Poughkeepsie, New York: A 'Safe Harbor' Name in Doubt

Poughkeepsie, New York, has been said to mean “safe harbor” since at least 1824, but the oldest records of the name don’t fit that meaning very well. All the sources agree it comes from an Indian place name along the Hudson. What it meant is the open question.

Safe harbor, pleasant harbor, shallow inlet

The harbor idea is old. Horatio Gates Spafford’s 1824 gazetteer of the state says Poughkeepsie “received its name from Apokeepsing, an Indian word, signifying safe harbor.” J. H. French, in his 1860 gazetteer, is a little more careful: the original name “is said to have been Apo-keep-sink, signifying ‘pleasant harbor.’”

By 1905 the meanings had piled up. Henry Gannett, writing for the U.S. Geological Survey, called it a “Delaware Indian word apokeepsingk, meaning ‘safe, pleasant harbor,’ or ‘shallow inlet,’ ‘safe harbor for small boats.’” That same line now sits in the federal place-names database, so you’ll find all three translations wherever the official record gets copied.

A waterfall that doesn’t fit

William Beauchamp, who went through the state’s Indian place names for the New York State Museum in 1907, wasn’t convinced. He notes that the writer H. R. Schoolcraft called it “safe harbor,” “but this derivation and meaning have been much doubted.” Beauchamp had already warned his readers that Schoolcraft, though “an authority,” was “often fanciful” about names in the East. Spafford gave the same meaning, he adds, so the definition was “evidently of early date.” Early isn’t the same as right, though.

Beauchamp’s problem was the old land papers. In 1680 a boundary was described as “beginning at a creek called Pacaksing, by the riverside.” In 1683, an Indian made a free gift of a waterfall in the Highlands called Pooghkepesingh, and Beauchamp’s verdict on that one is blunt: “certainly safe harbor would not apply to this.” He also mentions that the name was once given to a pond near the city and defined as “muddy,” an idea he says “has little support.” The most he would commit to was that “the name may have some relation to water.”

A name with a lot of spellings

If you’ve ever struggled to spell Poughkeepsie, you’re in good company. French says early documents wrote it “Picipsi” and “Pokipsi.” Beauchamp adds Pogkeepke, Pokeepsinck and Poghkeepke to the list. The spelling took a long time to settle, and the meaning still hasn’t. What’s left is a name older than Poughkeepsie Precinct, which French says was formed in 1737, and a translation that sounds friendly but that the state museum’s 1907 study called “much doubted.”

Sources & further reading

• William M. Beauchamp, Aboriginal Place Names of New York (New York State Museum, 1907), pp. 6, 55-57. H. R. Schoolcraft “is an authority,” but “in eastern matters he was often fanciful” (p. 16). Schoolcraft’s “safe harbor,” “much doubted”; Spafford’s meaning “evidently of early date”; “a creek called Pacaksing, by the riverside” (1680); the waterfall in the Highlands called Pooghkepesingh (1683) and “certainly safe harbor would not apply to this”; the early spellings Pogkeepke, Pokeepsinck, Poghkeepke, Picipsi and Pokipsie; “muddy,” with “little support”; “the name may have some relation to water.”
• Horatio Gates Spafford, A Gazetteer of the State of New-York (1824), p. 426. “received its name from Apokeepsing, an Indian word, signifying safe harbor.”
• J. H. French, Gazetteer of the State of New York (1860), p. 274. Poughkeepsie Precinct formed December 16, 1737; early spellings “Picipsi” and “Pokipsi”; the original name “said to have been Apo-keep-sink, signifying ‘pleasant harbor.’”
• Henry Gannett, The Origin of Certain Place Names in the United States (USGS, 1905), p. 252. “Derived from the Delaware Indian word apokeepsingk, meaning ‘safe, pleasant harbor,’ or ‘shallow inlet,’ ‘safe harbor for small boats.’”
• GNIS feature 961058 (U.S. Geological Survey). Repeats Gannett’s definition. Founded in 1686 and incorporated as a city in 1854.