THE AMERICAN STOCK
In the history of a word we may frequently find a fragment, sometimes
a large section, of universal history. This is exemplified in the term
American, a name which, in the phrase of George Washington, "must
always exalt the pride of patriotism" and which today is proudly borne
by a hundred million people. There is no obscurity about the origin of
the name America. It was suggested for the New World in 1507 by Martin
Waldseemüller, a German geographer at the French college of Saint-Dié.
In that year this savant printed a tract, with a map of the world or
_mappemonde_, recognizing the dubious claims of discovery set up by
Amerigo Vespucci and naming the new continent after him. At first
applied only to South America, the name was afterwards extended to
mean the northern continent as well; and in time the whole New World,
from the Frozen Ocean to the Land of Fire, came to be called America.
Inevitably the people who achieved a preponderating influence in the
new continent came to be called Americans. Today the name American
everywhere signifies belonging to the United States, and a citizen of
that country is called an American. This unquestionably is
geographically anomalous, for the neighbors of the United States, both
north and south, may claim an equal share in the term. Ethnically, the
only real Americans are the Indian descendants of the aboriginal
races. But it is futile to combat universal usage: the World War has
clinched the name upon the inhabitants of the United States. The
American army, the American navy, American physicians and nurses,
American food and clothing--these are phrases with a definite
geographical and ethnic meaning which neither academic ingenuity nor
race rivalry can erase from the memory of mankind.
This chapter, however, is to discuss the American stock, and it is
necessary to look farther back than mere citizenship; for there are
millions of American citizens of foreign birth or parentage who,
though they are Americans, are clearly not of any American stock.
At the time of the Revolution there was a definite American
population, knit together by over two centuries of toil in the hard
school of frontier life, inspired by common political purposes,
speaking one language, worshiping one God in divers manners,
acknowledging one sovereignty, and complying with the mandates of one
common law. Through their common experience in subduing the wilderness
and in wresting their independence from an obstinate and stupid
monarch, the English colonies became a nation. Though they did not
fulfill Raleigh's hope and become an English nation, they were much
more English than non-English, and these Revolutionary Americans may
be called today, without abuse of the term, the original American
stock. Though they were a blend of various races, a cosmopolitan
admixture of ethnic strains, they were not more varied than the
original admixture of blood now called English.
We may, then, properly begin our survey of the racial elements in the
United States by a brief scrutiny of this American stock, the parent
stem of the American people, the great trunk, whose roots have
penetrated deep into the human experience of the past and whose
branches have pushed upward and outward until they spread over a whole
continent.
The first census of the United States was taken in 1790. More than a
hundred years later, in 1909, the Census Bureau published _A Century
of Population Growth_ in which an attempt was made to ascertain the
nationality of those who comprised the population at the taking of the
first census. In that census no questions of nativity were asked. This
omission is in itself significant of the homogeneity of the population
at that time. The only available data, therefore, upon which such a
calculation could be made were the surnames of the heads of families
preserved in the schedules. A careful analysis of the list disclosed a
surprisingly large number of names ostensibly English or British.
Fashions in names have changed since then, and many that were so
curious, simple, or fantastically compounded as to be later deemed
undignified have undergone change or disappeared.[3]
Upon this basis the nationality of the white population was
distributed among the States in accordance with Table A printed on
pages 26-27. Three of the original States are not represented in this
table: New Jersey, Delaware, and Georgia. The schedules of the First
Census for those States were not preserved. The two new States of
Kentucky and Tennessee are also missing from the list. Estimates,
however, have been made for these missing States.
For Delaware, the schedules of the Second Census, 1800, survived. As
there was little growth and very little change in the composition of
the population during this decade, the Census Bureau used the later
figures as a basis for calculating the population in 1790. Of three of
the missing Southern States the report says: "The composition of the
white population of Georgia, Kentucky, and of the district
subsequently erected into the State of Tennessee is also unknown; but
in view of the fact that Georgia was a distinctly English colony, and
that Tennessee and Kentucky were settled largely from Virginia and
North Carolina, the application of the North Carolina proportions to
the white population of these three results in what is doubtless an
approximation of the actual distribution."
TABLE A[4]
DISTRIBUTION OF THE WHITE POPULATION, 1790, IN EACH STATE, ACCORDING
TO NATIONALITY AS INDICATED BY NAMES OF HEADS OF FAMILIES
Note: The first column under each State gives the number of persons;
the second, the percentage. The asterisk indicates less than one-tenth
of one per cent.
-------------+-------------+--------------+-------------+--------------
NATIONALITY | MAINE | NEW HAMPSHIRE| VERMONT | MASSACHUSETTS
-------------+-------+-----+--------+-----+-------+-----+--------+-----
All | | | | | | | |
Nationalities| 96,107|100.0| 141,112|100.0| 85,072|100.0| 373,187|100.0
| | | | | | | |
English | 89,515| 93.1| 132,726| 94.1| 81,149| 95.4| 354,528| 95.0
Scotch | 4,154| 4.3| 6,648| 4.7| 2,562| 3.0| 13,435| 3.6
Irish | 1,334| 1.4| 1,346| 1.0| 597| 0.7| 3,732| 1.0
Dutch | 279| 0.3| 153| 0.1| 428| 0.5| 373| 0.1
French | 115| 0.1| 142| 0.1| 153| 0.2| 746| 0.2
German | 436| 0.5| | | 35| *| 75| *
Hebrew | 44| *| | | | | 67| *
All others | 230| 0.2| 97| 0.1| 148| 0.2| 231| *
-------------+-------+-----+--------+-----+-------+-----+--------+-----
-------------+-------------+--------------+--------------+--------------
NATIONALITY | RHODE ISLAND| CONNECTICUT | NEW YORK | PENNSYLVANIA
-------------+-------+-----+--------+-----+--------+-----+--------+-----
All | | | | | | | |
Nationalities| 64,670|100.0| 232,236|100.0| 314,366|100.0| 423,373|100.0
| | | | | | | |
English | 62,079| 96.0| 223,437| 96.2| 245,901| 78.2| 249,656| 59.0
Scotch | 1,976| 3.1| 6,425| 2.8| 10,034| 3.2| 49,567| 11.7
Irish | 459| 0.7| 1,589 | 0.7| 2,525| 0.8| 8,614| 2.0
Dutch | 19| *| 258 | 0.1| 50,600| 16.1| 2,623| 0.6
French | 88| 0.1| 512| 0.2| 2,424| 0.8| 2,341| 0.6
German | 33| 0.1| 4| *| 1,103| 0.4| 110,357| 26.1
Hebrew | 9| *| 5| *| 385| 0.1| 21| *
All others | 7| *| 6| *| 1,394| 0.4| 194| *
-------------+-------+-----+--------+-----+--------+-----+--------+-----
-------------+--------------+--------------+--------------+--------------
NATIONALITY | MARYLAND | VIRGINIA |NORTH CAROLINA|SOUTH CAROLINA
-------------+--------+-----+--------+-----+--------+-----+--------+-----
All | | | | | | | |
Nationalities| 208,649|100.0| 442,117|100.0| 289,181|100.0| 140,178|100.0
| | | | | | | |
English | 175,265| 84.0| 375,799| 85.0| 240,309| 83.1| 115,480| 82.4
Scotch | 13,562| 6.5| 31,391| 7.1| 32,388| 11.2| 16,447| 11.7
Irish | 5,008| 2.4| 8,842| 2.0| 6,651| 2.3| 3,576| 2.6
Dutch | 209| 0.1| 884| 0.2| 578| 0.2| 219| 0.2
French | 1,460| 0.7| 2,653| 0.6| 868| 0.3| 1,882| 1.8
German | 12,310| 5.9| 21,664| 4.9| 8,097| 2.8| 2,343| 1.7
Hebrew | 626| 0.3| | | 1| *| 85| *
All others | 209| 0.1| 884| 0.2| 289| 0.1| 146| 0.1
-------------+--------+-----+--------+-----+--------+-----+--------+-----
TABLE B
COMPUTED DISTRIBUTION OF WHITE POPULATION, 1790, ACCORDING TO
NATIONALITY, IN EACH STATE FOR WHICH SCHEDULES ARE MISSING
--------------+-----------------+-----------------+----------------
NATIONALITY | NEW JERSEY | DELAWARE | GEORGIA
--------------+---------+-------+---------+-------+---------+------
All | | | | | |
Nationalities | 169,954 | 100.0 | 46,310 | 100.0 | 52,886 | 100.0
| | | | | |
English | 98,620 | 58.0 | 39,966 | 86.3 | 43,948 | 83.1
Scotch | 13,156 | 7.7 | 3,473 | 7.5 | 5,923 | 11.2
Irish | 12,099 | 7.1 | 1,806 | 3.9 | 1,216 | 2.3
Dutch | 21,581 | 12.7 | 463 | 1.0 | 106 | 0.2
French | 3,565 | 2.1 | 232 | 0.5 | 159 | 0.3
German | 15,678 | 9.2 | 185 | 0.4 | 1,481 | 2.8
All others[A] | 5,255 | 3.1 | 185 | 0.4 | 53 | 0.1
--------------+---------+-------+---------+-------+---------+------
--------------+-----------------+----------------
NATIONALITY | KENTUCKY | TENNESSEE
--------------+---------+-------+---------+------
All | | | |
Nationalities | 61,133 | 100.0 | 31,918 | 100.0
| | | |
English | 50,802 | 83.1 | 26,519 | 83.1
Scotch | 6,847 | 11.2 | 3,574 | 11.2
Irish | 1,406 | 2.3 | 734 | 2.8
Dutch | 122 | 0.2 | 64 | 0.2
French | 183 | 0.3 | 96 | 0.3
German | 1,712 | 2.8 | 894 | 2.8
All others[A] | 61 | 0.1 | 32 | 0.1
--------------+---------+-------+---------+------
[Note A: Including Hebrews.]
New Jersey presented a more complex problem. Here were Welsh and
Swedes, Finns and Danes, as well as French, Dutch, Scotch, Irish, and
English. A careful analysis was made of lists of freeholders, and
other available sources, in the various counties. The results of these
computations in the States from which no schedules of the First Census
survive are given in Table B printed on page 28.
The calculations for the entire country in 1790, based upon the census
schedules of the States from which reports are still available and
upon estimates for the others are summed up in the following manner:
_Number and per cent distribution of the white population, 1790:_
_Nationality_ _Number_ _Per Cent_
All Nationalities 3,172,444 100.0
English 2,605,699 82.1
Scotch 221,562 7.0
Irish 61,534 1.9
Dutch 78,959 2.5
French 17,619 0.6
German 176,407 5.6
All others 10,664 0.3
To this method of estimating nationality, it will at once be objected
that undue prominence is given to the derivation of the surname, an
objection fully understood by those who made the estimate and one
which deprives their conclusions of strict scientific verity. In a new
country, where the population is in a constant flux and where members
of community composed of one race easily migrate to another part of
the country and fall in with people of another race, it is very easy
to modify the name to suit new circumstances. We know, for instance
that Isaac Isaacks of Pennsylvania was not a Jew, that the Van
Buskirks of New Jersey were German, not Dutch, that D'Aubigné was
early shortened into Dabny and Aulnay into Olney. So also many a Brown
had been Braun, and several Blacks had once been only Schwartz. Even
the universal Smith had absorbed more than one original Schmidt. These
rather exceptional cases, however, probably, do not vitiate the
general conclusion here made as to the British and non-British element
in the population of America, for the Dutch, the German, the French,
and the Swedish cognomens are characteristically different from the
British. But the differentiation between Irish, Welsh, Scotch,
Scotch-Irish, and English names is infinitely more difficult. The
Scotch-Irish particularly have challenged the conclusions reached by
the Census Bureau. They claim a much larger proportion of the
original bulk of our population than the seven per cent included under
the heading Scotch. Henry Jones Ford considers the conclusions as far
as they pertain to the Scotch-Irish as "fallacious and untrustworthy."
"Many Ulster names," he says,[5] "are also common English names....
Names classed as Scotch or Irish were probably mostly those of
Scotch-Irish families.... The probability is that the English
proportion should be much smaller and that the Scotch-Irish, who are
not included in the Census Bureau's classification, should be much
larger than the combined proportions allotted to the Scotch and the
Irish."
Whatever may be the actual proportions of these British elements, as
revealed by a study of the patronymics of the population at the time
of American independence, the fact that the ethnic stock was
overwhelmingly British stands out most prominently. We shall never
know the exact ratios between the Scotch and the English, the Welsh
and the Irish blended in this hardy, self-assertive, and fecund
strain. But we do know that the language, the political institutions,
and the common law as practiced and established in London had a
predominating influence on the destinies of the United States. While
the colonists drifted far from the religious establishments of the
mother country and found her commercial policies unendurable and her
political hauteur galling, they nevertheless retained those legal and
institutional forms which remain the foundation of Anglo-Saxon life.
For nearly half a century the American stock remained almost entirely
free from foreign admixture. It is estimated that between 1790 and
1820 only 250,000 immigrants came to America, and of these the great
majority came after the War of 1812. The white population of the
United States in 1820 was 7,862,166. Ten years later it had risen to
10,537,378. This astounding increase was almost wholly due to the
fecundity of the native stock. The equitable balance between the
sexes, the ease of acquiring a home, the vigorous pioneer environment,
and the informal frontier social conditions all encouraged large
families. Early marriages were encouraged. Bachelors and unmarried
women were rare. Girls were matrons at twenty-five and grand-mothers
at forty. Three generations frequently dwelt in one homestead.
Families of five persons were the rule; families of eight or ten were
common, while families of fourteen or fifteen did not elicit
surprise. It was the father's ambition to leave a farm to every son
and, if the neighborhood was too densely settled easily to permit
this, there was the West--always the West.
This was a race of nation builders. No sooner had he made the
Declaration of Independence a reality than the eager pathfinder turned
his face towards the setting sun and, prompted by the instincts of
conquest, he plunged into the wilderness. Within a few years western
New York and Pennsylvania were settled; Kentucky achieved statehood in
1792 and Tennessee four years later, soon to be followed by
Mississippi in 1817 and Alabama in 1819. The great Northwest Territory
yielded Ohio in 1802, Indiana in 1816, Illinois in 1818, and Michigan
in 1837. Beyond the Mississippi the empire of Louisiana doubled the
original area of the Republic; Louisiana came into statehood in 1812
and Missouri in 1821. Texas, Oregon, and the fruits of the Mexican War
extended its confines to the Western Sea. Incredibly swift as was this
march of the Stars, the American pioneer was always in advance.
The pathfinders were virtually all of American stock. The States
admitted to the Union prior to 1840 were not only founded by them;
they were almost wholly settled by them. When the influx of
foreigners began in the thirties, they found all the trails already
blazed, the trading posts established, and the first terrors of the
wilderness dispelled. They found territories already metamorphosed
into States, counties organized, cities established. Schools,
churches, and colleges preceded the immigrants who were settlers and
not strictly pioneers. The entire territory ceded by the Treaty of
1783 was appropriated in large measure by the American before the
advent of the European immigrant.
Washington, with a ring of pride, said in 1796 that the native
population of America was "filling the western part of the State of
New York and the country on the Ohio with their own surplusage." And
James Madison in 1821 wrote that New England, "which has sent out such
a continued swarm to other parts of the Union for a number of years,
has continued at the same time, as the census shows, to increase in
population although it is well known that it has received but
comparatively few emigrants from any quarter." Beyond the Mississippi,
Louisiana, with its Creole population, was feeling the effect of
American migration.
A strange restlessness, of the race rather than of the individual,
possessed the American frontiers-man. He moved from one locality to
another, but always westward, like some new migratory species that
had willingly discarded the instinct for returning. He never took the
back trail. A traveler, writing in 1791 from the Ohio Valley, rather
superficially observed that "the Americans are lazy and bored, often
moving from place to place for the sake of change; in the thirty years
that the [western] Pennsylvania neighborhood has been settled, it has
changed owners two or three times. The sight of money will tempt any
American to sell and off he goes to a new country." Foreign observers
of that time constantly allude to this universal and inexplicable
restiveness. It was obviously not laziness, for pioneering was a man's
task; nor boredom, for the frontier was lonely and neighbors were far
apart It was an ever-present dissatisfaction that drove this perpetual
conqueror onward--a mysterious impulse, the urge of vague and
unfulfilled desires. He went forward with a conquering ambition in his
heart; he believed he was the forerunner of a great National Destiny.
Crude rhymes of the day voice this feeling:
So shall the nation's pioneer go joyful on his way,
To wed Penobscot water to San Francisco Bay.
The mighty West shall bless the East, and sea shall answer sea,
And mountain unto mountain call, praise God, for we are free!
Again a popular chorus of the pathfinder rang:
Then o'er the hills in legions, boys;
Fair freedom's star
Points to the sunset regions, boys,
Ha, Ha, Ha-ha!
Many a New Englander cleared a farm in western New York, Ohio, or
Indiana, before settling finally in Wisconsin, Iowa, or Minnesota,
whence he sent his sons on to Dakota, Montana, Oregon, and California.
From Tennessee and Kentucky large numbers moved into southern Ohio,
Indiana, Illinois, and across the river into Missouri, Arkansas,
Louisiana, and Texas. Abraham Lincoln's father was one of these
pioneers and tried his luck in various localities in Kentucky,
Indiana, and Illinois.
Nor had the movement ceased after a century of continental
exploitation. Hamlin Garland in his notable autobiography, _A Son of
the Middle Border_, brings down to our own day the evidence of this
native American restiveness. His parents came of New England
extraction, but settled in Wisconsin. His father, after his return
from the Civil War, moved to Iowa, where he was scarcely ensconced
before an opportunity came to sell his place. The family then pushed
out farther upon the Iowa prairie, where they "broke" a farm from the
primeval turf. Again, in his ripe age, the father found the urge
revive and under this impulse he moved again, this time to Dakota,
where he remained long enough to transform a section of prairie into
wheat land before he took the final stage of his western journeyings
to southern California. Here he was surrounded by neighbors whose
migration had been not unlike his own, and to the same sunny region
another relative found his way "by way of a long trail through Iowa,
Dakota, Montana, Oregon, and North California."
When the last frontier had vanished, it was seen that men of this
American stock had penetrated into every valley, traversed every
plain, and explored every mountain pass from Atlantic to Pacific. They
organized every territory and prepared each for statehood. It was the
enterprise of these sons and grandsons and great-grandsons of the
Revolutionary Americans, obeying the restless impulse of a pioneer
race, who spread a network of settlements and outposts over the entire
land and prepared it for the immigrant invasion from Europe. Owing to
this influx of foreigners, the American stock has become mingled with
other strains, especially those from Great Britain.
The Census Bureau estimated that in 1900 there were living in the
United States approximately thirty-five million white people who were
descended from persons enumerated in 1790. If these thirty-five
million were distributed by nationality according to the proportions
estimated for 1790, the result would appear as follows:
English 28,735,000
Scotch 2,450,000
Irish 665,000
Dutch 875,000
French 210,000
German 1,960,000
All others 105,000
In 1900 there were also thirty-two million descendants of white
persons who had come to the United States after the First Census, yet
of these over twenty million were either foreign born or the children
of persons born abroad. If this ratio of increase remained the same,
the American stock would apparently maintain its own, even in the
midst of twentieth century immigration. But the birth rate of the
foreign stock, especially among the recent comers, is much higher than
of the native American stock. Conditions have so changed that,
according to the Census, the American people "have concluded that they
are only about one-half as well able to rear children--at any rate,
without personal sacrifice--under the conditions prevailing in 1900 as
their predecessors proved themselves to be under the conditions which
prevailed in 1790."
The difficulty of ascertaining ethnic influences increases
immeasurably when we pass from the physical to the mental realm. There
are subtle interplays of delicate forces and reactions from
environment which no one can measure. Leadership nevertheless is the
gift of but few races; and in the United States eminence in business,
in statecraft, in letters and learning can with singular directness be
traced in a preponderating proportion to this American stock.
In 1891 Henry Cabot Lodge published an essay on _The Distribution of
Ability in the United States_,[6] based upon the 15,514 names in
Appleton's _Cyclopedia of American Biography_ (1887). He "treated as
immigrants all persons who came to the United States after the
adoption of the Constitution," and on this division he found 14,243
"Americans" and 1271 "immigrants" distributed racially as follows:
AMERICANS IMMIGRANTS
English 10,376 English 345
Scotch-Irish 1439 German 245
German 659 Irish 200
Huguenot 589 Scotch 151
Scotch 436 Scotch-Irish 88
Dutch 336 French 63
Welsh 159 Canadian and
Irish 109 British Colonial 60
French 85 Scandinavian 18
Scandinavian 31 Welsh 16
Spanish 7 Belgian 15
Italian 7 Swiss 15
Swiss 5 Dutch 14
Greek 3 Polish 13
Russian 1 Hungarian 11
Polish 1 Italian 10
Greek 3
Russian 2
Spanish 1
Portuguese 1
Of the total number of individuals selected, a large number were
chosen by the editors as being of enough importance to entitle them to
a small portrait in the text, and fifty-eight persons who had achieved
some unusual distinction were accorded a full-page portrait. These,
however, represented achievement rather than ability, for they
included the Presidents of the United States and other political
personages. Of the total number selected for the distinction of a
small portrait, 1200 were "Americans" and 71 "immigrants." Of the 1200
"Americans," 856 were of English extraction, 129 Scotch-Irish, 57
Huguenot, 45 Scotch, 39 Dutch, 37 German, 15 Welsh, 13 Irish, 6
French, and one each of Scandinavian, Spanish, and Swiss. Of the
"immigrants" 15 were English, 14 German, 11 Irish, 8 Scotch-Irish, 7
Scotch, 6 Swiss, 4 French, 3 from Spanish Provinces, and 1 each from
Scandinavia, Belgium, and Poland. All the 58 whose full-page portraits
are presumed to be an index to unusual prominence were found to be
"Americans" and by race extraction they were distributed as follows:
English 41, Scotch-Irish 8, Scotch 4, Welsh 2, Dutch, Spanish, and
Irish 1 each.
Whatever may be said in objection to this index of ability (and
Senator Lodge effectively answered his critics in a note appended to
this study in his volume of _Historical and Political Essays_), it is
apparent that a large preponderance of leadership in American
politics, business, art, literature, and learning has been derived
from the American stock. This is a perfectly natural result. The
founders of the Republic themselves were in large degree the children
of the pick of Europe. The Puritan, Cavalier, Quaker, Scotch-Irish,
Huguenot, and Dutch pioneers were not ordinary folk in any sense of
the term. They were, in a measure, a race of heroes. Their sons and
grandsons inherited their vigor and their striving. It is not at all
singular that every President of the United States and every Chief
Justice of the Federal Supreme Court has come from this stock, nor
that the vast majority of Cabinet members, of distinguished Senators,
of Speakers of the House, and of men of note in the House of
Representatives trace back to it their lineage in whole or in part.
After the middle of the nineteenth century the immigrant vote began to
make itself felt, and politicians contended for the "Irish vote" and
the "German vote" and later for the "Italian vote" the "Jewish vote,"
and the "Norwegian vote." Members of the immigrant races began to
appear in Washington, and the new infusion of blood made itself felt
in the political life of the country.
But, if material were available for a comprehensive analysis of
American leadership in life and thought today, a larger number of
names of non-native origin would no doubt appear than was disclosed
in 1891 by Senator Lodge's analysis. All the learned professions, for
instance, and many lines of business are finding their numbers swelled
by persons of foreign parentage. This change is to be expected. The
influence of environment, especially of free education and unfettered
opportunity, is calling forth the talents of the children of the
immigrants. The number of descendants from the American stock yearly
becomes relatively less; intermarriage with the children of the
foreign born is increasingly frequent. Profound changes have taken
place since the American pioneers pushed their way across the
Alleghanies; changes infinitely more profound have taken place even
since the dawn of the twentieth century and have put to the test of
Destiny the institutions which are called "American."
Nevertheless in a large sense every great tradition of the original
American stock lives today: the tradition of free movement, of
initiative and enterprise; the tradition of individual responsibility;
the primary traditions of democracy and liberty. These give a virile
present meaning to the name American. A noted French journalist
received this impression of a group of soldiers who in 1918 were
bivouacked in his country: "I saw yesterday an American unit in which
men of very varied origin abounded--French, Polish, Czech, German,
English, Canadian--such their names and other facts revealed them.
Nevertheless, all were of the same or similar type, a fact due
apparently to the combined influences of sun, air, primary education,
and environment. And one was not long in discovering that the
intelligence of each and all had manifestly a wider outlook than that
of the man of single racial lineage and of one country." And these men
were Americans.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 3: Among the names which have quite vanished were those
pertaining to household matters, such as Hash, Butter, Waffle, Booze,
Frill, Shirt, Lace; or describing human characteristics, as Booby,
Dunce, Sallow, Daft, Lazy, Measley, Rude; or parts of the body and its
ailments, as Hips, Bones, Chin, Glands, Gout, Corns, Physic; or
representing property, as Shingle, Gutters, Pump, Milkhouse, Desk,
Mug, Auction, Hose, Tallow. Nature also was drawn upon for a large
number of names. The colors Black, Brown, and Gray survive, but
Lavender, Tan, and Scarlet have gone out of vogue. Bogs, Hazelgrove,
Woodyfield, Oysterbanks, Chestnut, Pinks, Ragbush, Winterberry, Peach,
Walnut, Freeze, Coldair, Bear, Tails, Chick, Bantam, Stork, Worm,
Snake, and Maggot indicate the simple origin of many names. There were
many strange combinations of Christian names and surnames: Peter
Wentup, Christy Forgot, Unity Bachelor, Booze Still, Cutlip Hoof, and
Wanton Bump left little to the imagination.]
[Footnote 4: These tables and those on the pages immediately following
are taken from _A Century of Population Growth_, issued by the United
States Census Bureau in 1908.]
[Footnote 5: _The Scotch-Irish in America_ pp. 219-20.]
[Footnote 6: See _The Century Magazine_, September, 1891, and Lodge's
_Historical and Political Essays_, 1892.]