Cornplanter Tract facts for kids
The Cornplanter Tract was a special piece of land in Warren County, Pennsylvania. It was managed by the Seneca tribe, a Native American group. This land covered about 1,500 acres (607 hectares) along the Allegheny River.
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A Special Gift of Land
The Cornplanter Tract was the only Native American land set aside in Pennsylvania for a long time. It was created in 1796 as a gift to a very important Seneca leader named Cornplanter. He was also known as John Abeel III. This land was given to him for his own use, and he could pass it down to his family forever.
Cornplanter quickly invited other Seneca people to live on his land. Within two years, about 400 Seneca people had made the tract their home.
Life on the Tract
Life on the Cornplanter Tract was unique. The land never had electricity, so people used lamps and heating that came from kerosene, coal, and oil. The heaters had to be built several feet above the ground because the area often flooded. The roads leading to and from the tract were also often in bad condition.
The tract had a small, one-room school. It closed in 1953 because only one elementary school-aged child was left living there. The same teacher, Lucia Browne, had taught at the school since 1929.
The End of the Tract
In 1918, a terrible sickness, the 1918 flu pandemic, caused many of Cornplanter's family members to die. By 1957, Jesse Cornplanter, the last male family member in charge, passed away without having children. This meant there was no one left to officially own the land. By then, most people had already moved away from the tract. A map from 1941 shows only a few scattered buildings left.
In the early 1960s, a big project began. The Kinzua Dam was built, which created the Allegheny Reservoir. This new lake covered almost all of the Cornplanter Tract. Graves from the cemetery on the tract were carefully moved to higher, safer ground before the land went underwater.
