ABORIGINAL PLACE NAMES OF NEW YORK 77 



quoted from the New York Historical Society 1821, page 337. Hon. 

 Samuel Jones said: "The true name is Chateuaga which was the 

 name given the town when first erected, but I remember one of the 

 members of the Assembly then observed to me that the town would 

 soon lose its name, for that it was of Indian origin, and very few of 

 the members of the Legislature gave it the proper pronunciation, 

 the most of them calling it Chateaugay." In sound it suggests an 

 Iroquois quite as much as a French word. It is pronounced 

 Shat-a-ghe'. 



Con-gam'-muck is the name given by Sabattis for Lower Saranac 

 lake, gammuck being old Algonquin for lake. The first syllable 

 might be from kon or gun, meaning snow, but this is hardly prob- 

 able. It is more likely to be a contraction of qunni, meaning it is 

 long. In the Abenaki dialect caucongomock is simply a lake. The 

 guidebooks say the Indians call Lower Saranac lake Lake of the 

 Clustered Stars, from its many islands. A very pretty idea, but 

 hardly Indian in character. 



Ey-en-saw'-yee is at the foot of Long Sault and head of St Regis 

 island, on Sauthier's map, and seems a corruption of the Indian 

 name of St Regis. 



Ga-na-sa-da'-go, or, side hill, is Morgan's name for Lake St 

 Francis. It seems the same as that of Canassatego, the Onondaga 

 chief, defined for me as upsettittg a house which has been put in 

 order. 



Gau-je-ah-go-na'-ne, sturgeon river, is Morgan's name for Salmon 

 river in the Oneida dialect. In Onondaga the sturgeon is Ken-jea- 

 go-na, or big fish. The last syllable given by Morgan may be super- 

 fluous, or the full termination may be gowane, great. There seems to 

 be an error in his first syllable. The Mohawks gave the name of 

 Kinshon, or Ush, to the Massachusetts colony at one council. 



Hi-a-wat'-ha Lodge has this name from the celebrated Onondaga 

 chief who proposed the league of the Five Nations, and around 

 whom cluster many legends. He was adopted by the Mohawks and 

 his name comes second in their list of chiefs, with a dialectal change. 

 It has been borne by his successors to the present day. The inter- 

 pretations have been many, as the river maker, the man zvho combs, 

 the. very vtnse man, he zvho makes the zifampum belt, and last and 

 probably the best, he zvho seems to have lost his mind but seeks it, 



