"She-qua-ga" – Montour Falls, New York

Montour Falls is a village located in Schuyler County, New York, United States. A population of 1,711 was reported by the US Census of 2010. A 165 foot high waterfall at the end of West Main Street gives the village the second half of its name. At the base of the falls is a sign labeled "She-qua-ga," a transliteration of its Seneca name. The name means "tumbling waters."

The first half of the town's name memorializes a prominent 18th century Seneca Indian resident and leader, Queen Catharine Montour. Queen Catharine Montour’s father (Peter Quebec) was a Mohawk Chief, and her mother (Margaret Montour Hunter) the daughter of an Oneida Chief. She would marry Seneca Indian Chief Thomas Htitson. The Mohawks, the Senecas and the Oneidas were constituent tribes of the Iroquois Confederacy.

The modern day Village of Montour Falls is developed on the site of a former Seneca Indian village, Queanettquaga. During America’s War of Independence reprisals were sanctioned against tribes of the Iroquois Confederacy who had allied themselves with Great Britain. The infamous nearby Battle of Newtown, New York (August 1779) and the march that devastated Queanettquaga (and forty other Amerindian villages of the Finger Lakes) is known as the Sullivan-Clinton Expedition. In addition to burning Queen Catharine Montour’s log palace, orchards were cut down, homes destroyed, livestock murdered and cropland salted. Residents of Catharine’s Town dispersed to areas as far away as Niagara and Canada. Queen Catharine Montour (b. 1710, died February 20, 1804) is memorialized by a grave mound located on her namesake Catharine Trail within the Montour Falls village limits.