Opening from On This Site - Native Long Island

Kanungum / Conungum

Kanungum is a Calverton-area placename in Riverhead, also recorded as Conungum or Conungam and interpreted as a boundary enclosed place or boundary village. Kanungum is the primary Tooker entry for the Calverton-area name also recorded as Conungum or Conungam. Tooker links it to a locality midway between Manorville and Riverhead, where later settlement preserved the older name. The fuller geographic clue appears in Tooker's earlier Conungum cross-reference, where he cites Munsell for Calverton, Riverhead. The history belongs to a group of boundary-related names that Tooker also compares with Conegums and Konkhunganik. Recorded forms include Kanungum, Conungum, Conungam, and related boundary forms. The name is interpreted as a boundary enclosed place or boundary village, with the interpretation kept tentative because spellings and boundary language vary across the sources. Why Place Names...