Donald A. Windsor
Two Indian burial sites within the City of Norwich are documented by an 1868 newspaper: one on Sylvan Lane and another on York Hill. Both sites are in the southeastern quadrant of the City and are about a quarter-mile apart.
Tom Knapp found this anonymous item.
The Chenango Telegraph and Chronicle (Norwich, NY) 1868 July 29 Wednesday; 40(21): 3.
"Indian Remains. -- Mr. Joseph Schorn while digging in his door yard on Sylvan Lane on Saturday last came upon what he supposed to be a large stone, and commenced digging around it for the purpose of removing it. Upon trying to turn it over it cracked and fell in pieces. It proved to be a huge bowl of Indian pottery. Upon further investigation it proved to have been placed over the body of an Indian who had been buried there. Subsequent digging developed the fact that the body had been buried in a sitting posture. This adds another evidence to those already found that the York hill was without doubt an Indian burying ground."Sylvan Lane no longer exists. It once ran east-west between Grove and Taylor avenues. It was situated south of Maydole Street and north of Marconi Avenue, before there was a Marconi Avenue. It has had no buildings and was used as a vegetable garden for at least 40 years. For the past few years it has been merely a mowed field. Here is a photo of Sylvan Lane on the 1872 Village of Norwich Toudy map.
Here is a photo of Sylvan Lane taken on 26 July 2011. All photos in this blog posting were taken the same day. These two lots are for sale.
York Hill rises above Midland Drive across from the High School and in back of that small brick shed (which houses a gas meter).
York Hill is, I assume, the high spot through which runs York Avenue, the physical extension of Brown Avenue. Here is a photo looking east from Birdsall Street.
York Hill looks like a good place for a cemetery, high and dry. Sylvan Lane, by sharp contrast, looks like a poor place. It is a flat area within the flood plain. Even when it is not flooded, it is wet. The sewers do not adequately drain Grove Avenue here.
This documentation is indeed paltry, but at least it is something to go on. It makes me wonder how many other Indian sites are within the City of Norwich. We reported on our interpretation of a passage from Hiram C. Clark's History of Chenango County 1850, page 14, in our article cited below.
Windsor, Donald A. ; Storms, Dale C. Indian mound in Norwich. Chenango County Historian's Journal 2001 July-December; 2(3-4): 13.
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