The  valley  had  continued  to  be  a  resort  of  Ind-
ians more  or  less  hostile  until  the  treaty  of  peace
was  signed.  Brant  is  known  to  have  been  at  Ogh-
waga  and  Unadilla,  and  it  is  also  true  that  wander-
ing companies  of  Indians  were  there  until  a  period
long  subsequent  to  the  peace ;  but  these  survivals
were  few  in  numbers,  and  were  often  Oneidas
friendly  to  the  settlers.  Cooper  delayed  the  fare-
well of  Leather  Stocking  to  Otsego  Lake  until  1794,
when  he  put  these  words  into  his  hero's  mouth:

When  I  look  about  me  at  these  hills  where  I  used  to
could  count  sometimes  twenty  smokes,  curling  over  the
tree  tops  from  the  Delaware  camps,  it  raises  mournful
thoughts  to  think  that  not  a  red  skin  is  left  of  them  all,
unless  it  be  a  drunken  vagabond  from  the  Oneidas,  or  them
Yankee  Indians  who,  they  say,  be  moving  up  from  the
sea  shore.  Well,  well !  The  time  has  come  at  last  and  I
must  go.
Men  born  to  toil  and  veterans  of  war  took  up
these  new  tasks  in  the  wilderness.  The  first  to
enter  the  Susquehanna,  came  from  the  Mohawk
and  Schoharie.  A  number  arrived  between  the
surrender  of  Cornwallis  and  the  conclusion  of  the
treaty  of  peace,  including  Isaac  Collier,  who  entered
by  Otsego  Lake  as  early  as  178a.  Mr.  Collier  was
of  German  descent  and  before  the  war  had  been  a

33*


WASHINGTON

taxpayer  in  the  Mohawk  Valley.  He  was  the
father  of  Peter  Collier.  On  the  Susquehanna  he
opened  a  hotel,  at  the  settlement  since  called  after
him,  where  pioneers  long  found  food  and  shel-
ter.
