Cornelius, Chester Poe

Other Events:

• Reference Number: 2911
• Other Info or Events: 4 Sep 1869; grandson of John Cornelius
• Nationality: Aft 7 Sep 1869; Oneida Indian
• Biography: 1911; History of Outagamie County, Wisconsin Page 1059

Notes:

Other Info or Events:
In the Kaukauna Times dated August 30, 1889; John Cornelious, chief of the Oneida Indian tribe and last of the line of chiefs of that people, died at his home on the reservation Monday August 19. He was 78 years of age. For some time the government of the tribe has been in the hands of councilmen and sachems.

Biography:
CHESTER POE CORNELIUS, whose Indian name is Geyna, was born September 7, 1869, on the Oneida Reservation near Green Bay, Wisconsin, being the eldest son of Adam Poe Cornelius and Celicia Bread, and the offspring of the two royal clans of the Oneidas. His paternal grandfather was John Cornelius of Oneida Castle, New York, who was one of the foremost Oneida chiefs, and brother of Jacob Cornelius of oratorical fame, who was the head chief of the Orchard faction at the south end of Oneida. The name Cornelius originated from a German or Dutch ancestor; which one, is still a matter of dispute. The war records claim that the original Cornelius came from Holland and that he was a trader among the Six Nations, and that he married an Oneida woman. Personal letters to, and traditions in, the family claim that this Cornelius was a German, who came to America as early as 1632, a visitor to the new land, and that, allured by the opportunities it offered, he remained a settler and drifted to northern New York, where he finally married an Oneida woman. Sufficient evidence has not yet been collected to prove either of these claims, and whether this small strain of white blood left in the Cornelius family of the present day comes from Holland or Germany remains still to be established. Whichever it may have been, the fact remains that there is a strain of Caucasian blood in the family. It must not be forgotten, however, that this strain was absorbed by the Oneidas and that with intermarriage backward into the Indian, it is almost lost. Tradition actually proves that Dagoawi, the great-grandfather of C. P. Cornelius, was so dark that he looked like a full-blooded Oneida. On the maternal side the grandfather was Daniel Bread, Deho8yadilun, the last head chief of the Oneidas, who was known nationally as the brainiest chief this people ever had. Through his resistance to move westward with the Jefferson-Monroe policy of removing all Indians in the United States to the west of the Mississippi, the Oneidas came to their present holdings in Wisconsin and at the same time fell heirs to the Kansas Claim. He was a man of regal bearing, a full-blood Oneida and quite dark, but possessed the high forehead of the Iroquois and the strong features of the forest type of Indian. As a diplomat he was known and feared by the statesmen of his time and it is a well-established fact that his oratory was always so fortified with logic that he compelled the attention of big minds. From him, no doubt, Chester P. Cornelius received the foresight and peculiar combination of mind which has given him his unusual creative as well as executive ability. The wife of Daniel Bread was quarter-bred English, descended from the Danforths. She was considered the most beautiful of Oneida's daughters, and was born to the Turtle clan. In the matriarchal system it is, of course, through the mother's blood that descent counts. Daniel Bread, for instance, was a man of the people; he was an elected chief. There were two kinds of chiefs in the latter days of the Oneidas; one hereditary and the other elected. But, the fact that his wife came from the strongest of the hereditary clans has given the royal right to his children and grandchildren. With the marriage of Celicia Bread into the Cornelius family, the two strongest hereditary clans of the Oneidas met. It is a matter of pride to the people that this union was one of the most ideal among them, and it has no doubt some bearing on the prospective achievements of their offspring.
Chester P. Cornelius attended, though he did not finish, Dickinson college at Carlisle, Pennsylvania, also the University of Pennsylvania at Philadelphia, summer sessions at Harvard, and received a diploma from the Eastman Business College at Poughkeepsie, New York. After some reverses in business in the west he finally studied law in Wisconsin and was admitted to practice. When Deho8yadilun died he was still fighting to get the monies from the Kansas Claim for the Oneidas. This task C. P. Cornelius himself completed but a few years ago. On several occasions he has put through directly or indirectly some Indian claims, among them being the $5,000,000 Cherokee Claim in Oklahoma, and as a result he is, perhaps, as well versed in Indian laws as any Indian in the country. The maps of Oneida, from which the other Indian maps of the country are being modeled, were made by him. But, perhaps, the biggest thing he has accomplished is what is to take place in the near future, in the installment on the Oneida land of what is the most highly organized system of scientific agriculture. Bringing with him a large experience in the business world and a large store of general knowledge, it is his intention to forsake his profession and devote his whole life to making Oneida a garden spot of the country. The Oneida Stock Farm, with its most modern barn in the county and its acres presaging such wonderful possibilities, is an example of his idea of bringing beautiful culture out of the wilderness. In co-operation with his sister, Laura M. Cornelius, who has originated a scheme for industrial organization for all Indians and who hopes to establish a Cherry Garden City for the Oneidas, C. P. Cornelius stands in a position to demonstrate to the world the large abilities and possibilities of the Indian race. Replying to the rebuke that he was foolish to give away so many of his ideas in improving farm machinery, which were not being patented, he replied, "There is nothing for which I have so much contempt as the social parasite. The man who has nothing to give to advance his fellows without the money first is one." When asked if he was going to devote himself to the Indian entirely, he answered, "Dutchman and Indian are alike to me except in their opportunities." Mr. Cornelius is a thirty-second degree Scottish Rite and a Knight Templar of the Masonic fraternity, and also belongs to the Ancient Arabic Order of Nobles of the Mystic Shrine.