Paola-name

The origin of the name "Paola" has been the subject of discussion for many years and has given rise to
various conjectures.

There is no record of the name being chosen by any official body of settlers or even by the original town
company itself. Naming a new town was and still is an important event in every community, yet there
seems to be no proof whatever that such an event ever took place in the case of Paola.

It is Paola now as was Paola when the first settlers came on the scene in 1854-5. The Indians had been
calling their village by that name and the few white people who arrived after the territory was opened up
simply followed suit. The name was Paola and nobody questioned its source or even its meaning.

The oldest citizen, the Venerable Judge Ezra W. Robinson, who came to Paola in 1856, says that the
name was in use when he arrived and that he did not know its origin or whence it came.

In after years, however, people began to say that it was called after Baptiste Peoria, the Indian chief, for no
reason but because there was some similarity in the sound of the two words and that the Indians, when
pronouncing the word Paola, meant Peoria.

It is strange that the tribe could not pronounce its own name. Moreover, why change "e" to "a" and "r" to "t"
and "ia" to "a"? the transformation is too radical to carry conviction and doubtless was accepted by many
for want of a better explanation. One thing that it does show, however, is that the Indians used the word
first. Where did they get it?

Another version of the origin of the name, Paola, is given in these words, "Paola founded in 1855, named
after Pasquale de Paoli, the Corsican patriot who led his countrymen against Genoa in 1755 and 1789." It
is safe to say that the Indians never heard of the gentleman from Corsica.

The third and more plausible origin of the name is given by the venerable John Chestnut, who came to
Osawatomie in 1854 and is now a citizen of Denver, Colorado. He states that Paola is called after a town
on the west coast of Italy.

It is true there is such a town on the coast of Calabria in southern Italy. It is also true there is a monastery
and a hamlet connected with the great Church of St. Paul beyond the walls of Rome called Paola, but it
would take no other than an Italian to suggest these obscure places as a name for a wigwam village on
the plains of Kansas in the middle of the last century.

That Italian was Paul Mary Ponziglione, S.J., the great Indian missionary who came to these parts in 1851,
and was especially beloved by the Peorias. His own name suggested that of his patron, the Great Apostle
of the Gentiles: hence Paola. He did not have to go to the wilds of Calabria for the suggestion; it was within
his own heart.

IAMI

OUNTY

ANSAS

ISTORY

Miami County Historical Museum

Swan River Museum

Miami County Historical & Genealogy Society