THE ORIGINAL INHABITANTS OF INDIANA COUNTY

For hundreds of years the Cornplanter Indians lived mainly In Northwestern Pennsylvania. And one of their well-known leaders was Chief Cornplanter- The Cornplanters were part of the Seneca nation, which was part of the Iroquois confederacy. The Seneca of the Cornplanter tribe were peaceable and friendly and traded with the white settlers. The Cornplanters and other Seneca hunted and fished in many areas, to include in and around what is now known as Clymer and Indiana. Chief Cornplanter and his Seneca tribe had their village in an area that is now called Summersville, Pennsylvania (now the Great Bend State Game Lands area). And there they planted fields of maize (corn). At harvest time, all of the Seneca Indians would gather in the area and would have a big feast. This was their Thanksgiving, so to speak, and some white settlers attended and took part in the festivities. Some of the Indian trails that the Seneca and other Natives blazed became dirt roads for horses and wagons, which later became paved highways for automobiles. Unfortunately, mainly due to diseases introduced by white settlers for which the natives had no immunity, many of the Natives in Northwestern Pennsylvania died, A 1939 census showed that there were 34 Cornplanter Indians living on the Cornplanter Reservation in Warren County. Technically, it was not a reservation but rather a land grant given to Chief Cornplanter in 1798. At that time 400 Seneca lived on the land. The land was confiscated by eminent domain in 1964, however, and the area is now under the waters of Kinzua Damn (built by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers). 230 descendants of Cornplanter moved away. The Seneca Indian cemetery, home to Cornplanter's grave, was moved to higher ground just across the border in New York State. The Cornplanter Grant was the last of the occupied Indian lands in the state.

It is also known that there was a Delaware Indian village at Kittanning. In 1756, Lt. Col. John Armstrong and more than 300 men passed through Indiana County and attacked the village. In 1768, Natives ceded to the William Penn heirs most of the land in present-day Indiana County under the treaty of Fort Stanwix (Rome, New York).

The Delaware were primarily located along the Delaware River that marks the Pennsylvania-New Jersey border. After selling much of their land to settlers and because they were under attack by the Iroquois, the Delaware moved westward. Most of them settled in Ohio. Driven further westward over time they settled with the Cherokee in Oklahoma in the 1860s. (The Delawares referred to themselves as Lenni Lenape, meaning "original people.")

The Pennsylvania Historical Society and Museum Commission lists 395 recorded archaeological sites in Indiana County where Indiana artifacts have been found. Dr. Sarah Neusius, an Indiana University of Pennsylvania anthropology professor who teaches a course on North American Indians, states that humans (Paleo-lndians) have lived in Indiana County for 10,000 and maybe 12,000 years.

Throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, white hunters and trappers shared the area with the Natives. (Some Natives were understandably "hostile" in that they resented encroachment on their lands.) As the area became more settled, farmers began to clear areas for crops, and there were farms in the Indiana and Clymer areas most likely starting in the late 1700's. Folks made bread, beer, and whiskey back in those times, and all of those products are derived from grain. Hence farmers were needed to grow the grain.

The land was much more hostile during these times in that the forests were full of bear, wolves, panthers, as well as copperheads and rattlesnakes. Since then most of the dangerous predators have been killed. They were not only killed for their pelts and meat and oil (derived from fat), they were eradicated so that they would not kill livestock and people. Nowadays there Is an overabundance of deer and other herbivores, because their numbers are no longer kept in check by natural predators. Humans don't hunt and slay deer as much as they used to, probably because they prefer beef, pork, and chicken to wild game.

Chief Cornplanter, 1796, F. Bartol (Taken from the Internet.)

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