[J. Thomas Scharf (1886)] (1609-1(564.) The discovery of America is assigned to the year 14!>2. That of this locality, however, was reserved for more than a century later. No white man ever ascended the Hudson River till 160!». At that time the territory hereabout was occupied by Indians. We must speak briefly of some of these former occu-pants of American soil, and especially of those of them who lived here. The greatest savage nation on this continent three hundred years ago was the Algonquin. Mr. Bancroft thinks it numbered in Hi.'SH about ninety thousand. Its general area extended from the Esquimaux to the southern boundary of South Carolina, and from the YONKERS. 3 Atlantic to the Mississippi. It embraced all the present State of New York, except a reservation in the Western, Central and Northern parts, which be-longed to that powerful confederation of Senecas, Cayugas, Onondagas, Oneidas and Mohawks, known in history as " The Iroquois," or " The Five Nations." Below this confederation's eastern and southern limit, at the mouth of the Mohawk, on the west side of the Hudson River, perhaps as far south as Haverstraw, and on the east side in length as far south as Spuyten Duyvil, and in breadth all the way from the Hudson to the Connecticut, lay the Mohegans. Over the river, below Haverstraw, were the Tappans in the North and the Monseys in the South. On New York island was the Manhattan tribe, from which the island took its early name.