been spoken of. In Massachusetts are sundry Turkey Hills, 
as at Newburyport, Ipswich and Hingham on the coast; at 
Arlington, a few miles inland, and Lunenburg and Rutland 
in Worcester County. The present Fitchburg, formerly a 
part of Lunenburg, was first called by the white settlers, 
Turkey Hill, “on account of the great number of wild tur¬ 
keys which frequented the place for their favorite food of 
chestnuts and acorns there abounding” (Barber, J. W., 
Historical Collections, Massachusetts, 1840, p. 565). In 
Hampshire County there is a Turkey Hill, in Westhampton. 
Felt, in his “History of Ipswich, Essex and Hamilton,” 
1834, says that the name Turkey Shore, still borne by the 
right bank of the Ipswich River within and below the town 
of Ipswich, was in use in 1635. Undoubtedly it was a 
favorite resort for Turkeys in those days. Samuel Sewall, 
in 1695, mentions in his diary one John Brown and family 
“of Turkey Hill,” probably Ipswich, showing that the names 
were early esablished. There is a Turkey Meadow at Hing¬ 
ham and one at Melrose. In Paxton is a Turkey Hill Pond, 
and a Turkey Hill Brook runs through Paxton and Spencer. 
In the northern part of Hampden County, tradition has it 
that Gobble Mountain, in Chester, “took its name from the 
quantity of wild turkeys which were once found there” 
(Hallock, Chas., Forest and Stream, 1889, vol. 33, p. 124). 
In Connecticut there are Turkey Hills at Berlin, Haddam 
and Orange. The journal of Ebenezer Wild (Proc. Mass. 
Hist. Soc., Dec. 2, 1890, vol. 6, p. 89) mentions, in 1777, 
stopping at a place called Turkey Hills, just east of Sims¬ 
bury, Connecticut, while on a military expedition. 
The connection of the Wild Turkey with the hills is per¬ 
haps clear enough. The elevation of such eminences gave 
the wary birds an extended view in case of pursuit by 
hunters from below. Then too, and particularly the oaks 
and chestnuts, on the nuts of which they delighted to feed 
in the hunting season, are hillside trees, clinging to the 
slopes in preference to the bottom lands. For it is likely 
that the northward range of the Wild Turkey in New Eng¬ 
land was more or less co-extensive with the area over which 
