Catharine Montour & Charles Cook Memorial Print this page

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

The resting place of Charles Cook, who was instrumental in the formation of Schuyler County, 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) all in Montour Falls.

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.