tied to trees and tortured in all the

Then gathering the materials for the fire, they kindled the flame and celebrated the dance of death around their vic

devise.

tims in fiendish glee, until the forms of Hans and his fair bride

were mingled with the ashes of the pyre their embrace of love was at the stake of death. " The remaining captives were treated more humanely, and were subsequently ransomed by their friends." Such is the tradition'.

There is no more familiar name, in Orange county, than that of Wawayanda, nor one the significance of which is less clearly known. It first appears in 1703, in a petition from Dr. Staats in which he states that a tract which he had purchased, called

HUDSON RIPER INDIANS.

or

Wawayanda, next use

is

in

"

Its Woerawin, was altogether a swamp." the deed and patent of Wawayanda, granted

1703, while yet Staats's petition was under consideration. Staats's purchase was never definitely located, but that it covered

in

a portion of the Drowned lands is known from the fact that the Wawayanda patent included the lands which he claimed.

In the deed from the Indians, and in the patent, the description implies that the name embraced more than one tract, the lan " " called guage being by the name or names of Wawayanda ; while the deed to Staats is apparently located by the name of

Woerawin, a term which may be derived from woreco, handsome, or wooreecan, good, or from wewocan, from wewau, waters, and