The Name of Brothertown, Wisconsin

Isn't it obvious that Brothertown, Wisconsin was named after the Brothertown Indians, the first "civilized" people to settle there?

Most of us who are around now take it for granted. Nevertheless, the town had a number of names over the years.

Eeyamqittoowauconnuck was the name of Brothertown, New York in the Native language. Of course, the Brothertown Indians, being made up of a number of Algonquian-speaking tribes spoke varying dialects which resulted in a decision to make English their official language early on. By the 1830's the word Eeyamqittoowauconnuck might no longer have been used at all.

According to Orrin Meyer's booklet Se Souvenir (page 5), the Brothertown Indians originally named their settlement on the east shore of Lake Winnebago "Deansborough," after Thomas Dean, who served as both their agent and schoolmaster. (My memory is telling me that Dean was the only white person to go through Moor's Charity School as run by Eleazar Wheelock, but I haven't been able to verify that.) Anyway, the name "Deansborough" didn't get much traction. Meyer tells us (page 6) - and I've heard it said elsewhere - that the village got the name "Manchester" because it was the last name of a (pompous in my opinion) surveyor who decided to honor himself by giving it his own name. At the same time, the post office (Meyer, 6) referred to the area as "Pequot" after the Native nation that contributed a significant percentage of it's descendants to the Brothertown Indians.

Those name changes take up only about twenty or thirty years of history. Over the course of the 1850's the current name of Brothertown became recognized, and for good reason. It is the most accurate (and least confusing) name of the first "civilized" people to settle there.