A few years ago the plain slab with its simple inscription, at the head of the grave, was replaced by a neat monument, and residents of the village take pride in exhibiting to strangers the grave of Ichabod Crane.

Coxsackie station, on the east side of the river, communicates byferry with the village of that name upon the opposite bank. The Iroquois Indians called that part of the shore by the descriptive name of Cut Banks (Kiixakcc), because along there the current made a marked depression. The older portion of the town lies well back from the water, having been built along the line of the post-road. Schodack means a place of fire, or fire-plain. Before there was any settlement at this point the site was so called because there was the ancient i)lace for the council fires of the Mohegans. Opposite Schodack are the considerable towns of New Baltimore andCoe}^mans. One of the most attractive of rural towns is Castleton, a place of pleasant houses and shaded streets, of

Nantucket Quakers and Dutch Fighters 511

thrift)' gardens and trim orchards, with its main thoroughfare running nearly ])arallel with the ri\-er, Ijut a short distance awa}-. Near by are those chffs where the eternal fires of the redskins burned, and where ruled chief Aepgin, who sold his land, "from Beerin Island to Smack's Island," to the representative of the Patroon Van Rensselaer. Beerin, Beam, or Bear Island, as it has been variously called, is a little above Castleton and near the west bank of the stream. It is from various causes one of the best known of the many islands that diversify the river from Coxsackie north to the head of navigation. Itenjoys the distinction of being the birthplace of the first white child born to any of the earl}' settlers upon the Hudson, and was also the fortified place that was so great a bone of contention between the powers of the lower and those of the upper ri\'er.