Place:Shawangunk, Ulster, New York, United States

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NameShawangunk
TypeTown
Coordinates41.616389°N 74.233056°W
Located inUlster, New York, United States
source: Family History Library Catalog


the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

Shawangunk is a town in southwestern Ulster County, New York, United States. The population was 14,332 at the 2010 census.[1] The town takes its name from its largest stream, the Shawangunk Kill. The name Shawangunk is from the language of the Lenape people. Kill is an abbreviation of the Dutch word for creek, Killitje. It is pronounce Shuh-Whan-Gung

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History

the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

Shawangunk was first settled by Europeans during the 1680s. The region was first designated a precinct about 1710, and became the township of Shawangunk in 1788. The town's name comes from the Dutch transliteration of the Munsee Lenape name or phrase. The approximate Lenape pronunciation was "Sha-WAN-gunk," probably meaning "in the smoky air." The name first appears in the 1682 Indian deed to Gertrude Bruyn. It is uncertain if this was the Indians' actual proper name for their nearby village and "New Fort," destroyed by the Dutch on Sept 5, 1663 during the Second Esopus War, or if the name was merely a phrase invented by the Indians in connection with the Bruyn land purchase, possibly describing some temporary feature of the landscape. Suggestions as to whether the name may have referred to smoky conditions on the day of Bruyn's first tour of the land with the Indians in the 1670s, or to the smoky ruins of the destroyed Indian village during the preceding decade, are purely speculative. Use of the name to designate the creek on which Bruyn settled (Shawangunk Kill), and the mountain range, came somewhat later. Locals pronounce the name "SHONG-gum," an obvious corruption or contraction of the original name, but one on record at least as far back as 1777 (Marc B. Fried, "Shawangunk Place-names" pp. ix-xi, 3-12, 96-97). Present-day citizens of Shawangunk often refer to themselves as living in particular hamlets such as Wallkill or Walker Valley rather than the town as a whole; this is due to the fact that many residents of the western part of the town are in the school district of Pine Bush (nearby across the county line) and have Pine Bush mailing addresses, also doing much of their shopping in that Orange County hamlet.

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Research Tips

The name of this area has been spelled many ways, including: Shawangunk, Schawangunk, Schawankunk, Savengonk, and Shongum.

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