In their earliest days the local residents learned as much from the Seneca as possible, holding them in high esteem domestically for the their superior bead work, homeopathically for their natural remedies and cures to diseases, and culturally for their elevation of women, an ideal shared by many local families.

Prior to the arrival of any of Sugar Grove's residents of European descent, the Erie had once inhabited the land.  Defeated in battle by the Seneca Nation, the Seneca were still present from time-to-time in the community when the first New Englanders and Europeans began to cultivate a community.

Although artifacts from numerous sites in Sugar Grove provide the location for campsites and settlement of the Seneca and their predecessors the Erie, one site in particular shows the most improvements made by the Seneca.  On the land behind the Sugar Grove Elementary School is the long-time property of the Stuart family, among the community’s earliest immigrants.

An archeological dig during the twentieth century under the advisement of Carnegie Mellon unearthed the remains of an early Longhouse as well as the residual artifacts of a burial mound.  These finding along with an enormous amount of tools and weapons were cataloged and some transferred to the University.  The Stuart site was the most prolifically explored site in the area for early American habitation.

In 1796 1500 acres of land about 20 miles from Sugar Grove was granted to Cornplanter by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.  Following his settlement of The Cornplanter Tract, he was an occasional visitor to the community along with the more regular Seneca who came annually to camp and hunt.  On one occasion in 1828, just 8 years before his death, Cornplanter came to visit the Stuart family of Sugar Grove.  Cornplanter arrived to find that one of the Stuart’s sons was seriously ill with an infection in his leg.  The great chief made a natural remedy that included the oil from a beaver’s scent gland which cured the young boy.

In early writings of area residents, such as Franklin Miller, he notes that his mother and her friends went to town to camp with the Indians in order to learn how to improve their beadwork and embroidery.  The same women went on to improve their skills in sewing and formed the Ladies Fugitive Aid Society in order to sew clothes to provide to escaping slaves on the Underground Railroad.  So proficient had they become, that they formed a second organization, the Female Assisting Society, to send clothing they had made to Philadelphia to help escaping slaves there.