CROTON.—­Historically, this is known to have been the name of a noted Indian chief, who resided near the mouth of the river.  The word appears to be derived from noetin, a wind.  If we admit the interchange of sounds of n for r, as being made, and the ordinary change of t for d, between the Holland and Indian races, this derivation is probable.  The letter c seems to be the sign of a pronoun.

TAPPAN SEA.—­It is perceived from Vanderdonk, and from old maps and records, that a band of Indians lived here, who were called the “Tappansees.”

POUGHKEEPSIE is a derivative of Au-po-keep-sing, i.e., Place of shelter.  The entrance of the Fall Kill into the Hudson is the feature meant.

COXACKIE, is evidently made up in the original from kuk, to cut, and aukie, earth, which was, probably, in old days, as it is in fact yet, a graphic description of a ridge cut and tumbled in by the waters of the Hudson pressing hard on that shore.

CLAVERACK is not Indian. Clove, in the Hollandais, is an opening or side-gorge in the valley. Rack, is a reach or bend in the river, the whole length of which was known, as we see, to the old skippers as separate racks.  The reach of cloves began at what is now the city of Hudson, the old Claverack landing.

TAWASENTHA.—­Normanskill is the first Iroquois name noticed.  It means the hill of the dead.  Albany itself has taken the name of a Scottish dukedom for its ancient Iroquois cognomen, Ske-nek-ta-dea:  of this compound term, Ske is a propositional particle, and means beyond; nek is the Mohawk name for a pine; and the term ta-dea is descriptive of a valley.

18th.  Reached Detroit in the steamer “Gen. Wayne,” and assumed the duties of my new appointment.  One of the earliest Washington papers I opened, gave an account of the death of Mr. William Ward, a most valuable clerk in the Indian Bureau; a man of a fine literary taste, who formerly edited and established the North-west Journal, at the City of Detroit.

19th.  A singular denouement is made this morning, which appeals strongly to my feelings.  On getting in the stage at Vernon, in Western New York, a gentleman of easy manners, good figure, and polite address, whom we will call Theodoric, kindly made way for me and my family, which led us to notice him, and we traveled together quite to Detroit, and put up at the same hotel.  This morning a note from him reveals him to be a young Virginian, seeking his fortune west, and out of funds, and makes precisely such an appeal as it is hard, and wrong in fact, to resist.  I told Theodoric to take his trunk and go, by the next steamer, to my house at Mackinack, and I should be up in a short time, and furnish him employment in the Indian department.