In every issue, WineTracks will point out various historical sites of the Finger Lakes region to increase your knowledge of this great area.
South of Rochester in the town of Victor, lies Ganondagan (ga-NON-da-gan), the site of a Native American community that was a flourishing, vibrant center for the Seneca people that were part of many Indian nations that occupied the North American woodlands during the early seventeenth century. The Iroquois-speaking peoples included the Huron, Cherokee, Neutrals, Tuscarora, Wenro, Erie, and Susquehannock, as well as the political confederates known as the Five Nations Iroquois. The Seneca were part of the Five Nations Iroquois which also included the Cayuga, Onondaga, Oneida, and the Mohawk. The French called these nations the Iroquois, the English referred to them as the Five Nations, but they called themselves Haudenosaunee. In 1714, the Tuscarora came from what is now North Carolina to join the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, and became the Confederacy of the Six Nations.

Americans owe a debt to the Seneca people. Their democratic ideals served as an inspiration for the U.S. Constitution. The Seneca’s Matriarchal Society helped inspire the 1848 declaration of sentiments that eventually lead to a woman’s right to vote. The Seneca also developed one of the world’s most basic and healthy cuisines using natural foods that are still popular today, as are many of the natural medicines they used to treat illnesses. From politics and the environmental movement to food and medicine, the roots of contemporary society can be traced back to this historic site in Victor, New York.
The Haudenosaunee Confederacy was inspired by Huron brave (A Huron man who arrived among the Mohawks speaking of peace and an ordered society.) He was called the Peacemaker. It was his vision of a Great Peace which brought together the formerly warring nations of the Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga, Oneida, and Mohawk. The nations agreed to live peacefully under an imaginary longhouse that stretched across New York State from the home of the Senecas, the Keepers of the Western Door, to the home of the Mohawks, the Keepers of the Eastern Door. They would meet in the center of their territory at the home of the Onondagas, Keepers of the Central Fire. The central fire continues to burn today in Onondaga territory.

A single Haudenosaunee longhouse was home to several families, all belonging to the same clan. Each longhouse measured approximately 20 feet wide and from 40 to 200 feet long, depending upon the number of families living within it. The interior of the longhouse was divided into sections. Two-tiered bunks lined each wall. The first tier was used as sleeping quarters for one family. The upper tiers were used as storage for that family. Each pair of families shared a central fire.

Construction of a new longhouse began in the spring. First, a frame was built. Four large posts were sunk into the ground to serve as sturdy corner posts. Then young elm trees were cut for the frame of the longhouse. Once the frame was completed, strips of elm bark were cut to serve as siding. These bark strips were lashed to the frame using rope made of bark fiber. The only openings in the longhouse were the two doors, one on each end, and the smoke holes in the roof above each of the fires.On July 25, 1998 the dedication of the long-awaited Bark Longhouse at Ganondagan State Historic Site finally took place. The Bark Longhouse represents the return of a traditional Seneca dwelling to a site razed in 1687 by the French Marquis de Denonville. The Longhouse is now furnished as closely as possible to an original 1670 longhouse, complete with replicas of European and colonial trade goods and items created and crafted by the Seneca. Also in the longhouse are crops, herbs, and medicines grown, harvested, and preserved by the Seneca who lived atop the hill at Ganondagan.
The Bark Longhouse will provide opportunities to educate visitors about Haudenosaunee life and culture, both in the 17th century and the present.
Excerpts of this article were reprinted from the web site “The Friends Of Ganondagan” www.ganondagan.org/home.html. The Friends of Ganondagan are Native Americans and non-natives who share a common understanding of the significance of the past at the site.

The Pleasant Valley Wine Company, popularly known as the Great Western Winery, located near the village of Hammondsport, New York, is the oldest winery in the Finger Lakes region. By the 1830’s and 1840’s, European settlers found that the Finger Lakes region provided such favorable growing conditions that grapes had outgrown home production capacities. On March 15, 1860, Charles Davenport Champlin and 12 local businessmen consolidated their holdings under “Articles of Association for the Manufacture of Native Wine” and, with $10,000 capitalization, built the first winery in this region, The Hammondsport and Pleasant Valley Wine Company, which was designated as Bonded Winery No.1 in its State and Federal districts.

In 1865 the company invested in champagne-producing equipment. Twenty thousand bottles of Sparkling Catawba were made that year. In 1867, this wine was awarded honorable mention at the Exposition Universelle in Paris, the first American Sparkling wine to win an award in Europe. Amazing, a Finger lakes wine made of Catawba winning honorable mention in a Paris tasting. In 1873 in Vienna, the winery’s champagne was awarded first prize and its first European medal.In March 1871, Mr. Champlin sent a case of champagne to his close friend, Marshall P. Wilder, who was a well-known wine connoisseur in Boston. After introducing it at a dinner party at the Parker House, Wilder declared it to be “the Great Champagne of the Western World.” The Champagne was thus dubbed ”Great Western.” Another amazing victory for hybrids.!

Prior to the European invasion of eastern North America, Native Americans lived in the Finger Lakes area of New York for more than 10,000 years. The last Indian culture to live in the area was the Iroquois nation. The Iroquois tribes included the Seneca and Cayuga tribes for which the two largest lakes are named. The Tuscarora also lived in the region and the Onondaga and Oneida tribes lived in the east where you find their namesake lakes. The Mohawks lived further east. Being one of the most powerful Indian nations during colonial times, the Iroquois kept European colonization out of the Finger Lakes for almost two hundred years after first contact.

During the Revolutionary War some of the tribes sided with the Colonists and others sided with the British.

This caused civil war among the Iroquois and constant raids on the European settlers. These raids went on until 1779. In 1779, George Washington assigned two generals, Sullivan and Clinton to mount a military campaign against the Iroquois tribes fighting with the British.. This campaign ruined the Iroquois nation; 40 Iroquois villages were destroyed and hundreds of acres of cultivated land was also devastated. After the Revolutionary War, the Iroquois were assigned to reservations.

Fossenvue was the name of a summer camp on Caywood Point, on the eastern shores of Seneca Lake, New York, and it was a summer-time get-away for suffragettes and children of wealthy social reformers. It was a lakeside retreat, but quite different than most because it was started by women who had little to say in most matters in 1875.
The camp was unusual because these young women participated in outdoor recreational pursuits such as swimming, tennis, and archery of which ladies of their social status in the 1800’s rarely pursued. They also engaged in theoretical, political and philosophical discussions, read quotations at each meal, and discussed the news of the day, all of which was largely considered taboo for women of that era. The fact that ladies dared to discuss politics and women’s suffrage in the mixed company of men was unthinkable and the camp was considered quite radical, and it lasted for over a quarter of a century.

Fossenvue had many attendees and ties to Geneva, and Peterboro, New York. Elizabeth Smith Miller, later known as the “Queen of Fossenvue,” and her family resided at Lochland Estate on the shores of Seneca Lake in Geneva. The idea to create a summer camp was conceptualized at Lochland in July of 1875 by seven young ladies. They constructed several buildings at Fossenvue, and the building that remains today is known as the Queen’s Castle. It was a birthday present for Elizabeth Smith Miller on her 77th birthday, which was September 20, 1899. Today Queen’s Castle is located at Caywood Point off Rte 414.
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Fossenvue is an anagram of the phrase “Seven of Us”. The group had a contest to re-arrange the letters of “seven of us” to name the camp. The prize,a

Judge Elijah Miller, William Seward’s father-in-law, built what is now Seward House in 1816-1817. Designed in the Federal architectural style, it was one of the first brick houses built in Auburn. One of the workmen on the house was Brigham Young, a sixteen year-old apprentice painter and carpenter, who in later life became one of the principal leaders of the Mormon Church and the founder of Salt Lake City. William Seward married Frances Miller, Judge Miller’s youngest daughter in 1824. Before the marriage, Judge Miller, a widower, stipulated that the couple should live in the house with the family. Seward agreed and it was to be his home for nearly fifty years. Located in Auburn, New York, in the Finger Lakes Region of New York State, Seward House is a mixture of Federal and Tuscan-style architecture surrounded by two acres of garden and trees. The house has been a registered National Historic Landmark since 1964 and a “Save America’s Treasures” site since 2000.
Visiting Seward House is like stepping back in time. Seward House was owned and occupied by four generations of family members from 1816 to 1951. The museum’s intact collection of furniture, household items, decorative arts, documents and photographs reflects use by four generations of this remarkable family. Seward House has hosted such distinguished visitors as Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, Generals Ulysses S. Grant and George A. Custer, Presidents John Quincy Adams, Martin Van Buren, Andrew Johnson, William McKinley and Bill Clinton. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Dorothea Dix and Harriet Tubman have all walked the halls.
Included in Seward House’s fine art collection are works by renowned artists Henry Inman, Thomas Cole, Chester Harding, Emanuel Leutze and Daniel Chester French.

Madame Catherine Montour also known as Queen Catharine, was a prominent figure of the Iroquois Nation during the end of the 18th century. She was reportedly a half-breed Huron from New France who claimed to be the illegitimate daughter of a French official. She had been captured by the Iroquois and married to a Seneca chief. After his death she was accepted into the matriarchate of the tribe and was influential in their dealings with white settlers and leaders. She was able to speak both English and French, as well as some native languages. A Seneca town named Catherine’s Town after her was located at the south end of Seneca Lake. It was destroyed during the Sullivan Expedition of 1779. At that time the town was reported to have 30 houses, corn fields, and fruit orchards, all of which were destroyed. She is sometimes confused with a granddaughter, Esther Montour, who reportedly was in the Wyoming Massacre in 1778, tomahawking captured whites. She died in Chemung County, New York. She is buried in Montour Falls, New York.