Down there, on old Manhattan,
Where land-sharks breed and fatten,
They wiped out Tubby Hook.
That famous promontory,
Renowned in song and story,
Which time nor tempest shook,
Whose name for aye had been good,
Stands newly christened “Inwood,”
And branded with the shame
Of some old rogue who passes
By dint of aliases,
Afraid of his own name!
-William Allen Butler, 1886
In November of 1864, more than one hundred and fifty years ago, the name “Inwood” replaced the old familiar “Tubby Hook” on maps detailing the northernmost neighborhood in Manhattan.
The decision, likely at the bequest of the railroads, shocked local residents. Tubby Hook had been the name of the neighborhood since as long as anyone could remember. The name appeared on maps, census reports and directories.
The renaming of the neighborhood must have caused quite a stir.
Nearly a half century after the name change dry goods merchant Robert Veitch proudly advertised his Dyckman Street shop as the “grocery of Tubby Hook.”
Changing Times
The name change came as a “thirst for self-improvement raged among the villages of the lower Hudson River and many a modest settlement thought to better itself and to rise in the world by assumption of a more swelling style and title.” (Columbia University professor Brander Matthews, Parts of Speech: Essays on English, 1916)
Theory One
According to “Ballads of Old New York,” published by Arthur Guiterman in 1920, the original Dutch settlers named the area after the rounded, tub-like outline of the inlet at the west end of Dyckman Street.
Guiterman explained, its “appearance alone justified its Old Dutch name ‘Tobbe Hoeck’ – the Cape of the Tub- now rendered ‘Tubby Hook.‘”
Theory Two
An alternate theory, presented by the American Scenic and Historic Preservation Society in 1917, argued that Tubby Hook was a “corruption of the Dutch ‘t Ubregt Hoek, which was named after one Peter Ubrecht” who ran the local ferry service across the Hudson River into New Jersey.
Tis Inwood Now
Regardless of the origin, Tubby Hook sounded too darn Dutch—and, in 1864, the railroads did away with the name all together and renamed the district Inwood.
The name change was likely considered as early as 1847 when the opening of the Hudson River Railroad transformed the sleepy fishing village into a proper country town.
How the name “Inwood” was selected has been lost to the ages. Some lobbied for naming the neighborhood “Kingsbridge Heights.”
According to an account published by C. Benjamin Richardson, in 1864 the railroads inexplicably changed the sign at the local crossing.
“The eye of the traveler on the Hudson River Rail Road is occasionally attracted by a new sign board at a station, and his ear by a new call by the conductor. The latest transportation is that of time-honored but unromantic, ‘Tubby Hook’ into ‘Inwood.’ Now ‘Inwood’ is a much prettier name…but it is not likely there ever was or would be another ‘Tubby Hook.'”
Many early sources also refer to the area as “Inwood on Hudson.”
One for the Poets
Nearly twenty years after Richardson’s description an 1883 poem summed up neighborhood sentiment regarding the name we now take for granted.
“The sun of Tubby Hook has set.
‘T is INWOOD now— and folks forget.”
Click below to purchase a copy of Lost Inwood.
Articles of this type rarely achieve this level of accuracy and clarity, with well selected maps and illustrations. Well done! Ive been trying to trace a Frederick Wells, who on his citizenship affidavit in 1859 stated his birthplace as “Tubyhook, N.Y.” Even as a native of NYC, I had no idea what or where this was — but here it all is, in Cole Thompson’s short, terrific piece.