Except as otherwise indicated below, the Nipmuc words and definitions contained in NIPMUC PLACE NAMES OF NEW ENGLAND have been compiled from:

Indian Place Names of New England, compiled by John C. Huden, Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation, 1962.

INDIAN NAMES of Places Etc. In and On the Borders of CONNECTICUT: With Interpretations of Some of Them., J. Hammond Trumbull, 1881.

1 The Wallum Pond Estates, Harry Lee Barnes, reprinted 1991, Burrillville Historical Society.

2 Land Occupied by the Nipmuck Indians of Central New England, Dennis A. Connole, Bulletin of the MA Archaeological Society, Vol. 38, Nos. 1 and 2, October, 1976.

2 Spirit of the New England Tribes, Indian History and Folklore, 1620-1984, William S. Simmons, 1986.

3 Excerpted from: The Wallum Pond Estates (see above), pp. 74-75: Allumps (a.k.a. Hyems, Hyemps, etc.), "was a renegade Narragansett who lived among the Nipmucks, Quinebaugs, Narragansetts and Shetuckets,..."

Examination of Indians - 1704:

Excerpted from: Town and Lands, Vol. 2, Document 187, State Library, Hartford, CT: "Q What is your name? A Tuckcheon. Q What age are you? A A little more than 80 years old. Q What Country? A A Mohegin. Q Did you know Hyems? A Yes. Q What Countryman was Hyems? A His mother was a Coesit squaw his father of Narraganset... Q Whither Massanshawet and Aguntus came with Hyems? A They came all together..."

Excerpted from: Indians, Vol. 1, Document 54, pp. 5 and 6, State Library, Hartford, CT: "Passagcogon, a Quinebauge Indian being Examined... Q Whither the Quinibauge Indians were Hyams' his men and were subject to him? A No they were not, their Sachem were at Shawtucket..."

"Trumbull tells us that the Quinebaug Indians under Allumps and Aguntus, were 400 or 500 in number, always peacefully disposed toward the whites, but that when an Englishman attempted to settle in Quinebaug, about 1650, he was driven out by Hyems' (Allumps') threat to "bury him alive". Allumps' first act of importance to the colony was his sale, together with his brother, Ma-Shan-Shawitt, and the Sagamore Aguntus, of their lands in the Quinebaug country (now Plainfield and Canterbury, CT) on April 28, 1659. In his deed of sale, Allumps reserved forever for his people the privilege of "hunting, fishing and convenient planting" and during their lifetimes, as in former times, the tribute or acknowleddgment of sachems in two particulars, "The skin of every black woolfe and the skin of every deere killed in the river." "On May 12, 1659, Allumps gave possession of the Quinebaug country to Joshua Huse and Amos Richardson and marked some of the bounds for them." "Miss Larned [in History of Windham County] states that "Aguntus at first blamed Hyems for selling land that was not his, and made him, in the presence of [Governor] Winthrop, pull off a coat he had received in payment. A roll of tucking cloth, two rolls of red cotton, wampum, stockings, tobacco pipes and tobacco secured his (Aguntus') consent [to the sale]".

4 "The Nipmucks and Their Territory", by Laurence K. Gahan, Mass. Archaeological Society Bulletin, Vol. II, No. 4, July, 1941.