Footprints of the Red Men: Indian Geographical Names
In 1744, Jacobus Bruyn was the owner of the Lloyd tract. ^ The distribution of the name over the district as a general locative is distinctly traceable from this center. It was never the name of the mountain, nor of the stream, and it should be distinctly understood that it does not appear in Kregier's Journal of the Second Esopus War, nor in any record prior to 1684, and could not have been that of any place other than that distinctly named in Governor Dongan's deed and in Lloyd's Patent. Topographically, the tract was at and on the side of a hill running north from the fiats on the stream to a point of which Nescotack was the summit, the Lloyd grant lying in part on the hill-side and in part on the low lands on the stream. The mountain is eight miles distant. Without knowledge of the precise location of the name several interpretations of it have been made, generally from Shazvan, "South" -- South Mountain, South Water, South Place.' The latter is possible, i. e. a place lying south of Nescotack, as in the sentence : "Schawangung, Nescotack, and the Paltz." From the topography of the locative, however, Mr. William R. Gerard suggests that the derivatives are Scha (or Shaw), "Side," -ong, ^ lb. 169. Other early forms are Shawongunk (1685), Shawongonck 1709), Shawongunge (1712). ^ From Jacobus Bruyn came the ancient hamlet still known as Bruynswick. He erected a stone mansion on the tract, in the front wall of which was cut on a marble tablet, "Jacobus Bruyn. 1724." The house was destroyed by fire in 1870 (about), and a frame dwelling erected on its old foundation. It is about half-way between Bruynswick and Tuthilltown; owned later by John V. McKinstry. The location is certain from the will of Jacobus Bruyn in 1744- ^ The most worthless interpretation is that in Spofford's Gazeteer and copied by Mather in his Geological Survey: "Shazven, in the Mohegan language, means 'White,' also 'Salt.' and Gunk, 'A large pile of rocks,' hence 'White Rocks' or mountain." The trouble with it is that there is no such word as Shazven, meaning "White" in any Algonquian dialect, and no such word as Gunk, meaning "Rocks."