[FN-2] The name having been submitted to the Bureau of Ethnology for interpretation, the late Prof. J. W. Powell, Chief, wrote me, as the opinion of himself and his co-laborers: "The name is unquestionably from the Algonquian Koowa."
[Wathoiack,] of record as the name of "The Great Rift above Kahoes Falls" (Cal. Land Papers, 134, etc.) is also written Wathojax, D'Wathoiack, and DeWathojaaks, means, substantially, what it describes, a rift or rapid. The cis-locative De locates a place "On this side of the rapid," or the side toward the speaker. The flow of water is between walls of rock over a rocky bed, and the rapids extend for a distance of thirty-five or forty feet. (Ses Kahoes.)
[Niskayune,] now so written as the name of a town and of a village in Schenectady County, is from Kanistagionne, primarily located on the north side of the Mohawk, Canastagiowane (1667) being the oldest form of record. The locative description reads: "Lying at a place called Neastegaione, . . . known by the name of Kanistegaione." West of Schenectady the Mohawk is a succession of rapids. At or below Schenectady it makes a bend to the northeast in the form of a crescent, around which the water flows in a sluggish current. At the north point of the crescent was, and probably is a place called by the Dutch the Aal-plaat (Eel-place), marked on maps by a small stream from the north which still bears the name, and which formed the eastern boundmark of the Schenectady Patent. In Barber's collection it is stated that there was an Indian village here called Canastagaones, or "People of the Eel-place." Naturally there would be fishing villages in the vicinity. The location of the Aal-plaat is particularly identified in the Mohawk deed for five small islands lying at Kanastagiowne, in 1667, and by the abstract of title filed by one Evart van Ness in 1715. (Cal. Land Papers.) The name is from Keantsica, "Fish," of the larger kind, and -gionni, "Long"—tsi, "Very long"—constructively, "The Long-fish place," the Aal-plaat, or Eel-place, of the Dutch. The suggestion by Pearson (Hist. Schenectady) that the name "was properly that of the flat on the north side of the river," is untenable from the name itself. The reading by the late Dr. E. B. O'Callaghan: "From Oneasti, 'Maize,' and Couane, 'Great'—'Great maize field'"—is also erroneous. The generic name for the field or flat was Shenondohawah, compressed by the Dutch to Skonowa. In the vicinity of the Aal-plaat was the ancient crossing-place of the path from Fort Orange to the Mohawk castles, in early days regarded as the "Best" as it was the "Most traveled." The path continued north from the crossing as well as west to the castles.
[Schenectady,] now so written, is claimed by some authorities to be an Anglicism of a Mohawk-Iroquoian verbal primarily applied by them to Fort Orange (Albany), with the interpretations, "The place we arrive at by passing through the pine trees" (Bleecker); "Beyond the opening" (L. H. Morgan); "Beyond (or on the other side) of the door" (O'Callaghan), and by Horatio Hale: "The name means simply, 'beyond the pines.' from oneghta (or skaneghet), 'pine,' and adi or ati, a prepositional suffix (if such an expression may be allowed), meaning 'beyond,' or 'on the other side of.' The suffix is derived from skati, side. It was equally applicable to Albany or Schenectady, both being reached from the Mohawk castles by passing through openings in the pine forest." Mr. Hale's interpretation, from the standpoint of a Mohawk term, is exhaustive and no doubt correct, and the correctness of the preceding interpretations may be admitted from the combinations which may have been employed to determine the object of which askati was "one side," as in "Skannátati, de un coste du village," or the end of, as in "Skannhahati, a l'autre bout de la cabane" (Bruyas). The word does not appear to mean "beyond," but one side or one end of anything. Aside from a critical rendering, it would seem to be evident that all the interpretations are in error, not in the translation of the name as a Mohawk word-sentence, but in the assumption that Schenectady was primarily a Mohawk phrase, instead of a confusion of the Mohawk Skannatati with the original Dutch Schaenhecstede, the primary application of which is amply sustained by official record, while the Mohawk term is without standing in that connection, or later except as a corrupt Mohawk-Dutch [FN-1] substitution. The facts of primary application may be briefly stated. The deed from the Mohawk owners of the Schenectady flats, in 1661, reads: "A certain parcel of land called in Dutch the Groote Vlachte, lying behind Fort Orange, between the same and the Mohawk country called in Indian Skonowe." Skonowe is the equivalent of the Dutch "great flat," and nothing more. Its Mohawk equivalent is written on the section Shenondohawah, which the Dutch reduced to Skonowe. (See Shannondhoi.) Van der Donck wrote on his map (1656), in pure Dutch, Schoon Vlaack Land, or "Fine flat land." It was not continued in application to the Dutch settlement, the proprietors of which immediately (1661) gave to it the Dutch name Schaenechstede, "as the town came to be called." (Munsell's Annals of Albany, ii, 49, 52; Brodhead's Hist. N. Y., i, 691.) Under that name the tract was surveyed (1664), and it has remained apparent in the synthesis of the many corrupt forms in which it is of record. Schaenechstede is a clear orthographic pronunciation of the Dutch Schoonehetstede, signifying, literally, "The beautiful town." The syllable het is properly hek, "fence, rail, gate," etc., and in this connection indicates an enclosed or palisaded town. In 1680, Schaenschentendeel appears—a pronunciation of Schoonehettendal, "Beautiful valley," or the equivalent of the German Schooneseckthal, "Beautiful corner or turn of a valley." The German Labadists, Jasper Bankers and Peter Sluyter, made no mistake in their recognition of the name when they wrote Schoon-echten-deel in their Journal in 1679-80, describing the town as a square set off by palisades. [FN-2] Unfortunately for the Dutch name it was conferred and came into use during the period of the transition of the province from the Dutch to the English, with the probability of its conversion to Mohawk-Dutch, as already noted. Certain it is that the name is not met in any form until after its introduction by the Dutch, and is not of record in any connection except at Schenectady, the statement by Brodhead, on the authority of Schoolcraft, that it was applied in one form, by the Mohawks, to a place some two miles above Albany, as "the end of a portage path of the Mohawks coming from the west," being without anterior or subsequent record, though possibly traditional, and it may be added that it was never the name of Albany, nor is there record that there ever was a Mohawk village "on the site of the present city of Albany," nor anywhere near it. The Mohawks did go there to trade and on business with the government and occupied temporary encampments probably. The occupants primarily were Mahicans. The evolution of the name from the original Dutch to its present form may be readily traced in the channels through which it has passed. Even though clouded by traditional and theoretical rendering, the truth of history will ever rest in Schoonehetstede (Schaenechstede) and in the interpretation which it was designed to express by the intelligent men who conferred it. It is not expected that the correction will be adopted, now that the term has passed to the domain of a "proper name." With the aroma of assumed Mohawk origin and the negative "beyond" clinging to it, it will remain at least as a harmless fiction, although the honor due to a Dutch ancestry would seem to warrant a different result. By ancient measurements Schenectady is "about nine miles (English) above the falls called Cahoes" (1792).
[FN-1] A considerable number of the early settlers had Indian wives. (Dominie Megapolensis wrote: "The Dutch are continually running after the Mohawk women.") The children, growing up with Indian relatives, among the tribes and with men speaking so great a variety of tongues, built up a patois of their own, the "Mohawk-Dutch," many words in it defying the dictionaries of the schools. Many words are untranslatable save by the context. (Hist. Schenectady Patent, 388.)
[FN-2] Memoirs Long Island Hist. Soc, i, 315.
[Shannondhoi] and Shenondohawah are record forms of the name of a section of Saratoga County now embraced in Clifton Park, Half-Moon, etc. It is a sandy plain running west from the clay bluffs on the Hudson to the foot of the mountain, and extends across the Mohawk into Schenectady County. The name is generic Iroquois, signifying "Great plain," and as such was their name for Wyoming, Pa., where it is written Schahandoanah (Col. Hist. N. Y., vi, 48), and Skehandowana (Reichel). Scanandanani, Schenondehowe, Skenandoah, and Shanandoah, are among other forms met in application. Skonowe is followed on Van der Donck's map of 1656, by the Dutch legend Schoon Vlaack Land, literally, "Fine, flat land," and for all these years the name has been accepted as meaning, "Great meadow," or "Great plain." The late Horatio Hale wrote: "The name is readily accounted for by the word Kahenta (or Kahenda), meaning 'plain'—frequently abridged to Kenta (or Kenda)—with the nominal prefix S and the augmentative suffix owa (or owana)." "The great flat or plain in Pennsylvania was called, in the Minsi dialect, 'M'chewomink, at (or on) the great plain.' From this word we have the modern name Wyoming. The Iroquois word for this flat was Skahentowane, 'Great meadow (or plain),' a term which was applied also to extensive meadows in other localities and became corrupted to Shenandoah." (Gerard.)
[Quaquarionu,] of record, Calendar Land Papers, p. 6: "Bounds of a tract of land above Schenectady purchased of the Mohawk Indians, extending from Schenectady three miles westward, along both sides of the river, ending at Quaquarionu, where the last Mohawk castle stands." The deed of same date (1672) reads: "The lands lying near the town of Schenhectady within three Dutch miles in compass on both sides of the river westward, which ends at Kinaquariones, where the last battle was between the Mohawks and the North Indians." (Col. Hist. N. Y., xiii, 465.) Canaquarioeny is the orthography in another deed. In Pearson's History of Schenectady: "Lands lying near the town of Schonnhectade within three Dutch miles [about twelve English miles] on both sides of the river westward, which ends at Hinquariones [Towareoune], where the last battle was between the Mohoax and North Indians." The last battle in that section of country explains the text. Father Pierron, in 1669, located the battle "In a place that was precipitous, . . . about eight leagues [French] east of Gandauague" (Caughnawaga), or about sixteen miles English, and modern authorities have added, "A steep rocky hill on the north side of the Mohawk, just west of Hoffman's Ferry, now called Towareoune Hill, east of Chucktanunda Creek, a stream which is supposed to have taken its name from the overhanging rocks of the hill." [FN] Dr. Beauchamp, on the authority of Albert Cusick, an educated Tuscarorian, translated: "Kinaquarioune, 'She arrow-maker,' the name of a person who resided there." Rev. Isaac Bearfoot, an educated Onondagian, especially instructed in the Mohawk dialect, and an educator on the Canada Reservation, supplied to W. Max Reid of Amsterdam, N. Y., the reading: "Ki-na-qua-ri-one, 'He killed the Bear,' or, the place where the Bears die, or any place of death. It seems to have been used to denote the place of the last great battle with the Mahicans." The battle referred to occurred on the 18th of August, 1669. An account of it is given in Jesuit Relations, iii, 137, by Father Pierron, the Jesuit missionary, who was then stationed at Caughnawaga. The war which was then raging was continued until 1673, when the Governor of New York succeeded in negotiating peace and by treaty "linked together" the opposing nations as allies of the English government, a relation which they subsequently sustained until the war of the Revolution, when the Mahicans united with the revolutionists.