the prowess of war. The Senecas returned in straggling groups to find the white settler in place of the soldier. They had called the river-not after its turbulent waters, but after Gen-nis-he-yo-" The Beautiful Valley" from which they had been driven-a valley that broadens all the way to the northward. The white man had discovered this garden spot of alluvial flats, constantly enriched by the breaking down of the limestone hills and protected from extremes of temperature by the hills and the lakes. Robert and Thomas Morris finally prevailed upon Red Jacket, Farmer's Brother, Cornplanter, and Little Beard to come with the other Senecas to the "Big Tree." Early in the negotiations Red Jacket became very angry and declared the council-fire covered up. Then Thomas Morris made use of diplomacy. The Sachems were the rulers; but the warriors (as the lords of the land), and the women (as the mothers of the lords), might depose the Sachems, or set aside their rulings. Promises of presents turned the scale. Farmer's Brother declared the council-fire once more alive, while he insisted upon a reservation for Mary Jemison, "the White Woman." This was allowed, together with reservations at Canawagus, Caneadea, and nine other places. A huge tent was occupied as a councilhouse; and here, at last, the Senecas disposed of all their remaining territory for $100,000. So large a sum as this was beyond the limit of the Senecas' arithmetic. They managed to grasp the idea, however, when a keg was filled with silver, and it was told how many such kegs would be filled, and how many horses it would take to draw them. The payment was not in coin, but in stock of the United States Bank. And here came a more serious difficulty-to present to the Indian mind the declaring of a dividend. Finally it was represented that it was the same thing as planting the money-sometimes the crop would be small, and sometimes large. For years afterward, whenever Morris came to this region, the first question of the Senecas was in regard to the quality of the crop at the United States Bank. Poor Senecas! The $100,000 was but a drop in the bucket, as the value is reckoned to-day. Our sympathies must go out to Thomas Jemison, grandson of the "White Woman," who, at the memorable council at Glen Iris, said: "Brothers! our fathers knew not the value of these lands, and parted with them for a trifle. The craft of the white man prevailed over their ignorance and simplicity. . . . I regret that our fathers should have given away their country, acre by acre, and left us in our present state. They knew not the value of the soil, and little imagined that the white people would cover the lands as thickly as the trees from ocean to ocean." Several years before the great treaty the brothers James and William Wadsworth had arrived at the "Big Tree" village from Durham, in Connecticut. They came at the request of their uncle, Colonel Jeremiah Wadsworth of Hartford, Connecticut, who had an interest in the Phelps and Gorham purchase. This branch of the family descended from the William Wadsworth who came over from England, in 1632, and settled in Hartford. Among the other descendants of William Wadsworth were Captain Joseph Wadsworth, of Charter Oak fame, and General Daniel Wadsworth, who founded the Hartford Athenæum. In the same ship that brought William, came also Christopher Wadsworth, who settled in Duxbury, Massachusetts, and lived for a generation near Miles Standish, whose autograph, as justice of the peace, may be seen on the title-deed of the Wadsworth farm, preserved in the Memorial Hall at Plymouth. Others of Christopher Wadsworth's descendants are to be found in Maine. Of the two brothers who settled in the Genesee country in 1790, William, the younger, was the sturdy farmer whom the backwoodsmen called "Old Bill" or "General Bill," because he shared in all their sports. He served in the war of 1812 with credit, and died in 1833, leaving his large estates to the elder brother, James. With such an addition to his own extensive property, James Wadsworth was the most wealthy proprietor in western New York. It was possible for him to drive to Rochester, twenty-five miles distant, along one bank of the river, and return on the other-all on his own estate. This good fortune he ever held as a trust for the promoting of education and the development of agriculture. The "Wadsworth Estate" of those days was about 50,000 acres of cultivated lands. The farms were rented for a fixed annual sum. There never was any trouble between landlord and tenant corresponding to the "anti-rent war" on properties that were held in various parts of the east. The establishing of normal schools and libraries through the State of New York was the result of James Wadsworth's efforts. Every one of his deeds stipulated that in each township one hundred and twenty-five acres should be reserved for a school and the same amount for a church. With such influences rightly turned within his own household, it is not strange that many thousand acres of choice lands still remain to his descendants, and they continue to reflect honor upon the name of their ancestors. There is a trio of great names that will ever cling to the earlier years of this region. Red Jacket stands as the defender of his people. Sullivan was the avenger of war. Wadsworth was the apostle of civilization. All along the fertile bottoms of the river may be seen groups of white swamp-oaks that tower to a height of nearly one hundred feet. The original "big tree" of treaty fame was one of these; but the river finally undermined it, and to-day it exists only in sections that are preserved with religious care at Geneseo and Glen Iris. In later years these trees were known as "the Wadsworth oaks." Weaving this fact with the other, that the original proprietor was a relative of Captain Joseph Wadsworth who hid the charter of Connecticut, a local poet has caused the oak of Geneseo to address the oak of Connecticut in these words: "A far-famed man of noble mien, Lord of those hills, these pastures green, And foremost of the pioneers, In the hale winter of his years Still lives, with youthful strength endowed; To scythe-armed Time defiance bold. Who hid, when night dusk mantle wore, Geneseo is only five miles from Mount Morris as the bird flies, but if the course by the river is taken it is twenty-seven miles. On these rich plains cattle may be seen as far as the eye can reach. "Whenever I look out |