The Seneca village was located on the east side of the Genesee River, "about a mile above the ford". "Ga:non'wagês" was an important village to the Seneca during the eighteenth century. Their religious leader Handsome Lake was born here about 1735. One of his nephews, later known as Governor Blacksnake, moved here with his family shortly after his birth. He was an important war chief who allied with the British during the Revolutionary War; later he became one of the first Native Americans to publish his memoirs, aided by a fellow Seneca who translated them into English. An edited version of this memoir was published in 2005, with explanations of material about his people. The leader Cornplanter, a maternal uncle of Chainbreaker, was born in this village around 1750.