Primary source documents from the Kitchawank shell middens to modern village governance — fully searchable, with AI-powered research reports.
For thousands of years before European contact, the Kitchawank band of the Wappinger Confederacy made their home at the mouth of the Croton River. Their fortified village Navish stood on Croton Point, surrounded by shell middens dating back 7,000 years.
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Stephanus Van Cortlandt began purchasing Kitchawank lands in the 1670s, eventually assembling 86,000 acres into the Manor of Cortlandt — one of the largest colonial estates in New York. The manor shaped settlement patterns that persist today.
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The Old Croton Aqueduct (1842) was New York City's first major water supply system. The dam and 41-mile gravity-fed aqueduct transformed both the village of Croton and the city it served, and remains a National Historic Landmark.
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The shell middens at Croton Point are the oldest on the North Atlantic coast. Louis Brennan's 1960s excavations revealed layers of Virginia oyster shell dating to 5000 BC, making this one of the most important archaeological sites in the Northeast.
Explore sources →The Kitchawank, Wappinger, and Lenape peoples who lived here for 7,000+ years
Dutch colonial documents, Van Cortlandt deeds, and early Westchester settlement
Comprehensive histories of the county and Town of Cortlandt
Blog posts, articles, and community histories by local historians
Village comprehensive plan, housing reports, environmental assessments
| Author / Source | Passages | Words | Original |
|---|---|---|---|
| E.B. O'Callaghan (ed.) (1856) | 1005 | 189,431 | Archive → |
| J. Thomas Scharf (1886) | 916 | 173,521 | Archive → |
| Frederic Shonnard & W.W. Spooner (1900) | 572 | 106,421 | Archive → |
| Robert Bolton, Jr. (1848) | 561 | 104,876 | Archive → |
| Robert S. Grumet (2014) | 121 | 96,375 | |
| Edward Manning Ruttenber (1872) | 401 | 76,522 | Archive → |
| Edward Manning Ruttenber (1906) | 223 | 40,085 | Archive → |
| E.B. O'Callaghan (1849) | 153 | 26,639 | Archive → |
| crotonhistory.org | 230 | 19,005 | |
| Various (1971) | 98 | 18,630 | Archive → |
| Herbert C. Kraft et al. (1994) | 73 | 12,771 | Archive → |
| Various (1967) | 42 | 8,829 | Archive → |
| Louis A. Brennan et al. (1962) | 39 | 7,958 | Archive → |
| Croton Friends of History | 13 | 7,554 | |
| NYSAA (1986) | 9 | 6,843 | |
| Peter Cutul (2025) | 8 | 6,313 | |
| Reginald Pelham Bolton (1922) | 50 | 5,568 | Archive → |
| Wikipedia | 14 | 5,467 | |
| National Park Service (2021) | 5 | 3,713 | |
| NYSAA (1974) | 3 | 1,774 | |
| Friends of the Old Croton Aqueduct | 1 | 229 | |
| Historical Map | 21 | 221 |