New Britain herald., 1916-10-28

gives this same Indian name with comm ents.
 Each of these four publications spell the name the same as it is found the Court Paper 124. This is very rcarly but not exactly the same as in MT. Gilbert's original will, and is slightly different from the spelling in either of tte other documents herein before mentioned. MT. Curtis applies the name to Great Swamp or Chris-s tan Lane and was I believe the first t, do so in any publication. The ether publications, herein before cited, did not locate the place fur ther than to state that Massecup and Gilbert were both of Hartford. This same Massecup was one of the Ifi- dians who in 1870, deeded land to Samuel Stone William Goodwin and company of Hartford He also gave a quit claim of certain lands in Pennington to the town in 1681 but ct present I have been unable to find any record of this sale of land to Gilbert, further than that such sale is alleged in MT. GiIbert's will.
 Never Called Meriden. <-- MT. Curtis in the Century of Mer- iden" part l. calls attention to an err TOT in Deacon Alfred Andrews His I tory of the First Church, D. r, as to the name of Meriden having been ap- l piled to the Christian Lane territory 1 and afterwards abandoned for that of | Great Swamp. MT. Andrews was ] probably led into this error by sup ] posing that the words "Moridan | where MT. Jonathan Gilbert's farm is 1 i'll the deed which MT. Andrews quot= cd from, refer to land located in Der lin, when in fact they only refer to land located in Meriden. The 300 acres of land conveyed by this deed ] was in two separate pieces, several miles apart, the one in Meriden and the other in Berlin. The name Meri- | cen did not apply to the Berlin land
 and I know of no instance in which
 the Christian Lane territory has ever | been described as in Meriden. MT. Gilbert evidently knew of the l old Indian name for the Christian
 Lane territory long prior to 1860. 1 He was the first white man to own land in Meriden and built a house of
 entertainment there, to accommodate l travellers between Hartford and NeW
 Haven, as early as 1860. It was kept
 by Edward Higby, who was the first
 white man to have resided within the
 present. boundaries of Meriden ("Cen-
 tury of Meriden,'' part I D. 16.) MT. |
 at a place called "Pagonchaumis-
 chaage" when he made his will in
 1874 but 1t was then "commonly'' so-
 called. When his estate was inven-
 toried in 1888, that farm was still
 known by that name. This farm re-
 mained In the possession of his fam
 fly until it was acquired by the City
 of New Britain a few years ago. I
 suppose that this territory, including
 the southeastern part of New Britain,
 was not known by any other than
 that Indian name until it was called Great Swamp about 1706. But the
 use of the Indian name probably cons
 tiued, to some extent, for some time
 longer. The mother of Chief Raw
 lings we'll remembered that this ter
 ritory was formerly known by an h.
 dain name and she knew what that
 rame was. The Chief, and his sister,
 Mrs Towers, both remember of hear-se
 ing their mother tell about the old
 Indian name for this territory, but
 they do not remember what that
 name was.
 Expert Interpretations.
 I have written to several parties for
 an interpretation of this name but so far have only two attempts towards a translation Joel N. Enc M A, an
 expert on Connecticut Indian names writes that it "can be for paugaute- | 1nisk-auke which means-"White Oak
 L1ace." The Bureau of Ethnology, of 1 Washington, D. C., report that it is probably an attempt ''to represent the common Algonquin name Pagan i5ninjishak, which signifies ''The place of hazeInut bushes" For various and obvious reasons, the old Indian names, es handed down by the English, are. i often so corrupted that no interpre- ! tation of them can be given if taken l literally. Hence 1t is necessary to decide what such names were in ] tended to represent before the true signification can be given. When one expert thinks that they represent one name, anC another expert considers i that they represent another there is necessarily a doubt as to their con- 1 cIusions Indian names, however, are most generally descriptive so that en interpretation which does not ap- Ely to the characteristic features of the place may well be doubted. Chief Rawlings spent his boyhood days at the site of the old fort at Christian Lane and he states that this section was, even in his day, a place where there were many white oak trees, and also a vast quantity of hazelnut bushes with nuts of enormous size. It thus appears that each of the afore- said interpretations are fairly descrip- tive. Tn asking for an interpreta- ton, I gave no description of the place, but I wanted an interpreta- ton that in some way referred to the < great extent of low and wet, flat lands of the Great Swamp.
 For convenience of comparison I hereby place, one over the other, the five different spellings of the name as L. 1,n hn trntc