Ulster County, formed in 1683, lay between Moodna or Murderer's Creek on the south, and Sawyer's, the line dividing: from Greene Count\', on the north. It

450 The Hudson River borders the west bank of the river and embraced at that time all of the important settlements between the Highlands and vSaugerties. The trading post of Rondout, one of the very earliest to be established, antedated the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers at Plymouth by six years. The Indian name, Ponckhockie, is still retained to designate a section of the town. The Rondout and Esopus settlers were driven away by the Indians prior to 1640, about which time a new attempt to colonise was made. In 1655, there was another exodus of the whites, and then Governor Stuyvesant came in person from New York and staked out ground for a new village, leaving twenty-four soldiers to protect the place. The land chosen was a free gift from the Indians to the "Grand Sachem . . . to grease his feet, as he had undertaken so long and painful a journey." New Indian troubles arose, owing to a supply of fire-water that some red men received in payment for husking corn for the before-mentioned Thomas Chambers in 1659. One of the recipients, during the revel which followed, fired a gun. A party of white men, who were possibly not too sober themselves, construed the discharge of the firearm to mean the commencement of an attack, upon which they fired upon a party of the Indians, killing several of them. In retaliation the lately peaceable redskins took thirteen prisoners, and, soon gathering a force of five hundred warriors, surrounded the fort, so that no one durst leave it for