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
Mathahenaak, "being a part of a parcel of land called the foreland of the
Half-Moon, and by the Indians Mathahenaack, being on the north of the
fourth branch or fork of the Mohawk." _Matha_ is an orthography of
_Macha_ (Stockbridge, _Naukhu_; Del. _Lechau_), with locative _ûk,_ "At
the fork"--now or otherwise known as Half-Moon Point, Waterford.
Quahemiscos is a record form of the name of what is now known as Long
Island, near Waterford.
Monemius Island, otherwise Cohoes Island and Haver Island, just below
Cohoes Falls, the site of Monemius's Castle, or residence of Monemius or
Moenemines, a sachem of the Mahicans in 1630, so entered on Van
Rensselaer's map. Haver is Dutch, "Oat straw." (See Haverstraw.)
Saratoga, now so written, was, primarily, the name of a specific place
extended to a district of country lying on both sides of the Hudson,
described, in a deed from the Indian owners to Cornelis van Dyk, Peter
Schuyler, and others, July 26, 1683, as "A tract of land called
_Sarachtogoe_" (by the Dutch), "or by the Maquas _Ochseratongue_ or
_Ochsechrage,_ and by the Machicanders _Amissohaendiek,_ situated to the
north of Albany, beginning at the utmost limits of the land bought from
the Indians by Goose Gerritse and Philip Pieterse Schuyler deceased,
there being" (_i. e._ the bound-mark) "a kil called _Tioneendehouwe,_
and reaching northward on both sides of the river to the end of the
lands of _Sarachtoge,_ bordering on a kil, on the east side of the river,
called _Dionandogeha_ and having the same length on the west side to
opposite the kil (Tioneendehouwe), and reaching westward through the
woods as far as the Indian proprietors will show, and the same distance
through the woods on the east side." The boundary streams of this tract
are now known as the Hoosick (Tioneendehowe), and the Batten Kill
(Dionondehowe), as written on the map of the patent. The boundaries
included, specifically, the section of the Hudson known as "The Still
Water," [FN-1] noted from the earliest Dutch occupation as the Great
Fishing Place and Beaver Country, two elements the most dear to the
Indian heart and the most contributive to his support, inciting wars
for possession. Specifically, too, the locative of the name, from the
language of the deed and contemporary evidence, would seem to have been
on the east side of the river--"the end of the lands of Sarachtoge,
bordering on a kil on the east side of the river, called," etc., a place
which Governor Dongan selected, in 1685, on which to settle the Mohawk
Catholic converts, who had been induced to remove to Canada, as a
condition of their return, and which he described as a tract of land
"called Serachtogue, lying upon Hudson's River, about forty miles above
Albany," and for the protection of which Fort Saratoga was erected in
1709; noted by Governor Cornbury in 1703, as "A place called Saractoga,
which is the northernmost settlement we have"; topographically described,
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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