[FN-1] Named from Roeloff Jansen, Overseer of the Orphan Court under the Dutch Government. (French.)
[FN-2] Oak Hill station on the Hudson River R. R., about five miles south of the city of Hudson, was so called from a hill in the interior just north of the line of the town of Livingston, from which the land slopes west towards the Hudson and south to Roelof Jansen's Kill.
[FN-3] Vastrix is a compression of Dutch t'Vaste Rak as written on Van der Donck's map of 1656, meaning, "The fast or steady reach or sailing course," which began here. The island is the first island lying north of the mouth of the Katskill. It is now known as Roger's Island.
[Nickankook,] Kickua and Weckqashake are given as the names of "three flats" which, with "some small flats," were included in the first purchase by Livingston, and described as "Situate on both sides" of the kill called Saukhenak (Roelof Jansen's Kill). The Indian deed also included all land "Extending along the bank of the river northwards from Roelof Jansen's Kill to a small stream opposite Catskill named Wachanekassik." The names of the three flats are variously spelled—Nickankooke, Nickankook, etc. The first has been translated by Mr. Wm. R. Gerard from Nichánhkûk, "At the bend in front." Kickua, the second, is untranslatable. Wickquashaka, Wequakake, etc., is the equivalent of Wequaohke, "End land" or place. The kill flows through a valley of broad and fertile flats, but near the Hudson it breaks through the limestone bluff which forms the east line of the Hudson, and its banks are steep and rocky.
[Saaskahampka,] Indian deed; Suaskahampka patent of 1684—the southwest boundmark of the Livingston Patent, is described as "A dry gully at Hudson's River." It is located about opposite Sawyer's Creek, north of the present Saugerties or Esopus Creek. Sasco, or as written Saaska, means "A swamp;" Assisku (Del.), "Mud, clay"; Asuskokámika, "Muddy place," a gully in which no water was flowing. (Gerard.)
[Mananosick]—"Along the foot of a high mountain to the path that goes to Wawyactanock to a hill called by the Indians Mananosick." Also written Nanosick. Eliot wrote, in the Natick dialect, Nahōōsick, "Pinnacle," or high peak. The indefinite and impersonal M' or Ma, prefixed, would add "a" or "the" high peak. The hill has not been located except in a general way as near the Massachusetts line.
[Nanapenahakan] and Nanipanihekan are orthographies of the name of a "creek or brook" described as "coming out of a marsh lying near unto the hills where the heaps of stones lye." The stream flows to Claverack Creek. The outlet waters of Achkookpeek Lake unite with it, from which it is now called Copake Creek. It unites with Kinderhook Creek north of the city of Hudson.
[Wawanaquasik,] Claverack Patent, 1649; Wawanaquassick, Livingston Patent of 1686; Wawauaquassick and Mawauapquassek, patent of 1715; Mawanaqwassik, surveyor's notation, 1715; now written Mawanaquassick—a boundmark of the Claverack Patent of 1649, and also of the Livingston Patent, is described in the Claverack Patent, "To the high woodland called Wawanaquasik," and in the Livingston Patent, "To a place called by the Indians Wawanaqussek, where the heapes of stone lye, near to the head of a creek called Nanapenahaken, which comes out of a marsh lying near unto the hills of the said heapes of stones, upon which the Indians throw another as they pass by, from an ancient custom among them." The heap of stones here was "on the south side of the path leading to Wayachtanok," and other paths diverged, showing that the place was a place of meeting. "To the high woodland," in the description of 1649, is marked on the map of survey of 1715, "Foot of the hill," apparently a particular point, the place of which was identified by the head of the creek, the marsh and the heap of stones. The name may have described this point or promontory, or it may have referred to the place of meeting near the head of the creek, or to the end of the marsh, but it is claimed that it was the name of the heap of stones, and that it is from Miáe, or Miyáe, "Together"—Mawena, "Meeting," "Assembly"—frequently met in local names and accepted as meaning, "Where paths or streams or boundaries come together;" and Qussuk, "stone"—"Where the stones are assembled or brought together," "A stone heap." This reading is of doubtful correctness. Dr. Trumbull wrote that Qussuk, [FN-1] meaning "stone," is "rarely, perhaps never" met as a substantival in local names, and an instance is yet to be cited where it is so used. It is a legitimate word in some connections, however, Eliot writing it as a noun in Môhshe-qussuk, "A flinty rock," in the singular number. If used here it did not describe "a heap of stones," but a certain rock. On the map of survey of the patent, in 1798, the second station is marked "Manor Rock," and the third, "Wawanaquassick," is located 123 chains and 34 links (a fraction over one and one-half miles) north of Manor Rock, as the corner of an angle. In the survey of 1715, the first station is "the foot of the hill"—"the high woodland"—which seems to have been the Mawan-uhqu-ōōsik [FN-2] of the text. To avoid all question the heap of stones seems to have been included in the boundary. It now lies in an angle in the line between the townships of Claverack and Taghkanic, Columbia County, and is by far the most interesting feature of the locative—a veritable footprint of a perished race. Similar heaps were met by early European travelers in other parts of the country. Rev. Gideon Hawley, writing in 1758, described one which he met in Schohare Valley, and adds that the largest one that he ever saw was "on the mountain between Stockbridge and Great Barrington." Mass. (Doc. Hist. N. Y., iii, 1039.) The significance of the "ancient custom" of casting a stone to these heaps has not been handed down. Rev. Mr. Sergeant wrote, in 1734, that though the Indians "each threw a stone as they passed, they had entirely lost the knowledge of the reason for doing so," and an inquiry by Rev. Hawley, in 1758, was not attended by a better result. [FN-3] The heaps were usually met at resting places on the path and the custom of throwing the stone a sign-language indicating that one of the tribe had passed and which way he was going, but further than the explanation that the casting of the stone was "an ancient custom," nothing may be claimed with any authority. A very ancient custom, indeed, when its signification had been forgotten.