Point Abino, Fort Erie's Historic Indian Site

What a sight to have seen!. An Neutral Indian longhouse 360 feet in length. It and another smaller one did exist in the mid-1600s in Fort Erie. Where? At Point Abino.Many Voices gives various accounts of our early settlement. Check figure 2 on page 19 of our history book.. This is a sketch by Ontario archeologist David Boyle who in 1871 confirmed through personal inspection that there had been a large Neutral Indian village site at Point Abino. It is one of the larger village sites ever recorded in Ontario’s native historical records.
About 1650 the Point Abino palisade village was burned down. The gradually decaying remnants of the support posts of the giant longhouses remained in the ground for years until about a 125 years ago when archeologists in Ontario and New York State examined the various Neutral sites of our town.
Over fifty-five years ago I walked with the late Fort Erie historian, Bert Miller, and my father, Percy, to see what we thought was the Indian burial ground at Point Abino.. Bert did not use the term Neutral or Attawandaron to label these earliest residents of our town. He simply called them “our native people.”
Harvey Holtzworth, Point Abino historian, confirmed with me that what I had believed all these years to be the Neutral Indian burial ground behind his place was incorrect. This beautiful site that I have visited countless times over the years fits instead the description of the large Neutral village location.
Many Voices says under Figure 2 on page 19 that Ontario archeologist Boyle’s sketch: suggests a 1600’s village site on Point Abino leaves us with this puzzling comment, “...but no archeological evidence exists to support it.” I disagree. Thanks to Point Abino historian, Harvey Holtzworth, I have a copy of Boyle’s report. I have read in that Annual 1931 Archeological Report for Ontario some excerpts from David Boyle’s article. I A A Agreat palisaded Neytral Indian villagevatbelieve that they are based on an expert’s research. Why should we disbelieve it? We read from Boyle’s record, “In company with Mr. Cyrenius Bearss, a local resident, I visited a field of several acres in extent on Point Abino in Bertie Township, where thousands of chert (flint) fragments lie on the surface... Mr. Bearss and I proceeded to the ancient site of the Neutral village at the point. Not far away from the field mentioned, but still in the forest, is a large dune of the fine sand that forms so much of the Erie shore in this section. “Bert Miller took us to the what he called, “The Garden of the Gods.” This was at the end of Brown Road along the path that lead to the west shore. The Garden was off to our left nestled among the tree-covered sand ridges. Back then in the 1940’s it was a serene location that Bert loved to visit. It no longer resembles what we saw then. There are various reasons for the decline of the “Garden.”
As we look more closely at the account of Point Abino in the history book I wish to share from my unpublished novel, Our People Live, a description from Chapter Six . It is the heroine in the story, Teana, a Christian Huron girl, rescued by the Neutrals in the 1640’s who is looking down from the forested sand ridge at the Garden of the Gods at Point Abino
“Teana climbed the huge forested sandhill directly behind the Attawandaron village. The warm southwest breeze off Lake Erie caressed her face. She had come here to meditate and pray. Should she descend to the vale below, she thought. She looked down into the vale called by her befrienders, The Garden of the Gods. It was a secluded place. Surrounded by wooded dunes the garden had low lying stands of ground evergreens spread out over the sandy opening. Spread out between them rose the majestic spire-like red junipers. Colonies of tall scouring-rush were conspicuous among the sparse ground vegetation. There interspersed was the annual display of the showy yellow and orange-yellow flowers now in full bloom. They heightened the exotic effect of the scene below. It was a beautiful location to enter but again she asked herself should she enter this sacred place of the Attawandaron people....” .My description of the “garden” above is based on Doctor Charles Zenkert’s account published in 1934 by the Buffalo Museum of Science. Here is that photo from that record. Sad to say a freezing rain in 1969 coated the red junipers and the weight of the encased branches caused great damage. I made a movie of the destruction. Many of the spire-like trees were killed. After years of being part of a dumping place the garden is gone ,changed by the forces of nature and the neglect of man. Fortunately I have more than a mental memory of one of my favourite locations.. In the mid-1960’s we made a super 8mm movie of my young family frolicking in what we called The Garden of the Gods. Treasure your memories. Thanks for Many Voices.