SKINNER, INDIANS OF MANHATTAN ISLAND 1S3 



The only Indian remains left on the Island, so far as known to the writer, 

 are situated at the extreme northern end at Inwood and Cold Spring. They 

 consist of the co-called shell heaps or refuse piles from Indian cam})s, and 

 three rock-shelters at Cold Spring. But we have evidence to show that 

 this was not the only part of the Island occupied by the Indians. Mrs. 

 Lamb ^ says that the Dutch found a large shell heap on the west shore of 

 Fresh Water pond, a small pond, mostly swamp, which was bounded by the 

 present Bowery, Elm, Canal and Pearl Streets, and which they named 

 Kalch-Hook or shell-point. In course of time, this was abbreviated to 

 Kalch or Collect and was applied to the pond itself.^ This shell heap must 

 have been the accumulation of quite a village, for Mrs. Jno. K. Van Ren- 

 sellaer ^ speaks of a castle called Catiemuts overlooking a small pond near 

 Canal Street, and says that the neighborhood was called Shell Point. Hem- 

 street refers to the same castle as being on a hill "close by the present 

 Chatham Square," and says that it had once been an "Indian lookout." ^ 

 Excavations at Pearl Street are said to have reached old shell banks. "The 

 ]\Iemorial History of New York" ^ says that a hill near Chatham Square was 

 called Warpoes, which meant literally a "small hill." ^ According to the 

 same authority, "Corlear's Hoeck was called Naig-ia-nac, literally 'sand- 

 lands.' It may, however, have been the name of the Indian village which 

 stood there, and was in temporary occupation." This is the only reference 

 we have to this village, but there are references to another on the lower end 

 of the Island. Janvier '' says that there was an Indian settlement as late as 

 IGGl at Sappokanican near the present Gansevoort Market. According to 

 Judge Benson,^ Sapokanican was the Indian name for the point afterwards 

 known as Greenwich. "In the Dutch records references are made to the 

 Indian village of Sappokanican; and this name. . . .was applied for more 

 than a century to the region which came to be known as Greenwich in the 

 later, English, times. The Indian village probably was near the site of the 

 present Gansevoort Market; but the name seems to have been applied to 

 the whole region lying between the North River and the stream called the 

 Manetta Water or Bestavaar's Kill." ^ Benton says that the name of the 



1 History of New York City, p. 36. 



2 Mr. Edward Hagaman Hall, however, derives the name from " Kolk " or " Kolcli " a 

 word still in use in Holland and applied to portions of a canal or inc-losure of water. The 

 word also means " pit hole ", which aptly describes the Collect Pond. 



Editor. 



3 Goede-Vrouw of Manahata, p. 39. 



* Hemstreet, Nooks and Corners of Old New York, p. 46. 



5 Bulletin, N. Y. State Museum, Vol. 7, No. 32, p. 107, Feb., 1900. 



<> James G. Wilson, op. cit., p. 52. 



^ Evolution of New York. 



» N. Y. Historical Society Collection, S. II, Vol. II, Pt. I, p. S4, IS4S. 



8 Thos. A. Janvier, In Old New York, pp. 85-86. 



