As the result of this emphatic protest by Checkanoe, and in evidence of its truth and fairness, we find that on the 27th of December following,[25] Captain Middleton and associates were obliged to satisfy the Indians, by purchasing Shelter Island, or as it was called by the Indians Manhansick ahaquazuwamuck,[26] from the Sachem Yoco, formerly called Unkenchie, and other of his chief men, among whom we find one called Actoncocween,[27] which I believe to be simply another descriptive term for our hero, for the word signifies "an interpreter," or "he who repeats," i. e., "the repeat man."
This sale was certified to at Southold the following spring,[28] but the deeds themselves have long been lost, and the pages of the volume on which they were entered despoiled of their contents by some vandal years ago. These items of record, however, point to one conclusion, that if the owners of Shelter Island were unable to produce Forrett's deed from the Indians in 1652, which they seem to have been unable to do, it is not at all likely that it will ever be discovered. It also indicates that Forrett's title, as well as that of Mr. Goodyeare, rested on a frail foundation as far as the whole island was concerned, and that the Indians were right in their protest.
In this year according to tradition, or what is more in accordance with facts, in the spring of 1653,[29] Yoco Unkenchie or Poggatacut, as he is variously named, passed away. The tribe, now without a head, and weak in tribal organization, migrated from Shelter Island. Some went to Montauk and to Shinnecock, while a few united with the Cutchogues. During the following three or four years much alarm was created from the rumor that the Dutch were endeavoring to incite the Indians against the English.[30] The conduct of the Montauks and Shinnecocks was such that they were particularly distrusted, and they were forbidden without special leave to come into the settlements.[31] It was forbidden to furnish them with powder, shot, or rum; hence we find but little recorded. Again, the war carried on between the Montauks and Narragansetts began in this year, and continued for some years with great loss on both sides. It is very doubtful if Cockenoe took any active part in this war, or at least in its earliest stages; for, according to the fragmentary depositions by the Rev. Thomas James and others,[32] in the celebrated Occabog meadows suit of 1667,—a quarrel over a tract of salt meadow located almost within sight of the village of Riverhead, between the neighboring towns of Southampton and Southold,—Cockenoe was then residing at Shinnecock with his first wife, the sister of the four Sachems of Eastern Long Island, who united in the East Hampton conveyance. She was at this date, in consequence of the death of her brother Nowedonah, the Sunck Squaw, that is, the woman Sachem, of the Shinnecock tribe—a fact which proves that by marriage he came into the house of the Sachems, and was entitled to be designated as a Sagamore, as we find him sometimes called.
In the latter part of August, 1656,[33] Wyandanch, the Sachem of Montauk, with five of his men, on complaint entered against him by the Narragansett Sachem Ninnegrate, presented himself before the Commissioners, then in session at Plymouth, Mass. Ninnegrate, however, not appearing or submitting any proof of his allegations, Wyandanch was acquitted of the charges with much honor. At the same time he was relieved from the payment of the tribute, then four years in arrears, owing to his distressed condition. It is probable that Cockenoe was one of the five men accompanying him on this occasion.
He again makes his appearance on record in 1657,[34] when he laid out and marked the bounds of Hempstead in Queens County, by order of Wyandanch, who had then acquired jurisdiction as Sachem in chief over the Indians of Long Island, as far west as Canarsie.[35] "Chegonoe" witnesses the sign manual of his Sachem, who was present, on the confirmation deed of July 4, 1657.[36] This deed is dated 1647, as given in Thompson's History of Long Island.[37] The mistake is again repeated in Munsill's History of Queens County,[38] and has been often quoted by others quite recently; but the date will be found correctly given in the Colonial History of New York.[39]
The records of Hempstead under date of March 28, 1658, read: "This day ordered Mr Gildersleeve, John Hick, John Seaman, Robert Jackson and William Foster, are to go with Cheknow sent and authorized by the Montake Sachem, to marck and lay out the generall bounds of ye lands, belonging to ye towne of Hempstead according to ye extent of ye limits and jurisdiction of ye sd towne to be known by ye markt trees and other places of note to continue forever." These boundaries are named in the release of the following May, which "Checknow" witnesses. The appearance of his name on the records of Hempstead, and on these deeds, has led some writers to assume that he was a Sachem of the Rockaways,[40] an error which I find persistently quoted.
The year 1658 was a busy one for our Indian. The settlements are rapidly spreading and land is in demand by incoming colonists. On June 10 he laid out the beach to the westward of the Southampton settlement, giving Lion Gardiner the right to all whales cast up by the sea, and he witnesses the grant by his Sachem.[41]
On August 17[42] he marked out, by blazing trees, three necks of meadow for the inhabitants of Huntington, on the south side, in the western part of the present town of Babylon, which necks were afterward in controversy. The village of Amityville now occupies part of the upland bordered by the meadow. It states in the deed "that Choconoe for his wages, and going to marke out the Land shall have for himselfe, one coat, foure pounds of poudar, six pounds of led, one dutch hatchet, as also seventeen shillings in wampum," which, together with pay for the land, "they must send by Chockanoe." Our early settlers were always behindhand in their payments, and in this case, as evidenced by a receipt attached, pay was not received until May 23 of the next year, when Wyandance refers to "the meadow I sould last to them which my man Chockenoe marked out for them."
On April 19, 1659,[43] eleven years after the purchase, at an annual town meeting of the inhabitants of East Hampton, held probably in the first church that stood at the south end of the street,[44] "It was agreed that Checanoe shall have 10s for his assistance in the purchase of the plantacon." Seemingly a dilatory and inadequate reward for such a service. Money, however, was very scarce and worth something in those days, and we cannot gauge it by the light of the present period. In comparison we can only refer to the fact that Thomas Talmadge at the same period was only paid 20s, or double the amount, for a year's salary as Town Clerk. The record, however, is a valuable one, and is one of the straws indicating the esteem and favor in which Cockenoe was regarded by the townspeople of East Hampton.
That Cockenoe took an active part in marking the bounds of the tract of land between Huntington and Setauket, now comprised in the town of Smithtown, presented to Lion Gardiner by Wyandanch on July 14, 1659,[45] as a token of love and esteem in ransoming his captive daughter and friends from the Narragansetts, is worthy of note, for it is evident that the Sachem had no one else so capable. In confirmation of this surmise and my belief that he had a prominent part in all the land transactions of Wyandanch, my friend William S. Pelletreau, who is preparing the early records of the town of Smithtown for publication, has lately found recorded, in a dispute over the lands of Smithtown, a deposition taken down by John Mulford of East Hampton, dated October 18, 1667, which reads: "Pauquatoun, formerly Chiefe Councellor to the Old Sachem Wyandance testifieth that the Old Sachem Wyandance appointed Sakkatakka and Chekanno[46] to mark out the said Rattaconeck [Cattaconeck] lands, and after that ye sd Pauquatoun saw the trees marked all along the bounds and the Sachem being with him, he heard him [the Sachem] say it was marked right. And there is a Fresh pond called Ashamaumuk[47] which is the parting of the bounds of the foregoing lands from where the trees were marked to ye pathway." This "Fresh pond" was at the northwest bounds of the town of Smithtown.