Home / Ruttenber, E.M. Footprints of the Red Men: Indian Geographical Names in the Valley of Hudson's River, the Valley of the Mohawk, and on the Delaware. Published in the Proceedings of the New York State Historical Association, Vol. VI. 1906. / Passage

Footprints of the Red Men: Indian Geographical Names

Ruttenber, E.M. Footprints of the Red Men: Indian Geographical Names in the Valley of Hudson's River, the Valley of the Mohawk, and on the Delaware. Published in the Proceedings of the New York State Historical Association, Vol. VI. 1906. 350 words

* The equivalent Mass. word is paug, "Where water is," or ''Place of water." (Trumbull.) Quassa-paug or Quas-paug, is the largest lake in Woodbury, Ct. Dr. Trumbull failed to detect the derivative of Quas. but suggested. Kiche, "Great." Probably a satisfactory interpretation will be found in Kussiik, "High." (See Quassaick.) ^ Kontii, an abundance verb, is sometimes written contce, easily corrupted to cungue. Dutch Conge means "Discharge," the tail-race of a mill, or a strong, swift current. Minnie's Conge, the tail-race of Minnie's mill.

HUDSON S RIVER ON THE WEST. 123

Skoonnenoghky is written as the name of a hill which formed the southwest boundmark of a district of country purchased from the Indians by Governor Dongan in 1685, and patented to Capt. John Evans by him in 1694, described in the Indian deed as beginning on the Hudson, "At about the place called the Dancing Chamber, thence south to the north side of the land called Haverstraw, thence northwest along the hill called Skoonnenoghky" to the bound of a previous purchase made by Dongan "Called Meretange pond." (See Pitkiskaker.) The hill was specifically located in a survey of part of the line of the Evans Patent, by Cadwallader Colden, in 1722, noted as "Beginning at Stony Point and running over a high hill, part of which makes the Stony Point, and is called Kunnoghky or Kunnoghkin." (Cal. N. Y. Land Papers, 162.) The south side of Stony Point was then accepted as the "North side of the land called Haverstraw." The hills in immediate proximity, at varying points of compass, are the Bochberg (Dutch, Bochelberg, "Humpback hill"), and the Donderberg, neither of which, however, have connection with Stony Point, leaving the conclusion certain that from the fact that the line had its beginning at the extreme southeastern limit of the Point on the Hudson, the hill referred to in the survey must have been that on which the Stony Point fort of the Revolution was erected, "Part of which hill" certainly "makes the Stony Point." Colden's form of the name, "Kunnoghky or Kunnoghkin," isobviously an equivalent of Dongan's Schoonnenoghky.