Kateri Tekakwitha and Mohawk Caughnawaga Indian National Shrine

Adirondack Trail, State Rt. 30A, near Fonda in Montgomery County

The museum and chapel are located a quarter mile west of Fonda.

The place where Kateri lived for much of here life, Caughnawaga, near the village of Fonda, New York has been marked since 1938 by the Fonda Memorial of Catherine Tekakwitha. The Indian village site was discovered in 1950 and today it is the only completely excavated Iroquois Indian village in the country. Visitors to the village, which sits on a hill above the Mohawk-Caughnawaga museum and the shrine chapel, can see clearly the outlines of the twelve longhouses and stockade which existed there 300 years ago.

The museum and chapel are housed in a 200 year-old barn renovated in 1938. The upper floor of the building holds the chapel of St. Peter's, commemorating the chapel in which Blessed Kateri was baptised, and the lower floor museum features an impressive display of Amerindian artifacts from all the Americas, but particularly from the Iroquois country.

Though the Tekakwitha location has long history, it was not actually a shrine to the Indian maiden until 1980 when Kateri was declared Blessed by Pope John Paul II on June 22. Only then could she officially be venerated. Blessed Kateri is patroness of peace and ecology. Nearby, the holy spring, whose water was used to baptize her, still flows here. Many pilgrims claim cures after drawing its crystal clear water and praying through the intercession of Blessed Kateri.

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• Montgomery County Tourism Information