Footprints of the Red Men: Indian Geographical Names
Wawarasinke, so written by the surveyor as the name of a tract of land granted to Anna Beake and her children in 1685, has been retained as the name of a village situate in part on that tract, about four miles north of Ellenville. The precise location of the southern boundmark of the patent was on the west bank of the Rondout, south of the mouth of Wawarsing Creek, or Vernooy Kill as now called, which flows to the Rondout in a deep rocky channel, the southern bank forming a very steep, high hill or point. It is claimed that the Old Fort was on this hill, and that to and from it an Indian path led east across the Shawongunk Mountain to the New Fort and is still distinctly marked by the later travel of the pioneers. That there was an Indian path will not be questioned, nor will it be questioned that there may have been at least a modem Indian village on the hill, ibut the Old Fort v/as not there. At the point where the boundmark of the patent wr.s placed the Rondout turns at nearly a right angle from an east and west course to nearly north, winding around a very considerable point or promontory. The orthography of the name is imperfect. By dialectic exchange of n and r, it may be read Wa-wa-nuwas-ink, "At a place w^here the stream winds, bends, twists, or eddies around a point or promontory." This explanation is fully sustained by the topography. Hon. Th. E. Benedict writes me: "The Rondout at that point (the corner of the Anna Beake Patent) winds around at almost a right angle. At the bend is a deep pool with an eddying current, caused by a rock in the bank below the bend. The bend is caused by a point of high land.