>From The Watertown Daily Times article, "A Road By Any Other Name" which appeared in the Sunday May 7th 2000 edition. In order for any of this to make any kind of sense I ended up typing much more than just the names so I've split it up into two parts. Here's the first part and tomorrow I'll post the second part which is basically just a list of Watertown Citizens who had streets named after them. " Benedict, Jay and Dewey - where have they gone? Or for that matter, Lepper, Todd, Bourne and Trinity. They disappeared six decades ago. These were streets of Watertown. Try to find them today and you'll get lost. It's traditional to name streets after prominent people, both national and local. In Watertown we honor Washington and Franklin, and remember LeRay, Keyes,Paddock, TenEyck and Clinton. But what happened to the poor honored citizens whose streets later were lost or renamed? Take Benedict Street, for instance. AMOS BENEDICT, an 1800 Yale graduate who seven years later found his way to Jefferson County, was destined to become the county's second district attorney. His land, and a street bearing his name, lay to the west of what once was called the Mall, today's Public Square. Unfortunately for the memory of Amos, his street was only a block long, from Arsenal to Stone. At that point it beccame Trinity Place, in honor of the church there. Where Clinton street intersected Trinity, Trinity became Sherman Street. The city planning council decided in 1941 that having a single length of roadway cut up into three different names really didn't make sense. Benedict and Trinity Place were swallowed up by Sherman, which was named for GEORGE C.SHERMAN. Mr Sherman, who was 16 when he took his first look at Watertown in 1815, was a district attorney, judge, state senator and banker, and among his many land holdings in the county was his homestead at Clinton and, you guessed it, Sherman Streets. Lepper St. was axed in favor of the more picturesque North Meadow Street. Councilman John H. Newman at first protested, citing the memory of PETER and MARY LEPPER and their son GEORGE, who had lived on the street many years earlier. The family presence in Watertown died with George's wife, MILLIE, in 1936. There was Massey Avenue named for pioneer settler HART MASSEY. Since Mr Massey already had a street named for him, the council on Nov.30 1942, approved renaming the avenue Taylor Place. Which TAYLOR or why we don't know. The TAYLOR name was prominent in Watertown, with EMMA FLOWER TAYLOR, daughter of Governor ROSWELL P. FLOWER, the family member best remembered today. No matter - petitioners had a better idea. Since EMMA A. SMITH REXFORD, Great-granddaughter of HART MASSEY, was living on Massey Avenue, some citizens argued it only fair that the charitable and popular Mrs Rexford be honored. So on Dec. 16, 1942 city council renamed the street (Massey Ave./Taylor Place) Rexford Place in honor of the widow of Dr CHARLES M. REXFORD. She died 11 months later, at age 86. Gill Street survived the 1942 name massacre thanks to such petitioners as FRANK P COSEO and FRANK HILLER, residents there. Instead of Gill St becoming part of Dewey Ave. Dewey Ave. became part of Gill St. Who were Gill and Dewey? Dewey Ave. was in place long before thomas Dewey was Governor. One is at a loss to identify them, as well as Bourne and Todd, now part of the Boulevard named for the gentleman who gave the city its park, JOHN C. THOMPSON. Jay St., we surmise, saluted JOHN JAY, one of our nations founding fathers, who owned land in Oswego County. In the Street name game he yielded to GOTHAM. It seems logical that JOHN GOTHAM, who settled in Watertown when the 18th and 19th centuries crossed paths, gave his name to the street approaching the City/Town line. JOHN GOTHAM one of the defenders of Sackets Harbor in the War of 1812, drowned in Lake Ontario in 1840. The first streets of Watertown as depicted in an 1811 map, were Washington, State Road, and Woodruff (likely named for tinware maker and downtown hardware merchant NORRIS WOODRUFF), all to the south and east of the "Mall". Going west, there were Madison, Columbia and State Streets, with the latter branching off to Court St. Later the original State St. became Court St., the former Court St, became the east end of Coffeen St, named for pioneer HENRY COFFEEN; and president Madison lost his street in favor of prominent local citizen HART MASSEY. The geographic expansion of Watertown was given a boost north of the Black River with a housing project dedicated on Sept.21 1919. Residents of such streets as Addison, Katherine, Seymour, Stuart, Charles, Francis and St. Mary are living in a section that was called "Lansingdorp" The development, modeled after a Dutch village, was on land that had been farmed by DR. EDWARD S. LANSING, whose family had migrated from Holland. His wife, MARY, daughter of GEORGE C. SHERMAN, is claimed to have been the first white baby born in Jefferson County. Streets in the new settlement were given the names of LANSING family members, and for reasons not explained, each street, except Stuart and Addison, was cannonized with the word "saint". As years passed only mary preserved sainthood. A descendant of EDWARD LANSING, ROBERT LANSING, who at the time was a secretary of state under President Woodrow Wilson, presided at the dedication of Lansingdorp. * Barben Ave., named in 1920, saluted the city's first military man killed in World War 1, WALTER BARBEN. *Bellew Ave. is on property donated to the city by the family of JAMES BELLEW. Until 1934 it was Ash St. * Breen Ave. preserves tha memory of Mayor ISAAC R. BREEN, who served from 1914 - 1919. * Cosgrove St. was created during World War 2 and memorialises DELOS M. COSGROVE SR., an attorney. * Flower Ave. was situated on property owned by ANSON FLOWER, a Wall St. millionaire. * Gale St. took its name from SOLOMON O. GALE. * Holcomb St. is believed to be named for HIRAM HOLCOMB, pre civil war Watertown resident who was president of the Rome and Watertown Railroad * LeRay St. was named for JAMES D. LERAY DE CHAUMONT, original land baron of the North Country. *Mullin St. was named for Judge JOSEPH MULLIN. * Paddock St. is a reminder of a prominent name in the city's history. JOHN PADDOCK was one of the community's first merchants. *Schley Drive honors Judge WILLIAM SCHLEY, who never lived in Watertown but was laid to rest in the same Brookside Cemetery mausoleum as his wife, EMMA KEEP-SCHLEY and her first husband, HENRY KEEP. The street cuts through an area that was part of Henry Keep Estates. * Thompson St. derives its name from WILLIAM C. THOMPSON. *Wealtha Ave. was named for WEALTHA BROWN, wife of the man who laid out the street, BENNET F. BROWN.