Canajoharie

Canajoharie, in Mohawk Kana'tsioharé:ke, takes its name from a large round pothole in the creek here, "the pot that washes itself". In 1738 it was one of the two main towns of the Mohawk nation, stretching a mile and a half along the south bank of the Mohawk River from Dekanohage west to the site of Fort Plain. The English called it the Upper Castle, to tell it from the Lower Castle farther down the river. The Mohawk here lived by farming the river flats and by the fur trade, to which Dutch, French and then English traders came, and many married into the community.

The Lower Castle became largely Christian after Queen Anne sent a chapel and a set of communion silver in 1710, following a visit to London by four chiefs, one of them King of Canajoharie, while Canajoharie had no mission until 1769. Hendrick Theyanoguin, the Mohawk speaker who allied closely with Sir William Johnson, lived here and died at the battle of Lake George in 1755. Molly Brant and her brother Joseph, a future war leader, were also raised here. In 1769 Johnson built the Indian Castle Church on land donated by the Brants. After the Revolution divided the Haudenosaunee, the Upper Castle Mohawk fled to Fort Niagara and lost their lands to New York.