February 1991

About this Issue

Note from the Editors

This issue features Indians of New York State and begins with an article appropriate for the month of February, An Iroquois New Year's Celebration. Robert Koch retells from Lewis Henry Morgan's League of the Iroquois, and other historical sources, the way the Indians made ready for the new year in a typical Iroquois village. Professor Koch was chairman of Language and Literature from 1950-1970 at R. I. T. and from 1970-1982 was Dean of the University College at the University of Rochester. He regularly broadcasts now on Rochester Station WXXI: The Best Is Yet, arts and cultural interviews, on Tuesdays at 7:45 am and Thursdays at 7:15 am, and pieces about local history on Saturdays at 9:30 am.

Alfred Hilbert writes about the geologic and anthropologic developments in the Southern Tier region for fourteen of the last fifteen minutes, if all the existence of our planet were compressed to the time scale of one year! Mr. Hilbert has been staff historian for the Chemung County Historical Society, and has admired and studied the Indians of our area for many years. He has spoken to many groups about Indian lore and history.

Bill Treichler contributes a review of the work of William A. Ritchie. This information has been taken from Dr. Ritchie's The Archaeology of New York State (1980), and from an interview with his cousin Willis Ritchie and his wife Polly, who live near Bath, New York. Included in the article is a chart of the sequence of Indian cultures based on information in The Archaeology of New York State by William A. Ritchie. A map of the archaeologic sites in central New York is adapted from a map in an education booklet written by Dr. Ritchie as State Archaeologist, and published by the New York State Museum and Science Service is also included.

This month in Harpending's Corners, Ed Harris has a true winter story of the early 1930s when he was a thirteen-year-old farm boy near Dundee.

Kay Wilson presents the remembrances of David Jensen of his boyhood on a farm close to Lake Keuka near Penn Yan. Kay Wilson, who lives near Middlesex, collected these in a book called David Jensen's Memoirs.

Rev. Robert F. McNamara's biography of his father, Thomas Alexander McNamara continues with Chapter Two. Rev. McNamara was recently featured in a Rochester newspaper with pictures and a story about his career of teaching and of recording Catholic church history.

This issue concludes with another installment from A New Home by Caroline Kirkland. This chapter continues the story of her family's chance meeting in the Michigan wilderness with the pretentious Margolds travelling across country in style.

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