Digitized by http://www.jrbooksonline.com HTML version
CHAPTER I.
THE
English named the Indians, who occupied the greater part of
They
proudly called themselves Lenni‑Lenape (original or pre‑eminent
men). Their Totem was the wolf from which the French called them Loups
(wolves).
The Indians, inhabiting
The
other bands were the Catskills, Mamekotings, Warwarsinks, Waoranecs, and
Warranawonkongs.
They
were called the five tribes of the Esopus country.
These
were the "Esopus Indians," whose war‑whoops terrified the
Dutchmen at Esopus; who laid Wildwyck in ashes and who battled for their
hunting grounds against the troops of Martin Cregier. The Catskills had their
principal village just north of the Esopus creek. In all probability they were
the Indians mentioned in the journal of Henry Hudson:‑-"At
night we came to other mountaines, which lie from the river's side. There wee
found very loving people, and very old men; where wee were well used."
The
Warwarsinks were located in the town of
The
Waoranecs were located at the mouth of
The
names of the two last above bands are probably derived from a word signifying:-‑"hollowing,
concave site." "Cove." "Bay." Descriptive of
Each
of these bands had its main village where their forts were erected. These were
defended by three rows of palisades and the houses in the fort encircled by
thick cleft palisades with port holes in them, and covered with the bark of
trees. During the summer and fall they roamed over the surrounding country in
search of game and built their temporary huts wherever trade, the chase or
fancy called them.
Two
main trails led from the
Many
paths led from the one trail to the other, traces of these remain to this day.
Long before the advent of the white‑man the Indian warriors silently trod
these trails in search of their enemy and beside these paths they lay in
ambuscade awaiting their foe. It was at the end of these trails, at the mouth
of the Esopus and the Rondout, that they stood gazing
in fear and in wonder at the ship of
In
the valleys through which ran these trails they pitched their wigwams, planted
and cultivated their crops and pursued the deer and the bear in the surrounding
forest.
Down
these trails came the Indian Braves armed with gun and with hatchet to lay in
ruins the settlement of the white‑man at Esopus, and over them they fled
back to their mountain fastness.
The
mode of life, the habits and customs of the Indians are too well‑known to
require description here. Only those disclosed by the records as characteristic
of the Esopus tribes are here alluded to.
The
tribes were divided into clans or families, each having its chief. The names of
some of these families have been preserved, as the Amogarickakan family, the
Kettsypowy family, the
They
did not subsist upon the chase alone. They cultivated their fields. They
raised large quantities of corn and vegetables, which they stored in the ground
for winter use. Monianac (Indian corn or Maize) was their main food supply.
Martin
Cregier, who destroyed their villages after the burning of Wildwyck in 1663,
states that his troops cut down, near one of their forts, about two hundred and
fifteen acres of growing maize and burnt above [i.e.; more than] a hundred pits
full of corn and beans. Here is a description of their management of the corn
crop and the uses to which they put it, written in 1628.
"At
the end of March they begin to break up the earth with mattocks, which they buy
from us for the skins of beavers or otters, or for sewan. They make heaps like
molehills, each about two and a half feet from the others, which they sow or
plant in April with maize, in each heap five or six grains; in the middle of
May, when the maize is the height of a finger or more, they plant in each heap
three or four Turkish beans, which then grow up with and against the maize,
which serves for props, for the maize grows on stalks similar to the sugar
cane. It is a grain to which much labor must be given,
with weeding and earthing‑up, or it does not thrive; and to this the
women must attend very closely. Those stalks which are low and bear no ears,
they pluck up in August, and suck out the sap, which is as sweet as if it were
sugar‑cane. When they wish to make use of the grain for bread or
porridge, which they call Sappaen, they first boil it and then beat it flat
upon a stone; then they put it into a wooden mortar, which they know how to
hollow out by fire; and then they have a stone pestle, which they know how to
make themselves, with which they pound it small, and sift it through a small
basket, which they understand how to weave of the rushes before mentioned. The
finest meal they mix with lukewarm water, and knead it into dough, then they
make round, flat little cakes of it, of the thickness of an inch or a little
more, which they bury in hot ashes, and so bake into bread; and when these are
baked they have some fresh water by them in which they wash them while hot, one
after another, and it is good bread, but heavy. The coarsest meal they boil
into a porridge, as is before mentioned, and it is
good eating when there is butter over it, but a food which is very soon
digested. The grain being dried, they put it into baskets woven of rushes or
wild hemp, and bury it into the earth, where they let it lie, and go with their
husbands and children in October to hunt deer, leaving at home with their maize
the old people who cannot follow; in December they return home, and the flesh
which they have not been able to eat while fresh, they smoke on the way, and
bring it back with them. They come home as fat as moles."
The
Dutch called the Indians who were not chiefs "Barebacks," alluding to
the fact that during the summer season they wore no clothing on the upper part
of the body. To return the compliment the Indians called the Dutch
"Schwonnacks," signifying "people of the salt water,"
because the Dutch had come over the sea.
They
had their festivals, social gatherings, dances and general jollifications,
called "cantico" or "kintacoy." The use of this word,
descriptive of a dance, any social gathering or a drunken carouse, lingers
among the descendants of the Dutch in
The
Indians had a "Tennis‑Court" near the corner of Hone and Pierpont
streets in the city of
One
of the favorite games of all the Eastern tribes was played with a small ball of
deerskin stuffed with hair or moss, or a round piece of wood, with one or two
netted rackets somewhat like tennis rackets. Two goals were set up at a
distance of several hundred yards from each other, and the abject of each party
was to drive the ball under the goal of the opposing party by means of the
racket, without touching it with the hand. Two families or two tribes played
against each other. The game was attended with dancing and feasting,
and the stakes ran high. This undoubtedly was the game played at the Tennis‑Court
mentioned by Chambers. The Indians used this game as a stratagem to obtain
entrance to
Great
misapprehension exists as to the status of the Indian woman. She is usually
pictured as a mere beast of burden, a hewer of wood and a drawer of water for
her husband and the family. It is true, she did the household work, tilled the
fields and gathered the crops, but to no greater extent than do the peasant
women of
[p.
10]
Some
of the clans had a chieftainess who ruled and governed them. Her word was law.
One of these, Nipapoa, held sway over a band of the Catskills. On her wigwam
was painted the figure of a wolf, the totemic emblem of her tribe. She was part
owner of
The
women had a voice in the council of the tribe. Even in the weighty matters of war
or peace they were consulted.
In
1660 the Esopus chief, Seweckenamo, while engaged in negotiating a treaty of
peace with the council at
Women's
rights and the rights of women were well recognized. It was not necessary for
the squaws to organize a suffragette party. They usually got what they wanted.
The secret of their great influence probably lay in the fact that each of them
was an excellent cook and each wife became the mother of a lusty brood of
papooses.
The
names of a number of the chiefs appear of record. Occasionally a fact or
incident concerning them lights up these old Dutch
annals.
Preumaecker. He, with other chiefs, ceded lands at Wildwyck to Governor Stuyvesant in
1658. He was the oldest Esopus Sachem.
Seweckenamo. He was one of the chiefs in 1658 at the time of the
cession of lands at Esopus to Stuyvesant. He signed the treaties of peace of
1660 and 1664.
In
1665, with other chiefs, he executed a deed conveying lands at Esopus to
Governor Nicolls. As evidence of the execution of the deed the chiefs delivered
to the governor two small sticks and in the name of their "subjects,"
one of the "subjects" delivered to Nicolls, "two other small,
round sticks in token of their assent." In return Nicolls delivered to the
chiefs "three Laced Redd Coates." He was one of the Esopus Sachems who
conveyed lands at New Paltz, sixteen miles south of Wildwyck, to Lewis DuBois
and his associates in 1677.
He
was instrumental in having the prisoners taken at Wildwyck in 1663 returned to
their homes. After the war of 1664 he appeared before the council at
Kaelcop. (Baldhead.) In 1659 he warned "Kit" Davis to move
away from the strand as the Indians intended to attack the whites. He was a
party to the above treaty of 1660. In 1677 he, for himself and the
Amogarickakan family, and Ankerop for himself and the Kettsypowy family,
executed a deed of the remaining lands of the Indians at Esopus to Governor
Andros.
Ankerop. He
evidently was cautious in executing deeds or binding himself by treaties, for
his name seldom appears appended to such instruments. He owned lands in the
town of
In
1677 Governor Andros granted a patent to Lewis DuBois and his partners of a
tract of land at New Paltz which they had purchased of the Indians in the same
year. Some doubt arose as to the exact location of one of the corners of the
patent. So in 1722 the justices of the county asked Ankerop to point it out.
The old Indian took the magistrates "to the high mountain, which is named
'Maggrnapogh,' now the famous summer resort, '
What
a spectacle. There on the mountain summit stood the old chief. Beneath him, on the one side, the valley of the Wallkill. On the other, the valley of the Rondout and the Esopus.
There had stood the villages of his people. There, waving, tossing in the
summer breezes, their fields of maize. There, the women had tilled the fields
and the children laughed and played amid the daises and the flowers. Over the
trails, crossing these very mountains, he had led his braves to the chase and
to war. Gone. All gone now.
The white man had taken them all. What must have been his thoughts as the sun
went down, and hill and valley, forest and stream, slowly faded into the shadows.
After
the destruction of their villages in 1663 the Indians lived in peace with the
whites. At the outbreak of the Revolutionary War but few were left in
Most
of them had left the valley of the
Few memorials of them remain in
Here
and there, a locality, stream and mountain, still bear the names the red men
gave them.
Esopus
is from Sepu, "river" and ‑es "small."
Kerhonkson,
a village in the town of
Koxing
Kill, a stream in the town of
Lackawack, a settlement in the town of
Meenahga, the name of a hotel on the Shawangunk
mountains, a forced rendering of Mih'n‑acki, "Huckleberry
land."
Napanoch,
a village, from a word meaning "Water land, or land overflowed with
water."
Shandaken, a town, from "Schindak,"
"Hemlock Woods," Schindaking‑-"At the hemlock woods,"
or place of hemlocks.
Shokan,
a village in the town of
Warwarsing, from a word meaning "At a place
where the stream winds, bends, twists, or eddies around a point."
Mohunk,
the famous summer resort on the Shawangunk mountains,
is probably from Magonck or Magunk, "a great tree." The word appears
in various forms: Moggoneck, Maggonck, Moggonock, Maggrnapogh.
A great tree may have stood on or at the foot of the mountain where Ankerop
stood when he pointed out the boundaries of the new Paltz patent.
Shawangunk,
now the name of a town, a stream, and the mountain range extending through the
southern part of the county, was originally applied to an indefinite tract of
land situated in the present towns of Gardiner and Shawangunk, lying between
the Shawangunk Kill and the mountains. It is probably from Shawan, "South."
South mountain. South water. South place, or from Shaw, "Side" ‑ong,
"hill" and ‑unk "At" (or on) the hill side.
For
many years an old Indian lived in a shanty on the bank of the Rondout creek, a
mile or so above the city of
A
monument has been erected to the memory of Thomas Chambers, the first white
settler in the land of the Esopus.
Why
should not a shaft be reared to the memory of the Indians? To
perpetuate the names of Preumaecker; Seweckenamo; Ankerop; and that old
baldhead, Kaelcop. They were pure Americans. They were the first
settlers. They owned the land. They battled for their homes, though they were
but wigwams. They fought for their wives, though they were but squaws. With
dauntless courage, they faced death for their children, though they were but
papooses. All honor to them. To every one of them.
CHAPTER II.
THE
first settlement within the limits of the present
In
1614 some merchants of
In 1624, Nicolaes van Wassenaer, writing of the Indians
inhabiting
In 1625, Johannes de Laet, of Leydon, a director of the
West India Company, published his "
The
ship Rensselaerswyck left
Van
Der Doncks map of 1656, of
Esopus
is from the Indian Sepu, "River" and ‑es, "small." As
first used it was applied to an indefinite territory on the east side of the
The
date of the first white settlement at Esopus has been a much mooted question.
As the matter is of considerable interest the evidence relating to it is here
given.
At
The
Indian trails from the head waters of the
Neither the Figurative Map of 1614 or Van Der Donck's of 1656 show any settlement. Neither Wassenaer, de Vries, de Laet, or the French woman
Trico, mention a settlement or use language from which it can be inferred that
there was one. This is also true of the log book of the ship Rensselaerswyck.
From 1646 to 1654 Chambers occupied a farm in Rensselaerswyck Manor which he
leased from van Rensselaer, the Patroon. His account with the Patroon runs from
1646 to 1666. It contains the following entry:‑-"This day, 14 July,
1654, Thomas Chambers has delivered to me his farm with house, hay barracks and
barn and have I released him from his contract. Thomas
Chambers in the Esopus."
There are but very few entries in the account after the
above. On
A deed from Abraham de Lametter to Wilhelmus Hoghtiling
conveying twelve acres "at or near the Rondout upon the strand of the
Esopus Creek," states that Johannis Dykmand bought it from the Indians and
conveyed it to Christopher Davis,
The
order of Governor Stuyvesant made May, 1661, erecting the settlement at
"the Esopus" into a village states that it had been inhabited six or
seven years.
The
On
In
1654 a patent for about sixty‑five acres at Esopus was granted to Juriaen
Westphael. On
During
September, 1655, the Indians made an attack on
That there were settlers at Esopus at this time and
that they joined in the general exodus is evidenced by a letter from Jacob
Jansen Stoll to Stuyvesant, dated
From
all the above it may be safely asserted that the first settlement in
Many of
these pioneers came from the Manor of Rensselaerswyck. That princely domain,
embracing most of the present counties of Rensselaer, Columbia and Albany
except Fort Orange and the land lying immediately about it; over which the
Patroon, Kilian van Rensselaer, ruled a feudal lord.
Why
did they come? Mayhap it was the wanderlust that lay in the blood. Perhaps the
fertile valley of the Esopus Creek, ready for the plow, attracted them. Perchance
there was a broader, a deeper reason. The patroon was the chief magistrate of
his estate. From the decrees of his courts there was practically no appeal. He
had the first right to purchase the products raised by his tenants who must
grind their grist at his mill and could not hunt or fish without his license.
The tenants of the manor farms were, in large measure, but the vassals of the
patroon. Perhaps it was to escape all this, to own themselves,
that they left Rensselaerswyck.
Perhaps
it was their desire to be able to put their foot down upon a spot of ground and
say to all the world, this is mine, that induced them
to come to the land of the Esopus.
[p.
20]
CHAPTER
EXCEPT
the fact that its inhabitants had abandoned their homes at the time of the
attack by the Indians on
They had then built
their houses and barns and cultivated the fields. They were ready to battle
with the wilderness, with its wild beasts and with the Indians. In this year
their troubles with the red men began. On
On
They
reached the mouth of the Rondout Creek the next day. It was low water and the
yacht of Stuyvesant ran aground. A messenger was sent to several Indians whose huts stood on the bank of the creek, asking
them to come aboard the yacht and another to tell the settlers of the arrival
of the governor.
Very shortly
Chambers and Andries van der Sluys, who had been anxiously looking for the
arrival of the governor, came on the yacht accompanied by two of the Indians.
Stuyvesant assured them that he meant none of them any harm. He had come to
ascertain the cause of the trouble between the Indians and the whites. Induced
by some presents, they promised to go notify their chiefs to meet the governor
the next day at the house of Jacob Jansen Stoll to talk matters over. Then
Chambers told the governor of all the depredations of the Indians, mournfully
concluding that since they had written him the savages had killed "two
sows, being with pig" belonging to Stoll. By this time the yachts bearing
the soldiers had arrived. They quietly disembarked, and headed by Chambers, all
marched to his house, where they remained over night. We may be sure that the
keen eyes of the Indians were watching them as silently, without the beat of
drum, they climbed the hill. The same hill down whose slope, over two centuries
later, marched the boys in blue of
The
next day, May 30, the troops marched to the home of Stoll, it being nearer the
huts of the Indians. It being Ascension Day, divine service was held. In the
afternoon Stuyvesant met the settlers. He talked straight to the point. The
harvest season was coming on. It was no time to make matters worse by attacking
the Indians. He could not protect them as long as they lived separately, their
dwellings scattered here and there contrary to the orders of the company. It
was absolutely necessary that they at once move together where he could assist
them with a few soldiers. They must either do this or move to
"We,
the undersigned, all inhabitants of the Aesopus, having from time to time
experienced very distressing calamities and felt and discovered, to our loss,
the unreliable and unbearable audacity of the savage barbarous natives, how
unsafe it is to trust to their promises, how dangerous and full of anxiety to
live at separate places away from each other, among so faithless and mischevious
tribes, have resolved (upon the proposition and promise made by the Director‑General,
the Honble Petrus Stuyvesant, that he will give us a safe‑guard and
further help and assist us in future emergencies) and deemed it necessary for
the greater safety of our wives and children, to pull down our scattered
habitations in the most convenient manner immediately after signing this
agreement and to move close to each other to the place indicated by the Honble
General, to enclose the place with Palisades of proper length with the assistance
provided thereto by the Honble General, so that we may protect ourselves and
our property by such means, to which the All‑Good God may give His blessing,
against a sudden attack of the savages; while we bind ourselves, after
imploring God and His divine blessing on all lawful means, to carry out
directly, unanimously and without opposition the foregoing agreement and to
accomplish it as quick as possible under a penalty of one thousand guilders to
be paid for the benefit of the settlement by him, who should hereafter make any
opposition by word or deed. To insure this still more, we have signed this
agreement with our own hands in presence of the Honble Director‑General
and Sr Goovert Loockermans on board the Ship 'Stede Amsterdam' in
It is signed.
"P. Stuyvesant
"Govert Loockerman "Jacob Jansen Stoll
"Thomas
Chambers
"Cornelis
Barentsen Slecht
"Willem
Jansen
"Pieter
Dircksen
"Jan
Jansen
"Jan
Broersen
"Dirck
Hendricksen Graaff
"Jan
Lootman"
The
place selected by Stuyvesant was staked out in the afternoon.
The
Rondout Creek forms the southerly, the
Approximately
it began on the westerly edge of the plateau at about the junction of the
present Green and North Front Streets; then ran along the northerly edge of the
plateau, the present North Front Street, to about the present junction of that
street with Clinton Avenue; then along the easterly edge of the plateau, the
present Clinton Avenue, to the junction of that avenue with Main Street; then
along the southerly side of the plateau, the present Main Street, to the
junction of that street with Green Street; then along the westerly edge of the
plateau along the Tannery Brook, along Green Street, to the junction of that street
with North Front Street, the place of beginning.
In 1695, John Miller, an Episcopal clergyman, who
had been a surveyor, made a visit to Kingston with governor Fletcher and made a
map of the stockade as it then existed. This shows its location as above
stated. At the time of the building of the stockade, the settlers were between
sixty and seventy in number. They could muster thirty fighting men. They had
over three hundred acres sown to grain. Here, as disclosed by the records, are
the names of the settlers and of those who had received patents for lands up to
and including the year 1658:
Thomas
Chambers, Christopher Davids, Jacob Jansen Stoll or Hap, Harmen Jacobsen alias
Bamboes, Jacob Andriesen, Pieter Dircksen, Hendrick Cornelissen, Andries van
der Sluys, Cornelis Barentsen Slecht, Willem Jansen, Jan Jansen, Jan Broersen,
Dirck Hendricksen Graaff, Jan Lootman, Johanna de Hulter, Juriaen Westphael,
Jan Verbeck, Francis Pietersen, Marten Metselaer, Peter Wolphertsen, Pieter
Cornelissen van der Veen, Augustyn Heermans, Jacob Neus.
The
location of their dwellings before they removed to the site selected by
Stuyvesant cannot be exactly fixed. They were on the low lands on each side of
the Esopus Creek.
On
There,
squatting upon the ground, wrapt in their blankets, carefully guarding the
children, the old squaws with wondering eyes watch the white men.
And
there, too, we may be sure, are the belles of the tribe, with their sharp black
eyes glancing admiringly at the brilliantly clothed soldiers. They are decked
out in all their finery. A coat of finely dressed skin or bright cloth, girth
around the waist, the skirt decorated with wampum, extends to the ankles. The
long black hair hangs in a braid down the back into which strings of wampum are
twisted. A head band around the forehead is fastened behind in a beaus knot.
Bracelets of wampum are twisted about the wrists and a necklace of the same
around the throat.
There
were the pioneers. Redheaded Tom Chambers, Stoll, van der Sluys, and the rest
of them, scowling at their foes. And there, sword by
his side, dressed in slashed hose fastened at the knee by a knotted scarf; a
velvet jacket with slashed sleeves over a full puffed shirt, knee breeches,
rosettes upon his shoes, standing firmly on his wooden leg with silver bands,
is the governor of
Stuyvesant,
speaking through Stoll, who acted as interpreter, told the Indians that they
had asked the whites to come to Esopus. They did not own or desire to own a
foot of land they did not pay for. No harm had been done to them since he had
been governor. He asked them why they had killed the hogs and destroyed the
property of the settlers. Why they had set fire to their houses,
killed Jacobsen and continually threatened to kill them all. He had come to
learn the truth. He did not desire to make war or punish the innocent if the
murderer was delivered up and the house paid for. One of the chiefs replied
that the Dutch sold the "boisson" (brandy) to his people which made
them "cacheus" (drunk). That then the young men could not be controlled.
It was a Neversink Indian who had committed the murder and he was now living
near Haverstroo. The Indian who had fired the house had run away.
They had not harmed the whites. They did not intend to fight but could not control the young men. At this the anger of the governor blazed up. If the young braves wanted to fight they could do it then and there. He would match them man with man, twenty against thirty or even forty. Now was the time for them to fight instead of injuring the farmers, their wives and children who could not fight. If they did not stop he would