The Hand of Man

Legends of the Lake

Skimming the Surface

Pumping Cash Out of Seneca

Something about fishing.

Frozen in Time

The Lakes Country Rambler

Counting on the Lake

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Why Seneca?

The lake and everything else Seneca continues a European misinterpretation of terms.

While most Finger Lakes bear names taken, however awkwardly, from Native American languages, Seneca’s name flows from a peculiar alchemy. Indians living around the lake were known, before Europeans, as the "People of the Hill." For whatever reason, their modern name evolved instead from a term for stone, or "people of the stone," or "stony place." By one version of the story, a Dutch physician, using his own language to describe "people of the stone," gave us sinnekar. Others attribute it to a European corruption of the Iroquois term assiniki, which means "place of the stone" or "stony place," or the Algonkian otsinika, meaning stone. From there came the adaptation Seneca — an allusion to the Roman philosopher. It was a likely adaptation, given the slew of Upstate New York towns named for classical sources (e.g., Syracuse, Rome, Ithaca, and Troy). — P.R.

The Seneca Lake series was researched and written by Dana Cooke and Peter Rolph '85 — writer/editors in the Office of College Relations. Portions of the series also appear in the Fall '97 issue of The Pulteney St. Survey. To request a copy, e-mail Susan Murad at murad@hws.edu.