Its length, north and south, is three miles, and its medial width two and a quarter.a The etymology of the name of this place (at different periods spelt Mammarinikes, Mornoronack, Mamarinck, Merinak, and Momoronuck) doubtless refers, like most other Indian words, to some object peculiar to its geographical locality. The last syllable, " neck," or " uck" (uc,) being the ordinary inflection for locality, and one of the striking characteristics of Mohegan names east of the Hudson. By some the word is supposed to indicate " the place of rolling stones,^^ (boulders,) which abound in the romantic environs of Mamaroneck.^

The aboriginal name for the southeast corner of the town constituting De Lancey's Neck was ^- Wanmainuck," while the west neck, adjoining New Rochelle, was called by the Indians "Mangopson."'

Mamaroneck, at the time of the Dutch discovery, appears to

» New York Gazetteer.

•" In the Indian deed to John Budd, of Rye, 1661, the place is mentioned under the name of Merrimack, an Indian term for the sturgeon fish which once frequented the waters of the bay in great numbers.

COUNTY OF WESTCHESTER. 28^

have been inhabited by one of the numerous sea coast tribes termed SuwanoeSj or Sewanoos, by Jolm De Laet, one of tfie earliest historians of the New Netherlands, A.D. 1625.^ This people he describes " as dwelling along the coast from Norwalk to twenty-four miles to the neighborhood of Hellegat." Adriaen van der Donck, in his map of 1G56, styles them Siwanoys, These Siwanoys constituted a tribe of the mighty Mohegan nation, originally called Muhhekanew. or the Seven Tribes on the sea coast -- otherwise called Mohiggans by the English, and Mahicanders, or River Indians by the Low Dutch>