It is noticeable that the earliest accounts of the Five Nations speak of
them as of two kinds--Mohawks and "Sinnekes," or as termed by the French
the Inferior and Superior Iroquois. For example Antony Van Corlear's
_Journal_, edited by Gen. James Grant Wilson, also certain of the
New York documents. The most thorough local student of early Mohawk
town-sites, Mr. S.L. Frey, of Palatine Bridge, N.Y., supports Mr.
Beauchamp in his view of the late coming of the Mohawks into the Mohawk
River Valley, where they have always been settled in historic times.
According to him, although these people changed their sites every 25 or
30 years from failure of the wood supply and other causes, only four
prehistoric sites have been discovered in that district, all the others
containing relics of European origin. Mr. Beauchamp believes even this
number too large. Both put forward the idea that the Mohawks were the
ancient race of Hochelaga, whose town on the island of Montreal was
visited by Jacques Cartier in 1535, and had disappeared completely in
1608 when Champlain founded Quebec. "What had become of these people?"
writes Mr. Frey, in his pamphlet "The Mohawks." "An overwhelming force
of wandering Algonquins had destroyed their towns. To what new land had
they gone? I think we shall find them seated in the impregnable
strongholds among the hills and in the dense forests of the Mohawk
Valley."

It is my privilege to take up their theory from the Montreal end and in
the light of the local archaeology of this place and of early French
historical lore, to supply links which seem to throw considerable light
on the problem.

The description given by Cartier of the picturesque palisaded town
of Hochelaga, situated near the foot of Mount Royal, surrounded by