George Heron

George D. Heron (February 22, 1919 – May 26, 2011) was president of the Seneca Nation of Indians (Seneca Nation of New York) from 1958 to 1960 and again from 1962 to 1964. In addition to his cultural and community work, he is known as a leader of the Seneca opposition to Kinzua Dam, and for his work organizing the tribal resettlement. Heron was known as a tribal historian, Seneca language linguist, and teacher. He worked extensively with William N. Fenton, an ethnologist who studied and wrote about the Seneca and Iroquois Confederacy. A political progressive, Heron was a member of the New Deal Party, one of the political factions in the nation before the current Seneca Party achieved one-party rule in the 1990s. Biography George D. Heron was born in 1919 on the reservation of Seneca Nation of New York. As a young man, Heron served in the Civilian Conservation Corps, cutting trees as well as building "cabins, bridges and roads still in use" at Allegany State Park, as of 2008. Mr. Heron enlisted in the United States Navy in November of 1941 and served until his discharge in 1945. He 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.