Indeed It May Be So

Romance loves to build fairy tales about people who once lived, and it delights equally well to relate how this place or that carne to receive the name it bears. It is related that the city of Oconomowoc, Wis., takes its name from a remark made by the first settler there. It goes that the said settler who owned a pet coon, having loaded up his pioneer wagon with utensils, family and other movers' "calamities" had no room for storing the ring-tailed fur-bearer. "What are you going to do with the coon?" asked a neighbor. The migrator pondered awhile and then fastening a strap to the animal's collar, hitched the other end to the "tail-board" of the wagon, remarking,"01d coonie ruay walk." So they called the man "Old-Coonie-May-Walk" and the subsequent town, "Oconomowoc." Adrián, Lenawee county, is said to have been named after an old squaw called Ann, who when not drunk was always dry; henee, "Adri-an." And now comes the Evening Times with a clipping from an old paper which it believes to have been an ancient copy of the Ypsilanti Sentirte!; which contains the following story, which from its particularity of detail may explain the true origin of the name of Ann Arbor. The clipping reads as follows: As we were about closing our matter for this issue, we received a visit from an old pioneer, Mr. Calvin Chipman, of Amboy, Illinois, wtio claims to have witnessed the formal naming of our neighboring city of Ann Arbor. After giving a long description of Woodruff's Grove, Godfrey's Trading House, Frenchtown (now Monroe), Truax and other points, all of which proved to us his familiarity with thij location, and the vividness of his memory, he related how he chanced to witness the naming of Ann Arbor: "We followed the trail in single file, and came in sight of covered wagons, and some men engaged in commencing to raise a log house. They were as glad to see us as we were to see them. One of them (Allen) had gone to Detroit for iniplements to raise the building. Mr. Rumsey who was present, proposed that we would now all take hold, and put up the logs as high as they could without more tools. We accordingly commenced until we had put it up five or six logs high. We then ceased work and went toward the wagons, near which was a fine tree some eight or ten inches in eter, on which a wild vine had formed a nice shade, and here a lady sat sewing. Mr. Rumsey said i 'Why, Ann, what a fine arbor you have got here!' 'Ves,' replied the lady, 'and I wish that you would cali this place Ann's Arbor, after me.' Mr. Rumsey declared he seconded the motion, the narrator said that he put the question, and all men present voted in the affirmative. When they came to think more deliberately of the circumstance, it struck them still more favorably, and to give the name as much authority as possible, one of the number wrote formally, that 'at a meeting of the citizens of Washtenaw county, etc, it was resolved to cali that place Ann's Arbor,' and to this all present appended their names." Mr. Chipman also says that some years afterward, Major Kearsley, of Detroit, showed him this document, with the names of the signers, as published in a Detroit paper of that time. It is therefore possible that this published account may yet exist. This took place on the i8th of June, 1824; on the following Fourth of July, Mr. Chipman was at Woodruff's Grove, and witnessed the celebration. He says: "The old Major said, 'Now I will do something that never has been done before, and never will be again. Every white man, woman and child in Washtenaw county shall celébrate the Fourth of July at' this place, in the old-fashioned '76 style.' It was accordingly done. 'British Taxation,1 and other old revolutionary songs, made the wilderness ring." 1 Surviving turkeys may now come out from under the barn. - Argus. That is the sly way the Argus man proposes to secure his bird for Christmas. - Courier. S-h-h-h ! Vou'll scare the game !