[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.)
[Paanpaach] is quoted by Brodhead (Hist. N. Y.) as the name of the site of the city of Troy. It appears in 1659 in application to bottom lands known as "The Great Meadows," [FN-1] lying under the hills on the east side of the Hudson. At the date of settlement by Van der Huyden (1720), it is said there were stripes or patches within the limits of the present city which were known as "The corn-lands of the Indians," [FN-2] from which the interpretation in French's Gazetteer, "Fields of corn," which the name never meant in any language. The name may have had an Indian antecedent, but as it stands it is Dutch from Paan-pacht, meaning "Low, soft land," or farm of leased land. The same name appears in Paan-pack, Orange county, which see.
[FN-1] Weise's Hist. of Troy.
[FN-2] Woodward's Reminiscences of Troy.
[Piskawn,] of record as the name of a stream on the north line of Troy, describes a branch or division of a river. Rale wrote in Abnaki, "Peskakōōn, branche," of which Piskawn is an equivalent.
[Sheepshack] and Pogquassick are record names in the vicinity of Lansingburgh. The first has not been located. It seems to stand for Tsheepenak, a place where the bulbous roots of the yellow lily were obtained—modern Abnaki, Sheep'nak. Pogquassick appears as the name of a "piece of woodland on the east side of the river, near an island commonly called Whale-fishing Island," correctly, Whalefish Island. [FN] This island is now overflowed by the raising of the water by the State dam at Lansingburgh. The Indian name does not belong to the woodland; it locates the tract near the island, in which connection it is probably an equivalent of Paugasuck, "A place at which a strait widens or opens out" (Trumbull), or where the narrow passage between the island and the main land begins to widen. In the same district Pogsquampacak is written as the name of a small creek flowing into Hoosick River.
[FN] "Whale-fishing Island" is a mistranslation of "Walvish Eiland" (Dutch), meaning simply "Whale Island." It is related by Van der Donck (1656) that during the great freshet of 1647, a number of whales ascended the river, one of which was stranded and killed on this island. Hence the name.