best historians of New Netherlands, A.D., 1625. 0 This people he describes " as dwelling along the coast from Nonvalk to twenty-four miles to the neighborhood of Hellegat." Adriaen van der Donck, in his map of 1656, styles them Siwanoys. These Siwanoys constituted a tribe of the mighty Mohegan, or " Enchanted Wolf " nation, originally called Muhhekanew, or the Seven Tribes on the sea coast -- otherwise called Mohiggans by the English, and Mahicanders, or River Indians, by the low Dutch,6 and Mohicans by the English.

The River Sachems, at this early period, paid tribute to Sassacus, grand sachem of the Mohegans, whose broad territory extended from Narragansett to Hudson River, and over all Long Island. In 1644, there was an Indian Chief by the name of Mamaranack, living at Kitchawanc," (Croton ) This individual may have been one of the grantors of these lands to the Dutch West India Company, in 1640, when the latter purchased a large tract of land comprising much of the present County of Westchester.

The site of the ancient Indian village in this town can still be traced upon the projecting rocks, directly opposite Heathecote Hill and the residence of the late Benjamin M. Brown, along Mamaroneck Bay. This spot was well suited to the habits of the aborigines, who subsisted, one-half of the year at least, upon the fish caught in these waters. It must also be borne in mind, that all the Indian villages on the sea board were noted for the manufacture of seawant, the materials for which were found here in great abundance. d