Drivers exiting the New Jersey Turnpike for Perth Amboy, and map readers marveling at all the places in Pennsylvania named Lackawanna, need no longer wonder how these names originated. Manhattan to Minisink provides the histories of more than five hundred place names in the Greater New York area, including the five boroughs, western Long Island, the New York counties north of the city, and parts of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut. Robert S. Grumet, a leading ethnohistorian specializing in the region’s Indian peoples, draws on his meticulous research and deep knowledge to determine the origins of Native, and Native-sounding, place names. Grumet divides his encyclopedic entries into two parts. The first comprises an alphabetical listing of nearly 340 Indian place names preserved in colonial records, located by county and state. Each entry includes the name’s language of origin, if known, and a brief discussion of its etymology, including its earliest known occurrence in written records, the history of its appearance on maps, and the name’s current status. The book’s second section presents nearly 200 place names that, though widely believed to be of Indian origin, are “imports, inventions, invocations, or impostors.” Mistranslations are abundant in place names, and Grumet has ferreted out the mistakes and deceptions among home-grown colonial etymologies that New Yorkers have accepted for centuries. Complete with a concise history of Greater New York, a discussion of the region’s naming practices, a useful timeline, and four maps, this is an invaluable resource both for scholars and for readers who want a more intimate knowledge of the place where they live or visit.
Complete with a concise history of Greater New York, a discussion of the region’s naming practices, a useful timeline, and four maps, this is an invaluable resource both for scholars and for readers who want a more intimate knowledge of ...
Complete with a concise history of Greater New York, a discussion of the region’s naming practices, a useful timeline, and four maps, this is an invaluable resource both for scholars and for readers who want a more intimate knowledge of ...
land protected from development within the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area, Minisink seems little changed from what it was when Indians called the place home. The same cannot be said for Manhattan.
With the four hundredth anniversary of Hudson's voyage to the river that bears his name, this book shows how Indians and settlers struggled, through land deals and other transactions, to reconcile cultural ideals with political realities.
Goddard (1971, 1974, and 1978) suggests that Manhattan, Munsee, and Minisink all come from the Delaware word for island, tracing Munsee to the Northern Unami word men si w,“person from Minisink,” and Minisink from what he suggests is ...
Often funny, sometimes personal, always entertaining, this collection of essays offers a unique look at the Hudson Valley’s most important and interesting people, places, and events.
A comprehensive andfascinating account ofthe graceful Algonquincivilization that onceflourished in the area thatis now New York.
Established in 1812, New York City Mission Society is one of the nation's oldest private social services organizations.
Profiles Manhattan Island's first residents, the Munsee Indians, from their first interactions with European settlers in 1524 to the group's relocation to reservations in the Midwest and Canada during the eighteenth century.
Olson, James S. The Indians of Central and South America: An Ethnohistorical Dictionary. New York: Greenwood, 1991. Olson, Ronald L. Anthropological Records, v. 2, no. 5: Social Organization ofthe Haisla ofBritish Columbia.