Edward Manning Ruttenber

“ 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." ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”