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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
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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"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.