The first question asked of a "new boy" at school is, "What's your
name?" In this year of Grace the eighth decennial census is to be
taken, asking that same question of all new comers into the great
public school where towns and cities are educated. It will hardly be
effected with that marvellous perfection of organization by which Great
Britain was made to stand still for a moment and be statistically
photographed. For with consummate skill was planned that all-embracing
machinery, so that at one and the same moment all over the United
Kingdom the recording pen was catching every man's status and setting
it down. The tramp on the dusty highway, the clerk in the
counting-house, the sportsman upon the moor, the preacher in his
pulpit, game-bird and barn-door fowl alike, all were simultaneously
bagged. Unless, like the Irishman's swallow, you could be in two places
at once, down you went on the recording-tablets. Christopher Sly, from
the ale-house door, if caught while the Merry Duke had possession of
him, must be chronicled for a peer of the realm; Bully Bottom, if the
period of his translations fell in with the census-taking, must be
numbered among the cadgers' "mokes"; nay, if Dogberry himself had
encountered the officials at the moment of his pathetic lamentation, he
were irrevocably written down "an ass."
We can hardly hope for such celerity and sure handling upon this side
of the water. Nor is this the subject we have just now in view. The
approaching advent of the census-taker has led us to look back at the
labor of his predecessor, and the careless turning over of its pages
has set us to musing upon NAMES.
William Shakspeare asks, "What's in a name?" England's other great
poetical William has devoted a series of his versifyings to the naming
of places. Which has the right of it, let us not undertake to pronounce
without consideration. England herself has long ago determined the
question. As Mr. Emerson says of English names,--"They are an
atmosphere of legendary melody spread over the land; older than all
epics and histories which clothe a nation, this undershirt sits close
to the body." Dean Trench, who handles words as a numismatist his
coins, has said substantially the same thing. And it is true not of
England only; for the various lands of Europe are written over like
palimpsests with the story of successive conquests and dominations
chronicled in their local names. You stop and ask why a place is so
called,--sure to be rewarded by a legend lurking beneath the title.
Like the old crests of heraldry, with their "canting" mottoes beneath,
they are history in little, a war or a revolution distilled into the
powerful attar of a single phrase. The Rhineland towers of Falkenstein
and Stolzenfels are the local counterparts of the Scotch borderers'
"Thou shalt want ere I want," for ominous meaning.
The volume we have just laid down painfully reminds us that the poet
and the historian have no such heritage in this land. We have done our
best to crowd out all the beautiful significant names we found here,
and to replace them by meaningless appellations. For the name of a
thing is that which really has in it something of that to which it
belongs, which describes and classifies it, and is its spoken
representative; while the appellation is only a title conferred by act
of Parliament or her Majesty's good pleasure: it cannot make a parvenu
into a peer.
But we are not writing for the mere interest of the poet and the
novelist. Fit names are not given, but grow; and we believe there is
not a spot in the land, possessing any attractiveness, but has its name
ready fitted to it, waiting unsyllabled in the air above it for the
right sponsor to speak it into life. We plead for public convenience
simply. We are thinking not of the ears of taste, but of the brain of
business. We do not wonder at the monstrous accumulations of the
Dead-Letter Office, when we see the actual poverty which our system of
naming places has brought about. Pardon us a few statistics, and, as
you read them, remember, dear reader, that this is the story of ten
years ago, and that the enormous growths of the last decade have
probably increased the evil prodigiously.
The volume in question gives a list of a trifle under ten thousand
places,--to be accurate, of nine thousand eight hundred and twenty odd.
For these nine thousand cities, towns, and villages have been provided
but _three_ thousand eight hundred and twenty names. All the rest have
been baptized according to the results of a promiscuous scramble. Some,
indeed, make a faint show of variety, by additions of such adjectives
as New, North, South, East, West, or Middle. If we reduce the list of
original names by striking out these and all the compounds of "ville,"
"town," and the like, we get about three thousand really distinctive
names for American towns. Three hundred and thirty odd we found here
when we came,--being Indian or _Native_ American. Three hundred and
thirty more we imported from the United Kingdom of Great Britain and
Ireland. A dozen were added to them from the pure well of Welsh
undefiled, and mark the districts settled by Cambro-Britons. Out of our
Bibles we got thirty-three Hebrew appellations, nearly all ludicrously
inappropriate; and these we have been very fond of repeating. In
California, New Mexico, Texas, Florida, and the Louisiana purchase, we
bought our names along with the land. Fine old French and Spanish ones
they are; some thirty of them names of Saints, all well-sounding and
pleasant to the ear. And there is a value in these names not at first
perceptible. Most of them serve to mark the day of the year upon which
the town was founded. They are commemorative dates, which one need only
look at the calendar to verify. As an instance of this, there is the
forgotten title of Lake George, Lake St. Sacrament, which, in spite of
Dr. Cleveland Coxe's very graceful ballad, we must hold to have been
conferred because the lake was discovered on Corpus-Christi Day. In the
Mississippi Valley, the great chain of French military occupation can
still be faintly traced, like the half-obliterated lines of a redoubt
which the plough and the country road have passed over.
There remain about two thousand names, which may fairly be called of
American manufacture. We exclude, of course, those which were
transferred from England, since they were probably brought directly.
They have a certain fitness, as affectionate memorials of the Old
Country lingering in the hearts of the exiles. Thus, though St. Botolph
was of the fenny shire of Lincoln, and the new comers to the
Massachusetts Bay named their little peninsula Suffolk, the county of
the "South-folk," we do not quarrel with them for calling their future
city "Bo's or Botolph's town," out of hearts which did not wholly
forget their birthplace with its grand old church, whose noble tower
still looks for miles away over the broad levels toward the German
Ocean. Nor do we think Plymouth to be utterly meaningless, though it is
not at the mouth of the Ply, or any other river such as wanders through
the Devon Moorlands to the British Channel.
"Et parvam Trojam, simulataque magnis
Pergama, et arentem Xanthi cognomine rivum
Agnosco: Seaeaeque amplector limina portae."
Throughout New England, and in all the original colonies, we find this
to be the case. But, as Americans, we must reject both what our fathers
brought and what they found. Two thousand specimens of the American
talent for nomenclature, then, we can exhibit. Walk up, gentlemen! Here
you have the top-crest of the great wave of civilization. Hero is a
people, emancipated from Old-World trammels, setting the world a
lesson. What is the result? With the grand divisions of our land we
have not had much to do. Of the States, seventeen were baptized by
their Indian appellations; four were named by French and Spanish
discoverers; six were called after European sovereigns; three, which
bear the prefix of New, have the names of English counties;--there
remains Delaware, the title of an English nobleman, leaving us
Pennsylvania, Indiana, and Rhode Island, three precious bits of modern
classicality. Let us now come to the counties. Ten years ago there were
some fifteen hundred and fifty-five of these. One hundred and
seventy-three bear Indian names, and there are one or two uncertain.
For these fifteen hundred and fifty-five counties there are eight
hundred and eighty-eight names, about one to every two. Seven hundred
are, then, of Anglo-Saxon bestowing? No. Another hundred are of Spanish
and French origin. Six hundred county-names remain; fifty of which,
neat as imported, are the names of English places, and fifty more are
names bestowed in compliment to English peers. Five hundred are the
American residuum.
We beg pardon for these dry statistical details, over which we have
spent some little time and care; but they furnish a base of operations.
Yet something more remains to be added. We have, it is true, about two
thousand names of places and five hundred of counties purely American,
or at least due to American taste. In most instances the county-names
are repeated in some of the towns within their borders. Therefore we
fall back upon our original statement, that two thousand names are the
net product of Yankee ingenuity. It is hardly necessary to assure the
most careless reader that the vast majority of these are names of
persons. And it needs no wizard to conjecture that these are bestowed
in very unequal proportions. Here the true trouble of the
Postmaster-General and his staff begins.
The most frequent names are, of course, those of the Presidents. The
"Father of his Country" has the honor of being god-father to no small
portion of it. For there are called after him _one_ territory,
_twenty-six_ counties, and _one hundred and thirty-eight_ towns and
villages. Adams, the next, has but _six_ counties and _twenty-six_
towns; but his son is specially honored by a village named J.Q. Adams.
Jefferson has _seventeen_ counties and _seventy-four_ towns. Madison
has _fifteen_ counties and _forty-seven_ towns. Monroe has _sixteen_
counties and _fifty-seven_ towns, showing that the "era of good
feeling" was extending in his day. The second Adams has one town to
himself; but the son of his father could expect no more. Jackson has
_fifteen_ counties and _one hundred and twenty-three_ towns, beside
_six_ "boroughs" and "villes,"--showing what it was to have won the
Battle of New Orleans. Van Euren gets _four_ counties and
_twenty-eight_ towns. Harrison _seven_ counties and _fifty-seven_
towns, as becomes a log-cabin and hard-cider President. Tyler has but
_three_ counties, and not a single town, village, or hamlet even. Polk
has _five_ counties and _thirteen towns_. Taylor, _three_ counties and
_twelve_ towns. The remaining Presidents being yet in life and eligible
to a second term, it would be invidious to make further disclosures
till after the conventions. Among unsuccessful candidates there is a
vast difference in popularity. Clay has _thirty-two_ towns, and Webster
only _four_. Cass has _fourteen_, and Calhoun only _one_. Of
Revolutionary heroes, Wayne and Warren are the favorites, having
respectively _thirteen_ and _fourteen_ counties and _fifty-three_ and
_twenty-eight_ towns. But "Principles, not Men," has been at times the
American watchword; therefore there are _ten_ counties and _one hundred
and three_ towns named "Union."
We have given the reader a dose, we fear, of statistics; but imagine
yourself, dear, patient friend, what you may yet be, Postmaster-General
of these United States, with the responsibility of providing for all
these bewildering post-offices. And we pray you to heed the absolute
poverty of invention which compelled forty-nine towns to call
themselves "Centre." Forty-nine Centres! There are towns named after
the points of compass simply,--not only the cardinal points, but the
others,--so that the census-taker may, if he likes, "box the compass,"
in addition to his other duties.
But worse than the too common names (anything but proper ones) are the
eccentric. The colors are well represented; for, beside Oil and Paint
for materials, there are Brown, Black, Blue, Green, White, Cherry,
Gray, Hazel, Plum, Rose, and Vermilion. The animals come in for their
share; for we find Alligator, Bald-Eagle, Beaver, Buck, Buffalo, Eagle,
Eel, Elk, Fawn, East-Deer and West-Deer, Bird, Fox, (in Elk County,)
Pigeon, Plover, Raccoon, Seal, Swan, Turbot, Wild-Cat, and Wolf. Then
again, the christening seems to have been preceded by the shaking in a
hat of a handful of vowels and consonants, the horrible results of
which _sortes_ appear as Alna, Cessna, Chazy, Clamo, Novi, (we suspect
the last two to be Latin verbs, out of place, and doing duty as
substantives,) Cumru, Freco, Fristo, Josco, Hamtramck, Medybemps, Haw,
Kan, Paw-Paw, Pee-Pee, Kinzua, Bono, Busti, Lagro, Letart, Lodomillo,
Moluncus, Mullica, Lomira, Neave, Oley, Orland, and the felicitous
ringing of changes which occurs in Luray, Leroy, and Leray, to say
nothing of Ballum, Bango, Helts, and Hellam. And in other unhappy
places, the spirit of whim seems to have seized upon the inhabitants.
Who would wish to write themselves citizens of Murder-Kill-Hundred, or
Cain, or of the town of Lack, which places must be on the high road to
Fugit and Constable? There are several anti-Maine-law places, such as
Tom and Jerry, Whiskeyrun, Brandywine, Jolly, Lemon, Pipe, and Pitcher,
in which Father Matthew himself could hardly reside unimpeached in
repute. They read like the names in the old-fashioned "Temperance
Tales," all allegory and alcohol, which flourished in our boyhood.
Then, by way of counterpart to these, there are sixty-four places known
as Liberty, and thirteen as Freedom, but only one as Moral,--passing by
which, we suppose we shall come to Climax, and, thence descending,
arrive, as the whirligig of time appointeth, at Smackover, unless we
pause in Economy, or Equality, or Candor, or Fairplay.
If we were land-hunters, we might ponder long over the town of Gratis,
unless we thought Bonus promised more. There is Extra, and, if
tautologically fond of grandeur, _Metropolis City_,--a mighty Babel of
(in 1850) _four hundred and twenty-seven_ inhabitants,--and Bigger,
which has _seven hundred_. A brisk man would hardly choose Nodaway for
his home, nor a haymaker the town of Rain. And of all practical
impertinences, what could in this land of novelty equal the calling of
one's abiding-place "New"? We fully expect that 1860 will reveal a
comparative and superlative, and perhaps even a super-superlative,
("Newest-of-all,") upon its columns.
But what is the sense of such titles as Buckskin, Bullskin, (is it
Byrsa, by way of proving Solomon's adage,--"There is nothing new under
the sun"?) Chest, and Posey? There is one unfortunate place (do they
take the New York "Herald" and "Ledger" there?) which has "gone and got
itself christened" Mary Ann, and another (where "Childe Harold" is
doubtless in favor) is called Ada. There is a Crockery, a Carryall, and
a Turkey-Foot,--which last, like the broomstick in Goethe's ballad, is
chopped in two, only to reappear as a double nuisance, as Upper and
Lower Turkey-Foot.
Then what paucity of ideas is revealed in the fact that a number of
names are simply common nouns, or, worse yet, spinster adjectives,
"singly blest"! Such are Hill, Mountain, Lake, Glade, Rock, Glen, Bay,
Shade, Valley, Village, District, Falls, which might profitably be
joined in holy matrimony with the following,--Grand, Noble, Plain,
Pleasant, Rich, Muddy, Barren, Fine, and Flat.
As for one or two other unfortunates, like Bloom and Lumber, they can
only be sent to State's Prison for life, with Bean-Blossom and
Scrub-Grass. We need hardly mention that to the religious public,
including special attention to "clergymen and their families," Calvin,
Wesley, Whitefield, Tate, Brady, and Watts offer peculiar attractions.
But there is a class of names which does gladden us, partly from their
oddity, and partly from a feeling at first sight that they are names
really suggestive of something which has happened,--and this is apt to
turn out the fact. Thus, Painted-Post, in New York, and Baton-Rouge, in
Louisiana, are honest, though quaint appellatives; Standing-Stone is
another; High-Spire, a fourth. Others of the same class provoke our
curiosity. Thus, Grand-View-and-Embarras seems to have a history. So do
Warrior's-Mark and Broken-Straw. There is one queer name, Pen-Yan,
which is said to denote the component parts of its population,
_Pen_nsylvanians and _Yan_kees; and we have hopes that Proviso is not
meaningless. Also we would give our best pen to know the true origin of
Loyal-Sock, and of Marine-Town in the inland State of Illinois. This
last is like a "shipwreck on the coast of Bohemia." There is, too, a
memorial of the Greek Revolution which tells its own story,
--Scio-and-Webster! We could hardly wish the awkward partnership
dissolved. But who will unravel the mysteries of New-Design and
New-Faul? and can any one tell us whether the fine Norman name of
Sanilac is really the euphonious substitute for Bloody-Pond? If there
be in America that excellent institution, "Notes and Queries," here is
matter for their meddling.
But it is time to shut the book. For we are weary of picking holes in
our own _poncho_, and inclined to muse a little upon the science of
naming places. After what we have said about names growing,--_Nomen
nascitur, non fil,_--we cannot expect that the evil can be remedied by
Congress or Convention. Yet the Postal Department has fair cause of
complaint. Thus much might be required, that all the supernumerary
spots answering to the same hail should be compelled to change their
titles. Government exercises a tender supervision of the nomenclature
of our navy. Our ships of war are not permitted to disgrace the flag by
uncouth titles. Enterprising merchants have offered prizes for good
mouth-filling designations for their crack clippers, knowing that
freight and fortune often wait upon taking titles. Was the Flying Cloud
ever beaten? And in a land where all things change so lightly, why not
shake off the loosely sticking names and put on better? For at present,
the main end, that of conferring a _nomen_ or a name, something by
which the spot shall be known, has almost passed out of sight. If John
Smith, of the town of Smith, in Smith County, die, or commit forgery,
or be run for Congress, or write a book, his address might as well be
"Outis, Esq., Town of Anywhere, County of Everywhere." It concerns the
"Atlantic Monthly" not a little. For we desire, among its rapidly
multiplying subscribers, that our particular friend and kind critic,
commorant in Washington, should duly receive and enjoy this present
paper, undefrauded by any resident of the other one hundred and thirty
of the name. If we wish to mail a copy of "The Impending Crisis" to
Franklin, Vermont, we surely do not expect that it will perish by _auto
da fé_ in Franklin, Louisiana.
But the thought comes upon us, that herein is revealed a curious defect
of the American mind. It lacks, we contend, the fine perceptive power
which belongs to the poet. It can imitate, but cannot make. It does not
seize hold upon the distinctive fact of what it looks at, and
appropriate that. Our countrymen once could do it. The stern Puritan of
New England looked upon the grassy meadows beside the Connecticut, and
found them all bubbling with fountains, and called his settlement
"Springfield." But the American has lost the elementary uses of his
mother tongue. He is perpetually inventing new abstract terms,
generalizing with boldness and power and utter contempt of usage. But
the rich idiomatic sources of his speech lie too deep for him. They are
the glory and the joy of our motherland. You may take up "Bradshaw" and
amuse yourself on the wettest day at the dullest inn, nay, even amid
the horrors of the railway station, with deciphering the hidden
meanings of its lists of names, and form for yourself the gliding
panorama of its changing scenery and historic renown. But blank,
indeed, is the American transit through Rome, Marcellus, Carthage,
Athens, Palmyra, and Geneva; and blessed the relief when the Indian
tongue comes musically in to "heal the blows of sound"! And whatever
the expectations of the "Great American Poem," the Transatlantic
"Divina Commedia" or "Iliad," which the public may entertain, we feel
certain they will not be fulfilled in our day. Take Tennyson's "Idyls
of the King," and see what beautiful beadrolls of names he can string
together from the rough Cornish and Devon coasts. Only out of a
poetic-hearted people are poets born. The peasant writes ballads,
though scholars and antiquaries collect them. The Hebrew lyric fire
blazed in myriad beacons from every landmark. The soil of Palestine is
trodden, as it were, with the footsteps of God, so eloquent are its
mountains and hamlets with these records of a nation's faith.
But into how much of the love of home do its familiar names enter! And
we appeal to the common sense of everybody, whether those we have
quoted above are not enough to make a man ashamed of his birthplace.
They are the ear-mark of a roving, careless, selfish population, which
thinks only of mill-privileges, and never of pleasant meadows,--which
has built the ugliest dwellings and the biggest hotels of any nation,
save the Calmucks, over whom reigns the Czar. Upon the American soil
seem destined to meet and fuse the two great elements of European
civilization,--the Latin and the Saxon,--and of these two is our nation
blent. But just at present it exhibits the love of glare and finery of
the one, without its true and tender taste,--and the sturdy, practical
utilitarianism of the other, without its simple-hearted, home-loving
poetry. The boy is a great boy,--awkward, ungainly, and in the way; but
he has eyes, tongue, feet, and hands to some (future) purpose. And that
in good taste, good sense, refinement, and hopeful culture, our big boy
has been growing, we hope will be apparent, even in the matter of
"calling names," from the pages of the next census.
We have but a word more, in the way of finale. We have not been
romancing. Everything we have set down here we have truly looked up
there, in the volume furnished by Mr. De Bow. He, not we, must be held
answerable for any and all scarce credible names which are found
wanting in a local habitation. We have counted duly and truly the
fine-printed pages, from which task we pray that the kind Fates may
keep the reader.
Yet, if he doubt, and care to explore the original mine whence our
specimen petrifactions have been dug, he will find that we have by no
means exhausted the supply; and that there are many most curious and
suggestive facts, not contained in the statistics or intended by the
compiler, which are embraced in the CENSUS REPORTS.