For history buffs.. A living veteran of the revolutionary War..

[ironglow]

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  There, did that get your attention?  ..No, I am not kidding..although I am stretching credulity just a bit!  This veteran is a tree..but not just any tree !

  Unfortunately, during the Revolutionary War, except for the Oneidas, the 6 tribes of the Iroquois confederacy chose to fight beside the British. Under Chief Joseph Brant (Mohawk) and Col John Butler (Tory)..they travelled south along the Sesquehana river in Pennsylvania, leading a force to massacre and destroy towns along the way.

  Gen Washington decided to end these depredations, so he set up the Sullivan expedition, to correct the matter.

   During the expedition, Gen Sullivan sent out a recon party to check the location of "Genesee Castle" (Little Beard's town), on the Genesee River.  The Senecas got wise, and laid an ambush about 1.5 miles west of the south end of Conesus (Kun-e-shush) Lake.

  At the ambuscade, the entire party was wiped out, except for Lt Boyd and Sgt Parker, who were then taken to Little Beard's town, nearly on the west bank of the Genesee River, at today's Cuylerville  (rhymes with Tylerville), which is about 2 miles north of the north end of Letchworth Park.

  Boyd and Parker were subjected to every torture imaginable by the Senecas..and they had some beauties..
  The last torture before being beheaded, was having the sides of their abdomens opened and intestines nailed to a tree, which they were forced or dragged to walk around, disemboweling them..

  When the continentals arrived on the scene, they buried the bodies, not at the tree, but about 50 yards from it.

  Their bones were moved from there to Rochester, NY. in 1841..and since been reburied a couple more times, both in Rochester.

  That tree us living today, and standing in a very pleasant, little roadside park at Cuylerville. 

  There are more videos on Youtube, along with this one.  Some try to make up "ghost stories' about the site, but I have stopped by the park many times when passing by, and find it a very nice place to stop and perhaps even open a picnic basket.

  I know folks from the area, and they don't talk "ghosts"!  Geneseo is a University town across the river and up the hill from Cuylerville..about 2 miles.  Leicester is pronounced like a man's name... Lester!

     Enjoy..history buffs !        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WoYssjmLHFw

[ironglow]

  How BS gets started;
    If you viewed the video, under it is a post by a guy named Howard, suggesting that some, perhaps hundreds of Indians were "run off a cliff" nearby.  That is pure hogwash!

  The Sullivan campaign was a "scorched earth" campaign, and after the ambush Brant tried at Newtown (near Elmira), there was only a few sniping attacks plus this Torture tree incident.  The Indians were being driven before them.  Except for one old woman found in a shelter alone, the Indians moved on..and she was treated well.

     There are no "cliffs" nearby, other than those at Letchworth Park..and there is no historical account, nor local legends of the capture of large numbers of Indians, and certainly no herds of them driven over cliffs!

  The Indians all fled to British protection, and camped around Ft Niagara (where the Niagara River flows into Lake Ontario.  It was a hard winter..scarce enough food for the British troops and the Indians.

  Wikipedia account of the Sullivan expedition (it's good):    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sullivan_Expedition

[oldandslow]

Thanks for the link. I faintly remember reading about this incident and with the video I got to see where it happened.

[ironglow]

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  Last time I visited there, I picked up some small branches that had fallen from that tree.  There was a method to my madness..
  My middle grandson, besides being a  corrections officer, also deals & works with exotic wood and things created therefrom.  He also forges some great knives and puts exoGBO.tic woods on them for handles.

  He makes beautiful things from wood also..such as retirement gift level Pen & Pencil sets.. Somebody will likely get a treasured pen set or knife.

  You can see some of his work in the "knives forum", here on .