Talk:Cochecho River

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"Cochecho" vs. "Cocheco" is a long-running dispute. For now, the name "Cocheco" is the one that is recorded in the U.S. Geographic Names Information System. That said, the U.S. Board of Geographic Names entertains dozens of requests every year to have the spellings of names corrected, so advocates of "Cochecho" could do the same.199.192.2.21 16:50, 30 March 2006 (UTC)


 * I think it's time to rename this article "Cocheco River". I know that many people on the Seacoast like to use the spelling "Cochecho", but to insist that that is the one true spelling is off-base, in my opinion.  Consider that the Abenaki word was never written down until the Europeans arrived, and consider further the many different ways people chose to write it once they heard it.  The United States Board on Geographic Names considered these issues and ruled in 1911 that "Cocheco" was the preferred spelling.  Their reasons haven't been preserved (not on the BGN website, anyway), but I can guess that they chose the version that was simplest, in light of the myriad of attempts to spell a word that had not been written down for most of its life.  "Cocheco" is what you see on maps, and it's what you see on a large percentage of the names of businesses and organizations in the Seacoast.  It would be interesting to research the popularity of the spelling "Cochecho".  Another guess here, but I suspect it's seen a resurgence just within the past 20 years or so. Ken Gallager 16:26, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

A vintage mistake is still a mistake
The spelling "Cocheco" was a clerical error at the 1827 incorporation of the Cocheco Manufacturing Company in Dover. As historian Alonzo Hart Quint records (see Cochecho River page), the clerk's error was in using the barbarism Cocheco rather than the accredited traditional spelling Cochecho.

Signs on downtown Dover bridges identify the Cochecho River. The director of the Woodman Institute, an authority on Dover history, insists on that spelling. Do we instead accept the barbarism if it has been around long old enough? Or accept it if some governmental agency blindly accepts it? Or do we try to set the record straight, as encyclopedias do? It's a matter of informational and historical integrity. I would suggest that either spelling gets to the river's page, but with the first appearing first. --Hugh Manatee 21:21, 15 June 2006 (UTC)


 * The link above is broken -- do you have any other? I still haven't seen any cite as to why "Cochecho" should be preferred, if all of the spelling variations have been transcribed from an oral tradition. As I mentioned above, it would be instructive to have access to the BGN's notes on the matter. (I'm on their mailing list for their current deliberations, and these days at least they receive plenty of input from experts before making their decisions).


 * Also: How do present-day people pronounce "Cochecho"? Both "ch"s the same?  Ken Gallager 12:25, 16 June 2006 (UTC)


 * It is pronounced ko-he-ko, so in the first instance the c is silent, and the second the h is. - 71.81.241.94 (talk)


 * So we take a word from a non-written language, spell the second "k" sound as a "ch", and when people start dropping the "h", call it a spelling error? Those 19th-century librarians.... Just as a side-note, I've received copies of the materials used by the BGN in their 1911 decision to go with "Cocheco". Unfortunately, describing it in the article would constitute original research, but the gist is that the Dover people consulted at the time (postmasters, train station managers, etc.) either went unhesitatingly with "Cocheco" or lamented the loss of "Cochecho" but agreed that it was not worth fighting over.  The change was part of a movement in the late 19th century to simplify spellings ("boro" vs. "borough", for example), whereas in the late 20th century, the tide seems to have turned back somewhat.--Ken Gallager (talk) 12:20, 29 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Colonists educated enough to record Abenaki place names would work subtleties of the language into their 17th-century English. Cochecho is a logical transcription of ko-CHEE-CHOE, the "ch" as in "church," the "o" as in "potato." It's one of those Algonquin geographic names that captures a place's essence: ko-CHEE-CHOE, turbulent as the waterfall it designates. Hugh Manatee (talk) 15:17, 10 June 2015 (UTC)


 * So we have two different assertions in this section regarding the pronunciation, the former one by an anonymous editor, unfortunately. Hugh, can you provide a cite for the "ch" pronunciation? --Ken Gallager (talk) 18:31, 10 June 2015 (UTC)


 * Why else would the "h" be there except to signal "ch" as in "church?" But getting stuck on conjectural pronunciation misses the point. What matters here is spelling, and the spelling "Cochecho" appears from Dover's settlement. Historian Quint laments the existence of ignorant alternate spellings, with Cocheco being one. Historian Caroline Harwood Garland states that the clerk's "error" at the 1827 incorporation of the Cocheco Manufacturing Company was using Cocheco instead of Cochecho.


 * So, who is another authority on which spelling is correct? Jeremy Belknap, who used the form Cochecho in his ''The History of New Hampshire. (After his 1797 death, a less discerning editor used Cocheco in an addendum added to a reprint, but Belknap himself used only Cochecho.


 * Jeremy Belknap, The History of New-Hampshire, published 1812


 * Hugh Manatee (talk) 15:55, 26 June 2015 (UTC)

Can you guide us to the place in Belknap where he gives the pronunciation? I haven't found it yet. Remember that "ch" could also be pronounced as in "choir". --Ken Gallager (talk) 12:42, 29 June 2015 (UTC)


 * I think it would be appropriate to consult with Abenaki language experts on the pronunciation. The article Abenaki language mentions a k sound, but I don't see anything there that looks like a ch as in "church". --Ken Gallager (talk) 12:47, 29 June 2015 (UTC)


 * Abenakis didn't write this word, they spoke it. Literate colonists wrote it, phonetically approximating Algonquin sounds/phrases into 17th-century written English equivalents. Therefore, we may presume to know the word they heard by how they transcribed it. Hugh Manatee (talk) 17:30, 3 July 2015 (UTC)


 * Thanks, Hugh, I'm well aware of that, but I also know how easy it is to garble a pronunciation. Thus my request for the spoken language expert. --Ken Gallager (talk) 12:24, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

Quadricentennial of Cochecho, aka Dover

 * Eight years from now will be the 400th anniversary of the 1623 settlement of Cochecho, aka Dover, as colonists recorded the name. That is how it was spelled in 1689 when colonists suffered the Cochecho Massacre.
 * Seacoast Publications -- "The Cochecho Massacre"
 * And that's the way the word was properly spelled until 1827, when a Concord clerk, unfamiliar with the Indian word, used a barbarism at the incorporation of the Cocheco Manufacturing Company. The disparity between the river's spelling and the mill's brand must have irked the business, because in 1911 the mill "persuaded" the US Board on Geographic Names to drop Cochecho and adopt Cocheco. The mill would tank in the Great Depression, leaving behind little today but its long brick buildings downtown and a corrupted Abenaki place name.


 * Why is this important? Because it's the original name of Dover.


 * To their credit, many organizations, including the Cochecho Country Club and the Cochecho Arts Festival, spell the word correctly. Hopefully more will follow. Hugh Manatee (talk) 22:25, 4 June 2015 (UTC)


 * Why don't I write to the U.S. Board on Geographic Names?


 * I did, yesterday, and encourage others to as well. Time is destined to make one spelling extinct; it's inevitable. Hugh Manatee (talk) 16:55, 6 June 2015 (UTC)

Name Change Proposal 8753
Despite overwhelming historical evidence that Cochecho is the correct spelling, Proposal 8753 failed. It failed because the Domestic Names Committee (DNC) of the BGN based its decision on an unresearched opinion which said what it wanted to hear -- that Cochecho is no more correct than Cocheco. That allowed it to leave things as they are and not address the department's unethical 1911 decision to drop Cochecho for Cocheco. In other words, it wouldn't have to acknowledge an embarrassing bribe from the Cocheco Manufacturing Company.

But I asked the U.S. Board on Geographic Names to leave the door open to review, should another generation take up the cause. After all, it's never too late to correct history, and the historic name of Dover is important. Hugh Manatee (talk) 18:06, 30 September 2017 (UTC)

Cochecho is Dover's original name, Cocheco an impostor
Name Change Proposal 8753 to correct the spelling of the Cochecho River developed out of a Wikipedia edit war (which is recorded above) between Ken Gallager and myself about which spelling is proper, Cochecho or Cocheco. Since Cochecho is Dover's original Indian name, I considered it more suitable for an encyclopedia. He disagreed because in 1911 the Cocheco Manufacturing Company persuaded the US Board on Geographic Names (apparently for a bribe) to drop Cochecho and adopt its brand name. So, whenever I wrote Cochecho in discussing Dover history, he switched it to Cocheco, whereupon I switched it back again -- an edit war. He suggested that I petition the US BGN to reverse its 1911 decision, which I did.

With overwhelming evidence that Cochecho is the authentic form, the petition's passage seemed promising. It had support from the Dover mayor, Dover City Council, the NH Department of Cultural Resources (which includes the NH Division of Historical Resources), and the NH Department of Resources and Economic Development. It also got backing from the Dover Chamber of Commerce, which runs the Cochecho Arts Festival and promotes the Cochecho Waterfront Development.

But when the US BGN sought the opinion of the State of New Hampshire, it was answered by the "Coordinator" of the NH State Names Authority. Only, New Hampshire doesn't have a State Names Authority. It was invented by Ken Gallager, whose real job in state bureaucracy is providing census data to planning boards. But by pretending to be "Coordinator" of the NH State Names Authority (and giving it verisimilitude by listing it with the Council of Geographic Names Authorities), he could guide the petition to defeat and so win the edit war. On September 15, 2015, he wrote (with corrections added):

Here is the State of New Hampshire's response:

My own take on the issue is that one needs to remember that the 18th century spelling of “Cochecho” is no more “correct” than the spelling of “Cocheco” used in the last two centuries. [False -- “By an error of the engrossing clerk in the act of incorporation [of the Cocheco Manufacturing Company], the old Indian name, Cochecho, became Cocheco.” – Caroline Harwood Garland, 1897] In either case, the written spelling is an approximation of an Abenaki word which at the time of European settlement had no written language system. Switching to “Cochecho” would be comparable to returning the nearby Piscataqua River to “Pascataqua”, or the Kennebec River in Maine to “Sagedehock”, both spellings used (along with “Cochecho”) by the Rev. Jeremy Belknap in his famous History of New Hampshire from 1812. [False -- “The form Cochecho is best supported by old examples and is at present generally adopted by all who know anything of its origin.” – Alonzo Hart Quint, 1851] Normally the New Hampshire naming authority defers to local usage, and it is certainly clear that the leaders of the city of Dover are fully supportive of the name change. However, at this writing it is not clear whether the city of Rochester or the town of Farmington, the other communities through which the river flows, are likewise supportive. Road signs have been changed in Dover to “Cochecho”. but this is not the case in the other two communities. [False – Signs on Dover bridges have always read Cochecho.] Likewise, while some businesses in the area use “Cochecho”, many others continue to use the name “Cocheco”. [Governmental authorities are expected to set the standard.] Ultimately, if I were the one deciding whether to approve this proposal, I would wish to see that there was unanimous support by all of the communities along the river, as well as support by Abenaki language experts. [As with historians Garland and Quint, Abenaki language experts probably would dismiss the barbarism.] Until that time, the name “Cocheco”, that has been in common use for nearly two centuries, should remain the name of the river.

Sincerely, Ken Gallager

State Names Coordinator

Consequently, the Domestic Names Committee (DNC) of the BGN used the misinformation to decline the petition, which relieved it from having to acknowledge a past bribe from the mill. Hugh Manatee (talk) 23:11, 13 December 2022 (UTC)