Indian Castle Church is a historic

mission Mission (from Latin ''missio'' "the act of sending out") may refer to: Organised activities Religion *Christian mission, an organized effort to spread Christianity *Mission (LDS Church), an administrative area of The Church of Jesus Christ of ...

church Church may refer to: Religion * Church (building), a building for Christian religious activities * Church (congregation), a local congregation of a Christian denomination * Church service, a formalized period of Christian communal worship * Chris ...

at Indian Castle in

Herkimer County, New York Herkimer County is a county in the U.S. state of New York. As of the 2020 census, the population was 60,139. Its county seat is Herkimer. The county was created in 1791 north of the Mohawk River out of part of Montgomery County. It is named a ...

. The church is located on NYS Route 5S near present-day Danube. It is a one-story, rectangular wood-frame structure, clad in

clapboard Clapboard (), also called bevel siding, lap siding, and weatherboard, with regional variation in the definition of these terms, is wooden siding of a building in the form of horizontal boards, often overlapping. ''Clapboard'' in modern Americ ...

with a gable roof and steeple. To the rear of the church is a burial ground containing the remains of both Mohawks and Europeans. It was erected in 1769 by Sir William Johnson, British Superintendent of Indian Affairs, as an Indian mission church for the

Mohawk nation The Mohawk people ( moh, Kanienʼkehá꞉ka) are the most easterly section of the Haudenosaunee, or Iroquois Confederacy. They are an Iroquoian-speaking Indigenous people of North America, with communities in southeastern Canada and northern Ne ...

. They were the easternmost of the Five Nations of the

Iroquois League The Iroquois ( or ), officially the Haudenosaunee ( meaning "people of the longhouse"), are an Iroquoian-speaking confederacy of First Nations peoples in northeast North America/ Turtle Island. They were known during the colonial years to ...

, who occupied most of New York west of the

Hudson River The Hudson River is a river that flows from north to south primarily through eastern New York. It originates in the Adirondack Mountains of Upstate New York and flows southward through the Hudson Valley to the New York Harbor between N ...

Background

The land was donated by siblings

Joseph Joseph is a common male given name, derived from the Hebrew Yosef (יוֹסֵף). "Joseph" is used, along with "Josef", mostly in English, French and partially German languages. This spelling is also found as a variant in the languages of the mo ...

and

Molly Brant Molly Brant ( – April 16, 1796), also known as Mary Brant, Konwatsi'tsiaienni, and Degonwadonti, was a Mohawk leader in British New York and Upper Canada in the era of the American Revolution. Living in the Province of New York, she was the co ...

, two prominent

Mohawk Mohawk may refer to: Related to Native Americans *Mohawk people, an indigenous people of North America (Canada and New York) *Mohawk language, the language spoken by the Mohawk people *Mohawk hairstyle, from a hairstyle once thought to have been t ...

in their village of ''

Canajoharie Canajoharie (), also known as the "Upper Castle", was the name of one of two major towns of the Mohawk nation in 1738. The community stretched for a mile and a half along the southern bank of the Mohawk River, from a village known as ''Dekanohage' ...

,'' located on the south side of the Mohawk River. Construction was done under the direction and at the expense of

Sir William Johnson Sir William Johnson, 1st Baronet of New York ( – 11 July 1774), was a British Army officer and colonial administrator from Ireland. As a young man, Johnson moved to the Province of New York to manage an estate purchased by his uncle, Royal Na ...

, Superintendent of Indian Affairs. Molly Brant was a longtime companion and common-law wife of Johnson. Her brother Joseph Brant became a prominent Mohawk military leader, allied with the British, during the

American Revolutionary War The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was a major war of the American Revolution. Widely considered as the war that secured the independence of t ...

and later led the Mohawk after their migration to Canada. The church is located within what is now designated as the

Mohawk Upper Castle Historic District Mohawk Upper Castle Historic District is a historic district in Herkimer County, New York that was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1993. Located south of the Mohawk River, it includes the Indian Castle Church, built in 1769 by Sir Will ...

, a

National Historic Landmark A National Historic Landmark (NHL) is a building, district, object, site, or structure that is officially recognized by the United States government for its outstanding historical significance. Only some 2,500 (~3%) of over 90,000 places listed ...

. ''See also:'' It is the only colonial Indian missionary church surviving in New York State. The church was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

in 1971.

References

External links

* *
Dean R. Snow and David B. Guldenzopf, "Indian Castle Church, the Mohawk Upper Castle Historic District National Historic Landmark"
Indian Castle Church Website
Indian Castle Church website
{{National Register of Historic Places in New York Churches on the National Register of Historic Places in New York (state) Historic American Buildings Survey in New York (state) Gothic Revival church buildings in New York (state) Colonial Revival architecture in New York (state) Churches completed in 1769 Churches in Herkimer County, New York Individually listed contributing properties to historic districts on the National Register in New York (state) 18th-century churches in the United States National Register of Historic Places in Herkimer County, New York