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The Valley of the Horses' Heads

 

In September 1779, General John Sullivan and his troops passed through what is now Horseheads as they returned from their campaign against the British and the Iroquois nation. While there, he and his men were forced to kill many of their pack horses which were too exhausted to continue the journey. Native Americans lined the horses’ skulls along the trail in the Hanover Square area and called it “the Valley of the Horses’ Heads.” White settlers later called the area Horseheads. The first white settlers in Horseheads were John and Hannah Breese and their eight children, who settled there in June 1789.

 

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