Lakeville

A Thoreau journal entry from June 1856: To Middleborough ponds in the new town of Lakeville (some three years old). What a miserable name! It should have been Assawampsett or, perchance, Sanacus, if that was the name of the Christian Indian killed on the pond.

We have a "Lakeville" nearby our town, as Thoreau did near his. He is right. What is the point of giving miserly names to our communities and home towns? What is there about the name "Lakeville" that stirs soul or imagination? What ancient stories does it provoke us to tell? What dreams does it spur? Better by far to call it something like "Chub Creek", at least, the name of a nearby lake and creek where we can still at least remember that settler-farmers once caught chub, a free-biting little fish that will take almost any bait--and which even inexperienced fishers can catch. What did anyone ever catch in Lakeville, but a multiplex movie, or a commuter-ride?