Word: stewart
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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NAMES ON THE LAND-George R. Stewart-Random House...
This story of how Lexington, Ky. became the first town to be christened by free Americans is one of hundreds in this fascinating 418-page "Historical Account of Place-Naming in the United States" by George R. Stewart (Bret Harte, TIME, Dec. 21. 1931 ; Storm, TIME, Dec. 1, 1941). Its 2,000-odd place names run from Adam-and-Eve Alley to Zigzag...
...inherited one of its richest stores of names-those of no less than "26 states, 18 of the greatest cities, most of the larger lakes and longer rivers, a few of the highest mountains, and thousands of smaller towns and natural features." But most of these treasured names, Author Stewart explains, are by now about as Indian as the aboriginal forest trail now called Broadway. Even in their original forms they were often so old that their source and meaning puzzled the Indians themselves. Clipped and pummeled into pronounceable shape by Spaniards, Frenchmen, Russians, Harvardmen, gold miners, railroad presidents...
...struggle between dignity and simple usage was not merely a matter of Europeans v. Americans. Author Stewart shows clearly that when Congress and state legislatures took a hand in place-naming they usually gave free rein to the politician's love of rolling syllables (Maine is the only one-syllable state name in the Union). With profound respect for a great democrat, Congress named three tributaries of the Jefferson River Philosophy, Wisdom and Philanthropy - only to find the people of the region stubbornly continuing to call them what they always had: Willow Creek, Big Hole and Stinking Water...
...nations, concludes Author Stewart, can boast a nomenclature "so definitely linked with actual men and events," or composed to such an extent by "all classes from border ruffian to Boston Brahmin." Pastoral simplicities like Seldom Seen, Possum Glory, Chicken Bristle, Hog Eye, Ticklenaked, Pokamoonshine, Stop-theJade, Bug Tussel and Pennsylvania's neighboring Intercourse and Fertility are as native and natural as those that recall forgotten troubles and tragedies-Cape Fear, Cape Foulweather, Gunsight Hills, Broken Bow, Massacre Lake, Deadman Creek. "The other Tokyo." World War II has shown that local pride-of-name can now stand up to anything...