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This appeared on June 25, 2006

There are people in Chester County who don't know where they live.

Not that they've forgotten what their house looks like, what their address is or how to get home in the dark. Rather, they don't realize that they live in a tiny hamlet, village or neighborhood that owns a distinctive proper name, but which has been lost to time or erased by the savagery of modern development.

Having gone out of fashion, some places here now may be known only by their greater geographic location. And while it's certainly chic to say one saddles up one's horse in West Marlborough, how much more lyrical would it be to say you're putting the ol' feed bag on in Springdell?

Everybody knows Chester Springs, Ludwigs Corner, Exton, Paoli, Mendenhall, whatever. But how many of us have had friends report that they were enjoying life at their new home in Trythall, Cossart or Steelville?

Those are bonafide place names I found looking at Franklin's Five County Metro Street Atlas, (6th ed., $33.95, plus tax). My research came before embarking on a few weekend jaunts driving the circumference of Chester County, a labor of love I assigned myself some time ago, having gotten back behind the wheel of an automobile after a layoff of about 10 years.

Tracing the route of my journey on Franklin's map, I grew fascinated by the names of the places I'd be visiting, or other locations nearby. Where the names came from, I didn't know; how they came to be, I could only guess.

For example, Peacedale. It's in Elk Township, down around the Maryland border on the Lewisville Road, just nigh east of Hickoryhill. (You start to talk like that when you read maps.)

You'd be a fool not to imagine that Peacedale got its name from a gaggle of Quakers who decided to put down roots there after having fled the religious persecution they faced in, oh, say, Kemblesville. Although I can only assume that people living there today don't know they live in Peacedale, wouldn't it be a perfect address to share with the fresh-faced U.S. Army recruiters who now find themselves going door to door to fill out the next plane-load to Baghdad?

"Sorry, sonny," you'd say. "This here's be Peacedale, and we got our own ways of doin' things."

There are curious names all across the county map, places like Cream in Lower Oxford and Chrome in East Nottingham. Do country folks in Honey Brook know they live in Cambridge, or suburban Bobos in Tredyffrin realize they've taken up residence in New Centerville?

Could Talcose, in East Bradford, have been the area where Squire Smedley Talcose owned a few acres and folks just started referring to it by his name after he passed? Clearly, a hamlet like Rocky Hill in East Goshen, had near the corner of North Chester and Strasburg roads, had a hill that was a trifle rocky, and, well, if you wanted to tell people how to get to your house . . .

I'd love to live in Tweedale, or Five Points, or Fremont, or Rockville or, best of all, Pine Swamp, just to be able to put that on my return address.

It would be heaven, knowing exactly where my home was.