History of Westchester County, New York — Passage 230 (part 2)
[Frederic Shonnard & W.W. Spooner (1900)] Schoolcraft in 1844, at the request of General Aaron Ward, member of congress from this district at the time. We arc told that the word ossin, in the Chippeway language, signifies 'a stone'; that ossinee or ossineen is the plural for 'stones.' This etymology was accepted, and in May, 1845, when our town was taken from Mount Pleasant, it received the name of ' Ossm-sing/ In March, 1846, it was changed (by dropping the third s) and made to read k Ossiii-ing,1 and still later the hyphen was omitted." 1 Including in its limits Sing Sing Village, Ossining natu-rally took a prominent place among the towns of the county from the start. The Town of West Farms was carved out of West-chester by a law passed May F5, 1846. The new township comprehended all of the ancient patents of West Farms, Morrisania Manor, and F 0 r d h a in