Konomansi!

If you were standing in this spot 400 years ago you might have heard this greeting called out to someone returning home. The first people to live in this region arrived about 12,000 years ago, having migrated across the continent over many generations. For roughly 600 generations those people lived here and formed different tribes, while other tribes continued to migrate here. The last tribes to live here were the Mohicans to the north and the Wappingers to the south.

In 1609, the first people arrived to this valley from Europe. They sailed more than 2,000 miles across the Atlantic in an 85-foot boat called the Half Moon, led by a man named Henry Hudson. Their arrival marked a beginning and an end.

The Dutch began to settle along the Mohicanituk, later renamed the Hudson River. Within 60 years the total Wappinger and Mohican population fell from some 11,000 to 1,200. As many as 90% died from European diseases that were new to them. The other deaths were largely the result of violence.

The surviving Wappingers fell in with other tribes. Many joined the Mohicans, whose survivors were forced to move repeatedly until they settled in Wisconsin in 1856 on their current reservation.

The Wappingers no longer exist as a tribe, but there are more than 1,500 registered Mohicans.