Oswegatchie River

The Oswegatchie River is a river in northern New York that flows north from the Adirondack Mountains to the Saint Lawrence River at the city of Ogdensburg. The river mouth was the site of a Jesuit mission, Fort de La Présentation, founded in 1749. Also a fur trading post, the village had 3,000 Onondaga by the 1750s, most of whom converted to Catholicism. They came to be known as the Oswegatchie, considered somewhat separate from the Six Nations of the Iroquois.Simms, Jeptha Root, Trappers of New York, p. 249, Harrison, NY: Harbor Hill Books, 1850, 1871, reprinted 1980, ISBN 0916346382 Oswegatchie may be Iroquois for "going or coming around a hill". William Bright says the name may come from the Onondaga word /oshewɛ'gaaji'/, meaning "black lumber", containing -shewɛ'gar-, "lumber", and -ji-, "be black". The Oswegatchie were one of the Seven Nations of Canada.

The river comprises three branches named East, West and Middle. All of the branches begin in the Five Ponds Wilderness, with the East Branch Oswegatchie beginning at Partlow Lake, which is privately owned by one of William Seward Webb's descendants. It is planned to be donated to New York via an easement agreement, late in the next decade. One of its branches, the Robinson River, begins at Crooked Lake. The Middle Branch headwaters are Willy's and Walker Lakes with one of its...
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