The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-08-05
Anour CHATTANoocA,


 The Chattanooga Times has not yet sat- isfied itself about the name of its city. And argues thus: stz
 The esteemed Montgomery Advertiser says we are wrong in saying that the Choctaw lands ended in the vicinity of this I,ty and that, therefore. the signi- ficance of the word ''Chattanooga" as given by the Choctaw chief mentioned in this column a few days since, Is all wrong, Fact is, we weren't here during the period at which the noble red man trod this glorious turf" of ours. and we can't be positive; all we can say about 1t with any certainty is that the Choctaw In- dian stated to our informant that Chat tanooga was doubtless a corruption of Choctaw-noo-ga"- of Choctaw land"-and that the Choctaw sectional line at one time during the ancient days joined the Cherokees in this vicinity. It is not possible that the age of our friend of The Advertiser justifies the belief that he was present in flesh acting and parti- cipating in the energetic and forceful events of that early period when the sChoctaws. the Cherokees and the Greeks hills but if he was and has personal knowledge of the fact that the Choctaws and the Cherokees never did join, but that it was the Creeks whose lands for- ever before were contiguous to the Chero- kees at this point. then we will have to yield. But if his knowledge Is "hearsay," as we frankly admit our information is, we must insist that our they say" is as screditable as his. We do not pretend to any accurate Knowledge on the subject, and were only trying in most conn mendahle way to find a settlement of the hitherto very vexed and vexing question as to how and whence came the name Chattanooga and what it really means. We were greatly in hope that we had suR- ceeded and doubtless would have done so but for the disposition of our Alabama rfa fd. he lxrfn ia md nNr- act. Acting on The Advertisers advice, we shall give the matter further investl- gation.
 Exactness and accuracy. let us remind our much-valued contemporary. are es- sentlal clements of power for good in great newspapers like The Times and The Advertiser. Lesser moulders of public opinion may go off half-cocked but that isn't our style. Whether we discuss the affairs of nations or the habits of doodle hugs. let us do so with an eye single to the unfolding of the truth and the dis semination of light.
 Now, about that name: We were neith- CT 'sthar or tharabouts" when the red Indian was chasing the bull-frogs in the limpid waters of the Tennessee, but we've been a rather close student of Indian history. habits and nomenclature for score of years. and claim to know some thing about them, and ssince The Times first alluded to it, we have made special research, both as to the location of the tribes and the derivation of the name.
 And so, coming down to the matter be- fore the house. we have found nothing to prove that the Choctaws and cherokees ever occupied contiguous territory, or that they were even near neighbors. That would not be a fatal objection to the name given. however, for the Indians, like the whites, sometimes gave names to their towns for which there was no visible reason based on nearby objects. Thus they might have had town somewhere in Alabama or Mississippi designating the end of the Choctaw country, and that name might have been transferred to Chattanooga, just as the name of Che- haw, in Macon County, is derived from the Cherokee Tchiaha, which DeSoto found at or near the present city of Rome Ga.
 But the maln dlficulty lies in the fact that there Is no word in Cherokee Choc- taw or Creek resembling "nooga" which could be interpreted lend of the land" or anything of the kind. If The Times or some one else will show any authority for saying that "choctaw-noo-ga" means lend of choetaw land" we shall be d AGd and satsaed. A