Footprints of the Red Men: Indian Geographical Names
It is probable, h(.)wever, that the name is a corruption of Dutch Rondbocht, meaning, "A tortuous pool, puddle, marsh," at or near which the chief may have resided. Rombout (Dutch) means "Bull-fly." It could hardly have been the name of a run of water. Mistucky, the name of a small stream in the town of Warwick, has lost some of its letters. Mishqudwtucke (Nar.), would read, "Place of red cedars." Pochuck, given as the name of "A wild, rugged and romantic region" in Sussex County, N. J,, to a creek near Goshen, and, modernly, to a place in Newburgh lying under the shadow of Muohhattoes Hill, is no doubt from Piitscheck (Len.), "A corner or repress," a retired or "out-of-the-way place." Eliot wrote Poochag, in the Natick dialect, and Zeisberger, in the Minsi-Lenape, Putscheek, which is certainly heard in Pochuck. Chouckhass, one of the Indian grantors of the Wawayanda tract, left his name to what is now called Chouck's Hill, in the town of Warwick. The land on which he lived and in which he was buried came into possession of Daniel Burt, an early settler, who gave decent sepulture to the bones of the chief.^ ^ The traditional places of residence of several of the sachems who signed the Wawayanda deed is stated by a writer in "Magazine of American History," and may be repeated on that authority, viz: "Oshaquememus, chief of a village, near the point where the Beaver-dam Brook empties into Murderers' Creek near Campbell Hall; Moshopuck, on the flats now known as Haverstraw; Ariwimack, chief, on the Wallkill, extending from Goshen to Shawongunk; Guliapaw, chief of a clan residing near Long Pond (Greenwood Lake), within fifty rods of the north end of the pond; Rapingonick