Footprints of the Red Men: Indian Geographical Names
in, "To a small run of water called Assawaghkemek ■" * and so along the same and the lands of Mansjoor, the Indian," is known by settlement, to have been at and belozv the junction of Basha's Kill and the Neversink, from which the inference seems to be well sustained that "the lands of Mansjoor, the Indian" were the lands or valley of Basha's Kill, which the name describes as an enclosed or occupied place "beyond," or "on the other side" of the small run of water. The prefix Assaw, otherwise written Accaw, Agaw, etc., means "Beyond," "On the other side." The termination agh, or aug, indicates that the name is formed as a verb. Kemek (Kamik) means an enclosed, or occupied place, as already stated. The translation in "History of Orange County," from Waseleu, "Light, bright, foaming," is erroneous, as is also the application of the nam^ to Fall Brook, near the modern village of Huguenot. In no case was the name that of a stream, except by extension to it. Peenpack, (Paan, Paen, Pien, Penn) is given, traditionally, as the name of a "Small knoll or rise of ground, some fifty or sixty rods long, ten wide, and about twenty feet high above the level of" Neversink River, "on and around which the settlers of the Maghaghkamik Patent first located their cabins." It has been preserved for many generations as the name of what is known as the Peenpach Valley, the long narrow flats on the Neversink. Apparently it is corrupt Dutch from Paan-pacht, "Low, soft land," or leased land. The same name is met in Paan-paach, Troy, N. Y., and in Penpack, Somerset County, N. J. The places bearing it were primary Dutch settlements on low lands. (See Paanpaach.) Doubtfully a substitution for Algonquian from a root meaning, "To fall from a height" (Abn., Pa"na; Len.