Talk:Daniel Nimham

Name should be spelled "Ninham", not "Nimham"
Even Daniel Ninham's own descendants believe the proper spelling of his last name should be "Ninham", not "Nimham". They explain here that their tribal language did not use the sound for our letter "m" (and can only imagine it being appended if at all at the end of his name, but absolutely not inserted in its first syllable).

It's unclear to me when the movement to replace the leading "n" with an "m" gathered its current momentum, as the name was long popularly known as "Ninham", as in the fire tower atop the mountain in Putnam County, New York, the mountain, and the lake at its base. In fact, I personally knew the family that owned the lake as a youth, and swam there in summers: it was spelled "Ninham".

Hopefully along with advancing his efforts to create a suitably large memorial statue to Daniel Ninham sculptur Michael Keropianmay be able to use his relationship with Ninham's descendants to get this sprawling misspelling corrected. The name is at least is still present in its prior state at such sites as Hike the Hudson Valley and Google Maps (Ninham Mountain Multiple Use Area) Wikiuser100 (talk) 21:14, 10 February 2019 (UTC)


 * There has been some question and confusion for many many years as to the spelling of Daniel Nimham's name. Many people, historians in the Hudson Valley Region specifically in Putnam County, NY have argued that Daniel's name should be spelled as it is on deeds, records and in his Native Algonquin language. The interest in Nimham and the Wappingers in this County of New York has been passionate for over a century. We know that a native group were still in our area through 1812. Stories by members of the community witnessed Native People here in the 1900's going up to MT Nimham (Ken Townsend). There were remnants of long houses on MT Nimham through the early 1900's. They were bulldozed to put in a fire road to the fire tower. Not all the Wappingers moved to Stockbridge with Nimham in 1756. Patrick Frazier referenced from Stockbridge Records that "the Nimham Clan and around 200 Wappingers to Stockbridge" that year. In the majority (99%) of deeds, muster rolls and records, Daniel Nimham's last name has always been spelled with a "m" in the middle. This includes documents, deeds and plots of land in Stockbridge MA Records as well. I found no records in Stockbridge that the name of any Nimham is spelled as Ninham. For example, Daniel's grandfather Old Nimham was also called Nimhammaw (circa 1647), (J. Michael Smith, Robert Grumet). Since the native people didn't have a written language the Europeans wrote the names down phonetically. Daniel and his son Abraham never lived long enough to move to Oneida New York dying in 1778. When the remaining Nimham's and Stockbridge Community moved west to Oneida in the 1800's their language changed from speaking Algonquin to Iroquoian. The latter language doesn't use the "m" in the middle of a word, so the Nimham name naturally changed to Ninham in any records of Ninham's in western NY and to WI and Ontario. Since this is the language of the Stockbridge Munsee Mohican Community they naturally spell Nimham, Ninham with an 'n' in the middle. Where this can be somewhat confusing is in ancestry and research work, where for example there are numerous Daniel's, Henry's, Aaron's, Isaac's... Ninham's. A number of possible descendants consider Daniel Ninham of b.1831 in WI who married Margaret Doxtator to be Daniel Nimham of b. 1726. But this is false. Daniel b. 1831 may in fact be a descendant of Daniel b. 1726 or perhaps his brother or even a grandson of Daniel. I am currently researching several Ninham/Nimham Family trees to find a connection to Daniel b. 1726 or to his younger siblings or their sons. So far I found basically two trees of Ninham's. One that went to WI and the other that went to Ontario. In addition, the plaque on the Stockbridge Memorial was sponsored by the DAR in Van Cortland Park, and the plaque dedicated in 1937 to Daniel all spell the name Nimham. As a historian, I feel his name should be spelled the way it is written on deeds and documents while he was alive. While doing research it helps me decipher the Nimham's from the Ninham's. My hope is when America awakens and finds out who Daniel Nimham/Ninham was, it won't matter how you really spell his name, we will all know who we are talking about. The goal for me the last 20 + years is to help recognize Daniel and other Native Americans's accomplishments and sacrifices. The goal of the sculpture is to promote a man who should be recognized. Anblapedia (talk) 23:19, 1 September 2022 (UTC)

Kingsbridge
Hi, wouldn't it be appropriate to mention his death explicitly? "Many Wappinger served in the Stockbridge Militia during the American Revolution. Nimham, his son and heir Abraham, and some forty warriors were killed or mortally wounded in the Battle of Kingsbridge in the Bronx on August 30, 1778 /.../ " (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wappinger). T 84.208.65.62 (talk) 11:53, 2 August 2022 (UTC)


 * Anblapedia (talk) 23:33, 1 September 2022 (UTC)