The name of the village signifies "at the sandy town," or "sandy river."4 The leading feature of the village-site was evidently the sandy character of the bluffs along the shore-line of East river. It has been called Naghtongh or Nechtank by Schoolcraft and others, but these designations are probably erroneous. It has a tragic interest as the scene in 1643 of that ruthless slaughter of the unfortunate natives of Weckquaesgeek, who had sought refuge from their oppressors, the Mohawk, near the white man's settlement.

From its junction with the trail to the Rechtauck village, the line of the Bowery lane indicates the most probable course of the pathway by which the native traffic proceeded toward the upper end of Manhattan. It passed "the land called Werpoes," that level tract which later became the Out Ward of the growing city, and was in all probability a planting-ground cleared by the inhabitants of Werpoes from the INDIAN PATHS primeval forest growth with which we may assume the whole locality was covered.