Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Published Writings
  3. Periodicals
  4. Journalism
  5. per.01387

Ridegewood or Nassau?

About This Item

  • Title: Ridegewood or Nassau?
  • Date: 24 March 1859
  • Creator(s): Walt Whitman
  • Whitman Archive ID: per.01387
  • Source: Brooklyn Daily Times, 24 March 1859: 2. Our transcription is based on a digital image of a microfilm scan of the original issue. Microfilm of original issue held at Pennsylvania State University Libraries. For a description of the editorial rationale behind our treatment of the journalism, see our statement of editorial policy.
  • Editorial note: This piece is unsigned, as was the case for most of Whitman's journalism. However, this editorial is part of a series of texts that deal with a coherent theme that has been identified by the Whitman Archive journalism team as likely authored by Whitman. This decision is based on a combination of historical and (auto)biographical accounts, similarity to contemporary Whitman writings, a history of scholarly attribution, extant clippings retained by Whitman, computational stylometric analysis, and, in some cases, manuscript evidence in Whitman’s hand.
  • Contributors to digital file: Thara Michaelis Kaylen Michaelis Tara Ballard Stephanie Blalock Karie Cobb
  • Cite this page: Whitman, Walt. "Ridegewood or Nassau?." The Walt Whitman Archive. Gen. ed. Matt Cohen, Ed Folsom, & Kenneth M. Price. Accessed 17 July 2024. <http://www.whitmanarchive.org>.
  • Source File: per.01387.xml (TEI)
image 1image 2image 3image 4cropped image 1

RIDGEWOOD OR NASSAU?—

We had supposed that the "vexed question" of naming our water works had been some time since settled in favor of the word Ridgewood.1 Press and people here and abroad had become reconciled to that peculiar and appropriate designation, when the authorities—very stupidly we think—undertake to dub it the "Nassau Water"—at least that is the phrase they "ring into" the official advertisment of the approaching celebration. We were the first probably to christen the water Ridgewood, but we are not so obstinate as to persist in so calling it if a better name can be found. The word Nassau appears to us be hackneyed, and consequently lacks the freshness and originality of the other title. At any rate, the question should be settled at once, formally and forever. "Under which king, Bezonian?"2

Notes:

1.  [back]

2. This quotation is from Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part II and can be found in Act V, Scene 3, line 3521. [back]

Back to top