It was supposed at first that the place Wits the site of an ancient and forgotten buryiiig-ground, but some historical facts were discovered yesterday which throw light on the subject. On the night of February 25, 164:i, Governor Kiuft, of Sew- Anisterdam, sent a company of Dutch soldiers across the river to what was then known as ' Jahn de Dacher's Hoeck,' with orders to exterminate a Tillage of Indians encamped there. The soldiers, so the story goes, surprised the Indians ami massacred nearly every person in the village. A few escaped and made their way back into the country, toward the ipresent site of Newark. Trenches were dug and the bodies thrown into them indiscriminately. The scene of the butchery is now known as Lafayette, and, after nee.rly two and a half centuries, one of the trenches has been opened. Crowds gathered around the place yesterday while the excavating was going on and looked at the skulls and bones. The num- ■ber of bodies can only be determined by means of the skulls, as the bones are all mixed together, ami many of them crumble at the touch into line dust. The best preserved portions of bodies are the teeth."

The discovery of these bones at this time is certainly a marked coincidence. There can be little doubt that the conjecture as to their being the remains of the Indians slain near this s|>ot in the attack made upon them by Kieft is the true one.

^See Bolton's " Hist. Westchester County," article Xew Rochelle.