Leaders of the Ramapo-Munsee Lunaape Nation hosted a ceremony at Ramapo College this weekend to receive an original deed for land-located in the towns of Ramapo, Mahwah, Ringwood, and Suffern, New York.

The Deed was originally made on March 7, 1737, and has been passed down by the Sloat family for six generations.

In a joint statement from four Sloat relatives, the Rev. Jack V. Zamboni, his sister Helen A. Zamboni, and first cousins Judith S. Cardenas and Janet S. Ross, they explain, “It is with humility and thanks that the Zamboni and Snyder families, descendants of Stephen Sloat, are returning an incredibly important deed from 1737 to its rightful owners, the Ramapo-Munsee Lunaape Nation.”

The Deed has history behind it, as Ramapo ancestors worked with George Washington in allowing access of the Ramapo Pass, preventing the British from receiving strategic advantages during the American Revolution.