|
The town of
Bodfish, CA bears the name of George
Homer Bodfish, who came from a family
bearing a rare and ancient surname that
can be traced back to the 13th century
in England.
The common use of surnames in the
British Isles began to develop at this
period, as centres of population were
becoming bigger and society more
complex. The earliest record of the name
of Bodfish is in the court records of
the town of Macclesfield in Cheshire,
when William Botfish (as the name was
spelled until the 17th century) was
involved in a case of trespass in 1286.
This family died out in Macclesfield by
the late Middle Ages, and all modern
bearers of this very unusual surname are
probably descended from John Botfish of
Whetstone, Leicestershire, a yeoman
farmer who (lied in 1534 leaving five
sons and three daughters. Robert Botfish,
son of Valentine and Joyce Botfish, was
baptized at Braunstone in Leicestershire
in 1602. No further trace can be found
of this man in England, so he might have
been the Robert Botfish who is recorded
as being a freeman of Lynn, MA in 1635,
having joined the pioneers who came out
from England after the founding of the
Massachusetts Bay Colony.
Robert's family moved to Sandwich and
Barnstable on Cape Cod and settled
there, and his descendants can still be
found in the Boston area and on the cape
today. There is even a Bodfish Avenue in
Wareham, MA.
The Massachusetts Bodfishes were farmers
and cranberry-growers; some turned to
the sea for their living and became
mercantile seamen and whale-hunters.
They were law-abiding folk, many of them
belonging to the Congregational church;
they paid their taxes and fought for
their country when the call arose. As
the centuries passed some of them moved
on. They went north into Maine (where
there is a Bodfish Intervale by Lake
Onawa), and there is a well-established
Inuit branch of the family in Alaska,
descended from a noted whaling captain.
Some went south to New York and
Philadelphia, and others pressed and
ever further and further westwards. The
family of Ebeneezer Bodfish (1776-1857)
and his wife Nancy Fish (1786-1847) went
further than most. Ten children were
born to them in West Barnstable, among
them Orlando, born in 1810 who died in
Havilah, Kern County, CA in 1868.
Ebeneezer Jr (1823-1878) settled in
Australia under the name of Edward
Herbert. He had become a seaman, and but
went inland when gold was discovered in
Victoria in 1853.
George Homer probably followed a similar
path, reaching the west coast via the
sea and joining the gold rush in
California. He established a gold mill
at Keyesville on the Kern River, but it
was washed away in the floods of
1861-62, and he then followed the
developing gold strikes. For a time he
operated a store in the Piute mountains,
and by 1867 he was trading in Sageland
in Kelso County. A notice in the Havilah
Miner� records his death and burial in
Sageland in 1868. He is not known to
have married nor have any descendants.
Bodfish Creek appears on a map of the
land grant Las Animas (Santa Clara)
dated 1855, and the name of Bodfish
became attached to a wooded canyon. The
name stuck as a settlement grew in the
foothills below what was known in the
early days as Hot Springs Hill, up which
horse-teams struggled out of the Kern
River Valley on their way to the
railhead at Calients. As late as 1938
the foundations and part of the
fireplace footings of George H�s cabin
were still to be seen.
But after all this, what does the name
Bodflsh actually mean? The language
experts tell us that in the Middle Ages
flatfish, such as turbot and halibut,
were referred to as "botfish", and that
the name was applied to a dealer in
flatfish. Or maybe it was a rude
nickname for someone that today might be
called "fishface"? The answer is lost is
the mists of time.
Mary Bodfish
(who is probably 9th cousin 5 times
removed to George H.)
|