USA > Connecticut > New Haven County > Waterbury > The town and city of Waterbury, Connecticut, from the aboriginal period to the year eighteen hundred and ninety-five, Volume I > Part 7
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The name " Naugatuck," which appears in the Paugasuck deed as the established designation of the Mattatuck river, was originally used in a very restricted sense, but is now the most frequently
* Conn. Col. Records, Vol. II, pp. 210, 224, 249, 253 ; Vol. III, p. 197.
According to Dr. Bronson (" History of Waterbury," p. 67), the new name was selected as descriptive. "The new town took its name of Waterbury on account of its numerous rivers, rivulets, ponds, swamps, ' boggy meadows' and wet lands." "It is a pity," adds Dr. Bronson, " that the beautiful old Indian name ' Mattatuck ' was not retained. But our Puritan ancestors regarded these native words as heathenish, and were in haste to discard and forget them."
+ New Haven Col. Records, Vol. II, pp. 233, 302, 462, 463: "A parcel of land called Mattatuck and Akkabawke " [Aquebogue].
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mentioned and most widely known of all the aboriginal names in the valley. The first instance of its occurrence is in the Records of the Jurisdiction of New Haven for May 27, 1657. Among the conditions proposed by the inhabitants of Paugasuck, upon which they were willing to " submit themselves to the Jurisdiction," the first was in these words : "That they have liberty to buy the Indians' land, behind them, that is over Naugatuck river, and not toward New Haven bounds, and also above them northward, up into the coun- try."* In a deed to Thomas Wheeler, the same year, the name occurs again ; and again in a deed to Joseph Hawley and Henry Tomlinson, of Stratford, August 16, 1668, and frequently afterward in the Derby records and the colonial records of New Haven and Connecticut. This was the name by which the river was known in the lower part of the valley. Yet in a report made to the General Court by a Derby and Mattatuck committee, in May, 1680, it is designated once as " Mattatock river," and twice as the "Nagotock or Mattatock." When the plantation of Mattatuck became the town of Waterbury, the name Waterbury was also applied to the river, but did not retain its hold upon it.t Of course it is impossible to say at what date the name "Naugatuck " achieved a complete vic- tory, but it appears to have had the field to itself for more than a hundred years past. And being used to designate the river, it came to be applied as a matter of course to the valley through which the river flows.
This was the only use of the name until 1844, when it was adopted as the name of a new town. At the May session of the General Assembly in that year, that part of Waterbury embraced within the society of Salem, with portions of Bethany and Oxford, was "incorporated as a distinct town, by the name of Naugatuck." } A year later (May, 1845), the legislature incorporated the " Nauga- tuck Railroad company," and from that time the old aboriginal name became a household word to thousands who might not other- wise have known it.
Besides the larger uses of the name thus far indicated, it is applied to several organizations in the town of Naugatuck. These are the Naugatuck Electric Light company, the Naugatuck Electric
* New Haven Col. Records, Vol. II, p. 223.
+ For example, in the petition of the people of Westbury (afterward Watertown) for "winter privileges," in October, 1732, they speak of being separated from the meeting-house by "a great river which is called Waterbury river, which for great part of the winter and spring is not passable." In the Litchfield records this is the name generally used.
¿ Resolutions and Private Acts, pp. 86-89. Dr. Bronson says, in his "History of Waterbury," p. 67 : "Our friends down the river showed their good sense when they called their new town Naugatuck (another beautiful name)-where the second settlement in the valley was made."
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HISTORY OF WATERBURY.
Time company, the Naugatuck Malleable Iron company, the Nauga- tuck Water company, and the Naugatuck Musical Union. It may be added that since 1870, the name "Naugatuck Valley" has been applied to a newspaper-the " Sentinel," published at Ansonia. In 1879 the same designation was given to a newly organized Associ- ation of Congregational ministers, and in 1883 to a new Conference of Congregational churches.
As regards the meaning of this name, the traditional derivation is given in Dr. Bronson's "History of Waterbury."* Naukotunk, the original form of the word, is there said to mean " one large trec," and to have been the original name of Humphreysville (now Sey- mour), which was so called from a large tree formerly standing near Rock Rimmon at Seymour. The same derivation is given in a letter from Stiles French of Northampton, Mass., formerly of Sey- mour, who received it from the Rev. Smith Dayton, whose authority was Eunice Mauwee, the daughter of "Chuce." Mr. French says : "She told Mr. Dayton that the name Naugatuck meant 'one big tree,' and was pronounced by the Indians Naw-ka-tunk. This 'one big tree' stood about where the Copper works in Seymour now are, and afforded the Indians a shade when they came to the Rimmon falls to fish." This tradition is apparently direct and authentic. It was probably the foundation for the statement of Mr. J. W. DeForest (a native of Seymour) in the preface to his " History of the Indians of Connecticut," that " Naugatuck was not anciently the name of the river to which it is now attached, but of a place on the banks of that river." In Mr. DeForest's brief list of words in the Naugatuck dialect the word for "tree" is tookh ; in Pierson's Catechism it is p'tuk. The usual form in the vocabularies is mihtuck or mehtug, but the initial m does not belong to the root. The last syllable of Nauga-tuck may therefore very well stand for "tree," but the remainder of it is not so easily identified. Dr. Trumbull accepts the traditional derivation, naukot-tungk, meaning "one tree ;" but in so doing he seems to disregard an important verbal distinc- tion upon which he has elsewhere laid stress.t There is documentary
* P. 15, note. A writer in the "Waterbury American" of May 1, 1879, mentions two entirely distinct interpretations which he has met with : "Some say that ' Naugatuck ' means ' rushing water,' others, * beauti- ful vale.'" There is no foundation for either of these.
+ In his reprint of Roger Williams's " Key," Dr. Trumbull says: "The primary signification of nquit seems to be 'first in order,'-the beginning of a series or of progression not yet completed ; while pawsuck denotes 'one by itself,' a unit, without reference to a series ; " and this seems to be sustained by Pierson's Catechism, which translates, " first " by negonne, but when it refers to the " one true God " renders "one " by pasuk. (Trumbull's " Indian names," p. 36; Williams's " Key into the Indian Language of America," Trumbull's reprint, p. 50 ; " Some Helps to the Indians," pp. 11, 13.) One would suppose that if the distinction was ever a real one, it would be made in such a case as this, that is, in designating a well known and apparently isolated tree.
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INDIAN GEOGRAPHICAL NAMES.
evidence to sustain the statement that "Naugatuck" was at first not the name of the river, but of a place on the river; for in the report of a committee appointed by the General Court (February, 1676) "to order the settlement of the lands at Derby," we meet with the expression, "the river that cometh from Nawgatuck." The phrase reveals the process by which the place-name, more than twenty years before this, had come to be attached to the river. But whether the derivation of the name received from the Squaw Eunice, a hundred and fifty years later, was anything better than an etymological venture on her part, is perhaps an open question. Dr. Jonathan Edwards, in his "Observations on the language of the Muhhekaneew Indians," informs us that the Indian name of Stock- bridge, Mass., was Wnogquetookoke, and Dr. Trumbull says that this means a "bend-of-the-river place." In view of the decided bend in the river at Seymour, why may we not suppose that it is this that is represented in the name "Naugatuck," rather than some tree standing by itself-especially when Naukot-tungk would have meant not "a single tree," but one of a series of trees? Waiving this objection, we should have had in the one case Naukot-tungk-oke, and in the other, Wnogko-tuck-oke. The oke is dropped in either case, and there are numerous instances of the dropping of the slight sound represented by the initial W. In a Derby deed dated April 22, 1678, "the fishing place at Naugatuck" is definitely mentioned ; and there can be no doubt that this ancient "Naugatuck " which gave the river its name, was at or near the spot where Seymour now stands. But it is quite as likely to have been designated the " fishing-place at the bend in the river," as "the fishing-place at the one tree." When "Chuce" went there, with his band, about 1720, it was the only piece of land in the town of Derby which the Indians had not sold. Because of its value as a "fishing place" they clung to it to the last.
Another geographical name found in the Paugasuck deed is "Quassapaug "-applied to the beautiful lake which lies just west of the western boundary of Mattatuck, part of it in Middlebury and part in Woodbury. In a Woodbury deed of October 30, 1687, it is spoken of as "the pond called and commonly known by the name Quassapaug," and the eastern boundary of the town is said to be " four score rod eastward of the easternmost of the pond." Although it does not lie within Waterbury territory, it has long been a place of resort for Waterbury people, and its name is mentioned more frequently, perhaps, than any other of the aboriginal names belong- ing to the region. It is drained by the Quassapaug river, or Eight Mile brook, which empties into the Housatonic at Punkups. Mr.
4
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HISTORY OF WATERBURY.
William Cothren, in his "History of Woodbury," speaking of Captain John Miner, says: "To the lovely lake on the eastern borders he applied the name Quassapaug, or 'The Beautiful Clear Water.' This pleasant sheet of water, so cosily nestling among the verdant hills, furnished one of the first fishing places to the new settlers, cut off as they were from the seaboard by the bound- less forests lying between them and the sea." On a subsequent page, Mr. Cothren suggests another interpretation of the name- "Rocky pond " *- on the supposition that the first two syllables represent qussuk, meaning "rock" or "stone." But this word for " rock," Dr. Trumbull says, is seldom, perhaps never, found in local names, the " inseparable generic" - ompsk being used instead. Be- sides, there would seem to be no special appropriateness in such a designation. In regard to the meaning of paug there can be no doubt. It denotes "water place " (pe-auke ), is used for "water at rest," or "standing " as distinguished from "flowing " water, and is a frequent component of names of small lakes and ponds throughout New England .; But the proper interpretation of the first part of the word is somewhat uncertain. The Rev. Azel Backus, in 1812, in his " Account of Bethlem," interpreted the name as signifying " Little pond," apparently deriving it from okosse-paug; but in Dr. Trumbulls judgment "he certainly was wrong;" for "Quassapaug is not a small, but the largest pond in that region." The author of this chapter, in his list of place-names in the Rev. Samuel Orcutt's "History of Derby," suggested that the name might possibly represent quunnosu-paug, that is, "Pickerel pond," and found incidental support for this opinion in Mr. Cothren's refer- ence to the good fishing which the lake furnished to the early settlers. Dr. Trumbull, in his "Indian Names of Places in Connec- ticut," rejects this interpretation (but on insufficient grounds) and proposes another .¿ He says it " may have been denominated k'che- paug, that is, 'greatest pond'-a name easily corrupted to Quassa- paug." Such a change does not seem an "easy" one, but there is documentary evidence in support of this interpretation. In a report concerning boundaries, made by the agents of Woodbury and Matta-
* Cothren's Woodbury, pp. 844, 877.
+ Dr. Trumbull's " Composition of Indian Geographical Names," p. 15.
# He says : "Dr. Anderson, in Orcutt's "Derby," proposes gunnosu-paug, ' pickerel pond,' to which the only objection is that after names of fish, maug, 'fishing place,' was used, instead of paug, 'pond,' or tuck, 'river.'" But if Noosup-paug, " Beaver pond," is allowable (see p. 40), why not Quunnosu-paug? Besides, in his paper on the " Composition of Indian Geographical Names," Dr. Trumbull suggests the very analysis which is here proposed. He says (p. 43) : " Quinshepaug or Quonshapaug, in Mendon, Mass., seems to denote a ' pickerel pond ' (gunnosu-paug)." The opinion expressed in his " Indian Names in Con- necticut " may be the result of later investigation ; but may it not be possible that maug was used of fishing- places in rivers, rather than in ponds ?
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tuck, June 29, 1680, we find the expression, "the great pond, com- monly called or known by the name of Quassapaug." It would seem as if here the Indian name and the English translation of it had been brought together .*
Mr. Cothren, in the "History of Woodbury," speaks of "the care with which our fathers gathered up and applied the beautiful Indian names which abound in our territory." He says elsewhere that "no town of equal dimensions within the writer's knowledge has retained so many of them," and refers to the fact that in the neighboring town of Watertown not a single Indian place-name remains.t Ancient Mattatuck, taken as a whole, has not been quite as unfortunate as that part of it now known as Watertown ; but the real Indian place-names which have come down to us, in addition to those included in the Paugasuck deed, are very few,-not more than a half dozen, all told.
The first to be mentioned (following the alphabetical order), and perhaps the most interesting, is "Abrigador." This is the name of a high hill half a mile southeast of Centre square, Waterbury,-now a thickly settled district of the city. The residents of the district sometimes speak of it as "the Abligator," and the transition from this to " Alligator " is occasionally made. In the list of place-names in Mr. Orcutt's "History of Derby," the opinion was expressed that this name was not of Indian origin, but was a Spanish word (abri- gado) meaning "a place of shelter." That it was not an Indian name was formerly the opinion of Dr. Trumbull also ; but in his " Indian Names of Places in Connecticut " he derives it from abigad or abiguat, meaning "covert " or "hiding place," and quotes from the list of names in the "History of Derby " the statement that "there is a cleft rock on the southwest side of the hill which used to be called the Indians' house." That it should be an Indian name in disguise is not remarkable ; but it is certainly a remarkable coincidence that in the form in which it occurs in Waterbury it should correspond so closely to a Spanish word having the same meaning.}
* Bronson's Waterbury, p. 74.
+ Cothren's "Woodbury," pp. 844, 58-60. He attributes the preservation of the aboriginal names in Woodbury in part to Captain John Miner, " the leading man among the colonists," who had been educated as missionary to the Indians, understood their language, and was the surveyor for the town (p. 844).
¿ Orcutt's "Derby," p. xcvi ; Trumbull's "Indian Names," pp. 1, 2. Dr. Trumbull points out that we have the same Indian word in " Abagadasset " (" at the place of shelter "), a name found at Merry-meeting bay, Maine, and probably in the name "Pictou " also. Another instance which he gives illustrates in a striking way the changes through which Indian place-names sometimes pass. The bay of Castine, Me., was called by the Abnakis Matsi-abigwadoos-ek, which means " at the bad sinall shelter place " or " cove." This long descriptive name was shortened to "Chebeguadose," and finally corrupted to " Bigaduce," and then its origin was traced by process of the imagination to a supposed French officer, Major Biguyduce, said to have come to Maine with Baron Castine. See also " Composition of Indian Geographical Names," pp. 38, 39.
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HISTORY OF WATERBURY.
The name "Compounce," attached to a pond in the northwest part of Southington, has already been referred to. This pond also, like Quassapaug, is a place of summer resort for Waterbury people. That it derived its name from one of the "native proprietors," John Compound, or a-Compaus, is unquestionable ; but the origin and significance of the personal designation is, as we have seen, a matter of uncertainty .*
Between two and three miles southwest of the centre of Water- bury is a high ridge or knoll, close to the road which runs parallel to the Town Plot road, some distance to the west of it, known locally by the name of "Malmalick " or "Malmanack." In 1882, the Rev. Eli B. Clark (since deceased) wrote of it as follows: "My father, Eli Clark, owned and for more than fifty years lived upon a farm in the southwesterly portion of the town, nearly three miles from the centre, embracing within its limits what was then known as Malmanack hill-the highest ground for miles around, and com- manding a fine prospect in all directions." This hill is supposed to have been the site of an Indian camp, and Mr. Clark in his letter speaks of the numerous arrow heads and other chipped implements which used to be found there in considerable numbers. The name is probably of Indian origin, but so disguised that its derivation cannot be traced with any certainty. It may possibly mean " barren place."
In the Waterbury records for November, 1729, mention is made of the lay-out of a highway towards Westbury (now Watertown), which is said to have begun "at the road on the hill against Manhan meadow." "The Manhan" is a name which is still in common use in Waterbury, designating a locality about half a mile west of Centre square, and generally applied to the canal or mill - race which supplies water to the mills of the Waterbury Brass company. The manufactory itself is also popularly known as "the Manhan." In the record referred to, "Manhan meadow" means " island meadow," and is a precise designation of the piece of land lying between the line of the Naugatuck railroad and the main channel of the Naugatuck river. Dr. Bronson in his " His- tory" says: "There are indications (or used to be) that Manhan meadow was once an island, and that a part of the river, at a not very distant period, ran down upon the east side next the hill, in the course of the canal of the Water Power company, continuing through the old ' Long cove' and along the line of the Naugatuck railroad till it met Great brook. This was low ground, and through- out its extent there was (in the writer's memory) a chain of minia-
* See p. 32.
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ture lakes or ponds."* The same name occurs in Easthampton, Mass., applied now to a river, and is readily recognized in such names as Manhannock, and Manhasset (or Munhansick), but not so readily in Montauk, Manhattan and the Grand Menan: In recent years, it has been affixed to a Waterbury street-that which runs northward from West Main street, between Fairview and Mattatuck streets. It is to be regretted that it was not given to the street which runs nearest to the "canal," and thus nearest to the "island " from which it derives its name.
Another genuine Indian appellative has survived in the name of one of the school-districts of Waterbury, "Oronoke." In the final syllable, we recognize the familiar terminal, meaning "place," but what particular place within the region extending from West-side hill to Middlebury furnished the name which now designates the entire district, it would probably be impossible to discover. The name occurs in other parts of the state under the varied forms, Woronock, Waronoco, and perhaps Orenaug (in Woodbury).
The only Indian place-name that remains to be mentioned is one that belongs to the present town of Wolcott and has been already referred to.t On March 31, 1731, John Alcock, of New Haven, bought a piece of land in the northeast quarter of Waterbury which is described (in the record of that date) as "near Ash swamp or Potucko's ring." In an entry in the Land Records for December 3, 1795, a certain boundary line is described as "crossing Ptuckering road, so called," at two different points. This road is now called "Tucker's Ring road," and the Indian origin of the name would hardly have been suspected, were it not for the connecting links which the local records furnish. As we have already seen, Potucko was one of the first signers of the first Waterbury deeds ; but whence comes the name "Potucko's ring ?" and what is its significance ? The traditional explanation is given in Dr. Bronson's "History:" " So called from Potucko, an Indian, who having fired a ring of brushwood to surround and catch deer and other game, was himself entrapped and consumed."¿ There is nothing essentially improb- able in the story, and some slight support for it may be derived from the fact (already referred to) that while Potucko's name appears among the signatures attached to the deed of April 29, 1684, it is not among those in the deed of December following, but is substituted by that of Potucko's squaw. The fact of the close
* Bronson's " History of Waterbury," note to p. 96.
+ See p. 33.
"History of Waterbury," note on p. 462. See also the Rev. Samuel Orcutt's "History of Wolcott," note on p. 182.
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HISTORY OF WATERBURY.
connection of the name with the word petukki, which means "round," becomes specially interesting in the light of the tradition concerning Potucko's death in a ring. Did the Indian derive his name from a practice of hunting deer in the way the tradition indicates-as if he were known as "the man of the ring"? Or was the story, like some other traditional tales, invented to account for the name?
To this brief list of names in the Indian language should be added some others which, although not of Indian origin, contain reminiscences of the Indian period and of Indian occupancy.
Following again the alphabetical order, we begin with "Jack's cave." The old Indian trail between Farmington and the Nauga- tuck valley, which afterward became a travelled road, passed through the northwest corner of what is now Wolcott. According to tradi- tion the road ran close to the place where the dwelling of Mr. Levi Atkins now stands, but the Indian trail passed a little further to the north, " near a large, shelving rock called Jack's cave." In Mr. Orcutt's "History of Wolcott" it is added that "the Indians en- camped under this rock at night, in passing between Farmington and Woodbury," and that near it stood a large chestnut tree from which Mr. Timothy Bradley cut two hundred bullets, shot into it by Indians while shooting at a mark .* This does not prove conclusively that the Jack of Jack's cave was an Indian ; but, all things considered, it is a name which ought probably to be included in this list.
"Spinning Squaw's land," a locality mentioned in the early deeds, and apparently well known in the early days of Waterbury, is sufficiently described in the preceding chapter.t
" The Wigwam " is the name given to a strip of land, a mile long, lying on "West branch," which empties into the Naugatuck near Reynolds bridge. It is said to have been occupied by an Indian in recent years. A small stream which empties into West branch is known as "Wigwam brook."
There is another locality in which the memory of a wigwam sur- vives. In 1684 the proprietors of Mattatuck granted to Daniel Porter "four acres in the Wigwam swamp, as near the lower end as may be, so as to have the breadth of the swamp." In a deed bearing date a hundred and ten years later (December 3, 1795) we read : "Land in the sequester at the west end of 'Wigwam swamp,' so called, on the brook which runs out of said swamp into Hancox brook "; and in a later deed : "Land in the northern part of the
* Orcutt's " Wolcott," p. 197 and note.
+ See pp. 31, 32.
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INDIAN GEOGRAPHICAL NAMES.
sequester in the First society of Waterbury, at the western end of 'Wigwam swamp,' so called, and lying upon the brook which runs out of said swamp into Hancox brook."* It has been suggested that Spinning Squaw's land was here, and that it was Spinning Squaw's wigwam which gave its name to the swamp.
" The Old Canoe place " is the name applied to a spot in the Nau- gatuck river below Hopeville, behind the house which stands nearly opposite the residence of the late Isaac M. Thomas. There are rapids above and below, but here the water is smooth and compara- tively deep. It is supposed to have been a place where canoes were kept, or where the river was crossed by canoes.
It may be added in this connection that Mattatuck seems to have had its Indian burying ground. It was situated on what is now Johnson street, north of Sperry street.
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