Indian Names and Villages in Berks County

From Morton Montgomery's History of Berks County, Pennsylvania, 1909 Edition, pp. 22-23.

Indian Names

All the prominent streams in the county have been given Indian names; also two townships and two mountains. These names are as follows:

• Anglelica
• Antietam
• Allegheny: Fair water.
• Ganshowehanne: Roaring or tumbling stream. This is now known as the Schuylkill. In old deeds it is called Manaiunk, the signification of which word was a mother of streams.
• Gokhosing: Place of owls; now Cacoosing.
• Kau-ta-tin-chunk: Endless (applied formerly, now changed, to Blue Mountain).
• Lechauweki: Place of forks; now Lehigh.
• Machksithanne: Bear Path Creek now Maxatawny.
• Maschilamehannne: Trout stream; now Moselem.
• Menakesse: Stream with large bends; now Monocacy.
• Menhaltanink: Where we drank liquor; now Manatawny.
• Navesink: Place of fishing; now Neversink.
• Olink: Hole, cavern or cell; also a cove or tract of land encompassed by hills; now Oley.
• Ontelaunee: Little maiden; now Maiden Creek.
• Pakihmomink: Place of Cranberries; now Perkiomen.
• Sakunk: Place of outlet, where a smaller stream empties into a larger; now Sacony; also Saucon.
• Sinne-hanne: Stony stream; now Stony Creek.
• Sipuas-hanne: A plum stream; now Plum Creek.
• Tamaque-hanne: Beaver stream--a stream across which the beaver throws a dam; now Beaver creek; also changed to Little Schuylkill.
• Tulpewihaki: Land of turtles; now Tulpehocken.
• Wyomissing:

Villages

Some of the Indians had villages in this district of territory. They were located in different sections, more particularly, however, along the Schuylkill and its principal tributaries, and known as follows:

• Angelica: opposite Neversink,: at mouth of Angelica creek.
• Ganshowehanne: in the central section, adjoining the Schuylkill, near the northern base of Neversink,: at the mouth of Rose Valley creek, the place being included in Reading.
• Machksithanne: in the northern section, the place now being in Maxatawny township, near Kutztown.
• Maschilamehanne: situate some miles east of Skakunk, on the stream of the same name, now known as Moselem.
• Sakunk: in the northern section, on the Maiden creek in Richmond township at the mouth of the Sakunk creek, now called Sacony.
• Menhaltanink: at a large spring now in Amity township, several miles northeast of Douglassville.
• Navesink: a short distance below the southern base of Neversink, near the Big Dam, on the DETURCK farm; and it is believed that a village was also in the Poplar Neck on the HIGH farm.
• Olink: in Oley township, a short distance south of Friedensburg, on land included in the BERTOLET farm. And it is believed that a large village was situated several miles to the eastward, on the LEE farm, adjoining the Manatawny creek.
• Tulpewahaki: in the western section of the county, a short distance east of Stouchsburg, near the Tulpehocken creek.

Indian Relics

A large number of Indian relics have been found in different parts of the county, numbering about twenty thousand. Many of them were found at certain places where villages were situated. Over sixty-five hundred were found on and in the vicinity of Poplar Neck and Lewis's Neck. Prof. David B. BRUNNER secured a large individual collection, numbering over forty-three hundred. The relics of Ezra HIGH, found on Poplar Neck, were presented to the Historical Society of Berks County.

Henry K. DEISHER, of Kutztown, has a superb collection, local as well as general, the total numbering upward of twenty thousand. [See mention of it in the Borough of Kutztown, Chapter XI; also in his biographical sketch, which appears in this publication.