Title: Proceedings of the New York Historical Association [1906]
Author: New York State Historical Association. Meeting
Release date: February 14, 2016 [eBook #51218]
Most recently updated: October 23, 2024
Language: English
Credits: Produced by Roger Burch with scans provided by the Internet Archive.
President,
Hon. JAMES A. ROBERTS, New York.
First Vice-President,
Hon. GRENVILLE M. INGALSBE, Sandy Hill.
Second Vice-President,
Dr. SHERMAN WILLIAMS, Glens Falls.
Third Vice-President,
JOHN BOULTON SIMPSON, Bolton.
Treasurer,
JAMES A. HOLDEN, Glens Falls.
Secretary,
ROBERT O. BASCOM, Fort Edward.
Assistant Secretary,
FREDERICK B. RICHARDS, Ticonderoga.
Mr. Asahel R. Wing, Fort Edward | Term Expires 1906 |
Mr. Elmer J. West, Glens Falls | " 1906 |
Rev. John H. Brandow, Schoharie | " 1906 |
Hon. Grenville M. Ingalsbe, Sandy Hill | " 1906 |
Col. William L. Stone, Mt. Vernon | " 1906 |
Mr. Morris Patterson Ferris, New York | " 1906 |
Hon. George G. Benedict, Burlington, Vt. | " 1906 |
Hon. James A. Roberts, New York | " 1907 |
Col. John L. Cunningham, Glens Falls | " 1907 |
Mr. James A. Holden, Glens Falls | " 1907 |
Mr. John Boulton Simpson, Bolton | " 1907 |
Rev. Dr. C. Ellis Stevens, New York | " 1907 |
Dr. Everett R. Sawyer, Sandy Hill | " 1907 |
Mr. Elwyn Seele, Lake George | " 1907 |
Mr. Frederick B. Richards, Ticonderoga | " 1907 |
Mr. Howland Pell, New York | " 1907 |
Gen. Henry E. Tremain, New York | " 1908 |
Mr. William Wait, Kinderhook | " 1908 |
Dr. Sherman Williams, Glens Falls | " 1908 |
Mr. Robert O. Bascom, Fort Edward | " 1908 |
Mr. Francis W. Halsey, New York | " 1908 |
Mr. Harry W. Watrous, Hague | " 1908 |
Com. John W. Moore, Bolton Landing | " 1908 |
Rev. Dr. Joseph E. King, Fort Edward | " 1908 |
Hon. Hugh Hastings, Albany | " 1908 |
At the Seventh Annual Meeting of the New York State Historical Association, held at Lake George on the 22d day of August, 1905, a quorum being present, the President, James A. Roberts, called the meeting to order, whereupon it was duly moved, seconded and carried, that the reading of the minutes be dispensed with.
The report of the Treasurer, James A. Holden, was read and adopted after having been approved by the auditors, Dr. Joseph E. King and the Hon. Grenville M. Ingalsbe.
It was further moved, seconded and carried, that the annual publication of the society be not sent to those members who are two or more years in arrears in their dues.
Dr. Sherman Williams, chairman of the committee on historic spots, reported orally that arrangements had been made for the erection of a boulder with a bronze tablet at Half-Way Brook, and that arrangements were in progress for marking other spots in the vicinity of Lake George. The report was accepted and the committee continued, and the committee were requested to make a written report with a historic sketch relating to the spots marked and proposed to be marked, which report together with a cut of the tablets erected and to be erected shall be published in the proceedings of the Association.
Mr. Harry W. Watrous, chairman of the committee on Fort Ticonderoga, by Mr. Grenville M. Ingalsbe reported progress.
Upon the suggestion of the chairman the following committee on Fort Ticonderoga was appointed for the ensuing year:
Mrs. Elizabeth Watrous, Mr. John Boulton Simpson, Mr. Geo. O. Knapp.
The committee on program made an oral report, which was adopted.
A vote of thanks was extended to Gen. Tremain for his very liberal gift to the Association reported by the treasurer.
A vote of thanks was extended to the committee on program.
The following new members were elected:
Alice Brooks Wyckoff, Elmira, N. Y. Hon. F. W. Hatch, N. Y. City. Hon. Albert Haight, Albany, N. Y. Hon. John Woodward, Brooklyn, N. Y. Mr. E. B. Hill, 49 Wall Street, N. Y. City. Rev. Dr. Thos. B. Slicer, N. Y. City. Mr. G. C. Lewis, Albany, N. Y. Dr. George S. Eveleth, Little Falls, N. Y. George C. Rowell, 81 Chapel Street, Albany, N. Y. Mr. James F. Smith, So. Hartford, N. Y. Mr. George Foster Peabody, Lake George, N. Y. Mr. Grenville H. Ingalsbe, Sandy Hill, N. Y. Mr. A. N. Richards, Sandy Hill, N. Y. Mr. Irwin W. Near, Hornellsville, N. Y. Mr. Archibald Stewart, Derby, Sandy Hill, N. Y. Mr. Alvaro D. Arnold, Sandy Hill, N. Y. Mr. Richard C. Tefft, Sandy Hill, N. Y. Mr. F. D. Howland, Sandy Hill, N. Y. Mr. A. W. Abrams. Mr. D. M. Alexander, Buffalo, N. Y. Mr. Philip M. Hull, Clinton, N. Y. Addie E. Hatfield, 17 Linwood Place, Utica, N. Y. George K. Hawkins, Plattsburgh, N. Y. Dr. Claude A. Horton, Glens Falls, N. Y. Dr. E. T. Horton, Whitehall, N. Y. Gen. T. S. Peck, Burlington, Vt. Myron F. Westover, Schenectady, N. Y. Dr. Wm. C. Sebring, Kingston, N. Y. Mr. Neil M. Ladd, 646 Fulton Street, Brooklyn, N. Y. Mr. J. Hervey Cook, Fishkill-on-the-Hudson, N. Y. Mr. H. L. Broughton, Sandy Hill, N. Y. Daniel L. Van Hee, Rochester, N. Y. Edmund Wetmore, 34 Pine Street, N. Y. City. Mrs. Lydia F. Upson, Glens Falls, N. Y. Mr. Daniel F. Imrie, Lake George, N. Y. Mr. James Green, Lake George, N. Y. Mr. Edwin J. Worden, Lake George, N. Y.
Dr. Sherman Williams moved that the chair appoint a committee of two to take into consideration an amendment to the constitution relating to the payment of dues.
Carried.
Whereupon the chair appointed as such committee Robert O. Bascom and James A. Holden.
Hon. Grenville M. Ingalsbe offered the following resolution.
Resolved, That the President be authorized to appoint a committee of three to investigate and report to the next annual meeting as to the feasibility of co-operation and of the establishment of a community of action between this association and the various other historical societies in the State, which resolution was unanimously adopted.
After some discussion, participated in by various members of the Association, it was regularly moved, seconded and carried, that a committee of three be appointed by the president upon membership, whereupon the president appointed the following committee:
Dr. Ellis C. Stevens, with power to name his associates.
The following trustees were unanimously elected by ballot for the term of three years:
Gen. Henry E. Tremain, N. Y. City; William Wait, Kinderhook, N. Y.; Dr. Sherman Williams, Glens Falls, N. Y.; Robert O. Bascom, Fort Edward, N. Y.; Francis W. Halsey, New York; Harry W. Watrous, Hague, N. Y.; Rev. Dr. Joseph E. King, Fort Edward, N. Y.; Hon. Hugh Hastings, Albany, N. Y.; Com. John W. Moore, Bolton Landing, N. Y.
Rev. Mr. Hatch and Rev. Mr. Black presented for the consideration of the Association the subject of the erection of a museum building. After some discussion it was moved, seconded and carried, that the thanks of the Association be tendered to the gentlemen for bringing the matter to the attention of the Association, after which the meeting was adjourned until two o'clock in the afternoon.
August 22d, 1905.—Afternoon Session.
Symposium—The Sullivan Expedition.
At the adjourned session held in the afternoon August 22d, 1905, Dr. W. C. Sebring, of Kingston, read a paper entitled, "The Character of Gen. Sullivan."
A paper entitled "The Primary Cause of the Border Wars," by Francis W. Halsey, of New York, was read by the Hon. Grenville M. Ingaslsbe in the absence of Mr. Halsey.
Dr. Sherman Williams, of Glens Falls, read a monograph entitled, "The Organization of Sullivan's Expedition."
Hon. Grenville M. Ingalsbe read by title only a paper entitled, "A Bibliography of Sullivan's Expedition."
A paper entitled, "An Indian Civilization and its Destruction," by Col. S. W. Moulthrop, was read by the Rev. W. H. P. Hatch in the absence of Col. Moulthrop.
A paper entitled, "The Campaign," was read by William Wait, of Kinderhook, when the meeting adjourned until August 23d, at 10 o'clock A. M., at the same place.
ROBERT O. BASCOM, Secretary.
TRUSTEES' MEETING.
August 23d, 1905.
At a meeting of the Trustees of the New York State Historical Association held at Lake George on the 22d day of August, 1905, a quorum being present, the following officers were elected:
President, Hon. Jas. A. Roberts, Buffalo, N. Y. First Vice-President, Hon. G. M. Ingalsbe, Sandy Hill, N. Y. Second Vice-President, Dr. Sherman Williams, Glens Falls, N. Y. Third Vice-President, John Boulton Simpson, Bolton, N. Y. Treasurer, James A. Holden, Glens Falls, N. Y. Secretary, Robert O. Bascom, Fort Edward, N. Y. Asst. Secretary, Frederick B. Richards, Ticonderoga, N. Y.
The printing bill of E. H. Lisk was presented to the Trustees and after discussion the same was referred to the Treasurer and Secretary with power to settle the same.
The following committees were appointed:
Standing Committee on Legislation: Hon. James A. Roberts, Gen. Henry E. Tremain, Dr. Sherman Williams, Morris Patterson Ferris, Hon. Hugh Hastings. On Marking Historic Spots: Dr. Sherman Williams, Frederick B. Richards, James A. Holden, Asahel R. Wing, Hon. Grenville M. Ingalsbe. On Fort Ticonderoga: Mrs. Elizabeth Watrous, John Boulton Simpson, George O. Knapp. On Program: Hon. Grenville M. Ingalsbe, Dr. Sherman Williams, Dr. C. Ellis Stevens. On Membership: Dr. C. Ellis Stevens.
Bill of the Secretary for postage, express and sundries was thereupon audited and ordered paid, whereupon the meeting adjourned.
At a meeting of the Trustees it was moved, seconded and carried, that E. M. Ruttenber, of Newburgh, N. Y., be made an honorary member of the Association.
ROBERT O. BASCOM,
Secretary.
ASSOCIATION MEETING.
August 23d, 1905.
At the adjourned session held August 22d, a paper entitled, "Concerning the Mohawks," was read by W. Max Reid, of Amsterdam, N. Y., after which the Hon. Grenville M. Ingalsbe read certain hitherto unpublished letters from Gen. George Washington relating to the "Sullivan Expedition," after which a resolution was adopted requesting that Mr. Ingalsbe furnish the same for publication in the ensuing volume of the proceedings of the Association.
An address entitled, "Robert R. Livingston, the Author of the Louisiana Purchase," by Hon. D. S. Alexander, of Buffalo, N. Y., concluded the session, and after a vote of thanks to the various speakers, the meeting adjourned until two o'clock in the afternoon of the same day, at which session a paper entitled, "The Birth at Moreau of the Temperance Reformation," by Dr. Charles A. Ingraham, of Cambridge, was read.
The annual address, "The Democratic Ideal in History," by Hon. Milton Reed, of Fall River, Massachusetts, concluded the literary exercises of this meeting, and after a vote of thanks to the speakers of the afternoon the meeting adjourned sine die.
ROBERT O. BASCOM,
Secretary.
TRUSTEES' MEETING.
At a meeting of the Trustees of the New York State Historical Association, held at the Hotel Ten Eyck on the 19th day of January, 1906, in the City of Albany.
Present, Hon. James A. Roberts, President; Hon. Grenville M. Ingalsbe, First Vice-President; Dr. Sherman Williams, Second Vice-President; Hon. Hugh Hastings, Trustee; Hon. Robert O. Bascom, Secretary.
The meeting being duly called to order by the President, the semi-annual report of James A. Holden, Treasurer, was read and adopted.
The report is as follows:
SEMI-ANNUAL REPORT
of
J. A. Holden, Treasurer New York State Historical Association,
From July 1, 1905, to Jan. 18, 1906.
RECEIPTS. | ||||
July 1, 1905— | Cash on hand | $194.73 | ||
Received from dues, etc. | 390.10 | |||
$584.83 | ||||
DISBURSEMENTS. | ||||
Aug. 5, | E. H. Lisk, printing | $200.00 | ||
" 5, | R. O. Bascom, postage and sundries | 27.50 | ||
Sep. 8, | E. H. Lisk, printing | 62.25 | ||
Sep. 7, | R. O. Bascom, postage | 23.28 | ||
" 7, | Milton Reid, expenses | 15.31 | ||
Nov. 8, | E. H. Lisk, printing | 31.75 | ||
Dec. 4, | R. O. Bascom, stamps | 10.00 | ||
" 11, | R. O. Bascom, " | 10.00 | ||
Jan. 9, | Postage | 5.00 | ||
385.09 | ||||
Cash on hand | $199.74 | |||
ASSETS. | ||||
Cash on hand | $199.74 | |||
Life Membership Fund | 271.40 |
Respectfully submitted,
JAMES A. HOLDEN,
Treasurer.
The report of the committee on amendments to the Constitution was read and laid upon the table.
The report of Committee on Marking Historic Spots was read and adopted. The report is as follows:
Glens Falls, N. Y., Jan. 18, 1906.
To the Trustees of the New York State Historical Association,
Gentlemen:—I beg to report progress in regard to the work of the committee on marking Historic Spots. A good number of persons have made contributions ranging from five to fifty dollars each. A marker has been erected at Half-Way Brook and another planned for at Bloody Pond. The tablet at Half-Way Brook was made under the direction of W. J. Scales, who is also to prepare the design for the one at Bloody Pond. The marker at Half-Way Brook is a large boulder resting upon another large boulder nearly buried in the ground. The boulders are large and very hard, and the cost of cutting them to fit was unexpectedly great. Both boulders were drawn from a long distance. The cost of drawing and erecting them, and getting them ready for the tablet was about one hundred and ten dollars. This work was supervised by Mr. Henry Crandall, who had subscribed fifty dollars toward the work. When it was finished he said that if I would cancel his subscription he would meet all the expense of getting the stones in place. As this was more than twice the amount of his subscription his offer was gladly accepted. The other expenses to date have been as follows:
For cutting a smooth face on the boulder and fitting tablet to it | $25.25 |
For photographing the monument | 1.00 |
Paid Mr. Scales on account | 45.00 |
Total | $71.25 |
In the Spring it will be necessary to meet a small expense to grade the ground and seed it. We hope to have the marker at Bloody Pond in place before our next annual meeting.
Respectfully submitted,
SHERMAN WILLIAMS,
Chairman of Committee for Marking Historic Spots.
The following new members were duly elected:
The thanks of the Trustees were extended to Dr. Stevens for his services as chairman of the Committee on Membership. The Secretary and Mr. William Wait, of Kinderhook, were by motion duly carried appointed a committee on the publication of the Proceedings of the Association. The edition was fixed at 750 copies and the Secretary instructed not to send proceedings to persons who were more than four years in arrears, after which the meeting adjourned.
ROBERT O. BASCOM,
Secretary.
How the mists do gather. With the exception of Greene and Benedict Arnold, George Washington trusted Sullivan beyond any other general of the Continental army. Sullivan acquitted himself well on diverse battlefields and, though defeated, the real worth of the man shows in this, that defeat added as much prestige to his reputation as his victories. His greatness like that of Washington throve on defeat, for it can be fairly said that Washington never won a battle. And yet if you ask even those who have given time to our history as to General Sullivan, they will convey to you but the most vague impression of some minor general who sometime in the revolution made a foray on some Indians somewhere in this State.
The last scene of a drama is best remembered. The picture as the curtain falls is stamped most clearly on the memory. Sullivan was not to be an actor in the war's closing scenes, and the valor that gleams the name of Marion, the splendor of Greene's military intelligence, and the glory that is linked with the name of Washington at Yorktown were not his. Neither had he the methodical madness of Wayne, the pusillanimity of the self-seeking Gates, the recklessness of Putnam, nor the aestheistic fatalism of Ethan Allan; none of these things had Sullivan to carve his picture on men's memory.
It may not be out of place here to give a short chronology of this man's life.
He was born in Summerworth, N. H., in 1740. His parents were well-to-do emigrants from Ireland. He studied law and was a member of the first Congress, 1774. Was made Brigadier General 1775. In 1776 he superseded Arnold in Canada. Then he succeeded General Greene and was taken prisoner. He was exchanged in November. In 1777 he took part in the battle of Brandywine, Germantown, and 1778 he commanded in Rhode Island. In 1779 he led the expedition against the Indians. He then resigned from the army and took up again the practice of law. He was a member of the State constitutional convention, then he was elected a member of Congress, and in '86, '87, '89 was president of his State. Later, in 1789, he was appointed District Judge, and died in 1795 at the age of 54 years.
His personal characteristics are said to be that he was a dignified, genial and amiable man. He displayed a fine courtesy to those about him, both to his soldiers and compatriot generals.
I quote the following paragraph from A. Tiffany Norton, who I believe to be the one who has written the best account of the Indian campaign, and it is a wonder to me that one who shows so broad a grasp of history and its essential principles and the elements that make for historical research, has never written more than he has.
Norton, in his general description of Sullivan, says: "His eyes were keen and dark, his hair curly black, his form erect, his movements full of energy and grace. His height was five feet nine inches, and a slight corpulency when in his prime gave but an added grace. General Sullivan was a man of undoubted courage, warmth of temperament and independent spirit equaled only by his patriotic devotion to his country's cause and his zeal in all public affairs." Doubtless he was too impatient and outspoken and may have been deserving of some measure of blame, still his faults should not have detracted from that meed of praise to which he was justly entitled. Neither should the jealousies of his brothers in arms, which prompted them to ridicule his achievements, question his reports and detract from his hard-earned laurels, have weight with the historian. Yet such has been, in great degree, the case, and the name of Sullivan occupies a lesser space in the history of the Revolutionary struggle, than those of many others whose achievements fell far short of his in magnitude and importance. Sullivan has been made the victim of the intrigues and petty jealousies of his times, and while for this his own indiscretions may justly be blamed, the duty is none the less incumbent on the present generation to render due homage to one who is a brave soldier and a devoted, disinterested, self-sacrificing patriot. As Amory has justly said: "A friend of Washington, Greene, Lafayette, and all the noblest statesmen and generals of the war, whose esteem for him was universally known, to whom his own attachment never wavered, he will be valued for his high integrity and steadfast faith, his loyal and generous character, his enterprise and vigor in command, his readiness to assume responsibility, his courage and coolness in emergencies, his foresight for providing for all possible contingencies of campaign or battle-field, and his calmness when the results became adverse."
Could the character of Sullivan be fairly said to be that of a great man? Does he measure up to "bigness?" Remember a little man seldom does big things. Briefly, what did he do in this Indian campaign? At the beginning of the Revolution there was a democracy of six confederate states within the present boundaries of our own municipality. So strong had this democracy grown that it dominated the inhabitants of a territory of more than a million square miles. Their battle-cry was heard from the Kennebec to Lake Superior, and under the very fortifications of Quebec they annihilated the Huron.
Their orators were fit to rank with any that we have to-day. Their legends are the legends of a people whose souls were filled with poetry. Their military tactics were those of a people trained for war—successful war. Man to man, they were what no other barbarians have been, a match for the white man. They held the gateway to the West and their position made them umpires between the mighty nations of the Old World who were struggling for the possession of the New. Civilized in a sense they were, but they were barbarians too, and savages to their very heart of hearts. Rapacious, treacherous, cruel beyond belief,—they were dreaded alike by friend and foe. Their home was a terra incognita. No colonist had trodden it. From no peak had trapper looked across the profile of their land. Their numbers were unknown and could only be guessed at by their achievements—and these were terrible.
How silly of Gordon to criticize Sullivan for over-manning his expedition. Darkest Africa is better known to-day than was then the land of the Iroquois. They were re-enforced by British regulars, by fanatical Tories; they were led by white men, and one of their leaders was a thorough Indian and thoroughly educated in the white man's lore.
Among this people and into this terra incognita came Sullivan and smote them hip and thigh. He conquered them to the uttermost. He broke down the gateway to the mighty West. With a miserable commissariat, he invaded an unknown country and forever destroyed a democracy that had ruled for five hundred years.
The Indians conquered by Wayne were but a frazzle of the Six Nations united with Indians farther West.
Little men do little things, big men do big things, and great men do great things. Before Sullivan vanished
"that savage senate at the Lake, By the salt marshes, yonder in the north, Dull-visaged butchers, coarsely blanketed Squatted in a ring by their dark Council House And with strange mumery of pipes and belts Decreeing, coldly, death—forever death."
The strongest are the gentlest. It is related that having found an Indian woman too old and feeble to retreat with her people, that Sullivan left her with a plentiful supply of provisions, though, as one of the party writes, "we only had half a ration every other day ourselves."
It is not my province to put forth a brief for General Sullivan, yet that one incident cast a side-light on his character that impressed me more as to the true lovely heartiness of the man than anything I have found. Constancy to a friend is an attribute to those who approach greatness. After the Indian war Sullivan was reviled unmercifully for the devastation wrought by him in the Indian country. Out of his love for General Washington he suffered in silence, while he had in his possession General Washington's written instructions to do exactly as he had done.
Perchance for a good man some would even dare to die. But what of a man whose friendship holds so strong that he may see that which is dearer to him than life—his character—filched from him, and lest he should harm a friend, allow his enemies to do with that character as they wished.
Probably no historian ever lived who could write more wrong history than Benjamin Lossing, who accuses Sullivan of carelessness and want of vigilance as a commanding officer and mentions Bedford and Brandywine. Nothing could be farther from the truth. At Bedford he withdrew his forces because the French Navy would not support him, and it was out of the question to remain in the position he had taken up. We have John Fiske's word for it that Brandywine was a drawn battle.
Of energy he had a plenty. It is on record that after he and General Clinton united (and Clinton was no sluggard) his Division time and again out-marched that of Clinton. At one time he broke road across nine miles of swamp while Clinton following him had to camp in the middle of the morass. So difficult was the morass that the Indian spies who had been watching his advance never dreamed that he would attempt the passage of the swamp, and withdrew to their camps. So confident were the Tories and Indians, that when he emerged from the swamp their campfires were still burning.
Right here is a place to say a word about General Sullivan's veracity. After his return from conquering the Six Nations he reported that he had destroyed forty villages, and his detractors could not find but eighteen. It at last developed that when his subordinates had reported destroying a group of buildings he most naturally supposed that it was an Indian village, and so put it down in his report.
It has been said of him that he resigned from the army out of spite. Well, if he did, he was perhaps blamable. But we should remember that he was dealing with a Continental Congress of the latter years of the war, and if you search history for a thousand years you will not be able to find an aggregation of political castros equal to this same Continental Congress. The men who had made the primal congresses great had set themselves to serve the nation in other ways, and Congress had fallen to those who had some money without brains or brains without principle, or lacking both, were like our modern ones in that they loved "graft" and knew how to get it.
Sullivan was not a liar, and he himself says that his health was failing. If we care to plow through the many diaries kept by officers under him we can well believe that he told the truth, for with the spoiling of the provisions sent to the expedition most of the soldiers did suffer from chronic intestinal troubles, and it would be strange if the commander who takes the same fare as his subordinates should not suffer in the same manner.
And to back up this we must remember that even after he retired he never lost the confidence or the love of the greatest of them all, General Washington. Much has been written of General Sullivan's fallibilities, and fallibilities the greatest have.
We should remember that Sullivan was a Kelt. And through the centuries the Kelts have given us the lordliest orators and golden artists, but for tenacity of purpose no one has celebrated them.
General Sullivan when he was taken prisoner and fell under the influence of the British military power, and contrasting them with the meagerness that he had been accustomed to, for once his heart failed him and his soul sank within him, and it is no sorrow to his name to say that for the moment he thought the liberty of mankind in the Western continent was doomed.
He came from the British to us seeking peace, but after he was exchanged and in his old environment his true native Keltic courage returned and his after life was the life of an ardent patriot.
I do not think we give enough credit to the perceptions of the ignorant.
Suppose to ten thousand ignorant people this entirely hypothetical question should be stated: Around the globe is a people who for three hundred years had been fighting a tyrannical power and well nigh achieved success. Would it be right for a republic to step in and take them away from the power they were in rebellion against, and then this republic by force of arms prevent them from becoming an independent republic? State to ten thousand ignorant people this question, and they will shout with one voice "that it is not right." State this question to ten thousand college professors, and they will back and fill, debate and re-debate, and finally be fogged by their very knowledge and at last come to no conclusion at all.
It has never been sufficiently made clear that the classes fought the Revolutionary war. The educated, the elegant, the conservative, the well-to-do, in short the "better elements," were practically all with the British. While the broken, the ignorant, the discouraged, "the rabble," were the ones that won our liberty. Every single Tory that was expatriated could read and write, while I believe if the muster rolls of my own county, inhabited at that time by the educated Dutch, not one-third of those who enlisted could sign their names. So coldly did the wealthy Dutchman look upon the war that it was a common trick for him to send a slave to serve in the ranks instead of himself.
Sullivan by birth and position belonged among the former class, and yet in spite of position, broke with his own class and gladly took up the sword with the ignorant because he saw clearly that all social progress must from very necessity spring from the discontent of the Hoi Polloi. He was a true patriot for he lost his all by giving his attention to public rather than private affairs, and though respected by all and honored by his State, his last years were the years of gloom and the gathering clouds, for his life was beset by heartless creditors. The last scene is the saddest of all, for at his funeral his creditors tried to seize his body and would have done so, except that an old army general drew his pistols and drove off the bailiffs of the law. So was buried one of America's greatest patriots, a constant friend, a brave and good soldier, and a man who, take him ail in all, it is not an exaggeration to call "Great."
General Sullivan's expedition of 1779 was an immediate outcome of the massacres of Wyoming and Cherry Valley in the summer and autumn of 1778—not to mention those minor incidents of the Border Wars, which, beginning in the summer of 1777, had converted the valley of the upper Susquehanna into a land of desolation. It was a most drastic punishment that Sullivan inflicted, and such it was intended by Congress that his work should be. "The immediate objects," said Washington, in his letter of instruction to Sullivan, "are the total destruction and devastation of the Indian settlements," He added that the Indian country was "not to be merely overrun, but destroyed." If we have regard for proportions, greater losses were inflicted upon the Indians by Sullivan than were ever inflicted upon the settlements of New York by the Indians.
The expedition, however, failed completely in achieving its main purpose, which was to suppress the Indian raids. Sullivan and his army had scarcely left the Western country, when the Indian attacks were renewed and for three years were continued with a savage energy before unknown. The Indians' thirst for revenge having been thoroughly aroused, nothing could afterwards restrain their hands. Aside from the burning of German Flats and the battle of Oriskany (the latter not properly an incident of the Border Wars, since it was an integral part of the Burgoyne campaign), the injury done by the Indians to the Mohawk Valley was done subsequent to the Sullivan expedition.
In their entirety, the Border Wars constitute a phase of the Revolution of which far too little has been remembered. We may seek in vain for a territory elsewhere in the United States where so much destruction was done to non-combatants. In Tryon county alone, 12,000 farms went out of cultivation; fully two-thirds of the population either died or fled, While of the one-third who remained 300 were widows and 2,000 orphans. And yet, as I have said, the losses of the Iroquois were greater still.
But it is with the causes which led to this savage work that I am here to deal. For quite 100 years, Joseph Brant and the Tories of the Mohawk Valley, with Col. Guy and Sir John Johnson, and John and Walter Butler, at their head, were generally accepted as the original and inspiring forces in all the barbarities committed. The greater offenders, however, were men of much higher station and more ample powers—men who had never seen the valleys of the Susquehanna and the Mohawk, but who lived in London, and as members of the King's Cabinet were in direct charge of the war in America. One of them was the Earl of Dartmouth, the other Lord George Germaine; but it is to Germaine that we must ascribe the chief odium.
The administration of the Province of New York, when the Revolution began, was completely in the hands of Loyalists. New York was still a Crown colony, officials holding their appointments directly from London. Outside the official class, however, there were patriots in plenty; none of the colonies possessed more; but as New York City was completely dominated by Tory influences, so was the Mohawk Valley dominated by the Johnsons and their army of followers, in whom loyalty to England was a deep-seated sentiment and a fixed principle of conduct. Sir William Johnson had died just as the Revolution was about to begin. His successors became not only as great Loyalists as ever he had been, but, being men of smaller minds and fewer talents. They added to the sentiment of loyalty an expression of it which took the form of satanic bitterness and brute savagery. It was these men who, with their followers, became the hated Tories of the frontier of New York—men of whom in some instances, Joseph Brant said, they had been more savage than the savages themselves.
The attitude of the Indians can be best understood if we remember that they had been practically in alliance with the English of New York for a hundred years. When war began between the mother country and the colonies, or between what the Indians called "two brother nations," they were lost in amazement and tried in vain to understand it. Their own history for three hundred years had been one of peace between brother nations. "No taxation without representation" was a principle beyond their comprehension. The men who defied British soldiers in the streets of New York and Boston seemed to them exactly like the French of Canada who in the older wars had stormed English forts on the Northern Frontier, since they were engaged in war with the King of England, and the King was the Indians' powerful friend.
When the Border Wars reached their height, the frontier of New York should have been in a state of tranquility. With Burgoyne's surrender, the center of conflict was to pass away from New York and New England, and was soon to be transferred to Virginia, Georgia, and South Carolina. Why then, these Border Wars in New York? In one short sentence, the whole truth may be disclosed. The ministry of George III, after long and laborious efforts, now at last had won the Indians of New York into active sympathy with their cause. For three years they had tried in vain to gain their support, and again and again had held counsels with them, but the net results had been an essentially neutral stand by the Indians.
But let us recapitulate. Soon after the battle of Lexington, Col. Guy Johnson, the official successor of Sir William, convened at his home near Amsterdam, a conference with the Indians, mostly Mohawks, and later, after the result at Bunker Hill had alarmed him anew, fled to Oswego and thence to Canada. Nearly all the Mohawk Indians went with him, as well as a domestic force of about 500 white men, mainly Scotch Highlanders, over whom he had placed in command, Col. John Butler. In July Col. Johnson reached Montreal, Where he had an interview with Sir Frederick Haldemand, who said to the Indians:
"Now is the time for you to help the King. The war has begun. Assist him now, and you will find it to your advantage. Whatever you lose during the war, the King will make up to you when peace returns."
Later in the same month, the Earl of Dartmouth, then a member of the British Cabinet, wrote from London to Col. Johnson, that it was the King's pleasure "That you lose no time in taking such steps as may induce the Indians to take up the hatchet against his Majesty's rebellious subjects in America." This letter was accompanied by a large assortment of presents for the Indians, and Col. Johnson was urged not to fail to use "the utmost diligence and activity" in accomplishing the purpose. Col. Johnson was joined in Canada in the spring of the following year by his brother-in-law, Sir John Johnson, the son and heir of Sir William. Sir John had organized a force known as the Royal Greens, composed of loyalists from the New York frontier, and mainly former tenants and dependents of his father's estate.
The Mohawks, who alone of all the Six Nations had gone to Canada, were slow to yield to the importunities of the English, in so far as taking an active part in the war was concerned. A topic of far deeper interest to them was their title to certain lands in the Mohawk and upper Susquehanna Valleys, concerning which they had failed to secure adjustments for many years. In November, 1775, Joseph Brant with other Indian chiefs, sailed for England with a view to accomplishing a settlement of this dispute. An interview took place with the Colonial Secretary, who subsequently was in direct charge of the war in America, Lord George Germaine. Brant made two speeches before Germaine, outlining the grievances of his people, and it is clear from one of them that Germaine then secured the adhesion of Brant to the English cause by promising to redress the Indian grievances after the war, and to keep for the Indians the favor and protection of the King. Thenceforth the responsibility for Indian activity in the Revolution rests mainly on Germaine. It was to him that Lord Chatham referred in a memorable speech on the American War:
"But, my lord, who is the man, that, in addition to the disgrace and mischiefs of the war, has dared to authorize and associate to our arms the tomahawk and scalping knife of the savage? To call into civilized alliance the wild and inhuman inhabitants of the woods? To delegate to the merciless Indian the defense of disputed right, and to wage the horrors of his barbarous war against our brethren? My lords, these enormities cry aloud for redress and punishment."
When the Burgoyne campaign began, Brant had arrived home. New efforts were now actively put forth to enlist the Indians in British service. A considerable company of them started south with Burgoyne, but they subsequently deserted him before a battle had been fought, or even the American army was discovered. With St. Leger a much larger force started for a descent upon the Mohawk Valley. These were in direct charge of Joseph Brant, and comprised the greater part of the efficient Mohawk force. At Oswego a counsel had been held a few weeks before, in order to enlist in British service the other "nations" of the Iroquois, who were assured that the King was a man of great power and that they should never want for food and clothing if they adhered to him. Rum, it was said, would be "as plentiful as water in Lake Ontario." Presents were made, and a bounty offered on every white man's scalp that they might take. The Senecas notably, and to some extent the Onondagas and Cayugas, thus became fired with ambition to see something of the war.
By the time St. Leger arrived at Oswego, about 700 warriors had been secured. Some of them still remained lukewarm as to fighting, but they were at last drawn into the campaign under an assurance that they need not fight themselves, but might sit by during the battle smoking their pipes, while they saw the redcoats "whip the rebels." The result was, that when a battle was imminent at Oriskany, the Indian's love of war was uppermost, and they became the most active participants in the conflict. They also became proportionately the heaviest losers and returned to their homes, not only with doleful shrieks and yells over their losses, but with a determined purpose to revenge themselves on the defenseless frontier. At what frightful cost to the Mohawk Valley they secured that revenge, the story of the ensuing four years bears ample witness.
But, as I have said, the Indians lost more. When the war was over, they had practically lost everything. Their homes were destroyed and their altars obliterated. England virtually abandoned them to the men whom they had fought as rebels, but who were now victorious patriots, the masters of imperial possessions. Nothing whatever was exacted for them in the treaty of peace. Not even their names were mentioned. Such, at the close of the war, was their pitiful state. Everything in the world that they had, had been given to a cause, not their own—the cause of an ally across the great waters, with whom they were keeping an ancient covenant chain. When at last their wide domain, among whose streams and forests for ages their race had found a home, passed forever from their control, they might have said, with a pride more just than that of Francis I., after the battle of Pavia, "All is lost save honor."
History has not done justice to the subject in telling the story of Sullivan's expedition. There are few if any equally important events in our history of which the great majority of our people know so little. It was the most important military event of 1779, fully one-third of the Continental army being engaged in it. The campaign was carried on under great difficulties, was brilliantly successful, and executed with but small loss of life. It is possible that the movement would have received more attention from the historians had the loss of life been much greater, even if the results had been of less importance.
The chief result was the practical destruction of the Iroquois Confederacy. While the Six Nations were very active on the frontier the following year, the Confederacy as an organization had received its death blow.
The massacres at Wyoming, along the New York frontier, especially in the Mohawk, Schoharie and Susquehanna valleys, had so aroused the people that the Continental Congress felt called upon to take action and on the 27th of February, 1779, passed a resolution directing Washington to take effective measures to protect the frontier.
It was decided to send a strong expedition against the Iroquois settlements, and utterly destroy their towns and crops, more especially in the territory of the Senecas and Cayugas. It was no small task to equip a large force and traverse an almost unknown, and altogether unmapped, wilderness which was wholly without roads, in the face of an active and vigilant as well as relentless foe.
The command of the expedition was tendered to General Gates because of his rank. In reply to the tender of the command General Gates wrote to Washington as follows: "Last night I had the honor of your Excellency's letter. The man who undertakes the Indian service should enjoy health and strength, requisites I do not possess. It therefore grieves me that your Excellency should offer me the only command to which I am entirely unequal. In obedience to your command I have forwarded your letter to General Sullivan."
Washington had evidently anticipated that Gates would not accept the command as he had enclosed in his letter to him a communication that was to be forwarded to Sullivan in case Gates declined the service. It was this letter to which Gates referred in his reply to Washington. No doubt it was fortunate for the country that the command of the expedition devolved upon some other person than Gates.
Washington felt somewhat hurt at the tone of the letter he received from Gates, and in a communication to the President of Congress he said, "My letter to him on the occasion I believe you will think was conceived in very candid and polite terms, and merited a different answer from the one given to it."
In his instructions to Sullivan Washington wrote as follows:
"Sir:—The expedition you are appointed to command is to be directed against the hostile tribes of the Six Nations of Indians, with their associates and adherents. The immediate object is their total destruction and devastation, and the capture of as many persons of every age and sex as possible. It will be essential to ruin their crops now in the ground and prevent their planting more."
At this time it was supposed that the expedition would reach the Indian country in the early summer, but it was not until August that the work of destruction began. Writing again of the expedition Washington said the purpose was "to cut off their settlements, destroy their crops, and inflict upon them every other mischief which time and circumstances would permit."
The purpose of the expedition was primarily to destroy the crops and villages of the Indians, after which Sullivan was to move forward and capture Niagara, if such action should prove to be practicable.
The expedition was to be made up of three divisions. The first was directly under the command of Sullivan; and the forces of which it was composed assembled at Easton, Pa., from which point they marched to Wyoming on the Susquehanna, and from there to Tioga Point. Here they waited for the second division under the command of General Clinton, who had sent an expedition into the Onondaga country, after which he was to assemble his forces at Canajoharie and march across the country to the head of Otsego Lake and then come down the Susquehanna River to join Sullivan at Tioga. The third division was under the command of Colonel Daniel Brodhead, who started from Pittsburgh, Pa. He never directly co-operated with Sullivan, but no doubt aided him by his movement. He left Pittsburgh on the 11th of August with a force of six hundred and fifty men. He followed the Allegheny river and passed up into the Seneca country, where he destroyed more than one hundred and fifty houses and about five hundred acres of corn. His presence in the southern portion of the Seneca country kept some of the Senecas from joining in the movement to oppose Sullivan and so lessened the Indian force at the battle of Newtown and possibly somewhat affected the expedition. The original intention was to have Brodhead join Sullivan at Genesee and aid in the movement against Niagara, but as for some reason no movement was made against Niagara there was no occasion for him to do more than he did, and no further attention need be given his movement as a part of the Sullivan expedition. Brodhead marched three hundred and eighty miles, destroyed houses, cornfields, and gardens, and did his part in destroying the Indian civilization.
Aside from the force of Brodhead, Sullivan's expedition was made up of four brigades. The first consisted of the First New Jersey regiment under the command of Colonel Matthias Ogden; the Second New Jersey commanded by Colonel Israel-Shreve; the Third New Jersey under Colonel Elias Dayton, and Spencer's New Jersey regiment commanded by Colonel Oliver Spencer. The brigade was under the command of Brigadier-General William Maxwell.
Brigadier-General Enoch Poor commanded the second brigade, which was made up of the First New Hampshire regiment under Colonel Joseph Cilley; the Second New Hampshire commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel George Reid; the Third New Hampshire commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel Henry Dearborn; the Sixth Massachusetts under the command of Major Daniel Whiting. The Sixth Massachusetts was at the outset a part of the fourth brigade, and the Second New York was a part of the second brigade, but the two regiments exchanged brigades in August, and from that time till the close of the expeditions were in the brigades as given in this sketch.
The third brigade was commanded by Brigadier-General Edward Hand and was composed of the Fourth Pennsylvania regiment under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel William Butler; the Eleventh Pennsylvania under Lieutenant-Colonel Hubley; the German Battalion under Major Daniel Burchardt; an artillery regiment under Colonel Thomas Proctor; Morgan's riflemen under Major James Parr; an independent rifle company under Captain Anthony Selin; the Wyoming militia under Captain John Franklin; and an independent Wyoming company under Captain Simon Spalding.
The fourth brigade, commanded by Brigadier-General James Clinton, was made up of the Second New York regiment under Colonel Philip Van Cortlandt; the Third New York under Colonel Peter Gansevoort; the Fourth New York under Colonel Frederic Weissenfels; the Fifth New York under Colonel Lewis Dubois; and the New York artillery detachment under Captain Isaac Wool.
It would be exceedingly interesting to trace the movement of each of the regiments engaged in the expedition from their place of starting to the various rallying places, but in many instances the writer has been unable to ascertain the facts after consulting all the works relating to Sullivan's expedition to be found in the State library, and other libraries, and after writing to the secretary of some of the state historical societies. Therefore the assembling of the forces constituting Sullivan's expedition will have to be treated in rather a general way.
The New Hampshire regiments apparently wintered at Soldier's Fortune, about six miles above Peekskill, as diaries of various New Hampshire officers engaged in the expedition mention marching from that point and I find no reference to any place occupied earlier. From Soldier's Fortune the New Hampshire troops, certainly the Second and Third regiments, and presumably the whole force, marched to Fishkill, a distance of seventeen miles. At this point they crossed the Hudson river to Newburgh. From that place they marched to the New Jersey line passing through Orange county. They took a route leading through New Windsor, Bethlehem, Bloomgrove Church, Chester, Warwick, and Hardiston. The distance was thirty-eight miles. From Hardiston the force marched to Easton on the Pennsylvania side of the Delaware river. It passed through Sussex State House, Moravian Mills, Cara's Tavern, all these places being in the state of New Jersey. The distance from Hardiston to Easton was fifty-eight miles.
On the first of May, 1779, the Second and Fourth New York regiments left their camp near the Hudson and marched to Warwarsing in the southwestern part of Ulster county, thence to Ellenville, a few miles south of Warwarsing, then to Mamacotting (now Wurtsboro) in Sullivan county. The next day was spent in rest at Bashesland (now Westbrookville) near the Sullivan and Orange county line; from this point they marched to Port Jervis. On the 9th of May they crossed the Delaware at Decker's Ferry, and from there marched to Easton.
The New Jersey brigade had spent the previous winter at Elizabethtown, New Jersey, from which point they marched to Easton, passing through Bound Brook.
The forces which gathered at Easton marched from there to Wyoming on the Susquehanna, a distance of sixty-five miles. Nearly forty days were required to cover that distance. The way lay through thick woods and almost impassable swamps. The route took them through Hillier's Tavern, Brinker's Mills, Wind Gap, Learn's Tavern, Dogon Point, and the Great Swamp. They reached Wyoming on the 24th of June.
General Sullivan was much blamed but most unjustly so for his tardy movement. Pennsylvania had been relied upon to furnish not only a considerable body of troops but most of the supplies, but that commonwealth did not give the expedition a hearty support. The Quakers were most decidedly opposed to inflicting any punishment whatever upon the Indians. Other Pennsylvanians were offended because a New Englander had been chosen for the command instead of a Pennsylvanian. Troops were slow in coming forward. Supplies were furnished tardily and reluctantly. They were insufficient in quantity and poor in quality. The commissaries were careless and inefficient. The contractors were unscrupulous and dishonest. The authorities complained saying that Sullivan's demands were excessive and unreasonable and they threatened to prefer charges against him. However, all the testimony goes to show that the commissary department was in charge of men who were either utterly incompetent or grossly negligent of their duty. On the 23rd of June Sullivan wrote Washington saying, "more than one-third of my soldiers have not a shirt to their backs." On the 30th of July Colonel Hubbard wrote to President Reed saying, "My regiment I fear will be almost totally naked before we can possibly return. I have scarcely a coat or a blanket for every seventh man."
On the 31st of July Sullivan's army left Wyoming for Tioga Point. A fleet of more than two hundred boats and a train of nearly fifteen hundred pack horses were required to transfer the army and its equipment. Tioga Point at the junction of the Tioga and the Susquehanna rivers was reached on the 11th of August. The army had been eleven days in making sixty-five miles. The route from Wyoming led through Lackawanna (now Coxton) in Luzerne county; Quialutimuck, near Ransom Station, Luzerne county; Hunkhannock; Vanderlip's Farm (now Black Walnut) Wyoming county; Wyalusing, Standing Stone, Bradford county; Sheshhequin, Bradford county.
While waiting for Clinton Sullivan built a fort which was named in his honor, between the Tioga and Susquehanna rivers about a mile and a quarter above their junction at a point where the two streams were within a few hundred yards of each other. The center of the present village of Athens, Pa., is almost exactly at this point.
Early in the spring Clinton with the First and Third New York regiments passed up the Mohawk to Canajoharie. From this point an expedition was sent out against the Onondagas. About fifty houses were burned and nearly thirty Indians were killed and a somewhat larger number taken prisoners.
After this expedition Clinton passed from Canajoharie to the head of Otsego Lake. This was a laborious enterprise as, for a portion of the distance, roads had to be cut through an unbroken forest and there was not a good road any part of the distance. More than two hundred heavy batteaux had to be drawn across from Canajoharie, a distance of twenty miles, by oxen.
Otsego Lake, the source of the Susquehanna, is about twelve hundred feet above tide water, nine miles long with an average width of a mile. The outlet is narrow with high banks. Here Clinton built a dam and raised the water of the lake several feet, sufficient to furnish water to float his boats when the time came for a forward movement.
On the 9th of August Clinton's forces embarked and the dam was cut. The opening of the dam made very high water, flooding the flats down the river and frightening the Indians, who thought the Great Spirit was angry with them to cause the river to be flooded in August without a rain.
During his passage down the Susquehanna, Clinton destroyed Albout, a Scotch Tory settlement on the east side of the Susquehanna, about five miles above the present village of Unadilla; Conihunto, an Indian town about fourteen miles below Unadilla, on the west side of the river; Unadilla, at the junction of the Unadilla with the Susquehanna; Onoquaga, an Indian town situated on both sides of the river about twenty miles below Unadilla; Shawhiangto, a Tuscarora village near the present village of Windsor, in Broome county; Ingaren, a Tuscarora hamlet where is now the village of Great Bend; Otsiningo, sometimes called Zeringe, near the site of the present village of Chenango, on the Chenango river, four miles north of Binghamton; Choconut, on the south side of the Susquehanna at the site of the present village of Vestal, in the town of Vestal, Broome County; Owegy or Owagea, on the Owego Creek about a mile above its mouth; and Mauckatawaugum, near Barton.
On the 28th of August Clinton met a force sent out by Sullivan at a place that has since been called Union because of this meeting. It is about ten miles from Binghamton.
The two forces having joined, all was in readiness for a forward movement. The expedition which at this time had its real beginning, all the previous movements having been in the nature of organization and preparation, was a remarkable one in that it was to pass over hundreds of miles of territory of which no reliable map had ever been made, through forests where no roads had ever been cut, across swamps that were almost impassable to a single individual, with no opportunity to communicate with the rest of the world from the time they set out on their forward movement till their return, no chance to secure additional supplies, no hope of reinforcements in case of disaster, no suitable provision for the care of the sick and wounded, no chance of great glory in case of success, no hope of being excused in case of failure. It was a brave, daring, almost reckless movement. It was successful beyond all expectation, yet its story is almost unknown.
Note.—The New Hampshire troops marched from Soldier's Fortune, six miles above Peekskill, to Fishkill, crossed the Hudson to Newburgh, then across Orange County, N. Y., and northern New Jersey, to Easton on the Delaware. Some New York troops who wintered at Warwarsing in Ulster County, N. Y., passed to Easton also, going through Chester, in Orange County, and down the Delaware River The New Jersey troops who had wintered at Elizabethtown, marched to Easton from this point the united forces marched to Wyoming, on the Susquehanna River. Here they were joined by some of the Pennsylvania troops and the whole force passed up the river to Tioga Point, where they awaited the arrival of Clinton, who had gone up the Mohawk and after destroying some of the Onondaga towns crossed from Canajoharie to the head of Otsego Lake and down the Susquehanna to join Sullivan. The united forces then marched into the Indian country, going to the foot of Seneca Lake, down its east shore, thence to the foot of Canandaigua Lake, then to the foot of Honeoye Lake and across the country to head of Conesus Lake, and from there to Little Beard's Town on the Genesee. From this point the army retraced its steps. From the foot of Seneca Lake a detachment was sent up the west shore a few miles to the Indian town of Kershong. Another detachment under Colonel Dearborn went up the west side of Cayuga Lake and joined the main body at Catherine's Town, at the head of Seneca Lake. A third detachment under Colonel William Butler went up the east side of Cayuga Lake and joined the main army at Kanawaholla, not far from the present city of Corning. All these movements are indicated on the accompanying map.
Introductory Note: It is with many misgivings that this paper is submitted to the Association. When its preparation was assigned, I assumed that previous compilations had been made, and that my labors would be confined simply to their continuation. Upon investigation, however, I found that while Justin Winsor in his Hand Book of the Revolution, and in his invaluable Narrative and Critical History, and others in various works, had enumerated many titles which, though largely incomplete, would aid in the work, no definitive Bibliography of Sullivan's Expedition had ever been published.
Unfortunately, when these pages shall have been printed, this condition will still exist. I have not been able to command from the duties of an exacting profession, the time required for the preparation of a Bibliography at all satisfactory, even to myself. Moreover, the attention I have been able to bestow upon it has been that of an amateur, which in these days of highly developed scholastic specialization, is very inadequate in results. It is presented, however, with some confidence that it contains material which will aid some historical specialist of the future in the preparation of a complete Bibliography of Sullivan's Expedition.
I have made no attempt to include manuscripts, leaving that for a supplementary monograph, or to some more competent student. The location, however, of all known manuscripts relating to the Expedition is given in the various volumes to which reference is made. Neither have I included references to the general or school histories of the United States. Sullivan's Expedition is mentioned in them as an incident of more or less significance in the struggle for independence. In none of them is it given the attention to which its importance entitles it. Indeed, it is a neglected chapter of our revolutionary history. The Public Library of Boston possesses only fourteen titles referring directly to this great march into the Indian country, and that is a larger number than is reported either in the New York Public Library or in the State Library at Albany.
I desire to tender my thanks to Horace G. Wadlin, Librarian of the Boston Library, to Victor H. Paltsits, Assistant Librarian of the New York Public Library, and to Mary Childs Nerney and others of the History Division of the State Library, for many courtesies which they have extended to me.
Adams, Warren D.:
Sullivan's Expedition and the Cayugas.
Cayuga County Historical Society Collections. No. 7. 23 pp. 8 vo. Auburn. 1889.
Adler, Simon L.:
Sullivan's Campaign in Western New York, 1779.
Read before the Rochester Historical Society, January 14th, 1898. 8 pp. 8 vo. New York. 1898.
Allen, Paul:
A History of the American Revolution.
2 vols. Vol. 2. pp. 276 et seq. 8 vo. Baltimore, 1822.
Amory, Thomas Coffin:
Life of James Sullivan with selections from his writings. 2 vols. pp. 426 and 419. Portrait. Phillips, Sampson & Co., Boston. 1859.
The Military Services and Public Life of Major General John Sullivan of the American Revolutionary Army. 324 pp. Portr. 8 vo. Wiggin & Lunt, BostoN. J. Munsell, Albany, 1868.
The Military Services of John Sullivan in the American Revolution, vindicated from recent historical criticism.
Read at a meeting of the Massachusetts Historical Society, December, 1866. With additions and documents. 64 pp. 8 vo. John Wilson & Son, Cambridge. 1868.
Centennial Memoir of Major General John Sullivan, 1740-1795.
Presented at Independence Hall, Philadelphia, July 2d, 1876. 17 pp. 8 vo. Philadelphia. 1879.
Same:
The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography. Vol. 2. pp. 196-210.
General John Sullivan. A vindication of his Character as a Soldier and a Patriot. 56 pp. 8 vo. Morrisania, N. Y. 1867.
Memory of General John Sullivan vindicated.
Proceedings, Massachusetts Historical Society. Series I. Vol. 9. pp. 379-436.
Sullivan's Expedition against the Six Nations, 1779. Magazine American History. Vol. 4. pp. 420-427.
A Vindication of the Character of General Sullivan as a Soldier and a Patriot.
Historical Magazine. Vol. 10. Supplement VI. pp. 161.
Same:
Morrisania, N. Y. 1866.
General Sullivan's Expedition in 1779.
Proceedings, Massachusetts Historical Society. Vol. 20. pp. 88-94.
Anonymous:
An Historical Journal of the American War.
Collections, Massachusetts Historical Society. First Series. Vol. 2, pp. 175-178.
Master Sullivan of Berwick, his Ancestors and Descendants.
New England Historical and Genealogical Register. Vol. 19. pp. 289-306.
The Old Sullivan Road.
Pennsylvania Magazine. Vol. 11. p. 123.
The Old Caneadea Council House and its Last Council Fire.
Publications, Buffalo Historical Society. Vol. 6. pp. 97-123. 8 vo. Buffalo, New York.
Extracts from letters to a gentleman in Boston, dated at General Sullivan's Headquarters.
The Remembrancer or Impartial Repository of Public Events for the year 1780. Vol. 9. pp. 23-24. J. Almon, London. 1780.
The Story of Fantine Kill.
Olde Ulster, vol. 2. pp. 106-107.
Baker, William S.:
Itinery of General Washington, with notes.
Pennsylvania Magazine. Vol. 15. pp. 49-50.
Bard, Thomas R.:
Note to Lieutenant Parker's Journal.
Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography. Vol. 27. p. 404.
Barton, William (Lieutenant in General Maxwell's New Jersey Brigade):
Journal.
New York Centennial Volume, pp. 3-14.
Same:
New Jersey Historical Society Proceedings. Vol. 2. pp. 22-43.
Beatty, Erkuries (Lieutenant Fourth Pennsylvania Regiment):
Journal of an Expedition to the Indian Towns, June 11, 1779.
New York Centennial Volume, pp. 18-37.
Same:
Cayuga County Historical Society Collections. No. 1. p. 61-68.
Same:
Pennsylvania Archives. Second Series. Vol. 15. Portr. pp. 219-253.
Blake, Thomas (Lieutenant First New Hampshire Regiment):
Journal.
New York Centennial Volume, pp. 38-41.
Same:
History of the First New Hampshire Regiment in the War of the Revolution by Frederick Kidder.
Joel Munsell. Albany, 1868.
Bleeker, Captain Leonard:
The Order Book of Captain Leonard Bleeker in the Early Part of the Expedition against the Indian Settlements of Western New York in the Campaign of 1779. p. 138. 4 to.
Joseph Sabin. New York. 1865.
Board of War:
Letter to President Reed. September 9th. (Report as to progress.)
Pennsylvania Archives. First Series. Vol. 7. p. 709.
Brodhead, Daniel (Colonel Commanding Western Expedition):
Letter to Major General Sullivan, August 6th, 1779.
New York Centennial Volume, p. 307.
Report of the Expedition.
Pennsylvania Packet or the General Advertiser. Philadelphia, October 19, 1779.
Same:
Magazine of American History, Vol. 3. pp. 671-673.
Same:
New York Centennial Volume, pp. 307-309.
Brooks, Erastus:
Address. American History and American Indian Wars.
New York Centennial Volume, pp. 410-423.
Bruce, Dwight H.:
Onondaga Centennial. 2 Vols. Vol. I. p. 142. 4 to. Boston, 1896.
Bryant, William Clement:
Captain Brant and the Old King. The Tragedy of Wyoming.
Publications, Buffalo Historical Society. Vol. 4. pp. 15-34. 8 vo. Buffalo, New York.
Burrowes, John (Major Fifth New Jersey Regiment):
Journal.
New York Centennial Volume, pp. 43-51.
Campbell, Douglass:
Address.
The Iroquois or Six Nations and New York's Indian Policy.
New York Centennial Volume, pp. 457-470.
Campbell, William W.:
Annals of Tryon County or the Border Warfare of New York during the Revolution. pp. 269. p. 121 et seq. 12 mo. J. & J. Harper, New York. 1831.
The Border Warfare of New York during the Revolution, or The Annals of Tryon County.
Republication of above, pp. 396. p. 149 et seq. Baker & Scribner, New York. 1849.
Lecture on the Life and Military Services of General James Clinton.
Read before the New York Historical Society, February, 1839.
Campfield, Jabez (Surgeon Fifth New Jersey Regiment):
Diary of Dr. Jabez Campfield, Surgeon in Spencer's Regiment while attached to Sullivan's Expedition against the Indians.
New York Centennial Volume, pp. 52-61.
Same:
New Jersey Historical Society Proceedings. Second Series. Vol. III. pp. 115-136.
Same:
Wyoming County (Penn.) Democrat, December 31st, 1873 to January 28th, 1874. (Five issues.)
Chapman, Isaac A.:
Wyoming Valley. A Sketch of its Early Annals.
Pittston Gazette Centennial Handbook. 1878. p. 25.
Chase, Franklin H.:
Onondaga's Soldiers of the Revolution. 8 vo. p. 48. Syracuse. 1895.
Childs, A. L.:
Poem, John Sullivan's March.
New York Centennial Volume, pp. 549-552.
Clark, John S.:
Sketch of Lieutenant Colonel Henry Dearborn, Commanding Third New Hampshire Regiment, and Notes upon his Journal.
New York Centennial Volume, pp. 62-78.
Notes and Maps accompanying the Journal of Lieutenant John L. Hardenburgh.
New York Centennial Volume. pp. 116-136.
Notes upon the Journal of Thomas Grant.
New York Centennial Volume, pp. 142-144.
Same:
Publications, Cayuga County Historical Society. No. 1. Auburn, 1879. pp. 71-72.
Note upon the Journal of Lieutenant Charles Nukerck.
New York Centennial Volume, pp. 213-214.
Notes upon the Journal of Sergeant Major George Grant.
New York Centennial Volume, p. 113.
Clinton, George:
Papers. Sparks. MSS. No. XII. Harvard College Collections.
Congress, Journals of American, from 1774-1788.
4 vols. 8 vo. Vol. III. pp. 212, 241, 242, 346, 347, 351, 375, 389, 390, 406.
Washington, Way & Gideon. 1823.
Cook, Frederick (Secretary of State):
New York Centennial Volume.
Conover, George S. (Compiler):
Journals of the Military Expedition of Major General John Sullivan against the Six Nations of Indians in 1779, with records of Centennial Celebrations, prepared pursuant to Chapter 361, Laws of the State of New York, 1885. pp. 581. 8 vo. Maps. Portraits. Auburn, New York. 1887.
(Herein designated as New York Centennial Volume.)
Early History of Geneva, 60 pp. p. 17 et seq. 12 mo. Geneva, New York. 1879.
Craft, David:
List of Journals, Narratives, &c., of the Western Expedition, 1779.
Magazine of American History. Vol. II. pp. 673-675.
Sullivan's Centennial Historical Addresses at Elmira, Waterloo and Geneseo.
Centennial Proceedings, Waterloo Library and Historical Society, Waterloo, 1879.
Journals of the Sullivan Expedition, 1779.
Pennsylvania Magazine, p. 348.
Biographical Sketch of Major General John Sullivan.
New York Centennial Volume, pp. 333-334.
Address.
A full and complete History of the Expedition against the Iroquois or Six Nations of New York in 1779, commanded by Major General John Sullivan, with Appendix, giving Loss of Men, Towns Destroyed, Washington's Instructions, and Biographical Sketches.
New York Centennial Volume, pp. 336-386.
Same:
The Sullivan Campaign of 1779.
Seneca County Sullivan's Centennial, p. 90.
Biographical Sketch, Major Nicholas Fish.
New York Centennial Volume, p, 383.
Biographical Sketch, Colonel Lewis Dubois.
New York Centennial Volume, p. 384.
Biographical Sketch, Lieutenant Colonel Frederick Weissenfels.
New York Centennial Volume, p. 384.
Biographical Sketch, Rev. Samuel Kirkland.
New York Centennial Volume, p. 385.
Biographical Sketch, Rev. John Gano.
New York Centennial Volume, p. 385.
Biographical Sketch, Colonel John Harper.
New York Centennial Volume, p. 386.
Biographical Sketch, Brigadier General James Clinton.
New York Centennial Volume, p. 387.
Biographical Sketch, Colonel Peter Gansevoort.
New York Centennial Volume, pp. 479-480.
Biographical Sketch, Colonel Philip Van Cortlandt.
New York Centennial Volume, pp. 537-538.
Craig, Neville B.:
The Olden Time.
Vol. 2. pp. 308-317. Pittsburgh. 1848.
Same:
Vol. 1. p. 308 et seq. 8 vo. Robert Clark & Co., Cincinnati. 1876.
Dana, E. L.:
Address.
New York Centennial Volume, pp. 445-449.
Davis, Andrew McFarland:
Sullivan's Expedition against the Indians of New York, 1779. A letter to Justin Winsor. With the Journal of William McKendry. 45 pp. 8 vo. John Wilson & Son, Cambridge, 1886.
Same:
Proceedings, Massachusetts Historical Society. Second Series. Vol. 2. pp. 436-478. Boston. 1886.
List of Diaries relating to General Sullivan's Campaign.
Proceedings, Massachusetts Historical Society. Second Series. Vol. 2. p. 436-438.
Davis, Nathan (Private First New Hampshire Regiment):
History of the Expedition against the Five Nations commanded by General Sullivan in 1779.
Historical Magazine. Second Series. Vol. 3. pp. 198-205.
Dawson, Henry B.:
Battles of the United States. 2 Vols, Vol. I. p. 533. 4 to. New York. 1858.
Dearborn, Henry (Lieutenant Colonel Commanding Third New Hampshire Regiment):
Journal.
New York Centennial Volume, pp. 63-79.
Same:
Cayuga County Historical Collections. No. I. 1879.
Same:
Publications, Buffalo Historical Society. Vol. 7. p. 96. 8 vo. Buffalo, New York.
Depeyster, J. Watts:
Sullivan Centennial.
New York Mail, August 26th, 1879.
Celebrating the Anniversary of the Battle of Newtown.
New York Mail, August 29th, 1879.
The Sullivan Campaign.
New York Mail, September 15th, 1879.
Doty, Lockwood L.:
History of Livingston County. Illustrated, p. 685. pp. 113 and 151 et seq. Edward E. Doty, Geneseo.
Dwight, Timothy, S. T. D., LL. D.:
Travels in New England and New York. 4 vols. Vol. 4. p. 211. New Haven. 1822.
Edson, Obed:
Brodhead's Expedition against the Indians of the Upper Allegheny. (Contains reference to Sullivan's Expedition.)
Magazine American History. Vol. III. pp. 647-670.
Elmer, Dr. Ebenezer (Surgeon Second New Jersey Regiment):
Memoirs of an Expedition undertaken against the Savages to the westward commenced by the Hon. Major General John Sullivan, began at Easton on the Delaware (by Lieutenant Ebenezer Elmer).
New York Centennial Volume, pp. 80-85.
Same:
New Jersey Historical Society Proceedings. Vol. 2. pp. 43-50.
Elwood, Mary Cheney:
An Episode of the Sullivan Campaign and its Sequel.
(The Post-Express Printing Co.) 39 pp. 8 vo. Plates. Maps. Rochester, New York. 1904.
Farmer & Moore's Collections, Historical and Miscellaneous and Monthly Literary Journal. Vol. 2. p. 308.
Fellows, Moses (Orderly Sergeant Captain Gray's Company Third New Hampshire Regiment):
Journal.
New York Centennial Volume, pp. 86-91.
Fogg, Jeremiah (Paymaster and Captain (on roster) Second New Hampshire Regiment):
Journal of Major Jeremiah Fogg of Col. Poor's Regiment, New Hampshire, during the Expedition of General Sullivan in 1779 against the Western Indians.
New York Centennial Volume, pp. 92-101.
Same:
News Letter Press, 1879. p. 26. Exeter, New Hampshire.
Gano, John (Brigade Chaplain General Clinton's Brigade):
A Chaplain of the Revolution.
Historical Magazine. First Series. Vol. 5. pp. 330-335
Gansevoort, Peter (Colonel Third New York Regiment):
Letter to General Sullivan.
New York Centennial Volume, pp. 372-373.
Gookin, Daniel (Ensign Second New Hampshire Regiment):
Journal of March from North Hampton, N. Hampshire, in the year 1779.
New York Centennial Volume, pp. 102-106.
Same:
New England Historical and Genealogical Register. Vol. XVI. pp. 27-34.
Gould, Jay:
Delaware County and the Border Wars of New York. pp. 426. p. 90 et seq. 12 mo. Roxbury. 1856.
Gordon, William, D. D.:
The History of the Rise, Progress and Establishment of the Independence of the United States.
4 Vols. Vol. 3. pp. 307-313. 8 vo. London, 1788.
Goodwin, H. C.:
Pioneer History of Cortland County. p. 456. p. 56 et seq. 12 mo. A. B. Burdick, New York. 1859.
Grant, George (Sergeant Major Third New Jersey Regiment):
A journey of the Marches, &c., completed by the Third Jersey Regiment and the rest of the Troops under the command of Major Sullivan in the Western Expedition.
New York Centennial Volume, pp. 107-114.
Same:
Hazard's Register of Pennsylvania. Vol. 14. pp. 72-76.
Same:
Cayuga County Historical Collections. No. 1. 1879.
Same:
Wyoming Republican. July 16, 1834. Wilkes-Barre. 1868.
Giant, Thomas (Surveyor):
Journal.
General Sullivan's Expedition to the Genesee Country—A Journal of General Sullivan's Army after they left Wyoming.
New York Centennial Volume, pp. 137-144.
Same:
Historical Magazine. First Series. Vol 6. pp. 233-273.
Same:
Cayuga County Historical Collections. No. 1. Auburn. 1879.
Statement of Distances.
Historical Magazine. Vol. 6. pp. 233-273.
Gray, Captain William:
Letter of Captain William Gray of the Fourth Pennsylvania Regiment, with a map of the Sullivan Expedition (against The Six Nations).
Pennsylvania Archives. Second Series. Vol. 15. pp. 286-290.
Greene, General Nathaniel:
Letter to Colonel Jeremiah Wadsworth.
Pennsylvania Magazine. Vol. 22. p. 211.
Greenough, Charles P.:
Roster of Officers in Sullivan's Expedition, 1779.
New York Centennial Volume, pp. 315-329.
Gridley, A. D.:
History of the Town of Kirkland, New York.
New York. 1874.
Griffis, William Elliot, L. H. D.:
Address.
The History and Mythology of Sullivan's Expedition.
Proceedings Wyoming Commemorative Association, pp. 9-38. Wilkes-Barre. 1903.
New Hampshire's Part in Sullivan's Expedition of 1779.
New England Magazine, Vol. 23. pp. 355-373.
The Pathfinders of the Revolution. A Story of the Great March into the Wilderness and Lake Region of New York in 1779. Illustrated, pp. 316. 12 mo. W. A. Wilde Co., Boston.
Sullivan's Great March into the Indian Country.
The Magazine of History. Vol. II. pp. 295-311, 365-378. Vol. III. pp. 1-10.
Griffith, J. H.:
William Maxwell of New Jersey, Brigadier General in the Revolution.
New Jersey Historical Society Proceedings. Vol. 23. pp. 111-126.
Halsey, Francis W.:
Pennsylvania and New York in the Border Wars of the Revolution.
Proceedings, Wyoming Commemorative Association for the year 1898. Wilkes-Barre. 1898.
The Old New York Frontier. Illustrated, pp. 432, p. 220 et seq. 8 vo. Chas. Scribner's Sons, New York, 1901.
Hamilton, John C.:
History of the Republic of the United States of America. 2 Vols. Vol. I. pp. 543-544. 8 vo. D. Appleton & Co., New York, 1857.
Hammond, Isaac W.:
Rolls of the Soldiers of the Revolutionary War from New Hampshire.
New Hampshire State Papers. Vol. 15. (War Rolls, Vol. 2.) Concord, N. H., 1886.
Hand, General Edward:
Letter to Reed. September 25th, 1779. (Reports return of Sullivan's command.)
Pennsylvania Archives. First Series. Vol. 7. p. 715.
Hardenburgh, John L. (Lieutenant Second New York Regiment):
Journal.
New York Centennial Volume, pp. 116-136.
Same, with introductory notes and maps by John S. Clark and Biographical Sketch by Charles Hawley.
Cayuga County Historical Society Collections. No. 1. 8 vo. Auburn, New York, 1879.
Harding, Garrick M.:
The Sullivan Road.
Historical Record. Vol. 9. p. 101.
Hawley, Charles:
Address, Sullivan's Campaign.
New York Centennial Volume, pp. 571-578.
Biographical Sketch of Lieutenant John L. Hardenburgh.
Cayuga County Historical Society Collections. No. 1. 8 vo. Auburn, New York, 1879.
Hazard, Eben:
Letter to Jeremy Belknap.
Proceedings, Massachusetts Historical Society. Fifth Series. Vol. 2. pp. 23-36.
Holmes, Abiel D. D.:
Annals of America. 2 Vols, Vol. 2, p. 301 et seq. Cambridge, Mass. 1829.
Hoops, Adam (Major. Third Aide-de-Camp to General Sullivan):
Letter to John Greig.
New York Centennial Volume, pp. 310-311.
Hubbard, John N.:
Sketches of Border Adventures in the Life and Times of Major Moses Van Campen.
Bath, New York, 1842.
Hubley, Colonel Adam (Lieutenant Colonel commanding Eleventh Pennsylvania Regiment):
Journal.
New York Centennial Volume, pp. 145-167.
Same:
Pennsylvania Archives. Second Series. Vol. XL (Vol. 2 of the Revolution.) pp. 11-44.
Same:
Miner's History of Wyoming. Appendix, pp. 82-104. Philadelphia, 1845.
Letter to President Reed.
Pennsylvania Archives. Second Series. Vol. VII. p. 553.
Same:
Pennsylvania Archives. Second Series. Vol. 3. p. 319.
Same:
Miner's History of Wyoming. Appendix, p. 97.
Same:
Wyoming, July 14th, 1779. As to Expedition.
Pennsylvania Archives. First Series. Vol. 7. p. 553.
Same:
October 1st, 1779. (Report of Expedition for August 30th.)
Pennsylvania Archives. First Series. Vol. 7. p. 721.
Same:
Easton, October 18th, 1779. (Announcing arrival and complaining as to want of teams.)
Pennsylvania Archives. First Series. Vol. 7. p. 755.
Hubley, John:
Letter to Reed. August 24th, 1779. (Report as to Expedition.)
Pennsylvania Archives. First Series. Vol. 7. p. 667.
Hunter, Colonel Samuel:
Letter to Reed. August 4th, 1779. (Reports Sullivan started for Wyoming.)
Pennsylvania Archives. First Series. Vol. 7. p. 620.
Hurd, D. Hamilton:
History of Tioga, Chemung, Tompkins and Schuyler Counties. pp. 687. p. 13 et seq. 4 to. Philadelphia. 1879.
Jenkins, John (Lieutenant. Guide):
Journal of Lieutenant John Jenkins connected with the Campaign of General Sullivan against the Six Nations, 1779.
New York Centennial Volume, pp. 169-177.
Jenkins, Steuben:
Address.
New York Centennial Volume, pp. 451-457.
Jones, Thomas:
History of New York during the Revolutionary War. 2 Vols. Vol. 2. pp. 332 and 613. 8 vo. New York. 1879.
Johnson, Crisfield:
Centennial History of Erie County, New York. pp. 512. p. 62 et seq. 8 vo. Buffalo, 1876.
Keiffer, Rev. Henry M.:
The Old Sullivan Road.
Proceedings, Wyoming Commemorative Association for the year 1897. Wilkes-Barre. 1898.
Kidder, Frederick:
History of the First New Hampshire Regiment in the War of the Revolution.
Joel Munsell, Albany. 1868.
Kirkland, Rev. Samuel (Chaplain Sullivan's Expedition):
Life of Rev. Samuel Kirkland, by S. K. Lothrop.
Sparks Library of American Biography. Vol. XV. p. 246 et seq.
Livermore, Daniel (Captain Third New Hampshire Regiment):
A Journal of the March of General Poor's Brigade from Soldier's Fortune on the Western Expedition, May 17th, 1779.
New York Centennial Volume, pp. 178-191.
Same:
Collections, New Hampshire Historical Society. Vol. 6. pp. 308-335.
Lossing, B. J.:
Field Book of the American Revolution. Vol. I. p. 271. 8 vo. Harper & Bros., New York.
Lothrop, S. K.:
Life of Rev. Samuel Kirkland.
Sparks Library of American Biography. Vol. 15. p. 246 et seq.
Mackin, Thomas (Captain Second Regiment New York Artillery):
Journal of March from Fort Schuyler—Expedition against the Onondagas, 1779.
New York Centennial Volume, pp. 192-194.
Distance of places from Eastown to Chenesee Castle, taken in 1779.
New York Centennial Volume, p. 194.
Maclay, William:
Letter to Reed. July 26th, 1779. (Prospects of Northern Expedition.)
Pennsylvania Archives. First Series. Vol. 7. p. 586.
Letter to Council. July 30th, 1779. (As to fall of Ft. Freeland.)
Pennsylvania Archives. First Series. Vol. 7. p. 597.
Marshall, John:
Life of Washington. Vol. 4. p. 105 et seq. 8 vo. Philadelphia. 1805.
Marshall, Orasamus H.:
The Niagara Frontier.
Publications, Buffalo Historical Society. Vol. 2. pp. 395-425. 8 vo. Buffalo, New York.
Historical Writings relating to the Early History of the West. 500 p. pp. 455-457. 8 vo. Joel Munsell's Sons, Albany, 1887.
Maxwell, Thompson:
The Narrative of Major Thompson Maxwell.
Historical Collections of Essex Institute. Vol. 7. No. 3.
Miner, Charles:
History of Wyoming. Illustrated, pp. 450. Appendix p. 104. Appendix p. 82 et seq. p. 97 et seq. J. Crissy, Philadelphia.
Moore, Frank:
Correspondence of Henry Laurens. 2 Vols. 4 to. Vol. 1. pp. 132-141. Vol. 2. p. 216. New York. 1861.
Diary of the American Revolution. 2 Vols. 8 vo. Vol. 2. p. 216 et seq. Charles Scribners, New York. 1860.
Moore, Jacob B.:
A List of Manuscript Surveys by Robert Erskine, Geographer to the American Army, and Simeon DeWitt, in the Library of the New York Historical Society.
New York Centennial Volume, pp. 291-292.
Morgan, Lewis H.:
League of the Ho-de-no-sau-nee or Iroquois. 8 vo. Rochester. 1851.
McIntosh, W. H.:
History of Ontario County. 276 pp. p. 9 et seq. Folio. Philadelphia.
McKendry, William (Lieutenant and Quartermaster Sixth Massachusetts Regiment):
Journal.
New York Centennial Volume, pp. 198-212.
Same:
Edited by Andrew McFarland Davis. 45 pp. 8 vo. J. Wilson & Son, Cambridge. 1886.
Same:
Proceedings, Massachusetts Historical Society. Series 2. Vol. 2. pp. 442-478. Boston. 1886.
Same:
Historical Record. Vol. 1. pp. 37-56.
McMaster, Guy H.:
Poem. The Commanders: Sullivan Thay-en-da-ne-gea.
New York Centennial Volume, pp. 402-409.
McNeill, Samuel:
Journal of Samuel McNeill, B. Q. M. "His Orderly Book," 1779.
Pennsylvania Archives. Second Series. Vol. 15. pp. 753-759. Harrisburg. 1893.
Nead, Benjamin M.:
A Sketch of General Thomas Proctor.
Pennsylvania Magazine. Vol. 4. p. 454.
Nesmith, George W.:
Services of General Sullivan.
Granite Monthly. Vol. 1. pp. 325-330.
New Hampshire, State of:
Rolls of the Soldiers of the Revolutionary War from New Hampshire. Compiled by Isaac W. Hammond.
New Hampshire State Papers. Vol. 15. (War Rolls Vol. 2.) Concord, N. H. 1886.
New Jersey, State of:
Official Register of the Officers and Men of New Jersey in the Revolutionary War. pp. 49-57. 8 vo. Trenton. 1872.
New York, State of:
New York Centennial Volume.
New York in the Revolution as Colony and State. Records discovered, arranged and classified in 1895, 1896, 1897 and 1898, by James A. Roberts, Comptroller, Second Edition. 4 to. pp. 534. pp. 29-59. pp. 63-65. Portraits, Albany. 1898.
Norris, James (Captain Third New Hampshire Regiment):
A Journal of the West Expedition commanded by the Hon'ble Major General Sullivan, begun at Easton, June 18, 1879.
New York Centennial Volume, pp. 223-239.
Same:
Publications, Buffalo Historical Society. Vol. 1. pp. 217-252. 8 vo. Buffalo, New York. 1879.
Same:
Jones' History of New York. Vol. 2. p. 613.
Same:
Hill's New Hampshire Patriot. September 16th, 1843. Portsmouth, New Hampshire.
Norton, A. Tiffany:
History of Sullivan's Campaign against the Iroquois, Being a full account of that epoch of the Revolution. 200 pp. Portraits. Map, 8 vo. A. T. Norton. Lima, New York. 1879.
Nourse, Joseph:
Letter to General Lee.
Collections, New York Historical Society, Vol, 6, pp. 383-385.
Nukerck, Charles (Captain Second New York Regiment):
Journal.
New York Centennial Volume, pp. 214-222.
O'Reilly, Henry:
Notices of Sullivan's Campaign, or the Revolutionary Warfare in Western New York; embodied in the Addresses and Documents connected with the funeral honors rendered to those who fell with the gallant Boyd in the Genesee Valley, including the remarks of Gov. Seward at Mt. Hope. Rochester. 1842.
Sullivan's Expedition against the Six Nations as far as the Genesee in 1779.
Sketches of Rochester. p. 393 et seq, 8 vo, Rochester, New York.
Parker, General Ely S. (Do-ne-ho-geh-weh):
Autobiography.
Publications, Buffalo Historical Society, Vol, 8. p, 527. 8 vo. Buffalo, New York.
Parker, Jennie Marsh:
A Story Historical. pp. 412. p. 20, p. 235, 8 vo. Rochester, 1884.
Parker, Robert (Lieutenant):
Journal.
Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography. Vol. 27. pp. 404-420. Vol. 28. pp. 12-25.
Peabody, Oliver W. B.:
John Sullivan.
Sparks Library of American Biography. Series 2. Vol. 3.
Peck, George, LL. D.:
Wyoming, its History, Stirring Incidents and Romantic Adventures. Illustrated, p. 432. 12 mo. Harper Brothers, New York. 1858.
Peck, William F.:
Semi-Centennial History of the City of Rochester. pp. 736. p. 70 et seq. and p. 134. 4 to. Syracuse. 1884.
Landmarks of Monroe County. pp. 339. p. 29 et seq. 4 to. Boston, Mass. 1895.
Pettitt, Charles Q. M. G.:
Letter to Reed. May 21st, 1779. (As to impressing, &c.)
Pennsylvania Archives. First Series. Vol, 7. p. 433.
Pickering, Timothy (for Board of War):
Letter to Joseph Reed. May 19th, 1779. (As to stores.)
Pennsylvania Archives. First Series. Vol. 7. p, 418.
Porter, William A.:
A Sketch of the Life of General Andrew Porter.
Pennsylvania Magazine, Vol. 4. p. 264.
Reed, Joseph (President State of Pennsylvania):
Letter to Sullivan. May 21st, 1779. (Ans. Sullivan of 11th.)
Pennsylvania Archives. First Series, Vol. 7. pp. 427-430.
Same:
June 3d, 1779. (As to Pennsylvania Troops guarding stores to Wyoming. Ans. May 26th and 31st, 1779.)
Pennsylvania Archives. First Series. Vol. 7, pp. 457-8.
Letter to Colonel Sam. Hunter. (As to guarding stores by Ranging Cos.)
Pennsylvania Archives, First Series. Vol. 7. p. 455.
Letter to Board of War. May 20th, 1779. (As to Sullivan's misapprehension as to what Pennsylvania would do.)
Pennsylvania Archives. First Series. Vol. 7. p. 424.
Same:
August 12th, 1779. (Progress of Expedition.)
Pennsylvania Archives. First Series. Vol. 7, p. 640.
Letter to Washington. July 11th, 1779.
Pennsylvania Archives. First Series. Vol. 7. p. 555.
Same:
September 7th, 1779. (As to furnishing Sullivan with supplies.)
Pennsylvania Archives. First Series. Vol. 7. p. 684.
Letter to Council. November 13th, 1779.
Pennsylvania Archives. Fourth Series. Vol. 3. pp. 739-740.
Rider, Sidney S.:
Notes to the Journal of Rev. William Rogers, D. D.
Rhode Island Tracts. No. 7.
Same:
Manufacturers and Farmers Journal of Providence, R. I. 1823.
Same:
American Universal Magazine. Vol. 1. pp. 390-399. Vol. 2. pp. 86-91.
Roberts, Ellis H.:
Address. Sullivan's Expedition and its Fruits.
New York Centennial Volume, pp. 425-438.
Roberts, James A. (Comptroller State of New York):
New York in the Revolution as Colony and State. Records discovered, arranged and classified in 1895, 1896, 1897 and 1898.
Second Edition. 4 to. p. 534. pp. 29-59. pp. 63-65. Portraits. Albany. 1898.
Roberts, Thomas (Sergeant Capt. John Burrowes' Company Fifth New Jersey Regiment:)
A Journal of the March from Eleazabeth Town to the Back Woods.
New York Centennial Volume, pp. 240-245.
Rochester:
A Story Historical, Jennie Marsh Parker. pp. 412. p. 20. p. 235. 8 vo. Rochester. 1884.
Rogers, Rev. William, D. D. (Brigade Chaplain Pennsylvania Line):
Journal.
New York Centennial Volume, pp. 246-265.
Same:
Rhode Island Tracts. No. 7. With an introduction and Notes by Sidney S. Rider.
Same:
Manufacturers and Farmers Journal of Providence, 1823.
Same:
American Universal Magazine. Vol. 1. pp. 390-399. Vol. 2. pp. 86-91, 200-206.
Same:
Pennsylvania Archives. Second Series. Vol. 15. Portr. pp. 255-288. Harrisburg. 1893.
Rogers, William (Sergeant Second New York Regiment):
Journal.
New York Centennial Volume, p. 266.
Ryerson, Egerton, D. D., LL. D.:
Loyalists of America. 2 Vols. Vol, 2. p. 108. 8 vo. Toronto and Montreal. 1880.
Salmon, John:
Journal.
A Narrative of the Life of Mary Jemison, otherwise called the White Woman, by James E. Seaver. Third Edition. Batavia, New York. 1844.
Sanborn, Frank B.:
General John Sullivan and the Rebellion in New Hampshire.
New England Magazine, Vol. 23, p. 323. (Contains an interesting study of General Sullivan's Character.)
Schreve, John (Lieutenant Second New Jersey Regiment):
Journal.
Magazine of American History. Vol. 3. pp. 571-572.
Seaver, James E.:
Deh-he-wa-mis or A Narrative of the Life of Mary Jemison, otherwise called the White Woman. Third Edition. 16 mo. Batavia, New York, 1844.
Journal of John Salmon, In above.
General Sullivan's Expedition to Western New York. In above. Appendix p. 182 et seq.
Removal of the remains of Boyd. In above. Appendix p. 192 et seq.
Sherman, William T.:
Addresses.
New York Centennial Volume, pp. 439-442.
Shute, Samuel M. (Lieutenant Second New Jersey Regiment):
Journal and Notes made contemporaneously.
New York Centennial Volume, pp. 267-274.
Simms, Jeptha R.:
History of Schoharie County and Border Wars of New York. pp. 672. 8 vo. Illustrated, p. 291 et seq. Munsell & Tanner, Albany. 1845.
Frontiersmen of New York (Revision of the History of Schoharie County and Border Wars of New York). 2 Vols. Vol. 2. pp. 239-276. 8 vo. Albany. 1882.
Stone, William L.:
Life of Joseph Brant (Tha-gen-dan-e-gea), including the Border Wars of the American Revolution. Illustrated. 2 Vols. 8 vo. Albany. 1838. 1864. (Different editions.)
The Poetry and History of Wyoming. Illustrated, pp. 324. 8 vo. Wiley & Putnam. New York and London. 1841.
Same: pp. 406. p. 277 et seq. 12 mo. J. Munsell, Albany, 1864.
Border Wars of the American Revolution. 2 Vols. Vol. 1. p. 1 et seq. 16 mo. Harper Brothers, New York. 1846.
Stryker, William S.:
Official Register of the Officers and Men of New Jersey in the Revolutionary War. 8 vo. pp. 49-57. Trenton. 1872.
Sullivan, John (Major General):
Report of the Battle of Newtown.
The Military Services and Public Life of Major General John Sullivan, by Thomas C. Amory. p. 121.
Same:
New York Centennial Volume, pp. 473-476.
The Chronicle of his Expedition against the Iroquois in 1779—The devastation of the Genesee Country.
Maryland Journal and Baltimore Advertiser, October 19th, 1779. Baltimore, Maryland.
Same:
The Military Services and Public Life of Major General John Sullivan, by Thomas C. Amory. p. 130.
Same:
New York Centennial Volume, pp. 296-305.
Same:
The Remembrancer or Impartial Repository of Public Events for the year 1780. Vol. 9. p. 158.
Letter to John Langdon and some comments by George W. Nesmith.
Granite Monthly. Vol. 3. pp. 153-161.
Letter to Reed. Easton, May 11th, 1779. (Requesting order empowering Quartermasters to Impress Waggons, Horses, &c.)
Pennsylvania Archives. First Series. Vol. 7. p. 388.
Same:
Easton, Pa., May 26th, 1779. (Ans. rec'd of 21st inst.)
Pennsylvania Archives. First Series. Vol. 7. p. 439.
Same:
Easton, Pa., May 31st, 1779.
Pennsylvania Archives. First Series. Vol. 7. p. 450.
Same:
Easton, June 7th, 1779. (Lamenting obstructions in Quartermaster's Department.)
Pennsylvania Archives. First Series. Vol. 7., p. 473.
Same:
Wyoming, July 21st, 1779. (Complaining that Pennsylvania Rangers and Riflemen had not joined.)
Pennsylvania Archives. First Series. Vol. 7. p. 568.
Letter to Colonel John Cook. Headquarters, July 30th, 1779. (Answering requisition.)
Pennsylvania Archives. First Series. Vol. 7. p. 593.
Letter to Colonel Sam. Hunter. Wyoming, July 30th, 1779. (Acknowledging news of loss of Ft. Freeland.)
Pennsylvania Archives. First Series. Vol. 7. p. 594.
Letter to Reed. Easton, October 18th, 1779. (Requisition for 100 Waggons.)
Pennsylvania Archives. First Series. Vol. 7. p. 756.
Same: Easton, October 23d, 1779. (Acknowledging action of Executive Council and declining as too late.)
Pennsylvania Archives. First Series. Vol. 7. p. 768.
Letter to the Warriors of the Oneida Nation, &c.
The Remembrancer or Impartial Repository of Public Events for the year 1780. Vol. 9. pp. 25-28. J. Almon. London. 1780.
Address to Troops. Same. pp. 24-25.
Letter to the Congress containing his acct. of his Expedition against the Indians. Same. pp. 158-166.
Address to the Inhabitants of Northhampton County. Same. p. 166.
Address to the Officers of the Artillery. Same, pp. 166-167.
Address to the Corps of Light Infantry. Same. p. 167.
Thacher, Dr.:
Military Journal. Biographical Sketch of Major General Sullivan.
Farmer and Moore's Collection Historical and Miscellaneous and Monthly Literary Journal. Vol. 2. p. 201.
Treat, Samuel:
Oration at interment of Lieutenant Boyd of General Sullivan's Army.
History of Buffalo and the Senecas, by Ketcham. Vol. 2. pp. 318-340.
Trist, Elizabeth:
Letters to General Lee.
Collections, New York Historical Society. Vol. 6. pp. 381-382.
Turner, O.:
Pioneer History of the Holland Purchase of Western New York. pp. 666. p. 277 et seq. 8 vo. Jewett, Thomas & Co. Buffalo. 1849.
History of the Pioneer Settlement of Phelps and Gorhams Purchase and Morris Reserve. pp. 588. p. 80 et seq. William Ailing, Rochester. 1852.
Van Campen, Moses:
Memorial to Congress.
Pritt's Mirror of Olden Time Border Life. pp. 697. pp. 481-491. Abington, Va.
Narrative. Same.
Van Cortlandt, Philip (Colonel commanding Second New York Regiment):
Autobiography, with Notes by Pierre C. Van Wyck.
Magazine of American History. Vol. 2. p. 278 et seq.
Same:
Elmira Daily Advertiser, February 17th, 1879.
Van Hovenburgh, Rudolphus (Lieutenant Fourth New York Regiment):
Journal.
New York Centennial Volume. pp. 275-284.
Table of Distances.
New York Centennial Volume. p. 284.
Van Wyck, Pierre C.:
Notes to Autobiography, Philip Van Cortlandt.
Magazine of American History, Vol. 2. p. 278.
Washington, General George:
Instructions to General Sullivan.
Historical Magazine. Second Series. Vol. 2. pp. 139-141.
Letter to John Jay, President of Congress.
Magazine of American History. Vol. 3. p. 142.
Letter to War Council. July 5th, 1779. (As to Sullivan's disappointment as to Pennsylvania's assistance.)
Pennsylvania Archives. First Series. Vol. 7. p. 535.
Webb, Nathaniel (Sergeant Major Second New York Regiment):
Journal.
New York Centennial Volume, pp. 285-287.
Same:
Elmira Republican, September 11th and 12th, 1855. Elmira, New York.
Welles, S. R. (M. D.):
Paper read before the Waterloo Library and Historical Society, November 27th, 1877.
New York Centennial Volume, pp. 527-535.
White, Pliny T.:
Note to History of the Expedition against the Five Nations commanded by General Sullivan in 1779.
Historical Magazine. Second Series. Vol. 3. p. 198.
Wilkinson, J. B.:
Annals of Binghamton and of the Country connected with it from the early settlement. p. 256. 12 mo. Binghamton, New York. 1840.
Willers, Diedrich, Jr.:
The Centennial Celebration of General Sullivan's Campaign against the Iroquois in 1779. Held at Waterloo, September 3d, 1879. pp. 356. 8 vo. Plates. Portraits. Waterloo, New York, 1880.
Willett, William M.:
A Narrative of the Military Actions of Colonel Marinus Willett. 8 vo. New York. 1831.
Williams, Rev. Dwight:
Poem, Sullivan's Centennial.
New York Centennial Volume, pp. 506-510.
Winsor, Justin:
Narrative and Critical History of America. 8 Vols. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston. 1889. Vol. VI. pp. 637, 642, 653, 667, 669, 671 and 681. Vol. VIII. pp. 439.
Handbook of the American Revolution. pp. 206-208. 12 mo. Boston. 1880.
No nearer approach to what may be called civilization, if the term may be applied to a people who left no record, other than the legendary lore transmitted from father to son, may be found than the Iroquoian Confederacy, whose form of government was maintained for a greater length of time than that of any republic which had previously or has since existed.
Their location, according to their claim, was upon the highest part of the Continent, from whence flowed the Mohawk, Hudson, Genesee, Delaware, Susquehanna, Ohio and the St. Lawrence rivers, going in all directions to the sea. The intersection of lakes and streams, separated only by short portages, the continuous valleys being divided by no mountain barriers, offered unequaled facilities for intercommunication.
Their custom of settling on both sides of a river or encircling a lake made the tribal boundaries well defined.
One of the most interesting features of aboriginal geography was the location of their principal trails. If we travel either of the great railways extending through our State, we are upon one of the leading trails that Lewis H. Morgan stated were used in 1732. They followed the lines of the least resistance.
The central trail, extending from east to west, intersected by cross trails which passed along the shores of lakes or banks of the rivers, commenced at the point where Albany now is, touched the Mohawk at Schenectady, following the river to the carrying place at Rome, from thence west, crossing the Onondaga Valley, along the foot of Cayuga and Seneca Lakes, terminating at Buffalo Creek, the present site of the city of Buffalo.
This trail was later the route taken by early settlers, because it connected the principal villages and established a line of travel into Canada on the west and over the Hudson on the east.
Upon the banks of the Susquehanna and its tributaries, which have their source near the Mohawk, and the banks of the Chemung, which has its source near the Genesee river, were other trails, all of which converged at the junction of these two rivers, forming the southern route, into Pennsylvania and Virginia. On these footpaths the Iroquois conducted war parties and became well versed in the topography of the country.
Lakes, hills and streams had significant names, many of which the Anglicized orthography and pronunciation have robbed of their euphony and force of accent.
Mary Jemison says that "No people can live more happily than the Indians in times of peace." Their life was one round of simple sport and pleasure, in keeping with their free life; their simple wants were supplied with but little exertion. Following the chase gave them amusement and served to keep them in good physical condition, as well as to retain their skill with weapons that were their dependence in time of war.
The growing youth were taught Indian warfare, becoming experts with the tomahawk and scalping knife. At such times the squaws were employed with their simple domestic duties, or industriously tilling the soil. Apple and peach trees were planted and cultivated about the villages. To the Jesuit Fathers they were indebted for instruction in the art of cultivating fruit trees, as well as many of the vegetables which they raised in abundance; also producing a fine quality of tobacco whence their original name, IREOKWA.
The reports of Sullivan's officers speak of cornfields exceeding in quality and quantity anything they had been accustomed to in their eastern homes. They wrote of ears of corn measuring twenty-two inches in length, and grass as high as the backs of the horses on which they rode.
Not only in war and diplomacy did the Iroquois show superiority, but in their cultivation of crops and housebuilding some were so good as to be called by General Sullivan elegant Indian homes. The weight of evidence goes to show that many of them were framed, and of such a creditable order of architecture as to surprise those who accompanied Sullivan's expedition. Some of the officers writing home said that the houses were large and beautifully painted. Many of those who have considered the Indian as a forest roamer will be incredulous of the above statement, and yet there is no people who in their primitive state more religiously respected, or distinctly defined the family ties and relationship. There is a bright and pleasing side to Indian character.
The ordinary picture of the Indian represents him with war club and tomahawk. They do not deserve the appellation of savages any more than kindred terms might be applied to their white successors.
"Bury me with my fathers" was the last plea of the red man. Not until they had listened to the teaching of the whites did they view death with terror, or life as anything but a blessing.
In ancient times they had a beautiful custom of freeing a captured bird over the grave on the evening of burial, to bear away the spirit to the happy home beyond the setting sun.
The following motto shows that hospitality was the prevailing characteristic:
"If a stranger wanders about your abode, welcome him to your home, be hospitable toward him, speak to him with kind words, and forget not to always mention the Great Spirit."
From a speculative point of view the institutions of the Iroquois assume an interesting aspect. Would they naturally have emancipated the people from their strange infatuation for a hunter life? It can not be denied that there are some grounds for belief that their institutions would have eventually improved into an advanced form of civilization. The Iroquois manifested sufficient intelligence to promise a high degree of improvement had it been directed into right pursuits, although centuries of time might have been required to effect the change.
But these institutions have a present value irrespective of what they might have become. Let us render tardy justice by preserving, as far as possible, their names, deeds and customs, and their institutions.
We should not tread ignorantly upon those extinguished council fires, whose light in the days of original occupation was visible over half this Continent. They had planned a mighty nation and without doubt had the coming of the Europeans been delayed but a century, the League would have included all the tribes between the Great Lakes and the Gulf of Mexico.
The first stage in the development of this confederacy was the union of several tribes into one nation. They mingled by intermarriage. The Chief ceased to be alone in his power and the government became a Pure Democracy. Several nations, thus being formed into a confederacy or league, more perfect, systematic and liberal than those of antiquity, there was in it more of fixedness, more of dependence upon the people, and more of vigor and strength.
Their original congress was composed of fifty sachems and it generally met at the Onondaga Council House. The business of the congress was conducted in a grave and dignified manner, the reason and judgment of the Chiefs being appealed to, rather than their passions. It was considered a breach of decorum for a sachem to reply to a speech on the day of its delivery, and no question could be decided without unanimous concurrence. The sachems served without badge of office, their sole reward being the veneration of their people in whose interest they were meeting.
Public opinion exercised a powerful influence among the Iroquois, the ablest among them having a dread of an adverse criticism from the common people.
Subordinate to the Congress of Sachems were the noted chiefs, such as Red Jacket, Big Kettle, Corn Planter and others who influenced the councils with their oratory.
Women were recognized by them as having rights in the government of the nation, being represented in council by chiefs, known as their champions. Thus they became factors in war or peace, and were granted special rights in the concurrence or interference in the sale of lands, claiming that the land belonged equally to the tillers of the soil, and its defenders. The equality of rights granted women was one of the principal factors of strength in their confederacy, or union.
Their orators studied euphony in the arrangement of their words. Their graceful attitudes and gestures made their discourse deeply impressive. A straight, commanding figure, with blanket thrown over the shoulder, the naked arm raised in gesture, would, to use the words of an early historian, "give no faint picture of Rome in her early days."
A difference existed between the Iroquois and other tribes with respect to oratory. No others have left records of models of eloquence except in single instances on rare occasions.
Red Jacket, Logan and Corn Planter were orators, who have by their eloquence perpetuated their names on the pages of history.
In the happy constitution of the ruling body and the effective security of the people from misgovernment, the confederacy stands unrivaled. The prevailing spirit was freedom.
They were secured all the liberty necessary for the united state and fully appreciated its value.
The red man was always free from political bondage. He was convinced that man was born free; that no person had any right to deprive him of that liberty. Undoubtedly the reason for this was the absence from the Indian mind of a desire for gain—that great passion of the white man—"His blessing and his curse in its use and abuse."
The hunter wants of the Indian, absence of property in a comparative sense, and the infrequency of crime, dispensed with a vast amount of legislation and machinery incident to the protection of civilized society.
The system upon which the League was founded, as before stated, was a singularly well chosen one, and is highly illustrative of the intellectual character of this people. "It was wisely conceived by the untaught statesman of the forest, who had no precedents to consult, no written lore of ages to refer to, no failures or triumphs of systems of human governments to use as models or comparisons, nothing to prompt them but necessity and emergency."
President Dwight said, "Had they enjoyed the advantages possessed by the Greeks and Romans, there is no reason to believe they would have been at all inferior to these celebrated nations." Their minds appear to have been equal to any effort within the reach of man. Their conquests, if we consider their numbers and circumstances, were little inferior to Rome itself. In their harmony, the unity of their operations, the energy of their character, the vastness, vigor and success of their enterprises, and the strength and sublimity of their eloquence, they may be fairly compared to the Greeks.
Both the Greeks and Romans, before they began to rise into distinction, had already reached the state of society in which they were able to improve. The Iroquois had not. The Greeks and Romans had ample means for improvement. The Iroquois had none.
The destruction of the confederacy was necessary to the well being of the colonists. During the Revolutionary war, harassed as they were by roving bands instigated by the tribes to massacre and burn, the Colonial government authorized the Commander-in-Chief to administer punishment for the horrible atrocities committed at Wyoming and Cherry Valley. To obtain a complete, detailed account of the manner in which it was done, one has but to read the record of Sullivan's Expedition in 1779, compiled by the Hon. George S. Conover for the Secretary of State, 1886.
This remarkable undertaking by General Sullivan has been aptly compared to some of the most famous expeditions in the world's history. The boldness of its conception, the bravery of the officers and men, were equaled on but few occasions during the great Revolutionary struggle.
The writings and researches of historians of the present day attach greater importance to this expedition than formerly. The collection of materials during the last centennial celebrations has resulted in shedding much light upon the pages of Our Country's history, that was formerly but little known.
In this respect General John S. Clark, Rev. David Craft, Lockwood L. Doty, Hon. George S. Conover and others have performed a great service that should receive recognition.
The colonists were particularly concerned regarding the attitude of the Iroquois, who were considered more dangerous than three times the number of civilized foes. The strong influence exerted by the Johnsons with their allies, the Mohawks, was dreaded. Subsequently these fears were proved well grounded.
When the General Council was held by the Iroquois to consider the question of joining the British in the war against the colonies, a division occurred—the Oneidas opposing the alliance, while the Mohawks were anxious for an alliance with the British.
As unanimity could not be secured, each tribe was by law of the League free to engage in the war or remain at peace with the Americans. The sequel shows that the British agents, with presents of gunpowder and lead, also promises of a bounty to be paid for scalps taken from the colonists, were successful with all but the Oneidas, who remained true to their first declaration.
To friendship alone could the colonists appeal. They were not able to assure the Indians that the rum of the Americans was as plenty as the water of the lake, as the British had done.
The majority of the Indians concluded that the colonists were too poor or too mean to make them any gifts. Had the influences been less powerful the Indians might still have remained the friend of the settlers as he had been during long years of peace.
The indignation of Pitt in denunciation of the wrong done by the employment of Indians has made his name immortal. How different the policy of the American! The offers of the Oneidas were courteously yet firmly refused. They only shared in the struggle as guides or scouts.
Wyoming in July—Cherry Valley in November, were only on a larger scale the repetition of recurring events along the entire frontier. The blood-curdling yell, accompanied by the tomahawk and scalping knife, were a constant menace to the settler. The demand for decided measures was imperative. The Wyoming massacre sent a thrill of horror through the country, and renewed the demand for retaliatory measures.
General Washington was directed to take such measures as he deemed advisable, for the protection of the frontiers. Realizing the country's condition and the great need of economy in public expenditures, Washington's policy for 1779 was to remain on the defensive, except as might be found necessary to hold the Indians in check.
England's affairs in Europe at this time were such that she would not be apt to push her operations in America. Washington himself was an experienced Indian fighter—knew how they could be punished—early favored an expedition into the heart of the Indian country—having but little faith in the plan of establishing forts. He wished to carry the war to their own homes, destroy villages and crops and compel them to accept peace or depend on the British for sustenance.
The country to be traversed on such an expedition was but little known, so Washington during the winter and spring devoted a great deal of time to obtaining information needed and planning for the campaign, which was subsequently shown to be the most important event of that year, and furnished a lasting lesson to the hostile tribes of the North.
After the declination of the command by General Gates, Washington tendered the command, which was promptly accepted by General Sullivan, whose patriotism and bravery were well known.
Preparations were immediately commenced for the great undertaking. Hamilton under Washington's direction, drew up a letter of instructions, which was signed by Washington. The first paragraph is interesting:
"May 31, 1779. Sir:—The expedition you are appointed to command is to be directed against the hostile tribes of the Six Nations of Indians with their associates and adherents. The immediate object is their total destruction and devastation and the capture of as many persons of every age and sex as possible. It will be essential to ruin their crops, now on the ground, and prevent their planting more."
Then followed instructions more in detail, showing that Washington had acquired an almost accurate knowledge of the country not only, but the people as well. His instructions were carried out almost to the letter as far as the army proceeded.
Sullivan concluded when he had driven them from the valley of the Genesee that his mission was fulfilled.
Sensitiveness that is unreasoning may have been shocked at Washington's policy, carried out by Sullivan. The destruction of forty villages, some of them extensive, as reported by Sullivan, sixty thousand bushels of corn, three thousand bushels of beans—in one orchard fifteen hundred peach trees—seemed harsh treatment, but when we consider that a major portion of this would have furnished the Tories with sustenance, another view must be taken.
Humanity, however, dictated the firing of cannon every morning, giving the Indians an opportunity to retreat, which was in strong contrast with the savage, cruel manner of Brant and Butler in their attacks upon peaceful settlers.
When the Senecas returned after peace was declared, their respect for Ha-na-de-ga-na-ars (destroyer of villages), as Washington was called by them, was greatly strengthened.
When Horatio Jones, Major Van Campen and others moved into their territory, they were kindly treated, and gave kind treatment in return.
The record of the Iroquois has been one of unbroken peace and friendship since then, for their last treaty made with General Washington has been kept inviolate.
In the campaign of 1779 it was evident that the British intended to confine their operations to pillaging expeditions on the frontiers in the north, and an effort to cripple the Union in the south.
In July of the previous year, Butler and Brant with a force of 1600 Indians and Tories had entered the Wyoming Valley and spread death and destruction in their path, and in November raided the inhabitants of Cherry Valley.
Two years before, St. Leger had made his unsuccessful attempt on Fort Stanwix and the Mohawk Valley, while Burgoyne was attempting to force his way through our northern frontier.
Nor were these raids upon the valleys of the Mohawk and the Wyoming, and the inhabitants of Cherry Valley, the only calamities visited upon the frontiers. By reason of the location and small size of the border settlements and the great distance between detached dwellings, the inhabitants, from the very beginning of the Revolutionary struggle, were subject to constant attack by small bands of Indians, and Tories disguised as such, who murdered those who fell into their hands and burned and pillaged their dwellings until none but the most intrepid dared remain in their homes. The supplicating tears of women and children, and the wail of helpless babes, were unheeded. The tomahawk and war-club fell without pity upon the defenceless heads of all alike, and the scalps of women and children and the silvered locks of the aged mingled with those of manhood to adorn the belt of the savage, and be bartered for British gold. Here and there a heap of ashes and a few putrefying bodies remained to show the location of some unfortunate settler's cabin or frontier hamlet. Desolation was spread from one end of the border to the other, and the wail of despair was not to be resisted by the Congress. That body had received a constant stream of appeals for aid from the sufferers at the front since the very beginning of the war. A large part of the documentary remains of that period consist of such letters to Washington, Governor Clinton, and others in authority.
On the first of April, 1779, Congress, in response to a letter of March 13th, from the Legislature of New York, passed a resolution authorizing an expedition against these marauders. The campaign was planned by the Commander-in-chief. Its execution was first offered to General Gates because of his seniority, but the offer was made in such a way that it could not be accepted, and Gates was obliged to decline in favor of Major-General John Sullivan, whom Washington intended from the first should be its commander.
General Washington's orders to Sullivan for the conduct of the campaign were very explicit, and were in part as follows:
"The immediate objects are the total destruction and devastation of their settlements, and the capture of as many prisoners of every age and sex as possible. It will be essential to ruin their crops now in the ground and prevent their planting more . . . parties should be detached to lay waste all the settlements around, with instructions to do it in the most effectual manner, that the country may not be merely overrun, but destroyed. Make rather than receive attacks, attend with as much impetuosity, shouting, and noise, as possible; and make the troops act in as loose and dispersed a way as is consistent with a proper degree of government, concert, and mutual support. It should be previously impressed upon the minds of the men, whenever they have an opportunity, to rush on with the war-whoop and fixed bayonet. Nothing will disconcert and terrify the Indians more than this."
The forces were gathered in three divisions; the principal and central one, rendezvousing at Wyoming, was composed of the three brigades of Maxwell, Poor, and Hand, and proceeded up the valley of the Susquehanna to Tioga, where it was joined by the right division under Gen. James Clinton, whose force, consisting of 1,600 men, was gathered at Canajoharie, and proceeded down the headwaters of the Susquehanna. The left division, consisting of 600 men, under Col. Daniel Brodhead, marched up the Allegheny from Pittsburgh, leaving that place the 11th of August, burned 11 towns, containing about 165 houses, which were for the most part constructed of logs and framed timber; destroyed more than 500 acres of cultivated land then in full crop, and took loot estimated as worth $30,000. This division returned to Pittsburgh the 14th of September, having been too late to join the main body, and never having come under the direct command of Gen. Sullivan.
The main division began to assemble at Wyoming early in April, but it was not until the last day of July, in the afternoon, that they finally began their advance. The artillery, ammunition and provisions were loaded on 214 boats (this is the number stated by Col. Proctor, who was in charge of the fleet; most accounts say 120), while 1,200 pack horses carried the baggage and camp utensils, and 700 beef cattle were driven along for food. Gordon, and some other British writers, have claimed that Sullivan demanded much more than he should in the way of supplies. Some of Sullivan's enemies at home made the same charge; but it is a notorious fact that the commander had great difficulty in procuring the amount that he had and that it fell far short of what prudence required. As it was, some of the pork was packed in barrels made of green staves, and spoiled. Much of the time the army subsisted on short rations, eked out by green corn and other supplies taken from the fields of the Indians which they were destroying.
Tioga was the Iroquois name for the point of land lying between the Chemung River and the north branch of the Susquehanna. Every name that an Indian gave to a place or a person was descriptive, and had a meaning. Most of these as we find them written are corruptions of the names as they sounded when spoken by an Indian, and therefore we find the same word in different documents spelled in as many ways as it could be spelled by illiterate English, Dutch and French settlers, with a few extra letters thrown in. Tioga is said to mean anything between any other two things, a gate, the forks of a river, etc. (from Teyaogen, or Teiohogen). Van Curler in his Journal of 1634 speaks of the Mohawk's name of their great river as Vyoge. Father Jogues gave Oiogue as the Mohawk name for the Hudson, in 1646. Ohio is another corrupted form of the same word, and all seem to be corrupted from the same Iroquois word, meaning a large stream. Many other Indian place-names occur in the various journals of the officers engaged in this expedition, and it would be interesting to take them up and consider their meaning if it were possible. But in the above case it seems fair to suppose that Indians coming down the trail from the Chemung Valley should speak of this spot as Vyoge, or Oiogue, the great or principal river, as distinguished from the smaller branch above.
However that may be, the time between the 31st of July and the 11th of August was consumed by the main body of the army in reaching this spot, selected as the meeting place of the divisions.
On their march for this place after leaving Wyoming, the first night they encamped at a place called by the Delaware Indians, Lechau-Hanneck, or Lackawanna, also said to mean the forks of a stream, and by the Iroquois called Hazirok, with something of the same meaning. The following night they encamped at a place the Indians called Quailutimack, meaning, "We came upon them unawares." On the 4th, it is related, they crossed a small creek, called where it joins the Susquehanna, Massasppi (missisipu), great river, this being a Delaware word meaning about the same as the Iroquois Oiogue.
On the 5th the detachment lost three of its men, one soldier dying of the so called "falling sickness," one of Proctor's artillerymen being drowned, and Sergt. Martin Johnson dying from heat. Dr. Elmer informs us in his journal that Johnson was a hard drinker and "his vitals were decayed by spirituous liquors." On the 8th, Col. Proctor destroyed the first of the Indian settlements, a place called Newtychanning, consisting of about twenty houses.
The army arrived at Tioga on the 13th. Here they remained until the 25th, awaiting the arrival of General Clinton's detachment. In the meantime Fort Sullivan was erected, and a detachment sent up the Chemung River to destroy an Indian town of the same name, consisting of about fifty houses, with more than 100 acres of cultivated fields of grain and other Indian produce. Some of the troops under General Hand, as they pursued the Indians who were fleeing from the village, fell into an ambush, whereby six were killed and nine wounded, with slight loss to the enemy. While destroying the crops, one other man was killed and three more wounded by some of the enemy who were concealed across the river. The houses here destroyed were built of split and hewed timber, covered with bark, and in the center of the town were two large buildings, presumably council houses. None of the buildings had chimneys or floors. While herding the stock in the camp at Tioga, the Indians succeeded in killing and scalping several of the pack-horse men and wounding some others.
Meantime a detachment under Generals Hand and Poor were sent up the Susquehanna to meet General Clinton.
Gen. Sullivan had written Clinton from Wyoming on July 30th, "I wish you to set out on the 9th of next month (marching moderately), as some allowance is to be made for bad weather, which will probably detain us some time. On my arrival at Tioga, I will immediately detach a considerable body of light troops to favor and secure your march."
Previous to this date Clinton had gathered his forces at Canajoharie and transported them to the shore of Otsego Lake, the level of which he had raised about two feet by erecting a dam, for the purpose of causing a flood which would float his expedition in boats over the shallows of the Susquehanna head-waters.
Breaking the dam, he left Otsego Lake, according to Sullivan's instructions, on the 9th of August, and proceeding down the river with little difficulty, destroyed such Indian dwellings and crops as came in his path.
Lieut.-Colonel Pawling, with a detachment, was marching from Kingston via Shandakin, under orders to join Clinton on August 16th. at Annaquaga, which, before it was destroyed by Col. William Butler, in the fall of 1778, was quite a large Indian settlement, occupying an island and both sides of the river, where the little village of Onaquaga now stands. Clinton arrived at this place on the 15th, and remained there until the 17th, awaiting the arrival of Pawling. In the center of the island he found the cellars and wells of about sixty houses, also fine orchards. Most of these buildings had been log houses, with stone chimneys and glass windows.
Pawling did not arrive, but returned to Kingston on September 1st and reported his inability to join Clinton, owing to the swollen streams and bad roads. Proceeding on their way, the Right Division passed several Tuscarora villages, which they destroyed, with the crops. Arriving at the mouth of the Chenango Creek, a small detachment was sent four miles up that stream to destroy the village of Chenango, consisting of about twenty houses.
On the 19th they joined the detachment of General Poor, burning the villages of Chukkanut and Owagea, and three days later arrived at the encampment of the main division at Tioga. On the 23d of August, by the accidental discharge of a musket, Captain Kimball was killed and a Lieutenant wounded.
Leaving a garrison to defend Fort Sullivan, at Tioga, the whole army proceeded, on the 26th, taking the route up the Tioga branch of the Susquehanna. About sixteen miles up this stream was a village called Newtown, which they reached on the 29th. Here the light troops, which were marching ahead, discovered a breastworks, artfully masked by green bushes, extending for about half a mile, in an advantageous place, protected by a high mountain on one side, the river on the other, and a large creek in front, behind which the enemy were entrenched. Here occurred the most important fight of the campaign. The design of the enemy appears to have been primarily, an ambuscade. His force of British regulars, consisting of two battalions of Royal Greens and Tories, was led by Col. John Butler, with Captains Walter Butler and Macdonald as subordinates. The Indian forces were commanded by the great Mohawk chief, Joseph Brant. All the cunning of the Indians, combined with the trained tactics of the British regulars, were here exerted to check the advance of Sullivan's invading army. Had the Americans not discovered the trap in time to avoid it, the story of this campaign would have ended here in a tale of butchery hardly equaled in the annals of war. But three companies of Morgan's riflemen, the pride of Washington, were in advance; veterans of a hundred battles, and in no way inferior to the enemy in Indian craft; and the ingenious device for drawing our forces into an ambush was thwarted. For hours the battle waged fiercely. By skillfully maneuvering his troops Sullivan had nearly succeeded in surrounding the enemy, when, admirably commanded, and wisely discreet, the signal for retreat was sounded just in time to escape. The entire loss to the Americans was three killed and thirty-nine wounded. Twelve Indians were found dead on the field, but the number of their wounded is unknown.
The events of the succeeding days during which the expedition was prosecuting its errand of destruction, were a constant repetition of each other. The army was almost constantly on the move, searching out and destroying such settlements as could be found. The Indians skulked away like a pack of wolves at the approach of the hunter, turning now and then to snap at their pursuers, and then vanishing. Where once had stood their pleasant villages surrounded by fruitful fields, was only left heaps of smouldering ashes and masses of trampled grain and prostrate fruit trees. They needed no spies to keep them informed of the progress of the invaders. A trail of smoke by day and a ruddy glow on the sky at night told it too plainly. The scourge had fallen. Not only were the frontiers cleared but the doom of the Iroquoian Confederacy was sealed, and its dominion over the vast territory which it had so long ruled was destroyed forever. From the mountains of northern Pennsylvania, through the beautiful valley of the Susquehanna and the lake region of central New York to the fruitful valley of the Genesee, no Indian settlement of importance was left. Said Sullivan in his official report: "The number of towns destroyed by this army amounted to 40, beside scattering houses. The quantity of corn destroyed, at a moderate computation, must amount to 160,000 bushels, with a vast quantity of vegetables of every kind. Every creek and river has been traced, and the whole country explored in search of Indian settlements, and I am well persuaded that, except one town situated near the Allegheny, about 50 miles from Genesee, there is not a single town left in the country of the Five Nations.
"It is with pleasure I inform Congress that this army has not suffered the loss of forty men, in action or otherwise, since my taking the command, though perhaps few troops have experienced a more fatiguing campaign. I flatter myself that the orders with which I was entrusted are fully executed, as we have not left a single settlement or field of corn in the country of the Five Nations, nor is there even the appearance of an Indian on this side of Niagara."
Note—In the volume containing the "Journals of the Military Expedition of Major General John Sullivan against the Six Nations of Indians in 1779," prepared by Frederick Cook, Secretary of State, and published by the State in 1887, on page 285 et seq, is published part of the Journal of Nathaniel Webb, and a note says that a portion of the Journal cannot be found.
In a scrap-book originally kept by Thos. Maxwell, Esq., which was recently bought in an old book shop in New York, I find the missing Journal, and give herewith the portion supposed to be lost.
WILLIAM WAIT.
Note—In Col. Gansevoort's Journal of the same expedition, the entry is as follows:
"31st.—Decamped at 8 o'clock,—marched over mountainous ground until we arrived at the forks of Newtown—there entered on a low bottom, (Tuttle's flats), crossed the Kayuga branch, (Newtown creek), and encamped on a pine plain. Much good land about Newtown. Here we left the Tioga branch to our left."
September 1.—The army moved at 8 A. M. Several defiles and a large swamp occasioned our Brigade to encamp about three miles in the rear of the army. The army encamped that night at Catharine's town. The enemy had all fled from this town the night before and left an old squaw.
2.—Our brigade joined the army at Catharine's town. Lay the remaining part of the day for refreshment, &c.
3.—We destroyed some five fields of corn and decamped at 8 A. M. Marched this day about 11 miles. Encamped that night near the banks of the Seneca Lake. Marched this day through a remarkable country for timber.
4.—Decamped at 9 A. M. Burnt a small town on this day's march. Encamped at 7 P. M. The country still remains well timbered.
5.—Decamped at 10 A. M. Marched this day about six miles. Encamped that night at Conoyah, a beautiful town situated between the Seneca and Kengah lakes—distance between those lakes 8 miles. (Gansevoort writes it Kandaiah.)
6.—Lay in encampment. This town is beautifully situated in several respects—a fine level country—some fine fields of corn, a fine apple orchard, about twenty houses—situated about twenty miles from Seneca lake. One white man deserted from the enemy that had been taken prisoner last summer from Wyoming. Several horses were captured at this town. Decamped at 4 P. M., moved about 4 miles. Encamped in a beautiful piece of woods near the Lake. Col. Gansevoort, of our Brigade, was sent to destroy Kengah town joining Kengah lake, where they burnt several houses, got about twenty horses, &c.
7.—Decamped. Marched to Kanadesago, a town situated about three miles from the west end of the lake, the capital of the Senecas. (This was what is called the old Castle near Geneva.) Crossing the Seneca creek (or outlet) and several large defiles occasioned our not arriving in town till some time in the evening. This town consists of about 60 houses. Several large fields of corn. We found a white male child the enemy had left behind.
8.—The army was employed in destroying corn, beans, fruit trees, &c. A detachment sent to destroy a town about 12 miles from this town. (This was Cashong, Kashonguash, on the west side of the Seneca.)
9.—All the sick and lame sent to Tioga. At 11 A. M. we marched, following the road that leads to Niagara. Marched about 13 miles. Encamped near a brook that night.
10.—Decamped at 6 A. M. Marched this day about 13 miles—part of the day through a swampy country, abounding chiefly in beech and maple, some remarkably large white ash trees—latter part of the day through a grassy country. Passed the end of Connandockque lake. Encamped near some fine fields of corn. This town contains about 20 houses.
11.—Decamped at 4 A. M., after destroying the town and vegetables, &c. Marched this day to Hannayouya (Honeoye). This town is situated at the end of a small Lake of the same name—contains about 15 houses—a large flat of excellent land.
12.—The provisions and superfluous baggage of the army were left at this town, with a guard of about 200 men and two field pieces. The army decamped at 11 A. M. and marched towards the Genesee flats. Marched about 10 miles and encamped in the woods—passed this day a small lake called Konyoughojoh.
13.—Decamped at 6 A. M. Marched about two miles and halted at Adjustah. This town contains about 26 houses. While we halted at this town, Lieut. Boyd, with 20 men of the Rifle Corps, was sent to the next town to reconnoiter the enemy. On his return about 700 of the enemy ambushed him, killed and took 18 of the party. After the corn, &c., was destroyed and the town set in flames, we moved off to the next town. Our brigade marched some miles around to gain the rear of the enemy, but as usual they had fled before us. This town contains about 18 houses, situated at the southern end of the Genesee flats, on the banks of a small river that leads into the Genesee river.
14.—9 A. M. the army decamped, passed the river, entered the Genesee flats. This flat is judged to contain near 6,000 acres. We passed the Genesee river. This river runs with a strong current out of a hilly country. Three miles below where we forded, is navigable to lake Ontario. We burnt a small town on the bank of the river and marched that night to Genesee castle. There the body of Lieut. Boyd and one man was found murdered in a barbarous manner, too horrid to mention. This town is the metropolis of that nation; contains about 140 houses. Some fine buildings in it; situated about 40 miles from Niagara, on the south side of the Genesee river. The soil is exceedingly rich for 10 or 12 miles along the river. In and about this town, it was judged there were 800 acres of corn, beans, and vegetables of every kind.
15.—The whole army was employed in destroying the corn, &c. Now the general having completed and fulfilled his orders, after destroying the corn and setting the town in flames, the army passed the river and encamped upon the flats. One woman and one child made their escape from the savages and came to us that evening.
16.—Lay by to destroy corn along the flats. Decamped at 10 A. M. Encamped at Aojuhtah.
17.—Decamped at gun firing. Encamped at Honeoye.
18.-Decamped at 10 A. M. that day to Canandaigua. Encamped on the east side of the Lake.
19.—Marched to Connadasago.
20.—A party of 900 men was detached under command of Col. Butler, to destroy the Kengah tribe, and a party of 100 men under command of Col. Gansevoort to destroy part of the Mohawk tribe. Decamped at 3 P. M. and encamped on the east side of Seneca Lake.
21.—A party of 100 men was detached under Col. Dearborn to destroy the towns on the west side of Kenkah lake. Decamped at 8 A. M., passed Candiah about three miles and encamped at 4 P. M.
22.—Decamped at 7 A. M. Encamped that night within seven miles of Catharine town.
24.—(23d.?) Decamped at 7 A. M., passed Catharine town and encamped near the Big Swamp that night.
24.—Decamped at 5 A. M., passed the swamp and halted some time for refreshment. Encamped that night at Fort Reed, where we met provisions and stores for the reception of the Army. Upon our arrival at this place, (now Elmira), 13 cannon were discharged from the fort and was returned from one of our pieces 15 times. The latter was discharged in the space of one minute and a half. Dried provisions, &c.
(Colonel Gansevoort's Journal notes the proceedings of this day as follows: "Passed the swamp so much dreaded from its badness, without any difficulty and arrived at the forks of Newtown, where Capt. Reed with a detachment of 200 men had thrown up a breastwork to guard some stores and cattle brought forward from Tioga for the army in case of necessity. Saluted by 13 rounds of cannon from the breast-work, which number we returned from our artillery.")
Fort Reed was on the west side of the Newtown creek and on the north bank of the Tioga, where the creek falls into the river. It was a breast-work and was surrounded by palisades including some three or four acres. The western line of palisades can be traced on the west side of the junction canal and on the east side of Water st., a little south of the Fair grounds. The Journal continues.
25.—All the loaded muskets in the army were discharged at 5 A. M. The army was drawn up in one line and fired three rounds per man. After the discharge of 13 cannon, for our new ally the King of Spain, several oxen were killed for the officers and men.
(Col. Gansevoort's Journal thus describes this affair: "25.—This morning the small arms of the whole army were discharged at 5 o'clock. The whole were drawn up in one line, with a field piece on the right of each brigade, to fire a feu de joie—1st. thirteen rounds of cannon; 2d. a running fire of musketry, from right to left—repeated twice. Fifty oxen were killed on this joyous occasion, one delivered to each Brigade and one to the Artillery and staff. This was done in consequence of Spain having declared war against Britain.")
26.—At 12 A. M., the party under command of Col. Dearborn came in after destroying a fine country on the west side of the Kengah Lake. They brought in two squaws with them.
27.—400 men under the command of Col. Courtland, was employed in destroying corn up the river. 30 boats arrived from Tioga.
28.—All the sick were sent to Tioga. The party under the command of Col. Butler, returned from destroying the Kengah tribe. They found a most beautiful country abounding in vast quantities of corn and vegetables of all kinds; the same party under command of Col. Courtland, was employed up the river; also, 500 men were employed down the river, towards Tioga, destroying corn and vegetables on the flats.
29.—Decamped 6 A. M. Encamped that night 3 miles below Chemung and within 3 miles of Tioga.
30.—Decamped at 6 A. M., arrived at Fort Sullivan at 1 P. M. Upon our arrival the garrison discharged 13 cannon and we returned the same. Pitched tents on the ground we occupied before.
October 3.—A party of 500 men turned out to load the boats and demolish Fort Sullivan. The army drew 6 days' flour to carry them to Wyoming.
4.—Decamped at 6 A. M. Passed the river and encamped that night within 5 miles of Standing Stone, near the river.
5.—All the cattle, stores and horses were sent down to Wyoming. The whole went on board the boats. The fleet got under way at 6 A. M.
6.—The fleet got under way at 9 A. M. Arrived at evening at Shawney Flats.
7.—The whole fleet got under way at 9 A. M., and arrived at Wyoming at 2 P. M. When it hove in sight 13 cannon were fired by the garrison and returned by the fleet. The army encamped near the garrison.
8.—Two hundred men were detached to repair the road from this post to Easton and to remain there until the army arrives.
10.—Gen. Sullivan set out for Easton, leaving the command to Gen. Clinton. Decamped at 11 A. M. Encamped that night at Bullock's tavern.
11.—The rear of the army came up to camp at 9 A. M. Marched this day and encamped between the Shades of Death and the Big Swamp.
12.—Decamped at 7 A. M. Encamped that night at the White Oak Run.
13.—Decamped at 8 o'clock in the morning. The army moved that day to Brink's Mills.
14.—Decamped at 10 A. M. Passed the Wind Gap and encamped that night within 12 miles of Easton.
15.—Decamped at 6 o'clock in the morning and arrived at Easton at 2 P. M. Encamped in the Forks of the Delaware on the bank of the Lehigh.
17.—Our Brigade mustered. The Rev. Parson Evans delivered a discourse to the army in the German church.
In the same volume is given a table of distances as traveled by the army from Easton to Genesee Castle, as surveyed by Mr. Lodge, Surveyor to the Western army:
From Easton to | Wyoming | 65 | miles |
" | Lackawanna | 75 | " |
" | Quelutinack | 82 | " |
" | Tunkhannock Creek | 93 | " |
" | Mesupin | 102 | " |
" | Vanderlip's Farm | 107 | " |
" | Wyalusing | 115 | " |
" | Wysaching Creek | 129-1/2 | " |
" | Tioga | 145 | " |
" | Chemung | 157 | " |
" | Forks at Newtown | 165 | " |
" | French Catharines, or Evoquagah | 183-1/2 | " |
" | Condiah, or Appleton | 211 | " |
" | Outlet of Seneca Lake | 222-1/2 | " |
" | Canadesaco, or Seneca Lake | 226 | " |
" | Canandaigua | 241-1/2 | " |
" | Honeoye | 255 | " |
" | Adjustah | 267-1/2 | " |
" | Gasagularah | 274-1/2 | " |
" | Genesee Castle | 280 | " |
I am somewhat at a loss to select a name for the subject of this paper. I dare not dignify it by the title of a history of the Mohawks, because a true history of that notable people never has been or never can be written. It is true that "Colden's Five Nations," "Morgan's League of the Iroquois," and Schoolcraft's notes are looked upon as authority on this subject, but Morgan's work is in a great measure legendary and altogether unsatisfying, and the same may be said of Colden and Schoolcraft, although the little that Colden has to say about the Mohawks is accepted as authority as far as it goes.
As to the origin of the Mohawks, it will always remain a mystery. Conjecture may or may not approach the truth, but from the fact that they had no written language, no records on stone or parchment from which we can obtain knowledge of their origin or early history, it is evident that our only sources of information are the vague traditions that have been transmitted orally from parent to child or from Sachem to Sachem.
How unreliable and unsatisfactory these oral traditions are, may be noted in what is called the "Iroquoian Cosmology," or the "Creation," as translated by J. N. B. Hewitt, of the Bureau of Ethnology. Mr. Hewitt gives three versions of the "Creation," the Onondaga, Mohawk and the Seneca. They are practically alike, differing only in minor statements. The Onondaga is the longest and the Seneca the shortest version. I will give you, however, a condensed rendering of the Mohawk tradition. It says:
"In the sky above were man-beings, both male and female, who dwelt in villages, and in one of the lodges was a man and woman, who were down-fended, that is, they were secluded, and their lodge was surrounded by the down of the cat-tail, which was a sign that no one should approach them, nor were they allowed to leave this precinct. The man became ill and stated that he would not get well until a dogwood tree standing in his dooryard had been uprooted. So when his people had uprooted the tree he said to his wife, 'Do thou spread for me something there beside the place where stood the tree.' Thereupon she spread something for him there and he then lay down on what she had spread for him, and he said to his wife: 'Here sit thou, beside my body.' Now at that time she did sit beside him as he lay there. Then he said to her: 'Do thou hang thy legs down into the abyss.' For where they had uprooted the tree there came to be a deep hole, which went through the sky, and the earth was upturned about it.
"And while he lay there he recovered from his illness and turning on his side he looked into the hole. After a while he said to his wife: 'Do thou look thither into the hole to see what things are occurring there in yonder place.' And as she bent her body to look into the hole he took her by the nape of the neck and pushed her and she fell into the hole and kept falling into the darkness thereof. After a while she passed through and as she looked about her, as she slowly fell, she saw that all about her was blue in color and soon discovered that what she observed was a vast expanse of water, on which floated all kinds of water fowls in great numbers.
"Thereupon. Loon, looking into the water and seeing her reflection, shouted, 'A man-being, a female is coming up from the depths of the waters.' The Bittern, answering, said, 'She is not indeed coming up out of the depths of the water, she is falling from above.' Thereupon they held a council to decide what they should do to provide for her welfare.
"They finally invited Great Turtle to come. Loon, thereupon, said to him, 'Thou should float thy body above the place where thou art in the depths of the water.' And then as Great Turtle arose to the surface, a large body of ducks of various kinds arose from the face of the water, elevated themselves in a very compact body, and went up to meet her. And on their backs did she alight, and they slowly descended, bearing her body on their backs, and on the back of Great Turtle they placed her.
"Then Loon said, 'Come, you deep divers, dive and bring up earth.' Many dived into the water, and Beaver was a long time gone. When his back appeared he was dead, and when they examined his paws, they found no earth. Then Otter said, 'It is my turn.' Whereupon he dived, and after a longer time he also came up dead. Neither did he bring up any earth. It was then that Muskrat said, 'I also will make the desperate attempt.' It was a still longer time that he was under water, but after a while he also floated to the surface, dead. In his paws was mud and his mouth was full of mud. And they took this mud and coated the edge of Great Turtle's shell all around, and other muskrats dived and floated dead, but brought up mud, which was placed on Great Turtle's back. And the female man-being sat on the back of Great Turtle and slept. And when she awoke the earth had increased in size, and she slept again, and when she awoke, willows were growing along the edge of the water. And then, also, when she again awoke, the carcass of a deer recently killed, lay there, and a fire was burning, and a sharp stone. And she dressed, cooked, and ate her fill. And after a while a rivulet appeared and rapidly the earth increased to great size, and grass and herbs sprung from the earth and grew to maturity.
"And after a while the female man-being gave birth to a girl child, who grew rapidly to maturity, and not long after gave birth to two male man-beings, but the daughter died in giving birth to the twins. And the grandmother cut off the head of her dead daughter and hung her body in a high place and it became the sun, and the head she placed in another place and it became the moon.
"And when she examined one of the infants she found his flesh was nothing but flint and there was a sharp comb of flint over the top of his head, but the flesh of the other was in every respect like a man-being.
"It seems that these two were antagonistic from their birth, the grandmother clinging to the flint child and driving the other into the wilderness; and in his wanderings he came to the shore of a lake and saw a lodge standing there. Looking in the doorway he saw a man sitting there, who said to him, 'Enter thou here. This man was Great Turtle, who gave him a bow and arrow, and also gave him two ears of corn, one in the milky state, which he told him to roast and eat as food, and the other, which was mature, he should use for seed corn.
"He also endowed him with preternatural powers. And when he was about to depart, he said to the young man, 'I am Great Turtle, I am thy parent.'
"Sapling, which was the name of the young man-being, created animals out of earth, and birds by casting handfuls of earth into the air. He also formed the body of a man and the body of a woman, and gave them life and placed them together. Returning shortly after he found them sleeping. Again and again he returned and still they slept. 'Thereupon he took a rib from each and substituted the one for the other and replaced each one in the other's body. It was not long before the woman awoke and sat up. At once she touched the breast of the man lying at her side, just where Sapling had placed her rib, and, of course, that tickled him. Thereupon he awoke. Awoke to life and understanding.'"
As in the Biblical story of Cain and Abel, the two brothers fought and in the end one was slain. But is was the unrighteous one, the one with the flint body, who lost his life.
Nearly three hundred years ago, the Jesuits recorded traditions of the Algonquins and Huron-Iroquois of Canada, which were practically the same in their main features as the above. (See Jesuit Rel. vol. 10, pages 127-129.)
The Montagnais and Adirondacks of Canada, and in fact all the Algonquin nations, seem to have some tradition of the deluge, which in some way is mixed with the Huron-Iroquois tradition of the creation. In fact, it deals with a re-creation of the earth.
They say that one Messou restored the world when it was lost in the waters. Their story of the deluge is practically as follows:
This Messou went a hunting with lynxes, instead of dogs, and was warned that it would be dangerous for his lynxes in a certain lake near the place where he was. One day as he was hunting an elk his lynxes gave it chase even into the lake; and when they reached the middle of it, they were submerged in an instant. When Messou arrived there and sought his lynxes, who were indeed his brothers, a bird told him that it had seen them in the bottom of the lake, and that certain animals or monsters held them there. He at once leaped into the water to rescue them, but immediately the lake overflowed, and increased so prodigiously that it inundated and drowned the whole earth. Astonished, he gave up all thought of his lynxes and turned his attention to creating the world anew. First he sent a raven to find a small piece of earth with which to build a new world. The raven returned unsuccessful. He made an Otter dive down, but he could not reach the bottom. At last a muskrat descended and brought back some earth. With this bit of earth Messou restored every thing to its former condition.
But it is among the Iroquois that Great Turtle plays the principal part in the creation. In fact it is said that he upholds the earth to this day. In one of the cases of the "Richmond collection" in the museum of the Montgomery County Historical Society, is an old rattle which can be traced back more than a hundred years. We have looked upon it as an interesting relic of the Senecas, a rude musical instrument. It is made from a turtle shell and skin, and in the enclosed space has been placed pebbles for rattles.
But this instrument is interesting beyond all that. Father LeJune, in his Relation of 1639, makes the following statement in describing a dance at a feast given for a sick woman: "At the head of the procession marched two masters of ceremonies, singing and holding the tortoise, on which they did not cease to play. This tortoise is not a real tortoise, but only the shell and skin, so arranged as to make a sort of drum or rattle. Having thrown certain pebbles into it they make from it an instrument like that the children in France used to play with. There is a mysterious something, I know not what, in this semblance of a tortoise, to Which these people attribute their origin. We shall know in time what there is to it."
It is said that in no Amerind (the word Amerind is a new word coined by the Bureau of Ethnology to take the place of the three words "North American Indian." You will notice that it is composed or formed from the first four letters of American and the first three letters of Indian) language, could the Jesuit Priests find a word to express the idea of God or His attributes. Although the most charitable of people and showing the utmost affection for their children, the Jesuits were unable, in the Amerind language, to impress upon them or to communicate to them, the idea of an all-loving and charitable Supreme Being. They had their Manitou, but they feared them and gave them the character of the devil, one who should be propitiated by presents, by penances, or by scourges and feasts.
In the Amerind's mind, each animal had a king, as the Great Turtle, the Great Bear, etc. The fathers said to them if the animals have each a Supreme Being, why should not man have a great chief of men, who lives in the sky; a Great Spirit. This idea they accepted, and although they did not or could not give him the attributes of the Christian's God, the Great Spirit became "a distinct existence, a pervading power in the universe, and a dispenser of justice."
This idea the Jesuits had to accept, although in exceptional cases, they seemed to impress their idea of God upon some of their converts while they had them at the missions, but they were sure to become apostates when they returned to their people in the wilderness. So you will see that "The Great Spirit" of the Indians is a modern idea received from the whites and not, as some think, a Supreme Being evolved ages ago from the Amerind mind.
Parkman says: "The primitive Indian believed in the immortality of the soul, and that skillful hunters, brave warriors, and men of influence went, after death, to the happy hunting-grounds, while the slothful, the cowardly, the weak were doomed to eat serpents and ashes in dreary and misty regions, but there was no belief that the good were to be rewarded for moral good, or the evil punished for a moral evil."
So you will see that the writing of a history of the Mohawks would be an arduous task, a history filled with mystery and superstition together with kindly deeds and warlike acts, a history of a people endowed with minds that were able to conceive a union of tribes, states or nations, call them what you may, and to perpetuate that union for centuries, the success of which suggested to our forefathers the union of states, the government under which we now live.
L. Of C.
"HOLLANDER."
After signing the treaty ceding Louisiana to the United States, Robert R. Livingston declared it the noblest work of his life. If one may not assent to this enthusiastic statement of the speaker, who had been a member of the committee to draft the immortal Declaration of Independence, it is easy to admit that his work stands next in historical importance to the treaty of 1783, which recognized American independence. It added half an empire to our domain, and, a century later, gave Edward Everett Hale opportunity to speak of Livingston as "the wisest American of his time," since "Franklin had died in 1780."
When Livingston signed the Louisiana treaty he was fifty-six years of age, tall and handsome, with an abundance of hair already turning gray, which fell in ringlets over a square, high forehead, lending a certain dignity that made him appear as great off the bench as he did when gowned and throned as Chancellor. In the estimation of his contemporaries he was one of the most gifted men of his time, and the judgment of a later age has not reversed their decision. He added learning to great natural ability, and brilliancy to profound thought, and although so deaf as to make communication with him difficult, he came very near concealing the defect by his remarkable eloquence and conversational gifts. Benjamin Franklin called him "the Cicero of America." His love for the beautiful attracted Edmund Burke. It is doubtful if he had a superior in the State in the knowledge of history and the classics, and in the study of science Samuel L. Mitchell alone stood above him. He lacked the creative genius of Hamilton, the prescient gifts of Jay, and the skill of Aaron Burr to marshal men for selfish purposes; but he was at home in debate with the ablest men of his time, a master of sarcasm, of trenchant wit, and of felicitous rhetoric. It is likely that he lacked Kent's application. But of ninety-three bills passed by the legislature from 1778 to 1801, a period that spans his life as Chancellor, and which were afterward vetoed by the Council of Revision, Livingston wrote opinions in twenty-three, several of them elaborate, and all revealing capacity for legislation. In these vetoes he stood with Hamilton in resisting forfeitures and confiscations; he held with Richard Morris that loyal citizens could not be deprived of lands, though bought of an alien enemy; he agreed with Jay in upholding common law rights and limiting the death penalty; and he had the support of George Clinton and John Sloss Hobart in disapproving a measure for the gradual abolition of slavery, because the legislature thought it politically expedient to deprive colored men of the right to vote who had before enjoyed such a privilege.
In the field of politics, Livingston's search for office did not result in a happy career. So long as he stood for a broader and stronger national life his intellectual rays flashed far beyond the horizon of most of his contemporaries, but the joy of public life was clouded when he entered the domain of partisan politics. His mortification that someone other than himself was appointed Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, made Hamilton's funding system, especially the proposed assumption of State debts, sufficient excuse for becoming an anti-federalist, and had he possessed those qualities of leadership that bind party and friends by ties of unflinching service, he might have reaped the reward that his ambition so ardently craved; but his peculiar temper unfitted him for such a career. Jealous, fretful, sensitive, and suspicious, he was as restless as his eloquence was dazzling, and when, at last, he became the anti-federalist candidate for governor in 1798, in opposition to John Jay, the campaign ended in deep humiliation. His candidacy was clearly a dash for the Presidency. He reasoned, as every ambitious New York statesman has reasoned from that day to this, that if he could carry the State in an off year, he would be needed, as the candidate of his whole party, in a Presidential year. This reasoning reduces the governorship to a sort of springboard from which to vault into the White House, and although only one man in a century has performed the feat, it has always figured as a popular and potent factor in the settlement of political nominations. George Clinton thought the Presidency would come to him, and Hamilton inspired Jay with a similar notion; but Livingston, sanguine of better treatment, was willing, for the sake of undertaking it, voluntarily to withdraw from the professional path along which he had moved to great distinction.
The personal qualities which seemed to unfit Livingston for political leadership in New York did not strengthen his usefulness in France. It was the breadth of view which distinguished him in the formation of the Union that brought him success as a diplomat. With the map of America spread out before him he handled the Louisiana problem as patriotically as he had argued for a stronger national life, and when, at last, he signed the treaty, he had forever enlarged the geography of his country.
As the American minister to the court of Napoleon, Livingston reached France in November, 1801. President Jefferson had already heard a rumor of the retrocession of Louisiana by Spain to France, and had given it little heed. He had cheerfully acquiesced in Spain's occupation of New Orleans, and after its retrocession to France he talked pleasantly of securing West Florida through French influence. "Such proof on the part of France of good will toward the United States," he wrote Livingston, in September, 1801, "would contribute to reconcile the latter to France's possession of New Orleans." But when, a year later, a French army, commanded by Leclerc, Napoleon's brother-in-law, had devastated St. Domingo and aroused the hostility of American merchants and ship-masters by his arbitrary treatment, Jefferson sensed the danger of having Napoleon for a next-door neighbor on the Mississippi. In a moment his tone changed from one of peace to a threat of war. "The cession of Louisianan to France," he declared, in a letter to Livingston, April 16, 1802, "works most sorely on the United States. There is on the globe one single spot, the possessor of which is our natural and habitual enemy. It is New Orleans. France, placing herself in that door, assumes to us the attitude of defiance. The day that France takes possession of New Orleans fixes the sentence which is to restrain her forever within her low-water mark. It seals the union of two nations, who in conjunction can maintain exclusive possession of the ocean. From that moment we must marry ourselves to the British fleet and nation."
In his anxiety the President also instructed Madison, his Secretary of State, to write Pinckney, the American minister at Madrid, to guarantee to Spain, if it had not already parted with its title, peaceable possession of Louisiana beyond the Mississippi, on condition of its ceding to the United States the territory, including New Orleans, on the east side. As the year wore on, however, and Leclerc's death followed his report of his losses, Jefferson became much easier, advising Livingston that French possession of Louisiana would not be "important enough to risk a breach of the peace." But before the ink had time to dry, almost simultaneously with the death of Leclerc, came the news, through Governor Claiborne of the Territory of Mississippi, that the Spanish Intendent had forbidden Americans the right to deposit their merchandise at New Orleans. This was a stunning blow to the President. The treaty of 1795 stipulated that the King of Spain would "permit the citizens of the United States, for the space of three years from this time, to deposit their merchandise and effects in the Port of New Orleans, and to export them from thence, without paying any other duty than a fair price for the hire of the stores, and his majesty promises either to continue this permission if he find during that time it is not prejudicial to the interests of Spain, or, if he should not agree to continue it thus, he will assign to them on another part of the banks of the Mississippi an equivalent establishment." That the three years' limitation had expired during President Adams' administration without the right being extended or its equivalent established, did not help Jefferson out of his difficulty, since the Kentucky and Tennessee settlers were already cleaning their flintlocks on the theory that it was easier to drive out a few Spaniards than to dislodge a French army after it had fortified. This was good reasoning if Louisiana was to be taken by force. But Jefferson, even when writing threatening letters, had no thought of war. "Peace is our passion," he wrote Sir John Sinclair, and in the presence of threatening hostilities he did nothing to prepare for war. His message to Congress, which opened a few days after the reception of Claiborne's dispatch, made no mention of the New Orleans trouble. He talked about everything else, but of what everybody else was talking about the President said nothing. The western settlers, vitally interested in a depot of deposit at New Orleans, resented such apparent apathy, and by resolutions and legislative action encouraged the federalists to talk so loudly for war that the President, alarmed at the condition of the public mind, sent James Monroe's name to the Senate as minister extraordinary to France and Spain. On January 13, 1803, the day of Monroe's confirmation, Jefferson hastened to write him, explaining what he had done and why he had acted. "The agitation of the public mind on occasion of the late suspension of our right of deposit at New Orleans," said he, "is extreme. In the western country it is natural and grounded on honest motives; in the seaports it proceeds from a desire for war, which increases the mercantile lottery; among federalists generally, and especially those of Congress, the object is to force us into war if possible, in order to derange our finances; or, if this cannot be done, to attach the western country to them as to their best friends, and thus get again into power. Remonstrances, memorials, etc., are now circulating through the whole of the western country, and signed by the body of the people. The measures we have been pursuing, being invisible, do not satisfy their minds. Something sensible, therefore, is necessary."
This "sensible something" was Monroe's appointment, which "has already silenced the federalists," continued the President. "Congress will no longer be agitated by them; and the country will become calm as fast as the information extends over it."
The better to support Monroe, Madison explained to Pichon, the French minister in Washington, the necessity for the undivided possession of New Orleans, claiming that it had no sort of interest for France, while the United States had no interest in extending its population to the right bank, since such emigration would tend to weaken the state and to slacken the concentration of its forces. "In spite of affinities in manners and languages," said the Secretary of State, "no colony beyond the river could exist under the same government, but would infallibly give birth to a separate state, having in its bosom germs of collision with the east, the easier to develop in proportion to the very affinities between the two empires."
This explained the true attitude of Jefferson and Madison. They did not seek territory west of the Mississippi. Their thought centered in the purchase of New Orleans; it was the "one spot on the globe, the possessor of which is our natural and habitual enemy;" France's possession of it "must marry us to the British fleet and nation;" upon it "every eye in the United States is now fixed;" to gain it Pinckney was charged "to guarantee to Spain the peaceable possession of the territory beyond the Mississippi;" in Madison's opinion "the boundary line between the United States and Louisiana should be the Mississippi;" according to his theory "no colony beyond the Mississippi could exist under the same government with that on the east side;" nor did the United States have any interest in building up a colony beyond the Mississippi. In other words, Jefferson saw only New Orleans; he wanted only New Orleans and peace; and to get the one and keep the other, Monroe was sent to Paris to secure "our rights and interests in the river Mississippi and in the territories eastward thereof."
In the meantime Livingston had taken a different view. It is not clear that he appreciated the future value of the great northwest more than did Jefferson or Madison, but in his argument for the purchase of New Orleans he had included in his request nine-tenths of the territory now known as the Louisiana Purchase. Singularly enough Livingston's letter happened to be addressed to Talleyrand, Napoleon's Minister of Foreign Affairs, on the very day Monroe's name went to the United States Senate for confirmation, and although the latter's instructions limited negotiations to the east bank of the Mississippi, Livingston's argument included the west bank. "Presuming," he writes Talleyrand, "that the Floridas are in the hands of France, I shall predicate what I have to offer upon that presumption. France can have but three objects in the possession of Louisiana and Florida: The first is the command of the Gulf; second, the supply of her islands; third, an outlet for the people, if her European population should be too great for her territory."
"Having treated this subject more at large in a paper which you have had the goodness to read," Livingston continued, "I will not dwell upon it here; but propose what it appears to be the true, policy of France to adopt, as affecting all her objects, and at the same time conciliating the affections of the United States, giving a permanency to her establishments, which she can in no other way hope for. First, let France cede to the United States so much of Louisiana as lays above the mouth of the river Arkansas. By this a barrier will be placed between the colony of France and Canada, from which she may, otherwise, be attacked with the greatest facility, and driven out before she can derive any aid from Europe. Let her possess Florida as far as the river Perdito, with all the ports on the gulf, and cede West Florida, New Orleans, and the territory on the west bank of the Mississippi to the United States. This cession will only be valuable to the latter from its giving them the mouths of the river Mobile and other small rivers which penetrate their territory, and in calming their apprehensions relative to the Mississippi. It may be supposed that New Orleans is a place of some moment; it will be so to the United States, but not to France. The right of depot which the United States claims and will never relinquish, must be the source of continued disputes and animosities between the two nations, and ultimately lead the United States to aid any foreign power in the expulsion of France from that colony. Independent of this, as the present commercial capital of New Orleans is mostly American, it will be instantly removed to Natchez, to which the United States can give such advantages as to render New Orleans of little importance. Upon any other plan. Sir, it needs but little foresight to predict that the whole of this establishment must pass into the hands of Great Britain, which has, at the same time, the command of the sea, and a martial colony containing every means of attack. While the fleets block up the seaports, she can, without the smallest difficulty, attack New Orleans from Canada with 15,000 or 20,000 men and a host of savages. France, by grasping at a desert and an insignificant town, and thereby throwing the weight of the United States into the scale of Britain, will render her mistress of the new world. By the possession of Louisiana and Trinidad the colonies of Spain will lie at her mercy. By expelling France from Florida and possessing the ports on the Gulf, she will command the Islands. The East and West Indies will pour their commodities into her ports; and the precious metals of Mexico, combined with the treasures of Hindostan, enable her to purchase nations whose aid she may require in confirming her power. Though it would comport with the true policy and magnanimity of France gratuitously to offer these terms to the United States, yet they are not unwilling to purchase them at a price suited to their value and to their own circumstances, in the hope that France will at the same time satisfy their distressed citizens the debts which they have a right by so many titles to demand."
These arguments do not read like the letters of Jefferson or the instructions of Madison. There is no suggestion that the United States is without interest in the right bank of the Mississippi for fear of a divided government, or because germs of collision will develop in spite of affinities in manners and language. New Orleans is minimized, the great west is magnified. A glance at the map shows that he offered to purchase half an empire, leaving to France only a small corner in the southwest bordering on Texas. His argument fixed its limitation. "First, let France cede to the United States so much of Louisiana as lay above the mouth of the river Arkansas, West Florida, New Orleans, and the territory on the west bank of the Mississippi." Talleyrand thought the rest would be of little value. "I will give you a certificate," he said, in the course of the discussion, "that you are the most importunate negotiator I have yet met with." For this and his aid to Robert Fulton, Edward Everett Hale called Livingston "the wisest American of his time."
Napoleon received Livingston's argument three days after he heard of Leclerc's death. To a soldier who had entered Italy over the Alps, the suggestion of an attack from Canada would strongly appeal; with Nelson on the ocean, he could understand the helplessness of a French army in New Orleans; and after the failure of Leclerc in St. Domingo, the presence of yellow fever and other obstacles to success in Louisiana would not seem improbable. Such a discussion at such a time, therefore, was certain to have the most profound influence, and from January 10 to April 10, 1803, Livingston kept his reasons constantly before the First Consul and his ministers as the only policy to conserve the true interest of France, to impair the strength of England, and to win the affection of the United States.
"I have never yet had any specific instructions from you how to act or what to offer," he wrote Madison on February 18, 1803, eighteen days before Monroe left the United States; "but I have put into Napoleon's hands some notes containing plain truths mixed with that species of personal attention which I know to be most pleasing. The only basis on which I think it possible to do anything here is to connect our claims with offers to purchase the Floridas. Upon this subject my notes turn. I have first endeavored to show how little advantage France is likely to make from these colonies; the temptation they offer to Britain to attack them by sea and from Canada; the effect a conquest of them by Britain would have on the islands; and the monopoly which that conquest would give to a rival power to the trade of the West as well as of the East Indies. I have dwelt upon the importance of a friendly intercourse between them and us, both as it respects their commerce and the security of their islands; and I have proposed to them the relinquishment of New Orleans and West Florida as far as the River Perdito, together with all the territory lying to the north of the Arkansas, under an idea that it was necessary to interpose us between them and Canada, as the only means of preventing an attack from that quarter. For this I proposed an indefinite sum, not wishing to mention any till I should receive your instructions. These propositions with certain accompaniments were well received, and were some days under the First Consul's consideration. I am now lying on my oars in hopes of something explicit from you. I consider the object of immense importance; and this perhaps the favorable moment to press it."
While Livingston's letter was being read in Washington, conveying to Jefferson the first suggestion of a purchase other than that of New Orleans, the First Consul was making up his mind to accede to Livingston's request. When the decision did come, it came with Napoleonic suddenness. For three months he had considered it; but not until Sunday, April 10, did he make known his intention; then, in a moment, without warning, he let his desire be known to Talleyrand and Marbois. "I can scarcely say that I cede it," said Napoleon, "for it is not yet in our possession. If, however, I leave the least time to our enemies, I shall only transmit an empty title." Marbois agreed, Talleyrand dissented, and the trio parted; but at daybreak, on Monday, Napoleon sent for Marbois, declaring that "irresolution and deliberation are no longer in season; I renounce Louisiana. It is not only New Orleans that I cede; it is the whole colony, without reserve. I know the price of what I abandon. I renounce it with the greatest regret; to attempt obstinately to retain it would be folly. I direct you to regulate the affairs. Have an interview this very day with Mr. Livingston."
Whatever occurred after this belongs simply to the making of a bargain. The mind of Napoleon had acted. It is not easy, perhaps, to differentiate the influences that led to such action, but it is not difficult to measure them. In writing the Minister of Marine, Talleyrand explained that "the empire of circumstances, foresight of the future, and the intention to compensate by an advantageous arrangement for the inevitable loss of a country which was going to be put at the mercy of another nation—all these motives have determined the Government to pass to the United States the right it had acquired from Spain over the sovereignty and property of Louisiana." In brief, Napoleon's sale of Louisiana, as explained by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, disposed of a country which he would inevitably lose whenever war occurred with England. This was the argument Livingston had been urging for three months, with evident effect. Had he been less earnest or dramatic, Napoleon's purpose might not then have exploded into an order to sell. The American Minister knew he was dealing with a man guided by such an implacable hatred of England, that when he was not fighting her openly, he was plotting against her secretly; that his one purpose, his one hope, his great ambition, was her conquest. In his argument, therefore, Livingston dangled before him a picture to feed his hatred—a picture of Trinidad and Louisiana forming a base from which England might drive Spain from Florida, command the islands of the Gulf, and receive into its ports the riches of the West Indies and the treasures of Mexico. Thus, Livingston's presence becomes a great factor in the sale. It took six months to communicate with the United States, but only six days to do business with the man who was pressing the sale upon him. If more time had elapsed, the sudden decision might have been changed with equal suddenness, for Napoleon, aside from his inconstancy, had cause to shrink from his intended action. It meant the violation of a sacred pledge to Spain, the death of Talleyrand's pet colonial policy, the certain disgust, sooner or later, of the French people, and a hot quarrel with Lucien and Joseph Bonaparte, his brothers.
In the negotiations that followed Livingston ventured to offer twenty million francs, and Marbois finally suggested sixty millions, with payment of the American claim to the amount of twenty millions more. Thus ended the historic midnight conference during which the bargain was practically made. "It is so very important," wrote Livingston, "that you should be apprised that a negotiation is actually opened, even before Mr. Monroe is presented, in order to calm the tumult which the news of war will renew, that I have lost no time in communicating it. We shall do all we can to cheapen the purchase, but my present sentiment is that we shall buy."
Considering the extent of the purchase and the danger of delay, Livingston would have been justified in closing the bargain then and there. Had he known the action of Lucien Bonaparte, who had secured the cession from Spain, and of Joseph's insincerity, upon whom he even depended to help along the negotiation, he might well have taken counsel of his fears; but the great real estate dealer enjoyed driving a good bargain, and so he argued and held aloof, professing that the United States "had no disposition to extend across the river;" that they "would be perfectly satisfied with New Orleans and the Floridas;" that they "could not give any great sum for the purchase;" that "it was vain to ask anything so greatly beyond our means;" that "true policy would dictate to the First Consul not to press such a demand," since "he must know the payment of such a sum would render the present government unpopular." He minimized the importance of the deal, describing West Florida as "barren sands and sunken marshes," and New Orleans as "a small town built of wood, of about seven thousand souls," a territory "only valuable to the United States because it contained the mouths of some of their rivers," going so far as to venture a prophecy that "an emigrant would not cross the Mississippi in a hundred years;" yet, throughout weeks of dickering, he never surrendered his purpose to buy whether the price be cheapened or not.
His anxiety was greatly increased by the disclosure of Monroe's commission, since it contained power only to treat for lands on the east side of the Mississippi. "It may, if things should take a turn favorable to France," he wrote Madison, April 17, "defeat all we may do, even at the moment of signing. . . . You will recollect that I have been long preparing this government to yield us the country above the Arkansas, . . . and I am therefore surprised that our commission should have entirely lost sight of the object."
Livingston's fears proved groundless, and the dickering went on until April 29, when Marbois' original figures were accepted sixty million francs to France, and twenty million francs to American claimants; in all, fifteen million dollars. Three days later, on May 2, 1803, the treaty was signed.
It is not surprising that Livingston felt proud and happy. Other treaties of consequence had been negotiated by Americans—the treaty of alliance with France, the treaty of peace with England, and Jay's treaty of 1795; but none was more important than Livingston's. Besides, it was unparalleled in the field of diplomacy, since Louisiana cost, comparatively, almost nothing.
Perhaps Livingston's pride was only equaled by Jefferson's surprise. A mother is usually prepared for the coming of the baby that is to enlarge and illuminate her home. Its clothes are ready, the nursery is furnished, and everything is waiting its advent; but President Jefferson was unprepared for the Louisiana Purchase. It was so entirely unsought on his part that he had given the subject no consideration until half an empire came tumbling upon him like a great meteor out of the midnight sky. At first, he thought he would cede a part of it to the Indians in exchange for their holdings on the east side of the Mississippi, and "shut up all the rest from settlement for a long time to come." "I have indulged myself in these details," he writes James Dickinson, August 9, 1803, "because the subject being new it is advantageous to interchange ideas on it and to get our notions all corrected before we are obliged to act upon them." Then he raised the question of a constitutional amendment. "I suppose Congress must appeal to the nation for an additional article to the constitution approving and confirming an act which the nation had not previously authorized," he wrote Senator Breckenridge of Kentucky. "The constitution has made no provision for our holding foreign territory, still less for incorporating foreign nations into our Union. The Executive in seizing the fugitive occurrence which so much advances the good of their country have done an act beyond the constitution."
When such views reached France, Livingston hurried off several letters to Jefferson, assuring him "that were the business to do over again it would never be done. They think we have obtained an immense advantage over them. Though the appearance of war had some influence, it had much less than is ascribed to it. I know from a faithful source that the Spanish government has made the most serious remonstrances against the cession of Louisiana, and that it is now well understood that, if any additional clause of ratification should be introduced by the United States, this government would profit of the circumstance to annul the whole work."
Jefferson did not need a further hint. "I wrote you on the 12th inst. on the subject of Louisiana and the constitutional provision which might be necessary for it," he says to Senator Breckenridge. "A letter just received yesterday shows that nothing must be said on that subject which may give a pretext for retreating, but that we should do sub silentio what shall be found necessary. Be so good, therefore, as to consider that part of my letter confidential. It strengthens the reason for desiring the presence of every friend of the treaty on the first day of the session. Perhaps you can impress this necessity on the Senators from the western States by private letter."
President Jefferson was a strict constructionist. He did not believe the constitution gave Congress power to acquire additional territory; he dreaded the concentration of power in the executive, and perhaps his teachings did more than all other men to inspire the popular mind with that dread; but when he discovered that the time required to secure a constitutional amendment, exciting, as it would, a long debate in Congress, might defeat the Louisiana Purchase by arousing French feeling against its sale, he did not hesitate to bury his constitutional convictions, and to force through Congress the necessary ratification. Nor did he ever attempt any defense of his inconsistency save that the welfare of the nation demanded such action. Thomas Jefferson was not afraid of being inconsistent. To a great soul this is not weakness. There are ages that are creative. At such times two classes of men are prominent and needed—one shackled to traditions, the other guided by visions. Thomas Jefferson belonged to the latter. In 1776 the American people not only broke the bonds binding them to old England, but forged other bonds which would bind them to a new political, social and industrial order, and of those who hammered these new ties into harmony with the longing and aspirations of men, Thomas Jefferson stands among the foremost Fathers. He got his light from within. He believed in the people, in the government which they had accepted, and with Gladstonian enthusiasm he sought to lead the one and mould the other along lines of stability; but when theory and idealism ran counter to practice and experience, he did not hesitate to adopt the practical and let theory wait. This is the secret of his action in 1803. To cling to an abstract principle would lose an appreciable blessing to his country, and so he let go the abstract principle. This is the inconsistency of a great statesman, the contradictoriness of genius.
But commendable as was the part of Thomas Jefferson in that great transaction, it must not conceal the truth of history. He was not even the promoter, much less the author of the Purchase. His mind was intent upon a present need, a single spot, instant relief, made necessary by the fierce demand of a frontier people claiming a depot of deposit. It was Robert R. Livingston who had the vision.
The distinguished Chancellor, however, did not prove as careful and painstaking a lawyer as he was bold and successful as a diplomatist, for in drawing the claims convention, he neglected to include all claims, estimated their total much too low, omitted a rule of apportionment, and, most grievous of all, left the final decision as to what claims should be selected for payment to the French government. This was the rock that wrecked him. The legitimate claims of American citizens amounted to many millions, but Livingston fixed the limit at three and three-quarters millions, and compelled claimants to secure settlement through the corrupt Talleyrand and his rascally agents, who took one-half for their services. Livingston thought he had drafted the convention "with particular attention," and Monroe, who thought differently, tried his hand with no better success; then Marbois turned it to the advantage of the Frenchmen. The Americans needed a careful lawyer.
The scandal growing out of this convention deepened and cankered until Livingston quarreled with the American Claims Commissioners, excited remonstrances from the British government, and nagged the United States consul at Paris into charging him not only with blind and insatiable vanity, with hints of corrupt and criminal motives, but with "imbecility of mind."
"I considered the claims convention as a trifle compared with the other great object," he explained to Madison, "and as it had already delayed us many days, I was ready to take it under any form." He was clearly right in the comparative importance of the treaty and the convention, but after Marbois had reserved to the French government the right of final decision in each case, Livingston was inexcusable in omitting a rule of apportionment, since it excluded all claimants except the favored few whom the corrupt Frenchman selected because of their willingness to divide.
But the poisoned arrow that entered deepest into Livingston's soul was the robbery of his laurels. His successful negotiation of the treaty, putting him into the class from which Presidents were then drawn, won him the dislike of Jefferson, the distrust of Madison, and the jealousy of Monroe, who, considering him a rival, carefully concealed whatever would reflect credit upon him. His dispatches to Madison became a sealed book in the Department of State; his letters to Jefferson were not suffered to shadow the President's halo; his work, practically completed before Monroe's arrival in Paris, did not reach the eye or the ear of the American people. The great achievement filled the air, rejoicing the country as no other event since the treaty of peace with England, but little praise came to Livingston. The public gave Monroe credit for the treaty, and Livingston discredit for the claims convention. When, finally, Monroe admitted that his part in the negotiation amounted to nothing, he also encouraged the belief that Livingston did as little. It is impossible to say, of course, just what influenced Napoleon to give Marbois the order of April 11. It was not war, for war did not come until a year later; it was not money, for the Prince of Peace would have given more; it was not anger at Spain, for no real cause then existed; it was not fear of England, for Bonaparte did not fear an enemy he expected to crush; it was not St. Domingo, for Leclerc's failure already belonged to the past, with Corsica and Egypt. Perhaps Napoleon himself could not have given the real reason. But, however this may be, the fact is deeply embedded in history that Livingston was the first American to suggest the acquisition of that then vast and dimly outlined country which has been known for over a hundred years as the Louisiana Purchase—stretching west and northwest of the Mississippi, above the winding Arkansas, beyond the waters of the Missouri, across plains and flower-covered prairies to the far-away Rockies, where the Yellowstone leaps from its hiding, and snow-clad summits pierce a summer's sky.
History concerns itself chiefly with the fiats of kings, the councils of cabinets, the enactments of legislatures, the processes and results of diplomacy and the issues of war. Upon the pages of the world's annals appears the magnificent pageantry of the past, as with silken banners and silver trumpets dominion proudly passes in perpetual review. Thus, as the historian animates his chapters with those dramatic, intellectual and heroic elements which abound in the court, the statehouse and upon the field of battle, the high spirit of chivalry is encouraged and an intelligent patriotism is promoted. But how fares it with that company of men and women who, frequently in obscure places and by unpretentious methods, have in the realms of discovery, invention and ethics, also advanced the prosperity and happiness of society? It must be admitted that they are too often neglected and that the fruitful lessons which their lives have to communicate remain too generally unappropriated. This paper, diverging somewhat from the beaten highway of history, has for its purpose, to rescue from threatened oblivion the memory of a noble man and the record of his monumental work.
A few months since, while attending a convention held in one of the churches of Easton, the discussion having turned to the subject of temperance, I remarked that it might be proper to state that we were congregated not far from the place where the world's first temperance society had its birth. I was afterward surprised and gratified to learn that in that very neighborhood Dr. Clark, its founder, had dwelt when a young man engaged in the study of medicine. Not being of a superstitious turn, I have dismissed from my mind the notion that his shade was at my elbow prompting me to introduce him to the audience. My interest having been revived, I consulted the leading reference books with the result of discovering that, while they all were in substantial agreement as to Dr. Clark having established the initial temperance association at Moreau in 1808, there were no biographical accounts of him, nor details concerning the history of the organization. This, for so great an event and institution, struck me as being a very remarkable omission. My curiosity to learn more was now stronger than ever, and the centennial anniversary of the formation of the association being near, I resolved to unearth, if possible, the full history of the society and the life of its founder. Being utterly in the dark as to any authority upon the subject, I made known my desire for information through the medium of newspapers circulating in the historic townships, and with gratifying results.
My principal materials have been these: "The History of the Temperance Reformation," 1853, by Rev. Lebbeus Armstrong, a member of the society and intimately associated with Dr. Clark in the establishment of the same; "A History of Temperance in Saratoga County," 1855, by Judge William Hay; and an obituary by the late Dr. A. W. Holden, of Glens Falls, which appeared in the Messenger of that place in 1866. The last is an admirable elucidation of the life and character, to the closing day, of the great champion of temperance. The two physicians had been fellow townsmen, and evidently friends, if we may judge by the sympathetically appreciative manner with which Dr. Holden writes. Of the 408 pages of Armstrong's and of the 153 pages of Hay's book, but comparatively few are devoted to Dr. Clark and his work. The authors boast of him and his achievement, but, living yet in the dim light of his day, they were evidently unable to perceive fully the grandeur of the moral movement which he had inaugurated. Hence, their works are taken up mainly with discussions of the Maine liquor law, which then agitated much of the country. Armstrong's and Hay's books have become very rare, but copies of both may be found in the New York State library.
Among every people, in every age, intemperance has been recognized as an evil, and from ancient times a variety of means have been adopted to prevent or diminish its desolating influences. Royal decrees have gone forth commanding the rooting up of vineyards, and parliaments have legislated against it. The code of Draco even went so far as to visit the penalty of death upon the drunkard. The milder methods of moral suasion have, since the earliest recorded days, been with loving constancy declaimed in the ears of the people, but so imperative is the demand for strong drink that the cup continues in spite of all hindrances to hold dominion over multitudes of men.
But beyond all other peoples of the world in love of intoxicating beverages stand the Teutonic races, among whom it is said distilled liquors were first substituted for fermented drinks. The classic pages of Tacitus tell us of the unbridled license which the northern tribes of Europe gave to their appetites and of the scenes of drunken riot which characterized their social events. The chase, the battle and the feast were their delights, and when done with life, their ambition was to reside in the immortal hall of Valhalla. There, each day having fought before the palace, and with every trace of their wounds duly obliterated, they hoped to sit down daily to regale themselves with mead and meat. The convivial propensities of the Teuton have been inherited by the Anglo-Saxon race, and it cannot be denied that the English speaking people are among the heaviest drinking populations of the earth. Yet, the Germanic family of nations has done more for the advancement of civilization than perhaps any other race in history. It has emancipated and exalted woman, and hallowed the home, and fostered patriotism and religion. It has produced the greatest scholars, the most brilliant scientists and the profoundest philosophers. But among nations as among individuals, it is against the intellectually highly organized that the genius of alcohol particularly directs its malevolent arts.
The latter half of the 18th century saw England almost overwhelmed with drunkenness and its associated vices. In a sermon entitled, "On Dissipation," by John Wesley, published in 1788, he opens his discourse with this statement:
"Almost in every part of our nation, more especially in the large and populous towns, we hear a general complaint among sensible persons of the still increasing dissipation. It is observed to diffuse itself more and more in the court, the city and the country."
During the close of the same period this country was given over body and soul to the alluring power of inebriation. Intemperance was the rule rather than the exception, as it has become in our day. Occasions of birth, marriage and death were alike considered appropriate to the free indulgence in liquor, and all classes participated in the drinking, even clergymen joining in the convivialities with little or no forfeiture of dignity.
Social distempers, like those of the body, are accompanied by the agency of restoration. The sick man, debilitated and suffering from the violence of his symptoms, seeks his bed and calls his physician, thus placing himself in the most favorable attitude for recovery. Were it not for the realization of his distress, he might, in default of rest and medicine, hurry himself into the grave. So, within some of the more morally sensitive souls of the country, commenced to be experienced an unhappy sense of our degradation and depth of misery. Cries of warning and expostulation began to be heard in the land. One of these rose higher than the others, even echoing down through the years to our own time. It was that of Dr. Benjamin Rush, of Philadelphia. Standing in relation to Dr. Clark as of a voice crying in the wilderness, his work in the field of temperance merits more than a casual remark. It consists of but a small, thirty-two page pamphlet, but condensed in its limited proportions is a world of moral dynamite.
It bears the title: "An Inquiry Into the Effects of Ardent Spirits Upon the Human Body and Mind, With an Account of the Means of Preventing and of the Remedies for Curing Them," and was published in 1785. So great had been the salutary influence of this little treatise, that the centennial anniversary of its issue was duly celebrated at Philadelphia. It is not a profound essay; indeed, the wayfaring man, though a fool, may easily grasp its lucid ideas. Neither is it calculated to be very offensive to any class of readers, for it takes issue only with distilled liquors, recommending fermented beverages as substitutes. Moreover, the confirmed toper can read the pamphlet, not only without umbrage, but with interest; for there is an intensity, a directness of statement in its style which hold the reader, even to this day, with the simple art of its literary merit. Besides, there appears running through its pages a quaint humor, which no doubt had much to do with gaining its popularity throughout the length and breadth of the land.
A unique and ingenious feature of the essay is the author's "Moral and Physical Thermometer," which forms its frontispiece. On the ascending scale, "Strong Beer" is placed in the lowest and "Water" at the highest degree, with remarks indicating improving mental and physical conditions in the rising course. On the descending scale, "Punch" occupies the highest while "Rum day and night" is found at the lowest place, accompanied between points by a fearfully intensifying array of vices, diseases and penalties.
In this connection might be quoted the author's interpretation of a familiar myth:
"The fable of Prometheus, on whose liver a vulture was said to prey constantly, as a punishment for his stealing fire from heaven, was intended to illustrate the painful effects of ardent spirits upon that organ of the body."
Here is a curious anticipation of the modern gold cure, as it took form in the fertile intellect of Dr. Rush:
"The association of the idea of ardent spirits, with a painful or disagreeable impression upon some part of the body, has sometimes cured the love of strong drink. . . . This appeal to that operation of the human mind, which obliges it to associate ideas, accidentally or otherwise combined, for the cure of vice, is very ancient. It was resorted to by Moses when he compelled the Children of Israel to drink the solution of the golden calf (which they had idolized) in water. This solution if made, as it most probably was, by means of what is called hepar sulphuris, was extremely bitter, and nauseous, and could never be recollected afterwards, without bringing into equal detestation, the sin which subjected them to the necessity of drinking it."
In this pamphlet was sounded the first effective call for a combined movement against the evil of intemperance—a trumpet call which reverberated in the soul of Dr. Clark until, nobly responding, he stood forth alone before the world, having inscribed upon his banner the word, Organization. For Dr. Rush had said:
"Let good men of every class unite and besiege the general and state governments, with petitions to limit the number of taverns, to impose heavy duties upon ardent spirits, to inflict a mark of disgrace, or a temporary abridgment of some civil right upon every man convicted of drunkenness. . . . To aid the operation of these laws, would it not be extremely useful for the rulers of the different denominations of Christian churches to unite and render the sale and consumption of ardent spirits a subject of ecclesiastical jurisdiction?"
Such are a few of the characteristic portions of Dr. Rush's famous essay, a work which revived, not only the moral sense of this country, but also of England, where it was republished in the following year. But the giant of intemperance exhibited no signs of weakness, though he had been undoubtedly pierced in a vital part. The weapon of Dr. Rush had been slim, but keen—a highly tempered rapier, more effective than in after years was the broad sword of Lyman Beecher's "Sermons on Temperance." With an amiable exterior, the skillful reforming fencer had managed to keep his antagonist off his guard while he transfixed and permanently crippled him. But another mode of attack was necessary in order to bring him under control. To indulge yet further in figurative speech: Dr. Rush had manufactured the ammunition but who was to fire the gun?
It is always a pleasure to visit the homes of eminent persons who long since have died. To look upon the scenes that they once beheld; to walk in the paths that they once trod, is like coming into familiar intercourse with the intimate friend of the honored dead, and we go from the places hallowed by such associations with a sense of having gained almost a personal acquaintance with the great who there have had a habitation. The native town of Dr. Billy James Clark was beautiful old Northampton, in Massachusetts. Primitively Nonotuck of the Indians, it was venerable even on his birthday, January 4, 1778, and then, as now, it was foremost in culture and intelligence. Here, Jonathan Edwards had lived and labored, leaving upon the town an ineradicable impress of his saintly character and heavenly doctrines. Here, David Brainerd the zealous missionary to the Indians, broken in health, had died under the roof of Edwards, who had extended to him the loving hand of hospitality. It was eminently fitting that a life destined to exercise so profoundly beneficial an influence in promoting the higher estate of the race should have its beginning in a town so distinguished for its enlightenment and piety.
Ithamar Clark, when his little son Billy was about six years old, left Northampton and took up his residence in Williamstown, Massachusetts, where also was the home of Mrs. Clark's father. For a period of four years the boy attended the school which afterwards developed into Williams College, at the end of which time the family changed its home to Pownal, Vermont. Of the details of the domestic life of the Clarks, we have no record. Nothing is known of the wife of Ithamar Clark, except that her maiden name was Sarah Simonds, and that she was a daughter of Benjamin Simonds, who had been a colonel in the Continental army, serving in the campaign against Burgoyne. It is probable that the moral and religious leanings of Dr. Clark were inherited from or instilled by his mother. His father seems not to have been much interested in the ideas that his son did so much to advance. Previous to his settling at Pownal, he had followed agriculture and shoe-making, but now, in the capacity of tavern-keeper, he began selling liquor.
In Dr. Holden's article it is stated that the tavern was located upon a farm that Mr. Clark had purchased, one and a half miles from Pownal on the Bennington road.
Young Billy Clark, standing behind his father's bar and dealing out intoxicating drinks, was in a position to observe thoroughly the pernicious effects of dallying with alcohol. His daily occupation was an open book, as thrilling as lurid chapters of fiction, and the letters of it remained upon his soul in characters of unquenchable fire. Abraham Lincoln, when a young man, having gone down the Mississippi as a flat-boatman, visited the slave market of New Orleans. He was deeply affected by the harrowing scenes he there beheld, and he registered a vow that should ever the opportunity present itself, he would strike with all his power the institution that encouraged such iniquities. Thus was planted the germ that budded, blossomed and bore fruit in the Proclamation of Emancipation. No doubt it was the memory of his father's bar-room, with the evils radiating from it, that urged forward Dr. Clark to the culmination of his great destiny.
Some writers give the name of Dr. Clark as William J. or W. J. Clark, but he himself signed it, B. J. Clark, while the best authorities refer to him as Dr. Billy J. Clark. It is probable that Dr. Clark, becoming widely known by the more familiar title, found it convenient to substitute the same for William.
When about fifteen years of age, his father having died, young Clark returned to Northampton to attend school there for a term of one year. This experience was probably of great benefit to the youth, not only in improving his education, but by introducing him to one of the most refined and intelligent communities in New England. The inspiration of the life of Edwards was dominant in the society of the old town, and his books were still treasured and read. It is interesting to reflect that the living spirit of the great divine may have been a quickening influence in the heart of this thoughtful youth; that the story of the heroic life of Brainerd may have appealed to his religious and enterprising nature; that the memory of one or both of these devoted men may have contributed to the molding of his mind into the worthy fashion in which it subsequently displayed itself to the world. Be this as it may, not long after his return to the farm, he abandoned the bar and began the study of medicine under Dr. Caleb Gibbs, of Pownal. Still making his home at the farm, he pursued his studies for the space of two years, remunerating his preceptor by assuming the care of his horses. We find him at the end of that period, in 1797, entering as a student the office of Dr. Lemuel Wicker, of Easton, Washington County, N. Y., with whom he remained until March 21, 1799, when he began the practice of medicine in the town of Moreau. He opened his office not far from what afterwards became known as Clark's Corners. This historic neighborhood is situated about three miles in a westerly direction from Fort Edward, and five miles south of Glens Falls. Here, having married Joanna Payn, of Fort Miller, and purchased a farm, he made his permanent residence. The rise of Dr. Clark had been phenomenal; from a bartender to the dignity of a profession, and all in the space of four or five years! Dr. Clark was but twenty-one when he came to Moreau. Having previously satisfied the preliminary requirements, he was advanced to the full privileges of a physician in a license granted by the judge of the court of common pleas for Washington County, in the month of June following his settlement in Saratoga County.
From his home in Moreau, Dr. Clark for thirty-four years went up and down the long stretches of his rides, ministering faithfully to the sick. The region was in a primitive condition, with poor roads, and was but thinly inhabited. Exhausting to body and mind, as must necessarily have been his labors, he yet had a disposition to employ himself in the sphere of agriculture and to inform himself upon the political issues of the day. In 1820 he represented his county as Member of Assembly. Through his daily visits to the sick, Dr. Clark was afforded exceptional advantages for observing and studying the effects upon the people of the prevailing intemperance, which had taken a particularly strong grasp upon the population among which he had come to dwell.
Armstrong seems to attribute the heavy drinking in Moreau to the leading industry, stating that "all the towns and counties in the vicinity of the ever-rolling Hudson were teeming with lumber."
Whatever may have been the predisposing cause of the general and excessive use of intoxicants in England, it is not difficult to point out the conditions which contributed to the growth of the same practice in this country. The lives of the people were laborious, monotonous, and unmitigated by those social relaxations which in modern times so greatly lighten the burdens and alleviate the sorrows of life. Books and periodicals were not plentiful, and the character of the prevailing literature was not such as to invite the attention of the average reader. Transportation being by horsepower along the country roads, public houses, each with its bar, were encountered at every turn, while the little stores to be found at the cross-roads, also dispensed liquor to all comers. Add to this the fact that the materials from which intoxicating beverages are manufactured were abundantly grown within our borders, and near to our shores, and it will be appreciated how naturally the people fell into intemperate habits.
For a period of nine years, while Dr. Clark, in all extremities of weather, rode on horseback to the bedsides of his widely separated patients, the burden of the drink-evil weighed heavily upon his mind. He was a man of energy; one who was not easily thwarted in the carrying out of his plans. But here was a task that seemed too hard for him. What could one man accomplish in the presence of such indifference and overwhelming opposition?
The mode of action that Dr. Clark finally adopted was that of organization—a working together of the friends of temperance for a common purpose. This now seems like a very natural solution of the problem of finding his best means of procedure; but Dr. Clark was the first man to announce and to give the idea practical demonstration, though it is not probable that he possessed any clearly defined conception of the lines along which it was to operate, nor of the vast proportions which the movement was destined to attain. Like a prophet under the guiding influence of inspiration, scarcely knowing what he did, he was yet availing himself of a fundamental principle of all nature. For, investigate wherever one may, from the vilest atom of earth to the court of high heaven, organization is the law of every upward step. The ancients, dimly apprehending this sublime truth, conceived of the universe as a gigantic animal, a cosmic leviathan, whole, complete and harmonious in all its parts, while philosophy has ever striven, though in vain, to demonstrate by processes of reason what the higher authority of intuition has proclaimed in all generations.
Dr. Rush, by reason of a liberal education, supplemented by medical study in the capitals of Europe, and on account of his high social, professional and literary standing, greatly outshone his coworker, the struggling country doctor on the frontier of Northern New York. But these two greatest factors in the advent of the temperance reformation, and who, it should be said, were acquaintances through the medium of correspondence, each performed his peculiar part, and who can determine which is entitled to the greater honor. Dr. Rush manufactured the ammunition, but Dr. Clark fired the gun, his match being organization.
The idea of forming a temperance society had perhaps been suggested to Dr. Clark by his connection with the Saratoga County Medical Society, the first institution of its kind in this state, and of which he was the founder. He had attempted early in April, 1808, to interest prominent men, whom he had met at Ballston Springs at a session of court, in his projected temperance enterprise. His plan may have been to establish a central society at the county seat and to encourage the organization of branches in the surrounding towns; but, to use Dr. Clark's own words, "they with one accord began to make excuses and brand our scheme as Utopian and visionary." Previous to this, however, he had taken the initiative in the work among his neighbors, for he says: "I returned to Moreau like a bow well bent that had not lost its elasticity, and resumed the labor there." The determination he exhibited was remarkable, and one cannot dwell upon the difficulties with which he contended and meditate upon the unselfish, devoted and humanitarian spirit by which he was actuated without expressing admiration.
The first successful step in the sublime drama of the temperance reformation took place in the same month of April, referred to a moment ago, when Dr. Clark made his memorable visit to his minister. I quote from Armstrong:
"After having projected a plan of a temperance organization, the doctor determined on a visit to his minister, the author of these memoirs, who was then the pastor of the flourishing Congregational church in the town of Moreau. The visit was made on a dark evening, no moon and cloudy. After riding on horseback about three miles, through deep mud of clay road, in the breaking-up of winter, the doctor knocked at his minister's door, and on entrance, before taking seat in the house, he earnestly uttered the following words: 'Mr. Armstrong, I have come to see you on important business.' Then, lifting up both hands, he continued: 'We shall all become a community of drunkards in this town unless something is done to arrest the progress of intemperance.'"
The poet has sung in soul-stirring numbers of the midnight ride of Paul Revere. There are, indeed, certain resemblances between it and Dr. Clark's historic adventure. It was night; there was national peril; heroes were in the saddle, and the voices of their fervent appeals were destined to reverberate down the aisles of time—"words that shall echo forevermore."
Due notice having been given to the people of the towns of Moreau and Northumberland, a meeting for the purpose of forming a temperance society was held at the public house of Captain Peter L. Mawney, at Clark's Corners, on April 13, 1808. Resolutions were adopted, the chief of which was that "in the opinion of this meeting it is proper, practicable and necessary to form a temperance society in this place; and that the great and leading object of this society is wholly to abstain from ardent spirits." A committee, of which Dr. Clark was chairman, was appointed to prepare the Bylaws for the organization, and twenty-three persons enrolled themselves as members.
The following is the list of the signers: Isaac B. Payn, Ichabod Hawley, David Parsons, James Mott, Alvaro Hawley, Thomas Cotton, David Tillotson, Billy J. Clark, Charles Kellogg, Jr., Elnathan Spencer, Asaph Putnam, Hawley St. John, Nicholas W. Angle, Dan Kellogg, Ephraim Ross, John M. Berry, John T. Sealy, Cyrus Wood, James Rogers, Henry Martin, Sidney Berry, Joseph Sill, Solomon St. John.
The meeting having adjourned one week, to April 20, at the Mawney house, a long and comprehensive system of By-laws was then adopted. Article I stated that "This society shall be known by the appellation of Union Temperance Society of Moreau and Northumberland." Like Dr. Rush's essay, the Constitution of the society took grounds only against spirituous liquors, making exceptions regarding the use of them in circumstances of religious ordinances, sickness and public dinners.
It was not until 1843 that the society "after a long season of declension," on a motion put by Dr. Clark, adopted a resolution of total abstinence.
Col. Sidney Berry, ex-judge of Saratoga county, was chosen president and Dr. Clark secretary of the new society. As there exists an apparent contradiction as to the particular roof under which this historic meeting was held, one account stating that it occurred at the Mawney house and another at the neighboring school house, it is proper to say here that this discrepancy is removed by the statement made in Judge Hay's book, page 22, that the session opened in the Mawney house, but that "the society completed its organization" in the school house. In the association, as a coherent institution, coming into existence within the walls of such a building, may be found a prophecy of what the temperance movement in the future was to lay particular stress upon—that is, upon temperance teaching in the public schools. Indeed, it should be said that the Moreau society itself was an educative organization as well as a moral one, having a circulating library and maintaining a lyceum.
But, although it had at its head intelligent, high-minded and enterprising men, its career was hard and discouraging to its members. "That little, feeble band of temperance brethren," says Armstrong, "holding their quarterly and annual meetings in a country district school house from April, 1808, onward for several years, without the presence of a single female at their temperance meetings; who were made the song of the drunkard; who were ridiculed by the scoffs of the intemperate world; undisciplined in arms of even moral suasive tactics for warfare, and unable of themselves to encounter the Prince of Hell, with his legions of instrumentalities . . . were, nevertheless, the seed of the great temperance reformation."
That Armstrong deplored the narrow ideas which prevailed to the discouraging of women from fraternizing with the society, is more explicitly shown in the words which express his gratification in the great numbers of women who, by their presence and cooperation, subsequently aided so much in the promotion of the work. Dr. Clark also protested against the exclusion of women from membership in the temperance societies. These statements are introduced that it may be known that the two leading men in the Moreau society would have hailed with delight the advent of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union. That great institution, not reckoning many others devoted to the same cause, is of itself alone a glorious monument to the pioneers of Moreau who, in a tempest of scorn and ridicule, laid its foundations. Wisely the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, as the name implies, built up its sublime edifice of the same material—the granite of organization. From towns, through counties, states, nations and the civilized world, it carries on systematically its vast and beneficent enterprises. Words cannot express, nor the mind conceive, the power of the prodigious engine which, distributed in a diversity of directions, is being exerted daily, hourly and momentarily by this great association of consecrated women. And here let me say that not only did the temperance reformation come into existence within the borders of our commonwealth, but that the late Frances Elizabeth Willard, the great light in the organization of which I have been speaking, was a daughter of the state of New York.
Dr. Clark continued in the practice of medicine for a quarter of a century after the formation of the Moreau temperance society, making his residence on the farm of his original purchase. Of this long period of professional labor there remains no memorial, though in common with the routine duties of medical men, it undoubtedly abounded in elements which, interesting of themselves, would be all the more so as belonging to the life of one so distinguished in the annals of reform. Beginning to experience the physical effects of his protracted devotion to his profession, and having accumulated considerable property, Dr. Clark in 1833 purchased real estate in Glens Falls and embarked there in the retail drug business. This successful enterprise engaged his attention until 1849, when he retired from trade. Two years later, longing for the quiet life on the farm, he returned to reside at the old home at Clark's Corners. He was now at the age of seventy-three, but enjoyed, with the exception of a gradual failing of the sense of sight, an almost unimpaired mental and physical vitality. But the gloom before his eyes grew remorselessly thicker and thicker until every familiar scene and the faces of family and friends faded from his view. In the custody of this great affliction, the spirit of Dr. dark was not crushed, but rather purified and exalted, so that he who in earlier years had been conspicuous as the heroic leader, was now none the less remarkable for his Christian humility, hope and love. A few years longer he tarried upon the earth, in order that there might be registered upon the hearts of men the beauty and nobility of the character that was his. And then, at Glens Falls, in the home of his son, James C. Clark, the spirit of the great reformer went to its long home. His death occurred on Wednesday morning, September 20, 1866. Dr. Holden says: "The intelligence of his departure was swiftly borne through the place; his name was on every lip as all, with hushed reverence, bore testimony to his virtues, and to the usefulness of a life luminous with the light of a Christ-born principle."
Notwithstanding his portrait, in its severe lines, gives evidence of his decisive mind and undeviating purpose, he yet possessed elements of character that endeared him to all. While in terms of affectionate banter, alluding to his spirit of determination and his practice of proposing to formulate the mind of public meetings in resolutions, he was sometimes spoken of as "Resolution Billy," the people knew that beneath the crust of self-reliant earnestness dwelt the loving humanitarian and the undying fires of a moral volcano.
Unlike the experience of the most of those who entertain pronounced ideas and proclaim them in the face of established custom. Dr. Clark seems to have retained his popularity. Evidently he was a very tactful man. In 1809, the year following the formation of the temperance society, he was made supervisor of the town of Moreau, and although his activity, constant, wide and diversified, was being powerfully directed against the intemperate habits of the people, he seems to have maintained their confidence and friendship. He was again chosen supervisor in 1821. We may derive a hint of his high standing in the public estimation from the fact that he was chosen in 1848 for the New York Electoral college, whose choice was Taylor and Filmore.
The funeral address of Rev. A. J. Fennel, of the Glens Falls Presbyterian Church, has been preserved and appears as a supplement to Dr. Holden's obituary article. Rev. Mr. Fennel having been Dr. Clark's pastor, his discourse is of great biographical value. His opening remarks were particularly well chosen and impressive. He said:
"I feel, my friends, that Providence calls us to perform no mean office to-day. We are to convey to their final resting place the mortal remains of one who has been a power in the world for great good to the children of men—whose name will enter into history as that of a benefactor of the community; and whose influence, as an element in the temperance reformation, will run on into future generations. It cannot do us any hurt, it ought to do us good, to pause a few moments in this habitation now made sacred as the spot whence the earnest spirit of so devoted and useful a man took its departure to the heavenly rest, and reflect on his life of activity and toil, and observe how Providence used him for our good and the good of our children."
With appropriate public demonstrations, the remains of Dr. Clark were borne to the burying ground of the Union Meeting House, in Moreau, and placed to rest beside the grave of his wife. There, two miles from the historic spot where he unfurled the banner of a world-wide moral movement, his ashes mingled with the soil that his devotion has made of honorable distinction.
Thus, have I attempted to disentangle, gather up and lead in continuous discourse the scattered threads which I have found in my study of this neglected subject. If I have rendered more coherent and tangible the life and achievement of a universally influential philanthropist, I shall be pleased; but I hope, besides that good result, the consideration of the memoirs of a man who had a great mission in the world and who ably and conscientiously discharged it, will serve to impress upon us a sense of the power of elevated ideas when duly championed by even one consecrated soul.
Acknowledgement.
In expressing my appreciation of the assistance which has been rendered me in the collection of materials for the preparation of this paper, I would particularly mention Mr. James A. Holden, of Glens Falls, who has furnished me, from the library of his father, the late Dr. A. W. Holden, with most valuable matter, some of which could have been obtained from no other source. I also duly acknowledge my indebtedness to Hon. Grenville M. Ingalsbe, of Sandy Hill, who interested himself in my search for data, and feel myself under obligations to the Schuylerville Standard and to the Glen Falls Times for gratuitously publishing my request for information.
Communications.
From the letters relating to the subject in hand which I have received, I glean the following. I might say that the discrepancy which appears in the descriptions of Dr. Clark's person may be accounted for by the different ages and conditions of health in which he is best remembered by the several Observers:
From Dr. Albert Mott, Cohoes: "The location of the Union Meeting House was at Reynold's Corners, about four or five hundred feet from the corner, directly east. The burying ground was north and across the road from the meeting house."
From Rev. Dr. Jos. E. King, Fort Edward: "In 1858 the old church (Union Meeting House) was filled, to enjoy the commemorative exercises of the 50th year since the origin of the temperance cause, and I heard Hon. Judge McKean, of Saratoga, address the congregation. There was singing, prayer, a poem by Lura Boies, &c."
Statement of Judge Lyman H. Northrup, of Sandy Hill, who remembers Dr. Clark: "He always carried upon his countenance a mild, genial, pleasant expression; dressed with neatness, and appeared to be a good sort of a fellow, and exhibited not at all that asperity which we associate in our minds with the active reformer."
From William Gary, of Gansevoort, who was intimate with Dr. Clark: "He had rather small, black eyes, which would be generally considered rather piercing. His hair was black and very profuse; eye-brows very shaggy. His height I should put at 5 ft. 10 in., and weight about 170 lbs."
From B. F. Lapham, of Glens Falls: "I was well acquainted with Dr. B. J. Clark. He lived on the same street we did for many years, and when he died I helped prepare his body for burial. He was rather eccentric in many things and very resolute. There never was a meeting held but he would suggest some resolution, so they nicknamed him 'Resolution Billy.' Dr. Clark's name will be famous through all time as the originator of the first temperance organization that ever existed. He was an ardent and efficient laborer all his life."
From Miss Anna Mott, of Glens Falls. Miss Mott is a daughter of James Mott, who was a co-laborer in the temperance cause with Dr. Clark, and his neighbor at Clark's Corners: "As I remember Dr. B. J. Clark, he was a cultured, refined man, with fine sensibility. He had a kind word and look for every one that was worthy of it. He was of medium height and size. His hair and eyes were black; his forehead high and broad. His mouth and chin bespoke firmness. His complexion 'was dark. As I saw Dr. Clark, he was a very kind, gentlemanly old man, and appreciated every kindness he received."
From Austin L. Reynolds, of South Glens Falls. Mr. Reynolds knew Dr. Clark for many years, and assisted him in the temperance work: "Dr. Clark's name was Billy, instead of William. He was stocky in form, and weighed about 175 lbs. His height was about 5 ft. 6 in.; complexion fair; dark hair and eyes, and very heavy eyebrows. He was peculiarly successful as a physician and as a business man. Was the owner of several farms and was interested in a paper mill, situated on what is known as Snoot Kill Creek. Later, he moved to Glens Falls and was proprietor of a drug store for a number of years in that village. Then he returned to Clark's Corners with his daughter, Mrs. Alfred C. Farlin (widow), as housekeeper, and remained at his homestead for several years. He lost his eyesight and was entirely blind. Then he returned to Glens Falls, and died in 1866. He left one son and three daughters, all of whom are now dead."
A Visit to Clark's Corners.
In order that I might obtain a better understanding of the topography of the neighborhood, I visited Clark's Corners on a day in August, 1905. Driving west from Fort Edward, at a distance of three miles I came to Reynolds' (four) Corners. I was very courteously received by Mr. Austin L. Reynolds, who gave me full information as to all the historic spots connected with the Moreau society. Mr. Reynolds is at an advanced age, more than eighty, but he promptly and clearly communicated to me the facts herewith set forth.
The roads at Reynolds' Corners run toward the cardinal points, and the burying ground of the Union Meeting House is at a short distance east of the corners, as already has been stated by Dr. Mott. The remains of Dr. Clark were removed from this, the place of their first burial, and were re-interred at Glens Falls. The site of the Union Meeting House is unoccupied, the present chapel standing on other ground, some distance to the west. The Union Meeting House was Dr. Clark's place of worship, and his pastor, Rev. Lebbeus Armstrong, resided at the parsonage, one-half mile south of the church and on the west side of the highway. The cottage which stands on the site of Armstrong's home is now the residence of Mr. Halsey Chambers. It was here that Dr. Clark came in the night upon his historic errand.
Clark's (four) Corners are directly south of Reynolds' Corners and two miles distant. The north and south road is crossed at right angles by the other. Both of these localities are open country, that of Clark's Corners having the appearance of fertility and thrift; pleasant homes and commodious buildings being numerous. Clark's Corners may be conveniently reached from the village of Gansevoort, on the Delaware and Hudson Railroad, two miles south.
The site of the Mawney house is at Clark's Corners. It stood on the northwest corner. Another building has since been erected upon this ground. Dr. Clark's home stood across the road, on the southwest corner. The house has disappeared, but the cellar walls stand almost intact. About forty rods south of the corners and on the east side of the road is the site of the school-house in which the Moreau society held its meetings. A dwelling house, the home of Mr. George Haviland, now occupies that plot of ground.
The sites of the Union Meeting House, parsonage, Mawney house, Dr. Clark's house, and the school house, should be appropriately marked.
The shrewd saying of the Swedish Chancellor Oxenstiern, "An nescis, mi fili, quantilla prudentia regitur orbis?"—"Dost thou not know, my son, with how little wisdom the world is governed?" has been substantially true in every epoch in the world's history. Everything human must needs be imperfect, and in nothing is imperfection more plainly exhibited than in the successive schemes of government which men have attempted. Some have been broad-based and have lasted for what we, in our ordinary reckoning, call a long period of time. But most of them have been built on the sand; a few storms, shocks, convulsions, and they have fallen. Men have generally made but sorry work in trying to govern each other. The individual may govern himself after a fashion; but to govern wisely another man, or, still harder, great masses of men, even where there has been community of public interests, of language, religion and custom—aye, there has been the rub! Human history has often been called a great tragedy; but no tragic element is more ghastly or more overwhelming than the catastrophes in which most governments have collapsed. Ambitious attempts at world-power, the most splendid combinations to group nations into a civic unity, have tottered to their fall, as surely as the little systems which have had their day and ceased to be,—shifting, fleeting, impotent.
It is not difficult to see why this has been so. Social life is only one phase of the great organic life of the species; one scene of the human drama of which the earth has been "the wide and universal theatre." Change, transition, development, birth, growth, death, are universal elements in the cosmic order. Of the slow but inevitable changes in the physical history of the earth, Tennyson says:
"There rolls the deep, where stood the tree; O earth, what changes hast thou seen; There where the long street roars, has been The stillness of the central sea. The hills are shadows, and they flow From form to form; and nothing stands; They melt like mists, the solid lands; Like clouds they shape themselves and go."
If this mutation be true of organic changes in the physical earth, working through immeasurable æons, it is even as dramatically true of organized social life.
We are learning to take a new view of history. It is no longer regarded as a collection of isolated facts. Veracious history is a record of the orderly progression of events, developed by evolutionary processes. There is in it no break, no hiatus, excepting such temporary interruptions as come from what Emerson calls "the famous might that lurks in reaction recoil." Thus we learn the rationale of the events transcribed to the historical page. Until science lifted the curtain on "the eternal landscape of the past," man knew little of himself or of his kind. It is only with the enlarged vision that has come to us from the researches of the ethnologist, biologist, anthropologist, sociologist, that we have begun to learn what a creature man really is; to study his inner nature; to get at the deeper meanings of the history of the race.
Once the study of history was thought to be hardly more than learning a catalogue of royal dynasties; the names of famous generals and statesmen; of battles lost and won; of court intrigues; of the vicissitudes of kingdoms; of the prowess of pioneers and adventurers; of "hair-breadth 'scapes i' the imminent deadly breach;" of the pride, pomp and circumstance of glorious war! Such incidents have not lost, and never can lose, their interest. They are an integral part of the human document and must always be studied. When draped with myth and legend they minister to "the vision and faculty divine" of the poet; they visualize the possibilities of human courage; stimulate the affections; answer to the eternal cravings of the imagination. But they are only the phenomena of the real history of the race. Life is broader, larger, deeper, richer, fuller, than a mere transcript of happenings—externals, results important as they are. We must get at the causes, motives, inter-relations, the hidden causes from which events flow, before we can unravel the web in which they are woven, and thus interpret them.
The core of history is the element which the Greeks called toanthropeion; called by a modern poet "the bases of life;" called by us average folk, Human Nature. It is as constant a quality as anything can be in our moving life. We may not be able to agree with Middleton, who says in his life of Cicero, "Human nature has ever been the same in all ages and nations;" but it is probably true that nothing has changed less in primal qualities than the bases of life. Empires have perished, civilizations vanished, governments have rotted, languages, territorial lines, seeming sit-fast institutions, have passed into nothingness; but the human element has stood the shock of ages. "The one remains; the many change and pass," said Shelley. Man-character, man-life, is the one element, the colors of which seem fast. It is, like all other things, subject to evolutionary changes; it may be differentiated into a thousand forms; but the bases of life have never shifted.
Human history is a great tragedy indeed. But, like all tragedies, it has its spiritualizing, sanctifying, ennobling side. When the drama of the ages is unrolled we see much to make us weep; but we also see immeasurably more to make us glory that we are a part of the race. While its history reeks with blood, carnage, oppression, injustice, cruelty, in which sad facts the pessimist hears "the eternal note of sadness," and unwisely rushes into a denial of the moral order—it has its sun-bright triumphs of rectitude, and the illuminating picture of the steady and glorious advance of mankind from brutishness into an orderly, moralized life.
Readers of Matthew Arnold—an author whose intellectual vision was great, and whose style is one of the literary ornaments of the last century—will recall how he was taken with what he called "Mr. Darwin's famous proposition" that "our ancestor was a hairy quadruped, furnished with a tail and pointed ears, probably arboreal in his habits." Mr. Arnold, the apostle of culture, played again and again around this sonorous phrase. Far be it from me to enter upon any discussion of the Darwinian hypothesis of the genesis of the human race. On this large theme the last word has not been said. Knowledge must grow from more to more before we can posit anything definite on a subject veiled at present in inscrutable mystery. But, in its essence, the evolutionary theory has soaked into our modern thought. The literature and the progressive teaching of our latter day are drenched with it. It certainly can be said of it, that it explains many things which have heretofore seemed inexplicable, and marks a great advance in popular intelligence. But the most ambitious generalization is only a temporary expedient. Fact will merge in fact; law will melt into a larger law; one deep of knowledge will call unto another deep; much that the proudest scientist of our day calls knowledge will vanish away; many theories now popular will be dissected and pruned and will be found to be "such stuff as dreams are made on," before the most enlightened humanity of a future age catches any one phase of nature in its snare and compresses it into rigid laws.
Nevertheless, the ancestor of man was brutish, and his descendants are where they are. Whether or not primeval man was the rather unpicturesque creature described by Mr. Arnold, he was the norm from which has come "the heir of all the ages."
From the cave-dweller, the aboriginal savage, have been evolved Homer, Plato, Aristotle, Shakespeare, Spinoza, Milton, Dante, Newton, Gladstone, Pascal, La Place, Lincoln, Emerson, Channing, Martineau, Thomas a' Kempis, Phillips Brooks, Darwin and Herbert Spencer. How magnificent the ascent! How glorious the progression!
Man, once the companion of the Dragons of the prime That tare each other in their slime,
has flowered into an intellectual, reasoning, moral being—"how infinite in faculty; in form and moving how express and admirable; in action how like an angel; in apprehension how like a god."
All this progress, however, has cost its price. Step by step has the race advanced from primeval animalism to its present status. It has walked with bleeding feet. The Divine economy works in many ways. One of its ways is to educate, stimulate and spiritualize through antagonism and pain. All faculties, functions and potencies must be worked in order that they may grow. Atrophy, decay, death, are the resultant of non-use. The sullen earth was to be fertilized by man's sweat and blood before it would yield any increase beyond its spontaneous productions. Conflict with the elements, conquest over the lower organisms; ages of toilsome effort, were to come before man was able "to dress the earth and keep it." Out of the iron necessities of his being came initial progress; and progress once begun has never ceased.
The great factor in progress was Co-operation. One man alone can do little. The moment human necessities were recognized, the law of association applied. Man needed man. The family group, the clan, the tribe, the town, the city, the state, the nation, have been stages in the process of closer and closer co-operation.
Confederation, association, combination, require adjustment, compromise, regulation. Hence the germ of government. To live together each man must give way in something to the other. Man is gregarious; he is naturally social; instinctively he availed himself of the companionship of other men. The social status, the foedera generis humani, were slowly evolved from the increasing demands of man upon man; they were not the result of bargaining. What a magnificent drama; the world, the theatre; all mankind, emerging from primitive ignorance, the actors. How many or how long the acts were, we know not; but through "that duration which maketh pyramids pillars of snow, and all that's past a moment," the wonderful scenes moved on. Out of the strong came forth sweetness. From brute selfishness, from animal passion, came love. Slowly the central idea was reached, and, in the sublime language of the Scripture, man became a living soul! and his body became the temple of the Holy Spirit; his consciousness a part of the infinite consciousness; his personality a world-copy of a divine universe. Reason, conscious, love, were his dower.
The curtain has not yet fallen, and will never fall, upon the last act. We live in a world which is always in process. Nature's genesis is unceasing. "Without haste, without rest," her creative and re-creative processes are always operating.
When one undertakes to talk about government he is drawn instinctively to some historic models. As thinking persons realized in every age the insufficiency of contemporaneous governments, there has scarcely been a time when the academic reformer was wanting. Certain ages may have lacked poets—ours is said to be unpoetic and prosaic, and to await its poet-prophet—but the academic idealist who could say, Go to, let us build a government, has been generally at hand. The dreams of the illuminated ones who have sought, by rule and theory, to make the crooked straight, to convert mankind into angels by legal enactment, are among the most pleasing, if abortive, works of genius. Some of the noblest spirits of the race have made this illusory effort.
Plato, that splendid genius, in whose brain was wrapped the subtle essence which gave to Hellenic art and literature their incomparable charm, found a congenial theme in painting his ideal Republic. It was a beautiful attempt to develop a state based upon Socratic thought. He had sat at the feet of the great master of dialectic, and, with the hot enthusiasm of a reformer, painted a picture of the idealized man, living in a community where the supremacy of the intellect was to be recognized as authoritative, where the individual and family were to be absorbed in the state, and where a lofty communism was to be established, and in which Virtue, Truth, Beauty and Goodness were to be sovereign entities. But the Platonic Communism was one where equality and humanity were left out. Plato could not escape the Time-Spirit. The Platonic Republic was his Athens idealized. "The very age and body of the time" gave to the philosopher's dream its form and pressure. The actual Hellenic Republics were not based upon the rights of man; a few ruled over a nation of proletariats and slaves. When they came into rough contact with the vigorous Roman civilization, they were shattered like iridescent bubbles. Even so wise-browed a philosopher as Plato failed to recognize sufficiently the human element. His imaginary republic was air-drawn, fantastic; a philosophic dream, with little grasp on life's realities. It was not broad-based. It did not recognize sufficiently the law of growth. It had no place in our work-a-day world. It interests us now chiefly from the superb literary skill with which it was constructed; a prodigy of intellect and art. But it was not the Democratic Ideal.
Aristotle—that other imperial Greek genius, whom Dante called "the master of those that know;" who had less imaginative mysticism than Plato, but a stronger hold on realities; whose fertile genius touched almost every subject that came within ancient thought—tried his hand also in political science. As a forerunner of modern science, as a profound thinker, he has been a tremendous factor in the intellectual life of the world. But the Time-Spirit held him in its grasp even more firmly than it did Plato. His theory of the state avoided, indeed, the absurdity of communism, but recognized slavery and the subjection of women. Like many of the modern Socialists, he denounced the taking of interest for the use of money. Such political theories must needs be ineffective. They ignore the equitable basis of society and indicate a short-sightedness that is amazing, in any era when thrift, industry and property rights are elements in the life of a state—as they were then and are now. Among the school-men of the middle ages, Aristotle was regnant. His hand has not yet been lifted from our university life. Vast literatures had their birth in his philosophic system. His political theories have become only academic. The world had no use for them. He was far from the Democratic Ideal. No one will deny that Plato and Aristotle are among those
Dead but sceptered sovereigns who still rule Our spirits from their urns.
Their sovereignty does not come, however, from their contributions to political science.
I wish we might dwell longer on these dreams of philosophers. They offer a field for delightful study. We linger lovingly with them. How tenderly we read of the pious dream of St. Augustine for the Civitas Dei, the City of God; of a new civic order rising on the crumbling ruins of the Roman Empire. The advent of Christianity had brought into the world the auroral flush of a new moral order, a quickened sense of social duty; a warmth of human brotherhood; a heightened conscience. The church was rising like a splendid mausoleum over the sepulcher of its founder. The world thrilled with an emotion never felt before. What more natural than that a new social order should arise, into which should be gathered all classes of men, glorified, purified, ready for the Advent of the conquering Galilean, which was then almost universally anticipated. But alas, the Augustine City of God has never come. It will never come as a political organization. Its home is in the human heart. It is not Lo here or Lo there; and cometh not with observation. The City of God, the City of Light, will come when ethical conscience is so quickened that law becomes love, and love, law.
We might go on and say more of the exalted dreamers who from age to age have attempted the impossible task of idealizing the State by geometric rules or fantastic theories. Perhaps the two most notable—at least until the recent expansion of Socialistic propaganda—were the "Utopia" of Sir Thomas More and the "New Atlantis" of Lord Bacon. We must dismiss them by naming them. They lacked the Democratic Ideal. Yet, among the many gems which Lord Bacon has given to our language, the short terse phrases, which make him one of the most quotable of authors, is one memorable line in his "New Atlantis." He said of the Father of Solomon's house, "He had an aspect as though he pitied men." Benignant and blessed thought.
One, however, of the world's intellectual sovereigns, who lived in the uplands of the imagination, who traversed the gamut of human experience, and of whom we may say, if of any man, "He saw life steadily and saw it whole;" in dealing with the relation of man to the civic order, never indulged in illusion—William Shakespeare. It has often been said to his reproach that his dramas are not instinct with the spirit of liberty; that he believed in the right of the strongest to rule; that he deified strength and power; that he showed contempt for the mob and "rabblement." We cannot go into a discussion of this interesting matter. We must remember, however—a fact that is often overlooked—that Shakespeare was not only most extraordinary as a poet, but that he was one of the profoundest moralists that the world has known. His genius was supremely sane, calm, judicial, healthy. He painted men and women as they are. His nobly poised intellect and acute vision saw the realities of life. He knew the exalted possibilities of spiritual excellence to which humanity can rise, and the abysmal depths into which it can sink. He recognized the fact that society is swayed by selfish interests oftener than by a devotion to high ideals. He read history with a microscopic eye. Dowden, one of his most acute interpreters, says, "Shakespeare studied and represented in his art the world which lay before him. If he prophesied the future it was not in the ordinary manner of prophets, but only by completely embodying the present, in which the future was concerned." In his day the mob had not learned self-control, moral dignity, a discrimination between the transient and permanent in politics. Has it learned this lesson yet? His immortal works exhibit no world-weariness, no blasé pessimism. He saw the eternal relations of cause and effect. He admired the intellectual powers and tremendous personalities of great historical characters like Julius Caesar, Coriolanus and Richard III, but he also saw their limitations, moral delinquencies and weaknesses which led inevitably to the snares into which they fell. He had a profound sympathy with human life; he was a lover of rectitude, nobility of character, self-sacrifice, manliness, womanliness. Above all, he taught the everlasting and all embracing equity with which the universe throbs. In the end, no cheat, no lie, no injustice prospers. The sinner is a self-punisher. At last, by action of the inexorable, inescapable moral order, "the wheel is come full circle;" evil is strangled.
To such an equitable intellect, the idea of a Platonic Republic or Bacon's "New Atlantis" would be as impossible as impracticable. He knew too well the plasticity of human adjustments, the shifting, fleeting, rising and sinking of the social order, the possibilities of disturbance and recoil that ever lie at the core of a placid and smug order of things, to attempt any speculative panacea for the evils of society. He laid open the tap-root of all institutions and happenings—the human heart.
All this is a digression, but a strange fascination invests the name of Shakespeare. Thackeray said of the insanity of Dean Swift, "So great a man he seems to me, that thinking of him is like thinking of an empire falling." So when we talk of Shakespeare, it almost seems that we are talking of collective humanity. He was no economic idealist; he built no systems of philosophy of law. He understood humanity. In spite of all criticisms, his view of life followed more closely than the pretentious systems of closet philosophers, the gleam of the Democratic Ideal—progression and growth.
We may consider government, or rather the social organism, as a working basis on which men manage to live together, receiving from and giving to each other protection for life and property. There is a noble phrase of Edmund Burke—he was a master of noble phrases—"moulding together the great mysterious incorporation of the human race." In order to have any basis on which human beings could live together, there must have been a moulding together of immense diversities. Human nature and human society are tremendously complex. No two persons are just alike; and each personality is a bundle of contradictory qualities. Government rests upon two forces, sovereignty and obedience. Somebody must command; somebody must obey. Each of these forces is powerfully operative in most men. The love of authority, dominion, power, the will to make another to do our bidding, is deeply planted in the human nature. Nothing is more intoxicating, more enjoyable, than power. On the other hand, the principle of submission, compliance, obedience, is a stronger force than most of us imagine.
We need not analyze the genesis of the force that has kept men under government. There are almost as many theories as there are inquirers. It has been said to be compulsion, physical force by one school of writers; by another school, agreement, a contractual relation. For many generations a popular theory was that authority is given to rulers by God, or the eternal reason; this theory cost King Charles I his head. Another school contends that it rests upon some psychological principle inherent in human character. There may be a vast practical difference in results, if some of these theories are pushed to the limit; but that there must be sovereignty in the state, however derived, and obedience to such sovereignty by the citizen, is plain, if anarchy is to be escaped.
If we may use the phrase which Herbert Spencer coined and popularized, men naturally follow "the line of the least resistance;" and to obey, except where obedience is counter to self-interest, or where, in the more highly specialized civilizations, it would violate rights, honor, duty, is generally the easy course. The Castle of Indolence seldom has any vacant rooms. The exceptionally strong will, the "monarch mind," is rare. The principle of obedience to authority is strongly developed in the race, especially among nations where the supreme power is supposed to rest upon some religious sanction, as was the case with European governments until recent years, and as is the case with most Oriental nations to-day.
We live in an age of intense specialization. A few generations ago we heard of men of universal knowledge. Not so now. The volume of knowledge has become so vast that no man, even the wisest, can do more than to touch its skirts. In no department of study is the trend of specialization more active than in the interpretation of history. In the hunt after the subtle causes that have lurked in the bosom of society and have flamed into consuming fire, from time to time, the patient historian, the student of sociology, has grouped tendencies, impulses, transitional waves of popular feeling, into generalizations. Especially is this statement true of German scholars, with whom specialization has often been reduced to infinitesimal analysis. Thus one school of writers dwells upon the economic interpretation of history. In their view, most popular upheavals have been synchronous with the poverty of the masses. It is when the people have been ground into hunger by excessive taxation and public extravagance that they have risen, like the blind giant pulling down the temple of Gaza, and swept away dynasties and royal pageantry. Such, it is said, was the mainspring of the French Revolution—one of the most dramatic events in history. Undoubtedly the economic problem has always been, and always will be, a powerful agent in the genesis of history.
Others give us the religious interpretation of history. They tell us of those epochs when great masses of men, impelled by a wave of religious enthusiasm, moved to fiery zeal, their imaginations touched, their moral sense deeply stirred, have become knights of the faith, missionaries armed with fire and sword; the scourges of God. Such causes impelled the Saracenic invasion of Africa and Europe, and the Crusades.
Other historians have studied the great migratory movements that have swept vast bodies of men away from their native environments, and precipitated new elements into history. Such were the migrations of the tribes of Northern Europe, and of the Asiatic hordes, which were a powerful element in the overturn of the Roman Empire.
In late years there has been an increasing interest in the biographies of the great men who have moved the world. No view of history is more interesting than this study of personalities. It has sometimes been pushed to an absurd extent, in the attempt to reverse historical verdicts, to rehabilitate tarnished reputations, and in the exaggeration of hero-worship. The relation of great men to their times has been a fascinating theme for the historian to dwell upon in every age.
All these, and many more inquiries, are worthy of the most painstaking study. We cannot know too much about them. They are all a part of "the moulding together the great mysterious incorporation of the human race." But the moral lesson of history is larger than any exceptional episodes.
Whatever way governments began, they have been, they are, and they will be, until human nature and human needs undergo a tremendous transformation. As has been said, stable governments have been rare. Some of the forces of modern civilization may make the crystallization of society into localized governments possibly more unstable than ever. In favor of the permanence of any existing order however, there has always been one conserving factor—habit. Prof. J. M. Baldwin in his instructive work, "Mutual Development," calls authority "that most tremendous thing in our moral environment," and obedience "that most magnificent thing in our moral equipment." Psychologists also tell us that habit, one of the phenomena of consolidation, indicates downward growth. With the race, as with the individual, habit, or what Bagehot calls "the solid cake of custom," has been one of the impediments to progress. Yet, governments have progressed from generation to generation. There has always been enough of the vis viva to leaven social heredity. Little by little, that part of the race, whose progress has not been arrested, has outgrown the superstition of a divinity that "doth hedge a king." More and more the functions once held by king-craft have been grasped by the people; the race steadily moving toward the ideal self-government. Every agency that made for enlightenment and uplift led to this goal. The great social heritage of the past has been the evolution of law and order. There has been through the ages a sweep of collective forces that has taught men self-control, and has constantly raised the ethical standard. A damnosa hereditas of ferocity, selfishness, and brutality, has been a part of the heritage; but there has been enough of salt in the general character to rescue liberty and justice even in the most reactionary times.
The Democratic Ideal is based upon the three great principles of liberty, equality of rights and opportunities, and justice. In spite of indolence, apathy, inveterate conservatism, superstition, ignorance, out of these principles has flashed the day-star which the path of civilization has followed.
Liberty is no longer a vagrant. "The love of liberty is simply the instinct in man for expansion," says Matthew Arnold. That instinct is always operative.
Yet liberty is not an entity; it is only a state. Unregulated, discharged from the ethical obligations which we owe to each other, liberty is lost in anarchy, which is only consummate egoism.
"The most aggravated forms of tyranny and slavery arise out of the most extreme form of liberty," says Plato.
"If you enthrone it (liberty) alone as means and end, it will lead society first to anarchy, afterward to the despotism which you fear," says Mazzini, one of the shining liberators of the last century.
"If every man has all the liberty he wants, no man has any liberty," says Goethe.
In other words, the rights of man must be articulated with the duties of man. Freedom cannot exist without order. They are concentric. Without the recognition of the sanctity of obligation to others, the age-long aspiration of the race for liberty is an impotent endeavor. It would have plunged eyeless through the cycles in which it has worked its way into civilization, had it not been that reciprocity, mutual help, is a basis of its being. Mankind can never be absolved from this eternal law.
We are now told that a reaction has set in against democracy; that the results of the democratic ideal, so far as attained, are a failure; that the tyranny of the mob has succeeded to that of the single despot; that in the most liberal governments of the world, even in the United States and England, where the problem of self-government has been most thoroughly worked out, the people are forgetting their high ideals and are using their collective power for base and ignoble purposes; that the moral tone of the government is lowered; that an insane greed for wealth has infected the nations: that there is a blunting of moral responsibility and a cheapening of national aims.
This great indictment comes from intense lovers of liberty and the truest friends of democracy.
Herbert Spencer put himself on record, in his last years, as fearing that the insolent imperialism of the times and the power of reactionary forces would lead to the re-barbarization of society.
John Stuart Mill said, "The natural tendency of representative government, as of modern civilization generally, is towards collective mediocrity."
John Morley tells us that "outside natural science and the material arts, the lamp burns low;" he complains that nations are listening to "the siren song of ambition;" that while there is an immense increase in material prosperity, there is an immense decline of sincerity of spiritual interest. He also speaks of "the high and dry optimism which presents the existing order of things as the noblest possible, and the undisturbed sway of the majority as the way of salvation."
If you care to read the summing up of the tremendous indictment against modern democracy, you will find it in Hobhouse's striking work, "Democracy and Reaction." This thoughtful author claims that the new imperialism, which has become an obsession among the great powers of the world within a few years, "stands not for widened and ennobled sense of national responsibility, but for a hard assertion of racial supremacy and national force;" and pleads for "the unfolding of an order of ideas by which life is stimulated and guided," and for "a reasoned conception of social justice."
Unfortunately there is too much truth in all these utterances. These are not "wild and whirling words." We need not to be told of the evils of our times. We hardly dare turn the searchlight upon our own civilization, for we know how much of shame it reveals. We need no candid, sympathetic, and enlightened critic like James Bryce, to tell us where our republic is weak, in spite of our Titanic power, immense prosperity, roaring trade, restless energy, chartered freedom. We know that, in many respects, "the times are out of joint." The sordid and incapable governments of many of our large cities; the venality among those to whom great public trusts have been committed; the recrudescence of race prejudice; the colossal fortunes heaped up by shrewd manipulations of laws, which have been twisted from their original intent, and by un-ethical methods; mob-violence, lynch law, the ever-widening hostility between the employers of labor and the wage-earner; so much of what Jeremy Taylor called "prosperous iniquity;" the blare of jingoism, the coarser and grosser forms which athletics have assumed, even among young men who are students at our universities—in the sublime words of Milton, "beholding the bright countenance of truth in the quiet and still air of delightful studies;" the hatred felt by the poor towards the rich, and the disdain felt by the rich for the poor; all these and many other evils, indeed, exist. Yes, the times are out of joint. But they have always been out of joint.
These evils are not the result of popular government; they are incident to our transitional civilization. They have always existed, probably in a grosser form than to-day. Would a return to monarchical government better things?
Possibly we have anticipated too much of organized democracy. It is still aiming for its ideal. As we have said of liberty, democracy is not a finality; it is only a status by which public opinion for the time being can be most effectively expressed in government.
The reaction, if there be one, is moral and spiritual, rather than political. The American people have been densely absorbed in the material development of our wonderful country. The task has been a huge one. So far as it has been completed, it has been magnificently done. If we have seemed to worship the Golden Calf, we may find in due time how unsatisfying wealth-gathering is. If at present the consumer seems to be throttled by the trust-magnate, on one hand, and the labor-trust on the other, each monopoly working to the common purpose of keeping up prices to be paid by the consumer, the remedy is in his own hands. It is not in riot, revolution, anarchy, by frenzied declamations against those who are doing only what nine-tenths of the human kind would do for themselves, if opportunity were afforded; but by using the power which free government gives to the people, and correcting the evils by what Gladstone called "the resources of civilization." Out of the roar and brawl of the times will come a sharp examination into the system of laws which permit the accumulation of stupendous fortunes by the "cornering" of a commodity which human necessities require; by shrewd manipulations of tariff, patent, corporation and transportation laws, and by other anti-social agencies. The people, the consumers, create all the legislatures, appoint all the judges, execute all the laws. The fortunes of the rich exist because the people so allow. "A breath can make them, and a breath has made," All the creature-comforts, all culture-conquests have been evolved by the people. It is not by a reversion to Asiatic paternalism, or by the assumption of all industrial agencies by the State, which is the present aim of Socialism, or by a retreat into aboriginal lawlessness and intense selfishness—which Anarchism would result in—that social relief will come.
The American people will work these problems out and will work them out right. "The glory of the sum of things" does not come with a flash. There are always remedial agencies actively at work. They have saved civilization again and again, when the economic order seemed about to break down, when effete governments have fallen in cataclysms which have almost wrecked the social fabric; when mankind seemed to be wandering in a wilderness of ignorance, doubt and despair. Human nature is a tough, elastic, expansive article. If common sense is a product of the ages, so is what is termed "the corporate morality" of the race. Everything makes for what Burke said he loved, "a manly, moral, regulated liberty."
It is hard for us to learn the imperative lesson that everything, except moral and spiritual elements, is only transitional. We are too much inclined to think that any existing status has come to stay. Not so. While evils do not cure themselves, evil is only the negative of the good. The human agent, with his enormous plasticity, constantly widening intelligence and marvelous capacity for growth, is always the instrument, guided by the unseen powers, that make for rectitude, to strike at wrong. There is always more good than evil; otherwise society could not hold together. If progress has been slow, it is because it ought to be slow.
In our economic order, the trust, the trade-unions—often in our day instruments of danger—are factors that in the end will tend to good. They are a part of the great synthetic movement which is unifying the race. They will lead to a greater coherency in our industrial life. They are educational in their tendency. Great fortunes, dizzying wealth, have their evil side; they are monstrous creations which have been created by a union of constructive talent with the mechanical inventions of the age. By-and-by, their possessors may see that they are but ashes; intolerable burdens; gilded rubbish. But in our present stage, there is need of wealthy men. They have important uses. Business has heretofore been too largely directed to the acquisition of wealth. This grossness will be succeeded by an era of equitable distribution.
We must remember that the very idea of property implies more or less of selfishness. An ideally altruistic man could not acquire property beyond his immediate needs. What view of it may be taken in remote future ages we know not. At present, however, it is absolutely necessary. To protect life and liberty, government must protect property. Undoubtedly the possession of enormous wealth, thereby generating sharp distinctions between classes, is inimical to the Democratic Ideal. Democracy pre-supposes a tolerable measure of equality in possessions, and an absence of class privilege. The people must perhaps re-cast much of their legislation, to make sure that their public franchises and natural monopolies are not exploited by the few at the expense of the many. In a country where the press is allowed unlimited freedom, and where every man has a share in the government, where laws are flexible and easily modified, there should be little difficulty in curbing the pretensions of insolent wealth and protecting the people from lawlessness.
Possibly in the Socialistic movement, which is now academic, crude and unscientific, and which, in its present stage, offers as a healing balm for industrial evils only the paralysis of state despotism, there may be a curative germ. Certainly, at its base, is the principle of human brotherhood, co-operation and a lofty altruism. It is now in antagonism with the Democratic Ideal; ultimately it may be resolved into an auxiliary in purging society from some of the evils with which it is infected.
If we live in an era of greed and graft, we also live in an era of enormous goodness, unparalleled philanthropy, increasing intelligence and advancing ethical standards. Can there be any doubt which forces will win?
The Democratic Ideal, towards which all nations are drifting by the inexorable sweep of ethical forces, still shines before the American people. Whatever is rotten, vulgar, base, corrupt, in our body politic will be eliminated by the same law of progress, moral, physical, social, spiritual, which has brought the race to its present transitional status. Lincoln's ideal of a government of the people, for the people, by the people, will not perish from the earth. Up from the scum and reek of corruption—unless the ancient power of conscience and intellect are dead; and they are not dead, but live in deathless vigor—will spring a new growth of justice, liberty, love.
But the nation must not lose it vision; that incommunicable quality that leads to the light. "Where there is no vision, the people perish."
The past is behind us, with all its solemn monitions. The future beckons us to the shining uplands of limitless progress. The ascent is not easy, but it must and will be made.
Head Quarters, West Point, July 29th, 1779.
Dr. Sir,
I have been duly favored with your letter of the 10th, the contents of which are of so serious a nature, with respect to the Quarter Masters and Commissary's department, that I thought it my duty to communicate them to General Greene and Col. Wadsworth.
... If there has been neglect in either department, the delinquents must be responsible to the public and these Gentlemen ought to be acquainted with what has been alleged. . . .
I cannot but repeat my entreaties, that you will hasten your operation with all possible dispatch; and that you will disencumber yourself of every article of baggage and stores which is not necessary to the expedition. Not only its success but its execution at all depends on this. 'Tis a kind of service in which both officers and men must expect to dispense with conveniences and endure hardships. . . . They must not and I trust will not expect to carry the same apparatus which is customary in other operations. I am persuaded that if you do not lighten yourself to the greatest possible degree, you will not only eminently hazard a defeat, but you will never be able to penetrate any distance into the Indian Country. . . . The greater part of your provisions will be consumed in preparation, and the remainder in the first stages of a tedious and laborious march.
General Clinton in a letter to the Governor of the 6th instant mentioned his arrival at the south end of Otsego Lake where he was waiting your orders. . . .
Enclosed I transmit you extracts of two letters of the 7th and 27th instant from Major-General Schuyler with interesting intelligence.
I am with great regard Dr. Sir Yr. Most Obet. Servant Ge. Washington
This will be accompanied by Commissions for the four New York Regiments and the 4th Pennsylvania. . . . in three packages. . . .
Col. Broadhead has informed me that he has a prospect of undertaking an expedition against the Mingoes with the aid of some of the friendly Indians; I have encouraged him by all means to do it, if practicable; should it take place, it will be an useful diversion in your favor as he will approach pretty near to your left flank. . . .
Head Quarters West
Point August 1st, 1779.
Dr. Sir,
Brandt at the head of a party of whites & Indians said to have amounted to eighty or ninety men has lately made an incursion into the Minisinks and cut off a party of fifty or sixty of our militia. It is reported that Brandt himself was either killed or wounded in the action. . . . By a fellow belonging to this party, who has fallen into our hands, as he pretends voluntarily (but is suspected to have mistaken his way.) I am informed that the party came from Chemung in quest of provisions of which the savages are in great want. He says their deficiency in this respect is so great that they are obliged to keep themselves in a desperate state; and when they collect will not be able to remain long together. He gives the following account of their strength, movements & designs. . . . That the whole force they will be able to assemble will not exceed fifteen hundred fighting men whites and Indians, which they themselves conceive will be equal to double the number of our men in the woods. . . . That Butler with a party of both sorts was at Conosadago in number 3 or 400. . . . That at Chemung and the adjacent town were two or three hundred warriors. . . . That Chemung was appointed as the place of rendezvous where or in the neighborhood the Indians intended to give you battle, after which if they were unsuccessful they intended to retire towards Niagara harassing your march as much as possible with small parties and by ambuscades. . . . That some of the towns had sent off their old men & women, others more confident and discrediting that there was an army coming against them, had still kept them at home. . . . That no reinforcement had yet come from Canada; but that Brandt who was lately arrived from thence assured the Indians there was one coming after him. . . . The principal strength of the Indians is in the Genesee towns. . . .
You will give as much credit to this account as you think proper and in proportion to its conformity to your other intelligence. The informant is a deserter from Cortlandt's Regiment who says he was carried off by force to the Indians and took the present opportunity of leaving them. . . . He appears not to be destitute of shrewdness and as his apprehensions were pretty strong I am inclined to think as far as his knowledge extended he was sincere. . . .
In my last I forgot to inform you that on the 15th instant at night Brigadier Gen. Wayne with the Light Infantry took Stony point by assault. The whole garrison consisting of about 600 men with Col. Johnson commanding officer, fifteen pieces of cannon of different sizes & quantity of stores fell into our hands. Our loss in killed & wounded was less than an hundred, of which not above thirty will be finally lost to the service. . . . General Wayne received a wound in the head. . . . This affair does great honor to our troops who entered the works at the point of the bayonet, scarcely firing a gun. The post you may recollect was extremely formidable by nature and strongly fortified. . . . The enemy, it is said, supposed it capable of defying our whole force. The opposite point had it not been for some unavoidable accidents would probably also fallen into our hands. . . . The enemy from these had time to come to its relief and have since repossessed Stony Point, which we evacuated and destroyed.
I am with great regard Dr. Sr. (Duplicate) Yr. Obet. servt G Washington
ps. Enclosed is a duplicate of mine of the 29th with its enclosures lest there should be a miscarriage.
Head Quarters West Point 3d Sept. 1779.
Dear Sir,
I was made very happy to find, by yours of the 25th ulto that your junction with General Clinton would take place on the next day, and that no opposition had been given him on the passage down the River. Colonel Pauling, not having been able to reach Anagarga at the appointed time, and upon his arrival there, finding that General Clinton had passed by, has returned to the settlements with the men under his command—who were about 200. But as your junction has been effected with scarce any loss, I hope this small demonstration of force will not be felt in your operations.
I yesterday rec a letter of the 31st July from Colo. Broadhead at Fort Pitt, from which the enclosed is an extract. By this you will perceive, that he intended to begin his march towards the Seneca Country on the 7th or 8th of last month, and will also see his reasons for setting out so early.
On the receipt of your letter of the 13th ulto. I immediately desired the Commissary General to form a magazine for your future supply at some safe and convenient place in your rear, and on receiving that of the 20th I repeated the order, and directed him to make Wyoming the place of deposit. By the enclosed extracts from Colo. Wadsworth and Mr. Blaine you will find that matters are in forwardness for that purpose.
I have the pleasure to inform you that Spain has at length taken a decisive part. In the enclosed paper, you will find his Manifesto delivered to the Court of Great Britain on the 16th June last, with the message of the King to Parliament thereupon.
It is to be hoped this formidable junction of the House of Bourbon will not fail of establishing the Independence of America in a short time. . . .
I am Dear Sir Your most obt. Sert. Ge. Washington
Albany, April 29th, 1779.
Dear Sir:
Your Excellency's Favor of the 24th Instant, I had the Honor to receive on the 27th.
Yesterday I had a conference with General Clinton and General Ten Broeck on the subject matter of your letter. The latter has promised to make use of every exertion to raise the quota his Brigade is to furnish. He will advise you of the difficulties he has to encounter and I really fear if he should be able to procure the whole number at least (which I have not much reason to believe he will) so much time will elapse that the troops now to the Northward, will be drawn away before any part are sent to take the posts they now occupy, except Captain Stockwell's Company.
General Clinton proposes to send such men of the corps now in this Quarter, as may be unfit for the active service intended to be prosecuted, to the Block House he has built at Sacandaga, and if there should be more such men than what are necessary for that post, he will order them to the Northward.
If General Washington prosecutes the operations he at present meditates against the savages, the Western Frontiers will be in perfect security. I conceive it will therefore only be necessary to employ what Force you may have for the Defense of the Northern Frontiers of this County and that of Tryon.
Part of Warner's Regiment is now at Rutland. About one hundred men will be sufficient at Skenesborough; twenty-five men at Fort Edward and the Remainder I should advise to be stationed at the Junction of the North Branch of Hudson's River with the Western one or a little to the Westward of it, where the Road cut by the Tories in 1776 from Crown point comes to the River. Those would at once cover the North Western parts of this County and the Northern parts of Tryon.
I shall direct Capt. Stockwell to march to Skenesborough, having a small Detachment at Fort Edward. Copy of his orders I shall transmit your Excellency by a future Conveyance.
Last night I received a Resolution of Congress accepting of my Resignation. I feel myself happy in the prospect of that Ease and Satisfaction which my Retirement will afford me. Impressed however with a lively sense of the Duty I owe my Country, I must entreat you never to hesitate honoring me with your Commands on any occasion in which as a private Citizen I may be serviceable.
As General Clinton will transmit you the Account of our sweep against the Onondagas, it supersedes the Necessity of my doing it.
I have the Honor to be Dear Sir with great respect and esteem, Your Excellency's most obedient humble servant, Ph. Schuyler. (To Geo. Clinton.)
Phila. 26th Jany., 1778.
Sir,
Permit me to recommend to your Excellency's favorable attention and thro you in such manner as you may think most proper to the Legislature an application of the Bearer of this letter. From the conversation I have had with him on the subject his design appears to me well calculated for the purpose of serving in some Degree our Western Frontier and consequently enriching the intermediate country. It hath also the immediate effect of procuring a number of good industrious subjects. Perhaps I should not go too far in saying that every man so acquired would be worth two. To state or enlarge on his plan would be absurd as he will personally have the honor of conferring with you. I have only to say that the honorable stars he gained at Bemis' Heights will be a better recommendation than I can give. As a Representative of the State of New York I think I do my Duty in forwarding the Views of one who is so much its Friend.
I have the Honor to be most respectfully Your Excellency's most obedient and humble servant, GOUV. MORRIS.
Office of Finance, 5 June 1783.
Sir
Congress having directed a very considerable part of the Army to be sent home on Furlough, I am pressed exceedingly to make a payment of three months wages, and I am very desirous to accomplish it, but the want of money compels me to an Anticipation on the Taxes by making this payment in notes; to render this mode tolerably just or useful, the notes must be punctually discharged when they fall due, and my dependence must be on the money to be received of the several States, on the Requisitions for the last and present year. I hope the urgency of the case will produce the desired exertions and finally enable me to preserve the credit and honor of the Federal Government.
I have the honor to Remain Your Excellency's Most obedient & Very humble Servt. Robt. Morris. His Excellency The Governor of New York.
Paris 10th May 1783.
Dear Sir
I think it probable that every dutch Gentleman who goes to Philadelphia, will also visit New York, which was first settled by his own nation.
Mr. Boers, who has been deputed by Holland to transact certain affairs here, recommends Mr. de Hogendorp to me in the warmest Terms. This gentleman is a Lieutenant in the dutch guards, & of a respectable family. He expects to go to America with Mr. Van Berkel. The confidence I have in the Recommendation of Mr. Boers and my Desire of rendering our Country agreeable to Mr. Hogendorp, leads me to take the Liberty of introducing him to your Excellency and to request that in case he should visit New York, he may be favored with your friendly attentions.
I have the Honor to be with great esteem and Regard, Your Excellency's most ob't & most h'ble Servant, John Jay. His Excellency Geo. Clinton, Esq. Governor of New York.
Manor Livingston, 28th June 1778.
Sir
I returned from Albany the middle of this month and intended in the course of the present week to pay a visit to your Excellency principally to give you a more minute detail than can well be done by letter, of the state of our western frontier and the temper of the six nations. My intentions are frustrated by a summons to attend the Commission of Indian Affairs at Albany on an agreeable occasion. I firmly believe that if we do not take vigorous and decisive measures with the six nations they will in the course of this summer drive in a great part of the inhabitants and do us injuries which it will take years to retrieve. I have strongly inculcated this idea upon Congress in every letter since I became thoroughly acquainted with Indian Affairs, and they have now come to suitable resolutions on the subject. God grant that they may be shown proper exertions and crowned with success.
The dispatches which accompany this render it needless to be particular.
Mrs. Duane joins me in respectful Compliments to Mrs. Clinton. She continues very feeble, tho I flatter myself the malady has not yet reached her vitals and that by exercise and the course of medicine she is now in, her health may yet be re-established.
I am with highest respect Sir, Your Excellency's most obed. and very humble servant, JAMES DUANE. His Excellency Governor Clinton.
Hartford, April 8th, 1778.
Dear Sir,
I herewith send you Mr. Treland and Lieut. Griffith, both inhabitants of your State, the latter is an officer in the new Levies, was taken some time in August last, and since then has been exceeding busy, in poisoning the minds of the inhabitants where he has been stationed. The character of the former, I dare say your Excellancy is sufficiently acquainted with. I have Lieut. Griffith in consequence of a Resolution of Congress, making the Inhabitants of the States subject to trial by the Civil Law and for his bad behavior since he has been Indulged with a Parole.
I arrived here yesterday and to-morrow proceed as to Gov. Trumball.
I am, Dear Sir, Your most Obed. Serv't, Israel Putnam. His Excellency, Gov. Clinton.
P. S. The three pieces of heavy cannon which I mentioned to your Excellency has arrived here, one of them went on three or four Days since, the others will go in about two days.
Clinton Papers Furnished by Geo. Clinton Andrews, Esq. of Tarrytown, N. Y.
Fort Montgomery, 2d May 1777.
Sir,
I wrote to Convention this morning inclosing the Proceedings of a General Court Martial held at this place for the Trial of sundry prisoners for Treason against the States. Since which so many others have been sent to this Post charged with the same offense that the Guard House can't contain them. I have therefore thought it advisable to send those already tried to be confined in Livingston Gaol, together with Cadwallader Coldon Esquire, who stands charged with the like offense as will appear by the Examination of Jacob Davis taken before the Chairman of the Committee of Shawangunk and now transmitted to you by Lieutenant Rose, who has the care of the Prisoners. One of the Prisoners tells that Doctor Ansson and one Low was left behind their party in the Clove near Pysoryck at a little house there on Account of Low's being lame and the Doctor to take care of him. They ought in my opinion to be hunted up immediately. The Prisoners except Mr. Coldon, who are not yet tried, I mean to keep confined at this Place for Trial. Mr. Coldon I have thought best to send forward as it might not be prudent to keep him confined at this Post for many Reasons.
I am your Most Obed. Serv't, GEO. CLINTON. To the President of the Convention of the State of New York,
Albany, May 28th, 1779.
Sir,
I have received yours of the 23rd Inst. General Ten Broeck hath ascertained the Quota which each Regiment is to furnish for the Continental and State Regiments, and Issued Orders for them to join in one week after the Orders were issued. I believe the General has endeavored to take every necessary step to supply the Deficiencies which yet remain, Tho from the unavoidable delays of the officers of his Brigade he hath met with much trouble, as I have seen I believe, every letter he has received on the subject.
I have ordered Capt. McKean to command all the drafts of Tryon County, as I knew it was agreeable to all the Inhabitants of that part of the Country, tho I did not know at the time I appointed him for this service that you intended him to Command those drafts out of General Ten Broeck's Brigade. I conceived Lieut. Smith was to be his Lieutenant.
I have disposed of them in the following manner, to wit—Capt. McKean and Lieut. Smith with all the drafts from Colonels Clock, Bellinger and Gambles Regiments at Fort Dayton and a small Fort, eight miles higher up the River.
Lieut. Vrooman with those from Colonel Vesichus' Regiment at the Block House at Sacandaga, where there are a Captain and and sixty men of Colonel Dubois' Regiment. Those Drafts serve as Pilots.
The drafts from Colonel Vrooman's Regiment at Schoharie with an officer from the same Regiment, I have ordered to a Block House and Picqueted Fort, which I ordered to be built last Winter at Cobus Kill.
Those under Capt. Stockwell and a certain Lieut. Putnam, appointed by Colonel McCrea, are ordered to take Post at Skeenesborough and Fort Edwards.
I should be glad to see Major Van Burnschooten with the drafts you mention at this place. They might be disposed of to great advantage at Schoharie, where they will be much wanted when the Continental troops are ordered to March.
Enclosed I send you a Copy of a Letter from Colonel Van Schaick which contains all the news in this quarter.
I am your very humble servant, James Clinton. Gov. Clinton.
In the name of God, amen. I, Charles Clinton, of Little Brittain, in the County of Ulster and Province of New York in America, being of sound mind and memory, blessed be God, do this twenty-sixth day of March, in the year of Our Lord One thousand seven hundred and Seventy one, make and publish this my last Will and Testament in manner following (viz): First I give and bequeath to my Eldest son Charles, my Negro Boys Robin and Dublin, and I give and bequeath to him the sum of two hundred and Thirty seven pounds, Current money of New York, to be paid to him out of the money I have out at Interest, and I hereby authorize, impower and appoint my Executors hereinafter named to divide a lot of land of mine, Containing five hundred acres, lying on the West side of the Wallkill (being part of a tract of land granted by letters Patent to Frederick Morris and Samuel Heath) into two or three Lotts, as it may suit best for Sale, and to sell the same and give a good Sufficient deed for it, and I give and bequeath to my son Charles, four hundred and thirty-three pounds New York Currency of the money arising by the sale of the said land and I give and bequeath to my Son George the sum of two hundred pounds, and to my son James the sum of Seventy pounds of the Price of the said lands and if it shall or can be sold for any more, it is my Will my son George shall have the over surplus it brings. Also I give and Devise to my son James, his heirs and assigns forever, my farm whereon I now dwell in Little Brittain in Ulster County, Containing two hundred and fifteen acres, being part of a tract of two thousand acres Granted by letters patent to Andrew Johnson, lying in the Southwesterly Corner thereof. To have and to hold the said farm with all and singular the Rights, members and appurtenances thereof to my said Son James, his heirs and assigns forever, which farm I valued only at Seven hundred pounds, to him, and I give to my said Son, my Negro boys David and Isaac. And I give and bequeath to my Son George the sum of five hundred and Seventy pounds of the money I have at Interest and whatever money there shall be due to me at the time of my decease, either Interest or principle, more than the Legacies above mentioned and what will pay the quit Rent due for my Lands and my Just debts, I order it to be Equally Divided between my said three sons and I give my Son George, my Negro boys William and Samuel, my Negro Wench Lettice, I Intended to give to my Daughter Catherine but she being then very Sickly and having no Children, she Desired if she died before me, I should Leave her free which I promised to do and a promise made at the Request of so dutiful & affectionate a Child, who is now dead and Cannot Release me from it, I think my Self sacredly obliged to perform. Therefore it is my Will She shall be free and I hereby manumit her & make her free from Slavery but so as to Exclude and utterly to Debar all and every person and persons whatsoever from making any Covenant Bargain or agreement with her to enslave or bind her for life or for any Number of years or to use any other way or means to prevent or Defraud her of her time, liberty or wages that she may honestly earn for her maintainance and support. And I give and bequeath to my said three sons, Charles, James and George, all my Stock of Cows, Sheep, Oxen and horses, my negro Peter and my Wench Pegg or Margaret, and all my Crop of Grain on my farm and all my Books and household furniture, except the furniture hereafter mentioned, which I give to my Wife for her Room, and I leave my farming utensils on my farm for my son James, to whom I have Given my farm and it is my Will that my Said three Sons, Charles, James and George, their Executors & administrators, Shall out of my Estate hereby Given to them at their Equal Expense Decently Cloath, keep, maintain and find fit attendance for my Wife Elizabeth, according to her Rank and Station in life, and I leave her a good bed Curtains, bed-cloaths, Sheets, Pillows and one of my small looking glasses, tea table and Some Chairs for her Room, as she is now about Seventy four years of age and is or Soon will be incapable to take Care of her Self, therefore It is my Earnest Request that her sons may behave as they have always done in a kind and dutiful and affectionate manner to her While She lives. I give to my Grandson Charles Clinton Junior, my plate handled sword and I give my Grandson Alexander Clinton my fusee or small gun I carried when I was in the army, and I give to my Grandaughter Catherine Clinton, (my Son George's daughter) my Largest looking glass. I give to my son James all my mathematical Instruments. I give to my son James, my Clock and I give to my son George, my watch, and I give to my Son Charles, my Long Gun and my Desk as I have Given to each of my sons James and George one hundred pounds by this will more than I have to my Son Charles. . . . It is not done out of Partiality but for the following Reasons—When his Brother Alexander died he was Seized in fee of a Good Improved farm. Containing two hundred Acres; as he died Intestate, having no issue, It fell to my Son Charles, he being his Eldest Brother and my Son Charles' Education being more Expensive to me I thought it but Justice to Make that Small amendment To their portions, which is far from making them Equal to their Brother Charles. It is my Will I be buryed in the Graveyard in my own farm, beside my Daughter Catherine and it is my Will the said Graveyard be made four Rods Square and an open free Road to it at all times, when it Shall be necessary and I nominate and appoint my said three sons Charles, James and George, Executors of this my last will, to see the same Executed accordingly and I order that my said Executors procure a suitable stone to lay over my Grave, whereon I would have the time of my death, my age and Coat of Arms cut. I hope they will Indulge in this Last piece of vanity.
Signed, Sealed, Published and Declared in the presence of us, by the said Charles Clinton, the testator and for his last will, who were present at the Signing and Sealing thereof. (The words "George the sum of two hundred pounds and to my son" being first Interlined, the words "Devise to my Son James his heirs" being wrote on an erasure and a small erasure made between the words "Charles" and "It".) CHAS. CLINTON (L. S.) SAM'L SANDS. JEREMIAH WHITE. ARTHUR SMITH.
In choosing as its first subject for a memorial marker "The Half-Way Brook," the New York State Historical Association has made a dignified and wise selection, for it may be truly said that no stream in the Adirondack Wilderness is more noted in history and the Annals of the Border, than this, whose appellation "Half-Way" comes from the fact that it was nearly equidistant from Fort Edward on the south and Fort William Henry on the north. Rising in the branch of the Palmertown range known as the Luzerne Mountains, west of Glens Falls, running a crooked but generally easterly and northerly course, now expanding into small lakes or basins, now receiving the waters of numerous small tributaries, ponds and rivulets, it divides the town of Queensbury into two parts, passes the Kingsbury line, turns in a northerly direction, and empties into Wood Creek at a point about three-quarters of a mile south from Battle Hill, at Fort Ann, in Washington County.
In the days before American history began, the region traversed by this stream was a favorite hunting ground for the Red Man, and this water course, even to-day famous for its speckled trout, was one of his chosen pleasuring places.
For more than two hundred years the great deep-worn warpaths or traveling trails of the Indian Nations ran to and from its banks. And whether the fleet, moccasined warriors went westward over the Sacandaga trail to the big bend of the Hudson and so on to the Iroquois strongholds, or whether they came to the "Great Carrying Place," at what is now Fort Edward, through Lake Champlain and Wood Creek, or chose the trip through Lake St. Sacrament past the site of the future Glens Falls, down to Albany, or the west, all must cross this stream, which thus became as familiar to the Adirondack and Iroquois Confederacies, as the alphabet to us of to-day. This knowledge so gained was made ample use of in later times in many a bloody ambush, surprise or savage foray. After the defeat of Dieskau in 1755, and the building of Fort William Henry at Lake George and Fort Edward at the "Great Carrying Place" the "Half-Way Brook" became a point of strategic importance, and as a halting place and rendezvous for the passing troops, and the convoys of supplies between the two forts, it was noted throughout the northern colonies, as long as the French and Indian war lasted.
It was variously denominated by the military authorities during that time. On an old manuscript map without date in the New York State Library, it is noted as "Schoone Creek," while the Earl of Louden's map in 1757 has it marked as "Fork's Creek." [FN-1] Rogers, the famous scout and ranger, called it "Bloody Brook." In Col. James Montresor's Journals, in 1757, it is styled "Half-Way Run." On the Robert Harpur map, in the Secretary of State's office at Albany, it is called "Scoune Creek," [FN-2] while Knox's Military Journal designated it as "Seven Mile Creek," because it was seven miles from the head of the lake. In Wilson's Orderly Book of Amherst's Expedition, in 1759, it is laid down as "Shone Creek." [FN-2]
[FN-1] The name of "Fork Creek" was probably derived from the name given it by Major General Fitz John Winthrop, who headed an unsuccessful expedition against the Canadians and their Indian allies in the summer of 1690. On August 6th, he states that "he encamped at a branch of Wood Creak, called the fork." This is the place where the "Half-Way" enters Wood Creek near Fort Ann. Here, while his command was in camp, smallpox broke out, and a Lieut. Hubbell died from this disease and was buried at that spot. Our Secretary, R. O. Bascom, in his "Fort Edward Book," p. 15, states "this was the first recorded burial in the country."
[FN-2] Possibly a corruption of "Skene," from the founder of Skenesborough.
On a "powder horn map" made by one John Taylor of "Swago" in 1765, there is a block house clearly defined at "Helf Br" between Forts Edward and George. [FN-1] On later maps such as the Sauthier map, published about 1778, and reproduced in the Seventh Volume of the Governor Clinton Papers, [FN-2] it bears the a popular name of "Half-Way Brook," bestowed upon it we know not by whom nor when, but which appearing in contemporary diaries, documents, letters and official despatches of "The Seven Years War," has ever since clung to it, and will while its waters run to the sea. [FN-3]
[FN-1] The New York World of February 2d, 1896, had a sketch of this powder horn, which, at that time, was in the museum of Major Frank A. Betts, Washington, D. C. This rudely engraved map shows the various forts and settlements along the Mohawk and Hudson valleys, and depicts the trails to Lakes George and Champlain on the one side and to Lake Ontario on the other.
[FN-2] Letter Hon. Hugh Hastings, State Historian.
[FN-3] C. Johnson's History of Washington County (pub. Phila., 1878) states that the "Half-Way Brook" was also known as "Clear River"—p. 301. The U. S. Geological Survey, in its map of this section of New York State, published about 1895, has labeled the brook as "Half-Way Creek," which, while it may be technically correct, will never be recognized in local usage or by faithful historians.
It will be remembered that in the Campaign of 1755, Sir William Johnson had constructed a corduroy road from Fort Edward to Lake George, following substantially the present highway between the two points. Cut through the dark and gloomy virgin forest, with its overhang of interlaced pine and evergreen boughs, its thickets of dense underbrush, the road led through swamps, over rivulets, over sandy knolls, and primal rocky hills to the head of the lake. On every side was leafy covert or rugged eminence, suitable for ambuscade or hiding-place of savage foe, or hardly less savage Canadian or French regular. Every rod of ground on this road is stained with the blood of the English, the Colonists, and their Indian allies, or that of their fierce, implacable enemies. Hardly a mile but what has its story of massacre, surprise, murder, deeds of daring and heroism, or of duty performed under horrible and heartrending circumstances.
In order to protect the road, as well as afford a resting place for soldiers and teamsters, and to supply a needed depot for military stores and provisions, the late Dr. A. W. Holden [FN] in his History of Queensbury, says: "At an early period in the French War, a block house and stockaded enclosure, in which were also several store houses, had been erected at the Half-Way Brook. The date of its construction would seem to have been in 1755, for in that year the French scouts and runners, reported to their chief that the English had erected posts every two leagues from the head of Lake George to Albany. It was situated on the north side of the brook, and to the west of the plank road leading to the head of Lake George. The old military road led across the brook about four rods above the present crossing. A part of the old abutments, timbers and causeway were visible up to the late seventies. It was capable of accommodating upwards of eight hundred men, and was protected by redoubts, rifle pits, earthworks, and a palisade of hewn timbers."
[FN] The Historian of the Town of Queensbury, N. Y.
The walls of the fort were pierced for cannon as well as for rifles, or muskets. In passing it may be said that from time to time, this, like all similar frontier forts of the time, was enlarged, strengthened, abandoned, destroyed, rebuilt, as the exigencies of military service made it necessary, but the site remained the same. This was near the rear, and to the westward of the brick residence now occupied by William H. Parker. Continuing Dr. Holden says:
"During the summer of 1756, a force of six hundred Canadians and Indians attacked a baggage and provision train at the Half-Way Brook, while on its way from Fort Edward to the garrison at Fort William Henry.
"The oxen were slaughtered, the convoy mostly killed and scalped, and the wagons plundered of their goods and stores. Heavily laden with booty, the marauding party commenced its retreat towards South Bay on Lake Champlain. Embarking in batteaux they were proceeding leisurely down the lake when they were overtaken by a party of one hundred rangers under the command of Captains Putnam and Rogers. These latter had with them two small pieces of artillery, and two blunderbusses, and at the narrows, about eight miles north of Whitehall, they crossed over from Lake George, and succeeded in sinking several of the enemy's boats, and killing several of the oarsmen. A heavy south wind favored the escape of the remainder." [FN]
[FN] Wm. Cutter's Life of Israel Putnam, p. 60; Dr. Asa Fitch in Trans N. Y. S. Agri. Soc'y, 1848, pp. 916-917; Spark's Am. Biog., Vol. 8, p. 119.
During this summer several bloody affrays took place between Fort Edward and Lake George, and the French accounts are full of successful raids and surprises.
In 1757 Col. James Montresor [FN] was sent to America as head of the Engineer corps of His Majesty's forces. He drew the plans for and constructed several fortifications in New York Province. In his journal under date of Monday, July 25th, he says: "Set out from Ft. Edward at 6 o'clock in the morning and arrived in the afternoon. Stopt at the Half-Way Run, agreed on a post there on the south side of the Run on the east of the Road about 50 Yards." Under date of Friday, July 29th, he writes: "Set out for Fort Wm. Henry at 12 o'clock with Gen'l Webb &c, arrived at the Half-Way at 3, met the carpenter going up that I had sent for, to carry on the work there." It does not appear, however, that anything was done with this fortification on account of Montcalm's victory a few weeks later.
[FN] Col. Montresor, who served in America from 1757 until 1760, makes several allusions to the "Half-Way" in his Journals covering that period.
The Campaign of 1757 teemed with scenes of bloodshed along the frontier, and the history of the Fort Edward and Lake George trail abounds with sad tales of atrocity and savagery, culminating in the successful attack of Montcalm on Fort William Henry, and followed by the terrible massacre which, whether rightfully or wrongfully, tarnished forever the reputation of that noted and able commander. Of the few who escaped it is on record that Col. (afterwards General) Jacob Bayley of New Hampshire, ran the gauntlet and escaped by fleeing bare-footed for seven miles through the woods to the "Half-Way Brook."
"Six days afterwards," Dr. Holden says, "Captain de Poulharies of the Royal Rousillon regiment, with an escort of two hundred and fifty soldiers, accompanied the survivors of the massacre, upwards of four hundred, with the one piece of cannon, a six pounder, granted by the ninth article of capitulation, as a token of the Marquis de Montcalm's esteem for Lieutenant Colonel Monro and his garrison, on account of their honorable defense, to the post at the Half-Way Brook, where they met a like detachment from the garrison at Fort Edward, sent by General Webb to receive them."
From records kept by officers and other documents, we learn that the "Half-Way" [FN] was usually designated through this war as the meeting place for white flag parties and exchange of prisoners.
[FN] This is the generally accepted local usage of the name.
After the fall of Fort William Henry, the northern outposts of the British were abandoned, and the frontier left open to the ravages and raids of the savages and the Canadians.
March 10th, 1758, Major Robert Rogers, the Ranger, with about one hundred and eighty rangers, officers and privates, camped at the "Half-Way," the first considerable body of men to occupy it in the campaign of that year. From here he proceeded down Lake George, meeting with disaster and defeat at the hands of seven hundred of the enemy, three days afterward.
June 8th, 1758, Lord Howe, the pride and idol of the army and his nation, a nobleman by birth and nature, took command of the forces, which for weeks had been gathering at Ford Edward. On June 20th we find him at the "Half-Way Brook" with three thousand men. It is supposed that this body of soldiers camped on what is still known as the "Garrison Grounds," situated on the south bank of the "Half-Way Brook," and about midway between the old Champlin place and DeLong's brickyard. A branch road led from the "Garrison Grounds" to the block house (back of the Parker residence) and crossed the brook a little way below the present highway bridge. This was the spot selected for a "post" by Col. Montresor the year before, and partially laid out at that time. Here for two days Lord Howe remained, until he received reports from Major Rogers and his scouts of the disposition of the enemy's forces. We can imagine him as usual engaged in the rough frontier sports of wrestling, jumping, shooting at a mark, and the like; instructing the regulars in ranger and New World tactics, and proving himself in every way the leading spirit and good genius of the camp. Here no doubt he met Stark, Putnam and other Colonials who later were to be leaders in the war for liberty. On the 22nd this part of the army moved to the lake, and was shortly joined by General Abercrombie and the rest of the troops, making a grand army of fifteen thousand, which was soon to go to disaster and defeat before the rude earth breastworks and felled trees at Ticonderoga, Abercrombie's defeat occurred July 8th, 1758, and he quickly returned to the head of the lake and strongly entrenched his forces for the balance of the season.
A number of diaries and journals of the New Englanders [FN] in the Campaign have been preserved and published, and from these, although brief and illiterate in form, we gain an excellent idea of the events of that period. The Colonial soldiery, looked down upon by the British officers, were forced to perform the drudgery and manual labor necessary in building and fortifying the camp, constructing its ditches and breastworks, and throwing up its defenses. Incidentally it may be said, it was the contemptuous treatment accorded the New England troops in this and succeeding campaigns, which made the people of that section so ready to throw off the British yoke later on. When not doing this work they were compelled to act as wagoners, drivers, carpenters, road makers, and the like. These various diaries speak in many places of work of this menial character (for which these men had not enlisted, and apparently did not care for), at and about "Half-Way Brook." General Putnam in his Journal says, "During our stay at the lake, after our return from Ticonderoga, we were employed in almost everything." The Journal of an unknown Provincial Officer (see note), says, under date of July 15th, "Nothing worth notice this day but working and duty came on harder by orders from head-quarters." Both these journals mention a "Sunday off" from work as a great treat and a rarity.
[FN] Among these may be mentioned the Journals of Rufus Putnam, cousin of Israel Putnam, and afterwards a Revolutionary General; the "Diary of Lieut. Samuel Thompson, of Woburn, Mass." (for which I am indebted to Dr. Sherman Williams, of Glens Falls); the Journal of an Unknown Provincial Officer in Col. Preble's Regiment of Massachusetts; "The Memoirs of John Stark," and "Rogers' Journals."
From the 25th of May until the 22nd of October, when the fortifications were dismantled and abandoned by General Abercrombie at the head of the lake, Lieut. Thompson, according to his diary, was on constant duty, either at the "Half-Way Brook" with a picquet guard, or at the lake. The daily life and work of the soldiers is given in his diary in detail. It also gives the names of a number of people who died from disease and were buried at the "Half-Way Brook." He describes the return of the English and Colonials from Ticonderoga, and under date of July 8th, being at the head of the lake that day, there is the following entry in his book:
"Saturday, Post came from the Narrows; and they brought Lord How to ye Fort, who was slain at their landing; and in ye afternoon there came in 100 and odd men, French prisoners into the Fort." These were Langy's men captured at the fatal Trout Brook skirmish.
This testimony by an eye witness would go far to disprove the theory of recent times, that Lord Howe's remains had been discovered at Trout Brook; and it tends to confirm the statements of older historians, that his remains were probably taken to Albany for burial.
On July 20th occurred one of the many skirmishes for which the "Half-Way Brook" is noted. One of the several scouting parties sent out by Montcalm to attack and harass the soldiers and convoys on the "Lidius" (Fort Edward) road and to take scalps and provisions, made one of their usual hawk-like descents, falling upon Col. Nichol's regiment, then quartered at the "Half-Way Brook" block house. Pouchet says, the detachment, five hundred in number, was made up of Canadians and Indians, commanded by M. de Courte-Manche, and that it succeeded in taking twenty-four scalps and making ten prisoners. Only the Indians' impatience prevented a complete massacre of the troops in the block house. Regarding this affray I quote the following in full from the Thompson Diary, as it gives the names of the officers and men killed in this skirmish.
"20—Thursday, in the morning, 10 men in a scout waylaid by the Indians and shot at and alarmed the Fort, and a number of our men went out to assist them, and the enemy followed our men down to our Fort, and in their retreat, Capt. Jones and Lieut. Godfrey were killed, and Capt. Lawrence and Capt. Dakin, and Lieut, Curtis and Ensn. Davis, and two or three non-commissioned officers and privates, to the number of fourteen men, who were brought into the Fort, all scalped but Ensn. Davis, who was killed within 20 or 30 rods from the Fort; and there was one grave dug, and all of them were buried together, the officers by themselves at one end, and the rest at the other end of the grave; and Mr. Morrill made a prayer at the grave, and it was a solemn funeral; and Nath. Eaton died in the Fort and was buried; and we kept a very strong guard that night of 100 men. Haggit (and) William Coggin wounded.
"A list of Men's Names that were killed in this fight:
"Capt. Ebenezer Jones of Washington (of diarist's company). Capt. (Samuell) Dakin of Sudbury. Lieut. Samuel Curtice of Ditto (Curtis). Private (William) Grout of do. Lieut. Simon Godfrey of Billerica (of diarists Company). Capt. (Thomas) Lawrence of Groton. Corp. ____ Gould of Groton Gore. Private Abel Satle (Sawtell) of Groton. Private Eleazer Eames of Groton. Do. Stephen Foster Do. Serg. Oliver Wright, Westford. Private Simon Wheeler Do. Ensn. ____ Davis of Metheun. Sergt. ____ Russell of Concord. Private Abraham Harden (Harnden?) of Pembroke. Private Payson, of Rowley. Private (Jonathan) Patterson, of Sudbury.
"We have also an account that there are seven of our men carried into Ticonderoga, which make up the number of those that were missing.
"21—Friday, in ye afternoon, a party of about 150 went out to find more men that were missing, and we found 4 men who were scalped, and we buried them, and so returned; and at prayer this evening we were alarmed by a false outcry. Nicholas Brown died and was buried; and Moses Haggit died."
This account thus corroborates in detail the French official dispatches and Pouchet's description of the attack.
Under date of Friday, July 28th, Lieut. Thompson, who that day had been down towards the Narrows, "to peal bark for to make camp," returned to Lake George and says: "In the evening there came news that the Indians had killed a number of teams and their guard below ye Halfway Brook, and there was a scout fitting to go after them."
As this massacre to which the Thompson Diary so briefly refers, is probably the most important event which took place at the "Half-Way Brook," we quote fully from Holden's History of Queensbury, concerning it:
"On Thursday the twenty-seventh of July, a detachment of four hundred men, consisting of Canadians and Indians, under the command of M. St. de Luc la Corne, a French-Colonial officer, attacked an English force of one hundred and fifty men consisting of teamsters and an escort of soldiers, while on their way from the station at the Half-Way Brook, to the Camp at the head of the lake. The account here given is as nearly as can be remembered in the language of a Mr. Jones of Connecticut, who was a member of Putnam's company which arrived on the ground soon after the affray took place. In the year 1822 he related the circumstances as here recorded, to the late Herman Peck of Glens Falls, while on a visit to Connecticut. It is from Mr. Peck that I obtained the narrative, which corresponds so completely with the French version of the affair that there can be no question whatever as to its general accuracy and reliability.
"A baggage train of sixty carts, loaded with flour, pork, wine, rum, etc., each cart drawn by two to three yoke of oxen, accompanied by an unusually large escort of troops, was despatched from Fort Edward to the head of Lake George to supply the troops of General Abercrombie, who lay encamped at that point. This party halted for the night at the stockade post at the Half-Way Brook. As they resumed their march in the morning, and before the escort had fairly cleared the picketed enclosure, they were suddenly attacked by a large party of French and Indians which laid concealed in the thick bushes and reeds that bordered the stream, and lined the road on both sides, along the low lands between the block house and the Blind rock.
"The night previously to this ambuscade and slaughter, Putnam's Company of rangers having been to the lake to secure supplies, encamped at the flats near the southern spur of the French mountain. In the early morning they were aroused from their slumbers by the sound of heavy firing in a southerly direction, and rolling up their blankets they sprang to their arms and hastened rapidly forward to the scene of action, a distance of about four miles. They arrived only in time to find the slaughtered carcasses of some two hundred and fifty oxen, the mangled remains of the soldiers, women and teamsters, and the broken fragments of the two wheeled carts, which constituted in that primitive age the sole mode of inland transportation.
"The provisions and stores had been plundered and destroyed. Among the supplies was a large number of boxes of chocolate which had been broken open and their contents strewed upon the ground, which dissolving in the fervid heat of the summer sun, mingled with the pools and rivulets of blood forming a sickening and revolting spectacle. The convoy had been ambushed and attacked immediately after leaving the protection of the stockade post, and the massacre took place upon the flats, between the Half-Way Brook, and the Blind rock, or what is more commonly known at the present day as the Miller place.
"Putnam with his command, took the trail of the marauders, which soon became strewed with fragments of plunder dropped by the rapidly retreating savages, who succeeded in making their escape, with but little loss of life. The Provincials unable to catch up with the savages, returned immediately to the scene of the butchery, where they found a company from Fort Edward engaged in preparing a trench for the interment of the dead.
"Over one hundred of the soldiers composing the escort were slain, many of whom were recognized as officers, from their uniforms, consisting in part of red velvet breeches. The corpses of twelve females were mingled with the dead bodies of the soldiery. All the teamsters were supposed to have been killed. While the work of burial was going forward the rangers occupied themselves in searching the trails leading through the dense underbrush and tangled briars which covered the swampy plains. Several of the dead were by this means added to the already large number of the slain. On the side of one of these trails, the narrator of these events found the corpse of a woman which had been exposed to the most barbarous indignities and mutilations, and fastened in an upright position to a sapling which had been bent over for the purpose. All of the bodies had been scalped, and most of them mangled in a horrible manner.
"One of the oxen had no other injury, than to have one of its horns cut off. This they were obliged to kill. Another ox had been regularly scalped. This animal was afterwards driven to the lake, where it immediately became an object of sympathy and attention of the whole army. By careful attendance and nursing, the wound healed in the course of the season. In the fall the animal was driven down to the farm of Col. Schuyler, near Albany, and the following year was shipped to England as a curiosity. Far and wide it was known as 'the scalped ox.' The bodies of the dead were buried in a trench near the scene of the massacre, a few rods east of the picketed enclosure.
"The French version of the affair, states the oxen were killed, the carts burned, the property pillaged by the Indians, the barrels of liquor destroyed, one hundred and ten scalps secured, and eighty-four prisoners taken; of these twelve were women and girls. The escort which was defeated consisted of forty men commanded by a lieutenant who was taken. The remainder of the men who were killed or taken prisoners consisted of wagoners, sutlers, traders, women and children."
The loss of this convoy was keenly felt by the English. General Abercrombie lost some baggage and effects, and, according to the French reports, his music as well. He, as soon as possible, sent Rogers and his body of Rangers across country to try and intercept the marauders before they reached Lake Champlain. Rogers was too late to accomplish his purpose, and on his way back he fell into an ambush near Fort Ann, about a mile from "Clear River" (or the Half-Way), on August 8th, and was badly defeated by M. Marin and his force of three hundred Regulars, Canadians and Indians. In this fight, Israel Putnam was taken prisoner, but was later released from captivity through the intercession of Col. Schuyler. [FN]
[FN] For other and corroboratory original accounts of the attacks of July 20th and 27th see French despatches in Col. Doc. N. Y., Vol. X, pp. 750, 816, 817, 849, 850, and English reports in Watson's Essex, pp. 96, 97; Pouchot's Memoirs, Vol. I, p. 123; Rogers' Journals, p. 117; Putnam's Journals, pp. 72-73; Sewall's Wobum, Mass., pp. 550, 551, 552, 553; Dawson's Hist. Mag, Aug., 1871, pp. 117, 118; Cutter's Putnam, pp. 96, 97; Stark's Memoirs, pp. 26, 436. These accounts differ some in details but are alike in essentials.
This massacre was the cause of a permanent guard of about eight hundred men being stationed at the "Half-Way Brook," which is referred to in the Thompson Diary under date of August 1st, he being one of the eighty out of Col. Nichol's regiment who were ordered on duty at that spot. And from that time until the close of the campaign late in the fall, the road between Lake George and the "Half-Way Brook," and Fort Edward and the same point, was constantly patrolled by detachments from the two forts, practically putting an end to further assaults and surprises.
The diaries of those days show that, as yet, the temperance idea half a century or so afterward to arise in this locality, had no place among the hard drinking, hard swearing, and hard fighting men of that period, as these extracts from the Thompson Journal prove:
"August 28, Monday: Certified that Cape Breton was taken, and 63 cannon shot at Fort Edward and small arms. In joy we made a great fire, and every soldier had a jill of Rum at the Half Way Brook; and it was a very rainy night.
"August 29, Tuesday: 140 of us went and made a breastwork; and we had a jill of rum; and we had a remarkable drink of flip this evening; a very cold night.
"Sept. 5, Tuesday: I on guard; and we earned half a jill of rum by making great many bonfires."
This diary tells of one more attack, which seems to have escaped the notice of other historians, and is therefore inserted at this point. Under date of Sept. 9th, it says:
"Saturday: the picquet guard went to meet the teams; a Sargeant and four men went forward to tell Half Way Brook guard that the picquet was coming; and the Indians shot the Sergeant and scalped him before one man got to him; and then the Indians ran away." [FN]
[FN] In passing we may say that Lieut. Thompson returned home safely, served at Concord and Lexington, and, his biographer says, finally "became one of the most useful men in the Town of Woburn." To him is attributed the discovery of the "Baldwin Apple," and a monument commemorating this gift to mankind, has been erected to his memory, making applicable in peculiar fashion Milton's lines, "Peace hath her victories no less renowned than war."
With the close of the Abercrombie Campaign, and the abandonment of headquarters at Lake George, Fort Edward became once more the northern outpost of Colonial civilization. [FN]
[FN] General Abercrombie, according to documents in William L. Stone's possession, also spelled his name "Abercromby." Montresor spells it with a "y," but leading American historians use the termination "ie."
In 1759, Sir Geoffrey Amherst was made Commander-in-Chief of the English forces in America. He was a brave, able, but perhaps over-conservative general, since after his easy victory over Montcalm's forces, he occupied himself more in fort building than in active operations of warfare, and in following up advantages gained. During this campaign the "Half-Way Brook" post was first occupied in March, 1759, by Rogers, the Ranger (with his scouting party of three hundred and fifty-eight men, including officers), who was starting out to go down Lake George on the ice on one of his usual disastrous spying expeditions. In the month of May, troops and new levies were beginning to assemble at Albany, under General Amherst's supervision. While they were being drilled, detachments of the regular forces were being sent forward to Fort Edward. Meanwhile, Colonel James Montresor, Engineer-in-Chief, had been charged with the duty of drawing up plans for fortifications at Lake George, and along the line of march. Accordingly Major West, of his Majesty's troops, with laborers and mechanics, was sent forward to construct an intermediate post between Fort Edward and the lake. A site was chosen near the former "Garrison Grounds," on the south bank of the "Half Way," and a few rods east of the old military road. A stockaded fortress was erected, surrounded on three of its sides by a ditch and counterscarp; while the rear was protected by an impassable swamp (now covered by the Brick Kiln Pond), which at that period existed at that point. This fortification was given the name of Fort Amherst, in honor of the then Commander.
Major West was placed in charge of the small garrison, and the post was equipped with artillery and the necessary supplies and ammunition. A number of huts, barracks and log structures were also built here at this time (whose sites were easily traceable in the early thirties), some of which were in existence at the beginning of the Revolutionary War, and were used by the pioneers of Queensbury, as well as the American forces later on.
Local tradition also has it that the block house on the opposite side of the brook, was then rebuilt, enlarged and strengthened. On some old maps Fort Amherst is laid down as on the site of the old block house, but this is incorrect.
In passing the writer wishes to state that the committee in charge of the erection of the memorial tablets, have chosen to give the block house, back of the Parker residence, the name of "The Seven Mile Post," applied to it in Knox's Military Journal under date of June 28, 1759, and to the fort on the "brickyard road," now called Glenwood Avenue, the name of "Fort Amherst." The remains of the ditches on this road were in evidence up to the early seventies, but in building up and remaking the highway at that point, they were covered over and no vestiges of them now remain.
General Rufus Putnam, at that time orderly sergeant, during the month of June, 1759, describes in his Journal the forwarding of the troops and supplies from Albany, as far as Fort Edward, where he encamped until the 18th, when the regiment with which he was connected, was marched to the "Half-Way Brook," where they were occupied in making roads and keeping the highway secure for the passage of troops and supplies. Under the dates of July 1st and 4th he writes the following, which is an epitome of the events going on at that time:
"From the time that we came to this place till now, nothing remarkable; but bateaux, cannon and all kinds of stores carrying up, forces marching daily to the Lake and duty exceeding hard.
"The Artillery was carried from Fort Edward to Lake George and was guarded by Col. Willard's Regiment of the Massachusetts. There was carried up 1062 barrels of powder. Col. Montgomery's Regiment marched up as a guard for the Artillery."
Towards the close of June the army, amounting to six thousand men, came up to the "Half-Way," and headed by Rogers' Rangers, marched northward, "formed in two columns," to the head of Lake George, where they pitched their camp, near the ground occupied by Abercrombie the year before. The captures of Forts Ticonderoga and Crown Point, late in July, and the subsequent surrender of Quebec, brought in a great degree, a peace, quiet and safety to the northern frontier to which it had long been a stranger. [FN]
[FN] According to the Montresor Journals, the "Half-Way Post was occupied by small detachments of guards as late as November, 1759, when the various northern outposts were abandoned as usual, and troops withdrawn for the winter."
Some time between 1759 and 1762, at the period following the conquest of Canada, General Amherst granted a permit to one Geoffrey "Cooper," or Cowper, as his name is spelled in Colonel Montresor's Journal, to whom he was a sort of messenger or servant, to occupy the small post at "Half-Way Brook," between Fort Edward and Lake George, for the preservation of the barracks, etc., that had been erected there, and for the convenience of travelers. General Amherst, according to his despatches, deemed it unnecessary after the reduction of Canada, to leave a garrison at that post. This Cowper was probably the first white inhabitant of the town of Queensbury. According to tradition, he was originally a seafaring man. He resided here several years, and, in the town records, his name appears as having been elected to the office of Assessor at the first town meeting held 1766.
Hardly had the sounds of warfare died away, than the pioneer's ax and saw were heard resounding among the yellow pines in this vicinity, as clearings were made and homesteads started.
In September, 1759, James DeLancey, Governor of the Colony of New York, issued a proclamation calling attention to the availability for settlers of "three Several Spotts of cleared Ground, two of them capable of containing half a dozen Families each and the other not less than twelve." These clearings were located on the site of the picket forts at Green's Bridge, where the Imperial Wall Paper Mill now stands, at the "Half-Way Brook," which was the largest one, and near the Half-Way House, French Mountain (site of old Fort Williams).
In response to this invitation to settle in the northern wilderness, on May 20, 1762, the Patent of Queensbury was granted to Daniel Prindle and others, consisting of a township of twenty-three thousand acres of land lying on the Hudson River and taking in the three clearings heretofore mentioned. Part of this property was acquired by certain Quakers or Friends, living at the Oblong, in Dutchess County, New York.
On August 28, 1762, Abraham Wing, the founder of the town of Queensbury, accompanied by a surveyor, Zaccheus Towner, made his first visit to the place which was thereafter to become the scene of his life work. He stopped at the "Half-Way Brook" post with Jeffrey Cowper. At this time "The Town Plot," in the center of which the memorial marker now stands, was surveyed and laid out. This consisted of a plot of forty-four ten acre lots, six lots deep from north to south, and eight lots deep from east to west, forming an oblong square, intersected by central highways and necessary roads. The center lots being reserved for public buildings. Here, the village was to have been located, but it had been ordained otherwise. The settlement was made at "The Falls," and nothing but the name in legal papers now survives to show that this was once intended to be the center of local population.
In 1763 the first attempt was made towards the permanent settlement of the Town of Queensbury; later on the first religious structure in the town, the original Friends' church, was erected of logs on the lot standing on the southwesterly side of the "Half-Way Brook," on the Bay road, and here, also, was located the first burial place in Queensbury. Here the founders and earliest settlers of the town were laid to rest, their place of sepulture being to-day unmarked and unknown.
During the Revolution the name of the "Half-Way Brook" appears in the lime-light of history but a few times, although the buildings still standing there were doubtless used by the troops passing to and fro between Lake George and Fort Edward, till the time of the Burgoyne Campaign. There, too, was located a ford for watering horses and cattle, which was in use up to the present century.
According to William L. Stone, the well-known historical writer and authority, General Burgoyne detached Baron Riedesel with three battalions to "John's Farm between Forts George and Edward," in order to keep open the roadway between the two places, and also to look after and progress the provisions, stores and supplies from Lake George to Fort Edward, preparatory to Burgoyne's advance south. In Baron Riedesel's Memoirs, he states that "in that place he was completely cut off from the army, so he entrenched himself in a strongly fortified camp so that he might be able to defend himself to the last man."
The place of his encampment has been quite definitely fixed by Dr. Holden, Mr. Stone and the late Judge William Hay, one of the best of authorities on local matters, as having been on the site of the old "Half-Way" block house, heretofore spoken of, on the north of the brook and the fortified camp at the "Garrison Grounds" on the opposite or south side of the stream. Here they remained until the 11th of September, when the camp was broken up and the march southward begun.
After the seizure of Fort Edward by General Stark and his command, a fortified camp commanding the Lake George road was constructed by the Americans in the vicinity of Glens Falls, cutting off the possibility of a retreat by Burgoyne to the northward. William L. Stone, in his "Burgoyne's Campaign," says: "This was located on the site of Fort Amherst." The Marquis de Chastelleux in his travels also speaks of this camp as follows: "On leaving the valley and pursuing the road to Lake George is a tolerable military position which was occupied in the war before last. It is a sort of an entrenched camp, adapted to abatis, guarding the passage from the woods and commanding the valleys." [FN]
[FN] Stone's Burgoyne, pp. 92, 343, 344.
Assuming that this was the spot in question, the "Half-Way Brook" post was a factor in bringing on the surrender at Saratoga, for Burgoyne's Council of War, held Oct. 13, 1777, on being informed "that the enemy was entrenched at the fords of Fort Edward and likewise occupied the strong position on the Pine Plains between Fort George and Fort Edward," decided a retreat was impossible and an honorable capitulation should be considered.
According to Art. IX of the Saratoga "Convention," "All Canadians and persons connected with the Canadian Establishment," "Independent Companies" (which included the Tories) and miscellaneous followers of the army were to be conducted by the shortest route to the first British post on Lake George, under the same conditions of surrender as the regular troops. Pursuant to this agreement, soon after the capitulation on the morning of October 17th, the defeated Royalists, under escort of a guard of American soldiers, were marched to the "Half-Way Brook" on their way to Canada, and from there allowed to pursue their journey to their homes unmolested. [FN]
[FN] Public Papers Gov. George Clinton, Vol. IX, pp. 421, 422.
During 1780, the old military road was infested with roving bands of Tories and Indians. The last massacre of which history has record occurred in June or July of this year, when a man by the name of Koon, from Kingsbury, and three laborers, on their way to Fort George, were found dead and scalped on the highway near the "Half-Way Brook." [FN]
[FN] Holden's Queensbury, p. 477.
In the fall of 1780, Major Christopher Carleton of the 29th Regiment, with about twelve hundred men, regulars, Tories and Indians, made his historic raid through Kingsbury and Queensbury, capturing Fort Ann on the 10th of October, and Fort George on the following day. At this time, all the buildings and structures in Kingsbury and Queensbury, in the path of the raid, were destroyed by fire by the enemy, causing 1780 to go down in local annals as "the year of the great burning."
In order to speedily reach Fort George, Major Carleton led his forces from Kingsbury Street directly across country, through the then existing road [FN] entering the Lake George highway near the "Half-Way Brook" post. Thus intimately connecting this spot once more with the stirring events of that time.
[FN] See Gov. Tryon's Map Vol., Doc. Hist. N. Y., also Holden's Hist. Queensbury, page 479.
Holden's History of Queensbury states that Ichabod Merritt, son-in-law of Abraham Wing, the founder, and father of Joseph, the first white child born in this town, erected the first frame house in Queensbury, on one of the sections of the Town Plot, near the "Half-Way Brook," which was burned at this time.
Connected in a way with the history of the "Half-Way Brook," is the battle which took place at Fort Ann July 8, 1777, between the Americans under Colonel Long and the 9th British Regiment of Burgoyne's army. The scene of this affair is located only three-quarters of a mile from the point where the "Half-Way Brook" enters Wood Creek at Fort Ann village, and the semi-successful fight put up by Long's forces, was one of the first serious interferences which Burgoyne received in his plan of campaign. [FN]
[FN] One of the Trustees of this Association, E. J. West, informs me that in 1858 William Welles erected a marble monument on the south end of Battle Hill to commemorate this battle. This was destroyed by an act of vandalism about 1870. Lately the Fort Ann "Grange" has set on foot a project to erect another monument in place of the former marker. It would seem to be proper and fitting for this Association to encourage and forward this movement in every possible way.
After this period the name of the "Half-Way Brook" practically disappears from the domain of national history and enters the field occupied by the local historian. [FN-1] In August, 1783, while on a journey of inspection of the northern battlefields and fortifications at Saratoga, Fort Edward, Lake George, Ticonderoga and Crown Point, [FN-2] General Washington, accompanied by Governor Clinton, General Alexander Hamilton, Colonels Humphreys and Fish, halted for rest and refreshment at the "Butler Brook," one of the branches of the "Half-Way," near the entrance to Crandall Park, and were waited on by one Briggs at work in a neighboring field, who brought a cup and pail and supplied water from the brook to satisfy their thirst. Two other future Presidents of our country, Jefferson and Madison, likewise passed through the town in 1791 to visit the many scenes of historic interest at the north.
[FN-1] Topographically, the "Half-Way Brook" in any State but New York, with its abundant streams and superior water power, would be entitled to and receive the name of river. Owing to its size and the large territory which it traverses, it was in the early days of the country, of great service commercially in building up this section of the State. Among the more important of the older enterprises on its banks was Forbes and Johnson's Forge in 1811, for making plough-shares, situated on the Forge Pond, an expansion of the "Half-Way," one and a half miles west of Glens Falls; Jeremiah Briggs' Grist and Saw Mills, at what is now the Brickyard, frequented from far and near, in the early part of the century; Champln's Tannery near the south bank on the Lake George road, and various saw mills, a woolen mill, and other manufacturies which were scattered all along the course of the brook and its tributaries, viz., Rocky Brook, the Meadow Run, what was then called "the Outlet" to the "Big Pond" (now Glen Lake), etc. It was of even greater commercial importance in the towns of Kingsbury and Fort Ann, Washington County, than in Warren County. Here, sixty years ago, were located at Patten's Mills, grist and saw mills; at Tripoli, grist and saw mills, a carding machine and trip hammer for making anchors and sleigh shoes; and at Kanes Falls, near Fort Ann, with a descent of seventy-five feet, saw and grist mills, a machine shop and carding machine. On the Podunk branch of the "Half-Way" was located Anchorville, where there was a saw mill, plaster mill, clover seed mill, some carding machines, a large tannery, three forges and anchor shops. In later times there was situated at Kanes Falls a silex mill, also a woolen mill. The abundant water power at this place has in these latter days, been made use of by the Kanes Falls Pulp Company, for the manufacture of that commodity. At the present time the principal business enterprises on the "Half-Way" in Warren County, are extensive brick yards, about a mile from the site of the old fort, three saw mills and two cider mills. In Washington County at Patten's Mills, there is a grist mill, and at Griswold's Mills, a saw mill and a grist mill. On the "branch" at West Fort Ann, is located a planer and cider mills. Owing to its width and the overflow of its banks in spring and fall, it is necessary that the brook be spanned by substantial bridges. In both Warren and Washington Counties strong iron structures have replaced the old-fashioned wooden bridges, which were so common in road-making but a few years ago. In Washington County, there is a bridge about seventy feet long near Kanes Falls, and at Fort Ann one in the neighborhood of fifty feet long. (Acknowledgments are due to Geo. M. Mead, Glens Falls, for information contained in this note. See Trans. N. Y. S. Agri. Socy. 1849, p. 942, for further facts.)
[FN-2] W. L. Stone's Reminiscences of Saratoga, p. 14; Irving's Washington, Holly Ed., pp. 17, 18.
And so we leave this famous brook, connected with which are the names of many of those brave men who afterward became celebrated in national fields of glory; and bid adieu to the places made noted by the exploits of the two Putnams, Stark, Schuyler, Warner, Stevens, Waterbury, and a host of lesser military Colonial officers, whose experience, beginning on the shores of this inland stream, was to serve their country in good stead in the days which were to save our land from British thralldom. To-day, no longer reddened by the life-blood of English and Colonial of French and Indian, the "Half-Way" runs a clear and peaceful stream through copse and thicket, field and meadow, swamp and swale; turning, as it goes, the wheels of industrial progress in many a village and hamlet, and doing its appointed work in the upbuilding of our national prosperity. At last, merged in the yellow waters of Wood Creek, it flows into the green depths of Lake Champlain, and then into the broad reaches of the St. Lawrence; but before losing its identity in the surging waters of the North Atlantic, it laves the frowning cliffs of Quebec, thus forming a shimmering and living band, which unites for all time the valley of the Holy Lake and the Plains of Abraham; those two eventful spots where the French dominion received its first check and final overthrow, thus placing, in the end, the North American Continent forever under the progressive control of the Anglo-Saxon race.
To the Members of the New York State Historical Association:
At a meeting of the Committee on Marking Historical Spots, held September 9th, 1904, Dr. Williams was made Chairman and Mr. Holden Secretary of the Committee. After discussion of the matter, it was voted to mark during 1905, or as soon as possible thereafter, the following spots of the greatest historical interest, viz., "Half-Way Brook, including Fort Amherst," "Bloody Pond," "the Burgoyne Headquarters at Sandy Hill," and the "Old Fort at Fort Edward." Judge Ingalsbe was made a committee on the old "Burgoyne House," Mr. Wing a committee on old "Fort Edward," and the matter of providing suitable inscriptions for "Half-Way Brook" and "Bloody Pond" was left to Dr. Williams and Mr. Holden with power.
A site for the marker at Half-Way Brook having been decided on at the intersection of Glen Street and Glenwood Avenue, on the road to Lake George, a glacial boulder as a base for the tablet was placed in position there through the kindness and generosity of Henry Crandall, Glens Falls. A legal title to the spot was obtained, and the tablet ordered from W. J. Scales, Glens Falls. In October, 1905, the tablet was erected. It consists of a dull, natural finish plate of bronze, and bears the following inscription:
HALF-WAY BROOK.
So called because midway between Forts Edward and William Henry. From 1755 to 1780 it was the scene of many bloody skirmishes, surprises and ambushes. Here the French and Indians inflicted two horrible massacres upon the English and Colonials. One in the summer of 1756 and the other in July, 1758.
FORT AMHERST.
A noted military post, was midway between this marker and the brickyard. Its site was known locally as "The Garrison Grounds." The location was used as a fortified camp in 1757-58. The fort was erected in 1759. It was occupied by the forces of Baron Riedesel in the Burgoyne Campaign of 1777. It was burned in 1780 in the Carleton Raid at the time of the "Northern Invasion."
THE SEVEN MILE POST.
Was a block house with a stockaded enclosure which occupied the rise of ground north of the brook and west of the road, near the residence of W. H. Parker, from 1755 to Revolutionary times. During that period it was one of the most important halting places in north America.
—Erected 1905 By—
NEW YORK STATE HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION.
In this connection it is only proper to add to this report that a tablet for Bloody Pond is under way and will be erected during the coming year. The expense of providing for these tablets was taken care of by the following subscriptions:
The Contributors to the Fund for Marking Historic Spots.
Henry Crandall, | F. B. Richards, |
William McEchron, | B. B. Fowler, |
Jonathan Coolidge, | M. Ames, |
R. A. Little, | W. M. Haskell, |
J. L. Cunningham, | S. B. Goodman, |
E. W. West, | A. W. Sherman, |
Wm. H. Robbins, | George F. Bayle, |
Sherman Williams, | S. T. Birdsall, |
Samuel Pruyn, | W. K. Bixby, |
J. A. Holden. |
At the annual meeting of this Association, held in August, 1905, J. A. Holden was selected to prepare a historical sketch concerning Half-Way Brook, which is herewith appended.
For the Committee, SHERMAN WILLIAMS, Chairman. J. A. HOLDEN, Secretary.
Tourists' Handbook.
Rept. of Trustees, Pa. Soldiers' & Sailors' Home.
Rept. of the Gettysburg National Park Commission.
Regulations for the Government of the Gettysburg National Park.
Officers of the State Society of Cincinnati of Georgia, 1790.
Celebration Address of the 25th Anniversary of the Loyal Legion.
Military Order of the Loyal Legion.
Experience Table of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows.
Odd Fellowship, an Oration, 40th Anniversary of I. O. of O. F.
40th Anniversary of Opening of Present Union League House.
Report of Valley Forge Park Commission.
Commandery of the State of Penn.
Rutherford Birchard Hayes.
Gregg's Cavalry Fight at Gettysburg.
The Story of '65.
Brown University Catalogue, 1904 and 1905.
The Century Association Report, 1901.
Bulletin of Brown University, 1904 and 1905.
The Connecticut Magazine—No. 2.
Annual Report of the Connecticut Historical Society, 1905.
Proceedings of the New Hampshire Historical Society, Part 3, Vol. 4.
A History of Battery A, of St. Louis—Missouri Historical Society.
Personal Recollections of Gen. Grant—Missouri Historical Society.
The Public Archives of New Jersey, January 31st, 1905.
Annual Report of Vineland Historical Society.
The New Haven Historical Society, Nov. 1904.
Chicago Historical Society, 1904 and 1905.
99th Anniversary Celebration, New England Society, 1904.
The West Virginia Historical Magazine, Vol. 5, No. 2.
Transactions of Huguenot Society of South Carolina, No. 12.
Third Series, Vol. VII, No. 1. Annals of Iowa.
Third Series, Vol. VII, No. 2, Annals of Iowa.
The Essex Institute Historical Collection, 1905. (Two Numbers.)
Ohio Archaeological & Historical Quarterly, Vol. XIV, Jan. 1905, No. 1.
Ohio Archaeological & Historical Quarterly, Vol. XIV, Apr. 1905, No. 2.
The Iowa Journal of History and Politics, Vol. 3, July, 1905, No. 2.
Public Papers of George Clinton, 1st Governor of New York, Vols. 7 and 8.
Massachusetts Soldiers & Sailors of Revolutionary War, Vols, 1 & 2.
1st, 3d, 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th, 13th, 14th Biennial Reports of Kansas State Historical Society.
Membership List Chicago Historical So., 1905 & 1906.
Proceedings of Vermont Historical So., 1903 & 1904.
Essex Institute Historical Collections, October, 1905.
Want List 1905, Library of Congress.
History 20th Kansas Regiment.
Directory Kansas Historical Exhibit.
Kansas Souvenir.
Annals of Iowa.
Pennsylvania Society Year Book, 1905.
99th Anniversary New England Society.
Report of the Librarian of Congress, 1905.
The Insignia of the Association consists of a badge, the pendant of which is circular in form, one and three-sixteenths inches in diameter.
Obverse: In the centre is represented the discovery of the Hudson River; the "Half-Moon" is surrounded by Indian Canoes, and in the distance is shown the Palisades. At the top is the coat-of-arms of New Amsterdam and a tomahawk, arrow and Dutch sword. At the bottom is shown the seal of New York State. Upon a ribbon, surrounding the centre medallion, is the legend: New York State Historical Association, and the dates 1609 and 1899; the former being the date of the discovery of New York, and the latter the date of the founding of the Historical Association.
Reverse: The Seal of the Association.
The badges are made of 14k gold, sterling silver and bronze, and will be sold to members of the Association at the following prices:
14k Gold, complete with bar and ribbon | $11.00 |
Sterling Silver, complete with bar and ribbon | 5.00 |
Bronze, complete with bar and ribbon | 4.00 |
Applications for badges should be made to the Secretary of the Association, Robert O. Bascom, Fort Edward, N. Y., who will issue permit, authorizing the member to make the purchase from the official Jewelers, J. E. Caldwell & Co., 902 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia.
We, Daniel C. Farr, James A. Holden, and Elmer J. West, of Glens Falls; Grenville M. Ingalsbe, of Sandy Hill, and Morris P. Ferris, of Dobbs Ferry, all in the State of New York, and all of us citizens of the United States, have associated ourselves together in a membership corporation, and do hereby make this our certificate under the laws of the State of New York.
The name of such corporation is the "New York State Historical Association."
The principal objects for which said corporation is formed are:
First. To promote and encourage original historical research.
Second. To disseminate a greater knowledge of the early history of the State, by means of lectures, and the publication and distribution of literature on historical subjects.
Third. To gather books, manuscripts, pictures, and relics relating to the early history of the State, and to establish a museum at Caldwell, Lake George, for their preservation.
Fourth. To suitably mark places of historic interest.
Fifth. To acquire by purchase, gift, devise, or otherwise, the title to, or custody and control of, historic spots and places.
The territory in which the operations of this corporation are to be principally conducted is Warren, Washington, Essex, Clinton, Saratoga, and Hamilton counties, in the State of New York.
The principal office of said corporation is to be located at Caldwell, on Lake George, county of Warren, in the State of New York.
The number of directors of said corporation, to be known as the Board of Trustees, is twenty-five.
The names and residences of the directors of said corporation, to hold office until the first annual meeting, and who shall be known as the Board of Trustees, are:
James A. Roberts, | Buffalo. |
Timothy L. Woodrufif, | Brooklyn. |
Daniel C. Farr, | Glens Falls. |
Everett R. Sawyer, | Sandy Hill. |
James A. Holden, | Glens Falls. |
Robert O. Bascom, | Fort Edward. |
Morris Patterson Ferris, | Dobbs Ferry. |
Elwyn Seelye, | Lake George. |
Grenville M. Ingalsbe, | Sandy Hill. |
Frederick B. Richards, | Ticonderoga. |
Anson Judd Upson, | Glens Falls. |
Asahel R. Wing, | Fort Edward. |
William O. Stearns, | Glens Falls. |
Robert C. Alexander, | New York. |
Elmer J. West, | Glens Falls. |
Hugh Hastings, | Albany. |
Pliny T. Sexton, | Palmyra. |
William S. Ostrander, | Schuylerville. |
Sherman Williams, | Glens Falls. |
William L. Stone, | Mt. Vernon. |
Henry E. Tremain, | New York. |
William H. Tippetts, | Lake George. |
John Boulton Simpson, | Bolton. |
Harry W. Watrous, | Hague. |
Abraham B. Valentine, | New York. |
The first meeting of the corporation, for the purpose of organization, will be held on the 21st day of March, 1899.
The time for holding the annual meeting of the said corporation will be the last Tuesday in July of each year.
In Witness Whereof, We have hereunto severally subscribed our names and affixed our seals this 21st day of March, in the year one thousand eight hundred and ninety-nine.
DANIEL C. FARR, | (L. S.) | |
JAMES A. HOLDEN, | (L. S.) | |
ELMER J. WEST, | (L. S.) | |
GRENVILLE M. INGALSBE, | (L. S.) | |
MORRIS P. FERRIS. | (L. S.) |
State of New York. County of Warren.
On this 21st day of March, in the year one thousand eight hundred and ninety-nine, before me personally appeared Daniel C. Farr, James A. Holden, Elmer J. West, Grenville M. Ingalsbe, and Morris Patterson Ferris, to me known to be the individuals described in and who executed the foregoing articles of incorporation, and they duly severally acknowledged to me that they executed the same.
E. T. JOHNSON, [seal.] Notary Public.
Whereas, A petition for incorporation by the University has been duly received, containing satisfactory statements made under oath as to the objects and plans of the proposed corporation, and as to the provision made for needed buildings, furniture, equipment, and for maintenance.
Therefore, Being satisfied that all requirements prescribed by law or University ordinance for such an association have been fully met, and that public interests justify such action, the Regents by virtue of the authority conferred on them by law, hereby incorporate James A. Roberts, Daniel C. Farr, James A. Holden, Morris Patterson Ferris, Grenville M. Ingalsbe, Anson Judd Upson, Robert C. Alexander, Hugh Hastings, William S. Ostrander, William L. Stone, William H. Tippetts, Harry W. Watrous, William O. Stearns, Timothy L. Woodruff, Everett R. Sawyer, Robert O. Bascom, Elwyn Seelye, Frederick B. Richards, Asahel R. Wing, Elmer J. West, Pliny T. Sexton, Sherman Williams, Henry E. Tremain, John Boulton Simpson, Abraham B. Valentine, and their successors in office under the corporate name of
NEW YORK STATE HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION.
This corporation shall be located at Caldwell, Warren county, New York.
Its first trustees shall be the twenty-five above-named incorporators.
Its object shall be to promote historical research, to disseminate knowledge of the history of the State by lectures and publications, to establish a library and museum at Caldwell, to mark places of historic interest, and to acquire custody or control of historic places.
[seal.] | In Witness Whereof, The Regents grant this charter, No. 1,245, under seal of the University, at the Capitol at Albany, April 24, 1899. |
ANSON JUDD UPSON, Chancellor. Melvil Dewey, Secretary.
Name.
This Society shall be known as "New York State Historical Association."
Objects.
Its objects shall be:
First. To promote and encourage original historical research.
Second. To disseminate a greater knowledge of the early history of the State, by means of lectures and the publication and distribution of literature on historical subjects.
Third. To gather books, manuscripts, pictures, and relics relating to the early history of the State, and to establish a museum at Caldwell, Lake George, for their preservation.
Fourth. To suitably mark places of historic interest.
Fifth. To acquire by purchase, gift, devise, or otherwise, the title to, or custody and control of, historic spots and places.
Members.
Section 1. Members shall be of three classes—Active, Corresponding, and Honorary. Active members only shall have a voice in the management of the Society.
Section 2. All persons interested in American history shall be eligible for Active membership.
Section 3. Persons residing outside the State of New York, interested in historical investigation, may be made Corresponding members.
Section 4. Persons who have attained distinguished eminence as historians may be made Honorary members.
Management.
Section 1. The property of the Association shall be vested in, and the affairs of the Association conducted by, a Board of Trustees to be elected by the Association. Vacancies in the Board of Trustees shall be filled by the remaining members of the Board, the appointee to hold office until the next annual meeting of the Association.
Section 2. The Board of Trustees shall have power to suspend or expel members of the Association for cause, and to restore them to membership after a suspension or expulsion. No member shall be suspended or expelled without first having been given ample opportunity to be heard in his or her own defense.
Section 3. The first Board of Trustees shall consist of those designated in the Articles of Incorporation, who shall meet as soon as may be after the adoption of this Constitution and divide themselves into three classes of, as nearly as may be, eight members each, such classes to serve respectively, one until the first annual meeting, another until the second annual meeting, and the third until the third annual meeting of the Association. At each annual meeting the Association shall elect eight or nine members (as the case may be) to serve as Trustees for the ensuing three years, to fill the places of the class whose term then expires.
Section 4. The Board of Trustees shall have no power to bind the Association to any expenditure of money beyond the actual resources of the Association except by the consent of the Board of Trustees, expressed in writing and signed by every member thereof.
Officers.
Section 1. The officers of the Association shall be a President, three Vice-Presidents, a Treasurer, a Secretary, and an Assistant Secretary, all of whom shall be elected by the Board of Trustees from its own number, at its first meeting after the annual meeting of the Association, and shall hold office for one year, or until their successors are chosen. Temporary officers shall be chosen by the Incorporators to act until an election as aforesaid, by the Board of Trustees.
Section 2. The Board of Trustees may appoint such other officers, committees, or agents, and delegate to them such powers as it sees fit, for the prosecution of its work.
Section 3. Vacancies in any office or committee may be filled by the Board of Trustees.
Fees and Dues.
Section 1. Each person on being elected to Active Membership shall pay into the Treasury of the Association the sum of two dollars, and thereafter on the first day of January in each year a like sum, for his or her annual dues.
Section 2. Any member of the Association may commute his or her annual dues by the payment of twenty-five dollars at one time, and thereby become a life member exempt from further payments.
Section 3. Any member may secure membership which shall descend to a member of his or her family qualified under the Constitution and By-Laws of the Association for membership therein, in perpetuity, by the payment at one time of two hundred and fifty dollars. The person to hold the membership may be designated in writing by the creator of such membership, or by the subsequent holder thereof subject to the approval of the Board of Trustees.
Section 4. All receipts from life and perpetual memberships shall be set aside and invested as a special fund, the income only to be used for current expenses.
Section 5. Honorary and Corresponding Members and persons who hold perpetual memberships shall be exempt from the payment of dues.
Section 6. The Board of Trustees shall have power to excuse the nonpayment of dues, and to suspend or expel members for non-payment when their dues remain unpaid for more than six months.
Meetings.
Section 1. The annual meeting of the Association shall be held on the last Tuesday of July in each year. Notice thereof shall be sent to each member at least ten days prior thereto.
Section 2. Special meetings of the Association may be called at any time by the Board of Trustees, and must be called upon the written request of ten members. The notice of such meeting shall specify the object thereof, and no business shall be transacted thereat excepting that designated in the notice.
Section 3. Ten members shall constitute a quorum at any meeting of the Association.
Section 4. The Board of Trustees shall arrange for the holding of a series of meetings at Lake George during the summer months, for the readings of original papers on history and kindred subjects, and for social intercourse between the members and their guests.
Seal.
The seal of the Association shall be a group of statuary representing the Mohawk Chief, King Hendrick, in the act of proving to Gen. William Johnson the unwisdom of dividing his forces on the eve of the battle of Lake George. Around this a circular band bearing the legend, New York State Historical Association, 1899.
Amendments.
Amendments to the Constitution may be made at any annual meeting, or at a special meeting called for that purpose. Notice of a proposed amendment with a copy thereof must have been mailed to each member at least thirty days before the day upon which action is taken thereon.
The adoption of an amendment shall require the favorable vote of two-thirds of those present at a duly-constituted meeting of the Association.
Members.
Candidates for membership in the Association shall be proposed by one member and seconded by another, and shall be elected by the Board of Trustees. Three adverse votes shall defeat an election.
Board of Trustees.
Section 1. The Board of Trustees may make such rules for its own government as it may deem wise, and which shall not be inconsistent with the Constitution and By-Laws of the Association. Five members of the Board shall constitute a quorum for the transaction of business.
Section 2. The Board of Trustees shall elect one of their own number to preside at the meetings of the Board in the absence of the President.
Section 3. The Board of Trustees shall at each annual meeting of the Association render a full report of its proceedings during the year last past.
Section 4. The Board of Trustees shall hold at least four meetings in each year. At each of such meetings it shall consider and act upon the names of candidates proposed for membership.
Section 5. The Board of Managers shall each year appoint committees to take charge of the annual gathering of the Association at Lake George.
President.
The President shall preside at all meetings of the Association and of the Board of Trustees, and perform such other duties as may be delegated to him by the Association or the Board of Trustees. He shall be ex-officio a member of all committees.
Vice-Presidents.
The Vice-Presidents shall be denominated First, Second, and Third Vice-Presidents. In the absence of the President his duties shall devolve upon the senior Vice-President present.
Treasurer.
Section 1. The Treasurer shall have charge of all the funds of the Association. He shall keep accurate books of account, which shall at all times be open to the inspection of the Board of Trustees. He shall present a full and comprehensive statement of the Association's financial condition, its receipts and expenditures, at each annual meeting, and shall present a brief statement to the Board of Trustees at each meeting. He shall pay out money only on the approval of the majority of the Executive Committee, or on the resolution of the Board of Trustees.
Section 2. Before assuming the duties of his office, the Treasurer-elect shall with a surety to be approved by the Board execute to the Association his bond in the sum of one thousand dollars, conditioned for the faithful performance of his duties as Treasurer.
Section 3. The President shall, thirty days prior to the annual meeting of the Association, appoint two members of the Association who shall examine the books and vouchers of the Treasurer and audit his accounts, and present their report to the Association at its annual meeting.
Secretary.
The Secretary shall preserve accurate minutes of the transactions of the Association and of the Board of Trustees, and shall conduct the correspondence of the Association. He shall notify the members of meetings, and perform such other duties as he may be directed to perform by the Association or by the Board of Trustees. He may delegate any portion of his duties to the Assistant Secretary.
Executive Committee.
The officers of the Association shall constitute an Executive Committee. Such Committee shall direct the business of the Association between meetings of the Board of Trustees, but shall have no power to establish or declare a policy for the Association, or to bind it in any way except in relation to routine work. The Committee shall have no power to direct a greater expenditure than fifty dollars without the authority of the Board of Trustees.
Procedure.
Section 1. The following, except when otherwise ordered by the Association, shall be the order of business at the annual meetings of the Association:
Call to order. Reading of minutes of previous annual, and of any special meeting, and acting thereon. Reports of Officers and Board of Trustees. Reports of Standing Committees. Reports of Special Committees. Unfinished business. Election. New business. Adjournment.
Section 2. The procedure at all meetings of the Association and of the Board of Trustees, where not provided for in this Constitution and By-Laws, shall be governed by Roberts' Rules of Order.
Section 3. The previous question shall not be put to vote at any meeting unless seconded by at least three members.
Section 4. All elections shall be by ballot, except where only one candidate is nominated for an office.
Section 5. All notices shall be sent personally or by mail to the address designated in writing by the member to the Secretary.
Nominating Committee.
A committee of three shall be chosen by the Association at its annual meeting, to nominate Trustees to be voted for at the next annual meeting. Such Committee shall file its report with the Secretary of this Association at least thirty days prior to the next annual meeting. The Secretary shall mail a copy of such report to every member of the Association with the notice of the annual meeting at which the report is to be acted upon. The action of such Committee shall, however, in no wise interfere with the power of the Association to make its own nominations, but all such independent nominations shall be sent to the Secretary at least twenty days prior to the annual meeting. A copy thereof shall be sent to each member by the Secretary with the notice of meeting, and shall be headed "Independent Nominations." If the Nominating Committee fails for any reason to make its report so that it may be sent out with the notice of the annual meeting, the Society may make its own nominations at such annual meeting.
Amendments.
These By-Laws may be amended at any duly-constituted meeting of the Association by a two-thirds vote of the members present. Notice of the proposed amendment with a copy thereof must have been mailed to each member at least twenty days before the day upon which action thereon is taken.
*Dr. Edward Eggleston, | Joshua's Rock, N. Y. |
E. M. Ruttenber, | Newburgh, N. Y. |
[*Deceased.]
Berthold Fernow, | Trenton, N. J, |
W. K. Bixby, | Bolton, N. Y. |
Mrs. Marcellus Hartley, | 232 Madison Ave., N. Y. City. |
Mrs. Oliver Livingston Jones, | 116 W. 72d St., N. Y. City. |
Mrs. Horace See, | 50 W. 9th St., N. Y. City. |
Gen. Henry E. Tremain, | 105 E. 18th St., N. Y. City. |
Dr. W. Seward Webb, | 51 E. 44th St., N. Y. City. |
*Samuel P. Avery, | 4 E. 38th St., N. Y. City. |
F. D. Howland, | Sandy Hill, N. Y. |
Frank S. Witherbee, | Port Henry, N. Y. |
Cortland de Peyster Field, | Peekskill, N. Y. |
*Deceased.
Abbott, Rev. Dr. Lyman | "The Outlook," 287 Fourth Ave., New York. |
Abrams, A. W. | Illion. |
Alexander, Hon. D. S. | Buffalo. |
Allen, Hiram | Sandy Hill. |
Ames, Edgar M. | Fort Edward. |
Applegate, Rev. Dr. Octavius | Newburgh. |
Arnold, Hon. Alvaro D. | Sandy Hill. |
Arthur, Miss L. Louise | Woodside. |
Atkins, Hon. T. Astley | 73 Nassau St., N. Y. |
Backus, Dr. Truman J. | Packer Institute, Brooklyn. |
Baker, Frederick I. | Fort Ann. |
Ballard, W. J. | Jamaica. |
Banker, Dr. Silas J. | Fort Edward. |
Bascom, Robert O. | Fort Edward. |
Bassinger, George H. | Glens Falls. |
Batcheller, George Clinton | 237 W. 72d St., N. Y. |
Benedict, George Grenville | Burlington, Vt. |
Benjamin, Rev. Dr. Wm. H. | Irvington-on-Hudson. |
Bishop, Charles F. | 67 Wall St., N. Y. |
Blake, Rev. Chas. W. | Lake George. |
Bloodgood, Clarence E. | Catskill. |
Brackett, Hon. Edgar Truman | Saratoga Springs. |
Brandow, Rev. John H. | Schoharie. |
Brown, Ernest C. | 280 Broadway, N. Y. |
Brook, James B. | 1013 East Adams St., Syracuse. |
Broughton, H. L. | Sandy Hill. |
Bullard, Dr. T. E. | Schuylerville. |
Bunten, Roland | Garden City. |
Burdge, Franklin | 325 W. 57th St. N. Y. |
Burnham, George, | 3401 Powelton Ave., Philadelphia, Pa. |
Bushnell, Nathan Piatt | Peekskill. |
Cady, S. Rider | Hudson. |
Carter, Robert C. | Glens Falls. |
Cheney, Dr. Francis L. | Cortland. |
Clark, Walter A. | 755 Main St., Geneva. |
Clark, Rev. Joseph B. | 4th Ave. and 22nd St., N. Y. |
Clowe, Chas. Waldron | 280 Broadway, N. Y. |
Cole, Norman | Glens Falls. |
Conway, John B. | Argyle. |
Cook, Dr. Joseph Tottenham | 636 Delaware Ave., Buffalo. |
Cook, Joseph Mrs. | Ticonderoga. |
Cook, J. Hervey | Fishkill-on-Hudson. |
Cooke, Rev. Jere K. | Hempstead. |
Cooley, Dr. James S. | Glen Cove. |
Coolidge, Thomas S. | Glens Falls. |
Coon, Hon. Stephen Mortimer | Oswego. |
Cornell, S. Douglas | Cobourg, Ont. |
Cunningham, Col. J. L. | Glens Falls. |
Columbia University Library, | 116th St., New York. |
Davis, William Gilbert | 32 Nassau St., N. Y. |
Davis, Dr. Booth C. | Alfred. |
Day, Benjamin | Hague. |
DeLong, C. J. | Glens Falls. |
Demuth, William | 507 Broadway, N. Y. |
Denham, Edward | New Bedford, Mass. |
Denton, Mrs. Elizabeth B. | Sandy Hill. |
de Peyster, Mrs. Beekman | 2345 Broadway, N. Y. (winter), Johnstown (summer). |
Derby, Hon. John H. | Sandv Hill. |
Derby, Archibald Stewart | Sandy Hill. |
Digney, John M. | White Plains. |
Doane, Rt. Rev. C. W. | Albany. |
Doolittle, C. M. | Schuylerville. |
Draper, Hon. A. S. | Albany. |
Dunnell, Rev. Dr. Wm. Nichols | 292 Henry St., N. Y. |
Durkee, James H. | Sandy Hill. |
Dwyer, Major John | Sandy Hill. |
Elting, Philip | 278 Wall St., Kingston. |
Eveleth, Dr. George S. | Little Falls. |
Fairley, William | 195 Kingston Ave., Brooklyn. |
Ferree, Barr | 7 Warren Street, N. Y. |
Ferris, Morris Patterson | 676 West End Ave., N. Y. |
Fowler, Albert N. C. | Glens Falls. |
Gillespie, Nelson | Hoosick Falls. |
Gilman, Hon. Theodore P. | 425 West End Ave., N. Y. |
Green, James | Lake George. |
Griffith, Prof. E. W. | Glens Falls. |
Gunnison, Hon. Royal A. | Juneau, Alaska. |
Hatch, Hon. Edward W. | Appellate Division, New York. |
Haight, Hon. Albert | Albany (Court of Appeals). |
Hall, Fred J. | Tarrytown. |
Halsey, Frances W. | 146 W. 119th St., N. Y. |
Hastings, Hon. Hugh | Albany. |
Hatch, Rev. W. H. P. | South Hartford. |
Hatfield, Addie E. | 17 Linwood Place, Utica. |
Hawkins, George H. | Plattsburgh. |
Hayden, Henry W. | 120 Broadway, N. Y |
Hewitt, Fred W. | Granville. |
Higgins, Hon. Frank W. | Olean. |
Hill, E. B. | 49 Wall St., N. Y. |
Holden, Mrs. J. A. | Glens Falls. |
Holden, James A. | Glens Falls. |
Hopson, Rev. Dr. George B. | Annandale. |
Horton, Mrs. John Miller | 736 Main St., Buffalo. |
Horton, Dr. Everest T. | Whitehall. |
Horton, Dr. Claude A. | Glens Falls. |
Howard, Hon. Harry A. | Glens Falls. |
Hull, Frank S. | Newburgh. |
Hull, Philip M. | Clinton. |
Heilner, Samuel | Broad and Chestnut St., Phila. Pa. |
Imrie, Daniel F. | Lake George. |
Ingalsbe, Miss Myra L. | Hartford. |
Ingalsbe, Grenville H. | Sandy Hill. |
Ingalsbe, Franc Groesbeck | Sandy Hill. |
Ingalsbe, Hon. Grenville M. | Sandy Hill. |
Ingalls, George A. | Sandy Hill. |
Ingraham, Dr. Charles A. | Cambridge. |
James, D. Willis | 40 East 39th St., N. Y. |
Jackson, Rev. Dr. T. G. | 68 St. Paul's Place, Brooklyn. |
Jessup, Morris K. | 195 Madison Ave., N. Y. |
Jessup, Rev. Charles A. | Greenport. |
Joline, Dr. Adrien H. | 54 Wall St., N. Y. |
Jordan, Warren S. | 984 Main St., Peekskill. |
Kellogg, Rev. Dr. Charles D. | Sandy Hill. |
Kellogg, J. Augustus | Glens Falls. |
King, Rev. Dr. Joseph E. | Fort Edward. |
King, Charles T. | Glens Falls. |
Kirby, Dr. R. M. | Potsdam. |
Knapp, George P. | Lake George. |
Kniel, T. R. | Saratoga Springs. |
Krotel, Rev. Dr. G. F. | 65 Convent Ave., N. Y. |
Ladd, Neil M. | 646 Fulton St., Brooklyn. |
Lansing, Mrs. Abraham | 115 Washington Ave., Albany. |
Lange, Gustave | 257 Broadway, N. Y. |
Lapham, Byron | Glens Falls. |
Law, Robert R. | Cambridge. |
Leary, Russell W. | 147 W. 91st St., N. Y. |
Lefferts, Marshall C. | 30 Washington Place, N. Y. |
Lewis, George C. | Albany. |
Little, Dr. George W. | Glens Falls. |
Little, Russell A. | Glens Falls. |
Lyttle, Dr. E. W. | Albany. |
Mace, Dr. William H. | 127 College Place, Syracuse. |
Mann, William D. | Hague. |
Marsh, Wallace T. | Glens Falls. |
Martin, John | Plattsburgh. |
Martine, Dr. G. R. | Glens Falls. |
Matthews, George E. | Buffalo. |
McAneny, George | 19 E. 47th St., N. Y. |
McCarthy, James | Sandy Hill. |
McLean, Mrs. Donald | 186 Lenox Ave., N. Y. |
Meredith, Mrs. Louise Hardenburgh | San Luis Obispo, Cal. |
Messer, L. Franklin | 403 Main St., Buffalo. |
Michael, Edward | 741 Delaware Ave., Buffalo. |
Mills, D. O. | 634 Fifth Ave., N. Y. |
Mills, Col. Stephen C. (U. S. A.) | Governor's Island, N. Y. Harbor. |
Moore, Commodore John W. | Bolton Landing. |
Morgan. Rev. Dr. D. Parker | 3 E. 45th St., N. Y. |
Morton, Hon. Levi Parsons | 681 Fifth Ave., N. Y. |
Mott, Dr. O. H. | Fort Edward. |
Munger, Rev. Dr. R. D. | 105 Delaware St., Syracuse. |
Near, Irwin W. | Hornellsville. |
Nelson, Venerable Dr. Geo. F. | 29 Lafayette Place, N. Y. |
Newcomb, Alvah S. | 33 Washington Ave., Albany. |
Nottingham, William | 701 Walnut St., Syracuse. |
O'Brien, M. J. | 195 Broadway, N. Y. |
Olmstead, Rt. Rev. Chas. Tyler | 159 Park Ave., Utica. |
Paige, Edward Winslow | 44 Cedar St., N. Y. |
Parry, Mrs. J. E. | Glens Falls. |
Payne, Silas H. | Silver Bay. |
Peabody, George Foster | 54 William St., New York. |
Peck, Gen. T. S. | Burlington, Vt. |
Peck, Reuben N. | Glens Falls. |
Pell, Howland | 7 Pine St., N. Y. |
Prince, Rev. Dr. Walter Franklin | 16 S. Elliott Place, Brooklyn. |
Potter, Delcour S. | Glens Falls. |
Pryer, Charles | New Rochelle. |
Ransom, Frank H. | 137 Main St., Buffalo. |
Ransom, Hon. Rastus S. | 128 Broadway, N. Y. |
Raymond, Rev. Dr. A. V. V. | Schenectady. |
Reid, W. Max | Amsterdam. |
Reid, Hon. Whitelaw | New York. |
Rhoades, W. C. P. | 400 Putnam Ave., Brooklyn. |
Richards, Frederick B. | Ticonderoga. |
Richardson, Rev. George L. | Glens Falls. |
Richards, A. N. | Sandy Hill. |
Roberts, Joseph Banks | 141 Broadway, N. Y. |
Roberts, Mrs. James A. | 256 Broadway, N. Y. |
Roberts, Hon. James A. | 256 Broadway, N. Y. |
Rogers, Howard J. | Education Dept., Albany. |
Rowell, George C. | 81 Chapel St., Albany. |
Samson, William H. | 420 Oxford St., Rochester. |
Sanford, Clarence T. | Lake George. |
Sawyer, W, L. | Sandy Hill. |
Sawyer, Dr. Edward R. | Sandy Hill. |
Schuyler, Miss Fanny | New Rochelle. |
Schuyler, Rev. Dr. Livingston Rowe | 17 Lexington Ave., N. Y. |
Schell, F. Robert | 280 Broadway, N. Y. |
Seabury, Rev. Dr. Wm. Jones | 8 Chelsea Sq., N. Y. |
Sebring, William C. | Kingston, N. Y. |
Seelye, Elwyn | Lake George. |
Sexton, Mrs. Pliny T. | Palmyra. |
Sexton, Hon. Pliny T. | Palmyra. |
Sidway, Mrs. Frank St. John | 37 Oakland Place, Buffalo. |
Sills, Dr. Charles Morton | Geneva. |
Sill, Dr. Frederick S. | 169 Mohawk St., Cohoes. |
Silver, Dr. John Archer | Geneva. |
Simpson, John Boulton | 1170 Broadway, N. Y. |
Sims, Charles N. | Liberty, Indiana. |
Shedden, Hon. Lucian L. | Plattsburgh. |
Shephard, Dr. Edward M. | Lake George. |
Slicer, Rev. Thomas R. | New York City. |
Smith, Wm. Alex. | 412 Madison Ave., N. Y. |
Smith, T. Guilford | Buffalo. |
Smith, James F. | South Hartford. |
Spencer, Dr. Chas. W. | Princeton, N. J. |
Stackpole, George F. | Riverhead. |
State Normal and Training School | Plattsburgh. |
Stearns, Rev. W. O. | Glens Falls. |
Steele, Mrs. Esther B. | 352 W. Clinton St., Elmira. |
Stevens, Rev. Dr. C. Ellis | 111 Montague St., Brooklyn. |
Stevens, Benjamin F. | Boston, Mass. |
Stieglitz, Edward | Bolton. |
Stilwell, Giles H. | 1906 W. Genesee St., Syracuse. |
Stillman, Dr. William Olin | 287 State St., Albany. |
Stone, Col. William L. | Mt. Vernon. |
Tefft, Richard C. | Sandy Hill. |
Temple, Truman R. | Granville. |
Upson, Mrs. Lvdia F. | Glens Falls. |
Vanderveer, Dr. A. | 28 Eagle St., Albany. |
Van Hee, Daniel L. | Rochester |
Vann, Hon. Irving G. | Syracuse. |
Van Wormer, Rodney | Argyle. |
Vynne, Mrs. Emma M. | Hague. |
Wait, William | Kinderhook. |
Wakeman, Abram | 136 Front St., N. Y. |
Wallander, A. W. | Mt. Vernon. |
Waller, Rev. Henry D. | Flushing. |
Warren, E. Burgess | Lake George. |
Watrous, Harry W. | Hague. |
Watrous, Mrs. Harry W. | Hague and 352 Lexington Avenue, N. Y. |
Watson, Col. James T. | Clinton. |
Webster, Dr. W. B. | Schuylerville. |
Welch, Miss J. M. | 76 Johnson Park, Buffalo. |
West, Chandler A. | Lake George. |
West, Elmer J. | Glens Falls. |
Westover, Myron N. | Schenectady. |
Wetmore, Edmond | 34 Pine St., N. Y. |
Wicker, Miss Julia Frances | Ticonderoga. |
Willey, Rev. John H. | 466 East 18th St., Brooklyn. |
Williams, Dr. Sherman | Glens Falls. |
Williams, Charles H. | 690 Delaware Ave., Buffalo. |
Willis, James D. | 40 East 39th St., N. Y. |
Wilson, Henry Applegate | 574 Madison St., Brooklyn. |
Wing, Asahel R. | Fort Edward. |
Wright, Miss Abbie A. | Sandy Hill. |
Woodruff, Hon. Timothy L. | 8th Ave. and 18th St., Brooklyn. |
Woodard, Hon. John | Appellate Division, Brooklyn. |
Worden, Edwin J. | Lake George. |
Wyckoff, Alice Brooks | Elmira. |
The Secretary will thank members for corrections to this list.
BY
Author of "History of the Indian Tribes of Hudson's River."
"Indian place-names are not proper names, that is unmeaning words, but significant appellatives each conveying a description of the locality to which it belongs."—Trumbull.
PUBLISHED UNDER THE AUSPICES
OF THE
New York State Historical Association.
Copyrighted by the
NEW YORK STATE HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION.
1906.
The locatives of the Indian geographical names which have been handed down as the names of boundmarks or of places or tribes, are properly a subject of study on the part of all who would be familiar with the aboriginal geography of a district or a state. In many cases these names were quite as designative of geographical centers as are the names of the towns, villages and cities which have been substituted for them. In some cases they have been wisely retained, while the specific places to which they belonged have been lost. In this work special effort has been made, first, to ascertain the places to which the names belonged as given in official records, to ascertain the physical features of those places, and carry back the thought to the poetic period of our territorial history, "when the original drapery in which nature was enveloped under the dominion of the laws of vegetation, spread out in one vast, continuous interminable forest," broken here and there by the opened patches of corn-lands and the wigwams and villages of the redmen; secondly, to ascertain the meanings of the aboriginal names, recognizing fully that, as Dr. Trumbull wrote, "They were not proper names or mere unmeaning marks, but significant appellatives conveying a description of the locatives to which they were given." Coming down to us in the crude orthographies of traders and unlettered men, they are not readily recognized in the orthographies of the educated missionaries, and especially are they disguised by the varying powers of the German, the French, and the English alphabets in which they were written by educated as well as by uneducated scribes, and by traders who were certainly not very familiar with the science of representing spoken sounds by letters. In one instance the same name appears in forty-nine forms by different writers. Many names, however, have been recognized under missionary standards and their meanings satisfactorily ascertained, aided by the features of the localities to which they were applied; the latter, indeed, contributing very largely to their interpretation. Probably the reader will find geographical descriptions that do not apply to the places where the name is now met. The early settlers made many transfers as well as extensions of names from a specific place to a large district of country. It must be remembered that original applications were specific to the places which they described even though they were generic and applicable to any place where the same features were referred to. The locatives in Indian deeds and original patents are the only guide to places of original application, coupled with descriptive features where they are known.
No vocabularies of the dialects spoken in the lower valley of the Hudson having been preserved, the vocabularies of the Upper-Unami and the Minsi-Lenape, or Delaware tongues on the south and west, and the Natick, or Massachusetts, on the north and east, have been consulted for explanations by comparative inductive methods, and also orthographies in other places, the interpretations of which have been established by competent linguists. In all cases where the meaning of terms has been particularly questioned, the best expert authority has been consulted. While positive accuracy is not asserted in any case, it is believed that in most cases the interpretations which have been given may be accepted as substantially correct. There is no poetry in them—no "glittering waterfalls," no "beautiful rivers," no "smile of the Great Spirit," no "Holy place of sacred feasts and dances," but plain terms that have their equivalents in our own language for a small hill, a high hill, a mountain, a brook, a creek, a kill, a river, a pond, a lake, a swamp, a large stone, a place of small stones, a split rock, a meadow, or whatever the objective feature may have been as recognized by the Indian. Many of them were particular names in the form of verbals indicating a place where the action of the verb was performed; occasionally the name of a sachem is given as that of his place of residence or the stream on which he resided, but all are from generic roots.
To the Algonquian dialects spoken in the valley of Hudson's River at the time of the discovery, was added later the Mohawk—Iroquorian, to some extent, more particularly on the north, where it appears about 1621-6, as indicated in the blanket deed given by the Five Nations to King George in 1726. Territorially, in the primary era of European invasion, the Eastern Algonquian prevailed, in varying idioms, on both sides of the river, from a northern point to the Katskills, and from thence south to the Highlands a type of the Unami-Minsi-Lenape or Delaware. That spoken around New York on both sides of the river, was classed by the early Dutch writers as Manhattan, as distinguished from dialects in the Highlands and from the Savano or dialects of the East New England coast. North of the Highlands on both sides of the river, they classed the dialect as Wapping, and from the Katskills north as Mahican or Mohegan, preserved in part in what is known as the Stockbridge. Presumably the dialects were more or less mixed and formed as a whole what may be termed "The Hudson's River Dialect," radically Lenape or Delaware, as noted by Governor Tryon in 1774. In local names we seem to meet the Upper-Unami and the Minsi of New Jersey, and the Mohegan and the Natick of the north and east, the Quiripi of the Sound, and the dialect of the Connecticut Valley. In the belt of country south of the Katskills they were soft and vocalic, the lingual mute t frequently appearing and r taking the place of the Eastern l and n. In the Minsi (Del.) Zeisberger wrote l invariably, as distinguished from r, which appears in the earliest local names in the valley of the Hudson. Other dialectic peculiarities seem to appear in the exchange of the sonant g for the hard sound of the surd mute k, and of p for g, s for g, and t for d, st for gk, etc. Initials are badly mixed, presumably due in part at least, to the habit of Indian speakers in throwing the sound of the word forward to the penult; in some cases to the lack of an "Indian ear" on the part of the hearer.
In structure all Algonquian dialects are Polysynthetic, i. e., words composed wholly or in part of other words or generic roots. Pronunciations and inflections differ as do the words in meaning in many cases. In all dialects the most simple combinations appear in geographical names, which the late Dr. J. H. Trumbull resolved into three classes, viz.: "I. Those formed by the union of two elements, which we will call adjectival and substantival, or ground-word, with or without a locative suffix, or post-position word meaning 'at,' 'in,' 'on,' 'near,' etc. [I use the terms 'adjectival' and 'substantival,' because no true adjectives or substantives enter into the composition of Algonquian names. The adjectival may be an adverb or a preposition; the substantival element is often a verbal, which serves in composition as a generic name, but which cannot be used as an independent word—the synthesis always retains the verbal form.] II. Those which have a single element, the substantival, or ground-word, with locative suffix. III. Those formed from verbs as participials or verbal nouns, denoting a place where the action of the verb is performed. Most of these latter, however," he adds, "may be shown by strict analysis to belong to one of the two preceding classes, which comprise at least nine-tenths of all Algonquian local names which have been preserved." For example, in Class I, Wapan-aki is a combination of Wapan, "the Orient," "the East," and aki, "Land, place or country," unlimited; with locative suffix (-ng, Del., -it, Mass.), "In the East Land or Country." Kit-ann-ing, Del., is a composition from Kitschi, "Chief, principal, greatest," hanné, "river," and ing locative, and reads, "A place at or on the largest river." The suffix -aki, -acki, -hacki, Del., meaning "Land, place, or country, unlimited," in Eastern orthographies -ohke, -auke, -ague, -ke, -ki, etc., is changed to -kamik, or -kamike, Del., -kamuk or -komuk, Mass., in describing "Land or place limited," or enclosed, a particular place, as a field, garden, and also used for house, thicket, etc. The Eastern post-position locatives are -it, -et, -at, -ut; the Delaware, -ng, -nk, with connecting vowel -ing, -ink, -ong, -onk, -ung, -unk, etc. The meaning of this class of suffixes is the same; they locate a place or object that is at, in, or on some other place or object, the name of Which is prefixed, as in Delaware Hitgunk, "On or to a tree;" Utenink, "In the town;" Wachtschunk, "On the mountain." In some cases the locative takes the verbal form indicating place or country, Williams wrote "Sachimauónck, a Kingdom or Monarchy." Dr. Schoolcraft wrote: "From Ojibwai (Chippeway) is formed Ojib-wain-ong, 'Place of the Chippeways;' Monominikaun-ing, 'In the place of wild rice,'" Dr. Brinton wrote "Walum-ink, 'The place of paint.'" The letter s, preceding the locative, changes the meaning of the latter to near, or something less than at or on. The suffixes -is, -it, -os, -es mean "Small," as in Ménates or Ménatit, "Small island." The locative affix cannot be applied to an animal in the sense of at, in, on, to. There are many formative inflections and suffixes indicating the plural, etc.
Mohawk or Iroquoian names, while polysynthetic, differ from Algonquian in construction. "The adjective," wrote Horatio Hale, "when employed in an isolated form, follows the substantive, as Kanonsa, 'house;' Kanonsa-kowa, 'large house;' but in general the substantive and adjective coalesce." In some cases the adjective is split in two, and the substantive inserted, as in Tiogen, a composition of Te, "two," and ogen, "to separate," which is split and the word ononté, "mountain," or hill, inserted, forming Te-ononté-ogen, "Between two mountains," "The local relations of nouns are expressed by affixed particles, such as ke, ne, kon, akon, akta. Thus from Onónta, mountain, we have Onóntáke, at (or to) the mountain; from Akéhrat dish, Akehrátne, in or on the dish," etc. From the variety of its forms and combinations it is a more difficult language than the Algonquian. No European has fully mastered it.
No attempt has been made to correct record orthographies further than to give their probable missionary equivalents where they can be recognized. In many cases crude orthographies have converted them into unknown tongues. Imperfect as many of them are and without standing in aboriginal glossaries, they have become place names that may not be disturbed. No two of the early scribes expressed the sound of the same name in precisely the same letters, and even the missionaries who gave attention to the study of the aboriginal tongues, did not always write twice alike. Original sounds cannot now be restored. The diacritical marks employed by Williams and Eliot in the English alphabet, and by Zeisberger and Heckewelder in the German alphabet, are helpful in pronunciations, but as a rule the corrupt local record orthographies are a law unto themselves. In quoting diacritical marks the forms of the learned linguists who gave their idea of how the word was pronounced, have been followed. It is not, however, in the power of diacritical marks or of any European alphabet to express correctly the sound of an Algonquian or of an Iroquoian word as it was originally spoken, or write it in European characters. Practically, every essential element in pronunciation is secured by separating the forms into words or parts of words, or particles, of which it is composed, (where the original elements of the composition cannot be detected) by syllabalizing on the vowel sounds. An anglicized vocalism of any name may be readily established and an original name formed in American nomenclature, as many names in current use amply illustrates. Few would suspect that Ochsechraga (Mohawk) was the original of Saratoga, or that P'tuk-sepo (Lenape) was the original of Tuxedo.
A considerable number of record names have been included that are not living. They serve to illustrate the dialect spoken in the valley as handed down by European scribes of different languages, as well as the local geography of the Indians. The earlier forms are mainly Dutch notations. A few Dutch names that are regarded by some as Indian, have been noticed, and also some Indian names on the Delaware River which, from the associations of that river with the history of the State, as in part one of its boundary streams, as well as the intimate associations of the names with the history of the valley of Hudson's River, become of especial interest.
In the arrangement of names geographical association has been adopted in preference to the alphabetical, the latter being supplied by index. This arrangement seems to bring together dialectic groups more satisfactorily. That there were many variations in the dialects spoken in the valley of Hudson's River no one will deny, but it may be asserted with confidence that the difference between the German and the English alphabets in renderings is more marked than differences in dialects. In so far as the names have been brought together they form the only key to the dialects which were spoken in the valley. Their grammatical treatment is the work of skilled philologists.
Credit has been given for interpretations where the authors were known, and especially to the late eminent Algonquian authority, J. Hammond Trumbull. Special acknowledgment of valuable assistance is made to the late Dr. D. G. Brinton, of Philadelphia; to the late Horatio Hale, M. A., of Clinton, Ontario, Canada; to the late Prof. J. W. Powell, of the Bureau of Ethnology, Washington, D. C, and his successor, William H. Holmes, and their co-laborers, Dr. Albert S. Gatschet and J. B. N. Hewitt, and to Mr. William R. Gerard, of New York.
The compilation of names and the ascertaining of their locatives and probable meanings has interested me. Where those names have been preserved in place they are certain descriptive landmarks above all others. The results of my amateur labors may be useful to others in the same field of inquiry as well as to professional linguists. Primarily the work was not undertaken with a view to publication. Gentlemen of the New York Historical Association, with a view to preserve what has been done, and which may never be again undertaken, have asked the manuscript for publication, and it has been given to them for that purpose.
E. M. RUTTENBER.
Newburgh, January, 1906.
Muhheakun'nuk, "The great waters or sea, which are constantly in motion, either ebbing or flowing," was written by Chief Hendrick Aupaumut, in his history of the Muhheakun'nuk nation, as the name of Hudson's River, in the Stockbridge dialect, and its meaning. The first word, Muhheakun, was the national name of the people occupying both banks of the river from Roelof Jansen's Kill, a few miles south of Catskill, on the east side of the river, north and east with limit not known, and the second -nuk, the equivalent of Massachusetts -tuk, Lenape -ittuk, "Tidal river, or estuary," or "Waters driven by waves or tides," with the accessory meaning of "great." Literally, in application, "The great tidal river of the Muhheakan'neuw nation." The Dutch wrote the national name Mahikan, Maikan, etc., and the English of Connecticut wrote Mohegan, which was claimed by Drs. Schoolcraft and Trumbull to be derived from Maingan (Cree Mahéggun), "Wolf"—"an enchanted wolf, or a wolf of supernatural powers." From their prevailing totem or prevailing coat-of-arms, the Wolf, the French called them Loups, "wolves," and also Manhingans, including under the names "The nine nations gathered between Manhattan and Quebec." While the name is generic its application to Hudson's River was probably confined to the vicinity of Albany, where Chief Aupaumut located their ancient capital under the name of Pem-po-tow-wut-hut Muh-hea-kan-neuw, "The fire-place of the Muh-hea-kan-nuk nation." [FN] The Dutch found them on both sides of the river north of Catskill, with extended northern and eastern alliances, and south of that point, on the east side of the river, in alliance with a tribe known as Wappans or Wappings, Wappani, or "East-side people," the two nations forming the Mahikan nation of Hudson's River as known in history. (See Wahamensing.)
[FN] Presumed to have been at what is now known as Scho-lac, which see.
Father Jogues, the French-Jesuit martyr-missionary, wrote in 1646, Oi-o-gué as the Huron-Iroquoian name of the river, given to him at Sarachtoga, with the connection "At the river." "Ohioge, river; Ohioge-son, at the long river," wrote Bruyas. Arent van Curler wrote the same name, in 1634, Vyoge, and gave it as that of the Mohawk River, correcting the orthography, in his vocabulary, to "Oyoghi, a kill" or channel. It is an Iroquoian generic applicable to any principal stream or current river, with the ancient related meaning of "beautiful river."
It is said that the Mohawks called the river Cohohataton. I have not met that name in records. It was quoted by Dr. Schoolcraft as traditional, and of course doubtful. He wrote it Kohatatea, and in another connection wrote "-atea, a valley or landscape." It is suspected that he coined the name, as he did many others. Shate-muck is quoted as a Mohegan [FN-1] name, but on very obscure evidence, although it may have been the name of an eel fishing-place, or a great fishing-place (-amaug). Hudson called the stream "The River of the Mountains." On some ancient maps it is called "Manhattans River." The Dutch authorities christened it "Mauritus' River" in honor of their Staat-holder, Prince Maurice. The English recognized the work of the explorer by conferring the title "Hudson's River." It is a fact established that Verrazano visited New York harbor in 1524, and gave to the river the name "Riviere Grande," or Great River; that Estevan Gomez, a Spanish navigator who followed Verrazano in 1525, called it "St. Anthony's River," a name now preserved as that of one of the hills of the Highlands, and it is claimed that French traders visited the river, in 1540, and established a château on Castle [FN-2] Island, at Albany, [FN-3] and called the river "Norumbega." It may be conceded that possibly French traders did have a post on Castle Island, but "Norumbega" was obviously conferred on a wide district of country. It is an Abnaki term and belonged to the dialect spoken in Maine, where it became more or less familiar to French traders as early as 1535. That those traders did locate trading posts on the Penobscot, and that Champlain searched for their remains in 1604, are facts of record. The name means "Quiet" or "Still Water." It would probably be applicable to that section of Hudson's River known as "Stillwater," north of Albany, but the evidence is wanted that it was so applied. Had it been applied by the tribes to any place on Hudson's River, it would have remained as certainly as Menaté remained at New York.
[FN-1] "Mohegans is an anglicism primarily applied to the small band of Pequots under Uncas." (Trumbull.) While of the same linguistic stock, neither the name or the history of Uncas's clan should be confused with that of the Mahicani of Hudson's River.
[FN-2] Introduced by the Dutch—Kasteel. The Indians had no such word. The Delawares called a house or hut or a town that was palisaded, Moenach, and Zeisberger used the same word for "fence"—an enclosure palisaded around. Eliot wrote Wonkonous, "fort."
[FN-3] It is claimed that the walls of this fort were found by Hendrick Christiansen, in 1614; that they were measured by him and found to cover an area of 58 feet; that the fort was restored by the Dutch and occupied by them until they were driven out by a freshet, occasioned by the breaking up of the ice in the river in the spring of 1617; that the Dutch then built what was subsequently known as Fort Orange, at the mouth of the Tawalsentha, or Norman's Kill, about two miles south of the present State street, Albany, and that Castle Island took that name from the French château—all of which is possible, but for conclusive reasons why it should not be credited, the student may consult "Norumbega" in Winsor's "Narrative and Critical History of America." Wrote Dr. Trumbull: "Theuet, in La Cosmographie Universella, gives an account of his visit, in 1656, to 'one of the finest rivers in the whole world, which we call Norumbeque, and the aboriginees Agoncy,' now Penobscot Bay."
Manhattan, now so written, does not appear in the Journal of Hudson's exploration of the river in 1609. On a Spanish-English map of 1610, "Made for James I," and sent to Philip III by Velasco in letter of March 22, 1611, [FN-1] Mannahatin is written as the name of the east side of the river, and Mannahata as that of the west side. From the former Manhattan, and from it also the name of the Indians "among whom" the Dutch made settlement in 1623-4, otherwise known by the general name of Wickquaskecks, as well as the name of the entire Dutch possessions. [FN-2] Presumably the entries on the Spanish-English map were copied from Hudson's chart, for which there was ample time after his return to England. Possibly they may have been copied by Hudson, who wrote that his voyage "had been suggested" by some "letters and maps" which "had been sent to him" by Capt. Smith from Virginia. Evidently the notations are English, and evidently, also, Hudson, or his mate, Juet, had a chart from his own tracing or from that of a previous explorer, which he forwarded to his employers, or of which they had a copy, when he wrote in his Journal: "On that side of the river called Mannahata," as a reference by which his employers could identify the side of the river on which the Half-Moon anchored, [FN-3] Presumably the chart was drawn by Hudson and forwarded with his report, and that to him belongs the honor of reducing to an orthographic form the first aboriginal name of record on the river which now bears his name. Five years after Hudson's advent Adriaen Block wrote Manhates as the name of what is now New York Island, and later, De Vries wrote Manates as the name of Staten Island, both forms having the same meaning, i. e., "Small island." There have been several interpretations of Mannahatin, the most analytical and most generally accepted being by the late Dr. J. H. Trumbull: "From Menatey (Del.), 'Island'—Mannahata 'The Island,' the reference being to the main land or to Long Island as the large island. Menatan (Hudson's Mannah-atin, -an or -in, the indefinite or diminutive form), 'The small island,' or the smaller of the two principal islands, the Manhates of Adriaen Block. [FN-4] Manáhtons, 'People of the Island,' Manáhatanesen, 'People of the small islands.'" [FN-5] The Eastern-Algonquian word for "Island" (English notation), is written Munnoh, with formative -an (Mun-nohan). It appears of record, occasionally, in the vicinity of New York, presumably introduced by interpreters or English scribes. The usual form is the Lenape Menaté, Chippeway Minnis, "Small island," classed also as Old Algonquian, or generic, may be met in the valley of the Hudson, but the instances are not clear. It is simply a dialectic equivalent of Del. Ménates. (See Monach'nong.) Van Curler wrote in his Mohawk vocabulary (1635), "Kanon-newaga, Manhattan Island." The late J. W. Powell, Director of the Bureau of Ethnology, wrote me: "In the alphabet of this office the name may be transliterated Kanoñnò'ge. It signifies 'Place of Reeds.'" Perhaps what was known as the "Reed Valley" was referred to, near which Van Twiller had a tobacco plantation where the Indians of all nations came to trade. (See Saponickan.) The lower part of the island was probably more or less a district of reed swamps.
[FN-1] Brown's "Genesis of the United States," 327, 457, 459, ii, 80.
[FN-2] Colonial History of New York.
[FN-3] Hudson anchored in the bay near Hoboken. Near by his anchorage he noticed that "there was a cliff that looked of the color of white green." This cliff is near Elysian Fields at Hoboken. (Broadhead.) The cliff is now known as Castle Point.
[FN-4] The reference to Adriaen Block is presumably to the "Carte Figurative" of 1614-16, now regarded as from Block's chart.
[FN-5] "Composition of Indian Geographical Names," p. 22.
Pagganck, so written in Indian deed of 1637, as the name of Governor's Island—Peconuc, Denton, is an equivalent of Pagán'nak, meaning literally "Nut Island." Also written Pachgan, as in Pachganunschi, "White walnut trees." (Zeisb.) Denton explained, "Because excellent nut trees grew there." [FN] The Dutch called it "der Nooten Eilandt," literally "The Walnut Island," from whence the modern name, "Nutten Island." The island was purchased from the Indian owners by Director Wouter van Twiller, from whose occupation, and its subsequent use as a demense of the governors of the Province, its present name.
[FN] Denton's "Description of New York," p. 29. Ward's and Blackwell's islands were sold to the Dutch by the Marechawicks, of Long Island, in 1636-7. Governor's Island was sold in the same year by the Tappans, Hackinsacks and Nyacks, the grantors signing themselves as "hereditary owners." Later deeds were signed by chiefs of the Raritans and Hackinsacks.
Minnisais is not a record name. It was conferred on Bedloe's Island by Dr. Schoolcraft from the Ojibwe or Chippeway dialect, [FN] in which it means "Small island."
[FN] The Objibwe (Objibwai) were a nation of three tribes living northwest of the great lakes, of which the Ojibwai or Chippeway represented the Eagle totem. It is claimed by some writers that their language stands at the head of the Algonquian tongues. This claim is disputed on behalf of the Cree, the Shawanoe, and the Lenape or Delaware. It is not assumed that Ojibwe (Chippeway) terms are not Algonquian, but that they do not strictly belong to the dialects of the Hudson's river families. Rev. Heckewelder saw no particular difference between the Ojibwe and the Lenape except in the French and the English forms. Ojibwe terms may always be quoted in explanations of the Lenape.
Kiosh, or "Gull Island," was conferred on Ellis Island by Dr. Schoolcraft from the Ojibwe dialect. The interpretation is correct presumably.
Tenkenas is of record as the Indian name of what is now known as Ward's Island. [FN] It appears in deed of 1636-7. It means "Small island," from Tenke (Len.), "little."
[FN] The Dutch called the island Onvruchtbaar, "Unfruitful, barren." The English adopted the signification, "Barren," which soon became corrupted to "Barrent's," to which was added "Great" to distinguish it from Randal's Island, which was called "Little Barrent's Island." Barn Island is another corruption. Both islands were "barren" no doubt.
Monatun was conferred by Dr. Schoolcraft on the whirlpool off Hallet's Cove, with the explanation, "A word conveying in its multiplied forms the various meanings of violent, forcible, dangerous, etc." Dr. Schoolcraft introduced the word as the derivative of Manhatan, which, however, is very far from being explained by it. Hell-gate, a vulgar orthography of Dutch Hellegat, has long been the popular name of the place. It was conferred by Adriaen Block, in 1614-16, to the dangerous strait known as the East River, from a strait in Zealand, which, presumably, was so called from Greek Helle, as heard in Hellespont—"Sea of Helle"—now known as the Dardanelles—which received its Greek name from Helle, daughter of Athamas, King of Thebes, who, the fable tells us, was drowned in passing over it. Probably the Dutch sailors regarded the strait as the "Gate of Hell," but that is not the meaning of the name—"a dangerous strait or passage." In some records the strait is called Hurlgate, from Dutch Warrel, "Whirl," and gat, "Hole, gap, mouth"—substantially, "a whirlpool."
Monachnong, deed to De Vries, 1636; Menates, De Vries's Journal; Ehquaons (Eghquaous, Brodhead, by mistake in the letter n), deed of 1655, and Aquehonge-Monuchnong, deed to Governor Lovelace, 1670, are forms of the names given as that of Staten Island, and are all from Lenape equivalents. Menates means "Small island" as a whole; Monach'nong means a "Place on the island," or less than the whole, as shown by the claims of the Indians in 1670, that they had not previously sold all the island. (Col. Hist. N. Y., xiii, 453.) It is the equivalent of Menach'hen, Minsi; Menach'n, Abn., "Island," and ong, locative; in Mass. Mimnoh-han-auke. (See Mannhonake.) Eghquaons and Aquehonga are equivalents, and also equivalents of Achquoanikan-ong, "Bushnet fishing-place," of which Acquenonga is an alternate in New Jersey. (Nelson's "Indians of New Jersey," 122.) In other words, the Indians conveyed places on the island, including specifically their "bushnet fishing-place," and by the later deed to Lovelace, conveyed all unsold places. The island was owned by the Raritans who resided "behind the Kol," and the adjoining Hackensacks. (Deed of 1655.) Its last Indian occupants were the Nyacks, who removed to it after selling their lands at New Utrecht. (See Paganck note.)
Minnahanock, given as the name of Blackwell's Island, was interpreted by Dr. Trumbull from Munnŏhan, Mass., the indefinite form of Munnŏh, "Island," and auke, Mass., "Land" or place. Dr. O'Callaghan's "Island home," is not in the composition. (See Mannhonake.)
Kapsee, Kapsick, etc., the name of what was the extreme point of land between Hudson's River and the East River, and still known as Copsie Point, was claimed by Dr. Schoolcraft to be Algonquian, and to mean, "Safe place of landing," which it may have been. The name, however, is pretty certainly a corruption of Dutch Kaap-hoekje, "A little cape or promontory."
Saponickan and Sapohanican are the earliest forms of a name which appears later Sappokanican, Sappokanikke, Saponican, Shawbackanica, Taponkanico, etc. "A piece of land bounded on the north by the strand road, called Saponickan" (1629); "Tobacco plantation near Sapohanican" (1639); "Plantation situate against the Reed Valley beyond Sappokanican" (1640). Wouter van Twiller purchased the tract, in 1629, for the use of the Dutch government and established thereon a tobacco plantation, with buildings enclosed in palisade, which subsequently became known as the little village of Sapokanican—Sappokanican, Van der Donck—and later (1721) as Greenwich Village. It occupied very nearly the site of the present Gansevort market. The "Strand road" is now Greenwich Street. It was primarily, an Indian path along the shore of the river north, with branches to Harlem and other points, the main path continuing the trunk-path through Raritan Valley, but locally beginning at the "crossing-place," or, as the record reads, "Where the Indians cross [the Hudson] to bring their pelteries." [FN-1] "South of Van Twiller's plantation was a marsh much affected by wild-fowl, and a bright, quick brook, called by the Dutch 'Bestavar's Kil,' and by the English 'Manetta Water.'" [FN-2] (Half-Moon Series.) Saponickan was in place here when Van Twiller made his purchase (1629), as the record shows, and was adopted by him as the name of his settlement. To what feature it referred cannot be positively stated, but apparently to the Reed Valley or marsh. It has had several interpretations, but none that fare satisfactory. The syllable pon may denote a bulbous root which was found there. (See Passapenoc.) The same name is probably met in Saphorakain, or Saphonakan, given as the name of a tract described as "Marsh and canebrake," lying near or on the shore of Gowanus Bay, Brooklyn. (See Kanonnewage, in connection with Manhattan.)
[FN-1] "Through this valley pass large numbers of all sorts of tribes on their way north and east." (Van Tienhoven, 1650.) "Where the Indians cross to bring their pelteries." (De Laet, 1635.) The crossing-place is now known as Pavonia. The path crossed the Spuyten Duyvil at Harlem and extended along the coast east. To and from it ran many "paths and roads" on Manhattan, which, under the grant to Van Twiller, were to "forever remain for the use of the inhabitants." The evidence of an Indian village at or near the landing is not tangible. The only village or settlement of which there is any evidence was that which gathered around Van Twiller's plantation, which was a noted trading post for "all sorts of tribes."
[FN-2] Bestevaar (Dutch) means "Dear Father," and Manetta (Manittoo, Algonquian), means, "That which surpasses, or is more than ordinary." Water of more than ordinary excellence. (See Manette.)
Nahtonk, Recktauck, forms of the name, or of two different names, of Corlear's Hook, may signify, abstractively, "Sandy Point," as has been interpreted; but apparently, Nahtonk [FN-1] is from Nâ-i, "a point or corner," and Recktauck [FN-2] from Lekau (Requa), "Sand gravel"—a "sandy place." It was a sandy point with a beach, entered, on English maps, "Crown Point."
[FN-1] Naghtonk (Benson); Nahtonk (Schoolcraft); Rechtauck (record). It was to the huts which were located here to which a clan of Long Island Indians fled for protection, in February, 1643, and were inhumanly murdered by the Dutch. The record reads: "Where a few Rockaway Indians from Long Island, with their chief, Niande Nummerus, had built their wigwams." (Brodhead.) "And a party of freemen behind Corlear's plantation, on the Manhattans, who slew a large number and afterwards burned their huts." The name of the Chief, Niande Nummerus, is corrupted from the Latin Nicanda Numericus, the name of a Roman gens. De Vries wrote, "Hummerus, a Rockaway chief, who I knew."
[FN-2] See Rechqua-hackie. "The old Harlem creek, on Manhattan Island, was called Rechawanes, or 'Small, sandy river.'" (Gerard.)
Warpoes is given as the name of "a small hill" on the east side and "near ye fresh water" lake or pond called the Kolk (Dutch "pit-hole"), which occupied several acres in the neighborhood of Centre Street. [FN-1] The Indian name is that of the narrow pass between the hill and the pond, which it described as "small" or narrow. (See Raphoos.)
In the absence of record names, the late Dr. Schoolcraft conferred, on several points, terms from the Ojibwe or Chippeway, which may be repeated as descriptive merely. A hill at the corner of Charlton and Varick streets was called by him Ishpatinau, "A bad hill." [FN-2] A ridge or cliff north of Beekman Street, was called Ishibic, "A bad rock;" the high land on Broadway, Acitoc; a rock rising up in the Battery, Abie, and Mount Washington, Penabic, "The comb mountain." The descriptions are presumably correct, but the features no longer exist.
[FN-1] "By ye edge of ye hill by ye fresh water." (Cal. N. Y. Land Papers, 17.) The Dutch name ran into Kalch, Kolack and Collect, and in early records "Kalch-hock." from its peculiar shape, resembling a fish-hook.
[FN-2] "At ye sand Hills near the Bowery." (Cal. N. Y. Land Papers. 17.) Ishpetouga was given by the same writer to Brooklyn Heights, with the explanation "High, sandy banks," but the term does not describe the character of the elevation. (See Espating.)
Muscota is given as the name of the "plain or meadow" known later as Montagne's Flat, between 108th and 124th streets. (Col. Hist. N. Y., xiv.) It also appears as the name of a hill, and in Muskuta as that of the great flat on the north side of the Spuyten Duivel. "The first point of the main land to the east of the island Papirinimen, there where the hill Muskuta is." The hill takes the name from the meadows which it describes. "Moskehtu, a meadow." (Eliot.)
Papinemen (1646), Pahparinnamen (1693), Papirinimen (modern), are forms of the Indian name used interchangeably by the Dutch with Spuyten Duivel to designate a place where the tide-overflow of the Harlem River is turned aside by a ridge and unites with Tibbet's Brook, constituting what is known as the Spuyten Duivel Kill, correctly described by Riker in his "History of Harlem": "The narrow kill called by the Indians Pahparinamen, which, winding around the northerly end of Manhattan, connected the Spuyten Duyvil with the Great Kill or Harlem River, gave its name to the land contiguous to it on either side." The locative of the name is clearly shown in the boundaries of the Indian deed to Van der Donck, in 1646, and in the subsequent Philipse Patent of 1693, the former describing the south line of the lands conveyed as extending from the Hudson "to Papinemen, called by our people Spuyten Duivel," and the latter as extending to and including "the neck, island or hummock, Pahparinnamen," on the north side of the passage, at which point, in the early years of Dutch occupancy, a crossing place or "wading place" was found which had been utilized by the Indians for ages, and of which Jasper Bankers and Peter Sluyter wrote, in 1679-80, "They can go over this creek, at dead or low water, upon the rocks and reefs, at a place called Spuytten Duyvel." From this place the name was extended to the "island or hummock" and to what was called "the Papirinameno Patent," at the same point on the south side of the stream, to which it was claimed to belong in 1701. Mr. Riker's assignment of the name to the Spuyten Duivel passage is probably correct. The "neck, island or hummock" was a low elevation in a salt marsh or meadow. It was utilized as a landing place by the Indians whose path ran from thence across the marsh "to the main." Later, the path was converted to a causeway or road-approach to what is still known as King's Bridge. A ferry was established here in 1669 and known as "The Spuyten Duyvil passage or road to and from the island to the main." In 1692 Governor Andros gave power to the city of New York to build a bridge "over the Spiken devil ferry," and the city, with the consent of the Governor, transferred the grant to Frederick Philipse. In giving his consent the Governor made the condition that the bridge "should thenceforth be known and called King's Bridge." It was made a free bridge in 1758-9. The "island or hummock" came to be the site of the noted Macomb mansion.
The name has not been satisfactorily translated. Mr. Riker wrote, "Where the stream closes," or is broken off, recognizing the locative of the name. Ziesberger wrote, Papinamen, "Diverting," turning aside, to go different ways; accessorily, that which diverts or turns aside, and place where the action of the verb is performed. Where the Harlem is turned aside or diverted, would be a literal description.
Spuyten Duyvil, now so written, was the early Dutch nickname of the Papirinimen ford or passage, later known as King's Bridge. "By our people called," wrote Van der Donck in 1652, indicating conference by the Dutch prior to that date. It simply described the passage as evil, vicious, dangerous. Its derivatives are Spui, "sluice;" Spuit, "spout;" Spuiten, "to spout, to squirt, to discharge with force," as a waterspout, or water forced through a narrow passage. Duyvil is a colloquial expression of viciousness. The same name is met on the Mohawk in application to the passage of the stream between two islands near Schenectady. The generally quoted translation, "Spuyt den Duyvil, In spite of the Devil," quoted by Brodhead as having been written by Van der Donck, has no standing except in Irving's "Knickerbocker History of New York." Van der Donck never wrote the sentence. He knew, and Brodhead knew, that Spuyt was not Spijt, nor Spuiten stand for Spuitten. The Dutch for "In spite of the Devil," is In Spijt van Duivel. The sentence may have been quoted by Brodhead without examination. It was a popular story that Irving told about one Antony Corlear's declaration that he would swim across the ford at flood tide in a violent storm, "In spite of the devil," but obviously coined in Irving's brain. It may, however, had for its foundation the antics of a very black and muscular African who was employed to guard the passage and prevent hostile Indians as well as indiscreet Dutchmen from crossing, and who, for the better discharge of his duty, built fires at night, armed himself with sword and firebrands, vociferated loudly, and acted the character of a devil very well. At all events the African is the only historical devil that had an existence at the ford, and he finally ran away and became merged with the Indians. Spiting Devil, an English corruption, ran naturally into Spitting Devil, and some there are who think that that is a reasonably fair rendering of Dutch Spuiten. They are generally of the class that take in a cant reading with a relish.
Shorakkapoch and Shorackappock are orthographies of the name of record as that of the cove into which the Papirinemen discharges its waters at a point on the Hudson known as Tubby Hook. It is specifically located in the Philipse charter of 1693: "A creek called Papparinnemeno which divides New York Island from the main land, so along said creek as it runs to Hudson's River, which part is called by the Indians Shorackhappok," i. e. that part of the stream on Hudson's River. In the patent to Hugh O'Neil (1666): "To the Kill Shorakapoch, and then to Papirinimen," i. e., to the cove and thence east to the Spuyten Duyvil passage. "The beautiful inlet called Schorakapok." (Riker.) Dr. Trumbull wrote "Showaukuppock (Mohegan), a cove." William R. Gerard suggests "P'skurikûppog (Lenape), 'forked, fine harbor,' so called because it was safely shut in by Tubby Hook, [FN-1] and another Hook at the north, the current taking a bend around the curved point of rock (covered at high tide) that forked or divided the harbor at the back." Dr. Brinton wrote: "W'shakuppek, 'Smooth still water;' pek, a lake, cove or any body of still water; kup, from kuppi, 'cove.'" Bolton, in his "History of Westchester County," located at the mouth of the stream, on the north side, an Indian fort or castle under the name of Nipinichen, but that name belongs on the west side of the Hudson at Konstable's Hook, [FN-2] and the narrative of the attack on Hudson's ship in 1609, noted in Juet's Journal, does not warrant the conclusion that there was an Indian fort or castle in the vicinity. A fishing village there may have been. At a later date (1675) the authorities permitted a remnant of the Weckquasgecks to occupy lands "On the north point of Manhattan Island" (Col, Hist. N. Y., xiii, 494), and the place designated may have been in previous occupation.
[FN-1] Tubby Hook, Dutch Tobbe Hoeck, from its resemblance to a washtub.
[FN-2] Called Konstabelshe's Hoek from a grant of land to one Jacobus Roy, the Konstabel or gunner at Fort Amsterdam, in 1646.
Keskeskick, "a piece of land, situated opposite to the flat on the island of Manhattan, called Keskeskick, stretching lengthwise along the Kil which runs behind the island of Manhattan, beginning at the head of said Kil and running to opposite of the high hill by the flat, namely by the great hill," (Deed of 1638.) Kaxkeek is the orthography of Riker (Hist. of Harlem); and Kekesick that of Brodhead (Hist. New York), in addition to which may be quoted Keesick and Keakates, given as the names of what is now known as Long Pond, which formed the southeast boundary of the tract, where was also a salt marsh or meadow. In general terms, the name means a "meadow," and may have been that of this salt marsh (a portion of the name dropped) or of the flat. The root is Kâk, "sharp;" Kâkákes, "sharp grass," or sedge-marsh; Sik-kákaskeg, "salt sedge-marsh." (Gerard.) Micûckaskéete, "a meadow." (Williams.) Muscota, now in use, is another word for meadow.
Mannepies is quoted by Riker (Hist. Harlem) as the name of the hilly tract or district of Keskeskick, described as lying "over against the flats of the island of Manhattan." It is now preserved as the name of Cromwell Lake and creek, and seems to have been the name of the former. The original was probably an equivalent of Menuppek, "Any enclosed body of water great or small." (Anthony.)
Neperah, Nippiroha, Niperan, Nepeehen, Napperhaera, Armepperahin, the latter of date 1642 (Col. Hist. N. Y., xiii, 9), forms of record as the name of Sawmill Creek, and also quoted as the name of the site of the present city of Yonkers, has been translated by Wm. R. Gerard, from the form of 1642: "A corruption of Ana-nepeheren, that is, 'fishing stream' or 'fishing rapids.'" Ap-pehan (Eliot), "a trap, a snare." There was an Indian village on the north side of the stream in 1642. (Col. Hist. N. Y., xiii, 9.)
Nepahkomuk, Nappikomack, etc., quoted as the name of a place on Sawmill Creek, and also as the name of an Indian village at Yonkers, may have been the name of the latter by extension. It has been translated with apparent correctness from Nepé-komuk (Mass.), "An enclosed or occupied water-place." [FN]
[FN] This translation is from Nepe (Nepa, Nape, Nippe, etc.), meaning "water," generally, and Komuk, "place enclosed, occupied, limited," a particular body of water. "The radical of Nipe is pe or pa, which, with the demonstrative and definitive ne prefixed, formed the noun nippe, water." (Trumbull.) Nape-ake (-auke, -aki) means "Water-land," or water-place. Nape-ek, Del., Nepeauk, Mass., means "Standing water," a lake or pond or a stretch of still water in a river. Menuppek, "Lake, sea, any enclosed body of water, great or small." (Anthony.) Nebi, nabe, m'bi, be, are dialectic forms. The Delaware M'hi (Zeisb.) is occasionally met in the valley, but the Massachusetts Nepe is more frequent. Gami is another noun-generic meaning "Water" (Cree, Kume). Komuk (Mass.), Kamick (Del.), is frequently met in varying orthographies. In general terms it means "Place, limited or enclosed," a particular place as a field, garden, house, etc., as distinguished from auke, "Land, earth, unlimited, unenclosed."
Meghkeekassin, the name of a large rock in an obscure nook on the west side of the Neperah, near the Hudson, is written Macackassin in deed of 1661. It is from Mechek, Del., "great," and assin "stone." "Meechek-assin-ik, At the big rock." (Heckewelder.) The name is also of record Amack-assin, a Delaware term of the same general meaning—"Amangi, great, big (in composition Aman-gach), with the accessory notion of terrible, frightful." (Dr. Brinton.) Presumably, in application here, "a monster," i. e. a stone not of the native formation usually found in the locality. [FN]
[FN] The Indians are traditionally represented as regarding boulders of this class, as monuments of a great battle which was fought between their hero myth Micabo and Kasbun his twin brother, the former representing the East or Orient, and the latter the West, the imagery being a description of the primary contest between Light and Darkness—Light gleaming from the East and Darkness retreating to the West before it. Says the story: "The feud between the brothers was bitter and the contest long and doubtful. It began on the mountains of the East. The face of the land was seamed and torn by the wrestling of the mighty combatants, and the huge boulders that are scattered about were the weapons hurled at each other by the enraged brothers." The story is told in its several forms by Dr. Brinton in his "American Hero Myths."
Wickquaskeck is entered on Van der Donck's map as the name of an Indian village or castle the location of which is claimed by Bolton to have been at Dobb's Ferry, where the name is of record. It was, however, the name of a place from which it was extended by the early Dutch to a very considerable representative clan or family of Indians whose jurisdiction extended from the Hudson to or beyond the Armonck or Byram's River, with principal seat on the head waters of that stream, or on one of its tributaries, who constituted the tribe more especially known to the Dutch settlers as the Manhattans. Cornelius Tienhoven, Secretary of New Amsterdam, wrote, in 1654, "Wicquaeskeck on the North River, five miles above New Amsterdam, is very good and suitable land for agriculture. . . . This land lies between the Sintsinck and Armonck streams, situate between the East and North rivers." (Doc. Hist, N. Y., iv, 29.) "Five miles," Dutch, was then usually counted as twenty miles (English). Standard Dutch miles would be about eighteen. The Armonck is now called Byram River; it flows to the Sound on the boundary line between New York and Connecticut. A part of the territory of this tribe is loosely described in a deed of 1682, as extending—"from the rock Sighes, on Hudson's River, to the Neperah, and thence north until you come to the eastward of the head of the creek, called by the Indians Wiequaskeck, [FN] stretching through the woods to a kill called Seweruc," including "a piece of land about Wighqueskeck," i. e. about the head of the creek, which was certainly at the end of a swamp. The historic seat of the clan was in this vicinity. In the narrative of the war of 1643-5, it is written, "He of Witqueschreek, living N. E. of Manhattans. . . . The old Indian (a captive) promised to lead us to Wetquescheck." He did so, but the castles, three in number, strongly palisaded, were found empty. Two of them were burned. The inmates, it was learned, had gathered at a large castle or village on Patucquapaug, now known as Dumpling Pond, in Greenwich, Ct., to celebrate a festival. They were attacked there and slaughtered in great numbers. (Doc. Hist. N. Y., iv, 29.) Bolton's claim that the clan had a castle at or near Dobb's Ferry, may have been true at some date. The name appears in many orthographies; in 1621, Wyeck; in treaty of 1645, Wiquaeshex; in other connections, Witqueschreek, Weaquassick, and Van der Donck's Wickquaskeek. Bolton translated it from the form, Weicquasguck, "Place of the bark kettle," which is obviously erroneous. Dr. Trumbull wrote: "From Moh. Weegasoeguck, 'the end of the marsh or wet meadow.'" Van der Donck's Wickquaskeck has the same meaning. It is from Lenape Wicqua-askek—wicqua, "end of," askek, "swamp," marsh, etc.: -ck,-eck, formative.
[FN] The creek now bearing the name flows to the Hudson through the village of Dobb's Ferry. Its local name, "Wicker's creek," is a corruption of Wickquaskeek. It was never the name of an individual.
Pocanteco, Pecantico, Puegkandico and Perghanduck, a stream so called [FN-1] in Westchester County, was translated by Dr. O'Callaghan from Pohkunni, "Dark." "The dark river," and by Bolton from Pockawachne, "A stream between hills," which is certainly erroneous. The first word is probably Pohk or Pak, root Paken (Pákenum, "Dark," Zeisb.; Pohken-ahtu, "In darkness," Eliot). The second may stand for antakeu, "Woods," "Forest," and the combination read "The Dark Woods." The stream rises in New Castle township and flows across the town of Mt. Pleasant to the Hudson at Tarrytown, where it is associated with Irving's story of Sleepy Hollow. The Dutch called it "Sleeper's-haven Kil," from the name which they gave to the reach on the Hudson, "Verdrietig Hoek," or "Tedious Point," because the hook or point was so long in sight of their slow-sailing vessels, and in calms their crews slept away the hours under its shadows, "Over against the Verdrietig Hoek, commonly called by the name of Sleeper's Haven," is the record. Pocanteco was a heavily wooded valley, and suggested to the early mothers stories of ghosts to keep their children from wandering in its depths. From the woods or the valley the name was extended to the stream.[FN-2] (See Alipkonck.)
[FN-1] December 1st, 1680, Frederick Phillips petitioned for liberty to purchase "a parcel of land on each side of the creek called by the Indians Pocanteco, . . . adjoining the land he hath already purchased; there to build and erect a saw-mill." (Col. Hist. N. Y., xiii, 546.)
[FN-2] "Far in the foldings of the hills winds this wizard stream—sometimes silently and darkly through solemn woodlands. . . . In the neighborhood of the aqueduct is a deep ravine which forms the dreamy region of Sleepy Hollow." (Sketch Book.)
Alipkonck is entered on Van der Donck's map of 1656, and located with the sign of an Indian village south of Sing Sing. Bolton (Hist. West. Co.) claimed it as the name of Tarrytown, and translated it, "The place of elms," which it certainly does not mean. Its derivative, however, is disguised in its orthography, and its locative is not certain. Conjecturally Alipk is from Wálagk (surd mutes g and p exchanged), "An open place, a hollow or excavation." The locative may have been Sleepy Hollow. Tarrytown, which some writers have derived from Tarwe (Dutch), "Wheat"—Wheat town—proves to be from an early settler whose name was Terry, pronounced Tarry, as written in early records. The Dutch name for Wheat town would be Tarwe-stadt, which was never written here.
Oscawanna, an island so called, lying a short distance south of Cruger's Station on N. Y. Central R. R., Hudson River Division, is of record, in 1690, Wuscawanus. (Doc. Hist. N. Y., ii, 237.) It seems to have been from the name of a sachem, otherwise known as Weskora, Weskheun, Weskomen, in 1685. Wuski, Len., "New, young;" Wuske'éne Williams, "A youth."
Shildrake, or Sheldrake, given as the name of Furnace Brook, takes that name from an extended forest known in local records as "The Furnace Woods." By exchange of l and n, it is probably from Schind, "Spruce-pine" (Zeisb.); aki, "Land" or place. Schindikeu, "Spruce forest" ("Hemlock woods," Anthony). (See Shinnec'ock.) Furnace Brook takes that name from an ancient furnace on its bank. In 1734 it was known as "The old-mill stream." Jamawissa, quoted as its Indian name, seems to be an aspirated form of Tamaquese, "Small beaver." (See Jamaica.)
Sing-Sing—Sinsing, Van der Donck; Sintsing, treaty of 1645—usually translated, "At the standing-stone," and "Stone upon stone," means "At the small stones," or "Place of small stones"—from assin "stone;" is, diminutive, and ing, locative. Ossinsing, the name of the town, has the same meaning; also, Sink-sink, L. I., ind Assinising, Chemung County. The interpretation is literally sustained in the locative on the Hudson.
Tuckahoe, town of East Chester, is from Ptuckweōō, "It is round." It was the name of a bulbous root which was used by the Indians for food and for making bread, or round loaves. (See Tuckahoe, L. I.)
Kitchiwan, modern form; Kitchawanc, treaty of 1643; Kichtawanghs, treaty of 1645; Kitchiwan, deed of 1645; Kitchawan, treaty of 1664; the name of a stream in Westchester County from which extended to an Indian clan, "Is," writes Dr. Albert S. Gatschet of the Bureau of Ethnology, "an equivalent of Wabenaki-ke'dshwan, -kidshuan, suffixed verbal stem, meaning 'Running Swiftly,' 'Rushing water,' or current, whether over rapids or not. Sas-katchéwan, Canada, 'The roiley, rushing stream'; assisku, 'Mud, dirt.' (Cree.) The prefix ki or ke, is nothing else than an abbreviation of kitchi, 'great,' 'large,' and here 'strong.' Examples are frequent as -kitchuan, -kitchawan, Mass.; kesi-itsooaⁿn or taⁿn, Abn., Kussi-tchuan, Mass., 'It swift flows.' The prefix is usually applied to streams which rise in the highlands and flow down rapidly descending slopes." The final k in some of the early forms, indicates pronunciation with the guttural aspirate, as met in wank and wangh in other local names. [FN] The final s is a foreign plural usually employed to express "people," or tribe. The stream is now known as the Croten from Cnoten, the name of a resident sachem, which by exchange of n and r, becomes Croten, an equivalent, wrote Dr. Schoolcraft of Noten, Chip., "The wind." "Bounded on the south by Scroton's River" (deed of 1703); "Called by the Indians Kightawank, and by the English Knotrus River." (Col. N. Y, Land Papers, 79.)
[FN] Dr. Trumbull wrote in the Natick (Mass.) dialect, "Kussitchuan, -uwan, impersonal verb, 'It flows in a rapid stream,' a current; it continues flowing; as a noun, 'a rapid stream.'" In Cree, Kussehtanne, "Flowing as a stream" In Delaware, -tanne has its equivalent in -hanne. "The impersonal verb termination -awan, -uan, etc., is sometimes written with the participial and subjunctive k" (ka or gh.) (Gerard.) The k or gh appears in some forms of Kitchawan. (See Waronawanka.)
Titicus, given as the name of a branch of the Croton flowing from Connecticut, is of record Mutighticos and Matightekonks, translated by Dr. Trumbull from Mat'uhtugh-ohke, "Place without wood," from which extended to the stream. (See Mattituck and Sackonck.)
Navish is claimed as the name of Teller's (now Croton) Point, on a reading of the Indian deed of 1683: "All that parcel, neck or point of land, with the meadow ground or valley adjoining, situate, lying and being on the east side of the river over against Verdrietig's Hooke, commonly called and known by the name of Slauper's Haven and by the Indians Navish, the meadow being called by the Indians Senasqua." Clearly, Navish refers to Verdrietig Hook, on the west side of the river, where it is of record. It is an equivalent of Newás (Len.), "promontory." (See Nyack-on-the-Hudson.)
Nannakans, given as the name of a clan residing on Croton River, is an equivalent of Narragans (s foreign plural), meaning "People of the point," the locative being Croton Point. (See Nyack.) This clan, crushed by the war of 1643-5, removed to the Raritan country, where, by dialectic exchange of n and r, they were known as Raritanoos, or Narritans. They were represented, in 1649, by Pennekeck, "The chief behind the Kul, having no chief of their own." (Col. Hist. N. Y., xiii.) The interpretation given to their removal, by some writers, viz., "That the Wappingers removed to New Jersey," is only correct in a limited sense. The removal was of a single clan or family. The Indians on both sides of the Hudson here were of kindred stock and were largely intermarried. (See Raritans and Pomptons.)
Senasqua, quoted as the name of Teller's Point (now Croton Point), and also as the name of Teller's Neck, is described as "A meadow," presumably on the neck or point. It is an equivalent of Del. Lenaskqual, "Original grass," (Zeisb.), i. e. grass which was supposed to have grown on the land from the beginning. (Heck.) Called "Indian grass" to distinguish it from "Whitemen's grass." [FN]
[FN] Askquall, or Askqua, is an inanimate plural in the termination -all, -al, or -a. All grass was not described by Maskik, in which the termination -ik is the animate plural.
Peppeneghek is a record form of the name quoted as that of what is now known as Cross-river.
Kewighecack, the name of a boundmark of Van Cortlandt's Manor, is written on the map of the Manor Keweghteuack as the name of a bend in the Croton west of Pine Bridge. It is from Koua, Kowa, Cuwé, "Pine"—Cuwé-uchac, "Pine wood, pine logs." (Zeisb.)
Kestaubniuk is entered on Van der Donck's map as the name of an Indian place or village north of Sing Sing. On Vischer's map the orthography is Kestaubocuck. Dr. Schoolcraft wrote Kestoniuck, "Great Point," and claimed that the last word had been borrowed and applied to Nyack on the opposite side of the river, but this is a mistake as Nyack is generic and of local record where it now is as early as 1660, and is there correctly applied. No one seems to know where Kestaubniuk was, but the name is obviously from Kitschi-bonok, "Great ground-nut place." Ketche-punak and Ketcha-bonac, L. I., K'schobbenak, Del.
Menagh, entered in Indian deed to Van Cortlandt, 1683, as the name of what is now known as Verplanck's Point, is probably from Menach'en (Del.), the indefinite form of Menátes, diminutive, meaning "Small island." The point was an island in its separation from the main land by a water course. Monack, Monach, Menach, are other orthographies of the name.
Tammoesis is of record as the name of a small stream north of Peekskill.
Appamaghpogh, now Amawalk, seems to have been extended to a tract of land without specific location. It is presumed to have been the name of a fishing place on what is now known as Mohegan Lake Appéh-ama-paug, "Trap fishing place," or pond. Amawalk, is from Nam'e-auke, "Fishing-place," (Trumbull.) In the Massachusetts dialect -pogh stands for "pond," or water-place.
Keskistkonck, Pasquasheck, and Nochpeem are noted on Van der Donck's map in the Highlands. In Colonial History is the entry (1644), "Mongochkonnome and Papenaharrow, chiefs of Wiquseskkack and Nochpeems." On the east side of the river, apparently about opposite the Donderberg, is located, on early maps, the Pachimi, who, in turn, are associated in records with the Tankitekes. Pacham is given as the name of a noted chief of the early period. His clan was probably the Pachimi. Keskistkonck was a living name as late as 1663, but disappears after that date. "The Kiskightkoncks, who have no chief now, but are counted among the foregoing savages." (Col. Hist. N. Y., xiii, 303.)
Sachus, Sachoes and Sackoack are quoted as names of Peekskill, and Magrigaries as the name of the stream. The latter is an orthography of MacGregorie's, from Hugh MacGregorie, an owner of lands on the stream. [FN-1] Though quoted as the name of Peak's Kill, it was the name given to a small creek south of that stream, as per map of 1776. Sachus and Sachoes are equivalents, and probably refer to the mouth or outlet of the small or MacGregorie's Creek—Sakoes or Saukoes. Sackonck has substantially the same meaning—Sakunk, "At the mouth or outlet of a creek or river." There was, however, a resident sachem who was called Sachoes, probably from his place of residence, but which can be read "Black Kettle," from Suckeu, "black," and ōōs, "kettle." Peekskill is modern from Peak's Kill, so called from Jan Peak, [FN-2] the founder of the settlement. The Indian name of the stream is noted, in deed of 1695, "Called by the Indians Paquintuk," probably an equivalent of Pokqueantuk, "A broad, open place in a tidal river or estuary." Peekskill Bay was probably referred to. (See Sackonck.)
[FN-1] Hugh MacGregorie was son of Major Patrick MacGregorie, the first settler in the present county of Orange. He was killed in the Leisler rebellion in New York in 1691. The son, Hugh, and his mother, were granted 1500 acres of land "At a place called John Peaches creek." No fees were charged for the patent out of respect for the memory of Major MacGregorie, as he then had "lately died in His Majesty's service in defence of the Province." (Doc. Hist. N. Y., ii, 364.) MacGregories sold to Van Cortlandt in 1696.
[FN-2] Peake, an orthography of Peak, English; Dutch, Piek; pronounced Pek (e as e in wet); English, Pek or Peck.
Kittatinny, erroneously claimed to mean "Endless hills," and to describe the Highlands as a continuation of the Allegheny range, belongs to Anthony's Nose [FN-1] to which, however, it has no very early record application. It is from Kitschi, "Principal, greatest," and -atinny, "Hill, mountain," applicable to any principal mountain peak compared with others in its vicinity. [FN-2]
[FN-1] The origin of the name is uncertain. Estevan Gomez, a Spanish navigator, wrote "St. Anthony's River" as the name of the Hudson, in 1525. The current explanation, "Antonius Neus, so called from fancied resemblance to the nose of one Anthony de Hoages," is a myth. The name as the early Dutch understood it, is no doubt more correctly explained by Jasper Bankers and Peter Sluyter in their Journal of 1679-80: "A headland and high hill in the Highlands, so called because it has a sharp ridge running up and down in the form of a nose," but fails to explain St. Anthony, or Latin Antonius. The name appears also on the Mohawk river and on Lake George, presumably from resemblance to the Highland peak.
[FN-2] The Indians had no names for mountain ranges, but frequently designated certain peaks by specific names. "Among these aboriginal people," wrote Heckewelder, "every tree was not the tree, and every mountain the mountain; but, on the contrary, everything is distinguished by its specific name." Kittatinny was and is the most conspicuous or greatest hill of the particular group of hills in its proximity and was spoken of as such in designating the boundmark.
Sacrahung, or Mill River, "takes its name from Sacra, 'rain.' Its liability to freshets after heavy rains, may have given origin to the name." (O'Callaghan.) Evidently, however, the name is a corruption of Sakwihung (Zeish.), "At the mouth of the river." The record reads, "A small brook or run called Wigwam brook, but by some falsely called Sackwrahung." (Deed of 1740.)
Quinnehung, a neck of land at the mouth and west side of Bronx River, is presumed to have been the name of Hunter's Point. The adjectival Quinneh, is very plainly an equivalent of Quinnih (Eliot), "long," and -ung or -ongh may stand for place—"A long place, or neck of land." (See Aquchung.)
Sackonck and Matightekonck, record names of places petitioned for by Van Cortlandt in 1697, are located in general terms, in the petition, in the neighborhood of John Peak's Creek and Anthony's Nose. (Cal. N. Y. Land Papers, 49.) The first probably referred to the mouth of Peak's Creek (Peekskill). Sakunk (Heck.), "At the mouth or outlet of a creek or river." Saukunk (Donck) is another form. (See Titicus.)
Aquehung, Acqueahounck, etc., was translated by Dr. O'Callaghan, "The place of peace." from Aquene, Nar., "peace," and unk, locative. Dr. Trumbull wrote, "A place on this side of some other place," from the generic Acq. The description in N. Y. Land Papers reads, "Bounded on the east by the river called by the Indians Aquehung," the river taking its name from its position as a boundary "on this side" of which was the land. The contemporary name, Ran-ahqua-ung, means "A place on the other side," corresponding with the description, "On the other side of the Great Kil." Bolton assigns Acqueahounck to Hutchinson's Creek, the west boundary of the town of Pelham. The "Great Kil" is now the Bronx.
Kakeout, the name of the highest hill in Westchester County, is from Dutch Kijk-uit, "Look-out—a place of observation, as a tower, hill," etc. It appears also in Rockland and in Ulster County and on the Mohawk. (See Kakiate.)
Shappequa, a name now applied to the Shappequa Hills and to a mineral spring east of Sing-Sing, and destined to be remembered as that of the home of Horace Greeley, was primarily given to locate a tract now embraced in the towns of New Castle and Bedford, and, as in all such cases, was a specific place by which the location could be identified, but which in turn has never been identified. The name is apparently a form of Chepi written also Chappa, signifying, "Separated, apart from, a distinct place." [FN] (See Kap-hack.)
[FN] The word Chippe or Shappa, means not only separate, "The separate place," but was employed to describe a future condition—Chepeck, the dead. As an adjective, Chippe (El.) signifies separated, set apart. Chepiohkomuk, the place of separation. The same word was used for 'ghost,' 'spectre,' 'evil spirit.' (Trumbull.) The corresponding Delaware word was Tschipey. It is not presumed that the word was made use of here in any other sense than its literal application, "A separate place." Bolton assigns the name to a Laurel Swamp, but with doubtful correctness.
Aspetong, a bold eminence in Bedford, is an equivalent of Ashpohtag, Mass., "A high place," "A height." (Trumbull.) See Ishpatinau.
Quarepos, of record as the name of the district of country called by the English "White Plains," from the primary prevalence there of white balsam (Dr. O'Callaghan), seems to have been the name of the lake now known as St. Mary's. Quar is a form of Quin, Quan, etc., meaning "Long," and pos stands for pog or paug, meaning "Pond." The name is met in Quin'e-paug, "Long Pond." The pond lies along the east border of the town of White Plains.
Peningo, the point or neck of land forming the southeastern extremity of the town of Rye, [FN] was interpreted by Dr. Bolton, with doubtful correctness: "From Ponus, an Indian chief." The neck is some nine miles long by about two miles broad and seems to have been primarily a region of ridges and swamps.
[FN] Rye is from Rye, England. The derivative is Ripe (Latin), meaning, "The bank of a river." In French, "The sea-shore."
Apanammis, Cal. N. Y, Land Papers; Apauamis and Apauamin, Col. Hist. N. Y.: Apawammeis, Apawamis, Apawqunamis, Epawames, local and Conn. Records, is given as the name of Budd's Neck, between Mamaroneck River and Blind Brook, Westchester County. Dr. Trumbull passed the name without explanation. It is written as the name of a boundmark.
Mochquams and Moagunanes are record forms of the name of Blind Brook, one of the boundary streams of the tract called Penningo, which is described as lying "between Blind Brook and Byram River." (See Armonck.)
Magopson and Mangopson are orthographies of the name given as that of De Lancey's Neck, described as "The great neck." (See Waumaniuck.) The dialect spoken in eastern Westchester seems to have been Quiripi (or Quinipiac), which prevailed near the Sound from New Haven west.
Armonck, claimed as the name of Byram's River, was probably that of a fishing place. In 1649 the name of the stream is of record, "Called by the Indians Seweyruck." In the same record the land is called Haseco and a meadow Misosehasakey, interpreted by Dr. Trumbull, "Great fresh meadow," or low wet lands. Haseco has no meaning; it is now assigned to Port Chester (Saw-Pits), and Misosehasakey to Horse Neck. Armonck has lost some of its letters. What is left of it indicates Amaug, "fishing place." (Trumbull's Indian Names.)
Eauketaupucason, the name written as that of the feature in the village of Rye known by the unpleasant English title of "Hog-pen Ridge," is, writes Mr. William R. Gerard, "Probably an equivalent of Lenape Ogid-ápuchk-essen, meaning, 'There is rock upon rock,' or one rock on another rock." Topography not ascertained.
Manussing—in will of Joseph Sherwood, Menassink—an island so called in the jurisdiction of Rye, may be an equivalent of Min-assin-ink, "At a place of small stones," Minneweis, now City Island, is in the same jurisdiction.
Mamaroneck, now so written as the name of a town in Westchester County, is of record, in 1644, Mamarrack and Mamarranack; later, Mammaranock, Mamorinack, Mammarinickes (1662), primarily as that of a "Neck or parcel of land," but claimed to be from the name of an early sachem of the Kitchtawanks whose territory was called Kitchtawanuck. [FN] Wm. R. Gerard explains: "The dissyllabic root, mamal, or mamar, means 'To stripe;' Mamar-a-nak, 'striped arms,' or eyebrows, as the name of an Indian chief who painted his arms in stripes or radiated his eyebrows," a custom noted by several early writers. There is no evidence that the Kitchtawanuck sachem had either residence or jurisdiction here, nor is his name signed to any deed in this district. The reading in one record, "Three stripes or strips of land," seems to indicate that the name was descriptive of the necks or strips of land. (See Waumaniuck.)
[FN] "Mamarranack and Waupaurin, chiefs of Kitchawanuck." (Col. Hist. N. Y., xiii, 17.) The Kitchawan is now known as Croton river. It has no connection whatever with Mamaroneck.
Waumaniuck and Maumaniuck, forms of the name of record as that of the eastern part of De Lancey's Neck, or Seaman's Point, Westchester County, as stated in the Indian deed of 1661, which conveyed to one John Richbell "three necks of land," described as "Bounded on the east by Mamaroneck River, and on the west by Gravelly or Stony Brook" (Cal. N. Y. Land Papers, 5), the latter by the Indians called Pockotesse-wacke, came to be known as Mamaraneck Neck, otherwise described as "The great neck of land at Mamaroneck."
Pockotessewacke, given as the name of what came to be known as "Gravelly or Stony Brook," and "Beaver-meadow Brook," [FN] has been translated by Wm. R. Gerard, from "Petuk-assin-icke, 'where there are numerous round stones'"; a place from which the name was extended to the stream, or the name of a place in the stream where there were numerous round stones, i. e. paving stones or "hard-heads." Esse (esseni) from assin, "stone," means "stony, flinty."
[FN] Pockotessewacke and Beaver-meadow Brook. (Cal. N. Y. Land Papers.)
Manuketesuck, quoted by Bolton (Hist. West. Co.) as the name of Long Island Sound and interpreted, "Broad flowing river," was more correctly explained by Dr. Trumbull: "Apparently a diminutive of Manunkatesuck, 'Menhaden country,' from Munongutteau, 'that which fertalizes or manures land,' the Indian name for white fish or bony fish, which were taken in great numbers by the Indians, on the shores of the Sound, for manuring their corn lands."
Moharsic is said to have been the name of what is now known as Crom-pond, in the town of Yorktown. The pond is in two parts, and the name may mean, "Where two ponds meet," or come together. Crom-pond is corrupt Dutch from Krom-poel, "Crooked pond."
Maharness, the name of a stream rising in Westchester County and flowing east to the Sound, is also written Mianus and Mahanus, in Dutch records Mayane, correctly Mayanno. It was the name of "a sachem residing on it between Greenwich and Stamford, Ct., who was killed by Capt. Patrick, in 1643, and his head cut off and sent to Fort Amsterdam." (Brodhead, i, 386.) Dr. Trumbull interpreted, "He who gathers together." Kechkawes is written as the name of the stream in 1640.
Nanichiestawack, given as the name of an Indian village on the southern spur of Indian Hill (so called) in the town of Bedford, rests on tradition.
Petuckquapaug, a pond in Greenwich, Ct., but originally under the jurisdiction of the Dutch at Fort Amsterdam, signifies "Round Pond." It is now called "Dumpling Pond." The Dutch changed the suffix to paen, "soft land," and in that form described an adjacent district of low land. (See Tappan.)
Katonah, the name of a sachem, is preserved in that of a village in the town of Bedford. The district was known as "Katonah's land." In deed of 1680, the orthography is Katōōnah—oo as in food.
Succabonk, a place-name in the town of Bedford, stands for Sagabonak-ong, "Place of ground nuts," or wild potatoes. (See Sagabonock.)
Wequehackhe is written by Reichel ("Mem. Moravian Church") as the name of the Highlands, with the interpretation, "The hill country"—"People of the hill country." The name has no such meaning. Weque or Wequa, means "The end," and -hackhe (hacki) means "Land," not up-land. In other words, the boundary was the end of the Highlands.' [FN]
[FN] "Hacki, land; Len-hacki, up-land." (Zeisberger.) "When they speak of highlands they say Lennihacke, original lands; but they do not apply the same name to low lands, which, being generally formed by the overflowing or washing of streams, cannot be called original." (Heckewelder.)
Mahopack, the modern form of the name of a lake in Putnam County, is of record Makoohpeck in 1765, and Macookpack on Sauthier's map of 1774, which seem to stand for M'achkookpéeck (Ukh-okpeck, Mah.), meaning "Snake Lake," or "Water where snakes are abundant." (See Copake.) In early years snakes were abundant in the region about the lake, and are not scarce in present times. [FN] The lake is ten miles in circumference and lies sixteen hundred feet above the level of Hudson's River. It contains two or three small islands, on the largest of which is the traditionally famous "Chieftain's Rock."
[FN] A wild, wet region among the hills, where the rattlesnake
abounded. They were formerly found in all parts of the Highlands, and
are still met frequently.
Canopus, claimed to have been the name of an Indian sachem and now preserved in Canopus Hollow, Putnam County, is not Indian; it is Latin from the Greek name of a town in Egypt. "Can'pus, the Egyptian god of water." (Webster.)
Wiccopee is of record as the name of the highest peak in the Fishkill Mountains on the south border of East Fishkill. It is also assigned to the pass or clove in the range through which ran the Indian path, now the present as well as the ancient highway between Fishkill Village and Peekskill, which was fortified in the war of the Revolution. An Indian village is traditionally located in the pass, of which "one Wikopy" is named as chief on the same authority. The name, however, has no reference to a pass, path, village or chief; it is a pronunciation of Wecuppe, "The place of basswoods or linden trees," from the inner bark of which (wikopi) "the Indians made ropes and mats—their tying bark par excellence." (Trumbull.) "Wikbi, bast, the inner bark of trees." (Zeisberger.) In Webster and The Century the name is applied to the Leather-wood, a willowy shrub with a tough, leathery bark.
Matteawan, now so written, has retained that orthography since its first appearance in 1685 in the Rombout Patent, which reads: "Beginning on the south side of a creek called Matteawan," the exact boundmark being the north side or foot of the hill known as Breakneck (Matomps'k). It has been interpreted in various ways, that most frequently quoted appearing in Spofford's Gazetteer: "From Matai, a magician, and Wian, a skin; freely rendered, 'Place of good furs,'" which never could have been the meaning; nor does the name refer to mountains to which it has been extended. Wm. R. Gerard writes: "Matáwan, an impersonal Algonquian verb, meaning, 'It debouches into,' i. e. 'a creek or river into another body of water,' substantially, 'a confluence.'" This rendering is confirmed by Albert S. Gatschet, of the Bureau of Ethnology, who writes: "Mr. Gerard is certainly right when he explains the radix mat—mata—by confluence, junction, debouching, and forming verbs as well as roots and nouns." -A'wan, -wan -uan, etc., is an impersonal verb termination; it appears only in connection with impersonal verbs. (See Waronawanka.) Matteawan is met in several forms—Matawa and Mattawan, Ontario, Canada; Mattawan, Maine; Matawan, Monmouth County, N. J.; Mattawanna, Pa.; Mattawoman, Maryland.
Fishkill, the English name of the stream of which Matteawan is the estuary, is from Dutch Vischer's Kil. It was probably applied by the Dutch to the estuary from Vischer's Rak which the Dutch applied to a reach or sailing course on the Hudson at this point. De Laet wrote: "A place which our country-men call Vischer's Rack, [FN] that is Fisherman's Bend." (See Woranecks.) On the earlier maps the stream, or its estuary, is named Vresch Kil, or "Fresh-water Kil," to distinguish it from the brackish water of the Hudson. From the estuary extended to the entire stream.
[FN] Rack is obsolete; the present word is Recht. It describes an almost straight part of the river.
Woranecks, Carte Figurative 1614-16; Waoranecks, 1621-25; Warenecker, Wassenaer; Waoranekye, De Laet, 1633-40; Waoranecks, Van der Donck's map, 1656—is located on the Carte Figurative north of latitude 42-15, on the east side of the river. De Laet and Van der Donck place it between what are now known as Wappingers' Creek and Fishkill Creek. De Laet wrote: "Where projects a sandy point and the river becomes narrower, there is a place called Esopus, where the Waoranekys, another barbarous nation, have their abode." Later, Esopus became permanent on the west side of the river at Kingston. It is a Dutch corruption of Algonquian Sepus, meaning brook, creek, etc., applicable to any small stream. From De Laet's description, [FN] there is little room for doubt that the "sandy point" to which he referred is now known as Low Point, opposite the Dans Kamer, at the head of Newburgh Bay, where the river narrows, or that Esopus was applied to Casper's Creek. On Van der Donck's map the "barbarous nation" is given three castles on the south side of the stream, which became known later (1643) as the Wappingers, who certainly held jurisdiction on the east side of Newburgh Bay. The adjectival of the name is no doubt from Wáro, or Waloh, meaning "Concave, hollowing," a depression in land, low land, the latter expressed in ock (ohke), "land" or place. The same adjectival appears in Waronawanka at Kingston, and the same word in Woronake on the Sound at Milford, Ct., where the topography is similar. The foreign plural s extends the meaning to "Dwellers on," or inhabitants of. (See Wahamenesing and {Waro?}nawanka.)
[FN] . . . "And thus with various windings it reaches a place which our countrymen call Vischer's Rack, that is the Fisherman's Bend. And here the eastern bank is inhabited by the Pachimi. A little beyond where projects a sandy point and the river becomes narrower, there is a place called Esopus, where the Waoranekys, another barbarous nation, have their abode. To these succeed, after a short interval, the Waranawankconghs, on the opposite side of the river." (De Laet.)
"At the Fisher's Hook are the Pachany, Wareneckers," etc. (Wassenaer.)
Mawenawasigh, so written in the Rombout Patent of 1684, covering lands extending from Wappingers' Creek to the foot of the hills on the north side of Matteawan Creek, was the name of the north boundmark of the patent and not that of Wappingers' Creek. The Indian deed reads: "Beginning on the south side of a creek called Matteawan, from thence northwardly along Hudson's river five hundred yards beyond the Great Wappingers creek or kill, called Mawenawasigh." The stream was given the name of the boundmark and was introduced to identify the place that was five hundred yards north of it, i. e. the rocky point or promontory through which passes the tunnel of the Hudson River R. R. at New Hamburgh. The name is from Mawe, "To meet," and Newásek, [FN] "A point or promontory"—literally, "The promontory where another boundary is met." The assignment of the name to Wappingers' Falls is as erroneous as its assignment to the creek.
[FN] Nawaas, on the Connecticut, noted on the Carte Figurative of 1614-16, is very distinctly located at a point on the head-waters of that river.
Neversink is a corruption of Newas-ink, "At the point or promontory."
Wahamanesing is noted by Brodhead (Hist. N. Y.) as the name of Wappingers' Creek—authority not cited and place where the stream was so called not ascertained. The initial W was probably exchanged for M by mishearing, as it was in many cases of record. Mah means "To meet," Amhannes means "A small river," and the suffix -ing is locative. The composition reads: "A place where streams come together," which may have been on the Hudson at the mouth of the creek. In Philadelphia Moyamansing was the name of a marsh bounded by four small streams. (N. Y. Land Papers, 646.) Dr. Trumbull in his "Indian Names on the Connecticut," quoted Mahmansuck (Moh.), in Connecticut, with the explanation, "Where two streams come together." The name was extended to the creek as customary in such cases. The Wahamanesing flows from Stissing Pond, in northern Duchess County, and follows the center of a narrow belt of limestone its entire length of about thirty-five miles southwest to the Hudson, which it reaches in a curve and passes over a picturesque fall of seventy-five feet to an estuary. From early Dutch occupation it has been known or called Wappinck (1645), Wappinges and Wappingers' Kill or creek, taking that name presumably from the clan which was seated upon it of record as "Wappings, Wappinges, Wapans, or Highland Indians." [FN-1] On Van der Donck's map three castles or villages of the clan are located on the south side or south of the creek, indicating the inclusion in the tribal jurisdiction of the lands as far south as the Highlands. From Kregier's Journal of the "Second Esopus War" (1663), it is learned that they had a principal castle in the vicinity of Low Point and that they maintained a crossing-place to Dans Kamer Point. Their name is presumed to have been derived from generic Wapan, "East"—Wapani, "Eastern people" [FN-2]—which could have been properly applied to them as residents on the east side of the river, not "Eastern people" as that term is applied to residents of the more Eastern States, but locally so called by residents on the west side of the Hudson, or by the Delawares as the most eastern nation of their own stock. They were no doubt more or less mixed by association and marriage with their eastern as well as their western neighbors, but were primarily of Lenape or Delaware origin, and related to the Minsi, Monsey or Minisink clans on the west side of the river, though not associated with them in tribal government. [FN-3] Their tribal jurisdiction, aside from that which was immediately local, extended on the east side of the river from Roelof Jansen's Kill (south of opposite to the Catskill) to the sea. At their northern bound they met the tribe known to the Dutch as the Mahicans, a people of eastern origin and dialect, whose eastern limit included the valley of the Housatonic at least, and with them in alliance formed the "Mahican nation" of Dutch history, as stated by King Ninham of the Wappingers, in an affidavit in 1757, and who also stated that the language of the Mahicans was not the same as that of the Wappingers, although he understood the Mahicani. Reduced by early wars with the Dutch around New Amsterdam and by contact with European civilization, they melted away rapidly, many of them finding homes in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, others at Stockbridge, and a remnant living at Fishkill removing thence to Otsiningo, in 1737, as wards of the Senecas. (Col. Hist. N. Y., vii, 153, 158.)
[FN-1] "Highland Indians" was a designation employed by the Dutch as well as by the English. (Col. Hist. N. Y., viii, 440.)
[FN-2] The familiar historic name Wappingers seems to have been introduced by the Dutch from their word Wapendragers, "Armed men." The tribe is first met of record in 1643, when they attacked boats coming down from Fort Orange. (Doc. Hist. N. Y., iv, 12.) A map of 1690 gives them a large settlement on the south side of the creek. There is no Opossum in the name, as some writers read it, although some blundering clerk wrote Oping for Waping.
[FN-3] The relations between the Esopus Indians and the Wappingers were always intimate and friendly, so much so that when the Mohawks made peace with the Esopus Indians, in 1669, and refused to include the Wappingers, it was feared by the government that further trouble would ensue from the "great correspondence and affinity between them." (Col. Hist. N. Y., xiii, 427.) "Affinity," relationship by marriage, kinship generally.
Gov. Tryon, in his report in 1774, no doubt stated the facts correctly when he wrote that the "Montauks and others of Long Island, Wappingers of Duchess County, Esopus, Papagoncks, &c., of Ulster County, generally denominated River Indians, spoke a language radically the same," and were "understood by the Delawares, being originally of the same race." (Doc Hist. N. Y., i, 765.)
Poughquag, the name of a village in the town of Beekman, Duchess County, and primarily the name of what is now known as Silver Lake, in the southeast part of the town, is from Apoquague, (Mass.), meaning, "A flaggy meadow," which is presumed to have adjoined the lake. It is from Uppuqui, "Lodge covering," and -anke, "Land" or place. (Trumbull.)
Pietawickquassick, a brook so called which formed a bound-mark of a tract of land conveyed by Peter Schuyler in 1699, described as "On the east side of Hudson's River, over against Juffrou's Hook, at a place called by the Christians Jan Casper's Creek." The creek is now known as Casper's Creek. It is the first creek north of Wappingers' Kill. Schuyler called the place Rust Plaest (Dutch, Rust-plaats), meaning "Resting place, or place of peace." The Indian name has not been located. It is probably a form or equivalent of P'tukqu-suk, "A bend in a brook or outlet."
Wassaic, a village and a creek so called in the town of Amenia, Duchess County, appears in N. Y. records in 1702, Wiesasack, as the name of a tract of land "lying to the southward of Wayanaglanock, to the westward of Westenhoek creek." (Cal. N. Y. Land Papers, 58); later, "Near a place called Weshiack" (Ib. 65), "and thence northerly to a place called Wishshiag, and so on about a mile northwest of ye Allum rocks." [FN] (Ib. 75.) The name seems to have been applied to the north end of West Mountain, where is located the ravine known as the Dover Stone Church, about half a mile west of the village of Dover Plains. The ravine is 20 to 25 feet wide at the bottom, 1 to 3 feet at the top, 30 to 40 feet long, and 40 to 50 feet high, hence called a church. The Webotuck, a tributary of Ten Mile River, flows through the ravine. Dr. Trumbull ("Indian Names in Connecticut") wrote: "Wassiog, (Moh.), alternate Washiack, a west bound of the Mohegan country claimed by Uncas; 'the south end of a very high hill' very near the line between Glastonbury and Hebron," a place near Hartford, Conn., but failed to give explanation of the name.
[FN] Wallam—the initial W dropped—literally, "Paint rocks," a formation of igneous rock which, by exposure, becomes disintegrated into soft earthy masses. There are several varieties. The Indians used the disintegrated masses for paint. The name is met in some forms in all Algonquian dialects. (See Wallomschack.)
Weputing, Weepitung, Webotuck, Weepatuck (N. Y. and Conn. Rec.), given as the name of a "high mountain," in the Sackett Patent, was translated by Dr. Trumbull, from Conn. Records: "Weepatuck, 'Place of the narrow pass,' or 'strait.'" (See Wassaic.)
Querapogatt, a boundmark of the Sackett Patent, is, apparently, a compound of Quenne, "long," pog (paug), "pond," and att locaaive—"Beginning at the (a) long pond." The name is met in Quine-baug, without locative suffix, signifying "Long Pond" simply.
She'kom'eko, preserved as the name of a small stream which rises near Federal Square, Duchess County, and flows thence north to Roelof Jansen's Kill, was primarily the name of an Indian village conspicuous in the history of the labors of the Moravian missionaries. [FN-1] It was located about two miles south of Pine Plains in the valley of the stream. Dr. Trumbull translated: "She'com'eko, modern Chic'omi'co, from -she, -che (from mishe or k'che), 'great,' and comaco, 'house,' or 'enclosed place'—'the great lodge,', or 'the great village.'" [FN-2] We have the testimony of Loskiel that the occupants of the village were "Mahicander Indians."
[FN-1] The field of the labors of the Moravian missionaries extended to Wechquadnach, Pachquadnach, Potatik, Westenhoek and Wehtak, on the Housatenuc. Wechquadnach (Wechquetank, Loskiel) was at the end of what is now known as Indian Pond, lying partly in the town of North East, Duchess County, and partly in Sharon, Conn. It was the Gnadensee, or "Lake of Grace," of the missionaries. Wequadn'ach means "At the end of the mountain" between which and the lake the Indian village stood. Pachquadn'ach was on the opposite side of the pond; it means "Clear bare mountain land." Wehtak means "Wigwam place." Pishgachtigok (Pach-gat-gock, German notation), was about twenty miles south of Shekomeko, at the junction of Ten Mile River and the Housatonuc. It means, "Where the river divides," or branches. (See Schaghticoke.) Westenhoek, noted above, is explained in another connection. Housatonuc, in N. Y. Land Papers Owassitanuc, stands for A-wass-adene-uc, Abn.; in Delaware, Awossi, "Over, over there, beyond," -actenne, "hill or mountain," with locative -uk, "place," "land"; literally, "A place beyond the hill." (Trumbull.) It is not the name of either the hill or the river, to which it was extended, but a verbal direction. An Indian village called Potatik by the Moravian missionaries, was also on the Housatonuc, and is written in one form, Pateook.
[FN-2] A translation from the Delaware Scha-gach-we-u, "straight," and meek "fish"—an eel—eel place—has been widely quoted. The translation by Dr. Trumbull is no doubt correct.
Shenandoah (Shenandoah Corners, East Fishkill) is an Iroquoian name of modern introduction here. It is met in place in Saratoga County and at Wyoming, Pa. (See Shannondhoi.)
Stissing, now the name of a hill and of a lake one mile west of the village of Pine Plains, Duchess County, is probably an apheresis of Mistissing, a "Great rock," and belongs to the hill, which rises 400 or 500 feet above the valley and is crowned with a mass of naked rock, described by one writer as "resembling a huge boulder transported there."
Poughkeepsie, now so written, is of record in many forms of which Pooghkeepesingh, 1683; Pogkeepke, 1702; Pokeapsinck, 1703; Pacaksing, 1704; Poghkeepsie, 1766; Poughkeepsie, 1767, are the earlier. The locative of the name and the key to its explanation are clearly determined by the description in a gift deed to Peter Lansing and Jan Smedes, in 1683: "A waterfall near the bank of the river called Pooghkeepesingh;" [FN-1] in petition of Peter Lansing and Arnout Velie, in 1704: "Beginning at a creek called Pakaksing, by ye river side." [FN-2] There are other record applications, but are probably extensions, as Poghkeepke (1702), given as the name of a "muddy pond" in the vicinity. Schoolcraft's interpretation, "Safe harbor," from Apokeepsing, is questioned by W. R. Gerard, who, from a personal acquaintance with the locative, "A water-fall," writes: "The name refers not to the fall, but to the basin of water worn out in the rocks at the foot of the fall. Zeisberger would have written the word Āpuchkìpìsink, that is, 'At the rock-pool (or basin) of water.' Āpuchk-ìpìs-ink is a composition of -puchk, 'rock'; ipis, in composition, 'little water,' 'pool of water,' 'pond,' 'little lake,' etc." Pooghk is no doubt from ápughk (apuchk), "rock." The stream has long been known as the Fall Kill. Primarily there seems to have been three falls upon it, of which Matapan will be referred to later.
[FN-1] "This fifth day of May, 1683, appeared before me . . . a Highland Indian called Massang, who declared herewith that he has given as a free gift, a bouwery (farm) to Pieter Lansingh, and a bouwery to Jan Smeedes, a young glazier, also a waterfall near the bank of the river, to build a mill thereon. The waterfall is called Pooghkeepesingh and the land Minnisingh, situated on the east side of the river." (Col. Hist. N. Y., xiii, 571.)
[FN-2] Cal. N. Y. Land Papers, 71. There are forty-nine record orthographies of the term, from which a selection could be made as a basis of interpretation. Poghkeepke, for example, might be accepted as meaning, "Muddy Pond," although there is neither a word or particle in it that would warrant the conclusion.
Wynogkee, Wynachkee, and Winnakee are record forms of the name of a district of country or place from which it was extended to the stream known as the Fall Kill "Through which a kill called Wynachkee runs, . . . including the kill to the second fall called Mattapan," is the description in a gift deed to Arnout Velie, in 1680, for three flats of land, one on the north and two on the south side of the kill. "A flat on the west side of the kil, called Wynachkee" (Col. Hist. N. Y., xiii, 545, 572), does not mean that the kill was called Wynachkee, but the flat of land, to which the name itself shows that it belonged. The derivatives are Winne, "good, fine, pleasant," and -aki (auke, ohke), "land" or place; literally, "land." [FN]
[FN] From the root Wulit, Del. From the same root Winne, Willi, Wirri, Waure, Wule, etc. The name is met in equivalent forms in several places. Wenaque and Wynackie are forms of the name of a beautiful valley in Passaic county, N. J. (Nelson.) Winakaki, "Sassifras land—rich, fat land." Winak-aki-ng, "At the Sassifras place," was the Lenape name of Eastern Pennsylvania. (See Wanaksink.) Eliot wrote in the Natick (Mass.) dialect, "Wunohke, good land." The general meaning of the root is pleasurable sensation.
Mattapan, "the second fall," so called in the deed to Arnout Velie (1680), was the name of a "carrying place," "the end of a portage, where the canoe was launched again and its bearers reembarked." (Trumbull.) A landing place. [FN] "At a place called Matapan, to the south side thereof, bounded on the west by John Casperses Creek." (Cal. Land Papers, 108.) (See Pietawick-quasick.)
[FN] Mattappan, a participle of Mattappu, "he sits down," denotes "a sitting down place," or as generally employed in local names, the end of a portage between two rivers, or from one arm of the sea to another—where the canoe was launched again and its bearers reembarked. (Trumbull.) In Lenape Aan is a radical meaning, "To move; to go." Paan, "To come; to get to"; Wiket-pann, "To get home"; Paancep, "Arrived"; Mattalan, "To come upto some body"; logically, Mattappan, "To stop," to sit down, to land, a landing place
Minnissingh is written as the name of a tract conveyed to Peter Lansing and Jan Smedes by gift deed in 1683. (See Poughkeepsie.) Minnissingh is, apparently, the same word that is met in Minnisink, Orange County. The locative of the tract has not been ascertained, but it was pretty certainly on the "back" or upper lands. There was no island there. (See Minnisink.)
Eaquorisink is of record as the name of Crom Elbow Creek, and Eaquaquanessìnck as that of lands on the Hudson, in patent to Henry Beekman, the boundary of which ran from the Hudson "east by the side of a fresh meadow called Mansakìn [FN-1] and a small run of water called Mancapawìmick." In patent to Peter Falconier the land is called Eaquaquaannessìnck, the meadow Mansakin, the small creek Nanacopaconick, and Crom Elbow (Krom Elleboog, Dutch, '"crooked elbow'") Creek. Eaquarysink is a compression of Eaquaquaannessinck. It was not the name of the creek, but located the boundmark "as far as the small creek." The composition is the equivalent of Wequa, [FN-2] "end of"; annes, "small stream," and ink, "at," "to," etc.
[FN-1] "A meadow or marsh land called Manjakan," is an equivalent record in Ulster County. (Cal. N. Y. Land Papers, 133.) "A fresh meadow," i. e. a fresh water meadow, or low lands by the side of the creek.
[FN-2] Enaughqua, L. I.; Yò anûck quaque, Williams; Wequa, Weque, Aqua, Ukwe, Echqu, etc., "end of." The word is met in many forms. Wehque, "as far as." (Eliot.)
Wawyachtanock, Indian deed to Robert Livingston, 1685; Wawyachtanock, Wawijachtanock, Wawigachtanock in Livingston Patent and Watwijachtonocks in association with "The Indians of the Long Reach" (Doc. Hist. N. Y., 93, 97), is given as the name of a place—"The path that leads to Wawyachtenock." In a petition for permission to purchase, in 1702 (Col. Land Papers, 58), the description reads: "A tract of land lying to the westward of Westenhoeks Creek [FN-1] and to ye eastward of Poghkeepsie, called by ye Indians Wayaughtanock." It is presumed that the locative of the name is now known as Union Corners, Duchess County, where Krom Elleboog Creek, after flowing southwesterly, turns at nearly a right angle and flows west to the Hudson, which it reaches in a narrow channel between bluffs, a little south of Krom Elbow Point, where a bend in the Hudson forms the north end of the Long Reach. The first word of the name is from Wawai, "Round about," "Winding around," "eddying," as a current in a bend of a river. The second, -tan, -ten, -ton means "current," by metonymie, "river," and ock, means "land" or place—"A bend-of-the-river place." The same name is met in Wawiachtanos, in the Ohio country, [FN-2] and the prefix in many places. (See Wawayanda.)
[FN-1] Westenhoek is Dutch. It means "West corner." It was given by the Dutch to a tract of land lying in a bend of Housatonuk river, long in dispute between New York and Massachusetts, called by the Indians W-nagh-tak-ook, for many years the name of the capital town of the Mahican nation.(Loskiel.) Rev. Dr. Edwards wrote it Wnoghquetookooke and translated it from an intimate acquaintance of the Stockbridge dialect, "A bend-of-the-river-place." Mr. Gerard writes it, Wamenketukok, "At the winding of the river." Now Stockbridge, Mass.
[FN-2] "Tjughsaghrondie, alias Wawayachtenok." (Col. Hist. N. Y., iv, 900; La Trobe's Translation of Loskiel, i, 23.) The first name, Tjughsaghrondie, is also written Taghsaglirondie, and in other forms. It is claimed to be from the Wyandot or Huron-Iroquoian dialect. In History of Detroit the Algonquin is quoted Waweatunong, interpreted "Circuitous approach," and the claim made that the reference was to the bend in the Strait at Detroit at an elevation "from which a view of the whole broad river" could be had. In Shawano, Wawia'tan describes bending or eddying water—with locative, "Where the current winds about." The name is applicable at any place where the features exist.
Metambeson, a creek so called in Duchess County, is now known as Sawkill. It is the outlet of a lake called Long Pond. The Indian name is from Matt, negative and depreciatory, "Small, unfavorable," etc., and M'beson, "Strong water," a word used in describing brandy, spirits, physic, etc. The rapidity of the water was probably referred to.
Waraughkameck—Waraukameck—a small lake in the same county, is now known as "Fever Cot or Pine Swamp." The Indian name is probably an equivalent of Len. Wálagh-kamik, an enclosed hole or den, a hollow or excavation.
Aquassing—"At a creek called by the Indians Aquassing, and by the Christians Fish Creek"—has not been located. Aquassing was the end of the boundary line, and may be from Enaughquasink, "As far as."
Tauquashqueick, given as the name of a meadow lying between Magdalen Island [FN] and the main land, now known as "Radcliff's Vly," is probably an equivalent of Pauqua-ask-ek. "Open or clear wet meadow or vly."
[FN] Magdalen Island is between Upper and Lower Red-hook. The original Dutch, Maagdelijn, supposed to mean "A dissolute woman," here means, simply, "Maiden," i. e. shad or any fish of the herring family. (See Magaat Ramis.) The name appears on Van der Donck's map of 1656.
Sankhenak and Saukhenak are record forms of the name given as that of Roelof Jansen's Kil (Doc. Hist. N. Y., iii, 612; French's Gazetteer.) Sauk-hannek would describe the mouth or outlet of the stream, and Sank-hannek would read "Flint-stone creek." Sauk is probably correct. The purchase included land on both sides of the creek from "A small kil opposite the Katskil," on the north, called Wachhanekassik. "to a place opposite Sagertyes Kil, called Saaskahampka." The stream is now known as Livingston's Creek. [FN]
[FN] The creek was the boundmark between the Wappingers and the Mahicans. (See Wahamanessing.)
Wachanekassik, Indian deed to Livingston, 1683; Waghankasick, patent to Van Rensselaer, 1649, and other orthographies, is written as the name of a small creek which marked the place of beginning of the northwest boundmark of the Livingston Patent and the place of ending of the southwest boundmark of the prior Van Rensselaer Patent of Claverack. The latter reads; ". . . And so along the said Hudson River southward to the south side of Vastrix Island, by a creek called Waghankasick, thence easterly to Wawanaquasik," etc. The deed to Livingston conveyed lands "On both sides of Roelof Jansen's Kill, [FN-1] called by the Indians Sauk-henak," including lands "along the river's bank from said Roeloff Jansen's Kill, northwards up, to a small stream opposite Catskill named Wachanekasseck, and southwards down the river to opposite the Sagertjes Kill, called by the Indians Saaskahampka." In the Livingston Patent of 1684: "Eighteen hundred acres of woodland lying between a small creek or kill lying over against Catskill called Wachanakasseck and a place called Suaskahampka," and in patent of 1686: "On the north by a line to be drawn from a certain creek or kill over against the south side of Vastrix Island in Hudson's River, called Wachankasigh," to which Surveyor John Beatty added more precisely on his map of survey in 1715: "Beginning on the east side of Hudson's River southward from Vastrix Island, at a place where a certain run of water watereth out into Hudson's River, called in ye Indian tongue, Wachankassik." The "run of water" is not marked on Beatty's map, nor on the map of survey of the patent in 1798, but it is marked, from existence or presumed existence, on a map of the boundary line between New York and Massachusetts and seems to have been one of the several small streams that flow down the bluff from the surface, apparently about two miles and a half north of Roelof Jansen's Kill, in the vicinity of the old Oak Hill station [FN-2] on the H. R. R., later known as Catskill station. While referred to in connection with the boundmark to identify its location, its precise location seems to have been lost. In early days boundmarks were frequently designated in general terms by some well known place. Hence we find Catskill spoken of and particularly "the south end of Vastrix Island," a point that every voyager on the Hudson knew to be the commencement of a certain "rak" or sailing course. [FN-3] Hence it was that Van Rensselaer's first purchase (1630) was bounded on the south by the south end of Beeren or Mahican Island, and the second purchase by the south end of Vastrix Island, which became the objective of the northwest bound of Livingston's Patent. While the name is repeatedly given as that of the stream, it was probably that of a place or point on the limestone bluff which here bounds the Hudson on the east for several miles. Surveyor Beatty's description, "Beginning at a place where," and the omission of the stream on his map, and its omission on subsequent maps of the manor, and the specific entry in the amended patent of 1715, "Beginning at a certain place called by the Indians Wahankassek," admit of no other conclusion, and the conclusion is, apparently, sustained by the name itself, which seems to be from Moh. Wakhununuhkōōsek, "A high point," as a hill, mountain, peak, bluff, etc., from Wakhu, "hill, mountain," uhk, "end, point," and ōōsic, "peak, pinnacle." etc. The reference may have been to a point formed by the channel of the little stream flowing down from the bluff above, or to some projection, but certainly to the bluff as the only permanent objective on the Hudson. The connection of the "small run of water" with the boundmark should entitle it to more particular description than has been given to it by local writers.
[FN-1] Named from Roeloff Jansen, Overseer of the Orphan Court under the Dutch Government. (French.)
[FN-2] Oak Hill station on the Hudson River R. R., about five miles south of the city of Hudson, was so called from a hill in the interior just north of the line of the town of Livingston, from which the land slopes west towards the Hudson and south to Roelof Jansen's Kill.
[FN-3] Vastrix is a compression of Dutch t'Vaste Rak as written on Van der Donck's map of 1656, meaning, "The fast or steady reach or sailing course," which began here. The island is the first island lying north of the mouth of the Katskill. It is now known as Roger's Island.
Nickankook, Kickua and Weckqashake are given as the names of "three flats" which, with "some small flats," were included in the first purchase by Livingston, and described as "Situate on both sides" of the kill called Saukhenak (Roelof Jansen's Kill). The Indian deed also included all land "Extending along the bank of the river northwards from Roelof Jansen's Kill to a small stream opposite Catskill named Wachanekassik." The names of the three flats are variously spelled—Nickankooke, Nickankook, etc. The first has been translated by Mr. Wm. R. Gerard from Nichánhkûk, "At the bend in front." Kickua, the second, is untranslatable. Wickquashaka, Wequakake, etc., is the equivalent of Wequaohke, "End land" or place. The kill flows through a valley of broad and fertile flats, but near the Hudson it breaks through the limestone bluff which forms the east line of the Hudson, and its banks are steep and rocky.
Saaskahampka, Indian deed; Suaskahampka patent of 1684—the southwest boundmark of the Livingston Patent, is described as "A dry gully at Hudson's River." It is located about opposite Sawyer's Creek, north of the present Saugerties or Esopus Creek. Sasco, or as written Saaska, means "A swamp;" Assisku (Del.), "Mud, clay"; Asuskokámika, "Muddy place," a gully in which no water was flowing. (Gerard.)
Mananosick—"Along the foot of a high mountain to the path that goes to Wawyactanock to a hill called by the Indians Mananosick." Also written Nanosick. Eliot wrote, in the Natick dialect, Nahōōsick, "Pinnacle," or high peak. The indefinite and impersonal M' or Ma, prefixed, would add "a" or "the" high peak. The hill has not been located except in a general way as near the Massachusetts line.
Nanapenahakan and Nanipanihekan are orthographies of the name of a "creek or brook" described as "coming out of a marsh lying near unto the hills where the heaps of stones lye." The stream flows to Claverack Creek. The outlet waters of Achkookpeek Lake unite with it, from which it is now called Copake Creek. It unites with Kinderhook Creek north of the city of Hudson.
Wawanaquasik, Claverack Patent, 1649; Wawanaquassick, Livingston Patent of 1686; Wawauaquassick and Mawauapquassek, patent of 1715; Mawanaqwassik, surveyor's notation, 1715; now written Mawanaquassick—a boundmark of the Claverack Patent of 1649, and also of the Livingston Patent, is described in the Claverack Patent, "To the high woodland called Wawanaquasik," and in the Livingston Patent, "To a place called by the Indians Wawanaqussek, where the heapes of stone lye, near to the head of a creek called Nanapenahaken, which comes out of a marsh lying near unto the hills of the said heapes of stones, upon which the Indians throw another as they pass by, from an ancient custom among them." The heap of stones here was "on the south side of the path leading to Wayachtanok," and other paths diverged, showing that the place was a place of meeting. "To the high woodland," in the description of 1649, is marked on the map of survey of 1715, "Foot of the hill," apparently a particular point, the place of which was identified by the head of the creek, the marsh and the heap of stones. The name may have described this point or promontory, or it may have referred to the place of meeting near the head of the creek, or to the end of the marsh, but it is claimed that it was the name of the heap of stones, and that it is from Miáe, or Miyáe, "Together"—Mawena, "Meeting," "Assembly"—frequently met in local names and accepted as meaning, "Where paths or streams or boundaries come together;" and Qussuk, "stone"—"Where the stones are assembled or brought together," "A stone heap." This reading is of doubtful correctness. Dr. Trumbull wrote that Qussuk, [FN-1] meaning "stone," is "rarely, perhaps never" met as a substantival in local names, and an instance is yet to be cited where it is so used. It is a legitimate word in some connections, however, Eliot writing it as a noun in Môhshe-qussuk, "A flinty rock," in the singular number. If used here it did not describe "a heap of stones," but a certain rock. On the map of survey of the patent, in 1798, the second station is marked "Manor Rock," and the third, "Wawanaquassick," is located 123 chains and 34 links (a fraction over one and one-half miles) north of Manor Rock, as the corner of an angle. In the survey of 1715, the first station is "the foot of the hill"—"the high woodland"—which seems to have been the Mawan-uhqu-ōōsik [FN-2] of the text. To avoid all question the heap of stones seems to have been included in the boundary. It now lies in an angle in the line between the townships of Claverack and Taghkanic, Columbia County, and is by far the most interesting feature of the locative—a veritable footprint of a perished race. Similar heaps were met by early European travelers in other parts of the country. Rev. Gideon Hawley, writing in 1758, described one which he met in Schohare Valley, and adds that the largest one that he ever saw was "on the mountain between Stockbridge and Great Barrington." Mass. (Doc. Hist. N. Y., iii, 1039.) The significance of the "ancient custom" of casting a stone to these heaps has not been handed down. Rev. Mr. Sergeant wrote, in 1734, that though the Indians "each threw a stone as they passed, they had entirely lost the knowledge of the reason for doing so," and an inquiry by Rev. Hawley, in 1758, was not attended by a better result. [FN-3] The heaps were usually met at resting places on the path and the custom of throwing the stone a sign-language indicating that one of the tribe had passed and which way he was going, but further than the explanation that the casting of the stone was "an ancient custom," nothing may be claimed with any authority. A very ancient custom, indeed, when its signification had been forgotten.
[FN-1] Williams wrote in the Narraganset dialect Qussuck, stone; Qussuckanash, stones; Qussuckquon, heavy. Zeisberger wrote in the Minsi-Lenape, Ksucquon, heavy; Achsun, stone; Apuchk, rock. Chippeway, Assin, stone; Aubik, rock. Old Algonquian, Assin, stone. Eliot wrote in the Natick (Mass.) dialect, Qussuk, a rock; Qussukquanash, rocks; Hussunash, stones; Hussunek, lodge or ledge of rocks, and for Hussimek Dr. Trumbull wrote Assinek as an equivalent, and Hussun or Hussunash, stones, as identical with Qussukqun, heavy. Eliot also wrote -pick or -p'sk, in compound words, meaning "Rock," or "stone," as qualified by the adjectival prefix, Onap'sk, "Standing rock."
[FN-2] Literally, "A meeting point," or sharp extremity of a hill.
[FN-3] Doc. Hist. N. Y., iii, 1039. The heap referred to by Rev. Hawley was on the path leading to Schohare. It gave name to what was long known as the "Stoneheap Patent." The heap is now in the town of Esperance and near Sloansville, Schohare County. It is four rods long, one or two wide, and ten to fifteen feet high. (French.)
Ahashewaghick and Ahashewaghkameck, the latter in corrected patent of 1715, is given as the name of the northeast boundmark of the Manor of Livingston, and described as "the northernmost end of the hills that are to the north of Tachkanick"—specifically by the surveyor, "To a heap of stones laid together on a certain hill called by the Indians Ahashawaghkik, by the north end of Taghanick hill or mountain"—has been translated from Nash-ané-komuk (Eliot), "A place between." Dr. Trumbull noted Ashowugh-commocke, from the derivatives quoted—Nashaué, "between"; -komuk, "place," limited, enclosed, occupied, i. e. by "a heap of stones laid together," probably by the surveyor of the prior Van Rensselaer Patent, of which it was also a boundmark. The hill is now the northeast comer of the Massachusetts boundary line, or the north end of Taghkanick hills.
Taghkanick, the name of a town in Columbia County and primarily of a tract of land included in the Livingston Patent and located "behind Potkoke," is written Tachkanick in the Indian deed of 1685; Tachhanick in the Indian deed of 1687-8; "Land called Tachhanick which the owners reserved to plant upon when they sold him Tachhanick, with the land called Quissichkook;" Tachkanick, "having the kill on one side and the hill on the other"; Tahkanick (Surveyor's notation) 1715—is positively located by the surveyor on the east side of the kill called by the Indians Saukhenak, and by the purchasers Roelof Jansen's Kill. Of the meaning of the name Dr. E. B. O'Callaghan wrote: "Tachanûk, 'Wood place,' literally, 'the woods,' from Takone, 'forest,' and ûk, 'place'"; which Dr. Trumbull regarded as "the least objectionable" of any of the interpretations that had fallen under his notice, and to which he added: "Literally, 'wild lands,' 'forest.'" It would seem to be more probable that Tachk, Taghk, Tachh, Tahk, etc., represents Tak (Taghk), with formative an, Taghkan, meaning "wood;" and ek, animate plural added, "Woods," "trees," "forest." Dr. O'Callaghan's ûk (ook), "Land or place," is not in any of the orthographies. The deed-sentence, "When they sold him Tachanick," reads literally, from the name, "When they sold him the woods." The name was extended to the reserved field, to the stream and to the mountain. [FN] The latter is familiar to geologists in what is known as the Taconic rocks. Translations of the name from Del. Tuphanné, "Cold stream," and Tankkanné, "Little river," are without merit, although Tankhanné would describe the branch of Roelof Jansen's Kill on which the plantation was located.
[FN] The purchasers claimed but the Indians denied having sold the mountain. It was heavily wooded no doubt. Livingston claimed it from having bought "the woods." The Moravian missionaries wrote, in 1744, W'takantschan, which Dr. Trumbull converted to Ket-takone-wadchu, "Great woody mountain."
Wichquapakat, Wichquapuchat, Wickquapubon, the latter by the surveyor, given as the name of the southeast boundmark of the Livingston Patent and therein described as "the south end of the hills," of which Ahashawagh-kameck was the north. Wichqua is surely an equivalent of Wequa (Wehqua, Eliot), "As far as; ending at; the end or extreme, point." [FN] Now the southwest corner on the Massachusetts line.
[FN] Robert Livingston, who wrote most of the Indian names in his patent, was a Scotchman. He learned to "talk Dutch" in Rotterdam, and picked up an acquaintance with the Indian tongues at Fort Orange (Albany). Some of his orthographies are singular combinations.
Mahaskakook, a boundmark in the Livingston Patent, is described, in one entry, as "A copse," i. e. "A thicket of underbrush," and in another entry, "A cripple bush," i. e. "A patch of low timber growth"—Dutch, Kreupelbosch, "Underwood." Probably the Indian name has, substantially, the same moaning. Manask (Del.), "Second crop"; -ask, "Green, raw, immature"; -ak, "wood"; -ook (ûk), locative. The location has not been ascertained.
Nachawawakkano, given as the name of a creek described as a "creek which comes into another creek," is an equivalent of Léchau-wakhaune (Lenape), "The fork of a river," a stream that forks another stream. Aupaumut, the Stockbridge Historian, wrote, with locative suffix, Naukhuwwhnauk, "At the fork of the streams."
Mawichnauk—"the place where the two streams meet being called Mawichnauk"—means "The fork place," or place where the Nachawawakkano and the Tawastaweka came together, or where the streams meet or flow together. In the Bayard Patent the name is written Mawighanuck and Wawieghanuck. (See Wawighanuck.)
Shaupook and Skaukook are forms of the name assigned to the eastern division of a stream, "which, a little lower down," was "called Twastawekah," known later as Claverack Creek. It may be translated from Sóhk, Mass., "outlet," and ûk, locative, "At the outlet" or mouth of the stream.
Twastawekah and Tawastawekah, given, in the Livingston Patent, as the name of Claverack Creek, is described as a place that was below Shaukook, The root is Tawa, an "open space," and the name apparently an equivalent of Lenape Tawatawikunk, "At an open place," or an uninhabited place, a wilderness. Tauwata-wique-ak, "A place in the wilderness." (Gerard.)
Sahkaqua, "the south end of a small piece of land called Sahkaqua and Nakawaewick"; "to a run of water on ye east end of a certain flat or piece of land called in ye Indian tongue, Sahkahka; then south . . . one hundred and forty rods to . . . where two runs of water come together on the south side of the said flat; then west . . . to a rock or great stone on the south corner of another flat or piece of low land called by the Indians Nakaowasick." (Doc. Hist., iii, 697.) On the surveyor's map Nakaowasick, the place last named, is changed to Acawanuk. From the text, Sahkaqua described "Land or place at the outlet or mouth of a stream," from Sóhk, "outlet," and -ohke, "land" or place. The second name Nakawaewick (Nakaouaewik, Nakawasick, Acawasik) is probably from Nashauewasuck, "At (or on) a place between," i. e. between the streams spoken of.
Minnischtanock, in the Indian deed to Livingston, 1685, located the end of a course described as "Beginning on the northwest side of Roelof Jansen's Kill," and in the patent, "Beginning on the other side of the creek that runs along the flat or plain land over against Minnisichtanock, and from thence along a small hill to a valley," etc. The name has been interpreted "Huckleberry-hill place," from Min, "Small fruit or grain of any kind"; -achtenne, "hill"; -ûk, locative.
Kackkawanick, written also Kachtawagick, Kachkawyick, and Kachtawayick, is described in the deed, as "A high place to the westward of a high mountain." Location has not been ascertained. From the map it seems to have been a long, narrow piece of land between the hills.
Quissichkook, Quassighkook, etc., one of the two places reserved by the Indians "to plant upon" when they sold Tachkanik, is described in the deed as a place "lying upon this (i. e. the west) side of Roelof Jansen's Kill" and "near Tachanik," the course running "thence along a small hill to a valley that leads to a small creek called by the Indians Quissichkook, and over the creek to a high place to the westward of a high mountain called by the natives Kachtawagick." In a petition by Philip Schuyler, 1686, the description reads: "Quassichkook, . . . lying on the east side of Roelof Jansen's Kill," and the place as a tract of woodland. The name was probably that of a wooded bluff on the east side of the creek. It seems to be from Kussuhkoc (Moh.), "high," and -ook, locative—"At, to or on a high place"—from which the stream and the plantation was located. (See Quassaick.)
Pattkoke, a place so called, also written Pot-koke, gave name to a large tract of land patented to Johannes Van Rensselaer in 1649. In general terms the tract was described as lying "South of Kinder-hook, [FN-1] east of Claverack, [FN-2] and west of Taghkanick" (Doc. Hist. N. Y., iii, 617), and also as "Lying to the east of Major Abraham's patent of Claverack." [FN-3] Specifically, in a caveat filed by John Van Rensselaer, in 1761, "From the mouth of Major Staats, or Kinderhook Kill, south along the river to a point opposite the south end of Vastrix Island, thence easterly twenty-four English miles," etc. (Cal. N. Y. Land Papers, 307. See also, Wachanekasaik.) It was an immense tract, covering about eight miles on the Hudson by twenty-four miles deep, and became known as "The Lower Manor of Rensselaerswyck," but locally as Claverack, from its frontage on the river-reach so called. The name was that of a particular place which was well known from which it was extended to the tract. In "History of Columbia County" this particular place is claimed to have been the site of an Indian village situate "about three (Dutch, or nine English) miles inland from Claverack." (Doc. Hist. N. Y., iv, 84.) The record does not give the name, nor does it say "village," but place. The local story is, therefore, largely conjectural. The orthographies of the name are imperfect. Presumably, they may be read from Mass. Pautuckoke, meaning "Land or country around the falls of a stream," and the reference to some one of the several falls on Claverack Creek, or on Eastern Creek, its principal tributary. Both streams were included in the patent, and both are marked by falls and rifts, but on the latter there are several "cataracts and falls of great height and surpassing beauty." "Nothing but a greater volume of water is required to distinguish them as being among the grandest in the world," adds the local historian. The special reference by the writer was to the falls at the manufacturing village known as Philmont, nine miles east of the Hudson, corresponding with the record of the "place" where the Indians assembled in 1663-4. Pautuck is met in many forms. It means, "The falls of a stream." With the suffix, -oke (Mass. -auke), "Land, ground, place, unlimited"—"the country around the falls," or the falls country. (See Potick.)
[FN-1] Kinderhook is an anglicism of Dutch Kinder-hoek, meaning, literally, "Children's point, angle or corner." It dates from the Carte Figurative of 1614-16, and hence is one of the oldest names on Hudson's River. It is supposed to have been applied from a gathering of Indian children on a point of land to gaze upon the ship of the early navigator. It could not have been a Dutch substitute for an Indian name. It is pure Dutch. It was not an inland name. The navigator of 1614-16 did not explore the country.
[FN-2] Claverack—Dutch, Claverrak—literally, "Clover reach—a sailing course or reach, so called from three bare or open fields which appear on the land, a fancied resemblance to trefoil or three-leaved clover," wrote Jasper Dankers and Peter Sluyter in their Journal in 1679-80. Presumably the places are specifically located in the patent to Jan Frans van Heusen, May, 1667, on which the city of Hudson now stands, which is described as "A tract of land which takes in three of the Clavers on the south." From the locative the reach extended some miles north and south and to lands which it bounded. It is still preserved as the name of a creek, a town and a village. Of record it dates back to De Laet's map of 1625-6, and is obviously much older. It is possible that the "three bare places" were fields of white clover, as has been claimed by one writer, but there is no record stating that fact. Dankers and Sluyter, who wrote only fifty-four years after the application of the name, no doubt gave correctly the account of its origin as it was related to them by living witnesses. If interpreted as were the names of other reaches, the reference would be to actual clover fields.
[FN-3] "Major Abraham" was Major Abraham Staats, who located on a neck of land on the north side of "Major Staats' Creek," now Stockport Creek. (See Ciskhakainck.) "West of Taghkanick," probably refers to the mountains now so known. It means, literally, however, "The woods." (See Taghkanick.) There was a heated controversy between the patroon of Rensselaerswyck and Governor Stuyvesant in regard to the purchase of the tract. It was decided in 1652 in favor of the former, who had, in the meantime, granted several small leaseholds. (See Brodhead's Hist. N. Y., i.) The first settlement by the patroon was in 1705 at Claverack village.
Ciskhekainck and Cicklekawick are forms of the name of a place granted by patent to Major Abraham Staats, March 25, 1667, and to his son in 1715, described as "Lying north of Claverack [Hudson], on the east side of the river, along the Great Kill [Kinderhook Creek], to the first fall of water; then to the fishing place, containing two hundred acres, more or less, bounded by the river on one side and by the Great Kill on the other." Major Staats had made previous settlement on the tract under lease from Van Rensselaer. His house and barn were burned by the Indians in the Esopus war of 1663. In 1715, he being then dead, his son, Abraham, petitioned for an additional tract described as "Four hundred acres adjoining the north line of the neck of land containing two hundred acres now in his possession, called Ciskhekainck, on the north side of Claverack, on ye east side of Hudson's River." (Cal. N. Y. Land Papers, 118.) The petition was granted and the two parcels consolidated. The particular fall referred to is probably that now known as Chittenden's, on Kinderhook (now Stockport) Creek, a short distance west of Stockport Station. It may be called a series of falls as the water primarily descended on shelves or steps. It was noted as remarkable by Dankens and Sluyter in 1679-80. [FN] Claverack Creek unites with Stockport Creek just west of the falls. In other connections both streams are called mill streams. In the Stephen Bayard patent of 1741, the name of the fall on Stockport Creek is noted as "A certain fall . . . called by the Indians Kasesjewack" The several names are perhaps from Cochik'uack (Moh.), "A wild, dashing" stream. Cochik'uack, by the way, is one of the most corrupted names of record.
[FN] "We came to a creek, where, near the river, lives a man whom they call the Child of Luxury (t'kinder van walde). He had a sawmill on the creek or waterfall, which is a singular one. The water falls quite steep in one body, but it comes down in steps, with a broad rest sometimes between them. These steps were sixty feet or more high, and were formed out of a single rock."
Kesieway's Kil, described in an Indian deed to Garritt van Suchtenhorst, 1667-8. "A certain piece of land at Claverack between the bouwery of Jan Roother and Major Abraham Staats, beginning at a fall at the kil called Kesieway's Kil." (Col. Hist. N. Y., xiii, 51, 57.) The tract seems to have been on Claverack Creek south of Stockport "Jan Roothers" is otherwise written, "Jan Hendricksen, alias Jan Roothaer." Roth (German) means "red," -aer is from German Haar (hair). He was known locally as "Jan, the red-head." The location of the fall has not been ascertained. Kashaway Creek is a living form of the name in the town of Greenport, Columbia County. On the opposite side of the Hudson the same name apparently, appears in Keesieway, Kesewey, etc., as that of a "chief or sachem" of the Katskill Indians. (See Keessienwey's Hoeck.)
Pomponick, Columbia County. (N. Y. Land Papers.) Pompoenik, a fort to be erected at "about the barn of Lawrence van Alen." (Doc. Hist. N. Y., ii, 90.) Pompoen is Dutch for pumpkin. The name is also written as that of an Indian owner—"the land bought by Jan Bruyn of Pompoen." (Col. Hist. N. Y., xiii, 545.) Pompoeneck is the form of the signature to deed.
Mawighanuck, Mawighunk, Waweighannuck, Wawighnuck, forms of the name preserved as that of the Bayard Patent, Columbia County, described as a place "Lying to the northwest of Kinderhook, about fifteen miles from Hudson's River, upon Kinderhook River and some branches thereof, part of which tract is known by the Indian name of Mawighanuck." The particular "part" noted has not been located, but it seems to have been where one of the branches of Kinderhook Creek united with that stream. (See Mawichnauk.)
Mogongh-kamigh, a boundmark of the Bayard Patent (Land Papers, 245), is located therein, "From a fall on said river called by the Indians Kasesjewack to a certain place called by the natives Mogongh-kamigh, then up the southeast branch," etc. The name means, probably, "Place of a great tree."
Kenaghtiquak, "a small stream" so called, was the name of a boundmark of the Peter Schuyler Patent, described, "Beginning where three oak trees are marked, lying upon a small creek, to the south of Pomponick, called by the Indians Kenaghtiquak, and running thence," etc. It probably stands for Enaughtiqua-ûk, "The beginning place."
Machachoesk, a place so called in Columbia County, has not been located. It is described of record as a place "lying on both sides of Kinderhook Creek," and may have taken its name from an adjacent feature.
Wapemwatsjo, the name of a hill in Columbia County, is a Dutch orthography of Wapim-wadchu, "Chestnut Hill." The interpretation is correctly given in the accompanying alternate, "or Karstengeberg" (Kastanjeberg, Dutch), "Chestnut Hill."
Kaunaumeek, an Indian village sixteen miles east of Albany, in the town of Nassau, Rensselaer County, was the scene of the labors of Moravian missionaries, and especially of Missionary Brainerd. It was long known as Brainerd's Bridge, and is now called Brainerds. The name is Lenape (German notation) and the equivalent of Quannamáug, Nar., Gunemeek, Len., "Long-fish place," a "Fishing-place for lampreys." The form, Kaunaumeek, was introduced here by the Moravian missionaries.
Scompamuck is said to have been the name of the locality now covered by the village of Ghent, Columbia County, perhaps more strictly the head of the outlet of Copake Lake where an Indian settlement is located on early maps. The suffix, -amuck, is the equivalent of -amaug, "fishing place." Ouschank-amaug, from Ousch-acheu, "smooth, slippery," hence eel or lamprey—"a fishing-place for eels."
Copake, the modern form of the name of a lake in Columbia County, is of record Achkookpeek (Doc. Hist. N. Y., iii. 628), meaning, literally, "Snake water," from Achkook, "Snake," and -péek, "Water place," pool or pond. Hendrick Aupaumut, the Historian of the Stockbridge-Mahicans, wrote: "Ukhkokpeck; it signifies snake-water, or water where snakes are abundant." On a map of the boundary line between Massachusetts and New York an Indian village is located at the outlet of the lake, presumably that known as Scompamuck.
Kaphack, on Westenhook River, a place described as "Beginning at an Indian burying-place hard by Kaphack," probably means "A separate place"—"land not occupied." The tract began at "an Indian burying-place," and presumably took its name therefrom. Chépeck, "The dead;" Chépeack, "Place of the dead." (See Shapequa.)
Valatie, the name of a village in Columbia County, is Dutch. It means "Vale, valley, dale, dell," and not "Little Falls," as rendered in French's Gazetteer. Waterval is Dutch for "Waterfall." Vallate, Low Latin for "valley," is the derivative of Valatie, as now written.
Schodac, now covered by the village of Castleton (Schotax, 1677; Schotack, 1768), was the place of residence of Aepjin, sachem, or "peace chief," of the Mahicans. [FN-1] It has been translated from Skootay, Old Algonquian (Sqúta, Williams), "fire," and -ack, "place," literally, "Fire Place," or place of council. It was extended to Smack's Island, opposite Albany, which was known to the early Dutch as "Schotack, or Aepjen's Island." It is probable, however, that the correct derivative is to be found in Esquatak, or Eskwatak, the record name of the ridge of land east of Castleton, near which the Mahican fort or palisaded village was located, from which Castleton takes its name. Esquatak is pretty certainly an equivalent of Ashpohtag (Mass.), meaning "A high place." Dropping the initial A, and also the letter p and the second h, leaves Schotack or Shotag; by pronunciation Schodac. Eshodac, of which Meshodack [FN-2] is another form, the name of a high peak in the town of Nassau, Rensselaer County, has become Schodac by pronunciation. It has been claimed that the landing which Hudson made and so particularly described in Juet's Journal, was at Schodac. [FN-3] The Journal relates that the "Master's mate" first "went on land with an old savage, the governor of the country, who carried him to his house and made him good cheere." The next day Hudson himself "Sailed to the shore, in one of their canoe's, with an old man who was chief of a tribe consisting of forty men and seventeen women," and it is added, "These I saw there in a house well constructed of oak bark and circular in shape, so that it had the appearance of being built with an arched roof." Presumably the house was near the shore of the river and in occupation during the fishing and planting season. The winter castle was further inland. The "arched roof" indicates that it was one of the "long" houses so frequently described, not a cone-like cabin. The "tribe" was the sachem's family.
[FN-1] Aepjin's name appears of record first in 1645 as the representative of the Westchester County clans in negotiating a treaty of peace with the Dutch. In the same capacity he was at Esopus in 1660. He could hardly have been the "old man" whom Hudson met in 1609. In one entry his name is written "Eskuvius, alias Aepjin (Little Ape)," and in another "Called by the Dutch Apeje's (Little Ape's) Island." He may have been given that name from his personal appearance, or it may have been a substitute for a name which the Dutch had heard spoken. Eliot wrote, "Appu, He sits; he rests, remains, abides; Keu Apean, Those that sittest," descriptive of the rank of a resident ruler or peace chief, one of a class of sachems whose business it was to maintain the covenants between his own and other tribes, and negotiate treaties of peace on their behalf or for other tribes when called upon. From his totemic signature he was of the Wolf tribe of the Mahicans. (See Keessienway's Hoeck.)
[FN-2] The prefixed M, sometimes followed by a short vowel or an apostrophe (M'), has no definite or determinate force. (Trumbull.)
[FN-3] The Journal locates the place at Lat. 42 deg. 18 min. This would be about five miles (statute) north of the present city of Hudson. "But," wrote Brodhead, "Latitudes were not as easily determined in those days as they are now; and a careful computation of the distances run by the Half-Moon, as recorded in Juet's day-book, shows that on the 18th of September, 1609, when the landing occurred, she must have been 'up six leagues higher' than Hudson, in the neighborhood of Schodac and Castleton."
Sickenekas, given as the name of a tract of land on the east side of the river, "opposite Fort Orange (Albany), above and below," dates from a deed to Van Rensselaer, 1637, the name of one of the grantors of which is written Paepsickenekomtas. The name is now written Papskanee and applied to an island.
Sicajoock, (Wickagjock, Wassenaer), is given as the name of a tract on the east side of the river extending from Smack's Island to Castle Island where it joined lands "called Semesseeck," Gesmessecks, etc., which extended north to Negagonse, "being about twelve miles (Dutch), large measure." The northern limit seems to have been Unuwat's Castle on the north side of a stream flowing to the Hudson north of "opposite to Rensselaer's Kil and waterfall." Sicajoock (Dutch notation), "Black, or dark colored earth," from Sûcki "Dark colored, inclining to black," and -ock, "land." The same name is written Suckiage (ohke) in application to the Hartford meadows, Conn.
Gesmesseeck, a tract of land so called, otherwise entered of record "Nawanemit's particular land called Semesseerse, lying on the east bank, opposite Castle Island, off unto Fort Orange." "Item—from Petanoc, the mill stream, away north to Negagonse." In addition Van Rensselaer then purchased lands held in common by several owners, "extending up the river, south and north" from Fort Orange, "unto a little south of Moeneminnes castle," "being about twelve miles, large measure." Moeneminne's castle was on Haver Island at Kahoes. Semesseerse is the form of the name in deed as printed in Col. Hist. N. Y., vol. i, p. 44, and Gesmesseecks p. 1, v. iv. Kesmesick is another form and perhaps also Taescameasick. (See Patuckquapaen.) The several forms of the name illustrate the effort on the part of the early Dutch, who were then limitedly acquainted with the Indian tongue, to give orthographies to the names which they heard spoken.
Passapenoc, Pahpapaenpenock and Sapanakock, forms of the name of Beeren Island, lying opposite Coeymans, is from an edible tuber which was indigenous on it. [FN] The Dutch name Beeren or Beerin, means, literally, "She bear," usually called Bear's Island. De Laet wrote "Beeren" in 1640.
[FN] "The Indians frequently designated places by the names of esculent or medicinal roots which were there produced. In the Algonquin language the generic names for tubers was pen, varying in some dialects to pin, pena, pon, or bun. This name seems originally to have belonged to the common ground nut: Apias tuberosa. Abnaki, pen, plural, penak. Other species were designated by prefixes to this generic, and, in the compositions of place names, was employed to denote locality (auk, auki, ock, etc.), or by an abundance verb (kanti-kadi). Thus p'sai-pen, 'wild onions,' with the suffix for place, ock, gave p'sai-pen-auk, or as written by the Dutch, Passapenock, the Indian name for Beeren Island." (J. H. Trumbull, Mag. of Am. Hist I, 387.)
Patuckquapaen and Tuscumcatick are noted in French's Gazetteer as names of record in what is now the town of Greenbush, Rensselaer County, without particular location. The first is in part Algonquian and in part Dutch. The original was, no doubt, Patuckquapaug, as in Greenwich, Ct., meaning "Round pond." The Dutch changed paug to paen descriptive of the land—low land—so we have, as it stands, "Round land," "elevated hassocks of earth, roots," etc. (See Patuckquapaug.) The second name is written in several forms—Taescameatuck, Taescameesick, and Gessmesseecks. Greenbush is an anglicism of Gran Bosch, Dutch, meaning, literally, "Green forest." The river bank was fringed by a long stretch of spruce-pine woods. Dutch settlement began here about 1631. In 1641 a ferry was established at the mouth of the Tamisquesuck or Beaver Creek, and has since been maintained. About the same year a small fort, known as Fort Cralo, was constructed by Van Rensselaer's superintendent.
Poesten Kill, the name of a stream and of a town in Rensselaer County, is entered in deed to Van Rensselaer in 1630, "Petanac, the mill stream"; in other records, "Petanac, the Molen Kil," and "De Laet's Marlen Kil and Waterval." Petanac, the Indian name, is an equivalent of Stockbridge Patternac, which King Ninham, in an affidavit, in 1762, declared meant "A fall of water, and nothing more." "Molen Kil" (Dutch), means "mill water." "De Laet's Marlen Kil ende Waterval," locates the name as that of a well-known waterfall on the stream of eighty feet. Weise, in his "History of Troy," wrote: "Having erected a saw-mill upon the kill for sawing posts and timber, which was known thereafter as Poesten mill, the name became extended to the stream," an explanation that seems to bear the marks of having been coined. From the character of the stream the name is probably a corruption of the Dutch Boosen, "An angry stream," because of its rapid descent. The stream reaches the Hudson on the north line of Troy. (See Gesmessecks.)
Paanpaach is quoted by Brodhead (Hist. N. Y.) as the name of the site of the city of Troy. It appears in 1659 in application to bottom lands known as "The Great Meadows," [FN-1] lying under the hills on the east side of the Hudson. At the date of settlement by Van der Huyden (1720), it is said there were stripes or patches within the limits of the present city which were known as "The corn-lands of the Indians," [FN-2] from which the interpretation in French's Gazetteer, "Fields of corn," which the name never meant in any language. The name may have had an Indian antecedent, but as it stands it is Dutch from Paan-pacht, meaning "Low, soft land," or farm of leased land. The same name appears in Paan-pack, Orange county, which see.
[FN-1] Weise's Hist. of Troy.
[FN-2] Woodward's Reminiscences of Troy.
Piskawn, of record as the name of a stream on the north line of Troy, describes a branch or division of a river. Rale wrote in Abnaki, "Peskakōōn, branche," of which Piskawn is an equivalent.
Sheepshack and Pogquassick are record names in the vicinity of Lansingburgh. The first has not been located. It seems to stand for Tsheepenak, a place where the bulbous roots of the yellow lily were obtained—modern Abnaki, Sheep'nak. Pogquassick appears as the name of a "piece of woodland on the east side of the river, near an island commonly called Whale-fishing Island," correctly, Whalefish Island. [FN] This island is now overflowed by the raising of the water by the State dam at Lansingburgh. The Indian name does not belong to the woodland; it locates the tract near the island, in which connection it is probably an equivalent of Paugasuck, "A place at which a strait widens or opens out" (Trumbull), or where the narrow passage between the island and the main land begins to widen. In the same district Pogsquampacak is written as the name of a small creek flowing into Hoosick River.
[FN] "Whale-fishing Island" is a mistranslation of "Walvish Eiland" (Dutch), meaning simply "Whale Island." It is related by Van der Donck (1656) that during the great freshet of 1647, a number of whales ascended the river, one of which was stranded and killed on this island. Hence the name.
Wallumschack, so written in return of survey of patent granted to Cornelius van Ness and others, in 1738, for lands now in Washington County; Walloomscook, and other forms; now preserved in Walloomsac, as the name of a place, a district of country, and a stream flowing from a pond on the Green Mountains, in the town of Woodford, near Bennington, Vermont. [FN-1] It has not been specifically located, but apparently described a place on the adjacent hills where material was obtained for making paints with which the Indians daubed their bodies. (See Washiack.) It is from a generic root written in different dialects, Walla, Wara etc., meaning "Fine, handsome, good," etc., from which in the Delaware, Dr. Brinton derived Wálám, "Painted, from the sense to be fine in appearance, to dress, which the Indians accomplished by painting their bodies," and -'ompsk (Natick), with the related meaning of standing or upright, the combination expressing "Place of the paint rocks." [FN-2] The ridges of many of the hills as well as of the mountains in the district are composed of slate, quartz, sandstone and limestone, which compose the Takonic system. By exposure the slate becomes disintegrated and forms an ochery clay of several colors, which the Indians used as paint. The washing away of the rock left the quartz exposed in the form of sharp points, which were largely used by the Indians for making axes, lance-heads, arrow points, etc. Some of the ochre beds have been extensively worked, and plumbago has also been obtained. White Creek, in the same county, takes that name from its white clay banks.
[FN-1] Vermont is from Verd Montagne (French), meaning "Green Mountains," presumably from their verdure, but actually from the appearance of the hills at a distance from the color of the rocks reflected in the atmosphere. To the Indian they were Wal'ompskeck, "fine, handsome rocks."
[FN-2] An interpretation of the name from the form Wallumscnaik, in Thompson's Hist. Vermont, states that "The termination 'chaik' signifies in the Dutch language, 'scrip.' or 'patent.'" This is erroneous. There is no such word as chaik in the Dutch language. The ch in the name here stands for k and belongs to 'ompsk.
Tomhenack, Tomhenuk, forms of the name given as that of a small stream flowing into the Hoosick from the north, [FN] takes that name, apparently, from an equivalent of Tomheganic, Mass., Tangamic, Del., a stone axe or tomahawk, referring to a place where suitable stones were obtained for making those implements. (Trumbull.) (See Wallumschack.)
[FN] "At a creek called Tomheenecks, beginning at the southerly bounds of Hoosick, and so running up southerly, on both sides of said creek, over the path which goes to Sanckhaick." (Cal. N. Y. Land Papers, 194; petition of John de Peyster, 1730.)
Tyoshoke, now the name of a church at San Coick, Rensselaer County, is probably from an equivalent of Toyusk, Nar., "a bridge," and ohke, "Place"—a place where the stream was crossed by a log forming a bridge. It was a well-known fording place for many years, and later became the site of Buskirk's Bridge.
Sanckhaick, now San Coick, a place in North Hoosick, Rensselaer County, appears of record in petition of John de Peyster in 1730, and in Indian deed to Cornelius van Ness and others, in 1732, for a certain tract of land "near a place called Sanckhaick." The place, as now known, is near the junction of White Creek and the Wallompskack, where one Van Schaick made settlement and built a mill at an early date. In 1754 his buildings were burned by Indian allies of the French. After the war of that period the mill was rebuilt and became conspicuous in the battle of Bennington, Aug. 16, 1777. It is claimed that the name is a corruption of Van Schaick. Col. Baume, commandant of the Hessians in the battle of Bennington (1777) wrote it Sancoik, which is very nearly Van Schaick.
Schaghticoke, now so written as the name of a town in the northeast corner of Rensselaer County, and in other connections, is from Pishgachtigok Mohegan, meaning "Land on the branch or division of a stream." The locative of the name was at the mouth of Hoosick River on the Hudson, in Washington County. The earliest record (1685) reads, "Land at Schautecógue" (-ohke). It is a generic name and appears in several forms and at several places. Pishgachtigok is a form on the west side of the Housatonic at and near the mouth of Ten-Mile River. It was the site of an Indian village and the scene of labor by the Moravian missionaries. In some cases the name is written with locative, "at," etc., in others, with substantive meaning land or place, and in others without suffix. Writes Mr. Gerard, "The name would probably be correctly written P'skaghtuk-uk," when with locative "at." [FN] Although first of record in 1685, its application was probably as early as 1675, when the Pennacooks of Connecticut, fleeing from the disastrous results of King Phillip's War in which they were allies, found refuge among their kindred Mahicans, and later were assigned lands at Schaghticoke by Governor Andros, where they were to serve as allies of the Mohawks. They seem to have spread widely over the district and to have left their footprints as far south as the Katskill. It is a tradition that conferences were held with them on a plain subsequently owned by Johannes Knickerbocker, some six miles east of the Hudson, and that a veritable treaty tree was planted there by Governor Andros in 1676-7, although "planting a tree" was a figurative expression. In later years the seat of the settlement seems to have been around Schaghticoke hill and point, where Mashakoes, their sachem, resided. (Annals of Albany, v, 149.) In the French and Indian war of 1756, the remnant of the tribe was carried away to Canada by the St. Francis Indians, an organization of kindred elements in the French service. At one time they are said to have numbered six hundred warriors. (See Shekomeko.)
[FN] The root of the name is Peske or Piske (Paske, Zeisb.), meaning, primarily, "To split," "To divide forcibly or abruptly." (Trumbull.) In Abnaki, Peskétekwa, a "divided tidal or broad river or estuary"—Peskahakan (Rale), "branche." In the Delaware, Zeisberger wrote Pasketiwi, "The division or branch of a stream." Pascataway, Md., is an equivalent form. Pasgatikook, Greene County, is from the Mohegan form. Paghataghan and Pachkataken, on the east branch of the Delaware, and Paghatagkam on the Otterkill, Vt., are equivalent forms of Peskahakan, Abnaki. The Hoosick is not only a principal branch, but it is divided at its mouth and at times presents the appearance of running north in the morning and south at night. (Fitch's Surv.)
Quequick and Quequicke are orthographies of the name of a certain fall on Hoosick River, in Rensselaer County. In petition of Maria van Rensselaer, in 1684, the lands applied for were described as "Lying on both sides of a certain creek called Hoosock, beginning at ye bounds of Schaakook, and so to a fall called Quequick, and thence upward to a place called Nachacqikquat." (Cal. Land Papers, 27.) The name may stand for Cochik'uack (Moh.), "Wild, dashing" waters, but I cannot make anything out of it. The first fall east of Schaakook (Schagticoke) Patent is now known as Valley Falls, in the town of Pittstown (Pittstown Station).
Pahhaoke, a local name in Hoosick Valley, is probably an equivalent of Pauqna-ohke, "Clear land," "open country." It is frequently met in Connecticut in different forms, as in Pahqui-oke, Paquiag, etc., the name of Danbury Plains. The form here is said to be from the Stockbridge dialect, but it is simply an orthography of an English scribe. It has no relation whatever to the familiar Schaghticoke or Scat'acook.
Panhoosick, so written in Indian deed to Van Rensselaer in 1652, for a tract of land lying north and east of the present city of Troy, extending north to nearly opposite Kahoes Falls and east including a considerable section of Hoosick River, appears in later records as an apheresis in Hoosick, Hoosack, and Hoosuck, in application to Hoosick River, Hoosick Mountains, Hoosick Valley, Hoosick Falls, and in "Dutch Hossuck," an early settlement described in petition of Hendrick van Ness and others, in 1704, as "land granted to them by Governor Dongan in 1688, known by the Indian name of Hoosack." (Cal. N. Y. Land Papers, 27, 74.) The head of the stream appears to have been the outlet of a lake now called Pontoosuc from the name of a certain fall on its outlet called Pontoosuck, "A corruption," wrote Dr. Trumbull, "of Powntucksuck, 'falls of a brook,' or outlet." "Powntuck, a general name for all falls," according to Indian testimony quoted by the same writer. "Pantuck, falls of a stream." (Zeisb.) Several interpretations of the name have been suggested, of which the most probably correct is from Massachusetts Pontoosuck, which would readily be converted to Hoosick or Panhoosick (Pontoosuck). It was applicable to any falls, and may have had locative at Hoosick Falls as well as on the outlet of Pontoosuck Lake. Without examination or warrant from the local dialect, Heckewelder wrote in his Lenape tradition, "The Hairless or Naked Bear": "Hoosink, which means the basin, or more properly, the kettle." The Lenape or Delaware Hōōs, "certainly means, in that dialect, 'a pot or kettle.' Figuratively, it might be applied to a kettle-shaped depression in land or to a particular valley. Hoosink means 'in' or 'at' the pot or kettle. Hoosack might be read 'round valley land,' or land with steep sides." (Brinton.) Of course this does not explain the prefix Pan, nor does it prove that Hōōs was in the local dialect, which, in 1652, was certainly Mahican or Mohegan. Still, it cannot be said that the tradition was not familiar to all Algonquians in their mythical lore.
Heckewelder's tradition, "The Naked or Hairless Bear," has its culmination at a place "lying east of the Hudson," where the last one of those fabulous animals was killed. "The story," writes Dr. Brinton, "was that the bear was immense in size and the most vicious of animals. Its skin was bare except a tuft of white hair on the back. It attacked and ate the natives and the only means of escape from it was to take to the waters. Its sense of smell was remarkably keen, but its sight was defective. As its heart was very small, it could not be easily killed. The surest plan was to break its back-bone; but so dangerous was it that those hunters who went in pursuit of it bade families and friends farewell, as if they never expected to return. The last one was tracked to Hoosink, and a number of hunters went there and mounted a rock with precipitous sides. They then made a noise and attracted the beast's attention, who rushed to the attack with great fury. As he could not climb the rock, he tore at it with his teeth, while the hunters above shot him with arrows and threw upon him great stones, and thus killed him." [FN]
[FN] "The Lenape and their Legends."
The Hoosick River flows from its head, near Pittsfield, Berkshire County, in Massachusetts, through the Petersburgh Mountains between precipitous hills, and carries its name its entire length. Fort Massachusetts, in the present town of Adams, Mass., was on its borders and in some records was called Fort Hoosick. It was captured by the French and their Indians in 1746. The general course of the stream is north, west, and south to the Hudson in the northwest corner of Rensselaer County, directly opposite the village of Stillwater, Saratoga County. There are no less than three falls on its eastern division, of which the most considerable are Hoosick Falls, where the stream descends, in rapids and cascades, forty feet in a distance of twelve rods. Dr. Timothy Dwight, who visited it in the early part of the 19th century, described it as "One of the most beautiful rivers in the world." "At different points," he wrote, "The mountains extend their precipitous declivities so as to form the banks of the river. Up these precipitous summits rise a most elegant succession of forest trees, chiefly maple, beech and evergreens. There are also large spots and streaks of evergreens, chiefly hemlock and spruce." Though, with a single exception, entered in English records by the name of "Hoosick or Schaahkook's Creek," it was, from the feature which especially attracted Dr. Dwight's attention, known to the Iroquois as the Ti-oneenda-howe, or "The river at the hemlocks." [FN]
[FN] See Saratoga. Ti-oneenda-howe was applied by the Mohawks to the Hoosick, and Ti-ononda-howe to the Batten Kill as positive boundmarks, the former from its hemlock-clad hills (onenda), and the latter from its conical hills (ononda). The late Horatio Hale wrote me: "Ti-ononda-howe is evidently a compound term involving the word ononda (or ononta), 'hill or mountain.' Ti-oneenda-howe, in like manner, includes the word onenda (or onenta), 'hemlock.' There may have been certain notable hills or hemlocks which as landmarks gave names to the streams or located them. The final syllables howe, are uncertain." (See Di-ononda-howe.)
Cossayuna, said to be from the Mohawk dialect and to signify "Lake of the pines," is quoted as the name of a lake in the town of Argyle, Washington County. The translation is correct, substantially, but the name is Algonquian—a corruption of Coossa, "Pine," [FN] and Gummee, "Lake," or standing water. The terms are from the Ojibway dialect, and were probably introduced by Dr. Schoolcraft.
[FN] It is of record that "the borders of Hudson's River above Albany, and the Mohawk River at Schenectady," were known, in 1710, as "the best places for pines of all sorts, both for numbers and largeness of trees." (Doc. Hist. N. Y., iii, 656.) Mass. Kowas-'ktugh, "pine tree." The name is met in many orthographies.
Anaquassacook, the name of a patent in Washington County, and also of a village and of a stream of water, was, primarily, the name of a boundmark. The locative has not been ascertained. Anakausuk-ook, "At the end of a course," or as far the brook.
Podunk, a brook so called in the town of Fort Ann, Washington County, is met in several other places. (See Potunk, L. I.) Its meaning has not been ascertained.
Quatackquaohe, entered on Pownal's map as the name of a tract of land on the south side of a stream, has explanation in the accompanying entry, "Waterquechey, or Quatackquaohe." Waterquechey (English) means "Moist boggy ground," indicating that Quatackquaohe is an equivalent of Petuckquiohke, Mass., "Round-land place," i. e. elevated hassocks of earth, roots, etc. The explanation by Gov. Pownal may supply a key to the translation of other names now interpreted indefinitely.
Di-ononda-howe, a name now assigned to the falls on the Batten Kill below Galeville, Washington County, is Iroquoian and of original application to the stream itself as written in the Schuyler Patent. It is a compound descriptive of the locality of the creek, the reference being to the conical hills on the south side of the stream near the Hudson, on one of which was erected old Fort Saratoga. The sense is, "Where a hill interposes," between the object spoken of and the speaker. The late Superintendent of the Bureau of Ethnology, Prof. J. W. Powell, wrote me: "From the best expert information in this office, it may be said that the phonetic value of the final two syllables howe is far from definite; but assuming that they are equivalent to huwi (with the European vowel values), the word-sentence Di-ononda-howe means, 'There it has interposed (a) mountain,' Written in the Bureau alphabet, the word-sentence would be spelled Ty-ononde-huwi. It is descriptive of the situation of the creek, but not of the creek itself, and is applicable to any mountain or high hill which appears between a speaker and some other object." (See Hoosick.)
Caniade-rioit is given as the name of Lake George, and "The tail of the lake" as the definition, "on account of its connection with Lake Champlain." (Spofford's Gazetteer.) Father Jogues, who gave to the lake the name "Lac de Saint Sacrament" (Lake of the Holy Sacrament), in 1645, wrote the Mohawk name, Andiato-rocte (French notation), with the definition, "There where the lake shuts itself in," the reference being to the north end of the lake at the outlet. This definition is not far from a correct reading of the suffix octe (okte, Bruyas), meaning "end," or, in this connection, "Where the lake ends." Caniade, a form of Kaniatare, is an Iroquoian generic, meaning "lake." The lake never had a specific name. Horicon, which some writers have endeavored to attach to it, does not belong to it. It is not Iroquoian, does not mean "north," nor does it mean "lake" or "silver water," [FN] The present name was conferred by Sir William Johnson, in honor of King George III, of England.
[FN] Horikans was written by De Laet, in 1624, as the name of an Indian tribe living at the head waters of the Connecticut. On an ancient map Horicans is written in Lat. 41, east of the Narragansetts on the coast of New England. In the same latitude Moricans is written west of the Connecticut, and Horikans on the upper Connecticut in latitude 42. Morhicans is the form on Carte Figurative of 1614-16, and Mahicans by the Dutch on the Hudson. The several forms indicate that the tribe was the Moricans or Mourigans of the French, the Maikans or Mahikans of the Dutch and the Mohegans of the English. It is certain that that tribe held the headwaters of the Connecticut as well as of the Hudson. The novelist, Cooper, gave life to De Laet's orthography in his "Last of the Mohegans."
Ticonderoga, familiar as the name of the historic fortress at Lake George, was written by Sir William Johnson, in 1756, Tionderogue and Ticonderoro, and in grant of lands in 1760, "near the fort at Ticonderoga." Gov. Golden wrote Ticontarogen, and an Iroquoian sachem is credited with Decariaderoga. Interpretations are almost as numerous as orthographies. The most generally quoted is from Spofford's Gazetteer: "Ticonderoga, from Tsindrosie, or Cheonderoga, signifying 'brawling water,' and the French name, Carillon, signifying 'a chime of bells,' were both suggested by the rapids upon the outlet of Lake George." The French name may have been so suggested, but neither Tsindrosie or Cheonderoga means "brawling water." The latter is probably an orthography of Teonderoga. Ticonderoga as now written, is from Te or Ti, "dual," two; Kaniatare, "lake," and -ogen, "intervallum, divisionem" (Bruyas), the combination meaning, literally, "Between two lakes." Horatio Hale wrote me of one of the forms: "Dekariaderage, in modern orthography, Tekaniataroken, from which Ticonderoga, means, simply, 'Between two lakes.' It is derived from Tioken, 'between,' and Kaniatara, 'lake.' Its composition illustrates a peculiar idiom of the Iroquoian language, Tioken when combined with a noun, is split in two, so to speak, and the noun inserted. Thus in combining Tioken with Ononte, 'mountain,' we have Ti-ononte-oken, 'Between two mountains,' which was the name of one of the Mohawk castles—sometimes written Theonondiogo. In like manner, Kaniatare, 'lake,' thus compounded, yields Te-kaniatare-oken, 'Between two lakes.' In the Huron dialect Kaniatare is contracted to Yontare or Ontare, from which, with io or iyo, 'great,' we get Ontario (pronounced Ontareeyo), 'Great lake' which, combined with Tioken, becomes Ti-onteroken, which would seem to be the original of Colden's Tieronderoga."
There is rarely an expression of humor in the use of Indian place-names, but we seem to have it in connection with Dekariaderoga, one of the forms of Ticonderoga quoted above, which is of record as having been applied to Joseph Chew, Secretary of Indian Affairs, at a conference with chiefs of the Six Nations. (Col. Hist. N. Y., viii, 501.) Said the sachem who addressed Secretary Chew, "We call you Dekariaderoga, the junction of two lakes of different qualities of water," presumably expressing thereby, in keeping with the entertainment usually served on such occasions, that the Secretary was in a condition between "water and firewater." Neither "junction" or "quality of water" are expressed in the composition, however; but perhaps are related meanings.
Caniade-riguarunte is given by Governor Pownal as the Iroquoian name of Lake Champlain, with the legend, "The Lake that is the gate of the country." (Doc. Hist. N. Y., iii, 1190.) The lake was the route taken by the Algonquians of Canada in their forays against the Mohawks. Later, it became a link in the great highway of travel and commerce between New York and Quebec, via. Hudson's River, in which connection it was literally "The gate of the country." The legend is not an interpretation of the Iroquoian name, however. In the French missionary spelling the generic word for "lake" is Kaniatare of which Caniaderi is an English notation. The suffix -guarûnte, in connection with Caniaderi, gives to the combination the meaning, "A lake that is part of another lake." (J. B. N. Hewitt.) The suffix is readily confused with Karonta, or -garonta (Mohawk), meaning "tree," from which, probably, Fennimore Cooper's "Lake of the Woods." "Lake of the Iroquois," entered on early maps, does not mean that when Champlain visited it in 1609 it was owned by the Iroquois, but that it was the route from Quebec to the Iroquois country.
Matouwackey, Sewanhackey and Paumanackey, in varying orthographies, are names of record for Long Island, derived from Meitauawack (Metaûhock, Nar.), the name of the shell-fish from which the Indians made the shell-money in use among them, [FN-1] called by English Peag, from Wau-paaeek [FN-2] (Moh.), "white," and by the Dutch Sewan or Zeewan, [FN-3] from Sewaûn (Moh.), Sueki (Nar.), "black." This money was both white and black (so called), the latter the most rare and valuable. It was in use by the Europeans as a medium of trade with the Indians, as well as among themselves, by the Indians especially for the manufacture of their historic peace, tribute, treaty and war belts, called Paumaunak (Pau-pau-me-numwe, Mass.), "an offering." [FN-4] Meitouowack, the material, Waupoaeek and Sewaûn, the colors; Paumanack, the use, "an offering." The suffix of either term (hock, hagki, hackee) is generic for shell—correctly, "An ear-shaped shell." (Trumbull.) Substantially, by the corruption of the suffix to hacki (Del.), "land" or place, the several terms, as applied to the island, have the meaning, "The shell island," or "Place of shells." De Laet wrote, in 1624: "At the entrance of this bay are situated several islands, or broken land, on which a nation of savages have their abode, who are called Matouwacks; they obtain a livelihood by fishing within the bay, whence the most easterly point of the land received the name of Fisher's Hook and also Cape de Bay." Van der Donck entered on his map, "t' Lange Eyland, alias, Matouwacks." "Situate on the island called by the Indians Sewanhacky." (Deed of 1636.) "Called in ye Indian tongue Suanhackey." (Deed of 1639.) Than these entries there is no claim that the island ever had a specific name, and that those quoted were from shells and their uses is clear. Generically the island was probably known to the Minsi and neighboring tribes as Menatey, "The island," as stated by Dr. Trumbull; smaller islands being known as Menatan, from which Manathan and Manhatan. The occupants of the island were a distinct group of Algonquian stock, speaking on the east a dialect more or less of the Massachusetts type, and on the west that known as Monsey-Lenape, both types, however, being largely controlled by the Dutch and the English orthographies in which local notings appear. They were almost constantly at war with the Pequods and Narragansetts, but there is no evidence that they were ever conquered, and much less that they were conquered by the Iroquois, to whom they paid tribute for protection in later years, as they had to the Pequods and to the English; nor is there evidence that their intercourse with the river tribes immediately around them was other than friendly.
[FN-1] "Meteauhock, the Periwinkle of which they made their wampum." (Williams.) "Perhaps derived from Mehtauog, 'Ear-shaped,' with the generic suffix hock (hogki, hackee), 'shell.'" (Trumbull.)
[FN-2] Wompompeag is another form quoted as Mohegan, from which Wompum. "Wompom, which signifies white." (Roger Williams.)
[FN-3] Seahwhoog, "they are scattered." (Eliot.) "From this word the Dutch traders gave the name of Sewan, or Zeawand, to all shell money; just as the English called all Peag, or strung beads, by the name of the white, Wampum." (Trumbull.)
[FN-4] An interpretation of Paumanack as indicating a people especially under tribute, is erroneous. The belts which they made were in universal use among the nations as an offering, the white belts denoting good, as peace, friendship, etc., the black, the reverse. The ruling sachem, or peace-chief, was the keeper and interpreter of the belts of his nation, and his place sometimes took its name from that fact. That several of the sachems did sign their names, or that their names were signed by some one for them, "Sachem of Pammananuck," proves nothing in regard to the application of that name to the island.
Wompenanit is of record as the name of "the utmost end eastward" of the Montauk Peninsula. The description reads: "From the utmost end of the neck eastward, called Wompenanit, to our utmost bound westward, called Napeake." (Deed of July 11, 1661.) In other papers Wompenonot and Wompenomon, corrupted orthographies. The meaning is "The utmost end eastward," i. e. from the east side of Napeake to the extreme end. The derivatives are Nar. Wompan (from Wompi, white, bright), "It is full daylight, bright day," hence the Orient, the East, the place of light, and -anit, "To be more than," extending beyond the ordinary limit. The same word appears in Wompanánd, "The Eastern God" (Williams), the deity of light. From Wompi, also Wapan in Wapanachkik, "Those of the eastern region," now written Abanaqui and Abnaki, and confined to the remnant of a tribe in Maine. (See Wahamanesing,) Dr. Trumbull wrote: "Anit, the subjunctive participle of a verb which signifies 'To be more than,' 'to surpass'"; with impersonal M prefixed, Manit, as in Manitou, a name given by the Indians, writes Lahontan, "To all that passes their understanding"; hence interpreted by Europeans, "God." It has no such meaning in Wompenanit, but defined a limit that was "more than," or the extreme limits of the island. No doubt, however, the Indians saw, as do visitors of to-day, at the utmost end of the Montauk Peninsula, in its breast of rock against which the ocean-waves dash with fearful force; its glittering sun-light and in its general features, a Wompanánd, or Eastern God, that which was "more than ordinary, wonderful, surpassing," but those features are not referred to in Wompenanit, except, perhaps, as represented by the glittering sun-light, the material emblem of the mystery of light—"where day-light appears."
Montauk, now so written—in early orthographies Meantacut, Meantacquit, etc.—was not the name of the peninsula to which it is now applied, but was extended to it by modern Europeans from a specific place. The extreme end was called by the Indians Wompenanit, and the point, Nâïag, "Corner, point or angle," from which Adriaen Block wrote, in 1614, Nahicans, "People around the point," a later Dutch navigator adding (War Dep. Map) the topographical description, Nartong, "A barren, ghastly tongue." The name has had several interpretations by Algonquian students, but without entire satisfaction even to themselves. Indeed, it may be said with truth, "It has been too much translated" to invite further study with the hope of a better result. The orthography usually quoted for interpretation appears first in South Hampton Records in an Indian deed of 1640, "Manatacut, his X mark," the grantor being given the name of the place which he represented, as appears from the same records (1662), "Wyandanch, Meantacut sachem," or sachem of Meantac. The Indian deed reads: "The neck of land commonly known by the name of Meantacquit, . . . Unto the east side of Napeak, next unto Meantacut high lands." In other words the high lands bounded the place called Meantacqu, the suffix -it or -ut meaning "at" that place. The precise place referred to was then and is now a marsh on which is a growth of shrub pines, and cedars. Obviously, therefore, Meantac or Meantacqu, is an equivalent of Mass. Manantac, "Spruce swamp," and of Del. Menántac, "Spruce, cedar or pine swamp." (Zeisb.) The Abn. word Mannaⁿdakôô, "cedar" (Mass. -uᶋtugh; Nar. áwtuck), seems to establish conclusively that -ántak was the general generic suffix for all kinds of coniferous trees, and with the prefix Men, Man, Me, etc., described small or dwarf coniferous trees usually found growing in swamps, and from which swamps took the name. [FN] There is nothing in the name or in its corruptions that means "point," "high lands," "place of observation," "fort," "fence," or "confluence"; it simply describes dwarf coniferous trees and the place which they marked. The swamp still exists, and the dwarf trees also at the specific east bound of the lands conveyed. (See Napeak.)
[FN] The Indians had specific names for different kinds of trees. The generic general word was Me'hittuk or M'hittugk, Del., M'tugh, Mass., which, as a suffix, was reduced to -ittuk, -utugh, -tagh, -tack, -tacque, etc., frequently ak, which is the radical. Howden writes in Cree: "Atik is the termination for the names of trees, articles made of wood," etc. Mash-antack-uk, Moh., was translated by Dr. Trumbull from Mish-untugh-et, Mass., "Place of much wood." Mannaⁿdakōō is quoted as the Abn. word for "cedar;" Mishquáwtuck, Nar., "Red cedar." Menántachk, "Swamp" (Len. Eng. Dic.), is explained by Rev. Anthony, "with trees meeting above." Menautac, "Spruce, cedar or pine swamp" (Zeisb.), from the kind of trees growing in the swamp, but obviously antac never described a swamp, or trees growing in swamps, without the prefix Men, Man, Me, etc. Keht-antak means a particularly large tree which probably served as a boundmark. It may be a question if the initial a in antak was not nasal, as in Abn., but there can be none in regard to the meaning of the suffix.
Napeak, East Hampton deed of 1648, generally written Napeaka, Neppeage and Napeague, and applied by Mather (Geological Survey) to a beach and a marsh, and in local records to the neck connecting Montauk Point with the main island, means "Water land," or "Land overflowed by water." The beach extends some five miles on the southeast coast of Long Island. The marsh spreads inland from the beach nearly across the neck where it meets Napeak Harbor on the north coast. It is supposed to have been, in prehistoric times, a water-course which separated the island from the point. Near the eastern limit are patches of stunted pines and cedars, and on its east side at the end of what are called the "Nominick hills," where was obviously located the boundmark of the East Hampton deed, "Stunted pines and cedars are a feature," wrote Dr. Tooker in answer to inquiry. (See Montauk.)
Quawnotiwock, is quoted in French's Gazetteer as the name of Great Pond; authority not cited. Prime (Hist. L. I.) wrote: "The Indian name of the pond is unknown." The pond is two miles long. It is situate where the Montauk Peninsula attains its greatest width, and is the largest body of fresh water on the island. It would be correctly described by Quinne or Quawnopaug, "Long pond," but certainly not by Quawnotiwock, the animate plural suffix -wock, showing that it belonged to the people—"People living on the Long River." [FN] (See Quantuck and Connecticut.)
[FN] The suffix -og, -ock, -uck, is, in the dialect here, a plural sign. Williams wrote -oock, -uock, -wock, and Zeisberger wrote -ak, -wak. Quinneh-tuk-wock, "People living on the Long River"—"a particular name amongst themselves." Kutch-innû-wock, "Middle-aged men;" Miss-innû-wock, "The many." Lénno, "Man"; Lénno-wak, "Men." (Zeisberger.) Kuwe, "Pine"; Cuweuch-ak, "pine wood, pine logs." Strictly, an animate plural. In the Chippeway dialect, Schoolcraft gives eight forms of the animate and eight forms of 'the inanimate plural. The Indians regarded many things as animates that Europeans do not.
Assup, given as the name of a neck of land—"A tree marked X hard by the northward side of a cove of meadow"—means "A cove." It is an equivalent of Aucûp (Williams), "A little cove or creek." "Aspatuck river" is also of record here, and probably takes that name from a hill or height in proximity. "Aspatuck hill," New Millford, Conn.
Shinnecock, now preserved as the name of an Indian village in the town of Southampton, on the east side of Shinnec'ock Bay, for many years in occupation by a remnant of the so called Shinnec'ock Indians who had taken on the habits and customs of European life, appears in its present form in Plymouth Records in 1637, in treaty association with the Massachusetts government. They claimed to be the "true owners of the eastern end of Long Island," but acknowledged the primacy of Wyandanch, sachem of the Montauks, who had been elected by other sachems as chief sachem or the "sachem of sachem" of the many clans. The name is probably from the root Shin, or Schind, "Spruce-pine" (Zeisb.); Schindikeu, "Spruce-pine forest"; Shinak-ing, "At the land of spruce-pines." (Brinton); Schindak-ock, "Land or place of spruce-pines." There was an extended spruce-pine forest on that part of the island, a considerable portion of which remains in the district south of Peconic River in the town of Southampton. The present form of the name is pronounced Shinnec'ock.
Mochgonnekonck is written, in 1643, as the name of a place unlocated except in a general way. The record reads: "Whiteneymen, sachem of Mochgonnekonck, situate on Long Island." (Col. Hist. N. Y., xiv, 60.) Whiteneymen, whose name is written Mayawetinnemin in treaty of 1645, and "Meantinnemen, alias Tapousagh, chief of Marsepinck and Rechawyck," in 1660 (Col. Hist. N. Y., xiii, 58), was son of Mechowodt, sachem of Marsepingh, and probably succeeded his father as sachem of that clan. (Col. Hist. N. Y., xiv, 540.) His last possession was Cow Neck, in the present town of North Hampton, which was given to him by his father; it may have been the Mochgonnekonk of 1643. De Vries met him in conference in 1645, and notes him as a speaker of force, and as having only one eye. Brodhead wrote of him: "Kieft, therefore, by the advice of his council determined to engage some of the friendly Indians in the interest of the Dutch, and Whiteneymen, the sachem of Mochgonnecocks, on Long Island, was dispatched, with several of his warriors, 'to beat and destroy the hostile tribes.' The sachem's diplomacy, however, was better than his violence. In a few days he returned to Fort Amsterdam bearing friendly messages from the sachems along the Sound and Near Rockaway," and a formal treaty of peace soon followed. He was elected "sachem of sachems" by the sachems of the western clans on the island, about the time the jurisdiction of the island was divided between the English at New Haven and the Dutch at Manhattan, the former taking the eastern clans under Wyandanch, and as such appears in the treaties with the Dutch in 1645, '56—His record name is variously written—Tapousagh, Tackapousha, etc. It is frequently met in Long Island Records. Mochgonneckonck the name of his sachemdom in 1643, has not been identified further than that he was the owner of Cow Neck, now called Manhasset (Manhas'et), Queens County, the largest neck or point of land on the coast.
Quaunontowunk, Quannotowonk, Konkhonganik and Konghonganoc, are forms of two distinct names applied respectively to the north and south ends of Fort Pond, as per deed for the tract known as "the Hither Woods purchase," which reads: "The name of the pond is Quaunontowunk on the north and Konkhonganik on the south." Dr. Tooker translated the former from Quaneuntéow-unk, (Eliot), "Where the fence is," the reference being to a certain fence of lopped trees which existed on the north end of the pond, [FN-1] and the latter from Kuhkunhunganash (Eliot), "bounds," "At the boundary place." The present name of the pond is from two Indian forts, one known as the Old Fort, on the west, and one known as the New Fort, on the east, the latter remaining in 1661, the former destroyed, the deed reading, "Where the Old Fort stood." Wyandanch, [F-2] "the sachem of Manatacut,"—later called "The great sachem of Montauk"—had his residence in the Old Fort. He was the first ruler of the Montauks known to the Dutch, his name appearing in 1637. (See Montauk.)
[FN-1] The deed reads: "The north fence from the pond to the sea, shall be kept by the town; the south fence, to the sea, by the Indians." Presumably the fences were there when the land was sold.
[FN-2] Wyandach, or Wyandance, is said to have been the brother of Paggatacut, sachem of Manhas'set or Shelter Island, the chief sachem of fifteen sachemdoms. On the death of the latter, in 1651, Wyandanch became, by election, the successor of his brother and held the office until his death by poison in 1659.
Mastic, preserved as the name of a river and also as that of a village in Brookhaven, is of uncertain meaning. Wampmissic, the name of another village, is supposed to have been the name of a swamp—Mass. Wompaskit, "At or in the swamp, or marsh."
Poosepatuck, a place so called and now known as the Indian Reservation, back of Forge River at Mastick, probably means "On the other side," or "Beyond the river," from Awossi, "Over, over there, on the other side, beyond," and -tuck, "Tidal river."
Speonk, the name of a village in Southampton near East Bay, on an inlet of the ocean, to which flows through the village a small brook, has lost some of its letters. Mas-sepe-onk would describe a place on a broad tidal river or estuary. In the same vicinity Setuck is of record as the name of a place. It may also be from Mas-sepe-tuck. (See Southampton Records.) While the English settlers on eastern Long Island were careful to preserve Indian names, they were very careless in orthographies.
Poquatuck is quoted by Thompson (Hist. L. I.) as the name of Oyster Pond in the town of Southold. It is now claimed as the name of Orient, a village, peninsula or neck of land and harbor on the east side of the pond. Probably from Pohqu'unantak, "Cleared of trees," a marshy neck which had been cleared or was naturally open. The same name is met in Brookhaven.
Cataconoche, given as the name of the Great Neck bounding Smithtown on the east, has been translated by Dr. Tooker from Kehte-komuk, "Greatest field," later known as the Old Man's Field, or Old Field.
Yaphank, Yamphank, etc., a village in Brookhaven, is from Niantic dialect in which Y is used for an initial letter where other dialects employ L, N or R. Putting the lost vowel e back in the word, we have Yapehánek, in Lenape Rapehánek, "Where the stream ebbs and flows." The name is written Yampkanke in Indian deed. (Gerard.) The name is now applied to a small tributary of the Connecticut, but no doubt belongs to a place on the Connecticut where the current is affected by the tide. (See Connecticut.)
Monowautuck is quoted as the Indian name of Mount Sinai, a village in the town of Brookhaven, a rough and stony district on what is known as Old Man's Bay, a small estuary surrounded by a salt-marsh meadow. The name seems to be an equivalent of Nunnawanguck, "At the dry land." Old Man's Bay takes that name from the Great Neck called Cataconche, otherwise known as the Old Man's Meadow, and as the Old Field. "The two neckes or hoeces (hooks) of meadow that lieth next beyond the Old Man's Meadow"—"with all ye privileges and appurtenances whatsoever, unto the Old Field." Presumably Man's was originally Manse (English), pronounced Mans, "the dwelling of a landholder with the land attached," and called Old because it was the first land or field purchased. (See Cataconche.)
Connecticut, now so written and of record Connetquoit, etc, is not the name of the stream to which it is applied, but of the land on both sides of it. It is an equivalent of Quinnituckquet, "Long-river land," as in Connecticut. (Trumbull.) Quinnituk, "Long river"; with locative -et or -it, "Land or place on the long-river." The stream is the outlet of Ronkonkoma Lake, and flows south to Fire-place Bay, where the name is of primary record. There were two streams to which it was applied; one is a small stream in Islip, and the other, the largest stream on the island, as described above. In old deeds it is called East Connecticutt. Fire-place is now retained as the name of a village on Bellport Bay, and its ancient locative on the Connecticut is now called South Haven. [FN]
[FN] There were two places bearing the name of Fire-place, one on the north side of the island on Gardiner's Bay, and one on the south side. The latter is referred to here.
Minasseroke, quoted as the name of Little Neck, town of Brookhaven, probably means "Small-stone land" or place—Min-assin-ohke, r and n exchanged.
Patchogue, Pochough, Pachough, the name of a village in the town of Brookhaven, Suffolk County, on Patchough Bay, is probably met in Pochaug, Conn., which Dr. Trumbull read from Pohshâog, where two streams form one river, signifying, "Where they divide in two." The name was early extended to a clan known as the Pochoughs, later Patchoogues, who seem to have been a family of the Onchechaugs, a name probably the equivalent of Ongkoué (Moh.), "beyond," with -ogue (ohke), "land beyond," i. e. beyond the bay. [FN] (See Moriches.)
[FN] Otherwise written Unquetauge—"land lying at Unquetauge, on the south side of Long Island, in the county of Suffolk." Literally, "Land beyond;" "on the further side of; in the same direction as, and further on or away than." Onckeway, a place beyond Stamford, on Connecticut river. (Col. Hist. N. Y.) "Ongkoué, beyond Pequannuc river." (Trumbull.)
Cumsequogue is given in will of William Tangier Smith as the name of what is now known as Carman's River, flowing to Bellport Bay. It is probably a pronunciation of Accomb-suck-ohke, "Land or place at the outlet beyond." The record name of Bellport is Occombomeck, Accobamuck, etc., meaning, "Fishing-place beyond," which, as the deeds show, was a fishing-place at a freshwater pond, now dried up. The name is readily confused with Aquebogue.
Moriches, a neck of land "lying at Unquetague, on the south side of Long Island, being two necks called by ye names of Mariges and Namanock" (Cal. N. Y. Land Papers, 45), is now in the town of Brookhaven. Namanock seems, from the locative, to be a corruption of Nam'e-ohke, "Fish-place"—Namanock or Namecock. (Trumbull.) [FN] Moriches, or Mariges, is a corruption of Dutch Maritches (Morichi, Mariche), from Moriche Palmita (Latin), meaning, in popular use, any plant thought to resemble a palm. Mauritia a species of Mauriticæ, or South-American palm, so called in honor of Prince Maurice of Nassau. (See Palmagat.)
[FN] Namaus, generic, "a fish"—Namohs, Eliot; Namés, Abn., Namaes, Heck.; Namees, Zeisb.; with suffix -aki, -ohke, etc., "fish-land," place or country. Améessok, Zeisb.; Anmesooak, Abn., Aumsûog, Mass., "small fishes." As a generic suffix, -ama'ug, Mass., -ama'uk, Del., "fishing-place." "Ama'ug is only used at the end of a compound name, where it is equivalent to Nameaug, at the beginning." (Trumbull.) The final syllable, -ug, -uk, etc., is an animate plural. On Long Island, -Ama'ug is frequently met in -amuck; in other places, -amwack, -amwook, -ameock, etc.
Kitchaminchoke, given as the name of a boundmark, said to be Moriches Island, is interpreted by Dr. Tooker, "The beginning place." The description (1630) reads, "Beginning at" a place called, i. e. an object or feature which would definitely locate a boundmark—apparently an equivalent of Schiechi-kiminschi-aki, Lenape, "Place of a soft-maple tree." The territory conveyed extended to Enaughquamuck, which Dr. Tooker rendered correctly, "As far as the fishing-place."
Niamug and Niamuck are forms of the name of what is now known as Canoe Place, on the south side of Long Island, near Southampton. "Niamug, the place where the Indians haul over their canoes out of the North Bay to the South Bay." (Deed of 1640.) Dr. Trumbull translated from Nôe-amuck, "Between the fishing places." Local tradition affirms that centuries ago the Indians made a canal here for the purpose of passing their canoes from Mecox Bay to Paconic Bay. Mongotucksee, the hero of the story, was a chieftain who reigned over the Montauks in the days of their pride and power. The tradition has no other merit than the fact that Niamug was a place at which canoes were hauled across the island.
Sicktew-hacky (deed of 1638); Sicketewackey (Van der Donck, 1656): "All the lands from Rockaway eastward to Sicktew-hackey, or Fire Island Bay"; "On the south coast of Long Island, at a place called Sicktewacky, or Secontague, near Fire Island Inlet" (Brodhead); Seaquetauke, 1659; Setauck Neck, the south bound of St. George's Manor, now Manorville; of record as the name of an Indian clan and village near Fire Island Inlet, with the Marsapinks and Nyacks for neighbors; now preserved in several forms of which Setauket probably locates a place near Secontague. Sicketeuhacky, writes Mr. Gerard, "is the Lenape equivalent of Secatogue, meaning 'Burned-over land.' Whether the mainland or Fire Island was the 'Burned-over land,' history does not tell us." Lands were burned over by the Indians to destroy the bushes and coarse grasses, and probably some field of this character was referred to by the Indian grantors, from which the name was extended to the Neck and to Fire Island, although it is said that fires were kindled on the island for the guidance of fishermen.
Saghtekoos—"called by the native Indians Saghtekoos; by the Christians Appletree Neck"—the name of the Thompson estate in Islip—probably means, "Where the stream branches or divides," or "At the branch," referring to Thompson's brook. The suffix -oos evidently stands for "small." (See Sohaghticoke.) "Apple-tree Neck" is not in the composition, but may indicate that the Indian owners had planted apple trees there.
Amagansett, the Indian name of what is now East Hampton, was translated by Dr. Trumbull, "At or near the fishing place"; root Am, "to take by the mouth"; Amau, "he fishes"; Abn., Amaⁿgaⁿ, "ou péche lá," "he fishes there," (Rasles); s, diminutive or derogatory; ett, "Near or about," that is, the tract was near a small or inferior fishing-place, which is precisely what the composition describes.
Peconic, now so written and applied to Peconic Bay and Peconic River, but primarily to a place "at the head of the river," or as otherwise described, "Land from ye head of ye bay or Peaconnack, was Shinnec'ock Indians' Land" (Col. Hist. N. Y., xiv, 600), is not the equivalent of Peqan'nuc, "a name common to all cleared land," as translated by Dr. Trumbull, but the name given as that of a small creek tributary to Peconic River, in which connection it is of record Pehick-konuk, which, writes Mr. Gerard, "plainly stands for K'pe-hickonuk, or more properly Kĕpehikanik, 'At the barrier,' or weir. Kĕpehikan from Kepehike, 'he closes up,' or obstructs, i. e. 'dams.'" The bounds of the Shinnec'ock Indians extended east to this stream; or, as the record reads, "To a river where they did use to catch the fish commonly called alewives, the name of which creek was Pehickkonuk, or Peconic." (Town Records.)
Agwam, Agawam, is quoted by French as the name of Southampton, L. I. Dr. Trumbull wrote: "Acawan, Agawan or Auquan, a name given to several localities in New England Where there are low meadows—a low meadow or marsh." Presumably from Agwu, "Underneath, below." Another authority writes: "Agawam from Magawamuk, A great fishing place." (See Machawameck.)
Sunquams is given by French as the Indian name of Mellville in Southampton, L. I., with the interpretation, "Sweet Hollow." The interpretation is mere guess-work.
Massaback, a hill so called in Huntington, Suffolk County—in English "Half hill," and in survey (1703) "Half-hollow hill"—probably does not belong to the hill which the English described as "half-hollow," but to a stream in proximity to it—Massabeset, "At a (relatively) great brook." (Trumbull.)
Mattituck, the name of a village in Southold, near the west end of the town, was primarily written as that of a tract of land including the present town of Riverhead, from which it was extended to a large pond between Peconic Bay and the Sound. Presumably the same name is met in Mattatuck, Ct., written Matetacoke, 1637, Matitacoocke, 1673, which was translated by Dr. Trumbull from Eliot's Mat-uh'tugh-auke, "A place without wood," or badly wooded. (See Titicus.)
Cutchogue, Plymouth Records, 1637; "Curchaug, or Fort Neck;" Corch'aki, deed of 1648; now Cutchogue, a village in Southold, in the vicinity of which was an Indian fort, the remains of which and of an Indian burial ground are objects of interest, is probably a corruption of Maskutchoung, which see. Dr. Tooker translated from Kehti-auke, "The principal place," the appositeness of which is not strikingly apparent. The clan bearing the name was party to the treaty with the Massachusetts people in 1637, and to the sale of the East Hampton lands. Their earliest sachem was Momoweta, who acknowledged the primacy of Wyandanch.
Tuckahoe, a level tract of land near Southampton village, takes that name from one or the other of the larger "round" roots (Mass. P'tuckweōō), possibly the Golden Club, or Floating Artmi, a root described "as much of the bigness and taste of potatoes." (Trumbull.) [FN] The same name is met in Westchester County.
[FN] Dr. Brinton writes: "They also roasted and ate the acrid cormus of the Indian turnip, in Delaware taw-ho, taw-hin or tuck-ah, and collected the seeds of the Golden Club, common in the pools along the creeks and rivers. Its native name was taw-kee." ("The Lenape and their Legends.") The name of another place on Long Island, written Hogonock, is probably an equivalent of Delaware Hóbbenac (Zeisb.), "Potatoes," or "Ground-nuts"; Hóbbenis, "Turnips." (See Passapenoc.)
Sagabonock has left only the remnant of its name to Sag-pond and Sag-harbor. It is from Sagabonak, "Ground nuts, or Indian potatoes." (Trumbull.) The name is of record as that of a boundmark "two miles from the east side of a Great Pond," and is described as a "pond or swamp" to which the name of the tuber was extended from its product.
Ketchepunak, quoted as the name of Westhampton, describes "The greatest ground-nut place," or "The greatest ground-nuts." (See Kestaubniuk.)
Wequaganuck is given as the name of that part of Sag-harbor within the town of East Hampton. It is an equivalent of Wequai-adn-auke, "Place at the end of the hill," or "extending to the hill." (Trumbull.) The hill is now known as Turkey Hill, on the north side of which the settlement of Sag-harbor was commenced.
Namke, from Namaa, "fish," and ke, "place"—fish-place—was the name of a place on the creek near Riverhead. (O'Gallaghan.) More exactly, Nameauke, probably.
Hoppogues, in Smithtown, Suffolk County, is pretty certainly from Wingau-hoppague, meaning, literally, "Standing water of good and pleasant taste." The name was that of a spring and pond. In a deed of 1703, the explanation is, "Or ye pleasant springs." Supposed to have been the springs which make the headwaters of Nissequogue river at the locality now bearing the name of Hauppauge, a hamlet.
Massapeage—Massapeag, 1636; Massapeague, Rassapeage—a place-name from which extended to an Indian clan whose principal seat is said to have been on Fort Neck, in the town of Oyster Bay, was translated by Dr. Trumbull from Massa, "great"; pe, the radical of water, and auke, "land," or "Land on the great cove." Thompson (Hist. L. I.) assigns the name to "a swamp on the south side of Oyster Bay," now South Oyster Bay, and it is so applied in Indian deeds. There were two Indian forts or palisaded towns on the Neck. Of one the name is not given; it was the smallest of the two; its site is said to be now submerged by water. The second, or largest, is called in Dutch records Matsepe, "Great river." It is described as having been situated on the most southerly point of land adjoining the salt meadows. Both forts were attacked by Dutch forces under Capt. Pieter Cock and Capt. John Underhill, in the summer of 1644 (a local record says August) and totally destroyed with heavy loss to the Indians. (Doc. Hist. N. Y., iv, 15, 16.) In Prime's and other local histories the date is given as 1653, on the authority of "Hubbard's Indian Wars," and Capt. Underhill is assigned to the command in the attack on the largest fort. The official Dutch record, however, assigns that honor to Capt. Pieter Cock. The year was surely 1644, (Brodhead's Hist. N. Y., i, 91.) The prefix Mass, appears in many forms—Massa, Marsa, Marsha, Rassa, Mesa, Missi, Mas, Mes, etc., and also Mat, an equivalent of Mas.
Massepe, quoted in Dutch records as the name of the Indian fort on Fort Neck, where it seems to have been the name of Stony Brook, is also met in Jamaica Records (Col. Hist. N. Y., xiv, 505) as the name of a creek forming a mowing boundary or division line extending from a certain place "Eastward to ye great creek called Massepe." The name is fully explained by the description, "Great creek." Massepe-auke means "Great creek (or river) land," or place; Mas-sepe-ink, "At or on the great creek." The Indian residents came to be known as the Marsepincks.
Maskutchoung, a neck of land so called forming one of the boundaries of Hempstead Patent as entered in confirmatory deed of "Takapousha, sachem of Marsapeage," and "Wantagh, the Montauke sachem," July 4th, 1657: "Beginning at a marked tree standing at the east side of the Great Plain, and from thence running on a due south line, and at the South Sea by a marked tree in a neck called Maskutchoimg, and thence upon the same line to the South Sea." (Col. Hist. N. Y., xiv, 38, 416.) "By a marked tree in a neck called Maskachoung." (Thompson's Hist. L. I., 9, 15, 47.) It is probably an equivalent of Mask-ek-oug, "A grassy swamp or marsh." A local interpretation reads: "Grass-drowned brook," a small stream flowing through the long marsh-grass, to which the name was extended.
Maskahnong, so written by Dr. O'Callaghan in his translation of the treaty between the Western Long Island clans, in 1656, is noted in "North and South Hempstead Records," p. 60, "A neck of land called Maskahnong." It disappears after 1656, but probably reappears as Maskachoung in 1658, and later as Maskutchoung, which see.
Merick, the name of a village in Hempstead, Queens County, is said to have been the site of an Indian village called Merick-oke. It has been interpreted as an apheresis of a form of Namanock, written Namerick, "Fish place." (See Moriches.) Curiously enough, Merrick was a proper name for man among the ancient Britons, and the corruption would seem to have been introduced here by the early English settlers from resemblance to the Indian name in sound. The place is on the south side of the island. The Indian clan was known as the Merickokes.
Quantuck, a bay so called in Southampton, is of record, in 1659, Quaquanantuck, and applied to a meadow or neck of land. "The meadow called Quaquunantuck"—"the neck of land called Quaquanantuck"—"all the meadows lying west of the river, commonly called or known by the name of Quantuck." One of the boundmarks is described as "a stumpy marsh," indicating that it had been a marsh from which the trees had been removed. The name seems to correspond with this. It is probably from Pohqu'un-antack, "cleared or open marsh" or meadow. (See Montauk.)
Quogue, the name of a village near Quantuck Bay, and located, in Hist. Suffolk County, as "the first point east of Rockaway where access can be had to the ocean without crossing the bay," has been read as a contraction of Quaquaunantuck, but seems to be from Pŏque-ogue, "Clear, open space," an equivalent of Pŏque-auke, Mass.
Rechqua-akie, De Vries; Reckkouwhacky, deed of 1639; now applied to a neck on the south side of Long Island and preserved in Rockaway, was interpreted by the late Dr. E. B. O'Callaghan: "Reck 'sand'; qua, 'flat'; akie, 'land'—the long, narrow sand-bar now known as Rockaway Beach," but is more correctly rendered with dialectic exchange of R and L, Lekau. (Rekau), "sand or gravel," hacki, "land" or place. (Zeisb.) "Flats" is inferred. A considerable division of the Long Island Indians was located in the vicinity, or, as described by De Vries, who visited them in 1643, "near the sea-shore." He found thirty wigwams and three hundred Indians, who were known in the treaty of 1645, as Marechkawicks, and in the treaty of 1656 as Rockaways. [FN]
[FN] The names in the treaty of 1645, as written by Dr. O'Callaghan, are "Marechkawicks, Nayecks, and their neighbors"; in the treaty of 1656, "Rockaway and Canorise." The latter name appears to have been introduced after 1645 in exchange for Marechkawick. (See Canarise.) Rechqua is met on the Hudson in Reckgawaw-onck, the Haverstraw flats. It is not an apheresis of Marechkawick, nor from the same root.
Jamaica, now applied to a town, a village and a bay, was primarily given to the latter by the English colonists. "Near unto ye beaver pond called Jamaica," and "the beaver path," are of record, the latter presumably correct. The name is a pronunciation of Tomaque, or K'tamaque, Del., Amique, Moh., "beaver." "Amique, when aspirated, is written Jamaique, hence Yameco, Jamico, and modern Jamaica." (O'Callaghan.) The bay has no claim to the name as a beaver resort, but beavers were abundant in the stream flowing into it.
Kestateuw, "the westernmost," Castuteeuw, "the middlemost," and Casteteuw, "the eastermost," names of "three flats on the island Sewanhackey, between the bay of North river and the East river." The tracts came to be known as Flatlands; "the easternmost," as "the Bay," or Amesfort.
Sacut, now known as Success Pond, lying on a high ridge in Flushing, is a corruption of Sakûwit (Sáquik), "Mouth of a river" (Zeisb.), or "where the water flows out." The pond has an outlet, but it rarely overflows. It is a very deep and a very clear body of water.
Canarsie, now so written and applied to a hamlet in the town of Flatlands, Kings County, is of record Canari See, Canarisse, Canarise, Canorise (treaty of 1655), Kanarisingh (Dutch), and in other forms, as the name of a place or feature from which it was extended to an Indian sub-tribe or family occupying the southwest coast of Long Island, and to their village, primarily called Keshaechquereren (1636). On the Lower Potomac and Chesapeake Bay the name is written Canais, Conoys, Ganawese, etc. (Heck, xlii), and applied to a sub-tribe of Naniticokes residing there who were known as "The tide-water people," or "Sea-shore settlers." On Delaware Bay it is written Canaresse (1651, not 1656 as stated by Dr. Tooker), and applied to a specific place, described in exact terms: "To the mouth of the bay or river called Bomptjes Hoeck, in the Indian language Canaresse." (Col. Hist. N. Y. xii, 166.) "Bomptjes Hoeck" is Dutch and in that language describes a low island, neck or point of land covered with small trees, lying at the mouth of a bay or stream, and is met in several connections. The point or place described on the Delaware (now Bombay Hook) was the end of the island, known on old maps as "Deep Point," and the "Hook" was the bend in the currents around it forming the marshy inlet-bay on the southwest connecting with a marshy channel or stream, and the latter on the north with a small stream by which the island was constituted. Considered from the standpoint of an Algonquian generic term, the rule is undisputed that the name must have described a feature which existed in common at the time of its application, on the Delaware and on Long Island, and it only remains to determine what that feature was. Obviously the name itself solves the problem. In whatever form it is met it is the East Indian Canarese (English Can'a-resé) pure and simple, and obviously employed as a substitute for the Algonquian term written Ganawese, etc., of the same meaning. In the "History of New Sweden" (Proc. N. Y. Hist. Soc, 2d Ser. v. i.), the locative on the Delaware is described: "From Christina Creek to Canarose or Bambo Hook." In "Century Dictionary" Bambo is explained: "From the native East Indian name, Malay and Java bambu, Canarese banbu or bonwu." Dr. Brinton translated Ganawese from Guneu (Del.), "Long," but did not add that the suffix—wese, or as Roger Williams wrote it, quese, means "Little, small," the combination describing Bambo grasses, i. e. "long, small" grasses, which, in some cases reach the growth of trees, but on Long Island and on the Delaware only from long marsh grasses to reeds, as primarily in and around Jamaica Bay and Gowanus Bay, on Reed Island, etc. True, Ganawese would describe anything that was "long, small," but obviously here the objective product. Canarese, Canarose, Kanarische, Ganawese, represent the same sound-"in (East) Indian, Canaresse," as represented in the first Long Island form, Canari See, now Jamaica Bay.
Keschaechquereren, (1636), Keschaechquerem (1637), the name of the settlement that preceded Canarese, disappears of record with the advent of the English on Barren Island and at Gravesend soon after 1637-8. It seems to describe a "Great bush-net fishing-place," from K'sch-achquonican, "Great bush-net." (Zeisb.), the last word from Achewen, "Thicket"; from which also t' Vlact Bosch (Dutch), modern Flatbush. The Indian village was between the Stroome (tidewater) Kil and the Vresch Kil, near Jamaica.
Narrioch was given by the chief who confirmed the title to it in 1643, as the name of what is now known as Coney Island, and Mannahaning as that of Gravesend Neck. (Thompson's Hist. L. I., ii, 175.) The Dutch called the former Conynen, and the latter Conyne Hoeck—"t' Conijen Conine." Jasper Dankers wrote in 1679: "On the south (of Staten Island) is the great bay, which is enclosed by Najaq, t' Conijen Island, Neversink," etc. Conijen (modern Dutch, Konijn), signifies "Rabbit"—Cony, Coney—inferentially "Small"—literally, "Rabbit, or Coney Island," in Dutch. The Indian names have been transposed, apparently. Mannahaning means "At the island," and Narrioch is the equivalent of Nayaug, "A point or comer," as in Nyack. The latter was the Dutch "Conyne Hoeck." Judge Benson claimed Conyn as "A Dutch surname, from which came the name of Coney, or Conyn's Island," but if so, the surname was from "Rabbit" surely.
Gowanus—Gowanus, 1639; Gowanes, 1641; Gouwanes, 1672—the name of one of the boundmarks of a tract of land in Brooklyn, is probably from Koua (Kowaw, Williams; Curve, Zeisb.), "Pine"; Kowawese (Williams), "A young pine," or small pine. It was that of a place on a small stream, the description in the Indian deed of 1639, reading: "Stretching southward to a certain kil or little low bushes." The land conveyed is described as being "overflowed at every tide, and covered with salt-meadow grass." The latter gave to it its value. The claim that the name was that of an Indian owner is not well sustained. The evidence of the Dutch description of the bay as Boompje Hoek, meaning, literally, "Small tree cape, corner or angle," and the fact that small pines did abound there, seems to establish Koua as the derivative of the name.
Marechkawick, treaty of 1645—Mereckawack, Breeden Raddt, 1649; Mareckawick and Marechkawieck, Rapelie deed, 1630; Marechkourick, O'Callaghan; Marechkawick, Brodhead—forms of the name primarily given as that of Wallabout Bay, [FN] "The bought or bend of Marechkawick"—"in the bend of Marechkawick," 1630—has been translated by Dr. Tooker from Men'achk (Manachk, Zeisb.), "fence, fort," and -wik, "house" (Zeisb.), the reference being to a fenced or palisaded cabin presumably occupied by a sachem and his family of the clan known in Dutch history as the Mareckawicks. The existence of a palisaded cabin in the vicinity of "the bought or bend" is possible, but the name has the appearance of an orthography (Dutch) of Mereca, the South-American name of a teal, (Mereca Americani) the Widgeon, and -wick (Wijk, M. L. G.), "Bay, cove, inlet, retreat," etc., literally "Widgeon Bay." "Situate on the bay of Merechkawick," is entered on map of 1646 in Stiles' "History of Brooklyn." Merica was the Mayan name of the American Continent. It is spread all over South America and was applied to many objects as in the Latinized Mereca Americani. The early Dutch navigators were no doubt familiar with it in application to the Widgeon, a species of wild duck, and employed it in connection with the word -wijk. Until between 1645 and 1656, the Indians residing on the west end of Long Island were known as Marechkawicks; after 1656 they were called Canorise. (See Canar'sie.) Brooklyn is from Dutch Breukelen, the name of a village about eighteen miles from Amsterdam. It means "Broken land." (Breuk.) On Van der Donck's map the name is written correctly. A record description reads: "There is much broken land here."
[FN] Wallabout Bay takes its first name from Dutch Waal, "gulf, abyss," etc., and Bocht, "bend," It was spoken of colloquially by the early Dutch as "The bay of the foreigners," referring to the Walloons who had settled on the north side of the bay in 1625. The first white child, Sarah Rapelie, born in New Netherland, now the State of New York, was born here June 17th, 1625.
Manette, so written of record—"near Mannato hill," about thirty miles from Brooklyn and midway between the north and south sides of the island—has been interpreted from its equivalent, Manitou, "Hill of the Great Spirit," but means strictly, "That which surpasses, or is more than ordinary." (Trumbull.) It was a word in common use by the Indians in application to everything that was more than ordinary or that they could not understand. In this instance it seems to have been applied to the water of a spring or well on the rising ground which they regarded as of surpassing excellence; from the spring transferred to the hill. The tradition is that some ages ago the Indians residing in the vicinity of the hill were suffering for water. They prayed to the Great Spirit for relief, and were directed to shoot an arrow in the air and where it fell to dig and they would find water. They did so and dug the well now on the rising ground, the water of which was of surpassing excellence, or Manitou. The story was probably invented to account for the name. It is harmless fiction.
Rennaquakonck, Rinnegahonck, a landmark so called in the boundaries of a tract on Wallabout Bay, described in deed as "A certain swamp where the water runs over the stones," and, in a subsequent deed, "At the sweet marsh" (Hist. of Brooklyn), is an orthography of Winnegackonck, meaning "At the sweet place," so called from some plant which was found there, or to distinguish the marsh as fresh or sweet, not a salt marsh. The exchange of R and W may be again noted.
Comac, the name of a village in Suffolk County, is an apheresis of Winne-comac, as appears of record. The combination expresses, "Good enclosed place," from Winne, "Good, fine, sweet, beautiful, pleasant," etc., and -komuck, "Place enclosed," or having definite boundaries, limited in size.
Nyack, the name of the site of Fort Hamilton, is a generic verbal from Nâï, "A point or corner." (Nâïag, Mass., Néïak, Len.) The orthographies vary—Naywayack, Narrack, Nanak, Narrag, Najack, Niuck, Narrioch, etc. With the suffix -ak, the name means "Land or place at the point." (See Nyack-on-the-Hudson.) Dankers and Sluyter wrote in their Journal (1679-80): "We went part of the way through the woods and fine, new-made land, and so along the shore to the west end of the island called Najack. . . . Continuing onward from there, we came to the plantation of the Najack Indians, which was planted with maize, or Turkish Wheat." The Nayacks removed to Staten Island after the sale of their lands at New Utrecht. (See Narrioch.)
Nissequague, now so written, the name of a hamlet in Smithtown, and of record as the name of a river and of a neck of land still so known, is of primary record Nisinckqueg-hackey (Dutch notation), as the name of a place to which the Matinnecock clan removed after the war of 1643. (Col. Hist. N. Y., xiv, 60.) The English scribes wrote Nesequake (1650), Nesaquake (1665), Nessequack (1686), Wissiquack (1704), (Cal. N. Y. Land Papers), and other forms. The Indian deed of 1650 (Smithtown Records) recites the sale by "Nasseoonseke, sachem of Nesequake," of a tract "Beginning at a river called and commonly known by the name of Nesaquake River, and from that river eastward to a river called Memanusack." "Nesaquauke River" is the entry in patent to Richard Smith, 1665. The stream has its source in a number of springs in the southern part of Smithtown, the flow of which forms a considerable river. (Thompson.) The theory that "The tribe and river derived their name from Nesequake, an Indian sagamore, the father of Nassaconset" (Hist. Suf. Co.), is not well sustained. The suffix -set, cannot be applied to an animate object; it is a locative meaning "Less than at." In addition to this objection, Nassaconset is otherwise written Nessaquauke-ecoompt-set, showing that the name belonged to a place that was "On the other side" of Nessaquauke. Neesaquauke stands for Neese-saqû-auke, from Nisse, "two," Sauk, "Outlet," and -auke, "Land" or place, and describes a place at "the second outlet," or as the text reads, "At a river called and commonly known by the name of Nesaquake River." The sagamore may have been given the name from the place, but the place could not have taken the name from the sagamore. The estuary, now known as Nissequage Harbor into which the stream flows, extends far inland and forms the west boundary of Nissequage Neck.
Marsepinck, a stream so called in Queens County, from which extended to the land which was sold, in 1639, by "Mechowout, chief sachem of Marossepinck, Sint-Sink and dependencies," and also extended to an Indian clan known as Marsepings, is no doubt an orthography of Massepe and -ing, locative. It means "At, to or on the great river." Mas is an abbreviation of Massa, Missi, etc., "great," and Sepe, means "river." It was probably used comparatively-the largest compared with some other stream. (See Massepe.)
Unsheamuck, otherwise written Unthemamuk, given as the name of Fresh Pond, on the boundary line between Huntington and Smithtown, means "Eel-fishing place." (Tooker.)
Suggamuck, the name of what is now known as Birch Creek, in Southampton, means "Bass fishing-place." (Tooker.)
Rapahamuck, a neck or point of land so called, is from Appé-amuck, "Trap fishing-place." (Tooker.) The name is assigned to the mouth of Birch Creek. (See Suggamuck.)
Memanusack and Memanusuk, given as the name of Stony Brook, probably has its locative "At the head of the middle branch of Stony Brook," Which formed the boundmark noted in the Indian deed. The same name is probably met in Mayomansuk, from Mawé, meaning "To bring together," "To meet"; and -suck, "Outlet," i. e. of a pond, marsh or river. The brook was "stony" no doubt, but that description is English.
Cussqunsuck is noted as the name of Stony Brook referred to in Memanusack. The stream is probably the outlet of the waters of a swamp. In his will Richard Smith wrote: "I give to my daughter Sarah, 130 acres of land at the two swamps called Cutts-cunsuck." The first word seems to stand for Ksúcqon, "Heavy" (Zeisb.), by metonymie, "Stone," -es, "Small," and -uck, locative, "Place of small stone." Ksúcqon may be employed as an adjectival prefix. Eliot wrote, "Qussukquemin, Stone fruit," the cherry.
Mespaechtes, deed to Governor Keift, 1638, from which Mespath (Brodhead), Mespat (Riker), Mashpeth and Mashpett (Co. Hist. N. Y., xiv, 602), now Maspeth, a village in Newtown, Queens County, and met in application to Newtown Creek (Col. Hist. N. Y., xiii, 25), has been translated by Dr. Tooker, "From Mech-pe-is-it, Bad-water place," and by Wm. R. Gerard, "From Massapichtit, verbal describing scattered settlements, as though the Indians who sold the lands had said, 'We include the lands of those living here and there.'" [FN] Flint, in his "Early History of Long Island," wrote: "Mespat Kills, now Maspeth, from the Indian Matsepe, written by the Dutch, Maespaatches Kiletje"—long known as "Dutch Kills." In patent of 1642, for lands described as lying "on the east side of Mespatches Kil," the boundary is stated: "Beginning at the kil and the tree standing upon the point towards the small kil." Obviously there were two streams here, the largest called Mespatches, which seems to be, as Flint states, a Dutch rendering of Matsepe-es, from Mas (Del. Mech), a comparative term—"great," as distinguished from "small," the largest of two, and Sepees (Sepoûs, Sepuus), "a brook." Sepe, Sipo, Sipu, etc., is generally applied to a long stream. The west branch of Mespatt Kill has the record name of Quandoequareus. Flint wrote: "The Canapauke, or Dutch Kills, sluggishly winding its way through the meadows of bronzed grasses." Canapauke stands for Quana-pe-auke, "Long water-land," or "Land on the long water." The stream is a tidal current receiving several small streams. (See Massepe.) Mespatches seems to belong to the stream noted in patent of 1642.
[FN] "Missiachpitschik, those who are or live scattered." (Zeisberger's Onond. Dic.)
Sint-Sink, of record as the name of Schout's Bay, [FN] also, "Formerly called Cow Neck, and by the Indians Sint-Sink," was the name of a place now known as Manhasset. (Col. Hist. N. Y.) It means "Place of small stones," as in Sint-Sink, modern Sing-Sing, on the Hudson.
[FN] Known also as "Martin Garretson's bay." Garretson was Schout (Sheriff), hence "Schout's bay." The neck of land "called by the Indians Sint-Sink," was fenced for the pasturage of cows, and became known as "Cow Neck," hence "Cow bay" and "Cow harbor," now Manhasset bay. (See Matinnec'ock and Mochgonneck-onck.)
Manhasset, correctly Manhanset, means, "Near the Island," or something less than at the island. The locative was long known as "Head of Cow Neck."
Matinnecock is noted in a survey for Lewis Morris, in 1685: "A tract of land lying upon the north side of Long Island, within the township of Oyster Bay, in Queens County, and known by the name of Matinicock," and in another survey: "A certain small neck of land at a place called Mattinicock." Extended also to an island and to an Indian clan. Cornelius van Tienhoven wrote in 1650: "Martin Garritson's Bay, or Martinnehouck, [FN-1] is much deeper and wider than Oyster Bay; it runs westward in and divides into three rivers, two of which are navigable. The smallest stream runs up in front of the Indian village called Martinnehouck, where they have their plantations. The tribe is not strong, and consists of about thirty families. In and about this bay were formerly great numbers of Indian plantations which now lie waste. On the rivers are numerous valleys of sweet and salt meadows." The name has, with probable correctness, been interpreted from Metanak-ok (Lenape, Metanak-onk; Abn., Metanak-ook), meaning, "Along the edge of the island," or, as Van Tienhoven wrote, "About this bay." The same name appears on the Delaware as that of what is now known as Burlington Island. [FN-2] It is corrupted in New Jersey to Tinnicum, and is preserved on Long Island as the name of a village in the town of Oyster Bay.
[FN-1] A corruption from "Martin."
[FN-2] Mattinacunk, Matinneconke, Matinnekonck—"having been formerly known by the name of Kipp's Island, and by ye Indian name of Koo-menakanok-onck." (Col. Hist. N. Y.) Koo-menakanok-onck was the largest of two islands in the Delaware and was particularly identified by the Indian name, which means "Pine-tree-islands place." The name by which the Island came to be known was transferred to it apparently.
Hog's Island, so called by the early settlers, now known as Center Island, has the record description: "A piece of land on Martin Garretson's Bay, in the Indian tongue called Matinnecong, alias Hog's Neck, or Hog's Island, being an island at high tide." (Col. Hist. N. Y., xiv, 435.) "Matinneckock, a neck on the Sound east of Muchito Cove." (See Muchito.) The island is connected with the main land by a neck or beach which was overflowed at high tide.
Caumsett is recorded as the name of "The neck of land which makes the west side of Cow Harbor and the east side of Oyster Bay" (Ind. Deed of 1654), known later as Horse Neck and Loyd's Neck. Apparently a corruption of Ketumpset, "Near the great standing rock." The reference may have been to what was known as Bluff Point.
Muchito, the name of what is now Glen Cove, near Hempstead Harbor, is otherwise written Muschedo, Mosquito and Muscota. It was primarily written as the name of Muchito Neck. It means "Meadow"—Moskehtu (Eliot), "grass;" Muskuta, "A grassy plain or meadow." (See Muscota.)
Katawomoke, "or, as called by the English, Huntington," is written in the Indian deed of 1653, Ketauomoke; in deed of 1646, Ketauomocke, and assigned to a neck of land "Bounded upon the west side with a river commonly called by the Indians Nachaquetuck, and on the east by a river called Opcutkontycke," the latter now known as Northfield-Harbor Brook. The name is preserved in several orthographies. In deed to Lion Gardiner (1638), Ar-hata-amunt; in deed to Richard Smith (1664), Catawaunuck and Catawamuck, and in another entry "Cattawamnuck land," i. e. land about Catawamuck; in Huntington Records, Ketewomoke; in Cal. N. Y. Land Papers, p. 60: "To the eastward of the town of Huntington and to the westward of Nesaquack, commonly called by the Indians Katawamake and in English by the name of Crope Meadow;" in another entry, "Crab Meadow," by which last name the particular tract was known for many years. "Crope" and "Crab" are English equivalents for a species of grass called "finger-grass or wire-grass," and were obviously employed by the English to describe the kind of grass that distinguished the meadow—certainly not as an equivalent of the Indian name, which was clearly that of a place at or near the head of Huntington Harbor, from which it was extended to the lands as a general locative. The several forms of the name may probably be correctly read from Kehti, or its equivalent. Kehchi, "Chief, principal, greatest," and -amaug, "Fishing-place" (-amuck, L. I.), literally "The greatest fishing-place." The orthography of 1638 is especially corrupt, and Ketawamuck, apparently the most nearly correct, the rule holding good in this, as in other cases, that the very early forms are especially imperfect.
Nachaquatuck, the western boundary stream of Eaton's Neck, quoted as the name of Cold Spring, is translated by Dr. Tooker from Wa'nashque-tuck, "The ending creek, because it was the end or boundary of the tract." "Called by the Indians Nackaquatok, and by the English Cold Spring." (Huntington Patent, 1666.) Wanashque, "The tip or extremity of anything."
Opcutkontycke, now assigned to a brook entering Northfield Harbor, and primarily given as the name of a boundary stream (see Katawamake), seems to be a corruption of Ogkomé (Acoom-), "On the other side," and -tuck, "A tidal stream or estuary." It was a place on the other side of the estuary.
Aupauquack, the name of a creek in West Hampton, is entered, in 1665, Aupaucock and described as a boundary stream between the Shinnecock and the Unchechauge lands, "Either nation may cutt flags for their use on either side of the river without molestation." Also given as the name of a "Lily Pond" in East Hampton. Written Appauquauk and Appoquague, and now Paucuck. The name describes a place "Where flags grow," and nothing else. [FN] (See Apoquague.)
[FN] Rev. Thomas James, in a deposition made Oct. 18, 1667, said that two old Indian women informed him they "gathered flags for mats within that tract." (East Hampton Town Records, 156.)
Wading River, now so called, was also called "The Iron or Red Creek," "Red Creek" and "Wading Place," and by the Indians Pauquacumsuck and Pequoockeon, the latter, wrote Dr. Trumbull, "Because Pequaocks, a little thick shell-fish was found there, which the Indians waded for; hence the name 'Wading River,' Quahaug is from this term, and Pequaock, Oyster Bay." "Iron or Red Creek" explains itself. Wading River is preserved in the name of a village in the town of Riverhead.
Assawanama—"a tract of land near the town of Huntington called by the natives Anendesak, in English Eaderneck's Beach, and so along the Sound four miles, or thereabouts, until [to] the fresh pond called by the natives Assaiwanama, where a creek runs into the Sound"—describes "A creek beyond," i. e. beyond Anendesak; from Assawa-amhames.
Aquebogue, Aquebauke—"on the north side of Aquebauke or Piaconnock River" (COl. Hist. N. Y., xiv, 600)—means, "Land or place on this side," i. e. on the side towards the speaker, as is obvious from the description, "On the north side," and from the deed of 1648, which reads: "The whole tract of land called Ocquebauck, together with the lands and meadows lying on the other side of the water as far as the creek," the latter called "The Iron or Red Creek," now "Wading River." The name is preserved in two villages in the town of Riverhead, on the original tract.
Wopowag, more correctly Wepowage, given as the name of Stony Brook, town of Brookhaven, describes a place "At the narrows," i. e. of a brook or cove, and usually "The crossing place." (Trumbull.)
So'was'set, correctly Cowas'sett (Moh.), the name of what is now Port Jefferson, signifies, "Near a place of small pine trees." (Trumbull.) The name was applied to what was long known as the "Drowned Meadow," but not the less a "Place of small pine trees" which was at or near the meadow.
Wickaposset, now given as the name of Fisher's Island, appears to be from Wequa, "End of," -paug (-peauke), "Waterland," and -et, locative—near the end of the water-land, marsh or pond. The island is on the north side of the Sound opposite Stonington, Ct., but is included in the jurisdiction of Southampton.
Hashamomuck, "being a neck of land." (Southold Records.) Hashamomock or Nashayousuck. (Ib.) The adjectivals Hash and Nash seem to be from Nashaué, "Between," and -suck, "The mouth or outlet of a brook." The suffix -momuck, in the first form, may stand for -komuk, "Place"—a place between. The orthographies are very uncertain.
Minnepaug, "being a little pond with trees standing by it." (Southold Records.) The name is explained in the description, "A little pond." In Southampton Records the same pond is called Monabaugs, another orthography of Minnepaug.
Masspootupaug (1662), describes a boggy meadow or miry land. The substantival is Póotapaug, Mass., "A bog." The adjectival may stand for Mass, "Great," or Matt, derogative.
Manowtassquott, or Manowtatassquott, is assigned to Blue Point, in Great South Bay, town of Brookhaven. The record reads: "Bounded easterly by a brook or river to the westward of a point called the Blue Point, known by the Indian name of Manowtatassquott." The name belongs to a place where Menhaden abounded—Manowka-tuck-ut—from which extended to the point.
Ochabacowesuck, given as the name of what is now called Pine Neck, stands for Acquebacowes-uck, meaning, "On this side of the small pines." Narraganset. Cówawés-uck, "At the young pine place," or "Small-pine place." Koowa, Eliot; -es, diminutive; -uck, locative. The name of the tree was from its pointed leaves; Kous, a thorn or briar, or "having a sharp point." (Trumbull.) Acqueb, "This side."
Ronkonkoma, Raconkamuck, Wonkonkoamaug, Wonkongamuck, Wonkkeconiaug, Raconkcamake, "A fresh pond, about the middle of Long Island." (Smithtown Records.) "Woukkecomaug signifying crooked pond." (Indian deed of 1720.) Obviously from Wonkun, "Bent," and -komuk, "Place, limited or enclosed." Interpretation from Wonkon'ous, "Fence," and -amaug, "Fishing-place" (Tooker), has no other standing than that there was a fence of lopped trees terminating at the pond. The name, however, was in place before the fence was made. The explanation in the Indian deed of 1720 cannot be disputed. The pond divides the towns of Islip, Smithtown, Setauket, and Patchoug.
Potunk, a neck of land on Shinnecock Bay, is written Potuncke in Smithtown Records, in 1662. "A swamp at Potunk," is another entry. Dr. Trumbull quoted it as a form of Po'dunk, Conn., which is of primary record, "Called Potaecke," and given as the name of a "brook or river." In Brookfield, Mass., a brook bearing the name is said to have been so called "from a tract of meadow adjoining." In Washington County, N. Y., is recorded "Podunk Brook." (Cal. Land Papers.) The meaning of the name is uncertain, but from its wide distribution it is obviously from a generic—presumably a corruption of P'tuk-ohke, a neck or corner of land. "The neck next east of Onuck is known by the Indian name of Potunk." (Local History.)
Mannhonake, the name of Gardiner's Island—"called by the Indians Mannhonake, [FN] and by us the Isle of Wight"—means, "Island place or country," from Munnohhan, "Island," and -auke, "Land, ground, place (not limited or enclosed), country," etc. (Trumbull.) In common with other islands in Gardiner's Bay, it was recommended, in 1650, as offering rare inducements for settlement, "Since therein lie the cockles whereof wampum is made." "The greatest part of the wampum for which the furs are traded is made there." (Col. Hist. N. Y., xii, 360.) The island was claimed in the deed as the property of the Narragansetts. Dr. Dwight's interpretation of the name, "A place where a number of Indians had died," is a pure invention.
[FN] Manchonacke is the orthography in patent to Lion Gardiner, 1639. (Doc. Hist. N. Y., i, 685.) Dr. Trumbull quotes Manchonat, Narragansett.
Manah-ackaquasu-wanock, given as the name of Shelter Island, is a composition of two names, as shown by the record entry, "All that their island of Ahaquasu-wamuck, otherwise called Manhansack." Ahaquasu-wamuck is no doubt the equivalent of Aúhaquassu (Nar.), "Sheltered," and -amuck is an equivalent of amaug, "Fishing-place," literally, "Sheltered fishing-place." Menhansack is Manhansick in deed of 1652, and Munhassett and Manhasett in prior deed of 1640. (East-Hampton Records.) It is a composition from Munnohan, "Island;" es, "small," and et, "at" and describes a small island as "at" or "near" some other island. The compound Manah-ahaquasu-wanock, means, therefore, simply, "Sheltered-fishing-place island," identifying the island by the fishing-place, while Manhasett identifies it in generic terms as a small island near some other island or place. [FN] The island now bears the generic terms Manhasett. Pogatacutt, sachem of the island, is supposed to have lived on what is now known as "Sachem's Neck." (See Montauk.)
[FN] Perhaps explained by the entry, "Roberts' Island, situate near Manhansack." (Records, Town of East-Hampton.)
Manises, or Menasses, as written by Dr. Trumbull, the name of Block Island, means, literally, "Small island," just as an Englishman would describe it. The Narragansetts were its owners. Its earliest European occupant was Capt. Adriaen Block, who, having lost his vessel by burning at Manhattan, constructed here another which he called the "Onrust" or "Restless," in 1614. It was the first vessel constructed by Europeans in New York waters. In this vessel Block made extended surveys of Hudson's River, the Connecticut, the Sound, etc. Acquiring from his residence among them a knowledge of the Connecticut coast dialects, he wrote the names of tribes on the Hudson in that dialect. Reference is made to what is better known as the "Carte Figurative of 1614-16." There is no better evidence that this Figurative was from Block's chart than its presumed date and the orthographies of the names written on it.
Neversink, now so written as the name of the hills on the south side of the lower or Raritan Bay, is written Neuversin by Van der Donck, Neyswesinck by Van Tienhoven, Newasons by Ogilby, 1671, and more generally in early records Naver, Neuver, Newe, and Naoshink. The original was no doubt the Lenape Newas-ink, "At the point, comer, or promontory." The root Ne (English Nâï), means, "To come to a point," "To form a point," or, as rendered by Dr. Trumbull, "A corner, angle or point," Nâïag. Dr. Schoolcraft's translation, "Between waters," and Dr. O'Callaghan's "A stream between hills," are incorrect, as can be abundantly proved. (See Nyack.)
Perth Amboy, at the mouth of Raritan River, is in part, from James, Earl of Perth, Lord High Chancellor of Scotland, who founded a settlement there, and part from Amboy (English Ambo), meaning any rising or stage, a hill or any elevation. A writer in 1684 notes: "Where the town of Perth is now building is on a shelf of land rising twenty, thirty and forty feet." Smith (Hist. of New Jersey) wrote: "Ambo, in Indian, 'A point;'" but there is no such word as Ambo, meaning "A point," in any Indian dialect. Heckewelder's interpretation: "Ompoge, from which Amboy is derived, and also Emboli, means 'A bottle,' or a place resembling a bottle," is equally erroneous, although Emboli may easily have been an Indian pronunciation of Amboy. The Indian deed of 1651 reads, "From the Raritan Point, called Ompoge," which may be read from Ompaé, Alg. generic, "Standing or upright," of which Amboy, English, is a fair interpretation.
Raritangs (Van Tienhoven), Rariton (Van der Donck), Raretans, Raritanoos, Nanakans, etc., a stream flowing to tide-water west of Staten Island, extended to the Indian sub-tribal organization which occupied the Raritan Valley, is from the radical Nâï, "A point," as in Naragan, Naraticon, Narrangansett, Nanakan, Nahican, etc., fairly traced by Dr. Trumbull in an analysis of Narragansett, and apparently conclusively established in Nanakan and Narratschoen on the Hudson, the Verdrietig Hoek, or "Tedious Point," of Dutch notation, where, after several forms it culminates in Navish. Lindstrom's Naratic-on, on the lower Delaware, was probably Cape May, and an equivalent substantially of the New England Nayantukq-ut, "A point on a tidal river," and Raritan was the point of the peninsula which the clan occupied terminating on Raritan Bay, where, probably, the name was first met by Dutch navigators. The dialectic exchange of N and R, and of the surd mutes k and t are clear in comparing Nanakan on the Hudson, Naratic-on on the Delaware, and Raritan on the Raritan. Van der Donck's map locates the clan bearing the name in four villages at and above the junction of a branch of the stream at New Brunswick, N. J., where there is a certain point as well as on Raritan Bay. The clan was conspicuous in the early days of Dutch New Netherland. Van Tienhoven wrote that it had been compelled to remove further inland on account of freshets, but mainly from its inability to resist the raids of the southern Indians; that the lands which they left unoccupied was between "two high mountains far distant from one to the other;" that it was "the handsomest and pleasantest country that man can behold." The great southern trunk-line Indian path led through this valley, and was then, as it is now, the great route of travel between the northern and the southern coast. (See Nanakan, Nyack-on-the-Hudson, and Orange.)
Orange, a familiar name in eastern New Jersey and supposed to refer to the two mountains that bound the Raritan Valley, may have been from the name of a sachem or place or both. In Breeden Raedt it is written: "The delegates from all the savage tribes, such as the Raritans, whose chiefs called themselves Oringkes from Orange." Oringkes seems to be a form of Owinickes, from Owini, N. J. (Inini, Chip., Lenni, Del.), meaning "Original, pure," etc., and -ke, "country"—literally, "First or original people of the country," an interpretation which agrees with the claim of the Indians generally when speaking of themselves. [FN] Orange is Oranje, Dutch, pure and simple, but evidently introduced to represent the sound of an Indian word. What that word was may, probably, be traced from the name given as that of the sachem, Auronge (Treaty of 1645), which seems to be an apheresis of W'scha-já-won-ge, "On the hill side," or "On the side of a hill." (Zeisb.) Awonge, Auronge, Oranje, Orange, is an intelligible progression, and, in connection with "from Orange," indicates the location of a village or the side of a hill, which the chiefs represented.
[FN] Dr. D. G. Brinton wrote me "I believe you are right in identifying Oringkes with Owine—possibly with locative k."
Succasunna, Morris County, N. J., is probably from Sûkeu, "Black," and -achsün, "Stone," with substantive verbal affix -ni. It seems to describe a place where there were black stones, but whether there are black stones there or not has not been ascertained.
Aquackanonck, Aquenonga, Aquainnuck, etc.. is probably from Achquam'kan-ong, "Bushnet fishing place." Zeisberger wrote "Achquanican, a fish dam." The locative was a point of land formed by a bend in Pasaeck River on the east side, now included in the City of Paterson. Jasper Bankers and Peter Sluyter wrote, in 1679-80: "Acquakenon: on one side is the kil, on the other is a small stream by which it (the point) is almost surrounded." The Dutch wrote here, Slooterdam, i. e. a dam with a gate or sluiceway in it, probably constructed of stone, the sluiceway being left open to enable shad to run up the stream, and closed by bushes to prevent their return to the sea. (Nelson.)
Watchung (Wacht-unk, Del.) is from Wachtschu (Zeisb.), "Hill or mountain," and -unk, locative, "at" or "on." Wachtsûnk, "On the mountain" (Zeisb.); otherwise written Wakhunk. The original application was to a hill some twelve miles west of the Hudson. The first deed (1667) placed the boundmark of the tract "At the foot of the great mountain," and the second deed (1677) extended the limit "To the top of the mountain called Watchung."
Achkinckeshacky; Hackinkeshacky, 1645; Hackinghsackin, Hackinkesack (1660); Hackensack (1685); Ackinsack, Hockquindachque; Hackquinsack, are early record forms of the name of primary application to the stream now known as the Hackensack, from which it was extended to the adjacent district, to an Indian settlement, and to an Indian sachem, or, as Van Tienhoven wrote, "A certain savage chief, named Haickquinsacq." (Breeden Raedt.) The most satisfactory interpretation of the name is that suggested by the late Dr. Trumbull: "From Huckquan, Mass., Hócquaan, Len., 'Hook,' and sauk, 'mouth of a river'—literally, 'Hook-shaped mouth,' descriptive of the course of the stream around Bergen Point, by the Kil van Kull, [FN-1] to New York Bay." Campanus wrote Hócküng, "Hook," and Zeisberger, Hócquaan. [FN-2] The German Hacken, now Hackensack, means "Hook," as in German Russel Hacken, "Pot-hook," a hook incurved at both ends, as the letter S; in Lenape Hócquoan (Zeisb.). Probably simply a substitution.
[FN-1] Before entering New York Harbor, Hudson anchored his ship below the Narrows and sent out an exploring party in a boat, who entered the Narrows and ascended as far as Bergen Point, where they encountered a second channel which they explored as far as Newark Bay. The place where the second channel was met they called "The Kils," or channels, and so it has remained—incorrectly "Kills." The Narrows they called Col, a pass or defile, or mountain-pass, hence Kil van Col, channel of the Narrow Pass, and hence Achter Col, a place behind the narrow channel. "Those [Indians] of Hackingsack, otherwise called Achter Col." (Journal of New Neth., 1641-47, Doc. Hist. N. Y., iv, 9.) . . . "Whether the Indians would sell us the hook of land behind the Kil van Col." (Col. Hist. N. Y., xiii, 280.) Achter Col became a general name for all that section of New Jersey. Kul and Kull are corruptions of Col. Arthur Kull is now applied to Newark Bay.
[FN-2] Heckewelder wrote "Okhúcquan, Woâkhucquoan, or short Húcquan for the modern Occoquan, the name of a river in Virginia, and remarked, 'All these names signify a hook.'" (Trumbull.) Rev. Thomas Campanus (Holm), who was chaplain to the Swedish settlements on the Delaware, 1642-9, and who collected a vocabulary, wrote Hócküng (ueug), "Hook." This sound of the word may have led the Dutch to adopt Hackingh as an orthography—modern Haking, "Hooking," incurved as a hook.
Commoenapa, written in several forms, was the name of the most southern of the six early Dutch settlements on the west side of Hudson's River, known in their order as Commoenapa, Aresseck, Bergen, Ahasimus, Hoboken-Hackingh, and Awiehacken. Commoenapa is now preserved as the name of the upland between Communipaw Avenue and Walnut Street, Jersey City, but was primarily applied to the arm of the main land beginning at Konstabel's Hoek, and later to the site of the ancient Dutch village of Gamœnapa, as written by De Vries in 1640, and by the local scribes, Gamœnapaen. [FN] (Col. Hist. N. Y. xiii, 36, 37.) Dunlap (Hist. N. Y., i, 50) claimed the name as Dutch from Gemeente, "Commons, public property," and Paen, "Soft land," or in combination, "Tillable land and marsh belonging to the community," a relation which the lands certainly sustained. (Col. Hist. N. Y., xiii, 234.) The lands were purchased by Michael Pauw in 1630, and sold by him to the Dutch government in 1638. Although clearly a Dutch name it has been claimed as Indian, from Lenape Gamenowinink (Zeisb.), "England, on the other side of the sea." Gamœnapaug, one of the forms of the name, is quoted as the basis of this claim; also, Acomunipag, "On the other side of the bay." The Dutch did substitute paen for paug in some cases, but it is very doubtful if they did here.
[FN] Jasper Dankers and Peter Sluyter wrote in their Journal: "Gamaenapaen is an arm of the main land on the west side of the North River, beginning at Constable's Hook, directly opposite to Staten Island, from which it is separated by the Kil van Kol. It is almost an hour broad, but has large salt meadows or marshes on the Kil van Kol. It is everywhere accessible by water from the city."
Ahasimus—Achassemus in deed to Michael Pauw, 1630—now preserved in Harsimus, was a place lying west of the "Little Island, Aressick;" later described as "The corn-land of the Indians," indicating that the name was from Lenape Chasqummes (Zeisb.), "Small corn." Ashki'muis, "Sea maize." [FN] (See Arisheck.)
[FN] "The aforesaid land Ahasimus and Aressick, by us called the Whore's Corner, extending along the river Maurites and the Island Manhates on the east side, and the Island Hobokan-Hackingh on the north side, surrounded by swamps, which are sufficiently distinct for boundaries." (Pauw Deed, Nov. 22, 1630; Col. Hist. N. Y., xiii, 3.) Mr. Winfield located Ahasimus "At that portion of Jersey City which lies east of Union Hill, excepting Paulus' Hoeck (Areisheck), . . . generally from Warren to near Grove Street."
Bergen, the name of the third settlement, is met in Scandinavian and in German dialects. "Bergen, the Flemish for Mons (Latin), 'a hill,' a town of Belgium." (Lippincott.) "Bergen, op. Zoom, 18 miles north of Antwerp, 'a hill at (or near) the bank,' or border." The original settlement was on what is now known as Jersey City Heights.
Arisheck—"The Little Island Aressick" (See Ahasimus), called by the Dutch Aresseck Houck, Hoeren Houck, and Paulus Houck—now the eastern point of Jersey City—was purchased from the Indians by Michael Pauw, Nov. 22, 1630, with "the land called Ahasimus," and, with the "Island Hobokan-Hackingh," purchased by him in July of the same year, was included in his plantation under the general name of Pavonia, a Latinized form of his own name, from Pavo, "Peacock" (Dutch Pauw), which is retained in the name of the Erie R. R. Ferry. Primarily, Arisseck was a low neck of land divided by a marsh, the eastern end forming what was called an island. The West India Company had a trading post there conducted by one Michael Paulis, from whom it was called Paulus' Hook, which it retains, Pauw also established a trading post there which, as it lay directly in the line of the great Indian trunk-path (see Saponickan), so seriously interfered with the trade of the Dutch post that the Company purchased the land from him in 1638, and in the same year sold the island to one Abraham Planck. In the deed to Planck the description reads: "A certain parcel of land called Pauwels Hoek, situated westward of the Island Manhates and eastward of Ahasimus, extending from the North River into the valley which runs around it there." (Col. Hist. N, Y., xiii, 3.) The Indian name, Arisheck or Aresseck, is so badly corrupted that the original cannot be satisfactorily detected, but, by exchanging n for r, and adding the initial K, we would have Kaniskeck, "A long grassy marsh or meadow."
Hoboken, now so written—Hobocan-Hacking, July, 1630; Hobokan-Hacking, Nov. 1630; Hobokina, 1635; Hobocken, 1643; Hoboken, 1647; Hobuck and Harboken, 1655-6—appears of record first in the Indian deed to Michael Pauw, July 12, 1630, negotiated by the Director-general and Council of New Netherland, and therein by them stated, "By us called Hobocan-Hacking." Primarily it was applied to the low promontory [FN-1] below Castle Point, [FN-2] bounded, recites the deed, on the south by the "land Ahasimus and Aressick." On ancient charts Aressick and Hoboken-Hacking are represented as two long necks of land or points separated by a cove on the river front now filled in, both points being called hooks. In records it was called an island, and later as "A neck of land almost an island, called Hobuk, . . . extending on the south side to Ahasimus; eastward to the river Mauritus, and on the west side surrounded by a valley or morass through which the boundary can be seen with sufficient clearness." (Winfield's Hist. Hudson Co.; Col. Hist. N. Y., xiii, 2, 3, 4.) In "Freedoms and Exemptions," 1635; "But every one is notified that the Company reserves, unto itself the Island Manhates; Fort Orange, with the lands and islands appertaining thereto; Staten Island; the land of Achassemes, Arassick and Hobokina." The West India Company purchased the latter lands from Michael Pauw in 1638-9, and leased and sold in three parcels as stated in the Pauw deeds. The first settlement of the parcel called by the Dutch Hobocan-Hacking is located by Whitehead (Hist. East N. J.) immediately north of Hobokan Kill and called Hobuk. Smith, in his "History of New Jersey," wrote Hobuck, and stated that it was a plantation "owned by a Dutch merchant who in the Indian wars, had his wife, children and servants murdered by the Indians." In a narrative of events occurring in 1655, it is written: "Presently we saw the house on Harboken in flames. This done the whole Pavonia was immediately in flames." [FN-3] (Col. Hist. N. Y., xii, 98.) The deed statement, "By us named," is explicit, and obviously implies that the terms in the name were Dutch and not Indian, and Dutch they surely were. Dr. A. S. Gatschet, of the Bureau of Ethnology, wrote me: "Hoboken, called after a village on the river Scheldt, a few miles below Antwerp, [FN-4] and after a high elevation on its north side. Ho-, hoh-, is the radical of 'high' in all German dialects, and Buck is 'elevation' in most of them. Buckel (Germ.), Bochel (Dutch), means 'hump,' 'hump-back.' Hump (Low German) is 'heap,' 'hill.' Ho-bok-an locates a place that is distinguished by a hill, or by a hill in some way associated with it." Presumably from the ancient village of Hoboken came to Manhattan, about 1655, one Harmon van Hobocoon, a schoolmaster, who evidently was given his family name from the village from whence he came. He certainly did not give his family name to Hoboken twenty years prior to his landing at Manhattan.
Hacking and Haken are unquestionably Dutch from the radical Haak, "hook." The first is a participle, meaning Hooking, "incurved as a hook," by metonymie, "a hook." It was used in that sense by the early Dutch as a substitute for Lenape Hócquan, "hook," in Hackingsack, and Zeisberger used it in "Ressel Hacken, pot-hook." No doubt Stuyvesant used it in the same sense in writing Hobokan-Hacking, describing thereby both a hill and a hook, corresponding with the topography, to distinguish it from its twin-hook Arisheck. Had there been an Indian name given him for it, he would have written it as surely as he wrote Arisheck. When he wrote, "By us called," he meant just what he said and what he understood the terms to mean. To assume that he wrote the terms as a substitute for Lenape Hopoakan-hacki-ug, "At (or on) the smoking-pipe land." or place where materials were obtained for making smoking-pipes, has no warrant in the record narrative. Hacking was dropped from the name in 1635.
[FN-1] An ancient view of the shore-line represents it as a considerable elevation—a hill.
[FN-2] Castle Point is just below Wehawken Cove in which Hudson is supposed to have anchored his ship in 1609. In Juet's Journal this land is described as "beautiful" and the cliff as of "the color of white green, as though it was either a copper or silver mine." It has long been a noted resort for mineralogists.
[FN-3] Teunissed van Putten was the first white resident of Hoboken. He leased the land for twelve years from Jan. 1, 1641. The West India Company was to erect a small house for him. Presumably this house is referred to in the narrative. It was north of Hoboken Kill.
[FN-4] Now a commercial village of Belgium. The prevailing dialect spoken there was Flemish, usually classed as Low German. The Low German dialects of three centuries ago are imperfectly represented in modern orthographies. In and around Manhattan eighteen different European dialects were spoken, as noted of record—Dutch, Flemish, German, Scandinavian, Walloon, etc.
Wehawken and Weehawken, as now written, is written Awiehaken in deed by Director Stuyvesant, 1658-9. Other orthographies are Wiehacken, Whehockan, Weehacken, Wehauk, obvious corruptions of the original, but all retaining a resemblance in sound. The name is preserved as that of a village, a ferry, and a railroad station about three miles north of Jersey City, and is historically noted for its association with the ancient custom of dueling, the particular resort for that purpose being a rough shelf of the cliff about two and one-half miles north of Hoboken and about opposite 28th Street, Manhattan. The locative of the name is described in a grant by Director Stuyvesant, in 1647, to one Maryn Adriaensen, of "A piece of land called Awiehaken, situate on the west side of the North River, bounded on the south by Hoboken Kil, and running thence north to the next kil, and towards the woods with the same breadth, altogether fifty morgens of land." [FN] (Col. Hist. N. Y., xiii, 22.) The "next kil" is presumed to have been that flowing to the Hudson in a wild ravine just south of the dueling ground, now called the Awiehackan. A later description (1710) reads: "Between the southernmost cliffs of Tappaen and Ahasimus, at a place called Wiehake." (Cal. N. Y. Land Papers, 98.) The petition was by Samuel Bayard, who then owned the land on both sides of Wiehacken Creek, for a ferry charter covering the passage "Between the southernmost cliffs of Tappaen and New York Island, at a place called Wiehake," the landing-place of which was established at or near the mouth of Awiehacken Creek just below what is now known as King's Point. Of the location generally Winfield (Hist.. Hudson Co., N. J.) wrote: "Before the iconoclastic hand of enterprise had touched it the whole region about was charming beyond description. Just south of the dueling ground was the wild ravine down which leaped and laughed the Awiehacken. Immediately above the dueling ground was King's Point looking boldly down upon the Hudson. From this height still opens as fair, as varied, as beautiful a scene as one could wish to see. The rocks rise almost perpendicularly to one hundred and fifty feet above the river. Under these heights, about twenty feet above the water, on a shelf about six feet wide and eleven paces long, reached by an almost inaccessible flight of steps, was the dueling ground." South of King's Point were the famed Elysian Fields, at the southern extremity of which, under Castle Point, was Sibyl's Cave, a rocky cavern containing a fine spring of water.
The place to which the name was applied in the deed of 1658 seems to have been an open tract between the streams named, presumably a field lying along the Hudson, from the description, "running back towards the woods," suggesting that it was from the Lenape radical Tauwa, as written by Zeisberger in Tauwi-échen, "Open;" as a noun, "Open or unobstructed space, clear land, without trees." Dropping the initial we have Auwi, Awie, of the early orthography; dropping A we have Wie and Wee, and from -échen we have -ákan, -haken, -hawking, etc. As the name stands now it has no meaning in itself, although a Hollander might read Wie as Wei, "A meadow," and Hacken as "Hooking," incurved as a hook, which would fairly describe Weehawking Cove as it was.
Submitted to him in one of its modern forms, the late Dr. Trumbull wrote that Wehawing "Seemed" to him as "most probably from Wehoak, Mohegan, and -ing, Lenape, locative, 'At the end (of the Palisades)'" and in his interpretation violated his own rules of interpretation which require that translation of Indian names must be sought in the dialect spoken in the district where the name appears. The word for "End," in the dialect spoken here, was Wiqui. Zeisberger wrote Wiquiechung, "End, point," which certainly does not appear in any form of the name. The Dr.'s translation is simply worthless, as are several others that have been suggested. It is surprising that the Dr. should quote a Mohegan adjectival and attach to it a Lenape locative suffix.
[FN] A Dutch "morgen"' was about two English acres.
Espating (Hespating, Staten Island deed) is claimed to have been the Indian name of what is now known as Union Hill, in Jersey City, where, it is presumed, there was an Indian village. The name is from the root Ashp (Usp, Mass.; Esp, Lenape; Ishp, Chip.), "High," and -ink, locative, "At or on a high place." From the same root Ishpat-ink, Hespating. (O'Callaghan.) See Ashpetong.
Siskakes, now Secaucus, is written as the name of a tract on Hackensack meadows, from which it was extended to Snake Hill. It is from Sikkâkâskeg, meaning "Salt sedge marsh." (Gerard.) The Dutch found snakes on Snake Hill and called it Slangberg, literally, "Snake Hill."
Passaic is a modern orthography of Pasaeck (Unami-Lenape), German notation, signifying "Vale or valley." Zeisberger wrote Pachsójeck in the Minsi dialect. The valley gave name to the stream. In Rockland County it has been corrupted to Paskack, Pasqueck, etc.
Paquapick is entered on Pownal's map as the name of Passaic Falls. It is from Poqui, "Divided, broken," and -ápuchk, "Rock." Jasper Dankers and Peter Sluyter, who visited the falls in 1679-80, wrote in their Journal that the falls were "formed by a rock stretching obliquely across the river, the top dry, with a chasm in the center about ten feet wide into which the water rushed and fell about eighty feet." It is this rock and chasm to which the name refers—"Divided rock," or an open place in a rock.
Pequannock, now so written, is the name of a stream flowing across the Highlands from Hamburgh, N. J. to Pompton, written Pachquak'onck by Van der Donck (1656); Paquan-nock or Pasqueck, in 1694; Paqunneck, Indian deed of 1709, and in other forms, was the name of a certain field, from which it was extended to the stream. Dr. Trumbull recognized it as the equivalent of Mass. Paquan'noc, Pequan'nuc, Pohqu'un-auke, etc., "A name common to all cleared land, i. e. land from which the trees and bushes had been removed to fit it for cultivation." Zeisberger wrote, Pachqu (Paghqu), as in Pachqu-échen, "Meadow;" Pachquak'onck, "At (or on) the open land."
Peram-sepus, Paramp-seapus, record forms of the name of Saddle River, [FN] Bergen County, N. J., and adopted in Paramus as the name of an early Dutch village, of which one reads in Revolutionary history as the headquarters of General George Clinton's Brigade, appears in deed for a tract of land the survey of which reads: "Beginning at a spring called Assinmayk-apahaka, being the northeastern most head-spring of a river called by the Indians Peram-sepus, and by the Christians Saddle River." Nelson (Hist. Ind. of New Jersey) quoted from a deed of 1671: "Warepeake, a run of water so called by the Indians, but the right name is Rerakanes, by the English called Saddle River." Peram-sepus also appears as Wieramius, suggesting that Pera, Para, Wara, and Wiera were written as equivalent sounds, from the root Wil (Willi, Winne, Wirri, Waure), meaning, "Good, fine, pleasant," etc. The suffix varies, Sepus meaning "Brook"; Peake (-peék), "Water-place," and Anes, "Small stream," or, substantially, Sepus, which, by the prefix Ware, was pronounced "A fine stream," or place of water.
[FN] Called "Saddle River," probably, from Richard Saddler, a purchaser of lands from the Indians in 1674. (Col. Hist. N. Y., xiii, 478.)
Monsey, a village in Rockland County, takes that name from an Indian resident who was known by his tribal name, Monsey—"the Monseys, Minsis, or Minisinks."
Mahway, Mawayway, Mawawier, etc., a stream and place now Mahway, N. J., was primarily applied to a place described: "An Indian field called Maywayway, just over the north side of a small red hill called Mainatanung." The stream, on an old survey, is marked as flowing south to the Ramapo from a point west of Cheesekook Mountain. The name is probably from Mawéwi (Zeisb.), "Assembly," where streams or paths, or boundaries, meet or come together. (See Mahequa.)
Mainaitanung, Cal. N. Y. Land Papers, and Mainating in N. J. Records, given as the name of "A small red hill" (see Mahway), does not describe a "Red hill," but a place "at" a small hill—Min-attinuey-unk. The suffixed locative, -unk, seems to have been generally used in connection with the names of hills.
Pompton—Ponton, East N. J. Records, 1695; Pompeton, Pumpton, Pompeton, N. Y. Records—now preserved in Pompton as the name of a village at the junction of the Pequannock, the Wynokie, and the Ramapo, and continued as the name of the united stream south of Pompton Village to its junction with the Passaic, and also as the name of a town in Passaic County, N. J., as well as in Pompton Falls, Pompton Plains, etc., and historically as the name of an Indian clan, appears primarily as the name of the Ramapo River as now known. It is not met in early New York Records, but in English Records, in 1694, a tract of land is described as being "On a river called Paquannock, or Pasqueck, near the falls of Pampeton," and in 1695, in application to lands described as lying "On Pompton Creek, about twenty miles above ye mouth of said creek where it falls into Paquanneck River," the particular place referred to being known as Ramopuch, and now as Ramapo. (See Ramapo.) Rev. Heckewelder located the name at the mouth of the Pompton (as now known) where it falls into the Passaic, and interpreted it from Pihm (root Pimé), "Crooked mouth," an interpretation now rejected by Algonquian students from the fact that the mouth of the stream is not crooked. A reasonable suggestion is that the original was Pomoten, a representative town, or a combination of towns. [FN-1] which would readily be converted to Pompton. In 1710, "Memerescum, 'sole sachem of all the nations (towns or families) of Indians on Remopuck River, and on the east and west branches thereof, on Saddle River, Pasqueck River, Narranshunk River and Tappan,' gave title to all the lands in upper or northwestern Bergen and Passaic counties." (Nelson, "Indians of New Jersey," 111), indicating a combination of clans. Fifty years later the tribal title is entered in the treaty of Easton (1758) as the "Wappings, Opings or Pomptons," [FN-2] as claimants of an interest in lands in northern New Jersey, [FN-3] subordinately to the "Minsis, Monseys or Minisinks," with whom the treaty was made. The clan was then living at Otsiningo as ward's of the Senecas, and seems to have been composed of representatives of several historic northern New Jersey families. It has been inferred that their designation as "Wappings" classed them as immigrants from the clans on the east side of the Hudson. Obviously, however, the term described them as of the most eastern family of the Minsis or Minisinks, which they were.
[FN-1] Pomoteneyu, "There are towns." (Zeisb.) Pompotowwut-Muhheakan-neau, was the name of the capital town of the Mahicans.
[FN-2] So recognized in the treaty of Easton.
[FN-3] The territory in which the Pomptons claimed an interest included northern New Jersey as bounded on the north by a line drawn from Cochecton, Sullivan County, to the mouth of Tappan Creek on the Hudson, thence south to Sandy Hook, thence west to the Delaware, and thence north to Cochecton, lat. 41 deg. 40 min., as appears by treaty deed in Smith's hist, of New Jersey.
Ramapo, now so written and applied to a village and a town in Rockland County, and also to a valley, a stream of water and adjacent hills, is written Ramepog in N. Y. Records, 1695; Ramepogh, 1711, and Ramapog in 1775. In New Jersey Records the orthographies are Ramopock, Romopock and Remopuck, and on Smith's map Ramopough. The earliest description of the locative of the name appears in N. Y. Records, 1695: "A certain tract of land in Orange County called Ramepogh, being upon Pompton Creek, about twenty miles above ye mouth of said creek where it falls into Pequanneck River, being a piece of low land lying at ye forks on ye west side of ye creek, and going down the said creek for ye space of six or seven miles to a small run running into said creek out of a small lake, several pieces of land lying on both sides of said creek, computed in all about ninety or one hundred acres, with upland adjoining thereto to ye quantity of twelve hundred acres." In other words: "A piece of low land lying at the forks of said river, about twenty miles above the mouth of the stream where it falls into the Pequannock, with upland adjoining." The Pompton, so called then, is now the Ramapo, and the place described in the deed has been known as Remapuck, Romapuck, Ramopuck, Ramapock, Pemerpuck, and Ramapo, since the era of first settlement. The somewhat poetic interpretation of the name, "Many ponds," is without warrant, nor does the name belong to a "Round pond," or to the stream, now the Ramapo except by extension to it. Apparently, by dialectic exchange of initials L and R, Reme, Rama, or Romo becomes Lamó from Lomówo (Zeisb.), "Downward, slanting, oblique," and -pogh, -puck, etc., is a compression of -apughk (-puchk, German notation), meaning—"Rock." Lamów-ápuchk, by contraction and pronunciation, Ramápuck, meaning "Slanting rock," an equivalent of Pimápuchk, met in the district in Pemerpock, in 1674, denoting "Place or country of the slanting rock." [FN] Ramapo River is supposed to have its head in Round Pond, in the northwest part of the town of Monroe, Orange County. It also received the overflow of eight other ponds. Ramapo Pass, beginning about a mile below Pierson's, is fourteen miles long. (See Pompton.)
[FN] Dr. John C. Smock, late State Geologist of New Jersey, wrote me of the location of the name at Suffern: "There is the name of the stream and the name of the settlement (in Rockland County, near the New Jersey line), and the land is low-lying, and along the creek, and above a forks, i. e. above the forks at Suffern. On the 1774 map in my possession, Romapock is certainly the present Ramapo. The term 'Slanting rock' is eminently applicable to that vicinity." The Ramapock Patent of 1704 covered 42,500 acres, and, with the name, followed the mountains as its western boundary.
Wynokie, now so written as the name of a stream flowing to the Pequannock at Pompton, takes that name from a beautiful valley through which it passes, about thirteen miles northwest of Paterson. The stream is the outlet of Greenwood Lake and is entered on old maps as the Ringwood. The name is in several orthographies—Wanaque, Wynogkee, Wynachkee, etc. It is from the root Win, "Good, fine, pleasant," and -aki, land or place. (See Wynogkee.)
Pamerpock, 1674, now preserved in Pamrepo as the name of a village in the northwest part of the city of Bayonne, N. J., is probably another form of Pemé-apuchk, "Slanting rock." [FN] (See Ramapo.) The name seems to have been widely distributed.
[FN] Pemé is Pemi in the Massachusetts dialect. "It may generally be translated by 'sloping' or 'aslant.' In Abnaki Pemadené (Pemi-adené) denotes a sloping mountain side," wrote Dr. Trumbull. The affix, -ápuchk, changes the meaning to sloping rock, or "slanting rock," as Zeisberger wrote.
Hohokus, the name of a village and of a railroad station, is probably from Mehŏkhókus (Zeisb.), "Red cedar." It was, presumably, primarily at least, a place where red cedar abounded. The Indian name of the stream here is written Raighkawack, an orthography of Lechauwaak, "Fork" (Zeisb.), which, by the way, is also the name of a place.
Tuxedo, now a familiar name, is a corruption of P'tuck-sepo, meaning, "A crooked river or creek." Its equivalent is P'tuck-hanné (Len. Eng. Dic.), "A bend in the river"—"Winding in the creek or river"—"A bend in a river." The earliest form of the original appears in 1754—Tuxcito, 1768; Tuxetough, Tugseto, Duckcedar, Ducksider, etc., are later. Zeisberger wrote Pduk, from which probably Duckcedar. The name seems to have been that of a bend in the river at some point in the vicinity of Tuxedo Pond to which it was extended from a certain bend or bends in the stream. A modern interpretation from P'tuksit, "Round foot," is of no merit except in its first word. It was the metaphorical name, among the Delawares, of the wolf. It would be a misnomer applied to either a river or a pond. Sepo is generic for a long river. (See Esopus.)
Mombasha, Mombashes, etc., the name of a small lake in Southfield, Orange County, is presumed to be a corruption of M'biìsses (Zeisb.), "Small lake or pond," "Small water-place." The apostrophe indicates a sound produced with the lips closed, readily pronouncing o (Mom). Charles Clinton, in his survey of the Cheesec-ook Patent in 1735, wrote Mount-Basha. Mombasa is an Arabic name for a coral island on the east coast of Africa. It may have been introduced here as the sound of the Indian name.
Wesegrorap, Wesegroraep, Wassagroras, given as the name of "A barren plain," in the Kakiate Patent, is probably from Wisachgan, "Bitter," sad, distressing, pitiable. Ziesberger wrote, "Wisachgak, Black oak," the bark of which is bitter and astringent. A black oak tree on "the west-southwest side" of the plain may have given name to the plain.
Narranshaw, Nanaschunck, etc., a place so called in the Kakiate Patent boundary, is probably a corruption of Van der Donck's Narratschæn, "A promontory" or high point. (See Nyack-on-the-Hudson.)
Kakiate, the name of patented lands in Rockland County, is from Dutch Kijkuit, meaning "Look out," or "Place of observation, as a tower, hill," etc. The highest hill in Westchester County bears the same name in Kakcout, and Kaykuit is the name of a hill in Kingston, Ulster County. The tract to which the name was extended in Rockland County is described, "Commonly called by the Indians Kackyachteweke, on a neck of land which runs under a great hill, bounded on the north by a creek called Sheamaweck or Peasqua." Hackyackawack is another orthography. The name seems to be from Schach-achgeu-ackey, meaning "Straight land," "Straight along," (Zeisb.); i. e. direct, as "A neck of land"—"A pass between mountains," or, as the description reads, "A neck of land which runs under a great hill." Compare Cal. N. Y. Land Papers, 48, 183, etc.
Torne, the name of a high hill which forms a conspicuous object in the Ramapo Valley, is from Dutch Torenherg, "A tower or turret, a high pointed hill, a pinnacle." (Prov. Eng.) The hill is claimed to have been the northwest boundmark of the Haverstraw Patent. In recent times it has been applied to two elevations, the Little Torne, west of the Hudson, and the Great Torne, near the Hudson, south of Haverstraw. (Cal. N. Y. Land Papers, 46.)
Cheesek-ook, Cheesek-okes, Cheesec-oks, Cheesquaki, are forms of the name given as that of a tract of "Upland and meadow," so described in Indian deed, 1702, and included in the Cheesek-ook Patent, covering parts of the present counties of Rockland and Orange. It is now preserved as the name of a hill, to which it was assigned at an early date, and is also quoted as the name of adjacent lands in New Jersey. The suffix -ook, -oke, -aki, etc., shows that it was the name of land or place (N. J., -ahke; Len. -aki). It is probably met in Cheshek-ohke, Ct., translated by Dr. Trumbull from Kussukoe, Moh., "High," and -ohke, "Land or place"—literally, high land or upland. The final s in some forms, is an English plural: it does not belong to the root. (See Coxackie.) In pronunciation the accent should not be thrown on the letter k; that letter belongs to the first word. There is no Kook about it.
Tappans, Carte Figurative of date (presumed) 1614-16, is entered thereon as the name of an Indian village in Lat. 41° 15', claimed, traditionally, to have been at or near the site of the later Dutch village known as Tappan, in Rockland County. In the triangulation of the locative on the ancient map is inscribed, "En effen veldt" (a flat field), the general character of which probably gave name to the Indian village. Primarily, it was a district of low, soft land, abounding in marshes and long grasses, with little variation from level, extending along the Hudson from Tappan to Bergen Point, a distance of twenty-seven miles. Wassenaer wrote, in 1621-25, Tapants; DeLaet wrote, in 1624, Tappaans; in Breeden Raedt, Tappanders; Tappaen, De Vries, 1639; Tappaen, Van der Horst deed, 1651: Tappaens, official Dutch; "Savages of Tappaen"; Tappaans, Van der Donck, are the early orthographies of the name and establish it as having been written by the Dutch with the long sound of a in the last word—paan (-paen)—which may be read pan, as a pan of any kind, natural or artificial—a stratum of earth lying below the soil—the pan of a tap into which water flows—a mortar pit. [FN-1] The compound word Tap-pan is not found in modern Dutch dictionaries, but it evidently existed in some of the German dialects, as it is certainly met in Tappan-ooli (uli) on the west coast of Summatra, in application, to a low district lying between the mountains and the sea, opposite a fine bay, in Dutch possession as early as 1618, and also in Tappan-huacanga, a Dutch possession in Brazil of contemporary date. It is difficult to believe that Tappan was transferred to those distant parts from an Indian name on Hudson's River; on the contrary its presence in those parts forces the conclusion that it was conferred by the Dutch from their own, or from some dialect with which they were familiar, precisely as it was on Hudson's River and was descriptive of a district of country the features of which supply the meaning. DeLaet wrote in his "New World" (Leyden Edition, 1625-6) of the general locative of the name on the Hudson: "Within the first reach, on the west side of the river, where the land is low, dwells a nation of savages named Tappaans," presumably so named by the Dutch from the place where they had jurisdiction, i. e. the low lands. Specifically, De Vries wrote in 1639, Tappaen as the name of a place where he found and purchased, "A beautiful valley of clay land, some three or four feet above the water, lying under the mountains, along the river," presumed to have been in the meadows south of Piermont, into which flows from the mountains Tappan Creek, now called Spar Kill, [FN-2] as well as the overflow of Tappan Zee, of which he wrote without other name than "bay": "There flows here a strong flood and ebb, but the ebb is not more than four feet on account of the great quantity of water that flows from above, overflowing the low lands in the spring," converting them into veritable soft lands. Gamænapaen, now a district in Jersey City, was interpreted by the late Judge Benson, "Tillable land and marsh." Dr. Trumbull wrote: "Petuckquapaugh, Dumpling Pond (round pond) gave name to part of the township of Greenwich, Ct. The Dutch called this tract Petuck-quapaen." The tract is now known as Strickland Plain, [FN-3] and is described as "Plain and water-land"—"A valley but little above tidewater; on the southwest an extended marsh now reclaimed in part." The same general features were met in Petuckquapaen, now Greenbath, opposite Albany, N. Y. Dr. Trumbull also wrote, "The Dutch met on Long Island the word Seaump as the name of corn boiled to a pap. The root is Saupáe (Eliot), 'soft,' i. e. 'made soft by water,' as Saupáe manoosh, 'mortar,' literally 'softened clay.' Hence the Dutch word Sappaen—adopted by Webster Se-pawn." Other examples could be quoted but are not necessary to establish the meaning of Dutch Tappaan, or Tappaen. An interpretation by Rev. Heckewelder, quoted by Yates & Moulton, and adopted by Brodhead presumably without examination: "From Thuhaune (Del.), cold stream," is worthless. No Delaware Indian would have given it as the name of Tappan Creek, and no Hollander would have converted it into Tappaan or Tappaen.
The Palisade Range, which enters the State from New Jersey, and borders the Hudson on the west, terminates abruptly at Piermont. Classed by geologists as Trap Rock, or rock of volcanic origin, adds interest to their general appearance as calumnar masses. The aboriginal owners were not versed in geologic terms. To them the Palisades were simply -ompsk, "Standing or upright rock."
[FN-1] Paen, old French, meaning Pagan, a heathen or resident of a heath, from Pagus, Latin, a heath, a district of waste land.
[FN-2] Tappan Creek is now known as the Spar Kill, and ancient Tappan Landing as Tappan Slote. Slote is from Dutch Sloot. "Dutch, trench, moat." "Sloops could enter the mouth of the creek, if lightly laden, at high tide, through what, from its resemblance to a ditch, was called the Slote." (Hist. Rockl. Co.) The man or men who changed the name of the creek to Spar Kill cannot be credited with a very large volume of appreciation for the historic. The cove and mouth of the creek was no doubt the landing-place from which the Indian village was approached, and the latter was accepted for many years as the boundmark on the Hudson of the jurisdiction of New Jersey.
[FN-3] Strickland Plain was the site of the terrible massacre of Indians by English and Dutch troops under Capt. Underhill, in March, 1645. (Broadhead, Hist. N. Y., i, 390.) About eight hundred Indians were killed by fire and sword, and a considerable number of prisoners taken and sold into slavery. The Indian fort here was in a retreat of difficult access.
Mattasink, Mattaconga and Mattaconck, forms of names given to certain boundmarks "of the land or island called Mattasink, or Welch's Island," Rockland County, describe two different features. Mattaconck was "a swampy or hassocky meadow," lying on the west side of Quaspeck Pond, from whence the line ran north, 72 degrees east, "to the south side of the rock on the top of the hill," called Mattasinck. In the surveyor's notes the rock is described as "a certain rock in the form of a sugar loaf." The name is probably an equivalent of Mat-assin-ink, "At (or to) a bad rock," or a rock of unusual form. Mattac-onck seems to be an orthography of Maskék-onck, "At a swamp or hassocky meadow." Surd mutes and linguals are so frequently exchanged in this district that locatives must be relied upon to identify names. Mattac has no meaning in itself. The sound is that of Maskék.
Nyack, Rockland County, does not take that name from Kestaub-niuk, a place-name on the east side of the Hudson, as stated by Schoolcraft, nor was the name imported from Long Island, as stated by a local historian; on the contrary, it is a generic Algonquian term applicable to any point. It was met in place here at the earliest period of settlement in application to the south end of Verdrietig Hoek Mountain, as noted in "The Cove or Nyack Patent," near or on which the present village of Nyack has its habitations. It means "Land or place at the angle, point or corner," from Néïak (Del.), "Where there is a point." (See Nyack, L. I.) The root appears in many forms in record orthographies, due largely to the efforts of European scribes to express the sound in either the German or the English alphabet. Adriaen Block wrote, in 1614-16, Nahicans as the name of the people on Montauk Point; Eliot wrote Naiyag (-ag formative); Roger Williams wrote Nanhigan and Narragan; Van der Donck wrote Narratschoan on the Verdrietig Hoek Mountain on the Hudson; Naraticon appears on the lower Delaware, and Narraoch and Njack (Nyack) are met on Long Island. The root is the same in all cases, Van der Donck's Narratschoan on the Hudson, and Narraticon on the Delaware, meaning "The point of a mountain which has the character of a promontory," kindred to Néwas (Del.), "A promontory," or a high point. [FN] The Indian name of Verdrietig Hoek, or Tedious Point, is of record Newas-ink in the De Hart Patent, and in several other forms of record—Navish, Navoash-ink, Naurasonk, Navisonk, Newasons, etc., and Neiak takes the forms of Narratsch, Narrich, Narrock, Nyack, etc. Verdrietig Hoek, the northeastern promontory of Hook Mountain, is a rocky precipitous bluff forming the angle of the range. It rises six hundred and sixty-eight feet above the level of the Hudson into which it projects like a buttress. Its Dutch-English name "Tedious Point," has been spoken of in connection with Pocantico, which see.
[FN] Dr. Trumbull wrote: "Náï, 'Having corners'; Náïyag, 'A corner or angle'; Náïg-an-eag, 'The people about the point.'" William R. Gerard wrote: "The Algonquian root Ne (written by the English Náï) means 'To come to a point,' or 'To form a point.' From this came Ojibwe Naiá-shi, 'Point of land in a body of water.' The Lenape Newás, with the locative affix, makes Newás-ing, 'At the promontory.' The Lenape had another word for 'Point of land.' This was Néïak (corrupted to Nyack). It is the participial form of Néïan, 'It is a point.' The participle means, 'Where there is a point,' or literally, 'There being a point.'"
Essawatene—"North by the top of a certain hill called Essawatene," so described in deed to Hermanus Dow, in 1677—means "A hill beyond," or on the other side of the speaker. It is from Awassi (Len.), "Beyond," and -achtenne, "Hill," or mountain. Oosadenighĕ (Abn.), "Above, beyond, the mountain," or "Over the mountain." We have the same derivative in Housaten-ûk, now Housatonic.
Quaspeck, Quaspeek, Quaspeach, "Quaspeach or Pond Patent"—"A tract of land called in the Indian language Quaspeach, being bounded by the brook Kill-the-Beast, running out of a great pond." (Cal. N. Y. Land Papers, 53, 56, 70, 82.) The land included in the patent was described as "A hassocky meadow on the west side of the lake." (See Mattasink.) The full meaning of the name is uncertain. The substantival -peék, or -peach, means "Lake, pond or body of still water." [FN] As the word stands its adjectival does not mean anything. The local interpretation "Black," is entirely without merit. The pond is now known as Rockland Lake. It lies west of the Verdrietig Hoek range, which intervenes between it and the Hudson. It is sheltered on its northeast shore by the range. The ridge intervening between it and the Hudson rises 640 feet. It is a beautiful lake of clear water reposing on a sandy bottom, 160 feet above the level of the Hudson.
[FN] The equivalent Mass. word is paug, "Where water is," or "Place of water." (Trumbull.) Quassa-paug or Quas-paug, is the largest lake in Woodbury, Ct. Dr. Trumbull failed to detect the derivative of Quas, but suggested, Kiche, "Great." Probably a satisfactory interpretation will be found in Kussûk, "High." (See Quassaick.)
Menisak-cungue, so written in Indian deed to De Hart in 1666, and also in deed from De Hart to Johannes Minnie in 1695, is written Amisconge on Pownal's map, as the name of a stream in the town of Haverstraw. As De Hart was the first purchaser of lands at Haverstraw, the name could not have been from that of a later owner, as locally supposed. Pownal's orthography suggests that the original was Ommissak-kontu, Mass., "Where Alewives or small fishes are abundant." The locative was at the mouth of the stream at Grassy Point. [FN] Minnie's Falls, a creek so known, no doubt, took that name from Johannes Minnie. On some maps it is called Florus' Falls, from Florus Crom, an early settler. An unlocated place on the stream was called "The Devil's Horse Race."
[FN] Kontu, an abundance verb, is sometimes written contee, easily corrupted to cungue. Dutch Congé means "Discharge," the tail-race of a mill, or a strong, swift current. Minnie's Congé, the tail-race of Minnie's mill.
Mahequa and Mawewier are forms of the name of a small stream which constitutes one of the boundaries of what is known as Welch's Island. They are from the root Mawe, "Meeting," Mawewi, "Assembly" (Zeisb.), i. e. "Brought together," as "Where paths or streams or boundaries come together." The reference may have been to the place where the stream unites with Demarest's Kill, as shown on a map of survey in "History of Rockland County." Welch's Island was so called from its enclosure by streams and a marsh. (See Mattaconga and Mahway.)
Skoonnenoghky is written as the name of a hill which formed the southwest boundmark of a district of country purchased from the Indians by Governor Dongan in 1685, and patented to Capt. John Evans by him in 1694, described in the Indian deed as beginning on the Hudson, "At about the place called the Dancing Chamber, thence south to the north side of the land called Haverstraw, thence northwest along the hill called Skoonnenoghky" to the bound of a previous purchase made by Dongan "Called Meretange pond." (See Pitkiskaker.) The hill was specifically located in a survey of part of the line of the Evans Patent, by Cadwallader Colden, in 1722, noted as "Beginning at Stony Point and running over a high hill, part of which makes the Stony Point, and is called Kunnoghky or Kunnoghkin." (Cal. N. Y. Land Papers, 162.) The south side of Stony Point was then accepted as the "North side of the land called Haverstraw." The hills in immediate proximity, at varying points of compass, are the Bochberg (Dutch, Bochelberg, "Humpback hill"), and the Donderberg, neither of which, however, have connection with Stony Point, leaving the conclusion certain that from the fact that the line had its beginning at the extreme southeastern limit of the Point on the Hudson, the hill referred to in the survey must have been that on which the Stony Point fort of the Revolution was erected, "Part of which hill" certainly "makes the Stony Point." Colden's form of the name, "Kunnoghky or Kunnoghkin," is obviously an equivalent of Dongan's Schoonnenoghky. Both forms are from the generic root Gún, Lenape (Qûn, Mass.), meaning "Long"—Gúnaquot, Lenape, "Long, tall, high, extending upwards"; Qunnúhqui (Mass.), "Tall, high, extending upwards"; Qunnúhqui-ohke or Kunn'oghky, "Land extending upwards," high land, gradual ascent. The name being generic was easily shifted about and so it was that in adjusting the northwest line of the Evans Patent it came to have permanent abode as that of the hill now known as Schunnemunk in the town of Cornwall, Orange County, to the advantage of the proprietors of the Minisink Patent. [FN] Reference to the old patent line will be met in other connections.
[FN] The patent to Capt. John Evans was granted by Gov. Dongan in 1694, and vacated by act of the Colonial Assembly in 1708, approved by the Queen in 1708. It included Gov. Dongan's two purchases of 1784-85. {sic} It was not surveyed; its southeast, or properly its northwest line was never satisfactorily determined, but was supposed to run from Stony Point to a certain pond called Maretanze in the present town of Greenville, Orange County. Following the vacation of the patent in 1708, several small patents were granted which were described in general terms as a part of the lands which it covered. In order to locate them the Surveyor-General of the Province in 1722, propounded an inquiry as to the bounds of the original grant; hence the survey by Cadwallader Colden. The line then established was called "The New Northwest Line." It was substantially the old line from Stony Point to Maretanze Pond (now Binnenwater), in Greenville, and cut off a portion of the territory which was supposed to have been included in the Wawayanda Patent. Another line was projected in 1765-6, by the proprietors of the Minisink Patent, running further northeast and the boundmark shifted to a pond north of Sam's Point, the name going with it. The transaction formed the well-known Minisink Angle, and netted the Minisink proprietors 56,000 acres of unoccupied lands. (Doc. Hist. N. Y., iii, 986.) Compare Cal. N. Y. Land Papers, 164, 168, 171, 172, and Map of Patents in Hist. Orange Co., quarto edition.
Reckgawank, of record in 1645 as the name of Haverstraw, appears in several later forms. Dr. O'Callaghan (Hist. New Neth.) noted: "Sessegehout, chief of Rewechnong of Haverstraw." In Col. Hist. N. Y., "Keseshout [FN-1] chief of Rewechnough, or Haverstraw," "Curruppin, brother, and representative of the chief of Rumachnanck, alias Haverstraw." In the treaty of 1645: "Sesekemick and Willem, chiefs of Tappans and Reckgawank," which Brodhead found converted to "Kumachenack, or Haverstraw." [FN-2] The original is no doubt from Rekau, "Sand, gravel," with verb substantive wi, and locative -ng, or -ink; written by Zeisberger, Lekauwi. The same word appears in Rechqua-akie, now Rockaway, L. I. The general meaning, with the locative -nk or -ink, is "At the sandy place," and the reference to the sandy flats, at Haverstraw, where Sesegehout presumably resided. There is no reason for placing this clan on Long Island.
[FN-1] Sesehout seems to have been written to convey an idea of the rank of the sachem from the Dutch word Schout, "Sheriff." K'schi-sakima, "Chief, principal," or "greatest sachem." In Duchess County the latter is written t'see-saghamaugh.
[FN-2] Haverstraw is from Dutch Haverstroo. "Oat straw," presumably so named from the wild oats which grew abundantly on the flats.
Nawasink, Yan Dakah, Caquaney and Aquamack, are entered in the Indian deed to De Hart as names for lands purchased by him at Haverstraw in 1666. The deed reads: "A piece of land and meadow lying upon Hudson's River in several parcels, called by the Indians Nawasink, Yan Dakah, Caquaney, and Aquamack, within the limits of Averstraw, bounded on the east and north by Hudson's River, on the west by a creek called Menisakcungue, and on the south by the mountain." The mountain on the south could have been no other than Verdrietig Hoek, and the limit on the north the mouth of the creek in the cove formed by Grassy Point, which was long known as "The further neck." Further than is revealed by the names the places cannot be certainly identified. Taken in the order in the deed, Newasink located a place that was "At (or on) a point or promontory." It is a pure Lenape name. Yan Dakah is probably from Yu Undach, "On this side," i. e. on the side towards the speaker. Caquancy is so badly corrupted that its derivative is not recognizable. Aquamack seems to be the same word that we have in Accomack, Va., meaning, "On the Other side," or "Other side lands." In deed to Florus Crom is mentioned "Another parcel of upland and meadow known by the name of Ahequerenoy, lying north of the brook called Florus Falls and extending to Stony Point," the south line of which was the north line of the Haverstraw lands as later understood. The tract was known for years as "The end place."
Sankapogh, Indian deed to Van Cortlandt, 1683—Sinkapogh, Songepogh, Tongapogh—is given as the name of a small stream flowing to the Hudson south of the stream called Assinapink, locally now known as Swamp Kill and Snake-hole Creek. The stream is the outlet of a pool or spring which forms a marsh at or near the foot of precipitous rocks. Probably an equivalent of Natick Sonkippog, "Cool water."
Poplopen's Creek, now so written, the name of the stream flowing to the Hudson between the sites of the Revolutionary forts Clinton and Montgomery, south of West Point, and also the name of one of the ponds of which the stream is the outlet, seems to be from English Pop-looping (Dutch Loopen), and to describe the stream as flowing out quickly—Pop, "To issue forth with a quick, sudden movement"; Looping, "To run," to flow, to stream. The flow of the stream was controlled by the rise and fall of the waters in the ponds on the hills, seven in number. The outlet of Poplopen Pond is now dammed back to retain a head of water for milling purposes. It is a curious name. The possessive 's does not belong to the original—Pop-looping Creek.
Assinapink, the name of a small stream of water flowing to the Hudson from a lake bearing the same name—colloquially Sinsapink—known in Revolutionary history as Bloody Pond—is of record, "A small rivulet of water called Assin-napa-ink" (Cal. N, Y. Land Papers, 99), from Assin, "stone"; Napa, "lake, pond," or place of water, and -ink, locative, literally, "Place of water at or on the stone." The current interpretation, "Water from the solid rock," is not specially inappropriate, as the lake is at the foot of the rocks of Bare Mountain. At a certain place in the course of the stream a legal description reads: "A whitewood tree standing near the southerly side of a ridge of rocks, lying on the south side of a brook there called by the Indians Sickbosten Kill, and by the Christians Stony Brook." [FN] The Indians never called the stream Sickbosten, unless they learned that word from the Dutch, for corrupted Dutch it is. The derivative is Boos, "Wicked, evil, angry"; Zich Boos Maken, "To grow angry," referring particularly to the character of the stream in freshets.
[FN] Adv. in Newburgh Mirror, June 18, 1798.
Prince's Falls, so called in description of survey of patent to Samuel Staats, 1712: "Beginning at ye mouth of a small rivulet called by the Indians Assin-napa-ink, then up the river (Hudson) as it runs, two hundred chains, which is about four chains north of Prince's Falls, including a small rocky isle and a small piece of boggy meadow called John Cantton Huck; also a small slip of land on each side of a fall of water just below ye meadow at ye said John Cantonhuck." (Cal. N. Y. Land Papers, 99.) Long known as Buttermilk Falls and more recently as Highland Falls. In early days the falls were one of the most noted features on the lower Hudson. They were formed by the discharge over a precipice of the outlet waters of Bog-meadow Brook. They were called Prince's Falls in honor of Prince Maurice of Holland. The name was extended to the creek in the Staats survey—Prince's Kill.
Manahawaghin is of record as the name of what is now known as Iona Island, in connection with "A certain tract of land on the west side of Hudson's River, beginning on the south side of a creek called Assinapink, together with a certain island and parcel of meadow called Manahawaghin, and by the Christians Salisbury Island." The island lies about one mile south of directly opposite Anthony's Nose, and is divided from the main land by a narrow channel or marshy water-course. The tract of land lies immediately north of the Donderberg; it was the site of the settlement known as Doodletown in Revolutionary history. The name is probably from Mannahatin, the indefinite or diminutive form of Mannahata, "The Island"—literally, "Small island." The last word of the record form is badly mangled. (See Manhattan.)
Manahan, meaning "Island"—indefinite -an—is a record name of what is now known as Constitution Island, the latter title from Fort Constitution which was erected thereon during the war of the Revolution. The early Dutch navigators called it Martelaer's Rack Eiland, from Martelaer, "Martyr," and Rack, a reach or sailing course—"the Martyr's Reach"—from the baffling winds and currents encountered in passing West Point. The effort of Judge Benson to convert "Martelaer's" to "Murderer's." and "Rack" to "Rock"—"the Murderer's Rock"—was unfortunate.
Pollepel Eiland, a small rocky island in the Hudson at the northern entrance to the Highlands, was given that name by an early Dutch navigator. It means, literally, "Pot-ladle Island," so called, presumably, from its fancied resemblance to a Dutch pot-ladle. Jasper Dankers and Peter Sluyter wrote the name in their Journal in 1679-80, indicating that the island was then well known by that title. On Van der Donck's map of 1656 the island is named Kaes Eiland. Dutch Kaas (cheese) Eiland. Dankers and Sluyter also wrote, "Boter-berg (Butter-hill), because it is like the rolls of butter which the farmers of Holland take to market." Read in connection the names are Butter Hill and Cheese Island. The same writers wrote, "Hays-berg (Hay-hill), because it is like a hay-stack in Holland," and "Donder-berg (Thunder-hill), so called from the echoes of thunder peals which culminated there." The latter retains its ancient Dutch title. It is eminently the Echo Hill of the Highlands. The oldest record name of any of the hills is Klinker-berg, which is written on the Carte Figurative of 1614-16 directly opposite a small island and apparently referred to Butter Hill. It means literally, "Stone Mountain." The passage between Butter Hill and Break Neck, on the east side of the river, was called "Wey-gat, or Wind-gate, because the wind often blowed through it with great force," wrote Dr. Dwight. The surviving name, however, is Warragat, from Dutch Warrelgat, "Wind-gate." It was at the northern entrance to this troublesome passage that Hudson anchored the Half-Moon, September 29th, 1609. Brodhead suggested (Note K, Vol. I) that Pollepel Island was that known in early Dutch history as Prince's Island, or Murderer's Creek Island, and that thereon was erected Fort Wilhelmus, referred to by Wassenaer in 1626. (Doc. Hist. N. Y., iii, 35.) The evidence is quite clear, however, that the island to which Wassenaer referred was in the vicinity of Schodac, where there was also a Murderer's Creek.
Hudson, on his exploration of the river which now bears his name, sailed into the bay immediately north of Butter Hill, now known as Newburgh Bay, on the morning of the 15th of September, 1709. After spending several days in the northern part of the river, he reached Newburgh Bay on his return voyage in the afternoon of September 29th, and cast anchor, or as stated in Juet's Journal, "Turned down to the edge of the mountains, or the northernmost of the mountains, and anchored, because the high lands hath many points, and a narrow channel, and hath many eddie winds. So we rode quietly all night." The hill or mountain long known as Breakneck, on the east side of the river, may be claimed as the northernmost, which would place his anchorage about midway between Newburgh and Pollepel Island.
Quassaick, now so written, is of record, Quasek, 1709; "Near to a place called Quasaik," 1709-10; Quasseck, 1713; "Quassaick Creek upon Hudson's River," 1714. It was employed to locate the place of settlement of the Palatine immigrants in 1709—"The Parish of Quassaick," later, "The Parish of Newburgh." It is now preserved as the name of the creek which bounds (in part) the city of Newburgh on the south. "Near to a place called Quasek," indicates that the place of settlement was located by the name of some other place which was near to it and generally known by the name. The late Dr. E. B. O'Callaghan read it, in 1856: "From Qussuk, 'Stone,' and -ick, 'Place where,' literally, 'A place of stone,'" the presumed reference being to the district through which the stream flows, which is remarkable for its deposit of glacial bowlders. The correctness of this interpretation has been questioned on very tenable grounds. Qusuk is not in the plural number and -uk does not stand for -ick. Eliot wrote: "Qussuk, a rock," and "Qussukquan-ash, rocks." Qussuk, as a substantive simply, would be accepted as the name of a place called "A rock," by metonymie, "A stone." No other meaning can be drawn from it. It does not belong to the dialect of the district, the local terms being -ápuch, "Rock," and -assin, or -achsûn, "Stone." Dr. O'Callaghan's interpretation may safely be rejected. William R. Gerard writes: "The worst corrupted name that I know of is Wequaskeg or Wequaskeek, meaning, 'At the end of the marsh.' It appears in innumerable forms—Weaxashuk, Wickerschriek, Weaquassic, etc. I think that Quassaick, changed from Quasek (1709), is one of these corruptions. The original word probably referred to some place at the end of a swamp. The word would easily become Quasekek, Quasek, and Quassaick. The formative -ek, in words meaning swamp, marsh, etc., was often dropped by both Dutch and English scribes." This conjecture would seem to locate the name as that of the end of Big Swamp, nearly five miles distant from the place of settlement. My conjecture is that the name is from Moh. Kussuhkoe, meaning "High;" with substantive Kussuhkohke, "High lands," the place of settlement being described as "Near the Highlands," which became the official designation of "The Precinct of the Highlands." Kussuhk is pretty certainly met in Cheesek-ook, the name of patented lands in the Highlands, described as "Uplands and meadows;" also in Quasigh-ook, Columbia County, which is described as "A high place on a high hill." The Palatine settlers at Quasek, wrote, in 1714, that their place was "all uplands," a description which will not be disputed at the present day. (See Cheesekook, Quissichkook, etc.)
Much-Hattoos, a hill so called in petition of William Chambers and William Sutherland, in 1709, for a tract of land in what is now the town of New Windsor, and in patent to them in 1712, a boundmark described as "West by the hill called Much-Hattoes," is apparently from Match, "Evil, bad;" -adchu, "Hill" or mountain, and -es, "Small"—"A small hill bad," or a small hill that for some reason was not regarded with favor. [FN] The eastern face of the hill is a rugged wall of gneiss; the western face slopes gradually to a swamp not far from its base and to a small lake, the latter now utilized for supplying the city of Newburgh with water, with a primary outlet through a passage under a spur of the hill, which the Indians may have regarded as a mysterious or bad place. In local nomenclature the hill has long been known as Snake Hill, from the traditionary abundance of rattle-snakes on it, though few have been seen there in later years.
[FN] "I think your reading of Muchattoos as an orthography of original Matchatchu's, is very plausible. I think Massachusetts is the same word, plus a locative suffix and English sign of the plural. It was formerly spelled in many ways: Mattachusetts, Massutchet, Matetusses, etc. Dr. Trumbull read it as standing for Mass-adchu-set, 'At the big hills'; but I learn from history that Massachusetts was originally the name of a hillock situated in the midst of a salt marsh. It was a locality selected by the sachem of his tribe as one of his places of residence. He stood in fear of his enemies, the Penobscotts, and this hillock, from its situation was a 'bad,' or difficult place to reach. So Massachsat for Matsadchuset or Mat-adchu-set plainly means, 'On the bad hillock.'" (Wm. R. Gerard.)
Cronomer's Hill and Cronomer's Valley, about three miles west of the city of Newburgh, take their names from a traditionary Indian called Cronomer, the location of whose wigwam is said to be still known as "The hut lot." The name is probably a corruption of the original, which may have been Dutch Jeronimo.
Murderer's Creek, so called in English records for many years, and by the Dutch "den Moordenaars' Kil," is entered on map of 1666, "R. Tans Kamer," or River of the Dance Chamber, and the point immediately south of its mouth, "de Bedrieghlyke Hoek" (Dutch, Bedrieglijk), meaning "a deceitful, fraudulent hook," or corner, cape, or angle. Presumably the Dutch navigator was deceived by the pleasant appearance of the bay, sailed into it and found his vessel in the mouth of the Warrelgat. Tradition affirms in explanation of the Dutch Moordenaars that an early company of traders entered their vessel in the mouth of the stream; that they were enticed on shore at Sloop Hill and there murdered. Paulding, in his beautiful story, "Naoman," related the massacre of a pioneer family at the same place. The event, however, which probably gave the name to the stream occurred in August, 1643, when boats passing down the river from Fort Orange, laden with furs, were attacked by the Indians "above the Highlands" and "nine Christians, including two women were murdered, and one woman and two children carried away prisoners," (Doc. Hist. N. Y., iv, 12), the narrative locating the occurrence by the name "den Moordenaars' Kil," i. e. the kill from which the attacking party issued forth or on which the murderers resided. The first appearance of the name in English records is in a deed to Governor Dongan, in 1685, in which the lands purchased by him included "the lands of the Murderers' Creek Indians," the stream being then well known by the name. The present name, Moodna, was converted to that form, by N. P. Willis from the Dutch "Moordenaar," by dropping letters, an inexcusable emasculation from a historic standpoint, but made poetical by his interpretation, "Meeting of the waters."
Schunnemunk, now so written, the name of a detached hill in the town of Cornwall, Orange County, appears of record in that connection, first, in the Wilson and Aske Patent of 1709, in which the tract granted is described as lying "Between the hills at Scoonemoke." Skoonnemoghky, Skonanaky, Schunnemock, Schonmack Clove, Schunnemock Hill, are other forms. In 1750 Schunnamunk appears, and in 1774, on Sauthier's map (1776) Schunnamank is applied to the range of hills which have been described as "The High Hills to the west of the Highlands." 'In a legal brief in the controversy to determine finally the northwest line of the Evans Patent, the name is written Skonanake, and the claim made that it was the hill named Skoonnemoghky in the deed from the Indians to Governor Dongan, in 1685, and therein given as the southeast boundmark of the lands of "The Murderer's Creek Indians," and, later, the hill along which the northwest line of the Evans Patent ran, which it certainly was not, although the name is probably from the same generic. (See Schoonnenoghky.) The hill forms the west shoulder of Woodbury Valley. It is a somewhat remarkable elevation in geological formation and bears on its summit many glacial scratches. On its north spur stood the castle of Maringoman, one of the grantors of the deed to Governor Dongan, and who later removed to the north side of the Otter Kill where his wigwam became a boundmark in two patents. [FN] The traditionary word "castle," in early days of Indian history, was employed as the equivalent of town, whether palisaded or not. In this case we may read the name, "Maringoman's Town," which may or may not have been palisaded. It seems to have been the seat of the "Murderer's Creek Indians." The burial ground of the clan is marked on a map of the Wilson and Aske Patent, and has been located by Surveyor Fred J. McKnight (1898) on the north side of the Cornwall and Monroe line and very near the present road past the Houghton farm, near which the castle stood. The later "cabin" of the early sachem is plainly located.
[FN] Van Dam Patent (1709) and Mompesson Patent (1709-12). The late Hon. George W. Tuthill wrote me in 1858: "On the northwestern bank of Murderers' Creek, about half a mile below Washingtonville, stands the dwelling-house of Henry Page (a colored man), said to be the site of Maringoman's wigman, referred to in the Van Dam Patent of 1709. The southwesterly corner of that patent is in a southwesterly direction from said Page's house."
In the controversy in regard to the northwest line of the Evans Patent, one of the counsel said: "It is also remarkable that the Murderers' Creek extends to the hill Skonanaky, and that the Indian, Maringoman, who sold the lands, did live on the south side of Murderers' Creek, opposite the house where John McLean now (1756) dwells, near the said hill, and also lived on the north bank of Murderers' Creek, where Colonel Mathews lives. The first station of his boundaries is a stone set in the ground at Maringoman's castle."
Winegtekonck, 1709—Wenighkonck, 1726; Wienackonck, 1739—is quoted as the name of what is now known as Woodcock Mountain, in the town of Blooming-Grove, It is not so connected, however, in the record of 1709, which reads: "A certain tract of land by the Indians called Wineghtek-onck and parts adjacent, lying on both sides of Murderers' Kill" (Cal. N. Y. Land Papers, 91), in which connection it seems to be another form of Mahican Wanun-ketukok, "At the winding of the river"—"A bend-of-the-river-place." Presumably the reference is to a place where the stream bends in the vicinity of the hill. The name appears in an abstract of an Indian deed to Sir Henry Ashurst, in 1709, for a tract of land of about sixteen square miles. The purchase was not patented, the place being included in the Governor Dongan purchase of 1685, and in the Evans Patent.
Sugar Loaf, the name of a conical hill in the town of Chester, Orange County, is not an Indian name of course, but it enters into an enumeration of Indian places, as in its vicinity were found by Charles Clinton, in his survey of the Cheesec-ock Patent in 1738, the unmistakable evidences of the site of an Indian village, then probably not long abandoned, and Mr. Eager (Hist. Orange Co.) quoted evidences showing that on a farm then (1846) owned by Jonathan Archer, was an Indian burying ground, the marks of which were still distinct prior to the Revolution.
Runbolt's Run, a spring and creek in the town of Goshen, are said to have taken that name from Rombout, one of the Indian grantors of the Wawayanda tract. It is probable, however, that the name is a corruption of Dutch Rondbocht, meaning, "A tortuous pool, puddle, marsh," at or near which the chief may have resided. Rombout (Dutch) means "Bull-fly." It could hardly have been the name of a run of water.
Mistucky, the name of a small stream in the town of Warwick, has lost some of its letters. Mishquawtucke (Nar.), would read, "Place of red cedars."
Pochuck, given as the name of "A wild, rugged and romantic region" in Sussex County, N. J., to a creek near Goshen, and, modernly, to a place in Newburgh lying under the shadow of Muchhattoes Hill, is no doubt from Putscheck (Len.), "A corner or repress," a retired or "out-of-the-way place." Eliot wrote Poochag, in the Natick dialect, and Zeisberger, in the Minsi-Lenape, Puts-cheek, which is certainly heard in Pochuck.
Chouckhass, one of the Indian grantors of the Wawayanda tract, left his name to what is now called Chouck's Hill, in the town of Warwick. The land on which he lived and in which he was buried came into possession of Daniel Burt, an early settler, who gave decent sepulture to the bones of the chief. [FN]
[FN] The traditional places of residence of several of the sachems who signed the Wawayanda deed is stated by a writer in "Magazine of American History," and may be repeated on that authority, viz: "Oshaquememus, chief of a village, near the point where the Beaver-dam Brook empties into Murderers' Creek near Campbell Hall; Moshopuck, on the flats now known as Haverstraw; Ariwimack, chief, on the Wallkill, extending from Goshen to Shawongunk; Guliapaw, chief of a clan residing near Long Pond (Greenwood Lake), within fifty rods of the north end of the pond; Rapingonick died about 1730 at the Delaware Water-Gap." The names given by the writer do not include all the signers of the deed. One of the unnamed grantors was Claus, so called from Klaas (Dutch), "A tall ninny"; an impertinent, silly fellow; a ninny-jack. The name may have accurately described the personality of the Indian.
Jogee Hill, in the town of Minisink, takes its name from and preserves the place of residence of Keghekapowell, alias Jokhem (Dutch Jockem for Joachim), one of the grantors of lands to Governor Dongan in 1684. The first word of his Indian name, Keghe, stands for Keche, "Chief, principal, greatest," and defined his rank as principal sachem. The canton which he ruled was of considerable number. He remained in occupation of the hill long after his associates had departed.
Wawayanda, 1702—Wawayanda or Wocrawin, 1702; Wawayunda, 1722-23; Wiwanda, Wowando, Index Col. Hist. N. Y.—the first form, one of the most familiar names in Orange County, is preserved as that of a town, a stream of water, and of a large district of country known as the Wawayanda Patent, in which latter connection it appears of record, first, in 1702, in a petition of Dr. Samuel Staats, of Albany, and others, for license to purchase "A tract of land called Wawayanda, in the county of Ulster, containing by estimation about five thousand acres, more or less, lying about thirty miles backward in the woods from Hudson's River." (Land Papers, 56.) In February of the same year the parties filed a second petition for license to "purchase five thousand acres adjoining thereto, as the petitioners had learned that their first purchase, 'called Wawayanda' was 'altogether a swamp and not worth anything.'" In November of the same year, having made the additional purchase, the parties asked for a patent for ten thousand acres "Lying at Wawayanda or Woerawin." Meanwhile Dr. John Bridges and Company, of New York, purchased under license and later received patent for "certain tracts and parcels of vacant lands in the county of Orange, called Wawayanda, and some other small tracts and parcels of lands," and succeeded in including in their patent the lands which had previously been purchased by Dr. Staats. Specifically the tract called Wawayanda or Woerawin was never located, nor were the several "certain tracts of land called Wawayanda" purchased by Dr. Bridges. The former learned in a short time, however, that his purchase was not "altogether a swamp," although it may have included or adjoined one, and the latter found that his purchase included a number of pieces of very fine lands and a number of swamps, and especially the district known as the Drowned Lands, covering some 50,000 acres, in which were several elevations called islands, now mainly obliterated by drainage and traversed by turnpikes and railroads. Several water-courses were there also, notably the stream now known as the Wallkill, and that known as the Wawayanda or Warwick Creek, a stream remarkable for its tortuous course.
What and where was Wawayanda? The early settlers on the patent seem to have been able to answer. Mr. Samuel Vantz, who then had been on the patent for fifty-five years, gave testimony in 1785, that Wawayanda was "Within a musket-shot of where DeKay lived." The reference was to the homestead house of Col. Thomas DeKay, who was then dead since 1758. The foundation of the house remains and its site is well known. In adjusting the boundary line between New York and New Jersey it was cut off from Orange County and is now in Vernon, New Jersey, where it is still known as the "Wawayanda Homestead." Within a musket-shot of the site of the ancient dwelling flows Wawayanda Creek, and with the exception of the meadows through which it flows in a remarkably sinuous course, is the only object in proximity to the place where DeKay lived, except the meadow and the valley in which it flows. The locative of the name at that point seems to be established with reasonable certainty as well as the object to which it was applied—the creek.
The meaning of the name remains to be considered. Its first two syllables are surely from the root Wai or Wae; iterative and frequentive Wawai, or Waway, meaning "Winding around many times." It is a generic combination met in several forms—Wawau, Lenape; Wohwayen, Moh.; [FN] Wawai, Shawano; Wawy, Wawi, Wawei, etc., on the North-central-Hudson, as in Waweiqate-pek-ook, Greene County, and Wawayachton-ock, Dutchess County. Dr. Albert S. Gatschet, of the Bureau of Ethnology, wrote me: "Wawayanda, as a name formed by syllabic reduplication, presupposes a simple form, Wayanda, 'Winding around.' The reduplication is Wawai, or Waway-anda, 'many' or 'several' windings, as a complex of river bends." As the name stands it is a participial or verbal noun. Waway, "Winding around many times";—-anda, "action, motion" (radical -an, "to move, to go"), and, inferentially, the place where the action of the verb is performed, as in Guttanda, "Taste it," the action of the throat in tasting being referred to, and in Popachándamen, "To beat; to strike." As the verb termination of Waway, "Round about many times," it is entirely proper. The uniformity of the orthography leaves little room for presuming that any other word was used by the grantors, or that any letters were lost or dropped by the scribe in recording. It stands simply as the name of an object without telling what that object was, but what was it that could have had action, motion—that had many windings—except Wawayanda Creek?
[FN] "Wohwayen (Moh.), where the brook 'winds about,' turning to the west and then to the east." (Trumbull.) Wowoaushin, "It winds about." (Eliot.) Woweeyouchwan. "It flows circuitously, winds about." (Ib.)
Mr. Ralph Wisner, of Florida, Orange County, recently reproduced in the Warwick Advertiser, an affidavit made by Adam Wisner, May 19th, 1785, at a hearing in Chester, in the contention to determine the boundary line of the Cheesec-ock Patent, in which he stated that he was 86 years old on the 15th of April past; that he had lived on the Wawayanda Patent since 1715; that he "learned the Indian language" when he was a young man; that the Indians "had told him that Wawayanda signified 'the egg-shape,' or shape of an egg." Adam Wisner was an interpreter of the local Indian dialect; he is met as such in records. His interpretations, as were those of other interpreters, were mainly based on signs, motions, objects. Waway, "Winding about many times," would describe the lines of an egg, but it is doubtful if the suffix, -anda, had the meaning of "shape."
The familiar reading of Wawayanda, "Away-over-yonder," is a word-play, like Irving's "Manhattan, Man-with-a-hat-on." Dr. Schoolcraft's interpretation, "Our homes or places of dwelling," quoted in "History of Orange County," is pronounced by competent authority to be "Dialectically and grammatically untenable." It has poetic merit, but nothing more. Schoolcraft borrowed it from Gallatin.
Woerawin, given by Dr. Staats as the name of his second purchase, is also a verbal noun. By dialectic exchange of l for r and giving to the Dutch æ its English equivalent ü as in bull, it is probably from the root Wul, "Good, fine, handsome," etc., with the verbal termination -wi (Chippeway -win), indicating "objective existence," hence "place," a most appropriate description for many places in the Wawayanda or Warwick Valley.
Monhagen, the name of a stream in the town of Wallkill, is, if Indian as claimed, an equivalent of Monheagan, from Maingan, "A wolf," the totem of the Mohegans of Connecticut. The name, however, has the sound of Monagan—correctly, Monaghan, the name of a county in Ireland, and quite an extensive family name in Orange County.
Long-house, Wawayanda, and Pochuck are local names for what may be regarded as one and the same stream. It rises in the Drowned Lands, in New Jersey, where it is known as Long-house Creek; flows north until it receives the outlet of Wickham's Pond, in Warwick, Orange County, and from thence the united streams form the Wawayanda or Warwick Creek, which flows southwesterly for some miles into New Jersey and falls into Pochuck Creek, which approaches from the northwest, and from thence the flow is northwest into Orange County again to a junction with the Wallkill, which, rising in Pine Swamp, Sparta, N. J., flows north and forms the main drainage channel of the Drowned Lands. In addition to its general course Wawayanda Creek is especially sinuous in the New Milford and Sandfordville districts of Warwick, the bends multiplying at short distances, and also in the vicinity of the De Kay homestead in Vernon. In Warwick the stream has been known as "Wandering River" for many years. The patented lands are on this stream. Its name, Long-house Creek, was, no doubt, from one of the peculiar dwellings constructed by the Indians known as a Long House, [FN] which probably stood on or near the stream, and was occupied by the clan who sold the lands. Pochuck is from a generic meaning "A recess or corner." It is met in several places. (See Wawayanda and Pochuck.)
[FN] The Indian Long House was from fifty to six hundred and fifty feet in length by twenty feet in width, the length depending upon the number of persons or families to be accommodated, each family having its own fire. They were formed by saplings set in the ground, the tops bent together and the whole covered with bark. The Five Nations compared their confederacy to a long house reaching, figuratively, from Hudson's River to Lake Erie.
Gentge-kamike, "A field appropriated for holding dances," may reasonably have been the Indian name of the plateau adjoining the rocky point, at the head of Newburgh Bay, which, from very early times, has been known as The Dans Kamer (Dance Chamber), a designation which appears of record first in a Journal by David Pietersen de Vries of a trip made by him in his sloop from Fort Amsterdam to Fort Orange, in 1639, who wrote, under date of April 15: "At night came by the Dans Kamer, where there was a party of Indians, who were very riotous, seeking only mischief; so we were on our guard." Obviously the place was then as well known as a landmark as was Esopus (Kingston), and may safely be claimed as having received its Dutch name from the earliest Dutch navigators, from whom it has been handed down not only as "The Dans Kamer," but as "t' Duivel's Dans Kamer," the latter presumably designative of the fearful orgies which were held there familiarly known as "Devil worship." During the Esopus War of 1663, Lieut. Couwenhoven, who was lying with his sloop opposite the Dans Kamer, wrote, under date of August 14th, that "the Indians thereabout on the river side" made "a great uproar every night, firing guns and Kintecaying, so that the woods rang again." There can be no doubt from the records that the plateau was an established place for holding the many dances of the Indians. The word Kinte is a form of Géntge (Zeisb.), meaning "dance." Its root is Kanti, a verbal, meaning "To sing." Géntgeen, "To dance" (Zeisb.), Gent' Keh'n (Heck.), comes down in the local Dutch records Kinticka, Kinte-Kaye, Kintecaw, Kintekaying (dancing), and has found a resting place in the English word Canticoy, "A social dance." Dancing was eminently a feature among the Indians. They had their war dances, their festival dances, their social dances, etc. As a rule, their social dances were pleasant affairs. Rev. Heckewelder wrote that he would prefer being present at a social Kintecoy for a full hour, than a few minutes only at such dances as he had witnessed in country taverns among white people. "Feast days," wrote Van der Donck in 1656, "are concluded by old and middle aged men with smoking; by the young with a Kintecaw, singing and dancing." Every Indian captive doomed to death, asked and was granted the privilege of singing and dancing his Kintekaye, or death song. War dances were riotous; the scenes of actual battle were enacted. The religious dances and rites were so wonderful that even the missionaries shrank from them, and the English government forbade their being held within one hundred miles of European settlements. The holding of a war dance was equivalent to opening a recruiting station, men only attending and if participating in the dance expressed thereby their readiness to enter upon the war. It was probably one of these Kantecoys that Couwenhoven witnessed in 1663.
There were two dancing fields here—so specified in deed—the "Large Dans Kamer" and the "Little Dans Kamer," the latter a limited plateau on the point and the former the large plateau now occupied in part by the site of the Armstrong House. The Little Dans Kamer is now practically destroyed by the cut on the West-shore Railroad. 'Sufficient of the Large Dans Kamer remains to evidence its natural adaptation for the purposes to which the Indians assigned it. Paths lead to the place from all directions. Negotiations for the exchange of prisoners held by the Esopus Indians were conducted there, and there the Esopus Indians had direct connection with the castle of the Wappingers on the east side of the Hudson. There are few places on the Hudson more directly associated with Indian customs and history than the Dans Kamer.
Arackook, Kachawaweek, and Oghgotacton are record but unlocated names of places on the east side of the Wallkill, by some presumed to have been in the vicinity of Walden, Orange County, from the description: "Beginning at a fall called Arackook and running thence northwesterly on the east side of Paltz Creek until it comes to Kachawaweek." The petitioner for the tract was Robert Sanders, a noted interpreter, who renewed his petition in 1702, calling the tract Oghgotacton, and presented a claim to title from a chief called Corporwin, as the representative of his brother Punguanis, "Who had been ten years gone to the Ottowawas." He again gave the description, "Beginning at the fall called Arackook," but there is no trace of the location of the patent in the vicinity of Walden.
Hashdisch was quoted by the late John W. Hasbrouck, of Kingston, as the name of what has long been known as "The High Falls of the Wallkill" at Walden. Authority not stated, but presumably met by Mr. Hasbrouck in local records. It may be from Ashp, Hesp, etc., "High," and -ish, derogative. The falls descend in cascades and rapids about eighty feet at an angle of forty-five degrees. Though their primary appearance has been marred by dams and mills, they are still impressive in freshet seasons.
Twischsawkin is quoted as the name of the Wallkill at some place in New Jersey. On Sauthier's map it stands where two small ponds are represented and seems to have reference to the outlet. Twisch may be an equivalent of Tisch, "Strong," and Sawkin may be an equivalent of Heckewelder's Saucon, "Outlet," or mouth of a river, pond, etc. Wallkill, the name of the stream as now written, is an Anglicism of Dutch Waal, "Haven, gulf, depth," etc., and Kil, "Channel" or water-course. It is the name of an arm of the Rhine in the Netherlands, and was transferred here by the Huguenots who located in New Paltz. (See Wawayanda.)
Shawangunk, the name of a town, a stream of water, and a range of hills in Ulster County, was that of a specific place from which it was extended. It is of record in many orthographies, the first in 1684, of a place called Chauwanghungh, [FN-1] in deed from the Indians to Governor Dongan, in the same year, Chawangon, [FN-2] and Chanwangung in 1686, [FN-3] later forms running to variants of Shawangunk. The locative is made specific in a grant to Thomas Lloyd in 1687; [FN-4] in a grant to Severeign Tenhout in 1702, [FN-5] and in a description in 1709, "Adjoining Shawangung, Nescotack and the Palze." [FN-6] In several other patent descriptions the locative is further identified by "near to" or "adjoining," and finally (1723) by "near the village of Showangunck," at which time the "village" consisted of the dwellings of Thomas Lloyd, on the north side of Shawangunk Kill; Severeign Tenhout on the south side; and Jacobus Bruyn, Benjamin Smedes, and others, with a mill, at and around what was known later as the village of Tuthiltown. In 1744, Jacobus Bruyn was the owner of the Lloyd tract. [FN-7] The distribution of the name over the district as a general locative is distinctly traceable from this center. It was never the name of the mountain, nor of the stream, and it should be distinctly understood that it does not appear in Kregier's Journal of the Second Esopus War, nor in any record prior to 1684, and could not have been that of any place other than that distinctly named in Governor Dongan's deed and in Lloyd's Patent.
Topographically, the tract was at and on the side of a hill running north from the fiats on the stream to a point of which Nescotack was the summit, the Lloyd grant lying in part on the hill-side and in part on the low lands on the stream. The mountain is eight miles distant. Without knowledge of the precise location of the name several interpretations of it have been made, generally from Shawan, "South"—South Mountain, South Water, South Place. [FN-8] The latter is possible, i. e. a place lying south of Nescotack, as in the sentence: "Schawangung, Nescotack, and the Paltz." From the topography of the locative, however, Mr. William R. Gerard suggests that the derivatives are Scha (or Shaw), "Side," -ong, "hill," and -unk, locative, the combination reading, "At (or on) the hill-side." [FN-9] This reading is literally sustained by the locative.
The name is of especial interest from its association with the Dutch and Indian War of 1663, although not mentioned in Kregier's narrative of the destruction of the Indian palisaded village called "New Fort," and later Shawongunk Fort. The narrative is very complete in colonial records. [FN-10] The village or fort was not as large as that called Kahanksan, which had previously been destroyed. It was composed of ten huts, probably capable of accommodating two or three hundred people. The palisade around them formed "a perfect square," on the brow of a tract of table-land on the bank of Shawongunk Kill. Since first settlement the location has been known as "New Fort." It is on the east side of the stream about three miles west of the village of Wallkill. [FN-11] In the treaty of 1664 the site and the fields around it were conceded, with other lands, to the Dutch, by the Indians, as having been "conquered by the sword," but were subsequently included (1684) in the purchase by Governor Dongan. Later were included in the patent to Capt. John Evans, and was later covered by one of the smaller patents into which the Evans Patent was divided. When the Dutch troops left it it was a terrible picture of desolation. The huts had been burned, the bodies of the Indians who had been killed and thrown into the corn-pits had been unearthed by wolves and their skeletons left to bleach on the plain, with here and there the half eaten body of a child. For years it was a fable told to children that the place was haunted by the ghosts of the slain, and even now the timid feel a peculiar sensation, when visiting the site, whenever a strange cry breaks on the ear, and the assurance that it is real comes with gratefulness in the shouts of the harvesters in the nearby fields. It is a place full of history, full of poetry, full of the footprints of the aboriginal lords, "Further down the creek," says the narrative, "several large wigwams stood, which we also burned, and divers maize fields which we also destroyed." On the sites of some of these wigwams fine specimens of Indian pottery and stone vessels and implements have been found, as well as many arrow-points of flint.
[FN-1] "Land lying about six or seven miles beyond ye Town where ye Walloons dwell, upon ye same creek; ye name of ye place is Chauwanghungh and Nescotack, two small parcels of land lying together." (N. Y. Land Papers, 29, 30.)
[FN-2] "Comprehending all those lands, meadows and woods called Nescotack, Chawangon, Memorasink, Kakogh, Getawanuck and Ghittatawah." (Deed to Gov. Dongan.)
[FN-3] "Beginning on the east side of the river (now Wallkill), and at the south end of a small island in the river, at the mouth of the river Chauwangung, in the County of Ulster, laid out for James Graham and John Delaval." (N. Y. Land Papers, 38.)
[FN-4] "Description of a survey of 410 acres of land, called by the Indian name Chauwangung, laid out for Thomas Lloyd." (N. Y. Land Papers, 44.)
[FN-5] N. Y. Land Papers, 60.
[FN-6] Ib. 169. Other early forms are Shawongunk (1685), Shawongonck (1709), Shawongunge (1712).
[FN-7] From Jacobus Bruyn came the ancient hamlet still known as Bruynswick. He erected a stone mansion on the tract, in the front wall of which was cut on a marble tablet, "Jacobus Bruyn. 1724." The house was destroyed by fire in 1870 (about), and a frame dwelling erected on its old foundation. It is about half-way between Bruynswick and Tuthilltown; owned later by John V. McKinstry. The location is certain from the will of Jacobus Bruyn in 1744.
[FN-8] The most worthless interpretation is that in Spofford's Gazeteer and copied by Mather in his Geological Survey: "Shawen, in the Mohegan language, means 'White,' also 'Salt.' and Gunk, 'A large pile of rocks,' hence 'White Rocks' or mountain." The trouble with it is that there is no such word as Shawen, meaning "White" in any Algonquian dialect, and no such word as Gunk, meaning "Rocks."
[FN-9] The monosyllable Shaw or Schaw, radical Scha, means "Side, edge, border, shore," etc. Schauwunuppéque, "On the shore of the lake." Enda-tacht-schawûnge, "At the narrows where the hill comes close to the river." (Heck.) Schajawonge, "Hill-side" (Zeisb.), from which Schawong-unk, "On the hill-side," or at the side of the hill, the precise bound of the name cannot be stated.
[FN-10] Doc. Hist. N. Y., iv, 71, 72, et. seq. Col. Hist. N. Y., xiii, 272, 326.
[FN-11] Authorities quoted and paper by Rev. Charles Scott, D. D., in "Proceedings Ulster Co. Hist. Soc."
Memorasink, Kahogh, Gatawanuk, and Ghittatawagh, names handed down in the Indian deed to Governor Dongan in 1684, have no other record, nor were they ever specifically located. The lands conveyed to him extended from the Shawangunk range to the Hudson, bounded on the north by the line of the Paltz Patent, and south by a line drawn from about the Dans Kamer. Ghittatawagh is probably from Kitchi, "Great, strong," etc., and Towatawik, "Wilderness"—the great wilderness, or uninhabited district. Gatawanuk seems to be from Kitchi, "Strong," -awan, impersonal verb termination, and -uk, locative, and to describe a place on a strong current or flowing stream. The same name seems to appear in Kitchawan, now Croton River. It may have located lands on the Wallkill.
Nescotack, a certain place so called in the Dongan deed of 1684, is referred to in connection with Shawongunk. It was granted by patent to Jacob Rutsen and described as "A tract of land by the Indians called Nescotack and by the Christians Guilford." (N. Y. Land Papers, 29, 30.) Guilford was known for many years as Guilford Church, immediately west of Shawongunk. The actual location of the name, however, is claimed for a hamlet now called Libertyville, further north, which was long known as Nescotack. The district is an extended ridge which rises gradually from the Shawongunk River-bottoms on the east and falls off on the west more abruptly. The name, probably, describes this ridge as "High lands," an equivalent of Esquatak and Eskwatack on the Upper Hudson; Ashpotag, Mass., and Westchester Co. Esp, Hesp, Ishp, Hesko, Nesco, etc., are record orthographies. (See Schodac and Shawongunk.)
Wishauwemis, a place-name in Shawongunk, was translated by Rev. Dr. Scott, "The place of beeches," from Schauwemi, "Beech wood"; but seems to be an equivalent of Moh. Wesauwemisk, a species of oak with yellow bark used for dyeing. Wisaminschi, "Yellow-wood tree." (Zeisb.)
Wickquatennhonck, a place so called in patent to Jacobus Bruyn and Benj. Smedes, 1709, is described as "Land lying near a small hill called, in ye Indian tongue, Wickqutenhonck," in another paper Wickquatennhonck, "Land lying near the end of the hill." The name means, "At the end of the hill," from Wequa, "End of"; -ateune (-achtenne, Zeisb.), "hill," and -unk, "at." The location was near the end of what is still known as the Hoogte-berg (Hooge-berg, Dutch), a range of hills, where the proprietors located dwellings which remained many years.
Wanaksink, a region of meadow and maize land in the Shawongunk district, was translated by Dr. Scott from Winachk, "Sassafras" (Zeisb.); but Wanachk may and probably does stand for Wonachk, "The tip or extremity of anything," and -sing means "Near," or less than. A piece of land that was near the end of a certain place or piece of land. It is not the word that is met in Wynogkee.
Maschabeneer, Masseks, Maskack, Massekex, a certain tract or tracts of land in the present town of Shawongunk, appear in a description of survey, Dec. 10, 1701, of seven hundred and ten acres "at a place called Maschabeneer Shawengonck," laid out for Mathias Mott, accompanied by an affidavit by Jacob Rutsen concerning the purchase of the same from the Indians. At a previous date (Sept. 22) Mott asked for a patent for four hundred acres "at a place called Shawungunk," which was "given him when a child by the Indians." Whether the two tracts were the same or not does not appear; but in 1702, June 10, Severeyn Tenhout remonstrated against granting to Mott the land which he had petitioned for, and accompanied his remonstrance by an extract from the minutes of the Court at Kingston, in 1693, granting the land to himself. He asked for a patent and gave the name of the tract "Called by the Indians Masseecks, near Shawengonck," i. e. near the certain tract called Shawongunk which had been granted to Thomas Lloyd. He received a patent. In 1709, Mott petitioned "in relation to a certain tract of land upon Showangonck River" which had been granted to Tenhout, asking that the "same be so divided" that he (Mott) should "have a proportion of the good land upon the said river"—obviously a section of low land or meadow, described by the name of a place thereon called Maskeék (Zeisb.), meaning "Swamp, bog"; Maskeht (Eliot), "Grass." The radical is ask, "green, raw, immature." The suffix -eghs represents an intensive form of the guttural formative, which the German missionaries softened to -ech and -ck, and the English to -sh, and is frequently met in X. Heckewelder wrote that the original sound was that of the Greek X, hence Maskex and x in Coxsackie. Maschabeneer, the name given by Mott, is not satisfactorily translatable.
Pitkiskaker and Aioskawasting appear in deed from the Esopus Indians to Governor Dongan, in 1684, as the names of divisions of what are now known as the Shawongunk Mountains south of Mohunk or Paltz Point. The deed description reads: "Extending from the Paltz," i. e. from the southeast boundmark of the Paltz Patent on the Hudson, now known as Blue Point (see Magaat-Ramis), south "along the river to the lands of the Indians at Murderers' Kill, thence west to the foot of the high hills called Pitkiskaker and Aioskawasting, thence southwesterly all along the said hills and the river called Peakadasink to a water-pond lying upon said hills called Meretange." [FN-1] Apparently the general boundaries were the line of the Paltz Patent on the north, the Hudson on the east, a line from "about the Dancing Chamber" on the Hudson to Sam's Point on the Shawongunk range on the southwest, and on the west by that range and the river Peakadasank. The Peakadasank is now known as Shawangunk Kill. The pond "called Meretange," is claimed by some authorities, as that now known as Binnen-water in the town of Mount Hope, Orange County. On Sauthier's map it is located on the southern division of the range noted as "Alaskayering Mts.," and represented as the head of Shawongunk Kill. The same distinction is claimed for Meretange or Peakadasank Swamp in the town of Greenville, Orange County. A third Maratanza Pond is located a short distance west of Sam's Point. The name of the hill has been changed from Aioskawasting to Awosting as the name of a lake and a waterfall about four miles north of Sam's Point, and translated from Awoss (Lenape), "Beyond," "On the other side," and claimed to have been originally applied to a crossing-place in the depression north of Sam's Point, neither of which interpretations is tenable. The prefix, Aioska, cannot be dropped and the name have a meaning, and the adjectival, Awoss, cannot be used as a substantive and followed by the locative -ing, "at, on," etc. Awoss means "Beyond," surely, but must be followed by a substantive telling what it is that is "beyond." The particular features of the Shawongunk range covered by the boundary line of the deed are "The Traps," a cleft which divides the range a short distance south of Mohunk, and Sam's Point, [FN-2] about nine miles south of Mohunk. The latter stands out very conspicuously, its general surface covered by perpendicular rocks from one hundred to two hundred and fifty feet high, the point itself crowned by a wall of rock which rises 2200 feet above the valley below.
[FN-1] Meretange, Maretange, or Maratanza, is from Old English Mere, "A pond or pool," and Tanze, "Sharp" or offensive to the taste. The name was transferred to this pond from the pond first bearing it in the town of Greenville, Orange County, in changing the northwest line of the Evans Patent. (See Peakadasank.) The pond is about a mile in circumference and is lined with cranberry bushes and other shrubbery, but the water is clear and sweet. It lies about three-quarters of a mile west of Sam's Point. Long Pond, lying about four miles north of Maratanza, is now called Awosting Lake. It is about two miles long by possibly one-quarter of a mile wide and lies in a clove or cleft of the hills. Its outlet was called by the Dutch Verkerde Kil, now changed to Awosting. About one mile further north lies "The Great Salt Pond," so called in records of the town of Shawongunk. It is now called Lake Minnewaska, a name introduced from the Chippeway dialect, said to mean "Colored water," which has been changed to "Frozen water." The lake is particularly described as being "Set into the hills like a bowl." It has an altitude of 1,600 feet and a depth of seventy to ninety feet of water of crystal clearness through which the pebbly bottom can be seen. The fourth pond is that known as Lake Mohonk.
[FN-2] Sam's Point is in the town of Wawarsing, about seven miles south of the village of Ellenville and about nine miles south of Mohunk or Paltz Point. It is the highest point on the Shawongunk range in New York State. Its name is from Samuel Gonsaulus, who owned the tract. Gertruyd's Nose, the name of another point, was so called from the fancied resemblance of its shadow to the nose of Mrs. Gertrude, wife of Jacobus Bruyn, who owned the tract. The pass, cleft or clove known as "The Traps," was so called from the supposed character of the rock which it divides. The rock, however, is not Trappean. The pass is 650 feet wide and runs through the entire range. Its sides present the appearance of the hill having slipped apart.
Peakadasank, so written in Indian deed to Governor Dongan in 1684—Pachanasinck in patent to Jacob Bruyn, 1719; Peckanasinck, Pachanassinck, etc.—is given as the name of a stream bounding a tract of land, the Dongan deed description reading: "Thence southwesterly all along said hills and the river Peakadasank to a water-pond lying on said hills called Meretange." The name is preserved in two streams known as the Big and the Little Pachanasink, in Orange County, and in Ulster County as the "Pachanasink District," covering the south part of the town of Shawongunk. The Big Pachanasink is now known as Shawongunk Kill. In 1719, Nov. 26, a certain tract of land "called Pachanasink" was granted to Jacobus Bruyn and described in survey as "on the north side of Shawongunck Creek, beginning where the Verkerde Kill [FN] flows into said river," indicating locative of the name at the Verkerde Branch. In a brief submitted in the boundary contention, it is said that the line of the Dongan purchase ran "along the foot of the hills from a place called Pachanasink, where the Indians who sold the land had a large village and place," and from thence "to the head of the said river, and no where else the said river is called by that name." The evidence is cumulative that the name was that of the dominant feature of the district, from which it was transferred to the stream. It is a district strewn with masses of conglomerate rocks thrown off from the hills and precipitous cliffs. The two forms of the name, Peakadasank (1684) and Pachanassink (1717), were no doubt employed as equivalents. They differ in meaning, however. Wm. R. Gerard writes: "Peakadasank, or Pakadassin, means, 'It is laid out through the effects of a blow,' or some other action. The participial form is Pakadasing, meaning, 'Where it is laid out,' or 'Where it lies fallen.' The reference in this case would seem to be to the stone which had fallen off or been thrown down from the hills." Pachanasink means, "At the split rocks"; Pachassin, "Split stone." In either form the name is from the split rocks.
[FN] The Verkerde Kill falls over a precipice of about seventy feet. The exposed surface of the precipice is marked by strata in the conglomerate as primarily laid down. The entire district is a region of split rocks. Verkerde Kill takes that name from Dutch Verkeerd, meaning "Wrong, bad, angry, turbulent," etc. It is the outlet of Meretange Pond near Sam's Point. It flows from the pond to the falls and from the falls at nearly a right angle over a series of cascades aggregating in all a fall of two hundred and forty feet. The falls are in the town of Gardiner, Ulster County. (See Aioskawasting.)
The lands granted to Bruyn included the tract "Known by the Indian name of Pacanasink," now in the town of Shawongunk, and also a tract "Known by the Indian name of Shensechonck," now in the town of Crawford, Orange County. The latter seems to have been a parcel of level upland. It was about one mile to the southward of the stream.
Alaskayering, entered on Sauthier's map of 1774, as the name of the south part of the Shawongunk range, was conferred by the English, possibly as a substitute for Aioskawasting. The first word is heard in Alaska, which is said, on competent authority, to mean, "The high bald rocks"; with locative -ing, "At (or on) the high bald rocks." This interpretation is a literal description of the hill, and Aioskawasting may have the same meaning, although those who wrote the former may not have had a thought about the latter. [FN] (See Pitkiskaker.)
[FN] High Point, the highest elevation in the southern division of the range, is in New Jersey. It is said to be higher than Sam's Point, and to bear the same general description.
Achsinink, quoted by the late Rev. Charles Soott, D. D., from local records probably, as the name of Shawongunk Kill, is an apheresis apparently of Pach-achsün-ink, "At (or on) a place of split stones." Many of the split rocks thrown off from the mountain lie in the bed of the stream, in places utilized for crossing. "There are rocks in it, so that it is easy to get across." (Col. Hist. N. Y., viii, 272.) Achsün, as a substantive, cannot be used as an independent word with a locative. An adjectival prefix is necessary. (See Pakadasink.)
Palmagat, the name of the bend in the mountain north of Sam's Point, regarded by some as Indian, is a Dutch term descriptive of the growth there of palm or holly (Ilex opaca), possibly of shrub oaks the leaf of which resembles the holly. Gat is Dutch for opening, gap, etc.
Moggonck, Maggonck, Moggonick, Moggoneck, Mohonk, etc., are forms of the name given as that of the "high hill" which forms the southwest boundmark of the Paltz Patent, so known, now generally called locally, Paltz Point, and widely known as Mohunk. The hill is a point of rock formation on the Shawongunk range. It rises about 1,000 feet above the plain below and is crowned by an apex which rises as a battlement about 400 feet above the brow of the hill, now called Sky Top. Moggonck and Maggonck are interchangeable orthographies. The former appears in the Indian deed from Matseyay, and other owners, to Louis Du Bois, and others, May 26, 1677, and is carried forward in the patent issued to them in September of the same year. Moggoneck appears in Mr. Berthold Fernow's translation of the Indian deed in Colonial History of N. Y., xiii, 506. Moggonick was written by Surveyor Aug. Graham on his map of survey in 1709, and Mohunk is a modern pronunciation. The boundary description of the tract, as translated by the late Dr. E. B. O'Callaghan, from the Dutch deed (N. Y. Land Papers, 15), reads: "Beginning at the high hill called Moggonck, then southeast to Juffrouw's Hook in the Long Reach, on the Great River (called in Indian Magaat Ramis), thence north to the island called Raphoos, lying in the Kromme Elbow at the commencement of the Long Reach, thence west to the high hill to a place [called] Warachaes and Tawarataque, along the high hill to Moggonck." The translation in Colonial History is substantially the same except in the forms of the names. "Beginning from the high hill, at a place called Moggonck," is a translation of the deed by Rev. Ame Vaneme, in "History of New Paltz." It seems to be based on a recognition of the locative of the name as established by Surveyor Graham in 1709, rather than on the original manuscript. In the patent the reading is: "Beginning at the high mountain called Moggonck," and the southwest line is described as extending from Tawarataque "To Moggonck, formerly so called," indicating that the patentees had not located the name as they would like to have it located; certainly, that they had discovered that a line drawn from the apex of the hill on a southeast course to Juffrouw's Hook, would divide a certain fine piece of land, which they called the Groot Stuk (great piece), lying between the hill and the Wallkill and fertilized by that stream, which they wished to have included in the grant as a whole. So it came about that they hurried to Governor Andros and secured an amended wording in the patent of the deed description, and Surveyor-General Graham, when he came upon the scene in 1709, to run the patent lines, found the locatives "fixed," and wrote in his description, "Beginning at a certain point on the hill called Moggonick, . . . thence south, thirty-six degrees easterly, to a certain small creek called Moggonck, at the south end of the great piece of land, and from thence south, fifty-five degrees easterly, to the south side of Uffroe's Hook." Thereafter "The south end of the great piece," and the "certain small creek," became the "First station," as it was called. Graham marked the place by a stone which was found standing by Cadwallader Colden in a survey by him in 1729, and noted as at "The west end of a small gully which falls into Paltz River, . . . from the said stone down the said gully two chains and forty-six links to the Paltz River." The "west end" of the gully was the east end of the "Certain small creek" noted in Graham's survey. The precise point is over three miles from the hill. In the course of the years by the action of frost or flood, the stone was carried away. In 1892, from actual survey by Abram LeFever, Surveyor, assisted by Capt. W. H. D. Blake, to whom I am indebted for the facts stated, it was replaced by another bearing the original inscription. By deepening the gully the swamp of which the stream is the drainage channel, has been mainly reclaimed, but the stream and the gully remain, as does also the Groot Stuk. This record narrative is more fully explained by the following certificate which is on file in the office of the Clerk of Ulster County:
"These are to certify, that the inhabitants of the town of New Paltz, being desirous that the first station of their patent, named Moggonck, might be kept in remembrance, did desire us, Joseph Horsbrouck, John Hardenburgh, and Roeloff Elting, Esqs., Justices of the Peace, to accompany them, and there being Ancrop, the Indian, then brought us to the High Mountain, which he named Maggeanapogh, at or near the foot of which hill is a small run of water and a swamp, which he called Maggonck, and the said Ancrop affirmed it to be the right Indian names of the said places, as witness our hands the nineteenth day of December, 1722."
Ancrop, or Ankerop as otherwise written, was a sachem of the Esopus Indians in 1677, and was still serving in that office in 1722. He was obviously an old man at the latter date. He had, however, no jurisdiction over or part in the sale of the lands to the New Paltz Company in 1677. His testimony, given forty-five years after the sale by the Indians, was simply confirmatory in general terms of a location which had been made in 1677, and the interpretation of what he said was obviously given by the Justices in terms to correspond with what his employers wished him to say. In the days of the locations of boundmarks of patents, his testimony would have been regarded with suspicion. Locations of boundmarks were then frequently changed by patentees who desired to increase their holdings, by "Taking some Indians in a public manner to show such places as they might name to them," wrote Sir William Johnson, for many years Superintendent of Indian Affairs, adding that it was "Well known" that an Indian "Would shew any place by any name you please to give him, for a small blanket or a bottle of rum." Presumably Ankerop received either "A small blanket or a bottle of rum" for his services, but it is not to be inferred that the location of the boundmarks in 1677 was tainted by the "sharp practice" which prevailed later. It is reasonable to presume, however, that the name would never have been removed from the foot of the hill had not the Groot Stuk been situated as it was with reference to a southeast line drawn from its apex to Juffrouw's Hook.
Algonquian students who have been consulted, regard the name as it stands as without meaning; that some part of the original was lost by mishearing or dropped in pronunciation; that in the dialect which is supposed to have been spoken here the suffix -onck is classed as a locative and the adjectival Mogg is not complete. Several restorations of presumed lost letters have been suggested to give the name a meaning, none of which, however, are satisfactory. Apparently the most satisfactory reading is from Magonck, or Magunk (Mohegan), "A great tree," explained by Dr. Trumbull: "From Mogki, 'Great,' and -unk, 'A tree while standing.'" It is met as the name of a boundmark on the Connecticut, and on the east side of the Hudson, within forty miles of the locative here, Moghongh-kamigh, "Place of a great tree," is met as the name of a boundmark. Mogkunk is also in the Natick dialect, and there is no good reason for saying that it was not in the local dialect here. There may have been a certain great tree at the foot of the hill, from which the name was extended to the hill, and there may have been one on the Wallkill, which Ankerop said "Was the right Indian name of the place." It will be remembered that the deed boundmark was "The foot of the hill." It is safe to say that the name never could have described "A small run of water and a swamp," nor did it mean "Sky-Top." The former features were introduced by the Justices to identify the place where the boundary-stone was located and have no other value; the latter is a fanciful creation, "Not consistent with fact or reason," but very good as an advertisement.
Maggeanapogh, the name which Ankerop gave as that of the hill called Moggonck, bears every evidence of correctness. It is reasonably pure Lenape or Delaware, to which stock Ankerop probably belonged. The first word, Maggean, is an orthography of Machen (Meechin, Zeisb.; Mashkan, Chippeway), meaning "Great," big, large, strong, hard, occupying chief position, etc., and the second, -apogh, written in other local names -apugh, -apick, etc., is from -ápughk (-ápuchk, Zeisb.), meaning "Rock," the combination reading, literally, "A great rock." In the related Chippeway dialect the formative word for rock is -bik, and the radical is -ic or -ick, of which Dr. Schoolcraft wrote, "Rock, or solid formation of rock." No particular part of the hill was referred to, the text reading, "There being Ankerop, the Indian, then brought us to the High Mountain which he named Maggeanapogh." The time has passed when the name could have been made permanent. For all coming time the hill will bear the familiar name of Mohonk, the Moggonck of 1677, the Paltz Point and the High Point of local history, from the foot of which the place of beginning of the boundary line was never removed, although the course from it was changed.
Magaat-Ramis, the record name of the southeast boundmark of the Paltz Patent, is located in the boundary description at "Juffrou's Hook, in the Long Reach, on the Great River (called in Indian Magaat-Ramis)." (Cal. N. Y. Land Papers, 15.) Juffrouw's Hook is now known as Blue Point. It is about two miles north of Milton-on-the-Hudson, and takes its modern name from the color of the rock which projects from a blue-stone promontory and runs for some distance under the water of the river, deflecting the current to the northwest. The primal appearance of the promontory has been changed by the cut for the West Shore Railroad, but the submerged point remains. The Dutch name, Juffrouw's Hook, was obviously employed by the purchasers to locate the boundmark by terms which were then generally understood. Juffrouw, the first word, means "Maiden," one of the meanings of which is "Haai-rog"; "rog" means "skate," or Angel-fish, of special application to a species of shark, but in English shad, or any fish of the herring family, especially the female. Hook means "Corner, cape, angle, incurved as a hook"; hence "Maiden Hook," an angle or corner noted as a resort for shad, alewives, etc.: by metonymie, "A noted or well-known fishing-place." The first word of the Indian name, Magaat, stands for Maghaak (Moh.), Machak (Zeisb., the hard surd mutes k and t exchanged), meaning "Great," large, extended, occupying chief position. The second word, Ramis is obscure. It has the appearance of a mishearing of the native word. What that word was, however, may be inferred from the description, "Juffrou's Hook, in the Long Reach, on the Great River (called in Indian Magaat-Ramis)," or as written in the patent, "To a certain Point or Hooke called the Jeuffrou's Hooke, lying in the Long Reach, named by the Indians Magaat-Ramis." That the name was that of the river at that place—the Long Reach—is made clear by the sentence which follows: "Thence north along the river to the island called Rappoos, at the commencement of the Long Reach," in which connection Ramis would stand for Kamis or Gamis, from Gami, an Algonquian noun-generic meaning "Water," frequently met in varying forms in Abnaki and Chippeway—less frequently in the Delaware. In Cree the orthography is Kume. The final s is the equivalent of k, locative, as in Abnaki Gami-k, a particular place of water. "On the Great Water," is probably the meaning of Ramis. In Chippeway Keeche-gummee, "The greatest water," was the name of Lake Superior. As the name of the "Great Water," Magaat-Ramis is worthy of preservation.
Rappoos, which formed the northeast boundmark of the Paltz Patent, is specifically located in the Indian deed "Thence north [from Juffrou's Hook] along the river to the island called Rappoos, lying in the Kromme Elbow, at the commencement of the Long Reach." The island is now known as Little Esopus Island, taking that name from Little Esopus Creek, which flows to the Hudson at that point. It lies near the main land on the east side of the river, and divides the current in two channels, the most narrow of which is on the east. Kromme Elleboog (Crooked elbow), is the abrupt bend in the river at the island, and the Long Reach extends from the island south to Pollepel's Island. The name is of record Rappoos, Raphoes, Raphos and Whaphoos, an equivalent, apparently, of Wabose and Warpose, the latter met on Manhattan Island. It is not the name of the island, but of the small channel on the east side of it from which it was extended to the island. It means, "The narrows," in a general sense, and specifically, "The small passage," or strait. The root is Wab, or Wap, meaning, "A light or open place between two shores." (Brinton.)
Tawarataque, now written and pronounced Tower-a-tauch, the name of the northwestern boundmark of the Paltz Patent, is described in the Indian deed already quoted: "Thence [from Rappoos] west to the high hills to a place called Warachoes and Tawarataque," which may refer to one and the same place, or two different places. Surveyor Graham held that two different places were referred to and marked the first on the east side of the Wallkill at a place not now known, from whence by a sharp angle he located the second "On the point of a small ridge of hills," where he marked a flat rock, which, by the way, is not referred to in the name. The precise place was at the south end of a clove between the hills, access to which is by a small opening in the hills at a place now known as Mud Hook. Probably Warachoes referred to this opening. By dialectic exchange of l and r the word is Walachoes—Walak, "Hole," "A hollow or excavation"; -oes, "Small," as a small or limited hollow or open place. "Through this opening," referring to the opening in the side of the hill at Mud Hook, "A road now runs leading to the clove between the ridges of the mountain," wrote Mr. Ralph LeFever, editor of the "New Paltz Independent," from personal knowledge. Tawarataque was the name of this clove. It embodies the root Walak prefixed by the radical Tau or Taw, meaning "Open," as an open space, a hollow, a clove, an open field, etc., suffixed by the verb termination -aque, meaning "Place," or -áke as Zeisberger wrote in Wochitáke, "Upon the house." The reading in Tawarataque is, "Where there is an open space"; i. e., the clove. [FN] The late Hon. Edward Elting, of New Paltz, wrote me: "The flat rock which Surveyor Graham marked as the bound, lies on the east side of the depression of the Shawongunk Mountain Range leading northwesterly from Mohunk, at the south end of the clove known as Mud Hook, near the boundary line between New Paltz and Rosendale, say about half a mile west of the Wallkill Valley R. R. station at Rosendale. I think, but am not certain, that the rock can be seen as you pass on the railroad. It is of the character known as Esopus Millstone, a white or gray conglomerate. I cannot say that it bears the Surveyor's inscription."
It is not often that four boundmarks are met that stand out with the distinctness of those of the Paltz Patent, or that are clothed with deeper interest as geological features, or that preserve more distinctly the geographical landmarks of the aboriginal people.
[FN] The adjectival formative -alagat, or -aragat, enters into the composition of several words denoting "Hole," or "Open space," as Taw-álachg-at, "Open space," Sag-álachg-at, "So deep the hole." The verb substantive suffix -aque, or -ake (qu the sound of k), meaning "Place," is entirely proper as a substitute for the verbal termination -at.
Ossangwak is written on Pownal's map as the name of what is known as the Great Binnenwater (Dutch, "Inland water") in the town of Lloyd. The orthography disguises the original, which may have been a pronunciation of Achsün (Minsi), "Stone," as in Otstónwakin, read by Reichel, "A high rock," or rocky hill. Perhaps the name referred to the rocky bluff which bounds the Hudson there, immediately west of which the lake is situated.
Esopus—so written on Carte Figurative of 1614-16, and also by De Laet in 1624-5; Sopus, contemporaneously; Sypous, Rev. Megapolensis, 1657, is from Sepuus (Natick), "A brook"; in Delaware, Sipoes (Zeisberger). It is from Sepu, "River," and -es, "small." On the Carte Figurative it is written on the east side of the river near a stream north of Wappingers' Creek, as it may have been legitimately, but in 1623 it came to be located permanently at what is now Rondout Creek, from which it was extended to several streams, [FN] to the Dutch settlement now Kingston, to the resident Indians, and to a large district of country. The chirographer of 1614-16 seems to have added the initial E from the uncertain sound of the initial S, and later scribes further corrupted it to the Greek and Latin Æ. (See Waronawanka.)
[FN] The streams entering the Hudson in proximity came to be known as the Kleine Esopus, south of Rondout; the Groot Esopus, now the Rondout, and the Esopus, now the Saugerties. In the valley west of old Kingston was a brook, called in records the "Mill Stream."
Waronawanka, Carte Figurative 1614-16—Warrawannan-koncks, Wassenaer, 1621-5; Warranawankongs, De Laet, 1621-5, and Waranawankcougys, 1633; Waranawankongs, Van der Donck, 1656; Waerinnewongh, local, 1677—is located on the Carte Figurative on the west side of the Hudson a few miles north of latitude 42. On Van der Donck's map it is placed on the west side between Pollepel's Island and the Dans Kamer. De Laet wrote in his "New World" (Leyden edition): "This reach [Vischer's, covering Newburgh Bay] extends to another narrow pass, where, on the west side of the river, there is a point of land juts out covered with sand, opposite a bend in the river on which another nation of savages called the Waoranecks, have their abode at a place called Esopus. A little beyond, on the west side of the river, where there is a creek, and the river becomes more shallow, the Waranawankongs reside. Here are several small islands." In his French and Latin edition, 1633-40, the reading is: "A little beyond where projects a sandy point and the river becomes narrower, there is a place called Esopus, where the Waoranekys have their abode. To them succeed, after a short interval, the Waranawancougys, on the opposite side of the river." Read together there would seem to be no doubt that the Waoranecks were seated on or around the cove or bay at Low Point and the estuary of Wappingers' Creek, and that the Waranatwankongs were seated at and around the cove or bay at Kingston Point, "Where a creek comes in and the river becomes more shallow."
Of the meaning of the name Dr. A. S. Gatschet, of the Bureau of Ethnology, wrote me: "If the Warana-wan-ka lived on a bay or cove of Hudson's River, their name is certainly from Walina, which means 'hollowing, concave site,' and 'cove, bay,' in several eastern languages. A good parallel are the Wawenocks of S. W. Maine, now living at St. Francis, who call themselves Walinaki, or those living on a cove—'cove dwellers'—in referring to their old home on the Atlantic coast near Portland. In the Micmac (N. S.) dialect Walini is 'bay, cove,' and even the large Bay of Fundy is called so. The meaning of k or ka is not clear, but ong, in the later forms, is the locative 'at, on, upon.'"
It is safe to say that at either the Dans Kamer, Low Point, or Kingston Point, the clan would have been seated on a bay, cove, recess or indentation shaped like a bay, and it is also safe to say that Warona and Walina may be read as equivalents, the former in the local dialect, and the latter in the Eastern, and that its general meaning is "Concave, hollowing site." Zeisberger wrote l instead of r in the Minsi-Lenape, hence Woalac, "A hollow or excavation"; Walóh, "A cove"; Walpecat, "Very deep water." The dialectic r prevails pretty generally on the Hudson and on the Upper Delaware. On the latter, near Port Jervis, is met of record Warin-sags-kameck, which is surely the equivalent of Walina-ask-kameck, "A hollowing or concave site, a meadow or field." It was written by Arent Schuyler, the noted interpreter, as the name of a field which he described as "A meadow or vly." Vly is a contraction of Dutch Vallei, meaning "A hollow or depression in which water stands in the rainy season and is dry at other times," hence "hollowing." Ask (generic), meaning "Green, raw," is the radical of words meaning "meadow," "marsh," etc., and -kameck stands for an enclosed field, or place having definite boundaries as a hollow. Awan (-awan, -wan, -uan, etc.), as Dr. Gatschet probably read the orthography, is an impersonal verb termination met on the Hudson in Matteawan, Kitchiwan, etc. Mr. Gerard writes that it was sometimes followed by the participial and subjunctive k. It may have been so written here, but it seems to be a form of the guttural aspirate gh, for which it is exchanged in many cases, here and in Kitchiwangh. In Connecticut on the Sound apparently the same name is met in Waranawankek, indicating that whoever wrote it on the Figurative of 1614-16 was familiar with the dialect of the coast Indians. As it stands the name is one of the oldest and most sonorous in the valley of Hudson's River.
Ponkhockie is the familiar form of the name of the point, cove or landing-place on the south side of Kingston Point. It is from Dutch Punthoekje, meaning, "Point of a small hook, or angle." The local interpretation, "Canoe harbor," is not in the name, except inferentially from the fact that the cove was a favorite landing place for canoes. [FN-1] After the erection of a stockaded redoubt there, the Dutch called the place Rondhout, meaning. "Standing timber," and the English followed with Redoubt, and extended the name to the creek, as of record in 1670. The present form is substantially a restoration of the early Dutch Rondhout. The stockade was erected by Director Stuyvesant, at the suggestion of the Amsterdam Chamber of the West India Company, about 1660. There were Dutch traders here certainly as early as 1622, and presumably as early as 1614, but no permanent settlement appears of record prior to 1652-3, nor is there evidence that there was a Rondhout here prior to 1657-8. Compare Stuyvesant's letter of September, 1657, and Kregier's Journal of the "Second Esopus War" (Col. Hist N. Y., xiii, 73, 314, also page 189), showing that the Rondhout was not completed until the fall and winter of 1660. De Vries wrote in 1639-40, referring to Kingston Point probably: "Some Indians live here and have some corn-lands, but the lands are poor and stony." When Stuyvesant visited the place, in 1658, he anchored his barge "opposite to the two little houses of the savages standing near the bank of the kil." (Col. Hist. N. Y., xiii, 82.) In the vicinity the war of 1658 had its initiative in an unwise attack by some settlers on a party of Indians who had been made crazy drunk on brandy furnished them by Captain Thomas Chambers. Two houses were burned belonging to settlers, and hostilities continued for eight or nine days. "At the tennis-court near the Strand," a company of eleven Dutch soldiers "allowed themselves to be taken prisoners," by the Indians, in 1659. It does not seem probable that the Dutch had a Tennis Court here at that early date, but the record so reads. [FN-2] The hook or cove, was the most desirable place for landing on the south side of the Point. It has since been the commercial centre of the town and city. Punthoekje is certainly not without interesting history.
[FN-1] In early times there were two principal landing places: One at Punthoekje and one north of the present steamboat landing, or Columbus Point as it is called. The Point is a low formation on the Hudson and was primarily divided from the main land by a marsh. It was literally "a concave, hollowing site." The marsh was later crossed by a corduroyed turnpike connecting with the old Strand Road, now Union Avenue. A ferry was established here in 1752 and is still operated under its original charter. The Point is now traversed by rail and trolley roads.
[FN-2] Perhaps an Indian Football Court, resembling a Tennis Court. A writer in 1609 says of the Virginia natives: "They use, beside, football play, which women and boys do much play at. They have their goals as ours, only they never fight and pull each other down." There was a famous Tennis Court (Dutch Kaatsbaan) in the town of Saugerties, which seems to have been there long before the Dutch settlement. The Tennis Court referred to in the text is said to have been near the site of the present City Hall in Kingston, but would that place be strictly "near the Strand"? "Strand" means "shore, beach." It was probably on the beach.
Atkarkarton, claimed by some local authorities as the Indian name of Kingston, comes down to us from Rev. Megapolensis, who wrote, in 1657: "About eighteen miles [Dutch] up the North River lies a place called by the Dutch Esopus or Sypous, by the Indians Atkarkarton. It is an exceedingly beautiful land." (Doc, Hist. N. Y., iii, 103.) The Reverend writer obviously quoted the name as of general application, although it would seem to have been that of a particular place. As stated in another connection, Esopus, Sypous, and Sopus were at first (1623) applied to a trading-post on the Hudson, from which it was extended inland as a general name and later became specific as that of the first palisaded Dutch village named Wildwijk, which was founded a year after Megapolensis wrote. At the date of his writing the territory called Sopus included the river front, the plateau on which Kingston stands, and the flats on the Esopus immediately west, particularly the flat known as the Groot Plat, and later (1662) as the Nieuw Dorp or New Village, [FN-1] as distinguished from Sopus or Wildwijk, or the Old Village, the specific site of which could not have been referred to. Of the site of the Old Village, Director Stuyvesant wrote in 1658: "The spot marked out for the settlement has a circumference of about two hundred and ten rods [FN-2] and is well adapted for defensive purposes. When necessity requires it, it can be surrounded by water on three sides, and it may be enlarged according to the convenience and requirements of the present and of future inhabitants." The palisaded enclosure was enlarged by Stuyvesant, in 1661, to over three times its original size. The precise spot was on the northwest corner of the plateau. It was separated from the low lands of the Esopus Valley by a ridge of moderate height extending on the north, east, and west, and had on the south "a swampish morass" which was required to be drained, in 1669, for the health of the town "and the improvement of so much ground." The Groot Plat in the Esopus Valley was a garden spot ready for the plough and was regarded as of size sufficient for "fifty bouweries" (farms). From the description quoted, and present conditions, it may be said with certainty that the site of the Old Village of Wildwijk was a knoll in an area of prairie and marsh. Neither of the village sites seem to have been occupied by the Indians except by temporary huts and corn-lands. The Wildwijk site was given to Director Stuyvesant by the Indians, in 1658, "to grease his feet with" after his "long journey" from Manhattan. Of the Groot Plat one-half was given by the Indians to Jacob Jansen Stoll in compensation for damages. A commission appointed at that time to examine the tract, and to ascertain what part of it the Indians wished to retain, reported that the Indians had "some plantations" there, "but of little value"; that it was "only a question of one or two pieces of cloth, then they would remove and surrender the whole piece." (Col. Hist. N. Y., xiii, 86, 89.) Instead of paying the Indians for the lands, however, the settlers commenced occupation, with the result that the Indians burned the New Village, June 7, 1663, attacked the Old Village, killed eighteen persons and carried away thirty captives, women and children. The war of 1663 followed, the results of which are accessible in several publications, but especially in Colonial History of New York, Vol. xiii. It is sufficient to say here that the Indians lost the lands in controversy and a much larger territory. Interpretation of the name can only be made conjecturally. William R. Gerard wrote me: "I think Atkarkarton simply disguises Atuk-ak-aten, meaning 'Deerhill,' from Atuk, 'Deer'; ak, plural, and aten, 'hill.' The r's in the name do not mean anything; they simply indicate that the a's which precede them were nasal." The Delaware word for "deer" is Achtuch. Dr. Schoolcraft wrote the tradition that the first deers were the hunters of men.
[FN-1] The land or place on the Esopus flat on which the New Village was founded, is now known as Old Hurley Village. It is repeatedly and specifically designated as "The Groot Plat"—"The large tract of land called the New Village"—"The burnt village called the Groot Plat." (Col. Hist. N. Y., xiii, 275, et. seq.) Hurley was given to it by Governor Lovelace in 1669, from his family, who were Barons Hurley of Ireland.
[FN-2] A Dutch rod is twelve feet, which would give this circumference at less than an English half mile. Schoonmaker writes in "History of Kingston": "The average length of the stockade was about thirteen hundred feet, and the width about twelve hundred feet." Substantially, it enclosed a square of about one-quarter of a mile.
Wildwijk, Dutch—Wiltwyck, modern—the name given by Governor Stuyvesant, in 1650, to the palisaded village which later became Kingston, and then and later called Sopus, is a composition of Dutch Wild, meaning "Wild, savage," and Wijk, "Retreat, refuge, quarter"; constructively, "A village, fort or refuge from the savages." The claim that the place was so called by Stuyvesant as an acknowledgment of the fact that the land was a gift from the Indians, is a figment. The English came in possession, in 1664, and, in 1669, [FN] changed the early name to Kingston. The Dutch recovered possession in 1673, and changed the name to Swanendale, and the English restored Kingston in 1674. (See Atkarkarton.)
[FN] "On this day (vizt 25th) the towne formerly called Sopez was named Kingston." Date Sept. 25th, 1669. (Col. Hist. N. Y., xiii, 435.)
Nanoseck, Manoseck, forms of the name of a small island in Rondout Creek, so "called by the Indians" says the record, may be from Natick Nohōōsik, "Pointed or tapering." The Dutch called it "Little Cupper's Island." Cupper, "One who applies a cupping glass." Another island in the same stream, was "called by the Indians Assinke," that is "Stony land" or place. (See Mattassink.) Another island was called by the Dutch Slypsten Eiland, that is, "Whetstone Island"; probably from the quality of the stone found on it. It lies in the Hudson next to Magdalen Island.
Wildmeet, an Indian "house" so called by the Dutch, means, in the Dutch language, "A place of meeting of savages." It was not a palisaded village. It was burned by the Dutch forces in the war of 1660, at which time, the narrative states, some sixty Indians had assembled at or were living in it. Its location, by the late John W. Hasbrouck, at the junction of the Vernoy and Rondout kills, is of doubtful correctness, as is also his statement that it was "The council-house of all the Esopus Indians." Its location was about two (Dutch) miles from Wildwyck, or about six or seven English miles. Judge Schoonmaker wrote: "Supposed to have been located in Marbletown."
Preumaker's Land, a tract described as "Lying upon Esopus Kil, within the bounds of Hurley," granted to Venike Rosen, April 1, 1686, was the place of residence of Preumaker, "The oldest and best" of the Esopus sachems, whose life was tragically ended by Dutch soldiers in the war of 1660. The location of his "house" is described as having been "At the second fall of Kit Davits Kil." [FN-1] A creek now bears the name of the sachem, who was a hero if he was a savage.
[FN] "Kit Davits' Kil" or the Rondout was so called from Christopher Davids, an Englishman, who was first at Fort Orange, and was an interpreter. He obtained, in 1656, a patent for about sixty-five acres, described as "Situate about a league (about three miles) inland from the North River in the Esopus, on the west side of the Great Kil, opposite to the land of Thomas Chambers, running west and northeast halfway to a small pond on the border of a valley which divides this parcel and the land of John de Hulter, deceased." Ensign Smith wrote: "I came with my men to the second valley on Kit Davietsen's River.. . . Further up in said valley I crossed the stream and found their house." (Col. Hist. N. Y., xiii.) Supposed to have been at LeFever's Falls in Rosendale. (Schoonmaker.)
Frudyachkamik, so written in treaty—deed of 1677 as the name of a place on the Hudson at the mouth of Esopus (now Saugerties) Creek, is written Tintiagquanneck in deed of 1767 (Cal. Land Papers, 454), and by the late John W. Hasbrouck, Tendeyachameck. The deed orthography of 1677 is certainly wrong as there is no sound of F in Algonquian. (See Kerhonksen.)
{TN} {Unable to locate interlinear references to the following two notes which appear on this page.}
[FN-1] Saugerties is probably a corruption of Dutch Zager's Kiltje, meaning in English, "Sawyer's little Kill." The original appears first of record in Kregier's Journal of the Second Esopus War (1663), "They were at Zager's Kiletje"; "To Sager's little Kill"; "To the Sager's Killetje." (Col. Hist. N. Y., xiii, 342, 344.) The first corruption of record also belongs to that period. It was by a Mohawk sachem who visited Esopus and at a conference converted Zager's Kiltje to Sagertjen. Some of the local Dutch followed with "de Zaagertje's." Other corruptions were numerous until the English brought in Saugerties. The original Zager, however, seems to have held legal place for many years. In 1683, in a survey of the Meals Patent, covering lands now included in Saugerties, it is written: "Being part of the land called Sagers," and in another, "Between Cattskill and Sager's Kill." It is also of record that a man known by the surname of Zager located on the stream prior to 1663, obtained a cession of the lands on the kill from Kaelcop, an Esopus sachem, and later disappeared without perfecting his title by patent. Zager is now converted to Sager, and in English to Sawyer. The claim that Zager had a sawmill at the mouth of the stream seems to rest entirely upon his presumed occupation from the meaning of his name. A sawmill here, in 1663, would seem to have been a useless venture. In 1750, ninety years later, one Burregan had a mill at the mouth of the kill. "Burregan" stands for Burhans.
[FN-2] "To Freudeyachkamik on the Groote River." (Col. Hist. N. Y., xiii, 505.) It was probably the peninsular now known as Flatbush, Glasco, etc., at the mouth of the creek. The orthographies of the name are uncertain. An island south of the mouth of the creek was called Qusieries. Three or four miles north is Wanton Island, the site of a traditionary battle between the Mohawks and the Katskill Indians. It is now the northeast boundmark of Ulster County. Neither of these islands could have been the boundmark of the lands granted by the Indians. Wanton seems to be from Wanquon (Wankon, Del.), "Heel"—resembling a human heel in shape—pertuberant. The letter t in the name is simply an exchange of the surd mutes k and l. Modern changes have destroyed the original appearance of the island.
Kerhonkson, now so written as the name of a stream of water and of a village in the town of Wawarsing, Ulster County, is of record in several forms—Kahanksen, Kahanghsen, Kahanksnix, Kahanckasink, etc. It takes interest from its connection with the history and location of what is known, in records of the Esopus Indian War of 1663, as the Old Fort as distinguished from the New Fort. In the treaty of peace with the Dutch in 1664, the fort is spoken of without name in connection with a district of country admitted by the Indians to have been "conquered by the sword," including the "two captured forts." In the subsequent treaty (1665) with Governor Nicolls the ceded district is described as "A certain parcel of land lying and being to the west or southwest of a certain creek or river called by the name of Kahanksen, and so up to the head thereof where the Old Fort was; and so with a direct line from thence through the woods and crosse the meadows to the Great Hill lying to the west or southwest, which Great Hill is to be the true west or southwest bounds, and the said creek called Kahanksen the north or northeast bounds of the said lands." In a treaty deed with Governor Andros twelve years later (April 27, 1677), the boundary lines "as they were to be thereafter," are described: "Beginning at the Rondouyt Kill, thence to a kill called Kahanksnix, thence north along the hills to a kill called Maggowasinghingh, thence to the Second Fall, easterly to Freudyachkamick on the Groot River, south to Rondouyt Kill." In other words the district conceded to have been "conquered by the sword" lay between the Esopus and the Rondout on the Hudson, and extended west to the stream called Kahanksen, thence north to a stream called Maggowasinghingh, thence north, etc. The only stream that has been certainly identified as the Maggowasinghingh is the Rondout, where it flows from the west to its junction with the Sandberg Kill, east of Honk Falls, and this identification certainly places Kahanksen south of that stream. And in this connection it may be stated that the conquered lands did not extend west of the Rondout. The Beekman and the Beake patents were held primarily by Indian deeds. After the conquest the Indians did not sell lands east of the boundary line, but did sell lands west of that line. The deed from Beekman to Lowe distinctly states that the lands conveyed were "within the bounds belonging to the Indians." As the lands on the west of the kill were not conquered and ceded to the Dutch, the Old Fort could not have been on that side of the stream. In reaching conclusions respect must be had to Indian laws, treaties, and boundary descriptions. In the records of the town of Rochester, of which town Wawarsing was a part, is the entry, under date of July 22, 1709, "Marynus van Aken desired the conveyance of about one hundred acres of land lying over against the land of Colonel Jacob Rutsen called Kahankasinck, known as Masseecs," that is the land asked for by Van Aken took the name of Masseecs from a swamp which the name means. Colonel Rutsen's land has not been located; he held several tracts at different times, and one especially on the west line of Marbletown known as Rosendale. Whatever its location it shows that its name of Kahankasinck was extended to it or from it from some general feature. Obviously from the ancient treaty and deed boundaries the site of the Old Fort has not been ascertained, nor has the Great Hill been located. Presumably both must be looked for on Shawongunk Mountain.
The fort, as described by Kregier in his "Journal of the Second Esopus War," was a palisaded village and the largest settlement of the Esopus Indians. He made no reference to a stream or to a ravine, but did note that he was obliged to pass over swamps, frequent kills, and "divers mountains" that were so steep that it was necessary to "haul the wagons and cannon up and down with ropes." His course was "mostly southwest" from Wildwijk, and the fort "about ten miles" (Dutch), or from thirty to thirty-five miles English. It was not so far southwest from Wildwijk (Kingston) as the New Fort by "about four hours," a time measure equal to nine or ten English miles. The Indians did not defend the fort; they abandoned it "two days before" the Dutch troops arrived. No particular description of it has been handed down. Under date of July 31, 1663, Kregier wrote: "In the morning at dawn of day set fire to the fort and all the houses, and while they were in full blaze marched out in good order." And so disappeared forever the historic Indian settlement, not even the name by which it was known certainly translatable in the absence of knowledge of the topography of its precise location. [FN]
[FN] The name has the appearance of derivation from Gahan (Del.), "Shallow, low water"'; spoken with the guttural aspirate -gks (Gahaks), and indefinite formative -an. As a generic it would be applicable to the headwaters of any small stream, or place of low water, and may be met in several places.
Magowasinghinck, so written in its earliest form in treaty deed of 1677 (Col. Hist. N. Y., xiii) as the name of an Indian family, and also as the name of a certain kill, or river—"Land lying on both sides of Rondout Kill, or river, and known by the name of Moggewarsinck," in survey for Henry Beekman, 1685—"Land on this side of Rondout Kill named Ragowasinck, from the limits of Frederick Hussay, to a kill that runs in the Ronduyt Kill, or where a large rock lies in the kill," grant to George Davis, 1677. The Beekman grant was on both sides of Rondout Creek west and immediately above Honk Falls, where a large rock lying in the kill was the boundmark to which the name referred and from which it was extended to the stream and place. The George Davis grant has not been located, and may never have been taken up. Beekman sold to Peter Lowe in 1708, and the survey of the latter, in 1722, described his boundary as running west from "the great fall called Heneck." In Mr. Lindsay's History of Ulster County it is said that the grant was half a mile wide on the southeast side of the stream and a mile wide on the northwest side. Hon. Th. E. Benedict writes me: "The Rondout is eminently a river of rocks. It rises on the east side of Peekamoose, Table, and Lone mountains, and west side of Hanover Mountain of the Catskills, and flows through chasms of giant rocks. All the way down there are notable rocks reared in midstream. The rock above Honk Falls is hogback shape, a hundred or more feet long. It lies entirely in the stream and divides it into two swift channels which join together just above the falls. Here, amid the roar, the swirl and dash of waters breaking through rocky barriers, with the rapids at the falls, the Great Rock was an object to be remembered as a boundmark."
Without knowledge of the locative of the name or of the facts of record concerning it, the late Dr. D. G. Brinton, replying to inquiry, wrote me: "I take Magow or Moggew-assing-ink to be from Macheu (Del.), 'It is great, large'; achsün, 'stone', and ink locative; literally 'at the place of the large stone'." The name does not describe the place where the rock lies. The Davis grant in terms other than the Indian name located one as lying "in the kill," and the other is described in the survey of the patent to Beekman: "Land situate, lying and being upon both sides of Rondout Kill or river, and known by the name of Moggewarsinck, beginning at a great rock stone in the middle of the river and opposite to a marked tree on the south side of the river, between two great rock stones, which is the bounds betwixt it and the purchase of Mr. William Fisher," etc.; both records confirm Dr. Brinton's interpretation. As a generic the name may, like Kahanksan, be found in several places, but the particularly certain place in the Beekman grant was at the falls called Honneck, now Honk.
Wawarasinke, so written by the surveyor as the name of a tract of land granted to Anna Beake and her children in 1685, has been retained as the name of a village situate in part on that tract, about four miles north of Ellenville. The precise location of the southern boundmark of the patent was on the west bank of the Rondout, south of the mouth of Wawarsing Creek, or Vernooy Kill as now called, which flows to the Rondout in a deep rocky channel, the southern bank forming a very steep, high hill or point. It is claimed that the Old Fort was on this hill, and that to and from it an Indian path led east across the Shawongunk Mountain to the New Fort and is still distinctly marked by the later travel of the pioneers. That there was an Indian path will not be questioned, nor will it be questioned that there may have been at least a modern Indian village on the hill, but the Old Fort was not there. At the point where the boundmark of the patent was placed the Rondout turns at nearly a right angle from an east and west course to nearly north, winding around a very considerable point or promontory. The orthography of the name is imperfect. By dialectic exchange of n and r, it may be read Wa-wa-nawás-ink, "At a place where the stream winds, bends, twists, or eddies around a point or promontory." This explanation is fully sustained by the topography. Hon. Th. E. Benedict writes me: "The Rondout at that point (the corner of the Anna Beake Patent) winds around at almost a right angle. At the bend is a deep pool with an eddying current, caused by a rock in the bank below the bend. The bend is caused by a point of high land. It is a promontory seventy-five feet high." The inquiry as to the meaning of the name need not be pursued further. The frequently quoted interpretation, "Blackbird's Nest," is puerile. (See Wawayanda.)
Honk, now so written as the name of the falls on Rondout Creek at Napanock, appears first in Rochester town records, in 1704, Hoonek, as the name of the stream. In the Lowe Patent (1722), the reading is: "Beginning by a Great Fall called Honeck." The Rochester record is probably correct in the designation of the name as that of the creek, indicating that the original was Hannek (Del.), meaning, "A rapid stream," or a stream flowing down descending slopes. As now written the name means nothing unless read from Dutch Honck, "Home, a standing post or place of beginning," but that could not have been the derivative for the name was in place before the falls became the boundmark. The familiar interpretation: "From Honck (Nar.), 'Goose'—'Wild-goose Falls,'" is worthless. The local word for Goose was Kaak. The falls descend two hundred feet, of which sixty is in a single cataract—primarily a wild, dashing water-fall.
Lackawack appears of record as the name of a stream in Sullivan County, otherwise known as the West Branch of Rondout Creek, and also as the name of the valley through which it passes. The valley passes into the town of Wawarsing, Ulster County, where the name is met in the Beekman and in the Lowe patents, with special application to the valley above Honk Falls, and is retained as the name of a modern village. In the Lowe Patent it is written Ragawack, the initials L and R exchanged; in the Hardenberg Patent it is Laughawake. The German missionary orthography is Lechauwak (Zeisb.), "Fork, division, separation," that which forks or divides, or comes together in the form of a fork; literally, "The Fork." Lechauwak, "Fork"; Lechau-hanne, "Fork of a river," from which Lackawanna; Lechau-wiechen, "Fork of a road," from which Lackawaxen—"abbreviated by the Germans to Lecha, and by the English to Lehigh." (Reichel.)
Napanoch, on the Rondout below Honk Falls, is probably the same word that is met in Nepeak, translated by Dr. Trumbull, "Water-land, or land overflowed by water." At or near Port Jervis, Napeneck, Napenack, etc. The adjectival is Nepé, Napé, "Water."
Wassahawassing, in the Lowe Patent and also in the deed to Lowe from Henry Beekman, is probably from Awossi-newás-ing (Del.), "At the point or promontory beyond," or on the other side of a certain place.
Mopochock—"A certain Great Kil called Mopochock," in patent to Joachim Staats, 1688, is said to have been the name of what is now known as Sandberg Kill, but was not, as that stream was in no way connected with the Staats Patent.
Naversing is entered on Pownal's map between Rosendale and Fountain creeks, in the old town of Rochester. The map location may not be correct. The name is from Newás-ing, (Del.), "At a point or promontory." The familiar form is Neversink.
Mattachonts, a modern orthography, preserves the name of a place in the town of Rochester, Ulster County, and not that of an Indian maiden as locally stated. The boundary description refers to a creek and to a swamp. The record orthographies are Magtigkenighonk and Maghkenighonk, in Calendar of Land Papers, and "Mattekah-onk Kill," local.
Amangag-arickan, given as the name of an Indian family in western Ulster (Col. Hist. N. Y., xiii, 505), is probably from Amangak, "Large," with the related meaning of terrible, and Anakakan, "Rushes," or sharp rushes. Amangak is from Amangi, "Big, large, powerful, dire," etc., and -ak, animate plural.
Ochmoachk-ing, an unlocated place, is described as "Above the village called Mombackus, extending from the north bound of the land of Anna Beake southerly on both sides of the creek or river to a certain place called Ochmoachking." (Patent to Staats, 1688.)
Shokan, the name of a village on Esopus Creek, in the town of Olive, has been interpreted as a pronunciation of Schokkan (Dutch), "To jolt, to shake," etc., by metonymie, "A rough country." The district is mountainous and a considerable portion of it is too rough for successful cultivation, but no Hollander ever used the word Schokken to describe rough land. At or near the village bearing the name a small creek flows from the west to the Esopus, indicating that Shokan is a corruption of Sohkan, "Outlet or mouth of a stream." Sohk is an eastern form and an is an indefinite or diminutive formative. Heckewelder wrote in the Delaware, Saucon, "The outlet of a small stream into a larger one." Ashokan is a pronunciation. The same name is met at the mouth of the East or Paghatagan Branch of the Delaware. Shokan Point is an elevation rising 3100 feet.
Koxing Kil, a stream so called in Rosendale, is of record Cocksing and Cucksink—"A piece of land; it lyeth almost behind Marbletown." It is not the name of the stream but of a place that was at or near some other place; probably from Koghksuhksing, "Near a high place." (See Coxackie.) On map of U. S. Geological Survey the name is given to the outlet of Minnewaska Lake, which lies in a basin of hills on Shawongunk Mountain, 1650 feet above sea level.
Shandaken, the name of a town in Ulster County, is not from any word meaning "Rapid water," as has been suggested, but is probably from Schindak, "Hemlock woods"—Schindak-ing, "At the hemlock woods," or place of hemlocks. The region has been noted for hemlocks from early times.
Mombackus, accepted as the name of a place in the present town of Rochester, Ulster County, is first met in 1676, in application to three grants of land described as "At ye Esopus at ye Mumbackers, lying at ye Round Doubt River." In a grant to Tjerck Classen de Witt, in 1685, the orthography is Mombackhouse—"Lying upon both sides of the Mumbackehous Kill or brook." The stream is now known as Rochester Creek flowing from a small lake in the town of Olive. The late John W. Hasbrouck wrote, "Mombakkus is a Dutch term, literally meaning 'Silent head,' from Mom, 'silent,' and Bak or Bakkus, 'head.' It originated from the figure of a man's face cut in a sycamore tree which stood near the confluence of the Mombakkus and Rondout kills on the patent to Tjerck Classen de Witt, and was carved, tradition says, to commemorate a battle fought near the spot," that "for this information" he was "indebted to the late Dr. Westbrook, who said the stump of the tree yet stood in his youthful days." Although the evidence of the existence of a tree marked as described is not entirely positive, the fact that trees similarly marked were frequently met by Europeans in the ancient forests gives to its existence reasonable probability. In his treatment of the name Mr. Hasbrouck made several mistakes. "Place of death" is not in the word, and Dutch Mom or Mum does not mean "Silent"; it means "Mask," or covering, and Bak or Bakkes, does not mean "head," it is a cant term for "Face, chops, visage." Mombakkes is plainly a vulgar Dutch word for "Mask." It describes a grotesque face as seen on a Mascaron in architecture, or a rude painting. Usually trees marked in the manner described included other figures commemorative of the deeds of a warrior designed to be honored. Sometimes the paintings were drawn by a member of the clan or family to which the subject belonged, and sometimes by the hero himself, who was flattered by the expectation that his memory would thereby be preserved, or his importance or prowess impressed upon his associates, or on those of other clans, and perhaps handed down to later generations.
Wieskottine, located on Van der Donck's map (1656), north of Esopus Creek and apparently in the territory of the Catskill Indians, is a Dutch notation of Wishquot-attiny, meaning, literally, "Walnut Hill." A hill and trees are figured on the map. The dialect of the Catskill Indians was Mahican or Mohegan. It seems to have influenced very considerably the adjoining Lenape dialect. On a map of 1666, the orthography is Wichkotteine, and the location placed more immediately north of the stream. The settlement represented can be no other than that of the ancient Wildwijk, now Kingston. The name has disappeared of record, as has also Namink on the Groot Esopus.
Catskill, now so written, primarily Dutch Kat's Kil, presumably from Káterákts, or "Kil of the Katarakts," has come down from a very early date in Katskil. On Van der Donck's map of 1656 it is written Kats Kill, but he never wrote Kil with two l's. Older than Van der Donck's map it evidently was from the frequent reference to the "Kats Kil Indians" in Fort Orange records. Its origin is, of course, uncertain. Reasonably and presumably it was a colloquial form of Katerakts Kil—reasonably, because the falls on that stream would have naturally attracted the attention of the early Dutch navigators, as they have attracted the attention of many thousands of modern travelers. It was the absence of an authoritative explanation that led Judge Benson to inflict upon the innocent streams which now bear them the distinguishing names of Kat's and Kauter's, and to relate that as catamounts were probably very abundant in the mountains there and were naturally of the male and female species, the former called by the Dutch Kauter, or "He cat," and the latter Kat, "She cat," the streams were called by those names. His hypothesis is absurd, but is firmly believed by most of modern residents, who do not hesitate to write Kauter, "He cat," on their cards and on their steamboats, although it is no older than Judge Benson's application. He might have found a better basis for his conjecture in the fact that in 1650, on the north side of the Kat's Kil reigned in royal majesty, Nipapoa, a squaw sachem, while on the other side Machak-nimano, "The great man of his people," held sway; that, as they painted on their cabins a rude figure of a wolf, their totemic emblem, easily mistaken for a catamount, the name of "He cat" was given to one stream, and "She cat" to the other.
Katarakts Kil, as it is met of record—now Judge Benson's Kauter Kil—is formed by the outlets of two small lakes lying west of the well-known Mountain House. A little below the lakes the united streams leap over a ledge and fall 175 feet to a shelf of rock, and a few rod's below fall 85 feet to a ravine from which they find their way to the Kat's Kil. Beautiful are the falls and appropriate is the ancient name "The Kil of the Kataracts." Compare it, please, with Judge Benson's "He cat kil."
The Kat's Kil Indians have an interesting history. They are supposed to have been the "loving people" spoken of in Juet's Journal of Hudson's voyage in 1609. They were Mahicans and always friendly in their intercourse with the Dutch. In the wars with the Esopus Indians they took no part. Their hereditary enemies were the Mohawks who adjoined them on the west side of the mountains, their respective territories following the line of the watersheds. They came to be more or less mixed with fugitives from the eastern provinces, after the overthrow of King Philip. A palisaded village they had north of the Esopus, and fierce traditional battles with the Mohawks. They disappeared gradually by the sale of their lands, and gave place to the Rip van Winkles of modern history.
Quatawichnack and Katawichnack, record forms of the name given as that of a fall on Kauter's Kill, now so written, supposed to be the fall near the bridge on the road to High Falls, has been interpreted "Place of the greatest overflow," from the overflow of the stream which forms a marsh, which, however, the name describes as a "Moist, boggy meadow," or boggy land. (See Quatackuaohe.)
Mawignack, Mawichnack, Machawanick, Machwehenoc, forms of the name given as that of the meadow at the junction of the Kauter Kil and the Kat's Kil, locally interpreted, "Place where two streams meet," means, "At the fork of the river." (See Mawichnauk.)
Pasgatikook is another record name of the Katskill, varied in Pascakook and Pistakook. It is an orthography of Pishgachtigûk (Moh.), meaning, "Where the river divides, or branches." (See Schaghticoke.) In patent to John Bronck, 1705, the name is given to "A small piece of land called Pascak-ook, lying on the north side of Katskil creek." The locative is claimed by the village of Leeds.
Teteachkie, the name of a tract granted to Francis Salisbury and described as "A place lying upon Katskill Creek," has not been located. Teke, from Teke-ne, may stand for "Wood," and -achkie stand for land—a piece of woodland.
Quachanock, modern Quajack, the name of a place described as the west boundary of a tract sold to Jacob Lockerman, does not mean "Christian corn-lands," as locally interpreted, although the Indians may have called "the five great plains" the "Christian corn-land" after their occupation by the purchasers. The original word was probably Pahquioke, or Pohqu'un-auke (-ock), "Cleared, opened land," or land from which the trees and bushes had been removed to fit it for cultivation.
Wachachkeek, of record as the name of the first of "five great flats, with the woodland around them," which were included in the Catskill Patent of 35,000 acres, is otherwise written Machachkeek. It is described as "lying on both sides of Catskil Creek," and is claimed to be known as a place west of the village of Leeds. Dr. O'Callaghan interpreted the name from Wacheu, "hill," and -keag, "land" or place—"Hill country," and Dr. Trumbull gave the same meaning from Wadchuauke. The orthography of the second form, however, is probably the most correct—Machachkeek—which pretty surely, from the locative, stands for Maskekeck, meaning, "Marsh or wet meadow."
Wichquanachtekok, the name of the second flat, is no doubt an equivalent of Wequan-achten-ûk, "At the end of the hill," from Wequa, "the end"; -achtene, "hill" or mountain, and -ûk, locative.
Pachquyak, Pachquyak, Paquiage, etc., forms of the name of the third flat (Pachquayack, 1678), given also as the name of a flat "in the Great Imbocht," [FN] is the equivalent of Panqua-auke, Mass., "Clear land, open country." Brodhead wrote Paquiage as the name of the place on the west side of the Hudson to which the followers of King Philip retreated in 1675, but the name may have been that of any other open or unoccupied land west of the Hudson. (See Potik.)
[FN] Dutch Inbocht, "In the bend," "bay," etc. "Great" was added as an identification of the particular bend spoken off.
Paskaecq—"a certain piece of land at Katskill, on the north side of the kill, called by the Indians Paskaecq, lying under a hill to the west of it." Conveyed to Jan Bronk in 1674-5. The name describes a vale, cleft or valley. It is widely distributed. (See Paskack.)
Assiskowachok or Assiskowacheck, the name of record as that of the fourth flat, is no doubt from Assiskeu, "Mud"—Assiskew-aughk-ûk, "At (or on) a muddy place."
Potic, the name of the fifth flat, is also of record Potick, Potatik, and Potateuck, probably an equivalent of Powntuckûk (Mass.), denoting, "Country about the falls." (Trumbull.) From the flat the name was extended to a hill and to a creek in the town of Athens. Hubbard, in his "History of Indian Wars," assigns the same name to a place on the east side of Hudson's River. (See Pachquyak and Schaghticoke.)
Ganasnix and Ganasenix, given as the name of a creek constituting the southern boundary of the Lockerman Patent (1686), seems to be an orthography of Kaniskek, which see.
Waweiantepakook, Waweantepakoak, Wawantepekoak, are forms of a name given as that of "a high round hill" near Catskill. The description reads: "A place on the northeast side of a brook called Kiskatamenakook, on the west side of a hill called Waweantepakoak." (Land Papers, 242.) The location has not been ascertained. Antpéch (Antpek, Zeisb.), means "Head." In Mass. (Eliot), Puhkuk—Muppukuk, "A head." Wawei is a reduplicative of Wai or Way; it means, "Many windings around," or deviations from a direct line. The name is sufficiently explained by the description, "On the west side of a hill," or a hill-side, but descriptive of a hill resembling a head—"high, erect"—with the accessory meaning of superiority. "Indian Head" is now applied to one of the peaks of the Catskills. The parts of the body were sometimes applied by the Indians to inanimate objects just as we apply them in English—head of a cove, leg of a table, etc. (See Wawayanda.)
Kiskatom, a village and a stream of water so called in Greene County, appears in two forms in original records, Kiskatammeeche and Kiskatamenakoak. The abbreviated form, Kiskatom, appears in 1708, more particularly describing "A certain tract by a place called Kiskatammeeche, beginning at a turn of Catrick's Kill ten chains below where Kiskatammeeche Kill watereth into Catrick's Kill," and "Under the great mountain called Kiskatameck." Dr. Trumbull wrote: "Kiskato-minak-auke, 'Place of thin-shelled nuts,' or shag-bark hickory nuts." He explained: "Shag-bark hickory nuts, 'nuts to be cracked by the teeth,' are the 'Kiskatominies' and 'Kisky Thomas nuts' of the descendants of the Dutch colonists of New Jersey and New York." (Comp. Ind. Geographical Names.)
Kaniskek, or Caniskek, of record as the name of Athens, is described in original deeds: "A certain tract of land on the west side of North River opposite Claverack, called Caniskek, which stretches along the river from the lands of Peter Bronck down to the valley lying near the point of the main land behind the Barren Island, called Mackawameck," now known as Black Rock, at the south part of Athens. The description covers the long marshy flat in front of Athens, or between Athens and Hudson. The name seems to be from Quana (Quinnih, Eliot), "Long"; -ask, the radical of all names meaning grass, marsh, meadow, etc., and -ek, formative—literally, "Long marsh or meadow." The early settlement at Athens was called Loonenburgh, from one Jan van Loon, who located there in 1706. Esperanza succeeded this name and was followed by Athens. The particular place of first settlement is described as running "from the corner called Mackawameck west into the woodland to the Kattskill road or path, which land is called Loonenburgh." Athens is from the capital of the ancient Greek State of Attica.
Keessienwey's Hoeck, a place so called, [FN-1] has not been located. It is presumed to have been in the vicinity of Kaniskek and to have taken its name from the noted "chief or sachem" of the Katskill Indians called Keessienwey, Keesiewey, Kesewig, Keeseway, etc. On the east side of the river, south of Stockport, Kesieway's Kil is of record. Mr. Bernard Fernow, in his translation of the Dutch text wrote, "Keessienweyshoeck (Mallows Meadow Hook)," but no meadow of that character is of local record. Kessiewey was a peace chief, or resident ruler, whose office it was to negotiate treaties of peace for his own people, or for other clans when requested, and in this capacity, with associates, announced himself at Fort Orange, in 1660, as coming, "in the name of the Esopus sachems, to ask for peace" with them. [FN-2] He was engaged in similar work in negotiating the Esopus treaty of 1664; signed the deed for Kaniskek in 1665, and disappears of record after that date. In "History of Greene County," he is confused with Aepjen, a peace chief of the Mahicans, and in some records is classed as a Mahican, which he no doubt was tribally, but not the less "a Katskil Indian." Beyond his footprints of record, nothing is known of the noted diplomat. His name is probably from Keeche, "Chief, principal, greatest." Keechewae, "He is chief." (See Schodac.)
[FN-1] ". . . We have, therefore, gathered information from the Mahicanders, who thought we knew of it, that more than fifteen days ago some Esopus [Indians] had been at Keessienwey's Hoeck who wanted to come up [to Fort Orange], but had been prevented until this time, and in order to get at the truth of the matter, we have concluded to send for two or three sachems of the Katskil Indians, especially Macsachneminanau and Safpagood, also Keesienwey, to come hither." (Col. Hist. N. Y., xiii, 309.)
[FN-2] "May 24, 1660. To-day appeared [at Fort Orange] three Mahican chiefs, namely, Eskuvius, alias Aepjen (Little Ape), Aupaumut, and Keessienway, alias Teunis, who answered that they came in the name of the Esopus sachems to ask for peace."
Machawameck, the south boundmark of Kaniskek, was not the name of Barrent's Island, as stated in French's Gazetteer. It was the name of a noted fishing place, now known as Black Rock, in the south part of Athens. The prefix Macha, is the equivalent of Massa (Natick Mogge), meaning "Great," and -ameck is an equivalent of -ameek (-amuk, Del.), "Fishing-place." As the root, -am, means "To take by the mouth," the place would seem to have been noted for fish of the smaller sort. The Dutch called the place Vlugt Hoek, "Flying corner," it is so entered in deed. Qr. "Flying," fishing with a hook in the form of a fly.
Koghkehaeje, Kachhachinge, Coghsacky, now Coxsackie, a very early place name where it is still retained, was translated by Dr. Schoolcraft from Kuxakee (Chip.), "The place of the cut banks," and by Dr. O'Callaghan, "A corruption of Algonquin Kaakaki, from Kaak, 'goose,' and -aki, 'place.'" In his translation of the Journal of Jasper Dankers and Peter Sluyter, in which the name is written Koch-ackie (German notation; Dutch, Kok, "cook"), the late Hon. Henry C. Murphy wrote: "The true orthography is probably Koek's-rackie (the Cook's Little Reach), to distinguish it from the Koek's Reach below the Highlands, near New York." Unfortunately there is no evidence that there was a reach called the Cook's north of the Highlands, while it is certain that the name is Algonquian. Dankers and Sluyter gave no description of the place in 1679-80, but their notice of it indicates that it was familiar at that date. In 1718 it was given as the name of a bound-mark of a tract described as "having on the east the land called Vlackte and Coxsackie." (Cal. N. Y. Land Papers, 124.) Vlackte (Vlakte) is Dutch for "Plain or flat," and no doubt described the Great Nutten Hoek Flat which lies fronting Coxsackie Landing, and Coxackie described the clay bluff which skirts the river rising about one hundred feet. The bluff and flat bounded the tract on the east. From the locative the name may be translated from Mass. Koghksuhk-ohke, meaning "High land." The guttural ghks had the sound of Greek x, hence Kox or Cox.
Stighcook, a tract of land so called, now in Greene County, granted to Casparus Brunk and others in 1743, is located in patent as lying "to the westward of Koghsacky." In Indian deed to Edward Collins, in 1734, the description reads, "Westerly by the high woods known and called by the Indian name Sticktakook." Apparently from Mass. Mishuntugkook, "At a place of much wood." The district seems to have been famed for nut trees. It is noted on Van der Donck's map "Noten Hoeck," from which it was extended to Great Nutten Hook Island and Little Nutten Hook Island, on which there were nut trees. (See Wieskottine, Kiskatom, etc.)
Siesk-assin, a boundmark of the Coeymans Patent, is described as a point on the west side of the Hudson, "opposite the middle of the island called Sapanakock and by the Dutch called Barrent's Island." The suffix -assin, probably stands for Assin, "Stone," but the prefix is unintelligible. Sapanak-ock means, "Place of wild potatoes," or bulbous roots. (See Passapenoc.) Barrent's is from Barrent Coeymans, the founder of the village of Coeymans. The earlier Dutch name was Beerin Island, or "She-bear's Island," usually read Bear's Island.
Achquetuck is given as the name of the flat at Coeyman's Hollow. The suffix -tuck probably stands for "A tidal river or estuary," and Achque means "On this side," or before. The reference seems to have been to land before or on this side of the estuary, or the side toward the speaker.
Oniskethau, quoted as the name of Coeymans' Creek, is said to have been the name of a Sunk-squa, or sachem's wife. Authority not given. The stream descends in two falls at Coeymans' Village, covering seventy-five feet. The same name is met in Onisquathaw, now Niskata, of record as the name of a place in the town of New Scotland, Albany County.
Hahnakrois, or Haanakrois, the name of a small stream sometimes called Coeymans' Creek, which enters the Hudson in the northeast corner of Greene County, is Dutch corrupted. The original was Haan-Kraait, meaning "Cock-crowing" Kill, perhaps from the sound of the waterfall.
Sankagag, otherwise written Sanckhagag, is given, in deed to Van Rensselaer, 1630, as the name of a tract of land described as "Situated on the west side of the North River, stretching in length from a little above Beeren Island along the river upward to Smack's Island, and in width two days' journey inland." Beeren Island is about twelve miles south of Albany, and Smack's Island is near or at that city. The western limit of the tract included the Helderberg [FN] hills.
[FN] Helder (Dutch) means "Clear, bright, light, clearly, brightly," and Berg means "hill" or mountain. It was probably employed to express the appearance of the hills in the landscape. Some of the peaks of the range afford fine view of the valley of Hudson's River.
Nepestekoak, a tract of land described, "Beginning at the northernmost fall of water in a certain brook, called by the Indians Nepestekoak"; in another paper, Nepeesteegtock. The name was that of the place. It is now assigned to a pond in the town of Cairo, Greene County. (See Neweskeke.)
Neweskeke, -keek, about ten miles south of Albany, is described as "The corner of a neck of land having a fresh water river running to the east of it." In another paper the neck is located "near a pool of water called Nepeesteek," and "a brook called Napeesteegtock." The name of the brook and that of the pool is from Nepé, "Water," the first describing "Water at rest," a pool or lake, and the second a place adjoining extending to the stream. Neweskeke means "Promontory, point or corner," [FN]
[FN] This name appears to be a contraction of Newas-askeg, "Marshy promontory,' or a promontory or point near a marsh." (Gerard.)
Pachonahellick and Pachonakellick are record forms of the name of Long or Mahikander's Island, otherwise known historically as Castle Island. It is the first island south of Albany, and lies on the west side of the river, near the main land opposite the mouth of Norman's Kill. On some maps it is called Patroon's Island and Martin Garretson's Island. The first Dutch traders were permitted to occupy it, and they are said to have erected on it, in 1614, a fort or "castle," which they called Fort Nassau. In the spring of 1617 this fort was almost wholly destroyed by freshet. The traders then erected a fort on the west bank of the river, on the north side of Norman's Kill, which they called Fort Orange. This fort was succeeded, in 1623, by one on or near the present steamboat landing in Albany, to which the name was transferred and which was known as Fort Orange until the English obtained possession (1664), when the name was changed to Fort Albany, from which the present name of the capital of the State. [FN-1] In addition to the early history of the island the claim is made by Weise, in his "History of Albany," that it was occupied by French traders in 1540; that they erected a fort or castle thereon, which they were forced to leave by a freshet in the spring of 1542, and that they called the river, and also their trading post, "Norumbega." These facts are also stated in another connection. There is some evidence that French traders visited the river, and that they constructed a fort on Castle Island, but none that they called the river "Norumbega." (See Muhheak-unuk.) By the construction of an embankment and the filling of the passage between the island and the main land, the island has nearly disappeared. [FN-2]
[FN-1] Fort Albany was succeeded by a quadrangular fort called Fort Frederick, built by the English (1742-3) on what is now State Street, between St. Peter's Church and Geological Hall. It was demolished soon after the Revolution. Wassenaer wrote, under date of 1625: "Right opposite [Fort Orange] is the fort of the Maykans which they built against their enemies the Maquas" [Mohawks]. "Right opposite" means "directly opposite," i. e. directly opposite the present steamboat landing at Albany, presumably on the bluff at Greenbush.
[FN-2] The name seems to have been that of the mouth of Norman's Kill immediately west of the island, and to be from Sacona-hillak. "An out-pour of water," the mouth of the stream serving to locate the island. "Patroon's Island" and "Patroon's Creek" were local Dutch names. (See Norman's Kill.)
Norman's Kill, so well known locally, took that name from one Albert Andriessen, Brat de Noordman (the Northman), who leased the privilege and erected a mill for grinding corn, sometime about 1638. On Van Rensselaer's map of 1630 it is entered "Godyn's Kil and Water Val," a mill stream, not a cataract. Brat de Noordman's mill was in the town of Bethlehem, adjoining the city of Albany. The stream rises in Schenectady County and flows southeast about twenty-eight miles to the Hudson. The Mohawks called it Tawalsontha. In a petition for a grant of land near Schenectady, in 1713, is the entry, "By ye Indian name Tawalsontha, otherwise ye Norman's Kill"—"A creek called D'Wasontha" (1726)—from the generic Toowawsuntha (Gallatin), meaning, "The falls of a stream"; Twasenta (Bruyas), "Sault d'eau," applied by the French to rapids in a stream—a leaping, jumping, tumbling waterfall.
Aside from the names of the stream it has especial historic interest in connection with early Dutch settlement and the location of Fort Orange where Indians of all nations and tongues assembled for intercourse with the government. (See Pachonahellick.) Dr. Schoolcraft wrote, without any authority that I have been able to find, Tawasentha as the name of the mound on which Fort Orange was erected, with the meaning, "Place of the many dead," adding that the Mohawks had a village near and buried their dead on this hill; a pure fiction certainly in connection with the period to which he referred. The Mohawks never had a village here, nor owned a foot of land east of the Helderberg range. The Mahicans were the owners and occupants, but neither Mahicans or Mohawks would have permitted the Dutch to build a fort on their burial ground. Heckewelder wrote, in his "Indian Nations," "Gaaschtinick, since called by the name of Norman's Kill," and recited a Delaware tradition, with the coloring of truth, that that nation consented there, under advisement of the Dutch, to take the rank of women, i. e. a nation without authority to make war or sell lands. The tradition is worthless. The Dutch did make "covenants of friendship" here with several tribes as early as 1625 (Doc Hist. N. Y. iii, 51), but none of the character stated. All the tribes were treated as equals in trade and friendship. Whatever of special favor there was was with the Mahicans among whom they located. The first treaty, "offensive and defensive," which was made was by the English with the Five Nations in 1664-5. The Mahicans had then sold their lands and retired to the Housatenuk, and the Mohawks and their alliant nations had become the dominant power at Albany.
Nachtenak is quoted as the Mahican name of Waterford, or rather as the name of the point of land now occupied by that city, lying between the Mohawk and the Hudson. Probably the same as the following:
Mathahenaak, "being a part of a parcel of land called the foreland of the Half-Moon, and by the Indians Mathahenaack, being on the north of the fourth branch or fork of the Mohawk." Matha is an orthography of Macha (Stockbridge, Naukhu; Del. Lechau), with locative ûk, "At the fork"—now or otherwise known as Half-Moon Point, Waterford.
Quahemiscos is a record form of the name of what is now known as Long Island, near Waterford.
Monemius Island, otherwise Cohoes Island and Haver Island, just below Cohoes Falls, the site of Monemius's Castle, or residence of Monemius or Moenemines, a sachem of the Mahicans in 1630, so entered on Van Rensselaer's map. Haver is Dutch, "Oat straw." (See Haverstraw.)
Saratoga, now so written, was, primarily, the name of a specific place extended to a district of country lying on both sides of the Hudson, described, in a deed from the Indian owners to Cornelis van Dyk, Peter Schuyler, and others, July 26, 1683, as "A tract of land called Sarachtogoe" (by the Dutch), "or by the Maquas Ochseratongue or Ochsechrage, and by the Machicanders Amissohaendiek, situated to the north of Albany, beginning at the utmost limits of the land bought from the Indians by Goose Gerritse and Philip Pieterse Schuyler deceased, there being" (i. e. the bound-mark) "a kil called Tioneendehouwe, and reaching northward on both sides of the river to the end of the lands of Sarachtoge, bordering on a kil, on the east side of the river, called Dionandogeha and having the same length on the west side to opposite the kil (Tioneendehouwe), and reaching westward through the woods as far as the Indian proprietors will show, and the same distance through the woods on the east side." The boundary streams of this tract are now known as the Hoosick (Tioneendehowe), and the Batten Kill (Dionondehowe), as written on the map of the patent. The boundaries included, specifically, the section of the Hudson known as "The Still Water," [FN-1] noted from the earliest Dutch occupation as the Great Fishing Place and Beaver Country, two elements the most dear to the Indian heart and the most contributive to his support, inciting wars for possession. Specifically, too, the locative of the name, from the language of the deed and contemporary evidence, would seem to have been on the east side of the river—"the end of the lands of Sarachtoge, bordering on a kil on the east side of the river, called," etc., a place which Governor Dongan selected, in 1685, on which to settle the Mohawk Catholic converts, who had been induced to remove to Canada, as a condition of their return, and which he described as a tract of land "called Serachtogue, lying upon Hudson's River, about forty miles above Albany," and for the protection of which Fort Saratoga was erected in 1709; noted by Governor Cornbury in 1703, as "A place called Saractoga, which is the northernmost settlement we have"; topographically described, in later years, as "a broad interval on the east side of the river, south of Batten Kill," and as including the mouth of the kill and lake Cossayuna. (Col. Hist. N. Y.; Fitch's Survey; Kalm's Travels.) On the destruction of the fort, in the war of 1746, the settlement was removed to the opposite side of the river and the name went with it, but to which it had no legitimate title. (See Kayauderossa.)
Apparently the Mahican name, Amissohaendiek, is the oldest. It carries with it a history in connection with the wars between the Mohawks and the Mahicans. At the sale of the lands, the Mahicans who were present renounced claim to compensation "because in olden time the lands belonged to them, before the Maquas took it from them." [FN-2] (Col. Hist. N. Y., xiii, 537.) It is this section of Hudson's River that the only claim was ever made and conceded of Mohawk possession by conquest.
The Mohawk name, Ochseratongue or Ochsechrage, became, in the course of its transmission, Osarague and Saratoga, and in the latter form, without reference to its antecedents, was translated by the late Henry R. Schoolcraft "From Assarat, 'Sparkling water,' and Oga, 'place,' 'the place of the sparkling water,'" the reference being to the mineral springs, one of which. "High Rock," was, traditionally, known to the Indians, who, it is said, conveyed Sir William Johnson thither, in 1767, to test the medicinal virtues of the water; but, while the tradition may recite a fact the translation is worthless.
With a view to obtain a satisfactory explanation of the record names, the writer submitted them to the late eminent Iroquoian philologist, Horatio Hale, M. A., of Clinton, Ontario, Canada, and to the eminent Algonquian linguist, the late Dr. D. G. Brinton, of Philadelphia. In reply, Mr. Hale wrote: . . . "Your letter has proved very acceptable, as the facts you present have thrown light on an interesting question which has heretofore perplexed me. I have vainly sought to discover the origin and meaning of the name Saratoga. My late distinguished friend, L. H. Morgan, was, it seems, equally unsuccessful. In the appendix of local names added to his admirable 'League of the Iroquois,' Saratoga is given in the Indian form as Sharlatoga, with the addition, 'signification lost.' There can be no doubt that the word, as we have it, and indeed as Morgan heard it, is, as you suggest, much abbreviated and corrupted. One of the ancient forms, however, which you give from the old Dutch authorities, seems to put us at once on the right track. This form is Ochsechrage. The 'digraph' ch in this word evidently represents the hard guttural aspirate, common to both the Dutch and the German languages. This aspirate is of frequent occurrence in the Iroquois dialects, but it is not a radical element. As I have elsewhere said, it appears and disappears as capriciously as the common h in the speech of the south of England. In etymologies it may always be disregarded. Omitting it, we have the well-known word Oserage—in modern Iroquois orthography Oserake, meaning 'At the beaver-dam.' It is derived from osera, 'beaver-dam,' with the locative particle ge or ke affixed.
"In Iroquois r and l are interchangeable, and s frequently sounds like sh. Thus we can understand how in Cartier's orthography Oserake (pronounced with an aspirate) became Hochelaga, the well-known aboriginal name of what is now Montreal. That this name meant simply 'At the beaver-dam' is not questioned. It is rather curious, though not surprising, that two such noted Indian names as Saratoga and Hochelaga should have the same origin. In Ochseratongue the name is lengthened by an addition which is so evidently corrupted that I hesitate to explain it. I may say, however, that I suspect it to be a 'verbalized' form. It may possibly be derived from the verb atona, 'to become' (in its perfect tense atonk), added to osera, in which case the word would mean, 'where a beaver-dam has been forming,' or, as we should express it in English, 'where the beavers have been making a dam.'
"With regard to the Mahican name Amissohaendiek or Amissohaendick (whichever it is) I cannot say much, my knowledge of the Algonquin dialects not being sufficient to warrant me in venturing on etymologies. I remark, however, that 'beaver' in Mahican, as in several other Algonquin dialects, is Amisk or some variant of that word. This would apparently account for the first two syllables of the name. In Iroquois the word for 'beaver-dam' 'has no connection with the word 'beaver,' but it may be otherwise in Mahican." . . .
Dr. Brinton wrote:
. . . "I have little doubt but that the Mahican term is practically a translation of the Iroquois name. It certainly begins with the element Amik, Amisk or Amisque, 'Beaver,' and terminates with the locative ck or k. The intermediate portion I am not clear about. There is probably considerable garbling of the middle syllables, and this obscures their forms. In a general way, however, it means 'Place where beavers live,' or 'are found.'"
Father Le June wrote Amisc-ou, "Beaver," an equivalent of Amis-so in the text. Dr. Trumbull wrote: "Amisk, a generic name for beaver-kind, has been retained in the principal Algonquian dialects." The district was a part of Ochsaraga, "The beaver-hunting country of the Confederate Indians," conquered by them about 1624. The evolution from Ochsera-tongue (deed of 1683) appears in Serachtogue (Dongan, 1685); Serasteau (contemporary French); Saractoga (Cornbury, 1703); Saratoga (modern). The Ossarague, noted by Father Jogues, in 1646, as a famous fishing-place, is now assigned to Schuylerville.
Aside from its linguistic associations, the Batten Kill is an interesting stream. It has two falls, one of which, near the Hudson, is seventy-five feet and preserves in its modern name, Dionandoghe, its Mohawk name, Ti-oneenda-houwe, for the meaning of which see Hoosick.
[FN-1] "At a place called the Still Water, so named for that the water passeth so slowly as not to be discovered, yet at a little distance both above and below is disturbed and rageth as in a sea, occasioned by great rocks and great falls therein." (Col. Hist. N. Y., x, 194.)
[FN-2] The war in which the Mahicans lost and the Mohawks gained possession of the lands here occurred in 1627, as stated in Dutch records (Doc. Hist. N. Y., iii, 48), sustained by the deed to King George in 1701. (Doc. Hist. N. Y., i, 773.) There was no conquest on the Hudson south of Cohoes Falls.
Sacondaga, quoted as the name of the west branch of the Hudson, is not the name of the stream but of its mouth or outlet at Warrensburgh, Warren County. It is from Mohawk generic Swe'ken, the equivalent of Lenape Sacon (Zeisb.), meaning "Outlet," or "Mouth of a river," "Pouring out," and -daga, a softened form of -take, "At the," the composition meaning, literally, "At the outlet" or mouth of a river. (Hale.) Ti-osar-onda, met in connection with the stream, means "Branch" or "Tributory stream." (Hewitt.) The reference may have been to the stream as a branch of the Hudson, or to some other stream. The stream comes down from small lakes and streams in Lewis and Hamilton counties, and is the principal northwestern affluent of the Hudson.
Scharon, Scarron, Schroon, orthographies of the name now conferred on a lake and its outlet, and on a mountain range and a town in Essex County, is said to have been originally given to the lake by French officers in honor of the widow Scarron, the celebrated Madam Maintenon of the reign of Louis XVI. (Watson.) The present form, Schroon, is quite modern. On Sauthier's map the orthography is Scaron. The lake is about ten miles long and forms a reservoir of waters flowing from a number of lakes and springs in the Adirondacks. Its outlet unites with the Hudson on the east side at Warrensburgh, Warren County, and has been known for many years as the East Branch of Hudson's River. The Mohawk-Iroquoian name of the stream at one place is of record At-a-te'ton, from Ganawatecton (Bruyas), meaning "Rapid river," "Swift current." (J. B. N. Hewitt.) A little valley at the junction of the stream with the Hudson at Warrensburgh, dignified by the name of "Indian Pass," bears the record name of Teohoken, from Iroquois generic De-ya-oken, meaning "Where it forks," or "Where the stream forks or enters the Hudson." (J. B. N. Hewitt.) The little valley is described as "a picture of beauty and repose in strong contrast with the rugged hills around." (Lossing.)
Oi-o-gue, the name given by the Mohawks to Father Jogues in 1646, at Lake George, to what we now fondly call Hudson's River, is fully explained in another connection. The stream has its sources among the highest peaks of the Adirondacks, the most quoted springlet being that in what is known as "Adirondack or Indian Pass," a deep and rugged gorge between the steep slopes of Mt. Mclntyre and the cliffs of Wallface Mountain, in Essex County. The level of this gorge is 2,937 feet above tide. [FN-1] The highest lakelet-head sources, however, are noted in Verplanck Colvin's survey of the Adirondack region as Lake Moss and Lake Tear-of-the-clouds on Mount Marcy, [FN-2] the former having an elevation of 4,312 feet above sea-level and the latter 4,326 feet, "the loftiest water-mirror of the stars" in the State. The little streams descending from these lakes, gathering strength from other small lakes and springlets, flow rapidly into Warren County, where they receive the Sacondaga and Schroon. Between Warrensburgh and Glen's Falls the stream sweeps, in tortuous course with a wealth of rapids, eastward among the lofty hills of the Luzerne [FN-3] range of mountains, and at Glen's Falls descends about sixty feet, passing over a precipice, in cataract, in flood seasons, about nine hundred feet long, and then separates into three channels by rocks piled in confusion. In times of low water there is, on the south side of the gorge, a perpendicular descent of about forty feet. Below, the channels unite and in one deep stream flow on gently between the grained cliffs of fine black marble, which rises in some places from thirty to seventy feet. At the foot of the fall the current is divided by a small island which is said to bear on its flat rock surface a petrifaction having the appearance of a big snake, which may have been regarded by the Mohawks with awe as the personification of the spirit of evil, according to the Huron legend, "Onniare jotohatienn tiotkon, The demon takes the figure of a snake." (Bruyas.) Under the rock is a cave over which the serpent lies as a keeper, extending from one channel to the other and which, as well as the snake, comes down to us embalmed in Cooper's "Last of the Mohegans," though some visitors with clear heads have failed to discover the snake. In times of flood the cave is filled with water and all the dividing rocks below the fall are covered, presenting one vast foaming sheet.
At Sandy Hill the river-channel curves to the south and pursues a broken course to what are known as Baker's Falls, where the descent is between seventy and eighty feet—primarily nearly as picturesque as at Glen's Falls, untouched by Cooper's pen. The bend to the south at Sandy Hill is substantially the head of the valley of Hudson's River. Throughout the mountainous region above that point several Indian names are quoted by writers in obscure orthographies and very doubtful interpretations, the most tangible, aside from those which have been noticed, being that which is said to have been the name of Glen's Falls, but was actually the name of the very large district known as Kay-au-do-ros-sa. In Mohawk, Sandy Hill would probably be called Gea-di-go, "Beautiful plain," but it has no Indian name of record. The village stands upon a high sandy plain. It has its traditionary Indian story, of course; in this section of country it is easy to coin traditions of the wars of the Mohawks, the Hurons, and the Algonquians; they interest but do not harm any one.
[FN-1] This famous Pass is partly in the town of Newcomb and partly in the town of North Elba, Essex County. Wall-face, on the west side, is a perpendicular precipice 800 to 1,000 feet high, and Mt. Mclntyre rises over 3,000 feet. The gorge is seldom traversed, even adventurous tourists are repelled by its ruggedness.
[FN-2] By Colvin's survey Mount Marcy has an elevation of 5,344.411 feet "above mean-tide level in the Hudson." It is the highest mountain in the State. Put four Butter Hills on the top of each other and the elevation would be only a few hundred feet higher.
[FN-3] French, "Spanish Trefoil." "Having a three-lobed extremity or extremities, as a cross." Botanically, plants having three leaves, as white clover, etc. Topographically, a mountain having three points or extremities.
Kay-au-do-ros-sa (modern), Kancader-osseras, Kanicader-oseras (primary), the name given as that of a stream of water, of a district of country, and of a range of mountains, was originally the name of the stream now known as Fish Creek, [FN] the outlet of Saratoga Lake, and signifies, literally, "Where the lake mouths itself out." Horatio Hale wrote me: "Lake, in Iroquois, is, in the French missionary spelling, Kaniatare, the word being sounded as in Italian. Mouth is Osa, whence (writes the Rev. J. A. Cuoq in his Lexique de la langue Iroquois), Osara, mouth of a river, 'boudhe d'un fleure, embouchure d'une riviere.' This word combined would give either Kauicatarosa or Kaniatarossa, with the meaning of 'Lake mouth,' applicable to the mouth of a lake, or rather, according to the verbalizing habit of the language, 'the place where the lake disembogues,' literally, 'mouths itself out.'" To which J. B. N. Hewitt added the explanation, "Or flood-lands of the lake—the overflow of the lake."
[FN] "About Kayaderossres Creek and the lakes in that quarter." "The chief tract of hunting land we have left, called Kayaderossres, with a great quantity of land about it." (Doc. Hist. N. Y., ii, 110.) The stream drains an extensive district of country, flows into and becomes the outlet of Saratoga Lake, and is now known as Fish Creek and Fish Kill, a very cheap substitute for the expressive Mohawk term.
Adirondacks, or Ratirontaks, a name now improperly applied to the mountainous district of northern New York, is said to have been primarily bestowed by the Iroquois on a tribe occupying the left bank of the St. Lawrence above the present site of Quebec, who were called by the French Algonquins specifically, as representatives of a title which had come to be of general application to a group of tribes speaking radically the same language. [FN-1] The term is understood to mean, "They eat trees," i. e. people Who eat the bark of certain trees for food, presumably from the climatic difficulty in raising corn in the latitude in which they lived. [FN-2] Horatio Hale analyzed the name: "From Adi, 'they'; aronda, 'tree,' and ikeks, 'eat.'" The name was not that of the district, nor is it convertible with Algonquin. The later is a French rendering of Algoumquin, from A'goumak, "On the other side of the river," i. e. opposite their neighbors lower down. (Trumbull.) Schoolcraft gave substantially the same interpretation from the Chippewa, "Odis-qua-guma, 'People at the end of the waters,'" making its application specific to the Chippewas as the original Algonquins, instead of the Ottawas. The accepted interpretation, "Country of mountains and forests," is correct only in that that it is descriptive of the country. The record names of the district are Cough-sagh-raga and Canagariarchio, the former entered on Pownal's map with the addition "Or the beaver—hunting country of the Confederate Indians," and the latter entered in the deed from the Five Nations to the King in 1701. (Col, Hist. N. Y., iv, 909.) Cough-sagh-raga is now written Koghsarage (Elliot) and Kohserake (modern), and signifies "Winter" or "Winter land"; but the older name, Cana-gariarc-hio, means, "The beaver-hunting country." [FN-3] It is not expected that this explanation will affect the continuance, by conference, of Adirondacks as the name of the district; but it may lead to the replanting of the much more expressive Iroquoian title, Kohsarake, on some hill-top in the ancient wilderness.
[FN] The specific tribe called Algonquins by the French, were seated, in 1738, near Montreal, and described as a remnant of "A nation the most warlike, the most polished, and the most attached to the French." Their armorial bearing, or totem, was an evergreen oak. (Doc. Hist. N. Y., i, 16.) It is claimed that they were principally Ottawas, residing on the Ottawa River. (Schoolcraft.) The primary location of the language is only measurably involved in the first application of the name, the honor being claimed for the Chippewa, the Cree, and the Lenni-Lenape. The Eastern Algonquins substituted for the Iroquois Adirondacks, Mihtukméchaick (Williams) with the same meaning.
[FN-2] The bark of the chestnut, the walnut, and of other trees was dried, macerated, and rolled in the fat of bears or other animals, and probably formed a palatable and a healthful diet. Presumably the eating of the bark of trees was not confined to a particular tribe.
[FN-3] "Coughsaghrage, or the Beaver-Hunting Country of the Confederate Indians. The Confederates, called by the French Iroquois, surrendered this country to the English at Albany, on the 19th day of July, 1701; and their action was confirmed the 14th of September, 1724. It belongs to New York, and is full of Swamps, Lakes, Rivers, Drowned Lands; a Long Chain of Snowy Mountains which are seen. Lake Champlain runs thro' the whole tract. North and South. This country is not only uninhabited, but even unknown except towards the South where several grants have been made since the Peace."
So wrote Governor Pownal on his map of 1775. There is no question that Coughsaghraga means "Winter." It may also mean "At the Beaver-dam," or "In the country of Beaver-dams." Kohseraka may be a form of Hochelaga or Ochseraga. Osera means "Beaver-dam" as well as "Winter," wrote Horatio Hale. (See Saratoga.) In explanation of Canagariachio Mr. Hale wrote: "Kanagariarchio is a slightly corrupted form of the Iroquois word Kanna'kari-kario, which means simply 'Beaver.' It is a descriptive term compounded of Kannagare, 'Stick' or club, Kakarien, To bite,' and Kario, 'Wild animal.' It is not the most common Iroquois word for Beaver, which, in the Mohawk dialect is Tsionuito, or Djonuito. That the word should be understood to mean 'The Beaver-Hunting Country,' is in accordance with Indian usage."
Mohawk, the river so called—properly "the Mohawk's River," or river of the Mohawks—rises near the centre of the State and reaches the Hudson at Cohoes Falls. Its name preserves that by which the most eastern nation of the Iroquoian confederacy, the Six Nations, is generally known in history—the Maquaas of the early Dutch. The nation, however, did not give that name to the stream except in the sense of occupation as the seat of their possessions; to them it was the O-hyoⁿhi-yo'ge, "Large, chief or principal river" (Hewitt); written by Van Curler in 1635, Vyoge and Oyoghi, and by Bruyas "Ohioge, a la riviere," now written Ohio as the name of one of the rivers of the west, nor did they apply the word Mohawk to themselves; that title was conferred upon them by their Algonquian enemies, as explained by Roger Williams, who wrote in 1646, "Mohowaug-suck, or Mauquawog, from Moho, 'to eat,' the cannibals or men-eaters," the reference being to the custom of the nation in eating the bodies of enemies who might fall into its hands, a custom of which the Huron nations, of which it was a branch, seem to have been especially guilty. To themselves they gave the much more pleasant name Canniengas, from Kannia, "Flint," Which they adopted as their national emblem and delineated it in their official signatures, signifying, in that connection, "People of the Flint." When and why they adopted this national emblem is a matter of conjecture. Presumably it was generations prior to the incoming of Europeans and from the discovery of the fire-producing qualities of the flint, which was certainly known to them and to other Indian nations [FN-1] in pre-historic times. When the flint and steel were introduced to them they added the latter to their emblem, generally delineated it on all papers of national importance, and called it Kannien, "batte-feu," as written by Bruyas, a verbal form of Kannia, "a flint," or fire-stone, the verb describing a new method of "striking fire out of a flint," or a new instrument for striking fire, and a new emblem of their own superiority springing from their ancient emblem. The Delawares called them Sank-hikani, [FN-2] or "The fire-striking people," from Del. Sank or San, "stone" (from Assin), and -hikan, "an implement," obviously a flint-stone implement for striking fire, or, as interpreted by Heckewelder, "A fire-lock," and by Zeisberger, "A fire-steel."
The French called them Agnié and Agniérs, presumably derived from Canienga (Huron, Yanyenge). The Dutch called them Mahakuas, by contraction Maquaas, from Old Algonquian Magkwah (Stockbridge, Mquoh), Bear, "He devours, he eats." As a nation they were Bears, tearing, devouring, eating, enemies who fell into their hands. Bruyas wrote in the Huron dialect, "Okwari, ourse (that is Bear); Ganniagwari, grand ourse" (grand, glorious, superb, Bear), and in another connection, "It is the name of the Agniers," the characteristic type of the nation. They were divided in three ruling totemic tribes, the Tortoise (Anowara), the Bear (Ochquari), and the Wolf (Okwaho), and several sub-tribes, as the Beaver, the Elk, the Serpent, the Porcupine, and the Fox, as shown by deeds of record, of which the most frequently met is that of the Beaver. On Van der Donck's map of 1656, the names of four tribal castles are entered: Carenay, Ganagero, Schanatisse, and t' Jonnontego. In the recently recovered Journal of a trip to the Mohawk country, by Arent van Curler, in the winter of 1634-5, the names are Ouekagoncka, Ganagere, Sohanidisse, and Tenotoge or Tenotogehooge. In 1643, Father Isaac Jogues, in French notation, wrote the name of the first, Osseruehon, and that of the last, Te-ononte-ogen. Rev. Megapolensis, the Dutch minister at Fort Orange, wrote, in 1644, the name of the first Assarue, the second Banigiro, and the last Thenondiago. On a map republished in the Third Annual Report of the State Historian, copied from a map published in Holland in 1666, the first is called Caneray (Van der Donck's Carenay), and the second, Canagera. [FN-3] The several names refer in all cases to the same castles tribally, in some cases, apparently, by the name of a specific topographical feature near which the castles were located, and in some cases, apparently, by the name of the tribe. Cramoisy, in his Relation of 1645-6, referring to the visit of Father Jogues to the Mohawks, wrote: "They arrived at their first small village, called Oneugiouré, formerly Osserrion." (Relations, 29: 51), showing very clearly that those two names referred to one and the same castle. What Oneugiouré stands for certainly, cannot be stated, though it seems to read easily from Ohnaway (Cuoq), "Current, swift river," indicating that it may have referred to the long rapids. [FN-4] Chief W. H. Holmes, of the Bureau of Ethnology, wrote me: "According to our best expert authority, an Iroquoian, Onekagoncka signifies 'At the junction of the waters,' and Osserueñon, Osserrion, Assarue, etc., signifies 'At the beaver-dam.'" Accepting these interpretations, the particular place where the two names seem to come together is at the mouth of Aurie's Creek "where it falls into Mohawk's river." (See Oghracke.) As generic terms, however, they would be applicable at any place where the features were met and would only become specific here from other locative testimony, which we seem to have.
The first castle or town was that of the Tortoise tribe; the second, that of the Bear tribe; the third, that of the Beaver (probably), and the fourth, that of the Wolf tribe. On Van der Donck's map there are four, and Greenhalgh, in 1677, noted four. In a Schenectady paper of the same year the names of two sachems are subscribed who acted "for themselves" and as "the representatives of ye four Mohock's castles." The French invaded the valley in 1666, and burned all the castles of the early period, and the tribes retreated to the north side of river and established themselves, the first at Caughnawaga; the second about one and one-half miles west of the first; the third, west of the second, and the fourth beyond the third, in their ancient order as Greenhalgh found them in 1677. The French destroyed them again in 1693, [FN-5] and the tribes returned to and rebuilt on the south side of the river in proximity to their ancient seats. After the changes which had swept over the nation, three castles are noted in later records—the "Upper" at Canajohare, the "Lower" at the mouth of Schohare Creek, and the "Third" on the Schohare some sixteen miles inland.
While the early castles were known to the Dutch traders prior to 1635, and their locations marked, approximately, on their rude charts which formed the basis of Van der Donck's and other early maps, it was not until the recovery and publication in 1895, of Van Curler's Journal [FN-6]that much was known concerning them prior to 1642-44, when the Jesuit missionaries and the Dutch minister at Fort Orange, Rev. Megapolensis, went into the field. Van Curler's Journal, supplemented by the Relations of the Jesuit Fathers and Rev. Megapolensis's notes, enables us now to almost look in upon the early homes of the "barbarians," as they were called.
The Mohawks were the most important factor in the "Five [Six] Nations Confederacy," particularly from the standpoint of their proximity to and relations with the Dutch and the English governments, primarily in trade and later as alliants offensive and defensive under treaty of 1664 and more definitely under treaty of 1683. (Doc. Hist. N. Y., i, 576.) Their written history is graven in no uncertain colors on the valley which still bears their name, as well as on northeastern New York, marred though it may be by claims to pre-historical supremacy which cannot be maintained. When Van Curler visited them the nation was at peace, and the occupants of the towns and villages engaged in the duties of home life. He wrote that "Most of the people were out 'hunting for deer and bear"; that "the houses were full of corn and beans"; that he "saw maize—yes, in some of the houses more than three hundred bushels." He added that he was hospitably entertained, was fed on "pumpkins cooked and baked, roasted turkeys, venison and bear's meat," and altogether seems to have fared sumptuously. Rev. Megapolensis wrote of them, that though they were cruel to their enemies, they were very friendly to the Dutch. "We go with them into the woods; we meet with each other, sometimes at an hour's walk from any house, and think no more of it than if we met with Christians." The dark side of their character may be seen in a single quotation from Father Jogues's narrative, as related by Father Lalemant: "Happily for the Father the very time when he was entering the gates, a messenger arrived who brought news that a warrior and his comrades were returning victorious, bringing twenty Abanaqois prisoners. Behold them all joyful; they leave the poor Father; they burn, they flay, they roast, they eat those poor victims with public rejoicings." Gentle and affable in peace, with many evidences of a rude civilization, they were indeed "Demons in war."
Faithful in their labors among them were the Jesuit Fathers. They were men who were ready to suffer torture and death in the propagation of their faith, as several of them did. The conflict of those heroes of the Cross in the valley of the Mohawk, inaugurated by the capture and martyrdom of Father Jogues and his companion, Rene Goupil, in 1646, did not deter them; the wars of the nation with the French aided them. So successful were they that many of the nation were drawn off to Canada and became zealous partisans of the French and a scourge to English settlements, especially emphasized in the massacre at Schenectady in February, 1689-90. Those who remained true to the English became no longer "barbarians" in the full sense of that word, but "Praying Maquas." The subsequent story of the nation may be gleaned from the pages of history. At the close of the Revolution the integrity of the Six Nations had been effectually broken, and the castles of the Mohawks swept from the valley proper. The history, of the latter nation especially, needs to be studied, not in the wild glamour of fiction, but in the realm of fact, as that of an original people, native to the soil of the New World, clasping hands with the era of the origin of man; a people who, when they were first met, had borrowed nothing, absolutely nothing, from the civilizations or the languages of the Old World—the Ougwe-howe, the "real men" of the Mohawk Valley.
The locations of the castles or principal towns of the nation, as noted in Van Curler's Journal, has given rise to considerable discussion, particularly in regard to the location of the first of the series and its identity under the different names by which it was called. Van Curler was not an "ignorant Hollander wandering around in the woods," as one writer states; on the contrary, he was an educated man and one of the best equipped men then in the country for the trip he had undertaken, and instead of "wandering around in the woods," he was conducted by Mohawk guides. He wrote that he left Fort Orange in company with Jeronimus la Crock, William Thomasson, and five Mohawks as guides and bearers, "between nine and ten o'clock in the morning," December 12, 1634, and after walking "mostly northwest about eight miles" (Dutch), stopped "at half-past twelve in the evening" (p. m.) "at a little hunters' cabin near the stream that runs into their land, of the name of Vyoge." His hours' travel and his miles' travel to this point were either loosely stated in his manuscript or were misread by the translator. [FN-7] A Dutch mile is one and one-quarter hours' walk and the equivalent of three and one-half English miles and a fraction over. Van Curler no doubt estimated his miles by this standard and not as correct measurements of rough Indian paths. He certainly did not walk eight Dutch miles in three hours. Twenty-four English miles would have taken him to a point northwest of the later Schenectady stockade, which, in 1690, was counted as twenty-four English miles from Fort Orange by the road as then traveled. The "little hunters' cabin" at which he stopped and which he located "near the Vyoge," he explained in his notes of his second day's travel, as "one hour's walk" from the place where he crossed the stream, which would have taken him to a crossing place west of Schenectady, noted in a French Itinerary of 1757 as about one and one-quarter leagues west of the then fort at that settlement, and, presumably, by the canal survey of 1792, as at the first rift west of the beginning of deep water one and one-half miles (English) east of the rift referred to, from which point the survey gave the distance "to the deep water at or above the mouth of Schohare creek" as twenty-five miles. In going to, or from, the crossing-place he "passed Mohawk villages" where "the ice drifted fast," and gave his later travel as "mostly along the kill that ran swiftly," indicating very clearly that he passed along the rapids. Why he crossed the Mohawk when there was a path on the south side, is explained by Pearson's statement (Hist. Schenectady) that the path on the north side "was the best and most frequently traveled path to the Mohawk castles," and held that reputation for many years. It was a trunk line from the Hudson with many connecting paths. In considering his miles' travel the survey of 1792 may be safely referred to. [FN-8] His miles' travel, which he wrote as "eleven" (Dutch) he wrote on his return as "ten," which, counted as standard Dutch, would have been about thirty-five English miles; if counted by General John S. Clark's average of shrinkage, about thirty, which would have taken him from the hunters' cabin to a point two or three miles west of the mouth of Schohare Creek.
Referring particularly to his Journal: On the morning of the 13th, at three o'clock, he left the "little hunters' cabin" where he passed the night, spent one hour in walking to the crossing-place, crossed "in the dark," resumed his march on the north side "mostly along the aforesaid kill that ran swiftly," and after marching ten miles arrived, "at one o'clock in the evening" (p. m.) "at a little house half a mile" (Dutch) "from their First Castle." When he stopped he was so exhausted by the rough road that he could scarcely move his feet, and hence remained at the "little house" until the next morning, when he recrossed the Mohawk to the south side "on the ice which had frozen over the kill during the night," and "after going half-a-mile" (Dutch), or say one and one-half English, arrived "at their First Castle," which he found "built on a high mountain." It contained "thirty-six houses in rows like streets." The houses were "one hundred, ninety or eighty paces long," and were no doubt palisaded as he called the castle a "fort." The name of the castle, he wrote later, was Onekagoncka. The crossing was the only one which he made to the south side of the Mohawk in going west. Where, aside from a fair computation of his miles' travel, did he cross? Certainly he did not cross on the ice which had frozen over the rapids east of the mouth of Schohare Creek, for they were never known to freeze over in one night, if at all. Certainly he did not cross east of the rapids, for they extended three and one-half miles east of the mouth of the creek. Obviously, if he crossed Schohare Creek on the ice and "did not know it," as one writer suggests, he must have crossed it in going to the castle, which would surely locate the castle west of the stream. There is not the slightest notice of the stream in his Journal, nor is there any place for it in the harmony of his narrative. The tenable conclusion, from the comparison of his miles and from the natural facts, is that he crossed "on the ice" which had frozen over the deep water "at or above the mouth of Schohare Creek"; that his march took him to the vicinity of Aurie's Creek, or substantially to the castle which Father Jogues called Osseruenon, the site of which is now marked by the Society of Jesus with the Shrine, "Our Lady of Martyrs," whether that castle was east or west of Aurie's Creek, evidences of Indian occupation having been found on a hill on the west side of the creek as well as on a hill on the east side. [FN-9] These evidences, however, prove very little in determining the location of a particular castle three hundred years ago; they only become important when sustained by distances from given points or by natural features of record.
The locative conclusion stated above is more positively emphasized by counting Van Curler's miles' travel and his landmarks in going west from Onekagoncka, and by the natural features which he noted in his Journal. Leaving Onekagoncka, he wrote that he walked "half a mile" (Dutch) "on the ice" which had frozen over the kill, or say one and one-half English miles, and in that distance passed "a village of six houses of the name of Canowarode." It was near the river obviously. Walking on the ice "another half mile" (Dutch), he passed "a village of twelve houses named Senatsycrossy." After walking "another mile or mile and a half" on the ice, he passed "great stretches of flat lands" and came to a castle which he first called Medatshet, and later Canagere, which he denominated "The Second Castle." His distances traveling west "on the ice" were evidently more correctly computed than they were on his march on the rough path "along the kill that ran swiftly." His miles from Onekagoncka to Canagere are given as two and a half (Dutch) or about nine miles English. The actual distance is supposed to have been about eight. He found the castle "built on a hill without any palisades or any defence." He located it east of Canajohare Creek, a stream which has never lost its identity. When Van Curler visited the castle it contained "sixteen houses, fifty, sixty, seventy or eighty paces long."
Detained in this castle by a heavy fall of rain which broke up the streams—the "January thaw" of 1635 in the Mohawk Valley—Van Curler resumed his journey on the 20th, and "after marching a mile" (Dutch), came to Canajohare Creek which he was obliged to ford. After crossing and walking "half a mile" (Dutch), he came to what he called the "Third Castle of the name of Sohanidisse," later written by him Rohanadisse, and by Van der Donck Schanatisse, suggesting the name of the hill on which it stood, which Van Curler described as "very high." It contained "thirty-two houses like the others"; was not palisaded. The very high hill, and the flat lands which he referred to, remain.
On the 21st, before reaching the second stream which he noted later as having crossed, he wrote that "half a mile" west of Canajohare Creek he came to a village of "nine houses of the name of Osquage," which gave name to the stream now known as the Otsquage, which he also called Okquage and Okwahohage, "Wolves"—a village of the Wolf tribe. On the 23d he forded the Otsquage, and after going "half a mile" (Dutch) west of that stream, came "to a village named Cawaoge." It had fourteen houses and stood "on a very high hill." On his return trip he wrote the name Nawaoga; on old maps it is Canawadage, and has since 1635 been known as the Nowadage or Fort Plain Creek. He did not cross this stream, but after stopping at the village for a short time moved on "by land," presumably inland either north or south, and "going another mile" came to the "Fourth Castle," which he called Tenotoge and Tenotohage, and Father Jogues called Te-ouonte-ogén, and also "the furthest castle." It was no doubt the principal castle of the Wolf tribe, strongly palisaded to defend the western approach to the seat of the nation, as was Onekagoncka to guard the east. It was, he wrote, composed of fifty-five houses like the others. It stood in a valley evidently, probably on the bank of the creek, as he wrote that the stream (Otsquaga) which he had crossed in the morning "ran past" the castle; that he saw on the opposite (east) "bank" of the stream "a good many houses filled with corn and beans," and also extensive flat lands. Further than this topographical description the location of the castle cannot be determined. [FN-10] Van Curler's miles to the castle from Onekagonka, as nearly as can be counted from his Journal, were about six Dutch or about twenty-one English, or as General Clark counted Dutch miles, about eighteen English. As Van Curler traveled "on the ice" for the most considerable part of the way from Onekagoncka, and followed necessarily the bend in the river and diverged at times from the shore line, exact computation of his miles cannot be made. General Clark located the castle at Spraker's Basin, thirteen miles by rail west of Aurie's Creek. Van Curler located it on the west side of Otsquage Creek. On Simeon DeWitt's map of survey of patents in 1790 (Doc. Hist. N. Y., i, 420), the direct line from the west side of the mouth of Otsquage Creek to the west side of the mouth of Aurie's Creek is fifteen and three-tenths miles; following the bend in the Mohawk, as Van Curler did, it is seventeen and one-half miles. Granting that the lithographic reproduction of the map may vary from the original, it nevertheless shows conclusively that Onekagoncka must have been located at or near Aurie's Creek, The suggestion that it was located on a hill on the east side of Schohare Creek is untenable, as is also the suggestion that it was at Klein, eight miles east of Schohare Creek. There may have been villages at a later date at the places suggested, but never one of the ancient castles. Counted from the east or from the west there is no location that meets Van Curler's miles, or Father Jogues' "leagues," so certainly as does Aurie's Creek. (See Oghracke.)
In addition to the locations of the ancient castles, Van Curler's notes supply interesting evidence of the strength of the Mohawks when the Dutch first met them, which was then at its highest known point in number and in the number of their settlements, namely: Two hundred and twenty-five "long houses" in castles and villages, without including villages on the lower Mohawk "where the ice drifted fast," which he passed without particular note, and those in villages or settlements which he did not see. Two hundred and twenty-five houses were capable of holding and no doubt did hold a very large number of people, packed as they were packed. Father Pierron reported, in 1669, after the French invasion of 1666, that he visited every week "six large villages, covering seven and one-half leagues distance," around Caughnawaga where he was stationed. In almost constant wars with the French, and with the Hurons and other Indian tribes as allies of the French, their number had dwindled to an estimate of eighty warriors in 1735. The story of their greatness and of their decay is of the deepest interest. No student of American history can dispense with its perusal and be well-informed in the events of the pioneer era.
[FN-1] Arent Van Curler, in 1635, in his "Journal of a Visit to the Seneca Country," wrote: "I was shown a parcel of flint-stones with which they make a fire when in the forest. These stones would do very well for flint-lock guns."
Roger Williams wrote of the Narraganset Indians in 1643: "I have seen a native go into the woods with his hatchet, carrying a basket of corn with him, and stones to strike a fire." Father Le June wrote, in 1634: "They strike together two metallic stones, just as we do with a piece of flint and iron or steel. . . . That is how they light their fire." The "Metallic stones" spoken of are presumed, by some writers, to have been iron pyrites, as they may have been in some cases, but the national emblem was the flint.
[FN-2] "Sankhicani, the Mohawk's, from Sankhican, a gun-lock." (Heckewelder.) The name appears first on the Carte Figurative of 1614-16, in application to the Indians of northern New Jersey (Delawares), who were, by some writers, called "The Fire-workers." They seem to have manufactured stone implements by the application of fire. Presumably they were "Fire-strikers" as well as the Mohawks. Certainly they were not Mohawks. Were the Mohawks the discoverers of the fire-striking properties of the flint?
[FN-3] State Historian Hastings writes me: "The map of which you inquire, appeared originally in a pamphlet published at Middleburgh, Holland, at the Hague, 1666. It was first reproduced by the late Hon. Henry C. Murphy in his translation of the 'Vertoogh van Nieu Nederland,' etc. His reproduction gives Canagere, as the name of the second castle, and Caneray as the name of the first, precisely as they appear in order in our reproduction in our Third Report."
[FN-4] Oneongoure is a form of the name in Colonial History. In the standard translation of Jesuit Relations it is Oneugiouré. Oneon is a clerical error. The letters u and ou represent a sound produced by the Indian in the throat without motion of the lips. Bruyas wrote it 8{sic ȣ?}; it is now read w-Onew. Adding an a, we have very nearly M. Cuoq's Ohnawah, "current," "swift river"; with suffix gowa, "great," the reference being to the great rapids near which the castle was located. The omission of the locative participle shows that it was not "at" or "on" the great rapids.
[FN-5] "Their three castles destroyed and themselves dispersed." (Col. Hist. N. Y., iv, 20, 22.) The castles referred to Caughnawaga, Canagora, and Tiononteogen. A castle on the south side of the Mohawk, said to have been about two miles inland, escaped. Presumably it was the village of the Beaver family, but we have nothing further concerning it. The attack was made on the night of Feb. 16, 1693. The warriors of the first two castles were absent, and the few old men and the women made little resistance. At the third, the warriors fought bravely but unsuccessfully. The three castles were burned; that at Caughnawaga was given to the flames on the morning of February 20, 1693.
[FN-6] Journal of Arent van Curler, of a visit to the Seneca country, 1634-5 O. S., translated by General James Grant Wilson, printed in "The Independent," N. Y., Oct. 5, 1895. Republished by National Historical Society.
[FN-7] General Wilson wrote me that the Journal was translated for him by a Hollander, now (1905) dead, and that the manuscript had passed out of his hands. The question of hours and miles is not important here. On his return travel he gave the distance from the little hunters' cabin (which in the meantime had been burned), as "A long walk," which will not be disputed. It may be added that it is not justifiable to count his two days' travel as one, and count the two as thirty-two English miles from Fort Orange. The two days' travel are very distinct in the Journal.
[FN-8] Doc. Hist. N. Y., iii, 1087.
[FN-9] Father Jogues noted in his narrative a "torrent" which passed "At the foot of their village"—a brook or creek which was swollen by rains into a torrent, and from which, on the later recedence of the water, he recovered the remains of the body of his companion, Rene Goupil, who had been murdered and his body thrown into it, probably with the expectation that it would be carried down into the Mohawk, "At the foot of their village," or at the foot of the hill on which the village stood.
[FN-10] In the town of Minden, four miles south of Fort Plain, on a tongue of land formed by the Otsquaga Creek and one of its tributaries, are the remains of an ancient fortification, showing a curved line two hundred and forty feet in length, inclosing an area of about seven acres. The remains are, of course, claimed as belonging to the age of the mound-builders, but with equal probability are the remains of the ancient fort which Van Curler visited.
Kahoos, Kahoes, Cohoes, Co'os, forms of the familiar name of the falls of the Mohawk River at the junction of that stream with Hudson's River, has had several interpretations based on the presumption that it is from the Mohawk-Iroquoian dialect, but none that have been satisfactory to students of that dialect, nor any that have not been purely conjectural. One writer has read it: "From Kaho, a boat or ship," commemorative of Hudson's advent at Half-Moon Point in 1609. Beauchamp repeated from Morgan: "A shipwrecked canoe," and, in another connection: "From Kaho, a torrent." Another writer has read it: "Cahoes, 'the parting of the waters,' the reference being to the separation of the stream into three channels at its junction with the Hudson." The late Horatio Hale wrote me: "Morgan gives, as the Iroquois form of the name, Gä-hŏ-oose (in which ä represents the Italian a as in father), with the signification of 'ship-wrecked canoe.' This, I presume, is correct, though I cannot analize the word to my satisfaction." The obvious reason for this uncertainty is that the name is not Mohawk-Iroquoian, but an early Dutch orthography of the Algonquian generic Koowa, "Pine"; Koaaés, "Small pine," or "Small pine trees"; written with locative it, "Place of small pine trees"; now applied to a small island. On the Connecticut River this generic is met in Co'os and Co'hos. The "Upper Co-hos Interval" on that stream (Sauthier's map) [FN-1] was a tract of low small pine trees, between the hills and the river, corresponding with the topography at the falls on the Hudson. The Dutch termination -hoos, meaning in that language, "Water-spout," may have given rise to the interpretation "The Great Falls," but if so the reading was simply descriptive. The presumption that the name was Mohawk-Iroquoian was no doubt from the general impression that the falls were primarily in a Mohawk district, but the fact is precisely the reverse. The Hudson, on both sides, was held by Algonquian-Mahicans when the Dutch located at Albany, and for some years later, and the Dutch no doubt received the name from them, as they did others. What few Mohawk names are met in this district are of later introduction. It may be noted that there is no element in the name in any dialect which refers to falls. [FN-2] When the falls were first known they were regarded as the most wonderful in the world, and even as late as 1680 they were so called by visitors. In early days the stream poured a flood nine-hundred feet wide and eight feet deep over a rocky declivity of seventy-eight feet, of which forty feet was perpendicular, in addition to which are the rapids above and below. The roar of the falling waters, and in the breaking up and precipitation of ice, was very distinctly heard at Fort Orange, nine miles distant, and the hills on which Albany now stands trembled under the impact. Primarily the falls were much higher than they are now, the stream having cut its way through one hundred feet of rock which rises on either side in massive wall. Below the falls the water separates in four branches or "Sprouts," the northerly and the southerly one reaching the Hudson five miles apart, at Waterford and West Troy respectively.
[FN-1] "L. Intervale-Cowass or Kohas (Coas) meadows." (Pownal's Map.)
[FN-2] The name having been submitted to the Bureau of Ethnology for interpretation, the late Prof. J. W. Powell, Chief, wrote me, as the opinion of himself and his co-laborers: "The name is unquestionably from the Algonquian Koowa."
Wathoiack, of record as the name of "The Great Rift above Kahoes Falls" (Cal. Land Papers, 134, etc.) is also written Wathojax, D'Wathoiack, and DeWathojaaks, means, substantially, what it describes, a rift or rapid. The cis-locative De locates a place "On this side of the rapid," or the side toward the speaker. The flow of water is between walls of rock over a rocky bed, and the rapids extend for a distance of thirty-five or forty feet. (Ses Kahoes.)
Niskayune, now so written as the name of a town and of a village in Schenectady County, is from Kanistagionne, primarily located on the north side of the Mohawk, Canastagiowane (1667) being the oldest form of record. The locative description reads: "Lying at a place called Neastegaione, . . . known by the name of Kanistegaione." West of Schenectady the Mohawk is a succession of rapids. At or below Schenectady it makes a bend to the northeast in the form of a crescent, around which the water flows in a sluggish current. At the north point of the crescent was, and probably is a place called by the Dutch the Aal-plaat (Eel-place), marked on maps by a small stream from the north which still bears the name, and which formed the eastern boundmark of the Schenectady Patent. In Barber's collection it is stated that there was an Indian village here called Canastagaones, or "People of the Eel-place." Naturally there would be fishing villages in the vicinity. The location of the Aal-plaat is particularly identified in the Mohawk deed for five small islands lying at Kanastagiowne, in 1667, and by the abstract of title filed by one Evart van Ness in 1715. (Cal. Land Papers.) The name is from Keantsica, "Fish," of the larger kind, and -gionni, "Long"—tsi, "Very long"—constructively, "The Long-fish place," the Aal-plaat, or Eel-place, of the Dutch. The suggestion by Pearson (Hist. Schenectady) that the name "was properly that of the flat on the north side of the river," is untenable from the name itself. The reading by the late Dr. E. B. O'Callaghan: "From Oneasti, 'Maize,' and Couane, 'Great'—'Great maize field'"—is also erroneous. The generic name for the field or flat was Shenondohawah, compressed by the Dutch to Skonowa. In the vicinity of the Aal-plaat was the ancient crossing-place of the path from Fort Orange to the Mohawk castles, in early days regarded as the "Best" as it was the "Most traveled." The path continued north from the crossing as well as west to the castles.
Schenectady, now so written, is claimed by some authorities to be an Anglicism of a Mohawk-Iroquoian verbal primarily applied by them to Fort Orange (Albany), with the interpretations, "The place we arrive at by passing through the pine trees" (Bleecker); "Beyond the opening" (L. H. Morgan); "Beyond (or on the other side) of the door" (O'Callaghan), and by Horatio Hale: "The name means simply, 'beyond the pines.' from oneghta (or skaneghet), 'pine,' and adi or ati, a prepositional suffix (if such an expression may be allowed), meaning 'beyond,' or 'on the other side of.' The suffix is derived from skati, side. It was equally applicable to Albany or Schenectady, both being reached from the Mohawk castles by passing through openings in the pine forest." Mr. Hale's interpretation, from the standpoint of a Mohawk term, is exhaustive and no doubt correct, and the correctness of the preceding interpretations may be admitted from the combinations which may have been employed to determine the object of which askati was "one side," as in "Skannátati, de un coste du village," or the end of, as in "Skannhahati, a l'autre bout de la cabane" (Bruyas). The word does not appear to mean "beyond," but one side or one end of anything. Aside from a critical rendering, it would seem to be evident that all the interpretations are in error, not in the translation of the name as a Mohawk word-sentence, but in the assumption that Schenectady was primarily a Mohawk phrase, instead of a confusion of the Mohawk Skannatati with the original Dutch Schaenhecstede, the primary application of which is amply sustained by official record, while the Mohawk term is without standing in that connection, or later except as a corrupt Mohawk-Dutch [FN-1] substitution. The facts of primary application may be briefly stated. The deed from the Mohawk owners of the Schenectady flats, in 1661, reads: "A certain parcel of land called in Dutch the Groote Vlachte, lying behind Fort Orange, between the same and the Mohawk country called in Indian Skonowe." Skonowe is the equivalent of the Dutch "great flat," and nothing more. Its Mohawk equivalent is written on the section Shenondohawah, which the Dutch reduced to Skonowe. (See Shannondhoi.) Van der Donck wrote on his map (1656), in pure Dutch, Schoon Vlaack Land, or "Fine flat land." It was not continued in application to the Dutch settlement, the proprietors of which immediately (1661) gave to it the Dutch name Schaenechstede, "as the town came to be called." (Munsell's Annals of Albany, ii, 49, 52; Brodhead's Hist. N. Y., i, 691.) Under that name the tract was surveyed (1664), and it has remained apparent in the synthesis of the many corrupt forms in which it is of record. Schaenechstede is a clear orthographic pronunciation of the Dutch Schoonehetstede, signifying, literally, "The beautiful town." The syllable het is properly hek, "fence, rail, gate," etc., and in this connection indicates an enclosed or palisaded town. In 1680, Schaenschentendeel appears—a pronunciation of Schoonehettendal, "Beautiful valley," or the equivalent of the German Schooneseckthal, "Beautiful corner or turn of a valley." The German Labadists, Jasper Bankers and Peter Sluyter, made no mistake in their recognition of the name when they wrote Schoon-echten-deel in their Journal in 1679-80, describing the town as a square set off by palisades. [FN-2] Unfortunately for the Dutch name it was conferred and came into use during the period of the transition of the province from the Dutch to the English, with the probability of its conversion to Mohawk-Dutch, as already noted. Certain it is that the name is not met in any form until after its introduction by the Dutch, and is not of record in any connection except at Schenectady, the statement by Brodhead, on the authority of Schoolcraft, that it was applied in one form, by the Mohawks, to a place some two miles above Albany, as "the end of a portage path of the Mohawks coming from the west," being without anterior or subsequent record, though possibly traditional, and it may be added that it was never the name of Albany, nor is there record that there ever was a Mohawk village "on the site of the present city of Albany," nor anywhere near it. The Mohawks did go there to trade and on business with the government and occupied temporary encampments probably. The occupants primarily were Mahicans. The evolution of the name from the original Dutch to its present form may be readily traced in the channels through which it has passed. Even though clouded by traditional and theoretical rendering, the truth of history will ever rest in Schoonehetstede (Schaenechstede) and in the interpretation which it was designed to express by the intelligent men who conferred it. It is not expected that the correction will be adopted, now that the term has passed to the domain of a "proper name." With the aroma of assumed Mohawk origin and the negative "beyond" clinging to it, it will remain at least as a harmless fiction, although the honor due to a Dutch ancestry would seem to warrant a different result. By ancient measurements Schenectady is "about nine miles (English) above the falls called Cahoes" (1792).
[FN-1] A considerable number of the early settlers had Indian wives. (Dominie Megapolensis wrote: "The Dutch are continually running after the Mohawk women.") The children, growing up with Indian relatives, among the tribes and with men speaking so great a variety of tongues, built up a patois of their own, the "Mohawk-Dutch," many words in it defying the dictionaries of the schools. Many words are untranslatable save by the context. (Hist. Schenectady Patent, 388.)
[FN-2] Memoirs Long Island Hist. Soc, i, 315.
Shannondhoi and Shenondohawah are record forms of the name of a section of Saratoga County now embraced in Clifton Park, Half-Moon, etc. It is a sandy plain running west from the clay bluffs on the Hudson to the foot of the mountain, and extends across the Mohawk into Schenectady County. The name is generic Iroquois, signifying "Great plain," and as such was their name for Wyoming, Pa., where it is written Schahandoanah (Col. Hist. N. Y., vi, 48), and Skehandowana (Reichel). Scanandanani, Schenondehowe, Skenandoah, and Shanandoah, are among other forms met in application. Skonowe is followed on Van der Donck's map of 1656, by the Dutch legend Schoon Vlaack Land, literally, "Fine, flat land," and for all these years the name has been accepted as meaning, "Great meadow," or "Great plain." The late Horatio Hale wrote: "The name is readily accounted for by the word Kahenta (or Kahenda), meaning 'plain'—frequently abridged to Kenta (or Kenda)—with the nominal prefix S and the augmentative suffix owa (or owana)." "The great flat or plain in Pennsylvania was called, in the Minsi dialect, 'M'chewomink, at (or on) the great plain.' From this word we have the modern name Wyoming. The Iroquois word for this flat was Skahentowane, 'Great meadow (or plain),' a term which was applied also to extensive meadows in other localities and became corrupted to Shenandoah." (Gerard.)
Quaquarionu, of record, Calendar Land Papers, p. 6: "Bounds of a tract of land above Schenectady purchased of the Mohawk Indians, extending from Schenectady three miles westward, along both sides of the river, ending at Quaquarionu, where the last Mohawk castle stands." The deed of same date (1672) reads: "The lands lying near the town of Schenhectady within three Dutch miles in compass on both sides of the river westward, which ends at Kinaquariones, where the last battle was between the Mohawks and the North Indians." (Col. Hist. N. Y., xiii, 465.) Canaquarioeny is the orthography in another deed. In Pearson's History of Schenectady: "Lands lying near the town of Schonnhectade within three Dutch miles [about twelve English miles] on both sides of the river westward, which ends at Hinquariones [Towareoune], where the last battle was between the Mohoax and North Indians." The last battle in that section of country explains the text. Father Pierron, in 1669, located the battle "In a place that was precipitous, . . . about eight leagues [French] east of Gandauague" (Caughnawaga), or about sixteen miles English, and modern authorities have added, "A steep rocky hill on the north side of the Mohawk, just west of Hoffman's Ferry, now called Towareoune Hill, east of Chucktanunda Creek, a stream which is supposed to have taken its name from the overhanging rocks of the hill." [FN] Dr. Beauchamp, on the authority of Albert Cusick, an educated Tuscarorian, translated: "Kinaquarioune, 'She arrow-maker,' the name of a person who resided there." Rev. Isaac Bearfoot, an educated Onondagian, especially instructed in the Mohawk dialect, and an educator on the Canada Reservation, supplied to W. Max Reid of Amsterdam, N. Y., the reading: "Ki-na-qua-ri-one, 'He killed the Bear,' or, the place where the Bears die, or any place of death. It seems to have been used to denote the place of the last great battle with the Mahicans." The battle referred to occurred on the 18th of August, 1669. An account of it is given in Jesuit Relations, iii, 137, by Father Pierron, the Jesuit missionary, who was then stationed at Caughnawaga. The war which was then raging was continued until 1673, when the Governor of New York succeeded in negotiating peace and by treaty "linked together" the opposing nations as allies of the English government, a relation which they subsequently sustained until the war of the Revolution, when the Mahicans united with the revolutionists.
[FN] In a deed of 1685 is the entry: "Opposite a place called Jucktumunda, that is ye stone houses, being a hollow rock on ye river bank where ye Indians generally lie under when they travel."
Onekee-dsi-enos is of record in a deed of land purchased by one Abraham Cuyler of Albany, in 1714, "from the native owners of the land at Schohare, on the west side of Schohare creek, beginning on the north by a stone mountain called by the Indians Onekeedsienos." (Cal. N. Y. Land Papers, 110.) The name is probably an equivalent of Bruyas' Onueja-tsi-entos, a composition from Onne'ja, "Stone"; tsi or dsi, augmentative, "Very hard," such as stones used for making hatchets, axes, etc., and entos, plural inflection—"very hard stones," or "where there are hard stones." The location has been claimed for Flint Hill at Klein, Montgomery County, which, it is said, the name correctly describes. Positive identification, however, can only be made from the lines of the survey of Cuyler's purchase. It has also been claimed that the Mohawk castle called Onekagoncka by Van Curler in 1635, and the Osseruenon of 1642, was located at Klein, about eight miles east of Schohare Creek. This claim is based on what is certainly an erroneous computation of Van Curler's miles' travel, but particularly on the location on Van der Donck's map of Carenay directly north of a small lake now in the town of Duane, Schenectady County. Van der Donck's map locations are merely approximative, however, and of no other value than as showing that the places existed. On an ancient map reprinted by the War Department at Washington, the lake and the castle are both located east of Schenectady. The old maps are from traders' descriptions in general terms.
Onuntadass, Onuntasasha, etc., "six miles west from Schoharie between the mountains of Schoharie and the hill called by the Indians Onuntadass" (Cal. N. Y. Land Papers), describes a hill or mountain—Ononté—with adjective termination es or ese, meaning "long" or "high." Jonondese, "It is a high hill." The hill has not been located. The name could be applied to any long or high hill.
Schoharie, now so written as the name of a creek and of a county and town, would properly be written without the i. The stream came into notice particularly after 1693-4, when the Tortoise tribe retreated from Caughnawaga and located their principal town on the west side of the stream a short distance south of its junction with the Mohawk, taking with them their ancient title of "The First Mohawk Castle," and where its location became known by the name of Ti-onondar-aga and Ti-ononta-ogen; but later from the location on the creek about sixteen miles above its mouth of what was known in modern times as "The Third Mohawk Castle," more frequently called "The Schohare Castle," a mixed aggregation of Mohawks and Tuscaroras who had been converted by the Jesuit missionaries and persuaded to remove to Canada, but subsequently induced to return. "A few emigrants at Schohare," wrote Sir William Johnson in 1763. In the same district was also gathered a settlement of Mahicans and other Algonquian emigrants. From the elements which were gathered in both settlements came what were, long known as the Schohare Indians. The early record name of the creek, To-was-sho'hare, was rendered for me by Mr. J. B. N. Hewitt, of the Bureau of Ethnology, T-yoc-skoⁿ-hà-re, "An obstruction by drift wood." [FN] In Colonial History, "Skohere, the Bear," means that the chief so called was of the Bear tribe. He was otherwise known by the title, "He is the great wood-drift."
[FN] "Schoharie, according to Brant, is an Indian word signifying drift or flood-wood, the creek of that name running at the foot of a steep precipice for many miles, from which it collected great quantities of wood." (Spofford's Gazetteer.)
Ti-onondar-aga and Tiononta-ogen are forms of the name by which the "First Mohawk Castle" was located after the Tortoise tribe was driven by the French from Caughnawaga in 1693. The castle was located on the west side and near the mouth of Schohare Creek, as shown by a rough map in Doc. Hist. N. Y., iii, 902, and also by a French Itinerary in 1757, in the same work, Vol. i, 526. [FN-1] For the protection of the settlement, the government erected, in 1710, what was known as Fort Hunter, by which name the place is still known. The settlement was ruled over for a number of years by "Little Abraham," brother of the Great King Hendrick of the "Upper Mohawk Castle," at Canajohare. Its occupants were especially classed as "Praying Maquas," and had a chapel and a bell and a priest of the Church of England. In the war of the Revolution they professed to be neutral but came to be regarded by the settlers as being composed of spies and informers. So it came about that General Clinton sent out, in 1779, a detachment, captured all the inmates, and seized their stock and property. [FN-2] There were only four houses—very good frame buildings—then standing, and on the solicitation of settlers, who had been made houseless in the Brant and Johnson raids, they were given to them. It was the last Mohawk castle to disappear from the valley proper.
Ti-onondar-ága and Te-ononte-ógen are related terms but are not precisely of the same meaning. The first has the locative particle ke, or acu, as Zeisberger wrote it, and the second, ógen, means "A space between," or "between two mountains," an intervale, or valley, a very proper name for Schohare Valley. It is a generic composition and was also employed in connection with the "Upper (Third) Mohawk Castle" (1635-'66).
[FN-1] The settlement included "Some thirty cabins of Mohawk Indians" in 1757. as stated in the French Itinerary referred to, Rev. Gideon Hawley described it, in 1753, as on the southwest side of the creek "Not far from the place where it discharges its waters into Mohawk River." The place is still known as "Fort Hunter," although the fort and the Indian settlement disappeared years ago.
[FN-2] A detachment of one hundred men, sent out for that purpose, surprised the castle on the 29th of October, 1779, making prisoners of "Every Indian inmate." The houseless settlers took possession of the four houses and of all the stock, grain and furniture of the tribe. The tribe made claim for restitution on the ground of neutrality, which the settlers denied. They had come to hate the very name of Mohawk.
Kadarode, of record in 1693 as the name of a tract of land "Lying upon Trinderogues (Schohare) creek, on both sides, made over to John Petersen Mabie by Roode, the Indian, in his life time, [FN] principal sachem, by and with the consent of the rest of the Praying Indian Castle in the Mohawk country" (Land Papers, 61), is further referred to in grant of permission to Mabie, in 1715, to purchase additional land "known as Kadarode," on the east side of the creek, and also lands "adjoining" his lands on the west side of the stream. (Ib. 118.) By the DeWitt map of survey of 1790, Mabie's entire purchase extended east from the mouth of Aurie's Creek to a point on the east side of Schohare Creek, a distance of about four miles, the territory covering the presumed site of the early Mohawk castle called by different writers from names which they had heard spoken, Onekagoncka, Caneray, Osseruenon, and Oneugioure, now the site of the Shrine, "Our Lady of Martyrs." The Mohawk River, west of the long rapids, above and including the mouth of Schohare Creek, flows "in a broad, dark stream, with no apparent current," giving it the appearance of a lake—"a long stretch of still water in a river." The section was much favored by the Tortoise tribe, whose castle in 1635 and again in 1693-4 was seated upon it. The record name, Kadarode, has obviously lost some letters. Its locative suggests its derivation from Kanitare, "Lake," and -okte, "End, side, edge," etc. Van Curler wrote here, in 1635, Canowarode, the name of a village which he passed while walking on the ice which had frozen over the Mohawk; it was evidently on the side of the stream. Carenay or Kaneray, Van der Donck's name of the castle, may easily have been from Kanitare. The letters d and t are equivalent sounds in the Mohawk tongue. The aspirate k was frequently dropped by European scribes; it does not represent a radical element. The several record names which are met here is a point of interest to students.
[FN] Roode was living in 1683. An additional name was given to him in a Schenectady patent of that year, indicating that the name by which he was generally known was from his place of residence. He could easily have been a sachem in 1635.
Oghrackee, Orachkee, Oghrackie, orthographies of the record name of what is now known as Aurie's Creek, appear in connection with land patented to John Scott, 1722. In the survey of the patent by Cadwallader Colden, in the same year, the description reads: "On the south side of Mohawk's river, about two miles above Fort Hunter, . . . beginning at a certain brook called by the Indians Oghrackie, otherwise known as Arie's creek, where it falls into Maquas river." (N. Y. Land Papers, 164.) In other words the name was that of a place at the mouth of the brook. Near the brook at Auriesville, which takes its name from that of the stream, has been located the Shrine, "Our Lady of Martyrs," marking the presumed site of the Mohawk castle called by Father Jogues Osserueñon, in which he suffered martyrdom in 1646. [FN] The Indian name, Oghrackie, has no meaning as it stands; some part of it was probably lost by mishearing. The digraph gh is not a radical element in Mohawk speech; it is frequently dropped, as in Orachkee, one of the forms of the name here. Omitting it from Colden's Oghrackie, and inserting the particle se or sa, yields Osarake, "At the beaver dam," from Osara, "Beaver dam," and locative participle ke, "At." (Hale.) This interpretation is confirmed, substantially, by the Bureau of Ethnology in an interpretation of Osseruenon which Father Jogues gave as that of the castle. W. H. Holmes, Chief of the Bureau, wrote me, under date of March 8, 1906, as has been above stated, "The term Osserueñon (or Osserneñon, Asserua, Osserion, Osserrinon) appears to be from the Mohawk dialect of the Iroquoian stock of languages. It signifies, if its English dress gives any approximation to the sound of the original expression, 'At the beaver dam.'" This expert testimony has its value in the force which it gives to the conclusion that the castle in which Father Jogues suffered was at or near Aurie's Creek. The relation between Megapolensis' Assarue and Jogues's Osseru is readily seen by changing the initial A in the former to O.
Aurie's, the present name of the stream, otherwise written Arie's, is Dutch for Adrian or Adrianus (Latin) "Of or pertaining to the sea." It is suggestive of the name Adriochten, written by Van Curler as that of the ruling sachem of the castle which he visited and called Onekagoncka in 1635. The only tangible fact, however, is that the stream took its present name from Aurie, a ruling sachem who resided on or near it.
In this connection the several names by which the castle was called, viz: Onekagoncka, Carenay or Caneray, Osserueñon, Assarue, and Oneugiouré, may be again referred to. As already stated, the "best expert authority" of the Bureau of Ethnology reads Onekagoncka as signifying, "At the junction of the waters," and Osserueñon, in any of its forms, as signifying "At the beaver-dam." Possibly the names might be read differently by a less expert authority, but Oneka certainly means "Water," and Ossera means "Beaver-dam." Add the reading by the late Horatio Hale of Oghracke, "At the beaver-dam," and the locative chain is complete at the mouth of Aurie's Creek (Oghracke). Tribally, the names referred to one and the same castle, as has been noted, and the evidence seems to be clear that the location was the same. There is no evidence whatever that any other than one and the same place was occupied by the "first castle" between the years 1635 and 1667. It is not strictly correct to say that "castles were frequently removed." Villages that were not palisaded may have been frequently changed to new sites, but the evidence is that palisaded towns remained in one place for a number of years unless the tribe occupying was driven out by an enemy or by continued unhealthfulness, as the known history of all the old castles shows; nor were they ever removed to any considerable distance from their original sites.
Van Curler's description of the castle has been quoted. He did not say that it was palisaded, but he did call it a "fort," which means the same thing. Rev. Megapolensis wrote, in 1644: "These [the Tortoise tribe] have built a fort of palisades and call their castle Assarue." It was not an old castle when Van Curler visited it in 1635, or when Father Jogues was a prisoner in it in 1642, but in its then short existence it had had an incident in the wars between the Mohawks and the Mahicans of which there is no mention in our written histories. On his return trip Van Curler wrote that after leaving Onekagoncka and walking about "two miles," or about six English miles, his guide pointed to a high hill on which the immediately preceding castle of the tribe had stood and from which it had been driven by the Mahicans "nine years" previously, i. e. in 1627, when the war was raging between the Mohawks and the Mahicans of which Wassenaer wrote. It was obviously about that time that the tribe, retreating from its enemies, rallied west of Schohare Creek and founded the castle of which we are speaking, and there it remained until it was driven out by the French under De Tracey in 1666, when its occupants gathered together at Caughnawaga on the north side of the Mohawk, where they remained until 1693 when their castle was again destroyed by the French, and the tribe found a resting place on the west side of the mouth of Schohare Creek. The remarkable episode in the early history of the castle, the torture and murder of Father Jogues in 1646, is available in many publications. The location in Brodhead's and other histories of the castle in which he suffered as at Caughnawaga, is now known to be erroneous. Caughnawaga was not occupied by the tribal castle until over twenty years later.
[FN] The site of the Shrine was approved by the Society of Jesus mainly on examinations and measurements made by General John S. Clark, the locally eminent antiquarian of Auburn, N. Y., who gave the most conscientious attention to the work of investigation. The data supplied by Van Curler's Journal, which he did not have before him, may suggest corrections in some of his locations.
Senatsycrossy, written by Van Curler, in 1635, as the name of a Mohawk Village west of Canowarode, seems to have been in the vicinity of Fultonville, where tradition has always located one, but where General John S. Clark asserts that there never was one. It may not have remained at the place named for a number of years. Villages that were not palisaded were sometimes removed in a single night. Van Curler described it as a village of twelve houses. It was, presumably, the seat of a sub-tribe or gens of the Tortoise tribe. Its precise location is not important. A gens or sub-tribe was a family of the original stock more or less numerous from natural increase and intermarriages, and always springing from a single pair—the old, old story of Adam and Eve, the founders of the Hebrews. The sachem or first man of these gens was never a ruler of the tribe proper. They did sign deeds for possessions which were admitted to be their own, but never a treaty on the part of the nation.
Caughnawaga, probably the best known of the Mohawk castles of what may be called the middle era (1667-93), and the immediate successor of Onekagoncka of 1635, was located on the north side of the Mohawk, on the edge of a hill, near the river, half a mile west of the mouth of Cayuadutta Creek, in the present village of Fonda. The hill on which it was built is now known as Kaneagah, writes Mr. W. Max Read of Amsterdam. Its name appears first in French notation, in Jesuit Relations (1667), Gandaouagué. [FN] Contemporaneous Dutch scribes wrote it Kaghnawaga and Caughnawaga, and Greenhalgh, an English trader, who visited the castle in 1677, wrote it Cahaniaga, and described it as "about a bowshot from the river, doubly stockaded around, with four ports, and twenty-four houses." The most salient points in its history are in connection with its wars with the French and with the labors of the Jesuit missionaries, who, after the murder of Father Jogues and the destruction of the castle in which he suffered and the peace of 1667, were very successful, so much so that in 1671 the occupants of the castle erected in its public square a Cross, and a year later a very large number of the tribe under the lead of the famous warrior Krin, removed to Canada and became allies of the French. The members of the tribe who remained occupied the castle until the winter of 1693, when it was captured and burned by the French, and the tribe returned to the south side of the river and located on the flats on the west side of Schohare Creek, where they were especially known as "The Praying Maquaas," and where they remained until 1779, when they were dispersed by the Revolutionary forces under General Clinton. Caughnawaga is accepted as meaning "At the rapids," more correctly "At the rapid current." It is from the Huron radical Gannawa (Bruyas), for which M. Cuoq wrote in his Lexicon Ohnawagh, "Swift current," or very nearly the Dutch Kaghnawa; with locative particle -ge or -ga, "At the rapids." It is a generic term and is met of record in several places. As has been noted elsewhere, the rapids of the Mohawk extend at intervals fifteen in number from Schenectady to Little Falls, the longest being east of the mouth of Schohare Creek. The rapid or rift at Caughnawaga extends about half a mile.
[FN] The letters ou, in Gandaouaga and in other names, represents a sound produced by the Mohawks in the throat without motion of the lips. Bruyas wrote it 8. {sic ȣ?} It is now generally written w—Gandawaga.
Cayudutta, modern orthography; Caniadutta and Caniahdutta, 1752. "Beginning at a great rock, lying on the west side of a creek, called by the Indians Caniadutta." (Cal. Land Papers, 270.) The name was that of the rock, from which it was extended to the stream. It was probably a rock of the calciferous sandstone type containing garnets, quartz and flint, which are met in the vicinity. "The name is from Onenhia, or Onenya, 'stone,' and Kaniote, 'to be elevated,' or standing" (Hale). [FN] Dr. Beauchamp translated the name, "Stone standing out of the water." The meaning, however, seems to be simply, "Standing stone," or an elevated rock. Its location is stated in the patent description as "lying on the west side of the creek." The place is claimed for Fulton County. (See Caughnawaga.)
[FN] The same word is now written as the name of the Oneida nation. Van Curler's trip, in 1635, extended to the castle of the Oneidas, which he called' Enneyuttehage, "The standing-stone town." (Hale.)
Canagere, written by Van Curler, in 1635, as the name of the "Second Castle" or tribal town, was written Gandagiro by Father Jogues, in 1643; Banigiro by Rev. Megapolensis; Gandagora in Jesuit Relations in 1669, and Canagora by Greenhalgh in 1677. The several orthographies are claimed to stand for Canajohare, from the fact that the castle was "built on a high hill" east of Canajohare Creek. It was, however, the castle of the Bear tribe, the Ganniagwari, or Grand Bear of the nation, and carried its name with it to the north side of the Mohawk in 1667. Ganniagwari and Canajohare are easily confused. The creek called Canajohare gave a general locative name to a considerable district of country around it. It took the name from a pot-hole in a mass of limestone in its bed at the falls on the stream about one mile from its mouth. Bruyas wrote "Ganna-tsi-ohare, laver de chaudiere" (to wash the cauldron or large kettle). Rev. Samuel Kirkland, the noted missionary to the Oneidas, wrote the same word "Kanaohare, or Great Boiling Pot, as it is called by the Six Nations." (Dr. Dwight.) The letter j stands for tsi, augmentative, and the radical ohare means "To wash." (Bruyas.) The hole was obviously worn by a round stone or by pebbles, which, moved by the action of the current, literally washed the kettle. Van Curler described the castle as containing "sixteen houses, fifty, sixty, seventy, or eighty paces long, and one of five paces containing a bear," which he presumed was "to be fattened." No matter what may be said in regard to precise location, this castle was east of Canajohare Creek.
Sohanidisse, a castle so called by Van Curler, and denominated by him as the "Third Castle," is marked on Van der Donck's map Schanatisse. It is described by Van Curler as "on a very high hill," west of Canajohare Creek, was composed of thirty-two long houses, and was not enclosed by palisades. "Near this castle was plenty of flat land and the woods were full of oak trees." The "very high hill" west of Canajohare Creek and the flat lands remain to verify its position. It is supposed to have been the castle of the Beaver tribe—a sub-gens.
Osquage, Ohquage, Otsquage, etc., was written by Van Curler as the name of a village of nine houses situated east of what has been known since 1635 as Osquage or Otsquage Creek. The chief of the village was called "Oguoho, that is Wolf." Megapolensis wrote the same term Okwaho; Van Curler later wrote it Ohquage, and in vocabulary "Okwahohage, wolves," accessorily, "Place of wolves." From the form Osquage we no doubt have Otsquage or Okquage.
Cawaoge, a village so called by Van Curler, was described by him as on a "very high hill" west of Osquage. On his return trip he wrote the name Nawoga; on old maps it is Canawadoga, of which Cawaoge is a compression, apparently from Gannawake. For centuries the name has been preserved in Nowadaga as that of Fort Plain Creek.
Tenotoge and Tenotehage, Van Curler; t' Jonoutego, Van der Donck; Te-onont-ogeu, Jogues; Thenondigo, Megapolensis—called by Van Curler the "Fourth Castle" and known later as the castle of the Wolf tribe, and as the "Upper Mohawk Castle," was described by Van Curler as composed of fifty-five houses "surrounded by three rows of palisades." It stood in a valley evidently, as Van Curler wrote that the stream called the Osquaga "ran past this castle." On the opposite (east) side of the stream he saw "a good many houses filled with corn and beans," and extensive flat lands. It was undoubtedly strongly palisaded to defend the western door of the nation as was Onekagoncka on the east. Te-onont-ogen, which is probably the most correct form of the name, means "Between two mountains," an intervale or space between, from Te, "two"; -ononte, "mountain," and -ogen, "between." The same name is met later at the mouth of Schohare Creek. General John S. Clark located this castle at Spraker's Basin, thirteen miles (railroad) west of Auriesville and three miles east of Nowedaga Creek. The correctness of this location must be determined by the topographical features stated by Van Curler and not otherwise. General Clark did an excellent work in searching for the sites of ancient castles from remaining evidences of Indian occupation, but the remaining evidence of names and topographical features where they are met of record must govern. In this case the creek that "ran past the door of this castle," is an indisputable mark. The French destroyed the castle in October, 1666. In the account of the occurrence (Doc. Hist. N. Y., ii, 70) it is described as being surrounded by "A triple palisade, twenty feet in height and flanked by four bastions." The tribe did not defend their possession, only a few old persons remaining who were too feeble to follow the retreat of the warriors and kindred. The tribe rebuilt the castle on the north side of the Mohawk under the name of Onondagowa, "A Great Hill." The French destroyed it again in 1693, and the tribe returned to the south side of the river and located on the flat at the mouth of the Nowadaga or Fort Plain Creek, where the government built, in 1710, Fort Hendrick for its protection, and where it became known as the Upper or Canajohare Castle.
Aschalege, Oschalage, Otsgarege, etc., are record forms of the name given as that of the stream now known as Cobel's Kill, a branch of Schohare Creek in Schohare County. Morgan translated it from Askwa or Oskwa, a scaffolding or platform of any kind, and ge, locative, the combination yielding "At or on a bridge." Bruyas wrote Otserage, "A causeway," a way or road raised above the natural level of the ground, serving as a passage over wet or marshy grounds. Otsgarage is now applied to a noted cavern near the stream in the town of Cobel's Kill.
Oneyagine, "called by the Indians Oneyagine, and by the Christians Stone Kill," is the record name of a creek in Schohare County. J. B. N. Hewitt read it from Onehya (Onne'ja, Bruyas), "stone"; Oneyagine, "At the broken stone," from which transferred to the stream.
Kanendenra, "a hill called by the Indians Kanendenra, otherwise by the Christians Anthony's Nose"—"to a point on Mohawk River near a hill called by the Indians Kanandenra, and by the Christians Anthony's Nose"—"to a certain hill called Anthony's Nose, whose point comes into the said river"—"Kanendahhere, a hill on the south side of the Mohawk, by the Christians lately called Anthony's Nose"—now known as "The Noses" and applied to a range of hills that rises abruptly from the banks of the Mohawk just below Spraker's. The name is an abstract noun, possessing a specialized sense. The nose is the terminal peak of the Au Sable range. The rock formation is gneiss, covered by heavy masses of calciferous limestone containing garnets. "Anthony's Nose," probably so called from resemblance to Anthony's Nose on the Hudson.
Etagragon, now so written, the name of a boundmark on the Mohawk, is of record "Estaragoha, a certain rock." The locative is on the south side of the river about twenty-four miles above Schenectady. (Cal. N. Y. Land Papers, 121.) The name is an equivalent of Astenra-kowa, "A large rock." Modern Otsteara-kowa, Elliot.
Astenrogen, of record as the name of "the first carrying place," now Little Falls, is from Ostenra, "rock," and ogen, "divisionem" (Bruyas), literally, "Divided or separated rock." The east end of the gorge was the eastern boundmark of what is known as the "German Flats," which was purchased and settled by a part of the Palatine immigrants who had been located on the Livingston Patent in 1710. The patent to the Germans here was granted in 1723. The description in it reads: "Beginning at the first carrying place, being the easternmost bounds, called by the natives Astenrogen, running along on both sides of said river westerly unto Ganendagaren, or the upper end [i. e. of the flats, a fine alluvial plain on both sides of the river], [FN] being about twenty-four miles." (Cal. N. Y. Land Papers, 182.) The passage between the rocks, now Little Falls, covered a distance of "about three-quarters of a mile" and the rapids "the height of thirty-nine feet," according to the survey of 1792. The Mohawk here breaks through the Allegheny ridge which primarily divided the waters of the Ontario Basin from the Hudson. The overflow from the basin here formed a waterfall that probably rivaled Niagara and gradually wore away the rock. The channel of the stream was very deep and on the subsidence of the ice sheet, which spread over the northern part of the continent, became filled with drift. The opening in the ridge and the formation of the valley of the Mohawk as now known are studies in the work of creation. The settlements known as the German Flats were on both sides of the river. The one that was on the north side was burned by the French in the war of 1756-7. It was then composed of sixty houses. The one on the south side was known as Fort Kouari and later as Fort Herkimer. The district shared largely in the historic events in the Mohawk Valley during the Revolution. There are very few districts of country in the nation in which so many subjects for consideration are centered.
[FN] Ganendagraen is probably from Gahenta (Gahenda), "Prairie."
Keht-hanne, Heckewelder—Kittan, Zeisberger—"The principal or greatest stream," i. e. of the country through which it passes, was the generic name of the Delaware River, and Lenapewihittuck, "The river or stream of the Lenape," its specific name, more especially referring to the stream where its waters are affected by tidal currents. In the Minisink country it was known as Minisinks River, or "River of the Minisinks." At the Lehigh junction the main stream was called the East Branch and the Lehigh the West Branch (Sauthier's map), but above that point the main stream was known as the West Branch to its head in Utsyantha [FN-1] Lake, on the north-east line of Delaware County, N. Y., where it was known as the Mohawk's Branch. It forms the southwestern boundary of the State from nearly its head to Port Jervis, Orange County, Where it enters or becomes the western boundary of New Jersey. At Hancock, Delaware County, it receives the waters of what was called by the Indians the Paghkataghan, and by the English the East Branch. The West Branch was here known to the Indians as the Namaes-sipu and its equivalent Lamas-sépos, or "Fish River," by Europeans, Fish-Kill, "Because," says an affidavit of 1785, "There was great numbers of Maskunamack (that is Bass) and Guwam (that is Shad) [FN-2] went up that branch at Shokan, and but few or none went up the East [Paghkataghan] Branch." [FN-3] In the course of time the East or Paghkataghan [FN-4] Branch became known as the Papagonck from a place so called. The lower part of the stream was called by the Dutch the "Zuiden River," or South River. In early days the main or West Branch was navigable by flat-boats from Cochecton Falls to Philadelphia and Wilmington. Smith, in his "History of New Jersey," wrote: "From Cochecton to Trenton are fourteen considerable rifts, yet all passable in the long flat boats used in the navigation of these parts, some carrying 500 or 600 bushels of wheat." Meggeckesson (Col. Hist. N. Y., xii, 225) was the name of what are now known as Trenton Falls, or rapids. It means, briefly, "Strong water." Heckewelder's Maskek-it-ong and his interpretation of it, "Strong falls at," are wrong, the name which he quoted being that of a swamp in the vicinity of the falls, as noted in Col. Hist. N. Y., and as shown by the name itself.
The Delaware was the seat of the Lenni-Lenapé (a as a in father, é as a in mate—Lenahpa), or "Original people," or people born of the earth on which they lived, who were recognized, at the time of the discovery, as the head or "Grandfather" of the Algonquian nations. From their principal seat on the tide-waters of the Delaware, and their jurisdiction on that stream, they became known and are generally met in history as the Delawares. In tribal and sub-tribal organizations they extended over Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, New Jersey, and New York as far north as the Katskills, speaking dialects radically the same as that of the parent stock. [FN-5] They were composed of three primary totemic tribes, the Minsi or Wolf, the Unulachtigo or Turkey, and the Unami or Turtle, of whom the Turtle held the primacy. They were a milder and less barbaric people than the Iroquoian tribes, with whom they had little affinity and with whom they were almost constantly in conflict until they were broken up by the incoming tide of Europeans, the earliest and the succeeding waves of which fell upon their shores, and the later alliance of the English with their ancient enemies, the confederated Six Nations of New York, who, from their geographical position and greater strength from their remoteness from the demoralization of early European contact, offered the most substantial advantages for repelling the advances of the French in Canada. Ultimately conquered by the Six Nations, and made "Women," in their figurative language, i. e. a people without power to make war or enter into treaties except with the consent of their rulers, they nevertheless maintained their integrity and won the title of "Men" as the outcome of the war of 1754-6. Their history has been fully—perhaps too favorably—written by Heckewelder and others. The geographical names which they gave to the hills and streams of their native land are their most remindful memorial. While western New York was Iroquoian, southern New York was Lenni-Lenape or Algonquian.
[FN-1] Also written Oteseontio and claimed as the name of a spring. The lake is a small body of water lying 1,800 feet above tide level, in the town of Jefferson, Schohare County. It is usually quoted as the head of the West Branch of Delaware River.
[FN-2] "Guwam; modifications, Choam, Schawan. The stem appears to be Shawano, 'South,' 'Coming from the south,' or from salt water." (Brinton.)
[FN-3] Affidavit of Johannes Decker, Hist. Or. Co. (quarto) p. 699: "Called by the Indians Lamas-Sepos, or Fish Kill, because they caught the shad there." (Cal. N. Y. Land Papers, 698, et. seq.)
[FN-4] Paghkataghan means "The division or branch of a stream"—"Where the stream divides or separates." The Moravian missionaries wrote the name Pachgahgoch, from which, by corruption, Papagonck. The Papagoncks seem to have been, primarily, Esopus Indians, and to have retreated to that point after yielding up their Esopus lands. (See Schaghticoke.)
[FN-5] Two slightly different dialects prevailed among the Delawares, the one spoken by the Unami and the Unulachtigo, the other the Minsi. The dialect which the missionaries Learned, and in which they composed their works, was that of the Lehigh Valley. We may fairly consider it to have been the upper or inland Unami. It stood between the Unulachto and Southern Unami and the true Minsi. (Dr. Brinton.) The dialects spoken in the valley of Hudson's River have been referred to in another connection.
Minisink, now so written and preserved as the name of a town in Orange County, appears primarily, in 1656, on Van der Donck's map, "Minnessinck ofte t' Landt van Bacham," which may be read, constructively, "Indians inhabiting the back or upper lands," or the highlands. [FN] Heckewelder wrote: "The Minsi, which we have corrupted to Monsey, extended their settlements from the Minisink, a place named after them, where they had their council seat and fire," and Reichel added, "The Minisinks, i. e. the habitation of the Monseys or Minsis." The application was both general and specific to the district of country occupied by the Minsi tribe and to the place where its council fire was held. The former embraced the mountainous country of the Delaware River above the Forks or junction of the Lehigh Branch; the latter was on Minnisink Plains in New Jersey, about eight miles south of Port Jervis, Orange County. It was obviously known to the Dutch long before Van der Donck wrote the name. It was visited, in 1694, by Arent Schuyler, a credited interpreter, who wrote, in his Journal, Minissink and Menissink as the name of the tribal seat. Although it is claimed that there was another council-seat on the East Branch of the Delaware, that on Minisink Plains was no doubt the principal seat of the tribe, as records show that it was there that all official intercourse with the tribe was conducted for many years. Schuyler met sachems and members of the tribe there and the place was later made a point for missionary labor. Their village was palisaded. On one of the early maps it is represented as a circular enclosure. In August, 1663, they asked the Dutch authorities at New Amsterdam, through Oratamy, sachem of the Hackinsacks, "For a small piece of ordnance to use in their fort against the Sinuakas and protect their corn." (Col. Hist. N. Y., xiii, 290.) In the blanket deed which the tribe gave in 1758, to their territory in New Jersey they were styled "Minsis, Monseys, or Minnisinks." Minsis and Monseys are convertible terms of which the late Dr. D. G. Brinton wrote: "From investigation among living Delawares, Minsi, properly Minsiu, formerly Min-assin-iu, means 'People of the stony country,' or briefly, 'Mountaineers.' It is the synthesis of Minthiu, 'To be scattered,' and Achsin, 'Stone.' according to the best native authority." Apparently from Min-assin we have Van der Donck's Minn-essin; with locative -k, -ck, -g, -gh, Minn-essin-ks, "People of the stony country," back-landers or highlanders. Interpretations of less merit have been made. One that is widely quoted is from Old Algonquian and Chippeway Minnis, "Island," and -ink, locative; but there is no evidence that Minnis was in the dialect spoken here; on the contrary the record name of Great Minnisink Island, which is supposed to have been referred to, was Menag'nock, by the German notation Menach'hen-ak. Aside from this Minnissingh is of record at Poughkeepsie, in 1683, where no island is known to have existed, and in Westchester County the same term is met in Men-assink (Min-assin-ink), "At a place of small stones." The deed description at Poughkeepsie located the tract conveyed "On the bank of the river," i. e. on the back or ridge lands. (See Minnis-ingh.) The final s which appears in many of the forms of the name, and especially in Minsis, is a foreign plural.
[FN] "Minnessinck ofte t' Landt Van Bacham," apparently received some of its letters from the engraver of the map. Ofte—Dutch and Old Saxon, av—English of—was probably used in the sense of identity or equivalency. Bacham—Dutch, bak; Old High-German, Bahhoham—describes "An extended upper part, as of a mountain or ridge." In application to a tribe, "Ridge-landers," "Highlanders," or "Mountaineers." On the Hudson the tribe was generally known as Highlanders. The double n and the double s, in many of the forms, show that e was pronounced short, or i.
Menagnock, the record name of what has long been known as "The Great Mennissincks Island"—"The Great Island of the Mennisinks"—is probably an equivalent of Menach'henak (Minsi) meaning "Islands." The island, so called, is a flat cut up by water courses, forming several small islands.
Namenock, an island so called by Rev. Casparus Freymout in 1737, is probably an equivalent of Naman-ock and Namee-ock, L. I., which was translated by Dr. Trumbull from Mass. Namau-ohke, "Fishing place," or "Fish country"—Namauk, Del, "Fishing place." Perhaps it was the site of a weir or dam for impounding fish. Such dams or fishing places became boundmarks in some cases. The name was corrupted to Nomin-ack, as the name of a church and of a fort three or four miles below what is now Montague, N. J. On Long Island the name is corrupted to Nomin-ick. (See Moriches.)
Magatsoot—A tract of land "Called and known by the name of Magockomack and Magatsoot"—so entered in petition of Philip French for Minisink Patent in 1703, is noted in petition of Ebenezer Wilson (same patent), in 1702, "Beginning on the northwest side of the mouth of Weachackamack Creek where it enters Minisink River." The creek was then given the name of the field called Maghaghkamieck; it is now called Neversink. Magatsoot was the name of the mouth of the stream, "Where it enters Minisink River," or the Delaware. It is an equivalent of Machaak-sók, [FN] meaning, "The great outlet," or mouth of a river. Although specific in application to the mouth of the river, it is more strictly the name of the stream than that which it now bears. (See Magaat-Ramis.)
[FN] Machaak, Moh., Mechek, Len.; "Great, large"; soot, sók, sóhk, sauk, "Pouring out," hence mouth or outlet of a river.
Maghagh-kamieck, so written in patent to Arent Schuyler in 1694, and described therein as "A certain tract of land at a place called Maghaghkamieck," which "Place" was granted, in 1697, to Swartwout, Coddebeck, and others, has been handed down in many orthographies. The precise location of the "Place" was never ascertained by survey, but by occupation it consisted of some portion of a very fine section of bottom-land extending along the northeast side of Neversink River from near or in the vicinity of the junction of that stream and the Delaware at Carpenter's Point to the junction of Basha's Kill [FN-1] and the Neversink, in the present county of Sullivan, a distance of about eleven miles. In general terms its boundaries are described in the patent as extending from "The western bounds of the lands called Nepeneck to a small run of water called by the Indian name Assawaghkemek, and so along the same and the lands of Mansjoor, the Indian." It matters not that in later years it was reported by a commission that the patent "Contained no particular boundaries, but appeared rather to be a description of a certain tract of country in which 1,200 acres were to be taken up," the name nevertheless was that of a certain field or place so distinct in character as to become a general locative of the whole, as in the Schuyler grant of 1694. It may reasonably be presumed that the district to which it was extended began at Carpenter's Point (Nepeneck) and ended on the north side of Basha's Kill. (See Assawaghkemek.) The same name is met in New Jersey on the Peaquaneck River, where it is of record in 1649, "Mechgacham-ik, or Indian field" (Col. Hist. N. Y., xiii, 25); noted as an Indian settlement in the Journal of Arent Schuyler, in 1694, giving an account of his visit to the Minissinck country, in February of that year, in which the orthography is Maghagh-kamieck, indicating very clearly that the original was Maghk-aghk-kamighk, a combination of Maghaghk, "Pumpkin," and -kamik, "Field," or place limited, where those vegetables were cultivated, and a place that was widely known evidently. [FN-2] The German missionaries wrote Machg-ack, "Pumpkin," and Captain John Smith, in his Virginia notes of 1620, wrote the same sound in Mahcawq. No mention is made of an Indian village here. If there was one it certainly was not visited by Arent Schuyler in 1694, as is shown by the general direction of his route, as well as by maps of Indian paths. To have visited Maghaghkamik in Orange County would have taken him many miles out of his way. Maghaghkamik Fork and Maghaghkamik Church lost those names many years ago, but the ancient name is still in use in some connections in Port Jervis, and most wretchedly spelled.
[FN-1] Basha's Kill, so called from a place called Basha's land, which see.
[FN-2] Kamik, Del., Komuk, Mass., in varying orthographies, means
"Place" in the sense of a limited enclosed, or occupied space;
"Generally," wrote Dr. Trumbull, "An enclosure, natural or artificial,
such as a house or other building, a village, or planted field, a thicket
or place surrounded by trees"; briefly, a place having definite
boundaries. Maghkaghk is an intense expression of quality—perfection.
Nepeneck, a boundmark so called in the Swartwout-Coddebeck Patent of 1697—Napenock, Napenack, Napenough, later forms—given as the name of the western or southwestern bound of the Maghaghkamick tract, is described: "Beginning at the western bounds of the lands called Nepeneck." The place is presumed to have been at or near Carpenter's Point, on the Delaware, which at times is overflowed by water. It disappears here after 1697, but reappears in a similar situation some twenty miles north at the junction of the Sandberg and Rondout kills. It is probably a generic as in Nepeak, L. I., meaning, "Water land," or land overflowed by water. "Nepenit 'In a place of water.'" (Trumbull.) Carpenter's Point or ancient Nepeneck, is the site of the famous Tri-States Rock, the boundmark of three states.
Assawaghkemek, the name entered as that of the northeast boundmark of the Swartwout-Coddebeck Patent, and described therein, "To a small run of water called Assawaghkemek . . . and so along the same and the lands of Mansjoor, the Indian," is known by settlement, to have been at and below the junction of Basha's Kill and the Neversink, from which the inference seems to be well sustained that "the lands of Mansjoor, the Indian" were the lands or valley of Basha's Kill, which the name describes as an enclosed or occupied place "beyond," or "on the other side" of the small run of water. The prefix Assaw, otherwise written Accaw, Agaw, etc., means "Beyond," "On the other side." The termination agh, or aug, indicates that the name is formed as a verb. Kemek (Kamik) means an enclosed, or occupied place, as already stated. The translation in "History of Orange County," from Waseleu, "Light, bright, foaming," is erroneous, as is also the application of the name to Fall Brook, near the modern village of Huguenot. In no case was the name that of a stream, except by extension to it.
Peenpack, (Paan, Paen, Pien, Penn) is given, traditionally, as the name of a "Small knoll or rise of ground, some fifty or sixty rods long, ten wide, and about twenty feet high above the level of" Neversink River, "on and around which the settlers of the Maghaghkamik Patent first located their cabins." It has been preserved for many generations as the name of what is known as the Peen-pach Valley, the long narrow flats on the Neversink. Apparently it is corrupt Dutch from Paan-pacht, "Low, soft land," or leased land. The same name is met in Paan-paach, Troy, N. Y., and in Penpack, Somerset County, N. J. The places bearing it were primary Dutch settlements on low lands. (See Paanpaach.) Doubtfully a substitution for Algonquian from a root meaning, "To fall from a height" (Abn., Paⁿna; Len. Pange), as in Abn. Panaⁿk'i, "Fall of land," the downward slope of a mountain, suggested by the slope of the Shawongunk Mountain range, which here runs southwest to northeast and falls off on the west until it meets the narrow flats spoken of. The same feature is met at Troy.
Tehannek, traditionally the name of a small stream on the east side of the Peenpack Knoll, probably means "Cold stream," from Ta or Te, "cold," and -hannek, "stream." It is a mountain brook.
Sokapach, traditionally the name of a spring in Deerpark, means, "A spring." It is an equivalent of Sókapeék, "A spring or pool."
Neversink, the name quoted as that of the stream flowing to the Delaware at Carpenter's Point, is not a river name. It is a corruption of Lenape Newás, "A promontory," and -ink, locative, meaning "At the promontory." The particular promontory referred to seems to have been what is now known as Neversink Point, in Sullivan County, which rises 3,300 feet. The name is generic and is met in several places, notably in Neversink, N. J. (See Maghaghkameck.)
Seneyaughquan, given as the name of an Indian bridge which crossed the Neversink, may have its equivalent in "Tayachquano, bridge—a dry passage over a stream." (Heckewelder.) The bridge was a log and the location said to have been above the junction of the stream with the Mamacottin.
Saukhekemeck, otherwise Maghawam, so entered in the Schuyler Patent, 1697, apparently refer to one and the same place. The locative has not been ascertained. The patent covered lands now in New Jersey. The tract is described in the patent: "Situated upon a river called Mennissincks, before a certain island called Menagnock, which is adjacent to or near a tract of land called by the natives Maghaghkamek." (See Menagnock.)
Warensagskemeck, a tract also conveyed to Arent Schuyler in 1697, described as "A parcel of meadow or vly, adjacent to or near a tract called Maghaghkamek," is probably, by exchange of r and l and transpositions, Walenaskameck; Walen, "hollowing, concave"; Walak, hole; Waleck, a hollow or excavation; -ask, "Grass"; -kameck, an enclosed or limited field; substantially, "a meadow or vly," [FN] as described in the deed.
[FN] Vly is a Dutch contraction of Vallei, with the accepted signification, "A swamp or morass; a depression with water in it in rainy seasons, but dry at other times." A low meadow. Walini, (Eastern), hollowing, concave site.
Schakaeckemick, given as the name of a parcel of land on the Delaware described as "lying in an elbow," seems to be an equivalent of Schaghach, meaning "Straight." level, flat, and -kamick, a limited field. The tract was given to one William Tietsort, a blacksmith, who had escaped from the massacre at Schenectady (Feb. 1689-90), and was induced by the gift to settle among the Minisinks to repair their fire-arms. He was the first European settler on the Delaware within the limits of the old county of Orange. He sold the land to one John Decker, and removed to Duchess County. No abstract of title from Decker has been made, and probably cannot be. Decker's name, however, appears in records as one of the first settlers, in company with William Cole and Solomon Davis, in what was long known as "The Lower Neighborhood"; in New Jersey annals, "Cole's Fort." The precise location is uncertain. In History of Orange Co. (Ed. 1881, p. 701), it is said: "It is believed that further investigation will show that Tietsort's land was the later Benj. van Vleet place, near Port Jervis." In Eager's "History of Orange County" (p. 396), Stephen St. John is given as the later owner of the original farm of John Decker. Decker's house was certainly in the "Lower Neighborhood." It was palisaded and called a fort.
Wihlahoosa, given, locally, as the name of a cavern in the rocks on the side of the mountain, about three miles from Port Jervis, on the east side of Neversink River, is probably from Wihl (Zeisb.), "Head," and -hōōs, "Pot or kettle." The reference may have been to its shape, or its position. In the vicinity of the cavern was an Indian burial ground covering six acres. Skeletons have been unearthed there and found invariably in a sitting posture. In one grave was found a sheet-iron tobacco-box containing a handkerchief covered with hieroglyphics probably reciting the owner's achievements. Tomahawks, arrow-heads and other implements have also been found in graves. The place was long known as "Penhausen's Land," from one of the grantors of the deed. The cavern may have had some connection with the burial ground.
Walpack, N. J., is probably a corruption of Walpeék, from Walak (Woalac, Zeisb.), "A hollow or excavation," and -peék, "Lake," or body of still water. The idea expressed is probably "Deep water." It was the name of a lake.
Mamakating, now so written and preserved in the name of a town in Sullivan County, is written on Sauthier's map Mamecatink as the name of a settlement and Mamacotton as the name of a stream. Other forms are Mamacoting and Mamacocking. The stream bearing the name is now called Basha's Kill, the waters of which find their way to the Delaware, and Mamakating is assigned to a hollow. The settlement was primarily a trading post which gathered in the neighborhood of the Groot Yaugh Huys (Dutch, "Great Hunting House"), a large cabin constructed by the Indians for their accommodation when on hunting expeditions, [FN-1] and subsequently maintained by Europeans for the accommodation of hunters and travelers passing over what was known as the "Mamacottin path," a trunk line road connecting the Hudson and Delaware rivers, more modernly known as the "Old Mine Road," which was opened as a highway in 1756. The Hunting House is located on Sauthier's map immediately south of the Sandberg, in the town of Mamakating, and more recently, by local authority, at or near what is known as the "Manarse Smith Spring," otherwise as the "Great Yaugh Huys Fontaine," or Great Hunting House Spring. [FN-2] The meaning of the name is largely involved in the orthography of the suffix. If the word was -oten it would refer to the trading post or town, as in "Otenink, in the town" (Heckewelder), and, with the prefix Mamak (Mamach, German notation), root Mach, "evil, bad, naughty" (Mamak, iterative), would describe something that was very bad in the town; but, if the word was -atin, "Hill or mountain," the name would refer to a place that was at or on a very bad hill. Presumably the hill was the objective feature, the settlement being at or near the Sandberg. There is nothing in the name meaning plain or valley, nor anything "wonderful" about it. Among other features on the ancient path was the wigwam of Tautapau, "a medicine man," so entered in a patent to Jacob Rutzen in 1713. Tautapau (Taupowaw, Powaw), "A priest or medicine man," literally, "A wise speaker."
[FN-1] Indian Hunting-houses were met in all parts of the country. They were generally temporary huts, but in some cases became permanent. (See Cochecton.)
[FN-2] Fontaine is French—"A spring of water issuing from the earth." The stream flowing from the spring is met in local history as Fantine Kill.
Kau-na-ong-ga, "Two wings," is said to have been the name of White Lake, Sullivan County, the form of the lake being that of a pair of wings expanded, according to the late Alfred B. Street, the poet-historian, who embalmed the lake in verse years before it became noted as a fashionable resort. (See Kong-hong-amok.)
"Where the twin branches of the Delaware Glide into one, and in their language call'd Chihocken, or 'the meeting of the floods';" [FN-1]
The "Willemoc," [FN-2] and "The Falls of the Mongaup," are also among Street's poetical productions.
[FN-1] "Formerly Shohakin or Chehocton." (French's Gaz.) In N. Y. Land Papers, Schohakana is the orthography. Street's translation is a poetical fancy. The name probably refers to a place at the mouth of the northwest or Mohawk Branch of the Delaware, and the northeast or Paghkataghan Branch, at Hancock, Del. Co.
[FN-2] Willemoc probably stands for Wilamauk, "Good fishing-place." There were two streams in the town, one known as the Beaver Kill and the other as the Williwemack. In Cal. N. Y. Land Papers, 699, occurs the entry: "The Beaver Kill or Whitenaughwemack." The date is 1785. The orthography bears evidence of many years' corruption. It may have been shortened to Willewemock and Willemoc, and stand for Wilamochk, "Good, rich, beaver." It was, presumably, a superior resort for beavers.
Shawanoesberg was conferred on a hill in the present town of Mamakating, commemorative of a village of the Shawanoes who settled here in 1694 on invitation of the Minisinks. (Council Minutes, Sept. 14, 1692.) Their council-house is said to have been on the summit of the hill.
Basha's Land and Basha's Kill, familiar local terms in Sullivan County, are claimed to have been so called from a squaw-sachem known as Elizabeth who lived near Westbrookville. "Basha's Land" was one of the boundmarks of the Minisink Patent and Basha's Kill the northeast bound of the Maghaghkemik Patent. Derivation of the name from Elizabeth is not well-sustained. [FN-1] The original was probably an equivalent of Bashaba, an Eastern-Algonquian term for "Sagamore of Sagamores," or ruling sachem or king of a nation. It is met of record Bashaba, Betsebe, Bessabe, Bashebe, etc. Hubbard wrote: "They called the chief rulers, who commanded the rest, Bashabeas. Bashaba is a title." "Chiefs bearing this title, and exercising the prerogatives of their rank, are frequently spoken of by the early voyagers." [FN-2] (Hist. Mag., Second Series, 3, 49.) The lands spoken of were the recognized territorial possession of the chief ruler of the nation or tribe. The "squaw-sachem" [FN-3] may have held the title by succession or as the wife of the Bashaba.
[FN-1] Basha's Kill was applied to Mamcotten Kill north of the village of Wurtsboro, south of which it retained the name of Mamacotten, as written on Sauthier's map. Quinlan, in his "History of Sullivan County," wrote: "The head-waters of Mamakating River subsequently became known as Elizabeth's Kill, in compliment to Elizabeth Gonsaulus. We could imagine that she was the original Basha, Betje, or Betsey, who owned the land south of the Yaugh House Spring, and gave to the Mamakating stream its present name; but unfortunately she was not born soon enough. Twenty-five years before her family came to Mamakating, 'Basha's land' was mentioned in official documents." It appears in the Minisink Patent in 1704.
[FN-2] A. S. Gatschet, of the Bureau of Ethnology, wrote me: "The Bashas, Bashebas and Betsebas of old explorers of the coast of Maine, I explain by pe'sks, 'one,' and a'pi, 'man,' or person—'First man in the land.'"
[FN-3] Squaw, "Woman," means, literally, "Female animal." Saunk-squa stands for "Sochem's squaw." "The squa-sachem, for so they call the Sachem's wife." (Winslow.)
Mongaup, given as the name of a stream which constitutes in part the western boundary of Orange County, is entered on Sauthier's map, "Mangawping or Mangaup." Quinlan (Hist. Sullivan County) claimed for it also Mingapochka and Mingwing, indicating that the stream carried the names of two distinct places. Mongaup is a compression of Dutch Mondgauwpink, meaning, substantially, "At the mouth of a small, rapid river," for which a local writer has substituted "Dancing feather," which is not in the composition in any language. Mingapochka (Alg.), appears to be from Mih'n (Mih'nall plural; Zeisb.), "Huckleberry," and -pohoka, "Cleft, clove or valley"—literally, "Huckleberry Valley." Street, writing half a century ago, described the northern approach of the stream as a valley wreathed (poetically) in whortle berries—
"In large tempting clusters of light misty blue."
The stream rises in the center of Sullivan County and flows to the Delaware. The falls are said to be from sixty to eighty feet in four cascades. (Hist. Sul. Co.) Another writer says: "Three miles above Forestburgh village, the stream falls into a chasm seventy feet deep, and the banks above the falls are over one hundred feet high."
Meenahga, a modern place-name, is a somewhat remarkable orthography of Mih'n-acki (aghki), "Huckleberry land" or place.
Callicoon, the name of a town in Sullivan County, and of a stream, is an Anglicism of Kalkan (Dutch), "Turkey"—Wilde Kalkan, "Wild turkey"—in application, "Place of turkeys." The district bearing the name is locally described as extending from Callicoon Creek to the mouth of Ten Mile River, on the Delaware. Wild turkeys were abundant in the vicinage of the stream no doubt, from which perhaps the name, but as there is record evidence that a clan of the Turkey tribe of Delawares located in the vicinity, it is quite probable that the name is from them. The stream is a dashing mountain brook, embalmed poetically by the pen of Street. (See Cochecton.)
Keshethton, written by Colonel Hathorn in 1779, as the name of an Indian path, is no doubt an orthography of Casheghton. In early years a trunk-line path ran up the Delaware to Cochecton Falls, where, with other paths, it connected with the main path leading to Wyoming Valley, [FN] the importance of the latter path suggesting, in 1756, the erection of a fort and the establishment of a base of supplies at Cochecton from which to attack the Indians under Tedyuscung and Shingask in what was then known as "The Great Swamp," from which those noted warriors and their followers made their forays. (Doc. Hist. N. Y., ii. 715; Ib. Map, i, 586.) Colonel Hathorn passed over part of this path in 1779, in pursuit of Brant, and was disastrously defeated in what is called "The Battle of Minnisink."
[FN] "The first well-beaten path that connected the Delaware and Susquehanna Rivers, and subsequently the first rude wagon road leading from Cochecton through Little Meadows, in Salem township, and across Moosic Mountains." (Hist. Penn.) It was with a view to connect the commerce from this section with the Hudson that the Newburgh and Cochecton Turnpike was constructed in the early years of 1800.
Cochecton, the name of a town and of a village in Sullivan County, extended on early maps to an island, to a range of hills, and to a fall or rift in the Delaware River, is written Cashieghtunk and in other forms on Sauthier's map of 1774; Cushieton on a map of 1768; Keshecton, Col. Cortlandt, 1778; Cashecton, N. Y. Land Papers, 699; Cushietunk in the proceedings of the Treaty of Easton, 1758, and in other New Jersey records: Cashighton in 1744; Kishigton in N. Y. records in 1737, and Cashiektunk by Cadwallader Colden in 1737, as the name of a place near the boundmark claimed by the Province of New Jersey, latitude 41 degrees 40 minutes. "On the most northerly branch of Delaware River, which point falls near Cashiektunk, an Indian village, on a branch of that river called the Fish Kill." (Doc. Hist. N. Y., iv, 177.) In the Treaty of Easton, 1758, the Indian title to land conveyed to New Jersey is described: "Beginning at the Station Point between the Province of New Jersey and New York, at the most northerly end of an Indian settlement on the Delaware, known by the name of Casheitong." Station Point, called also Station Rock, is about three miles southeast of the present village of Cochecton, on a flat at a bend in the river, by old survey twenty-two miles in a straight line from the mouth of Maghaghkamik Creek, now Carpenter's Point, in the town of Deerpark, Orange County. Cochecton Falls, so called, are a rocky rapid in a narrow gorge covering a fall of two or three hundred feet, the obstruction throwing the water and the deposits brought down back upon the low lands. The Callicoon flows to the Delaware a few miles northeast of the falls. Between the latter and the mouth of the Callicoon lies the Cochecton Flats or valley. The precise location of "Station Point or Rock," described as "At the most northerly end" of the Indian village, has not been ascertained, but can be readily found. The late Hon. John C. Curtis, of Cochecton, wrote: "Our beautiful valley, from Cochecton Falls to the mouth of the Callicoon, was called, by the Indians, Cushetunk, or low lands," the locative of the name having been handed down from generation to generation, and an interpretation of the name which is inferentially correct. There is no such word as Cash or Cush in the Delaware dialect, however; it stands here obviously as a form of K'sch, intensive K'schiecton (Len. Eng. Dic.); Geschiechton, Zeisberger, verbal noun, "To wash," "The act of washing," as by the "overflow of the water of a sea or river. . . . The river washed a valley in the plain"; with suffix -unk (K'schiechton-unk—compressed to Cushetunk), denoting a place where the action of the verb was performed, i. e. a place where at times the land is washed or overflowed by water, from which the traditionary interpretation, "Low land." [FN-1]
The Indian town spoken of was established in 1744, although its site was previously occupied by Indian hunting houses or huts for residences while on hunting expeditions. In Col. Mss. v. 75, p. 10, is preserved a paper in which it is stated that the Indians residing at Goshen, Orange County, having "Removed to their hunting houses at Cashigton," were there visited, in December, 1744, by a delegation of residents of Goshen, consisting of Col. Thomas DeKay, William Coleman, Benj. Thompson, Major Swartwout, Adam Wisner, interpreter, and two Indians as pilots, for the purpose of ascertaining the cause of the removal; that the delegation found the residents composed of two totemic families, Wolves and Turkeys; that, having lost their sachem, they were debating "Out of which tribe a successor should be chosen"; that they had removed from Goshen through fear of the hostile intention on the part of the settlers there, who "Were always carrying guns." Later, a delegation from the Indian town visited Goshen, and was there "Linked together" with Colonel De Kay, as the representative of the Governor of the province, in their peculiar form of locking arms, for three hours, as a test of enduring friendship. [FN-2] It was the only treaty with the Indians in Orange County of which there is record.
Aside from its Indian occupants the town is historic as the point forming the old northwest boundmark of New Jersey (Lat. 41 degrees 40 minutes), as recognized in the Treaty of Easton. (See Pompton.) From its association with the history of three provinces, the story of the town is of more than local interest. The lands were ultimately included in the Hardenberg Patent, and most of the Indian descendants of its founders of 1744 followed the lead of Brant in the Revolution. They probably deserved a better fate than that which came to them. They are gone. The long night with its starless robe has enveloped them in its folds—the ceaseless wash of the waters of the Delaware upon the beautiful valley of Cochecton, hymns their requiem.
[FN-1] Probably the same name is met in Sheshecua-ung, the broad flats opposite and above the old Indian meadows, Wyoming Valley, where the topography is substantially the same.
[FN-2] A belt was presented by the Indians to Col. De Kay, but what became of it neither the records or tradition relates.
Here we close our survey of the only monuments which remain of races which for ages hunted the deer, chanted songs of love, and raised fierce war cries—the names which they gave and which remain of record of the hills and valleys, the lakes and waterfalls, amid which they had their abiding places. Wonderfully suggestive and full of inferential deductions are those monuments; volumes of history and romance are linked with them; the most controlling influences in making our nation what it is is graven in their crude orthographies. Their further reclamation and restoration to the geographical locations to which they belonged is a duty devolving on coming generations.
[From De Laet's "New World," Leyden Edition.]
"Within the first reach, where the land is low, there dwells a nation of savages named Tappaans. . . . The second reach extends upward to a narrow pass named by our people Haverstroo; then comes Seyl-maker's (Zeil-maker's, sail-maker's) reach, as they call it; and next, a crooked reach, in the form of a crescent, called Koch's reach (Cook's reach). Next is Hooge-rack (High reach); and then follows Vossen reach (Foxes reach), which extends to Klinckersberg (Stone mountain). This is succeeded by Fisher's (Vischer's) reach, where, on the east bank of the river, dwells a nation of savages called Pachamy. This reach extends to another narrow pass, where, on the west side of the river, there is a point of land that juts out covered with sand, opposite a bend in the river, on which another nation of savages, called the Waoranecks, have their abode, at a place called Esopus. A little beyond, on the west side, where there is a creek, and the river becomes more shallow, the Waronawankongs reside; here are several small islands. Next comes another reach called Klaver-rack, where the water is deeper on the west side, while the eastern side is sandy. Then follow Backer-rack, John Playser's rack and Vaster rack as far as Hinnenhock. Finally, the Herten-rack (Deer-rack) succeeds as far as Kinderhoek. Beyond Kinderhoek there are several small islands, one of which is called Beeren Island (Bear's Island). After this we come to a sheltered retreat named Onwee Ree (Onwereen, to thunder, Ree, quick, sudden thunder storms), and farther on are Sturgeon's Hoek, over against which, on the east side of the river, dwell the Mohicans."
A work of the character of that which is herewith presented to you would be eminently remarkable if it was found to be entirely free from typographical and clerical errors. No apology is made for such as you may find, the rule being regarded as a good one that the discoverer of an error is competent to make the necessary correction. Whatever you may find that is erroneous, especially in the topographical features of places, please have the kindness to forward to the compiler and enable him to correct.
Respectfully, E. M. RUTTENBER, Newburgh, N. Y.
{Transcriber's note: The page numbers indicated below refer to pages in the separate article, "Footprints of the Redmen," and are not in sequence with the complete published volume of proceedings. The HTML and e-book versions of the article have hyperlinks to the names indexed.}
{Transcriber's Note: Some of the original index entries are incorrect. The corrected page numbers are shown in braces {p.} Alphabetical placement errors are left as in the original.}
Achquetuck | 177 |
Achsinink | 148 |
Ackinckes-hacky | 104 |
Adirondacks | 187 |
Aepjin (Sachem) | 59 |
Agwam (Agawam) | 83 |
Ahashewaghick | 51 |
Ahasimus | 106 |
Aioskawasting | 146 {145} |
Alaskayering | 148 |
Albany | 178 |
Alipkonck | 26 |
Amagansett | 83 |
Amangag-arickan | 168 |
Anaquassacook | 69 |
Anthony's Nose | 31, 217 |
Apanammis | 33 |
Appamaghpogh | 30 |
Aquackan-onck | 104 |
Aquassing | 46 |
Aquebogue | 98 |
Aquehung | 32 |
Arackook | 139 |
Arisheck | 106 |
Armonck | 33 |
Assawagh-kemek | 224 |
Assawanama | 98 |
Assiskowackok | 173 |
Assinapink | 126 |
Assup (Accup) | 77 |
Aschalege | 216 |
Aspetong | 32 |
Astenrogan | 217 |
Athens | 174 |
Atkarkarton | 158 |
Aupaumut, Hendrick | 11 |
Aupauquack | 98 |
Aurie's Creek | 210 |
Basha's Land | 229 |
Bergen | 106 |
Callicoon | 230 |
Canagere | 214 |
Canajohare | 214 |
Canarsie | 88 |
Caneray (Carenay) | 191 |
Caniade-rioit | 70 |
Caniade-riguarunte | 72 |
Canniengas | 189 |
Canopus | 36 |
Casperses Creek | 44 |
Cataconoche | 80 |
Catskill | 170 |
Caughnawaga | 213 |
Caumset | 96 |
Cawaoge | 215 |
Cayudutta | 214 |
Cheesek-ook | 117 |
Chihocken | 229 |
Chouckhass | 133 |
Ciskhekainck | 56 |
Claverack | 55 |
Cobel's Kill | 216 |
Cochecton | 231 |
Comac | 92 |
Commoenapa | 105 |
Connecticut | 80 |
Copake | 59 |
Cronomer's Hill | 130 |
Cumsequ-ogue | 81 |
Cussqunsuck | 94 |
Cutchogue | 84 |
Dans Kamer | 183 {138} |
DeKay, Colonel Thomas | 232 |
Delaware River | 219 |
Delawares, or Lenni-Lenape | 219 |
Di-ononda-howe | 70 |
Dutch Racks (Rechts) | 234 |
Eaquoris-ink | 45 |
Eauketaupucason | 34 |
Esopus | 155 |
Espating | 111 |
Essawatene | 121 |
Etagragon | 217 |
Fall-kill | 44 |
Fish-kill | 37 |
Fort Albany | 178 |
Fort Frederick | 178 |
Fort Orange | 178 |
Frudyach-kamik | 162 |
Ganasnix | 173 |
Gentge-kamike | 183 {138} |
German Flats | 217 |
Gesmesseecks | 61 |
Glens Falls | 136 {186} |
Gowanus | 90 |
Greenwich Village | 17 |
Hackingsack | 104 |
Hahnakrois | 177 |
Hashamomuck | 99 |
Hashdisch | 140 |
Haverstraw | 124 |
Hoboken | 107 |
Hog's Island | 96 |
Hohokus | 115 |
Honk Falls | 166 |
Hoosick River | 67 |
Hopcogues | 85 |
Horikans | 71 |
Hudson's River | 12 |
Jamaica | 88 |
Jogee Hill | 134 |
Jogues (Father) | 12, 185, 193 |
Kackkawanick | 54 |
Kadarode | 209 |
Kahoes (Kahoos) | 200 |
Kakeout | 32 |
Kakiate | 116 |
Kanendenra | 217 |
Kaniskek | 174 |
Kapsee (Kapsick) | 17 |
Katawamoke | 97 |
Katonah (Sachem) | 35 |
Kaphack | 59 |
Kaunaumeek | 58 |
Kau-na-ong-ga | 228 |
Kay-au-do-ros-sa | 187 |
Keessienwey's Hoeck | 175 |
Keht-hanne | 218 |
Kenagtiquak | 58 |
Kerhonkson | 162 |
Keschsechquereren | 90 |
Keshethton | 231 |
Kesieway's Kill | 57 |
Keskeskick | 22 |
Keskistk-onck | 30 |
Kestateuw | 88 |
Ketchepunak | 85 |
Kewighec-ack | 29 |
Kinderhook | 54 {55} |
Kingston | 155 |
Kiosh | 15 |
Kiskatom | 174 |
Kitchaminch-oke | 82 |
Kitchiwan | 27 |
Kit Davit's Kil (Rondout) | 161 |
Kittatinny | 31 |
Koghkehaeje (Coxackie) | 176 |
Koghsaraga | 188 |
Koxing Kil | 168 |
Lackawack | 167 |
Lake Champlain | 72 |
Lake George | 71 |
Lake Tear-of-the-clouds | 185 |
Little Falls | 217 |
Longhouse Creek | 137 |
Machackoesk | 58 |
Machawameck | 175 |
Magaat-Ramis | 152 |
Magatsoot | 222 |
Magdalen Island | 46 |
Maggeanapogh | 151 |
Maghagh-kamieck | 223 |
Magopson | 33 |
Magow-asingh-inck | 164 |
Maharness | 35 |
Mahask-ak-ook | 52 |
Mahequa | 122 |
Mahopack | 36 |
Mahway | 112 |
Mainaitanung | 113 |
Mamakating | 227 |
Mamaroneck | 34 |
Manah-ackaquasu-wanock | 101 |
Manahan | 127 |
Manahawaghin | 106 {126} |
Manhaset | 95 |
Manhattan | 13 |
Mananosick | 49 |
Manette | 91 |
Manises | 101 |
Mannhon-ake | 100 |
Mannepies | 23 |
Manowtassquott | 99 |
Manuketesuck | 35 |
Manussing | 34 |
Marechkawick | 91 |
Maretange Pond | 145 |
Marsep-inck | 93 |
Maschabeneer | 144 |
Maskahn-ong | 87 |
Maskutch-oung | 84 {86} |
Massaback | 85 {84} |
Massape-age | 85 |
Masseks (Maskeks) | 144 |
Mas-seps | 86 |
Masspootapaug | 99 |
Mastic | 79 |
Mathahenaak | 180 |
Matinnec-ock | 95 |
Matouwackey (L. I.) | 73 |
Mattachonts | 168 |
Mattapan | 44 |
Matteawan | 37 |
Mattituck | 84 |
Mawe-nawas-igh | 38 |
Mawichnauk | 53 |
Mawighanuck | 58 |
Mawignack | 171 |
Mattasink | 120 |
Meenahga | 230 |
Meghkak-assin | 24 |
Menagnock | 222 |
Menagh | 29 |
Menisak-congue | 122 |
Memanusack | 94 |
Memorasink | 143 |
Merick | 87 |
Mespaechtes | 94 |
Metambeson | 46 |
Minasser-oke | 81 |
Mingapochka | 230 |
Minnahan-ock | 17 |
Minnepaug | 99 |
Minnischtan-ock | 54 |
Minnissingh | 45 |
Minnisais | 15 |
Minisink | 220 |
Mistucky | 133 |
Mochgonneck-onck | 78 |
Mochquams | 33 |
Mogongh-kamigh | 58 |
Moggonck (Maggonck) | 148 |
Moharsic | 35 |
Mohawk River | 189 |
Mohawk Castles | 191, 211 |
Mombackus | 169 |
Mombasha | 116 |
Monachnong | 16 |
Monatun | 16 |
Monemius Island | 180 |
Mongaup | 230 |
Monhagen | 137 |
Monowautuck | 80 |
Monsey | 112 |
Montauk | 75 |
Mopochock | 169 {167} |
Moriches | 81 |
Muchito | 96 |
Muhheakun'nuk | 11 |
Murderer's Creek | 130 |
Muscota | 19 |
Much-Hattoes | 129 |
Nachaquatuck | 97 |
Nachawakkano | 53 |
Nachtenack | 180 |
Nahtonk (Recktauck) | 18 |
Namaus | 81 |
Namenock | 222 |
Namke | 85 |
Nanichiestawack | 35 |
Nannakans | 28 |
Nanapenahaken | 49 |
Nanoseck | 161 |
Napanoch | 167 |
Napeak | 76 |
Narranshaw | 116 |
Narratschoan | Errata |
Narrioch | 90 |
Navers-ing | 165 |
Navish | 28 |
Nawas-ink | 124 |
Nepeneck | 224 |
Nepah-komuk | 23 |
Neperah (Nipproha) | 23 |
Nepestek-oak | 177 |
Nescotack | 143 |
Neversink | 102, 226 |
Neweskake | 178 |
Newburgh | 128 |
Niamug (Niamuck) | 82 |
New Fort | 142 |
Nickankook | 49 |
Niskayune | 201 |
Nissequague | 93 |
Norman's Kill | 179 |
Norumbega | 179 |
Nowadaga | 215 |
Nyack | 92, 120 |
Ochabacowesuck | 100 |
Ochmoach{k}-ing | 165 {168} |
Oghrackee | 210 |
Oi-o-gue | 12, 189 {185} |
Old Fort | 164 |
Onekee-dsi-enos | 206 |
Onekagoncka | 191 |
Oneyagine | 217 |
Oniskethau | 177 |
Onuntadass | 207 |
Orange | 103 |
Oscawanna | 26 |
Osquage (Ohquage) | 215 |
Ossangwack | 155 |
Osserrion | 191 |
Osseruenon | 191 |
Pachonahellick | 178 |
Pachquyak | 173 |
Pagganck | 15 |
Pahhaoke | 67 |
Palmagat | 148 |
Pamerpock | 115 |
Panhoosick | 67 |
Paanpaach (Troy) | 63 |
Papinemen | 19 |
Paquapick | 111 |
Pasgatikook | 172 |
Paskaecq | 173 |
Passaic | 111 |
Passapenoc | 61 |
Patchogue | 81 |
Pattkoke | 55 |
Peakadasank | 146 |
Peconic | 83 |
Peekskill | 30 |
Peenpack | 225 |
Peningo | 33 |
Peppineghek | 29 |
Pequaock (Oyster Bay) | 98 |
Pequannock | 111 |
Peram-sepus | 112 |
Perth Amboy | 102 |
Petuckqua-paug | 35 |
Petuckqua-paen | 62 |
Pietawickqu-assick | 41 |
Pishgachtigok | 42 |
Piskawn | 63 |
Pitkiskaker | 145 |
Pocanteco | 25 |
Pochuck | 133 |
Pockotessewacke | 34 |
Podunk | 69 |
Poesten Kill | 62 |
Pollepel Eiland | 127 |
Pompoenick | 58 |
Pompton | 113 |
Ponkhockie | 157 |
Poosepatuck | 79 |
Poplopen's Creek | 125 |
Poquatuck | 79 |
Potic | 173 |
Potunk (L. I.) | 100 |
Poughkeepsie | 43 |
Poughquag | 41 |
Preumaker's Land | 161 |
Primary Explanations | 3 |
Prince's Falls | 126 |
Quachanock | 172 |
Quahemiscos | 180 |
Quantuck | 87 |
Quaquarion | 205 |
Quarepogat | 42 |
Quarepos | 33 |
Quaspeck | 121 |
Quassaick | 128 |
Quatackqua-ohe | 69 |
Quatawichnack | 171 |
Quauntowunk | 78 |
Quequick | 65 {66} |
Quinnehung | 31 |
Quissichkook | 54 |
Quogue | 87 |
Ramapo | 114 |
Rapahamuck | 94 |
Rappoos | 153 |
Raritangs | 102 |
Reckgawank | 124 |
Rechqua-akie | 87 |
Rennaquak-onck | 92 |
Rockaway | 87 |
Roelof Jansen's Kill | 47 |
Ronkonkoma | 100 |
Runboldt's Run | 133 |
Sachus (Sachoes) | 30 |
Sacondaga | 184 |
Sacrahung | 31 |
Sacut | 88 |
Sagabon-ock | 85 |
Sag-Harbor | 85 |
Saghtekoos | 83 |
Sahkaqua | 54 |
Sam's Point | 146 |
Sanckhaick | 65 |
Sankagag | 177 |
Sankapogh | 125 |
Saponickan | 17 |
Saratoga | 180 |
Saaskahampka | 49 |
Saugerties | 162 |
Saukhenak | 47 |
Schaghticoke | 65 |
Schakaec-kemick | 226 |
Scharon (Schroon) | 184 |
Schenectady | 202 |
Schodac | 59 |
Schoharie | 207 |
Schunnemunk | 131 |
Scompamuck | 59 |
Senasqua | 29 |
Senatsycrossy | 212 |
Seneyaughquan | 226 |
Shannondhoi | 204 |
Shandaken | 169 |
Shappequa | 32 |
Shaupook | 53 |
Shawanoesberg | 229 |
Shawangunk | 140 |
She'kom'eko | 42 |
Shenandoah | 43 |
Sheepshack | 63 |
Shildrake | 27 |
Shinnec'ock | 77 |
Shokan | 165 |
Shorakkapoch | 21 |
Sickajoock | 61 |
Sickenekas | 61 |
Sicktew-hacky | 82 |
Siesk-assin | 176 |
Sing-Sing | 27 |
Siskakes | 111 |
Sint-Sink | 95 |
Skoonnenoghky | 123 |
Sleepy Hollow | 26 |
Sohanidisse | 215 |
Sokapach | 225 |
So'was'set | 99 |
Speonk | 79 |
Spuyten Duyvil | 21 |
Stighcook | 176 |
Stissing | 43 |
Stoney Point | 123 |
Succabonk | 36 |
Succasunna | 104 |
Sugar-Loaf | 132 |
Suggamuck | 94 |
Sunquams | 84 |
Taghkanick | 52 |
Tammoesis | 29 |
Tauquashqueick | 46 |
Tappans | 117 |
Tawalsentha | 13, 179 |
Tawarataque | 154 |
Tehannek | 225 |
Tenotoge (Tenotehage) | 215 |
Tenkenas | 15 |
Tete-achkie | 172 |
Ticonderoga | 71 |
Ti-oneenda-howe | 69 |
Tionondar-aga | 208 |
Titicus | 28 |
Tomhenack | 65 |
Torne | 117 |
Tri-States Rock | 224 |
Tuckahoe | 27, 84 |
Tuxedo | 116 |
Twastawekah | 54 |
Twischsawkin | 140 |
Tyoshoke | 65 |
Unsheamuck | 94 |
Valatie | 59 |
Van Curler's Journal | 193, 194 |
Vastrix Island | 48 |
Verkerde Kill | 147 |
Wachanekassick | 47 |
Waichachkeekok | 172 |
Wading River | 98 |
Wahamanesing | 39 |
Wallabout Bay | 91 |
Wallam | 41 |
Wallumsch-ack | 64 |
Walpack | 228 {227} |
Wanaksink | 144 |
Wapemwatsjo | 58 |
Wappingers' Creek | 39 |
Waragh-kameck | 46 |
Waranawonkongs | 155 |
Waranecks | 38 |
Waronawanka | 155 |
Warpoes | 19 |
Wassahawassing | 167 |
Wassaic | 41 |
Watchunk | 104 |
Wathoiack | 201 |
Waumaniuck | 34 |
Wawanaquasik | 50 |
Wawarasinke | 166 |
Wawayanda | 134 |
Waweiantepakook | 173 |
Wawyacbtanock | 45 |
Wechquadnach | 42 |
Wehawken | 109 |
Wehtak | 42 |
Weputing | 42 |
Weque-hackhe | 36 |
Wesegrorap | 116 |
Whalefish Island | 63 |
Wicopee | 36 |
Wickaposset | 99 |
Wichquapakat | 52 {53} |
Wichquaskeck | 24 |
Wickqu-atenn-honck | 144 |
Wieskottine | 170 |
Wildmeet | 161 |
Wihlahoosa | 227 |
Wildwijk (Wiltwyck) | 160 |
Winegtekonck | 132 |
Wishauwemis | 143 |
Woerawin | 137 |
Wompenanit | 74 |
Wopowag | 99 |
Wyandanch (Sachem) | 79 |
Wynokie | 115 |
Wynogkee | 41 {44} |
Yaphank | 80 |
Yonkers | 23 |
Through an oversight in revising manuscript written several years ago, Narratschoan (page 121) was assigned to the Verdrietig Hoek Mountain. It should have been assigned to Butter Hill, and Klinkersberg should have been assigned to the Donderberg. Klinkers is from Dutch Klinken, "To sound, to resound." It describes, with the suffix -berg, a hard stone mountain or hill that resounds or echoes—Echo Hill. Narratschoan, the name of Butter Hill, is from Nâï, "It is angular, it corners"—"having corners or angles." (Trumbull.) The letters -atscho stand for -achtschu, Zeisb., -adchu, Natick, "Hill or mountain," and -an is the formative. The combination may be read, "A hill that forms an angle or corner." To recover the Indian name of Butter Hill compensates in some degree for oversight referred to.
Brodhead (Hist. N. Y., i, 757, note), it will be seen by those who will examine, made the same mistake in locating Klinkersberg that is referred to above. The "Vischer's Rack" or "Fisherman's Bend" was clearly the bend around West Point. The Donderberg, or Klinkersberg is the elevation immediately north of Stony Point.