'Hartford' or 'Wethersfield,' were not likely to preserve uniformity
in their dealings with Indian names. A few letters more or less were
of no great consequence, but, generally, the writers tried to keep on
the safe side, by putting in as many as they could find room for;
prefixing a _c_ to every _k_, doubling every _w_ and _g_, and tacking
on a superfluous final _e_, for good measure.

In some instances, what is supposed to be an Indian place-name is in
fact a _personal_ name, borrowed from some sachem or chief who lived
on or claimed to own the territory. Names of this class are likely to
give trouble to translators. I was puzzled for a long time by
'_Mianus_,' the name of a stream between Stamford and Greenwich,--till
I remembered that _Mayano_, an Indian warrior (who was killed by Capt.
Patrick in 1643) had lived hereabouts; and on searching the Greenwich
records, I found the stream was first mentioned as _Moyannoes_ and
_Mehanno's_ creek, and that it bounded 'Moyannoe's neck' of land.
_Moosup_ river, which flows westerly through Plainfield into the
Quinebaug and which has given names to a post-office and factory
village, was formerly _Moosup's_ river,--Moosup or _Maussup_ being one
of the aliases of a Narragansett sachem who is better known, in the
history of Philip's war, as Pessacus. Heckewelder[79] restores
'Pymatuning,' the name of a place in Pennsylvania, to the Del.
'_Pihmtónink_,' meaning, "the dwelling place of the man with the
crooked mouth, or the crooked man's dwelling place," and adds, that he
"knew the man perfectly well," who gave this name to the locality.

[Footnote 79: On Indian Names (_ut supra_), p. 365.]

Some of the examples which have been given,--such as _Higganum_,
_Nunkertunk_, _Shawmut_, _Swamscot_ and _Titicut_,--show how the