The Cornplanter Tract or Cornplanter Indian Reservation is a plot of land in

Warren County, Pennsylvania Warren County is a county in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. As of the 2020 census, the population was 38,587. Its county seat is Warren. The county was formed in 1800 from parts of Allegheny and Lycoming counties; attached to Crawford C ...

that was administered by the Seneca tribe. The tract consisted of along the

Allegheny River The Allegheny River ( ) is a long headwater stream of the Ohio River in western Pennsylvania and New York (state), New York. The Allegheny River runs from its headwaters just below the middle of Pennsylvania's northern border northwesterly into ...

. The tract comprised the only native reserved lands within the state of

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

during its existence. It was originally established in 1796 as a grant to Seneca diplomat

Cornplanter John Abeel III (born between 1732 and 1746–February 18, 1836), known as Gaiänt'wakê (''Gyantwachia'' – "the planter") or Kaiiontwa'kon (''Kaintwakon'' – "By What One Plants") in the Seneca language and thus generally known as Cornplant ...

, also known as John Abeel III, for his personal use, with the right to pass the plot down through his descendants forever. Cornplanter promptly opened up his plot to native settlement, and within two years, 400 Seneca were living on the tract. In 1918, most of Cornplanter's descendants were killed in the 1918 flu pandemic, and

Jesse Cornplanter Jesse J. Cornplanter (September 16, 1889 – March 18, 1957) was an actor, artist, author, craftsman, Seneca Faithkeeper and World War I decorated veteran. The last male descendant of Cornplanter, an important 18th-century Haudenosaunee lea ...

, the last male heir, died in 1957 without having children,Lester, Patrick D. ''The Biographical Directory of Native American Painters.'' Tulsa, OK: SIR Publications, 1995: 125 leaving the plot without ownership. The plot was already largely abandoned as a residence by the time of Jesse's death, and a 1941 map (seen at right) shows only scattered buildings on the tract. In the early 1960s, construction of the

Kinzua Dam The Kinzua Dam, on the Allegheny River in Warren County, Pennsylvania, is one of the largest dams in the United States east of the Mississippi River. It is located within the Allegheny National Forest. The dam is located east of Warren, Penn ...

created the

Allegheny Reservoir The Allegheny Reservoir (also known as Kinzua Lake and unofficially as Lake Perfidy) is a reservoir along the Allegheny River in Pennsylvania and New York, USA. It was created in 1965 by the construction of the Kinzua Dam along the river. Lake Per ...

, which submerged the vast majority of the tract. Graves located in a cemetery on the tract mostly were exhumed and their bodies were reinterred in higher ground.

References

{{coord missing, Pennsylvania 1796 establishments in Pennsylvania 1964 disestablishments in Pennsylvania Unincorporated communities in Warren County, Pennsylvania Iroquois populated places Former American Indian reservations Native_American_history_of_Pennsylvania