It would seem natural for the neck of land which these creeks enclosed, to afford shelter to the aborigines, especially as the waters between the Hunters Point shore and that of Minnahanonck, or Blackwells island, must have afforded good fishing, and the shallows of Mespaetches should have been the nursery of countless oysters.

Flushing bay would appear to have been a very favorable place for native occupancy. North beach on Fishs point, the extremity of the promontory, is opposite Rikers island, beyond which a moderate stretch of still water separated it from Quinnahung and Snakapins, native settlements in the south part of the Bronx.

From Flushing bay there set in westwardly a watercourse, known to the settlers as Ludovics or Wessels brook. This was named in a deed of 1666 as a "certain creek

INDIAN NOTES

BOROUGH OF QUEENS

called Sackhickneyah where Wessels mill stood."

The creek extended inland with deep windings to the Trains meadow, a large tract of marsh-land which is still in great part existing in its original condition, nlling the large basin of lowland now partly occupied by North Woodside, and extending as far north as the Flushing turnpike.

On the east of this area the old Trains Meadow road made its crooked way between Maspeth and North Beach on Flushing bay. The name which was thus applied to the creek in the conveyance above mentioned, was probably that of the sea-shore path which followed its course, as pointed out by Tooker,32 corresponding as it does to the Delaware words shajahik, "seashore," and aney, "a path."