Opening from On This Site - Native Long Island

Manchonack / Gardiners Island

Manchonack is Tooker's placename for Gardiners Island in East Hampton. The name appears in the 1639 deed by Yovawan, sachem of Pommanocc, and Aswaw to Lion Gardiner. The name is interpreted as a land of the departed. The name Manchonack is interpreted through forms meaning a place where many people had died or land of the departed. This is connected with Montaukett oral tradition of a severe sickness before English settlement and with Algonquian words for those who have gone or departed. Why Place Names Matter “When a name is meaningless there is a tendency to alter it to something else which does mean something.” — Henry Cecil Wyld and T. Oakes Hirst, The Place Names of Lancashire (1911), Internet Archive scan leaf 207 Manchonack is Tooker's placename for Gardiners Island in East Hampton. The name appears in the 1639 deed by Yovawan, sachem of Pommanocc, and Aswaw to...