D. 1650, the following act was passed by the Dutch council of the New Netherlands, in consequence of " the corruption of loose seawant, among which (here are current money that are not perforated, and half finished, and also made out of stone, bone, glass, muscle shells, horns, and some out of wood, and broken ones, whereby occasion is given for repeated complaints from the

» O'Callaghan's Hist. N. N. 211.

b Rec. of to. Roads, Co. Clerk's office, page 1.

t The round clam (venus mercenaria, Lin.) " called Quehog, by the Mohegans- From the internal purple part of this shell fish, the colored beads of the aborigines were manufactured." Nat. Ilist. of N. Y. part 1, Moluscte, 217, 18.

d Alb. Rec Notes of translator.

COUNTY OF WESTCHESTER. 3

inhabitants that they cannot go with such seawant to the market ; therefore no loose seawant shall be current, nor be a lawful tender except that the same shall be strung. Comniercial seawant to consist of six white or three black seawants for one stuyver ; the base strung seawant shall pass eight while or four black for one stuyver."a

III 1658, it was reduced from six tp eight of the white, and from three to four of ihe black, for a stuyver. In IG63, seawan had got into much disrepute, and was finally discontinued in 1682.

Sometime subsequent to the sale of 1640, the whole township of Bedford was emphaiically styled by the early planters Catonah's land, after the Indian chief and proprietor of that name ; hence we deduce the origin of the present local term Cantiloe, which yet survives in the northern part of the town, the termination oe denoting the place of that sachem's residence.