[FN-1] A considerable number of the early settlers had Indian wives. (Dominie Megapolensis wrote: "The Dutch are continually running after the Mohawk women.") The children, growing up with Indian relatives, among the tribes and with men speaking so great a variety of tongues, built up a patois of their own, the "Mohawk-Dutch," many words in it defying the dictionaries of the schools. Many words are untranslatable save by the context. (Hist. Schenectady Patent, 388.)
[FN-2] Memoirs Long Island Hist. Soc, i, 315.
Shannondhoi and Shenondohawah are record forms of the name of a section of Saratoga County now embraced in Clifton Park, Half-Moon, etc. It is a sandy plain running west from the clay bluffs on the Hudson to the foot of the mountain, and extends across the Mohawk into Schenectady County. The name is generic Iroquois, signifying "Great plain," and as such was their name for Wyoming, Pa., where it is written _Schahandoanah_ (Col. Hist. N. Y., vi, 48), and _Skehandowana_ (Reichel). Scanandanani, Schenondehowe, Skenandoah, and Shanandoah, are among other forms met in application. Skonowe is followed on Van der Donck's map of 1656, by the Dutch legend _Schoon Vlaack Land,_ literally, "Fine, flat land," and for all these years the name has been accepted as meaning, "Great meadow," or "Great plain." The late Horatio Hale wrote: "The name is readily accounted for by the word _Kahenta_ (or _Kahenda_), meaning 'plain'--frequently abridged to _Kenta_ (or _Kenda_)--with the nominal prefix _S_ and the augmentative suffix _owa_ (or _owana_)." "The great flat or plain in Pennsylvania was called, in the Minsi dialect, '_M'chewomink_, at (or on) the great plain.' From this word we have the modern name Wyoming. The Iroquois word for this flat was _Skahentowane,_ 'Great meadow (or plain),' a term which was applied also to extensive meadows in other localities and became corrupted to Shenandoah." (Gerard.)
Quaquarionu, of record, Calendar Land Papers, p. 6: "Bounds of a tract of land above Schenectady purchased of the Mohawk Indians, extending from Schenectady three miles westward, along both sides of the river, ending at Quaquarionu, _where the last Mohawk castle stands._" The deed of same date (1672) reads: "The lands lying near the town of Schenhectady within three Dutch miles in compass on both sides of the river westward, which ends at Kinaquariones, where the last battle was between the Mohawks and the North Indians." (Col. Hist. N. Y., xiii, 465.) _Canaquarioeny_ is the orthography in another deed. In Pearson's History of Schenectady: "Lands lying near the town of Schonnhectade within three Dutch miles [about twelve English miles] on both sides of the river westward, which ends at Hinquariones [Towareoune], where the last battle was between the Mohoax and North Indians." The last battle in that section of country explains the text. Father Pierron, in 1669, located the battle "In a place that was precipitous, . . . about eight leagues [French] east of Gandauague" (Caughnawaga), or about sixteen miles English, and modern authorities have added, "A steep rocky hill on the north side of the Mohawk, just west of Hoffman's Ferry, now called Towareoune Hill, east of Chucktanunda Creek, a stream which is supposed to have taken its name from the overhanging rocks of the hill." [FN] Dr. Beauchamp, on the authority of Albert Cusick, an educated Tuscarorian, translated: "_Kinaquarioune,_ 'She arrow-maker,' the name of a person who resided there." Rev. Isaac Bearfoot, an educated Onondagian, especially instructed in the Mohawk dialect, and an educator on the Canada Reservation, supplied to W. Max Reid of Amsterdam, N. Y., the reading: "_Ki-na-qua-ri-one_, 'He killed the Bear,' or, the place where the Bears die, or any place of death. It seems to have been used to denote the place of the last great battle with the Mahicans." The battle referred to occurred on the 18th of August, 1669. An account of it is given in Jesuit Relations, iii, 137, by Father Pierron, the Jesuit missionary, who was then stationed at Caughnawaga. The war which was then raging was continued until 1673, when the Governor of New York succeeded in negotiating peace and by treaty "linked together" the opposing nations as allies of the English government, a relation which they subsequently sustained until the war of the Revolution, when the Mahicans united with the revolutionists.