[Illustration: The Old Verplanck Homestead at Fishkill, Hudson River, in
which the Society of the Cincinnati originated.]

The Verplanck homestead stands on the lands granted by the Wappinger
Indians, in 1683, to Gulian Verplanck and Francis Rombout, under a
license given by Governor Thomas Dongan Commander-in-Chief of the
Province of New York, and confirmed, in 1685, by letters patent from
King-James the II. The purchase included "all that Tract or Parcell of
land Scituate on the East side of Hudson's river, beginning from the
South side of a Creek called the fresh Kill and by the Indians
Matteawan, and from thence Northward along said Hudson's river five
hundred Rodd beyond the Great Wappin's Kill, and from thence into the
woods fouer Houres goeing"; or, in our speech, easterly sixteen English
miles. There were eighty-five thousand acres in this grant, and the
"Schedull or Perticuler" of money and goods given to the natives, in
exchange, by ffrancis Rumbout and Gulyne Ver Planke sounds oddly to-day:

One hundred Royalls,
One hundred Pound Powder,
Two hundred fathom of white Wampum,
One hundred Barrs of lead,
One hundred fathom of black Wampum,
Thirty tobacco boxes, ten holl adzes,
Thirty Gunns, twenty Blankets,
Forty fathom of Duffils,
Twenty fathom of stroudwater Cloth,
Thirty Kittles, forty Hatchets,
Forty Hornes, forty Shirts,
Forty pair stockins,
Twelve coates of B.C.,