Some years before the breaking out of the American revolution, Mr. Kirkland planted the gospel standard among the Oneidas, at a time when the broad and sylvan fields and glades of Kun-a-wa-loa, or Oneida Castle, were still beyond the pale of European civilization.[105] And he is to be regarded as the apostle to the Iroquois. For many years, in perils and dangers, he preached the gospel to the Oneidas, at their once celebrated castle; and by the purity, firmness and excellence of his character, won the confidence and the heart of their leading sachem. Skenandoah, gave his attention to this new scheme of acceptance with his Maker, admitted it, and became a consistent professor and practicer of its precepts, and of him, it can be confidently said, that he lived and died in the faith. To gain the influence of the most powerful man in the canton, was to gain the whole canton; and when the war broke out, the tribe, wavering, as it did for a time, and assailed with all the arts of British intrigue and promise, so profusely put forth, adhered to the colonies. Kirkland, in the inception and progress of these movements, became the principal agent in disseminating the doctrines of peace and neutrality among the six cantons. Washington and the continental congress, reposed the highest trust in his virtue, judgment, and intelligence. He took from the lips of the father of his country, words of peace and good counsel, which coincided admirably, with the precepts of the gospel. He traversed the then wilderness of Genesee and Niagara on this mission, and has left enduring monuments of his faithfulness and zeal. [105] Herkimer, the nearest point east, was about 40 miles distant. But the spirit of war prevailed—that spirit which the great body this people had so long served, under the guidance of their native priesthood. All but the Oneidas, some few of the Tuscaroras, who were then settled in their western precincts, and some one or two individuals, from St. Regis, joined the ranks of the mother country, under their bold and politic leader Brant. Seven years of battles, expeditions, ambushes, and murders, terminated not only in their political overthrow as a confederacy, but plunged many of them who had before listened to the voice of Christianity, back into the arms of their native priests and forest habits. The Mohawks, part of the Cayugas, and some Onondagas and Tuscaroras, fled the country, and settled chiefly in Canada. The Oneidas, the body of the Onondagas and Senecas, and some parts of the Cayugas and Tuscaroras, remained. But they had fought for a phantom. All the rich promises of glory and conquest, emanating from Johnson Hall and fort Niagara, and the Canadas had failed; and their delegates came to the treaty of Fort Stanwix in 1784, poor, crest fallen, and defeated. And by their first public act, after the drama of the revolution, they put their hands to a treaty, ceding away the larger portion of their ancient domain.