Opening from On This Site - Native Long Island

Werpos

A Brooklyn placename near Merechkawikingh, recorded in a 1640 Kieft patent and interpreted as a bushy place or thicket. Marking the location of an Indigenous village that once stood near present-day Hoyt and Baltic Streets, the traditional place name Werpos grounds Native history directly within the modern Brooklyn grid. Reclaiming these older urban place names challenges the assumption that Indigenous communities only existed in rural spaces, reminding us that Native geography forms the foundation of our busiest cities. The name appears in a Kieft patent for land on Long Island near Merechkawikingh. A later Schoolcraft comparison with a Manhattan locality is treated cautiously. Recorded forms include Werpos and Warpoes. Tooker rejects a rabbit-name explanation and instead suggests a connection with a word meaning a bushy place or thicket. Why Place Names Matter “Reinstating...