacrifices for those you loved, yet the recording angel has written your names, high — " On tlie list of tkose wkora God hath blest/’ and no religious martyr or victorious general can outrank you there ?8 THE MILITARY TRACT. By an act of the legislature of the province of New York, passed at the fourth session held at Albany on the 20th day of March, 1781, it was provided that two regiments of State troops should be raised especi- ally for the defense of the frontiers of New York against Indian incur- sions. The act was entitled “ An act for raising two regiments for the defense of the State on bounties of unappropriated lands.” (Chap. 32.) A land bounty, ranging from 500 acres for a private, up to 5,500 acres for a major general, was provided for by the said act, on con- dition that an actual settlement should be made upon the land within three years after the close of the war. The Continental Congress also granted additionally 100 acres for each soldier, ranging up to 1,000 acres for a major general. These lands were located in the State of Ohio, but it was so arranged that the whole bounty could be drawn in the State of New York, making 600 acres to each private soldier. Slaves serving three years were entitled to their freedom. In 1782 (see chap. 11), being an act entitled “An. act to prevent grants or locations of the lands therein, mentioned,” the so-called “ Military tract,” containing 1,680,000 acres, was set apart as bounty lands to the soldiers as above mentioned, and by the treaty with the Indians at Fort Stanwix (Sept. 12,1788), the Indian title to these lands was extinguished. By an act of the legislature passed February 28th, 1789 (see chap. 41), the tract was ordered to be surveyed into 26 townships contain- ing 100 lots of 600 acres each, to be laid out in squares and numbered and named by the Commissioners of the Land Office, “ by such names as they should deem proper.” This act was entitled “ An act to appropriate the lands set apart to the use of the troops of the line, of the State lately serving in the army of the United States, and for other purposes therein mentioned. Actual settlements were required to be made within • seven years after the lands were surveyed. The Military tract was carved out of the lands of the Six Nations,9 excluding those of the Oneidas and Tuscaroras, who had either sided with the Colonists or remained neutral during the War. The golden urn of history was ravaged and compelled to yield up its wealth of celebrated names for the baptism of the several military townships, Greece and Home contributing most largely to the list. 1. Lysander. 14. Tully. 2. Hannibal. 15. Fabius. 3. Cato. \ 16. Ovid. 4. Brutus. 17. Milton. 5. Camillus. ; 18. Locke. 6. Cicero. 19. Homer. 7. Manlius. 20. Solon. 8. Aurelius. 21. Hector. 9. Marcellus. 22. Ulysses. 10. Pompey. 23. Dryden. 11. Romulus. 24. Yirgil. 12. Scipio. 25. Cincinnatus. 13. Sempronius. 26. Junius. Subsequently, two other towns were organized and added, known as Galen and Sterling. What secret purpose had the Commissioners of the Land Office, whose duty it was to lay out and name these townships, in the selection ot these historic names ? Did they intend that the Spartan virtues of Lysaeder, his Temper- ance, his Poverty, his Integrity should inspire the hearts of the settlers in township No. 1 ? Were the sons of the second township, like Hannibal, to be sworn at nine years of age, “ never to be friends with the enemies of their country ? ” Or was it intended to renew the Punic wars by organizing a town of Hannibal against a township of Scipio ? Was it hoped that the Pioneers of township No. 3 would be endowed with the wisdom and the eloquence of Cato, one of whose sayings was that — “ Wise men learn more from fools than fools from wise men, for the wise avoid the errors of fools, while fools cannot profit by the example of the wise.5’ Was township No. 4, to be cultivated only by the “ pale and lean ” Brutuses, instead of the “sleek and fat” Antonys, whom Caesar did not fear; and were the wives of this town to be like the noble Portia, the worthy partners of all the secret anxieties and cares of their husbands? 210 Was. the: fifth township to be composed only of men whose custom it was “ To deliver their country with steel, and not with gold” as in the days of Camillus, when Brennus and his Gauls laid siege to Borne? Was. the sixth township to be settled only by orators of the Cicero- nian school? Was it expected that in case of a night attack from Indians or Tories, the sacred geese of the township of Manlius should sound an alarm ? Was there any Tarpean rock among its rugged hills, for him who aspired to Boyal power? Were the wisdom and virtue of the great Emperor Marcus Aure- lius to be the inalienable birthright of the inhabitants of township ,No. 8? Was it designed to infuse also his kindly nature into their hearts ? Was it intended that the ninth township should, under some future Marcellus, renew the attack upon some modern Syracuse ? » Was it designed that the highest point of the Military Tract, the tenth township, should harmonize with the exalted character and vir- tue of its citizens, and that in future years the name of Imperator or President should be deserved and worn by any of the sons of Pompeius Magnus ? Were her settlers destined to be honored with Triumphs, for their successes in war and peace ; in the pulpit and at the bar; in the work-shop and in the field; on the land and on the sea; in science, art and literature ? Were they destined to serve their campaigns under themselves as generals ? When necessary to incur danger in the per- formance of public duty, were her sons ready to say with the Great Pompey, on embarking at sea in a gale, “It is necessary to go; it is not necessary to live.” Was township Ho. 11 to be peopled by the founders of cities, states and empires in the new world, as Bomulus founded ancient Borne. Were its children to be nurtured by the wild beasts of the forests ✓ and to grow up prodigies of strength and valor? Was the hereditary bravery of the Scipios to be given with their name to the twelfth township ? Were all its sons to take the oath of Publius Cornelius Scipio,—“ I swear first, that I will not abandon the Bepublic, and that I will not suffer others to abandon it?” In naming township number 13, wTas it hoped that the principle of the Agrarian or Sempronian law might be more successful in a country, the corner-stone of whose constitution declared all men “free and equal.” Was the first Pioneer in the town of Sempronius to become the Father of an American family of Gracchi? Were the inhabitants of Tully to receive the benefit accorded to the11 ancient Romans under it's sixth King, and suffer their goods, and not their persons, to be liable to their creditors ? Were the inhabitants of the fifteenth township to possess the rare discretion, ripe judgment and able generalship of Fabitjs Maximus, the “ Shield of Rome ? ” Was the sixteenth township to be transformed from a state of nature as readily as the changes in Ovid’s metamorphoses ? Were her native forests to chant odes to the new-comers as delightful and charming as the songs of their namesake, warbled in the artificial metres of Latin verse ? Was the Lost Paradise to be Regained, either in the gardens of nature or in the cultivated fields of the town of Milton ? , Were the settlers of the town of Locke (No. 18), to be endowed with the keen insight and comprehensive range of thought of their namesake, the great English philosopher ? Was the nineteenth township to produce a second Homer, whose inspired pen should immortalize the battles of those early settlers with Poverty, Sickness and Famine; foes as deadly as any that ever gathered before the gates of Troy ? Was the twentieth township to re-enact the laws of Solon, under which the man who stood neutral in the time of Sedition was declared to be “ infamous,” and which also declared that city to be the best governed, “ where those who are not injured are no less ready to prose- cute and punish offenders than those who are?” Were the wives and daughters of the township willing to be governed by the laws of this Athenian law-giver, requiring that all women going out of town should be limited to three dresses, and one basket (trunk), not over one foot and a half in height ? Patriotism in the person of Hector, and Wisdom in that of Ulysses stood sponsors for Nos. 21 and 22. Does the dramatic fervor of Dryden reappear in the lives and characters of the citizens of the twenty-third township ? The great Roman poet was not forgotten in naming the twenty- fourth township, and its husbandmen might find to-day in the study of the Eclogues, and the Georgies, a keener zest for the pursuit which Virgil loved, and which he honored in immortal verse. Are the citizens of the twenty-fifth township so thoroughly imbued with the principles of Republicanism that they are prepared like Cin- cinnatus with equal readiness to take up or lay aside executive power ? Does the spirit of Junius, the sturdy opponent of tyranny and political oppression, live again in the breasts of the inhabitants of town- ship twenty-six ?12 The Native American Pioneers (Five Nations) of Central New Y ORK. It would not be fitting to close my remarks on this occasion, with- out some allusion to those earlier Pioneers, who preceded our fathers in Central New York many hundreds, perhaps thousands of years ago. On the discovery of America by Columbus (on the 11th day of October, 1492), an intense interest was immediately excited throughout the principal maritime nations of Europe. Doubts, speculations, hopes of the discovery of inexhaustable mines of silver and gold and precious stones, and of a new route to India, the attractions of the mysterious unknown, the ownership and dominion over new countries of unex- plored extent, incited Spain, England, France, Holland and Portugal to fit out numerous expeditions of exploration and occupation. In August, 1535, Jacques Cartier, an able pilot of St. Malo, France, voyaging under the auspices of Francis I, entered the Gulf of St. Lawrence and first explored the Canada or St. Lawrence River, going as far up as the Saguenay and the large Indian village of Hochelaga, on an island at the foot of Mount Royal (now Montreal). On the 3d day of July, 1608, Samuel de Champlain founded the city of Quebec, which afterwards became the capital of New France. This was a year after the settlement of the English at Jamestown, in Yirgina (1607), but one year before Hendrick Hudson, under the Dutch, explored the Hudson river (1609). It was also six years before the Dutch erected the first fort at Albany (1614); seven years before Manhattan Island was occupied by them (1615), and twelve years before the Pilgrims had consecrated, by their tread, the Rock at Ply- mouth (1620). The Portuguese navigator, Gaspar de Cortereal, had discovered New Foundland in the year 1500, and Ponce de Leon, seeking the fountain of perpetual youth, had accidently sailed near the coasts of Florida in the year 1512, although it is claimed by the English to have been dis- covered by Sebastian Cabot, as early as 1496. In 1519 Fernando Cortez attacked and conquered Mexico. The French, under Lemonie d? Iberville, settled on the banks of the Mississippi in the year 1699, thus claiming to extend New France from the St. Lawrence to New Orleans, and reaching from thence to Florida. A. single glance at the map will show the magnificent designs of Louis XIV in the new world. In the execution of his plans he was aided by men of genius, bravery and enterprise. Cardinal Richelieu was at one time the head of the 107 associates13 to whom Canada was granted, and the talent of the great Minister Colbert was also enlisted. The French Governors of Canada were often accomplished gentlemen endowed with great natural abilities. It is only by understanding the broad and comprehensive plans of Great Britain and France, and of Spain and Holland, in this new world, that we can thoroughly appreciate the meaning and importance of the struggle which took place for the possession of Central New York and Canada. In an evil day for France and her grand schemes for a continental empire in America (July 3, 1609), the adventurous founder of Quebec (Champlain), with two other Frenchmen, was persuaded to accompany a war party of Hurons and Algonquins against the Iroquois Indians, by way of the Sorel river and Lake Champlain. The conflict took place on the borders of this beautiful sheet of water, near Ticonderoga, and the opposing chiefs, decked in all the proud habiliments of Indian warfare, were soon destroyed by the French bullets, fired by Champlain and his companions. The brave Iroquois fled before this new weapon, as if struck by the lightnings of the Great Spirit. This was the first occasion on which the Five Nations had ever seen the flash of the rifle or witnessed its fatal effects. Is it to be wondered at that they fled awe-struck and bewildered, and became from thenceforth the bitter and unrelenting enemies of the French? When the French from New France (Canada) and the Dutch from Fort Orange (Albany) first penetrated the unbroken forests of Central New York, they found in existence there what was unknown with reference to any other tribe of Indians within the borders of the United States — an united Confederacy of several nations, having a common council fire, and confederated action on all public affairs affecting their general interests. History may probably be searched in vain for any similar confederacy, similar, I mean under any analog- ous circumstances. First. There was no written language, only the rudest pictographs and simple devices for recording or communicating ideas. Second. There were no instruments of agriculture of manufactures or of war, beyond the most primitive contrivances of savages. Third. There were no domestic animals trained to servitude for human use. Still the confederate Five Nations existed, and had existed for a period so long that neither memory nor any reliable tradition ever ran to the contrary. It would be useless to attempt to lift the veil of the past, but the soul of the true historian and archeologist pants for the unwritten chronicles of these aborginees. I trust that every fact14 from any and all sources, and every tradition, however shadowy, will be carefully garnered and preserved in the archives of your society, for some future historical Agassiz to reconstruct a fabric of veritable history. .From whence did they come ? For how many hundreds or thous- ands of years had their population remained stationary; the. path of progress being blocked by perpetual hunger, privation and war? How many hundreds perished as witches, often self-convicted ? What are some of the undisputed facts which have come down to us? That there was a confederacy of five Indian nations —the Mohawks, Onondagas, Senecas, Oneidas and Cayugas — united together for general purposes as one confederacy, but having distinct existence and government, as separate States, for tribal and local objects. They were called “ Aquinoshioni,” United People or the People of the Long House or Council He use, the eastern door of which extended up the Mohawk river to Schenectady, and was held by the Mohawks, and the western gate extended to the Genesee river and the Falls of Niagara and was held by the Senecas. The general council fire was always lighted in the centre at Onondaga. The Onondagas were entitled to the head civil chief (Atotarho), and were the nation which generally furnished the leading orator, the Mohawks or Senecas being entitled to have the head war chieftain (Tekarogea) selected from their nation. The power of the Five Nations extended from the mouth of the St. Lawrence on the east to the Mississippi on the west, and from Hudson bay to the Appalachian tribes on the Gulf of Mexico. No single tribe within this vast extent of country could cope successfully with them, and most of the other tribes were tributary, calling the Five Nations their uncles, and paying them an annual tribute of beads of wampum. There were only two tribes which were not under their primary or secondary influence. Their*jurisdiction reached a thousand miles to the south and the same distance to the northwest. The country held by the six nations had advantages for the purposes of this people, beyond any other part of the United States. Glance for a moment at the river and lake communications which were so necessary for offensive Indian warfare. They commanded (1) the great lakes and (2) the river St. Lawrence (formerly called the river of the Iroquois); (3) the Mohawk and Hudson rivers; (4) the Delaware river; (5) the Susquehanna river; (6) the Ohio river, and their branches, connections and tributaries. In 1712 they were joined by the Tuscaroras of North Carolina, this tribe having been defeated in a conflict with the whites in that vicinity.15 In the year 1708, the Tuscaroras had 15 villages on the Tar and other rivers, and about 1,200 warriors. Land was assigned to them as the sixth nation between the Onondagas and Oneidas. It is said that in 1723, at Albany, they adopted the u Necariages55 of. Michillimakinac, near lake Huron, as the seventh nation, and the “ Mississaques,55 an Algonquin tribe as the eighth nation. The celebrated Indian scholar, Lewis H. Morgan, records- a tradi- tion of the Iroquois that the Confederacy (Ho-di-no-saw-nee) of the Five Nations was formed hundreds of years ago at the suggestion of the Onondagas, at a Grand Council Fire, assembled on the north-east bank of Lake “ Gannentaha” (Onondaga). The worst phase in the Indian character was their cruelty and their torture of helpless prisoners of war. But is there no barbarism in civilization ; are there no refined cruelties perpetrated under the forms of law, or even of religion itself? Their greatest weakness was their susceptibility to the use of ardent spirits. The Indian had the courage to be burned at the stake in stoical silence, he could have his tongue or eyes torn out, his lips or lingers cut off*, and his body sliced into fragments without the quiver of a muscle or a single groan of agony; but he could not summon sufficient moral courage to resist the “ Fire Water55 of the trader, and his probable extermination from the face of the earth is mainly due to its deadly influence. Many were the bloody conflicts which occurred between the Five Nations and the French, before the regular French and Indian war against the English and Iroquois in 1755-1760. In 1665 and 1666, M. de Oourcelles and M. de Tracy, the Governors of Canada, attacked the Mohawks and burned an Indian town on the Schoharie creek. In 1684, De la Barre led an expedition of 1,800 men into the coun- try of the Onondagas. It was on this occasion that the celebrated Onondaga chief, Garangula, addressed the French commander that sarcastic speech, which is still preserved as a specimen of Indian irony. In 1687 De Nonville was more successful. With 2,000 French and 600 Indians he attacked the country of the Senecas from Irondequoit Bay, on Lake Ontario. After a feeble resistance, he invaded and destroyed four Seneca villages. In 1696 the Count de Frontenac, with 1,000 French and 1,000 Indians, attacked the Onondagas, who deserted and burned their vil- lages, thus anticipating the example of the Russians in the burning of Moscow when attacked by the French. Their only trophy, however,16 was an old Onondaga sachem, who refused to retreat, and who was barbarously tortured to death by the French and Indians, but not before having uttered a speech which reminds one of the sayings of Plutarch’s heroes: “ Thou ought not to abridge my life, that tliou might have time to learn how to die like a man. For my own part I die contented, because I know of no meanness with which to reproach myself.” For over a hundred years (1650-1750) the Five Nations were almost constantly engaged in war, either against other tribes or against the French in Canada. The Iroquois Temple of Janus at Onondaga was rarely closed, the international law of the savages being that they were at war with all tribes not tributary or in alliance with them. It is almost inconceivable how this confederacy, which, from the most authentic accounts, never numbered over 3,500 warriors, could carry on a suc- cessful warfare in Canada, North Carolina, Kentucky, Illinois, Dela- ware, Ohio and at other places, almost at the same time. Neither time nor space will now permit a detailed mention of these and many other expeditions of the Five Nations, both in defensive and offensive war. Brethren of Central New York! let a tender pity fill your hearts when you see in your streets the feeble and often degraded remnants of the Onondagas ; remembering that but for the battles of his fathers in the seventeenth century, there would have been no English United States, or it would have been confined to the Atlantic coast east of the Appalachian chain of mountains. The Five Nations absolutely pre- vented by military force the extension of New France to Central and Western New York, and to all the countries watered by the Missis- sippi and its branches. ^ , Some Characteristics oe the Six Nations. Schoolcraft says that the average internal capacity of the cranium of the Iroquois, is 4r| cubic inches larger than the average Indian skull. (Schoolcraft, part I, p. 332.) This old and intelligent author, so familiar with the American Indian, says further: “ This result is strikingly in keeping with the fact that they were so completely the master spirits of the land, that at the time of the first settlement of the country by the white race, they were so rapidly sub- duing the other tribes and nations around them, that if their career of conquest had not been cut short by the Anglo Saxon predominance,17 they bid fair to have conquered all within their reach.”— (Schoolcraft, part II, p. 332). “ Of the several governments existing in America, when it was dis- covered and settled, none had a system which is at all comparable for its excellence and stability with the confederacy of the Iroquois.” — (Schoolcraft, part I, p. 183). Gadioalader Golden, says in 1747: “ Their great men, both sachems and captains are generally poorer than the common people ; for they affect to give away and distribute all the presents, or plunder they get in their treaties, or in war, so as to leave nothing to them- selves. There is not a man in the magistracy of the five nations, who has gained his office otherwise than by merit; there is not the least salary or any sort of profit annexed to any office to tempt the covet- ous and sordid, but on the contrary every unworthy action is unavoid- ably attended with the forfeiture of their commission, for their author- ity is only the esteem of the people, and ceases the moment that esteem is lost.”—(Cited in Schoolcraft, part III, p. 185). “ The Five Nations think themselves by nature superiorto the rest of mankind, and call themselves,—“ Ongwe-honwe,”—that is men surpass- ing ail others.” Id. The Onondagas, were called the “ handsomest, wisest and bravest of the six nations.” It is said the people of the five nations were much given to speech- making, and no distinction was so much appreciated in the Indian society as being a good orator. Mr. Schoolcraft says: “The Indian is a man who, whatever may be his idiosyncracies, is prompt to acknowledge his obligations to discharge his debts, tribal and personal, and who is ever ready when his means will permit it to cancel them; this is characteristic of the moral sense of the tribes, no man who has had opportunities of frequent observation of their character and customs will, it is apprehended deny this noble trait of tribal honesty and fair dealing. The history of our Indian Treaties is a standing commentary upon its truth in every age of the Republic.” [History &c. of Indian Tribes of the U. S. H. R. Schoolcraft. Part I, p. 435. Notwithstanding the vjomen of the six nations cultivated the crops and performed most of the manual labor, still in many respects, the gentler sex were honored to such an extent that we may gain in human progress by following their example. Says Schoolcraft, (part III, p. 196): “The history of the world shows that it is one of the tendencies of bravery to cause woman to be respected and to assume her proper rank and influence in society. This was the tendency manifested in the history ot the Iroquois 318 They are the only tribes in America, north or south, so far as we have any account, who gave to woman a conservative power in their politi- cal deliberations. The Iroquois matrons had their representatives in the public councils, and they exercised a negative or what we call a veto power in the important question of the Declaration of War. They had the right to interpose in bringing about a peace.” Said Good Peter to Governor Clinton, in 1788: “ Our ancestors considered it a great offense to reject the counsels of their women, particularly of female governesses. They were esteemed the mistresses of the soil. W"ho said our forefathers bring us into being? who cultivate our lands, kindle our fires and boil our pots, but the women ? ” u Deux Peres de notre compagnie qui ne quittent point la Mission d? Onontaghe ou la furear du christianisme est plus grande, recon- naissent dans les Onontagherrons une douceur de conversation et une civilite qui n’ a presque rien de Barbare. Les enfants y sont dociles, les femmes portees a la devotion la plies tendre, les anciens affable et respectueux; les guerriers moins superbe qu’ils ne le paraissent.”— (Jesuit Delation 1657, vol. Ill, p. 38, Canada ed. Quebec, 1858.) Benjamin Franklin says: “ To interrupt another, even in common conversation, is reckoned highly indecent. The politeness of the savages does not permit them to deny or contradict the truth of what- ever is asserted in their presence.” The early Jesuit Missions in Central New York. The following are the dates given by Schoolcraft of the establish- ment and closing of the French Jesuit missions to the five nations: Date when established. Date when closed. Name of nation. A. D. 1642 A. D. 1681 Mohawks. “ 1654 U 1709 Onondagas. “ 1656 u 1709 Senecas. “ 1656 u 1694 Oneidas. “ 1656 u 1684 Cayugas. These missions were not however continuous during the whole of these periods. After the very able and interesting dissertation on this subject given to you last year by an honored son of Onondaga (Hon. Andrew D. White), I do not propose to make it a subject for any lengthy19 re-consideration. The first Roman Catholic church ever erected within the limits of the State of New York, was constructed (Nov. 18, 1653), of bark, by the Onondaga Indians, under the direction of Father Pierre Joseph Marie Chaumonot, and Claude Dablon, on the northeast side of Onondaga lake, near a spring of water on the high ground. At the consecration of this chapel, the chiefs shouted : “ Happy land! happy land in which the French are to dwell. Glad tidings ! glad tidings! I sing from the heart; our friendly words are from the heart. Hail, brother! happy be thy coming! glad thy voice! fare- well war! farewell hatchet! Till now we have been mad, now we shall be brothers.” The Jesuit Fathers sent as missionaries to the Iroquois were able, brave and devout men. In the year 1612 Father Isaac Jogues was tortured almost to death in several Indian villages. He finally escaped through the agency of the Dutch at Fort Orange, and returned to France, only however, for a brief period, when he again sailed for Canada, and an exigency soon arising for sending a missionary to the Five Nations, Father Jogues w~as asked again to visit the “Mission of Martyrs.” He immediately responded in a reply which typifies the whole of the self-sacrificing devotion of the members of the Society of Jesus, “ Ibo et ifois Redibo ! ” The prediction of the brave and devoted missionary was verified, and the Indian tomahawk soon ended his days. r Population of the Five Nations at various dates. A. D. 1650.—Mr. Lewis H. Morgan estimates their numbers, in 1650, at about................................... 25, 000 1677.—Col. Coursey’s estimate at this date is.......... 15, 000 The historian Bancroft’s estimate is about............. 17, 000 La Hontan’s figures (evidently an exaggeration) are.... 70, 000 1712.— David Cusick, a native Tuscarora Indian, estimated the number of the fighting men of the Five Nations, at the date the Tuscaroras joined the confederacy, as follows: Mohawks................................................... 5,000 Onondagas............................................ 4,000 Senecas................................................... 6,000 Oneidas............................................... 3,500 Cayugas................................................ 4,500 Total fighting men....................-.................. 23,000 These figures are evidently erroneous.20 f * 1747.—Conrad Wiser took a census of the Ohio Indians, and found in that region 447 Iroquois warriors, representing a total population of 2,235. In 1763 Sir William Johnson estimated them as follows: Mohawks 160 Cayugas 200 Oneidas 250 Senecas . 1,050 Tuscaroras 140 Outside 380 Onondagas 150 Others in their territory . 200 Total, 2,530 lighting men, making a total population of about 12,650 souls. In 1756, the historian Smith reckons only 1,200 fighting men among the Iroquois. Years 1776-1783, about 1,580 Indian warriors of the four nations were employed by the British during the revolutionary war. The Oneidas and Tuscaroras remained neutral. In 1817, the total number of Indians in this State was reckoned a 7,000. In 1829, Gen. Peter B. Porter, secretary of war, estimated the Iro- quois (not including the Mohawks settled on the Grand river in Upper Canada), in the United States, at 4,800. 1845. — Mr. Schoolcraft, in a report to the Legislature of our State, estimated their number as follows: Onondagas, 407 ; Oneidas, 1,227; Tuscaroras, 285 ; Senecas, 2,542, making a total of..................................... 3, 753 1847. — The official report of W. P. Angel states the num- ber at......................................................... 4, 272 In 1847, Mr. Henry R. Schoolcraft enumerated the number of Iro- quois in the United States (not including those in Canada), at 1,165 families, and 5,912 persons, which census was taken according to the provisions of the act of March 30, 1847. July 22,1850. —Mr. Schoolcraft estimated the whole Indian population within the borders of the United States at... . 418, 229 1851. — Mr. C. P. Washburn’s report enumerated.. 3,778 1852. —Report of Mr. Osborne.................... 3, 683 It will be recollected that in 1777, the Mohawks fled to Canada with Sir John Johnson, and that other portions of the Six Nations emigrated west at various dates.21 Iroquois Eloquence. In considering this subject we must not forget that all their speeches, which have come down to us, are translations, and translations from a verbal and not a written language. How much of fervor, aptness and passion is thus lost, can only be known to him who was a profi- cient in both languages. The Orators of the Five Nations usually closed their Speeches with the Indian vrord u Hiro,” which is equivalent to the Latin Dixi (I have said it). From this vrord, Hiro, the French, by adding their termination quois, derived the name Hiroquois or Iroquois. How can I better indicate to you the eloquence of this people with no written language, than by giving a few excerpts from the trans- lated speeches of the different nations composing the League. On Sunday, the lOtli day of December, 1758, there arrived in the council room at Johnson Hall, thirty Oneida and Tuscarora sachems, t o condole with Sir William Johnson on the massacre, by the French and Indians, of thirty-one families at Burnetsfield, on the Mohawk river. Jacobus Clement acted as interpreter. Cawaghgnayeson was the Indian orator on this occasion, and among other things made the fol- lowing remarks in reference to the sale of ardent spirits to the Five Nations: “ * * * Brother Warriors! By this string we hot only in behalf of ourselves, but also in the name of the Onondagas and Cay- ugas, apply to you for having a stop put to the future selling of any , strong liquor to our people ; for it not only disturbs our meetings and consultations where the drunken people come quarreling, and very often have weapons in their hands, but it likewise carries off many of our people, old and young. Wherefore we earnestly entreat you to have no more liquor brought among us to be sold. All we desire to be sold us is dry goods as usual, for necessary clothes, and ammu- nition to hunt with.” Did Father Matthew, John B. Gough or Edward C. Del avail ever utter a more pointed, comprehensive or earnest temperance address than these few words of the Oneida orator to Sir William Johnson ? 1758, May 5. Sir William Johnson, having no further accounts of the enemy’s approach, sent a scout of two Mohawks, two 'Canajoharies and a white man, to go as far as Wood Creek and the Oneida Lake, in order to obtain the certainty of the alarm. About noon all the women of the chief men of this castle met at Sir William’s lodging, and brought with them some of the sachems, who acquainted Sir William that they had something to deliver in the name of their chief women. Old Nickus, being appointed speaker,opened the discourse by condoling with Sir William on the loss his people had sustained, and then proceeded: “ Brother : We understand you intend to go to a meeting to Onondaga, we can’t help speaking with this belt of wampum to you, and giving our sentiments on your intended journey. In the first place we think it quite contrary to custom of any governors or super- intendent of Indian affairs being called to Onondaga upon public busi- ness, as the council fire which burns there serves only for the private consultations of the confederacy, and when matters are concluded and resolved upon there, the confederacy are to set for the great fire-place which is at your house and there deliver their conclusions. In the next place we are almost convinced that the invitation is illegal, and not agreed upon or desired by the confederacy, but only the Oneidas, which gives'* us the more reason to be uneasy about your going, as it looks very suspicious. Did not they tell you when they invited you, the road of friendship was clear, and every obstacle removed that was in before ? They scarce uttered it and the cruelties were committed at the German Flats, where the remainder of our poor brethren were butchered by the enemy’s Indians. Is this a clear road of peace and friendship? Would not you'be obliged to wade all the way in blood of the poor innocent men, women and children, who were murdered after being taken ? Brother — By this belt of wampum, we, the women, surround and hang about you like little children who are crying at their parents going from them, for fear of their never returning again to give them to suck, and we earnestly beg you will give ear to our request, and desist from your journey. We flatter ourselves you will look upon this our speech, and take the same notice of it as all our men do, who when they are addressed by the women, and desired to desist from any rash enterprise, they immediately give way, when everybody before else had tried to dissuade them from it and could not prevail.” Could Sir William go to the proposed Council at Onondaga after such an argumentative, tender and pathetic appeal from the women ? He did not go. July 7th, 1742, in a council at Philadelphia, Canassteego, an Onon- daga Chief, in behalf of the Six Nations, spoke as follows : “ If you have not done anything we now renew our request, and desire you will inform the persons whose people are seated on our lands, that that country belongs to us in right of conquest, we having bought it with our blood, and taken it from our enemies in fair war, and we expect as owners of that land to receive such a consideration tor it as the land is worth. We desire you to press him to send a positive answer. Let him say yes or no. If he says yes, we will treat with him; if no, we are able to do ourselves justice, and we will do it* by going to take payment ourselves.” Chittv’s Pleadings, the Equity Draftsman and Waite’s Practice may be searched in vain for a more comprehensive “ complaint ” or “ dec-23 iaration” than this one, drawn from the unwritten precedents at Onon- daga Castle, recorded in the books of wampum held by the official custodian. The intruders on the lands did not wait for the Six Nations to go and u take payment ” themselves. In the year 1656 a deputation of Mohawks spoke in a council with the French and Hurons at Montreal, as follows : To the Hurons: “ Brother, it is now. some time since you stretched out your hands to beg me to lead you to my country, but as often as I got ready to do so you drew back and it is to punish you for your inconstancy that I have struck you with my hatchet. Believe me. Give me no more ground to treat you thus. Arise and follow me.” To the French: “ Ononthio ! lift up your arms and let your children go whom you hold clasped to your bosom, for should they commit any folly it is to be feared that while intending to chastise them my blows may reach you. This is to open your arms.” The cause of this speech was the failure of a number of Hurons to go to the country of the Five Nations and become adopted by them, according to an understanding had on a previous occasion. The per- emptory style of the address to both the Hurons and French was not exceeded by Louis Napoleon when he addressed the German Minister at his. court, just previous to the late war. The Iroquois taunted Father Brebeuf, when undergoing torture at the stake in the year 1650: “ Yoil assured us but a moment since that the more we suffer on earth the more happy we shall be in heaven. Out of friendship for you we study to increase your sufferings, and you will be indebted to us for it.” Was human ferocity ever clothed in more specious language than this ? Logan’s Speech : I appeal to any white man to say if ever he entered Logan’s cabin hungry, and I gave him not meat; if ever he came cold or naked, and I gave him not clothing. “ During the course of the last long and bloody war Logan remained in his tent an advocate for peace; nay, such was my love for the whites that those of my own country pointed at me as they passed by, and said 6 Logan is the friend of white men.” “ I had even thought to live with you, but for the injuries of one man. Colonel Cresap the last spring, in cold blood and unprovoked, cut off all the relations of Logan, not even sparing my women and children. There runs not a drop of my blood in the veins of any human creature.24: This called on me for revenge. I have sought it. I. have killed many. I have glutted my vengence. “ For my country 1 rejoice at the beams of peace. But do not har- bor the thought that mine is the joy of fear. Logan never felt fear. He will not turn on his heel to save his life. Who is there to mourn for Logan? Not one.” Jefferson called this speech one of the most eloquent ever delivered. A critical analysis can find in it all of Cicero’s six regular subdivisions of an oration, Exordium, Narratio, Propositio, Confirmatio, Refutatio, and Peroratio. Canasstego, an Onondaga chief, to the Delawares, in the year 174:2: “ Let this belt of wampum serve to chastise you * * How came you to take upon you to sell land at all ? YVe conquered you; we made women of you ; you know you are women, and can no more sell land than women ; nor is it fit that you should have the power of sell- ing land, since you would abuse it. * * We therefore assign you the places to go either to Wyoming or Shamokin ; you may go to either of those places, and then we shall have you more under our eye, and shall see how you behave. Don’t deliberate, but remove and take ithis belt of wampum.” Then taking another belt, he continued: “ After our just reproof and absolute order to depart from the land, you are now to take notice of what we have .further to say to you. This string of wampum serves to forbid you, your children, and your grand-children, to the latest posterity, forever meddling in land affairs; neither you, nor any who shall descend from you, are hereafter to presume to sell any land. For which purpose you are to preserve this string in memory of what your uncles have this day given you in charge.” [Oolden’s Hist, of 5 Nations, 80-81.] Garangula, the head Sachem of the Onondagas, to De la Barre, on his invasion of Onondaga in 1683: u We were born freemen, and have no dependence either upon Ounontio or the Corlear. We have a power to go where we please, to conduct who we wish to the places we resort to, and to buy and sell when we think fit.” Speech of one of the Mohawks at Albany after the burning of Schenectady March 25, 1689-90 : “We will never desert so long as a man of us remains. Take heart, do not pack up and go away ; this will give heart to a dastardly enemy. We are of the race of the bear, and a bear, you know, never yields while one drop of blood is left. We must all be bears, giving a sixth Belt.” The following beautiful extract is from one of the speeches of Red Jacket, a Seneca chief, at Hartford, in 1897:25 “ We stand a small island in the bosom of the great waters. We are encircled — we are encompassed. The evil spirit rides' upon the blast, and the waters are disturbed. They rise, they press upon us, and the waves once settled over us, we disappear forever. Who then lives to mourn us ? None! What marks our extermination ? Nothing! We are mingled with the common elements.” Red-Jacket’s reply to the white preacher, in 1805 : “Brother: If you white men murdered the Son of the Great Spirit, we Indians had nothing to do with it, and it is none of our affair. If he had come among us, we would not have killed him; we would have treated him well; and the white people who killed him ought to be damned for doing it. You must make amends for that crime yourselves.” Red Jacket’s reply to the commissioners for purchasing the lands of the Senecas, in 1822, at Seneca village : “You tell us,” said he, “of your claim to our land, and that you have purchased it from your state. We know nothing of your claim, and we care nothing for it. Even the whites have a law by which they cannot sell what they do not own. How, then, has your State, which never owned our land, sold it to you? We have a title to it, and we know that our title is good; for it came direct from the Great Spirit, who gave it to us, his red children. When you can ascend to where he is” (pointing toward the skies), “and will get his deed, and show it to us, then, and never till then, will we acknowledge your title. You say you came not to cheat us of our lands, but to buy them. Who told you that we have lands to sell? You never heard it from us. “Did I not tell you the last time we met that whilst Red Jacket lived you would get no more lands of the Indians? How, then, while you see him alive and strong’’(striking his hand violently on his breast), “ do you think to make him a liar ? ” Grotius, Vattel, Blackstone, Wheaton and Story teach other doc- trines of natural law, and as to the rights of discovery and preemption ; but their reasons are not more logical than the law of nature as expounded by Red-Jacket. Red Jacket’s speech when an Indian was indicted at Buffalo, and tried in 1821, for killing a witch or sorceress, who had been duly con- demned by an Indian tribunal: “ What! Do you denounce us as fools and bigots because we still believe that which you yourselves believed two centuries ago? Your black coats thundered this doctrine from the pulpit, your judges pro- nounced it from the bench, and sanctioned it with the formalities of law; and you would now punish our unfortunate brother for adhering to the faith of hu fathers and of yours! Go to Salem ! Look at the26 records of your own government, and you will find that hundreds have been executed for the very crime which has called forth the sen- tence of condemnation against this woman, and drawn down upon her the arm of vengeance. What have our brothers done more than the rulers of your people have done ? And what crime has this man com- mitted by executing, in a summary way, the laws of his country and the command of the Great Spirit ?” Could the O’Conors the Porters and the Evarts of our day, in their able and labored speeches, better advocate a prisoner’s case ? The accused Indian was finally discharged. Gentlemen of the Pioneer $ Association: My task is done. The obligation which your courtesy imposed upon me is fulfilled, and nothing now remains for me but to speak a few words of friendly counsel and to say farewell! The occasion which brings us together here, although it may be one of social and personal interest, will nevertheless be barren of all valuable results to tis, unless it can be made tributary to our highest needs as citizens of this Republic. It is well for us to meet together ai d exchange friendly greetings on this anniversary, to recall the heroic deeds of our fathers, and drop a sympathetic tear upon their lowly graves; but what are the lessons taught us by the history of their eventful lives ? The material results of their labors are everywhere about us. I see them in your well-stocked and thoroughly-cultivated farms, the business activities of your streets, the tireless mechanical industries of your mills and workshops; but looking at the aged men who are here to-day, and who form the sacred nucleus of your Society, I learn the deeper significance of those Pioneer lives. In these wrinkled and furrowed faces I see reproduced with all the fidelity of a photograph, the cour- age, the patience, the strong religious faith of those who laid the corner-stone and helped to rear the superstructure of the Common- wealth. We are the inheritors of their material wealth, and we possess the same corn age and earnestness which marked their lives; but are we as tenacious as they were of the rights of others ? Have we the same respect for the authority and obligations of law ? Do we, in the daily events of life look for a Higher Guidance than our own weak and selfish wishes and desires ? In short, are we as honest, as virtuous, as law-abiding, as God-fearing a people as they? Superficial observers of the signs of the times, will make haste to answer Ho! but I do not so read human nature. I admit that official corruption, the legitimate child of political degeneracy and27 folly, infests nearly every department of the public service; I admit that legislative corruption has become “ an offense so rank, it smells to heaven;” I admit that the public press, which in a free country like ours is always a mirror to reflect the public sentiment, reflects only too faithfully the demoralization of the people; I admit that whatever other results may have been achieved by our republican institutions, we have notoriously failed in organizing a judicial mechanism adequate to the punishment of great and influential criminals guilty of flagrant crimes against the State. All these things, like the weather gauge of the barometer, show how low the moral temperature has fallen since the early days of the Republic; but they do not prove that because we are degenerate sons, we have lost our hold upon the eternal Laws that gov- ern human action. This universal desire for a better state of things in the Church, in the State, in the Family, in the Market — is it not an evidence of Life, and not of Death ? The cyclone of Political Reform is now upon us. It is indeed, time! and it is certainly efficacious in its work of destruction. Many men / have gone down before it, and many dark places of iniquity have been unroofed, letting in the light of day; but the Divine Government rarely provides specific remedies for human evils; they are general in their character, and although the work which is now being carried on with such vigor is valuable, it can only be valuable as a Punitive power. It can destroy ; it cannot recreate. That is the work of each individual in his own personal relations with his neighbor, and that is the special duty which is assigned to us. The real work of reform must be begun when the cyclone has spent its force. We must inaugurate a new era of personal integrity, and political accountability and judicial responsibility will surely follow. I know it is the fashion to attribute all these evils from which we are suffering, to the Civil War of 1861; but no War involving such tremendous moral issues as the one which resulted in the destruction of human slavery on this continent, can be wholly demoralizing in its results, and I claim that the American nation has been lifted higher through its agency, than it could have been lifted by fifty years of ignoble Peace. We are a wiser, a better, a purer people than we were before the fall of Fort Sumpter, for I hold that the long continued existence among us of so infinite an evil as chattel slavery, was the most terrible strain upon our moral energies -that we have ever experienced. Thank God! it is gone; and now, residents of Central Hew York. Political Corruption, like Slavery, exists among us only on sufferance ; and it is for us to decree that this last and most insidious foe to Republi28 can institutions shall follow in the wake of its elder brother. We were among the first to enroll ourselves under the banner of Human Rights. We have baptized that banner with our blood on every prominent bat- tlefield of the Rebellion. It is for us, standing to-day beside the graves of those Pioneers whose inheritance we enjoy, to dedicate ourselves reverently to the work which is as surely our divine mission,as the work which they were called upon to perform, nearly a hundred years ago.APPENDIX STATISTICAL TABLES SHOWING THE POPULATION ACCORDING TO THE OFFICIAL CENSUSES OF THE SIX COUNTIES EMBRACED IN THE PIOKEER'S ASSOCIATION Olf CENTRAL NEW YORK. Note. — The following six counties originally formed parts of Montgomery (Tryon) county which was taken from Albany and established in 1772. Herkimer was taken from Mont- gomery in 1791. The population of Montgomery was then 18,261.CAYUGA COUNTY. Taken from Onondaga, 1799. STATISTICS. 31 8S.. NOJCl ^rHddiH • b-iOrHiH £ :g Ht-HCOC tH r-T C'T Cl" r- § t*OC0N05 ©t-oooso lOrHiOiHGO il!§l § :1§S £ CO :8 ;| 88ssaa db-T-l 051—1 1 :IS : : n rH • WHH r-T • tH •‘ Cl rHiH ddrH rH •rHrH « • i8 CO CO 00 O CO CO d 05 10 05 0510*0 CO CO Qddd rH • tH 05 CO OS :§?SS§3:g :11S 0O5C»rH CO -db- gS83 8 :Is HNWH iH • d d CO -rH Cl Cl 05 Cld Cl tH Cl COrH O rH rH Cl Cl COt-h' • 05 CO 8 co—icot-d rHCOrHrHCO vocoodco :g|§| g 8 :g -rH _ Cl .CO § ;S CO b-rH CO i—l OrHrHOlO Cl COO CO d a OSdCOdrH , • rH Cl d*Cl r-T •’ lO *iH Cl .’rH jd rH Cl d Cl 1—1 t-OCOnC rHiO NXC COdCOdr- b-COi-UO CO -CO «if5 CO • b § -s -g 3 :§ 38883 rH COO cot-CO •Cl rH Cl rH Cl rH COtHiCO-H Cl -H tH CO 1—1 CO COO CO 05 vcddcirn • O H d CO • CO 05 CO rH • COiOdH ■rH -VO CO ’d :1 rH CO d :S :S .co rHOrHCOCO 8JS8S3 * * ’ ; :a8 : : ;iHddd rH • -rH ;d Cl •ci • Cl rHdrHdrH • ;dd • • COHi-l-rHCl -o t- 05 I-I CO )b-05Clt- eo b COb vc'd'rH d i“ CO—lb-CO Cl CO L-rH CO b- cicidd ih docoorH tHCIiHCItH rHdrHrHrH O -HH • • VOb-COCO . • > VO 05 • • t- co jin I ■ • «10 *05 • CO .co O 05 d CO • b-CliOrH • • • rH rH • • • .rHOO • • 8 co |rH : : • -rH jd »OC1tHtH j • *dH « • rH ddrHrHrH • rH d H Cl d •8 :g .coo 05100 : :8 io -O Cl • CO 05 CO b* VO -CO VO *00 S :g :8 iii c3 a _ N.- 03 fl N <33 £4 O+f +? c3 o£2 fi fl t-t xm & o o oB "*.2 o . D.W- 5DC5 03 *® S S s|s|a ac-sssg 03 03 a+j s • ^ W>43 g-Sg^-S g|||-Ss 5 55^0 i'^®5© ©dSiZiS 5 5 p.£ 3 ^OOftioa GGGGGGGGCO 13 CO tf 4-5 -(-5 O <3 EH <1 * See following note.32 STATISTICS, EH ft p O O P ft <4 P Eh ft O O § CO ft . *4 ft fc o O 5 o ft ft 6 ft M <1 Eh *o Ob- 05 ©3 CO 83388 :d8S8 • *©b-*00 b- CO O Q 11 b* Jh rH CO pH rH •CO 1-HrH rH HHH £ ► o H *a©3b-cot- *o co *o o 05 HOC0 05 05 • COb-COO rl'co'rH' CO rH rH C0©> £ o EH * Arranged in this form, as I have not the data to ascertain whether the errors are in the aggregate or the items.—W. B.ONEIDA COUNTY. Taken from Herkimer, 1798. 1875. t-GOCO vo r-iiH • 888 :S gg : ©T©frH _ H rHCO • STATISTICS. • 00 VO ©1 (M CO 05 • OQOiOCOi© rH ; rHi-HrH'M t- CO ] ©f©?rHrHH? ©f • t-©i • rH ©I 4,400 3,604 3 05 . . rH • • rH • . 1870. H? ©1 • •00 CO •CO rH ;tH©1 8 : :g CO • -t- h7 ’. -co 1:1 ©i -05 1855. 2,715 2,383 1,242 4,424 1,203 2,900 t- ©1 CO .05 o iCriH . O ©i ©1 CO Hi moo O d©?-7 • co co • t-t- * jrH©f • t- . .VO rH • *05 vO ■ • CO Hi1 • jco 8 :8 co «t- ©f ‘o • rH 1850. 2,686 2,271 1,037 3,306 1,315 2,820 t- vO vO . rH CO 8S8 :$ § ©fefrH ;CO CO • • • t- >o : : :®rl ; ; ;t-h©T ^ : *S§ : £ :S CO ■ • ©1 • HI >05 WT « *h5* j ©i ji- 1845. ©1I.- . .CO iH H< . 05 r-1 • • vo no CO • l-HrH • • CO COH • H? • • CO 1 :! rH • vO 1840. vO»(© • «C5 OOtH cot- • • rH i—(CO t-rH -S HcO • rH©T • jvo rH ©f • ©1*0 H$ -CO CO • HSlb* *05 05 ; COrHrH • ©1 ©f • 05 rH jrH©f 05 . rH . CO . O rH • • HI « CO • CO co • -co • co ■ co CO • • ©1 • rH * VO 1885. ©11- • • ©l os hi • • cracS • S j i-Th • "CO rH©? • ^ 2,536 1,106 1,795 3,497 2,618 •t-io • rH ©1 o? • • os 8 : |8 co’ '• • ©1 05 -VO 58 .8 rH ’ H 1830. rHCO • .CO COvO . 588 : ;S 88 : rHCO • [©? -HrH • rH 05 CO - VO vO • hT rH jrH ©>' • . .go • .‘OS 05 . .vO . 0-0 VO • ‘ ^ ■ H ^ CO CO • •©! •’ rH .‘h rH HH .r-i vOCO . CO T—1 . . I" (MC5 • rH 05 •• O lO iO • pi ©1 • • ©1 rH i-i ■ rH COt- . . t- . 8SS : : © : CO rH • | ©? ’ ; ; . ;° • • • •CO . . .co 1 :§ rH ; CO 1820. •rH • -HJ COOl • • «t- • *05 CO i— • • t- • • (M iflt- . . •©f • -rH tHtH • j COO CO CO HI HI 05 . . CO COCO H > « l-H ©f i-H j . ©f ' * o ©1 • 05 rH • CO 05 .vo jco £ GO r-f .CO • VO 00 coco • ©F • Hri • 1 § :§ : : 1 rH * rH • rH 8 :S iggg lO "HI ■ »0 CO CO HI O • -CO rH CO 1810. 1800. • CO • • rH'H'HCO • 05 * • • COOO©1H< • lO ■ • • O CO rH • rH • • • rH CO-jt-.. * JS23 ?0 © co • • ©1 rH • • 05 rH t— HI.OS 3 :g : : ^ 1-1 : : : : : : ■ •. hT j #h ONEIDA COUNTY — (Continued). 34 STATISTICS,STATISTICS. 35 EH 525 P O o d5 _ rH b- ■ S 88S88S : :88 ; d HwddwOrd HWOCOrH .’ -'r-Tcd • S d b- os b- 1840. l-rHNNt- rH • • >OCOiOOH CO • • Os H CO CO CO wo • • eddddn d • • 2,600 4,306 5,509 2,727 5.662 1,906 4,311 11,012 3,981 1,873 1.663 3,021 67,911 s OS id CO 1835. CO r-i CO CO OS rH CO • © rH W0 t- WO CO • • -WO CO W0 H t- CO W0 L- W0 H • COOS . codrndco d ; • jd cdw0~dHrd Hbdood ; jrdd •' 60,903 ! 58,948 1830. COCO WO • b* rH • . .O CO WO CO CO CO (M OS (M b- • • OO • 1—10 OS -WO • • *CO os 0 • • • os • • b-*CO • ■ hi • . WOrH • • • d • • • CO Cl CO <01 CO H H -H • • H • • (Mb-OWOOl O rH *OS • -OS • • • b-COWOWOb- b- CO (M . . rH ■ ■ • rH wdedW0 rH edrd • rH • • rd • • s d 1815. b* (M • • • W0 * rH t- W0 ••• CO -CO CO HI • • • b- • t- cd . • • rH • . rH rH CO OS CO O rH- • CO • -W0 • CO • Oi • • • * • • • CO**** ’’^••rH* NOOOO • CO • • • £-•••• CO • • • 00 • • CO rH OO O* CO • ^ • • • . • CO • • • 7,406 OQQPpq .S-S fl a & |q^ cj 9,2 1*®£ o^ ® mA a c.2 0 <0 o r, °^.2c3 oTSJS&k 2$ 73 _ w o -—a § H ^loo &&&£& $£>0 * See preceding note.36 STATISTICS. Eh O c o o co O so i—i 00 <1 ft fc o & O Pi fc <1 p w p £ o s o « fc p M EH CirHrHCOHi COOiCO*- 05 Hi Hi Hi CO CDtDONt- CO CO CO rH t- -dd cdedvd CO Hi O H< 05 NOOOt'N drdrdcdcd COcdcdrHrd dcOOirdr 05 CO 02 CO VO codedco co 8 CO coot-CO CO Oi CO rH VO CO H 05 lO 05 Oi >0 CO 0O >- 88.839 COC0O5H®i c^odeco t— CO 05 VO Oi COOiCCr-it- rH H CO Oi H co co t-H Oi 05 s drd ded CO CO CO rdrd ofddrdrd -doled COCO r-t rH 1 COOiOSCOt- COH OSH O ccvohcovo H H ?— 1— CO OlCO©©H CO r-i CO t— t— T-iCOCOOiCO COtH © © © 83=383 rl^ONO S3 ^rH rH drd cd-d cocd-ddrd COCoddrH nd-dcocd HH OiOivOU 0 VO CO 1 t-OS . o COt- COCO COCOHOir ONt*OJ^ -dof coded -un^ ooof-ooco iCSHi CD Oi Oi i—IO D H CO ■■ COffiNOH dd cdoi-ddrd "3 CO 05 ©i 05C0C0C0C0 h vo os vo t- vo vr "* JiOt-t- ©HO f co oo vo r-i. ji CO CO © H D Os VO t-t— ■ H CO CO t— CO SHggg ddcdrdrH • COCOCOH COt-COVOvO •rHOiCCO VO vO rH 05 05 © C5H VO t- Oi vo H CO •cdiHiH edddvded t-rH CO ss 05 8 rdrd d CO s COOHCOiO OO^rHCO 8S88&8 Oi 05 t— t— CO ,665 ,928 ,548 50T ©H O © H 05 CO 1 rid rdOi drH CO rd • HrH rH -ddoi-ded ss 1835. 945 766 368 1,967 2,049 2,204 1,828 3,138 1,551 679 4,902 1,655 1,295 412 3,461 2,100 2,191 4,180 2,995 658 38,245 3 CO oT CO 1830. G5C5COCOCO H* Hi tH O i—i • CO • COrH CO 05 • t-05 eOCOCOO50i 05 051— rH O • O -COH COCO • CO Oi CO CO CO tH Hi t-HCOHvO • t- COCO t-CO • O CO rdrd rdrdcdrd • of ■ drd • ded CO 8 Hi C5 Oi CO CO 05 8 1825. 371 VO Oi COCOOOH .Oi • VO CO Hi t— O H Hi • CO • COOS CO CO H< Oi t- -r-i • rd rH OirH ;rd j •VO 05 VO ■ r-i Oi .-CO ■05 CO rH -t-t— • CO • Oi O^CD • OCO- *05 • rdrd ;rdd • vO So 18,745 1820. I- >0 vO ■ © 02 CO • Oi . CO VO CO .05 02 CO • 05 t- VO 05 VO CO Hi . 05 • ;rd • • CO CO . .HH . Oi • CO Oi • Hi 05 .VO • CO t- • • t— CO CO • d ■ • rH * 2 CO s CO d rH i 1815. 1 1810. 1800. r «8 cf-g c fr-2 §Jj 5S&gg |fsl^ Ctfi M £ | 1 ooS .2 2P> a • >, h g tilibca^o «J>,$-«8© ^ rt • © £is O HSTATISTICS, 37 (h H t=> O Q O m i—i P CO o 00 o a fc fc m W O 5 o « 6 m M ◄ Eh CO^iMCOr-l iHCOr-10i> §3 G'H^rtw ^ d d d g bt^AM co Ord^^-d ggtfog oSJ§3 JSSoS-S 2 c3 ® cS 03 ® d