instances, what is supposed to be an Indian place-name is in
fact a _personal_ name, borrowed from some sachem or chief who lived
on or claimed to own the territory. Names of this class are likely to
give trouble to translators. I was puzzled for a long time by
'_Mianus_,' the name of a stream between Stamford and Greenwich,--till
I remembered that _Mayano_, an Indian warrior (who was killed by Capt.
Patrick in 1643) had lived hereabouts; and on searching the Greenwich
records, I found the stream was first mentioned as _Moyannoes_ and
_Mehanno's_ creek, and that it bounded 'Moyannoe's neck' of land.
_Moosup_ river, which flows westerly through Plainfield into the
Quinebaug and which has given names to a post-office and factory
village, was formerly _Moosup's_ river,--Moosup or _Maussup_ being one
of the aliases of a Narragansett sachem who is better known, in the
history of Philip's war, as Pessacus. Heckewelder[79] restores
'Pymatuning,' the name of a place in Pennsylvania, to the Del.
'_Pihmtonink_,' meaning, "the dwelling place of the man with the
crooked mouth, or the crooked man's dwelling place," and adds, that he
"knew the man perfectly well," who gave this name to the locality.

[Footnote 79: On Indian Names (_ut supra_), p. 365.]

Some of the examples which have been given,--such as _Higganum_,
_Nunkertunk_, _Shawmut_, _Swamscot_ and _Titicut_,--show how the
difficulties of analysis have been increased by phonetic corruption,
sometimes to such a degree as hardly to leave a trace of the original.
Another and not less striking example is presented by _Snipsic_, the
modern name of a pond between Ellington and Tolland. If we had not
access to Chandler's Survey of the Mohegan Country, made in 1705, who
would suppose that 'Snipsic' was the surviving representative of
_Moshenupsuck_, 'great-pond brook' or (literally) 'great-pond outlet,'
at the south end of _Moshenups_ or _Mashenips_ 'great pond?' The
territories of three nations, the Muhhekans, Nipmucks and River
Indians, ran together at this point.

'_Nameroake_,' '_Namareck_' or '_Namelake_,' in East Windsor, was
transformed to _May-luck_, giving to a brook a name which 'tradition'
derives from the 'luck' of a party of emigrants who came in 'May' to
the Connecticut.[80] The original name appears to have been the
equivalent of 'Nameaug' or 'Nameoke' (New London), and to mean 'the
fishing place,'--_n'amaug_ or _nama-ohke_.

[Footnote 80: Stiles's History of Anci