Excerpt from Baraboo: And Other Place Names in Sauk County, Wisconsin Places are named for various reasons. Frequently the name of a person is commemorated, many appellations are of Indian origin, again a name is often applied because of some natural characteristic or object of the locality. Once Governor Doty of Wisconsin pointed to a river and of an Indian asked its name. The Indian supposed the governor meant the water in the river and not the name of the stream and responded "Nee-nah." The Indian word for water is "nee-nah" and to this day the river is called Neenah. There was once a Frenchman at Portage by the name of Paquette and when the people of the village now known as Poynette desired the government to establish a postoffice, Uncle Sam asked what the name should be. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.