Saratoga Springs began at High Rock Park and the famous High Rock Spring, where the Mohawks visited for hundreds of years and drank the spring’s healing waters. In 1771, the Mohawks brought their trusted friend Sir William Johnson there to take the water to treat an ailment, and soon after his visit settlers established the first permanent settlement around the spring. The modern city seal shows a Mohawk family at the spring, reflecting High Rock’s importance to the founding of Saratoga Springs. Millions of years ago, this land lay beneath an inland sea that produced many layers of sedimentary rock. As the oceans receded, tectonic forces caused earthquakes that created geologic faults in the area, including the Saratoga fault visible as the exposed rock face in the park. Minerals trapped in rock layers left by the sea mixed with groundwater, and the fault allowed this mineralized water to reach the surface naturally, forming High Rock and other springs. Over thousands of years, deposited minerals in the water formed the cone seen there.