Harlem or Haarlem: In Holland, called Haralem in a Ninth Century document, is a name of doubtful meaning. In Old Saxon we have lemo, "clay" or "mud," and hara, "an estuary," and the dialect-word har or haar denotes a rising ground or small eminence. Harlem, now a suburb of New York, stands on the Harlem River, a tidal channel. With Brooklyn and Hoboken it is one of the few names surviving from the time of the Dutch occupancy.

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