16
HISTORY OF DUCHESS COUNTY.
mistake is made in the spelling of Litchfield, a town and county in Connecticut, whereas the English Lichfield, whence the name comes, is never so spelled." In the present volume the t has been left out, believing this to be the correct spelling. We submit the following, by a standard authority, by way of substantiating our position: "DEAR SIR :—In reply to your inquiry, I state that the name of our county was given in compliment to the Duchess of York, whose husband, the Duke of York, received from his brother, King Charles the Second of England, a grant of the territory in America, then known as New Netherland, and now as the States of New York and New Jersey. The title of Duchess, the wife of a Duke, was derived from the French, in which language it is spelled duchesse. Previous to the publication of Dr. Johnson's English Dictionary in I755~' the word was spelled in the English language with a letter t.: Johnson dropped the t and also the final e of the French word and it has ever since been correctly written in English, duchess. With the change in the orthography of the word in the standard lexicon of the English language, the spelling of the title of our county should have been. changed in our records and elsewhere. The error has been perpetuated, not for any reason, but through mere inadvertence. I earnestly hope that you will have the name of our County spelled without a t in your forthcoming history, because it is right, and not perpetuate an error, because of hoary prece— dents. Yours, &c., BENSON J. LOSSING.
Dutchess County Historical Society
