Opening from On This Site - Native Long Island

Ruscocunks Creek

Ruscocunks is recorded as a creek east of Mastic Neck in the Town of Brookhaven. The name appears in a December 20, 1693 deed from William Smith to John Wood. Ruscocunks is treated as a variation sharing its derivation with Areshunk, while the place itself is identified as a creek east of Mastic Neck. The name is connected with Areshunk and the Native personal name Warishone or Worison. That derivation is linked with a word meaning "to forget" or "the forgetter." Why Place Names Matter “Until it is given a name, a particular place is only a memory in someone’s mind. Once it is named, the memory can be shared with other people: the place becomes part of human legacy.” — Béatrice Collignon, Knowing Places: The Innunnait, Landscapes and the Environment (2006), p. 101; reproduced in Sarah Simpkin, “Evaluating the inclusion of Inuvialuktun place names in online maps” (2023),...