Notes on Language, Spelling, and Surnames
When I quote a historical document in this book or invoke a place name that reflects racist word usage at the time the name originated, I have chosen to retain the original spelling and capitalization that speaks for that history.
As offensive as this language is to me and, I suspect, to most readers of this book, I can't see easing my own discomfort by misrepresenting someone else's language whose values are at odds with my own or my readers’. My responsibility is to the unmediated representation of the record, and to the representation of the day-to-day Adirondack world the Black pioneers tried, and managed, to make their own.
This is not a choice every reader will embrace. I write this to explain my reasoning, and to acknowledge and thank my readers for their forbearance.
John Brown hewed to the spelling of Timbucto with one o; his son John Jr. spelled it with two. Artists and essayists like the two o’s better. Historians side with John Brown. Because Brown was an erratic speller, and Timbuctoo is more familiar with two o’s, and also because switch-hitting in this book between a one-o and a two-o Timbuctoo seems needlessly confusing, I go with Timbuctoo throughout. Context should make it clear when Timbuctoo signifies a small North Elba enclave where the name, or nickname, likely got its start, or the wider neighborhood of Black grantees in North Elba ( John Brown’s understanding of it), or the Black settlement in its wide-ranging entirety, a looser reading that includes the St. Armand and Franklin enclaves. In recent years, the name Timbuctoo is sometimes used to stand for all of these. I try to resist this, not always with success.
Dr. James McCune Smith’s last name was Smith. I refer to him as McCune Smith in this book to distinguish him from Gerrit Smith.
Several leading families in the Black Woods spelled their surnames in more than one way. Lyman E. Eppes, Gerrit Smith grantee, used two e’s in his surname—but not always. His son Lyman dropped the second e, except when he didn’t. Avery Hazzard used two z’s, and his son Charles Henry did also—for a while. Where a preference is very reliably suggested (as with Lyman Epps Jr.), I honor it. Otherwise, and for the sake of consistency, I hew to the more familiar spelling.