Suffolk County, as "the first point east of Rockaway where access can be had to the ocean without crossing the bay," has been read as a contraction of Quaquaunantuck, but seems to be from Poque-ogue, "Clear, open space," an equivalent of Poque-auke, Mass. Rechqua=akie, De Vries; Reckkouwhacky, deed of 1639; now applied to a neck on the south side of Long Island and preserved in Rockaway, was interpreted by the late Dr. E. B. O'Callaghan: "Reck 'sand'; qua, 'flat'; akie, 'land' -- the long, narrow sand-bar now known as Rockaway Beach," but is more correctly rendered with dialectic exchange of R and L, Lekau. (Rekau), "sand or gravel," hacki, "land" or place. (Zeisb.) "Flats" is inferred.

^8 INDIAN GEOGRAPHICAL NAMES.

A considerable division of the Long Island Indians was located in the vicinity, or, as described by De Vries, who visited them in 1643, "near the sea-shore." He found thirty wigwams and three hundred Indians, who were known in the treaty of 1645, as Marechkawicks, and in tlie treaty of 1656 as Rockaways.^ Jamaica, now applied to a town, a village and a bay, was primarily given to the latter by the English colonists. "Near unto ye beaver pond called Jamaica," and "the beaver path," are of record, the latter presumably correct. The name is a pronunciation of Tomaque, or K'tamaque, Del., Amique, Moh., "beaver." "Amique, when aspirated, is written Jamaique, hence Yameco, Jamico, and modern Jamaica." (O'Callaghan.) The bay has no claim to the name as a beaver resort, but beavers were abundant in the stream flowing into it. Kestateuw, "the westernmost," Castuteeuw, "the middlemost," and Casteteuzv, "the eastermost," names of "three flats on the island Sewanhackey, between the bay of North river and the East river." The tracts came to be known as Flatlands ; "the easternmost," as "the Bay," or Amesfort.