USA > New York > Nassau County > Long Island; a history of two great counties, Nassau and Suffolk, Volume I > Part 17
USA > New York > Suffolk County > Long Island; a history of two great counties, Nassau and Suffolk, Volume I > Part 17
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62
In 1749 Horton petitioned the Missionary Board for a school- master and this request brought the famous Indian preacher, Samson Occom, to Long Island. Occom was born in a wigwam near Uncas Hill, now Montville, Conn., in 1723, his mother being a Groton Indian called Sarah who claimed descent from Uncas, great sachem of the Mohegans. When about seventeen years of age the young Samson was converted to Christianity during the "Great Awakening" which spread among whites and Indians alike under the inspired leadership of George Whitefield, the English evangelist.
In December, 1743, Occom appeared at the home of the Reverend Eleazar Wheelock at Lebanon and begged for religious instruction. Here he remained for four years, making good progress in English, Latin and Greek and was learning Hebrew when his health failed and his eyesight became affected. In spite of these handicaps he per- severed in his studies and for a short time he taught school at New London.
129
THE INDIANS OF LONG ISLAND
In 1748 he went to Montauk where he taught religion and rudi- mentary education, having in his first winter about thirty pupils. He was poorly paid and lived in a wigwam where he had only the barest necessities and cultivated a small garden for the food he required. In 1751 Occom married Mary, the daughter of James and Betty Fowler, and by her had ten children. The family lived in poverty, Samson earning a poor living by raising corn, hunting and fishing and by carving wooden spoons, cedar pails, churns and gunstocks. He also bound books for the people of East Hampton.
In recognition of his services as pastor of the churches estab- lished by Azariah Horton at Montauk, Shinnecock and Poosepatuck, Occom was ordained as a Presbyterian minister by Dr. Buell at East Hampton on August 29, 1759. Occom may have been the inventor of the kindergarten method of teaching, later made famous by Froebel. He taught the alphabet to children by cutting letters out of paper, pasting them on chips of wood which he placed in a pile and then calling for the letter to be brought to him.
In 1760 Occom and his young brother-in-law Jacob Fowler went on a mission to the Oneidas, riding on horseback through trackless forests and stopping on the way at Albany to call on Lord Jeffrey Amherst who gave them a letter to Sir William Johnson. Much good work was accomplished at Oneida, but his weak eyesight and attacks of rheumatism caused Occom to return to his labors at Montauk. After twelve years of hardship he returned to his ancestral home at Moliegan where he defended the Indian title to Mohegan lands.
In 1765, the finances of Dr. Wheelock's school being at low ebb, it was decided to try to raise funds in England and for this purpose Occom and Reverend Nathaniel Whitaker set sail on the packet Boston in December and arrived at London in February, 1766. Here under the skillful tutelage of Whitefield the Indian preacher appeared with great success.
Through the Earl of Dartmouth, Occom met King George III who contributed £200 to the fund to establish an Indian school. Occom's dignified manner, his black clerical clothes and his eloquence made a deep impression on the great congregations that flocked to hear him. He preached over three hundred sermons and spoke from the pulpit of the great Whitefield. During his travels in England and Scotland he raised over £12,000 for the school.
On his return to America in 1768 Occom met with bitter dis- appointments. He had become accustomed to the best English society but his wife clung to her native ways and she and her children reverted to the wild and roving life of the Indians. Dr. Wheelock insisted on moving the Indian school from Lebanon to a tract of land in New Hampshire where it subsequently became Dartmouth College; the school at Lebanon was continued as More's Indian Charity School. Occom was not given a post in the new college and never saw the institution for which he had done so much.
After the Revolutionary War, in which he took part, Occom made plans for a community at Oneida, N. Y., known as the Brothertown Colony, where a town government was set up under his direction and
L. I .- I-9
130
LONG ISLAND-NASSAU AND SUFFOLK
farming and some kinds of manufacturing were taught. Occom preached, taught and cared for the sick and here he died on July 14, 1792. His unmarked grave is located a few miles from the present site of Hamilton College, he and Horton alike having been neglected by the Presbyterian Church which they served so faithfully and well. A lover of music, Occom composed hymns and his hymnal published at New London in 1774 was the first Presbyterian hymn book in America. It contains his best known composition beginning
"Awaked by Sinai's awful sound, My soul in bonds of guilt I found,"
Two members of the Shinnecock clan performed notable service in the cause of Christianity. Peter John was born at Hay Ground about 1714 and was converted in the great revival of 1741. He became a clergyman and by his natural gifts of leadership and persuasion was enabled to organize churches at Wading River, Poosepatuck, Islip and Canoe Place. His work among his own people was abun- dantly fruitful and he is remembered as a pious servant of the church. He died at the advanced age of eighty-eight and is buried in the Indian cemetery at the Poosepatuck Reservation.
Paul Cuffee, the grandson of Peter John, was born at Brook- haven in 1757. This son of Peter Cuffee and a Christian negress was ordained by a Congregational Convention in 1790 and served the church until his death in 1812, working principally among the Indians at Montauk and Canoe Place. His power as a speaker was noted by Lyman Beecher and it is related that crowds came by coach from as far as Brooklyn to hear his eloquent preaching.
Cuffee revived the celebration of June Meeting which is still held each June and was regarded as symbolic of the tribal life of the Indians. Designed to honor the green corn, this ancient rite was attended by wild demonstrations of dancing which at times caused the white settlers grave anxiety. Cuffee's grave near Canoe Place is enclosed with a fence and marked by a marble slab bearing an inscription composed by the New York Missionary Society. Many of his descendants still live on Long Island.
Azariah Horton established a church and school at Poosepatuck in the middle of the eighteenth century and Horton, Occom, John and Cuffee preached there. Thomas Jefferson visited the community in 1791 and compiled the first vocabulary of the Unkachaug dialect. The clan rapidly died out or was absorbed into the negro race and by 1902 less than forty persons of mixed blood survived on the reserva- tion of one hundred and seventy acres.
The land owned in common is poorly cultivated and the place presented a shabby appearance when visited by the writer in 1940. Religious services are held in the church and June Meeting is still celebrated there. Attempts have been made to oust the few mixed- breeds who live on the reservation; such a move in 1936 was defeated largely through the vigorous efforts of the Reverend Ernest E. Eells and Mr. Morton Pennypacker of East Hampton.
131
THE INDIANS OF LONG ISLAND
The Shinnecock Reservation of about six hundred acres on Shinnecock Neck represents a survival of a form of tribal self- government which has existed for over one hundred and fifty years. When the Shinnecocks in 1859 exchanged their leasehold of the Shin- necock Hills for the present tract Paul Cuffee's church at Canoe Place was brought across the bay on the ice and placed on the reservation. During the ministry of the Reverend James Y. Downs this church was renovated and restored and it now forms a part of the new church erected after the hurricane of 1938, being used as the parish hall. It has been suggested that this church would be a suitable place for the erection of a tablet in memory of Azariah Horton, Samson Occom, Peter John and Paul Cuffee and the brave men who lost their lives in the wreck of the Circassian.
INDIAN LANGUAGES
Language and archaeology are two important sources of our knowledge of the origins and habits of aboriginal peoples. Toward the close of the 18th and beginning of the 19th centuries a deep inter- est in comparative philology was awakened in America. Under the guidance and influence of Thomas Jefferson, Albert Gallatin, Peter S. Du Ponceau, John Pickering, Jonathan Edwards and others, great progress was made in tracing the development of languages, including those of the American Indians. Efforts were made to trace affinities of the native dialects with languages of the Old World through words having similar sounds and meanings.
Jefferson thought the aborigines of North America (except the Esquimaux) were descendants of the inhabitants of eastern Asia and to prove his theories he collected vocabularies which he intended to study at his leisure but the loss of his manuscripts, as later related, defeated his purpose.
It should be remembered that the Indians had no written lan- guage and that they left no written history. Records were preserved by symbolic and pictographic figures scratched on stone or slate; the only traces of their language in our region are the place names which still survive. Many of these are of great beauty and should be pre- served not only for their esthetic value but for their historic and geographic importance. Such names usually conveyed a description of the locality to which they belonged, at first applied to specific places but later extended to include other places having similar characteristics.
The structure of the Algonkian family of languages differs from all other known language stocks in having no substantive verbs and no distinct genders. Neither nouns nor pronouns distinguish between inale and female but do differentiate between animate creatures and inanimate things. Several word stems and auxiliary forms may be blended together so that one long word makes a whole sentence. Such combinations use pronouns, adverbs and prepositions to unite with a verb to produce a great variety of expression. All Algonkian languages are polysynthetic; the syllables or words are compressed
132
LONG ISLAND-NASSAU AND SUFFOLK
into one long word in which the component parts may be clipped or altered so as to be scarcely recognizable.
The spelling of Indian names varies greatly as they were recorded by contemporary English and Dutch scribes of varying proficiency. Sounds were recorded differently by various interpreters, some of whom were educated missionaries but many others were illiterate traders who tried to convey the Indian sounds by means of crude orthographies in which English, Dutch, French and German were used indiscriminately. In their transmission to modern times many changes have occurred and some words are said to appear in as many as forty different variations of spelling.
A native-born Long Islander, little remembered and ill rewarded, was William Wallace Tooker of Sag Harbor. This painstaking his- torian who died in 1917 has left a record of the life of the aborigines, their habits and customs, their material culture, their methods of hunting and fishing and their native foods, together with an account of their settlements, their treaties and the disposal of their inherited domain.
Not the least of his contributions to our knowledge of Algonkian folklore is his study of Indian place names of which he defined nearly five hundred. His fine collection of books is at the John Jermain Library at Sag Harbor.
Tooker relates the story of Cockenoe-de-Long Island (the name appears in many variations), a youth of the Montauk clan who was captured by the Pequots and taken to Massachusetts where he was ransomed and became the servant of Richard Calicott of Dorchester. In February, 1649, John Eliot wrote:
"There is an Indian living with Mr. Richard Calicott of Dorchester, who was taken in the Pequot War, though belong- ing to Long Island; this Indian is ingenious, can read and I taught him to write, which he lernt, though I know not what use he now maketh of it. He was the first that I made use of to teach me words and to be my interpreter."
With the help of Cockenoe, Eliot translated the Commandments, the Lord's Prayer and many texts of Scripture into the native dialect. Cockenoe began to assist Eliot in 1643; he returned to Long Island sometime between 1646 and 1648 and for the rest of his life he seems to have been the trusted intermediary between the Indians and the white settlers. He makes his first appearance on Long Island in May, 1648, when he witnessed the deed of East Hampton.
For the next forty years nearly every important Indian deed bears witness to Cockenoe's usefulness to the white men and to his own people. Finally, in 1687, he joined with the Montauks who had now lost all their power and influence in conveying the last remnant of their land to the inhabitants of East Hampton. No monument marks his unknown grave but Cockenoe's Island at the mouth of the Saugatuck River bears his name and perpetuates his memory.
The first attempt to obtain a vocabulary of the Long Island Algonkian language was made by Thomas Jefferson who, accompanied
133
THE INDIANS OF LONG ISLAND
by James Madison, visited Long Island on horseback in 1791. Jeffer- son's purpose was to converse with the natives and thus secure a written vocabulary, perhaps with the intention of comparing it with languages of the Old World.
At Poosepatuck in the Town of Brookhaven on June 13, 1791, Jefferson, with the aid of an Indian girl who spoke English, copied from the lips of two old women a list of one hundred and eighty words including numerals, in the so-called Unkechaug dialect which closely resembled the Quiripi dialect of Connecticut. A copy of this vocabulary is preserved in the East Hampton Library and Mr. Morton Pennypacker has given us an account of how it was rescued from oblivion.
Jefferson made two copies of his work and packed them in a trunk which was stolen while ascending the James River but the thief, disappointed with his spoils, threw them in the river. A few leaves floated ashore and were rescued, so disfigured by mud and water as to appear useless. These papers subsequently fell into the hands of Jefferson's friend, Peter S. Du Ponceau, a Philadelphia lawyer noted for his interest in linguistics, who carefully copied the mud-stained pages into a law book where they remained undiscovered for many years. Du Ponceau's book finally came into the possession of William Wallace Tooker who made from it a careful transcript which was later compared with the Jefferson mud-stained manuscript. Thus, by almost a miracle was Jefferson's work saved for posterity.
Another early vocabulary was compiled by John Lion Gardiner, seventh proprietor of Gardiner's Island, from the lips of George Pharaoh, contemporary chief of the Montauks. Gardiner recorded that only seven members of the clan could speak the dialect when he compiled the vocabulary in 1798 and he thought the dialect was simi- lar to the Niantic and Mohegan and that it was probably spoken by all the Indians on Long Island.
The language of the Shinnecocks had nearly died out fifty years before M. R. Harrington made his study of their speech and material culture in 1902.
The speech of the western Long Island communities was similar to that of the Lenni Lenape. In their dialect place names usually ended in "auke", indicating "the place where"; this was often shortened to "ock", "oque", "ok", "ink" or simply "k". It also appears in "acki" or "hacki", signifying "ground" or "earth"; hence a locality or situation.
Many authorities and pseudo-authorities have tried their hands at defining Indian words and scarcely any two agree on their mean- ings. When the Earl of Stirling acquired Long Island from the Plymouth Company in 1635 it was called Matowa. The name also appears as Meitowax, Matouwac, Matouwacks, Meilowacks, Metoac, Matowacs, Mattoway and Mattanwake.
Tooker derives the name from "meht-anawack", "the land of the periwinkle". Reginald P. Bolton, using the same roots, prefers "ear-shell country". Gabriel Furman affirmed that "mattan" in the Narragansett tongue signified "good" and "auke" meant "land";
1
134
LONG ISLAND-NASSAU AND SUFFOLK
hence the whole word indicated "the good or pleasant land". Benson and Furman concur in attributing the name to the Montauks and Thompson thought that all natives on the island were called Metouacs. The error may be traced to De Laet who wrote: "At the entrance of this bay (Long Island Sound) are situated several islands on which a nation of savages have their abode, who are called Matouwacks".
Montauk was not originally a tribal name but was descriptive of a locality and was later applied to the people who lived there. Accord- ing to Tooker, the name is derived from "meun-ta-cut", meaning "at the fort", this definition being based on history and tradition as a fort is mentioned in the Montauk deed of 1662 wherein it is stated that the bounds extended to the west "where the old Indian fort stood". The outlines of a fort overlooking Fort Pond were still visible until 1898 when Camp Wikoff was built on the site.
Eastern Long Island was also known as Paumanock and was so designated in the deed of 1639 by which Yoco, sachem of Pommonocc and Aswaw, his wife, sold Gardiner's Island to Lion Gardiner. The name derives from "pauman", "he offers" and "auke", "land", hence "land of tribute", this part of the island being under tribute to the Indians of New England and also to the English. The Montauk sachem was often called Sachem of Paumanock.
Seawanhacky does not appear in the English records and was not applied to eastern Long Island but the name is found in three of the earliest deeds by which Indian lands were conveyed to the Dutch at Flatbush in 1636. The word is derived from "seawan" by which the Dutch designated all shell money, and "hacky", used to indicate "land" or "country"; hence "the land of shells".
Thus it appears from all the native names for Long Island sug- gested the idea of shell money or the payment of tribute. Wampono- mon or Wompomon is by some writers confused with wampum, but it actually signifies "the east" and referred specifically to Montauk Point. Tooker calls attention to the "gross error" in Munsell's History of Suffolk County where Wamponomon is described as another name for Long Island which takes its name from wampum and means "the island of shells".
Quoque may well be taken as an example of the widely different definitions offered by various authorities. Actually derived from Quaquanantuck, it appears as Quaqua, Quago, Quagga, Quag and finally emerges as Quogue, which is defined by most local historians as "a round clam". Ruttenber says "a cleared or open marsh"; Trumbull gives "a shaking marsh"; Beauchamp suggests "a long fish"; Tooker defines it as "a cove or estuary where it shakes or trembles", this being somewhat descriptive of the meadows which border Quantuck Bay. Shinnecock has suffered a similar fate. It derives its meaning from "shinne-auk-ut", "at the level land", but Ruttenber dissents as usual with "land of the spruce pine".
Four localities on the island commemorate the ground-nut or Indian potato (apios tuberosa). Acabonack, a neck near East Hamp- ton, is "the root place"; Sagaponack, formerly known as Sagg, comes from an Indian word meaning "a place where the big ground-nuts
135
THE INDIANS OF LONG ISLAND
grow"; Sebonac is a part of the Shinnecock Hills where the natives were granted liberty to dig ground-nuts; Ketchaponack, a neck near West Hampton, is "the place of the largest roots".
Many place names ascribed to the Indian tongue are merely cor- ruptions of other languages. Syosset is a variation of the Dutch word schouts, the Dutch sheriff or legal officer. Georgica may be a corruption of the English George who once owned the land. Wainscott is of good English origin and takes its name from an ancient method of preparing timber or boarding of oak, an article of commerce fre- quently mentioned in old records.
Oak Neck, near Islip, became Oquenock, and Hog Neck became Hoggenoch through imperfect recording by early copyists who may have thought the English names too simple or too crude. On the other hand Mosquetah Cove became Mosquito Cove and later Glen Cove. Moriches is not derived from "moriches palmata", as often stated, but preserves the identity of its one-time Indian owner. Marechkewick has been similarly distorted by Ruttenber who derives it from "mereca", a teal or widgeon, and "wick", a cove; literally Widgeon Bay. Beauchamp calls it "sandy place" and Tooker gives "at his fortified house". Seapoose in the Unkechaug dialect meant "little river", but is better known as the cut made through the beach to allow the waters of the ocean to flow into the bay, particularly at Mecox.
Many Indian words are still in common use, among these being hominy, moccasin, mugwump, papoose, pow-wow, sachem, squaw, succotash, tammany, tepee, toboggan, totem, tomahawk, tuckahoe, wampum, and wigwam. Such Christian names among the Indians as David, Solomon, Titus and Pharaoh are ascribed to missionary influence.
On Long Island we have many names of native origin which should be preserved not only for their beauty but for their historical significance. Mineola was an Indian maiden of great beauty and Tiana, near Hampton Bays, perpetuates the memory of a "princess" of the Shinnecocks.
Some of our old names have been changed for commercial pur- poses; for example, Hampton Bays, which formerly bore the descrip- tive name of Good Ground. East Hampton was at first called Maid- stone after the town in Kent whence the early settlers came. But we must admit that Shelter Island is better than the tongue-twisting Indian name of Manhansack-aha-qua-shuawamock, "an island shel- tered by islands".
INDIAN HABITS AND CUSTOMS
The Algonkian tribes did not possess the unified political organi- zation of the Iroquois and therefore suffered more from defeat and disintegration. They had no form of political government, except their chiefs. Councils summoned by the chief decided all matters of importance. The counsellors sat around a fire, each provided with a pipe and tobacco. After the council had declared its opinion the sachem gave his final judgment. Long Island communities had their
136
LONG ISLAND-NASSAU AND SUFFOLK
totems but except for a few divisions like the Marechkewicks (gray goose) ; Canarsie (the bear) and the Matinecocks (the turkey), little is known of these emblems.
In their physical characteristics the Indians were strong, capable of enduring much hardship and disdainful of suffering. In appear- ance the men were slender and physically well-developed and it is said that the Shinnecocks who perished in the wreck of the Circassian were noble-looking, strong and tall.
Physical deformity was rare among the Indians. Van der Donck testified that "mis-shapen or ill-formed persons are very rare amongst them. * * * Crippled, hunchbacked or other bodily infirmities are * so rare that we may say there are none amongst them. *
* They are all properly formed and well proportioned persons. None are gross or uncommonly heavy. No lunatics or fools are found amongst them, nor any mad or raving persons of either sex."
Great attention was given to the care of the hair by men and women. The latter wore their hair long and loose and nothing could be more ignominious than to have it cut off ; this was sometimes done as a punishment. Young women often allowed their hair to hang down to their hips. Women dressed their hair daily with oil or bear fat to make it glossy. A headband of embroidered snake skin was often worn around the forehead. Bits of shell, metal or stone were tied into the hair as ornaments. At times a belt of money was worn around the head but the roach or ruff of deer's skin, dyed scarlet, was held in the highest esteem. A feather or two might be worn in the scalplock. Before the white men brought scissors and knives the Indians burned or singed the hair off their heads by means of hot stones, thus roaching or shaving the head.
The Indians greased their bodies with bear fat to make their limbs supple and to ward off the bites of insects. Fish oil and eagle fat were also used to keep the skin smooth. Red pigment mixed with fat was used to color the face and body. Black, white, yellow and blue were also used and ornamental figures of birds and animals were worn for decoration. Usually a red spot on each cheek, reddened eyelids and red paint on the forehead sufficed but sometimes a rim of paint extended across the temple from ear to ear. Young women often used black paint around the eyes and on the forehead.
The Indians painted their faces and bodies because they thought it made them look handsome and also to please the unseen spirits and ward off sickness and misfortune. Red denoted power, success or war; black usually signified death; blue was the sign of defeat or trouble; yellow indicated joy, travel or courage, and peace was heralded by white. Paints were both mineral and vegetable and were carried in small bags, each containing a different color. Vermilion color was obtained from red oxide of iron or iron rust, possibly secured in trade with other tribes. White was made from powdered shells. Ochre, clay or sumac roots provided yellow while green and blue were made from the juices of flowers and berries. Black was easily obtainable from the soot of household fires or from the stain
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.