The new North-west. [volume] (Deer Lodge, Mont.) 1869-1897, 1885-11-20
NAMING THE TOWNS.
THE TASK WHICH WAS GIVEN De
WITT CLINTON
How the Townships Of Central New York
Came to Have Such Strange and
Classical Names-The True
Explanation
lcrofrut in Detrolt Free Press |

lCroffut In Detroit Free Press.l
The Sun recently published. but did not
answer he QUESTION, "How came 20 many
towns n central New York b, have sueh
strange classical AMI European nsmesl"
The query ought to have hai soma sort of an
answer. Tuurow Weed tol me years ago
how it happened, but doubt il the expla-
nation has ever been ublicy made in full.
De Witt Clinton. l think he sal l. was sur
veyor general of the state in 1924 The leg
iSlature arranged for division OF the vast
ara OF unoccupied lanl< into townships of
about equal size, and a week bsfor, ad joura-
ment it called on De- Witt to supply namss
for them.
allow many are theref asked the officer.
@About $50" sai ths clerk
BEGINNING WITH OUR HEROES.
1.-TWO hundred and fifty towns to namsl'
exclaimed the asst 1nished man 81 don't be-
leve that il included IN the duties OF my
Office! However. we can b,gil with our
heroe'. Washington, Jefferson Adams,
Madison, Warren. Putnam. Greene, Gates,
Knox, Stark. Decatur, Stsubsn-"
Every good, sail the clerk encouragingly,
"tut they have all Teen appropriate in this
state, EXCEPT Decatur-even Adams and
Jefferson, who die | thi' Year"
"Wbat can l do, tbeni' inquired the
,nxicus officer. II can name one after my
tsf. and three after my wife and sisters
And theni Well. I'll see"
SEARCHING THE SCRIPTURES.
He went home TINT night and thought it
over. He began with tho names Of his
family. Then he took the Bible and found
Hebron, Canaan, Gilboa. Jerusalem and
Sharon, wrote these dow on vacant towns
on the great map spread out before him. and
then stopped there becau "thess Bible
names are mo tly such jawbrerker." Then
he namoi thres other town: after states
Floriia. Maryland AMI Alaba ma, ami three
after large ctie', Boston. Richmond AMI
Charleston, an went to ell trs.l. In the
m crning he found he had named sixteen
twns. and these he reported to the legis-
lature as samples" They did not show
great orig nality. but they were accepted,
and the command sent back to 1go ahead"
"I can't think Of anything more" said
poor De Witt Every town and locality
hal an Indian name, and many OF the
were significant, eupIonius AMI musical;
but the christener, like most foolish Ameri-
cans, discarle these, and sought for "some.
thing that sounds like something"
FROM FOREIGN LANDS.
He got an atlas, an applied t. his plat of
vacant towns the names of most of the
count ieS he saw--Scotlaud. Ru sia. Nor
why. NJ xico. Chill. Sweden, Hanover,
Wa'e: II IltnI. Pol,nd, Italy: AMI the
were all solemNly aionted as tho names OF
towns in New York Then he adoptet the
names Of cities. rivers AMI islands-Paris,
r tt'rdam, Amster lam, Malta. Galway,
Bath, Edinhnr.h, Perth. Danube. Carlisle,
n.
lermn. Parma. r. ki. Eliza. Bergen, Ham
burg, Sardinia. Werraw Castle, Avon,
LIMA. Geneva. Nlp,a,. ven;'e Genoa,
Waterloo. Rome. And the we're all 40
cepted by the legislature, AMI make eli
ments OF our local geography. Still there
was a multitude Of namoles towns De
Witt distributed among them tas names o:
oil the disting guished writer's, orators and
discoverers he could think of--Frankln
Fulton, Volnev. Galsn. Clay. Cicer, Mil
ton, Byron, Sheridan, Drv.len II msr,
Solon. Tully, Virgil-ani thea ho rested
and wondered what next
ANCIENT HISTORY.
Half in despair. he Euntel in the garrett
and found an ancient history, and that
proved to him a mine OF wealth. III rs are
the solid nuggets which he dug out and dis
trbuted among tho still forlorn townships:
Rnme, Greece, Utica, Troy. Corinth. Syra-
cuse, Babylon, Palmyra. Macelan. Attica,
Sparta. Ithica, Phnrsalia, Marathon,
Smyrna, Delhi, Brutus. Scipio. Moreau.
Camillus. Lysander, Hsunibal, Cato. Alex
ander, Aurelius, Nero. Fabius, Sempronius.
Pompey, Marcellus' These too, the legia-
lature adopted. But a month later the
town to which Nero" had been attached
sent up very angry protest against the
name, on the ground that Nero "was an
execrable tyrant who murdered both
his wife and his mother" A COM
mittee Of the assembly investigated
and found that Nero was really a hard
case, and reported to De Witt "That
town puts on good many airs" said the
disyusted officer who presided at the over
worried baptismal font; "let it be called
K lem" And Eden 1t was, and Is to this
day.
OvEhLOOKED.
When the legislature had adjourned 1t was
found that one town on the borders of PENN
sylvania had been overlooked. "Nans your
own town" said the fatigued De Witt.
They dill So About half tho settlers were
Pennsylvanians and the other half Yankees,
and from the first syllable Of both these
words they produced that name Of Chinese
look and sound-@Pen- Yam" And 10! New
York state was finishedl