April Fools

April Fools –

While Marshmallow Man at 53Beers  ponders some alternate universe of Columbia, it is worth looking back at James Rouse’s sense of humor.  As many people know, Rouse was in the Navy serving in Pearl Harbor after the attack. He put his entire salary in the bank, living off of his gambling earnings. That is where he met one of his future business partners who would go to Connecticut General Insurance which would get his foot in the door to finance his vision of Columbia years later.  With such skill and wit, Rouse could charm most anyone to see things his way, to great financial advantage.

Fast forward to the birth of Columbia. Bouncing from meeting to meeting, Rouse is feverishly convincing everyone he meets to buy into the vision of his new planned city Columbia. Rouse has to enlighten the ill-informed of the substantial benefits of his vision. One day Rouse and his planners were confronted what to name the large drainage basin that was required at the foot of his new city.  Quick of wit, Rouse called it a feature… no better yet, a lake that all could gather around.  “Lake Kittamaquandi”, “The great meeting place” at the site of one of the oldest native American settlements in Howard County!

Kittamaquandi caught on, with the name becoming legend, published in every article espousing Columbia’s virtues. The reality is Kittamaquandi is named after a settlement further down the Potomac. When early Jesuit settler Andrew White came to Maryland, he met Chief Kittamaquud, a noble savage leader.  He was so taken by White’s religion, that he converted, and handed over his lands for them to settle.  

Rouse must have been thinking of the “enlightened” savages that handed their land over to see a bigger vision when he picked the name. Even more ironically, the town of Columbia would border the town of Savage, Maryland, where “savages” would live in their unplanned haphazard communities.  For the most part, he kept this to himself, probably with a slight smile as he gathered people around to tell of the  “The Great Meeting Place”.  He would have broken their hearts if he said the real translation  “Great Beaver Place”.