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.
Read more about this topic: Oswegatchie River
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Racism is an ism to which everyone in the world today is exposed; for or against, we must take sides. And the history of the future will differ according to the decision which we make.”
—Ruth Benedict (1887–1948)
“What we call National-Socialism is the poisonous perversion of ideas which have a long history in German intellectual life.”
—Thomas Mann (1875–1955)
“One classic American landscape haunts all of American literature. It is a picture of Eden, perceived at the instant of history when corruption has just begun to set in. The serpent has shown his scaly head in the undergrowth. The apple gleams on the tree. The old drama of the Fall is ready to start all over again.”
—Jonathan Raban (b. 1942)