N. Y., i, 691.) Under that name the tract was surveyed (1664), and it has remained apparent in the sviithesis of the many corrupt forms in which it is of record. Schaenechstede is a clear orthographic pronunciation of the Dutch Schoonehetstede, signifying, literally, "The beautiful town." The syllable het is properly hek, "fence, rail, gate," etc., and in this connection indicates an enclosed or palisaded town. In 1680, Schaenschentendeel appears -- a pronunciation of Schoonehet-

' A considerable number of the early settlers had Indian wives. (Dominie Megapolensis wrote : "The Dutch are continually running after the Mohawk women.') The children, growing up with Indian relatives, among the •tribes and with men speaking so great a variety of tongues, built up a patois of their own, the "Mohawk-Dutch," many words in it defying the dictionaries of the schools. Many words are untranslatable save by the context. (Hist. Schenectadv Patent, 388.)

204 INDIAN GEOGRAPHICAL NAMES.

tendal, "Beautiful valley," or the equivalent of the German Schooneseckthal, "Beautiful corner or turn of a valley." The German Labadists, Jasper Bankers and Peter Sluyter, made no mistake in their recognition of the name when they wrote Schoon-echten-deel in their Journal in 1679-80, describing the town as a square set off by palisades.^ Unfortunately for the Dutch name it was conferred and came into use during the period of the transition of the province from the Dutch to the English, with the probability of its conversion to Mohawk-Dutch, as already noted. Certain it is that the name is not met in any form until after its introduction by the Dutch, and is not of record in any connection except at Sc^henectady, the statement by Brodhead, on the authority of Schoolcraft, that it was applied in one form, by the Mohawks, to a place some two miles above Albany, as "the end of a portage path of the Mohawks coming from the west," being without anterior or subsequent record, though possibly traditional, and it may be added that it was never the name of Albany, nor is there record that there ever was a Mohawk village "on the site of the present city of Albany," nor anywhere near it.