Tetiquet or Titicut, which passes for the Indian name of Taunton, and of a fishing place on Taunton River in the north-west part of Middleborough, Mass., shows how effectually such names may be disguised by phonetic corruption and mutilation. Kehte-tuk-ut (or as Eliot wrote it in Genesis xv. 18, Kehteihtukqut) means ’on the great river.’  In the Plymouth Colony Records we find the forms ‘Cauteeticutt’ and ‘Coteticutt,’ and elsewhere, Kehtehticut,—­the latter, in 1698, as the name of a place on the great river, “between Taunton and Bridgewater.”  Hence, ‘Teghtacutt,’ ‘Teightaquid,’ ‘Tetiquet,’ &c.[15]

[Footnote 15:  See Hist.  Magazine, vol. iii. p. 48.]

(2).  The other substantival component of river-names, -HANNE or -HAN (Abn. _-ts[oo]a[n]n_ or _-ta[n]n_; Mass. _-tchuan_;) denotes ’a rapid stream’ or ‘current;’ primarily, ‘flowing water.’  In the Massachusetts and Abnaki, it occurs in such compounds as anu-tchuan (Abn. ari’ts[oo]a[n]n), ‘it over-flows:’  kussi-tchuan (Abn. kesi’ts[oo]a[n]n), ‘it swift flows,’ &c.

In Pennsylvania and Virginia, where the streams which rise in the highlands flow down rapidly descending slopes, _-hanne_ is more common than _-tuk_ or sepu in river names. Keht-hanne (kittan, Zeisb.; kithanne, Hkw.) was a name given to the Delaware River as ’the principal or greatest stream’ of that region:  and by the western Delawares, to the Ohio.[16] With the locative termination, Kittanning (Penn.) is a place ‘on the greatest stream.’  The Schuylkill was Ganshow-hanne, ‘noisy stream;’ the Lackawanna, Lechau-hanne, ‘forked stream’ or ’stream that forks:’[17] with affix, Lechauhannak or Lechauwahannak, ’at the river-fork,’—­for which Hendrick Aupamut, a Muhhekan, wrote (with dialectic exchange of n for Delaware l) ‘Naukhuwwhnauk,’ ‘The Forks’ of the Miami.[18] The same name is found in New England, disguised as Newichawanock, Nuchawanack, &c., as near Berwick, Me., ‘at the fork’ or confluence of Cocheco and Salmon Fall rivers,—­the ‘Neghechewanck’ of Wood’s Map (1634). Powhatan, for Pauat-hanne, ’at the Falls on a rapid stream,’ has been previously noticed.

[Footnote 16:  Heckewelder, on Indian names, in Trans.  Am.  Phil.  Soc. vol. iv.]

[Footnote 17:  Ibid.]

[Footnote 18:  Narrative, &c., in Mem.  Hist.  Society of Pennsylvania, vol. ii. p. 97.]

Alleghany, or as some prefer to write it, Allegheny,—­the Algonkin name of the Ohio River, but now restricted to one of its branches,—­is probably (Delaware) welhik-hanne or [oo]lik-hanne, ‘the best (or, the fairest) river.’ Welhik (as Zeisberger wrote it)[19] is the inanimate form of the adjectival, meaning ‘best,’ ’most beautiful.’  In his Vocabulary, Zeisberger gave this synthesis, with slight change of orthography,