Radio Script #1243

Little Talks on Common Things
June 1, 1980

In colonial times and up to the middle of the 19th century, it was common for parents to give their children first names taken from the Bible. Though a few such names are still used today, like John, James, and Paul and Mark, some of the Old Testament names like Ebenezer and Nehemiah have all but disappeared. Joseph is still in use, but its Hebrew counterpart, Joshua, is less common. Only the Latin American world still uses as a first name Jesus, the Spanish equivalent of Jesus.

In fact, ancient Hebrew names are pretty much restricted today to Jews, with whom the names Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Solomon are still very common. But with Christian people, names of the apostles are favored: Paul, Peter, Thomas, Nathaniel and Stephen. Occasionally one still meets a Simon, an Alpheus, or an Erastus, but very seldom a Philemon, or a Bartholemew, a Titus or a Jude. I wonder if any American child was ever named Judas. Perhaps so, because the Bible tells us there was, besides the betrayer, another Judas, not Iscariot.

Still seen are Jonathan, Nathan and Isaiah, but the modern favorite among all the Old Testament is David, and giving it close competition is Benjamin. Even today you don’t have to go far to meet an Abner, a Hiram or a Samuel. In first names allover America, the influence of the Bible is still strong with us.

Here is a peculiar fact about the prevalence of biblical names. We have had 39 presidents of the U. S. if we count Grover Cleveland twice, because his two terms were not consecutive. Only one of those 38 different presidents had an Old Testament name, and he was the most revered of all – Abraham Lincoln. The commonest presidential name was not John, as one might assume, although four presidents did have that name. The name most common for presidents was James, held by six of them: Madison, Monroe, Polk, Buchanan, Garfield and Carter, although the last named prefers to be called Jimmy. He was christened James C. Carter. Three Williams have occupied the White House: Harrison, McKinley, and Taft. There have been two Andrews – Jackson and Johnson, and two Franklins – Pierce and Roosevelt. The four Johns were the two Adamses, Tyler and Kennedy. The very common name George has been held only by our first president, Washington. We have officially had only one Thomas (Jefferson) but we would have had two if Woodrow Wilson had used his baptismal first name of Thomas. Everyone recalls among our presidents a Harry, a Richard and a Gerald – Truman, Nixon and Ford. Coolidge, of course, brought to the White House the venerable Protestant name Calvin, while the great World War II general saw that we got a Dwight, but we prefer to remember him as Ike.

Altogether the 39 different presidents have had 26 different first names. When we consider that wide variety, it is noteworthy that Abraham Lincoln has been the only one with an Old Testament name. In early New England, every town was peppered with people carrying biblical names, and this was true of Waterville and its parent town of Winslow. The most prominent citizen of early Winslow was the proprietor’s representative Ezekiel Pattee. Both sides of the river had plenty of Johns – John McKechnie, who surveyed the land and built Waterville’s first mill; John Clarke the shipbuilder, and John Drummond, first member of the prolific family whose descendants are still found in Waterville, Winslow and Sidney; and John Burleigh,the printer and John Ware, lumberman and financier.

Some of the local leaders with biblical names were Asa Redington and Nehemiah Getchell, who built the first dam at Ticonic Falls. Redington was a member of George Washington’s honor guard and built for one of his sons the fine house on Waterville’s Silver Street that is now the Redington Museum of the Waterville Historical Society. Abijah Smith was Waterville’s first town clerk, and Nathaniel Gilman was its wealthiest early resident. Timothy Boutelle, an early lawyer, vied with Gilman in wealth, and gave his son the biblical name Nathaniel, the same as Gilman’s.

Jeremiah Chaplin came to Waterville in 1818 to start the first classes at the institution that is now Colby College. Reuben Kidder was Waterville’s first lawyer. Colby’s fourth president was Eliphaz Fay. All of them had biblical names, as did also many persons for whom Waterville streets were named, such as Moses Dalton, Elnathan Sherwin, Jeeiab Morrill, and Dr. Stephen Thayer. Daniel was a common name among such local families as Moor, Pattee and Wells. Waterville’s most illustrious Isaac was Civil War General Isaac Bangs. Contemporary with Professor Moses Lyford was Waterville business leader Aaron Plaisted. An early Waterville clergyman was Adam Wilson, and the first minister in both Waterville and Winslow was Joshua Cushman. And we must not forget the businessmen Ebenezer Bacon, and Elipha~et Gow, nor the most famous of Colby’s graduates, Elijah Parish Lovejoy.

Colby College has had 18 presidents – only 17 different ones. Just as Grover Cleveland served two separate terms as President of U.S., so did Robert Pattison serve at two different periods as president of the college. Four Colby presidents had biblical first names: Jeremiah Chaplin, Eliphaz Fay, Beniah Whitman and Nathaniel Butler. One had a biblical middle name – Arthur Jeremiah Roberts. Up to 1860 Colby had seen 102 men serve as trustees of the college. Fifty-one (exactly one-half) of these had biblical first names. Some of the less common of those names were carried by Ebenezer Delano, Urial Hodgdon, Judah McClellan,Phinehas Pillsbury, Ebenezer Warren, Jospheth Coombs, Eleazer Coburn, Caleb Davis, and Elijah Hamlin.

The man who served the longest term of any Colby trustee – 59 years – had a Bible name. He was Moses Giddings of Bangor, who was a member of the Colby board from 1852 until his death in 1911. Timothy Boutelle, named for the Apostle Paul’s companion, was the first Colby Treasurer.

Two unrelated Samuels with the same last name of Smith were conspicuous in Colby history. Samuel Francis Smith, author of the hymn America beginning with the remembered words “My Country, ‘Tis of Thee” came to Waterville in 1836 as pastor of the First Baptist Church, and he was also on the college faculty as professor of modern foreign languages, conducting the first courses in French and German ever taught in Waterville.

In 1845 there graduated from the college another Samuel Smith, Samuel King Smith, who five years later became its professor of rhetoric, in which position he served for 54 years. His son, William Abbott Smith, Colby 1891, was promininent pastor of the local Congregational Church, and his grandson, Abbott Smith, Colby 1926, wrote the distinguished history of that church after his retirement as a high ranking officer in the national Central Intelligence Agency.

When we consider today that there are more than 175 persons on the Colby faculty, the former small size of the college is evident when we note that it had only 25 different persons on its teaching staff during the whole early period from 1818 to 1860. Twelve of those 25 had biblical first names: John, James, David, Stephen, Jeremiah, Joseph, Samuel, Asa, Moses, Phineas and Eliphaz.

History is filled with great names in the English speaking world with biblical origin: Adam Smith, the great economist; Isaac Newton, discoverer of the law of gravity; Jacob Riis, renowned social scientist; Eljiah Kellogg, author of books for boys; Elihu Root, American statesman. An early American poet was Joel Barlow and everyone has heard of both Daniel Boone and Daniel Webster. Founder of an American university was Ezra Cornell. Samuel Morse invented the telegraph, and Josiah Royce was a distinguished American philosopher. And one might go on through hundreds of others.

Our whole point in this account is that the Bible has had and still has great influence in naming boys in the Anglo-Saxon world. We have not meant to ignore the biblical women, including Eve Gabor, the innumerable Hannahs and Sarahs, and the everywhere common Marys. Biblical names were indeed as common among girls as among boys. Along with the hordes of Marys among us, we recognize Phoebes, Leahs, Rebeccas and numerous others.

Now, as we close this broadcast, let us turn from personal names to place names – a subject we have previously treated more than once on Little Talks. I have several times mentioned the frequent use of Indian names for Maine places, and I now add a new list on that subject. In the current presidential campaign, Chappaquidick is again in the news. That is an Indian name meaning a separate island, denoting Chappaquidick’s separation from the large New Vineyard.

The name Kennebec means long water land, referring to the long extent of the river with its many fishing and camping sites used by the Canutes branch of the Abnaki nation. Sagadahoc meant swift water near the sea. In early colonial time, the big river that empties into the sea near Fort Popham had three different names. From Moosehead Lake and Merrymeeting Bay it was the Kennebec. Emptying into it there from the west was the Androscoggin. From Merrymeeting Bay to the ocean it was the Sagadahoc. When shipbuilding began in Bath, that town’s famous ships were launched not in the Kennebec, but in the Sagadahoc. The word Ticonic means simply wilderness, which indeed the region at Ticonic Falls certainly was when Fort Halifax was built in 17.54. It shows what the region was like when the Indians named some of their favorite camping places on the river. There is archeological evidence of a sizable Indian village at Ticonic Falls. Casco, a Maine town near Portland has a rather uncomplimentary Indian name. It means simply “muddy.” On the other hand, Maine’s northernmost county has a very complimentary name. Aroostook means “shining river.” The name Damariscotta is of interesting origin. It means “river of little fishes,” a designation still in evidence today. One of Maine’s memorable springtime sights is still the annual run of herring up the Damariscotta River from the ocean to the lake.

Some of the Indian names were definitely descriptive. The several place names ending in keag, such as Mattawamkeag and Passadumkeag, refer to rapids running over a sandy bottom. Likewise the descriptive name Pemaquid means long point on long peninsula. The state of Massachusetts is peppered with Indian names. The name of the state itself is of Indian origin. It means “people of the great hill country.” Cohassett is “young pine land.” Chicopee is “slow running water.” Hoosic is “mountain rock,” . Mystic is “tidal river,” and Merrimac is “rough rapids.”

Rather appropriate is the New Hampshire name of Nashua. Between the original Massachusetts Bay settlement at Boston and that province’s eastern lands in Maine, the New Hampshire settlement was given the name of Nashua, “land between.”

And with that additional nod to the prominence of Indian place names, we say goodbye until next week.

Year: 1980