The Palisade Range, which enters the State from New Jersey, and borders the Hudson on the west, terminates abruptly at Piermont. Classed by geologists as Trap Rock, or rock of volcanic origin, adds interest to their general appearance as calumnar masses. The aboriginal owners were not versed in geologic terms. To them the Palisades were simply -ompsk, "Standing or upright rock."
[FN-1] Paen, old French, meaning Pagan, a heathen or resident of a heath, from Pagus, Latin, a heath, a district of waste land.
[FN-2] Tappan Creek is now known as the Spar Kill, and ancient Tappan Landing as Tappan Slote. Slote is from Dutch Sloot. "Dutch, trench, moat." "Sloops could enter the mouth of the creek, if lightly laden, at high tide, through what, from its resemblance to a ditch, was called the Slote." (Hist. Rockl. Co.) The man or men who changed the name of the creek to Spar Kill cannot be credited with a very large volume of appreciation for the historic. The cove and mouth of the creek was no doubt the landing-place from which the Indian village was approached, and the latter was accepted for many years as the boundmark on the Hudson of the jurisdiction of New Jersey.
[FN-3] Strickland Plain was the site of the terrible massacre of Indians by English and Dutch troops under Capt. Underhill, in March, 1645. (Broadhead, Hist. N. Y., i, 390.) About eight hundred Indians were killed by fire and sword, and a considerable number of prisoners taken and sold into slavery. The Indian fort here was in a retreat of difficult access.
[Mattasink,] Mattaconga and Mattaconck, forms of names given to certain boundmarks "of the land or island called Mattasink, or Welch's Island," Rockland County, describe two different features. Mattaconck was "a swampy or hassocky meadow," lying on the west side of Quaspeck Pond, from whence the line ran north, 72 degrees east, "to the south side of the rock on the top of the hill," called Mattasinck. In the surveyor's notes the rock is described as "a certain rock in the form of a sugar loaf." The name is probably an equivalent of Mat-assin-ink, "At (or to) a bad rock," or a rock of unusual form. Mattac-onck seems to be an orthography of Maskék-onck, "At a swamp or hassocky meadow." Surd mutes and linguals are so frequently exchanged in this district that locatives must be relied upon to identify names. Mattac has no meaning in itself. The sound is that of Maskék.
[Nyack,] Rockland County, does not take that name from Kestaub-niuk, a place-name on the east side of the Hudson, as stated by Schoolcraft, nor was the name imported from Long Island, as stated by a local historian; on the contrary, it is a generic Algonquian term applicable to any point. It was met in place here at the earliest period of settlement in application to the south end of Verdrietig Hoek Mountain, as noted in "The Cove or Nyack Patent," near or on which the present village of Nyack has its habitations. It means "Land or place at the angle, point or corner," from Néïak (Del.), "Where there is a point." (See Nyack, L. I.) The root appears in many forms in record orthographies, due largely to the efforts of European scribes to express the sound in either the German or the English alphabet. Adriaen Block wrote, in 1614-16, Nahicans as the name of the people on Montauk Point; Eliot wrote Naiyag (-ag formative); Roger Williams wrote Nanhigan and Narragan; Van der Donck wrote Narratschoan on the Verdrietig Hoek Mountain on the Hudson; Naraticon appears on the lower Delaware, and Narraoch and Njack (Nyack) are met on Long Island. The root is the same in all cases, Van der Donck's Narratschoan on the Hudson, and Narraticon on the Delaware, meaning "The point of a mountain which has the character of a promontory," kindred to Néwas (Del.), "A promontory," or a high point. [FN] The Indian name of Verdrietig Hoek, or Tedious Point, is of record Newas-ink in the De Hart Patent, and in several other forms of record—Navish, Navoash-ink, Naurasonk, Navisonk, Newasons, etc., and Neiak takes the forms of Narratsch, Narrich, Narrock, Nyack, etc. Verdrietig Hoek, the northeastern promontory of Hook Mountain, is a rocky precipitous bluff forming the angle of the range. It rises six hundred and sixty-eight feet above the level of the Hudson into which it projects like a buttress. Its Dutch-English name "Tedious Point," has been spoken of in connection with Pocantico, which see.
[FN] Dr. Trumbull wrote: "Náï, 'Having corners'; Náïyag, 'A corner or angle'; Náïg-an-eag, 'The people about the point.'" William R. Gerard wrote: "The Algonquian root Ne (written by the English Náï) means 'To come to a point,' or 'To form a point.' From this came Ojibwe Naiá-shi, 'Point of land in a body of water.' The Lenape Newás, with the locative affix, makes Newás-ing, 'At the promontory.' The Lenape had another word for 'Point of land.' This was Néïak (corrupted to Nyack). It is the participial form of Néïan, 'It is a point.' The participle means, 'Where there is a point,' or literally, 'There being a point.'"
[Essawatene]—"North by the top of a certain hill called Essawatene," so described in deed to Hermanus Dow, in 1677—means "A hill beyond," or on the other side of the speaker. It is from Awassi (Len.), "Beyond," and -achtenne, "Hill," or mountain. Oosadenighĕ (Abn.), "Above, beyond, the mountain," or "Over the mountain." We have the same derivative in Housaten-ûk, now Housatonic.