Where's the CIRCLE in
Circleville?
Once they arrive, and have a chance to gaze around while catching
their breath, the first question most tourists ask is:
"Where's the circle?" ... and aside
from an enormous loop encompassing one or another ridgeline,
spanning thousands of rugged acres and hundreds of rustic miles,
there doesn't even seem to be enough room for a traffic circle in
downtown Circleville on the banks of the south branch of
the north fork of the Potomac River. Eventually, if persistent
enough, some kind resident will explain ... in my case, the
postmaster, a born and bred native denizen, took pity on my
natural ignorance.
As with all genuine experiences, the truth is less romantic but
no less adventuresome for its gritty reality. The pretty pictures
and lovely ballads that inspire us to venture forth into remote
locales can only hint at the blood and sweat that lies at the
heart of any distant place ... and can never include the hardship
or punishment that's willingly undertaken to forge a place in
the sun. Very few Americans still live on the land, wrested
by ax and shovel, rifle and plow, because its maintenance is
demanding and uncertain, lonely and inconvenient ... but an
exhausting challenge is just part of the fun of
a wonderous holiday for desk-bound urbanites!
Geographically, there isn't enough flatland available for a
European-style roundabout, and no cause for one, since
Circleville is not a hub, not a nexus of convergence,
not a plexus of divergence. Its derivation is really not a
circle at all, but a Zirkel, as
taken from the family name of a prominent businessman whose
industriousness, so to speak, put the town on the map;
and so the village was renamed Zirkleville on 20
November 1882, which was later corrupted into
Circleville.
A neighboring town called Monterey, across the state
line, took its name from the 1847 battle in the Mexican War,
which was then current ... regardless of the misspelling, the
word means mountain village. Another nearby town now
called Blue Grass had its name changed by veterans
returning from World War I, because they had been so mercilessly
teased in the cosmopolitan military about its original name of
Crab Bottom! Frontiersmen were nothing if not
prosaic.
At least their town names are authentically representative, which
is more than can be said of Glen Valley, a district
located in a populous eastern state where neither a
glen nor valley exists!
According to some anecdotal sagas, a similar corruption exists
for the Rushing River, which was purportedly named for the
Russian explorers and settlers who established the area; and its
Russian pronunciation was recast as
Rushin' by later Americanized generations, which
misspelling was eventually corrected by
government topographers ... and a rich tradition was lost to a
careless history!
Well, if the community was renamed, then what was
it called before? What was it called in the days when Scot and
Irish and German émigrés headed for the
hills to become our pioneer forebears? What was it named in
the days before the late unpleasantness that's variously
known as the Civil War, the War Between the States, the Second
American Revolution, the War of Southern Rebellion, the War of
Northern Aggression? According to history, the hamlet then
extant, which still shelters in the valley between the uplands
known as North Fork and Spruce Knob, seated on a lane between
Seneca Rocks and Green Bank, was formally designated
Mount Freedom on 17 September 1850. It's
situated in the Alleghenys betwixt the bowl of Brandywine and the
Sinks of Gandy, where the longest hiking trail in the state
traverses Judy Gap and Nelson Rocks en route to Panther Knob.
The spirit that explored Seneca Caverns and Smoke Hole, that
settled Sugar Grove and Germany Valley still exists in our
community. Some native sons and daughters, almost twenty serving
in all branches from about sixty families inhabiting these
highlands, are defending those principles in distant lands this
Christmas. Even though the terrorists have not yet visited their
malice upon our remote locale, we are the essential redoubt
of Americanism in another war, a different war, a modern
war. America's enemies want to destroy her and forfeit her
liberties. And I for one think of this bucolic place, this
extended heartland, as a consecrated continuum from
Mount Freedom.
Wouldn't it be nice to make the spirit manifest? ... to
restore the good name of this pastoral burg? ... to
declare ourselves true sons and daughters of the founders of
Mount Freedom? By a simple reversion, we can be
a paradigm of independence in a troubled world.
by Paul Brubaker
... who is retired from the U.S. Army, has since been a
counselor, artisan, and writer, with numerous essays published in
chapbooks and magazines; an earlier version of this essay
appeared on the Spruce Knob bulletin board.
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