A member of the United Church of Ware told me the story of the origin of the town’s curious name. It has nothing to do with a creative spelling of “where” or with the selling of “wares”; it is not someone’s last name or the name of a town in England. It comes from the word “weir” (no, not as in “The Weir of Hermiston,” which was my immediate association, even though I don’t even know what that means…).
Weir (wear/weer) is a native Nipmuk word meaning “many fish.”
Before the white settlers took over and built dams for their mills, there was a natural falls on the river. The Nipmuks used to build nets that they would stretch across the falls to catch the salmon going upstream.
By the time Ware was incorporated, there was already a town in Massachusetts named “weir”, so they had to change the spelling, which also changed the pronunciation.
That was in the 1700s. The Dalles Dam was built on the Columbia River in the 1950s… A ruling was just passed last week to allow the construction of a dam in the Amazon.
When will we ever learn?
1 comment:
*author's note:
according to wikipedia, "weir" is actually the English translation of the Nipmuk word that meant "fishing weir" - so yes, it IS like "The Weir of Hermiston"!
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