Place:Oneida Castle, Oneida, New York, United States

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source: Family History Library Catalog

the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

Oneida Castle is a village in Oneida County, New York, United States. The population was 625 at the 2010 census.

The Village of Oneida Castle is in the northwestern corner of the Town of Vernon. Oneida Castle is east of the City of Oneida (located in Madison County) and west of the City of Sherrill in New York State.

History

the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

The village was formerly the site of a major fortified village, Kanonwalohale (written as "tkanaˀalóhaleˀ" modern Oneida Orthography), of the Oneida tribe, one of the original Five Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy. They established it in the beginning of the 18th century, moving from an area where they suffered raids by parties from the French colony of Quebec, which was trying to control their fur trade. The village was surrounded by tall wooden palisades, with a moat bordering this. Dwellings and storage structures were protected inside. Mohawk Joseph Brant led a war party which destroyed the village in July 1780.

Later European-American settlers named the Village of Oneida Castle for this last great village or "castle" of the Oneida people. In the colonial period, Europeans often referred to the major fortified Iroquois villages as "castles" because it was a familiar reference for them for such a settlement; other examples include Seneca Castle and Genesee Castle.

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