Indians in the Ramapos

APR 1 2 2005 RINGWOOD PUBLIC LIBRARY, NJ 3 6047 09078966 9 NJ 974.9 LEN k, Edward j Indians in the R and Indians in i he Ramapos FOR REFERENCE Do Not Take From This Room FRONTISPIECE: Seventeenth century map showing the location of In- dian Bands in New Jersey and New York. This map is a copy of an original in the British Museum and may be an earlier version of the 1656 Map of New Netherlands by Nicholas Visscher. However, British place names, "New Jork," "New Jarsey," "Delaware River," "Philadelphia," etc., were added at a date after 1664 when the British took control of New Netherlands. Indians In The Ramapos Survival, Persistence and Presence Edward J. Lenik ^ingwood Public Library 30 Cannici Drive .lingwood, New Jersey 07456 973-962-6256 Book Design By: Corner Compositor Edited By: Nancy L. Gibbs and Raymond Whritenour Copyright © 1999, Edward J. Lenik ISBN: 0-9675706-0-3 Published By: The North Jersey Highlands Historical Society In Memory of James H. Norman a Highlands Original and Friend Table of Contents List of Illustrations ix List of Tables xi Preface: A Delaware Indian Creation Story xiii Introduction 1 1. The Ramapo Mountains 3 2. Prehistoric Cultural History 8 3. The Contact-Early Historic Period 16 4. Riverine Camp, Rockshelter, Rock Art 30 5. Historic Contact Period: The Written Record 40 6. Continuing Presence of Indians in the Historic Period: Historical References, Observations and Folklore 47 8. Research Directions 55 9. Nineteenth Century Genealogical Evidence 69 10. Archaeological and Historical Interpretations 72 Epilogue 83 Acknowledgments 89 Bibliography 91 List of Illustrations Page COVER: Split Rock on Houvenkopf Mountain, Hillburn, N. Y. (EJ. Lenik, photographer, 1999.) FRONTISPIECE: 17th century map of New York and New Jersey FIGURE 1: Map of the Highlands region 4 FIGURE 2: Cumberland-style Paleo Indian projectile point 12 FIGURE 3: Clovis style Paleo Indian projectile point 12 FIGURE 4: Photograph of Spring House Rockshelter 22 FIGURE 5: Triangular projectile points 24 FIGURE 6: Technique of making brass arrowpoints 24 FIGURE 7: Copper pendant 25 FIGURE 8: Trade pipe 25 FIGURE 9: Photograph of a silver brooch 26 FIGURE 10: Hemlock Hill Trail Petroglyph 38 FIGURE 11: 1710 Map of the Ramapo Tract 46 FIGURE 12: Photograph of 18th century cellar hole 57 FIGURE 13: Photograph of Peter Mann House 58 FIGURE 14: Field sketch of Peter Mann House 59 FIGURE 15: Log bowl from Hessian Lake 61 FIGURE 16: Delaware Indian basket 63 FIGURE 17: Tract of Helmig van Wagenen, 1740 66 FIGURE 18: Ceramic rimsherds from the Spring House Rockshelter 76 FIGURE 19: Photograph of Ramapough Mountain Indian Storyteller 79 FIGURE 20: Photograph of Ronald (Redbone) Van Dunk, R.M.I, and Nora Thomson Dean (Touching Leaves) a Delaware Indian 82 FIGURE 21: An Indian hunting camp in the Ramapos 90 BACKCOVER: The Ramapo Mountains. View from High Mountain, Wanaque, N.J. (Photo courtesy of Tom Fitzpatrick.) IX List of Tables Page TABLE 1: Prehistoric Sites in the Highlands Physiographic Province of Northern New Jersey and Southeastern New York 9 TABLE 2: Historic Contact Period Archaeological Sites 19 TABLE 3: Major Indian Leaders in the Northern Highlands Area 41 TABLE 4: References to Indians and Places in the Northern Highlands Region 47 TABLE 5: Native American Herb Cures and Folk Remedies Practiced by People in the Ramapos 81 XI Preface A Delaware Indian Creation Story He ... then took a piece of coal out of the fire where he sat, and began to write upon the floor. He first drew a circle, a little oval, to which he made four paws or feet, head and tail. "This, " he said, "is a tortoise, lying in the water around it, " and he moved his hand round the figure, continuing, "this was or is all water, and so at first was the world or the earth, when the tortoise gradually raised its round back up high, and the water ran off of it, and thus the earth became dry. " He then took a little straw and placed it on end in the middle of the figure, and proceeded, "the earth was now dry, and there grew a tree in the middle of the earth, and the root of this tree sent forth a sprout beside it and there grew upon it a man, who was the first male. This man was then alone, and would have remained alone; but the tree bent over until its top touched the earth, and there shot therein another root, from which came forth another sprout, and there grew upon it the woman, and from these two are all men produced. " Related to Jasper Dankers and Peter Sluyter by Tantaqua, a Hackensack Indian, in 1679. in Journal of a Voyage to New York and a Tour in Several of the American Colonies in 1679-80. Indians in the Ramapos is a cultural history of Native American land use within the Highlands region of northern New Jersey and southeastern New York. Indian peoples occupied this hilly-mountainous region for thousands of years prior to European settlement, and their descendants continue to do so today. Native Americans are among the variety of ethnic groups that reside in this region today. Some historical accounts indicate that the Indians were gone from the area by the early 1800s. Following the Treaty of Easton in 1758, at which the Indians relinquished their remaining lands in New Jersey, many of them moved westward traveling through and temporarily settling in Penn- sylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Missouri, Kansas, Arkansas and Texas, finally xiii settling in Oklahoma. Other Indians from the Highlands region moved north to counties in upstate New York, to Wisconsin and to Ontario, Can- ada. Some, however, stayed behind in the Highlands region. Early Euro- pean settlers in this region established farms and villages in the fertile val- leys along the many rivers and streams. These new settlers harvested the forests for wood for charcoal and the bedrock itself for iron, but they lived, fanned and built their mills, forges and furnaces in the lowlands. The rem- nant native groups retreated to the mountainous uplands and established a community virtually invisible to the newcomers below. These people took their identity from the mountains themselves, hiding their Indian heritage lest they be removed to the west. This book is about these people and their history in the Highlands. It assembles in one volume information collected by myself and others in many disciplines. I am a professional archaeologist, so much of what is covered here is the archaeological record. This record reveals thousands of years of human occupation and use of these mountains. It reveals that point at which a new group of people, the European explorers and settlers, ar- rived with a new material culture which included a written language. I am also a historian and a listener and present material from the written record and from the traditions handed down among the Ramapo Mountain Peo- ple. My search for Indians in the Ramapos began in the 1960s when I met James H. Norman of Newfoundland, New Jersey. We were "iron buffs," hooked on the history of iron mining and making in the Highlands, but Jim knew about more than iron in this region. He showed me his large collec- tion of Indian artifacts which he had acquired by surface hunting on farms, fields, lake and reservoir shores, and in rockshelters in the rugged High- lands area. He related to me several stories and local folktales regarding the "Last Indians" who lived in West Milford Township, N.J. in the early nineteenth century. He described an Indian PowWow he helped organize in 1959. Soon we were exploring rockshelters and campsites throughout the Highlands. Jim Norman shared with me his vast knowledge of Indian sites in the region and related his anguish at their loss through development and vandalism. He took me to see a rockshelter at Echo Lake in West Milford, New Jersey and introduced me to Max. Max Schrabisch had excavated this rockshelter in the early twentieth century. Schrabisch, a well-known, self- trained archaeologist dug extensively in New York, New Jersey and Penn- xiv sylvania and wrote copiously about his discoveries. Jim encouraged me to study local Indian history by introducing me to the works of Schrabisch and other early archaeological pioneers. In the 1970s, I began to read and collect the writings of Max Schra- bisch. Schrabisch, who had died in poverty in Paterson, New Jersey long before I began my archaeological work, became a personal guide and proj- ect. Over time, I met people who knew him personally and who shared their stories and experiences with me. I was deeply impressed by the prodi- gious amount of site survey work Schrabisch had accomplished during the first half of the twentieth century, an amount more startling when one con- siders that he did not have an automobile, but traveled instead by hiking and public transportation. I decided to try to locate as many as possible of the rockshelters he had investigated in the Highlands. This long-term and still-on-going endeavor has resulted in a three volume set of field notes and photographs. Tracking Max Schrabisch's travels and field survey work through New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania and New England ulti- mately led me to write a biography of this rockshelter archaeologist. This present book draws from Schrabisch's work in the Highlands. By the 1980s I understood how rudimentary and unsystematic knowledge of Native American lifeways in the New York-New Jersey Highlands was. Schrabisch was the first and last archaeologist to explore this region.

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