Chapter 1

The Early History of Kingston
& Ulster County, NY
by: Marc B. Fried

Esopus Prior to 1652

Settlement of Esopus by the white man occurred shortly after the midpoint of the seventeenth century. But a study of the area’s history properly begins with the earlier period when Esopus, though not yet permanently settled, was nevertheless recognized as a distinct geographical location. In previous discussions of this period, a number of writers have made statements about a fort or trading post supposed to have been built at Esopus near the mouth of the Rondout Creek about 1614, by the United New Netherland Company. The question of whether such a fort ever actually existed forms a part of the present discussion.

(For a detailed historiogaphical discussion of the 1614 fort question, see Appendix 2)

The earliest mention of the name Esopus is to be found on one of two figurative maps discovered in 1841 by John R. Brodhead, in the Royal Archives at the Hague. One map, drawn up by Adriaen Block in 1614, is on parchment, and shows in detail the Atlantic coast from Sandy Hook, New Jersey, to Maine. The other map, drawn up in 1616 by Cornelis Hendricks, is on paper, and illustrates in greater detail the Delaware and Hudson River valleys. Either map is often referred to merely as the carte Figurative, and this obviously can be somewhat confusing.

Both maps indicate Fort Nassau. On the parchment map the dimensions of the fort are noted. No fort or post at Esopus is indicated on either map.

Furthermore, the name Esopus, which appears only on the 1616 paper map, is located by that map not at the mouth of the Rondout Creek, but on the east side of the Hudson about three and one-half miles southeast of the Rondout’s mouth, in what is now known as Vanderburgh Cove. The map also locates here the Indian tribe known as the Woranecks. On the west side the mouth of the Rondout is shown, but is marked only by the name of the local Indian tribe, Waronawanka.

De Laet’s New World, describing the Hudson River, states:

This reach [Fisher’s Reach, beginning just below Newburgh and Beacon] extends [northward] to another narrow pass, where, on the west side of the river, there is a sharp point of land that juts out, with some shoals, and opposite a bend in the river, on which another nation of savages, the Waoranecks, have their abode, at a place called Esopus. A little beyond on the west side, where there is a creek, and the river becomes more shallow, the Waranawankougs reside; here are several small islands.

In his Latin and French editions (1633 and 1640), the reading is as follows:

A little beyond where projects a sandy point and the river becomes narrower, there is a place called Esopus, where the Waoranekys have their abode. To them succeed, after a short interval, the Waranawancougys, on the opposite side of the river.

On the west side of the Hudson, the creek, shallowness of the river, and several small islands mentioned by de Laet, positively identify the mouth of the Rondout and confirm the location of the Indians the mouth of the Rondout and confirm the location of the Indians who bore the name of Waronawanka (Waranawankougs). The description indicates that de Laet knew of no fort here.

Though de Laet agreed with the paper Carte Figurative in locating Esopus on the east side of the Hudson, at first glance he may seem to have removed Esopus from the Vanderburgh Cove site indicated by that map. De Laet’s "narrow pass" and "sharp point of land" on the west side of the river led one writer, Edward M. Ruttenber, to associate the description with the vicinity of the Wappingers Creek, the Dans Kamer forming the "sharp point" on the west shore.

Modern Map of the Hudson River, Newburg to Kingston

A careful study, however, leads to a different conclusion. Examination of the 1616 paper map shows that the point on the west side of the Hudson opposite Vanderburgh Cove (i.e., the point now known as Esopus Meadows Point) is considerably exaggerated, and indeed appears as a sharp point of land. This is the way the point appeared on the map and, no doubt, in the journals of the earliest traders and explorers, and these are the sources from which de Laet obtained his description, having probably never even been in New Netherland himself. A map dating to about 1630 (including the results of further explorations and resultant data compiled by Peter Minuit) shows this point with even more greatly exaggerated prominence and leads one to wonder whether perhaps a sandbar may have then extended out into the river from this point and since been eroded away. As for the "narrow pass" that de Laet described, although the river at Esopus Meadows Point and Vanderburgh Cove is considerably wider than in most places, the navigable portion, that is, the deep channel in the center of the river, is here narrower than at almost any other point on the river between Manhattan and the mouth of the Rondout. This is clearly borne out by Minuit’s map.

Updated Map
Hudson River outline from portion of Minuit's map
of ca. 1630, with modern place names

After this location has been reconciled to de Laet’s "sharp point of land" and "narrow pass," other aspects of his description, such as the "bend in the [east shore of the] river" and the close proximity to the residence of the Waranawankougs, are found to fit this spot very well. A check of the US Geological Survey maps confirms the narrowness of the navigable channel and reveals the shoals of which de Laet wrote. Most notable of these is the reef upon which Esopus Meadows Lighthouse rests, fully 2,000 feet from the west shore of the river. The intervening distance is covered by water less than six feet deep, and this lends further credence to the supposition that a sandbar or tidal flats may have formerly extended part of this distance, which feature would help to explain the prominence with which the western shore is shown to protrude, on the maps of 1616 and 1630.

De Laet’s description cannot rate as an independently arrived at verification of the accuracy of the paper Carte Figurative in placing Esopus on the east side of the Hudson at Vanderburgh Cove. But it does show that the early explorers, whose logs and maps served as de Laet’s source of information, had a creditable knowledge of the geography of the Hudson and, presumably, of the proper location of its Indian tribes and place-names.

Ruttenber translated the name Esopus as "brook" or "small river," and stated that the first syllable (E-) may not have been in the original Indian name. Either of the two small streams flowing into Vanderburgh Cove more accurately fits the description of "brook" or "small river" than does the Rondout Creek, which averages about 500 feet in width near its mouth. Ruttenber accepted the possibility or probability that the place-name was originally and legitimately located on the east side of the Hudson. Further evidence that the early explorers and cartographers were correct in not locating Esopus on the west shore of the Hudson is contained in a letter of August 5, 1657, in which reference is made to the newly begun settlement (on the west side of the river) "called by the Dutch Esopus or Sypous, and by the Indians, Atharhacton." The statement would imply that, even as late as 1657, the Indians of the locality were not yet comfortable with the name Esopus.

In May of 1624 the ship New Netherland brought the first families of settlers to the site of present-day Albany, and Fort Orange was erected. The ship naturally had to pass the mouth of the Rondout en route. Over sixty years later, in 1685 and 1688, one of the passengers, Catelyn Trico, a woman aged about eighty-three at the latter date, made two depositions concerning the ship’s voyage and arrival. Catelyn’s depositions contain a number of factual errors and contradictions, and the value of her statements to the historian is, for good reasons, not held to be very high) The following excerpt from her i688 deposition refers to Esopus:

When y^e Ship came as farr as Sopus w^h is 1/2 way to albanie; they lightned y^e Ship w^th some boats y^t were left there by y^e Dutch that had been there y^e year before a tradeing w^th y^e Indians upont there oune accompts & gone back again to holland & So brought y^e vessell up.

Although the Dutch West India Company had secured a trade monopoly in New Netherland in 1621, the company’s first ship to be sent there, the Mackreel, did not arrive until December, 1623, and the company did not firmly establish its presence there until the time of the arrival of the ship New Netherland, with its passengers, among whom was Catelyn Trico. In the meantime, conditional permission had been granted to private traders to continue active in New Netherland. They were supposed to return therefrom no later than July, 1622, but this condition was not complied with in every case. As late as November 3, 1623, at a meeting of the Dutch West India Company at Amsterdam, Adriaen Jorissen Thienpont, skipper of Mr. Pieter Boudaen Courten (a prominent member of the Zeeland chamber of the company and a private trader to New Netherland) appeared before the board and declared that they still had "in the rio de Montagne [Hudson River] some goods, 2 sloops and people." Arrangements were made for disposing of the goods (trading them for furs, presumably) and bringing the aforesaid people back home to Amsterdam. Such may have been a task of the expedition arriving on board the New Netherland.

Perhaps the two sloops left "in the Rio de Montagne" were thus the same boats that Catelyn Trico saw at "Sopus." If so, then the Dutch traders who, according to Catelyn, had "gone back again to holland," must refer to the main body of such private traders, while the people reported by Thienpont’s November 3 declaration to be remaining "in the Rio de Montagne" must refer to some traders presumably yet remaining in the Albany region. Catelyn must have derived her information directly or indirectly from Thienpont, who was in all probability aboard the ship.

Whether or not the foregoing suppositions are assumed to be true, Catelyn’s deposition is still suspect, for the woman was eighty-three years old, and talked of events that she had witnessed and learned about as a casual bystander, sixty-four years earlier. When she referred to the Dutch who "had been there ye year before a tradeing wth ye Indians", she may very well have meant "there at Sopus," but might instead have meant, merely, "there along the Hudson River." In fact, just as the New Netherland, on which Catelyn was sailing, was lightened by making use of the boats found at Esopus, those boats may have previously served merely to temporarily lighten some private trading ship that was descending the river from the Albany region, loaded with furs and bound for Holland. (Between Fort Orange and Esopus the river was not easily navigable; see Minuit’s map of 1630.)

At best, Catelyn’s deposition provides fair evidence that by the early 1620s Dutch traders may have occasionally been stopping at Esopus to trade with the Indians. Her statement can not be used as evidence that any sort of fort or trading post had been built on land there.

Various sources were cited earlier in presenting evidence that the name Esopus originally belonged on the east shore of the Hudson River. Why was the name transferred to the mouth of the Rondout Creek, nearby on the river’s west shore? Probably, when the latter locality became recognized as a good place to rendezvous and trade with the Indians, the name was simply borrowed for convenience. The question arises as to when this transfer took place, and in this discussion Catelyn Trico’s deposition is useful.

Ruttenber asserted that the name Esopus came to be located on the west side in 1623. He undoubtedly based his assertion on Catelyn’s deposition, accepting 1623 as the year of her arrival in New Netherland aboard the ship of the same name (which Catelyn mistakenly identified as the Unity). Ruttenber wrote of Dutch traders active here as early as 1622, and this supposition is distinctly traceable to Catelyn’s deposition. Actually, there is no way of knowing whether Catelyn’s use of the name "Sopus" should not be interpreted as "the place now (in 1688, the date of the deposition) known as Sopus." In the sentence in her deposition preceding the portion quoted earlier, although she was careful to refer to "albany which they then Calld fort orangie," and "mannatans now calld n: York," she nevertheless used without qualification the names "harford River" and "Delaware River," though the names in use in 1624 were Fresh River and South River, respectively.

However, it is quite certain that the location mentioned by Catelyn was in fact the mouth of Rondout Creek, whether or not it was yet known as Esopus in 1624. For if the New Netherland had found those boats on the east side of the Hudson in Vanderburgh Cove, Catelyn would certainly not have spoken of this spot in 1688 as "Sopus," even if it was known as such back in 1624. The implication is that, since the mouth of the Rondout was, by 1624, already a familiar geographical location, possibly the site of some trading activity, it is therefore likely that it had already acquired its name of Esopus by that date. The later one permanently fixes the name here, the more difficulty one runs into, for such a transfer of a name from one place to another would hardly have occurred after one or both places had been well known for many years. Ruttenber’s assumption that the name Esopus was fixed on the west side of the Hudson at Rondout Creek by the time of Catelyn’s arrival, therefore, seems reasonable.

It is certain, at any rate, that the name was fixed at the mouth of the Rondout by about 1630 at latest. For the Minuit map of that date shows the north side of the mouth of Rondout Creek marked with the name Groote [Great] Esopus. On this map, on the east side of the Hudson in Vanderburgh Cove, the name Esopus still remains, in the form of kleyne (or cleyne) Esopus (little Esopus), and this retention of the name at that locality as late as 1630 gives further support to the contention that the location of the name there on the 1616 map was not an error. The prefixed adjectives groote and kleyne seem to have come into use as a means of distinguishing the new west-side location from the original east-side location bearing the name Esopus.

The question of the name’s original location and subsequent transfer has bearing on the question of whether a fort could have existed at the mouth of the Rondout Creek since 1614. For if such a fort had been built there, it seems hardly likely that it would not only have been omitted from the 1606 map, but that its site furthermore would have gone unnamed and then, at a later date, have needed to borrow a name from a not particularly significant location down- stream on the opposite side of the river.

Finally to be considered is the journal of the New Netherland trader and patroon, David de Vries. In April of 1640 de Vries sailed up the river to Fort Orange, returning to New Amsterdam the next month. The journal he kept was published in 1655, with his other notes on New Netherland. On April 27, 1640, presumably passing the mouth of the Rondout, he recorded the following: "We came to Esoopes, where a creek runs in; and there the savages had much maize-land, but all somewhat stony." On his return trip he again passed this region and wrote, on May 14, "[We] reached Esopers, where a creek runs in, and where there is some maize-land upon which some savages live." The Esopus that de Vries saw contained as yet no settlement, no fort or redoubt.

The first recorded land transaction between Esopus Indians and a white man occurred twelve years after de Vries’s trip:

On this 5th day of June, 1652, appeared . . . Kawachhikan, and Sowappekat, both aborigines of this country, living in the Esopus, situated about and on the North river in New Netherland, and . . . do grant and convey.., to Thomas Chambers, residing about the fortress of Orange,... certain parcel of land situated in the Esopus abovenamed, extending Southwest and Northeast, ... with a path from the said land to the river; and the grantors declared to have been satisfied and paid for the same from the first penny to the last.

So reads the deed to Thomas Chambers from the Indians at Esopus. Permanent settlers arrived within a year, and from that point the history of the settlement of Esopus begins.

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