Water Witch

Filed Under April 2007, columns 

Drip drip drip.

Dear Word Detective: Over the years, as I drive through different towns, and in my own town, I have noticed different fire houses called “Water Witch” instead of “fire house.” I am very curious about the origin of this name for a fire house. I assume the word “water” refers to the pumpers that may be housed there and then used for a fire call, but how does the word “witch” work its way into it? I have inquired with many different volunteer fire fighters and not one of them seem to know the answer to this question. — Anne C.

The mind is a remarkable thing, especially what’s left of mine. Although I can’t seem to remember my own phone number half the time I need it, I was only part way through reading your question when what should pop into my so-called brain but a ghost story I must have read when I was no more than twelve years old. It’s called “The Water Ghost of Harrowby Hall,” by John Kendrick Bangs, and I actually found it online. Re-reading it made me feel sorry for the ghost all over again.

“Water witch” as a term for a fire house is a new one on me, but evidently far from new to a lot of other people. It seems most widespread in New England and elsewhere on the east coast of the US, and must have been a fairly common term in the 17th and 18th centuries. At least three engine companies in the Fire Department of New York City had “water witch” in their names in the mid-1800s, for instance.

The oldest sense of “water witch” is, not surprisingly, the literal, i.e., “a witch inhabiting a body of water,” a use dating back to at least 1680. The word “witch” itself is derived from the Old English word “wicca,” which back then meant “wizard” but today is better known as the name of a neo-pagan religion.

But the most common use of the term “water witch” today (and since at least the mid-18th century) is for, as John Bartlett put it in his 1859 Dictionary of Americanisms, “A person who pretends to have the power of discovering subterranean springs by means of the divining rod” (a process also known among believers as “dowsing”). The use of “water witch” as a name for a fire company thus refers to its ability to furnish water with which to fight fires. “Water Witch” is also fairly popular as a name for both pubs in Great Britain and the US and various kinds of pumping and drilling machinery. It was also the name of three 19th century US Navy ships.

 

 

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