Fireplace Remodeling in Roosevelt Island, NY

According to archaeological digs, the area around Roosevelt Island was settled by Paleo-Indians up to 12,000 years ago. In particular, the area was the homeland of the Mareckawick, a group of Lenape Native Americans, who called it Minnehanonck. The name is variously translated as “long island” or “It’s nice to be on the island”. The historian Isaac Newton Phelps Stokes claimed that the Minnehanonck name referred to Randalls Island, but this claim has not been corroborated.

The Lenape may have visited the island. Archeological studies have found shell middens just opposite the island, along both the Queens and Manhattan shores, and the Lenape are known to have had settlements around waterways. However, the island likely did not have any Lenape settlements because of the lack of freshwater. There is little evidence of Native American activities on the island from before the Archaic period (which ended around 1000 BCE).

Dutch colonization[edit]

There are disputes over who owned the island after the European colonization of New Netherland in the 17th century. According to several sources, Dutch Governor Wouter van Twiller was said to have purchased the island from the Lenape in 1637. A study from 1988 found that Van Twiller’s deed referred to what is now Randalls and Wards Islands further north, but a subsequent study said that Van Twiller acquired Randalls, Wards, Roosevelt, and Governors islands simultaneously. In any case, Roosevelt Island was known in early modern Dutch as Varcken[s], Varken, or Verckens Eylandt, all of which are translated in modern English as Hog Island (Varkens eiland).