Footprints of the Red Men: Indian geographical names in the valley of Hudson's river, the valley of the Mohawk, and on the Delaware: their location and the probable meaning of some of them.Ruttenber, Edward Manning
History
Footprints of the Red Men: Indian geographical names in the valley of Hudson's river, the valley of the Mohawk, and on the Delaware: their location and the probable meaning of some of them.
Ruttenber, Edward Manning
Indians of North America -- New York (State); Names, Geographical -- New York (State); Names, Indian -- North America
On the 21st, _before_ reaching the second stream which he noted later
as having crossed, he wrote that "half a mile" _west_ of Canajohare Creek
he came to a village of "nine houses of the name of _Osquage,_" which
gave name to the stream now known as the _Otsquage,_ which he also called
_Okquage_ and _Okwahohage,_ "Wolves"--a village of the Wolf tribe. On the
23d he forded the Otsquage, and after going "half a mile" (Dutch) _west_
of that stream, came "to a village named _Cawaoge._" It had fourteen
houses and stood "on a very high hill." On his return trip he wrote the
name _Nawaoga;_ on old maps it is _Canawadage,_ and has since 1635 been
known as the _Nowadage_ or Fort Plain Creek. _He did not cross this
stream,_ but after stopping at the village for a short time moved on "by
land," presumably inland either north or south, and "going another mile"
came to the "Fourth Castle," which he called _Tenotoge_ and _Tenotohage,_
and Father Jogues called _Te-ouonte-ogén,_ and also "the furthest castle."
It was no doubt the principal castle of the Wolf tribe, strongly palisaded
to defend the western approach to the seat of the nation, as was
_Onekagoncka_ to guard the east. It was, he wrote, composed of fifty-five
houses like the others. It stood in a valley evidently, probably on the
bank of the creek, as he wrote that the stream (Otsquaga) which he had
crossed in the morning "ran past" the castle; that he saw on the opposite
(east) "bank" of the stream "a good many houses filled with corn and
beans," and also extensive flat lands. Further than this topographical
description the location of the castle cannot be determined. [FN-10] Van
Curler's miles to the castle from _Onekagonka,_ as nearly as can be
counted from his Journal, were about six Dutch or about twenty-one
English, or as General Clark counted Dutch miles, about eighteen English.
As Van Curler traveled "on the ice" for the most considerable part of the
way from _Onekagoncka,_ and followed necessarily the bend in the river
and diverged at times from the shore line, exact computation of his miles
cannot be made. General Clark located the castle at Spraker's Basin,
thirteen miles by rail west of Aurie's Creek. Van Curler located it _on
the west side of Otsquage Creek._ On Simeon DeWitt's map of survey of
patents in 1790 (Doc. Hist. N. Y., i, 420), the direct line from the west
side of the mouth of Otsquage Creek to the west side of the mouth of
Aurie's Creek is fifteen and three-tenths miles; following the bend in
the Mohawk, as Van Curler did, it is seventeen and one-half miles.
Granting that the lithographic reproduction of the map may vary from the
original, it nevertheless shows conclusively that _Onekagoncka_ must have
been located at or near Aurie's Creek, The suggestion that it was located
on a hill on the east side of Schohare Creek is untenable, as is also the
suggestion that it was at Klein, eight miles east of Schohare Creek.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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