From six I knew.

This is connections.

I'm Raquel.

Stephen.

This summer, we're traveling around the Finger Lakes.

And today we're taking a closer look at a place that means many things to many people.

Canandaigua.

It's known for his beautiful lake and outdoor recreation.

It's home to festivals, wineries, and busy summer tourism season.

And it also has a rich and complicated history, from its roots as a Seneca settlement to the signing of a major treaty still recognized today to its role in the women's suffrage movement.

Some locals say the city has a triple identity lake life, historical legacy, and a growing cultural and business scene.

But how do those identities interact?

This hour, we're joined by three guests who can help us understand the layers that make up Kennedy Eagles past, present, and future.

Joining me in the studio, all my guests are in studio.

I love that.

Okay, I have to make that that disclaimer.

Joining me in studio is Leif here.

Gisele.

The town of Kennedy Historic.

And I have been Walter here with me, director of education at the Ontario County Historical Society, and Denise Chappell, the downtown manager for Kennedy Square.

We'll talk about what draws people to Canada, what keeps them there, and how the community is navigating the balance between preservation and growth.

And we'll love to have you, our listeners, join in on the conversation.

You can call us at 1844295 talk.

That's 855 or our local number (585) 263-9994.

Email us at connections.

Org or comment in the chat section on our YouTube channel.

All right, let's dive in.

So, Leif, let me start with you because you made a statement here that we want to dive into.

Okay.

You call Canandaigua the Shire seat of the Queen of counties.

What does that mean?

Okay, so when the Phelps and Gorham Purchase was, established, we were basing our local government on the, and the English pattern.

Okay.

Okay.

Which, I mean, for obvious reasons.

Right.

So when they made the Phelps and Gorham purchased 2,600,000 acres, they had to establish, a land office and a principal seat from which to govern this new, region.

Okay.

So Canandaigua had been a very small, not terribly significant Seneca town right at the end of the lake.

And of course, the Sullivan campaign came through.

They parked themselves there briefly and in 1779 and and that's another whole story.

But, Phelps and Gorham determined that that was the best location to establish their first town.

And sadly for Geneva.

Geneva was used to the preemption here.

And because it was used to the preemption line.

It couldn't be included in.

So it was a bit more established in Canandaigua in 1789.

Okay.

But Kennedy would got the nod.

And that's where we started to build up.

And that's so the Shire seat, literally became the focal point of government for about 30 years for a region that extended essentially from.

All the way back to the preemption line on the, west side of Geneva.

And so the capital.

Wow.

And then and then County started to break off from there.

Yeah.

But it was it took about 20 years before we separated out all of those counties.

Yes.

Initially, Ontario County stretched all the way to Buffalo.

If you wanted to do business, anywhere in the region, you had to file your your paperwork, with the courts in, in Canada.

So, Genesee was a very up and coming place at the same time.

Rochester, I'm sorry to say, wasn't it was kind of a place nobody wanted to be.

I have a feeling you're not too sorry, but.

Okay.

Yeah.

So Kennedy was is one of the oldest towns.

There are some other small towns that are also very old that are adjoin candidate with like South Bristol and Bloomfield.

And I wanted to say Victor, but Victor actually didn't, become victor until about 1888.

So yeah, Kennedy was with large and important, right from the beginning.

And when I say large, it was like 100 people there.

Yeah.

So now I want to talk about the indigenous history there.

Right?

Sure.

Canada was the site of a major Seneca village before the Revolutionary War.

What happened to that, that settlement?

And how has his legacy legacy shaped the region?

Okay, so I don't know if we have enough time.

Go.

We have really we actually have about 5000 years of of human occupation of the Finger Lakes.

We go back to the American culture.

That's one of the earlier cultures to settle native cultures, first peoples to settle in the Finger Lakes.

And, you know, so that just sort of progressed until we got to the Haudenosaunee, the Iroquois and, Ontario County.

Was it, you know, kind of the principal, location for the largest piece of the Seneca population in the 17th, 18th and early 19th century.

So in 1779, General Sullivan and General Clinton were tasked by General Washington with attacking the Iroquois in what is now western New York.

And that's like, we could really spend a lot of time, you know, peeling this apart and yeah, Ben would probably have wants to add to that.

But yeah, essentially they came through Canandaigua and it was a, it was kind of like Sherman's March to the sea in the Civil War.

It was not meant to, kill a lot of people.

It was meant to disrupt their ability to make war against the eastern portion of New York State.

And not just those those Native Americans, but the loyalists that they were, allied to who were coming out of Canada.

So but they were hopeful that by disrupting, the lifestyle and the ability to basically provide for their families, that they would force the Native Americans back on to Fort Niagara.

And by doing that, it would also kind of swamp the British with all these people they had to take care of, and thus they wouldn't be able to make war against a region that's now like Utica.

Yes.

Yeah.

And I, I know Ben.

Yeah.

Can you can you add to to what leaf is it?

Yeah.

So, I mean, during the American Revolution, the Seneca nation was allied with with the British.

And so, you know, Washington felt based on some pressure that he was getting from the Continental Congress, that something needed to be done to stop these Seneca raids on American aligned frontier settlements, because these American aligned frontier settlements were growing crops that the revolutionaries like relied on.

Yeah.

And so, yeah, he tasked Sullivan and Clinton with marching into the territory, and, they, like Leif said, you know, they weren't really drawing the Senecas and the loyalist allies into open battle.

You know, they were retreating.

Sullivan's army was very large, very well-equipped.

I was, you know, one of the largest detachments of the Continental Army at that point in 1779.

So what they did instead, as they came up into what is now western New York, they burned villages, destroyed crops, you know, did this vast destructive campaign similar to Sherman's March to the sea in, you know, just totally disrupting the Seneca ability to, you know, yeah, provide food for their families.

Right.

And this is taking place in the late summer or early fall of 1779, right before the winter season, when they would need those stores of crops.

And many of them do retreat to Fort Niagara, overwhelm the British ability to care for them.

A lot of Seneca, people who fled to Fort Niagara, died over that winter due to disease and starvation.

But I ultimately the Sullivan campaign failed to prevent the Senecas from continuing to fight.

They, as you might imagine, were now really angry.

You know, motivated, very motivated.

And so they they rejoined the war and continued to fight for the remainder of the war.

So the Sullivan campaign was, there's a military history about the Sullivan campaign, and I don't remember the name of the author, but the book is titled A well-executed failure and that it was a logistically well organized campaign, but it did not accomplish what General Washington wanted it to, what General Sullivan wanted it to, what General Clinton wanted it to.

And, you know, left a lot of destruction and a lot of bitter feelings, understandably so, in its wake.

And this is because indigenous people did fight back.

They fought back that they did very successfully.

And so that marginal success is just like, like Ben was saying, it, it they did everything they set out to do, and all they did was really anger the Seneca and this was happening.

So to understand Ontario County, which is all of western New York, ten years later, this was happening all the way across the northern tier of the New Territories after the revolution.

So what happened in Western New York, though?

I think Ben would agree with me that we don't really teach it in a way that's interesting and exciting.

When you consider the magnitude of what happened because it was what was happening in Kentucky, you know, it was what was happening in Michigan and the Ohio Country, it was just a culture conflict.

And it was largely sparked and, encouraged by the British because the British really didn't want to lose control of the Great Lakes.

And so what they were doing is they were constantly pot stirring, and that pot stirring made this culture clash.

You know, the Americans just felt like they couldn't have this threat behind them.

And the Native Americans and I really can relate to it.

I mean, like, I think we all can when somebody comes into your backyard and says, hey, we're going to take over here and you're going to do it our way, right?

Yeah.

So it was it, you know, to give, you know, to be honest about it, it was necessary for the patriot American forces to do what they did.

But what they did was kind of an abysmal failure.

When you look at the long term.

Yeah, yeah, I want to also, I want to shift gears right now to the women's suffrage movement.

Right.

The Seneca Falls gets all the love right?

But but there's a lot of pride in Kennedy was role, too, with, Susan being the Anthony's trial.

Right.

Can we can we speak?

Can we speak on that out of Ben or.

I'm going to let Ben take down because he's within the city he's getting.

So it's I love when you get it.

I, I've talked about the trials using the Anthony like, quite a lot.

It's it's something that people find very interesting when they come to visit the historical society.

So I, I love talking about it.

Yeah.

I mean, obviously, Susan B Anthony voted in Rochester, so she, she voted in Rochester in the 1872 election.

She voted for Ulysses S Grant for president of the United States for his second term.

And, you know, obviously, this is this big act of defiance against this notion that women couldn't vote, right?

But there was a very clear legal strategy that she had going into this whole thing.

So her like, legal strategy.

And it was something that she consulted with her lawyer, Henry Selden, about.

But the idea was that the 14th amendment to the United States Constitution, which was one of the Civil War amendments, one of the articles in the 14th Amendment, says that no state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States.

She's looking at that language and says, what's a more important privilege of citizenship than the right to vote?

Right.

And so she goes to vote.

She actually expected to be turned away, which would have been the original legal plan.

She was going to get turned away.

And then she would sue for getting turned away under the 14th amendment, but she instead was allowed to vote.

And then gets indicted afterwards.

And by the way, she was not the only person indicted.

There were, 13, I think other women that also voted at the same time as her, but she was the most well known of that group, so they decided to make an example of her.

Also, the two elections officials who allowed Susan B Anthony and the other women to vote were also indicted for allowing them to vote.

So all these people get pulled up into this case.

Originally, the case would have taken place here in Monroe County, and it gets moved to Canandaigua for a couple of reasons.

Reason number one, which is the more fun reason is that Susan B Anthony immediately began a speaking tour in every town and village of Monroe County, where she asked the question, is it a crime for a U.S. citizen to vote?

And the feeling was, boy, it's going to be hard to find a jury.

That's non biased.

So that's reason number one.

They move it to Ontario County.

Of course as soon as they moved it to Ontario County, Susan B Anthony began a speaking tour all throughout Ontario County so that didn't work out.

It's my kind of girl and does it does it just sound so much like the politics are going on today?

Not, you know, 50 years ago?

Nothing.

Some everything changes in nothing.

Exactly.

So the the other reason they moved it to Canandaigua though was at the time, Supreme Court justices actually physically traveled to the circuits that they were part of for that they were in charge of for part of the year.

And around the time the trial was supposed to be taking place, which was June of 1873, the Supreme Court Justice, Ward hunt would be sitting in Canandaigua presiding over cases.

This is actually a fairly common thing at the time.

A fairly common tactic at the time was to hold really significant cases until the Supreme Court justice was in town, and then you'd have them preside over this really significant case.

So that's the other reason they move it to Canandaigua.

And that's also why they don't move it again, despite the continued speaking tour.

So they make this 14th amendment argument.

The prosecution says, well, that's not what the 14th amendment is for, because if the if that was what the 14th amendment was for, why did we pass the 15th amendment explicitly giving black men the right to vote?

So so the, but the most controversial part of this whole thing, and I'm really simplifying the legal argument down here, but the most controversial aspect of the whole thing was after both the defense and the prosecution had made their cases, Justice Hunte, directed a guilty verdict from the jury.

He did not allow the jury to deliberate and come to their own conclusion.

He directed a guilty verdict, and that was seen as controversial at the time.

Like even among even among people who didn't think that women had the right to vote under the 14th amendment.

They were like, well, this is trampling on Susan B Anthony's sex amendment right to a trial by jury.

And after he directed this guilty verdict, he allowed Anthony to speak at the time, criminal defendants were not allowed to speak in their own trials in any capacity until, like afterwards, they could possibly give a statement if the judge decided to let them.

So Justice Hunte allowed Anthony to make a statement afterwards in which she said, oh, this is going to be good, in part, you have trampled upon every vital principle of our government.

My civil rights, my judicial rights, are are ignored and, you know, this was a big moment.

Justice Hunt's, you know, like later on, there's a couple of follow up cases that essentially say that a judge cannot direct a guilty verdict.

Of course, by then, it's too late for Susan B Anthony and her trial.

She was actually issued a fine for $100, which she declared she would never pay.

Which she didn't.

She never paid her fine.

Everybody involved in this was was ultimately found guilty, including, by the way, those two elections officials from from Rochester.

However, they were pardons.

The two elections officials were pardoned by president Grant and were reelected to the Monroe County Board of Elections.

After they were pardoned.

But Anthony was not that was not pardoned in her lifetime.

She was, eventually pardoned in 2020, but she was not pardoned, for, you know, do do the math from 1873 to 2020, you know, so I am fascinated by you knowing all this stuff.

I am fascinated, okay?

And you look like, you know, you were you just you're pretty young and, you know, all this stuff and vibrant.

I am very fascinated by this.

So I want to switch over to.

I want to keep an eye on you, Ben.

Right.

You can keep it on Ben.

Keep it up.

But, so, you know, Canandaigua has a history of of being a city by the lake, and the full time residents and summer people.

Can you with, like, can you break that down?

And how does that add to Kennedy was like identity being a city by the lake.

And I guess all of you can chime in, especially you, Denise, how does that.

Yeah, I mean, just from a historical angle.

And then I'll turn it over to Denise to talk, you know, about the modern day angle of things, but, you know.

Yeah, Kennedy was always had this relationship with the lake.

Right.

You know, we've got this city pier that goes out into the lake.

There was initially built to be sort of a steamboat, port to, to bring in produce from up and down the lake.

And this is the first steamboat.

Correct?

Like Kennedy was the first steamboat or or am I making this up an early steamboat, period.

They would have had steamboats pretty pretty early.

Yeah.

So you we know we're not like, we're not the first guys to have a functioning steamboat.

It's early, but all of the lakes very quickly put steam because that's how you're getting, the products from those, you know, like Watkins Glen and Naples up the lake.

Because what you want to do is get it on the canal.

Yes.

Right.

So, Canandaigua, Penn Yan, where Ben's from?

Yeah.

Those are all very important towns because they're moving produce to the north.

You get it on the canal.

Ultimately, it moves eastward all the way to New York City.

Wow.

Okay.

Because all of those lakes are connected by rivers.

And ultimately, when the Erie Canal is established, we're now we're taking it by canal all the way east.

But, yeah, Kennedy was, yeah, it's initial steamboat thing is not for fun, not for excursion.

It's to haul coal down.

It's to bring, you know, wheat up.

That cool.

Right.

And yeah.

And you know so there's this very like industrial purpose to to the lake commercial purpose to the lake.

But there's also kind of always been a little bit of a recreational angle.

It's only grown and has gone on a mystical thing.

You know, there's there's a reason why lakes feature so prominently in a lot of and Bear Hill legends, right.

Bear Hill, which is very instrumental in the, creation story of the Seneca people.

So it's, you know, the lake has been like important mystical, recreational, as well.

You know, the, the pier, the city pier and candidate.

What has these boat houses on it?

The the pier itself, the first pier, the original pier, which no longer exists but was built up and replaced and stuff as time went on.

But that original pier was, 1853, the first boat houses were, I believe.

I'm going to double check my notes here.

Yeah.

1859.

So the pier is built in 1853.

The first boat houses there, 1859.

These boat houses, they're very small.

They're not for the I mean, you know, they had a few that were like store houses, but for the most part they were storage for small personal craft, you know, row boats, fishing boats, that type of thing.

So the, the, the, the lake has always had this sort of dual role, right, of recreation and recreation and industry.

And as time has gone on, it shifted more towards recreation.

Yeah.

Because so imagine Rock Island in the, in the 18th century, the end of the 18th century, as people are coming out of that Phelps and Gorham Purchase coming to the shire town.

Right.

All of those lakes and and I want to, like, tip my hat to Seneca to even though we're here to talk about Canandaigua, the whole reason that Phelps and Gorham went, wow, this is a really great piece of real estate.

Was those lakes okay, there was immense amounts of timber.

There was already some, quite a fair amount of cleared land.

Okay, that those settlers were able to move on to.

Right.

And they immediately saw the value in those lakes and streams, because imagine that, you know, the the topography, the Jaeger of our region, if you go down to, to Pennsylvania.

All right, the land tips north, right.

So all that water wants to flow from Ontario County, Steuben County, Seneca County north.

Right.

So ultimately those streams and rivers like the Genesee, right, flow up to Lake Ontario.

And so the Finger Lakes, take, you know, that produce that's being created by all these settlers to Lake Ontario.

And again, that's kind of pre canal era, right?

The canal doesn't really have a lot of impact on Ontario County, much to our chagrin.

And it kind of elevates what eventually becomes Monroe County and Rochester, much to our chagrin.

But we did have like a little nascent canal that been knows more about than I do.

That was right down at the end of the lake.

Yeah.

Okay.

So that was going to that stuff was going to come up the lake.

And then we had this was wasn't really a canal was a big ditch.

Right.

But that was going to take it up another stage and it did fail.

And there's, you know like a whole lot of stories to that.

But Kennedy had this amazing location location location.

Yes.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I know we have a caller.

Right.

We do have a caller already.

There's someone we have a candidate going through this.

We have a listener.

They're kind of going through this.

I'm going to take this caller.

Caller you are live with WXXI.

I was this hi.

This is now and I had a few questions.

I'll try to be quick.

One was relating, soon after I moved to my farm over 30 years ago.

I read a book, about the Sullivan campaign and I realized much of what your guests have discussed.

But one of the, the key things that I hear missing in throughout this conversation is, the role of the native peoples in this area.

And so when the, a group, maybe two dozen, offshoots of the campaign came farther west, and they went past, Confucius Lakes and were sort of chased up a hill in Groveland where there was and and beside there is a park there now, and apparently there's an intriguing history of bodies coming to the surface, over decades.

And but the point I'm getting at is the these American troops were slaughtered, basically, with the exception of the leaders.

And they were taken across the Genesee River, where there's still a nominal marker for the torture tree where they were tortured by, the natives at that time.

So the question I had related to this, side story is, did they kind of overextend themselves because, they were going into the wilds of Western Europe?

So that's one question.

And the other question related to directly Native Americans is I've been attending the Canandaigua Treaty.

I since, well, just the last few years, but it's been every year in November since, about.

Well, I think at the treaty was actually in 1794.

And the leaders, who I originally spoke to said they thought the treaty was right then because, they wanted some a sense of peace treaty, with the natives.

How do you show me people's and, and then just a few years later, you have the Erie Canal, coming through that area.

So why don't we leave it with those two questions?

What about, Groveland?

Disaster of, of, of an offshoot of the Solomon campaign, if they know anything about it.

And secondly, what about the Canandaigua Treaty and its role in, British, Native American and U.S relations?

Thank you.

So, I'll take the the ambush guide if Ben wants to take the treaty because the treaty is like, that's his neighbor.

Yeah, yeah.

So as Sullivan was, was marching west and his ultimate goal was that he was given by Washington was to, attack Fort Niagara.

Okay.

Now, he decided because of the lateness of the season, we're talking late summer, early fall, that he wasn't he didn't have enough time.

He didn't have enough artillery cannons to reduce Fort Niagara in Fort Niagara is a very substantial place still today.

We see the mid-18th century fortifications.

He wouldn't have taken it.

So he made the right decision.

But as he was marching westward, he got to Honeoye.

He went from Kennedy.

Would Honeoye like, really quickly?

One day's march.

Okay.

We look at the at the legs of his campaign, and we were like, Holy cow, remove thousands of guys that fire that fast.

So they got to Honeoye.

He left a small detachment.

And in the town of Honeoye, of guys that we we kind of from their diaries, we know these men were probably not in peak health, so he left them in charge of, you know, watching some of the supplies.

And he took his remainder of his army, which was over 4000 men.

And he marches, over towards Canisius and Lakeville.

And his ultimate goal is to hit Geneseo, which was pronounced chin UCL back in the day.

And that was the location of Little Beardstown.

It was a principal seat, for Seneca peoples.

It also would have been kind of the, the perfect place to stage an attack against Fort Niagara.

Now, the Genesee Valley is extremely fertile and and, you know, just lends itself really well to agriculture in the Native Americans.

And that were there had very successful, farms.

And I think I need to take a second to, to illuminate what this gentleman is saying.

So the Haudenosaunee, by the time of the American Revolution, are living very much like their Anglo American, counterparts.

Okay?

They're not living the longhouse life anymore.

They're living in individual family cabins now.

Would have been extended family, but it wouldn't have been the big longhouse.

They're masters of growing corn.

I mean, literally millions of bushels of corn were destroyed in this punitive expedition.

And they noted and these guys that are attacking western New York, the American army, these are farmers.

They know what they're looking at.

They know that the corn in the fields is over ten feet tall.

So it's not we have this notion that somehow Native Americans grew stunted crops and, you know, they lived this hand-to-mouth existence.

They did not okay.

They had beautiful orchards.

They had amazing crops.

And what Sullivan wants to do is get a little Beardstown and destroy that.

And he does.

But along the way, as he crosses the north end of Canisius, he goes up into the hills where Groveland is today, and he sends out a party of rangers.

These are, American riflemen and scouts, and they are the advance element of the army.

They have a Native American guide, and they're going to kind of fan out, and they're going to make sure that there's no ambush.

All right.

They've just watched one battle a few weeks earlier down in Elmira.

You know, the Battle of Newtown and Butler's Rangers, who are loyalists, are working closely with their native allies.

And and they really were it was, it was a force that was, well known to each other.

All right.

So the loyalists lived with the Native Americans.

So these guys set an ambush at Groveland.

And unfortunately or fortunately, depending on which side you want to take, you Americans walked into it and it was a, as the gentleman said, it was a very bloody encounter.

They got completely encircled.

There were a couple of men who managed to free themselves.

One was a famous American rifleman named Timothy Pickering, and Timothy managed to get back to the main body, but the rest of them were wiped out and they took two captives of about 26 to 30 men.

And, they were Lieutenant and Sergeant Boyd and Parker.

Boyd and Parker were taken from Groveland down to the Genesee, the banks of the Genesee River.

And there was there was an event where they were tortured to death.

But I always ask people, and I'm sure you do, too, Ben, to not romanticize the American Revolution, to look at it really through a modern lens.

It is modern history.

Yeah.

The clothes were different.

Yes, the firearms were different.

There weren't highways, there weren't tanks.

But it was war.

And it was, a very insidious war.

And there was a lot of passion and anger on both sides.

Yeah.

And so those Native Americans, when they got a hold of Boyd and Parker, you know, they're just furious.

Absolutely furious.

And and this was a little bit of a sad note, but, you know, I am a veteran myself.

And so when you think about these events, whether you are, you know, very defensive of the Native American point of view, or very defensive of the American, I want people to, maybe think of their own experiences and think of things that happened, during the global war on terrorism.

We saw the same kinds of behaviors.

We saw those behaviors in Vietnam.

When people go to war, it's not pretty.

And both sides, you know, did things that I'm sure, we wish they hadn't done.

And I'm sure they wish they hadn't done.

But that's what happened with that Boyd and Parker.

And that's not Canandaigua history, but it's part of the Sullivan campaign and the Sullivan campaign.

A great deal of that.

That path that they marched was through Ontario County, you know, from Geneva, all the way over to Honeoye and all of that eventually was Ontario County after the Thorpes and Gorham purchased.

So even even Groveland, where the massacre happened, for the first 30 years of Ontario County, it was Ontario County.

Wow.

So I know it's a lot.

And like you said it, you know, not ending on the most happiest note.

Yeah, well it's not we're going to take a break.

You got a good point.

And we're hoping that when we get back, we can do a little pick me up and talk about how Canada is growing and how vibrant it is as a cultural scene and a business scene for young and old.

All right.

Stay with us.

Sexy.

I'm Evan Dawson, host of connections.

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Mary Carrie Ola, Center transforming Lives of people with disabilities More at Mary Carrie ola.org and welcome back.

You're listening to connections from the Sky.

I'm Raquel Steve and today we're talking about Canandaigua, the city with a triple identity.

Joining me in studio, we have Leif Hardcastle, the town of Kennedy, historian, Ben Falter.

He's the director of education at the Ontario County Historical Society.

And Denise Chappell, the downtown manager for Kennedy.

Well, now, before the break, we talked a lot about Kennedy was history.

And now we're going to come to the future, right.

And what makes Canandaigua such a big tourist attraction?

And, Denise, how would you describe the downtown energy in Candidate?

What today?

What's what's it like?

We're blessed to be in a very vibrant, district.

We are, have over 100, mom and pop independent shops on our first floor.

We're busy trying to develop our second and third floors into residential units and expanding there.

So there's a vibrant, evening hour and residential component.

But the key for me is we haven't lost identity with our history.

We have the historic buildings and we're always preserving those buildings.

But, when when I'm working the welcome center or, recruiting new businesses and such, it's really about our community and, not losing identity with our community.

I leave said something earlier about, how they everybody wanted to be here and come, because of how beautiful it was and such.

And I still hear the same exact thing.

Just just in the last week, I've had three residents that have moved to Canandaigua within the last year, drop in and say how happy they are that they relocated and such.

But chosen place the chose, the chosen.

Yeah, well, that's controversial, right?

Yeah it is.

But yes, exactly.

So, but from a tourism standpoint, the beauty of the Finger Lakes as a whole, our community, the planning that has gone on for many, many years to not lose touch with who we really are.

And our history, is key.

We have our arts and music festival this coming weekend, and it will be lining our downtown streets.

But part of what we're talking about is our arts and our cultural experiences that we offer.

And there's special events that you can do around those.

Yes.

The historical society's just a block away from our downtown.

The the county courthouse sits there on the hill with, with so much history and such, but also, it welcomes you into our downtown district, which welcomes you into our waterfront district.

And then you just stand there and you're just in complete.

Wow.

Yeah.

So how do how we how do we preserve the the history, right, while still making this, welcoming for younger, for younger adults and for embracing this culture and keeping that identity.

Yeah, we educate them.

We we don't lose touch with our identity of who who we were, hundreds of years ago to, who we are now.

We we we continue to restore these buildings.

We educate them on our history.

I, am always amazed that so many people didn't know Susan B Anthony was trying to walk.

Yeah.

The Pickering treaty.

I know Ben's probably going to, circle back around, to the treaty and such.

That's just something that we do annually.

Yeah.

And I don't foresee that ever going away, so that we can continue to educate on our history.

Yeah.

And our beauty.

I mean, Bear Hill and and looking down the lake and the boathouses and and so much of what we have, we continue to preserve rather than level, and build something else.

Yeah.

And let's talk about this treaty, because the caller mentioned the treaty.

Right.

And is still being commemorated.

What can you tell us about the Treaty of Canada again?

And what is it?

Why is it so significant?

Yeah, the Canandaigua or Pickering Treaty, it goes by both names.

I tend to prefer the Canandaigua Treaty as the name naming after the place it was signed over one of the guys who was involved in it.

Not to say that Pickering wasn't important in getting the treaty done, but he was only one person in getting the treaty done.

So the Canandaigua Treaty, 1794, and it is the oldest still observed treaty between the United States government and any nation of Native Americans.

Asterix, there have been a number of times that treaty treaty has been severely strained over the years, but still observed.

And a lot of that went a lot of what went into the need for this treaty.

The groundwork for that was laid earlier.

Right?

I mean, the American Revolution produces a lot of bad blood between the United States and the whole nation.

Confederacy.

And the the Six Nations are not invited to the Treaty of Paris, which is the treaty that ends the American Revolution between the United States and Great Britain.

They're not invited to that, despite the fact that they were active participants in the American Revolution.

They are left out of those negotiations.

So they have to sign their own treaty with the United States at the end of the American Revolution, which is the 1784 Treaty of Fort Stanwix, which is near modern day Rome, New York.

Not to be confused with an earlier Treaty of Fort Stanwix.

There was another one before that, but the 1784 Treaty of Fort Stanwix was the.

The terms that the whole nation signed in that treaty were very unpopular within the Confederacy.

It was caused a lot of political turmoil, actually, within the Six Nations themselves, because they felt that they were being treated too punitively by the treaty, and that the leaders who had agreed to these punitive terms had given up too much.

Right.

So there's a lot of political turmoil within the Six Nations from the United States side of things.

There's also a lot of going on.

And, you know, this is the early, early, earliest part of the United States government.

And this first, you know, ten years or so of of the country is really tumultuous.

Oh, we almost lose it.

We.

Right.

I mean, a couple of times, a couple of times.

But, you know, from that, from that, from a native, from the relationship with Native American angle, Native Americans angle.

There's a lot of like the federal government's trying to figure out whose job is it to make deals with Native American nations, who and where?

Where is the boundary between individual interactions, state interactions, federal interactions?

And also, they're fighting a war against native Americans in what was at the time called the Northwest Territories, which is basically modern day, you know, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana.

So they're fighting there.

They're fighting an active war in that area just a couple short years after the American Revolution.

You know, they haven't really had time to start recovering from the burden, the financial burden, the, you know, the cost and human life burden of the American Revolution.

And now they're fighting a second war already being spurred on partially by the British, who are a little sour over having just lost this war.

And there's this real concern because the Six Nations are still mad, they're still angry, rightfully so, in many ways.

There's real concern that if the Six Nations, if particularly the Senecas, get involved in this war, it would be disastrous for the early United States government, the Senecas, you know, not for nothing very, very powerful, you know, warrior culture, very, very powerful military force.

They are the primary military force of the whole nation, the Confederacy.

Everybody wanted to mention that.

Why?

Everybody wanted them ready for why?

So there there's a lot of concern.

Boy, if these if the Six Nations get involved in this, it was called the Northwest Indian War.

If they get involved in this conflict, it's going to be bad.

So the federal government spends a lot of time and effort trying to get a treaty done, trying to get a peace treaty to establish eventually, the language in the Canandaigua Treaty is peace and friendship, between the United States and the Six Nations?

There's a lot of effort spent in getting this done over the course of many years, which included, you know, leaders of the Six Nations traveling to Philadelphia when that was the capital of the country, to have it try to have conversations with President Washington.

And, you know, sending letters and several peace medals and several pre prior, treaty negotiations.

And there was actually one earlier in 1794, that more or less the conclusion of that earlier 1794 win was let's meet in Canandaigua later this year and get a treaty done.

So a bunch of representatives from all six nations come to Canandaigua really early in Canandaigua history.

Right.

And and they were, you know, Ontario counties established in 1789.

Canandaigua was, you know, 88, 88, 89 somewhere in there, you know.

Yeah, five years old about so, you know, you've got all of these, all of these Native American folks coming here.

You have representatives from the federal government led by Timothy Pickering coming there.

And you also have a very strong Quaker presence.

The Quakers, you know, very well known even at that time as very, egalitarian advocates.

Advocates.

Absolutely.

I mean, they you know, the Quakers are against sort of, unfair treatment of anybody.

Right?

And so they were basically the only people that both sides could agree on to be a good mediator, between the two sides of this treaty negotiation.

So they have this treaty negotiation which establishes, quote unquote, peace and friendship between the United States and the, Haudenosaunee Confederacy, which provides stipulations to recognize their land rights.

And in exchange for the right for the United States to construct roads and potentially like hotels and stuff through their land and essentially the exact, boundaries of what counts as infringing upon their land rights have been the source of much of the tension over this treaty in the, you know, well over 200 years since it was signed to this ban, because it's like the most complicated piece of really American history.

Yeah, it was the way of solving the nation's debt.

Okay.

To we owed all the soldiers back pay.

Okay.

We couldn't pay it.

We were going to default on that.

So if you can imagine the guys that fought the revolution, who established the nation suddenly going, wait a minute, you're not going to pay me?

I gave you five years.

And really, this is what I get.

Where's my pension?

Right.

Yeah.

And they had to solve that problem.

And so this was critical to that.

Yes.

Okay.

So I wanted to thank thank you for that.

Yeah.

I wanted to jump into I wanted to bring up the now what Canada is, is known for now being a food and wine type destination.

Right.

Denise, can we talk about, the Canada reputation with, you know, the constellation brands and these wine festivals and these wine tours, wine trails?

Sounds like some place I would love to go.

So we're very fortunate.

And to be honest, as through the years, it's all been a planning process.

And we, our first, our first floor of our downtown district is declared a restaurant and retail district.

So we are continually building we have more international food in a three block radius radius than probably downtown Rochester.

Wow.

It's absolutely amazing.

And it's and it's all incredible, food.

And then we slowly, started building off the, Canandaigua Wine Trail, which is much smaller than other lake, trails and such.

By adding some wine bars to our downtown district and then building with, craft beverage.

So, microbreweries and such.

So, we're slowly building those and, it has in the last ten years really taken off and, and been very successful.

So, around that we build all these different events.

We have our sip and straws, we have the arts festivals.

We are are declaring ourselves a year round destination.

About seven years ago, we started an event called Fire and Ice Festival, and two years ago it was declared a top winter festival in the country.

So, with 35,000 people coming out in two days.

So we, as we continue to grow, these are doing did an international festival a couple months ago and we're actually going to start an October fest.

So, as we continue to grow these, Canandaigua through the years, and I hear it regularly from people that are traveling, but also from people that are thinking about opening a business.

Canandaigua is the place I need to be.

Yeah.

And it's not just what we've developed in our downtown district.

It's our waterfront.

Also.

So connecting our downtown to our waterfront is obviously obviously a focus.

And to you mentioned constellation in the Sands family.

Mary Clark Thompson, we would be remiss to not mention Sonnenberg Gardens and the Granger Homestead, so many historic landmarks in our community, but today's, Mary Clark Thompson is the Sands family giving back to our community with the Lake House, our YMCA, and soon to be our waterfront.

Just so many incredible projects and investments, by a lot of private individuals.

I have some, some comments here.

Someone said the best fish shows I've ever been.

Yes, we have to mention Cmac that it's, Constellation Brands.

Same act does 12 to 14 concerts every summer.

The economic impact for our community is huge off those concerts.

But just to have such an incredible venue, small venue, you know, it's over 10,000 people, but small enough that it's manageable for our community.

Can I can I add something to this?

Because Denise and I know each other, because her husband had a main Street business as a main street business.

Do.

Right.

You guys have to.

So I was also a main Street entrepreneur at one point.

There is no place, in the northeast that is like Canandaigua.

Okay.

Yeah, we have.

Now, when I say Canandaigua, I have to add Bristol and South Bristol, but we got downhill skiing, we got sailing, we got booze.

You know, we got great food, like at the real comment line.

If you want to have a good time.

Canandaigua is the only place in western New York to be.

Yes.

So a strong history and a great place for everyone to come out and have a good time and food.

Good food, good wine and a beautiful lakefront.

Right?

Absolutely, absolutely.

Thank you guys for joining us.

We talk about candidate one.

This is the Finger Lakes series.

And we talk about the Finger Lakes between the Finger Lakes every Thursday right here on I thank you.

And thank you listeners for.

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