History
The mouth of the Oswegatchie River, where it joins the St. Lawrence, was the site of a Jesuit mission, Fort de La Présentation, founded in 1749. Also a fur trading post, the village had 3,000 Onondaga by the 1750s, most of whom converted to Catholicism. They came to be known as the Oswegatchie, considered somewhat separate from the Six Nations of the Iroquois. Oswegatchie may be Iroquois for "going or coming around a hill". William Bright says the name may come from the Onondaga word /oshewɛ'gaaji'/, meaning "black lumber", containing -shewɛ'gar-, "lumber", and -ji-, "be black". The Oswegatchie were one of the Seven Nations of Canada. A dam on the East Branch of the Oswegatchie River at Cranberry Lake was authorized by the New York State in 1865.
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