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Warren Mass.

How New England Towns Got Their Place Names

Sometimes when you hear a place name, you’re pretty sure it’s somewhere in New England. The region’s distinct history left it with some pretty distinct naming patterns.

Many of the earliest towns settled by English Puritans take their names from their homes England, especially East Anglia. Since the French tried to claim New England, too, especially near the Canadian border, they managed to give some settlements French names — along with a state and an enormous lake. The Scots-Irish who settled New England’s frontiers also named their new towns after their homes in Ireland.

The Mayflower in Plymouth Harbor by William Halsall.

Indigenous people, of course, had plenty of names for New England places before it became New England. So if a town doesn’t sound English, French or Irish, it’s a good bet it’s Native American.

Unless it’s Warren. New England has six towns called Warren, one in each state, but the reason for those place names is more complicated than you might think.

English Place Names

Massachusetts has at least 104 English names for cities, towns and counties, starting with Amesbury and ending with Yarmouth. (Click here for a complete list of U.S. places named after places in England.)

Rhode Island has the fewest — 15 of them, from Bradford to Wickford. Maine has 32, Vermont 36. Connecticut 31, including Hartford, an archaic spelling of Hertford (the birthplace of one of Thomas Hooker’s assistants, the Rev. Samuel Stone).

New Hampshire was named after Hampshire, England, by John Mason, the colony’s first proprietor (though he never set foot in New England). New Hampshire has 47 cities, towns and counties named after English places.

Puritan Place Names

Many Puritans who arrived in Massachusetts Bay during the Great Migration of 1620 to 1640 left from East Anglia, a wealthy center of cloth manufacturing. It had thriving ports named Boston, Great Yarmouth, King’s Lynn, Colchester and Harwich.

Norwich in East Anglia

Other Puritans came from Norfolk, the county of the North Folk, or the Northern Angles, while others came from Suffolk of the South Folk. Essex, between Suffolk and London, was the home of the East Saxons; Middlesex of the Middle Saxons.

The Puritans even named groups of towns in New England after groups of towns in England: Boston and Lynn, for example, were next to each other in East Anglia as they were in Massachusetts. So were Worcester and Leominster, and Amesbury, Salisbury, Newbury and Andover.

In Rhode Island, the geography of England was mimicked in Warwick and Coventry and in Bristol and Newport. In New Hampshire, Sandown and South Hampton are next to each other as they were in England. And, as in England, there was once a Gosport on the Isles of Shoals next to Portsmouth in New Hampshire.

Scots-Irish Place Names

Some place names reflect the Scots-Irish origins of their first settlers. Derry, N.H., counts as the first.

The First Parish Church in East Derry.

The Massachusetts Puritans, led by Cotton Mather, encouraged the Scots-Irish to settle in places where they would serve as buffers against the Indians. Those frontier settlements to the west, north and east became Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine. And so New Hampshire has a Derry, a Londonderry and a Derryfield. It also has an Antrim, Colebrook, Dublin, Hillsborough, Kilkenny and Stewartstown.

Vermont has a Londonderry, named after Londonderry, N.H.

In Maine you’ll find a Belfast, Bangor, Limerick and Newry.

French Place Names

Northern New England — not Louisiana — has the highest percentage of people who claim French ancestry. And New France, or Acadia, once stretched into Maine. That explains at least some of New England’s French place names.

Castine, Maine, which dates to 1613, takes its name from the French Baron de Saint-Castin. A military officer, he established a fort and trading post there in the late 17th century. Other French place names in Maine include Tremont, Presque Isle, Montville, Minot, Lamoine, Lagrange, Isle au Haut and Frenchboro.

Castine, from Fort George, by Fitz Henry Lane

Vermont also has several towns with French names: Vermont, a corruption of the French for “Green Mountain,” has a Belmont, an Orleans and a Vergennes.

Some towns took French names because of enthusiasm for France after it helped win the Revolutionary War. Thus, Rhode Island has a Lafayette and Maine has a Paris and a Calais. Vermont also named Calais and its capital, Montpelier, in a burst of Francophilia.

Four New England towns took the French name Orange. In 1689, much to the joy and relief of New England’s Puritans, William of Orange deposed the Catholic King James II. Towns in Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Vermont named themselves after him.

Vermont

Generally, towns only named themselves for individuals after the American Revolution, New Hampshire Gov. Benning Wentworth proved an exception.

Wentworth, colonial governor from 1741 to 1766, sold 138 tracts of land for town charters and named some of them after people he wanted to flatter. He named Clarendon, for example, for the earl of the same name and Monkton for British Gen. Robert Monckton. Wentworth named tiny Ferdinand after Prince Karl Wilhelm Ferdinand of Brunswick-Luneburg, related to England’s royal family.

Wentworth named Bennington after himself.

Montpelier

Many Vermont towns were settled after the Revolution. Hence, Wolcott named itself after Revolutionary general Oliver Wolcott, who also signed the Declaration of Independence.

Barton, Vt., named itself after Maj. William Barton, who captured British general Richard Prescott in Newport, R.I., during the Revolutionary War. He founded the town and then went to jail for selling the same piece of land to two people. Barton was born in Warren, R.I.

Then There’s Maine

Much of Maine came late to the naming party, mostly because Europeans didn’t settle the interior until the French and Indian Wars ended.

The coastal south, established earlier than central Maine, has the Puritan-sounding towns of York, a Falmouth, a Berwick and a Yarmouth.But When settlers put down roots in Maine in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, many people in foreign countries fought for independence. And so they named their towns after the freedom fighters they admired.

The residents of a town previously known as Holmanston incorporated in 1818, they chose “Mexico” to honor the Mexicans who won independence in 1815.

In 1821, people in Maine’s western interior decided to name their town Peru after the South American country that had just declared its independence from Spain.

Denmark, incorporated in 1807, was named in solidarity with the people of Copenhagen. The British Royal Navy attacked the Danish city in 1801 and 1807, much as it had attacked Falmouth in 1775. (Read more about Maine names here.)

Indigenous Names

Two New England states, Connecticut and Massachusetts, take their names from Native Americans. The Massachusetts tribe from the Great Blue Hill region near the bay gave the colony, then the state, its name. Other towns and villages named after tribes include Niantic, Conn., Penacook, N.H., Natick, Mass., and Penobscot and Norridgewock, Maine.

Quite a few Maine place names come from Native Americans, including Machias (“bad little falls”) and Ogunquit (“beautiful place by the sea”). Indigenous people also named Caribou, Damariscotta, Kennebunk, Millinocket, Orono, Penobscot, Saco and Skowhegan.

Main Street, Nantucket

Connecticut in particular has an abundance of towns and villages with indigenous names. They start alphabetically with Aspetuck in Fairfield County and end with Yantic in Norwich. They also include Cos Cob, Mianus, Mystic, Niantic, Norwalk, Willimantic and, appropriately, Uncasville, home of the Mohegan Sun casino.

Elsewhere in New England, some of the better-known towns with Native American names include Pawtucket, R.I., where the Red Sox farm team used to play and Nantucket, where whaling families used to live.

The Bush family still has a summer home in Kennebunkport, Maine, while the Kennedys have theirs in Hyannis, Mass.

Many geographical features, from Narragansett Bay to Mount Katahdin, also have Native American names, but that story is for another day.

Two Warrens, Six Towns

Each New England state has a town named Warren, though two different heroes of distinctly different eras inspired the place names.

Warren in Rhode Island, with colonial roots back to 1621, and Warren, N.H., which welcomed its first English settlers in 1767, were named for Vice-Admiral Sir Peter Warren. Admiral Warren was an Irish officer in the British Royal Navy. He, along with American troops, captured the French fort at Louisbourg on Nova Scotia’s Cape Bretton Island in 1745.

Warren, R.I.

The action established trading agreements between the New England colonies and Canadians. The victory not only made Warren very wealthy, it made him a celebrated figure throughout New England.

The Warrens in Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont and Maine trace their name to a more well-known figure in U.S. history: Dr. Joseph Warren. Warren led the American struggle for independence in the run up to the war. A major general in the Continental Army, he died fighting with the militia at the Battle of Bunker Hill. The British army knew him well and celebrated his death.

To Americans, however, Joseph Warren died a martyr to the cause of freedom. They have affixed his celebrated name to schools, monuments and towns throughout America since shortly after his death.

https://www.google.com/books/edition/Fannie_s_Last_Supper/UX-ZAAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=1896+world+food+fair+boston&pg=PT243&printsec=frontcover

This story about New England place names was updated in 2021.

Images: Nantucket By The original uploader was Bobak at English Wikipedia. – Transferred from en.wikipedia to Commons., CC BY-SA 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2776843. First Parish Church of East Derry By John Phelan – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=24513489; Norwich in East Anglia By Pedro Fernandez Photo from Alicante, Spain – #streetphotography #Norwich #norfolk #visitnorwich #enjoynorwich #walk #places #downtown #HDR, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=34614607.

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A Handmade Christmas in New England, c. 1900

Around 1900 on a small farm in Brookfield, Mass., Alan Wallace and his two brothers celebrated the holidays with handmade Christmas presents, taffy pulls and a tree decorated with popcorn and cranberries. Their father read A Christmas Carol.

Wallace recalled his handmade Christmas in an interview with Louise Bessett on Dec. 1, 1938 as part of the Works Progress Administration’s Federal Writers’ Project. He was then 55 years old, working intermittently as a designer in a wallpaper family. He cheerfully admitted he had no ambition, which he considered a joke on his hard-working Puritan ancestors.

Wallace lived in a three-room apartment by himself and drove a rattletrap old Ford. Fewer than 3,000 people lived in Brookfield then, and he knew many if not most of them. He was popular in town, always in demand at parties and always willing to help out sitting with the sick, running errands or chopping wood.

He evoked those virtues of kindness and generosity in his description of his family’s old-fashioned, handmade Christmas.

Brookfield, Mass., in 1906

Handmade Christmas

Bessett ran into Wallace at the post office, where he had picked up gadgets from a mail order house. He intended to put them together as presents. December 1 was considered early for Christmas shopping in 1938.

He picked up the habit from his mother, born in 1857 or 1858. Her family had exchanged handmade Christmas presents during the Civil War because they they couldn’t afford anything but food.

“The habit stuck to her and so, when my brothers and I came along she taught us to do many things that ever since makes Christmas to me,” he said.

Wallace and his two brothers made fancy pillows, for example. In August they’d start collecting the stuffing: fir tips, pine needles and sweet fern leave, which dried out by Christmas.

Clam shell varieties set illustration from Mollusca & Shells by Augustus Addison Gould. Original from Biodiversity Heritage Library.

They spent two weeks at the seashore in summer. Half the fun, he said, was finding shells to take home and make into handmade Christmas presents. “We’d pick up the prettiest clam shells and scallop shells, a whole basket full, and then when we got back home, we’d paint them in the evenings – make ash trays, pin trays and — and — oh, yes, paper weights and sometimes door stops,” he said.

“As I look back on it now I realize that some of them were pretty awful but Mother always seemed delighted with our efforts, no matter how feeble they proved to be. Honestly we got so we could all paint fairly well – you know, birds and butterflies and flowers.”

Canes for Father

“We had scads of relatives and by the time we had painted something for everybody we should have been fairly proficient,” he said.

The boys made canes for their father, competing to make the one he liked best. “To spare our feelings, he would carry mine today, Stuart’s, my oldest brother, the next day and Jim’s, the youngest brother, the third day, Wallace said. He showed equal enthusiasm for each one.

“We always gave him something for his desk. He finally accumulated so many of our gifts he put a good-sized table in his room and all of our efforts were laid out to show them to the best advantage. I don’t mind telling you we were mighty proud of that collection.”

Their mother taught them to knit, and they learned to make wristlets that looked all right, he said. She also taught them to crochet, and they had fun crocheting ribbons to tie around their handmade Christmas presents.

‘He’ Boys

“The evenings would fly by all too fast and how sensible my Mother was keeping three big boys so enthused over Christmas that they rarely wanted to go out at night. We were boys, too, real tough ‘he’ boys, and the funniest part of the whole thing was, none of the boys in the neighborhood ever kidded us. In facts most of them spent half their time at our house.

“Mother always caught the Christmas spirit early and she used to spread it around which made our Christmas last longer than most peoples. So many don’t commence to think anything about it until two or three days before Christmas Eve.

“We used to cut our trees out in some nearby pasture and was that a ceremony. Sometimes we would spend weeks making the proper selection and there were many serious arguments before we were all satisfied,” he said. They’d put it up a week to 10 days before Christmas.

“We decorated it with strings of cranberries and pop corn, then we’d paint silver stars and tuck them in and out of the branches. We put a few little candles, here and there. Not many, Mother had a deadly fear of fire. Everybody had a stocking hung on the tree, even our animals.

Love and Happiness

“We had our gifts Christmas morning but Christmas Eve we always had a “taffy pulling.” All our pals were invited, no one was allowed to bring a present. A number of the older people would come, too, and sometimes bring something for Mother and Dad.

“We had our gifts early in the morning and then we’d pitch in and help with the last minute preparations for dinner and what a dinner it would be. The table fairly groaned as the newspapers say.”

Marley’s Ghost, from A Christmas Carol. Original illustration by John Leech from the 1843 edition. An essential element of Alan Wallace’s handmade Christmas.

No one, he said, ever hurried.

“To Father and Mother Christmas meant love and love means happiness – doesn’t it?

“If we can always keep the spirit of Christmas alive this old world of ours will never go entirely wrong. Always after dinner, on Christmas Day, Father would read Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, we never grew tired of listening to it – we felt the Cratchits, Scrooge and Tiny Tim were people who belonged to us and came to visit us every Christmas.

Laughter in the House

After they listened to the Dickens tale and cleared away dinner, they put on warm clothing and went sliding or skating. They’d then bring home an appetite. Their mother had sandwiches and cake, and they’d pop hickory nuts and chestnuts. They sang every song they knew, and their parents told stories they thought unbelievably funny. “How we would laugh,” he said.

“I have heard my Mother say that laughter in the house was more precious than gold plate. What a Mother mine was, there never was one like her.”

Alan Wallace and Louise Bessett were sitting in his old Ford outside the post office as he reminisced about his mother. He sat for a full two minutes, silent, looking off in to space. Then he laughed, and invited her to his little party the week before Christmas. She accepted.

“Well, that’s that, I’ll drive you home and then I’m on my way,” he said. He then dropped her off in a mountain of snow and went on his way to get a few things together for Christmas presents.

Alan Wallace’s Handmade Christmas, 1938

Bessett described Alan Wallace as a big man well over six feet and weighing about 190 pounds. “By no chance can he be called good looking, in fact he is really homely; but his large mouth is even smiling and his kind eyes lighted with a twinkle,” she wrote.

His paternal grandfather had wealth and influence, but Alan didn’t inherit anything. Alan’s father came to Brookfield for a venture that never happened, and he lived out his life working a little old farm. He had a small income, but never added to it.

They did have a heritage of culture and love, Bessett wrote. Mrs. Wallace was a refined, well-educated woman and a superb mother. She instilled in her children a love for education, music and art. Alan wanted to be a concert singer, and she saw to it that he went abroad to study for several years. Just as he was about to make his concert debut, Alan was stricken with an illness that left him speechless for more than two years.

Eventually he recovered his speaking voice, but he could never sing again. Bessett wrote that Alan Wallace loved music. He had a large collection of records for his Victrola, listened constantly to concerts over the radio and deplored jazz.

His small, shabby apartment was in a house owned by a nurse who worked at the Mary Lane Hospital in Ware, Mass. The nurse only came home on weekends and vacations, so he had the run of the house. An excellent cook, he prepared all his own meals. He also had a large flower garden.

“Everybody likes him and Alan seems to like everybody,” Bessett wrote.

She had run into him at the post office, where he picked up a package of gadgets that he planned to put together for his latest handmade Christmas presents.

* * *

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This story about the handmade Christmas last updated in 2022.

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Rules for Living From an Old Massachusetts Farmer

Jared David Busby was a 78-year-old Massachusetts farmer who had the solution to ending the Great Depression: Work.

So he told his granddaughter, along with other practical suggestions, such as ‘keep a pickle barrel’ and ‘go to bed before midnight.’

New England farmhouse, a familiar sight to the old Massachusetts farmer.

Charlotte Busby interviewed her grandfather on Feb. 24, 1939, for the Federal Writers Project. He was 78 years old, born in the Berkshires. He had lived in Warren, Mass., for more than 40 years.

They sat in his kitchen as he made tea. She told him to dunk his doughnut if he wanted to.

“Catch me dunking, or using a bowl instead of a cup, if you can,” he said. “I dare you to catch me. I’ve got on my company manners.”

The Old Massachusetts Farmer

Charlotte Busby described her grandfather as a notable figure in the business and political life of the town. Many called him ‘Jerry.’ The old Massachusetts farmer was likable, witty, a philosopher with little formal education, but a vigorous mentality, she wrote.

“Though very dear, he seems to know what is going on, is much interested in public questions and is well read. He spends considerable time at his small radio, despite its poor quality and static. Jerry subscribes to four newspapers and reads magazines also.”

His whimsical expression reminded her of Mark Twain.

“He lives alone and enjoys himself,” she wrote. “His health is usually good, his eyes are bright, his white hair thick and flowing. Though Jerry’s shoulders are stooped, his arms show strong muscles and his shapely hands apply themselves to many tasks.”

Hard Work

The old Massachusetts farmer told his granddaughter work, hard work, was the solution to the Depression:

“Everyone should work, in the first place, and work hard,” he said.

He complained about too much play, too much gambling and speculation. “The panic was caused by the people depending on the country,” he said. “It should be vice versa. The country should depend upon the people.”

And then the old Massachusetts farmer got very specific about what to plant, what to keep in the cellar, what to give children and when to go to bed.

Jerry thought every family should try to own their own home and a little land. Farmers should plant a garden and raise enough vegetables to last through the winter.

“A wife should can everything possible,” he said. “There should be a salt pork barrel and a pickle barrel. If possible, have two cows, and hens enough to have one’s own eggs. Feed the hens some grain and, mostly, table scraps.”

A Good, Fat Pig

“Always raise a good, fat pig to be killed at Christmas time,” the old Massachusetts farmer said. “A good heifer calf can be raised cheaply, with some work. The bull calves can be fattened, and eaten when cold weather sets in.”

He further advised planting apple, pear and peach trees.

Have a strawberry and raspberry patch, and if possible, an asparagus bed. Be sure to get a good job and keep it. If machinery replaces men, men must walk barefooted looking for something else.

You know I think I’m a socialist.

“Be on time and work early and late,” he said. “This money will pay taxes, insurance and repairs, buy regular food not otherwise provided for, and clothes. Don’t make use of installment plans in buying anything. Have the cellar full of fruit and vegetables, such as potatoes, cabbage, turnips, carrots, parsnips. Have plenty of stews; buy a few pounds of good meat and cook up a quantity of vegetables.

“Buy or cut fuel for the winter in the summer and have it ready before it is needed. Dress children simply and warmly and have them in the care of a doctor and dentist, at regular periods.”

For the Young Massachusetts Farmer

Girls, he said, should learn to cook and sew. Boys should learn to cut wood, take care of a garden, milk a cow and hunt and fish.

“Give the boy a boat and a dog and a gun, if he acts sensible,” he said. “Teach him to use carpenter’s tools. Give a girl a sewing machine.”

Jerry believed girls need a college education as much as boys so both could become wage earners.

“Have parties at home. Don’t buy an automobile unless it is necessary, or you can afford the luxury of owning one. Rise early and go to bed before midnight. The best sleep is before midnight.”

With thanks to the Library of Congress WPA Life Histories from Massachusetts. This story about the old Massachusetts farmer was updated in 2022.

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