Footprints of the Red Men: Indian Geographical Names
From De Laet's description,* there is little room for doubt that the "sandy point" to which he referred is now known as Low Point, opposite the Dans Kamer, at the head of Newburgh Bay, where the river narrows, or that Esopus was applied to Casper's Creek. On Van der Donck's map the "barbarous nation" is given three castles on the south side of the stream, which became known later (1643) as the Wappingers, who certainly held jurisdiction on the east side of Newburgh Bay. The adjectival of the name is no doubt from Wdro, or Waloh, meaning "Concave, hollowing," a depression in land, low land, the latter expressed in ock (ohke), "land" or place. The same adjectival appears in Waronawanka at Kingston, and the same word in Woronake on the Sound at Milford, Ct., w'here the topography is similar. The foreign plural .? extends the meaning to "Dwellers on," or inhabitants of. (See Wahamenesing and • • n^wanka.) Mawenawasigh, so written in the Rombout Patent of 1684, covering lands extending from Wappingers' Creek to the foot of the hills on the north side of Matteawan Creek, was the name of the north boundmark of the patent and not that of Wappingers' Creek. The In-
1 * * " ^nd thus with various windings it reaches a place which our countrymen call Vischer's Rack, that is the Fisherman's Bend. And here the eastern bank is inhabited by the Pachimi. A little beyond where projects a sandy point and the river becomes narrower, there is a place called Esopus, where the Waoranekys, another barbarous nation, have their abode. To these succeed, after a short interval, the Waranawankconghs, on the opposite side of the river." (De Laet.) "At the Fisher's Hook are the Pachany, Wareneckers," etc. (Wassenaer.)