Welcome to Seneca Lake Mysteries, the podcast
where we explore the unusual, strange, and unexplained
on New York's largest finger lake. First and
foremost, I want to thank everyone truly for
listening to episode one, sharing it, all the
feedback and comments and words of support. I
was optimistic that it would be well received,
but the response was way, way beyond what I expected.
And now that I've seen how many of you are out
there that are... interested in these stories
of the unusual and anomalous around Seneca Lake
I'm even more excited to keep sharing and collecting
and sharing these kinds of stories so again thank
you so much and if you want to support Seneca
Lake Mysteries the best thing you can do is subscribe
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and share it far and wide also please subscribe
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podcasts are released along with all other Seneca
Lake Mysteries related news. I'm lining up some
great guests for future podcasts, and I'm always
looking for more. If you have a story you'd like
to share, or if you're an investigator of the
unexplained, or have knowledge or expertise on
the topics we cover, or other unusual topics
related to the Seneca Lake area, no matter how,
unorthodox or esoteric or bizarre, please email
podcast at SenecaLakeMysteries .com or leave
a voicemail at 607 -307 -1167. Keep in mind,
if you want to tell your story but don't want
to be identified on the podcast, you can tell
me your story and I'll relay it while preserving
your full... You can also contact me if you have
any feedback or suggestions or complaints or
comments or questions or whatever by emailing,
again, podcast at SenecaLakeMysteries .com or
leaving a voicemail at 607 -307 -1167. Now, here's
what we've got for this episode. Up first, we've
got the... all -time champion of Seneca Lake
monster stories, the 1900 encounter with the
steamboat Otetiani. If you haven't heard it before,
buckle up, and if you have, there's never a bad
time to hear it again. Then we've got what I
consider the top contender for the second best
Seneca Lake monster story ever, one that I call
The Blacksmith and the Giant Eel. Next, we're
off to the year 1968 when a surge of UFO sightings
took place across the Finger Lakes and around
Seneca, including one stunning encounter on County
Road 23, not far from the lake. This UFO flap
has been pretty well documented, but we'll take
a closer look at how some of the witnesses dealt
with the aftermath of their incredible experiences
in the following years in a story called Autumn
of 68, the Mud Lake Road Incident. And finally,
we'll sift through some incredible forgotten
history from the northern end of Seneca Lake.
We'll look at discoveries of giant skeletons,
mysterious burials, and tales of visiting giants
in a story I call Giants of Geneva. So let's
get to it. On July 17, 1900, a sidewheel steamboat,
the Otetiani, Crowded with passengers, including
city officials and wealthy local businessmen,
along with a Canadian geologist, was on its way
from Watkins Glen to Geneva. Around 7 p .m.,
about halfway to its destination, the Otetiani
encountered a 25 -foot serpentine creature in
the lake. Now, there have been numerous essays
and articles, videos, and podcasts dedicated
to the Otetiani lake monster story. An independent
documentary from 2016, Exploring Seneca, recounts
the Otetiani story in great detail. So the story's
been told many times, but it couldn't hurt for
me to tell it one more time for those of you
who may not have heard it yet, or if you've heard
it, hear it one more time. I call this one the
Steamer Serpent Showdown. It was a few minutes
before 7 p .m. and the passenger steamboat Otetiani
was about halfway between Dresden and Willard
on the way to Geneva. The pilot, Frederick Rose,
called out to the captain, Carlton C. Herondin,
to alert him to what appeared to be an overturned
boat in the water about 400 yards ahead. The
captain took a look through his glass at what
he assumed was a floating boat and described
it as about 25 feet long, widest and highest
in the middle. with a sharp bow and a long, narrow
stern. Meanwhile, a group of passengers made
their way over to Frederick Rose and Otetiani's
pilot house to discuss the mysterious, abandoned,
overturned 25 -foot boat that was floating alone
in Seneca Lake. But this wasn't a group of ordinary
passengers. Instead, it included some of the
most influential and powerful men in the city
of Geneva. as well as a geologist from Canada.
So on the Otetiani that night, gathered together
and wondering about the lonely boat in the water
were the following Geneva residents. F .A. Mallett,
president of the Board of Public Works and editor
-publisher of the Saturday Review. Albert L.
Fowler, the commissioner of public works. D .W.
Hallenbeck, also commissioner of public works.
George C. Schell, the police commissioner. and
Fred S. Bronson, the manager of the Geneva Telephone
Company. And one other passenger of note was
Professor George R. Elwood of Guelph, Ontario,
who was a geologist. So as the men hung around
the pilot house, speculating about the upturned
boat, Captain Herondine was signaling to the
engineer to slow their approach. When the Otetiani
was within about 100 yards, the crew... swung
the davits outward to lower a boat into the lake
so they could approach the overturned boat. And
suddenly, what they presumed was the abandoned
vessel turned and began moving away from the
steamboat. Captain Herendine shouted full speed
ahead, and the Otetiani began chasing the slow
-moving object. As the steamer quickly gained
on its target, The crew and passengers of the
Otetiani got another surprise. The object turned
toward the steamboat, suddenly lifted its head
above the surface, looked directly toward the
Otetiani and opened its mouth to show off two
rows of sharp white teeth. Captain Herondine
needed to make another decision and quickly.
He decided that the best course of action would
be to violently ram the creature in order to
wound it and then take it back to Geneva alive.
If the serpent ended up dying, it would still
create quite a stir when they brought the carcass
to land. The Otetiani turned so that it would
hit the serpent from the side. When the passengers
crowded on the deck to get a view of the showdown
between the steamer and the serpent, Captain
Herondine ordered them to move to the middle
of the boat in case the creature attempted to
get on board after being attacked. Then the captain
further instructed the passengers to grab a flotation
device and to try to stay calm because even the
crew was unsure how this lake monster would respond
to unprovoked violence. Understandably, the captain's
orders didn't inspire confidence in a lot of
the passengers. Some of them were so upset they
started crying before taking refuge in... the
steamboat's cabin, which is not surprising. I
know I'd be pretty wigged out by the visions
of a giant, bleeding, angry water lizard jumping
onto the boat to extract his revenge. Then the
Otetiani made one last turn to take aim at the
creature, and the captain called out full speed
ahead, and the assault commenced. But as the
steamboat rapidly approached, the serpent abruptly
raised its head. and stared down the Otetiani
again before sinking into the lake. As the steamboat
churned over the spot where the monster had just
been, a few passengers reported looking at the
water and seeing the dark outline of the creature
passing by just below the surface. So at this
point, the captain made another decision, which
was probably his best decision of the day so
far. Rather than engage in a potentially lengthy
and... risky game of chicken with the lake monster,
Herondine told the crew to point the ship towards
Geneva to complete the scheduled trip. Even though
he wasn't able to capture the monster, he probably
figured at least the people on the Otetiani that
night would have a wild story to tell about their
rendezvous with the elusive water beast on a
Tuesday night summer steamboat trip. And then,
from the afterdeck, a woman declared, There it
is! The thing has come up! Captain Herondine
rushed to the stern of the Otetiani, followed
by the passengers, and they all looked out to
see the serpent lying in nearly the same position
that it was earlier, like an overturned boat
drifting on the waves. And once again, Carlton
Herondine needed to make a quick decision. Should
he just continue the trip and leave the serpent
alone, or should he try to injure or kill it
again? And the captain chose violence. This time,
however, the steamboat was maneuvered so that
the huge paddle wheel on the starboard side of
the boat would slam into the creature about halfway
between its head and tail. Full speed ahead.
Somehow, the late creature didn't even see the
steamboat coming, so when the Otetiani hit the
beast, a loud thud was heard as those on board
were thrown off their feet. The steamer was careening
wildly, but eventually the crew regained control
and righted the vessel. The passengers and crew
paused silently for a few moments. The only sound
was the boat's engine. And then some cheers and
some screams came from the stunned crowd. And
floating, badly injured, next to the Otetiani
was the Seneca Lake monster. It had a gaping
wound in its side. The serpent again raised its
head. But this time it took one last breath and
gasped before going motionless. They had killed
the Seneca Lake serpent. Some of the observers
on the boat understandably speculated that the
death was due to a broken spinal column. So just
as he had planned, Captain Herendine sent his
crew to secure the carcass and hoist it onto
the steamboat to take to Geneva. They lowered
the lifeboats. It rode over to the creature's
side and then they tied ropes around the body.
The crew and the passengers then joined together
to pull the ropes to raise the body from the
water. But at the moment the dead giant serpent
cleared the surface of the lake, one of the ropes
slipped off and the tail dropped back into the
water. So the sudden weight on the other rope
was too much for the passengers and crew's hands
to handle. And faced with the choice of either
letting go of the rope or being pulled into the
lake with the dead monster, the rope was released
and the Seneca Lake monster slowly submerged
and disappeared. And notably, the carcass had
sunk into one of the deepest areas of Seneca
Lake at more than 500 feet. The Otatiani got
to Geneva shortly before midnight, and while
many of the stories being recounted by the passengers
were similar in most of the details there was
some variation in their descriptions so the passenger
who was considered to be the most trustworthy
and credible of all the witnesses was the Canadian
professor George R. Elwood a geologist by trade
and Elwood was able to inspect the carcass quite
closely as he was one of the volunteers who rode
out and in the lifeboats and tied ropes around
the dead lake serpent. And Professor Elwood concluded
that the mysterious creature was a Clydastes,
a marine lizard believed to have become extinct
approximately 66 million years ago. Elwood estimated
the length to be 25 feet and the weight around
1 ,000 pounds, with a long tail that tapered
before broadening at the end. like a whale's
tail. Elwood said the head was triangular with
a long mouth containing two rows of sharp triangular
white teeth, similar to the teeth of a sperm
whale. The body was covered with a greenish -brown
material reminiscent of a turtle shell. It also
had unblinking round eyes, kind of like a fish,
according to the professor. And when the rope
slipped and the carcass slid back into the lake,
Professor Elwood was able to see that the creature's
belly was a cream white color. Now this story
of the steamer serpent showdown was not only
published in local newspapers, but it ended up
being picked up nationally. And the story gained
a lot of notoriety around the country for a short
period of time. And after its incredible rendezvous
with the Seneca Lake serpent in 1900, The Otetiani
continued regular routes between Geneva and Watkins
Glen through late 1905, and for the next three
years, it was only intermittently in service.
And then when the steamboat reached the end of
its useful life, it wasn't simply disassembled
for parts. Instead, the Otetiani was brought
ashore, cut in half, and began the next phase
of its life as a hen house. So now that we've
covered the legendary meeting between the Otetiani
and the Seneca Lake Monster, I want to tell another
story. And this one's from the same era, actually
approximately a year prior to the Otetiani encounter.
And I really love this story. I think it's just
as colorful and epic as the Otetiani story in
its own way. And I call this one... The Blacksmith
and the Giant Eel. George Sorner was a blacksmith
who lived on the shore of Pine Bay on the west
side of the lake about 17 miles south of Geneva.
George loved catching and eating fresh perch
and pickerel from Seneca Lake and had set a gill
net in the water on the evening of Thursday,
July 13, 1899. The next morning, George found
a large hole torn in the net. The damage seemed
to have been caused by a large animal that had
become entangled in the net before breaking away.
So George repaired the net and set it in the
lake again that night. And the next morning,
the net was in even worse condition than the
day before. So the story of the blacksmith and
the mysterious net -destroying lake monster spread
quickly throughout the surrounding community,
with each retelling taking on new details. So
some folks said it was a manatee, others said
it was a dugong, while others claimed it was
a hippopotamus with a hundred teeth as sharp
as swords. So, unsurprisingly, George Sorner
felt uneasy. Of all the sea serpent stories he'd
ever heard, none of them involved the beasts
appearing twice in the same place. George's neighbors
saw that he needed support, so they agreed to
give him a hand, and they decided that... George
would stand guard and watch the gill net all
night, and if the monster returned, George would
fire his pistol to signal to the neighbors of
the creature's reappearance, who would then come
and help him. So on the evening of July 15, 1899,
George set a new, stronger gill net in Seneca
Lake, then took position in the stern of his
boat, grasping an edge of the net in one hand
to detect any movement. Now he just needed to
stay awake through the night until the morning.
George's vigil was interrupted, though, by a
skin -soaking downpour in the early morning,
but he kept on alert, and shortly before sunrise,
for the third time in three nights, the creature
came back. George felt something violently strike
the net. He immediately drew and raised his pistol
and fired a warning shot into the air. to notify
the neighbors. But he didn't just sit around
and wait for backup. As he quickly rode his boat
out towards the disturbance in the water, a long,
smooth, slate -colored body surfaced from the
water and moved quickly past his boat before
retreating below the lake's surface. He drew
his pistol up again, fired four more warning
shots to let his neighbors know they needed to
hurry up. And within minutes, Pine Bay was dotted
with boats coming to George Sorner's assistance,
with each vessel carrying a farmer, a shotgun,
and a fish spear. And as the disturbance in the
water kind of subsided, the boaters noticed that
a long snake -like creature was entangled in
George's net. So two of the farmers each grabbed
an end of the net. and slowly raised the serpent
out of the water. At that moment, five shotguns
rang out, riddling the creature with bullets
nearly from head to tail, and it turned out to
be a very large eel. One member of the sea creature
hunting party, a Robert William Sellers, stated
that the eel was 13 feet long. So in case you're
wondering, as of this writing, the longest known
freshwater eel on Earth, is the European conger,
which can grow to just under 10 feet in length.
And the longest saltwater eel ever recorded in
history was a 13 -foot -long slender giant moray.
And unfortunately, it's unknown what happened
to the bullet -riddled corpse of Seneca Lake's
world -record -sized giant eel. So back in 1968,
the Finger Lakes experienced one of the largest
UFO flaps in the area's history with a surge
of sightings across the region. While this rash
of UFO reports has been documented before, I'd
like to present some additional information that
has been overlooked, which tells the story of
the aftermath of the UFO flap and how it affected
the numerous witnesses, especially those around
Seneca Lake. And I call this story... Autumn
of 68, the Mud Lake Road incident. So on Thursday,
October 17th, 1968, around 10 p .m., John Franklin
was traveling east on Mud Lake Road on his way
to Watkins Glen after passing through the village
of Tyrone. John was a husband and a father in
his 40s who worked as an industrial equipment
salesman for a local company, and he was en route
to his home. in the eastern Finger Lakes and
was on track to arrive there within about an
hour. So as John was driving on this very rural
road, roughly seven miles from Watkins Glen,
suddenly a brilliant floating white light caught
his attention as it approached his car from behind.
The object began to hover in complete silence
about two stories above the ground over the car.
And suddenly the vehicle came to a halt and everything
shut off. The motor, the radio, the lights all
went off. And for the next five minutes, John
remained in the driver's seat and watched as
this blinding light changed from white to an
orange -red color and a blinding green. He was
terrified. He was unable to discern any size
or shape to the object due to the... uh overpowering
brightness but he was also too frightened to
lean out the window or exit the car to get a
closer look at the object and eventually the
object moved southwest toward tyrone at which
point the car's engine and lights and radio all
came back on so john was completely rattled and
decided he was going to drive directly to the
sheriff's office in walkins glen to report the
event So when Mr. Franklin got to the sheriff's
office, he was met by Deputy Sheriff Robert Reed,
who said that when John arrived, he appeared
to be shaken. But, quote, he wasn't drunk or
acting as though he wanted publicity. He didn't
ask for a police investigation. He just thought
that the incident should be reported. So that's
exactly what John did. He recounted the entire
harrowing story to Deputy Sheriff Alex Cole.
stating, quote, laugh if you want to, but I was
so scared and shook up, I did not know what to
do, end quote. After John left the sheriff's
office, he resumed his drive home, and Deputy
Cole drove to the location of the sighting, but
said that he found no evidence of a UFO visit.
The next day, John Franklin received what was
most likely an unexpected phone call from a reporter
at the Ithaca Journal. who asked him to comment
on his UFO encounter from the previous night.
Now, although John had communicated very clearly
with the sheriff's office that he wasn't seeking
any attention, the local news media had somehow
already gotten word of his statements to the
deputies within 24 hours. John Franklin gave
the journalist a very short statement saying,
quote, I just don't want to talk about it. I
don't want publicity. The next day, October 19th,
Newspapers in Ithaca and Watkins Glen published
the details of John Franklin's encounter. They
also published his full name, his home address,
his age, and his occupation. So because he felt
a duty to notify the proper authorities after
a terrifying and bizarre experience on a rural
road, his private life was laid bare and his
reputation became publicly associated with a
controversial and often ridiculed subject. But
the following couple of months brought several
more dramatic sightings around the same area
of the Mud Lake Road incident. A little over
a month after John Franklin's experience, on
Monday, November 26, 1968, a man was doing chores
on his farm in the town of Redding around 6 .30
p .m., around twilight. The farm was located
around two miles northwest of the area of Mud
Lake Road where John had seen the UFO. When the
farmer's three children saw a bright light hovering
in the night sky west of their farm, he grabbed
his binoculars to take a closer look. He watched
as the object changed colors from green to yellow,
red, and white without making any sound. He then
phoned his relatives. who lived about four miles
north near Rock Stream, who also began watching
the same silent, motionless light in the sky.
He also called the Schuyler County Sheriff's
Department, and Deputy Alex Cole, who had assisted
John Franklin at the sheriff's office just a
few weeks earlier, was dispatched to the farm.
Deputy Cole also observed the hovering object,
although, strangely, Cole said that he didn't
see the light change colors. Instead, it just
appeared black and white to him. The object remained
in the sky for around a half an hour, although
it's unclear on whether it flew away or just
disappeared. Then, a little over two weeks later,
on December 12, 1968, around 5 .30 p .m., a fuel
and feed business operator from Dundee was driving
his delivery truck south on Van Dyke Road in
Redding. heading towards Mud Lake Road. He saw
something in the distance that he thought at
first was an airplane. Then he realized that
the object had no red or green wing lights that
a plane would have, and it was a brilliant, constant,
circular light he described as mammoth. He believed
that it was around six to eight feet wide, was
moving from west to east, and traveling roughly
along the same path as County Line Road. which
is also known as Mud Lake Road. And this object
appeared approximately three and a half miles
from where John Franklin had his encounter. For
several minutes, the man watched the object as
he drove approximately two miles south on Van
Dyke Road when the light suddenly vanished. And
according to the man, quote, as though it became
aware it was being watched, it shut off. It didn't
fade or fly away behind clouds. it shut off like
someone flipped a switch. But first, it shot
down a flat beam of light toward the ground.
The next day, Barbara Bell, a reporter from the
Ithaca Times, interviewed the man about the Van
Dyke Road sighting. And after asking around the
neighborhood of County Line Road to see if anyone
else saw the same object, Bell found a second
witness. And this was a 15 -year -old boy who
was driving a tractor in a field nearby when
he saw an extremely bright cluster of lights
in the sky. started driving toward the farm owner's
home to alert them, but the lights, quote, turned
off suddenly, end quote. And the entire sighting
lasted about 10 seconds, and neither witness
knew about the other until Barbara Bell came,
investigated, and then wrote about the incident
in the evening paper. Now, Bell's article also
revealed a second witness. describing an unusual
illuminated object in the sky over Mud Lake Road
in roughly the same location and time as John
Franklin's encounter. A woman along with her
teenage daughter from their home on Upper Glen
Road had witnessed numerous anomalous lights
hovering in the sky at night in the fall of 1968.
And they carefully wrote down the date, time,
and details of each sighting. And although the
shape and size of the object weren't discernible,
Due to the distance from the woman's home, all
of them made no sound and some performed maneuvers
that would be impossible for any known aircraft.
Among all these sightings the woman and her daughter
had, the woman's daughter had observed an unidentified
light in the sky in the vicinity of Mud Lake
Road on the same night and time as John Franklin's
encounter. So it's very interesting to notice
that. John Franklin made his report in October.
Apparently, the deputy sheriffs there were laughing
at him, if we take that from his quote, when
he said, laugh if you want. And it turns out
that he wasn't alone in seeing these lights in
the sky. So winter settled in, a new year arrived,
and media reports of UFO sightings dwindled.
Months and years passed and the Finger Lakes
UFO flap of 1968 kind of faded into memory. Then,
in November 1977, the iconic UFO contact film
Close Encounters of the Third Kind began what
would end up being a six -month theatrical run
and it elevated the subject of UFOs to a pop
culture phenomenon. By March of 1978, NBC had
a TV show called Project UFO, which was loosely
based on the United States Air Force investigations
into the UFO phenomenon. And Project UFO was
a bona fide Friday night television hit. So the
Ithaca Journal decided it was a good time to
revisit the spate of unexplained objects in the
local skies 10 years earlier. Ithaca's Close
Encounters. was the name of the article that
was published in the Inside section of the Ithaca
Journal on Saturday, March 4th, 1978. The reporter
was Judith Horstman, who would go on to become
an award -winning journalist, a Washington correspondent,
an author, and a professor. And Horstman explained
the newspaper's renewed interest in the UFO wave
of 1968 and the response from the witnesses they
contacted. Horstman said, quote, We wondered
about what the passage of 10 years had done to
the impact of the local encounters on the people
who saw them during the UFO flap here and how
it changed them. We didn't have much luck in
finding out. Many were unreachable. Four of them
were unwilling to talk. Two of them pleaded with
us not to use their names. One threatened to
sue us. I can't face the loss of credibility,
one man said. Please don't bring that up again.
That's all in the past. My family went through
hell over that, a woman told us. If I had known
what was going to happen, I never would have
said anything about it. I was harassed. It was
really embarrassing. I'm sorry I ever talked
to anybody about it and I never will again. End
quote. Now, Judith Horstman did manage to find
some people who were willing to have their names,
photos, and interviews published. There were
two witnesses. an investigator, and a skeptic
that were all quoted in the article. There was,
however, one witness who declined to comment,
but the Ithaca Journal went ahead and republished
details of that sighting anyway. And that was
John Franklin's story. Once again, it was back
in the local news with the Ithaca Journal again
publishing his full name and the town where he
continued to work and reside with his family.
And because of the... similarities between Close
Encounters of the Third Kind and John's experience,
it seems that the newspaper felt that his story
needed to be publicly retold regardless of whether
or not he agreed to speak with their reporters.
The journal contacted John by telephone for an
interview, and he gave a what they called a polite
but firm response. I don't want to discuss it,
he said, and hung up. Now, it's unclear if the
Ithaca Journal tried to contact the witnesses
that I mentioned earlier that all had sightings
in the Mud Lake Road area, and if they were among
the witnesses who expressed a strong displeasure
with the paper contacting them. But regardless,
I decided to use, either not use their names
or use pseudonyms for all the witnesses from
1968, including John Franklin. That's not his
real name. as it's impossible to know if they
or their families would want their names and
stories put out there again decades later. Of
course, all their names are readily available
to anyone who wants to read the original news
articles. I'm just choosing to not put them out
there. Now, it's been well over a half century
since the autumn of 1968, and there hasn't been
another... wave of UFO sightings in the Seneca
Lake area that have generated as much local media
interest. But this doesn't mean that there are
no more UFOs being seen. Today, most local law
enforcement offices won't take UFO reports from
witnesses. So if you see a UFO, you call the
police or the sheriffs. They'll tell you that's
something we don't handle. And it's more or less
the same with local media outlets. They won't.
take interest in a sighting generally unless
there are multiple witnesses in multiple locations.
So instead, these days, witnesses are able to
report their sightings anonymously to organizations
like the National UFO Reporting Center and the
Mutual UFO Network, who have collected and investigated
dozens of reports over the decades of anomalous
aerial objects seen above and around the lake.
Also, the stigma attached to being a UFO witness
isn't as intense as it was in the late 1960s,
with an estimated 40 % of Americans believing
in UFOs currently. But there still is a stigma,
whether people are reporting UFOs or Bigfoot
or ghosts. or a spiritual or mystical experience,
or any other kind of unexplained phenomena. And
this is something that I acknowledge and I keep
in mind with the Seneca Lake Mysteries Project.
So anyone who wants to contact me and share their
story about experiencing something that isn't
supposed to be, quote, real. And in many cases,
these kinds of experiences can be transformative
for people. And in my opinion, these types of
stories are important in helping all of us understand
the nature of reality and the nature of life
itself. Of course, it's good to be skeptical
and seek a prosaic explanation. But still, people
have been having these kinds of experiences for
millennia throughout all known human history.
And I believe they are perfectly natural parts
of the human experience. Although some people
don't agree with that. So they laugh, they mock,
they ridicule. And in doing so, they strongly
discourage people from sharing these fascinating
and important stories. So here at Seneca Lake
Mysteries, I always keep John Franklin's experience
in the back of my mind. Respecting confidentiality
and allowing people to share these incredible
stories without fear of repercussions or shame.
So after I released the first episode of the
podcast, a longtime follower of Seneca Lake Mysteries,
Jason Lamphere, reached out to me and said he
had an unusual story and wanted to know if it
was something I'd heard about. I told him to
send along and he sent me a clipping from an
1873 book entitled History and Directory of Yates
County, which included a story about something
very intriguing that was found near Keuka Lake,
which lies roughly eight... to 10 miles to the
west of Seneca Lake. And here's what the clipping
said. Quote, There was an Indian burial ground
on the west shore where large quantities of human
bones were interred in a mound of conical shape,
on the top of which grew an oak tree, 18 inches
in diameter. Many of the skeletons were judged
by Dr. William Cornwell and others to have belonged
to a very large and stalwart men. some of them
nearly seven feet tall. And it turns out this
topic is something that I have been looking into.
Not only legends of giant skeletons being found
in the vicinity of Seneca Lake, but also stories
about ancient Indian mounds and ceremonial earthworks
in the area. Still, I was very interested to
hear this story about these skeletons being found
west of Seneca Lake near... Cayuga Lake because
I had also uncovered a story of giant skeletons
being found about 8 to 10 miles to the east of
Seneca Lake in the town of Fayette near Cayuga
Lake. Now this story was published in a 1900
book entitled Centennial Historical Sketch of
the Town of Fayette, Seneca County, New York.
After describing an ancient earthwork in the
area, which they referred to as an Indian fortification,
it was an embankment of earth that formed a circle
covering several acres of land about four to
five feet high and about four feet in thickness
at the bottom and three feet thick at the top
with gateways or openings in the embankment.
five feet or more in width, with large stones
placed to protect the embankment on the sides
of the openings, and a moat or ditch that had
been dug around the outside of the earthwork.
And after that description comes these tantalizing
details. Quote, An ancient Indian burying ground
was also found located nearly a mile southeast
of this fortification, where human skeletons
of unusually large size were found in mounds
of earth. These were regarded by many persons
as the bones of a prehistoric race of human beings.
Now this is a story that I was planning on doing
in a later podcast, as I had planned to kind
of work my way up to some of the more bizarre
or fringe kind of stories like this one. But
after Jason reached out to me, I decided, hey,
why not do this story? In the second episode.
So that's what I'm going to do. And this one
is called. Giants of Geneva. Now this story begins.
At the location of. The former. Haudenosaunee
Seneca. Village. Known as White Springs. Located
at the corner of modern day. Preemption Road.
And White Springs Lane. In Geneva. And where
the White Springs Manor. is currently located.
The Village of White Springs, which has a Haudenosaunee
name, but I'm not entirely sure how to pronounce
it, so I'm not going to try, but it's spelled
G -A -N -E -C -H -S -T -A -G -E. If anyone out
there knows how to pronounce that, please let
me know for future reference. So the Village
of White Springs was there from roughly 1688
to 1732. 5 ,000 people lived there, likely drawn
by the clear water springs that were on the site
that ended up supplying water to the city of
Geneva in later years. And also, I'm not going
to get into the long history of the Seneca and
Haudenosaunee people in the area, but in 1732,
the residents of White Springs... moved to another
location called New White Springs, just a few
miles southwest, and then later they moved to
what was referred to as the capital of the Seneca
Nation, Gununda Saga, which is located at the
top of what is now Castle Street in Geneva, roughly
where the Cornell Agrotech campus now stands.
So back to White Springs, after the Seneca people
left, the land had a series of owners, and in
1839 it was purchased. by a man named Gideon
Lee. Now this site had numerous burial mounds.
It's unclear of the number, but suffice to say
there were many, many burial mounds around this
village site. And in 1842, Gideon Lee decided
that the land would be more valuable with these
mounds removed. So he undertook a large project
to grade all the mounds and flatten the land
on White Springs Farm. Now I don't want to lose
sight of the fact that this kind of undertaking,
essentially destroying the graves of dozens if
not hundreds of people, would be akin today to
taking a bulldozer into your local cemetery,
digging up the ground, and sifting through the
dirt for artifacts. And then either keeping the
artifacts for yourself or disposing of them.
Now imagine taking bulldozers into cemeteries
all across the continental United States. destroying
sacred spaces and the final resting places of
hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people.
Now, with that in mind, I'm going to read you
a passage from a book called The 14th Annual
Report, 1909, of the American Scenic and Historic
Preservation Society. And this excerpt describes
the grading of the mounds at White Springs Farm
in 1842. Quote, When the grounds were graded
in 1842, numerous traces of the old Indian occupations
were found. In a lane opposite the site of the
old carriage house now occupied by a later building
and near a tulip tree, which is probably the
tulip tree still standing, there was a burial
mound about three feet high from which many skeletons
were exhumed. Another burial mound was located
a short distance south of the one above mentioned
and west of and in front of the mansion. from
one -fourth to one -third of the distance from
the road to the house. This knoll was about four
feet high and yielded many skeletons. As the
bottom of the ossuary was not reached in the
grating, there are doubtless bones of the, quote,
first families, end quote, still interred there.
There are in the lawn gentle elevations of ground
which strongly indicate other burial places.
Inquiry, years ago, among citizens conversant
with the work, and the workmen themselves, elicited
many interesting facts about these sites. Most
of the bones taken from them appeared to have
been those of adults and of a good -sized race.
In one or two instances, they were of extraordinary
size. It is estimated that four or five wagon
loads of bones and skulls, perhaps more, were
removed, deposited in low places in the neighborhood,
and covered up. Some degree of order appears.
End quote. Now, obviously, the mention of skeletons
of an extraordinary size is compelling enough,
but I was also intrigued by the mention of some
of the bodies being found buried in a sitting
position. and covered with a sandy loam, a type
of soil that was not naturally found in the vicinity
of the White Springs Farm, which was naturally
a gravelly clay soil. So now we take a look at
a document that came from the National Park Service,
dated January 28, 2021, entitled Notice of Inventory
Completion, Geneva Historical Society, Geneva,
New York. Now in more recent years, The United
States government has worked with museums, historical
societies, and other entities to return native
artifacts or bones to the appropriate tribes.
So this document isn't particularly unusual.
There's many, many similar documents in existence.
And in this case, the Geneva Historical Society
worked with the Seneca Nation to assess the remains
and various artifacts they had in their possession.
And for this particular case, I want to read
the section called History and Description of
the Remains. Quote, In the spring of 1969, human
remains representing, at minimum, one individual,
were removed from Reed Farm in Ontario County,
New York. Two boys, James and Thomas Reed, discovered
the human remains in a sandbound eight miles
south of Geneva, New York. along Seneca Lake.
They found the remains of one individual, possibly
female, buried in a seated position with crossed
arms and crossed legs and facing east. In May
1969, the Reed family placed the human remains
on loan with the Geneva Historical Society, and
since 1995, the human remains have been under
the Society's control. No known individuals were
identified. no associated funerary objects were
present. A written description of the burial
at the time of discovery stated that no artifacts
were discovered with the human remains. In 1995,
Peter Jemison, NAGPRA coordinator for the Seneca
Nation of Indians, opined that the human remains
were of prehistoric date, as a Haudenosaunee
burial would have included a beaded necklace.
Along the eastern shore of Seneca Lake, seasonal
settlements established for fishing marked the
periphery of Seneca Nation territory. A few miles
to the west of these settlements, archaeological
evidence exists for the associated Seneca towns.
Based on the totality of the information, the
Geneva Historical Society has determined that
the human remains listed in this notice are ancestral
to the Seneca people. So I find this very interesting
for several reasons. One, the representative
of the Seneca Nation essentially said that this
was not a Haudenosaunee burial and therefore
not likely to be the remains of someone from
the Seneca Nation, even though the Geneva Historical
Society had determined that the remains were
ancestral to the Seneca people. It's pretty clear
that the person who was found in this burial
mound was not from the Seneca Nation. They were
from this period prior to the Seneca people living
in the area. And also it's very interesting that
the human remains were found in a sand mound
and the individual was buried in a seated position
with crossed arms and crossed legs facing east,
not unlike the remains that were found at the
White Springs site of people buried in a seated
position and covered with sand or a sandy loam,
which is just a soil that's heavy in sand. And
considering it was determined that the remains
found on the Reed farm was not someone from the
Seneca Nation, that opens up the possibility
that the remains that were found buried in an
almost identical manner at the White Springs
farm were also from the era prior to the Seneca
people living there. And this would also indicate
that people were living at the White Springs
site long before 1688 when the Seneca people
lived there. Now we're going to travel from the
White Springs site, about two miles north along
a perfectly straight stretch of County Road 6,
also known as Preemption Road, to the location
of what is likely one of the oldest human -made
structures in the town of Geneva, the mound at
Gananda Saga. academic archaeologists over time,
plus the routine looting of the site by local
residents in days past. But amazingly, the mound
is still here. After hundreds, maybe thousands
of burial mounds were wiped from existence across
the landscape of New York State, the mound at
Kananda Saga has survived. Lying behind a gas
station and marked by a monument that was donated
by the landowners, the mound continues to be...
a significant and important historical, cultural,
and spiritual site for the Seneca people. Again,
it's not as big as it used to be, but it's still
here, just like the Seneca people are still here.
And there is an account written in the 1800s
that is possibly the original story told by the
Seneca people of how the mound came to be. And
why do I say possibly? because it's important
to know the author when reading Native stories
in history. It's said that many anthropologists
and researchers, especially those in the 1800s,
weren't always reliable narrators of Native history
and would often interpret those stories to reflect
their own beliefs or biases. So the story of
the Gananda Saga mound was written by renowned...
anthropologist Louis Henry Morgan in his book
League of the Iroquois, which was considered
groundbreaking when it was published in 1851.
Morgan was one of the first European Americans
to study and document the social structure, customs,
and history of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy,
which consists of the Oneida, Onondaga, Mohawk,
Cayuga, Seneca, and later the Tuscarora Nations.
However, Morgan has been criticized by Native
scholars and researchers for what they see as
his biased approach, which often led to the interpretation
of Haudenosaunee social structures and cultural
practices from a European point of view, which
could lead to misunderstandings and misrepresentations
of Native American cultures. And today, Morgan's
reputation among anthropologists is complex,
as his contributions to the field were important
and historic, but his recountings of some details
are questionable. So keep that in mind when considering
Lewis Henry Morgan's telling of the story of
the Gananda Saga mound. And here's what he said.
Quote, There is an interesting tradition connected
with this burial mound. The Seneca's say that
once they had a protector, a mighty giant taller
than the tallest trees, who split the largest
hickory for his bow and used pine trees for his
arrows. He once wandered west to the Mississippi
and from thence east again to the sea. Returning
homeward over the mountains along the Hudson,
he saw a great bird on the water, flapping its
wings as if it wished to get out. so he waded
in and lifted it on the land. He then saw on
it a number of men who appeared dreadfully frightened
and made signs to him to put them back again.
He did so, and they gave him a sword and a musket
with powder and balls and showed him how to use
them, after which the bird swam off and he saw
it no more. Having returned to the Seneca's Akananda
Saga, He exhibited to them the wonderful implements
of destruction and fired the gun before them.
They were exceedingly terrified at the report
and reproached him for bringing such terrible
things among them and told him to take them away
again, for they would be the destruction of the
Indians, and he was an enemy to their nation
who had brought them there. Much grieved at their
reproaches, he left the council, taking the dreadful
weapons with him, and lay down in a field. The
next morning he was found, from some mysterious
case, dead, and this mound was raised over his
body where he lay. It is averred by the Onondagas
that if the mound should be opened, a skeleton
of supernatural size would be found underneath."
So if we assume that this story is accurately
told by Morgan, it would seem that, due to the
Senecas at Ganondasaga having never seen a gun
or a sword before, that this story predates the
arrival of Europeans and their firearms in the
1600s, as well as the founding of Ganondasaga
as Seneca's capital in the mid -1700s. However,
if we consider that some of Morgan's details
are inaccurate, it's still possible that the
actual original story did involve a giant being
buried beneath the mound. So we have two spellbinding
stories here, one about a giant buried in a mound
in Geneva, and another about the remains of one
or two giants being found buried in another mound
in another part of Geneva. And naturally, these
stories don't prove that giants once roamed the
land near the northern shore of Seneca Lake.
But these stories still have extraordinary value
to all of us, inviting us to ponder the possibilities
and experience the wonder about our shared distant
past. Well, that's it for this time around. I
hope you enjoyed it. Thanks so much for listening.
And if you have any thoughts on any of the topics
in this episode, please let me know. And remember
to like and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts
and get over to SenecaLakeMysteries .com and
subscribe to the email list so you don't miss
anything. A new podcast comes out every month
on the 7th, so I'll talk to you again on the
17th.