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Beyond Manhattan: A Gazetteer of Delaware Indian History

Robert S. Grumet (2014) 800 words

[Robert S. Grumet (2014)] the Quakake Valley. source of the Lehigh River. Poxono Island on the Delaware River midway between Depew and Depue islands may be a kind of hybrid SAUCON (Lehigh and Northampton counties). Whritenour feels mixing Pocono with Paxinosa, the name of a prominent Shawnee certain that Heckewelder (1834:357, 360) correctly identified sachem who lived in the area. Pocono Point at Candlewood Lake sákunk as a Southern Unami Indian word, meaning “outlet of a (see in Connecticut in Part 3) is an import from Pennsylvania. small stream into a larger one,” whose Northern Unami equivalent, Whritenour observes, is sakona. Saucon is the name of a substantial POHOPOCO (Carbon and Monroe counties). Heckewelder number of places mostly located in the Saucon Valley drained by (1834:358) thought that Pohopoco sounded much like a Delaware the 26-mile-long Saucon Creek and its tributaries, the lowermost of Indian word, pockhápócka, “two mountains butting with their ends which is called the East Branch of Saucon Creek. Rising in Upper Beyond Manhattan, Robert S. Grumet on modern-day regional maps as Saucona Pond near Wassergass in Lower Saucon Township, where the Saucona Iron Company in the City of Bethlehem began smelting operations in 1857 (J. Wright and L. Wright 1988:204). Places bearing the similarly spelled name Sacony (see below) are located farther south and west of the Saucon Valley in Schuylkill County. SHAPNACK (Pike County). Whritenour thinks that Shapnack sounds like a Munsee word, *skapaneetkwung, “wet fertile lowland.” The name of Shapnack Island on the Pennsylvania side of the Delaware River (identified as Shapanack in its GNIS entry) probably comes from Schepinaikonck, an Indian settlement located just north of present-day Port Jervis on most editions of the Jansson-Visscher series of maps published between 1650 and 1777 (Campbell 1965). Similar-appearing Schackaockaninck was mentioned in a settler’s petition for land at an elbow of the Neversink River (see in New York above) in the Port Jervis area dated September 10, 1707 (New York State Archives, New York State Library, Indorsed Land Papers 4:104). The name moved south to its current locale when militiamen built what they christened Fort Shapnack on the New Jersey side of the Delaware River in 1756. The name the first private summer camps opened in the region. Returning trains drew flatcars that carried away great slabs of Shohola bluestone, which was much in demand as a durable paving stone for city sidewalks. The quarrying industry, however, ultimately collapsed and through-routed freight trains ceased stopping at Shohola. Shohola Township continues to be a mixed residential and resort community. Beyond Manhattan, Robert S. Grumet TAMIMENT (Monroe, Schuylkill, and Wayne counties). As mentioned earlier (see Tammany in New Jersey North above), Heckewelder (1834:383) identified Tamenend as a Delaware sachem whose name meant “the affable.” The Pocono Mountain resort community of Tamiment in Monroe County is the most prominent feature marking the sachem’s memory in Pennsylvania’s upper Delaware River valley. Farther upriver, Tammany Flats Road in Wayne County is named for Saint Tammany’s Flats, a stretch of level ground across the Delaware River in present-day Callicoon, New York, that was frequented by log rafters during the nineteenth century. TAMMANY. See TAMIMENT TATAMY (Northampton County). Tatamy is the name of a borough TEEDYUSKUNG (Monroe and Pike counties). Big and Little Teedyuskung lakes and Teedyuskung Creek, a tributary of Lackawaxen Creek (see above) also known as West Falls Creek, are named for the Delaware Indian King Teedyuscung. Both lakes and the creek are located in Lackawaxen Township. Boy Scout founder Dan Beard opened his Outdoor School in 1916 on the shores of what was then called Big Tink Pond that he had earlier used as a private hunting and fishing camp. Big and Little Tink ponds were renamed Big and Little Teedyuskung lakes during the 1930s. Teedyuscung was a wellknown sachem and frontier diplomat (A. F. C. Wallace 1991) who became the successor of Nutimus (see Netimus above), the principal sachem of the Indians living at the Forks of Delaware at the time of the Walking Purchase. Teedyuscung took on a leading role in his people’s efforts to obtain redress for lands lost in the Walking Purchase and for other tracts taken without payment in New Jersey. Failing to get compensation, he led his warriors against the British in 1755, a year after fighting broke out in western Pennsylvania that led to the last French and Indian War. The Delaware leader subsequently played a prominent part in treaty conferences mostly held at Easton between 1757 and 1762 that restored peace and adjudicated outstanding land disputes in the region. He became a supporter of the Pennsylvania proprietors, who arranged to have cabins built for him and his followers at Wyoming (see in Pennsylvania Central in Part 2 below) around the time that the Pennamite-Yankee disputes broke out into open conflict. Teedyuscung was burned to death