Footprints of the Red Men: Indian geographical names in the valley of Hudson's river, the valley of the Mohawk, and on the Delaware: their location and the probable meaning of some of them.Ruttenber, Edward Manning
History
Footprints of the Red Men: Indian geographical names in the valley of Hudson's river, the valley of the Mohawk, and on the Delaware: their location and the probable meaning of some of them.
Ruttenber, Edward Manning
Indians of North America -- New York (State); Names, Geographical -- New York (State); Names, Indian -- North America
Wehawken and Weehawken, as now written, is written _Awiehaken_ in deed
by Director Stuyvesant, 1658-9. Other orthographies are Wiehacken,
Whehockan, Weehacken, Wehauk, obvious corruptions of the original, but
all retaining a resemblance in sound. The name is preserved as that of
a village, a ferry, and a railroad station about three miles north of
Jersey City, and is historically noted for its association with the
ancient custom of dueling, the particular resort for that purpose being
a rough shelf of the cliff about two and one-half miles north of Hoboken
and about opposite 28th Street, Manhattan. The locative of the name is
described in a grant by Director Stuyvesant, in 1647, to one Maryn
Adriaensen, of "A piece of land called Awiehaken, situate on the west
side of the North River, bounded on the south by Hoboken Kil, and running
thence north to the next kil, and towards the woods with the same
breadth, altogether fifty morgens of land." [FN] (Col. Hist. N. Y.,
xiii, 22.) The "next kil" is presumed to have been that flowing to the
Hudson in a wild ravine just south of the dueling ground, now called the
Awiehackan. A later description (1710) reads: "Between the southernmost
cliffs of Tappaen and Ahasimus, at a place called Wiehake." (Cal. N. Y.
Land Papers, 98.) The petition was by Samuel Bayard, who then owned the
land on both sides of Wiehacken Creek, for a ferry charter covering the
passage "Between the southernmost cliffs of Tappaen and New York Island,
at a place called Wiehake," the landing-place of which was established
at or near the mouth of Awiehacken Creek just below what is now known as
King's Point. Of the location generally Winfield (Hist.. Hudson Co.,
N. J.) wrote: "Before the iconoclastic hand of enterprise had touched it
the whole region about was charming beyond description. Just south of
the dueling ground was the wild ravine down which leaped and laughed the
Awiehacken. Immediately above the dueling ground was King's Point looking
boldly down upon the Hudson. From this height still opens as fair, as
varied, as beautiful a scene as one could wish to see. The rocks rise
almost perpendicularly to one hundred and fifty feet above the river.
Under these heights, about twenty feet above the water, on a shelf about
six feet wide and eleven paces long, reached by an almost inaccessible
flight of steps, was the dueling ground." South of King's Point were the
famed Elysian Fields, at the southern extremity of which, under Castle
Point, was Sibyl's Cave, a rocky cavern containing a fine spring of
water.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Footprints of the Red Men: Indian geographical names in the valley of Hudson's river, the valley of the Mohawk, and on the Delaware: their location and the probable meaning of some of them. — John Shaqi
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