Opening from On This Site - Native Long Island

Appopottamax

Appopottamax is recorded as the name of a creek at Bay Shore, mentioned in a Brooklyn Times notice from January 26, 1899. The source also cautions that the name was not otherwise on record and that no other authority had been found for it. Appopottamax matters partly because it is uncertain: the name is recorded from a single later newspaper notice, with a suggested meaning connected to a fishing place by a brook. That caution shows how Native placenames can survive unevenly in print, sometimes as fragments that need careful reading rather than overconfidence. Even so, the Bay Shore creek setting points to a broader South Shore geography of fishing, waterways, and Indigenous place memory. No documentary variant spellings are given for Appopottamax. If the printed form is correct, the suggested meaning is a place where flags are gathered. Why Place Names Matter “Place names can...