Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 19.djvu/85



Coquille River, near Coos Bay, is entitled to the right pronunciation of its name, whether French ko-keel or Indian ko-quell, but the pronunciation has been in dispute for, lo, these many years. Mr. S. B. Cathcart, pioneer of 1853, wrote to The Oregonian February 22 last, that the word should be spoken ko-quell, in reply to that newspaper's acceptance of the other pronunciation.

The question seems to hang on the origin of the name, and that is disputed. If the French word coquille, meaning "shell," is the source, then ko-keel is as near as the American tongue can say it. Scoquel is the form of the name appearing in The Oregonian January 7, 1854, in an advertisement of Perry B. Marple, whose Coose Bay Company of adventurers, from Jacksonville, was then exploring and exploiting Coos Bay. Marple said in the advertisement that Scoquel River was the Indian name of an eel, and that he hoped Coquell would not supplant Scoquel. In Walling's History of Jackson, Josephine, Douglas and Curry Counties (p. 496), the source of the name is given as Nes-sa-til-cut. Like many other paleface theories pertaining to the dusky Indians, this relating to Coquille may be only partly true or wholly fanciful.

In the earliest map known to contain the name of this river, that of John B. Preston, Surveyor General of Oregon in 185154, it appears Coquette, under date of October 20, 1851. This form, Coquette, could easily have been an error in place of Coquille. The name appears Coquille in a map, dated 1 1856, of J. W. Trutch (assistant to Surveyor General Preston, and the surveyor who located the base line of all surveys in the Pacific Northwest) and G. W. Hyde. Coquille also appears in a map of 1855, made by G. H. Goddard, "from explorations of Governor Stevens," and published at San Francisco by Britton and Rey.

B. J. Pengra, Surveyor General of Oregon in 1861, made