My wife, children and I recently drove to upstate New York for a vacation and family reunion. While there, we enjoyed activities in and around Lake George, including a visit to the dated (but still worth a look) House of Frankenstein Wax Museum. From Lake George, we made the hour-long journey up to Ticonderoga, New York to check out Fort Ticonderoga, where we stood at the site of an important victory over the British in 1775.
In the town of Ticonderoga, we happened upon a unique museum, where we stood on the bridge of a ship that scored an important victory against the Romulans in 2266.
James Cawley, a former Elvis impersonator and leading man of Star Trek fan-film productions, owns and operates the Star Trek Original Series Set Tour in Ticonderoga. The tour features detailed replicas of the sets from the original 1966-1969 television series, and allows patrons the opportunity to stand on the Enterprise transporter platform, hit the “red alert” button, and even sit in the chair of Captain Kirk himself. It was all great fun, and the museum’s timeline of “historical” events in the Star Trek universe was in keeping with the fictional history theme that developed (at least, in my mind) during the long drives to and from our Hamilton home.
The highways of upstate New York (mostly I-87 in this instance) hold many signs for areas that share their names with better known precursors. This is a phenomenon I’ve relished ever since a cousin gifted me a Dublin, Pennsylvania T-shirt years ago—I knew of other examples, like Paris, Texas and Athens, Georgia, as well, and though I haven’t yet acquired shirts advertising their existence, a collection of such clothing is something I intend to build over time.
The “knock-off” town names in New York are many: Rome is the first example that comes to mind, fitting with the previously mentioned “alternate” world capitals, but also offered are Syracuse, Ithaca, and Utica, recalling the original cities in Sicily, Greece, and modern-day Tunisia. Individuals from the ancient Greek and Roman world are also represented, through the towns of Homer, Cicero, and Ovid.
The town of Vanderheyden got the classical naming party started back in 1789, changing its name to Troy because, according to the book Classical Place Names in New York State by William R. Farrell, “the residents wanted a more sophisticated name, a historic one that was short, easy to spell and pronounce.” As might be expected, this became something of a standard guideline in naming, and among ancient Troy’s enemies, the Greek cities of Sparta, Corinth, and (stretching the “easy” theme a bit) Mycenae all have namesakes in New York, while those with more challenging names like Boiotia Euboea, and Kephalonia go unrecognized.
Other New York place names (Catskill, Peekskill, Fishkill, etc.) indicate a Dutch origin—the word “kill” means “little stream” in that language. I was aware of this bit of etymology because Staten Island, where I grew up, boasts its own share of “kills”: the Kill Van Kull, the Arthur Kill, Freshkills Park (and its former incarnation, the infamous Fresh Kills Landfill), plus the neighborhood I lived in, Great Kills. All this killing meant nothing to me as a child; it was only as an adult, when I saw that a Staten Islander had written a crime novel called Fresh Kills, that I realized these names might seem a bit disturbing to non-natives.
There are also plenty of Native American-derived place names in upstate New York. These tend to be a bit tongue-twisting, even after the North American newcomers adapted them to make them easier to pronounce; prime examples are Schenectady (derived from the Mohawk word “skahnéhtati,” meaning “beyond the pines”) and Poughkeepsie (from the Wappinger tribe’s “Uppuqui-ipis-ing,” meaning ‘the reed-covered lodge by the little-water place.’) One road sign, for Kayaderosseras Creek, was such a mouthful that I didn’t even have time to figure out how to pronounce it before we passed it.
Bible names are also popular in New York geography, with appearances of Canaan, Eden (twice), Lebanon (twice), Jerusalem (twice), Sodom (twice), and Jericho (thrice). Sodom, a place with a less-than-stellar reputation in the bible, seems a curious pick for a town name, but perhaps appropriately, both Sodoms lie east of the Edens.
I learned most of this information after our trip, inspired to conduct a bit of research. But during the trip, as a driver safely removed from the ability to quickly search the internet, I theorized my own explanations for these and other unusual place names—explanations that became more fanciful as time went on.
As we passed Halfmoon—a very cool name for a town—I imagined how it might have acquired its nomenclature: Ol’ Bert, drunk and loud (maybe after an all-night visit to Sodom), attempted to express disdain for his complaining neighbors by lowering his pants, but with his fumbling coordination only managed to expose one side of his posterior.
Ahead is a sign for New Baltimore—did they finally give up on the old one, or did they decide it merited a sequel? I’ve heard that Moreau State Park has some interesting sights, especially on that island in the middle of it, where some doctor created a menagerie of strange half-human, half-animal hybrids. There’s Mechanicville, where every kid is taught how to fix a car, and the residents wait like eager pit crews for tourists to sputter into town with an automobile problem to solve. Old West Road offers a more compact version of New Jersey’s own Wild West City, with horses instead of cars, gunfights at noon, a classic cantina, and cowboys galore. And don’t forget Ushers Road, where the finest former theater ushers retire after long and dedicated careers—there’s always someone to provide directions, the location of a bathroom, or info on where to buy popcorn.
Logic doesn’t play a large role in this exercise, nor do the rules of time. Thus, we can pass Woodstock at Exit 20 on I-87, where nearly-nude hippies are cavorting in the mud and avoiding the brown acid circa 1969, while Exit 21 brings us to ancient Egypt and the city of Cairo. The Exit 21B Interchange provides a route to Athens, where Aristotle is teaching that women have fewer teeth than men. Stay on I-87 long enough (Exit 35) and it will bring you to Peru.
Without exiting at these places, there’s no first-hand visual proof to refute these claims. In a twisted riff on Schrodinger’s Cat, all of these scenarios might be true until an actual observation is made, breaking the spell and causing them to revert to the normal, early 21st century towns most people expect to encounter.
Whether you have a passenger look up the actual origins of town names as you pass them or just make them up yourself, there are worse ways to pass a few hours on a long trip, especially after you’ve exhausted whatever appeal searching for different states’ license plates may hold. Until we can instantly rematerialize ourselves onto that U.S.S. Enterprise transporter pad in Ticonderoga, fictional history might be the best option we’ve got.
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