Here's a small snippet, the whole chapter is great, the same way. The link follows.
“We are surrounded by evidence that a race preceded the present Indians, farther advanced in civilizations and the arts, and far more numerous. Here and there upon the brow of hills, at the head of ravines, are their fortifications, their location selected with skill and adapted to refuge, subsistence and defense. Uprooted trees of the forest that are the growth of many centuries, expose their molding remains, the uncovered mounds with masses of their skeletons promiscuously heaped one on top of the other, as if they were the gathered and hurriedly entombed dead of well contested battlefields. In our villages, upon our hillsides, the plow and the spade discover their rude implements adapted to war, the chase and domestic use. All these unintelligible witnesses, bring but unsatisfactory knowledge of races that have preceded us.
Although not confined to this region, there is perhaps no portion of the United States where ancient relics are more numerous. Commencing near Oswego River, they extended westwardly over all the western counties of the state. We clear away our forests and speak familiarly of subduing the “Virgin soil,” and yet the plow up turns the skulls of those whose history is lost. Then as now the western portion of New York state had attractions and inducements to make it a favorite residence, for this ancient people, assailed from the north and east, made this their refuge in a war of extermination, fortified the commanding eminences, met the shock of a final issue, were subject to its adverse results. The forest invited the chase, the rivers and lakes local commerce and fishing, and the fertile soil for agriculture. The evidence that this was one, at least of their final battlefields, predominate. They are the fortifications, entrenchments and warlike instruments of an extinct race. That here was a war of extermination, we may well conclude, from masses of human skeletons we find indiscriminately thrown together, indicating a common and simultaneous sepulcher from which age, infancy, sex and no condition, was exempt.
This kind of stuff really fascinates me.
Wow! Thanks for posts 11 and 12! That pretty much confirms what I’ve always suspected. I’ll have to see if I can get a copy of that book—Pioneer History of the Holland Purchase of Western New York”
My family has always been interested in stuff like that.
Sorry—posts 14 and 15. It has been a long day!