[FN] The creek now bearing the name flows to the Hudson through the village of Dobb's Ferry. Its local name, "Wicker's creek," is a corruption of Wickquaskeek. It was never the name of an individual.
[Pocanteco,] Pecantico, Puegkandico and Perghanduck, a stream so called [FN-1] in Westchester County, was translated by Dr. O'Callaghan from Pohkunni, "Dark." "The dark river," and by Bolton from Pockawachne, "A stream between hills," which is certainly erroneous. The first word is probably Pohk or Pak, root Paken (Pákenum, "Dark," Zeisb.; Pohken-ahtu, "In darkness," Eliot). The second may stand for antakeu, "Woods," "Forest," and the combination read "The Dark Woods." The stream rises in New Castle township and flows across the town of Mt. Pleasant to the Hudson at Tarrytown, where it is associated with Irving's story of Sleepy Hollow. The Dutch called it "Sleeper's-haven Kil," from the name which they gave to the reach on the Hudson, "Verdrietig Hoek," or "Tedious Point," because the hook or point was so long in sight of their slow-sailing vessels, and in calms their crews slept away the hours under its shadows, "Over against the Verdrietig Hoek, commonly called by the name of Sleeper's Haven," is the record. Pocanteco was a heavily wooded valley, and suggested to the early mothers stories of ghosts to keep their children from wandering in its depths. From the woods or the valley the name was extended to the stream.[FN-2] (See Alipkonck.)
[FN-1] December 1st, 1680, Frederick Phillips petitioned for liberty to purchase "a parcel of land on each side of the creek called by the Indians Pocanteco, . . . adjoining the land he hath already purchased; there to build and erect a saw-mill." (Col. Hist. N. Y., xiii, 546.)
[FN-2] "Far in the foldings of the hills winds this wizard stream—sometimes silently and darkly through solemn woodlands. . . . In the neighborhood of the aqueduct is a deep ravine which forms the dreamy region of Sleepy Hollow." (Sketch Book.)
[Alipkonck] is entered on Van der Donck's map of 1656, and located with the sign of an Indian village south of Sing Sing. Bolton (Hist. West. Co.) claimed it as the name of Tarrytown, and translated it, "The place of elms," which it certainly does not mean. Its derivative, however, is disguised in its orthography, and its locative is not certain. Conjecturally Alipk is from Wálagk (surd mutes g and p exchanged), "An open place, a hollow or excavation." The locative may have been Sleepy Hollow. Tarrytown, which some writers have derived from Tarwe (Dutch), "Wheat"—Wheat town—proves to be from an early settler whose name was Terry, pronounced Tarry, as written in early records. The Dutch name for Wheat town would be Tarwe-stadt, which was never written here.
[Oscawanna,] an island so called, lying a short distance south of Cruger's Station on N. Y. Central R. R., Hudson River Division, is of record, in 1690, Wuscawanus. (Doc. Hist. N. Y., ii, 237.) It seems to have been from the name of a sachem, otherwise known as Weskora, Weskheun, Weskomen, in 1685. Wuski, Len., "New, young;" Wuske'éne Williams, "A youth."
[Shildrake,] or Sheldrake, given as the name of Furnace Brook, takes that name from an extended forest known in local records as "The Furnace Woods." By exchange of l and n, it is probably from Schind, "Spruce-pine" (Zeisb.); aki, "Land" or place. Schindikeu, "Spruce forest" ("Hemlock woods," Anthony). (See Shinnec'ock.) Furnace Brook takes that name from an ancient furnace on its bank. In 1734 it was known as "The old-mill stream." Jamawissa, quoted as its Indian name, seems to be an aspirated form of Tamaquese, "Small beaver." (See Jamaica.)
[Sing-Sing]—Sinsing, Van der Donck; Sintsing, treaty of 1645—usually translated, "At the standing-stone," and "Stone upon stone," means "At the small stones," or "Place of small stones"—from assin "stone;" is, diminutive, and ing, locative. Ossinsing, the name of the town, has the same meaning; also, Sink-sink, L. I., ind Assinising, Chemung County. The interpretation is literally sustained in the locative on the Hudson.