Radio Script #876

Little Talks on Common Things
January 17, 1971

Several times I have called your attention to Maine place names. I want to do so again today. I have already told you that Skowhegan comes from an Abenaki word meaning “fish at the falls”, or perhaps simply “good fishing”, referring to the annual spring-run of salmon and other fish up the river to spawn. We have a great many places in Maine that have Indian names, especially our lakes. Messalonskee means “white clay here”. Sebago is “big lake”. Squam is “salmon”. Umbazookskus is “clear, gravelly outlet”. Wabbassus is “white and shining”. Wassokeag is “clear fishing place”. Wesserunsett is “bitter water”. And so we might go on for a hundred more.

How the names of some of our Maine places originated makes an interesting story. Two at least of those places got their names from the ancient, classical languages. Alna is from the Latin alnus, the alder tree, so named because the town had an abundance of alders. Telos Lake has a Greek name, meaning end. At least one Maine town was named by a Masonic lodge. The Masons at that place named Hiram for the monarch prominent in the Masonic ritual, Hiram, King of Tyre.

As for more Indian names, Schoodic in Abenaki meant end, just as Telos did in Greek. Our Sebasticook River is logically named. In the Indian tongue it meant “almost through passage”; that is, almost through from the Penobscot to the Kennebec. The word Kennebec itself meant “long reach”, referring to the long stretch of relatively quiet water from Augusta to the sea. The name first appeared in print in a record of 1609, and was spelled Kinibeki, which was probably a close, phonetic rendering of the Indian pronunciation.

We encounter many false interpretations of old place names. It was easy for the story to spread that one of the Rangeley Lakes was named because an Indian once said in broken English, “moose look; me gun tick”. But the Indians called that lake Mooselookmeguntic long before the white men came. It means “moose river swimming place”. In fact the word moose itself is of Indian origin. The early colonists, not familiar with such an animal in Europe, hitched the Indian word on to one already familiar to them, and called the creature the moose deer.

Most of you know that the name for the original settlement on this side of the river from Winslow was Ticonic Village, after the falls that had long been known to the Indians as Ticonic. How did the place get that name, which meant “wading place” or ford? It was because near those falls, long ago before the present flow, there was a fording place where the water, after the spring flow had subsided was shallow enough for crossing on foot or on horseback. The ancient memoirs of Elihu Bowerman, first settler of North Fairfield, tells how he went often to Friends Meeting in Vassalboro, across that ford on horseback with his wife riding behind him on the pillion.

Castine, named for the French baron of that name, had an older Indian name, Bagaduce. It meant “big tide river”.

We have plenty of Maine towns named for persons. Benton, originally having the Indian name of Sebasticook, like the river, was renamed for the American statesman, Thomas Hart Benton, father-in-law of Fremont, the first Republican candidate for President. Brunswick was named for George I , one of whose titles was Elector of Brunswick-Lunenberg. Edgecomb was named for the British nobleman, George Lord Edgecomb. Byron was named for the poet, Lord Byron. Cape Elizabeth got its name from Princess Elizabeth, daughter of James I, not from the more famous Queen Elizabeth I. The princess’ brother, later the unfortunate Charles I, wrote her name on John Smith’s map of New England in 1616, and the name stuck. Augusta was also named for a woman, Pamela Augusta Dearborn, daughter of the Revolutionary General Henry Dearborn. Two towns were named by German immigrants who settled them – Dresden and Bremen. The town of Linneus was named for the 18th century botanist, Carolus Linneus, because that land in Maine was granted to Harvard to establish a Linneus professorship. Among our biblical names, one of the best known is Mars Hill, named for the Greek place where the Apostle Paul preached. Another biblical name is Canaan.

Outside of Maine, but in New England, are many interesting names I had often wondered about Coos, a well known New Hampshire County. I learned that it was an Indian word for pine tree. How did Cape Cod get its name? From Goswold’s expedition of 1602, when the explorer recorded: “Near this cape we took great store of fish and we called it Cape Cod.”

How did Portland get its name? For more than a century the place was called Falmouth. In fact, as late as 1795, when Maine’s first newspaper was published there, it was called the Falmouth Gazette. When the town changed its name to Portland, the paper too changed its title to the Portland Gazette. In that area the name Portland was first applied to the point where was erected Maine’s most famous light house, Portland Head because to sailors it looked something like a point at Portland, England. The name was later applied to what is now the city of Portland. Portland, Oregon was named for Portland, Maine.

One Maine town was named for an Indian. Orono took the name of Joseph Orono, known as the blue-eyed Chief of the Penobscot tribe.

Among the Maine towns named for places in England, besides Portland and Lincoln, we have Wells, Berwick and Biddeford.

Now for one more word about how Maine itself got its name. Long ago the tradition that it was named for the English duchy in France called Maine was completely disputed. We all know that it meant the main land. But why was it so called? It was because the early explorers and fishermen, coming from Europe, encountered off our coast so many islands, that it was with great glee they could finally shout “The Main, the Main”, meaning that they had now sighted natural features of the landscape that earlier visitors had identified as on the mainland.

I was recently shown a list of items bought by a couple to set up housekeeping exactly 100 years ago in 1870. They paid $11 for a Clarion Stove, but their most expensive purchase was 25 pounds of superfine feathers for pillows and featherbeds. That cost them $15. A set of knives and forks — the record does not say how many — came to $1.75; three flat irons were $1.14; a wash boiler cost $1.75; and a cottage bedstead $2.50. Among other purchases were a two-quart dipper, a nutmeg grater, a porcelain kettle, a steamer, a bake pan, several basins, and a pair of wash tubs. A covered chamber pot, with painted decoration, cost a dollar; but six dinner plates and two platters cost altogether only 63 cents. The entire bill for 28 items came to $48.

A central Maine newspaper familiar a century ago was the Gospel Banner, published in Augusta by a one-time Universalist minister, William Drew. Recently I was looking at his Vol. 35, No.6, that came out on February 6, 1869. In a long article Drew commented on Gov. Joshua Chamberlain’s stand on the issue of capital punishment, for Maine then still had the death penalty for murder. The article said: “For the chief executive of the state to declare that those who seek a mitigation of the death penalty would turn murderers loose, is unjust and of questionable propriety. This is grossly unfair, because no people have less desire to break down the barriers to crime than do those who oppose capital punishment. There is no morbid sympathy. They recognize that we must have penalties, severe penalties. But no penalty should be so harsh or barbarous as to shock human sensibilities. So long as the gallows is the goal, juries will increasingly hesitate to convict. Look first at Maine, then at the other New England states. In Maine the death penalty has been virtually abolished for the past 25 years. Two years ago Gov. Cony executed a man in the state prison for killing the warden. With that exception, there has been no execution for the past 35 years. Only one man has been hung in Maine since we became a state.”

If Editor Drew had taken a look at the published report of the State Prison Warden for 1868, he could have made another point. The report showed that in that year there were imprisoned in Thomaston seven men who had been sentenced to death. Three of them had been there for more than ten years; yet no Governor, including Chamberlain himself, would sign the order for their execution. Drew went on to compare Maine with other states: “New Hampshire has the death penalty. There crime has been twice as bad as in Maine, in proportion to population. Even Vermont, with no sailor-infested ports, and with a population almost wholly rural, has more crime than Maine. In Massachusetts every little while, some poor wretch is dangled on the gallows. But in that state crime is much greater than in Maine. Massachusetts has had six murders in the last year alone. Yet some people refuse to believe that the death penalty is no deterrent.”

Evidently in 1869 Universalists in the Oakland- Sidney area were having religious disputes. The Banner said: “We urge our brethren in West Waterville and Sidney to stop their dissension, combine their interests, and engage a pastor without further loss of time.”

One of the Banner’s ads said: “Agents wanted for the only steel engraving of General Grant and his family published with their approval. Price $2.50, half to the agent. Goodspeed & Co., Chicago.”

A box in the Banner showed retail prices in the August market in that winter of 1869. Flour was $8 a barrel, beef 9 cents a pound, and pork 11 cents. As was the case for many years, in fact well up to recent times, chicken was then the most expensive meat, 18 cents a pound. Eggs were 30 cents a dozen, butter 20 cents a pound, and cheese 15 cents. Potatoes were 75 cents a bushel and apples $2.00 a barrel.

And in the Banner was this timely ad: “Corpulent ladies who have difficulty getting hoop skirts that fit should come to Lewis and Rand, Water Street, Augusta. We can fit the heaviest ladies.”

Year: 1971