18 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters. 
The liberal use of names derived from Greek and Roman 
mythology, or the history of countries which have not even 
a remote connection with the peopling of the New World, is 
certainly out of place. Such names, for example, as Palmyra 
in Wisconsin, Utica, Troy and Rome in New York, Athens 
in Georgia, Cairo in Illinois, Memphis in Tennessee, etc., are 
utterly inappropriate and have been deservedly criticised. 8 
Even Thomas Jefferson, when he proposed, to divide the Old 
Northwest Territory into states, suggested such utterly inap¬ 
propriate names as Chersonesus, Assenisipia, Polypotamia and 
Metropo tami a. * * * 4 
Of the forty-five United States, none possesses a nomencla¬ 
ture more suggestive or historically significant than Wisconsin. 
The leading phases of its history are indexed by the names that 
appear on successive issues of its map: the French regime, the 
establishment of mining camps in the lead region of South¬ 
western Wisconsin, the planting of pioneer settlements by hardy 
frontiersmen from New York and New England, the subse¬ 
quent waves of immigration comprising the nationalities that 
have made of Wisconsin a polyglot state. More than in most 
states, too, the Indian names have been retained, as is meet 
in a state where picturesque streams and lakes and rock form¬ 
ations abound in generous profusion. 
The derivation of the names from so many different sources 
renders the study of their origin and significance especially dif¬ 
ficult, despite the fact that the period of Wisconsin’s settlement 
is so recent. Especially is this true of the Indian names, for 
Wisconsin was the meeting place of the two greatest ethnological 
divisions of red men located east of the Rocky Mountains— 
Dakotan or Siouan, and Algic or Algonquin. The tribal dia¬ 
lectic differences add to the difficulties that beset the student 
of Wisconsin’s Indian nomenclature and in a measure excuse 
s “The incongruity between the names and the appearance of these 
places is amusing. Thus Corinth consists of a wooden grogshop and 
three log'shanties; the Acropolis is represented by a grocery store. 
All that can be seen of the city of Troy is a timber house, three log 
huts, a saw mill and twenty negroes.”—Russell, Diary North and South, 
vol ii, pp. 45, 46. 
4 Doubtless these names were inspired by the desire for classic learn¬ 
ing which obtained about this period. In speech, as in writing, al¬ 
lusion to mythology and classic literature was regarded as the stamp 
of learning. 
