George D Heron was president of the Seneca Nation of Indians from 1958 to 1960 and again from 1962 to 1964.
11 Facts About George Heron
1.
2.
George Heron worked extensively with William N Fenton, an ethnologist who studied and wrote about the Seneca and Iroquois Confederacy.
3.
George D Heron was born in 1919 on the reservation of Seneca Nation of New York.
4.
Mr George Heron enlisted in the United States Navy in November of 1941 and served until his discharge in 1945.
5.
George Heron achieved the rank of pharmacist mate first class during the war and was assigned to the United States Navy Amphibious Forces in campaigns in Africa, Europe, the Middle East and the Pacific.
6.
George Heron made several trips to Washington DC and was assured assistance by President John F Kennedy, but to no avail.
7.
George Heron led the tribe's relocation efforts, and oversaw construction of two residential communities: Jimersontown and Steamburg.
8.
George Heron served as treasurer and councillor for the tribe.
9.
George Heron supported expanding suffrage as he felt the then-majority view of the Seneca men was too conservative and ignorant, which George Heron believed harmed the tribe's efforts to negotiate with the outside world.
10.
George Heron was "a member of the Iroquois National Museum Board of Directors, representative to the New York State Department of Aging and leader of the Iroquois Agricultural Society,", on the executive board of the National Congress of American Indians, and an elder of Jimerstown Presbyterian Church.
11.
George Heron counted anthropologist William N Fenton and State Senator Catharine M Young among his personal friends.