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History of Orange County
Towns of Goshen, Hamptonburgh and Chester
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TOWN OF CHESTER.
Oxford.-This is a small and pleasant village in the central part of the town, and known by that name for many years.
The English name denotes that the settlers came from that country, and called it after Oxford, England. That city is situate at the conflux of two small rivers, the Iris and Cherwell, and was the Oxonia, Oxonium, Bellositum, Iris dis Vadum of the Romans. The city is said to be very ancient and fonded many years before the Roman conquest.
The name is said by some to be derived from the Saxon word Oxenford, and used by them in the same sense that the Greeks named or called their Bosphori and the Germans their Ochenford, namely, the Ford of Oxen.
Warton, the historian of English poetry, suggests that the word is a corruption of Ousenford, meaning the ford at or near Ousency, on the meadows of Ouse-Ouse being the common saxon name for water or river. The city is written Orsnaforan or Olesnaforda on a coin of Alfred in the Bodlein Library at Oxford. It is Oxnaford and Oxeneford frequently in the Saxon chronicle, and Oxniford on the pennies of the two Williams.
It is supposed by some who have written on this very small point of etymology that the Saxon word Ousen, Ousn or Osn soon became corrupted into Orsn, Oxsn or Okin, and the original meaning of Ouseneyford being forgotten, Oxeneford was substituted for it in the public mind, and then, by way of making that word shorter, more agreeable and easy to pronounce, it was corrupted into the more obvious and familiar terms of Oxenford or Oxford, the present name.
If this etymological metamorphosis is true or nearly so, it proves the truth of the remark made in the introductory part of this paper, that the great source of the corruption of words, is the natural propensity of the mind to substitute the easy and pleasant in sound, for that which is more difficult, and obscure, when similarity or affinity of sound will authorise it in any way.
This word was Latinized into Vadum Boum, the Ford of Oxen. That city is said by some to have been built by Memphrice, king of the Britains, and called Caer. Memphrice; Caer in the Celtic means City. Others-contend it was founded by Vertigern, and called Caer- Vertigern; while others further contend that it was originally known by the sonorous appellation of Bellosihem, a name expressive of its favorable situation, on an eminence, adorned with woods, between two rivers, the Iris and Cherwell. But we forbear further remark upon this disputed point-the summa cacumine of etymology.
Still, before leaving, we assume to observe, that the word under consideration is proof of the truth, of another introductory remark, that if certainty in relation to our county names,
-the present known accidental reason therefor, or incident assigned in our young traditions of the county-are to be preserved, it is high tune the effort was made to place them in some true and durable form, before they, pass from the memory of the present inhabitants, and be subjected to future doubt and learned speculation.
This account of the word Oxford verifies another introductory remark, to wit that we had without fitness or reason, bestowed foreign names upon our county localities. The situation of our Oxford is wholly dissimilar with the English for there, there was either a ford for oxen, of a ford at or near the meadows of Ouse, either of which exactly expressed the situation of the place, the thing signified. We crave pardon for the length of our remarks on this word, and for the freedom of our criticisms; while cannot resist the temptation to say, as we have said before, that looking over the names of places in New York, you would suppose them bestowed by some crazy schoolmaster, so learned and inappropriate are they.
Sugar Loaf Village.-This is at the west side of Sugar Loaf Mountain, on the road from Warwick to Chester. The village is small and stationary in its growth, and has its name from the mountain, at the west foot of which it stands.
Sugar Loaf Mountain.--This isolated peak rises majestically in a conical form, resembling a loaf of sugar, for several hundred feet above the level of the surrounding lands. The apex of the cone is covered with a woody top-knot or crest, which gives it a pleasant and gay appearance. - The most fastidious in the bestowment of names expressive of the thing signified, could not object to this one. If he did, he ought not to be permitted to taste a bit of sugar candy, but be fed on pickles ever after.
On a farm in this vicinity, owned by Mr. Jonathan Archer, there was an Indian burying ground at the early settlement of the country. The old lady, our informant, upwards of 85 years old, said she saw it frequently before the Revolution, and once afterwards. She thought there were about thirty graves, and each one was a small green pyramid of earth, heaped up like the covering of a potato hole. Around each grave there were pieces of split wood, set in the ground so close as almost to touch each other and higher than her head. There was no regularity in the position of the graves. These, doubtless, were the honored receptacles of chiefs and warriors; for, from all we have learned upon enquiry through the county, it appears that such were not interred in a common yard with other Indians. While each tribe or settlement had a common receptacle for depositing the dead, several settlements, though many miles apart, buried their chiefs in ground appropriated for the purpose; so that while the latter were few in number, the former were numerous. When a chief was buried, the Indians attended from a great distance around.
The strong arm of agricultural improvement has long since levelled and swept away these green and revered tumuli of the dead, and the ploughman, as he drives his share thro' their consecrated ashes, is careless of the sacred nature of the spot, once bedewed with the burning tears of Indian sorrow, and for the protection of which they would have laid down their lives as a sacrifice.