Montour Falls trip planner

Montour Falls is a village located in Schuyler County, New York, United States. A population of 1,711 was reported by the US Census of 2010. A waterfall at the end of West Main Street gives the village its name. The name "Montour" is derived from Queen Catharine Montour, a prominent Native American woman of Seneca Indian heritage who lived at the village site in the 18th century.The boundaries defining the Village of Montour Falls occur mostly within the Town of Montour, but a small part lies within the Town of Dix. The village is located approximately twenty miles north of Elmira, New York and three miles south of Watkins Glen, New York. The New York State Academy of Fire Science is located in the village.HistoryThe modern day Village of Montour Falls is developed on the site of a former Seneca Indian village, Queanettquaga, informally known as Catherine's Town after a prominent Seneca Indian resident and leader, Queen Catharine Montour. Queen Catharine Montour's father (Peter Quebec) was a Mohawk Chief, and her mother (Margaret Montour Hunter) the daughter of an Oneida Chief. She would marry Seneca Indian Chief Thomas Htitson. Queen Catharine Montour's Seneca Tribe was a member of the Iroquois Confederacy. During America's War of Independence reprisals were sanctioned against tribes of the Iroquois Confederacy who had allied themselves with Great Britain. The infamous nearby Battle of Newtown, New York (August 1779) and the march that devastated Queanettquaga (and forty other Amerindian villages of the Finger Lakes) is known as the Sullivan-Clinton Expedition. In addition to burning Queen Catharine Montour's log palace, orchards were cut down, homes destroyed, livestock murdered and cropland salted. Residents of Catharine's Town dispersed to areas as far away as Niagara and Canada. Queen Catharine Montour (b. 1710, died February 20, 1804) is memorialized by a grave mound located on her namesake Catharine Trail within the Montour Falls village limits.