Mouth of the Norman’s Kill, or Tawasentha, Albany.
Mr. Brayton says, that in digging the turnpike road, in ascending Kiddenhook hill, on the road to Bethlehem, many human bones, supposed to be Indian, were found. They were so numerous that they were put in a box and buried. This ancient burial ground, which I visited, was at a spot where the soil is light and sandy. On the hill, above his house, is a level field, where arrow-heads have been found in large numbers.
Mr. B., who has lived here sixteen years, does not know that the isolated high ground, east of the turnpike gate, contains ancient bones—has not examined it with that view. Says Mr. Russell, in the neighborhood, has lived there fifty years, and will ask him.
Nothing could be more likely, than that this oasis on the low land should have served as the cemetery for the Mohawks, who inhabited the island, where the Dutch first landed and built a fort in 1614.
The occupancy of this island by the Indians could never have been any thing but a summer residence, for it is subject to be inundated every year by the breaking up of the river. This was probably the cause why the Dutch almost immediately abandoned it, and went a little higher, to the main land, where Albany now stands. The city, however, such are the present signs of its wealth and progress, has extended down quite half way to the parallel of the original site of “Het Casteel” under Christians, and should these signs continue, within twenty years South Pearl-street will present lines of compact dwellings and stores to the bridge over the Tawasentha, and Kiddenhook be adorned with country seats.