The fact that Wallfleet oysters were marketed at Billinsgate,
always the big fish market of the Londoners, and that our Wellfleet
was at first known as Billingsgate, seems more than a mere
coincidence.
The difference in spelling between the names "Wallfleet" and
"Wellfleet" is not material. Barnstable; town, county and bay, take
their name from Barnstaple on the coast of Devon. Norden, who was
a highly educated man of University breeding, and a polished writer,
varied the spelling of some words even in the same paragraph as
witness "Crowch" and "Crouche," also "Ilande" and "Island." The
diversified spellings of many of our common names is so marked as to
be beyond comment except to note their wide variety, due to attempts
to follow the peculiar phonetics of untaught individuals. In the one
particular of "Well," who of us has not heard that word pronounced
"W-a-a-l." when used as an interjection? All of which makes it seem
inescapable from the theory that Wellfleet on the Cape is named
after WALLFLEET on the coast of Essex, England.
A SQUEAK FOR A LIFE
1850
P.
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