ABORIGINAL PLACE NAMES OF NEW YORK 1 7 



unimportant, but the Monseys or Minsis were one of the three great 

 divisions of the Delawares. Mr Cass did full justice to Hecke- 

 welder's character, but said he was old when he wrote and had 

 forgotten much. At this day it is pleasant to see what an intelligent 

 interest such men as Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Albert 

 Gallatin and Lewis Cass took in American languages. As Hecke- 

 welder is often quoted, being trustworthy in what he saw though 

 credulous in what he heard, it may be well to quote Mr Cass's 

 words in part : 



His intercourse was confined to a small band of the Delaware 

 tribe, who during many years received the humane attentions of 

 the Moravians, and who had lost many of their own distinctive 

 traits without acquiring ours. This band, after various migrations 

 settled upon the Muskingum, about 70 miles west of Pittsburg, 

 and here Mr Hecke welder's knowledge of the Indian character 

 was principally acquired. His band was removed from this place 

 by the British authorities, during the Revolutionary War, to the 

 river Huron of Lake St Clair, and Mr Heckewelder accompanied 

 and remained with them a short time. One journey to Vincennes, 

 and two or three shorter excursions on the business of the mission, 

 and we have the whole of his intercourse with the Indians. . . If 

 a comparison be instituted between his narrative and memoir and his 

 history, it will be obvious that the latter has passed through other 

 hands, and has assumed an appearance its author could never have 

 given it. These three works as they appear before the public, were 

 never written by the same person. Cass, 26 :372-73 



It will be manifest that his acquaintance with the language was 

 superficial, and that little confidence can be placed m the process 

 he adopts, or in the conclusions he attains. In fact, there is a 

 visible confusion in his ideas and a looseness in his translation 

 utterly incompatible with that severity of research and exactness 

 of knowledge, which give the investigations into the philosophy of 

 language their principal value. Cass, 26:376 



As Heckewelder was continually with the Moravian Indians for 

 15 years, besides other contact, the above hardly gives a fair idea 

 of his opportunities, and Mr Cass elsewhere said he passed his 

 entire life among them. In his first article he dealt more with his 

 credulity and liking for the Delawares, on which Cooper founded 

 their character in his Indian tales. Others have commented on 

 this weakness, and having known him well, Mr Cass said : 



He was a man of moderate intellect, and of still more moderate 



