Baby Name: Webster

Edward and Lucinda Favor of Dover-Foxcroft, Maine, had at least a dozen children from the late 1820s to the early 1850s:

• Orville Burton, born in 1827
• Vera Ann, b. 1828
• Danville Bryant, b. 1830
• Edward D., b. 1833
• Josephine Augusta, b. 1835
• Daniel Webster, b. 1837
• Edward Webster, b. 1839
• Angevine June, b. 1841
• Eugene Sue, b. 1844
• Zachary Taylor, b. 1847
• Franklin Percival, b. 1850
• Fannie Eva, b. 1852

It’s easy to guess where a name like “Zachary Taylor” came from, but what’s the story behind Angevine June?

On the afternoon of October 22, 1841, the Favor family went to see the circus. They were so impressed that, when Lucinda gave birth to a baby boy the very next day, they decided to name him Angevine June after the owners of the circus: June, Titus, Angevine & Company.

Several newspapers including the New York Times reported that his full name was “Angevine June Titus and Company Favor.” While I can’t refute this, I also can’t find any official records to back it up.

Angevine “Vine” Favor left home at the age of 19 to serve in the Civil War. After that he made his way west, working as a stagecoach driver. By the late 1860s he was a landowner in Washington Territory, and in 1882 he platted the Washington town of Pataha City, which was briefly known as Favorsburg in his honor.

The surname Angevine can be traced back to the Old French word angevin, meaning “man from Anjou.”

Sources:

• “A Boy Who Was Named for a Circus.” New York Times 6 Feb. 1885: 2.
• Garfield County – HistoryLink.org
• Gilbert, Frank T. Historic Sketches of Walla Walla, Whitman, Columbia and Garfield Counties, Washington Territory. Portland, Oregon: 1882.
• Hanks, Patrick. (Ed.) Dictionary of American Family Names. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.

Image: Clipping from the Charlotte Journal (17 Mar.1842)