February 22, 2012

  "Mountain Names"

    By Marjorie Porter

Have you ever thought about how and where mountains get their names? Across the Adirondacks, there are some common names - Owls Head, Buck, Loon, Deer, and Mud each come to mind - but there are also plenty of unique names that have been bestowed upon various features. While Native Americans already had names for most of the mountains in the High Peaks region, early surveyors applied new names. 

August 17, 1945 - Origin of some of the names of the principal peaks of the Adirondacks is of interest. It is a matter of regret that the old Native American names of these mountains were not retained for they, almost without exception, convey some idea or association peculiar to the locality to which they relate. What could be more appropriate than Mt. Seward's original name Ou-Kar-lah, the Great Eye; McIntyre, Henoga, Home of Thunder; Mt.Colden, Ounowarlah, Scalp Mountain; Whiteface, Thei-o-no-guen, White Head; Indian Pass, Henodoawda, the Path of the Thunderer; Mt. Marcy, Tahawas, He Splits the Sky; Willmington Notch, Kurloom, Spot of the Death Song; Lake Colden, Tawistas, the Mountain Cup; Ausable Ponds, Gawiadagao, Two Goblets Side by Side.

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But these old names have nearly all been sacrificed to a spirit of improvement which might as well have been dispensed with. Mt. Marcy, Seward, McIntyre, Colden, Henderson, and Dix were named by Professor Emmons or Professor Redfield, the first state surveyors who ever visited this region. Table Top, to the northwest of Marcy, Skylight, Haystack, Basin, Gothics, Saddleback, Wolf Jaws, Allen, Slide Mt., the Dial, Green Mt. and Sable Mt., were all named by the veteran Mt. Marcy guide and explorer Orson S. Phelps, and it is but just to him to say that none of these mountains had previous names, and also that almost everyone of the names includes a nod to some striking feature of the mountain to which it is applied. 

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Resagonia (Saw Teeth) was named by Rev. Erastus Hopkins of Northhampton, Mass.; the Giant of the Valley by Prof. Guiot; Hopkins' Peak by John Fitch; Baxter took it's name from an old resident of Keene Flats; Nippletop is supposed to have been named by Adam, out of sheer inability to call it anything else; and Mt. Colvin was named by Verplanck Colvin, the only instance, it is thought, in which a man named one of the mountains after himself. Bartlett Mountain, a spur of Haystack, which forms the western shore of Upper Ausable Pond, was named after an old trapper.

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While many of the original names of Adirondack mountains are gone, there are still some of the originals lingering around. For instance, Couchsachraga Peak still bears a name from the Algonquin or Huron words for "dismal wilderness." But modern naming continues, with the latest mountain summit in the High Peaks Wilderness Area gaining a name (it was previously unnamed) in 1999 as TR Mountain for the 26th President of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt. It's unlikely that TR himself climbed this peak, but he was a frequent visitor to the Adirondacks, including staying in Lake Placid in 1871 on a family vacation. 

Essex County Republican 

ADIRONDACK HISTORY CENTER MUSEUM
ESSEX COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY
PO Box 428, 7590 Court Street
Elizabethtown, NY 12932
www.adkhistorycenter.org
Research Queries: research@adkhistorycenter.org

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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