River was called Canada.* The region above the Ottawa, and in the angle between it and the St. Lawrence, was called Chilaga (Hochelaga). The territory south of the St. Lawrence which now embraces Maine and Nova Scotia was named Norumbega. The country which lies to the south of the St. Lawrence and east of the river Richelieu was called Moscosa. The region lying south and west of Moscoŝa, embracing what is now Northern New York, was called Avacal. The territory out of which Virginia and the great middle states have since been formed was named Apalachen, while the whole great region from which the Gulf states were formed was called Florida, "the land of flowers."

By this it seems that the earliest name applied by Europeans to the region now known as Northern New York was Avacal.

On later maps the country lying on both sides of Lake Champlain is called Ir-o-coi-sia, "the hereditary country of the Iroquois."

This last name, it seems, was also given to this region at a very early day, as it appears on a map of the New Netherlands of the year 1616, lately found in the royal archives at The Hague.

III.

IT IS AN ISLAND.

The region which is covered by the Great Wilderness of Northern New York is a vast elevated plateau that rises into lofty mountain peaks in the interior, but which slopes

* Canada is an Indian name signifying a mass of huts. See Chateaubriand's Travels.

gradually down on every side into deep depressions or valleys.

In these deep valleys run the natural water-courses which almost entirely surround Northern New York, making of it an island, as will appear upon an examination of its boundaries.

On the north of it flows the great river St. Lawrence. To the east of it is the Hudson River, running southerly into the Atlantic ocean, and the waters of Lake Champlain and its tributaries flowing northerly through the river Richelieu into the St. Lawrence. On the south of it the Mohawk River runs easterly into the Hudson; while the waters of the Oneida Lake run westerly through the Oswego River into Lake Ontario. On the west is Lake Ontario, from which runs the St. Lawrence, completing the encircling chain of almost a thousand miles of living waters.

The Indian could paddle his canoe around it finding but two short carrying places. One was from the Hudson at Fort Edward to the Wood Creek that runs into Lake Champlain; another was from the Mohawk at Fort Stanwix to the other Wood Creek that runs into the Oneida Lake. These obstacles were long since overcome by artificial means, and Northern New York is now entirely surrounded by navigable waters.

IV.

THE HIGHWAYS OF NATIONS.

The remarkable depressions or valleys which surround Northern New York, and through which run its natural and artificial watercourses, have always been great routes of travel.

Through them first ran the old Indian trails.* After the white man came, for more than two hundred years they formed the pathways of armies. When the long wars were ended, these routes were thronged with hardy pioneers on their way to the great West; and now the products of the West, the commerce of the world, come back through these thoroughfares.

And after sixty years of smiling peace other armies travel through them, armies of summer tourists, in search of health or pleasure on their way to Saratoga, the Adirondacks, Lake George, the Thousand Islands, the gloomy Saguenay, Sharon, Richfield, Trenton Falls, Clifton, Avon, Massena, Niagara, the great lakes, and the prairies beyond. In a word, to the thousand attractions which lie in and around Northern New York.

* The Indian_trails were well-worn paths of a foot or more in width, and sometimes a foot in depth. See Morgan's League of the Iroquois.

At the time of its first exploration by Europeans in the early years of the seventeenth century, Northern New York formed a part of the territory and hunting grounds of the great Indian league or confederacy, called by the English the "Five Nations," by the French the "Iroquois," and by themselves the "Ho-de-no-sau-nee," or the "People of the Long House."

Their country, called by them Ho-de-no-sau-nee-ga,* and extending from the Hudson to Lake Erie, from the St. Lawrence to the valleys of the Delaware, the Susquehanna and the Alleghany, embraced the whole of Central, of Northern, and large parts of Southern and Western New York.

It was divided between the several nations by well defined boundary lines running north and south, which they called "lines of property."

* See Morgan's League of the Iroquois.

The territory of Northern New York belonged principally to the Mohawks and the Oneidas, the Onondagas owning a narrow strip along the eastern shore of Lake Ontario.

The line of property between the Mohawks and the Oneidas began on the St. Lawrence river, at the present town of Waddington, and running south, nearly coincident with the line between Lewis and Herkimer counties, struck the Mohawk river at Utica.

The country lying to the east of this line of property, embracing what is now the greater part of the Wilderness, formed a part of Ga-ne-a-ga-o-no-ga-the land of the Mohawks. The territory lying westerly of this line, including the fertile valley of the Black River, and the highlands of the Lesser Wilderness, which lies between the upper valley of the Black River and Lake Ontario, belonged to O-na-yoteka-o-no-ga, the country of the Oneidas.

It was the custom of the Indians, whenever the hunting grounds of a nation bordered on a lake, to include the whole of it if possible, so the line of property between the Oneidas and Onondagas bent westerly around the Oneida Lake, giving the whole of that to the Oneidas, and deflected easterly again around Lake Ontario in favor of the Onondagas.

These three nations claimed the whole of the territory of Northern New York. But the northern part of the Great Wilderness was also claimed by the Adirondacks, a Canadian nation of Algonquin lineage, and, being disputed territory, was the "dark and bloody ground" of the old Indian traditions, as it afterward became in the French and English colonial history.