[FN-2] Perhaps an Indian Football Court, resembling a Tennis Court. A writer in 1609 says of the Virginia natives: "They use, beside, football play, which women and boys do much play at. They have their goals as ours, only they never fight and pull each other down." There was a famous Tennis Court (Dutch Kaatsbaan) in the town of Saugerties, which seems to have been there long before the Dutch settlement. The Tennis Court referred to in the text is said to have been near the site of the present City Hall in Kingston, but would that place be strictly "near the Strand"? "Strand" means "shore, beach." It was probably on the beach.
[Atkarkarton,] claimed by some local authorities as the Indian name of Kingston, comes down to us from Rev. Megapolensis, who wrote, in 1657: "About eighteen miles [Dutch] up the North River lies a place called by the Dutch Esopus or Sypous, by the Indians Atkarkarton. It is an exceedingly beautiful land." (Doc, Hist. N. Y., iii, 103.) The Reverend writer obviously quoted the name as of general application, although it would seem to have been that of a particular place. As stated in another connection, Esopus, Sypous, and Sopus were at first (1623) applied to a trading-post on the Hudson, from which it was extended inland as a general name and later became specific as that of the first palisaded Dutch village named Wildwijk, which was founded a year after Megapolensis wrote. At the date of his writing the territory called Sopus included the river front, the plateau on which Kingston stands, and the flats on the Esopus immediately west, particularly the flat known as the Groot Plat, and later (1662) as the Nieuw Dorp or New Village, [FN-1] as distinguished from Sopus or Wildwijk, or the Old Village, the specific site of which could not have been referred to. Of the site of the Old Village, Director Stuyvesant wrote in 1658: "The spot marked out for the settlement has a circumference of about two hundred and ten rods [FN-2] and is well adapted for defensive purposes. When necessity requires it, it can be surrounded by water on three sides, and it may be enlarged according to the convenience and requirements of the present and of future inhabitants." The palisaded enclosure was enlarged by Stuyvesant, in 1661, to over three times its original size. The precise spot was on the northwest corner of the plateau. It was separated from the low lands of the Esopus Valley by a ridge of moderate height extending on the north, east, and west, and had on the south "a swampish morass" which was required to be drained, in 1669, for the health of the town "and the improvement of so much ground." The Groot Plat in the Esopus Valley was a garden spot ready for the plough and was regarded as of size sufficient for "fifty bouweries" (farms). From the description quoted, and present conditions, it may be said with certainty that the site of the Old Village of Wildwijk was a knoll in an area of prairie and marsh. Neither of the village sites seem to have been occupied by the Indians except by temporary huts and corn-lands. The Wildwijk site was given to Director Stuyvesant by the Indians, in 1658, "to grease his feet with" after his "long journey" from Manhattan. Of the Groot Plat one-half was given by the Indians to Jacob Jansen Stoll in compensation for damages. A commission appointed at that time to examine the tract, and to ascertain what part of it the Indians wished to retain, reported that the Indians had "some plantations" there, "but of little value"; that it was "only a question of one or two pieces of cloth, then they would remove and surrender the whole piece." (Col. Hist. N. Y., xiii, 86, 89.) Instead of paying the Indians for the lands, however, the settlers commenced occupation, with the result that the Indians burned the New Village, June 7, 1663, attacked the Old Village, killed eighteen persons and carried away thirty captives, women and children. The war of 1663 followed, the results of which are accessible in several publications, but especially in Colonial History of New York, Vol. xiii. It is sufficient to say here that the Indians lost the lands in controversy and a much larger territory. Interpretation of the name can only be made conjecturally. William R. Gerard wrote me: "I think Atkarkarton simply disguises Atuk-ak-aten, meaning 'Deerhill,' from Atuk, 'Deer'; ak, plural, and aten, 'hill.' The r's in the name do not mean anything; they simply indicate that the a's which precede them were nasal." The Delaware word for "deer" is Achtuch. Dr. Schoolcraft wrote the tradition that the first deers were the hunters of men.
[FN-1] The land or place on the Esopus flat on which the New Village was founded, is now known as Old Hurley Village. It is repeatedly and specifically designated as "The Groot Plat"—"The large tract of land called the New Village"—"The burnt village called the Groot Plat." (Col. Hist. N. Y., xiii, 275, et. seq.) Hurley was given to it by Governor Lovelace in 1669, from his family, who were Barons Hurley of Ireland.
[FN-2] A Dutch rod is twelve feet, which would give this circumference at less than an English half mile. Schoonmaker writes in "History of Kingston": "The average length of the stockade was about thirteen hundred feet, and the width about twelve hundred feet." Substantially, it enclosed a square of about one-quarter of a mile.
[Wildwijk,] Dutch—Wiltwyck, modern—the name given by Governor Stuyvesant, in 1650, to the palisaded village which later became Kingston, and then and later called Sopus, is a composition of Dutch Wild, meaning "Wild, savage," and Wijk, "Retreat, refuge, quarter"; constructively, "A village, fort or refuge from the savages." The claim that the place was so called by Stuyvesant as an acknowledgment of the fact that the land was a gift from the Indians, is a figment. The English came in possession, in 1664, and, in 1669, [FN] changed the early name to Kingston. The Dutch recovered possession in 1673, and changed the name to Swanendale, and the English restored Kingston in 1674. (See Atkarkarton.)
[FN] "On this day (vizt 25th) the towne formerly called Sopez was named Kingston." Date Sept. 25th, 1669. (Col. Hist. N. Y., xiii, 435.)
[Nanoseck,] Manoseck, forms of the name of a small island in Rondout Creek, so "called by the Indians" says the record, may be from Natick Nohōōsik, "Pointed or tapering." The Dutch called it "Little Cupper's Island." Cupper, "One who applies a cupping glass." Another island in the same stream, was "called by the Indians Assinke," that is "Stony land" or place. (See Mattassink.) Another island was called by the Dutch Slypsten Eiland, that is, "Whetstone Island"; probably from the quality of the stone found on it. It lies in the Hudson next to Magdalen Island.
[Wildmeet,] an Indian "house" so called by the Dutch, means, in the Dutch language, "A place of meeting of savages." It was not a palisaded village. It was burned by the Dutch forces in the war of 1660, at which time, the narrative states, some sixty Indians had assembled at or were living in it. Its location, by the late John W. Hasbrouck, at the junction of the Vernoy and Rondout kills, is of doubtful correctness, as is also his statement that it was "The council-house of all the Esopus Indians." Its location was about two (Dutch) miles from Wildwyck, or about six or seven English miles. Judge Schoonmaker wrote: "Supposed to have been located in Marbletown."