Now turn face toward New England, and find old England again: Berwick, Shapleigh, Boston, Litchfield, Clearfield, Norfolk, Springfield, New Britain, Hampton, Middlesex, Fairfield, Windham, East Lynne, Roxbury, Kent, Cornwall, Bristol, Enfield, Stafford, Woodstock, Buckingham, Stonington, Fair Haven, Taunton, Barnstable, Falmouth, Middlebury, Bedford, Dartmouth, Pomfret, Abington,--but why extend the list, musical as it is with the home days and the home land? But name Plymouth, because it shows the tenacity of English loyalty to England; for though the Mayflower, with her Puritans, might not have an English port from which to set sail for a New World, they do yet name their landing-haven after the English harbor. Blood is thicker than water when the instincts are consulted. Seeing these names, we can not mistake where we are. This is as certainly English as the Pacific-coast line was Spanish and the Mississippi Valley French. These Englishmen imported names as well as populations. And I, for one, like them and their names; for they abound in suggestion. Who settled Connecticut and Massachusetts we know from these locatives we have read and for the names they brought; and for the liberty and religion they sailed with across the seas, we remember them and love them.
There are miscellaneous names, telling their tale, not of race occupancy, but of who or what has passed this way, of beast, or bird, or event, or man, which have left impress on geography,--things we do well to study, and which will always lend a sort of enchantment and vivacious interest to the pages of travel or geography. The villages along a railroad are thus often of captivating interest. The Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad, for instance, may illustrate this point. Its name has interest of no common sort. Atchison is named after a famous pro-slavery advocate, who came to Kansas, with his due quota of "border ruffians," for the avowed purpose of making Kansas a slave State. Topeka is an Indian name; Santa Fe is a Spanish landmark, tall as a lighthouse builded on a cliff. At the Missouri line is Kansas City, so named because this metropolis is created by Kansas. The metropolis is in Missouri; but is made rich and great by Kansas men and products. Kansas has not a large city in its borders, because this Kansas City has engrossed the great business interests of a great Commonwealth. The metropolis of Kansas, in other words, is in the State of Missouri, and the name is as strict a speaking of truth as an apostle could have commanded.