Editing Catskill Mountains (section)

== Etymology ==
[[File:Catskills beyond Hudson.jpg|thumb|right|Views of the Catskills from the [[Hudson River|Hudson]] like this led to the name "Blue Mountains" for a time.]]
[[File:Map-Novi Belgii Novæque Angliæ (Amsterdam, 1685).jpg|thumb|right|A 1685 revision of a 1656 map of [[New Netherland]] showing the locations of the "Lands of the Kats Kills" and the "High Lands of the Esopus"]]
[[Nicolaes Visscher I]]'s 1656 map of [[New Netherland]] located the ''{{lang|nl|Landt van Kats Kill}}'' at the mouth of [[Catskill Creek]]. The region to the south is identified as ''{{lang|nl|Hooge Landt van Esopus}}'' (High Lands of the [[Esopus people|Esopus]]), a reference to a local band of northern [[Lenape]] [[Indigenous peoples of the Americas|Native Americans]] who inhabited the banks of the Hudson and hunted in the highlands along the [[Esopus Creek]].<ref name="Kudish36–8">{{cite book |title=The Catskill Forest: A History |last=Kudish |first=Michael |author-link=Michael Kudish |year=2000 |publisher=Purple Mountain Press |location=[[Fleischmanns, New York|Fleischmanns, NY]] |isbn=978-1-930098-02-2 |page=47}}</ref>

While the meaning of the name ("cat creek [''[[kill (body of water)|kill]]'']" in [[Dutch language|Dutch]]) and the namer (early Dutch explorers) are settled matters, how and why the area is named "Catskills" is a mystery. [[Mountain lion]]s (catamounts) were known to have been in the area when the Dutch arrived in the 17th century and may have been a reason for the name.<ref name=sierraclub>{{cite web |url=http://www.sierraclub.org/e-files/puma.asp |title=The Elusive Mountain Lion – E-Files – Our History |access-date=2007-09-17 |website=Sierra Club |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070807235943/http://www.sierraclub.org/e-files/puma.asp |archive-date=2007-08-07 }}</ref>

The confusion over the origins of the name led over the years to variant spellings such as ''Kaatskill'' and ''Kaaterskill'', both of which are also still used: the former in the regional magazine ''[[Kaatskill Life]]'', the latter as the name of a [[Kaaterskill High Peak|mountain peak]] and a [[Kaaterskill Falls|waterfall]]. [[Henry Schoolcraft]] is supposed to have coined the indigenous term for the range, ''On-ti-o-ra'' ("mountains/hills/land of the sky"), in 1844, due to the term not being attested prior to his record of it.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Beauchamp |first=William Martin |url=https://archive.org/details/aboriginalplacen00beau/ |title=Aboriginal place names of New York |date=1907 |publisher=Albany : New York State Education Dept. |others=Internet Archive |pages=85}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=New York central and Hudson river railroad company. [from old catalog] |url=https://archive.org/details/healthpleasureon00newy/ |title=Health and pleasure on "America's greatest railroad." |date=1890 |publisher=[Buffalo, Matthews, Northrup & co.] |others=The Library of Congress |pages=75}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Adams |first=Arthur G. |url=https://archive.org/details/catskillsillust00adam/ |title=The Catskills : an illustrated historical guide with gazetteer |date=1990 |publisher=New York : Fordham University Press |others=Internet Archive |isbn=978-0-8232-1300-9 |pages=4, 150}}</ref>