While I don't wish to make a major issue of the geographic names of the local features, Storm King was not named so until ca. 1855, by Nathaniel Parker Willis. Some purists insist that the two eminences of the mountain are separately named, but no such distinction formally exists. The whole thing is Storm King today, according to the US Geological Survey. The earlier "Butter Hill" comes from the Adrien Vanderdonck map, ca. 1650, made for the Dutch Government of the New Netherlands, and for the navigation of the Dutch West India Company. Vanderdonck named the feature "De Boter Berg" (the Butter Mountain) and across the water from it was "De Kaes Eylant" (the Cheese Island, better known as Bannerman's, or Polopel). The name Butter Hill was in use during the War for American Independence. It was not a major thoroughfare through the Highlands, as Martin's testimony explains. The principal traffic over the backs of this ancient ridge was via the Old West Point Road, lurking in some residents' deep memories as "the esses", which runs through Black Rock Forest and beyond.
Martin was a serjeant (that's how they spelled it in those days) in the Corps of Sappers and Miners, whose job it was to dig trenches and bunkers in the ground. His principal occupation at West Point was the upkeep of the earthen works and forts which made the passage of "Martelaer's Reach", the bend of the river at West Point and Constitution Island and extending northward to "De Moordenaars Kill" (Murderer's, or Moodna Creek) so difficult and dangerous to pass for shipping.