Sa Sa Na Loft was a 21 year old Mohawk Indian girl from Mohawk Woods, Canada. She along with her family traveled around singing to raise money to buy Bibles in the Mohawk Language for the Mohawk Nation. She and her brother having sung a concert at the Western House in Deposit, NY the night before. She had boarded the train at the station in Deposit in preparation to go to Susquehanna, Pa. A freight train traveling on the main line entered the siding and smashed into the rear of the parked train Sa Sa Na was on killing her and two others "a young lady of good reputation" and "an Irishman" (Quotes from a letter in my possession written to A Ford (New York State Assemblyman) by his brother Willaim S. Ford Esq. on the day of the accident (Feb. 18, 1852). After the accident One Judge Avery and public subscriptions moved her body to Owego, NY where whe was interred at the Avery family vault but later moved to Evergreen Cemetery where a 14 foot high Obelisk was erected in her honor at the hightest point in the cemetery. On the monument is a picture of a broken rose and the inscription "By birth a daughter of the forest; by adoption a child of God." The sad thing is that Deposit was never interested in establishing any sort of memorial to her and even though Owego did so many years ago (1855) the historians of the area showed no interest in the eyewitness account of her death. I understand that an author in Owego has written a romance novel in which he uses Judge Avery and Sa Sa Na as fictional characters in the story.
Sa Sa Na Loft was a 21 year old Mohawk Indian girl from Mohawk Woods, Canada. She along with her family traveled around singing to raise money to buy Bibles in the Mohawk Language for the Mohawk Nation. She and her brother having sung a concert at the Western House in Deposit, NY the night before. She had boarded the train at the station in Deposit in preparation to go to Susquehanna, Pa. A freight train traveling on the main line entered the siding and smashed into the rear of the parked train Sa Sa Na was on killing her and two others "a young lady of good reputation" and "an Irishman" (Quotes from a letter in my possession written to A Ford (New York State Assemblyman) by his brother Willaim S. Ford Esq. on the day of the accident (Feb. 18, 1852). After the accident One Judge Avery and public subscriptions moved her body to Owego, NY where whe was interred at the Avery family vault but later moved to Evergreen Cemetery where a 14 foot high Obelisk was erected in her honor at the hightest point in the cemetery. On the monument is a picture of a broken rose and the inscription "By birth a daughter of the forest; by adoption a child of God." The sad thing is that Deposit was never interested in establishing any sort of memorial to her and even though Owego did so many years ago (1855) the historians of the area showed no interest in the eyewitness account of her death. I understand that an author in Owego has written a romance novel in which he uses Judge Avery and Sa Sa Na as fictional characters in the story.
