America began as thirteen British colonies. The colonists, quite naturally, named things after British locales and people – from states like New York, New Hampshire, and Virginia (for the Virgin Queen) to cities like Cambridge and Dartmouth.
As the colonists moved west, they continued to name things after their sovereign, their nobles, and their homeland.
At some point, this process stopped. It may have been before the Revolution, during the war, or sometime after. But I assume that anti-British sentiment meant that no new cities or towns (or states) were named after “the enemy,” at least not for a long time.
So my question is, what is the westernmost point in the US that was named after something British? I’m thinking of places founded in the 18th or 19th centuries as American settlers moved west; so if there was a town in Arizona founded in 1945 and named after Winston Churchill, that doesn’t count.
For that matter, does anyone know the westernmost statue of a Briton in the US? I imagine there are many along the Eastern Seaboard and then…none, excepting extraordinary men like Churchill or Shakespeare and the like.
Washington state and Oregon were both British possessions as the “Oregon Territory” until 1846. There are no shortage of cities, rivers, etc named by and for Britons there.
“The Pearl and Hermes Atoll (Hawaiian: Holoikauaua), is part of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands. Named after two English whaleships, the Pearl and the Hermes, that wrecked there in 1822, a few, small, sandy islands exist, contained within a lagoon and surrounded by a coral reef.” They are at 27°55′40″N 175°44′17″W.
Aberdeen, Washington is about as far west as you can get in the lower 48 and was named after a British city by American settlers.
Keep in mind that though there was a lot of animosity towards the British state, most early Americans still considered themselves culturally British and still fondly remembered places in the old country. The reason why there’s more British-derived places in the east may just be because that’s the only part of the country that was settled (almost) exclusively by Anglos. By the time the midwest and points further west were being settled, there were a lot of immigrants from other parts of Europe who made up a large portion of those settlers. So you still occasionally get a British place name or another European place name, but often since the settlers were coming from many nations, you’d get a local Native American name or one named after something American (i.e. Jackson).
The early settlers named things in the colonies after their British homeland. Surely, either in the run-up to the Revolutionary War, the actual war itself, or its aftermath, this process stopped.
It didn’t stop in Alaska, Hawaii, Oregon, or Washington, but it did stop during the great western expansion as the settlers headed for, and crossed, the Mississippi.
My question is, where, geographically, did it stop?
If it didn’t stop in Washington state, it didn’t stop. Washington is as far west as you can go in the lower 48. California is a bit different, since it was first settled by the Spanish, and so there’s a lot of Spanish place names (Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, Sacramento).
“Aberdeen was named for a local salmon cannery, a namesake of Aberdeen, Scotland, because it is situated at the mouth of two rivers just like Aberdeen, Scotland”
There’s your proof that giving places British names never stopped.
There’s quite a bit of random stuff named after Sir Francis Drake in Marin County, California. He landed there, claimed the land for Britain, but since he immediately sailed off, it didn’t stick.
Yes, Vancouver, WA also comes to mind. Named for RN officer and explorer George Vancouver, as is the city further north in British Columbia, and the rather large island.
I question the premise that it stopped at all. There are towns called London, for example, in Arkansas, California, Kentucky, Minnesota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, and West Virginia.
Although, on the anti-British names side, there was an effort in the 1830’s to ditch the names Vancouver gave to all the Cascade volcanoes and replace them with names of US Presidents and rename the whole range the “President’s Range”. Mount Adams is the only one that caught on, since it didn’t have a name at the time (although they actually originally intended the name for Mt. Hood, but a cartographical error placed it on the unnamed peak east of Mt. St. Helens).
What reason do you have to believe it stopped anywhere?
Do you have a specific time period in mind as a cutoff? Lancaster, NE (renamed to Lincoln) was founded ~1860. Dumbarton Point in California (on the SF Bay) was named in the 1870s.
To be fair, most of those were not named by Americans. All except for Adams, Aberdeen, and Vancouver were named by George Vancouver, an English explorer, either for members of his expedition or for people back in England. Puget Sound was also named for one of his officers. Vancouver WA was originally the regional HQ for the Hudson Bay Company, so it was also not named by an American.
Another far west British name is Bristol Bay in Alaska. Again, that was not named by an American, but rather by Captain Cook.
There’s a Mt Jefferson in the Oregon Cascades. And while it was named after the third president, Lewis and Clark named it during their expedition rather than that later effort.
There’s also a monument to Cook in Hawaii, near the place he died. Here’s a thread (started by yours truly) about its sovereignty from a couple years ago: James Cook memorial in Hawaii
Hence the hilarious captions you see on films (usually with Big Ben and the houses of parliament in the background): “London, England”. Or with the Eiffel tower in the background: “Paris France”. Alway best to be safe.
