{"id":3957,"date":"2023-04-19T08:58:40","date_gmt":"2023-04-19T12:58:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/betsiecurrent.com\/?p=3957"},"modified":"2023-04-19T09:05:56","modified_gmt":"2023-04-19T13:05:56","slug":"whats-in-a-name-stories-behind-names-of-benzie-county","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/betsiecurrent.com\/index.php\/whats-in-a-name-stories-behind-names-of-benzie-county\/","title":{"rendered":"What’s In A Name?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Stories behind the names of Benzie County<\/em><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

By Samantha Graves
Current Contributor<\/strong>

In talking with the Benzie Area Historical Museum staff about the names of places like \u201cBenzonia,\u201d \u201cBetsie,\u201d and \u201cBeulah,\u201d the feeling quickly comes over you that they get asked these questions a lot.\u00a0

Many visitors to this beautiful place have marveled over the meanings behind the names, and they are not alone\u2014a name like Benzonia is as rich with possible interpretations as it is fun to say. And as it turns out, even we locals have not quite figured it all out, but hopefully this article will help you \u00a0to make up your own mind as to what was the true meaning behind the names that the settlers chose.

To understand the likely intended meaning of a name, the name must first be put into historical, religious, and cultural context with the people who pinned the name to this place. For instance, at the time that the region was bestowed its many names, both Zonia<\/em> and Beulah<\/em> were semi-popular names for girls and may not have carried the unusual ring they do with the modern ear.

Additionally, it is important to remember that these names may have morphed as new dialects came into the area over time. Look, for example, at the name of our Great Lakes state\u2014the Ojibwe for \u2018large lake\u2019 is mishigami<\/em>, which was preserved, though altered slightly as European settlers arrived and adopted its use.\u00a0

What\u2019s in a name? Whether altered from another form or carrying with it some underlying story with heavy historical context, the names of places in Benzie County tell the stories of our people and this place.\u00a0

Benzonia<\/strong>
The county name of \u201cBenzie\u201d is an abbreviated form of the longer \u201cBenzonia,\u201d a conjunction of two words with a very old origin in a far-away place. Though Benzonia could just as easily refer to the Latin ben zona<\/em> for \u2018good woman\u2019 as it could the Hebrew ben Zion<\/em> for \u2018son\u2019 of \u2018Zion,\u2019 neither is likely the intended meaning, and a whole myriad of interpretations exist in between. The traditional interpretation includes one variable meaning in Latin for ben<\/em>, translated to a \u2018high hill\u2019 or \u2018mountain,\u2019 and zonia<\/em>, or the Greek zona<\/em>, meaning a \u2018girdle.\u2019 (For instance the cluster of stars that make up Orion\u2019s belt are called the zona<\/em>.)\u00a0

These root words for the name Benzonia point to the devoutly religious men and women who settled here in the mid-19th century.

In 1858, a small group of families from Oberlin, Ohio, calling themselves the \u201cChristian Colony,\u201d arrived to establish an institution of learning on the shores of Lake Michigan. [See our article in this issue about the history of the Mills Community House, formerly the Benzonia Academy, <\/a>founded by these Christians from Oberlin.] Charles Bailey and Dr. James Barr Walker\u2014well known for their contributions to the region\u2019s history\u2014arrived as part of this group and are credited with the naming of the county. (It is important to note that the name also carried personal significance to Walker, whose adopted son\u2019s name was James Benzonia Walker and whose grandson\u2019s name was also James Benzonia Walker, though it was shortened to J. Ben to avoid confusion.)

Ties to faith are evident in the root origin of the name. It is likely that the high mountain ben<\/em> refers to is the Temple Mount, a sacred place in Jerusalem for three of the world\u2019s largest religions, while zonia<\/em>, the girdle, is likely a reference to the security or steadfastness of the settlers\u2019 religious convictions.\u00a0

Those unfamiliar with these roots attribute the name Benzonia to a Greek-Latin hybrid meaning \u2018the good air.\u2019 Ben<\/em> or bene<\/em>, meaning \u2018good,\u2019 is perhaps a play on the name Zephyrus, a Greek deity and bringer of the cold north wind. A more appropriate translation might be \u2018the good north wind.\u2019

Benzonia is full of rolling high hills that girdled or protected settlements, and its location along the shores of the big lake lends credibility to each of these interpretations\u2014it certainly would not be the first time that a name in Benzie has sparked meanings and stories outside of those intended.\u00a0

The Betsie<\/strong>\u00a0
While some may long for a hint of romantic folklore surrounding the name of the Betsie River, the only romance involved is perhaps that between a pair of sawbill ducks.\u00a0

The name \u201cBetsie\u201d is actually derived from the direct translation of the word Unszigozbee<\/em>, which is what local Native American tribes called \u2018sawbill ducks,\u2019 waterfowl common to this region\u2019s waterways.\u00a0

With the arrival of the French missionaries, Unszigozbee<\/em> became Riviere Aux Bec Scies<\/em>, which translates literally to \u2018River of the Beak Saws.\u2019 By the time that the English arrived, it was shortened to Bec Scies<\/em>, which the English pronounced \u201cBetsie.\u201d

According to the Benzie County Courthouse website, our county was first named Unszigozbee County in 1863<\/a>, but the name was later changed to Benzie County.

Beulah<\/strong>
Few people know that the original name of \u201cBeulah\u201d was \u201cCrystal City.\u201d Since the village is literally standing on a place that, up until 1878, was entirely under the lapping waves of beautiful Crystal Lake, the original name made sense as a city rising from the depths of Crystal Lake.\u00a0

In 1878, Archibald Jones\u2014a man who had, for the previous five years, heralded the need for a canal between Lake Michigan and Crystal Lake\u2014opened the floodgates and unwittingly dropped the water level on Crystal Lake by more than 20 feet, exposing miles of new shoreline. This newly exposed land was flat and treeless, making it an ideal place for the railroad and for a future settlement.\u00a0

Out of what seemed like a colossal engineering failure rose the Village of Beulah, renamed for its pristine beauty and countenance. The new name, according to the Benzie Area Historical Museum, means \u2018a place that borders Heaven.\u2019\u00a0

Beulah<\/em> is a Hebrew word that means \u2018married,\u2019 though it refers only to a woman who is married. It is also referenced in The Bible and in later literature as a place close to Heaven or Zion, and in John Bunyan\u2019s Pilgrim\u2019s Progress<\/em>, it is \u2018the promised land.\u2019 All in all, the name seems a fitting tribute for the land that was newly discovered, right under the water.

The Good North Wind<\/strong>
Whatever name we give to these special places, the common theme is a reverence for this part of the world that we call home. The names reflect a resonance with the sacred that was held by those newcomers who gazed upon the hills rising up from Lake Michigan and felt the cool, clean air being carried from the north.\u00a0

Interpretations may vary slightly, but the feeling of adoration is the one \u2018girdled\u2019 constant\u2014and for those of us who live in and visit Benzie, it is not a far stretch to imagine this place as close of an idea of Heaven as we can get on this earth.\u00a0

This article first published in The Betsie Current<\/strong> back in July 2015; because many of the topics related to items in this issue, we saw fit to run it again\u2014we figured that most of you would not mind… if you even noticed.<\/em>

Featured Photo Caption:<\/strong>\u00a0The Betsie River gets its name from the sawbill ducks that frequent the area via an odd game of foreign-language telephone. Photo by Noah Sorensen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Stories behind the names of Benzie County<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":3958,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[269,171,41,143,37,43,273,253,211,44],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/betsiecurrent.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/noah_betsiebay_web.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3TDCr-11P","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/betsiecurrent.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3957"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/betsiecurrent.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/betsiecurrent.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/betsiecurrent.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/betsiecurrent.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3957"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/betsiecurrent.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3957\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3960,"href":"http:\/\/betsiecurrent.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3957\/revisions\/3960"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/betsiecurrent.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3958"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/betsiecurrent.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3957"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/betsiecurrent.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3957"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/betsiecurrent.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3957"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}