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	Much of the historical Minisink region has been incorporated into the ] after the ] by U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to construct a dam on the Delaware River near ].		Much of the historical Minisink region has been incorporated into the ] after the ] by U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to construct a dam on the Delaware River near ].

			==Meaning of the name "Minisink"==
			The name '''Minisink''' comes from the ] of ], a group of similar ] dialects that were spoken by the various groups of ], Lenni Lenape, or Delaware Indians who inhabited the region before European colonization. According to Rev. John Heckewelder, an 18th century missionary to the Lenape, Minisink meant “Place of the Minsis” after ''Minsi'', the name of the people, and the locative suffix ''–onk'' meaning “place.”<ref>Thieme, John Daniel. "Notes on Lenape language place names in Sussex County, New Jersey" (file/mss, 2004). Sussex County Historical Society, Newton, New Jersey. Thieme cites Heckewelder, John G. E. (Rev.). ''Names Given by Delaware Indians to Places in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland and Virginia''. (Philadelphia: 1833). Today, linguists specializing in Algonquin languages point out that Minisink means "at the island" with its root in the word ''minis', meaning island. According to Thieme, these linguists state that the term Munsee is derived from the word ''Min’siw'' meaning “person from Minisink” or “people from the island” given that Minisink Island in the Delaware River supposedly was the site of the tribe's important "council fire."<ref>Thieme, John Daniel. "Notes on Lenape language place names in Sussex County, New Jersey" (file/mss, 2004). Sussex County Historical Society, Newton, New Jersey. Thieme cites Ojibwe language in Nyholm, Earl and Nichols, John. ''A Concise Dictionary of Minnesota Ojibwe.'' (St. Paul, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1995), 85; See also Goddard, Ives. “Delaware” in Trigger, Bruce (editor) ''Handbook of North American Indians, Volume 15. Northeast.'' (Washington: The Smithsonian Institution, 1978), 237.</ref>

	==Geology and geography==		==Geology and geography==

Revision as of 18:07, 2 January 2013

This article is about the geographic region. For other uses, see Minisink (disambiguation).

The Minisink or (more recently) Minisink Valley is a loosely defined geographic region of the Upper Delaware River valley in northwestern New Jersey (Sussex and Warren counties), northeastern Pennsylvania (Pike and Northampton counties) and New York (Orange and Sullivan counties).

The name was derived by Dutch colonists from the Munsee name for the area, as they named bands of their people after geographic places which they inhabited as territory throughout the mid-Atlantic area. Originally inhabited by Munsee—the northern branch of the Lenape or Delaware Indians—this area was first settled in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries by Dutch and French Huguenot families from colonial New York's Hudson River Valley. The term "Minisink" is not used often today. It is preserved because of its historical relevance concerning the early European settlement of the region during the American colonial period and for its role in early "first contact" between Native Americans and early European explorers, traders and missionaries in the seventeenth century.

Much of the historical Minisink region has been incorporated into the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area after the failure of a controversial project by U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to construct a dam on the Delaware River near Tocks Island.

Meaning of the name "Minisink"

The name Minisink comes from the Munsee dialect of Lenape, a group of similar Algonquin dialects that were spoken by the various groups of Lenape, Lenni Lenape, or Delaware Indians who inhabited the region before European colonization. According to Rev. John Heckewelder, an 18th century missionary to the Lenape, Minisink meant “Place of the Minsis” after Minsi, the name of the people, and the locative suffix –onk meaning “place.”Cite error: A <ref> tag is missing the closing </ref> (see the help page).

Geology and geography

The course of the Delaware River

The Delaware River was often referred to as the Minisink River in early Dutch colonial documents and on early maps. The Delaware River constitutes part of the boundary between Pennsylvania and New York, the entire boundary between New Jersey and Pennsylvania. The middle section of the Delaware River's course, roughly between Port Jervis, New York and the Delaware Water Gap (a break in Kittatinny Mountain where the river runs through) is the north and southern points of the Minisink or Minisink Valley. The river flows down a broad Appalachian valley. The Minisink is a buried valley where the Delaware flows in a bed of glacial till that buried the eroded bedrock during the last glacial period.

At Port Jervis, New York, it enters the Port Jervis trough. At this point, the Walpack Ridge deflects the Delaware into the Minisink Valley, where it follows the southwest strike of the eroded Marcellus Formation beds along the Pennsylvania–New Jersey state line for 25 miles (40 km) to the end of the ridge at Walpack Bend in Walpack Township, New Jersey in the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area. It then skirts the Kittatinny ridge, which it crosses at the Delaware Water Gap, between nearly vertical walls of sandstone, quartzite, and conglomerate.

History

Condemnation

The Delaware River is prone to floods—some resulting from seasonal snow melt or rain run-off from heavy rainstorms. However, record flooding occurred in August 1955 in the aftermath of two separate hurricanes (Hurricane Connie and Hurricane Diane) that passed over the area within the span of one week. On 19 August 1955, the river gauge at Riegelsville, Pennsylvania recorded that the Delaware River reached a crest of 38.85 feet (11.84 m) above flood stage.

A project to dam the river near Tocks Island was in the works before the 1955 floods. But several deaths and severe damages resulting from these floods brought the issue of flood control to the national level. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers proposed the construction of the dam which would have created a 37-mile (60-km) long lake between Pennsylvania and New Jersey, with depths of up to 140 feet. The area around the lake would be established as the Tocks Island National Recreation Area under the oversight of the National Park Service to offer recreation activities such as hunting, hiking, fishing, and boating. In addition to flood control and recreation, the dam would be used to generate hydroelectric power, and provide a clean water supply to the cities of New York and Philadelphia. Starting in 1960, the present day area of the Recreation Area was acquired for the Army Corps of Engineers through eminent domain. Approximately 15,000 people were displaced by the condemnation of personal property along the Delaware River and the surrounding area through eminent domain. An estimated 3,000 to 5,000 dwellings and outbuildings were demolished in preparation for the dam project and subsequent flooding of the valley. This included many irreplacable historical sites and structures connected with the valley's colonial and Native American heritage. The plan was embroiled in controversy and protest by environmental groups and embittered displaced residents. Because of massive environmental opposition, dwindling funds, and an unacceptable geological assessment of the dam's safety, the government transferred the property to the National Park Service in 1978 and was reorganized as the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area.

References

Witte, Ron W. and Monteverde, Donald H. "Karst in the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area" in Unearthing New Jersey Vol. 2, No. 1 (1 February 2006). (Trenton: New Jersey Geological Survey, Department of Environmental Protection).
White, I.C. and Chance, H.M. The Geology of Pike and Monroe Counties Second Geological Survey of Pennsylvania, Report of Progress, G6 (Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: 1882), 17, 73–80, 114–115.
Obiso, Laura. Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area (2008), 7-8.
Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area, njskylands.com.
See: Feiveson, Harold; Sinden, Frank; and Socolow, Robert. Boundaries of Analysis: An Inquiry Into the Tocks Island Dam Controversy. (1976). Albert, Richard C. Damming the Delaware: The Rise and Fall of Tocks Island Dam (Pennsylvania State University Press, 1987).
The Legacy of Tocks Island, Pocono Record, August 12, 2001