Kateri Shrine

About Kateri Shrine

The place where Kateri lived for much of her 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, a Holy Year, by Father Thomas Grassmann, a Conventual Franciscan Friar and founder of the shrine. In that year, Father Thomas unearthed the post molds where the stockade around the Indian Settlement at Fonda had been, and between then and 1957, with the help of numerous volunteers excavated the rest of the site. Today it is the only completely excavated Iroquois Indian village in the country.