[FN-2] The prefixed M, sometimes followed by a short vowel or an apostrophe (M'), has no definite or determinate force. (Trumbull.)
[FN-3] The Journal locates the place at Lat. 42 deg. 18 min. This would be about five miles (statute) north of the present city of Hudson. "But," wrote Brodhead, "Latitudes were not as easily determined in those days as they are now; and a careful computation of the distances run by the Half-Moon, as recorded in Juet's day-book, shows that on the 18th of September, 1609, when the landing occurred, she must have been 'up six leagues higher' than Hudson, in the neighborhood of Schodac and Castleton."
[Sickenekas,] given as the name of a tract of land on the east side of the river, "opposite Fort Orange (Albany), above and below," dates from a deed to Van Rensselaer, 1637, the name of one of the grantors of which is written Paepsickenekomtas. The name is now written Papskanee and applied to an island.
[Sicajoock,] (Wickagjock, Wassenaer), is given as the name of a tract on the east side of the river extending from Smack's Island to Castle Island where it joined lands "called Semesseeck," Gesmessecks, etc., which extended north to Negagonse, "being about twelve miles (Dutch), large measure." The northern limit seems to have been Unuwat's Castle on the north side of a stream flowing to the Hudson north of "opposite to Rensselaer's Kil and waterfall." Sicajoock (Dutch notation), "Black, or dark colored earth," from Sûcki "Dark colored, inclining to black," and -ock, "land." The same name is written Suckiage (ohke) in application to the Hartford meadows, Conn.
[Gesmesseeck,] a tract of land so called, otherwise entered of record "Nawanemit's particular land called Semesseerse, lying on the east bank, opposite Castle Island, off unto Fort Orange." "Item—from Petanoc, the mill stream, away north to Negagonse." In addition Van Rensselaer then purchased lands held in common by several owners, "extending up the river, south and north" from Fort Orange, "unto a little south of Moeneminnes castle," "being about twelve miles, large measure." Moeneminne's castle was on Haver Island at Kahoes. Semesseerse is the form of the name in deed as printed in Col. Hist. N. Y., vol. i, p. 44, and Gesmesseecks p. 1, v. iv. Kesmesick is another form and perhaps also Taescameasick. (See Patuckquapaen.) The several forms of the name illustrate the effort on the part of the early Dutch, who were then limitedly acquainted with the Indian tongue, to give orthographies to the names which they heard spoken.
[Passapenoc,] Pahpapaenpenock and Sapanakock, forms of the name of Beeren Island, lying opposite Coeymans, is from an edible tuber which was indigenous on it. [FN] The Dutch name Beeren or Beerin, means, literally, "She bear," usually called Bear's Island. De Laet wrote "Beeren" in 1640.
[FN] "The Indians frequently designated places by the names of esculent or medicinal roots which were there produced. In the Algonquin language the generic names for tubers was pen, varying in some dialects to pin, pena, pon, or bun. This name seems originally to have belonged to the common ground nut: Apias tuberosa. Abnaki, pen, plural, penak. Other species were designated by prefixes to this generic, and, in the compositions of place names, was employed to denote locality (auk, auki, ock, etc.), or by an abundance verb (kanti-kadi). Thus p'sai-pen, 'wild onions,' with the suffix for place, ock, gave p'sai-pen-auk, or as written by the Dutch, Passapenock, the Indian name for Beeren Island." (J. H. Trumbull, Mag. of Am. Hist I, 387.)
[Patuckquapaen] and Tuscumcatick are noted in French's Gazetteer as names of record in what is now the town of Greenbush, Rensselaer County, without particular location. The first is in part Algonquian and in part Dutch. The original was, no doubt, Patuckquapaug, as in Greenwich, Ct., meaning "Round pond." The Dutch changed paug to paen descriptive of the land—low land—so we have, as it stands, "Round land," "elevated hassocks of earth, roots," etc. (See Patuckquapaug.) The second name is written in several forms—Taescameatuck, Taescameesick, and Gessmesseecks. Greenbush is an anglicism of Gran Bosch, Dutch, meaning, literally, "Green forest." The river bank was fringed by a long stretch of spruce-pine woods. Dutch settlement began here about 1631. In 1641 a ferry was established at the mouth of the Tamisquesuck or Beaver Creek, and has since been maintained. About the same year a small fort, known as Fort Cralo, was constructed by Van Rensselaer's superintendent.
[Poesten Kill,] the name of a stream and of a town in Rensselaer County, is entered in deed to Van Rensselaer in 1630, "Petanac, the mill stream"; in other records, "Petanac, the Molen Kil," and "De Laet's Marlen Kil and Waterval." Petanac, the Indian name, is an equivalent of Stockbridge Patternac, which King Ninham, in an affidavit, in 1762, declared meant "A fall of water, and nothing more." "Molen Kil" (Dutch), means "mill water." "De Laet's Marlen Kil ende Waterval," locates the name as that of a well-known waterfall on the stream of eighty feet. Weise, in his "History of Troy," wrote: "Having erected a saw-mill upon the kill for sawing posts and timber, which was known thereafter as Poesten mill, the name became extended to the stream," an explanation that seems to bear the marks of having been coined. From the character of the stream the name is probably a corruption of the Dutch Boosen, "An angry stream," because of its rapid descent. The stream reaches the Hudson on the north line of Troy. (See Gesmessecks.)