| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| MoneminsCastle |
Posted - May 17 2009 : 6:33:49 PM
A short distance south of Albany on the eastern side of the Hudson River is Castleton, New York. The Mahicans called it Schodac and it is where the Sachem lived and where the Council fire burned. This is where Henry Hudson got out and feasted with the Sachem and his chiefs broke their arrows and threw them into the fire. This was Hudson's first experience the natives of the Lenapee stock that weren't trying to kill him and Hudson was nervous and suspicious.
It was from here that the council fire was moved to Stockbridge.
Here's a link to a dissertation prepared by Dr. Paul Huey of the NYS Office of Historic Preservation, on the subject of Castleton. This is the 2nd of Dr. Huey's dissertations that I've posted.
Historical and archeological resources of Castleton Island State Park, towns of Stuyvesant, Columbia County...
http://nysl.nysed.gov/uhtbin/cgisirsi/PfDgPkzuHW/NYSL/52620006/503/13616 - PDF FORM
http://www.nysl.nysed.gov/edocs/parks/castleto.htm - HTML FORM |
| 6 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| MoneminsCastle |
Posted - May 18 2009 : 11:10:16 AM
quote:
Originally posted by Bookworm
Was Castleton the place where Ching and sons traded their skins? As best I can remember, Jack says, "Where are you trading your skins? Albany?" and Uncas (I think) replies, "Castleton, with the Dutch, for silver. English want to pay with wampum and brandy." I'm not certain, though, that Castleton is the place that was named.
Jack: Tradin' your skins in Castleton?
Uncas: No, Schylerville. With the Dutch for silver. French & English want to buy with wampum & brandy.
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| Bookworm |
Posted - May 18 2009 : 10:03:31 AM
Was Castleton the place where Ching and sons traded their skins? As best I can remember, Jack says, "Where are you trading your skins? Albany?" and Uncas (I think) replies, "Castleton, with the Dutch, for silver. English want to pay with wampum and brandy." I'm not certain, though, that Castleton is the place that was named. |
| MoneminsCastle |
Posted - May 18 2009 : 09:01:57 AM
Map of Castleton Island State Park, New York
http://www.atlantickayaktours.com/pages/subpages/other/Maps/Castleton-Island.html |
| MoneminsCastle |
Posted - May 18 2009 : 08:50:56 AM
Exerpts from, The Hoosack Valley by Grace Greylock Niles
---Page 16
The MaquaasBears of the Iroquois Confederacy began to war with the Hoosacs and Mahicans, according to tradition, about 1542, and fought until about 1595 when they forced Uncus and Passaconaway to retire from Chesco- donta Castle of the Abenakis Democracy. Soon after the arrival of the French navigator, Champlain, at Ticonderoga on the headwaters of the lake bearing his name, in July 1609, and of Hendrik Hudson and his Dutch crew of the ship, Half Moon, at Chescodonta, in September of the same season, King Aepjen, a nephew of Uncus, succeeded to the democratical office of Grcat Sachem and occupied Schodac Castle, the site of Castleton, on the east bank of the Hudson.
The King welcomed Hudson as Onetho returned from St. Angethe country of angels beyond the sea. He invited Hudson's mate, Robert Juet, to his Schodac Castle and served him the customary feast of honor to friends. The rcpast consisted of a pair of white dovespeace symbols of the Holy Ghost, and roasted wolf or dogsymbolic of the supernatural power of his Mahican Heroes in war. The King begged Juet to abide with him and expressed his friendliness and trust by ordering his war captains, Soquon l.i and Maquon, to break the string of their bows and throw their arrows into the fire.
Hudson returned the Mahicans' feast on board the ship, Half Moon, and served much aqua-vitae (grape-juice) and Holland tobacco, the customary feast of Christian nations. The King became merry and confided his sorrows and his joys, and he considered aqua-vita the Great Manitou's "spirit waters of paradise," and Hudson's Delft pipe the Calumet (pipe of peace). Robert Juet recorded this ignoble feast in his Journal of the Half Moon as a "dry joke" played upon the savages in order to discover if there was any "treachery" in their natures.
Meanwhile the boatmen of the Half Moon explored the Grande River as far north as Cohoes Falls of the Mohawk, in search of a route to India. They christened the crescent- shaped Haver Island, the site of Castle Mcenemines of Maquon's Mahicansac Heroes, Halve-Maen, in honor of their ship. The names Half Moon and Crescent still cling to that region. Before Hudson set sail for England and Holland he presented the Mahicans and Hoosacs with axes, hoes, and stockings, and promised to return to them after a dozen moons. He accepted their tokens of skins and belts of wampum, interwoven with symbols of the Swastika and Wakon-bird.
"In the year 1610 Sir Thomas Smith, Sir Dudley Digges, and Master John Westenholm, with others of their friends, furnished out the said Henry Hudson to try if, through any of the passages which Davis saw, any passage might be found to the other ocean called the South Sea."
Hudson visited the Abenakis King at Schodac, and his English crew put handles in the Dutch axes and hoes that the councillors had worn lovingly as ornaments about their necks. They taught the warriors to fell the oak forests and mellow the cornfield, and after the savages beheld the superior wisdom of the Christians, they made the woodlands ring with their musical laughter over their own stupidity.
The same season Hudson sailed North, where he discovered the bay bearing his name, and there he desired to winter. A mutiny arose and he and .his son and seven of his faithful crew were abandoned and perished in this inhospitable region. By the home speeding ship Abacuck Pricket, one of the crew confined in the ship's cabin with rheumatism at the time, recorded that: "Henrie Hudson, John Hudson, Arnold Lodlo, Sidrack Faner, Philip Staffe, Thomas Wood- house or Wydhouse, Adam Moore, Henrie King, and Michael Bute" were placed in a shallop supplied with guns, ammunition, fuel, iron-pot, and some meal. Henry Hudson, a son of the navigator, later became a sea-captain and settled in the Mahicans' canton. A lineal descendant of about the tenth generation bearing the name, Henry Hudson, at present resides in the city of North Adams on the upper Hoosac.
,,,The land upon both banks of the Hudson during the first century of our colonial history, therefore, was controlled by the Hoosacs and Mahicansacs, subject to the Schodac Council of the Abenakis Democracy until 1664.
-----Page 23
Great Soqui was acknowledged to be the leading military canton, and the Wi-gow-wauw (great sachem or king) was chosen from the noble family of this race. The office vacated by death of the king, or any other cause, descended successively to his nephewa sister's childchosen by the vote of the Delaware, Mahican, and Algonquin councillors, at Chescodonta2 or Schodac3 We-ko-wohum (castle of the Abenakis Democracy).4 Chescodonta, according to tradition, occupied the site of Albany Capitol between 1540 and 1595, under Uncus and Passaconaway. Schodac, the site of Castleton, on the east bank of the Hudson, was occupied by
Aepjen, evidently nephew and successor of Uncus, in 1609. He lighted the nation's council-fire on Aepjen's, or Bear's Island, containing ten acres of marsh grass. The most ancient names of Bear Island are reported to be Passapenock and Mahican, and the island was doubtless occupied for a time by Passaconaway's Pennacook Bears, and Uncus's Mahican Wolves
-----32
In the half century after 1615, when Fort Nassoureen was built on Castle Island, the Dutch, French, and English colonists had crowded in from all sides. Continued warfare had greatly thinned the Delaware and Mahican ranks, and their courage was so depleted by rum, their crops so scant, and their fishing and hunting-grounds so ruined, that King Aepjen of Schodac, in 1664, was forced through famine to move the Abenakis Democracy's council-fire eastward to the junction of Green River with the Housatonac, in Sheffield, Mass. He took the national name Skatecook and in 1734 his warriors were there discovered by the English missionaries, Jonathan Sergeant and Samuel Hopkins. Aepjen's military council-fires at castles Moenemines and Unuwat, below Cohoes Falls, and at Catskill Castle also ceased to burn in 1662.
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| MoneminsCastle |
Posted - May 18 2009 : 08:03:59 AM
The State online resources are kind of tricky. I think I fixed it so you can click on the last item on the tree called:
Historical and archeological resources of Castleton Island State Park, towns of Stuyvesant, Columbia County... |
| Monadnock Guide |
Posted - May 17 2009 : 7:49:17 PM
Link isn't opening, ... |
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![The Mohican Board! [Bumppo's Redux!]](images/wwwboard.gif "The Mohican Board! [Bumppo's Redux!]")
