The Catholic Holy Sites of the Mohawk Valley

Since the nineteenth century, Catholics have believed that the Jesuit martyrs of the Mohawk Valley were put to death at a Mohawk village where the great shrine to them now stands at Auriesville, New York. Catholics have also believed that St. Catherine (Kateri) Tekekwitha was born and partly raised in the same village. This book argues that these beliefs are mistaken. The arguments for Auriesville were hastily formulated on scanty evidence in the 1880s. In fact, strong evidence based on twentieth-century archeology points to another village, located about seven miles up the Mohawk River from Auriesville, as the site of the martyrdoms. This village is known to archeologists as the Bauder Site, and this book presents the evidence for the authenticity of the Bauder Site as the location of the martyr's deaths. Moreover, the dates of occupation assigned to the various castles of the area by archeology show that St. Catherine could not have been born and partly raised at Auriesville. She was born and raised near the Bauder Site and across the Mohawk River a few miles upriver from Fonda, New York. The book concludes that these new locations should not jeopardize the status of the Auriesville Shrine for the Martyrs and the Fonda Shrine for St. Catherine (Kateri). Rather, if the shrines are proactive, they will be able to stay at the heart of Catholic pilgrimage in the Mohawk Valley.