Tag: Tonawanda
Tonawanda (formally City of Tonawanda, from Tahnawá•teh meaning “confluent stream” in Tuscarora) (Cayuga: Tganawai:ˀ ) is a city in Erie County, New York, United States. The population was 15,130 at the 2010 census. It is located at the northern edge of Erie County, south across the Erie Canal (Tonawanda Creek) from North Tonawanda, and north of Buffalo, New York. It is part of the Buffalo-Niagara Falls metropolitan area.
According to William Bright says the best that can be said of the origin and meaning of the place name “Tonawanda” is that it is “probably from an Iroquoian source, but of unclear derivation”. One theory is that it is a loanword from Tuscarora: Tahnawá•teh meaning “confluent stream.” The Iroquoian-speaking Tuscarora are one of the Six Nations of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois Confederacy) in the 18th century. They and the Oneida were allies of the American colonists in the American Revolutionary War.
Post-Revolutionary War European-American settlement at Tonawanda began…
