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History of Orange County
Introduction
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This process of arriving at the result wished for, is certainly quite ingenious. It hacks out the middle of the word, by no rule of the literary shambles we are acquainted with, and throws the two ends away, as offal. It is the best perhaps the case at this day admits of. By way of argument in favor of our present timely effort, we cannot resist the temptation of giving another example. We name the city of Rochester, England. This is also said to have been a town before the Roman conquest of that Island. It was originally called Dourbryf, which, in the Saxon, signifies swift river, in allusion to the rapid current of the Medway, on the banks of which it stood. The Romans, not content with the roughness of the sound, smoothed down the prominent angles and called it Durobrovis and Durobrovum. The Saxons, in turn, not content with the length, shortened it into Hroffe—this, with the addition of Ceaster, the Saxon word for city or castle, the same as the Latin castrum for camp, together made Hroffe-ceaster, the immediate parent of Rochester. The addition of the Saxon word ceaster, meaning castle, city or camp, to those places which bad been Roman military stations, was very common. Thus it is, you have the English names of Leicester, Doncaster, Winchester, and others ending in cheater, all of them having been Roman Stations or camps while they held the country. The name of a place thus formed, as far as we know, is first mentioned in Hume’s England, at page 15, vol. 1, chap. 1, speaking of the war between the Britons and Saxon, under AElla, their chief, he is said to have 2 laid siege to Andrea-ceaster. This was in the beginning of the fifth century. The Romans abandoned England in 408 of the Christian era, after holding military possession of the Island 400 years.
The Saxon word Hroffe was afterwards Latinised into Roffa, whence the Bishop of Rochester takes his signature, Roffensis. Though all this may appear very natural and satisfactory to the learned in these matters, yet its truth and probability have been questioned; for Bede, who was as deeply steeped in such antiquarian lore as any other Englishman, says Rochester came from Rof or Rhof, the name of a man who was once lord of the city. To which if you add the Saxon ceaster, you have Rofceaster—in our opinion the most probable derivation.
In our review it will be found that some places, without any known reason therefor, have had as many names as any convicted scamp in Sing Sing. What our ancestors knew as Mouse Pond, Machem’s Pond, Big Pond, Bennin Water, we know in its more beautiful and ample dimensions as Orange Lake. Even towns are not free from suspicion, as far as the same may be inferred from a plurality of names. Smith’s Clove, Cheesecock’s, Southfield and Monroe, each in their turn have designated a large and respectable portion of the county. Moral principle, also, which truly and extensively prevailed among the early settlers, has not unfrequently stamped its reprobation upon a locality for the violation of her laws. But as men, from generation to generation, improve and elevate themselves to a higher moral standard, and better condition of things, it is but justice to change Jockey Hollow to the more pleasant but less descriptive New Milford. It would seem strange, indeed, in so large a county as Orange, with its numerous localities, and settled by emigrants from all parts of Europe, intelligent, witty, strong-minded, full of fun and frolick, more or less, if we did not find, as we do in other counties, some odd and unaccountably queer names. Accordingly, Joge and Brimstone Hills, Skunk’s Misery, Honey Pot, Goosetown, Dans Kammer, Purgatory, and a few more of the like, equally strong, hot, savory, odoriferous and expressive names, save us from all reproach, and I bring old Orange within the operation of the general rule.—In the antiquity and classic beauty of names the western counties of the State have eminently the advantage by traveling further up the stream of time; for looking over them we would conclude they were settled by Greek and Roman colonies, or, as some funny wag has said, they must have been bestowed by a crazy pedagogue, from a catalogue carefully prepared beforehand for the purpose. A good name is certainly without price, but we would not give a bit for a bushel of Greek and Roman ones in particular, for in this, as in other things, we prefer the domestic manufacture.
The uncertainty which covers up with an impenetrable cloud the meaning of many English names, by which they are now so difficult to explain, is the combined result of the operation of time, conquest, and change of language. The first of these causes we are now endeavoring to anticipate, while we trust and desire to be saved harmless from the consequences of the other two; and that, as long as we have these privilege to do so, when grown up to vigorous manhood, and become dissatisfied with our present infantile names, and wish to change them for those more beneficial, pleasant or appropriate, we will appeal directly to the voice of the people or legislative enactment.