Ohio History Journal

472      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

who had an opportunity to be present at the sessions or read the

reports in the public press.

Colonel Galbraith was elected Department Commander at the

first state convention of the American Legion held in Ohio. He

was elected National Commander on September 29th, two years

to the day after he performed the act of heroism which won for

him the Distinguished Service Cross. His citation for this honor

reads:

"For extraordinary heroism in action near Ivoiry, France,

September 29, 1918. When an enemy counter-attack was im-

minent, he went into the front lines under a violent artillery

and machine-gun barrage, and by the coolness and certainty of his

orders and the inspiring example of his personal courage reorgan-

ized his own command and took command of other units whose

officers had been lost or diverted in the confusion of battle.

Knocked down by a shell, he refused to be evacuated and con-

tinued to carry on the work of reorganizing his position and dis-

posing the troops to a successful conclusion."

 

 

OHIO-ORIGIN AND SIGNIFICANCE OF THE NAME

William D. Gallagher, the well-known early Ohio poet in

1835 wrote an ode to "Our Western Land" in which the follow-

ing lines occur:

"Ohio-peh-he-le !-Peek-han-he! The pride

Of the land where thy waters, O-pe-le-chen glide.

* * *

"Ohio-Pechen! Belle Riviere!

For beauty none with thee compare."

In notes the explanation is made that "Ohio-peh-he-le" means

very white frothy water; "Peek-han-ne," deep and white stream;

"O-pe-le-chen," bright, shining; "Ohio-pe-chen," it is of a white

color. Here is material from which we may arrive at the poet's

conception of the significance of the name Ohio.

In the New International Encyclopedia, edition of 1904, we

find the statement that Ohio is a corruption of the Iroquois

Ohionhiio which means beautiful river.

A writer in the Quarterly (Vol. XIV, page 274) suggests

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Reviews, Notes and Comments.               478

 

that the name is from the Seneca language and means beautiful

river.

On the same subject Archer Butler Hulbert in the first

chapter of his valuable and authentic work, "The Ohio River,

A Course of Empire", devotes considerable space to the discus-

sion of this subject. We here quote at length from this volume:

"The first brave English adventurers who looked with eager

eyes upon the great river of the Middle West learned that its

Indian name was represented by the letters Oyo, and it has since

been known as the Ohio River. The French, who came in ad-

vance of the English, translated the Indian name, we are told,

and called the Ohio La Belle Riviere, 'the beautiful river.'

"We have, however, other testimony concerning the name

that cannot well be overlooked. It is that of the two experienced

and well-educated Moravian missionaries, Heckewelder and Zeis-

berger, who came into the trans-Allegheny country long before

the end of the eighteenth century. Upon such a subject as the

meaning of Ohio, one might easily hold these men to be final

authorities. John Heckewelder affirms that Oyo never could

have been correctly translated 'beautiful'; Zeisberger adds that in

the Onondaga dialect of the Iroquois tongue there was a word

oyoneri which meant 'beautiful' but only in the adverbial sense

-something that was done 'beautifully,' or, as we say, done

'well.' Mr. Heckewelder, knowing that it was commonly under-

stood that the French had translated Oyo when they gave the

name La Belle Riviere to the Ohio, took occasion to study the

matter carefully. He found that in the Miami language O'hui or

Ohi, as prefixes, meant 'very'; for instance, Ohio-peek meant

'very white'; Ohiopeekhanne meant 'the white foaming river.'

'The Ohio River (he writes), being in many places wide and deep

and so gentle that for many miles, in some places, no current is perceiv-

able, the least wind blowing up the river covers the surface with what

the people of that country call "white caps"; and I have myself witnessed

that for days together, this had been the case, caused by southwesterly

winds (which, by the way, are the prevailing winds in that country), so

that we, navigating the canoes, durst not venture to proceed, as those

white caps would have filled and sunk our canoes in an instant. Now, in

such cases, when the river could not be navigated with canoes, nor even

crossed with this kind of craft-when the whole surface of the water

presented white forming swells, the Indians would, as the case was at the

time, say, "ju Ohiopiechen, Ohiopeek, Ohiopeekhanne"; and when they

supposed the water very deep they would say "Kitschi, Ohiopeekhanne,"

which means, "verily this is a deep white river."'

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474      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

 

"For one, I like the interpretation of 'Ohio' as given by those

old missionaries - the 'River of Many White Caps.' True, there

is a splendid, sweeping beauty in the Ohio, but throughout a

large portion of its course the land lies low on either bank, and

those who have feasted their eyes on the picturesque Hudson,

or on the dashing beauty of the Saguenay, have been heard to

call in question the judgment of the French who named the Ohio

La Belle Riviere. But it must be remembered that the French

first saw the upper waters of the Ohio, which we now know

as the glittering Allegheny. La Belle Riviere included the Ohio

and the Allegheny; it was not until the English had reached the

Ohio, about the middle of the eighteenth century, that it came to

be said that the Allegheny and Monongahela formed the Ohio at

Pittsburgh.  To one acquainted with the roaring Allegheny,

dancing down through the New York and Pennsylvania hills,

and who can see how clear the waters ran in the dense green

of the ancient forests - to such a one it is not difficult to see

why the French called it La Belle Riviere."

 

Mr. Marshall, as will be seen in his contribution to the

Magazine of American History, reproduced in this issue of the

Quarterly, explains that the word Ohio comes from the Seneca

word O-hee-yuh, meaning "beautiful river." In the Cayuga and

Mohawk dialects, we are told, the name is O-hee-yo; in the Onon-

dago and Tuscarawa, O-hee-yee; Oneida, O-hee, all signifying

"fine or fair river".

And now comes Mr. William E. Connelley, another recog-

nized authority, whose carefully prepared contribution appears

elsewhere in this issue of the Quarterly, who tells us that the

word Ohio does not mean "the beautiful river" or "the river of

many white caps" but that it very clearly signifies "the great

river."

When authorities differ thus widely the average layman will

naturally be silent on this subject until he "is shown." It seems

that the original significance of the word is involved in almost

as much doubt as the origin of the mound builders and many

problems suggested by their remains.

Just now, in view of Ohio's eminence among the sisterhood

of states, however, we are disposed to favor the view of Mr.

Connelley. Ohio is "great" in so many ways.

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