Colonial Government; Cultural Differences
Primary Document: Indian Deed of March 5, 1702-03
Opening lines of the Indian Deed for the Wawayanda Patent.
Much of the Town of Warwick was conveyed by this deed; the portion later claimed and settled by Benjamin Aske was the valley around Rt. 94 south of the Village of Warwick
The “mark” or signature of Chuckhass, the Native American chief at the village of Mistucky, south of Warwick village.
We are not sure that the Native Americans understood the impact of what they were signing, and some scholars think the deed was a fraud.
It’s difficult to read the old script, isn’t it? But if you compare with the letter “u” in the rest of the document, it looks like this name should have been read as “Cheeckhass”, not Chuckhass, which was carried forward to today.  Another copy of this document shows it more like “Chuckhass”. Translating the native language phonetically to English was a challenge, and often distorted the pronunciation.  We will never really know what his name sounded like, but our words are probably pretty close.
•The Indian deed that transferred the Wawayanda Patent lands was signed in March of 1702/03  The reason the date is often given like this is because the calendar changed in 1752.  Previously the New Year started in March, but it was changed to January.  Double dating was used in Great Britain, colonial British America, and British possessions to clarify dates occurring between 1 January and 24 March on years between 1582 and 1752.  In the ecclesiastical or legal calendar, March 25th was recognized as the first day of the year and was not double dated.
Researchers of colonial American ancestors will often see double dating in older records. Double dates were identified with a slash mark (/) representing the Old and New Style calendars, e.g., 1690/1691. Even before 1752 in colonial America, some educated clerks knew of the calendar change in Europe and used double dating to distinguish between the calendars.   The picture above is how the date is written on this document.

•Benjamin Aske was one of the patentees, and he later claimed his portion in the Warwick Valley, including the Rt. 94 corridor area, and called it Warwick, presumably after his home in Warwickshire, England.

•Colonial era signers of patents and land deeds often could not read and write, and so developed an abbreviated signature, or “mark” that they used.  In this document we see both the Native Americans and the colonists using marks. This document is a copy of the original, from appearances a fair copy made at the time, and also bearing original signatures.  Instead of red wax seals at the end of each name, another person (likely Lancaster Syms) has attested to the signatures by writing his initials.  The lack of wax seals on this and another copy of the deed lends strength to the argument of some scholars that the deed was a fraud.

•Chuckhass’ signature appears as a winding curlicue– We speculate perhaps because his tribe’s land included the winding stream we call Wawayanda today. Several versions of the origin of this name exist, but the one that makes the most sense is that it derives from the Lenape words for ‘winding stream’.
•Colonial spelling– not standardized even in official documents; much of population not literate