I wanted to briefly share with all in the Onteora Alumni Association Facebook group a research discovery regarding Onteoras name. As a bit of background for this note, Leslie H Cox has said that Onteora acquired its name as a result of a naming contest among Scouts, in which Scouts offered names based on relevant aspects of the history of the Catskill Mountains region, where Onteora is located. [Note: When Onteora was acquired by the Nassau County Council in 1955, it originally was referred to simply as Livingston Manor, named after the town of its location. This name was used in an official publication of the council as early as the October/November 1955 issue of the Buckskin Tab.] I recently acquired a postcard from 1931 (images attached to this post) which refers to Onteora Mountain, associated with Tannersville, N.Y., located in the Catskill Mountains. In seeking to determine a potential historical connection between Onteora Mountain and Onteora Scout Reservation, I learned that Onteora Mountain apparently is still referred to by that name and is located about 2.5 miles from the part of Tannersville that Google Maps indicates as the central point of the town. There is no direct driving route from Tannersville to Onteora Mountain, although one could drive about 2.5 miles, park ones car, and then hike about 1 mile to the top of the mountain. Also of interest is that a body of water still known as Onteora Pond is located on the driving route from Tannersville to Onteora Mountain. It takes about 1 hour and 40 minutes to drive from Livingston Manor to Tannersville, which is located to the northeast of Livingston Manor. I wanted to see if there are any further historical references to Onteora Mountain from before 1955, and with a Google search of Onteora Mountains, it was revealed that there was a book written in 1911 by Henry Gotthelf Kost known as Sunlight and Starlight with a reference to the meaning of the name Onteora on page 45. According to the book, which predates Onteoras opening in 1956 coincidentally by 45 years, Onteora means Mountains of the Sky, which is what local Native Americans called the Catskill Mountains. The apparent fact that Onteora translates to Mountains of the Sky adds significant clarity to Onteora Scout Reservations nickname as the Land in the Sky. It remains unclear exactly why there is a discrepancy between Mountains of the Sky as recorded in Kosts 1911 book and Land in the Sky as used by members of the Onteora Scout Reservation community. As a side note, the 1931 postcard was sent to an address with Roosevelt in its name, which is coincidental as per the Nassau County Councils renaming as the Theodore Roosevelt Council 66 years later. The route to get to Onteora Mountain from Tannersville is available here: https://google/maps/dir/Tannersville,+NY/Onteora+Mountain,+Hunter,+NY+12485/@42.2050655,-74.1460483,14z/data=!4m13!4m12!1m5!1m1!1s0x89ddadc4e8785b33:0x3dab289055b1cf6b!2m2!1d-74.1337508!2d42.1956438!1m5!1m1!1s0x89ddad8100c5d129:0xc980627233aeea5e!2m2!1d-74.1679184!2d42.2223098 Here is a link to the 1911 book reference: books.google/books?id=29ATAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA45&lpg=PA45&dq=%22onteora+mountains%22&source=bl&ots=Jjtxl-2Jhc&sig=5FxdioC9gVCHUe_fxd4b1MZkc5c&hl=en&sa=X&ei=x1iuU-a-FYTlsASF4oGIDQ&ved=0CCMQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=%22onteora%20mountains%22&f=false
Posted on: Sat, 28 Jun 2014 06:51:15 +0000