Belcher Site

The Belcher Site was an Iroquois village habitation site on a high terrace of Honeoye Outlet in the town of Richmond, Ontario County. The village was supposedly located on a naturally defensible location approximated to be 300' x 60' with extensive side hill refuse dumps. Pottery, smoking pipes and lithics recovered from the site suggest a late prehistoric occupation, dating circa A.D. 1540 to 1560, just prior to the emergence of large amalgamated historic Seneca villages in the region. There have been few archaeological excavations at the Belcher Site and existing artifact collections are very limited. In 2012 the Morgan Chapter effort looked for evidence of the settlement and found none. Only a midden was located from which a few ceramics, lithic debris and bone were recovered.