An interesting subject is <\/em>Indian place names. It is <\/em>difficult to be certain\u00a0of the meanings which the Kennebec Indians attached to various places. As a rule\u00a0they never had names for any large area or extent, either of land or water. There\u00a0never seems to have been one name for all of the Kennebec River. They had different\u00a0names for spots and places along its banks.\u00a0Champlain in 1605 was the first to hear the Indian word which he put into\u00a0English as Quinaibequi. It was the Indian’s name for the narrow, windy passage\u00a0from Bath to Sheepscot Bay on the lower reaches of the river. For the Indians’\u00a0frail canoes this was a place of danger, where the water boiled and eddied with\u00a0the tides. Hence to the Indians it was the abode of the sea monster, Quinaibick\u00a0sea monster in Chippewa.<\/p>\n When the English came they named the whole river Sagadahoc, but for some\u00a0reason, above Merrymeeting Bay Champlain’s name stuck. When the Indian wars\u00a0wiped out most of the settlements on the lower part of the river, the name Sagadahoc\u00a0faded out and the new settlers came to use the name Kennebec to designate the\u00a0whole river.\u00a0There was long a tradition that the word Sebasticook is <\/em>a comparatively modern\u00a0Indian corruption of the French pronunciation of\u00a0St.. John the Baptist’s\u00a0place, or the place where lived an Indian who had been baptized by a French Missionary\u00a0and christened St. John the Baptist. Apparently Kingsbury, the author of\u00a0the standard history of Kennebec County, believed that story, for he printed it\u00a0as fact in his history.<\/p>\n Students of the Indian languages know better. They are familiar with the\u00a0word element SEBES, which recurs in numerous place names, and always seems to indicate\u00a0“almost through”. Sebasticook thus obviously meant a route to other waters\u00a0by a short carry. This version of the word is supported by the fact that the\u00a0stream we know as the Sebasticook was part of the canoe route, with carries,\u00a0from the Penobscot to the Kennebec and thence on to Quebec.\u00a0Ticonic is probably an old Indian plural of the word for stream (ticus), and\u00a0probably in this region originally designated the junction of the Sebasticook and\u00a0Messalonskee with the Kennebec.\u00a0The most probable meaning of the word Messalonskee is “much clay”. Cobbossecontee\u00a0is a compound of the Indian words kabbasch (sturgeon) and Kahnti (plenty).\u00a0Just as Cobbossecontee means plenty of sturgeon, so Damariscotta, a corruption of\u00a0the older Madamascontis, means plenty of alewives.<\/p>\n Some of us are interested in the different names given to the same thing in\u00a0different parts of the English speaking world — <\/strong>as, for instance, pail and bucket,\u00a0spider and frying pan, hay rack and hay wagon. Do you know what they call a rum<\/strong>mage\u00a0sale in Great Britain? I didn’t until I recently saw the expression in that\u00a0favorite Scotch newspaper of mine, the Peebelshire News. It seems that September\u00a0is the favorite month for these sales, and one issue of the News in that month advertised\u00a0no less than five jumble sales. One announcement said: “A jumble sale\u00a0is to be held in the Masonic Hall, Peebles, next Saturday. The secretary will be\u00a0grateful to those who care to present gifts or jumbles.”<\/p>\n Both words, rummage and jumbles, have appropriate origins. The verb rummage\u00a0means to search thoroughly, and the first meaning of the noun was a thorough\u00a0search. By extension it then came to mean articles turned up as a result of a\u00a0search, then to mean articles turned up as by-products of a search for something\u00a0else. It was only a step to the present meaning of miscellaneous articles or odds\u00a0and ends.<\/p>\n It is possible, however, that the expression rummage sale comes from a different\u00a0source. The French word “arrumage” was the term for goods stowed in the\u00a0hold of a Ship, and the term rummage sale seems to have first been applied to the\u00a0sale of unclaimed goods at a Wharf or warehouse.\u00a0The origin of the word Jumble is even more interesting for it is one of those\u00a0words we call a telescope or a blend — the subtle combination of two older words.<\/p>\n Jumble is a combination of join and tumble, and its first meaning as a verb was\u00a0just that to join something together in a tumbled, confused mass. The modern\u00a0dictionaries therefore give as the first meaning of Jumble, to mix in a confused\u00a0mass; throw together without order. The noun easily came to mean a confused mixture\u00a0or medley,\u00b7 a hodgepodge or a mess.<\/p>\n Well, take your choice. Our British cousins prefer jumble sales; we like\u00a0ruIlJIllage sales. But you’ll probably find the same kind of cast-off garments and\u00a0old furniture, whichever word you use.<\/p>\n The PeebelShire News informs me that they have been having quite a controversy\u00a0to determine Which is the oldest church bell in Scotland. Yetholm church claimed \u00a0a bell in continuous use since 1643. That brought a quick response from the people\u00a0of Eddleston, in PeebleShire, who proudly pCinted to the still legible inscription\u00a0of the bell in Eddleston church. The inscription was in low German and can be\u00a0roughly translated, “I was made in the year of our Lord 1507”. That aroused the\u00a0good folk of Manor PariSh, also in Peebleshire, Who said they could prove they had\u00a0the oldest bell in continuous use in all Scotland, for the Manor Church bell bears\u00a0an inscription Which reads: “In honor of Saint Gordian in the yea~ of our Lord\u00a01478.” The town of Crail thought their neighbor Yetholm exceedingly presumptuous\u00a0to brag about a bell cast as late as 1643. Why, right in Crail, they said, were\u00a0two bells older than that one cast in 1620, the other in 1614. What is more,\u00a0said Crail, their 1614 bell hangs in a church tower that was built in the 12th\u00a0century.<\/p>\n Now by what right do I drag into this program remarks about church bells in\u00a0Scotland? Because I think it is time we gathered some information about old bells\u00a0of the Kennebec Valley. I know about the Paul Revere bell at Colby College, but\u00a0I would like to know the stories about the bell in the Waterville Baptist Church,\u00a0in the Universalist Church, and in other churches and schools up and down the\u00a0Valley. For instance, what became of the bell in the Unitarian Church when that\u00a0building was torn down? If you listeners will help with information, we can have\u00a0a program soon on old bells of the Kennebec.<\/p>\n The lot of the prisoner of war has never been happy, but probably not until\u00a0World War II did it reach diabolical depths of unspeakable horror. The prison camps\u00a0of Germany and Russia, especially those in which they imprisoned their own citizens\u00a0were scenes of infamous terror. Never was man’s brutality toward man so grossly\u00a0revealed as at Dachau and Schlongarten.\u00a0But even 85 years ago it was no picnic to be a prisoner of war. A lot has\u00a0been written about the suffering of northern prisoners at Libby and Andersonville,\u00a0and much of it was perhaps exaggerated. We ought to be impressed, therefore, as\u00a0Waterville folks were impressed in 1864, by what a Waterville man wrote about his\u00a0life in Danville Prison.<\/p>\n Abner Small was only a boy when the war broke out, but with other Waterville\u00a0boys he enlisted in the Third Maine Volunteers. So distinguished was his service\u00a0that he rose to the rank of Major of the 16th Maine and became that famous regimentis-\u00a0historian.\u00a0Major Small fought in the bloody battles of Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville\u00a0and Gettysburg, and well into the long campaign in the Wilderness, until he was\u00a0captured in August, 1864. His impressions of life in Danville Prison are neither\u00a0exaggerated nor bitter. They are simply revealing. He wrote:<\/p>\n “OUr quarters were so crowded that none of us had any more space to himself\u00a0than his body occupied a strip of bare, hard floor, six feet by two. We lay\u00a0in long rows, two rows of men with their heads to the side walls, and two with\u00a0their heads together along the center of the room, leaving narrow aisles between\u00a0the rows of feet. The wall spaces were greatly preferred, because there a man\u00a0could sit up and brace his back against the wall during the long day or longer\u00a0night.<\/p>\n “When I was captured I was the proud possessor of \u00b7a new staff uniform ornamented\u00a0with gold lace. Five months later my most intimate friends would not have\u00a0recognized the ragged tramp Who sat naked on the floor of Danville and robbed the\u00a0legs of his trousers in order to reseat them. OUr nerves were worn ragged; the\u00a0slightest provocation would cause a quarrel. I saw two cavalry officers come to\u00a0bloody blows over a few rusty cans.<\/p>\n “There were attempts to escape and. even we who did not make the attempt\u00a0were in danger because of those who did. When the cry ‘Turn out the guard’ resounded\u00a0through the prison, I was never more conscious of being in the presence\u00a0of death. The fear in battle is nothing compared to the glimpse of eternity when\u00a0one looks into the black muzzle of a gun held by a prison guard.<\/p>\n “As our money gave out we sold anything we had to get more. Boots, spurs,\u00a0watches, rings, jack knives, buttons were all commodities of trade. Then When we\u00a0got the debased Confederate currency in exChange for these possessions, we were\u00a0again Cheated by the outrageous prices of those permitted to sell to us at the\u00a0prison gates.<\/p>\n “It is hard to keep decent.\u00b7 Some of our men are almost stark naked, and all\u00a0of us are alive with vermin. Most of all we dread the dysentery of whiCh many of\u00a0.our men have already died. Life becomes more and more unbearable, and our only\u00a0hope is for a general exChange of prisoners between North and South.”<\/p>\n Not since the Civil War has the civilian population of our country seen war\u00a0at first hand. We have not had the tragic experience visited upon so many civilians\u00a0in Europe in both World Wars, nor have we known the awful helplessness of Koreans\u00a0twice driven from their homes within a few months. It is well to remind ourselves\u00a0of what some American families in our own Southland suffered in the 1860 IS.<\/p>\n Dolly Lunt was a Maine girl who went south to Covington, Georgia to teach\u00a0school. There she married a planter, Thomas Burge. When Sherman I s Army made\u00a0its devastating march from Atlanta to the sea, she was a widow managing her own\u00a0Georgia plantation. \u00b7Her diary records what happened when the invading army\u00a0reached her home:<\/p>\n “My yards were full of soldiers. To my smoke-house, my dairy, pantry, kitchen,\u00a0and cellar, like famished wolves, they came, breaking locks and tearing down partitions.\u00a0The thousand pounds of meat in my smoke-house was gone in a twinkling –<\/strong>my\u00a0lard, butter, eggs, preserves all gone. My fat turkeys, hens and chickens grabbed\u00a0up, my young pigs shot down in the yard. They took everything all the\u00a0horses, even my old mare Mary, now too old and stiff for work, and my dear old\u00a0buggy horse, Old Dutch, who has so many times quietly waited at the block for me\u00a0to mount or dismount. And they took all my Negro boys, who have faithfully served\u00a0me through all this terrible war.<\/p>\n “Even the Negroes I cabins have been rifled of every valuable. I was not personally\u00a0molested, but almost everything I owned was taken away — <\/strong>all the last\u00a0clothes, the~recious tapestries, the fine paintings ripped out of their frames.<\/p>\n “As night came on the sky all around was lit with the flames of burning\u00a0buildings. Dinnerless and supperless as we were, it was nothing to the fear of\u00a0being driven out homeless to the dreary woods. I did not go to bed for I knew I\u00a0could not sleep. I kept walking to and fro, watching the fires in the distance\u00a0and dreading the approaching day, knowing it could only be a continuation of\u00a0horrors.”<\/p>\n The United States Post Office Department has a proud record for the prompt\u00a0and regular delivery of mail. We take this splendid service so much for granted\u00a0that we forget it took a long time to develop and perfect the system to its present efficiency.\u00a0Editor Drew of the Rural Intelligencer, down in Augusta in 1855, was peeved\u00a0because he got so many complaints from subscribers about his paper’s late arrival\u00a0or sometimes complete failure to arrive at all.<\/p>\n So on April 21, 1855 he published the following editorial:<\/p>\n “We assure our friends in Livermore that copies of our paper for the various\u00a0post offices in that town are mailed in the Augusta post office every Friday before\u00a0noon, in season for the train that leaves here for Portland and Boston at\u00a0ten minutes before one o’clock. We can do no more than commit the papers to the\u00a0post office in season. If we could jump into the bag with the papers, we would\u00a0see where the delay arises, and would appear as an angry spirit to the postmaster\u00a0who does not do his duty.”<\/p>\n Year: 1951<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Read the script for “Little Talks” program #94, broadcast on January 28, 1951<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":405,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[786,35296],"tags":[],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7198"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/405"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7198"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7198\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7198"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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