Gardeau Overlook - Letchworth State Park, New York
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Szuchie
N 42° 38.414 W 077° 58.993
18T E 255419 N 4725179
The Gardeau Overlook is situated atop a hillside that looks down into the Genesee River Valley where Mary Jemison, the "White Woman of the Genesee" once lived.
Waymark Code: WM3GYT
Location: New York, United States
Date Posted: 04/05/2008
Views: 52
According to the informational kiosk located onsite, the name of this overlook comes from the Seneca word Gah-Da-Hoh, or "bank in front." During a warming period between glaciers more than 100,000 years ago, the Genesee River created a new course by eroding this valley. The repassage of the great ice sheets then created gentler slopes and desirable farmland. Subsequent wanderings of the river in this valley cut a cliff face into the gentler slope and thus formed the "bank in front."
The Gardeau Valley was once home to many farming families. The land was acquired as park land where water could be stored behind the future dam at Mount Morris. When the dam is fully filled, the water in the valley will rise above the tree tops.
Gardeau was also the area where Mary Jemison, the "White Woman of the Genesee" lived with her Seneca Indian captives. According to LetchworthParkHistory.com, "A great council was held at the Big Tree near present day Geneseo New York in the late summer of 1797. All the Seneca leaders were there, along with the women who would, in their tradition way, advise them. The negotiations were long and difficult, and the resulting treaty pleased few of those that were there. In return for twelve reservations and payments, much of the Seneca homeland was turned over for sale to settlers.
One of those reservations included the lands where Dehgewanus and her family lived. She had journeyed to Big Tree and had been able to get some lands set aside. The resulting Gardeau Reservation, when it was later surveyed, consisted of nearly eighteen thousand acres. Although they still had their land to grow their corn, beans, and squash, the Seneca who remained in the Valley found themselves struggling to survive in an increasingly white world. Dehgewanus and her family paid a heavy price, for the pressures and tensions of the times took three of the Jemison boys; all three murdered between 1811 and 1817. During the same period area residents tried several times to deprive Dehgewanus of her lands.
Most of her neighbors, however, respected the Seneca woman they called the "Old White Woman of the Genesee". They knew that no one in need was ever turned away from her cabin door, and they looked forward to the times when she came to their little cabins for tea and cakes. Some local residents even encouraged a doctor and writer to talk with the Old White Woman. The interview took place in November of 1823 at a place called Whaley's Tavern. The next year a little book titled "The Life and Times of Mrs. Mary Jemison" was published, preserving the story of Dehgewanus forever.
In 1823 the Senecas gave up the Gardeau lands, reserving two square miles for Dehgewanus' use. She sold the title to the lands in 1831 and moved to the Buffalo Creek Reservation. There "Two Falling Voices", Dehgewanus and Mary Jemison, was stilled on September 19, 1833."
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