[FN-2] Tappan Creek is now known as the Spar Kill, and ancient Tappan Landing as Tappan Slote. _Slote_ is from Dutch _Sloot._ "Dutch, trench, moat." "Sloops could enter the mouth of the creek, if lightly laden, at high tide, through what, from its resemblance to a ditch, was called the Slote." (Hist. Rockl. Co.) The man or men who changed the name of the creek to Spar Kill cannot be credited with a very large volume of appreciation for the historic. The cove and mouth of the creek was no doubt the landing-place from which the Indian village was approached, and the latter was accepted for many years as the boundmark on the Hudson of the jurisdiction of New Jersey. [FN-3] Strickland Plain was the site of the terrible massacre of Indians by English and Dutch troops under Capt. Underhill, in March, 1645. (Broadhead, Hist. N. Y., i, 390.) About eight hundred Indians were killed by fire and sword, and a considerable number of prisoners taken and sold into slavery. The Indian fort here was in a retreat of difficult access. Mattasink, Mattaconga and Mattaconck, forms of names given to certain boundmarks "of the land or island called Mattasink, or Welch's Island," Rockland County, describe two different features. _Mattaconck_ was "a swampy or hassocky meadow," lying on the west side of Quaspeck Pond, from whence the line ran north, 72 degrees east, "to the south side of the rock on the top of the hill," called Mattasinck. In the surveyor's notes the rock is described as "a certain rock in the form of a sugar loaf." The name is probably an equivalent of _Mat-assin-ink,_ "At (or to) a bad rock," or a rock of unusual form. _Mattac-onck_ seems to be an orthography of _Maskék-onck,_ "At a swamp or hassocky meadow." Surd mutes and linguals are so frequently exchanged in this district that locatives must be relied upon to identify names. _Mattac_ has no meaning in itself. The sound is that of _Maskék._