As you may know, our Port Captains are those fellow members to contact for information or directions when you are planning cruising - or are already in - unfamiliar waterways. You may even ask them for help when traveling by land.
The national USPS Port Captain Roster is available to USPS members from the United States Power Squadron Headquarters.
Here is Oritani's Port Captain:
P/C William Obolsky, AP aboard "J & B Rare"
Waterway:
From Northport, Long Island, NY, in the Huntington Bay area on Long Island Sound, including Lloyd Harbor and
across the Sound to Stamford, CT.
On land:
Northeast New Jersey.
Please e-mail us your request. You must include your name, Squadron name, and certificate number.
Sorry! This service is only for USPS members.
The Lenni-Lenape, which means the original people, was a small peaceful group of Indians who lived in what is today New Jersey. They called this region Shaakbee, that means land bordering the ocean. The dutch named them the Delaware Nation.
A highly civilized people, they concentrated in the Northern Valley. Branches of the Lenape Tribe were the Hackensacks and the Tappans. Their symbol was a turtle and they believed in reincarnation, always returning as a Lenape Indian.
Men shaved their heads except for a narrow strip from the forehead to the back of the neck and did not adorn themselves with many feathered headdresses.
In 1655 the Lenni-Lanapes invaded Manhattan with 500 men and 64 canoes. The Dutch blamed it in the fire-water. New York's Peter Stuyvesant and Chief Oratam of the Lanapes mediated the problem and it was agreed that the Dutch would sell the booze and the Indians would imbibe elsewhere. The enforcer of this pact would be Chief Oratam, the original prohibition agent.
During the American Revolution the Lanapes and their descendant tribes remained neutral and it is recorded that the first peace pipes were smoked in what is now called Hoboken, New Jersey.
The Lanapes eventually joined the Mohegans and migrated west in 1802. New Jersey is reputed to be the only state to have paid for the Scheyichbi land: they gave $2,000 to the Lenni-Lenape Nation.
Chief Oratam's name lives on Anglicized as ORITANI, where our Squadron name came from.
