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. 375 words

Y., iv, 177.) In the Treaty of Easton, 1758, the Indian title to land conveyed to New Jersey is described : "Beginning at the Station Point between the Province of New Jersey and New York, at the most northerly end of an Indian settlement on the Delaware, known by the name of Casheitong." Station Point, called also Station Rock, is about three miles southeast of the present village of Cochecton, on a flat at a bend in the river, by old survey twenty-two miles in a straight line from the mouth of Maghaghkamik Creek, now Carpenter's Point, in the town of Deerpark, Orange County. Cochecton Falls, so called, are a rocky rapid in a narrow gorge covering a fall of two or three hundred feet, the obstruction throwing the water and the deposits brought down back upon the low lands. The Callicoon flows to the Delaware a few miles northeast of the falls. Between the latter and the mouth of the Callicoon lies the Cochecton Flats or valley. The precise location of "Station Point or Rock," described as "At the most northerly end" of the Indian village, has not been ascertained, but can be readily found. The late Hon. John C. Curtis, of Coctiecton, wrote: "Our beautiful valley, from Cochecton Falls to the mouth of the Callicoon, was called, by the Indians, Cushetunk, or low lands," the locative of the name having been handed down from generation to generation, and an interpretation of the name which is inferentially correct. There is no such word as Cash or Cush in the Delaware dialect, however; it stands here obviously as a form of K'sch, intensive -- K'schiecton (Len. Eng. Die.) ; Geschiechton, Zeisberger, verbal noun, "To wash," "The act of washing," as by the "overflow of the water of a sea or river. * * The river washed a valley in the plain"; with suffix -itnk {K' schiechton-unk -- compressed to Cushetunk), denoting a place where the action of the verb was performed, i. e. a place where at times the land is washed or overflowed by water, from which the traditionary interpretation, "Low land." ^ The Indian town spoken of was established in 1744, although its site was previously occupied by Indian hunting houses or huts