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Extinct Places

© Steven Haywood Yaskell

Captain John Smith of Pilgrim fame had a map drawn of coastal New England in the Yeare of Oure Lord 1616. I found the map inside a defunct textbook for Tenth Grade English that included poetry no lower in esteem than that of Richard Wilbur, with a chapter on how to explicate it, no less. There also appeared an essay on global cooling by Betty Friedan as an example of good science writing. That was back when the world was supposed to die by ice and not by fire, this now-famous feminist personage hinted. Well, neither fire nor ice has killed us yet. Even if politicians inherent in every field nowadays strive daily in framing issues that just might do so. That is, in their semi-successful attempts at creating a culture of worry so you'll vote for them and they'll solve the problems they invented. They promise.

I wonder if you can find Richard Wilbur's poetry or Betty Friedan-level writers on science in Tenth Grade English textbooks today? Frankly, I'm too terrified to look inside of one. (The culture worriers got me worried.)

Curiously, of all the extinct places on Smith's map in what is now the Essex County Heritage Area (we're living in a "living museum" nowadays) Salem stands prominently forth. Directly above Salem, Captain John indicated a place called "Bristow" (spelled "Briftow"). Whatever happened to Briftow? Gee, I'd like to know - including where the " f " went! From its map location, I'd say it was later swapped for Danvers. Saugus, still with us, is found below Salem someplace, lurking where Spanish Armada raiders sometimes turned to for brief spells. So that lair was well known. Off Saugus' coast was the "Hyannis Ils" (islands) and between Salem and "Cape Anna" (now Cape Ann) you see some "Ils" without a name. But they're all found in a place called "Talbott's Bay." Smith conveniently left out most Indian names for places. Rather than procrustean disregard for contact-period inhabitants, as the culture worriers might state, this was probably just to avoid jaw-breaking strings of consonants - say, "Tragabigzanda*" - when "Gloucester" would do.

Did they have a name for Salem as far back as 1616? Apparently so: but coastal Salem was called "Naumkeag" by the peoples encountered here when Roger Conant strolled through in the 1620s, having gotten a referral to the place, probably by helpful Nipmunks. That was a tribe of natives living here at the time.

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