Opening from On This Site - Native Long Island

Suggamuck (Birch Creek)

Suggamuck is recorded as a creek near Flanders, now called Birch Creek, one of the creeks at the west end of Peconic Bay. The name appears in Paucamp's 1660 testimony describing bounds at the west end of Peconic Bay. It was also remembered in fishing-station work as a bass-fishing place. The companion fishing-station source gives the meaning as a bass-fishing place. Why Place Names Matter “Indigenous place names are also powerful vehicles for narrating history and inscribing the landscape with meaning.” — Christina Gray and Daniel Rück, Reclaiming Indigenous Place Names (2019), paragraph beginning ‘Just as colonial place names’