Shawangunk Ridge - Name

Name

The English name, Shawangunk, derives from the Dutch Scha-wan-gunk, the closest European transcription from the colonial deed record of the Munsee Lenape, Schawankunk (German orthography).

Lenape linguist Raymond Whritenour reports that schawan is an inanimate intransitive verb meaning "it is smoky air" or "there is smoky air". Its noun-like participle is schawank, meaning "that which is smoky air". Adding the locative suffix gives us schawangunk "in the smoky air".

Whritenour has suggested that the name derives from the burning of a Munsee fort by the Dutch at the eastern base of the ridge in 1663 (a massacre ending the Second Esopus War), where it spread quickly across the basin on land deeds and patents after the war. Historian Marc B. Fried writes: "It is conceivable that this was...the Indians' own proper name for their village and that the name was appropriated for use in subsequent land dealings because of the proximity of the...tracts to the former Indian village....The second possibility is that the name simply came into existence in connection with the Bruyn, as a phrase invented by the Indians to describe some feature of the landscape." However, Fried also notes that the name's swift spread in the deed record suggest it was in use as a proper name before the Bruyn purchase. Shawangunk appears nowhere in reference to the fort itself in the extensive, translated Dutch record of the Second Esopus War. Shawangunk became associated with the ridge in the 18th century.

European colonists began to truncate Shawangunk into "Shongum" ( /ˈʃɑːn.ɡʌm/ SHAHN-gum). Shongum was mistakenly identified as the Munsee pronunciation by the Reverend Charles Scott writing on Shawangunk's etymology for the Ulster County Historical Society in 1861. The error has been reinforced in ethnographic sources and ridge literature, and by historians, librarians, and ridge educators for more than 140 years.

Both "Shawangunk" and "Shongum" are popular usages among locals native to the region. The "Gunks" is also a widely used endearment and which may have originated among rock climbers.