Griffis, William Elliot, The story of New Netherland

(Boston and New York :  Houghton Mifflin Company,  1909.)

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CHAPTER XXI

DORP AND ITS STORY

The Iroquois term of location eastward of the
Long House, " Schenectady," has been spelled in
fifty-nine different ways, and the names of the
modern city are many and significant. " Schno-
nowe," "The Dorp," "Les nouvelles habitations
hoUandaises," "Schenectady," ''Schoon-echten-
deel" (beautiful portion), "The Ancient City,"
" The Finished Place," " The Electric Capital," are
names given fondly or humorously to the first
settlement on the Mohawk, or the municipality
founded by Arendt van Curler, whose noble life
ended in 1667.

In the next year, 1668, a fresh move on the
chessboard of European politics made the young
settlement thrill. The triple Alliance of England,
Holland, and Sweden against France, the owner
of Canada, populated the American woods with
scalp-hunters, and made new danger for the fron¬
tiersmen. Although for the safety of New York
the Iroquois in the Long House were still like a
wall of life and fire, yet politics and religion, being
yoked together, had altered the situation. The
French Jesuits had converted many Mohawks, and
led off a contingent of "praying Indians " to Mon-
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