Inscription on back of cradle board: “Made in 1840 by Betsy Turkey for Miss Emily S. Howells at Onondaga Tuscarora Parsonage, Canada West.” The Tuscarora Parsonage was located on the Six Nations Reserve.

In the early 20th century Evelyn H.C. Johnson, a member of a prominent Six Nations Mohawk family, donated to the Royal Ontario Museum a large number of objects named the Chiefswood Collection after the name of the Johnson family home. In this collection, Evelyn Johnson created a remarkable record of her family over four generations, and of events that involved the Iroquoian people at Six Nations from the end of the American Revolution to the Six Nations Agricultural Fair of 1922.