Appaquogue

Introduction

Appaquogue is an important site that was once used to harvest cat-tail flag reeds for wigwam creation – thus receiving the name “a place where flags grow.”

Today, the pond is known as Lily Pond. On the edge of the water, a much more common reed known as Phragmites remains, though this plant is also known as wigwam roof material.

Translation

Appaquogue / Apoquogue was derived from Dr. J. Hammond Trumbull’s study of Indian Names in Connecticut. The name signifies “a place where flags grow.”

The root means “to cover”; as in the Massachusetts, appuhquau, “he covers it,” and abuhquosik, “a covering”; Narragansett abockquos, “a mat for covering the wigwam”; Chippewa apawei, “lodge mat.”

Chippewa and Ottowa pukwi, “cat-tail flag,” gives its name to Puckaway Lake, on the route from Green Bay to Wisconsin River.

The word appaquogue represents appaqui-auke and means “lodge-covering place,” the components being appaqui, “lodge-covering” and “-auke, “place.” ¹

1. William Wallace Tooker, Indian Place Names on Long Island, 1911, pp. 15[↩]