In the town of Carmel, in the county of Putnam, is located Lake Macookpack, now Mahopack^ a term probably signifying simply a large inland lake, from

The same name was

ma large water and aki land. what is now known as The lake is nine miles in cir

to

applied

Copake lake in Columbia county.

cumference, and is situated about eighteen hundred feet above On one of the islands of the lake is what

the level of the sea. the

called

is

Chieftain's rock,

on which was held, according This council was for

to tradition, the last council of the tribe.

the purpose of considering the proposition of the English to Canopus, buy their lands and remove the tribe to the far west.

the aged sachem of the tribe, urged his followers to reject the proposal ; to rally to the defense of their empire, and the graves

His impassioned eloquence determined the proposition. JOHN W. LEE, Esq., of

of their fathers. council

against

the

New York, has thrown this legend into the following verse " Once the

airy curtain lifted, and the

:

shadows rolling back,

Shadows of the years that hover o'er the lake of Mahopac Showed me Indian warriors gathered in the wooded island dell,

**********

Which the rocks, all worn and moss-clad, and the waters guarded well.

Then upon the ledge above them, rose an aged, yet stalwart form, Like some monarch of the f jrest, bending never to the storm,

Rose the CHIEFTAIN OF THE ISLAND, with that bearing of a king,