Names on the Land: A Historical Account of Place-Naming in the United States

AUTHOR: George R. Stewart

PUBLISHED: Originally published 1945; re-released in 1958

GENRE: History.  Come on, you know you were just waiting for me to review something like this.

So you’re driving through Pennsylvania, down the Old Philadelphia Pike, when a sign comes up:

Bird-in-Hand – Next Exit.

You can’t tell me you’re not going to turn to your traveling mate and ask, what in the hell is that all about.

Well, wonder no more.  It may not explain your other questions about those quirky Pennsylvanians – and there are so many – but “Names on the Land” will explain why a small town bears the name of half a proverbial saying.  (It was named after the local tavern, an apparently common tactic in early America.  Other taverns-cum-town names include White Horse, Broad Axe, and Bird-in-Hand’s more famous cousin, King of Prussia, home of the largest mall on the East Coast.) 

Names on the Land starts with the first settlers and moves across the county and across time to explain why we call our towns and counties what we do.  It’s long-range history at its best, and a striking reminder of just how many different cultures it took to build this country.  At 438 pages of small type, it’s a haul to get through.  But George Stewart’s prose runs much smoother than the subject matter would suggest.  It helps that the some of the stories he tells – like the one about how Oregon was named after Wisconsin – are so strange you can’t help but want to pass them on.*

This book is not going to show up on Amazon’s most popular lists.  The chapter entitled “Current Affairs” – a postscript to the first edition – deals with the years 1945 to 1958 and was written to include brand-new states Hawaii and Alaska.  But aside from Truth or Consequence, New Mexico, pretty much none of the names has changed, and the stories of how they came to be are just as interesting.  Even the everyday names are full of history, reminders of the growing pains this country experienced.  Shrewsbury is Shrewbury because it was founded by the English.  If it had been founded by the Scotch, it would have been Shrewburgh; the French, Shrewsbourg.  Staten Island has Arthur Kill Park not because Arthur Kill founded it, or because somebody died there (although it would explain the smell) but because it sat on a creek, and creek is kill in Dutch.  There’s a Wall Street in Lower Manhattan because there used to be a wall there, part of the defenses to ward off invading colonizers.  They seem like minor details – bury instead of burgh, underground creeks, long-crumbled walls – but they’re not.  Those details are why the states are shaped the way they are, and why we speak the way we do, and why we’ve made the choices that have shaped our history.  Those details help explain who we are.

Well, maybe not the Pennsylvanians.

LENGTH: 438 pages.  Of little print.  Sorry.

MAINSTREAM OR NOT?: See original publishing date.  Does that answer your question?  (If it doesn’t: the answer is no.  A big, resounding no.)

SO, SHOULD I READ IT OR NOT?: If you are a fan of history, cartography, or linguistics, then you will love following the path of how these places were named.  If you’re not, don’t bother.  You’ll be glassy-eyed by page 10.

*This turn of name came courtesy of our Gallic forefathers.  The original French settlers recorded the Native American name for the land first as Mescousing, then Ouisonsing, which got Anglicized into Wisconsin.  A later French mapmaker misspelled it as Ouariconsint, with a nasty gap in the middle, so that it looked two places, Ouaricon and Sint, on the map.  Years later, someone else settling the Wild West remembered the name place as Ouaragon.  Yet another mapmaker, this one with a penchant for spices, heard oregano instead, just without the a at the end.  A voila, Wisconsin becomes Oregon.  See? Fascinating!