[FN-1] Meretange, Maretange, or Maratanza, is from Old English _Mere,_ "A pond or pool," and _Tanze,_ "Sharp" or offensive to the taste. The name was transferred to this pond from the pond first bearing it in the town of Greenville, Orange County, in changing the northwest line of the Evans Patent. (See Peakadasank.) The pond is about a mile in circumference and is lined with cranberry bushes and other shrubbery, but the water is clear and sweet. It lies about three-quarters of a mile west of Sam's Point. Long Pond, lying about four miles north of Maratanza, is now called Awosting Lake. It is about two miles long by possibly one-quarter of a mile wide and lies in a clove or cleft of the hills. Its outlet was called by the Dutch Verkerde Kil, now changed to Awosting. About one mile further north lies "The Great Salt Pond," so called in records of the town of Shawongunk. It is now called Lake Minnewaska, a name introduced from the Chippeway dialect, said to mean "Colored water," which has been changed to "Frozen water." The lake is particularly described as being "Set into the hills like a bowl." It has an altitude of 1,600 feet and a depth of seventy to ninety feet of water of crystal clearness through which the pebbly bottom can be seen. The fourth pond is that known as Lake Mohonk.
[FN-2] Sam's Point is in the town of Wawarsing, about seven miles south of the village of Ellenville and about nine miles south of Mohunk or Paltz Point. It is the highest point on the Shawongunk range in New York State. Its name is from Samuel Gonsaulus, who owned the tract. Gertruyd's Nose, the name of another point, was so called from the fancied resemblance of its shadow to the nose of Mrs. Gertrude, wife of Jacobus Bruyn, who owned the tract. The pass, cleft or clove known as "The Traps," was so called from the supposed character of the rock which it divides. The rock, however, is not Trappean. The pass is 650 feet wide and runs through the entire range. Its sides present the appearance of the hill having slipped apart.
Peakadasank, so written in Indian deed to Governor Dongan in 1684--_Pachanasinck_ in patent to Jacob Bruyn, 1719; _Peckanasinck, Pachanassinck,_ etc.--is given as the name of a stream bounding a tract of land, the Dongan deed description reading: "Thence southwesterly all along said hills and the river Peakadasank to a water-pond lying on said hills called Meretange." The name is preserved in two streams known as the Big and the Little Pachanasink, in Orange County, and in Ulster County as the "Pachanasink District," covering the south part of the town of Shawongunk. The Big Pachanasink is now known as Shawongunk Kill. In 1719, Nov. 26, a certain tract of land "called Pachanasink" was granted to Jacobus Bruyn and described in survey as "on the north side of Shawongunck Creek, beginning where the Verkerde Kill [FN] flows into said river," indicating locative of the name at the Verkerde Branch. In a brief submitted in the boundary contention, it is said that the line of the Dongan purchase ran "along the foot of the hills from a place called Pachanasink, where the Indians who sold the land had a large village and place," and from thence "to the head of the said river, and no where else the said river is called by that name." The evidence is cumulative that the name was that of the dominant feature of the district, from which it was transferred to the stream. It is a district strewn with masses of conglomerate rocks thrown off from the hills and precipitous cliffs. The two forms of the name, Peakadasank (1684) and Pachanassink (1717), were no doubt employed as equivalents. They differ in meaning, however. Wm. R. Gerard writes: "_Peakadasank,_ or _Pakadassin,_ means, 'It is laid out through the effects of a blow,' or some other action. The participial form is _Pakadasing,_ meaning, 'Where it is laid out,' or 'Where it lies fallen.' The reference in this case would seem to be to the stone which had fallen off or been thrown down from the hills." _Pachanasink_ means, "At the split rocks"; _Pachassin,_ "Split stone." In either form the name is from the split rocks.