Western/Central New York timeline / 1670-1679

1670
Father Etienne de Carheil visits the Cayuga near Union Springs, Cayuga County, to help Father Garnier. Around this time the chapel of St. Jacques is established at Boughton Hill. Father Pierre Raffeix arrives in the area, after founding a mission at La Prairie, near Montréal. Father Fremin returns to Montréal. ** Father Rene de Brebant de Galinee draws a map of the south shore of Lake Ontario.


1672
Father Pierre Raffeix visits the Cayuga Indians.


1673
Father Raffeix returns to the Genesee area. Father Jean Pierron also visits the area.


1677
Jun 17
Close to 50 Indian prisoners are brought by the Seneca to the region around Lima from the south and four of them are killed. The Seneca dance and make noises to frighten their spirits away.

June
Dutch trader Wentworth Greenhalgh visits the Seneca village of Totiakton.

Jun 18
Greenhalgh and his party continue on to Gannagaro where they find the remaining prisoners. Nine more are murdered.

State
Greenhalgh and party, scouting Iroquois strength in the area, travel by horseback from Albany as far as Lima. The horses are the first seen by the Seneca. ** Iroquois Confederacy members friendly to the English create the Covenant Chain, a commercial and military alliance, with them, signing two treaties at Albany. The first, between the Five Nations and Connecticut and Massachusetts, ends King Philip's War (New England's Second Puritan Conquest). In the second the Iroquois and the Delaware broker an agreement between Maryland and Virginia on the one hand and the Iroquois and the Andastes (or Susquehannocks) on the other.


1678
Nov 18
René Robert Cavalier, Sieur de La Salle's expedition leaves Fort Frontenac, Canada, sailing west on Lake Ontario.

December
La Salle, visits the mouth of Irondequoit Bay a second time, doesn't attempt to bring his 20-ton brig over the sand bar. He sails on and sets up a trading post at the mouth of the Niagara River, the future site of Fort Niagara.

Dec 6
La Salle reaches the mouth of the Niagara River, anchor offshore due to the lateness of the hour.

Dec 7
La Salle’s party visits a Seneca village on the Canadian side of the Niagara River. They set off on snowshoes to climb today’s Queenstown Heights and camp at the mouth of the Chippewa Creek (today’s Welland River), with the sound of a large, distant cataract in their ears.

State
Father Louis Hennepin is the first white man to see Niagara Falls. He travels with La Salle, who establishes the first shipyard on the Great Lakes, on the banks of Cayuga Creek, in the future Buffalo area, where he builds Le Griffon, the first known ship to be built in America. ** The Frenchman de la Motte passes through Totiakton and obtains corn for his journey down the Genesee. ** Franciscan fathers establish a bark mission where Rochester’s Mercy High School stands today.


1679
Jan 20
The first boat of La Salle's expedition lands at the lower end of the Niagara River. He will lays the keel for the Griffin near Cayuga Creek on the Niagara River by the end of the month.

May
The Griffin is sailed upriver to Squaw Island.

June
Franciscan Recollect missionaries Louis Hennepin, Zenobe Membre and Gabriel de la Ribourde build a wood chapel in the Irondequoit valley, part of the future site of Rochester.

August
La Salle returns to his expedition, consisting of Recollet father Louis Hennepin and 30 men, after conferring with the authorities back in Québec.

Aug 7
The Griffin is sailed onto Lake Erie, the first European-built craft to do so. On the return voyage the vessel disappears.

State
Fort Conti is erected at the future site of Fort Niagara. It soon burns and is abandoned.

© 2009 David Minor / Eagles Byte