It wasn't total wilderness. Meaning, if a deer saw you first, he'd seen people before. But he noticed you had a rifle, so he split.
Much of it was muck spiced with goose dung, sure, but it wasn't totally for the birds. French missionaries had been around since the early 1600's. Earlier than the Mayflower, 1620, French holy men were out and about in what became western New York state, doing their improving, educating, converting. Lima, just up the road from Henry's farm, was the site of at least one Seneca village.
As Ruth wrote: Harry, Chas Sr, Chuck
My father, here the baby, collected arrowheads and other relics
that turned up every time somebody plowed.
They're mine now.
My sister and I grew up believing that our great-great-grandmother descended from the great Mohawk chief, Joseph Brant. "Her name was Kate Brant," my father told us. I don't know if that was based on his own research, which I haven't been able to verify, or just wishful thinking. Or it could have been wishful confabulation by Harry and his sister Floss, orphans who might well have wondered who they were.
Chuck enjoyed every iota of his fake Mohawk heritage. It could have been on the strength of his arrowhead and relic collections that he acquired the tonnage of merit badges that led to his local renown as an Eagle Scout extraordinaire. I'm not sure if his imaginary lineage had anything to do with becoming a great football player as well. His character, his sportsmanship, and apparently, his brains all got him into Hobart's class of 1941. He was the first Osborn to go to college.
Echo of the Seneca was the title of the Hobart yearbook.
CHARLES ELMER OSBORN
Phi Phi Delta
Scientific
Lakeville, New York
Bacteriologist in embryo . . . one of
the strong silent type . . . all around
sport man . . . winter sports . . . always
under par . . . upstate granite block.