The Persistence of Recognition

“The land knows you, even when you are lost.” ― Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass

It's interesting to see the persistent significance of Indigenous names in the local sense of place, in this paragraph from the 1774-1874 Centennial Proceedings of the Town of Newfane (Burnham & Merrifield)

"We cannot, in this connection, omit a description of the view from Putney West Hill, near the northeast corner of Newfane, and near the old road that passes from Dummerston and Putney to Newfane. From an eminence near the highway, the view in mid-summer is unsurpassed by any in New England. Looking south, you have on the right ,the narrow and deep valley of the Wantastiquet, and on the left, the broader valley of the Connecticut. The whole compass of the horizon opens to the view. You can trace the line of the Green Mountains from Florida, in Massachusetts, to Mount Holly on the north. Saddleback, Haystack, Manicknung and Shatterack tower far above the Green Mountain ridge. From the Connecticut valley your eye stretches over the entire space from Ascutney to Holyoke, and you see hill and valley, clearing and forest, villages, hamlets and cottages, until you reach the summit of the majestic Monadnock; and from thence you look north along the line of the Blue Highlands toward the White Hills. The surface of the Connecticut, for ten or fifteen miles below Brattleboro, and the cemetery on Prospect Hill, in the east village of Brattleboro, and the village of West Brattleboro are distinctly visible."

Within this description, Wantastiquet, Connecticut, Manicknung, Shatterack, Ascutney, and Monadnock are all derived from Algonquian referrents. A quick examination of Shatterack (a word encountered in several disparate locations in the northeast) gives the impression it may derive from satalak - “land or place of blueberries.”