There were two dancing fields here—so specified in deed—the "Large Dans Kamer" and the "Little Dans Kamer," the latter a limited plateau on the point and the former the large plateau now occupied in part by the site of the Armstrong House. The Little Dans Kamer is now practically destroyed by the cut on the West-shore Railroad. 'Sufficient of the Large Dans Kamer remains to evidence its natural adaptation for the purposes to which the Indians assigned it. Paths lead to the place from all directions. Negotiations for the exchange of prisoners held by the Esopus Indians were conducted there, and there the Esopus Indians had direct connection with the castle of the Wappingers on the east side of the Hudson. There are few places on the Hudson more directly associated with Indian customs and history than the Dans Kamer.
[Arackook,] Kachawaweek, and Oghgotacton are record but unlocated names of places on the east side of the Wallkill, by some presumed to have been in the vicinity of Walden, Orange County, from the description: "Beginning at a fall called Arackook and running thence northwesterly on the east side of Paltz Creek until it comes to Kachawaweek." The petitioner for the tract was Robert Sanders, a noted interpreter, who renewed his petition in 1702, calling the tract Oghgotacton, and presented a claim to title from a chief called Corporwin, as the representative of his brother Punguanis, "Who had been ten years gone to the Ottowawas." He again gave the description, "Beginning at the fall called Arackook," but there is no trace of the location of the patent in the vicinity of Walden.
[Hashdisch] was quoted by the late John W. Hasbrouck, of Kingston, as the name of what has long been known as "The High Falls of the Wallkill" at Walden. Authority not stated, but presumably met by Mr. Hasbrouck in local records. It may be from Ashp, Hesp, etc., "High," and -ish, derogative. The falls descend in cascades and rapids about eighty feet at an angle of forty-five degrees. Though their primary appearance has been marred by dams and mills, they are still impressive in freshet seasons.
[Twischsawkin] is quoted as the name of the Wallkill at some place in New Jersey. On Sauthier's map it stands where two small ponds are represented and seems to have reference to the outlet. Twisch may be an equivalent of Tisch, "Strong," and Sawkin may be an equivalent of Heckewelder's Saucon, "Outlet," or mouth of a river, pond, etc. Wallkill, the name of the stream as now written, is an Anglicism of Dutch Waal, "Haven, gulf, depth," etc., and Kil, "Channel" or water-course. It is the name of an arm of the Rhine in the Netherlands, and was transferred here by the Huguenots who located in New Paltz. (See Wawayanda.)
[Shawangunk,] the name of a town, a stream of water, and a range of hills in Ulster County, was that of a specific place from which it was extended. It is of record in many orthographies, the first in 1684, of a place called Chauwanghungh, [FN-1] in deed from the Indians to Governor Dongan, in the same year, Chawangon, [FN-2] and Chanwangung in 1686, [FN-3] later forms running to variants of Shawangunk. The locative is made specific in a grant to Thomas Lloyd in 1687; [FN-4] in a grant to Severeign Tenhout in 1702, [FN-5] and in a description in 1709, "Adjoining Shawangung, Nescotack and the Palze." [FN-6] In several other patent descriptions the locative is further identified by "near to" or "adjoining," and finally (1723) by "near the village of Showangunck," at which time the "village" consisted of the dwellings of Thomas Lloyd, on the north side of Shawangunk Kill; Severeign Tenhout on the south side; and Jacobus Bruyn, Benjamin Smedes, and others, with a mill, at and around what was known later as the village of Tuthiltown. In 1744, Jacobus Bruyn was the owner of the Lloyd tract. [FN-7] The distribution of the name over the district as a general locative is distinctly traceable from this center. It was never the name of the mountain, nor of the stream, and it should be distinctly understood that it does not appear in Kregier's Journal of the Second Esopus War, nor in any record prior to 1684, and could not have been that of any place other than that distinctly named in Governor Dongan's deed and in Lloyd's Patent.
Topographically, the tract was at and on the side of a hill running north from the fiats on the stream to a point of which Nescotack was the summit, the Lloyd grant lying in part on the hill-side and in part on the low lands on the stream. The mountain is eight miles distant. Without knowledge of the precise location of the name several interpretations of it have been made, generally from Shawan, "South"—South Mountain, South Water, South Place. [FN-8] The latter is possible, i. e. a place lying south of Nescotack, as in the sentence: "Schawangung, Nescotack, and the Paltz." From the topography of the locative, however, Mr. William R. Gerard suggests that the derivatives are Scha (or Shaw), "Side," -ong, "hill," and -unk, locative, the combination reading, "At (or on) the hill-side." [FN-9] This reading is literally sustained by the locative.
[The] name is of especial interest from its association with the Dutch and Indian War of 1663, although not mentioned in Kregier's narrative of the destruction of the Indian palisaded village called "New Fort," and later Shawongunk Fort. The narrative is very complete in colonial records. [FN-10] The village or fort was not as large as that called Kahanksan, which had previously been destroyed. It was composed of ten huts, probably capable of accommodating two or three hundred people. The palisade around them formed "a perfect square," on the brow of a tract of table-land on the bank of Shawongunk Kill. Since first settlement the location has been known as "New Fort." It is on the east side of the stream about three miles west of the village of Wallkill. [FN-11] In the treaty of 1664 the site and the fields around it were conceded, with other lands, to the Dutch, by the Indians, as having been "conquered by the sword," but were subsequently included (1684) in the purchase by Governor Dongan. Later were included in the patent to Capt. John Evans, and was later covered by one of the smaller patents into which the Evans Patent was divided. When the Dutch troops left it it was a terrible picture of desolation. The huts had been burned, the bodies of the Indians who had been killed and thrown into the corn-pits had been unearthed by wolves and their skeletons left to bleach on the plain, with here and there the half eaten body of a child. For years it was a fable told to children that the place was haunted by the ghosts of the slain, and even now the timid feel a peculiar sensation, when visiting the site, whenever a strange cry breaks on the ear, and the assurance that it is real comes with gratefulness in the shouts of the harvesters in the nearby fields. It is a place full of history, full of poetry, full of the footprints of the aboriginal lords, "Further down the creek," says the narrative, "several large wigwams stood, which we also burned, and divers maize fields which we also destroyed." On the sites of some of these wigwams fine specimens of Indian pottery and stone vessels and implements have been found, as well as many arrow-points of flint.
[FN-1] "Land lying about six or seven miles beyond ye Town where ye Walloons dwell, upon ye same creek; ye name of ye place is Chauwanghungh and Nescotack, two small parcels of land lying together." (N. Y. Land Papers, 29, 30.)
[FN-2] "Comprehending all those lands, meadows and woods called Nescotack, Chawangon, Memorasink, Kakogh, Getawanuck and Ghittatawah." (Deed to Gov. Dongan.)