Like the region’s first inhabitants, the “Cat People,” who made clothing from the mountain lions and panthers that they hunted, Western New Yorkers still savor the tradition of storytelling. Tales such as the “Mail-Riding Mamma” of
Chautauqua County, who carried both the post and her infant child above her head as she journeyed across perilously flooded creeks, and the Ossian Giant, who at age nineteen stood seven feet, six inches tall and weighed 385 pounds, are vividly narrated by
Buffalo storyteller Lorna MacDonald Czarnota. Listen to the whispered legends of spirits, heroes and traitors hidden in one of New York’s most captivating regions.
Background Information
Buffalo, the westernmost large city in New York State, owes its economic development primarily to the opening of the Erie Canal.
