wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma" - Winston Churchill (1939). While Churchill was referring to Russia when he said this, I am referring to another "foreign country", if you will: the past. Being a 'history geek' I've always loved the quote, "The past is a foreign country, they do things differently there." (L.P. Hartley,
The Go-Between, 1953) and the more history I learn, the more I believe it to be true. I love the Churchill quote, too, and both together sum up how I'm feeling about the name of the moving body of water (brook? creek?) on our property.
All this started when we went to the craft fair in town today:
There were quite a few vendors selling all manner of things (hand carved wooden bowls, jewelry, hand braided rugs, Native American jewelry and crafts, pottery, and more) and they had a very nice turn-out for a first - time craft fair. I brought home a couple of things: a beautiful blue and green stoneware bowl from Rhonda Wainshilbaum:
A really cool t-shirt from Wicked Stepmother Jewelry:
Loved this because it is a gravestone rubbing from one of the old cemeteries in town and supports the town Historical Commission. And, last but not least, prints of two old maps of town (also from Wicked Stepmother) - one is the 1871 map I mentioned in my previous post and the other is dated 1858:
The even better part of finding these is that purchase of them also helps support the town Historical Commission ~ not some on-line company (where I was going to buy them in the future) who I would also have to pay to ship them to me. Nope, they are here in my hands right now AND helped the Historical Commission. Can't get better than that. Oh, wait, yes it can: they were less expensive than the on-line price! Wicked Stepmother doesn't seem to have an on-line presence but, if I find one, I will post it for you. They had more t-shirt designs and had earrings with early gravestone type designs - REALLY cool stuff!
Ok, so to get back to the history/riddle/enigma thing: when I got these two map prints home I spent some time looking closely and comparing them. I found our farm site then, out of curiosity, I looked for the brook. Somehow, in the thirteen years from 1858 to 1871, the names of this moving body of water mysteriously changed. In 1858 what we thought was Brandy Brook was Still's Brook, which (in 1858) ran into Buddington Creek just below us. Then, in 1871, Still's Brook somehow becomes un-named and what was Buddington Creek becomes Glen Brook. Now, I know the answer to why these names have mysteriously changed and/or disappeared, it's really quite simple: the 1858 map is by H.F. Walling and the 1871 map is by F.W. Beers. Two different map makers, two different sets of information. The Beers Atlas seems to have become the accepted version because an 1894 USGS topo map found on line uses the Beers names, which have pretty much stayed the same into the present time. I'm going to have to do some more digging into the town history at some point in the future, though, because I'd never heard of Still's Brook or Buddington Creek before and they intrigue me.....
