Houston Street

[Gordon, Matthew J.]

I don't see what the "Georgia provenance" of the name has to do with it. Sam Houston for whom the city was named was a native of Virginia. His family was of Scots-Irish origins (according to the Handbook of Texas Online) so maybe the /u/ in Houston represents a non-Great Vowel Shifted form. Was William Houstoun's family from southern England or somewhere else where the GVS might have turned /u/ to /aw/?

-----Original Message-----
From:   Grant Barrett [mailto:gbarrett at WORLDNEWYORK.ORG]
Sent:   Sat 2/1/2003 10:45 AM
To:     ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Cc:	
Subject:             Houston Street

New York University Press claims this:

http://www.nyupress.org/product_info.php?products_id=2233

Houston Street: For William Houstoun, 1757-1812, of a prominent Georgia
family, who married a daughter of Manhattan landowner Nicholas Bayard
III. The Georgia provenance of the name accounts for its pronunciation
and spelling both of which distinguish it from the Texas city.


--
Grant Barrett
Editor, World New York
http://www.worldnewyork.org/
gbarrett at worldnewyork.org