Situated as it is on the slope on which grew the historic oak tree under which Thomas Pell made the bargain for his manor with Maminipoe and Wampage, the local chieftains, it would seem probable that this may have been the site of their principal village. The locality of which this village formed the center was known to the natives as Laaphawachking, denoting a plowed or cultivated tract, which may well have been the use to which the natives put the level lands once included in the Hunter estate, and now turned into the happy hunting-ground of golfers.

As in other cases, the title may have been applied also to the village-site. A trail appears to have extended farther north along the shore-line of Pelham bay. It doubtless connected with a wading place used by those natives who visited or lived on Hunter island (25), and with those who were resident at a station (24) at Roosevelts brook, which runs into the Sound just below the boundary of the city and Pelham Manor, both of which localities bear abundant evidences of native occupancy.