Ganondagan (ga-NON-da-gan) is a New York state historic site and park near Rochester, with a preserved Seneca village. While many whites find it a spiritual place, even a pilgrimage site, others sense unrest in the area. After visits to Ganondagan, some non–Native Americans have reported troubling dreams. The young daughter of a Rochester college professor had a nightmare about an old Native American climbing the outside of her house to get at her second-floor bedroom. Some figure like him has surfaced as a ghost reported on the roads near Boughton Hill, among a bevy of less distinct apparitions not all so surely Native.
Those negatively affected by Ganondagan sense an indignation that seems vaster than that of a single human spirit. It could be the psychic echo of a battle. Ganondagan was the site of a cruel first-strike invasion from a French expedition and a collection of Native enemies in 1687. Surely that must be it. Most battlefields attract psychic folklore, and New York state is saturated with them, including ancient Native American ones. Not many of the folks who live and work over these older clash points know what went on there before them.
The late historian Sheldon Fisher (1907–2002), from Fishers, New York, was a treasure trove of regional lore. In the ninety years of his familiarity with Ganondagan, almost all the households near it reported psychic encounters of some sort. This story about a family on Boughton Hill is one Sheldon told us.
The Invisible Being
One September afternoon, members of a family were raking leaves outside their house. The youngest child went inside then ran back out, leaving the front door open. As the mother glanced up her jaw dropped, and the rake fell from her hands.
A breeze in the yard had picked up bits of leaves and dust and spun them intoa man-size whirlwind. It held its shape and form so well and long that anyone could fancy a presence within it. Soon all of them were watching it. This little tornado meandered about the yard as of to throw everyone off, but the mother noticed that it kept moving as if purposefully toward the house. As it neared the porch, the mother started running to the front door, but it beat her and vanished as it crossed the threshold. It was as if an invisible being had taken up a dusty veil like a cloak and shed it as it entered the house.
The mother ran in and looked around. The house was still, but something felt different. In the weeks to come, the feeling would become a certainty.
Family members were on edge. Old problems came back. Plants died, pets acted strangely, no one slept well, and psychic phenomena broke out. Strangely, they never connected matters to the odd episode in the yard.
One family friend was an old Seneca who dropped in a couple of times a year. A mutt was his constant companion. He and his sidekick came by one October afternoon. As he waited in the kitchen for the tea water to boil, he noticed his dog tracking something across the room with its eyes, as if an invisible guest had taken up residence.
He did his best not to look concerned. “Get everyone out of the house for a few hours,” he said. “Now. I need to get some things and come back.”
When the family returned hours later, the house felt different, as if it had been restored to peace. Things settled down. They could only conclude that their Seneca friend had worked a ritual to banish the force, whatever it was. It was probably a housecleansing using sage or cedar.
The Cursed Circle
A doctor and his wife built their dream home on a circular cul-de-sac off the road between Lakewood and Jamestown. The house in West Ellicott was ninety-five feet long, with a full basement, rec rooms, playrooms—the works. The doctor remembers good times, especially at first. Woods and wildlife were there, and old farmhouses nearby. They had a dozen pleasant neighbors. They could walk to the southern shore of Chautauqua Lake. They skated on the pond and sledded on a hilly clearing like a ski slope. But from the start, their children were unhappy. Was this an early sign?
Soon, there were others. When they drilled their well, the plumber called thewater the best he had ever tasted. Within weeks, it had turned too salty even to be used for cooking. Soon they had to run a water line in from the main road.
The doctor’s wife had dreams of water; then they woke and found it in their basement. Flooding became so routine that the doctor put in a pump, which was soon clotted by gravel and rendered useless. A fine chandelier in the foyer spontaneously fell to the floor. Home at the time, the doctor’s wife heard the crash.
The aged doctor was quite lucid when we interviewed him in 1997. He recalled a file of tragedies that befell others who lived on the circle. Boating accidents killed one neighbor’s child and badly injured another. One neighbor lost his business, and another suffered a miscarriage. A young man had a fatal heart attack while running around the circle. A boy was killed in the woods nearby. A mother fell on the stairs in her basement and suffered migraines; soon thereafter, her big, seemingly stable family was in tatters. A heart attack killed a circle resident exercising at the YMCA. Another, who suffered a stroke, learned from his misfortune and moved. The doctor, too, finally sold his house after only four years. Two months after taking over the home, the new owner killed himself.
Families on the circle were looking for answers. The only one that made sense surfaced by accident. One of the county’s first settlers had once
