New York State's Odyssey

0:15Hi, I'm Ryan Davis. And I'm Kiernan Schmidt. And this is Out of Office, a travel podcast. This seat taken. Hey, Kiernan. Gosh, I wish I knew enough to say this seat taken in Greek. in ancient greek in ancient greek yeah i guess i could write it well of course i can i mean i'm conversant in and then i read it uh but you know speaking it we just don't i just don't want to embarrass myself we don't really know how it was pronounced yeah uh well i've i i uh heard like a really cool uh well i heard this this really interesting um audio clip that i'll link to in the show notes of of these academics who put together what the music and language might have sounded like when people performed these Odyssey poems.

1:05And, you know, it was pretty it was pretty freaky. I mean, this is right. I'm I'm quickly feeling that. Remember how you used to give me a hard time about all the Boston centric episodes I was doing? Yeah. Yeah. I feel like this is, you know, I know you're responding to the people. The last Odyssey episode, which is which is in the queue, people can go listen to, which was about traveling to the places in, you know, the Greek isles where a lot of in the Mediterranean civilizations where the Odyssey takes place. That was a hit for us, I would say. And so we are doubling down. We are on the Odyssey wave here.

1:46Yeah, I think the Odyssey, it's still, you know, it's still it's still a big thing. And yeah, thanks to everybody who downloaded the last episode. It was a big hit for us. And I think, you know, when we were doing when I was doing research about sort of how I wanted to talk about the Odyssey on the show, I came upon all these, you know, upstate New York. Like I knew about Ithaca and I knew about Troy, but I really didn't know that there were so many sort of, you know, there's even a town named Homer we're going to talk about. So I it's just like I wondered why why are there all these classical names?

2:23So today we're going to talk a bit about sort of like from a travel perspective, the various places in upstate New York and what's connected to the Odyssey. But also we're going to be speaking with a New York historian, Daniel Koch, about sort of how how these places got all these names. So it's going to be a good episode, a mix of travel and history. That's what it's what we're always looking for. It's what we feed on. Yeah, exactly. And Ryan, before we get to the discussion of Greek names and how they came to the United States, I do want to do the due diligence of the Judy alert where we let your mom, Judy, you know, we all know you don't keep in close touch like a loyal, caring son.

3:10You know, sometimes you just drop in at random, never on a major holiday. And Judy, she worries. She wants to know where is Ryan in the world? So here's the Judy alert, Ryan. Where are you right now? I am in Bogota in my apartment. All right. I mean, that seems to be you've really stayed local lately. Well, you know, I my visa is processing and things are a little slow right now because of the election turnover. The the new administration is coming in. I say tomorrow. Yeah. But so, yeah, I've I've been staying put, but I've been actively planning this trip to Brazil, which is a week from a week, basically a week away.

3:52We fly next Friday. So when this episode comes out, lots of folks will be listening to it while I am on my way to Brazil. I'm super excited. It's a new country and my boyfriend's been practicing his Portuguese. I haven't spent any time doing that because it's hopeless. But yeah, I'm super excited to see Rio and Sao Paulo. And if folks have recommendations, they can pop them over to us out of office pod at gmail.com. You know, but these are big cities here and in like really big cities. Yeah, but you it sounds like you're going to take your time in them. And I feel like this trip is going to be sweetened by your experience when you tried to go to Brazil previously without a visa mistakenly.

4:43mistakenly. And I just I feel like it's going to feel like a big accomplishment to just cross that border. Yeah, well, they haven't let me in yet. So let's not get ahead of ourselves. But I do have my visa. Actually, I have a few emails to write recommending against your entrance. And how long is the total stay? It's two weeks. So we'll be there. Glorious. 14th to the 31st. And yeah, about about about seven days in each city. And yeah, that we have jam-packed i was telling you over text i mean we have jam-packed uh travel days and uh there's a lot a lot to see so there's going to be some you know excited to to get those episodes out the door um you know i think being a travel podcast co-host makes me a better uh tourist because i just feel like i have to i have to be more kind of like right you know regulated about what i what i see those expectations that you have and make your and understandable i agree Also, you know, it it it makes you be a very it's like being an active listener.

5:47You're like an active traveler because we're always trying to search out what the next episode could be. Yeah, exactly. So we'll be which I boy, we had a couple of people right in and they they pointed out. I never did a full London follow up episode when I went there with my mother. And there's a lot to be said about traveling with your parents and with older tourists with you. And I do think there is a follow-up episode there. And we've just hit the year mark of it. We actually left a year ago today. So it's time for me to find a place in the queue for that. Yeah, that would be great. People love.

6:26You know, I did traveling with kids. Now I'll do traveling with elders. oh well that is uh something mom and i have been talking about is is taking another trip so um oh you know what we can we can talk about that in the last stop because it's related to what i have to say yeah well i think um yeah i think i think it's time for us to you know not be like uh odysseus in and and dawdle around for 10 years here in the in the top of show uh let's let's jump in to talking about upstate New York's odyssey. Are you saying it's time to take off? It's time to take off. All right. Tell the cap and crow.

7:07Flight attendants, prepare for takeoff, please. All right, Kieran. And tell me about your sort of upstate New York. Have you have you been to any of these these sort of odyssey named cities? I know. Honestly, I have. You know, I've I've spent time in the Adirondacks area, And I'm sure I've driven past a lot of these towns, but I have not spent time directly in one of these classic named American towns. Well, today we're recommending a basically a day a day trip that can begin in Troy, New York. And of course, Troy is named after the famous city of Troy from from the Odyssey poem. um what's what's sort of interesting kieran is that none of these towns saw this odyssey wave coming and so none of them really prepared you know you think oh yeah you think that troy new york would have like at the bare minimum a big sculpture of a horse right like sure of course i mean they've had years to prepare for for for this uh but they they don't um they don't really have anything sort of officially related to the Odyssey.

8:24It's a cute upstate New York town. It's got, you know, all sort of that classic architecture. There's a building named the Ilium Building, which I just learned was a, it was, is actually sort of the original name for Troy. So that's sort of a callback to Troy itself. And it's a beautiful old building. But they don't have, you know, they don't actually have that, that huge wooden horse that I think the citizen should really get, should really make happen. Yeah. I mean, that feels like a very obvious, I remember I was recently, I was recently reading about a, there's a, there's a town in England where there's like local legend that some part of the Mayflower was built there, but it's like not true.

9:17I mean, the historians are just like firm. This is not the place where the Mayflower was actually made. But there's a local resident who has just made it his passion point. The way that they are going to get on the tourist map is they are going to claim the Mayflower and the pilgrims as theirs. And nobody else in the town is interested in it. He's tried a hundred different ways. He's had Mayflower days. And I feel like there is a citizen of Troy, New York who needs to stand up and just relentlessly go at the community until that wooden horse gets made. Yeah, I think, you know, Rome wasn't built in a day, but Troy can definitely get pretty quickly a big wooden horse.

9:56I feel like it should be in a playground. You should have a playground wooden horse that the kids can crawl up into and hide and then they get to play that they're Greeks and they come out and they fight. And there's a ton that you could do with us. Even right. I don't know if you know this. My high school mascot were the Trojans. So I know this game well. I know this because you told me on the last episode. Oh, there you go. All right. So loyal listeners. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So the Troy, New York, you know, lovely, lovely little town. And while you're there, check out the farmers market. And, you know, just enjoy that.

10:35You know, I'm a big upstate relaxed New York antiquer. So So there's definitely quite a bit of that to do in Troy. Now, on your odyssey to Ithaca, you can stop at the town of Homer. Now, Homer is a pretty small town, but it is actually named after the poet. It says so right on the about page of the Homer New York website, which hasn't been updated in a while, guys. Get on that. But, you know, again, they don't have a statue to Homer, which seems the obvious thing to do would be to have to have this Homer. But it does have a lovely village green and a in a Instagram worthy sign that says you're in Homer, New York.

11:20So I just just to ask an obvious question, you're talking a lot about how these classically named places do not have classical statues. And I mean, even Nashville has a Parthenon, you know. So are is when people visit, are you saying just go and enjoy the town for what it is or should tourists be actively going into, you know, the town hall and saying, hey, I'm here to see everything classical in town and try to try to show their interest in seeing some of these attractions? There isn't there is I mean, you know, they could definitely do that, but there isn't a lot a lot to to to see specifically related to, you know, specifically related to the the Odyssey.

12:07I again, like I think it's a little bit of a missed opportunity. I had a lovely village green like they do there in Homer, New York. I feel like a nice bust of, you know, Homer, which we've all seen. There are plenty of them you could you could commission would be a heck of a heck of a little tourist photo stop. Okay, I see. So I feel like then what we're what we're doing in this episode is we're building the case, which means when you when you visit these towns, you need to send them a link to this podcast because we're showing them that what they are missing as far as tourism goes. And and also, I think in the interview, you're going to really hear what inspired their forebears to give these places these names.

12:50Yeah, their forebearers, I think, were a little more classicist. They were more interested in these tales. But I would imagine that in a lot of these towns, there are emergency city council meetings happening, being like, hey, everybody knows about the Odyssey now. Maybe we should cash in. But yeah, that is something what we'll get into with Daniel. But Ithaca itself. So, you know, this is, again, a two hour drive between Troy and Ithaca with that little stop at Homer in between. Now, Ithaca does have more more things related to the ancient world. It's got to be because this this is home to Cornell.

13:38Yeah. So the first thing you should do is there is an Odyssey bookstore named after the Odyssey. I am sure I have. Now we're talking. Yeah, I'm sure they are leaning in because, you know, the Odyssey is one of the best selling books right now. I think there are three translations in the top Amazon. Yeah. All these people pretending they're going to read it. Yeah. And they're just going to listen to podcasts like this. Just give me the summary. Yeah. Yeah. Emily Wilson is out there, you know, doing her. Oh, tearing it apart. Yeah, she's she's killing it. So stop by the Odyssey bookstore. If you haven't picked up a performative copy of the Odyssey to put on your bookshelf, that would be.

14:17And this is a man who understands performative copies of books, ladies and gentlemen. But Ithaca itself is, again, explicitly named for the island home of Odysseus. So it is it is, you know, the town the town was aware of what they were doing. And so they have leaned into it a little bit more. And then Cornell's there. I've been to the Cornell campus a couple of times back when I had my VC job. It's a beautiful campus. Have you have you ever been up there? I haven't. I know there's a big joke about the gorge. There's a lot of shirts that come out of Cornell that says Ithaca is gorgeous. Ithaca is gorgeous.

15:01And it is it is gorgeous. And there is a gorge. But there's also a museum on the Cornell campus called Klarman Hall. And they have a pretty decent collection of materials from the ancient world and a lot of plaster cast. And I think when you're kind of wandering the halls of Cornell, you'll probably see some of the figures from, you know, Greek mythology that you encounter in the Odyssey. Excellent. Yeah. And do you know, is there a is that a freebie, free to get free to enter? You know, I don't know. Mostly those those are free to enter right on campuses. It's a good question. I know. I know Harvard's Harvard has opened up the free admission to all the arts, just not the Natural History Museum, which is very strange.

15:54Well, I I'm a big supporter of free museums, so I hope that it is free. But if it's not, I don't think it's going to it's going to break the bank. You know, considering what poor Odysseus went through to get to Ithaca, you know, I think you can drop your fiver to support. He was fine. Athena was taking care of him. It was fine. I feel like every, you know, it's kind of oversold out hard. Yeah, it was frustrating. But like along the way, he had some pretty good times. Yeah. Yeah. Less good times in the movie than in the. I know they took out a lot of the good times. Now, Ithaca took my note and they do have a huge sculpture of Hercules.

16:36That is 11 and 11 foot Hercules made from chrome plated car bumpers. So that is an interesting take, but definitely, you know, something something people should check out if they are on campus and check. And if you want to sound really sophisticated when you're checking this out, make sure you say Heracles because that's the Greek pronunciation. Heracles, Hercules, that's the Roman basculation. I just spent time in Spain and I was in some city that was founded by Hercules. What was that? Was it Seville? I don't know. One of those cities. Founded by Hercules. Wow. Now that I can hear a future episode coming.

17:21International cities founded by Hercules. And the city that that I was in was Seville. And I remember there was a local gym chain named Hercules, which I thought was super. That's a great name. Yeah, it's a great name. Yeah, definitely. So if you have time, there is also a small town called Ulysses in upstate New York. But and those are sort of the the the four towns that are have very specific Odyssey names. Obviously, you know, we're going to jump into this interview with Daniel and talk about how they got these names. And there's some there's some some fun stories. So I think we should jump.

18:07I think we should cut to the Daniel interview here. Absolutely. I can't wait. Welcome, Daniel, to Out of Office. Thank you so much for coming on today. Thanks for having me. So before all these towns were named after these classical names, Troy, Homer, Ithaca, can you talk a little bit about what the region in upstate New York was? Yeah, so it was the homeland of the Haudenosaunee. It was mainly wooded and, you know, the vast forests, the lakes, the mountains, the rivers, they were used by the Haudenosaunee people. They were very sparsely populated, you know, compared to what they are now. And yeah, so the Euro-American settlers from the coastal regions thought of it pretty much as wilderness inhabited by Native people.

19:07And the Revolutionary War happens, and I actually learned this from your article, which is in the show notes, but there was this thing called the military track where the army gave land to veterans. Can you talk a little bit about that and why it was created and how it was divided? Sure. So the revolutionaries had eyes on the land in the sort of western part of what's now New York State and all the land west of the Appalachian Mountains, really. It had been off limits before that due to the King's Proclamation in 1763. So when the revolution happened, they started to think, oh, well, this land's going to become up for the grabs, up for us to take.

19:57We'll have to extinguish the native titles to it. But they had ways of doing that. They had their methods and treaties and so on. Anyway, so they thought, OK, we can get hold of this land. We need to pay our soldiers, our Revolutionary War soldiers. And they were very short of money. So they said, well, we'll promise you land out to the west of what's inhabited currently. And that will be your payment for your service in the War for Independence. So at the end of the war, they made some treaties with the Onondaga and the Cayuga people and various other Native American peoples in the Mohawk Valley into the west.

20:43Then they divided up the land. They literally just drew lines on the map, divided it up into plots, and assigned it to various veterans. Land speculators got a lot of it as well, and that's how it happened. So this is happening after the Revolutionary War. You've got these former soldiers and officials moving up north. How did they start to decide on these classical names? This is interesting because there wasn't really a huge precedent for this in the East Coast. Most towns and growing cities at that time were predominantly named after cities in England where the settlers had come from, or from the Netherlands in the case of the Hudson Valley.

21:39So they fought this revolutionary war. They are about to settle lots of new places. They need names for all the places that they're settling. Naming them after English towns and cities after the War of Revolution was probably, it wasn't really in fashion. and they thought, oh, well, these classical names, we can use a lot of these. A lot of the founding fathers were very into classical history, Roman and Greek places and people. And so they started using those. So there was a professor named Robert Harper who was at King's College, which is now Columbia, which is where Hamilton famously went. What was his connection to all this and how did his ideas influence it?

22:32well he was one of the people who was kind of looking at this map as i said when they were drawing the lines on the map of this new military track as they called it um they started coming up with names and he was one of the people around the table at the time uh and so uh he was um said to be the the person who kind of came up with uh with the names of the places and kind of just plopped them onto the map because they didn't really know in great detail uh what was there. Yeah. And these were, these were sort of, uh, aspirational, uh, cities, I guess, at that point in some way. Um, so, uh, one of the things in your, in your article that's interesting is how some of the cities decided, uh, um, what they were going to be called.

23:19Can you give us a little, a little detail on some of the more interesting stories? Yeah. So, you know, there, there was the sort of the drawing of the map, but most of the place names, the classical place names, were actually just kind of decided upon by the settlers themselves. So in Troy, New York, for example, it had previously been a very small Dutch settlement. As all these new settlers from New England came pouring into the area, they didn't really want to keep the Dutch name, found it a little bit too hard to pronounce and so decided to call it Troy which has the classical kind of background but also they just found it a nicer name than what the Dutch name had been.

24:08Utica is another example so basically you had a group of settlers around what used to be called Old Fort Schuyler on the Mohawk River and they just put names into a hat and then drew drew the name Utica out of the hat. It just happened to be the one that got picked. I love that as a way to name your town, just draw it out of a hat. I come from Salisbury, Maryland, which is named after Salisbury, England. And of course, we're by Baltimore, named after Lord Baltimore. So I really enjoyed these stories where folks are able to break out out of the, just aiming after the UK town that their family was, was from.

24:53You know, when you're thinking about the, the pioneers actually making these choices, were they, because they, they were, they were fans of Homer. They were, they were, they were classicalists at like, well, you know, what, what, what kind of drove them to kind of go in this direction? Well, they were educated. Most of the pioneers that came into, into what's now New York State, came from New England, which was a very literate and educated society. So, you know, they had learned about the classics and, or at least had some knowledge of that alongside biblical learning that they would have all had.

25:38So, you know, they were living a pretty rough and ready life out on the frontier, but they did have that kind of knowledge about the classical past, and they brought that to bear in the names that they chose. Now, that's really interesting, and it's so interesting to see how concentrated these names are in New York and Ohio specifically. Is there a connection there? Yeah, so as the pioneers came through, they settled New York first, and then once that was settled, they kept moving west. So the trend, they kind of, they started it in New York and they carried it with them as they moved westward into Ohio and Michigan and further west until, you know, they reached the Pacific and all the way across America, you find classical place names, but it really started right in upstate New York.

26:37Well, there you go. Daniel, you've written a whole book on New York state history. Do you want to tell our audience a little bit about that, if they want to learn more? Yeah, so my book's called Land of the Unitas, and it's about the United people, one of the Haudenosaunee nations. It's about their homeland and how it changed. So, you know, the area in what's now central New York state. And that's how I got interested in the origins of all this stuff. and yeah it's where I grew up I've lived my most of my life now in the UK but I still consider central New York state to be my home well well Daniel thank you for joining us on out of office this has been super interesting and if folks want to learn more there'll be links in the show notes thank you very much and now it's time for the last stop ladies and gentlemen this is the last stop on this train.

27:35Everyone, please leave the train. All right, Ryan. Well, great interview. Thank you very much to Daniel. Boy, a lot of cool history that I did not know. And they're the the the giving tracts of land for for service within the revolution was a really interesting fact. You could see why that like warrior mindset was still in their minds. Yeah, exactly. They were thinking about their time served and how to expand America's names beyond sort of the callbacks to the European cities. So I guess with other European cities. I'll tell you, I went down, the interview inspired me to go down kind of a rabbit hole about other places bearing Greek names.

28:25And Penelope, Texas has caught my eye. But there's a great list online that I'll share, particularly southern cities named. You know, I don't think we'll do a follow up episode, but it's a fun premise. Yeah. And it's interesting, you know, this this all, you know, we talk about how this all begins in New York state. And then as the colonies, you know, move move west, places like Ohio get a ton of these of these classic names. So the founder, the founding generation were definitely, you know, as as obsessed with, you know, the Odyssey in these in these and the Greeks as as everybody is in the world right now.

29:06So super cool to hear. Right. And you are aware of my youngest daughter, my young daughter, my one daughter is named Penelope for the Odyssey. Ah, I didn't even put that together. I married a classicist. This is what's going to happen. And I probably was the major, I love the name Penelope. So I was kind of the driver of that. But yeah, when we wanted to name her, Catherine said, I'm on board with that name. The only caveat is that you have to read the whole Odyssey before we name her Penelope. So that's what I did. And are you teaching her to weave? And then every night you unweave her? Oh, my God.

29:39I mean, she's four years old. The suitors really just need to stay away. Yeah, we have her build Legos and then take them apart each day, rebuild them. Just a modern version. Well, all right. Well, thank you very much. Great interview. We are here in The Last Stop. This is the final segment of the show. That's why it's called The Last Stop. It's my favorite segment. It's your favorite segment. It's popularly known as the People's Segment. And that is because it's a time for us to come together as a community and share, particularly you, Ryan, and I, Kiernan, share one thing each week in this segment.

30:11Now, it could be anything. It could be a story. It could be a factoid. It could be an article. It could be a piece of advice. Actually, I'm bringing a piece of advice. That's kind of a rare last stop for us. But no matter what it is, it has to check one box. It must inspire the spirit of wanderlust within us even during the workday week. So, Ryan, I'm going to ask you, as I ask you every episode, do you have a last stop this week? I do, Kiernan. I have been watching True Detective season four. Are you a True Detective fan at all? No, I've never, never dabbled. Well, you know, it's in its fourth season and each season is its own sort of compact story of a murder mystery in a kind of rural Americana setting.

30:58the first one famously in Louisiana with Woody Harrelson. And this season stars the great iconic, I would even say, Jodie Foster, who knows how to hunt down a murderer or two. And it all takes place in this extremely remote town, fictional town in Alaska called Ennis. but Ennis is one of these communities that is incredibly close to the Arctic circle. So it experiences almost like two months of complete darkness. Wow. I, that sounds like heaven. I, I love darkness. I mean, even when I lived in London, London has like way darker winters than even a lot of places in new England, like starts getting dark at like 3 PM.