The Abenaki of Odanak put Schaghticoke in their record. The resolution now hangs in Town Hall.

The 350th anniversary of the Peace Tree has left something permanent in the building. At the Town Board’s October 14 meeting, Town Historian Chris Kelly spoke about a resolution the Abenaki Council of Odanak adopted this summer for the anniversary, and the board members held the framed document up for a photograph. It now hangs at Town Hall, 290 Northline Drive, where anyone can read it.

Odanak is the Abenaki First Nation on the Saint-François River in Quebec, and its council is the government that many descendants of the people who lived at Schaghticoke in the 1600s and 1700s belong to today. The resolution, numbered ROB-040-26-27, was adopted and signed on July 10, 2026, three weeks before the anniversary celebration at the Knickerbocker Mansion, by Chief Rick O’Bomsawin and councillors Martin Gill, Jacques T. Watso, Florence Benedict and Alain O’Bomsawin, all in favor.

It was delivered in person. On the afternoon of August 1, under the oaks at the Knickerbocker Mansion, an Odanak delegation that included two of the signers, council members Jacques Watso and Florence Benedict, along with Daniel G. Nolett, the council’s executive director, and Denise Watso, a consultant to the Abenaki who lives in the Capital District, opened the tree ceremony with drumming and chanting and then presented the resolution to the local officials on hand: State Senator Jake Ashby, County Legislator Dan Casale, County Historian Kathy Sheehan, Knickerbocker Historical Society president Leslie Allen and Town Historian Chris Kelly. Congressman Paul Tonko sent a resolution of his own for the day. Ms. Kelly wrote afterward on her town history blog that the representatives from Quebec “were moved to visit one of their homelands,” and that the weekend showed “people of several nations cooperating” peacefully, “350 years ago and today.” She told the board in September that the document would be framed and displayed; the Town Board’s September 9 minutes record that.

This is not Odanak’s first such gesture. On July 28, 2012, Abenaki from Odanak and the Capital District were guests at the Knickerbocker Mansion’s Summer Festival, and Councilor Claire O’Bomsawin presented the local officials of the day, among them Senator Roy McDonald, Supervisor Jean Carlson and Councilman John Rustin Sr., with a resolution the Odanak council had signed “proclaiming the significance of Schaghticoke in the history of our people.” Mr. Nolett and Mr. Watso took part in that visit too. The account is Denise Watso’s, published that September on her journal, Abenaki News. The 2026 resolution renews that statement for the 350th year.

Who the Abenaki of Odanak are

Odanak is a First Nation reserve on the Saint-François River near Pierreville, Quebec, recognized by the Canadian government, with an elected chief and four councillors who serve four-year terms; the current council was chosen in November 2023. Its council also speaks for Abenaki families who live on this side of the border, including several hundred in the Capital District. The resolution’s line that the Abenaki “are neither Canadian nor American, but citizens of an indigenous nation whose ancestral lands span the borders” is a position the council states deliberately. Odanak and its sister community, Wôlinak, have publicly disputed the legitimacy of the four groups Vermont granted state recognition to in 2011 and 2012, calling their members’ claims to Abenaki ancestry unproven and describing Odanak and Wôlinak as “the sole guardians of Abenaki citizenship”; the Vermont groups reject that. That dispute is not about Schaghticoke, and neither the 2012 nor the 2026 visit involved the Vermont groups. We note it so readers know which Abenaki government signed the document on the Town Hall wall, and what it means by “our Abenaki people.”

The text

350th Anniversary Celebration of the Peace Treaty at Schaghticoke

WHEREAS many of the ancestors of the Abenaki Nation lived at Schaghticoke for several decades in the late 1600s and early 1700s, having fled part of our homelands in the Connecticut River Valley during King Philip’s War; and

WHEREAS Abenaki people have continued to reside near Schaghticoke, and today many live in the Albany Capital District and the southeastern Adirondacks; and

WHEREAS the Abenaki people are neither Canadian nor American, but citizens of an indigenous nation whose ancestral lands span the borders of Canada and the U.S. and several states; and

WHEREAS we seek to commemorate historic sites and events throughout our homeland;

NOW, THEREFORE, WE the Abenaki Council of Odanak, member of the Assembly of First Nations of Quebec and Labrador does hereby affirm the importance of Schaghticoke to the history of the Abenaki people; and furthermore

we encourage residents of Schaghticoke, NY, and our Abenaki people to work together to ensure that the generations of our ancestors who lived at Schaghticoke are not forgotten and that their legacy is honored.

Why it matters here

The Peace Tree on the town seal marks a 1676 covenant between the Colony of New York and the Native people who settled at Schaghticoke after King Philip’s War, many of them from the Connecticut River Valley. That is the history the resolution’s first clause describes from the other side. For 350 years the story has mostly been told by the town; this is the Abenaki government of Odanak telling it in its own words, affirming that Schaghticoke matters to its history, and asking residents here to help keep that memory. The last clause is an invitation, and it now hangs in the room where the town does its business.

Our background on the covenant and the anniversary is in The Peace Tree at 350. The historian’s own account of the weekend, with the history from 1676 through the Dutch settlement of 1710, is on her blog, History of the Town of Schaghticoke: A 350th Anniversary in 2026: The Peace Tree.

Sources: the framed Odanak Band Resolution ROB-040-26-27 at Schaghticoke Town Hall, transcribed from our photograph; Town Historian Chris Kelly’s August 5, 2026 post on her blog, History of the Town of Schaghticoke, “A 350th Anniversary in 2026: The Peace Tree”; Denise L. Watso, “Honoring Our Ancestors at the Branch of the River”, Abenaki News, September 11, 2012, for the 2012 visit; the Abenaki Council of Odanak and its newspaper Pilaskw, January 2024 (PDF), for council titles and the November 2023 election; VTDigger, “‘A false narrative’: Abenaki leaders dispute the legitimacy of Vermont’s state-recognized tribes”, November 14, 2023, for the recognition dispute; the Town Board’s September 9, 2026 minutes; and a report from the October 14, 2026 Town Board meeting. The resolution’s French headings are given in English.