Nimham struggled to find an attorney as all local attorneys had been put on retainer by Morris and Robinson. 40 Finally, just a week before the trial, Nimham was able to hire a bright young lawyer, a Yale graduate from Connecticut named Asa Spalding.

Considering the circumstances Spalding argued an impressive case for the Wappinger, bringing forth "clouds of witnesses," some of which gave quite damning evidence against the landlords. A Daniel Townshend stated how when he first moved on to the land in 1738 he had to reach an agreement with the Wappinger. Tenant farmer James Philips, "found a wigwam on his land" and was forced to make an

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Oscar Handlin and Irving Mark, "Chief Daniel Nimham v. Roger Morris, Beverly Robinson, and Philip Philipse - An Indian Land Case in Colonial New York, 1765-1767", Ethnohistory, Vol. 11, No. 3 (Summer 1964), Published by Duke University Press: 210. Henry Noble MacCracken, Old Dutchess Forever! The Story of An American County (New York: Hastings House), 293. Oscar Handlin and Irving Mark, "Chief Daniel Nimham v. Roger Morris, Beverly Robinson, and Philip Philipse - An Indian Land Case in Colonial New York, 1765-1767", Ethnohistory, Vol. 11, No. 3 (Summer 1964), Published by Duke University Press: 211.

agreement with the Wappinger. Further, he "lived peaceably, and quietly under them for the space of about seventeen years; and that in all his life he never saw Mr. Adolph Philipse, to his knowledge." An old, well-respected, attorney and local resident, James Brown testified that years earlier Adolph Philipse himself had stated that "the land was never owned by him." A local judge, Judge Terbos, who even had learned to speak the language of the Wappinger, affirmed that Adolph Philipse had wanted to meet with the tribe to discuss land purchase but never did: