[Runbolt's Run,] a spring and creek in the town of Goshen, are said to have taken that name from Rombout, one of the Indian grantors of the Wawayanda tract. It is probable, however, that the name is a corruption of Dutch Rondbocht, meaning, "A tortuous pool, puddle, marsh," at or near which the chief may have resided. Rombout (Dutch) means "Bull-fly." It could hardly have been the name of a run of water.
[Mistucky,] the name of a small stream in the town of Warwick, has lost some of its letters. Mishquawtucke (Nar.), would read, "Place of red cedars."
[Pochuck,] given as the name of "A wild, rugged and romantic region" in Sussex County, N. J., to a creek near Goshen, and, modernly, to a place in Newburgh lying under the shadow of Muchhattoes Hill, is no doubt from Putscheck (Len.), "A corner or repress," a retired or "out-of-the-way place." Eliot wrote Poochag, in the Natick dialect, and Zeisberger, in the Minsi-Lenape, Puts-cheek, which is certainly heard in Pochuck.
[Chouckhass,] one of the Indian grantors of the Wawayanda tract, left his name to what is now called Chouck's Hill, in the town of Warwick. The land on which he lived and in which he was buried came into possession of Daniel Burt, an early settler, who gave decent sepulture to the bones of the chief. [FN]
[FN] The traditional places of residence of several of the sachems who signed the Wawayanda deed is stated by a writer in "Magazine of American History," and may be repeated on that authority, viz: "Oshaquememus, chief of a village, near the point where the Beaver-dam Brook empties into Murderers' Creek near Campbell Hall; Moshopuck, on the flats now known as Haverstraw; Ariwimack, chief, on the Wallkill, extending from Goshen to Shawongunk; Guliapaw, chief of a clan residing near Long Pond (Greenwood Lake), within fifty rods of the north end of the pond; Rapingonick died about 1730 at the Delaware Water-Gap." The names given by the writer do not include all the signers of the deed. One of the unnamed grantors was Claus, so called from Klaas (Dutch), "A tall ninny"; an impertinent, silly fellow; a ninny-jack. The name may have accurately described the personality of the Indian.
[Jogee Hill,] in the town of Minisink, takes its name from and preserves the place of residence of Keghekapowell, alias Jokhem (Dutch Jockem for Joachim), one of the grantors of lands to Governor Dongan in 1684. The first word of his Indian name, Keghe, stands for Keche, "Chief, principal, greatest," and defined his rank as principal sachem. The canton which he ruled was of considerable number. He remained in occupation of the hill long after his associates had departed.
[Wawayanda,] 1702—Wawayanda or Wocrawin, 1702; Wawayunda, 1722-23; Wiwanda, Wowando, Index Col. Hist. N. Y.—the first form, one of the most familiar names in Orange County, is preserved as that of a town, a stream of water, and of a large district of country known as the Wawayanda Patent, in which latter connection it appears of record, first, in 1702, in a petition of Dr. Samuel Staats, of Albany, and others, for license to purchase "A tract of land called Wawayanda, in the county of Ulster, containing by estimation about five thousand acres, more or less, lying about thirty miles backward in the woods from Hudson's River." (Land Papers, 56.) In February of the same year the parties filed a second petition for license to "purchase five thousand acres adjoining thereto, as the petitioners had learned that their first purchase, 'called Wawayanda' was 'altogether a swamp and not worth anything.'" In November of the same year, having made the additional purchase, the parties asked for a patent for ten thousand acres "Lying at Wawayanda or Woerawin." Meanwhile Dr. John Bridges and Company, of New York, purchased under license and later received patent for "certain tracts and parcels of vacant lands in the county of Orange, called Wawayanda, and some other small tracts and parcels of lands," and succeeded in including in their patent the lands which had previously been purchased by Dr. Staats. Specifically the tract called Wawayanda or Woerawin was never located, nor were the several "certain tracts of land called Wawayanda" purchased by Dr. Bridges. The former learned in a short time, however, that his purchase was not "altogether a swamp," although it may have included or adjoined one, and the latter found that his purchase included a number of pieces of very fine lands and a number of swamps, and especially the district known as the Drowned Lands, covering some 50,000 acres, in which were several elevations called islands, now mainly obliterated by drainage and traversed by turnpikes and railroads. Several water-courses were there also, notably the stream now known as the Wallkill, and that known as the Wawayanda or Warwick Creek, a stream remarkable for its tortuous course.
What and where was Wawayanda? The early settlers on the patent seem to have been able to answer. Mr. Samuel Vantz, who then had been on the patent for fifty-five years, gave testimony in 1785, that Wawayanda was "Within a musket-shot of where DeKay lived." The reference was to the homestead house of Col. Thomas DeKay, who was then dead since 1758. The foundation of the house remains and its site is well known. In adjusting the boundary line between New York and New Jersey it was cut off from Orange County and is now in Vernon, New Jersey, where it is still known as the "Wawayanda Homestead." Within a musket-shot of the site of the ancient dwelling flows Wawayanda Creek, and with the exception of the meadows through which it flows in a remarkably sinuous course, is the only object in proximity to the place where DeKay lived, except the meadow and the valley in which it flows. The locative of the name at that point seems to be established with reasonable certainty as well as the object to which it was applied—the creek.
The meaning of the name remains to be considered. Its first two syllables are surely from the root Wai or Wae; iterative and frequentive Wawai, or Waway, meaning "Winding around many times." It is a generic combination met in several forms—Wawau, Lenape; Wohwayen, Moh.; [FN] Wawai, Shawano; Wawy, Wawi, Wawei, etc., on the North-central-Hudson, as in Waweiqate-pek-ook, Greene County, and Wawayachton-ock, Dutchess County. Dr. Albert S. Gatschet, of the Bureau of Ethnology, wrote me: "Wawayanda, as a name formed by syllabic reduplication, presupposes a simple form, Wayanda, 'Winding around.' The reduplication is Wawai, or Waway-anda, 'many' or 'several' windings, as a complex of river bends." As the name stands it is a participial or verbal noun. Waway, "Winding around many times";—-anda, "action, motion" (radical -an, "to move, to go"), and, inferentially, the place where the action of the verb is performed, as in Guttanda, "Taste it," the action of the throat in tasting being referred to, and in Popachándamen, "To beat; to strike." As the verb termination of Waway, "Round about many times," it is entirely proper. The uniformity of the orthography leaves little room for presuming that any other word was used by the grantors, or that any letters were lost or dropped by the scribe in recording. It stands simply as the name of an object without telling what that object was, but what was it that could have had action, motion—that had many windings—except Wawayanda Creek?