[Stissing,] now the name of a hill and of a lake one mile west of the village of Pine Plains, Duchess County, is probably an apheresis of Mistissing, a "Great rock," and belongs to the hill, which rises 400 or 500 feet above the valley and is crowned with a mass of naked rock, described by one writer as "resembling a huge boulder transported there."
[Poughkeepsie,] now so written, is of record in many forms of which Pooghkeepesingh, 1683; Pogkeepke, 1702; Pokeapsinck, 1703; Pacaksing, 1704; Poghkeepsie, 1766; Poughkeepsie, 1767, are the earlier. The locative of the name and the key to its explanation are clearly determined by the description in a gift deed to Peter Lansing and Jan Smedes, in 1683: "A waterfall near the bank of the river called Pooghkeepesingh;" [FN-1] in petition of Peter Lansing and Arnout Velie, in 1704: "Beginning at a creek called Pakaksing, by ye river side." [FN-2] There are other record applications, but are probably extensions, as Poghkeepke (1702), given as the name of a "muddy pond" in the vicinity. Schoolcraft's interpretation, "Safe harbor," from Apokeepsing, is questioned by W. R. Gerard, who, from a personal acquaintance with the locative, "A water-fall," writes: "The name refers not to the fall, but to the basin of water worn out in the rocks at the foot of the fall. Zeisberger would have written the word Āpuchkìpìsink, that is, 'At the rock-pool (or basin) of water.' Āpuchk-ìpìs-ink is a composition of -puchk, 'rock'; ipis, in composition, 'little water,' 'pool of water,' 'pond,' 'little lake,' etc." Pooghk is no doubt from ápughk (apuchk), "rock." The stream has long been known as the Fall Kill. Primarily there seems to have been three falls upon it, of which Matapan will be referred to later.
[FN-1] "This fifth day of May, 1683, appeared before me . . . a Highland Indian called Massang, who declared herewith that he has given as a free gift, a bouwery (farm) to Pieter Lansingh, and a bouwery to Jan Smeedes, a young glazier, also a waterfall near the bank of the river, to build a mill thereon. The waterfall is called Pooghkeepesingh and the land Minnisingh, situated on the east side of the river." (Col. Hist. N. Y., xiii, 571.)
[FN-2] Cal. N. Y. Land Papers, 71. There are forty-nine record orthographies of the term, from which a selection could be made as a basis of interpretation. Poghkeepke, for example, might be accepted as meaning, "Muddy Pond," although there is neither a word or particle in it that would warrant the conclusion.
[Wynogkee,] Wynachkee, and Winnakee are record forms of the name of a district of country or place from which it was extended to the stream known as the Fall Kill "Through which a kill called Wynachkee runs, . . . including the kill to the second fall called Mattapan," is the description in a gift deed to Arnout Velie, in 1680, for three flats of land, one on the north and two on the south side of the kill. "A flat on the west side of the kil, called Wynachkee" (Col. Hist. N. Y., xiii, 545, 572), does not mean that the kill was called Wynachkee, but the flat of land, to which the name itself shows that it belonged. The derivatives are Winne, "good, fine, pleasant," and -aki (auke, ohke), "land" or place; literally, "land." [FN]
[FN] From the root Wulit, Del. From the same root Winne, Willi, Wirri, Waure, Wule, etc. The name is met in equivalent forms in several places. Wenaque and Wynackie are forms of the name of a beautiful valley in Passaic county, N. J. (Nelson.) Winakaki, "Sassifras land—rich, fat land." Winak-aki-ng, "At the Sassifras place," was the Lenape name of Eastern Pennsylvania. (See Wanaksink.) Eliot wrote in the Natick (Mass.) dialect, "Wunohke, good land." The general meaning of the root is pleasurable sensation.
[Mattapan,] "the second fall," so called in the deed to Arnout Velie (1680), was the name of a "carrying place," "the end of a portage, where the canoe was launched again and its bearers reembarked." (Trumbull.) A landing place. [FN] "At a place called Matapan, to the south side thereof, bounded on the west by John Casperses Creek." (Cal. Land Papers, 108.) (See Pietawick-quasick.)