Croton Historical ArchiveCroton-on-Hudson, New York

Home / Lossing, Benson John. The Hudson, from the Wilderness to the Sea. New York: Virtue & Yorston, 1866. Internet Archive identifier: hudsonfromwilder00lossi. Illustrated travel-history of the Hudson River valley by the writer and artist Benson J. Lossing, whose chapter on Teller's / Croton Point is a primary source for Senasqua place-name etymology, Sarah Teller's 1682 purchase, and the Underhill vineyard. / Passage

The Hudson, from the Wilderness to the Sea

Lossing, Benson John. The Hudson, from the Wilderness to the Sea. New York: Virtue & Yorston, 1866. Internet Archive identifier: hudsonfromwilder00lossi. Illustrated travel-history of the Hudson River valley by the writer and artist Benson J. Lossing, whose chapter on Teller's / Croton Point is a primary source for Senasqua place-name etymology, Sarah Teller's 1682 purchase, and the Underhill vineyard. 286 words

The business demands upon it warranting an enlargement to seventy feet in widtli, work with that result in view has been in progress for several years. It flows through the entire length of the beautiful Mohawk valley, crosses

CANAL BA.SIX AT ALIiAXV.

the Mohawk Uiver several times, and enters Albany at the north end of the city.

Near where the last aqueduct of the canal crosses the ^Mohawk River, the rapids above Cohoes Falls commence. The Indians had a touching legend connected with these rapids, that exhibits, in brief sentences, a vivid picture of the workings of the savage mind.

Occuna, a young Seneca warrior, and his affianced were carelessly paddling along the river in a canoe, at the head of the rapids, when they suddenly perceived themselves drawn irresistibly by the current to the

THE HUDSON. 135

middle of, and down, the stream towards tlie cataract. "When they found deliverance to be impossible, the lovers prepared to meet the great Master of Life with composure, and began the melancholy death-song, in responsive sentences. Occuna began : " Daughter of a mighty warrior ! the Great Manitore [the Supreme God] calls me hence; he bids me hasten into his presence ; I hear his voice in the stream ; I perceive his Spirit in the moving of the waters. The light of his eyes danceth upon the swift rapids."

The maiden replied : "Art thou not thyself a mighty warrior, 0 Occuna'^ Hath not thy hatchet been often bathed in the red blood of thine enemies ? Hath the fleet deer ever escaped thy arrow, or the beaver eluded thy pursuit ? Why, then, shouldst thou fear to go into the presence of Manitore ? "

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