[Ads-l] Derivation of "Kentucky"

Mon Apr 13 15:12:24 UTC 2015

Joel makes some very interesting points.  It does seem plausible that Shawnese Town means Lower Shawneetown, although I wonder if that is the only candidate.  Lower Shawneetown was in the northeastern corner of present-day Kentucky, on the Ohio River just across from what is now southeastern Ohio.  As it happens, the Kentucky River flows into the Ohio River at present-day Carrollton, Kentucky, which is about 150 miles from Lower Shawneetown.  George Croghan was an important figure in the early history of Ohio (then part of Pennsylvania); I don't know who Mr. Lowry was.

However, it seems difficult to reconcile that with the reference to the Allegheny River.  Surely "this side Allegheny River" would mean east or south of the Allegheny, not 350 miles west.  Conceptually it seems possible that "Allegheny River" was used here to mean the Ohio River (of which the Allegheny is the principal tributary, flowing into it at Pittsburgh), but I was under the impression that the river was already known as the Ohio.  Also, this seems awfully early for such a large party to be so far west, just three years after the earliest British exploration of Kentucky and the Ohio River by Thomas Walker and Christopher Gist in separate expeditions in 1750.

My theory is perhaps more undercut by the map commentary linked by Stephen Goranson, which shows that the river was known as the Kentucke no later than 1755.  The data for that map must have come from Gist, Walker, or both, and apparently one of them named the river.  Thanks to Sam Clements for the link to the map.

John Baker

-----Original Message-----
From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of Joel Berson
Sent: Sunday, April 12, 2015 9:47 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: Derivation of "Kentucky"

Since Virginia was originally granted everything between its bounding latitudes running due west to the Pacific Ocean, what is Kentucky today was once part of Virginia (as was West Virginia).

This is by way of background to wondering how probative the PG article is that Kentucky was named after a place rather than a river.

The letter is from Virginia, and is reporting about unfriendly encounters with Indians in what was then the interior, frontier region of Virginia.  (Kentucky became a state in 1792.)  The letter dates from near the onset of the French and Indian War.  Such encounters would certainly have been a concern to the Virginia government, and to its (and Pennsylvania's) settlers moving west from the land-scarce eastern areas.
"Shawnese Town" is of course "Shawnee's Town".  There is a "Lower Shawneetown", where there was an 18th-century Shawnee village; it is located near South Portsmouth in Greenup County, Kentucky.  The map shows it to be in the northeast corner of Kentucky. (Wikipedia.)  Maps tell me that the Kentucky River is not really in central Kentucky, but rather in the northeast, not far from where the Indian encounter must have been.  
While in the PG article Kentucky is called a "place", the area's name still might have derived from the river's name.

As for "on this Side Allegheny River," that might merely mean "on the side of the Allegheny River towards Virginia", and indicate concern in Virginia about incursions by Pennsylvania traders southwest from Pittsburgh into Virginia's territories.  The encounter site must be just west of the Allegheny Mountains, a formidable barrier to westward settlement from Virginia, but I think readily reached from Pittsburgh.  It would be in the fertile and desirable Ohio River valley.

Footnote:  the earliest instances in EAN for "Kentucky" are in 1776.  Some are about a man "lately from Kentucky".  Others refer to "settlers on Kentucky" -- where "on" perhaps refers to the river.

Joel
________________________________

 From: "Baker, John" <JBAKER at STRADLEY.COM>
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU 
Sent: Sunday, April 12, 2015 8:11 PM
Subject: [ADS-L] Derivation of "Kentucky"

The OED states in its entry for "Kentucky," the state, that its etymology is "< the name of the river; the original meaning of this is uncertain."  However, an early reference to the name, published in the (Philadelphia) Pennsylvania Gazette on 10 May 1753 and later in other newspapers, and available online at http://www.newspapers.com/clip/1958665/a_place_called_kentucky/, makes no mention of the river:

"By Letters from Virginia, dated the 10th of April, we have the following Advice, viz. "That an armed Company of Indians, consisting of Ottowawas, and Connywagas, headed by one of the Six Nations, and a white Man, met with some Pennsylvania Traders, at a Place called Kentucky, about 150 Miles from the Shawnese Town, on this Side Allegheny River, and took eight Prisoners, five belonging to Mr. Croghan, the other three to Mr. Lowry, and with them Goods to the Value of upwards of Three Hundred Pounds.""

I'm not sure where the Shawnese Town is, but the Allegheny River is in western Pennsylvania.  It would appear, therefore, that in 1753 the term already referred to a place, and not to the one we know as Kentucky today, nor to the Kentucky River, which inescapably is in the central part of modern Kentucky.  This would seem to undercut the supposed derivation of "Kentucky" from the name of the river.

Famously, of course, many have supposed "Kentucky" to be from an Indian term meaning "dark and bloody ground," although that derivation finds little support in modern scholarship.  The mistaken derivation seems to come from a book by John Filson, The Discovery, Settlement and Present State of Kentucke.  I don't see the book readily available online in its original 1784 version, but a summary published in The New-Jersey Magazine and Monthly Advertiser in Feb. 1787 stated as follows:

"The first white man that we have certain account of, who discovered this country, was one James M'Bride, who in company with others, passing down the Ohio, in 1754, landed at the mouth of Kentucke river. . . . From this period, it lay concealed till 1767, when John Finley and other, Indian traders, travelled over this fertile region, now called Kentucke, but then known to the Indians by the name of the dark and bloody ground, on account of the wars among  various tribes of Indians, about the possession of it."

Obviously the confusion of "Kentucke" with "dark and bloody ground," which is presented as an alternative title, was a readers' mistake.

John Baker

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