Page:History of Warren County.djvu/25

 HISTORY

OF

WARREN COUNTY

CHAPTER I.

THE SUBJECT.

The Historical Beginning — Formation of the County — Situation and Boundaries — Area, etc.

WHILE the history of Warren county as a defined section of the State of New York extends into the past only to the year 1813, yet at that com- paratively recent date much of the important history of the immediate region, of which the county now forms a part, had been enacted. For how many years (or, possibly, centuries) before the locality was known to the white race who now possess it the beautiful waters, lovely valleys and rugged mountains were favorite resorts of the aborigines who have been driven from their domain, is a vexed question that has not been answered with any great degree of assurance, and probably never will be. To these primitive inhabitants, well-known as their general characteristics now are, we shall devote a few pages herein, while to the sanguinary strife in which they were prominent actors and which for nearly two centuries made this region one great battle- field, must be given up a share of this work proportionate to the historical im- portance of those events. The history of the territory now embraced within the boundaries of Warren county may, therefore, properly begin with the early years of the seventeenth century, at the time when Samuel de Cham- plain, with his party of northern Indians and two white attendants, came up Lake Champlain on a hostile incursion against the proud Iroquois.

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