l8o NATURAL HISTORY AXD TOPOGRAPHY OF GROTON, MASS. 



or the other of two Indian names found at several localities in New 

 England. From which of the two your Groton name came, I cannot 

 decide without some knowledge of the place itself. I leave you the 

 choice, confident that one or the other is the true name. 



" Pootuppog-' 1 used by Eliot for "bay,"' in Joshua, xv. 2, 5, literally 

 means "spreading" or " bulging water," and was employed to desig- 

 nate either a local widening of a river making still water, or an inlet from 

 a river expanding into something like a pond or lake. Hence the name 

 of a part of (old) Say brook, now Essex, Conn., which was variously written 

 Pautapaug, Poattapoge, Potabauge, and, later, Pcttipaug, &c, so des- 

 ignated from a spreading cove or inlet from Connecticut River. Pottci- 

 poug Pond in Dana, Mass., with an outlet to, or rather an inlet from, 

 Chicopee River, is probably a form of the same name. So is " Port 

 Tobacco," Charles County, Md. (the "Pofcpaco" of John Smith's 

 map 1, on the Potomac. 



But there is another Algonkin name from which Pctaupauk and 

 some similar forms may have come, which denotes a swamp, bog, or 

 quagmire, — literally, a place into which the foot sinks ; represented by 

 the Chippeway petobeg, a bog or soft marsh, and the Abnaki/0/^7,7^. 

 There is a Paittipaug (otherwise, Pootapaug. Portipaug, Patapogue, 

 &c. 1 in the town of Sprague. Conn., on or near the Shetucket River, 

 which seems to have this derivation. 



If there was in (^ancient) Groton a pond or spreading cove, con- 

 nected with the Nashua, Squannicook, Nisitisset, or other stream, or 

 a pond-like enlargement or " bulge " of a stream, this may, without 

 much doubt, be accepted as the origin of the name. If there is none 

 such, the name probably came from some "watery swamp," like those 

 into which (as the " Wonder Working Providence " relates) the first 

 explorers of Concord " sunke, into an uncertaine bottome in water, and 

 waded up to their knees." 



Yours truly, 



J. Hammond Trumbull. 



The last suggestion, that the name came from an Algonkin 

 word signifying swamp, or bog, is probably the correct one. 

 There are many bog meadows, of greater or less extent, in 

 different parts of the town. Two of the largest — one situated 

 on the easterly side of the village, and known as Half-Moon 

 Meadow, and the other on the westerly side, and known as 

 Broad Meadow, each covering perhaps a hundred acres of land 



