ORIGIN OF NAME, BRIMBLE. 3 



freely accessible both on foot and by carriage. It is nearer 

 the lake than the former and rests on an elevation whose 

 natural height was one hundred and seventy-four feet be- 

 fore the extensive earthwork which now surmounts it was 

 placed there. So the gravel walk on the edge of this res- 

 ervoir cannot vary much from two hundred feet above the 

 sea level, an elevation some ten feet higher than that of 

 Brown's Folly, the acknowledged highest natural point of 

 land in southern Essex County. The view is fine. 



The name "Brimble" or "Brimball" Hill, which has ad- 

 hered to the eminence from the first, is a puzzle to the 

 antiquaries. If we were at liberty to change a vowel and 

 write it "Bramble," there would be little trouble to con- 

 jecture an origin. But the lexicographers furnish us with 

 only one word which would seem to claim relationship with 

 Brimble. "Brim" is defined as the "edge or rim of a 

 fountain or of any body of water, the border or upper 

 edge of a bowl or other receptacle for liquids." Now that 

 Brimble Hill is destined to sustain hereafter an artificial 

 crater or goblet filled with sparkling Wenham water, the 

 philologist of the future will doubtless find the analogy 

 most tempting. But "Brimble" may have been a family 

 name now utterly extinct, like so large a portion of the 

 old Puritan names once most familiar in this county. Of 

 this decadence the spot itself furnishes a perfect illustra- 

 tion. Just at the foot of Brimble Hill, where the new 

 pipe road now cuts its way through what was to all ap- 

 pearance the "forest primeval" destroying some of the char- 

 acteristic features of the spot, the careful observer could 

 once trace out amongst tangled copse of brush and bram- 

 ble, of spruce and oak, of hemlock and walnut, here and 

 there a gnarled and moss-grown apple tree, and if, with 

 curiosity piqued by so unexpected a "find," he should push 

 his scrutiny .still further, he would observe these ancient 



