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River Story
published in Wigleaf, 2025
Across three and a half million miles of American river appear less than a dozen women’s names. These names were given by men. On May 20, 1805, Captains Lewis and Clark named the “Sâh-câ-gar me-âh or bird woman’s River” in Montana. The following week, Clark gave to Judith River the name of his sweetheart; Lewis, the week after, named Marias River for his cousin and the object of his affection, Maria Wood. There is a Marys River in Illinois, and a Marys River in Nevada, and a Marys River in Oregon, which Adam E. Wimple named for his sister, Mary, before hanging for the murder of his wife, Mary, in 1852.
There is Hutchinson River in the Bronx, honoring the antinomian Anne Hutchinson, banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1638 and killed, in 1643, on the muddy east bank by the Siwanoy; and the Elizabeth River, in Virginia, named by the colonists of Jamestown for Elizabeth Stuart, the Winter Queen, daughter of James VI and I, Queen of Bohemia for a single winter, in 1619.
In east Texas, Spanish missionaries named Angelina River for the “little angel” Hasinai girl who extended her hand in friendship. In northern Minnesota, settlers named Ann River for the Ojibwe woman they called “Old Ann,” “Old Moose,” and “The Monument.”
For the millions of miles of American creek, run, and stream that remain have been left genera: Woman Creek, White Woman Creek, Old Woman Creek, Crazy Woman Creek, Woman Hollering Creek, Dirty Womans Creek, and Strangle Woman Creek.