Recent [1876] discoveries, while repairing it, of loopholes for musketry near the floor of the diningroom clearly show that it originally composed a fort, which was probably built by Governor Dongan. John Van Cortlandt enlarged itto its present dimensions in the early years of Queen Anne's reign. . . . Over the main entrance to the manor-house hangs the strong bow of Croton, the Sachem whose name has been given to the Kitchawan River and Bav, and within the mansion are interest-

Around Haxerstraw l>ay 295

ing mementoes of the country from which and the famil\- from wliom the \'an Cortlandts came, -- the Dukes of Courkmd, in Russia.

The \^an Cortlandt house has a ghost that wanders at tinies through the rooms with a sound of rusthng silks, and another that treads heavily through the halls. But even earlier than the building of the manorhouse, Chief Croton, the Sachem who rided the ])oint and neighbomdiood of the stream that l)ears his name, haunted the S])ot with his warriors. An Indian fort had been Ijuilt where the manor-house afterwards stood, and there the chief made his last stand against the fierce enemies that swept down on one of their forays from the north. Encompassed and o\'erwhelmed, amid showers of arrows and surrounded by the smoke and flames of his burning ]3alisades, he fought with desperate valour, as one by one his com])anions fell; till at length, he stood alone and wounded; then, as his foes rushed forward, he fell headlong into the l:)lazing fire. But again and again, it is said, he has a])- peared in great crises, urging men to coin"ageous deeds. The Kitchawans, or Kitchawonks, had an imj^ortant village on the neck connecting the point with the mainland. The oyster beds in the ^dcinity were es])ecially valued by them, and were, no doubt, the object of frequent disputes.