Early Means of Communication 211 



used by Lewis G . Morris and his supporters in their opposition 

 to Macomb's dam. 



In their communications inland, the settlers at first used 

 the old Indian trails. The principal village and fort of the 

 Siwanoys was on a hill to the south of the present Unionport, 

 overlooking Westchester Creek. From the strong stockade, 

 palisaded in the Indian fashion, the hill came to be known as 

 " Castle Hill," a name by which it is known to-day. A village 

 of the Manhattans was located at Spuyten Duyvil Neck, and 

 another at Nepperhaem, the present Yonkers; while above 

 the latter were the villages of the Weckquaesgeeks, all members 

 of the Mohican tribe. In their communications with each 

 other and with their neighbors on Manhattan Island by way 

 of the "wading place," there was formed in time a plainly 

 marked trail extending from Paparinemo to Castle Hill, 

 called in Doughty 's patent to Archer the "Westchester Path." 

 From Westchester another plainly marked trail led by way of 

 Eastchester across Hutchinson's River and contiguous to the 

 Sound, through the Rye woods to "the great stone at the 

 wading place" at the Byram River, the eastern boundary of 

 the colony and of the State. It extended still farther into 

 Connecticut, also occupied by the Siwanoys, as far as the 

 villages of the Pequots, a kindred tribe of Mohicans. It was 

 by this path that many of the Connecticut settlers found their 

 way into the Dutch colony of New Netherland and gave 

 Stuyvesant so much trouble. This was pre-eminently the 

 "Westchester Path." 



It was natural that the earliest whites should follow these 

 long established and plainly marked trails. As time passed, 

 these trails became wider as the travellers cut down the trees 

 for the convenient passage of their horses or wagons. We 

 find, therefore, in these trails the beginnings of the roads 



