Border Names for the New Land

The cultural hegemony of the borderers appeared in the names that were given to the new land. In the southern highlands one rarely met the Royalist names that were so common in tidewater Virginia. There were a few exceptions, such as CharlotteandMecklenberg County and an occasional Orange County (North Carolina) or Orangeburg (South Carolina), which had a special meaning for Scotch-Irish Presbyterians. But as a rule, these settlers cared little for the trappings of English monarchy. One western river which a tidewater Virginian named after Princess Louisa quickly degenerated into Levisa among the backsettlers. High-toned names in general did not flourish in this environment; a place originally called Mont Beau, North Carolina, became Monbo. The settlers of Appalachia also made little use of the hortatory names which had been common in Massachusetts and Pennsylvania. But when they did so, their choices ran not to Concord or Contentment as in New England, but to Liberty (West Virginia, Georgia),Soldier’s Delight (Maryland), Barbacue [sic], Frolicsome, Faro, Bacchus, and Calypso (all in North Carolina).⁸

A large proportion of Appalachian place names were drawn from the geography of Britain—with a heavy bias toward the border region. The most common British county name in Appalachia was Cumberland—the extreme northwestern county in England. There was a Cumberland town in western Maryland, a Cumberland River in Tennessee, the Cumberland Mountains in Kentucky, Cumberland Knob in North Carolina, Cumberland Gap through the Appalachians, and Cumberland counties in most states throughout this region. The name had a double appeal to English borderers, for it also commemorated the Duke of Cumberland who broke their ancient highland enemies at the battle of Culloden.

Other border place names also frequently recurred in the back-country. In North Carolina alone, one finds a Galloway Creek, Galloway Crossroads, Galloway Mountain and a Galloway town in six different counties. There is also Durham Branch, severalDurham Creeks, Durham County and Durham Township as well as the city of Durham, which were named at various dates between 1705 and 1855.⁹ Counties in Pennsylvania were also called Westmoreland [sic] and Northumberland.

A specially popular place name was Londonderry or Derry, which was given to the leading Scots-Irish settlement in New Hampshire, and also to townships and hamlets in southwestern Pennsylvania, Virginia and the Carolinas. A Scots-Irish settlement in New Hampshire was named Antrim, and interior towns in Massachusetts and Maine were called New Glasgow, Colerain, Belfast and Newcastle. Other settlements throughout the backcountry were named Aberdeen, Abernethy, Ayr, Balfour, Balgra, Blantyre andDalkeith(all in North Carolina), Donegal (Pennsylvania), New Dublin (Virginia), Hillsboro (North Carolina) and Lochaber (South Carolina). There were many New Scotlands, Caledonias and Little Brit-ains and Scotchtowns.

Immigrants from North Britain also liked to name their settlements after individuals and clans—an uncommon practice in Puritan New England and Anglican Virginia. Many of these names also came from the borderlands. In North Carolina alone, for example, there are more than 130 place names beginning with Mc or Mac, and many Alexanders, Jacksons, Robertsons, Williamsons, and Grahams. Other examples included Harper’s Ferry, Graham’s Meeting House, Gordon’s Meeting House, McAden’s Church, Craig’s Creek and Jackson River in Virginia; Hobkirk’s Hill and Lynch’s Creek in South Carolina; Bryan’s Station, Logan’s Fort and McAfee ‘s in Kentucky; McMinnville, Johnston’s Fork, Sullivan and Knoxville in Tennessee.

The names of backcountry places reflected many other aspects of border culture. Its food ways appeared in place names such as Clabber Branch, Frying Pan, Corncake, Whiskey Springs and Hangover Creek. Its religion was evident in settlements calledCampground and New Light. The material bias in this culture was evident in the villages of Ad Valorem and Need More, both in North Carolina. The disappointment of dreams was registered in Hard-bargain Branch, Pinchgut Creek, Lousy Creek, Worry, Noland, Big Trouble, Hell’s Half Acre and Devil ‘s Tater Patch. The violence of this culture appeared in Bloody Rock, Bloodrun Creek, Breakneck Ridge, Brokeleg Branch, Cutthroat Gap, Gallows Branch, Hanging Rock, Killquick, Scream Ridge, Lynch’s Creek, Whipping Creek, Skull Camp Mountain, Scuffletown, Grabtown and See-off Creek, also in North Carolina. Names of that sort were very rare on the New England Frontier.¹⁰

Backcountry place names were the products of a period as well as of a place. In North Carolina, there was a Whigg Branch, and a distinctively Whiggish spirit appeared in the towns of Enterprise, Improvement, and Progress. Kentucky has a creek calledLulbegrud, after the capital city of Brodingnag in Gulliver’s Travels. It was named by one of Daniel Boone’s explorers who carried a copy of Jonathan Swift’s book into the wilderness and read it aloud in the evening around the campfire.¹¹

Other backcountry names showed a spirit of improvisation which differed from naming customs in other regions. Back settlements were called Thicketty and Saltketcher (both in South Carolina), Licking Creek (Tennessee), Big Sandy, Kerless Knob, Tater

Knob and Teeny Knob. A relaxed attitude toward naming in general appeared in Aho, whose founders were unable to agree upon a choice, and decided to take the first sound that was made in the new community. Other names in the same vein included Why Not, Odear, Shitbritches Creek, Naked Creek, Cuckold’s Creek, Stiffknee Knob, Big Fat Gap, Ben’s Ridge and Bert’s Creek and Charlie’s Bunion Mountain. This casual nomenclature was far removed from the naming ways of Puritans, Quakers and Cavaliers.¹²

The distribution of these place names defined the cultural boundaries of a region that was called the “back settlements” or the “backcountry” or simply the “back parts” in the eighteenth century. Scarcely anyone thought of it as a “frontier” in Frederick Jackson Turner’s sense during the first two centuries of American history. The fact that it was thought to be “back” rather than “front” tells us which way the colonists were facing in that era.¹³