Home / Ruttenber, E.M. Footprints of the Red Men: Indian Geographical Names in the Valley of Hudson's River, the Valley of the Mohawk, and on the Delaware. Published in the Proceedings of the New York State Historical Association, Vol. VI. 1906. / Passage

Footprints of the Red Men: Indian Geographical Names

Ruttenber, E.M. Footprints of the Red Men: Indian Geographical Names in the Valley of Hudson's River, the Valley of the Mohawk, and on the Delaware. Published in the Proceedings of the New York State Historical Association, Vol. VI. 1906. 285 words

This record narrative is more fully explained by the following certificate which is on file in the office of the Clerk of Ulster County : "These are to certify, that the inhabitants of the town of New Paltz, being desirous that the first station of their patent, named Moggonck, might be kept in remembrance, did desire us, Joseph Horsbrouck, John Hardenburgh, and RoelofT Elting, Esqs., Justices of the Peace, to accompany them, and there being Ancrop, the Indian, then brought us to the High Mountain, which he named Maggeanapogh, at or near the foot of which hill is a small run of water and a swamp, which he called Maggonck, and the said Ancrop affirmed itto be the right Indian names of the said places, as witness our hands the nineteenth day of December, 1722." Ancrop, or Ankerop as otherwise written, was a sachem of the Esopus Indians in 1677, and was still serving in that office in 1722. He was obviously an old man at the latter date. He had, however, no jurisdiction over or part in the sale of the lands to the New Paltz Company in 1677. His testimony, given forty-five years after the sale by the Indians, was simply confirmatory in general terms of a location which had been made in 1677, and the interpretation of what he said was obviously given by the Justices in terms to correspond with what his employers wished him to say. In the days of the locations of boundmarks of patents, his testimony would have been regarded with suspicion. Locations of boundmarks were then frequently changed by patentees who desired to increase their holdings, by "Taking some Indians in a public manner to show such