Bluff Point has a remarkable past. Part of the distinctive landscape carved out by glaciers, Bluff Point was at one time an island due to high lake levels, remaining so for about 300 years. Eventually the lake receded and Bluff Point recovered its status as a peninsula. In addition, as western New York became more populated after the Revolutionary War and county and town boundaries changed, Bluff Point was once a part of Ontario, then Steuben, and finally Yates County.

The Seneca Nation joined the Cayuga, Mohawk, Onondaga and Oneida nations to form the Haudenosaunee (or Iroquois) Confederacy by 1450, although some historians point to a date as early as 1143. The Tuscarora Nation joined in 1722 to complete the Six Nations. The Seneca were the most populous of the nations; they had villages extending along the western corridor of Haudenosaunee territory, earning them the title “Keepers of the Western Door.” Seneca settlements existed in Yates County, notably at present-day Branchport; the site of Indian Pines Park in Penn Yan; Kashong on the western shore of Seneca Lake; Shearman’s Hollow; and, of course, on the Bluff. Additional communities were lived in for shorter periods or used only during certain times of the year.

See my blogs about Pompey NY Artifacts here and about the Onondaga Indians which I call the Natives of Joseph Smith

Non-native people began moving into present-day Yates County in 1788. Those who purchased land on the bluff noticed unusual ruins that indicated an early, and elaborate, stone works. No one was able to determine the original purpose of the ruins. Some of these early settlers spoke to Seneca remaining in the area, who stated the ruins were not of Seneca origin and had been there longer than they. In fact, they purposely avoided the area.

Sadly, many of these newcomers used the ruins to mine stone needed to build houses. John Finch purchased the lot in 1813, then sold it to Howland Hemphill in 1830, who used some of the stones for his home. Abraham Wagener, the founder of Penn Yan, was rumored to have used a great number of the stones for the foundation of his house on the tip of the Bluff, built in 1833. No doubt many smaller abodes and even barns were built with stones from the ruins.

A mathematical precision

By 1879, Dr. Samuel Hart Wright — a local doctor, teacher, farmer and botanist — decided to document the ruins. Wright was joined in his site inspection by his son, Dr. Berlin Hart Wright, an amateur archaeologist, geologist and early proponent of evolution. Hemphill was still around and reiterated that the Seneca believed the ruins predated them. Although much had been disturbed, it is fortunate that Wright described and drew what he saw. He sketched the area and wrote up his findings in the 35th Annual Report of the New York State Museum of Natural History.

He described an area of seven acres, running from the ridgeline to the west. He focused on what he called “graded ways,” [Ancient roadways of the Nephites?] pathways running through the site that were as wide as eight feet in some places and a foot high. According to Wright’s sketches, these pathways ran in an almost grid-like pattern, punctuated by large, Stonehenge-like vertical slabs and circles of boulders. The areas inside the vertical slabs were floored with more slabs. Declaring he had never seen anything similar, Wright stated that the Bluff Point Ruins were “one of the strangest structures in the state.” He marveled over their mathematical precision. The map Wright sketched depicts a composition of rocks and pathways that do not occur in nature. More than half of the original site had been disturbed by plowing and other agricultural practices. It may have originally been up to 20 acres large.

Decades later, in 1938, reporter Gilbert Brewer excavated the ruins. The graded ways Wright described were determined to go at least 10 feet under the surface, leading one to believe they may originally have been walls that have been partially buried over time. Brewer wrote of his findings: “Bedrock quarried to a depth of 10 feet; arches were of sandstone, the bases of which were set into the cut bedrock; stones engraved with human and animal heads, along with iron objects with similar ornamentation; one iron object with ‘granular’ ornamentation and another with a red enamel design; broken metal platter; a metal detector indicated the presence of stoneware including hammers, pounders, polishers, mortars and pestles, and fragments of a ‘seal’; among the images of humans, that of a woman was the most frequent.”

Sadly, more and more of the Bluff Point Ruins disappeared under the erosion of humans. Telephone lines cut through the site. Skyline Drive was built over a portion. Vineyards and ditches obliterate any visible traces. But although none of it is visible on the ground today, there are likely more fascinating treasures below the surface.

The question remains: if the Seneca were not responsible for this elaborate construction, who was? Wright cast doubt on it being the work of Native Americans, although he begrudgingly admitted it could have been crafted by mound builders, who were responsible for incredible, complicated mounds in the Midwest. Over the decades since the Wrights first recorded the ruins, those interested in the site have floated ideas. Some, like Brewer, believed it bore similarities to Etruscan work. Early Roman visitors, Norsemen wandering through North American, and ancient Celtic travelers have all been theorized as the builders of these ruins, whatever they may have been.

Although it is tempting to find similarities amongst the ruins and types of carvings or concentric circles found in other cultures, these ruins were built by pre-Seneca natives.

Not much is known about cultures in this region before the advent of the Seneca, although we know of the Lamoka People, a hunter-gatherer group who lived here around 4,500 years ago and gave their name to a type of projectile point, or arrowhead, they perfected. Somewhat later, around 100 BCE, a culture of Hopewell People inhabited the region up to Lake Ontario. Were the Bluff Point ruins a type of mound that eroded?

Until an excavation is done, it is impossible to say when the ruins were constructed, and by whom. Until then, the mystery continues.

Noel is the executive director of the Yates County History Center.