One Township's Yesterdays Chapter XLIX  

WHAT'S IN A NAME?

"What's in a name? A very great deal. A name is a symbol, and symbols do more than anything else to help us retain some wing-feather of elusive truth." . . Zephine Humphrey

TRULY, A ROSE might be just as sweet if called a thornbush and the lily a leek. Both might by chance survive. But Maxinkuckee would not be so enticing if named Big Fish Pond and Yellow River just Mud Creek. Some names belie the thing they label, are not at all appropriate; poor titles have put good things off the boards and great books into discard. Good names have won distinction for their owners, even where distinction has been unearned.

Speaking of nomenclature, Indian names of places, streams, lakes and the like are imperishable memorials to the red man. There is beauty in the Indian names. In Union Township a number of names given by the red man survive. Yellow River was called Withou-gan, but the white man changed that. The Tippecanoe, however, retained its Indian name. In 1817, that river was called Kithtippecamunk, but that was too much of a jaw-breaker, so it was modified. Lake Maxinkuckee is Indian. The name has been variously spelled, and the exact meaning is not definitely known.

Culver was originally Union Town, because it was located in Union Township. Maxinkuckee, on the east side of the lake, was once called Fizzletown. And Hibbard was called Helltown, also Dante. "Helltown was right," said an early settler, "for you'd never go up there but you'd get into it. There was plenty of fightin' going on there." Rutland used to be called Cross Lanes. We do not know just why, but doubtless it explains itself. Mrs. SICKLERr thinks there was also another name, which she could not recall. At the south of Culver there is a neighborhood called Jerusalem. Geiger Town was in the Poplar Grove neighborhood.

In 1903 there appeared a new map of Lake Maxinkuckee, which brought forth considerable discussion as to the names by which features of the topography were designated. Some of these were new names. For example, Long Point was originally Rochester Point. Many Rochester people located there. It also was known for awhile as Chadwick Point.

Burr Oak took its name from the growth of trees found on the Flats.

But, what's in a name?