Camel's Hump or Camel's Rump?

The most prominent of Vermont’s mountains is Camel’s Hump, the 4000 foot peak which rises out of the Winooski River valley in the Town of Huntington. The mountain dominates the eastern view from Burlington now, just as it has since the first explorers and settlers saw it.

======================================================================

But it didn’t always have that name , in fact for at least 40 years it was known as “Camel’s Rump”, as seen on Vermont’s early maps. The oldest map I’ve found with the “Rump” is the 1789 Blodget Map, a detailed map of the entire state (though it was not yet a part of the USA in 1789).  On Blodget the spelling is “Cammell’s Rump.”

That same name is used in James Whitelaw’s Map of the State of Vermont, published in 1796, and on a ca. 1790 manuscript  map by Whitelaw. Both are shown here.

=========================================================================

This same spelling continues through several decades of maps, including later editions of the Whitelaw map (1810, 1821 etc). The later Whitelaw maps have numerous changes, but none change the anatomy of the mountain. It seems likely that “Camel’s Rump” is what they called it in the early years of Vermont.  Who says those hard working Yankees were bereft of humor?

Finally, in 1842, a map appears with the modern usage:  Zadock Thompson’s “Map of the State of Vermont”.  Later maps to this day have the current usage.  Gentility reached the Green Mountains by mid-century.