Of record it dates back to De Laet's map of 1625-6, and is obviously much older. It is possible that the " three bare places " were fields of white clover, as has been claimed by one writer, but there is no record stating that fact. Dankers and Sluyter, who wrote only fifty-four years after the application of the name, no doubt gave correctly the account of its origin as it was related to them by living witnesses. If interpreted as were the names of other reaches, the reference would be to actual clover fields. '"Major Abraham" was Major Abraham Staats, who located on a neck of land on the north side of "Major Staats' Creek," now Stockport Creek. (See Ciskhakainck.) "West of Taghkanick," probably refers to the mountains now so known. It means, literally, however, "The woods." (See Taghkanick.) There was a heated controversy between the patroon of Rensselaerswyck and Governor Stuyvesant in regard to the purchase of the tract. It Avas decided in 1652 in favor of the former, who had, in the meantime, granted several small leaseholds. (See Brodhead's Hist. N. Y., i.) The first settlement by the patroon was in 1705 at Claverack village.

5^ INDIAiN GEOGRAPHICAL NAMES.

Rensseliier, in 1761, "From the mouth of Major Staats, or Kinderhook Kdll, south along the river to a point opposite the south end of Vastrix Island, thence easterly twenity-four English miles," etc. (Cal. N. Y. Land Papers, 307. See also, Wachanekasaik.) It was an immense tract, covering about eigli't miles on the Hudson b}- twenty-four miles deep, and became known as "The Lower Manor of Rensselaerswyck," but locally as Claverack, from its frontage on the river-reach so called. The name was that of a particular place which was well known from which it was extended to the tract.