"A crude popular etymology," says a leading authority on surnames,[9] "often begins to play upon a name that is no longer significant to the many. So the /Thurgods/ have become /Thoroughgoods/, and the /Todenackers/ have become the Pennsylvania Dutch /Toothakers/, much as /asparagus/ has become /sparrow-grass/." So, too, the /Wittnachts/ of Boyle county, Kentucky, descendants of a Hollander, have become /Whitenecks/, and the /Lehns/ of lower Pennsylvania, descendants of some far-off German, have become /Lanes/.[10] Edgar Allan /Poe/ was a member of a family long settled in Western Maryland, the founder being one /Poh/ or /Pfau/, a native of the Palatinate. Major George [Pg274] /Armistead/, who defended Fort McHenry in 1814, when Francis Scott Key wrote "The Star-Spangled Banner," was the descendant of an /Armstädt/ who came to Virginia from Hesse-Darmstadt. General George A. /Custer/, the Indian fighter, was the great-grandson of one /Küster/, a Hessian soldier paroled after Burgoyne's surrender. William /Wirt/, anti-Masonic candidate for the presidency in 1832, was the son of one /Wörth/. William /Paca/, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, was the great-grandson of a Bohemian named /Paka/. General W. S. /Rosecrans/ was really a /Rosenkrantz/. Even the surname of Abraham /Lincoln/, according to some authorities, was an anglicized form of /Linkhorn/.[11] Such changes, in fact, are almost innumerable; every work upon American genealogy is full of examples. The first foreign names to undergo the process were Dutch and French. Among the former, /Reiger/ was debased to /Riker/, /Van de Veer/ to /Vandiver/, /Van Huys/ to /Vannice/, /Van Siegel/ to /Van Sickle/, /Van Arsdale/ to /Vannersdale/, and /Haerlen/ (or /Haerlem/) to /Harlan/;[12] among the latter, /Petit/ became /Poteet/, /Caillé/ changed to /Kyle/, /De la Haye/ to /Dillehay/, /Dejean/ to /Deshong/, /Guizot/ to /Gossett/, /Guereant/ to /Caron/, /Soule/ to /Sewell/, /Gervaise/ to /Jarvis/, /Bayle/ to /Bailey/, /Fontaine/ to /Fountain/, /Denis/ to /Denny/, /Pebaudière/ to /Peabody/, /Bon Pas/ to /Bumpus/ and /de l'Hôtel/ to /Doolittle/. "Frenchmen and French Canadians who came to New England," says Schele de Vere, "had to pay for such hospitality as they there received by the sacrifice of their names. The brave /Bon Coeur/, Captain Marryatt tells us in his Diary, became Mr. /Bunker/, and gave his name to Bunker's Hill."[13] But it was the German immigration that provoked the first really wholesale slaughter. A number of characteristic German sounds--for example, that of /ü/ and the guttural in /ch/ and /g/--are almost impossible to the Anglo-Saxon pharynx, and so they had to go. Thus, /Bloch/ was changed to /Block/ or /Black/, /Ochs/ to [Pg275] /Oakes/, /Hock/ to /Hoke/, /Fischbach/ to /Fishback/, /Albrecht/ to /Albert/ or /Albright/, and /Steinweg/ to /Steinway/, and the /Grundwort/, /bach/, was almost universally changed to /baugh/, as in /Brumbaugh/. The /ü/ met the same fate: