Catharine Montour & Charles Cook Memorial

The Catharine Montour and Charles Cook Memorial Sites are located in a wooded grove between the Cook and Genesee Street section of the Catharine Valley Trail in Montour Falls. 

Charles Cook was instrumental in the formation of Schuyler County. He was also a builder of canals, hotels, St. Paul's Church, Havana Bank and the People's College which was to become Cook's Academy (now the NYS Academy of Fire Science). Many of his buildings are still standing today and one of them, the Montour House, has since, after sitting abandoned, been bought and refurbished to its original glory and houses luxury apartments, offices, a coffee house and more.

For more information on Charles Cook and his work with Schuyler, check out an article by local historian Barbara H. Bell, Charles Cook: The Father of Schuyler County.

Catharine Montour, born in 1710, was the great-granddaughter of a French officer named Montour whose wife was a Huron Indian.  Catharine married a Seneca Chief and, after his death in 1760, became the head of the Shequagua village and "ruled with dignity and power" until Sullivan's army destroyed the 30 or 40 log houses of the village during his "clean-out and burn" march in 1779.  The tribe fled to Canada at that time.

Catharine Montour spoke both English and French and often acted as interpreter for Indian and Government negotiations.  After some years, Queen Catharine found her way back and lived until her death in 1804 in a cabin which stood near the site of her memorial.

The memorial was donated to the Schuyler County Historical Society by Louis Shanks, after hearing the story of General Sullivan's campaign against Queen Catharine's tribe from his grant-grandfather, who was General Sullivan's scout.

Learn more about the county's NATIVE AMERICAN HISTORY.