Edward
E. Londo
Last of the
Mohawks
Article located at the Palenville Public Library and transcribed by Celeste MacCormack
Hand written on the article - Died March 22, 1938 buried 25th 1938.
‘Last Of The Mohawks’ Goes To Happy Hunting Grounds
Former Chief Dies in Sanitarium at Age of 79, Receives Funeral at Expense of Federal Government; Friend of the Children.
By Ruth R.Glunt special to The Sunday Press.
PALENVILLE – Historians may dispute the fact, but to himself Edward E. Londo was “the last of the Mohawks.”
And when he erected his tombstone 10 years ago he had just that inscription written upon it. Today he lies buried in his Happy Hunting Ground, in a freshly dug grave next to that of his son, Abraham, who died in 1928, a son whom he has mourned these 10 last years, and when he was delirious in the Bonesteel Sanitarium early this week he continued to call a fellowsick-mate “Papoose, Papoose.”
Chief of the Mohawk tribe, Edward Dondo [Londo] was a full-blooded Indian, and as such he received a funeral at the expense of the United States Government. For he died penniless and seven years ago when he was about to be evacuated from his little shack near this village, a friend bought the land and permitted him to live there until his death.
There is some mystery attached to Edward Londo. Close friends who have known him for half of the 45 years he has lived in and about Palenville and Manorville tell that he had a wife and three children who have all died and are buried in Saratoga. He was fond of children and they used to come to him and learn the Indian art of basket weaving and other craft of a manual nature. The great-granddaughter of Mrs. Annie Van Hoesen, the neighbor who bought the land so that Edward Londo might have a rent-free home, was a favorite of the old man, and he sent “Granny” messages almost daily during the waning days of his life.
Last week, however, he was stricken in the barren shack with arterio sclerosis, the cause given for his death, and he was discovered unconscious by a grocery man. Taken to the sanitarium, it was discovered that his feet were badly burned, for he had been warming them in his oven just before his illness became acute.
The nurses at the hospital treated him with great care, because the old man’s body was tender and suffered the slightest touch. And when he died they wept.
It was the first death in the new sanitarium, which accentuated the sadness. He was 79 years old.
Years ago, when Edward Londo was in his prime of life he was a great man. Great because he was the personal guide of two late presidents of the United States. He knew Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, and with his uncanny knowledge of the north woods and trails he was charged with the responsibility of escorting these two personalities during their visits to the Adirondack regions.
So at his funeral on Friday a chief of a great Indian tribe was lowered into his grave next to his son. The sunshine filtered through the trees yet leafless in the early
Spring in the little graveyard several hundred yards from any of the whirl of civilization that the White Man has created. The Rev. Eugene Duryee of the Blue Mountain Church led the prayers for the Christian burial.
There were no flowers at the grave.