The Seneca Log House

The Seneca Log House was constructed circa 1790 in Genesee County, New York, on the present-day Tonawanda Indian Reservation. Acquired by Fenimore Art Museum for preservation in 1996, it was reconstructed and furnished to depict the lives of the Tonawanda Seneca Nation in the mid-19th century. The shift from longhouses, where families shared living space, to smaller log houses began in Central New York in the 1750s, when tools for building log houses became readily available to Indigenous people. Domesticated animals such as guinea hens and pigs became staples of homesteads, cared for by Haudenosaunee women as they continued traditional gardening practices. The Tonawanda Seneca Nation preserved their traditional way of life while also engaging with the 19th century American economy: men worked on farms and in nearby mines, and women spent winter months making ash-splint baskets and beaded bags to sell in summer at Niagara Falls, which by the mid-19th century drew 60,000 tourists a year seeking authentic Native art objects as souvenirs. In the mid-19th century, the Nation also achieved strategic successes in resisting removal from their lands, and through partnerships with legal advocates and financial sponsors, the Tonawanda Band of Seneca Indians received federal recognition in 1857.

Otsego, New York · United States