First, an apology.

It has been brought to my attention that my hard-hitting story about the Perry statues in Newport, Rhode Island, caused a certain amount of confusion.

Some readers thought I was talking about statues in Newport, Pennsylvania.

Alas, I wasn’t.

Perhaps I should have added “RI” every time I mentioned Newport, and not just in the opening paragraph of the piece.

For misleading even a single reader into thinking I was talking about glorious Newport, PA, when in fact I was referring to that other lackluster Newport (Boo! Hiss!) up north, I sincerely apologize.

The way I found out about the whole Newport debacle is interesting. I’d placed a call to the Perry Historians to see if anyone there had ever heard of a strange new body of water called “Sherman Creek.”

Before I could even ask my question about the name of the creek, I was warned I’d better stop “mucking around in the history of Perry County.” I was doing a huge disservice by confusing the poor citizens of Newport, PA.

Then the call was unceremoniously terminated.

Apparently, people in Perry County take their history—and their precious Newport—very seriously.

This is not to discourage anyone from calling the Perry Historians. They’re an all-volunteer outfit, and they do a tremendous amount of work preserving the history of the county. In fact, they’re exactly the people to call (582-4896) if you have a question about local genealogy, or any other matter of local history. I’ve since spoken with some very helpful and friendly historians there.

But back to the name of the creek. If you’ve crossed the new bridge on PA-34 in Sherman’s Dale, you’ve seen the sign with your own eyes: “Sherman Creek.”

No “s.”

You’ve probably also seen the old sign right next to it, the one that used to mark the creek at the old bridge, that reads, “Shermans Creek.”

With an “s.”

So what happened to that all-important “s?”

I’m a big believer in doing my homework when it comes to history. I consulted my H.H. Hain’s History of Perry County (1922). Here’s what Hain had to say on page 384 about the naming of the creek:

“Like the valley of the same name, which it drains, it is supposed to have been named after an early settler, but records veil the fact in obscurity. Clarence W. Baker, a noted local historian who resided at New Bloomfield and assisted his father in editing The Freeman, said the stream was named after an old Indian trader named Sherman (or Sheerman), who plied his vocation in that particular territory many years ago. He is said to have been a veritable “Leather Stocking,” sleeping outdoors and killing as many as sixty deer in a season. He and his horse were drowned in the creek which bears his name at Gibson’s Rock, through the animal being hampered with packs of furs. The writer is inclined to give credence to this story.”

Of course, on page 28 of the same tome, Hain comes right out and says there’s no real evidence to back it up:

“Just how Sherman’s Valley got its name will always remain a mystery. There is a tradition that a trader by that name was drowned while crossing Sherman’s Creek, but nowhere is there record to substantiate it.”

Setting aside the question of how the creek got its name, and focusing only on the spelling of the name itself, I turned to an older history of Perry County, written by Silas Wright in 1873. There, too, one finds references to “Sherman’s Creek.”

One even finds “Sherman’s Creek” in the mind-numbing Preliminary Report on the Paleontology of Perry County by E.W. Claypole, 1885.

“Sherman’s,” all.

With an “s.”

I haven’t talked to anyone who knows it as “Sherman Creek.”

Everyone seems to know it as “Shermans Creek.”

So where did the “s” go? And why is the creek now referred to as “Sherman Creek” in the official United States Geological Survey database, the Geographical Names Information System (GNIS), which is the federal government’s Bible of place-naming…?

More on this Perry County mystery next week!

This column was published in the Perry Co Times on 10 September 2009

For more information, please contact Mr. Olshan at writing@matthewolshan.com