Place Name Derivations Are Not Always What They Seem: (Some Eastern Kentucky Cases)

r a MOWTAINJAKINeG). fo aBAIKER 9 warnt ir 21 s*pí * r Place Name Derivations Are Not Always What They Seem (Some Eastern Kentucky Cases) by Robert M. Rennick From my continuing research on the derivations of Kentucky's place names, I have learned, amongotherthings, toavoid jumping to obvious conclusions on the basis of the names themselves: that little can be revealed about places solely from their names; that the derivations and meanings ofthe names are not inherent in them; and, most significant of all, that the names alone will tellusnothingaboutwhy 50 they, rather than some other names, were given to the places. On more thorough investigation, many names whose denvations seemed obvious on the surface turned out to have entirely different explanations. In many instances I was surprised to learn that a time-honored or traditional account had no basis in fact. Some names like Mousie, Coldiron, Mt. Savage, Duty, Cheap, Crum, Ordinary, Lionilli, Brightshade, Alpha, Delta, Zula, Lovely, Miracle, Awe, Wonder, India, and America which seem so unusual that colorful stories must account for them had, in fact, more mundane derivations-the names of founding families, early settlers, or other persons or places the namers wished to honor. Many namesI have learnedwere simply imported from other places whence the first settlers had come or commemorated some events of significance to the namers and had nothing to do with the places they were given to. Even such seemingly obvious descriptive names as Long Creek, Elk Fork, Pleasant Hill, Lovely, Cane Creek, and Little Branch sometimes proved to have hadcommemorative or incident origins that were not apparent in the names. Somenames turnedouttobecorruptions of earlier names. It has been said that Cannon Creek , a branch of Yellow Creek in Bell County, was first called Canyon Creek. 1 And Firecoal Branch of Middle ForkofQuicksandCreek in KnottCounty hadnothingtodowith coalmining, though it's locatednearone ofthelargestcoalproducing areas of the country, but was originally Firescald and refers to a forest fire that, in early settlement times, had left scalded some of the vegetation on the banks of that stream. 2 I have also learned that, contrary to the assumptions of some authorities on Indian names, many Kentucky names (Helechawa , Thealka, Willailla, Chenoa, Teges, Muncy, Cisco, and Seco) that appear to have had an Indian origin had other derivations. Some were corruptions of non-Indian names and some just resembled the popular conception of an Indian name. Some which may have had authenticated Indian derivations elsewhere were brought to their Kentucky places bytheir founders ornamers and had norealIndian significance in Kentucky. (I have come to reject as explanations for these names in Kentucky those given for themelsewhere.)3 The following are the more or less authenticated denvations of a sample of eastern Kentuckyplacenameswhichbelie the popular assumptions often suggested by the names themselves. "Eastern Kentucky " comprises some forty-three counties generally considered in the so-called "Cumberland Plateau" section ofthe state. Most of the place name surprises in our sample were derived from the names of founders, first settlers, or otherpersons or families which had some significance in the early history of the places or those whom tne namers wished to honor. We may start with the Adair County settlements of Neatsville, Neatsburg, Bliss, and Weed. The now extinct community and post office oíNeatsburg, also known as Little Cake, less than a mile south of the Green River in the northeast section of the county, was not a tidy little place but was named, in 1895, for the family of its postmaster, Schuyler Neat. The nearby hamlet of Neatsville was named for an apparently related family that has lived in that area since the very early nineteenth century.4 While the establishment of the Bliss post office, three miles west of Columbia, in 1900, may have been an occasion of great contentment for its patrons, it is said to have been named for a local school teacher who had recently come from Louisville.5 Not an undesirable plant but its first postmaster (1901), Charles Weed Sparks, Sr. was the source of Weed, the name of a hamlet and extinct post office in the far western part of the county.6 No wall gave its name to the...