History, Natural History & the Arts
The Revolutionary War led settlers beyond the confines of the Palatine settlements in the Mohawk and Schoharie Valleys into what is today the Herkimer village area.
As early as 1776, seven pairs of brothers, from as many different families in Plymonth, in western Connecticut, enlisted under the command of Captain David Smith and were marched west into the Mohawk Valley. [Read more…] about The 1780s Settling of Clinton in Oneida County
As the presence of salt in New York was first made manifest through saline mineral springs it is proper to begin this discussion with the history of their discovery and utilization. The most important of these are in Onondaga County at Syracuse.
About the middle of the seventeenth century several of the Jesuit missionaries during their journeys among the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois), in what is now the State of New York, heard local salt springs and related these experiences in the Relations of the Jesuit fathers. [Read more…] about Drilling For Salt: Salt Springs & New York’s Salt Industry Origins
In Susan A. Brewer’s fascinating The Best Land:Four Hundred Years of Love and Betrayal on Oneida Territory (Cornell Univ. Press, 2024), she recounts the story of the parcel of Central New York land on which she grew up.
Brewer and her family had worked and lived on this land for generations when the descendants of the original Oneida inhabitants claimed that it rightfully belonged to them. Why, she wondered, did she not know what had happened to this place her grandfather called the best land. [Read more…] about The Best Land: 400 Years of Love and Betrayal on Oneida Territory
In 1880, the first eight Game Protectors began serving to protect the natural resources of New York State. In 2022, Environmental Conservation Police Officers (ECOs) and Investigators across the state responded to more than 25,600 calls.
What follows are recently reported incidents involving wildlife rescues: [Read more…] about Recent Wildlife Rescues & Encounters: Loggerhead Turtle, NYC Pythons & Caged Whitetail Deer
The new book An Assassin in Utopia: The True Story of a Nineteenth-Century Sex Cult and a President’s Murder (Pegasus Crime, 2023) by Susan Wels is a true crime odyssey that explores a forgotten, astonishing chapter of American history, leading the reader from a free-love community in Upstate New York to the shocking assassination of President James Garfield. [Read more…] about Assassin in Utopia: The Oneida Community & The Garfield Assassination
The earliest European settlers in the Mohawk Valley came from what is now southwestern Germany. Under near constant threat of destruction, whether from multiple wars, invasions, or the plague, in the near hundred years leading up to the 18th century, the southwest German population experienced extreme hardship.
In some cases, entire towns and villages were wiped out. Commercial crops in the vineyards either failed or were destroyed. Invading French armies added to the hardship by burdening residents with housing and supporting soldiers, albeit with scant family resources, forcing many German homeowners to flee. [Read more…] about Palatines in the Mohawk Valley: 300 Years of History
When a Dutchman, Harmen Meyndertsz van den Bogaert, traveled from Albany (then Fort Orange) to the main village of the Oneidas in the dead of winter 1634, he was on a mission to thwart the French, who had found their way to Oneida Lake.
In the struggle for influence in Iroquoia, there was no time to lose. The Dutch had a firm hold on the Hudson Valley at this point and a profitable relationship with the Mohawk, but New Netherland’s trade was threatened by New France, which controlled the St. Lawrence River from Lake Ontario to the Atlantic. [Read more…] about New York, New France: French Ambitions at Oneida Lake in 1634
The Preservation League of New York State, as part of a four-state coalition, has announced targeted grants to projects in the communities of Whallonsburg, Saranac Lake, Blue Mountain Lake, and Oneida. [Read more…] about Northeast Heritage Economy Grants Awarded
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