Section II, 1917 • [105] Trans. R.S.C. 



The Origin of the Place-names Acadia and Norumbega. 



By W. F. Ganong, A.M., Ph.D. 

 (Read May Meeting, 1915.) 



1. Definitive Evidence UPON THE Origin of the Name Acadia. 



•* In a recent number of these Transactions (IX, 1915, ii. 439), I 

 gave an analysis of the evidence bearing upon the origin of this name, 

 so prominent in the history of Canada, and so dear to many of our 

 people. As shown in that paper, the word can be traced backward 

 without a break to a map of the year 1548, where it appears in the 

 form Larcadia. Since this date is long prior to any close contact 

 of the whites with the Micmac Indians of eastern Canada, and since, 

 moreover, the word appears in conjunction with others which are 

 wholly European (saving for the moment Norumbega, next discussed), 

 the inference seems inevitable that the popular derivation from the 

 Micmac place-name suffix-ACADiE cannot be correct, while on the 

 other hand a purely European origin seems probable. There I was 

 obliged to leave the matter. On the publication of my paper, however, 

 my friend Mr. Victor H. Paltsits, of the New York Public Library, 

 well-known for his intimate acquaintance with American historical 

 sources, called my attention to the fact that a newly-discovered 

 historical record seems to settle conclusively the origin of the word. 

 It is found in the Celleri Codex, which is a letter written in Italian 

 to Francis I by Verrazzano, describing his voyage along the American 

 coast in 1524, and giving a much more detailed account of his explor- 

 ations than has been heretofore available. This very important 

 document is now accessible to us in original and translation in an 

 edition by Dr. E. E. Hall in the Fifteenth Annual Report of the American 

 Scenic and Historic Preservation Society, 1910, and it is reproduced in 

 full photographic fac-simile in Volume II of Phelps Stokes' superb 

 work, The Iconography of Manhattan Island, just published. Describ- 

 ing his exploration of the coast, Verrazzano speaks of a shore "which 

 we baptized Arcadia on account of the beauty of the trees," in the 

 original "quale batezamo Archadia per la belleza de li arbori" (Hall's 

 edition, pp. 188, 211). The shore thus named was farther south than 

 our Acadia, apparently south of New York, but nevertheless the name 

 became transferred on the maps to the Canadian coast, as the maps 

 abundantly prove. The first known map to use the name is Gastaldi's 



