Ponkapoag /ˈpɒŋkəpɔːɡ/, also Punkapaug,[1] Punkapoag, Ponkhapoag[2] or Punkapog, is the name of a Native American "praying town" settled in the late 17th century western Blue Hills area of eastern Massachusetts by persons who had accepted Christianity. It was established in 1657, during the colonization of the Atlantic seaboard of the United States by settlers from Britain. This was the name given to the winter residence (and subsequently to the tribe) of the group of Massachusett who lived at the mouth of the Neponset River near Dorchester in the summer, in what colonists called Neponset Mill.[3]
Ponkapoag is now contained almost entirely by the town of Canton, Massachusetts.[4] The name is derived from a nearby pond 1 mile (1.6 km) south of Great Blue Hill; Ponkapoag means "shallow pond" or "a spring that bubbles from red soil".[5]
- ^ David McCullough, John Adams, p. 72 (New York: Simon & Schuster 2001) ISBN 0-684-81363-7. Found online at Internet Archive. Accessed May 8, 2011.
- ^ Catherine Drinker Bowen, John Adams and the American Revolution (Boston: Little, Brown, 1950), p. 18.
- ^ Daniel Gookin, Historical Collections of the Indians in New England, (1792)
- ^ Huntoon, Daniel T. V. (1893). "Ponkapoag Plantation". History of the Town of Canton. Cambridge, Massachusetts: John Wilson and Son. pp. 10–13. OCLC 3615638. Retrieved 14 November 2010.
- ^ Douglas-Lithgow, Robert Alexander (1909). Dictionary of American-Indian place and proper names in New England. Salem, Massachusetts: Salem Press. p. 148. OCLC 621081. Retrieved 14 November 2010.