A MEDIUM OF INTERCOMMUNICATION FOR LITERARY MEN, GENERAL READERS, ETC. Copyrighted 1891, by The Westminster Publishing Co. Entered at the Post-Office, Philadelphia, as Second-class Matter. SATURDAY, JANUARY 16, 1892. Vol. VIII. No. II. American Notes and Queries PUBLISHED WEEKLY BY $3.00 per year. $1,75. 6 months. {$1.00, 3 months. 10 cents per number. NOTES. DR. MURRAY'S "NEW ENGLISH DICTIONARY" THE WESTMINSTER PUBLISHING COMPANY, word in the "N. E. D." dates from 1796 619 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, Pa. Commuuications for the literary department should be addressed: Editor AMERICAN NOTES AND QUERIES. All checks and money orders to be made payable to the order of The Westminster Publishing Company. CONTENTS. NOTES:-Dr. Murray's "New English Dictionary" on histor- QUERIES:-The Oldest Gunner, U. S. Navy-Marshal- REPLIES:-Cold Harbor-Buffer State-Naijack-Virginia (Southey's "Joan of Arc,") but the word occurs in Nashe's "Unfortunate Traveller," 1593 (two hundred and three years earlier), in the expression, "embered up in the breasts of mortal men." Apparently it means “covered up like embers" in a fireplace. Carriageable. Dr. Murray's earliest quotation of this word is dated 1702; Nashe used it more than a century earlier. Entrancedly. Dr. Murray's only example of this word is dated 1873; it occurs in Nashe almost three hundred years before. Apostatism.-Dr. Murray's first record of this word is dated 1814. It was used by Nashe two hundred and eighteen years earlier. Equipotency.-The only instance of this Bible-Bishop of the Seraphim-The Body, an Army- word given in the "N. E. D." is an anony Boiling the Cabbage Twice-Indian Names, 124. Teach mous quotation dated 1658; the word occurs on p. 501 of Hartley Coleridge's "Worthies English Lecturing in Paris-America, 125-Symbolical of Yorkshire and Lancashire," almost two Tombs-Mottoes for Book Covers-Fetish, 126. COMMUNICATIONS: A French. English jeu-de-mot Strange Funeral Monuments-glass-eating as a Relish- Jottings-"Oof" (Money)-Inter-planetary Communi- hundred years later, in 1836. Epistle.-The earliest example the "N. E. D." gives of the use of epistle as a verb dates from 1671; but Nashe, in his "Saffron Walden" (1596), wrote, "he began to epistle it against me." Eagled. This word, meaning furnished titles, 130-The Purest English in the World-A Lexicog- with eagles, has two examples in Murray's rapher in a New Light-Tristful-Moon Superstitions-N. E. D.", the latest dating from 1660. An Angry Tree, 131. Notes on Trees-A lightning But Ebenezer Elliott, in 1847, wrote of "eagled Rome.” Conductor Tree-On the Score (after their fashion)- G. 122 DELAWARE'S CIRCULAR BOUNDARY. cf. VOL. VI, p. 257. Having asked some time ago for information in regard to the origin of the famous twelve-mile circle around Newcastle, which forms the northern boundary of Delaware, and not receiving as much information as was desired, the writer has been on the lookout for light upon the subject, so to speak, and has been very much interested in an article that recently appeared in the Philadelphia Ledger, and which is condensed below, in the hope that it may thus be preserved permanently in the pages of AMERICAN NOTES AND QUERIES: Under the direction of the Inter-state Boundary Commission, surveyors are now running the course of the twelve-mile circle. Progress is slow, the original marks of surveyors having been obliterated. The line was run more than sixty years before that of Mason and Dixon, by Taylor and Pierson, under authority from William Penn. The radius is twelve miles long, a point under the spire of the court house at Newcastle being the centre; and the line was run to settle a dispute as to representation in the joint Assembly of the "three lower counties." Trees were blazed to mark the line, and, fortunately, the original report and field notes have been preserved. Of great value are the deeds for certain farms, the owners of which say that the State line forms their boundary. This twelve-mile circle is the only circular State boundary. Its purpose was, apparently, to leave the mouth of the Christiana in DelaA straight line would place Wilmington in Pennsylvania. Penn's title to Newcastle and a circle of twelve miles around it, was separate from the grant of Pennsylvania to him. ware. Under an agreement with Lord Baltimore the southern and the western boundaries of Delaware were fixed. The attenuated segment of the twelvemile circle remaining west of the due north line, which forms the eastern boundary of Maryland at that point,-a strip 200 feet wide at the widest point and a mile or more in length, was to belong to Penn, and it is Delaware territory to this day. This circular piece of land is first mentioned long previous to Penn's time in a grant from Charles II to the Duke of York; it included a portion of New Jersey. Tay lor and Pierson, in their report, say they "began work by running the line due north from the end of the horse-dyke, a distance of twelve miles." All trace of their "horse-dyke" was of course lost, and a later survey fixed the court The difference is house spire as the centre. probably 250 yards, but as they are both on the ble difference in the periphery of the circles same meridian, there would be no appreciawestward. Taylor and Pierson ran their line northward reaching a white oak at Smith's bridge, on the Brandywine, at the end of twelve miles. They then ran the line toward the Delaware, the deflection from a straight line being one degree in sixty-seven perches, that being the chord of the circle. Returning to the Smith's bridge oak, they ran the line westward, giving it the proper deflection, but a portion of the line was never surveyed, tradition largely guiding the assessors and road supervisors in their duties. It Northwest of the twelve-mile circle lies a disputed triangle containing 700 acres. is 4,000 feet wide at its widest point, and " and though three miles long, tapering to a point. It is often called the "flat-iron," Pennsylvania territory has for nearly two centuries been under the jurisdiction of Delaware, the residents voting and paying taxes in Newcastle county. It is probable the disELLWOOD ROBERTS. puted territory will be ceded to Delaware. Norristown, Pa. CURRY FAVOR. This phrase is said to have come into use near the close of the 16th century. If this be true, the following example is one of the earliest in literature: "She thenceforth did labour, By all the means she might to curry favour (Spenser, F. Q. Bk. V. Canto V. St. 35.) "The phrase to curry favour is a corruption of M. E. to curry favell, i. e., to rub Favell was a common old. down a horse. name for a horse." The couplet, (DR. SKEAT.) "He that will in Court abide, Shows the original form and use of the ΜΕΝΟΝΑ. QUERIES. The Oldest Gunner, U. S. Navy.-Says The Ararat, N. Y. City: "The oldest gunner in the United States Navy, the venerable George Sirian, died in Portsmouth, Va., on Monday before last. His life was full of romance and adventures. Born in 1817, on the Greek isle of Ipsalia, he was made a homeless orphan by the attack and massacre by the Turks of the inhabitants of that island in 1826. The bombardment of the Turks by the old Constitution-"Old Ironsides" saved the lives of a large number, and he was among eleven boys who survived and were brought away by that gallant old vessel. He was brought home by Lieutenant Randolph, of Richmond, the executive officer of the ship. Later he was taken by Mr. Marshall, gunner in the United States Navy, from Lieutenant Randolph and by him taught gunnery and pyrotechnics. At the age of twenty he entered the navy as a gunner and in many a hard fought battle afterward showed that the blood of the Greeks, famous at Marathon and Thermopylæ, at Platea and Mycenæ, still lived in his veins." Query: Who is the oldest now? CIVIS AMERICANUS. Marshal. What was the nature of the office held by the marshals in the New England provincial troops under the British crown? An ancestor of my own, whose commission I have seen as a captain (signed by the governor of Massachusetts Bay, in behalf of George II.) is said in a recent historical work to have "served as a marshal in current orthoepy of the words he employs, and will (under ordinary circumstances, I say again) avoid any affected, unpopular rhyme, the grating of which on his readers' ears might spoil the effect of a whole line. Am I right or wrong? ALES. Who was Lund Washington ?-In a copy of the Pennsylvania Journal and Weekly Advertiser of September 6, 1775, I found the following advertisement : "Ten Dollars Reward. Run away from Fredericksburg, on the 7th instant, August, Joseph Smith, by trade a painter, etc. Whoever takes up the said servant, and secures him in any gaol, so that he may be had again, or delivers him to Col. Fielding Lewis, in Fredericksburg, or Mr. Lund Washington at Mount Vernon, in Fairfax county, will be paid the above reward." Who was this Mr. Lund Washington, and what relation, if any, was he to George Washington? Schenectady, N. Y. H. R. Authorship Wanted. On the monument at the troops at Boston," at a time when an at- South Deerfield, Mass., commemorating the tack by a French fleet was expected. GEROULD. Bloody Brook fight, occur these words, or some others nearly like them: "And Sanguinetto tells you how the dead REPLIES. Cold Harbor (Vol. viii, p. 83, Vol. vii, p. 318.)-It is stated in Mr. Ruskin's Praterita, Vol. i, p. 31, (following the "History of Croydon"), that Cold Harbor Lane is a name which is a puzzle to antiquaries, and is "nearly always found near Roman stations." There is a Cold Harbor Lane near Dulwich, in England. There is also a village called Cold Harbor four and one-half miles southwest of Dorking. Near it, is Cold Harbor Hill. POTUNK "Place where the foot sinks, a boggy place," neck in Southampton, L. I. POXABOGUE "Place where the pond opens out, or widens," locality at Bridgehampton. PUMCATAWE- —“Land lying across,” a dis Naijack (Vol. vi, p. 53, etc.)—The Naijack, for which M. C. L. inquires, was un-trict near Mastic River. questionably that Nayack (now Gravesend, L. I.,) which appears in the list of Indian Place-names, Vol. viii, p. 103. Bishop of the Seraphim (Vol. viii, p. 113), -In Sweden there is an ancient order of knighthood called The Order of the Seraphim, now for the most part reserved for crowned heads of the various European countries. At one time (but I believe not at present) the prelate of this order had the title of the Bishop of the Seraphim. My impression is that this title may now be a subsidiary one, given to some one of the Swedish diocesan bishops; but that, only a few years since, it was a distinct and separate title. N. S. S. QUAGO-Corruption of Quaquanantuck, ditch in Southampton. QUANUNTOWUNK-"Where there is a fence," the northern part of Fort Pond, Montauk. QUANTUCK "Long creek," but probably a corruption from Quaquanantuck, bay and creek in Southampton. QUAQUANANTUCK-"Shaking march cove, or creek," meadows in Southampton. tuck, hamlet in Southampton. QUIOGUE-Corruption from Quaquanan tuck, hamlet in Southampton. QUOGUE-Corruption from Quaquanan ROANOKE "Sea shells or wampum," school district in Riverhead. ROCKAWAY "Sandy land," one of the Indian tribes, beach and villages. RONKONKOMA—"The weir fishing-place," lake in Islip and Smithtown. SACUT " At the mouth or outlet," Success Pond, Hempstead, L. I. SAGGAPONACK-Place where the largest groundnuts grow, Sagg, L. I. SAGG-See Saggaponack, hamlet in Southampton town. SAG HARBOR-See Saggaponack, village on L. I. SANTAPOGUE- "Spring of cool water," neck in Babylon, L. I. Crowland (Vol. viii, p. 101.)—The saying inquired after by R., occurs in Grose's Provincial Glossary, London, 1787, with the following explanation : "When this was first used it was true, for Crowland was situate in so moorish and rotten ground, in the fens [of Lincolnshire], that scarce a horse, much less a cart, could come to it. It has since been drained, so that in summer time Crowland may be visited by a common cart." Warwick, Pa. E. G. KEEN. glish in France we never heard; nor do we for a moment imagine that its "money-making possibilities" could be aught but infinitesimal; for, although the rude lesson they were given in 1870 has undoubtedly impressed them with the necessity of studying modern languages, the French people, as a people, must be admitted to be still very backward in this respect. There, But we do know of a "semi-public" kind of lecturing connected with "Instituts Polyglottes" in Paris, institutions where young men and women, engaged in business during the day, find in the evening every facility for the acquisition of foreign tongues. over and above the usual grammar-and-exercise routine, several lectures on interesting topics are delivered every week, in the various languages studied, English being naturally the favorite. In the monthly program of one of these (for December, 1888), now lying before our eyes, we reckon no fewer than seven lectures in English, four in German, two in Spanish, one in Portuguese and one in Italian. It was to one of these we referred in the note alluded to by our correspondent "Bostonian." ED. AM. N. AND Q.. America (Vol. v, p. 100.)-In reply to the above query I would say, that the Smithsonian Report for 1888 contains a lengthy article by Jules Marcou, in which the writer fully details the reasons that have led him to the conviction that "the New World was not named for Vespucci, who has no claim whatever to that honor, but that the beautiful name of Amerrique belongs to a tribe of Indians and to a range or sierra of the central part of the continent,* discovered and first explored by Christopher Columbus." Here follows Marcou's own "Résumé of the authentic facts" from which his conclusions are drawn: "On the 30th of December, 1492, Vespucci wrote a letter from Sevilla, preserved at Mantova, in the Archives Gonzaga, signed Amerigho Vespucci, merchante fiorentino in Sybilia. "In the last voyage of Christoforo Columbo he staid from the 25th of September *The mountains between Julgalpa and Libertad in the Province of Chontales, which separate Lake Nicaragua from the In the Maya tongue, this word, it seems, means "the windy country." English Lecturing in Paris (Vol. viii, p. 64.)—Of strictly "public" lecturing in En-Mosquito coast. |