[Mainaitanung,] Cal. N. Y. Land Papers, and Mainating in N. J. Records, given as the name of "A small red hill" (see Mahway), does not describe a "Red hill," but a place "at" a small hill—Min-attinuey-unk. The suffixed locative, -unk, seems to have been generally used in connection with the names of hills.
[Pompton]—Ponton, East N. J. Records, 1695; Pompeton, Pumpton, Pompeton, N. Y. Records—now preserved in Pompton as the name of a village at the junction of the Pequannock, the Wynokie, and the Ramapo, and continued as the name of the united stream south of Pompton Village to its junction with the Passaic, and also as the name of a town in Passaic County, N. J., as well as in Pompton Falls, Pompton Plains, etc., and historically as the name of an Indian clan, appears primarily as the name of the Ramapo River as now known. It is not met in early New York Records, but in English Records, in 1694, a tract of land is described as being "On a river called Paquannock, or Pasqueck, near the falls of Pampeton," and in 1695, in application to lands described as lying "On Pompton Creek, about twenty miles above ye mouth of said creek where it falls into Paquanneck River," the particular place referred to being known as Ramopuch, and now as Ramapo. (See Ramapo.) Rev. Heckewelder located the name at the mouth of the Pompton (as now known) where it falls into the Passaic, and interpreted it from Pihm (root Pimé), "Crooked mouth," an interpretation now rejected by Algonquian students from the fact that the mouth of the stream is not crooked. A reasonable suggestion is that the original was Pomoten, a representative town, or a combination of towns. [FN-1] which would readily be converted to Pompton. In 1710, "Memerescum, 'sole sachem of all the nations (towns or families) of Indians on Remopuck River, and on the east and west branches thereof, on Saddle River, Pasqueck River, Narranshunk River and Tappan,' gave title to all the lands in upper or northwestern Bergen and Passaic counties." (Nelson, "Indians of New Jersey," 111), indicating a combination of clans. Fifty years later the tribal title is entered in the treaty of Easton (1758) as the "Wappings, Opings or Pomptons," [FN-2] as claimants of an interest in lands in northern New Jersey, [FN-3] subordinately to the "Minsis, Monseys or Minisinks," with whom the treaty was made. The clan was then living at Otsiningo as ward's of the Senecas, and seems to have been composed of representatives of several historic northern New Jersey families. It has been inferred that their designation as "Wappings" classed them as immigrants from the clans on the east side of the Hudson. Obviously, however, the term described them as of the most eastern family of the Minsis or Minisinks, which they were.
[FN-1] Pomoteneyu, "There are towns." (Zeisb.) Pompotowwut-Muhheakan-neau, was the name of the capital town of the Mahicans.
[FN-2] So recognized in the treaty of Easton.
[FN-3] The territory in which the Pomptons claimed an interest included northern New Jersey as bounded on the north by a line drawn from Cochecton, Sullivan County, to the mouth of Tappan Creek on the Hudson, thence south to Sandy Hook, thence west to the Delaware, and thence north to Cochecton, lat. 41 deg. 40 min., as appears by treaty deed in Smith's hist, of New Jersey.
[Ramapo,] now so written and applied to a village and a town in Rockland County, and also to a valley, a stream of water and adjacent hills, is written Ramepog in N. Y. Records, 1695; Ramepogh, 1711, and Ramapog in 1775. In New Jersey Records the orthographies are Ramopock, Romopock and Remopuck, and on Smith's map Ramopough. The earliest description of the locative of the name appears in N. Y. Records, 1695: "A certain tract of land in Orange County called Ramepogh, being upon Pompton Creek, about twenty miles above ye mouth of said creek where it falls into Pequanneck River, being a piece of low land lying at ye forks on ye west side of ye creek, and going down the said creek for ye space of six or seven miles to a small run running into said creek out of a small lake, several pieces of land lying on both sides of said creek, computed in all about ninety or one hundred acres, with upland adjoining thereto to ye quantity of twelve hundred acres." In other words: "A piece of low land lying at the forks of said river, about twenty miles above the mouth of the stream where it falls into the Pequannock, with upland adjoining." The Pompton, so called then, is now the Ramapo, and the place described in the deed has been known as Remapuck, Romapuck, Ramopuck, Ramapock, Pemerpuck, and Ramapo, since the era of first settlement. The somewhat poetic interpretation of the name, "Many ponds," is without warrant, nor does the name belong to a "Round pond," or to the stream, now the Ramapo except by extension to it. Apparently, by dialectic exchange of initials L and R, Reme, Rama, or Romo becomes Lamó from Lomówo (Zeisb.), "Downward, slanting, oblique," and -pogh, -puck, etc., is a compression of -apughk (-puchk, German notation), meaning—"Rock." Lamów-ápuchk, by contraction and pronunciation, Ramápuck, meaning "Slanting rock," an equivalent of Pimápuchk, met in the district in Pemerpock, in 1674, denoting "Place or country of the slanting rock." [FN] Ramapo River is supposed to have its head in Round Pond, in the northwest part of the town of Monroe, Orange County. It also received the overflow of eight other ponds. Ramapo Pass, beginning about a mile below Pierson's, is fourteen miles long. (See Pompton.)
[FN] Dr. John C. Smock, late State Geologist of New Jersey, wrote me of the location of the name at Suffern: "There is the name of the stream and the name of the settlement (in Rockland County, near the New Jersey line), and the land is low-lying, and along the creek, and above a forks, i. e. above the forks at Suffern. On the 1774 map in my possession, Romapock is certainly the present Ramapo. The term 'Slanting rock' is eminently applicable to that vicinity." The Ramapock Patent of 1704 covered 42,500 acres, and, with the name, followed the mountains as its western boundary.
[Wynokie,] now so written as the name of a stream flowing to the Pequannock at Pompton, takes that name from a beautiful valley through which it passes, about thirteen miles northwest of Paterson. The stream is the outlet of Greenwood Lake and is entered on old maps as the Ringwood. The name is in several orthographies—Wanaque, Wynogkee, Wynachkee, etc. It is from the root Win, "Good, fine, pleasant," and -aki, land or place. (See Wynogkee.)