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. 353 words

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. What is known of the history of this very unique character has been embodied in an interesting monograph by Mr. William Wallace Tooker,1 to whom we are indebted for the article on Indian local names in the second chapter of this volume. His name appears variously in legal documents as Cockoo, Cokoo, and Cockoe -- all abbreviations of the correct form, Cockonoe. Eliot, in a letter written in 1649, descriptive of how he learned the Indian tongue, relates that he became acquainted while living at Dorchester, Mass., with a young Long Island Indian, "taken in the Pequott warres," whom he found Xi^vy ingenious, able to read, and whom 1 Coekonoe-de-Long

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he taught to write, " which he quickly learnt." " He was the first," says Eliot, " that 1 made use of to teach me words and to be my interpreter." And at the end of his " Indian Grammar," printed at Cambridge in 1 <'><;*>, Eliot testifies more particularly to the services rendered him by this youth. " By his help," he says, " I translated the Commandments, the Lord's Prayer, and many texts of Scripture; prayers by his help.'' Cockobothforexhortations I compiledEliot also attended noe some time inand his evangelistic expeditions, and later made his home among the English settlers on Long Island, whom he stood ready at all times to assist in their private dealings with the Indians.