4 The Washington University State Historical Society do, in order to accomplish and carry out all or any of the objects or purposes or exercise any or all of the powers aforesaid, to the same extent that an individual or natural person might or could do in the premises; as well as each and every of the powers expressly or impliedly conferred in or by the laws of the State of Washington relating to the organization and management of such associations.-Article III. of the Articles of Incorporation. MEMBERSHIP. Life membership. Annual membership Twenty-five Dollars All members receive the Quarterly and all other publications issued by the Society. The Washington Historical Quarterly WASHINGTON NOMENCLATURE. A Study. The geographical names in the United States are derived from two great sources: Indian and European. Among the first explorers and settlers the former dominated; with the second generation of colonists the European names began to dominate. These early colonists looked to their European homes and personages for Plymouth, Boston, Albemarle, St. Mary's, Ft. Christina, New Rochelle, New Orleans, St. Louis, Santa Fe; or else from their own languages derived names indicative of local conditions or feelings: Providence, Philadelphia. When these settlements themselves began to send off scions to the upper waters of the Atlantic streams or into the transallegheny country, new names were taken from a variety of sources; from the old European places and personages, from Greece, Rome, or from classical compositions, e. g. Louisville, Athens, Rome, Oxford, Gallipolis. The Indian names were taken from the local Indian designations, and today stand as monuments to the natives' haunts and homes and as milestones to their westward movement before the coming white man. As the white man came his names told of the fond recollections of his distant home; but as he penetrated the wilderness and the mountains, these recollections dim and finally fade, to be replaced from the new native home in the old Atlantic colonies. Yet the names scattered from the Alleghenies to the Pacific by the constant stream of colonizing immigrants tell of the nomenclatural geneology; the Swede, Italian and German, the Russian, Dutch and Pole, even in our own days repeat the christening of the cavalier and Puritan. The great bulk of the earlier and elemental names of the United States is derived, aside from the Indian, from those Euro pean natives first settling on the Atlantic coast: England, Spain, France, Holland and Sweden. The distribution of these names, according to nationalities, varies with different parts of the country. The New England states lead in number with six, mixing, with the Indian the names from Holland, Sweden, England, France, and the later America; the south Atlantic states and the Pacific Northwest both have five: Indian, English, American, Spanish and French. The central states find four in the Indian, English, American and French. Like the Indians, in their westward and reservation movement, most of the European names in turn have been superceded by the newer American, and the scattered immigrant. In the Pacific Northwest-composed for historical purposes of Oregon, Washington and Idaho-Washington is the most representative of them all. She has practically as many Indian and American names, and more English, Spanish and French names than either of the other two states. Oregon has a few Spanish names; Idaho has none; both Oregon and Idaho have a few French terms. Owing to the presence and activity of the Hudson's Bay Company, Washington has more designations of English and Indian sources due to the Englishmen than either of the other states. Indian names are well scattered through them all; while both Indian and American, in their proportion in the three states, depend upon the demand for names by the increasing population. Washington is still a coast and river state. Excepting the broad plains about the head of the Cowlitz, Chehalis and Puyallup rivers, and about the Palouse and Spokane, the pioneer has as yet but scattered settlements in the interior. On the Sound and Grays Harbor, on the Columbia and its numberless branches Washington's population still resides. It must be noted, however, that the railway, penetrating the territory inaccessible by steamers, has expanded the settled lands, especially east of the mountains, and widened the country about the few centers heretofore drained by the trails and packroads. It is along the shores and river banks that the elemental nomenclature of Washington must be studied; on the trail and the railroad the settler is planting new American and immigrant names, or those derived from the aborigines. The Indian, in naming rivers or parts of rivers, mountains, falls, villages and burial places, has scattered his names for the white man fairly regularly on both sides of the Cascades, yet with an evident majority on the side of the west. Today' the east has 124 Indian names, the west 175; the former being 11 per cent. of the whole list of names from all sources, the latter 13 per cent. In 1891' the number was somewhat less: 111 east and 116 west of the Cascades, with a result that of the sum total of names from all sources the east had 23 per cent. and the west but 19 per cent. The difference in these two readings seems to be due to two reasons. The Century Atlas of 1891 is no doubt incomplete, even though it is a representative map of the state and as accurate as any accessible map of that date. Again, in the settlement of new locations in the last decade and a half, the Indian names are frequently retained. It is interesting to note the peculiar way in which the names of the passing race have been retained by the white man. The Lower Sound counties-composed of the Sound-bordering counties northward to Snohomish and Island inclusive, and those counties on the Strait-have a majority of 96-23 more than the nearest competitive section. Here is where the white man first made his home and first met the Indian as the possessor of the soil: Here is Tumwater, Nisqually, Alki Point, Seattle, Steilacoom, Puyallup, Chehalis; the Cowlitz, the Snohomish, the Skokomish, the Dwamish, the Skukum Chuck. In this same section the Indian played his principal part west of the mountains, and defined the historical geography of the Indian wars of the fifties. This but reiterates the truth, true the country over, that the Indian-in names-had his greatest influence, where he had influence at all, either in the first decade of the pioneering or, which is rather evident in the Western states, in the period stretching from the settlement to the first boom. As second stands the district composed of those counties between the Columbia river and the Cascades. The Yakima valley, the rivers entering the Columbia from the mountains and those flowing from their sources in British Columbia, give the great majority of these names. third stand the southwest counties-those bordering on the Pacific and the Columbia west of the Cascades; as fourth, the Upper Sound-composed of Skagit, Whatcom and San Juan counties; as fifth, the counties between the Columbia, the Snake and the Idaho line. As last, with 20, the southeastern counties between the Snake, and the Idaho and Oregon lines.3 1 Rand-McNally, Map of Washington, 1905. The figures are given in round numbers. 2 Century Atlas, 1891. 3 The Lower Sound, 96; the Cascade-Columbia, 73; the southwest, 44: the Upper Sound, 35; the eastern, 31; the southeast, 20. In the distribution of the English-American names, the Lower Sound again vastly dominates; then the eastern, centering around Spokane and the Palouse country. Then the territory in the Yakima valley and along the right bank of the Columbia; followed by the southwest. The Upper Sound has almost twice as many as the counties in the opposite corner of the state.' No Spanish name is found east of the mountains. All but one of the fifteen Spanish names in the state are found in the Upper Sound country; and the single exception in the Lower Sound. With the French names it stands differently, in that of the 24 found on the map of 1905, 22 are east of the mountains and the other two in the Lower Sound territory. East of the Cascades 11 are located in the eastern division; 10 in the Columbia-Cascade lands, especially in the Okanogan country, and one in the southeast. There seems to be no Russian reliques of nomenclature in the state. The early attempt of 1806 to settle on the Columbia was defeated by the breakers on the bar at the mouth of the river; the successful settlement on Bodega Bay was too far south to effect the Pacific Northwest in other way than through the Monroe Doctrine; and the fur traders' activity in its southern course was stayed by the treaties with America and England in 1824 and 1825, wherein a limitation was placed at 54' 40'. The manner and the periods in which these names came into existence varies with the peoples giving them origin. The Indian, as the original inhabitant, gave to favorite places many names which the explorer, the trader and the settler retained. Among the whites the names find their origin in three great sources: The explorer, the trader and the settler. Galiano and Valdez, Meares and Vancouver, Lewis and Clark, Gray and Wilkes left the earliest and most abiding names along the Straits, in the Upper and Lower Sounds, along the Coast and the Columbia. The fur trader of the old Northwest Company and the Hudson's Bay Company either gave new names or gave permanence to the native designations. Especially is their activity seen between. the Sound and the Columbia, and along the latter, naming the posts, factories, rivers and lakes. Their names follow the hunters' and trappers' trails, radiating in all directions and connecting with the central factory on the shores of Hudson's Bay. In the service of the Hudson's Bay Company were the French-Cana The Lower Sound, 631; the eastern, 443; the Columbia-Cascade, 359; the southwest, 297; the Upper Sound, 215; the southeast, 110. |