Dane County Place-Names

INTRODUCTION TO THE 2009 EDITION

xix INTRODUCTION TO THE 2009 EDITION Tracy Will Place-name study offers an understanding of the cultural significance of geographic places through their descriptive or historically applied names. Name origins range from apocryphal native terms to names of influential property owners, from the names of early settlers to the family members of subdivision builders. Frederic G. Cassidy’s study The Place-Names of Dane County, Wisconsin, published in 1947 and reprinted by the University of Wisconsin Press in 1968, remains a valuable example of the many diverse and interesting studies of geographical areas, whether political or geographical, originating in the 1930s and published after World War II. While many texts in this genre, guided by conventions established by the English PlaceName Society, establish a topical framework to direct their study, Cassidy’s Dane County Place-Names is guided primarily by the “New English Dictionary” (Oxford). So guided, Cassidy offered a comprehensive review of Dane County’s place-names in a facile system for readers to find the origins and explanations for the names of places in Dane County. His dictionary approach may be the most important structural facet of his study, but its descriptive component was also informed by the work of Robert Ramsay in his initial study of Missouri place-names. Ramsay developed various place-name topoi that provided a xx consistent set of descriptors to be used to illustrate each alphabetically listed place-name. Ramsay’s study used the topoi to begin the process of discerning place-name origins, which began with the definition of a place-name descriptor, a narrative that employed a few of the place-names in proving each term’s utility as a place-name descriptor, and finally Ramsay listed the places that fell under that definitional rubric. The study is interesting and most reviewers found the narrative portion of greatest interest, but Ramsay’s approach is difficult to use for reference or research purposes. Its difficulty arises because the reader must read all the definitional topics first before discovering whether or not the place they are interested in is included on that list. Rather than follow Ramsay’s topoi-driven approach for Dane County, Cassidy followed the “New English Dictionary” model of providing readers with Dane County place-names in an alphabetical dictionary format. Each alphabetic entry is followed by a description of its place-name using several arcana, including all known spellings, original source usage, map origins, common usage, and other factors. Each location includes a definition made up of a series of natural and manmade terms used to describe thousands of Dane County locations. Cassidy listed each entry and any alternative spellings based on his review of several sources, the earliest date of use, and any explanation evident for identifying each place. These narrative explanations usually fell into natural descriptors, names based on land-ownership, or historic events. The list of resources used to assemble this study begins with the earliest maps available for the region, interviews and “consultants” representing many of the longest-living residents of Dane County’s towns, secondary sources that include the earliest published memoirs of the county, published histories by a succession of Wisconsin’s most renowned historians, and the comprehensive use of other various sources, including Post Office lists, railroad maps and xxi schedules, and personal confirmation of local uses by current residents. Cassidy began this study shortly after his arrival at the University of Wisconsin in 1939, after receiving his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan in 1938. He arrived to teach in a department that would become world-renowned for his later scholarship as editor of the Dictionary of American Regional English. Encouraged by then Graduate School Dean E. B. Fred (later university president), Cassidy began his study in addition to his teaching duties. Employing graduate students in the task, this research built somewhat on the process that produced a series of sociological studies published as University of Wisconsin Agricultural Experimental Station Research Bulletins. One of the earliest and most influential is the study of ethnic neighborhoods of Dane County conducted by J. H. Kolb in “Rural Primary Groups: A Study of Agricultural Neighborhoods” (Research Bulletin , no. 51 [1921]: 12–13). Kolb identified geographical areas in Dane County based on land titles, names of property owners, and the boundaries of historic ethnic neighborhoods as well as the borders of “contemporary” neighborhoods that existed in 1918. This study was part of...