Werpos

Introduction

Werpos is the traditional place name for present-day Hoyt and Baltic Street in Brooklyn. There was once a village at the site, which was abandoned after the sale of Manhattan in 1626.

History

Werpos is the traditional place name for present-day Hoyt and Baltic Street in Brooklyn. There was once a village at the site, which was abandoned after the sale of Manhattan in 1626.¹

Werpos is a locality in the present tenth ward of Brooklyn. Mentioned in Kieft’s patent, dated May 27, 1640: “For a certain peice of land upon the Long Island near Merechkawikingh about Werpos”². According to Schoolcraft, “Warpoes was a term stowed upon a piece of elevated ground, situated above and beyond the small lake or pond called the Kolck (in New York City).³

1. Reginald Pelham Bolton, Indian Life Long Ago in the City of New York, pp 145[↩]
2. Col. Hist. N. Y., vol. xiv., p. 31[↩]
3. William Wallace Tooker, Indian Place Names on Long Island, pp 281, 1911[↩]

Translation

William Wallace Tooker writes:

This term is apparently a derivation from Wawbose, a hare, a rabbit,”¹. Schoolcraft is, no doubt, in error in deriving this name from the Chippewa wabos, “a rabbit.” This name does not occur in the eastern Algonquian languages, as the name of that animal. Besides, it would not appear as the name of a place unless as the name of an Indian residing there. I would suggest its derivation as from a word corresponding to the Delaware (Zeisberger) wipochk, “a bushy place,” “a thicket.” See Weepoose. ²

1. N.Y. Hist. Soc. Coll.[↩]
2. William Wallace Tooker, Indian Place Names on Long Island, pp 281, 1911[↩]