Three Rivers
Hudson~Mohawk~Schoharie
History From America's Most Famous Valleys
Robert
M. Hartley Collections of Indian Artifacts (Chiefly of the Mohawk Valley)
and Military Uniform Buttons in the Margaret Reaney Memorial Library, St.
Johnsville, NY
Prepared by The Montgomery County Department of History and Archives and
The Van Epps-Hartley Chapter of the
New Your State Archaeological Association
Published by Mrs. Robert M. Hartley, 1943
Hartley Collection of Indian Implements and Military Uniform Buttons.
The collection of Indian implements, made by the late Robert M. Hartley, is representative of the type of material to be found in the Mohawk Valley. It represents the civilization of several different Indian peoples, chief of which were the Mohawks, one of the five nations of the Iroquois Confederacy, who held the balance of power between the French and the English in America throughout the pre-Revolutionary period of colonial history.
Most of the specimens shown were found by Mr. Hartley during his explorations of Indian camp and village sites along the Mohawk River and its tributaries. A few were bought from other collectors or obtained by exchange. These include much of the material from other states. A collection of relics, from sites in Tennessee and Georgia, was made by Mr. Hartley on a trip through the south in 1911. Other material was collected by him in New Jersey, in 1925, and on the northern part of Manhattan Island, during his frequent visits to military camps of the colonial and Revolutionary period. One very interesting group of specimens, from the Merkley site near Williamsburg, Ontario, is important because the site is thought to have been occupied by the Mohawks before they migrated from the St. Lawrence valley into New York State in the late 1500's.
The sites, occupied by the Mohawks, were of three kinds: the stockaded refuges, or "castles", built on easily defended hilltops, of which there were usually at least three, one each for the Turtle, Bear and Wolf clans; a number of small outlying villages, connected with each of these castles, and scattered camps or hunters' cabins.
The Mohawks came into the Mohawk Valley only shortly before the first white explorers visited this region, and a majority of their sites show evidence of trade with the Dutch, French or English in the form of scraps of iron and brass, clay trade pipes, Venetian glass beads, iron knives and axes and other trade goods. Their first forts and villages had been located well back from the river but, as they grew more secure and extended their power over neighboring tribes, the Mohawks' castles were moved closer to the fertile river flats, where corn, beans and squash could be grown. The locations of these forts and villages were changed frequently during colonial times, and not all have yet been identified by their Indian names as given in the early records.
The Algonkians and other tribes, who preceded the Iroquois in this region, built their villages for the most part on the river flats. Consequently, sites near good springs, fords, clay banks, and other attractive spots often yield the relics of several different Indian occupations, superimposed one on the other and usually very thoroughly mixed by the plow. These different peoples may have followed each other over a period of years or centuries--only systematic excavation of such a site, provide the plow has not gone too deep, can tell. The Hartley collection show that sites, like the Cold Spring site on the flats west of the mouth of th Schoharie Creek, must have been occupied by one tribe after another from the earliest times up to the days of the Mohawks.
In arranging the Hartley collection for exhibition, material, from th prehistoric and historic Mohawk sites, has been grouped together, in Case A, at the south end of the museum (the right hand end, as on enters from the main part of the library). The most interesting an instructive pieces from each site have been placed together, with the less spectacular pieces in the numbered drawers under the cases. These drawers also contain the unique Hartley collection of British and American military buttons of the Colonial and Revolutionary wars, describe in detail in another catalogue, and Mr. Hartley's original paintings an drawings of engraved powder-horns, together with a variety of other relics of a historic or scientific nature.
Material, from the various pre-Mohawk sites, is displayed in Case as is some of the material from other states. This pre-Iroquois material is also arranged in the drawers of both cases.
Relics of the Colonial, Revolutionary, and Civil wars, minerals, fossil and other material, collected by Mr. Hartley, is displayed in both cases.
The sections of the exhibit have been numbered consecutively, beginning at the left (west) end of the south side of Case A and continuing to the right (counter-clockwise) around the case, as shown in the diagram. Section numbers, on the flat portion of the case, are followed by numbered shelves in the upright central portion.
No attempt has been made in this catalogue to describe every piece which is on display. The general nature and significance of the materia exhibited in each section, is outlined and attention called to individual pieces of outstanding interest. More detailed information is available in Mr. Hartley's original catalogue of his collection, which may be consulted on application to the curator of the museum.
CASE A
(Sections 1-25)
The Indian artifacts, exhibited in Case A, were obtained by Mr. Hartley from Mohawk Indian sites in the Mohawk Valley, and from the Merkley site in the province of Ontario, Canada. Comparison of the relics, from the various sites, shows clearly how flint, stone and bone tools were gradually replaced by the white man's iron and brass, and how the well-made and finely-decorated pottery of the prehistoric Iroquois became cruder and more carelessly made as it grew easier to trade for ready-made iron pots and brass kettles.
The center of the case, under the lowest shelf of the upright portion, has been used to display typical hammerstones, pestles and pitted stones from various Mohawk Valley sites, both Mohawk and pre-Iroquois.
Drawers A-1, A-7, A-13, A-13 to 22, A-25 and A-26 have been used to display the Hartley collection of British and American military buttons of the French and Indian, Revolutionary, and 1812 wars. Drawers A-3 1, A-37, A-43, A-49 and A-55 in this case and B-1, B-7, B-13, B-19, B-25, B-31, B-37 and B-43 in Case B are devoted to Mr. Hartley's drawings and paintings of engraved powder-horns of the French and Indian and Revolutionary wars.
| Drawers A-31 to A-60 | ||
| Sections | 10 to 19 | |
| CASE "A": | Sections 22-23 | Sections 23-25 |
| Sections | 1 to 9 |
Drawers A-1 to A-30
SECTION 1: OSSERUENON (AURIESVILLE).
Osseruenon was the Lower Castle of the Mohawks, the home of the Turtle clan from about 1640 to 1659, when, due to a smallpox epidemic, the castle was moved to the hill on the west side of Auries Creek. AtOsseruenon, the French Jesuit missionary, Father Isaac Jogues, was tortured and killed by the Mohawks in 1646, and here now stands the Shrine of Our Lady of Martyrs, commemorating his work and martyrdom and that of his companions. The discovery of a number of grooved axes on this site, during the building of the Shrine, indicates that the strategically situated hilltop may also have been an important village of one of the Algonkian tribes (probably the Mahikans or Delawares) before the coming of the Iroquois.
A skull-cap and two arm-bones in this section were taken from an Indian burial on this site. Many such burials were uncovered during the excavation for the Shrine.
A white clay trade pipe (No. 414) is marked "R. Tippet". This is the trade-mark or maker's mark of a famous English pipemaker of early Colonial times, whose pipes are found on many Indian sites in New York and New England.
A small stone celt or ungrooved axe (No. 793) is typical of the kind of stone axe made and used by the Iroquois. While they used much larger celts (see Section 19), they never used the grooved axe, which is characteristic of other tribes to the south and west.
A red stone pendant and bead (No. 417-418) are made of Catlinite, the red pipe-stone used by the western Indians for their famous peace pipes or calumets. The material comes from quarries near Pipestone Minnesota. It was not used to any great extent by the Indians of region until historic times. Prior to the coming of the Mohawks, red slate was often used for ornaments of various sorts.
Three pieces of carved or worked bone show that the Mohawks not yet (1640-1650) lost the art of using bone for awls, needles, be and ornaments of various kinds.
A number of decorated potsherds (fragments of broken pot vessels) illustrate the characteristic decorations used by the Iroquois Indians. This was particularly true of the Mohawks, whose pottery the finest of any of the northeastern tribes. The patterns, made of parallel lines drawn in the wet clay with a bone or slate tool before the pot fired, are thought to have originated in porcupine-quill embroidery to decorate birch-bark vessels before the Iroquois perfected the art pottery-making. Both of the common Mohawk forms are shown are shown here: The high decorated collar, which often had a series of three to five raised points or castellations at intervals around the rim, giving the vessel a square or polygonal shape; and the type in which the decoration consists of a heavy band of clay attached around the lip of the pot. The dotted decoration on No. 294 is very unusual.
A fragment of a clay tobacco pipe (No. 299) of Indian make may be compared with the European trade pipe from the same site. The Iroquois were famous pipemakers, but unbroken pipes are rare.
See drawers A-23 A-8 and A-45 for other material from Osseruenon.
SECTION 2: GANDAWAGUE OR KASTEN SITE.
This site west of Auries Creek was occupied by the Mohawks after they had abandoned their castle at Osseruenon. It is referred to as the Kasten site in Mr. Hartley's catalogue, probably from the name of the owner at the time he made his collection. The Mohawks lived at Gandawague for only a few years, as their castles on the south side of the Mohawk River were destroyed by De Tracy's French raiders in 1666 and were rebuilt north of the river.
The specimens from Gandawague include a group of typical Mohawk potsherds, with two fragments of clay pipe stems (No. 204) and (No. 205). For other examples see drawer A-38.
A number of interesting small relics have been strung together for safekeeping. Among them are: (a) three Catlinite beads; (b) a long white bead made from the broken stem of a trade pipe; (c) a grooved slate pendant in the form of a figure 8; (d) the shell of a fresh-water mussel (Unio) perforated so that it could be worn as a pendant; (e) a triangular brass arrow-head. (Arrows like this were cut from scraps of brass kettles and used instead of the Mohawk's triangular flint arrows.) A hole has been drilled through the brass as an aid in fastening the point to the arrow-shaft); (f) a wolf fang, worn as a pendant; (g) a gunflint, made of European flint; (h) a rolled brass or copper bead, made from a scrap of kettle.
A celt provides another example of the typical Mohawk axe. The blunt base was set into a socket in a wooden or antler handle and cemented in place with spruce gum or held by lashings of cord or sinew. All Indian tribes in this region used celts of one kind or another; indeed, celts are the simplest and most common form of stone axe found the world over.
Beaver jaws were used as chisels by the Mohawks and other tribes. The sharp incisor teeth were often resharpened and used attached to the jaw, like this specimen, or set in a wooden or antler handle.
Half of a mealing stone or muller stands in the middle of the collection from this site. The Mohawks ground their corn with round flat stones like this one, on a larger flat stone or shallow mortar usually called (after the Spanish name used in the southwest) a metate. An example of one of these mortars is shown in the material from Otstungo on the opposite side of this case (Section 18).
Several gun-flints show that the Mohawks were using firearms at the time they lived at Gandawague (1659-1666). An expert might be able to determine whether they came from the French in Canada or the Dutch and English in the Hudson valley.
A piece of cut conch or other seashell shows that the Mohawks were in contact with the Atlantic coast. The central columns of shells like these were used to make wampum. Small seashell pendants have been found on prehistoric Mohawk sites, showing that their contacts with the sea began almost as soon as they arrived in the Mohawk Valley. These shells may have been obtained from the Hudson River tribes by trade since the River Indians (the Dutch name for them) seem to have bought Mohawk pottery to replace their own cruder ware.
Flint knives, like the one shown here, are more common on the earlier Mohawk sites, before the white man's sharper and better steel knives were available. One end of the flint blade was cemented into a wooden or antler handle.
(NOTE: There are NO photos in this book. AJB)
Polished pebbles like the one shown here are often found on Mohawk sites. They may have been used in rattles, or simply as lucky pocket-pieces.
See drawer A-38 for other material from Gandawague.
SECTION 3: WEMPLE SITE.
This site, on the upper part of Briggs Run (see Section 13 apparently a very early if not a prehistoric Mohawk village. It is occasionally referred to as a fourth prehistoric castle of the period around 1600. The excellent quality of the pottery shown here indicated that it was occupied at an early date, before the native arts of the Mohawks had begun to degenerate under the influence of the white man's trade goods. Note the typical Iroquois designs and compare them with those in the other sections of this case. For further examples of pottery from the Wemple site, see drawer A-8.
Red slate was polished and carved to make amulets or pendants before catlinite came into use.
The group of narrow triangular arrows illustrates the typical Iroquois form of arrowhead. Such arrows were used by various historic and pre-historic tribes in the Mississippi valley, and the fact that the Iroquois used them is one reason for suspecting that they may have had a southern origin, before coming into New York State and Canada. None other Indian groups in this region used arrows exactly like these, altough flint triangles of other forms were widely used.
Flint scrapers, like the one shown here, are not as common on Mohawk sites as on the pre-Iroquois sites in the Mohawk Valley.
Animal teeth of various kinds were used by all Indian tribes as ornaments.
The bone awl, sharpened to a fine point and made from bird and animal bones of various kinds, was a common Indian tool. The Iroquois were especially skillful workers of bone. Other examples of bone awls are shown with the material from Cayadutta in the upright center section of the case (Section 20).
SECTION 4: RICE'S WOODS SITE (CANAJORHA?)
S. L. Frey, the pioneer Mohawk Valley archeologist, believed that the Mohawk village site in Rice's Woods, on Big Nose, was Canajorha, the Middle Castle of the Mohawks after about 1677. Other authorities believe that it was the Lower Castle at this same period.
The specimens shown here consist of flint arrowheads and knives, with other flint implements from this site, and also samples of typical Mohawk pottery.
SECTION 5: ENGLAND'S WOODS SITE.
This Mohawk village site, while definitely of the historic period after European trade goods were in common use, has not been identified with any of the villages mentioned by the early writers. It was situated well back from the river) off the main trail to the west, and may not have been seen by the white traders and explorers. Occasional arrowheads made of clear quartz crystal, which is found nearby, have been discovered on this site, and sharp-edged flakes of quartz were often used as knives or scrapers. A series of storage pits, some of which contained charred corn, have been found in the woods near the village site. The black outlines of the Mohawk long houses (rectangular bark cabins) can be traced in the soil after the fields here have been plowed.
Several large pieces of typical Mohawk pottery illustrate the skill of the Mohawk potters of this period.
Clay concretions seem to have been picked up by the Mohawks and other Indians and used as pocket-pieces or carved into effigies of their clan totem. Turtle effigies are particularly common on village sites of the Turtle clan, since these concretions are often shaped like a turtle's shell and needed little work to complete them. Concretions and other soft pieces of stone, like these shown here, were also engraved with decorations of various kinds which probably were "art for art's sake" and had no particular symbolic or religious meaning. Such pieces are rare. The large bar-shaped stone may have been a potter's smoothing tool, since it is quite highly polished. The other shuttle-shaped stone may have been an amulet of some kind.
The flint implements are scrapers, probably used for scaling fish or cleaning the flesh off hides of small animals.
A variety of other material from the England's Woods site is shown, in drawer A-14.
SECTION 6: RICHMOND SITE.
The pieces shown from this late Mohawk village are of chief interest because they show the changes which took place in the Iroquois way of life after the advent of the white traders with their brass, copper and iron.
At the bottom of the exhibit, is a triangular flint arrowhead of typical Mohawk form, the prototype of the later metal arrows. Above it are three different forms which these later arrows, made of brass or copper took. One has been made from a scrap of brass, rolled into a hollow cone which will fit over the end of the arrow-sbaft much like the points on modern target arrows. This is a brass copy of the antler arrowpoints which were occasionally made by the Mohawks. It was probably made by wrapping the brass around the sharpened tip of an antler tine. The other two are large stemmed and barbed arrows or possibly spearheads, seemingly copied from the notched and stemmed flint arrows of the Mohawks' Algonkian enemies. The most common form of brass arrow used by the Mohawks is a simple triangle, with or without a perforation, such as may be seen in Sections 2, 12, 13 and 15 of this case.
SECTION 7: PALATINE SITE.
Mr. Hartley's catalogue does not specify which of the several Mohawk sites of the historic period in the Town of Palatine this is. The potsherds, however, clearly prove that it was a Mohawk village. Other examples are shown in drawer A-32.
A bottle contains a small amount of charred maize (Indian corn) from this site. The Mohawks were capable farmers as well as crafty hunters and fishermen. Beans, squash seeds, and the pits of several kinds of wild fruit are often found in the refuse of storage pits of their villages.
Flint quarry blanks, like the ones shown here, were the raw material from which the Indian arrowmaker fashioned his flint arrowpoints and other tools.
Seeing the similarity between the natural shape of a piece of claystone and the head of a bird or snake, the Indian artist has added eyes and a mouth to make the effigy complete. A romantically inclined collector might have hailed this unusual specimen as evidence that the Mohawks saw and were trying to depict a dinosaur. When such statements have been made about other sections of the United States, they usually originate in finds like this one.
SECTION 8: MERKLEY SITE, WILLIAMSBURG, ONTARIO, CANADA.
Canadian archeologists believe that this site was occupied by the Mohawks or some Iroquoian tribe closely related to them at a time prior to their migration into New York. The designs on the potsherds are typical of the fine workmanship of the prehistoric and early historic Mohawks, as shown elsewhere in the Hartley collection. Note especially the fine, sharp lines of the decoration. A corner of a castellated rim is shown in sherd No. 2073. Several fragments of the bowls and stems of clay pipes are identical with those for which the Mohawks were famous. Two pieces of trade pipe were probably dropped on the site at a later time.
The two beaver incisors were ready-made chisels for the Iroquois workman.
Five celts or stone axes are characteristic of the Iroquois.
See also material in drawer A-2.
SECTION 9: MISCELLANEOUS HISTORICAL RELICS.
This section, the last one on the south side of Case A, contains a number of historical relics from Mr. Hartley's general collection. Included are:
(a) An early American brace, which followed the simple auger as a tool for boring holes;
(b) An apple-paring machine;
(c) A model of the dump wagon invented by George W. Rust in February, 1885;
(d) Several canes belonging to the Hartley family, including one made from the wood of a French batteau sunken in Lake George in 1775;
(e) A Navaho Indian arrow from the southwestern United States;
(f) A group of fossils from this region;
(g) A highly-polished glacial pebble from the Poestenkill, at Troy, New York;
(h) A stone from the birthplace of Sir William Pepperell, the Colonial leader, at Kittery, Maine;
(i) An officer's epaulette of the Civil War period.
SECTION 10: COLD SPRING SITE.
The fertile flats along the Mohawk River were chosen as village sites by many different Indian groups from the earliest times until the coming of the white man, who built his own farms and villages there. The Cold Spring site, near a large spring on the flats just west of the mouth of the Schoharie Creek, is an outstanding example of this. In Case B, Section 26, are relics of the pre-Iroquoian tribes who camped around this famous spring. The specimens in this section are from the village built there by the Wolf clan when the Mohawks restored their castles after the French raid in 1693.. At this time the Wolves became the keepers of the Lower Castle instead of the Turtles, who had been nearly wiped out. Some of the relics may date back to the time of Osseruenon (see Section 1), the latter village was located on the hill top a short distance to the west, and the Mohawks undoubtedly had their cornfields on the flats around the spring.
The relics shown include typical Mohawk potsherds, several flint arrowheads, the bowl of a white trader's pipe, a hammerstone, a number of gun-flints, and a Colonial brass or copper button. The difference between the waxy yellow European flint, of which the gun-flints are made, and the native grey Mohawk Valley flint used for the arrows is well shown.
SECTION11: FORT HUNTER.
Mohawk relics from several locations along the river flats between Fort Hunter and Auriesville have been strung together and are exhibited here. These flats are to all intents and purposes one continuous site-the cornfields of the Mohawks of the Lower Castle, and of the tribes who preceded them.
Included are several glass trade beads, some bone beads of Mohawk workmanship, pendants of stone and shell, and a metal ring of Dutch or French origin.
SECTION 12: MARTIN SITE.
This late Mohawk village site west of Fonda was explored by the Van Epps-Hartley Chapter of the New York State Archeological Association in 1935 at Mr. Hartley's suggestion, and a small collection of artifacts and trade material taken from the village refuse dumps by the Chapter and various of its members. Mr. Hartley considered that the site was an outlying portion of the village of Caughnawaga, situated mile to the east., where the first Jesuit mission among the Mohawks was established in 1667. This may have been true, or the village at the Martin site may have been one of the small outlying settlements of a few families connected with the Caughnawaga castle.
The Martin site was occupied by the Mohawks before they had entirely lost their skill at working bone and stone. Scraps of brass from the white man's kettles were found side by side with pieces of clay pottery. Flint arrowheads were still used as well as the new brass arrows. Mr. Hartley's collection from the site includes one of the rare finds of a stemmed arrow on a Mohawk site. It may have been made or brought to the village by a captive from another tribe. Musket balls and gun-flints show Mohawks were supplementing their bows and arrows with firearms.
The collection includes a variety of Venetian glass trade beads, and a well-made bone pin or punch, a cylinder of bone which may have been, a "pitching tool" of the sort used for fine flint chipping, after the larger flakes had been struck off with a hammerstone.
SECTION13: BRIGGS RUN SITE.
At some time during the colonial period, the Mohawks had a small village near the eastern end of Big Nose, on Briggs Run. Some authorities believe that this was the location of Canajorha, the village which Greenhalgh reported in 1677 as being "a stone's throw from the waterside". The Wemple site, farther up the same creek, was occupied in the very early historic or possibly the prehistoric period. There were also important pre-Iroquoian villages on this creek.
The characteristic designs on the Mohawk potsherds gives an almost infallible clue to the occupants of the village. Bits of brass from broken kettles have been made into saws, knives and arrowheads, although the Mohawks were still making their triangular flint arrows. A piece of seashell (conch?) shows that they were trading with the tribes along the Atlantic coast, probably bartering their well-made pottery (which is often found on Algonkian sites in New England and the Hudson valley) for the raw material of wampum and shell beads. A string of the varied beads used by the Mohawks at this period, made of rolled scraps of brass, of catlinite, of shell, or of glass, is shown.
For other specimens from the Briggs Run site see drawer A-2.
SECTION14: RANDALL SITE (ONEKAGONCKA?).
Mr. Hartley believed that Onekagoncka, the first Mohawk "castle" visited by Van den Bogaert in 1634, was located on the hilltop above Randall, where these relics were found. The iron knives, razors and scraper show that trade with the white man was well under way when the site was occupied. However, they were still making flint arrowheads and using red slate for ornaments, so that the identification may be the correct one.
See drawer A-44 for other material from this site.
SECTION15: BAUDER SITE.
This site was occupied by the Mohawks early in the colonial period while they were still making pottery of excellent quality. Compare the workmanship on the potsherds shown here with that from the other historic sites.
A bone awl and a bone comb illustrate their work with this material. However, the fine and coarse teeth of the comb could only have been made with the aid of the white man's metal tools. In the prehistoric period, the Mohawk combs, cut out of bone with flint tools, had only a few coarse teeth and simple, somewhat conventionalized decorations. Later comb-making became a fine art among the Iroquois.
Remnants of several metal tools are shown. The cutting edge of a iron axe is all that remains of a characteristic "tomahawk" of colonial times. Scraps of brass from broken kettles were rolled into tubular beads or conical bangles like those shown, or cut into triangular arrowhead like the three in this section. The broken stems of white clay trade pipe could be made into attractive beads, to supplement the bright colored glass beads available from the traders-at a price.
Other material from the Bauder site is in drawer A-44.
SECTION 16: COLEMAN SITE.
This Mohawk site on the Nose hill must have been an outlying village of one of the historic castles. It is represented in the Hartley collection by a string of trade beads, bits of brass, and flint.
SECTION 17: POTTERY HILL.
The Indian occupation of what is now Tribes Hill, opposite the mouth of the Schoharie Creek, was a subject to which Mr. Hartley devoted considerable study. The area on the western part of the promontory, which he gave the name Pottery Hill, revealed evidence of Mohawk occupation (shown in this section) and of the camps or villages of one or more pre-Iroquoian peoples (see Case B, section 29).
When the Mohawk castles were burned by the French in 1693 three clans (Turtle, Bear and Wolf) are said to have wintered at Tribes Hill, until the Dutch at Schenectady and Albany were able to help them rebuild. Mr. Hartley wrote: "It may be noted that General John S. Clark indicated on his map of the Mohawk Castles from 1642-1700, a site named Ogsadago at the exact location of Pottery Hill, and gives the date of occupation as late as 1700. General Clark is considered an able authority on the Mohawk sites, but research upon sites of these dates all produce many evidences of white trader contact. Nothing has ever been found on this site to indicate such contact."
In 1634, the Mohawks pointed out to Van den Bogaert and his companions the site of a castle which they had abandoned nine years before (i. e. 1625 or 1626), after an attack by the Mahicans. It was situated a high hill two leagues east of their Lower Castle of that time, Onekagoncka. It is possible that Mr. Hartley's finds of Mohawk material, what he called Pottery Hill, may refer to this abandoned village, although most historians have looked for it somewhere on the south side of the Mohawk River between Fort Hunter and Amsterdam. No Mohawk sites, other than traces of pottery, which probably mark the sites of small hunters' cabins such as are mentioned in the 1634 account, have ever been found east of Fort Hunter.
The Dutch settled a group of traders at Fort Orange (then called Fort Nassau) by 1614 and visited the Mohawks, so that this abandoned castle would date from the time of their first contact with the Iroquois. Any trade goods given or sold to the Mohawks would probably be treasured, and not consigned to the village dumps. If Pottery Hill is the site of this village of 1625, Mr. Hartley's failure to find evidence of white contact is not surprising. There are traces of Mohawk occupation on the eastern end of the hill, underneath the houses of the present village, and this may have been General Clark's Ogsadago.
* * * * * *
The relics from Pottery Hill are entirely consistent with its having been occupied before 1626. The fragments of pottery are of good quality, and there are pieces of three well-made clay pipes (see also drawer A-44). Especially interesting is one of the small human masks (No. 261) which were frequently placed at the corners or castellations of Mohawk pottery vessels. This is a fine example of a very unusual form. The four flint arrowheads shown are of the typical Mohawk-Iroquois type. A flint knife illustrates another type of flint tool in use in early times. An unfinished stone tablet (No. 119) may possibly be an intrusion from the nearby pre-Iroquoian site, but a fine sandstone bead (No. 104) could have been made equally well by the prehistoric Mohawks, before their arts had begun to degenerate under the influence of white trade goods, or by their predecessors. A fragment of red stone which appears to be Catlinite shows that this western material was beginning to be used by the Mohawks shortly after they arrived in the Mohawk Valley (see also Section 20, the Cayadutta site).
There are other examples of Mohawk material from Pottery Hill in drawer A-44.
SECTION 18: OTSTUNGO.
The locations of at least three palisaded Mohawk castles of the period when the Mohawks first came down from Canada and before trade with the whites began are known. They are situated on high, easily fortified promontories, several miles back from the river on the banks of the creeks after which they have been named. They are the Otstungo site, south of Fort Plain, the Cayadutta site near Sammonsville (see Sections 19-21), and the Garoga site. Various collectors report that they have found brass beads on these three sites. Whether this was obtained from the French before the Mohawks left the St. Lawrence valley, or from the Dutch traders left at Albany in 1614 is a question which will probably never be answered. The absence of other trade material shows that these sites must have been abandoned before any considerable trade with the Dutch began.
* * * * * *
Mr. Hartley's collection from the Otstungo site includes only the well decorated potsherds and the stone mortar shown here and in drawer A-44. He had nothing from the Garoga site. His collection from the Cayadutta site is displayed in the next section of this case, immediately to the right, on the two lower shelves of the upright section above, and in drawers A-50 and A-56.
SECTION 19: CAYADUTTA.
Cayadutta Fort, one of the three known prehistoric or Proto-historic castles of the Mohawks, has yielded many of the finest relics of the Iroquois ever found. Although it has been dug over for more than half a century, occasional lucky finds of stone, bone and pottery are still made. Fragments of the wooden posts of the stockade with which the site was protected have been found by several collectors, and one of these fragments is exhibited here.
To the left of Mr. Hartley's certificate of Life membership in the Van Epps-Hartley Chapter of the New York State Archeological Assoclation (named for him and his colleague, Percy M. Van Epps of Glenville), which forms the center of this section of the display, are shown four large Mohawk celts or ungrooved stone axes and part of a fifth. These are made of hard granite pebbles from the glacial drift, and are smoothed or polished over their entire surface. This painstaking workmanship was characteristic of the Iroquois, while the earlier and more primitive Indians frequently were content to sharpen the cutting edge of the axe and leave the rest in its rough state. There is also a small or miniature celt, which may well have been used as a chisel or skinning stone as well as an axe.
A portion of a roller pestle (No. 305) is rather rare from a Mohawk site, since the Iroquois women seem to have preferred to grind their corn with round, flat mullers or mealing stones, like the one displayed in Section 2 on the opposite side of this case. These were used with flat metates or shallow stone mortars, like the one from the Otstungo site in the section to the left of this one. The long roller pestles or wooden pestles were probably used with deep wooden mortars.
The Mohawks seem to have preferred small ball-shaped hammerstones to the larger pitted hammers found on most earlier sites. Several of these are shown here. A flint "blank", or oval-shaped blade, probably represents the basic material for knives and arrows, just as it was brought from the quarry. The Mohawks' own name for themselves was Canienga, "people of the flint." A card of flint arrowheads and scrapers illustrates the fine work of these early Mohawks. One arrow is stemmed--a type not usually made or used by the Mohawks. It may have been brought to the village by an Algonkian prisoner from one of the Hudson River tribes, or even taken from the body of a wounded Mohawk warrior who had been shot in a raid on the Mahikans. It is a type of arrow commonly found in Mahikan territory.
A highly polished grooved stone may have been used to grind and polish the delicate sharp-poninted bone awls for which these early Mohawks were famous (see Section 20, the lower shelf just above).
A selection of potsherds from Cayadutta illustrate variations in the characteristic Mohawk-Iroquois designs. Other examples are in drawers A-50 and A-56, below.
To the right of the certificate, the fragment of a stockade post is the most interesting relic. These posts were set in holes in the ground, with large boulders packed around their bases to keep them in place. The line of the stockade can be traced by mapping the position of these holes.
The collection includes another card of arrows and flint knives, several hammerstones, and a few quartz crystal fragments. Sharp-edged flakes of crystalline quartz were probably used as knives and scrapers, just as a cabinetmaker now uses glass in scraping wood.
Some of Mr. Hartley's finest pieces, from the Cayadutta site, are displayed on the two lower shelves directly above this section (Sections 20 and 21).
SECTION 20: CAYADUTTA.
This section comprises the lower shelf of the upright part of Case A, at the west end directly above Section 19. (See the diagram on page 4). Parts of the exhibit may be seen best from the other side of the case.
At the left (east) end of the shelf are a number of fine examples of the bone and antler implements made by the Mohawks in prehistoric times. A card contains an assortment of such material, including beavertooth chisels, animal teeth grooved and worn as pendants, fragments of a turtle-shell dish, and a few perforated deer phalanges (toe-bones) which were worn as pendants or bangles and are very common on Mohawk sites. A well preserved bone needle or bodkin (No. 2423), and engraved and perforated bone awl or sewing tool (No. 2419), and a bone tube or large bone bead, made from the hollow bone of some large bird, together with a pine of deer antler, are outstanding pieces in this section of the exhibit.
Near the middle of the shelf, are a number of fragments of Mohawk clay pipe stems, showing the fine texture of the Iroquois work, a piece of red paintstone (Hematite) and a little disc of clay, dropped by some Indian potter into the campfire and still bearing his thumbprint, baked into the clay. There is also nearly half of a miniature red clay pottery vessel (No. 2341) of typical Iroquois shape. Several of these miniature pots have been found on the Cayadutta and Garoga sites.
At the right-hand end of the shelf is another card on which are several unique specimens from this site. At the very top, is a crudely made conical pipe bowl of alabaster, with a small hole in one side through which a reed or willow stem could be inserted. It is unique. Three red stone beads, made either of Catlinite or exceptionally finegrained red slate, were found together and were apparently part of one necklace or the lost possessions of the same Indian. One is a round bead (No. 1268), the second a small pendant (No. 1264), and the third is a miniature bannerstone (No. 1266). Large polished stone implements of this sort were common among the pre-Iroquoian peoples of this area, but they were never made or used by the Iroquois. This fact makes this tine copy doubly interesting. It may have been the possession of some captive Algonkian, of a unique Mohawk copy of the ceremonial stones used by the River Indians. The material, too, is important: If slate it should indicate trade with the area east of the Hudson where slate abounds; if Catlinite (red pipestone) it must have come from Minnesota, and shows that the Mohawks, at the time they lived at Cayadutta, were trading with tribes far to the west. A small celt, a piece of perforated fresh-water mussel shell, some bone beads, and three pointed slate tools, polished by use, which may bave been pottery markers, complete the material on this card.
On this same shelf, facing the opposite side of the case, is a sketch of a large portion of a steatite (soapstone) vessel found on the flats of the Schoharie Creek. The material of which these vessels is made must have been brought from quarries in Pennsylvania or Connecticut. They were not used by the Mohawks, and this pot therefore dates back to one of the previous occupations of the Mohawk Valley by people with trade connections to the south or east.
SECTION 21: CAYADUTTA.
This section comprises the middle shelf at the west end of the upright portion of Case A. At the left end, are a pair of beaded Indian moccasins and two beaded pouches from the Kiowa and Comanche reservation in what is now Oklahoma. The rest of the shelf is devoted to a group of unusually large and fine examples of Mohawk pottery from the Cayadutta site. One sherd, consisting of nearly half of a pot rim which faces the other side of the case, came from Rice's Woods, a site of the historic period (see Section 4). At the extreme right-hand end of the shelf, are some sherds of a pottery vessel f rorn Mound Bottom, Tennessee (see also Case B). The Cayadutta pottery illustrates the best ceramic work of the Indians of the northeastern United States, while the pottery from Tennessee is typical of some of the work of the Indians of the southeastern states.
SECTION 22: POWDER HORNS.
This section is the top shelf at the west end of Case A. Displayed on it are six powder horns from Mr. Hartley's collection. They are: (a) a horn owned by Ebenezer Beach; (b) a horn of the French and Indian wars; (c) the Rowland horn; (d) a small priming horn owned by Henry V. Young; (e) a recent horn, probably made as a curio; and (f ) a pistol horn. Mr. Hartley's drawings of engraved powder horns are displayed in the drawers of both cases.
SECTIONS 23-25: MISCELLANEOUS RELICS.
These are the three shelves at the left-hand (east) end of the upright middle portion of Case A. The material displayed here consists mainly of weapons and other relics collected by Mr. Hartley from various localities.
In Section 23 (lower shelf) are a Venezuelan machete or bush-knife (frequently used as a weapon) and a group of Civil War swords, all from the A. 0. Veeder collection.
In Section 24 (middle shelf), are a sergeant's halberd, of fairly recent manufacture, found on the Mohawk River flats below Amsterdam, and some recent Indian relics. Pole-arms of this kind were used in the Civil War (see the shelf above for other examples), and the halberd may date from this period.
The Indian material on this shelf is very interesting. An iron tomahawk head (No. 2403), from the Snyder-Lockwood farm at Middleburg, N.Y., has been remounted on a wooden handle. This may have belonged to the mixed settlement of Indians from several tribes which the Mohawks established in the Schoharie valley, or it may date from one of the Indian raids of Revolutionary War times. A handsome carved Catlinite tomahawk-pipe is of the type made by the western Indians and still made and sold as souvenirs of the Minnesota pipestone quarries. The most unusual relic in this section, and one of the finest and most valuable in the entire collection, is the brass tomahawk-pipe (No. 2402), its handle restored, which was found by S. L. Frey, the noted Mohawk Valley archeologist, in a grave at the Mohawk castle of Tionontogen, near Sprakers. It has an ornamented brass head and pipe bowl, with a sharp, curved inset steel blade. It may have been a gift to the Mohawks from the French, who at that time (ca. 1642) were trying to establish missions in the Mohawk Valley. It was presented by Mr. Frey to W. L. Calver of New York, who in turn gave it to Mr. Hartley.
Section 25 (top shelf) contains a dress sword from the Vedder collection, supposed to have been worn during the War of 1812; two U. S. Pikes or halberds of the Civil War period; a sword found on the Fredericksburg battlefield; a metal powder-flask of the Civil War period and an early American axe-head.
(DRAWERS A-1 TO A-60)
A-11 A-7, A-13, A-19 to A-22, A-25 and A-26:
The Hartley collection of military uniform buttons of the British and American regiments which served in the French and Indian and Revolutionary wars. The collection is one of the most complete ever assembled, and is considered second only to that of W. L. Calver of New York City, with whom Mr. Hartley explored many of the army camps of upper Manhattan Island and Staten Island. This is an extremely valuable historical reference collection.
A-3131 A-37, A-43, A-49 and A-55:
The top row of drawers on the north side of Case A has been set aside for the collection of original paintings and drawings of engraved powder horns, made by Mr. Hartley. The collection is continued in Case B.
A-1: Military Buttons.
A-2: MISCELLANEOUS INDIAN ARTIFACTS.
Indian relics from the Oak Hill, Briggs Run, Caughnawaga, and Merkley sites (Mohawk-Iroquois), and from the Perch Lake mounds in Jefferson County and the Stryker site near Gilboa. The Stryker site seems to belong to the pre-Iroquoian Owasco culture. The Owasco, people, who may have been the ancestors of one of the historic Algonkian tribes, had many settlements in the Schoharie valley, which was a natural thoroughfare to the south. Iroquois designs have been copied in the decoration of some of these pot rims, indicating that the two peoples had come into contact. Whether this means that the Stryker site was inhabited when the Mohawks first arrived from the north, or whether the Owasco people were neighbors of some other of the Iroquois tribes, who reached New York before the Mohawks did, is the question which can be answered only by careful excavations on this and other sites.
A-3: MISCELLANEOUS INDIAN ARTIFACTS.
Indian relics, from several sites on the Mohawk River flats (Klock's Flats and McClumpha sites), from a site on the Hartley farm, from Three Mile Point on the west side of Otsego Lake, and from sites in Rhode Island, West Virginia and North Carolina.
A-4 to A-6: Empty.
A-7: Military Buttons.
A-8: Mohawk Indian Potsherds from the Wemple and Osseruenon (Auriesville) sites. See also Sections I and 3, just above.
A-9toA-12: Empty.
A-13: Military Buttons.
A-14: Mohawk potsherds and other artifacts from the England's Woods site. See also Section 5, above.
A-15toA-18: Empty.
A-19 to A-22: Military Buttons.
A-23: Empty:
A-24: Civil War relics from the Battle of the Wilderness.
A-25 and A-26: Military Buttons.
A-27: INDIAN RELICS FROM THE COLD SPRING SITE. See also Section 10 and Case B, Section 26. Note several examples of the mottled grey and white flint from the Indian quarry near the falls of Knauderack Creek, on Big Nose.
A-28 to A-30: Empty.
A-31: Powder horn drawings.
A-32: Mohawk potsherds from the Palatine site. See also Section 7.
A-33: Colonial relics from Fort George, Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, Canada. The collection includes: (a) clay pipes, gun flints and fragments of chinaware; (b) miscellaneous iron trinkets, a silver spoon initialed "LF", musket balls, pins from Fort Erie, and a clay pipe bowl; and (c) fragments of leather, iron cutlery, scissors, a thimble, a comb fragment, and saw filers. Also gun flints from Fort William Henry, Lake George; musket balls from British encampments on Manhattan Island; and samples of a breccia formation from Fort Ticonderoga.
A-34: MISCELLANEOUS COLONIAL AND REVOLUTIONARY RELICS.
The collection includes: (a) examples of bone buttons made by British soldiers at Fort George, Ontario; (b) flint artifacts from the vicinity of Fort George; (c) relics from the British camps on Manhattan, including folding knives, buckles, and musket balls; (d) a bullet mould from Williamsburg, Ontario; (e) flint artifacts from the vicinity of Fort Erie, Ontario; (f) flint implements from Chippewa, Ontario; (g) nails and a fork from Fort George; (h) a spoon, gun flints, musket balls, bone used for making buttons, and other relics from Fort William Henry, Lake George; (i) bone used in making buttons, from Richmond, Staten Island; (j) gun flints, musket balls and other relics from Fort Frederick at Crown Point; and (k) part of a British shako plate of the War of 1812, from Fort George.
A-35 and A-36: Empty.
A-37: Powder horn drawings.
A-38: MISCELLANEOUS INDIAN IMPLEMENTS.
The collection includes Indian artifacts from a site south of the Lake George outlet at Ticonderoga; from an Oneida camp on Chaumont Bay, Jefferson County (note the typical Iroquoian decoration on the pottery); and from three Mohawk sites, the Martin site (see also Section 12), and the Barlow site (colonial trade material proves this was occupied in historic times), and Gandawague (see also Section 2).
A-39: Sea-shells; a photograph of a stone axe from a dolmen in Brittany; and a watercolor of the original Sir William Johnson home at Fort Johnson.
A-40: MISCELLANEOUS COLONIAL AND REVOLUTIONARY RELICS.
The collection includes: (a) buttons and British relics from Staten Island; (b) a gun lock from Indian Hill, Onondaga County, N.Y.; (c) relics from the British camp and Battle of Chippewa, Niagara River, Ontario, Canada; (d) musket balls and gun flints from Fort Ticonderoga; and (e) miscellaneous relics from Fort Ticonderoga.
A-41: Fossils from this vicinity.
A-42: Empty.
A-43: Powder horn drawings.
A-44: Mohawk Indian relics from the Onek-agoncka, Bauder, Otstungo and Pottery Hill sites, and from an unidentified site. See also Sections 145 15, 17 and 18.
A-45: Clay pipes from various places and of various ages. Two were taken from Indian graves at Osseruenon, Auriesville.
A-46: Local fossils.
A-47 and A-48: Empty.
A-49: Powder horn drawings.
A-50: Mohawk Indian potsherds from Cayadutta Fort, near Sammonsville, Fulton County. This was one of the three prehistoric Mohawk castles. Note the characteristic Mohawk-Iroquois designs. See also Sections 19 through 21 and drawer A-56.
A-51: Buttons and emblems of various kinds; campaign badges, and centennial medals.
A-52 to A-54: Empty.
A- 5 5: Powder horn drawings.
A-56: Mohawk Indian potsherds from the Cayadutta site. See also Sections 19-21 and drawer A-50.
A-57: MISCELLANEOUS INDIAN RELICS.
The collection includes: (a) two strings of clay pipestem fragments from Gandawague (see also Section 2n and drawer A-38); (b) pipe fragments from Caughnawaga (see also drawer A-2); (d) beads taken from an Egyptian mummy; (e) two strands of trade beads f rom an Indian grave in Cayuga County, N.Y.; (f) trade beads from various sites.
A-58 to A-60: Empty.
CASE B
(Sections 26-48)
Just as Case A was set aside for an exhibit of material collected from Mohawk Indian sites, Case B has been used to show the implements of the various Indian peoples who lived in the Mohawk Valley before the Iroquois settled here in the late 1500's. How far back this pre-Iroquoian occupation extends nobody knows, but professional archeologists, who are working in this and nearby states, seem to be of the opinion that nothing yet found is much older than 2000 years.
Most of Mr. Hartley's collecting from these early sites was done along the Mohawk River flats. Here generation after generation and tribe after tribe of Indians had lived, and here the best camping sites were occupied from the earliest to the latest times. The result is a mixture of material which only painstaking excavation could completely straighten out, since 200 years of cultivation have turned the soil and its contents over and over again until their original associations are completely lost. Only by digging below the plow-line can their story be recovered. However, by comparing these surface finds with material found on undisturbed sites elsewhere in this area or in the State, it is possible to arrive at some idea of what Indians were here in ancient times and where they lived.
The case also includes material which Mr. Hartley collected from Indian sites in Tennessee and Georgia, and other material not native to the Mohawk Valley, together with historical and other relics.
Mr. Hartley's paintings and drawings of engraved powder horns are displayed in drawers B-1, B-7, B-13, B-19, B-25, B-31, B-37 and B-43. Drawers B-32 to B-36 contain his mineral collection, and drawers B-38 to B-42, B-45 and B-48, contain fossils from geological strata in this region. Mr. Hartley's collection of coins is on display in drawers B-44, B-46 B-47 and B-54, and his stamp collection has been placed in drawers B-49 to B-53 and B-55 to B-60.
| Drawers B-31 to B-60 | ||
| Sections | Sections 46-48 | |
| CASE "B": | Sections 43-45 | 35 to 42 |
| Sections | 1 to 34 |
Drawers B-1 to B-30
SECTION 26: COLD SPRING SITE.
Certain locations have always been attractive to mankind as the sites of his towns and villages. This was true of the Indians as of ourselves. The intersection of two streams-a high, well drained, easily fortified promontory-the neighborhood of a never-failing water supply, were all favorite camp sites for early man and for his civilized successors.
The Mohawk River flats near the mouth of the Schoharie had several of these characteristics. Their fertile soil provided easily tilled gardens for the Indian's corn and beans. The junction of the Schoharie and the Mohawk was also the junction of two natural highways over which the Indians could travel on foot and by canoe to east, west or south. The river was well stocked with fish, the upland forests with game. And, just west of the Schoharie, was a large, never-failing spring (for which this site is named) which provided clean, plentiful drinking water even in time of freshet when the river and the Schoharie were filled with mud.
Indians, of many different groups, had their villages around the Cold Spring and on the flats extending to the east and west, on both sides of the river. Most of the material exhibited in this case comes from these flats, rather arbitrarily designated according to the owner of the property. But, in Indian times, there were no line fences, and even the casual observer will see how similar the arrowheads and other implements picked up on different parts of the flats are, and how different from the Mohawk implements shown in Case A.
When the Mohawks rebuilt their "castles" after the French raid of 1693, the Wolf clan was moved from the western end of the valley. to the eastern location formerly held by the Turtles, and settled on the flats near the Cold Spring. Their relics are on display in Section 10 of Case A. The material shown here was made and used by their predecessors during many hundreds of years.
* * * * * *
At the back of the case is a group of net sinkers and harnmerstones, These notched flat pebbles, used to hold in place the Indians' nets of woven bark and hemp fibers, are found on almost every fishing village from the earliest to the latest times. Large hammerstones like these, usually with pits pecked in either side to give a better grip, and with the edges battered where they have been used to chip flint, are also typical of early sites.
Two rows of flint quarry blanks show how the raw material of the Indian's stone age industry was brought from the quarry to the arrowmaker. These rough blades were probably the equivalent of money, for flint from certain locations was traded far and wide across the United States in ancient times.
The grooved axe at the very left of this section of the case has had its handle restored. Grooved axes are rare in this region, and seem to have originated in the south and west and to have been brought up the Hudson by people of the Coastal culture, probably the ancestors of the Algonkian tribes, the Mahicans and their allies, of colonial times. A number of these axes were found on the hilltop at Auriesville during excavations for the Shrine of Our Lady of Martyrs, showing that the Algonkians had lived there before the Mohawks arrived in the Mohawk Valley.
Next to the axe are several pieces of soapstone or steatite from broken stone vessels. One (No. 821) has been carved with a simple decoration. This material must have come from quarries in Connecticut or Pennsylvania, the nearest sources. It was rather widely used by the early Indians of this region, for pipes, beads and ceremonial implements as well as for cooking pots.
The center of the display shows the variety of flint implements made by the early Indians. The Mohawks were very conservative, and made arrows of only one form-narrow-based, thin triangles-but most of the earlier tribes made a great variety of notched and stemmed arrowheads, spearheads and knives, together with scrapers and perforators. It is possible that each type of point had its special use; if so we shall probably never know what that use was.
At the front of the case, are several larger pieces from the Cold Spring site. At the left, is a large flint axe, of which only the cutting edge or bit has been polished. These axes are common in Europe, but rare here, where most axes were made of granite or some other hard stone, less easily splintered than flint though probably not as sharp. Next, comes an axe which has also been used as a sinew-stone, or stone on which bone tools could be sharpened and sinews worked down to smoothness. The shallow grooves left by this secondary use show clearly. Next to it is a sinew-stone with very deep grooves, showing long use. Note the similarity of this tool to a lump of shoemaker's wax-the clue to its use. On the right of this row of implements are a broken celt (ungrooved axe), which has been used again as a hammer, and a perfect celt.
SECTION 27: SUMMER HOUSE POINT.
The great swamp at the bend of the Sacandaga River, known as the Sacandaga Vlaie, which is now submerged under the waters of the Sacandaga Reservoir, was one vast hunting ground for the Indians of this part of New York State. All kinds of wild fowl nested in its waterways, beaver had their houses there, deer, elk and moose waded in its shallows, and bears came to prey on them. Fish of all kinds abounded there. Consequently it is not surprising that a multitude of Indian camp sites are found on the sandy knolls and ridges that surrounded the swamp. Many of these are now under water or turned into islands, where at low water the collector finds scores of arrowheads and bits of pottery washed out of the sand.
One such site was on Summerhouse Point, where Sir William Johnson himself had a hunting lodge overlooking the vlaie. There is not enough material here to say which group of Indians made these relics, but from the shape of the arrowheads it is not likely that they date back to the time of the Laurentian culture, one of the first if not the first Indian groups to live in this region.
* * * * * *
Note the varied shapes of the projectile points from this site. The triangular points are not like the narrow Mohawk triangles shown in Case A. One very fine example of a flint drill or perforator is shown, and. near it, a fragment of a small sandstone gorget or pendant (No. 1772) which shows clearly the conical holes left on the face and edge by just such a flint drill. Note how accurately the holes drilled from opposite sides by the Indian workman have met in the middle.
The few potsherds shown may be compared with the Mohawk sherds in Case A. The softer, cruder nature of the pre-Iroquois ware is evident, though not enough remains to give a very clear idea of the decoration.
SECTION 28: MOHAWK RIVER FLATS.
This board shows a variety of large and small projectile points picked up by Mr. Hartley on various sites along the Mohawk River. The fact that they are notched or stemmed shows that they were made by the pre-Iroquoian inhabitants of the Mohawk Valley, the Algonklans and their predecessors. The broad, equilateral triangles, usually with concave bases, probably were made by Indians of the Owasco culture who seem to have lived in this region shortly before the Iroquois arrived. The unusually large spear is from McKinney Hill; the knife or spear of mottled material is made of flint from the Knauderack quarry on Big Nose; a small triangular arrow (No. 1698) from the Klock site is made of yellow jasper, a form of flint which does not occur in the Mohawk Valley and must have been brought in by trade from New England or Pennsylvania.
SECTION 29: POTTERY HILL.
This site on Tribe's Hill, which Mr. Hartley named "Pottery Hill", was occupied by several different Indian peoples up to and including the Mohawks. The pottery which gave it its name is Mohawk (see Case A, Section 17), but the relics shown here were made and used by people who were here long before the Mohawks ever reached the Mohawk Valley.
* * * * * *
The green soapstone elbow-pipe (so called because the bowl and stem join in an angle like a bent elbow) is one of the finest ever found in the Mohawk Valley.
The grooved and polished object (No. 132) may be an unfinished bannerstone or even a grooved axe. The fine example of a stone gouge (No. 117) almost certainly belongs to the old Laurentian culture, which may mean that the other implements do too. A small stone mortar or possibly a paint dish (No. 116) is another rarity.
Several celts and a variety of flint projectile points show by their notched and stemmed forms that they date from before the time of the Iroquois.
Half of a broken bannerstone (No. 113) illustrates the shape of these mysterious winged implements. Their use is entirely unknown, although it seems logical to suppose that the large hole drilled through the center was made so that the stone could be placed on the end of a staff of some kind.
A fragment of pink steatite (No. 820), from a soapstone pot, an unusually large flint blade (No. 137), which may have been used as a hoe, and a well worn sinew-stone made from a broken adze are interesting examples of Indian workmanship at this early period. These pre-Iroquoian peoples were much finer workmen in polished stone than the Mohawks,, who excelled in bone work and pottery.
Examples of the two chief types of hammerstone, used by the Indians of this region, are shown. One is the rough river pebble, pitted to give a firmer grip and battered on the edges, showing how it was used. The other is a flint hammer, battered all over its surface until it is virtually a ball. It is quite likely that these flint or chert hammers were used to peck and batter into shape axes and other stone implements which were later to be polished.
SECTION 30: DUFFEL's FLATS NO. 1.
Mr. Hartley's catalogue shows that he collected from two sites on the river flats belonging to men named Duffel. The one, from which these specimens came, was in the Town of Mohawk, on the north side of the Mohawk River near the foot of Tribes Hill. The other was opposite it on the south shore.
* * * * * *
Probably the relics of two or three different Indian groups are mixed on this site as on the other river flats. The wide-based arrowheads shown here are typical of the Laurentian sites in this vicinity, and the flint perforators could have been made by this very early group, but the fragment of an unusual chlorite or steatite stone pipe, with a decorated "handle" under the bowl, could not have been made by the Laurentian people, who knew nothing of tobacco or agriculture of any form. An exactly similar pipe, unbroken but without the engraved lines on the "handle", was found on an island below Amoskeag Falls, at Manchester, New Hampshire, and is illustrated in American Antiquity, Volume 7, p. 359 (April, 1942). This would seem to indicate either that it was brought from New England by raiders or traders, or that the people who lived here were of the same or a similar culture as those at Manchester.
SECTION 31: DUFFEL'S FLATS NO. 2.
These flats, on the south side of the Mohawk River in the Town of Glen, are merely one section of the flats which extend continuously along the river and which are to all intents and purposes one continuous site of early times.
The collection shows several large quarry blanks or flint knives, a variety of stemmed and notched projectile points (some of the mottled grey and white Knauderack flint) including one with an unusual bifurcated or forked base, and a number of typical scrapers. These scrapers, made from flakes of flint with one beveled edge, are among the commonest implements on pre-Iroquoian sites along the river flats, but are rare on Mohawk village sites.
See also drawer B-28.
SECTION 32: SHROPMEYER's FLATS.
This is the name by which Mr. Hartley designated another section of the Mohawk River flats between Fort Hunter and Auriesville. The material is similar to that from the Cold Spring, Duffel's and other sites along the flats at this point. The large variety of scrapers, shown at the front of the case, large and small, made from flakes or carefully chipped in stemmed forms, is particularly interesting. There are also arrowheads of several notched and stemmed forms, and a number of large flint spearheads.
See also drawer B-28.
SECTION 33: CONSALUS VLAIE.
Consalus Vlaie is the bed of a small post-glacial lake near Galway, N.Y., now grown up as a swamp. A number of very interesting finds of Indian material have been made around its borders, including a cache or deposit of more than 100 flint blades found by Mr. Hawley McWilliams, who gave the blades to the National Museum. Four of them, however) all of the same material and all showing the same fine workmanship, came into Mr. Hartley's possession, and are displayed here (Nos. 343-346).
Also, from this site, is the rare bar amulet (No. 350) of polished black stone. Such amulets seem to have originated in the mound-builder area of Ohio and the Mississippi valley, and the discovery of one near Consalus Vlaie may indicate that people from that area camped here. This theory is made even more likely by the fact that such thin leaf -shaped blades as those shown here were characteristic of the Point Peninsula culture, found quite commonly in the western part of the state. Such discoveries are only clues to the truth, however, and excavations would be necessary to determine what Indians lived at this place. As a matter of fact, other archeologists have pointed out similarities between this material and that from cemeteries of the so-called "Red Paint People" of Maine.
A thin, rectangular celt or axe made of red slate, a large spearhead, and a stemmed arrowhead are also from this site.
SECTION 34: MISCELLANEOUS MOHAWK VALLEY SITES.
The material in this section of the case was bought by Mr. Hartley from the A. 0. Veeder collection in Scotia. It is all from the Mohawk Valley, but there is no clue as to where any individual piece came from, with the exception of a notched adze (No. 790) from Fort George.
The most unusual specimen in this section, and one of the rarest and most unusual in the entire collection, is the small pendant or amulet of polished banded slate, with a mouth and eyes crudely scratched on one end to give the semblance of a bird or animal head. A hole has been drilled through the opposite corner with a flint drill (note the conical pit left by the tapering drill-point) so that the amulet could be hung from a thong or string.
Other fine pieces in the Veeder collection include several celts of various sizes and types, a gouge (No. 798) and an unusually large net sinker (No. 822).
SECTION 35: CIVIL WAR RELICS.
This section of the case is devoted to an assortment of historic relics collected by Mr. Hartley from several sources. Most of them are of the Civil War period, but a few are relics of the Colonial and Revolutionary wars.
In the latter classification are a pistol butt plate marked "AR" ("Anne Regina"-Queen Anne of England, 1702-1714), found on the Cadaughrity flats at the mouth of the Schoharie in 1895, a card of nails from Fort Ticonderoga, and some cannon balls from Chippewa, Ontario, Canada, a battlefield of the War of 1812.
The Civil War collection includes relics of various kinds from the battlefields of Fredericksburg, Cedar Mountain and the Wilderness, including an interesting sword with the hilt made from a corn-cob. A metal powder-can at the back of the case is from the old Hoosic Rifle Powder Mill at Schaghticoke, N.Y.
SECTION 36: MISCELLANEOUS MOHAWK VALLEY SITES.
This large board contains Indian flint implements, for the most part spearheads or large knives and quarry blanks, from a variety of sites along the Mohawk River flats. Included are four gun flints (upper left corner), a fragment of crystalline quartz (center of board), and several fragments of polished slate or claystone (lower corners). The exhibit serves to show the similarity of the material to be found on these flats.
SECTION 37:
A mortar and pestle from New Sharon, New Jersey.
SECTION 38:
Two cards, the one on the left showing projectile points from the Langdon farm, Oostanaula River, near Reeves, Georgia; the other with projectiles from "Jersey Pines", Monmouth County, New Jersey.
SECTION 39:
A large roller pestel found near Middleburg, Schoharie County, N.Y.
SECTION 40:
A card of Indian arrowheads from Washington and Oregon. Note the obsidian and jasper of which the arrows are made.
SECTION 41: TWO SPEARHEADS FROM CROWN POINT, N.Y.
One of these spears (No. 693) is made of grey quartzite of a kind which is found in a quarry northeast of Vergennes, Vermont. Quartzite is far more difficult to chip than flint, and this spear shows to good advantage the skill of the Indian craftsman who made it. The second spear (No. 692) is a very unusual barbed form. Very little is known of the archeology of the Champlain valley.
SECTION 42: MATERIAL FROM TENNESSEE AND GEORGIA.
The final section on this side of Case B is devoted to a variety of Indian material which Mr. Hartley collected on a tour of the south. Most of the southern Indians, even in early colonial times, seem to have built mounds as house and temple platforms as well as for other purposes. Mr. Hartley's relics come chiefly from the neglected village sites near these mounds, which have been neglected, until recently, by excavators. Both flint work and pottery contrast strongly with the work of the Indians in this region.
Two stone discs and a small celt are from the Great Etowah Mound in Georgia, one of the most famous mounds in America.
Two large flint spades from Duck River, Tennessee, illustrate a type of implement quite common throughout the south and in the Mississippi valley, which the New York State Indians do not seem to have used to any great extent. These were the chief agricultural tools of the Indian women.
The arrow and spearheads used by the southern Indians were notched or stemmed like those of the pre-Iroquoian tribes of this region, but the actual forms are quite different. Compare these with the local material elsewhere in this case.
See also drawers B-2 to B-6 and B-8 to B-12.SECTION43: MISCELLANEOUS LOCAL AND SOUTHERN INDIAN RELICS.
This section comprises the lower shelf at the west end of Case B, directly over Section 42. Included in the material on display, are artifacts from the Mohawk River flats, from Georgia and New Jersey, and from France.
At the left-hand end of the shelf is a roller pestle from Terwilliger's Rift, and two unusually large net-sinkers. It is frequently suggested that sinkers of this size may have been used with heavy deep-water nets or seines.
A carved stone effigy of a human head was found near Sprakers or Randall. There is no clue to the identity of the Indians who made it, although such heads seem to have been quite common among the Delawares. If proof is ever obtained that the Delawares lived in this region, this head may become of considerable importance as corroborative evidence.
A much-weathered coup-de-poing or fist-axe, from the Somme Valley of France, illustrates the work of Paleolithic man at a period long before bows and arrows and pottery had been invented. It is probably tens or even hundreds of thousands of years old, since these weapons or tools were made by the first human beings known to have lived in western Europe.
A large grooved axe, from Lee County, Virginia, shows a typical example of the form which these tools or weapons took in the south. Very few have been found in the Mohawk and Hudson valleys.
Another group of flint blades from Tennessee may be compared with those in the section just below. These so-called hoes or spades are rarely found here.
A highly polished grooved stone implement may be a form of bannerstone.
A second grooved axe comes from "Jersey Pines", Allentown, New Jersey. Compare this with similar axes in this case from Virginia and New York. There is a much greater variation in the forms of grooved axes than in the simple grooveless axes or celts.
A peculiarly chipped, so-called "rotary" point is from the Langdon farm) Reeves County, Georgia. It has been suggested that this type of chipping would make the arrow or spear spin in the air and give it greater penetrating power.
Three hammerstones from New Jersey are followed by a large stone maul or grooved hammer found by Mr. Hartley on the Hutton farm in the Town of Florida. These large hammers are frequently found at Indian flint quarries, where they were used to break up blocks of flint into easily transported pieces.
At the right-hand end of the shelf, is a group of three small celts from three widely separated areas. They show how very similar these simple, fundamental tools are the world over. This does not show that there was a connection between the ancient people of these districts, but merely that there are only a few ways in which such a tool can be made. One of the celts is from Georgia, one from Tennessee, and one from the late Stone Age ruins at Carnac, Brittany.
SECTION44: MISCELLANEOUS INDIAN RELICS.
This section comprises the middle shelf of the upright middle portion of Case B, at the west end. Much of the material shown is local.
At the extreme left-hand end of the shelf is a .44 caliber revolver and ammunition made by M. & C. Scott & Son.
A fine bannerstone (No. 112), seen best from the other side of the case) comes from St. Lawrence County. The use of these stone implements is unknown. The hole was drilled with a rotary drill of some kind and does not show the conical taper which results when a flint drill is used.
A pestle from the Shropmeyer Flats, a "paint pestle" from Wayne County, Nebraska, a hematite plummet from Tennessee, and an unusual polished stone object of unknown use continue the collection. The latter specimen (No. 788) is unlike anything ever found elsewhere in the Mohawk Valley, and while it appears to be a pendant of some kind, nothing definite can be said about its age or use.
A steatite potsherd, showing one of the lugs or handles often carved at the ends of these stone vessels, was found on the DeGraff flats near Amsterdam.
A group of colonial relics came from the site of the "lost" settlement of Warrensborough or Warrensbush, on the Chuctanunda flats.
Two recent pipe bowls are of unknown origin. Two pieces of Iroquois pipe stems come from Onondaga County. They are very similar to Mohawk pipes. They are contrasted here with several fragments of pipe stems and bowls from the Etowah Mound flats, in Georgia. A number of differences between the handiwork of the two widely separated groups of Indians can be seen. While the southern pipes were more elaborate and ornate, the Iroquois ware seems to have been smoother and harder.
SECTION 45: INDIAN POTTERY, TENNESSEE.
This section comprises the top shelf of the upright center portion of Case B, at the west end.
A Dutch wooden shoe at the left-hand end of the shelf is a souvenir of Amsterdam, Holland.
A grooved weight is from Bouck's Falls, in the Schoharie Valley.
A large number of fragments of effigy pots come from Duck River, Tennessee. The Indians of that region made their vessels in the forms of various animals and birds, often with handles and legs. This type of pottery was never made by the Indians of this section.
At the right-hand end of the shelf is a small complete pottery vessel from Mound Bottom, Tennessee, with two fragments of human jaw from the grave in which the pot was found. This was probably an example of the less elaborate utility ware of the Tennessee Indians.
SECTION 46: MISCELLANEOUS RELICS.
This section comprises the bottom shelf at the east end of the upright center section of Case B.
Colonial relics include several rum bottles from the British 17th Regiment camp on upper Manhattan Island; a piece of floor timber from Fort Erie, Ontario; a lock from a gun chest, two fire steel, a flint, and spectacle bows which belonged to Peter Young (1764-1814), Mr. Hartley's great grandfather; an early ink stand, snuffers, and snuff bottle; and a spike from the Van Alstine house in Canajoharie.
A group of iron spearheads from Nairobi, Africa, are also shown on this shelf.
SECTION 47: MISCELLANEOUS RELICS.
This section comprises the middle shelf at the east end of Case B.
Among the relics shown are: a flint lock pistol, a pistol butt-plate and a gunlock from early weapons; ice creepers and a pike butt or tent peg from the 17th Regiment camp on Manhattan; an early iron hoe long in the possession of the Hartley family; an elk tooth from a Sioux chieftain's coat; relics from the site of Warrensborough, on Chuctanunda Creek; a group of pistol flints; a mattock from Ticonderoga; a broad axe, much worn, from the Pierce farm; and a cap ornament of the New York State Militia (1830 to 1840).
SECTION 48: MINERALS AND FOSSILS.
This section comprises the top shelf on the east end of Case B.
The collection includes good examples of petrified wood (not from this locality), quartz, and calcite crystals.
(DRAWERS B-1 TO B-60)
B-1, B-7, B-13, B-19, B-25, B-31, B-37 and B-43:
Continuing the collection of paintings and drawings of engraved powder horns. See also drawers A-31, A-37, A-43, A-49 and A-55 in Case A. B-32 to B-36:
Minerals collected by Mr. Hartley from this region. B-38 to B-42, B-45 and B-48:
Fossils from local formations. B-44, B-46) B-47 and B-54:
Mr. Hartley's collection of coins and currency. B-49 to B-53 and B-55 to B-60:
Mr. Hartley's stamp collection.
B-1: Powder horn drawings.
B-2: Flint artifacts from the flats around the great Etowah Mound, Georgia.
B-3: Indian artifacts from the Etowah Mound, Georgia. Note the clay and stone disks.
B-4: Flint artifacts from the Langdon farm, Reeves, Georgia.
B- 5: Flint artifacts from various sites in Georgia.
B-6: Flint artifacts from around the Etowah Mound, Georgia.
B-7: Powder horn drawings.
B-8: Potsherds from Mound Bottom and Duck River, Tennessee. Note the difference between this typical southeastern Indian pottery and that from the Mohawk Valley.
B-9: Flint artifacts from Humphrey County, Tennessee.
B-10: Flint artifacts from Humphrey County, Tennessee.
B-11: Flint artifacts from Humphrey County, Tennessee.
B-12: Flint implements from sites in Tennessee and Georgia.
B-13: Powder horn drawings.
B-14: Pre-Iroquoian Indian implements from the Mohawk River flats. Compare these with the implements displayed in the case above, and note the similarity between the arrowheads and other flint implements from all these river-flats sites.
B-15: Pre-Iroquoian Indian implements from Schoharie and Middleburg, Manhattan Island and various sites in the Mohawk Valley.
B-16: Drills and reamers from sites in the Mohawk Valley; also other flint artifacts from Manhattan Island and the Mohawk Valley.
B-17: Indian implements from the Mohawk River flats. Compare with those in the preceding drawers.
B-18: Indian implements (pre-Iroquoian) from various Mohawk Valley sites, including (a) Pioneer Valley, Warrensburg, N.Y.; (b) the Hartley farm and vicinity; (c) the Fly farm; (d) Bronson's flats; (e) Young Lake, Town of Florida.
B-19: Powder horn drawings.
B-20: Indian implements from the southern states, including three cards from Virginia and one from Maryland.
B-21: Indian implements from Ohio; South Carolina; Chittenden County, Vermont; and Franklin County, Maine.
B-22: Indian implements from Indiana; Wisconsin; St. Genevieve County, Missouri; and Illinois.
B-23: Indian implements from Kingsbridge Road and Academy Street, New York City; Waterville, Onondaga County, N.Y.; and Indian Hill, Onondaga County, N.Y.
B-24: Pre-Iroquoian Indian. implements from various Mohawk Valley sites.
B-25: Powder horn drawings.
B-26: A representative collection of various kinds of flint used by the pre-Iroquoian tribes of this region. The material has been collected from the Knauderack quarry; Schoharie valley; the Cold Springs site; the Indian flint quarries at Coxsackie; Houck's Flats; Manlius; Duffel's Flats; and the Hartley farm. Material from Colorado and Wayne County, Nebraska, is also shown for purposes of comparison.
B-27: Indian implements from various Mohawk Valley sites.
B-28: Indian implements from Duffel's Flats and Shropmeyer's Flats. See also Sections 30-32.
B-29: Indian implements from various sites in the Mohawk Valley and Schoharie.
B-30: A miscellaneous collection including: (a) clay concretions from the Coxsackie clay beds: (b) Indian implements from various Mohawk Valley sites; (c) historical relics from Fort Crown Point; and (d) concretions from the Briggs Run Indian site.
B-31: Powder horn drawings.
B-32: Quartz crystal from the Mohawk Valley.
B-33: Minerals.
B-34: Minerals.
B-35: Minerals.
B-36: Minerals.
B-37: Powder horn drawings.
B-38: Fossils from local formations.
B-39: Fossils.
B-40: Fossils.
B-41: Fossils.
B-42: Fossils.
B-43: Powder horn drawings.
B-44: THE HARTLEY COIN COLLECTION.
This drawer begins the collection of coins and currency made by Mr. Hartley. Included are miscellaneous foreign coins and a series of American coins, among which are: silver dollars, half-dollars, twenty cent pieces, dimes, a Flying Eagle cent, an Isabella quarter, Jackson cents, nickels, half-cent pieces, two-cent pieces, three-cent pieces, of both nickel and silver, half-dime pieces, five-cent pieces, and colonial cents.
B-45: Fossils.
B-46: CURRENCY COLLECTION.
Included in this drawer are examples of Continental currency of 1776 and 1778; Montgomery County seals of 1847; broken bank bills; Brazilian notes; Civil War cents; and some miscellaneous foreign money.
B-47: Coins, including U. S. copper cents from 1793 through 1909, and miscellaneous foreign coins.
B-48: Fossils.
B-49: THE HARTLEY STAMP COLLECTION.
This drawer is the first of eleven which contain Mr. Hartley's collection of U. S. and foreign stamps. It contains cut envelope squares of 1887, and three other envelopes dated 1887, 1899 and 1887.
B-50: STAMP COLLECTION. Postage due stamps of early issues; newspaper stamps ( 1875 to 1885 postal service stamps; and postcards (1873 to 1920).
B-51: STAMP COLLECTION, Internal revenue stamps of the 1st, 2nd and 3rd issues.
B-52: STAMP COLLECTION.
A letter sheet of 1886; official envelopes of the War Department and Post Office Department (1873-1875); proprietary stamps of 1898; documentary stamps of 1898; special delivery stamps; postage due stamps; registration stamps; playing card stamps; and New York State bedding stamps.
B-53: STAMP COLLECTION.
Surcharged stamps of Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines; Cuban and Puerto Rican envelopes; parcel post stamps; Tuberculosis Christmas Seals (1908 to 1941); and miscellaneous Canadian stamps.
B-54: CURRENCY COLLECTION.
Confederate currency of 1864; currency of the various southern states; and U. S. fractional currency.
B-55: STAMP COLLECTION.
Early U. S. postage stamps (1847 to 1893).
B-56: STAMP COLLECTION.
U. S. postage stamps, including the Buffalo Exposition (1901); Jamestown Exposition; Louisiana Exposition; and Trans-Mississippi issues (1894-1930).
B-57: STAMP COLLECTION.
U. S. Commemorative stamps.
B-58: STAMP COLLECTION.
U. S. Commemoratives up to 1941; three envelopes, including one of the Byrd expedition of 1935; airmail issues, including the 50c Graf Zeppelin issue.
B-59: STAMP COLLECTION.
Stamps of the Confederate States; carrier stamps (note Blood's stamp, 1851); postmaster stamps; envelope stamps of 1858; official stamps; post office seals; and envelopes.
B-60: STAMP COLLECTION.
Four sheets of envelope stamps: 1874 (2 sheets), 1882, 1884.
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