Articles, Etc.
AMERICAN SETTLEMENT - COMMUNITY NAMES
As
the line of settlement moved westward across the Continent, why were so many more
communities between the Appalachian divide and the Mississippi than on either side of that
territory, given names (mainly cities, some places and men) from classical antiquity and
Biblical places? A check (not exhaustive) of
the atlas shows the following in that territory with, by contrast, only a handful on the
eastern coastal plain (e.g., Augusta) and west of the Mississippi (e.g., Moab, Olympia,
Phoenix).
17 Lebanon and Sharon
16 Athens
14 Troy and Bethel
12 Alexandria and Augusta
11 Hebron
10 Rome and Carmel
9 Canaan, Palmyra, Philadelphia and Shiloh
8 Aurora, Bethlehem, Sparta, and Zion
7 Phoenix
6 Carthage
5 Bethany, Cairo, Corinth and Egypt
4 Ararat, Damascus, Jordan, Naples, Smyrna and Tabor
3 Antioch, Gilead, Jericho, Lydia, Macedonia, Memphis, Rehoboth, Syracuse and Zebulon
2 Berea, Cicero, Cincinnati, Hermon, Joppa, Manassas, Nineveh, Persia, Rhodes and Sidon
1
Babylon, Beersheba, Calvary, Crete, Delphi, Galilee, Gaza, Gilboa, Jerusalem, Mizpah,
Moriah, Nazareth, Noah, Palestine, Phoenicia, Scipio, Thebes and Tirzah.
Before about 1790, when settlers
started pouring past the Appalachians, through the Cumberland Gap, along the river system
to the Great Lakes and so forth, people felt themselves more attached to the Mother
Country, felt less conscious of being in a country of their own, so named their
communities after the places from which they had come ("New ____"), along with
the Indian names that were applied from coast to coast, and sometimes a leader
(Williamsburg, Elizabeth). By the late 18th Century, when communities started
to be named west of the range near the coast, the settler-namers felt more like Americans,
felt less need to connect to the old country, and, in harmony with having created a new
country, felt more inclined to express ideals.
Then why were the classical and Biblical sources largely dropped west of the Mississippi? Perhaps a drop in the educational level of community founders? Perhaps some early stages of the shift from private to public education, with less emphasis on the classical? Perhaps a recognition of overuse of classical and Biblical names on the land behind. Most likely may be the shift in attitude toward Jacksonian equalitarianism, disdaining the classical and Biblical as elitist.