MOHAWK - Discovering the Valley of the Crystals Copyright 2004
Chapter 12 - Tributuaries - Schoharie Creek
What Does Schoharie Mean Anyway?
While researching the origin of the word Schoharie, I discovered the following in Jeptha R. Simms 1845 HISTORY OF SCHOHARIE COUNTY. He also used much of the same information in his FRONTIERSMEN OF NEW YORK published in 1882.
This is the location of the long ago pile of flood-wood the Mohawks called "schoharie."
“The word Schoharie, is aboriginal, and signifies, agreeable to published definitions, drift, or flood-wood. The author has spared no little pains to arrive at the origin and true meaning of this word. The word Schoharie, or the word from which that was derived, when originated, not only signified flood-wood, but a certain body of flood-wood. At a distance of about half a mile above the bridge which now crosses the Schoharie in the present town of Middleburgh, two small streams run into the river directly opposite each other. The one on the west side, coming from a north-west course, was formerly called the Line kill, being the northern boundary line of the first Vrooman Patent -- which instrument embraced that part of the town of Fulton, now called Vrooman's Land. The other stream is called Stony creek, and runs into the Schoharie from a south-east course. John M. Brown, Esq., in a pamphlet history of Schoharie, published in 1823, attributes to this stream, which he calls the little Schoharie, the origin of the later word. The two streams mentioned, falling into the Schoharie at that place, produced in the latter a counter current, which caused a lodgment of drift-wood at every high water, directly above. The banks of the river there were no doubt studded at that period with heavy growing timber, which served as abutments for the formation of a natural bridge. I judge so from the fact that between that place and the bridge below, on the west bank, may now be seen a row of elm stumps of gigantic growth. At what period the timber began to accumulate at that place, is unknown; but it was doubtless at a date far anterior to the settlement of the Schoharie valley, by the aborigines of which we have any certain knowledge. At the time the Indians located in the valley, who were the owners of the soil when the Germans and Dutch first settled there, tradition says there were thousands of loads of wood in this wooden pyramid. How far it extended on the flats on either side is uncertain, they being at that place uncommonly wide; but across the river it is said to have been higher than a house of ordinary dimensions, and to have served the natives the purposes of a bridge; who, when crossing, could not see the water through it.”
Simms' words trumpeted discovery
trip. Although I had been in the area a number of times,
having canoed Schoharie Creek from Middleburgh
to Schoharie, and climbed Vroman’s Nose,
I had never seen the section of stream where “flood-wood” created the bridge
that gave the valley its name.
Discovery: Site of the Schoharie
September 10, 2004 70 degrees, Partly Cloudy,
The
drive down was nothing short of beautiful---NYS Thruway from Little Falls
to Canajoharie, Route 10 south to Route 20, Route 20 east to Route 145,
through Cobleskill and on to Middleburg. Meadows and pastures were
so green from the record summer rain that cows grazed on nearly every hillside.
An unusual sight these days of pampered bovine. Hilltop forests and
bottomland cornfields were still green; barely showing the seasonal changes
that signified Fall was just around the corner. Abandoned fields
were rife with goldenrod and purple aster. White puffy clouds, remnants
of Hurricane Frances, dotted the deep blue sky and cast irregular shadows
over the countryside. Working farms, many with nearby vegetable stands,
dotted the landscape. Except in the larger villages, traffic was minimal.
A great day for a ride in the country even if we didn’t discover Simms’
“schoharie.”
Abandoned farmfields were rife with goldenrod and purple aster.
A
topo map indicated the location of Line Creek and an abandoned road that
once crossed the creek downstream from Route 145. Although there were no
posted signs, we stopped at the house on the old road on the south side
of the Line Creek to ask if we could park the Jeep near the old crossing.
No one was home, so we pulled into the shade near a wooden ATV bridge that
sat atop old bridge abutments. Denny Gillen and I followed the ATV trail
across the creek, along side a cornfield and down to a spot overlooking
the mouth of Little Schoharie Creek.
A great blue heron and three mergansers were
working the slack waters in the mouth of the Little Schoharie, indicating
a concentration of fish just out of the swollen waters of the river. The
mainstream was too high and swift to cross, so we couldn’t fish the mouth
of the creek or the eddy just downstream. After pointing out Vroman’s
Nose to Denny, we retraced our steps until we discovered an ATV trail that
crossed Line Creek downstream from the wooden bridge. From there we walked
the creek to its mouth, marveling at the size of the cottonwoods growing
along the stream. Some of them were over 3-feet across.
When Denny saw how high the river was, he didn’t rig his fishing gear.
Mine, however, was at the ready, so I plopped a Phoebe into the slack water
near the mouth of Line Creek and hooked a foot-long smallmouth bass. Not
a lunker, but big enough to bend the ultralight rod and fight the reel
drag in fast water. There were no bass in the Schoharie when Indians
used the pile of flood-wood to cross the river. Bass got into this watershed
through the Erie Canal.
After seeing the eddies created by the sharp bend in the river
and the mouths of two tributaries so close together, it was easy to visualize
the accumulation of downed trees and branches during highwater periods.
Today there are few huge trees along the river to anchor such a log pile,
and farmers who grow corn in these rich bottomlands would never tolerate
a “schoharie.”
It took less than an hour to discover the site of
the “schoharie”, so we drove south on Route 145, passing under Vroman’s
Nose and stopping at a historical marker that noted the site of an Indian
village at the “Elbow on Schoharie Creek.” That sign provided a new prospective.
The Indian village was just upstream from the pile of flood-wood that provided
easy access to rich bottomlands on the other side of the river. I could
visualize the village surrounded by fields of corn, beans and squash.
Incidentally, according to Judge John M. Brown the Indians and the village were called Schoharie.
“Schoharie was first inhabited by a French Indian
prisoner; married to a Mohawk Squaw. His name was Karigondonte, whose father-in-law
sent him there, and gave him land, for fear that the Mohawk Indians would
kill him when they got drunk, and gave him land, as the Mohawk bore a great
enmity to the French.
“Other Indians, Mohawk, Mohegan, Discarora, Delaware,
and Onidas, flocked to him, so that he increased to a nation to about three
hundred strong, and established chiefs among them; who then pretended to
be the owners of all that vast territory of land, and granted conveyances
thereof.”
Schoharie County, perhaps more than any other in the Mohawk Valley watershed, is rife with historical markers that open doors to history. We discovered another one of those doors a few miles south on Route 145 at a roadside parking area where we stopped to check out a possible canoe launch. This Historic New York sign entitled The Timothy Murphy Trail told the tail of Schoharie County’s Revolutionary War Hero. Murphy was a scout and sharpshooter who killed a British General at Saratoga in 1777, and saved the day when Indians and Tories attacked Schoharie valley in 1780. The Indians called him “magic man” because his double- barreled rifle could shoot twice before reloading.
The publications noted above can be found at libraries and historical societies, AND on the Web.
.
Return to Title Page