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Daniel Nimham & the Wappinger Land Fight (1693–1778)

A century of dispossession, from the Philipse fraud to the Battle of Kingsbridge

1693
Original grant covers ~15,000 acres. Philipse reportedly 'cut down the tree marking the eastern border, rode all day and remarked a tree near the CT border' — expanding the claim to 205,000 acres.
~1746
Daniel Nimham's band — Mahican and Munsee speakers — survives across five colonies through basket weaving, broom crafting, and seasonal farm labor. He maintains annual pilgrimages to Mount Nimham in Putnam County.
1755
Around 200 Wappinger relocate to the Stockbridge Mission in Massachusetts to protect their families while men serve in colonial forces.
1765
The last Wappinger sachem challenges the fraudulently expanded patent in court. He loses; his attorney Samuel Munroe is arrested.
1766
Nimham and three Mohican chiefs sail to England. The Lords of Trade acknowledge 'frauds and abuses' but restore nothing. The deed is snatched from Munroe's hands before he can prove fraud.
1775–1778
Abraham Nimham becomes captain of the Stockbridge Militia — Mohicans, Wappingers, Munsee. Both father and son serve under Washington and later with Lafayette.
Aug 31, 1778
The last Wappinger sachem and ~40 warriors die fighting for the Continental Army. 'He called out to his people to fly, that he himself was old, and would die there.'