STORY OF PIONEER LIFE IN MONTOUR FALLS
Mary Quick Charles,   granddaughter of Thomas Nichols, who with his family was the fifth permanent white settler at Mills  Landing, later Havana  and now Montour Falls.

[An article published in the paper ca. ?]
We begin this week the publication the early history of Montour Falls, written by Mary Quirk Charles, whose entire life was passed in that village, and who died there only a few years ago.
The first white man who came to his place and stayed was George Mills probably about 1790. He came and very soon after Jennie Murphy and her brother came. George Mills, after erected a pole house, returned with Jennie Murphy and her brother; and George Mills was married, to Jennie Murphy at Horseheads,  her home. They commenced their married life in the pole house situated on the corner of Main and Catherine St. After ward,   Mills built  near the pole house tavern. After white people began to settle here religious services were held on Sunday in the bar room. Part this hotel or tavern still remains as a dwelling house. George Mills married  for his second wife a Mrs. Hamilton, Both he and his two wives lie buried  in Montour Cemetery. After Mills, came Isaac Bower and ion after came McClure. The fifth family who settled here was that of Thomas Nichols wit his wife, Mary -iggs Nichols and four children, they came from Johnstown, N. Y. When  they came here they started from Schenectady, coming up the Mohawk River in a flat boat, poling the boat until they arrived here.  They found from three hundred to four hundred Indians who were on friendly terms with the whites and desired to exchange  their venison meat for bread and salt. They never knocked at the door of the white people, but would open the door, peek in and then beckon with hand for them to come to the door. They did not talk, only motion  with the hand.
A singular coincidence is that the first five white families who settled acre remained here during their lives and lie buried, in Montour Cemetery a their several  plots.
Isaac Bowers settled on the south if the present village said resided, in. the house he built just south of Cook McClure settled near the Indian village where Queen Catherine Montour lived in luxury in 1779 when Sullivan sent by General Washington destroyed her house; which was of wood and was painted white with grape vines running over it and bore marks of a cultured in mate.  Catherine Montour was a half breed; Half  French, half Indian, General Sullivan ordered her house to be burned the first as it  was she  who urged  the Wyoming Massacre. She was once one of the "four hundred."  of Philadelphia women, but the white killed her son and that aroused all the animosity of her nature  and she vowed vengeance on them. Queen Catherine's intrigues and Sagayewatha or Red Jacket’s oratory was the cause of many whites being brutally  massacred. It is a matter of fact that l General Sullivan standing on the knoll near the indian village, as the fires: were still burning which destroyed Chequaga came near being killed by Red Jacket in hiding, but one of Sullivan’s soldiers saved him and averted the upraised tomahawk.  General Sullivan’s men did not got Red Jacket. It is probable as General Washington had told General Sullivan he hoped he, if possible, could spare the life of Red Jacket for some favor he did the whites.  General Sullivan’s  army  remained here over night. They reported to Washington that the red man and families left very quickly as everything was dropped as if  they  were to return quickly. Even the  children's playthings were founds as   if they had been playing and were  suddenly taken, any.  Years after a  number of Sullivan’s men returned to the Chemung valley  region and bought   land and a great number of the Indians   returned as friendly Indians.  In 1797 there were three hundred to   four hundred Indians here. They were  were parts of  different tribes, Senecas, Cayugas, Onondagas.  The country around this village   seams to have, been more thickly settled by people coming and building  and taking up land than right here,  Cayutah Lake, Catharine, Horseheads, etc. By the strong arms of these early pioneers of our valley the forests were cut away, the seeds of civilization were sown in this wilderness. The church  and the school house were built where once the Indian wigwams stood. The  pioneers were religious men and women. As soon as they got houses for  their families they began to want to  assemble together to sing the old  songs of Zion and to pray and tell  together of the Lords doings with them. At first they met from house to  house, then in some barn, then in a log school house. When an inn or tavern was put up for travelers they used the bar room on Sunday. There were no wagon roads and the Indian  trails were impassable  for the horses so they went  on foot, the fathers carrying the smallest children the mothers leading the others by the hand.  The lndians, although they were friendly, seemingly brought fear to, the women. They remanced the Wyoming and Cherry Valley Massacres and they shuddered when the saw the face of an Indian lurking  near their log dwellings and thought of what might be the fate of their  family. The Indians loved this valley too. Their favorite hunting grounds were around these lakes. There were the graves of their father.
South of the Glen Creek bridge to, the west was their burying ground. The Indian village was near it before it  was burned. The Indians told the first settlers that a pot of gold was  buried by the cold spring. This spring is at the home of Mr.  Vedder near the west  Hill south of this village.  The settlers first homes here were of logs, unhewn, loosely fitted together, the  openings plastered with  mortar or oftener with mud. The roof was of heavy bark held down by, heavy  poles. The house  having no chimney. the  smoke escaped through an opening on the roof. The fireplace  was same of flat stones. Usually  the house was about eight logs or eight feet, high. Door and windows  were cut out afterwards. The door I  was often a blanket, but to be protected from wild beasts and the winds. A  heavy hewn  plank door open          stove and below like an old mill, had to be made.   The door latches had to be  made. This was hung  on wooden hinges and unless greased   would squeak in a terrible manner.  The door  latches were made of wood and   opened on the inside. It was raised by a leather string which passed through a gimlet hole in the door  and was drawn in at night.  The   windows were a cut hole and coarse  paper supplied the place of glass. This paper was well oiled to better  the light going through it and to shed the rain. The one room was about ten feet square. The writers  mother, Armenia Quick, daughter  of Thomas  Nickols was born so the only log house with two rooms. This  log house was without doubt left by  Indians in 1779 and not being, near
the Indian village  was not burned,  as it is presumed, the log house on the farm that was owned by Hull  Fanton  and still remains a relic of Fanton.
------ times east of the village was left a hewn stump served and it was stationary for the table for the family. The children stood while eating. Small logs for seating purposes. the bedstead was a rough wife shelf fastened to the wall by wooden pins and supported by post on the outside and peeled bark was used for the cord. The beds were made of bags, tufted with dried cat tail cut on the marsh. The fireplace was of stone, large and open, and supplied with fuel, the men and toys of the family bringing into the house an immense log to heat up with. Also they gatherer  pine knots for lights for the children to study by and for the good mothers to use to see to spin. In some instances they drew the logs in with horse. The family lived upon potatoes, boiled nettles, Indian meal.  The corn for the meal was pounded in wooden mortars. The drink was bread crust coffee and water. Venison and bear meat was gotten, but not plenty. Crab apples and wild plums were used as condiments. sassafras tea was for great occasions. Wooden and pewter, spoons were used which the settlers either brought with them or made out of wood. The parents only used plates. The children would lay their food on table and tear off pieces. Yet the same children, many of them, when grown up. were as cultured at the table as some of our college bred. The spinning wheel was as common as the sewing machine in today. Butternut bark was the coloring material. The. school books as late as 1818 here were Webster’s spelling book and Daboll’a Arithmetic, which only went to the single rule of three or single proportion. The Bible and the Hymn book made up the library. Yet the writer has in mind, a woman born in 1806 who had no more advantages in  books than this, who in her womanhood and older age was conversant on all subjects and appeared to have had a higher education. Her name was Armenia Nickols Quick.
The places of worship had no heaters, only as each family brought their  foot stove. A beef was killed in the  fall after the country became better settled. shoes for the family  out  of the hide. Those shoes had to be cared for, for when they were gone  they had to go barefooted until the next falls beef was killed. In going to school the boys of the family or neighborhood went on ahead of the girls to kill the snakes and drive away the wild animals. Until crops could he raised, fields cleared of the timber, the settlers had to hunt and fish for a greet part of their food. the heavy forest and the lakes and outlets and inlets made good places for game and fish. Near Rock Cabin the lndians said there were salt springs for the deer came there for salt.  Large salt wells are now in full blast near there. Logs were felled to fill up the roads, making the roads wholly of logs. While putting in water works in this village in 1900 those old log roads were found four or five feet down. Montour Falls was called Chequaga and Sageyewatha used, to come and try his voice beside them. From 1816 there was a large number of people coming here. The Dickens, Jackson's and David Lee, Anson Hall, Peter Tracy and Rulon,  Chapin, Parks, Bunyan, Minor Broderick, William Jackson,  George and Hiram Jackson, (brothers) came here and for many  years the name of Jackson was on some business place in this village. Simon Decker and Sidney Decker also were business  men here  for many years. Sidney Decker helped to organize the Presbyterian Church in 1829 and although he never was a member, what his influence and money could do for its support, he did. He was said to be a pillar of the church, by an old resident. Sidney Decker died in 1849 with cholera. He left two children,  Sara and Sidney Decker. His  wife  Maria Jones, Decker daughter of Dr. Jones, one of the first school teachers here and also a physician here for many years living at the same site which his grandson, Sidney Decker now occupies and uses for a residence. . Miss. Decker,  sister of Simon and Sidney Decker,  married William T. Jackson and to them were born eleven children. Mr. Jackson was married four times and lived to be an old man. Miss Anna Decker was his first wife. William Skellinger and  wife came from Pennsylvania and settled here accumulating a good deal  of wealth, and  they were among  the best families of the village.