Home / Shonnard, Frederic, and W.W. Spooner. History of Westchester County, New York, from its Earliest Settlement to the Year 1900. New York: The New York History Company, 1900. / Passage

History of Westchester County, New York, from its Earliest Settlement to the Year 1900

Shonnard, Frederic, and W.W. Spooner. History of Westchester County, New York, from its Earliest Settlement to the Year 1900. New York: The New York History Company, 1900. 327 words

All the meadows, rivers, and islands thereunto belonging were included in the sale; and it was also specified that Eichbell or his assigns might " freely feed cattle or cutt timber twenty miles Northward from the marked Trees of the Necks.'' As payment, he was to deliver to Wappaquewam, half within about a month and the other half in the following spring, twenty-two coats, one hundred fathom of wampum, twelve shirts, ten pairs of stockings, twenty hands of powder, twelve bars of lead, two firelocks, fifteen hoes, fifteen hatchets, and three kettles. Two shirts and ten shillings in wampum were given in part payment on the day of the transaction. But Eichbell was not permitted to enter into undisturbed possession of his fine property. Another Englishman of Oyster Bay, one Thomas Eevell, in the following month (October, 1GG1) appeared on the scene and undertook to buy the identical lands, or a very considerable portion of them. His negotiations were with the same Wappaquewam and certain other Indians, to whom he paid, or engaged to pay, more than Eichbell had bound himself for. Out of his rival claim arose a wordy legal dispute, wherein affidavits were filed by various witnesses, one of whom (testifying in Eichbell's behalf) was Peter Disbrow, of Manussing Island. From the testimony of Wappaquewam it appears that that chief was overpersuaded by another Indian, Cockoo, to resell the territory to Eevell, upon the alluring promise that " he should have a cote," " on which he did it." The burden of the evidence was plainly in favor of Eichbell, who, in all the legal proceedings that resulted, triumphed over his opponent. The Indian Cockoo, who contributed his good offices to the assistance of Eevell in this enterprise, was none other than the notable first inLong Island interpreter, Cockonoe, who was John Eliot's intermestructor in the Indian language, and who was a frequent diary between English land purchasers and the native owners of the soil.