The Phantom Paddler of the Mohawk
(Mohawk Country)
The old Mohawk lived on the Hill of Strawberries and came now and then to theDorp—the Schenectady Stockade Historic District—with fish and game for trade.On those occasions, he revealed his other gifts: He could shoot and drink as well as any white.
One day in 1789 he came to town and did a couple of strange things. For one, he shunned the tavern. For another, he gave his load of fish to a friend and refused payment. All he said in explanation was, “Great Spirit call. Indian no need.” Then he got into his canoe and headed up the Mohawk River.
Boys swimming off a sand bar saw something odd the same day: the old Mohawk in his canoe, moving against the current without paddling. Like Pharaoh in the stern he sat, head up, arms folded across his chest. Next day the canoe was found far down the river.
A week later a white who had known the gent was out fishing when he looked up and saw his old pal sitting on a high bank of one of the river islands, arms folded and gazing “toward his departed people,” according to Louis C. Jones. This may have been a look toward Canada, but possibly it was toward vanished riverside villages that might have been considered the Mohawk homeland. The white guy paddled over and offered him a lift to shore. The Mohawk—clearly a ghost—faded from view as his head turned.
In the accounts of longtime Schenectady historian Percy Van Epps (1859–1951), this old Mohawk was one of the longest-lasting ghosts of the region. Many reported seeing him in this pose, knees hugged to his chin—a common burial position—and looking to the upper reaches of the valley. We only wish his name had been preserved.
It seems logical to link him with the phantom Indian paddler who with his canoe has been reported recently on the Mohawk River between Utica and Schenectady. On the right night, you could probably see him from many spots on the I-90 and Route 5.
The Ghost-Riders of Coxsackie
(Mohawk Country)
In the settler days, a white hunter and trader named Nick Wolsey lived along the Hudson in Green County near Coxsackie. Honest and fair, Wolsey got along well with his Native American neighbors.
To one village in particular he kept returning, and few needed the medicinepeople to know that it was more than trade that brought him in. In fact, it was a lovely lass whose name Louis C. Jones remembers as Minamee. She was sought after by the young men of her nation, but became the wife of the white trader.
Wolsey was so well thought of in the village that no one disapproved—no one, that is, but one jealous suitor. There was one bitter outburst between the two contenders for Minamee, possibly on the wedding day, but otherwise the matter seemed forgotten.
It was a happy year for Nick Wolsey and his new bride. Every day when he returned from his hunting, trading, or trapping, the welcoming smoke of the hearth drifted over the clearing. Light shone in the cabin, and his wife and her babe waited in the open doorway.
One day he came home to find trouble. The door was open, but no one stood in it, and no blue haze or sweet smoke lingered. On the cabin floor, he saw the baby’s decapitated head, and in the shadow, eyes glazed, beaten and bruised, his young wife clutching the tiny trunk. She died sometime that night, but not before telling Nick Wolsey about the drunken rampage of her former suitor and the horror he had visited upon them.
Wolsey rode to the nearby village and told the tale. The murderer was brought forth, and Wolsey allowed to name the punishment. “You wanted Minamee,” he said, “so badly that you would kill. Then have her now!” The murderer was lashed face to face with the body, then mounted on a crazed horse. The grisly burdens on its back, it tore off into the woods along the ancient trails. It was never seen again.
They say that for many years after, the ghost horse and its desperate riders were dreaded apparitions in this part of the Catskills. Even today if you are in the region some night and hear hollow hoof beats and a godless howling, you may know that Wolsey’s revenge lasted longer than life.
THE WAILING SPIRITS
The old Iroquois had clearly developed a concept of the soul that was detachable from the human body.
They also believed that, on occasion, the souls of the dead can be invited back from the afterlife to enjoy the love, tribute, and even goods of this world. This is the night of the dead familiar to many world societies. The Iroquois version seems to have had no fixed solar date. The dead may also come back uninvited.
Seventeenth-century missionaries and travelers reported incidents reflecting the Iroquois dread of offended human spirits. A servant girl of the Erie Nation was impulsively killed by her Onondaga mistress in December of 1656. A couple of captives were executed in a Seneca village in 1677. In both cases, the communities sent word all round that so-and-so had been killed that day. That night, the village set up a ritual racket—howling, screaming, pounding, and banging, hoping to distract, reorient, or even scare off the presences of the indignant dead.
The Caged Spirit
Early one evening in February of 1807 a Leicester man started heading for the western shore of the Genesee River. This meant crossing the river at its shallows where it freezes easily. About halfway over the Genesee Flats, he was shocked and terrified by the sounds of human screaming, seemingly coming from the sky above him. He hustled home and told his neighbors.
A handful of suspicious Genesee farm folk came back to the spot the next night. The gusty shrieking returned, this time for multiple witnesses! Word spread, and people came from far parts just to hear
