Through these mountain trails there doubtless flowed a great part of the traffic that brought the pelts and game of the wild forests Manhattan, and carried to back again over their steep and tortuous courses the coveted beads of wampum for which they had been exchanged. •

The Minisink path was an important native highway which connected the bay of New York and the sea coast with the mountain regions of upper New Jersey in which the Lenni Lenape made their home. This great pathway was so well known a

INDIAN NOTES

BOLTON-INDIAN PATHS IN THE GREAT METROPOLIS

--~ ~ h'l-TiiMi i---r-- *--r---T-

Original map of a portion of eastern Ne\ tiguous to Staten Island, showing a part of th 1750 as an exhibit in the Elizabeth boundary dj

MAP XI

embracing the native sales of territory conof the Minisink path. Drawn probably about Courtesy of the New York Historical Society.)

NEW JERSEY

204 INDIAN PATHS acquainted with the historical side of the subject, as it records not only the boundaries but the dates and even some of the native names of the tracts purchased from the natives dwelling in the territory between Raritan and Passaic rivers, and from Staten Island to the Cushetonk hiF.s. Oneof the most important boundary lines was the Minisink path, which traverses the region between the two rivers above mentioned, and was used as the western boundary of the earliest native conveyance, comprising that tract contiguous to Staten Island from Amboy to Elizabeth, which it states was "claimed by the Indians of Staten Island" and was sold by them in 1664. The point of its crossing of Raritan river was about two miles west of Perth Amboy, where a fordable depth was doubtless found at a place which is marked on the old survey as Kents neck, the native name of which was Matockshegan, indicating by its use of the words matta, "bad," tuck, "a creek," and perhaps oushachen, "slippery," the awkward and difficult