Dana Vacca's Blog: Freedom Calling A Civil War Slave Escapes By Sea - Posts Tagged "places"
The Naming of Things - Places
I've been doing a lot of research for the sequel to FREEDOM CALLING, - very interesting research, but it got me to thinking how places, roads, rivers got their names.
I was thinking about this while I was driving to an AT&T Store to get a new cell phone after mine went crazy, beeping incessantly, calling people by itself, - among other things. Incidentally, it is amazing that in this technologically advanced age, that sometimes bowls you over with automation, I actually had to get in my car and drive somewhere to get a new cell phone. After going online to the AT&T website, calling the "help" number that is pre-programmed into the phone, being transferred from one department to another,... there was no alternative but to drive twenty miles on the Post Road to the neares AT&T store and purchase a new phone.
Post Road, Post Road is a very old road, - goes north all the way to Boston and south through Connecticut. Actually, in colonial days, it was a wagon path. It was narrower and unpaved, but otherwise probably not much different. I wondered as I drove, why was it named Post Road. Was it used to deliver mail, like a pony express route? Were the first local post offices built along this by-way? Or maybe the road was marked by wooden posts like the ones you see on a nature trail? Might it have something to with the saying "Pillar to Post? Was there a place at the other end named Pillar? Was it named to memorialize someone with the last name of Post? I had to GOOGLE it as soon as I got home with my new flip-phone.
Turns out more than one of my whacky guesses was correct! Indeed, the road was marked by milestones. Some remain today and date as far back as the 1734! The road itself is, in fact, considered an historic landmark!
Colonists first used the Post Road as a postal route. Beginning in 1673, major towns erected Post Houses and riders on horseback took mail from one point to another. It was nothing more than a path through the wilderness and in places the going was rough. Later the road was smoothed and wagons and stagecoaches carried the mail!
Before that, though, the stretch of Post Road in my neck of the woods was called the Pequot Trail. It was used by Native Americans eons before there were ever any European settlers! In some places it had been only two feet wide.
The road was not named after a famous person named Post, but it was first named for someone of note. When America was still only a handful of colonies, the road was called the King's Highway, or Royal Road, in honor of the reigning King of England. And the road was also traveled by newly-inaugurated president, George Washington when he toured from New York to Boston in 1789.
The road has had more recent moments of fame, too. It is described in Stephen King's book, The Long Walk, which he wrote under the pseudonym, Richard Bachman. And was featured in the I Love Lucy espisode, Lucy Raises Tulips, when Lucy drives a run-away riding lawn mower down the Boston Post Road for "a mile and a half, against traffic all the way!" A true case of "going postal!"
I was thinking about this while I was driving to an AT&T Store to get a new cell phone after mine went crazy, beeping incessantly, calling people by itself, - among other things. Incidentally, it is amazing that in this technologically advanced age, that sometimes bowls you over with automation, I actually had to get in my car and drive somewhere to get a new cell phone. After going online to the AT&T website, calling the "help" number that is pre-programmed into the phone, being transferred from one department to another,... there was no alternative but to drive twenty miles on the Post Road to the neares AT&T store and purchase a new phone.
Post Road, Post Road is a very old road, - goes north all the way to Boston and south through Connecticut. Actually, in colonial days, it was a wagon path. It was narrower and unpaved, but otherwise probably not much different. I wondered as I drove, why was it named Post Road. Was it used to deliver mail, like a pony express route? Were the first local post offices built along this by-way? Or maybe the road was marked by wooden posts like the ones you see on a nature trail? Might it have something to with the saying "Pillar to Post? Was there a place at the other end named Pillar? Was it named to memorialize someone with the last name of Post? I had to GOOGLE it as soon as I got home with my new flip-phone.
Turns out more than one of my whacky guesses was correct! Indeed, the road was marked by milestones. Some remain today and date as far back as the 1734! The road itself is, in fact, considered an historic landmark!
Colonists first used the Post Road as a postal route. Beginning in 1673, major towns erected Post Houses and riders on horseback took mail from one point to another. It was nothing more than a path through the wilderness and in places the going was rough. Later the road was smoothed and wagons and stagecoaches carried the mail!
Before that, though, the stretch of Post Road in my neck of the woods was called the Pequot Trail. It was used by Native Americans eons before there were ever any European settlers! In some places it had been only two feet wide.
The road was not named after a famous person named Post, but it was first named for someone of note. When America was still only a handful of colonies, the road was called the King's Highway, or Royal Road, in honor of the reigning King of England. And the road was also traveled by newly-inaugurated president, George Washington when he toured from New York to Boston in 1789.
The road has had more recent moments of fame, too. It is described in Stephen King's book, The Long Walk, which he wrote under the pseudonym, Richard Bachman. And was featured in the I Love Lucy espisode, Lucy Raises Tulips, when Lucy drives a run-away riding lawn mower down the Boston Post Road for "a mile and a half, against traffic all the way!" A true case of "going postal!"
Freedom Calling A Civil War Slave Escapes By Sea
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