Ne-ha-sa-ne or the Beaver River

The Beaver River is an Adirondack stream that flows generally westward from its headwaters at Lake Lila to the Black River at Castorland, about halfway between Lowville and Carthage. It is about 40 miles long as the crow flies, but its twists and turns easily double that distance by water. In its lower half, the river runs mainly through open farmland. The upper half of the river is almost completely surrounded by state Forest Preserve. Most of the forest on the north side of the upper Beaver River is classified as wilderness while most of the south side is classified wild forest. 

Prior to white settlement, the valley of the Beaver River was the shared territory of the Mohawk and Oneida peoples of the Haudenosaunee. The headwaters were in Mohawk territory and the lower portions were Oneida territory. Indian trails ran all along the river and its main tributaries. Connecting trails led to nearby lakes and rivers, so the territory could be crossed in many directions. The great marsh of the upper Beaver River (now submerged by the Stillwater Reservoir) provided excellent habitat for beaver and white tail deer. Fish were plentiful including native brook trout and lake trout.

According to Lewis H. Morgan, an early scholar of the Haudenosaunee, the Oneidas called the stream “Ne-Ha-Sa-Ne.” The original Mohawk name for the river was “Niiohehsà:ne,” essentially the same as the Oneida name with a slightly different pronunciation. The river likely continued to be known as Ne-Ha-Sa-Ne or Niiohehsà:ne or some variant such as Nehasane or Nehasne, as long as Haudenosaunee people travelled the region. Shortly after the end of the American Revolution, however, the newly formed State of New York entered into a series of legally questionable treaties that effectively removed the Haudenosaunee from their traditional lands. A map published in 1788 titled “The State of New York with its Counties as defined by statute” shows that the stream had by then been renamed the Beaver River.

It might seem reasonable to assume that there is some connection between the original name of the river and the name given to it after the Revolution. This appears not to be the case. In League of the Iroquois, Morgan notes [p. 472] that the translation of the Oneida word Ne-Ha-Sa-Ne is “crossing on a stick of timber.” That translation is still current as can be seem in Murray Heller’s book Call Me Adirondack (1989) where he notes [p. 106] it should be translated as “crossing on a log.”

A quite different translation has been given for the Mohawk word. According to research by J. Dyneley Prince in “Some Forgotten Indian Place-Names in the Adirondack,” [Journal of American Folk-Lore, April 1900, p. 128], the earliest Mohawk-French dictionary translated Ne-ha-sa-ne as “that is so.” A similar translation was provided by Stephen Laurent in “The Abenakis: Aborigines of Vermont,” [Vermont History, Oct. 1955, p. 291], where he noted the term simply means “there it is.” 

Since the current name of the river is not a translation of the earlier Oneida or Mohawk name, it seems likely that, like many geographic features of the Adirondacks, it was named based on widely shared observations made by early settlers. For example, a pond with a roughly circular shape became Round Pond, one with two long bays became Forked Lake and one with a marked bend in the middle became Crooked Lake. Some features were named for the creatures that were known to Inhabit the area. Thus, we have many Trout Ponds and Loon Lakes. In similar fashion, it seems likely that the Beaver River was given that name because it was known as an excellent place to find beaver.

Indeed, Haudenosaunee peoples had long associated the Adirondacks with beaver hunting. In her 2018 book, Rural Indigenousness: A History of Iroquoian and Algonquian Peoples of the Adirondacks, Melissa Otis informs us that the Oneidas referred to the Adirondacks as Latilu-taks, which translates as “they are eating the trees,” a reference to the plentiful beaver in their territory in the north woods, including the Beaver River valley. Another name for the region that appeared on colonial era maps was Couch-sach-ra-ga that can be variously translated as either habitation of winter, or dismal wilderness, or beaver hunting grounds or at the place of beaver dams.

Early settlers likewise associated the Beaver River valley with beaver hunting. In 1792 a colony of French refugees settled along the Black River near its confluence with the Beaver River. They called their settlement Castorland. Since castor is the French word for beaver and since beavers are classified in the genus Castor, the name of the settlement literally means "Land of the Beaver". Accordingly, ever since 1788 the name of the river has remained as a tribute to the once very prolific beaver population.

The original Haudenosaunee name for the Beaver River might have disappeared entirely had it not been for Dr. William Seward Webb, the man who financed and supervised the building of a railroad across the central Adirondacks in 1891-92. In the process of acquiring a right-of-way for the railroad, Webb purchased about 120,000 acres around the upper Beaver River. Only a tiny portion of this land was needed for the railroad. On 40,000 acres surrounding the headwaters of the Beaver River Webb created his own private game preserve and great camp. There he memorialized the original name of the Beaver River by calling his domain Ne-Ha-Sa-Ne Park Preserve. He also renamed Albany Lake as Nehasane Lake and named a previously unnamed low peak just to the north of that lake Nehasane Mountain.

It’s quite likely that Webb learned of the Haudenosaunee name for the Beaver River from Morgan’s book or from the accompanying map. Both were well known and highly respected during the latter half of the nineteenth century. Supposedly, Dr. Webb was fond of telling his guests that the name Nehasane was the original Indian name for the river meaning “beaver on a log.” Presumably, Webb knew the correct translation was “crossing on a stick of timber,” but chose to dress it up a bit by adding a beaver. Webb’s altered translation survives in the oral tradition of the Beaver River region where today’s residents commonly explain that Nehasane means “beaver crossing on a log.” 

In an interesting twist, in his Etymology of the Indian Place Name Missisquoi (1906), Prof. George McAleer used Webb’s altered translation of Nehasane as an example of how easily non-native people jump to erroneous conclusions about the meaning of Indian words. Relying on early French translations of Mohawk words, McAleer believed that the proper translation of Nehasane is “there it is.” McAleer imagined that Webb may have derived his translation from a beaver hunting trip led by two Mohawk guides. When one of the guides spotted a beaver at the end of a log, he shouted it to his companion: “Nehasane! Nehasane!” at the same time pointing at the beaver. In McAleer’s account, when Webb overheard this exchange, he incorrectly assumed that it meant “beaver on a log.” For the sake of a good story, McAleer overlooked Morgan’s earlier translation from the Oneida language and the fact that there is no evidence Webb ever went beaver hunting with two Mohawk guides.