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HomeMy WebLinkAboutPE15 INDIAN NECK ORCHARDSOUTHOLD LANDMARKS PRESERVATION COMMISSION PE-15 Historic Building/Places Inventory Town of Southold 54375 Route 25, P.O. Box 1179 Southold, NY 11971 Name: Town of Southold Date: 2013 Organization: Town of Southold Landmarks Preservation Commission Inventory Update: 1. Building/Place Name/Date: Indian Neck Orchard of the Indians, (ca.1691) 2. Tax Map Number/Address: N/A, East Side of Indian Neck Lane 3. Town of Southold Identification Number: PE-15 4. Current Status of Historic Building(s) or Place(s): -N/A, area composed of low density residential and wooded lots. Northern part of PE-15 lies behind PE-16 (William/Wells House), just to the south of Spring Lane. 5. Evidence of Structural Modifications: -N/A. 6. Notes: -No above ground features are present, however archaeological deposits related to this historic Native American settlement may be extant. Indian Neck was the site of a temporary pseudo-reservation of the historic Corchaug Tribe (ca.1691-1719). Little is known about the lifeways of the historic Corchaug Tribe, and thus this landmark has exceptional significance to the historic landscape of Peconic and the Town of Southold as a whole (see additional background research on second-third pages below). Photographic Record of Historic Building(s) or Place(s) - 2013: East View. Indian Neck History addendum: Southold Town Records (Case 1884: 111, 481) refer to colonists in the seventeenth century as having to constantly bypass poorly designated “Indian Lands” and “Indian Necks,” and remarked that these indigenously dominated areas impeded the flow of travel between Southold and the sought after “Broadfields” of Cutchogue. By 1685 these remaining “Indian Lands,” roughly 120-500 acres, were either officially recognized as extant Corchaug territory, or as is recorded in Southold Town Records (ibid.:534-536) were granted back to the tribe by the Clergy of the Southold Colony. Apparently this was all a loosely defined area centered around Southarbor Neck. The Corchaug’s perpetually declining numbers and weakening political autonomy thus prompted the forced relocation event of 1691; wherein the remainder of the population was removed from their extant lands at Corchaug Pond/Southarbor Neck further south onto a reserved tract or pseudo-reservation on what is still known today as Indian Neck in Peconic (Case 1884). Little is known about these forced-relocation events of the contact period, consistently referred to as “removals” (Case 1884: 534). Yet these events occurred throughout Eastern North America, and were invariably a major component to the early history of indigenous and colonial relationships. Despite their politically contentious historical associations, they deserve recognition to better understand how culture’s interfaced in the Historic Period. Consequently, this forced relocation event of 1691, which had no legal basis or formal documentation, resulted in further legal conflict with the colonists who in the early eighteenth century were deeded ownership of this “reserved” area (Case 1884). By 1698, census records reported less than fifty Corchaug were extant on the north fork, and it is plausible that the majority were still living at Indian Neck. However this number may be offset by biased recordation practices, and the fact that many Corchaug’s were either sold into slavery (Case 1884: 179), had been coerced into indentured servitude for petty offenses, had left the area for opportunities in the whaling trade, or were working as farm hands at the large Manors like those on Shelter Island. In 1719, the Town of Southold ordered that “Indian Neck to be surveyed and laid out, and allotted to the freeholders entitled to it...,” from this divisive act it is clear that the remaining Corchaug again felt marginalized; clearly they “were not satisfied, and claimed the entire use and control of the Neck under a grant made to them by the town on the 3rd of August 1685, for the Southarbor Neck...” (Case 1884: 534). Although, a few English families encouraged the Corchaug to permanently settle on their tracts at Indian Neck and establish an orchard (ibid.). From that point until the mid-nineteenth century, the presence of an orchard maintained by the Corchaug and also traditional domed structures or huts were reported to persist at Indian Neck (Case 1884:534-536). Throughout the remainder of the Historic Period, however, the record of the Corchaug became further obscured and buried in the literary mire of colonial history. Nonetheless it is now known that the tribe did make attempts to litigate their 1685 claims to the Southarbor Neck tract, even up until the time of the American Revolution. For example, in a letter dating to 1764 a group of seventeen Corchaug’s petitioned English officials in Albany to reinstate their land claims around Southarbor Neck; yet the English official hired to address these claims, Parker Wickham, was subsequently forced to abandon this effort due to his own exiling from Southold and the seizing of his lands after the American Revolution. Regardless of these obstructed efforts, Indian Neck was ultimately the last parcel of Long Island with which the Corchaug could live as a distinct political entity. In his seminal work on Fort Corchaug, Dr. Ralph Solecki (2006: 16) succinctly noted that: “One of the last Corchaug villages was at Indian Neck...Their last stand seems to have been made on that reservation.”