Wenrohronon

The Wenrohronon, or Wenro, were an Iroquoian people of western New York, south of Lake Ontario between the Niagara and Genesee rivers. They lived in longhouse villages under matrilineal clans and farmed maize, beans and squash.

Their name has been read as 'people at the place of the floating scum', a reference to the oil springs in their country, the first recorded petroleum source in what became the United States.

Long shielded by the Neutral Confederacy against Seneca raids, they lost that protection in 1638 during the Beaver Wars, and more than six hundred refugees fled through Neutral country to the Wendat village of Ossossané on Nottawasaga Bay. When the Haudenosaunee shattered the Wendat and Petun in 1648 and 1649, the surviving Wenro fled with them and were absorbed into the people who became the Wyandot.