John Eliot's First Indian Teacher and Interpreter Cockenoe-de-Long Island and The Story of His Career from the Early Records

by William Wallace Tooker

At the same time and year, probably, as it bears no date, he witnessed the sale of "Old Field" by Wyandance to the inhabitants of Setauket in the town of Brookhaven.[48] Also about the same time the sale of "Great Neck or Cattaconocke"[49] bounding Smithtown on the east as referred to by Pauquatoun.

On February 10, 1660,[50] he marked out, and also witnessed the confirmation of the sale of Lloyd's Neck, in the town of Huntington, by Wyancombone, the son and heir of the late Sachem Wyandanch, who had passed away, and whose son was then acknowledged by both the Indians and whites as the chief Sachem of Long Island. His name on this copy of a copy is misspelled as Chacanico.

In the confirmation deed for Smithtown, dated April 6, 1660,[51] by Wyancombone, the land is stated to have been laid out by some of the chief men of the tribe; these men are named in Pauquatoun's testimony. In the copy recorded in the office of the Secretary of State at Albany, N. Y., Cockenoe is named as a witness in the corrupt form of Achemano. He united on August 16, 1660,[52] with the rest of his tribe at Montauk, in the first Indian deed to the inhabitants of East Hampton for "all the afore^sd Necke of land called Meantaquit,[53] with all and every parte thereof from sea to sea."

About this time the Meantaquit Indians petitioned the Commissioners of the United Colonies of New England for protection from the cruelty of the Narragansetts[54] with the result that the latter were ordered not to come within six miles of the English plantations, and the former not to begin any new quarrels, but to behave themselves quietly, without provocation. The fact that Cockenoe was then living at Montauk is proof that he must have been one of the petitioners.

Thomas Revell, a merchant of Barbadoes, and a resident of Oyster Bay, L. I., was engaged with Constant Sylvester, one of the owners of Shelter Island, together with James Mills of Virginia,[55] and John Budd of Southold, in the West India trade. Through his partners, or otherwise, he became well acquainted with our friend Cockenoe, and employed him as an interpreter in buying some land from the Indians in Westchester County, N. Y. We find that Cockenoe was with him at Manussing Island, at the head of the Long Island sound, where he gave Revell a deed, witnessed by John Budd and others, dated October 27, 1661, which reads: "I Cockoo Sagamore by vertue of a full and absolute power and order unto him and intrusted by Mahamequeet Sagamore & Meamekett Sagamore & Mamamettchoack & Capt. Wappequairan all Ingines living up Hudson River on the Main land for me to bargaine & absolutely sell unto Thos Revell.... And fardder more I doe promise and ingauge myself in behalf of the prenamed Ingaines & y^e rest of those Ingains which I now sell this land for and them to bring suddenly after y^e date hereof, for to give unto Thomas Revels or his order quiet and peacable possession," etc., etc. This tract of land thus conveyed was in the present township of Mamaroneck, Westchester County, N. Y. The power of attorney given to Cockenoe by these Indians reads: "One of our Councill Cockoo by name an Ingaine the which we do approve of and do confirm whatsoever the said Cockoo shall doe in bargaining and selling unto Thos Revell of Barbadoes," etc. This power of attorney by some means was dated two weeks after the execution of the deed, and in the litigation which ensued over the purchase this fact ruined the case for Revell. This deed and the power of attorney were both recorded at Southampton, L. I.,[56] and are quoted in full, with particulars of the suit, in Sharf's History of Westchester County, N. Y.,[57] and are too lengthy to dwell upon at this time.

Cockoo, Cokoo, Cockoe, or Cakoe, as his name is variously given in the papers relating to this affair, is evidently an abbreviated form of Cockenoe.[58] All the facts recorded in connection with it point to him and to no one else. From the context of the papers, he was a strange Indian, not living up the Hudson river, where it is stated all the other Indians dwelt. That he was acting as an interpreter is evident—a fact which, as I have before observed, was a very rare qualification for an Indian of that period. Humphrey Hughes, whose name appears as one of the witnesses on Cockoo's power of attorney, was a seaman in the employ of Revell, and in his various capacities as a sailor, trader, fisherman, or an inhabitant, is frequently mentioned in the records of both South[59] and East Hampton towns;[60] hence Cockenoe was no stranger to him. Two years afterward Hughes witnessed the renewal of the Montauk Squaw Sachem's whaling grant to John Cooper; therefore, taking all these items of fact into consideration, it is not at all strange that Cockenoe should have been employed by Thomas Revell in buying land from the Indians in Westchester County.

On February 21, 1662[61] (February 11, 1661) Chekkonnow again united with his tribe in the deed known as the "Hither Woods" purchase, "for all the piece or neck of land belonging to Muntauket land westward to a fresh pond in a beach, on this side westward to the place where the old Indian fort stood, on the other side eastward to the new fort that is yet standing, the name of the pond (Fort Pond) is Quaunontowounk on the north, and Konkhonganik on the south,"[62] etc. At this date, as is proven by the above wording of this deed, the Montauks were encamped at the southern part of East Hampton village[63] under the protection of the settlers, in order to escape the invasions of the Narragansetts, and Montauk was temporarily abandoned.

In the same year Checkanow was sent with Tobis, another Indian, by order of the Sachem Squaw, widow of Wyandanch, to mark out John Cooper's whaling limits on the beach to the westward of Southampton.[64]

Some of the boundaries of Huntington, laid out in 1658, being disputed by their neighbors of Oyster Bay, it became necessary to send for Cockenoe that he might identify his former marks. At a town meeting held at Huntington March 8, 1664[65] (26-12-1663). "It was voted that when Chiskanoli come that Mr Wood shall have power to agree with him, and the town to gratifie him to show the boundaries of the necks of meadow at the south bought by the town."