Places Named for the Family

How sure are we? Each place is marked Documented when a record ties it to a named member of the family, Probable when the person behind the name very likely belongs to the family but the link isn’t yet proven, and Not yet traced when we know who the place was named for but not how, or whether, he fits the tree. See also Famous Namesakes.

• Gideon Marlet’s point, Staten Island, New York Documented

  A point of land on the bay, named for the immigrant ancestor himself. A Dutch patent of 22 May 1674 grants land to Paulus Regrinar “on the bay, about 1 Dutch mile from Gideon Marlet’s point,” so by then the spot was known by Gideon’s name. The name did not survive, and exactly which point it was is not known. See The Staten Island Years.

• Mellott’s Mill, Licking Creek Township, Fulton County, Pennsylvania Probable

  A Mellott family Bible records that James O. Mellott was born “at Mellott’s Mill in Licking Creek Twp., Fulton Co., Pa.” in 1879. The mill stood in the Tonoloway and Licking Creek country where John and Sarah Mellott settled by the 1760s and where the Mellott spelling took root. It surely took its name from a local Mellott family, but who built or ran it, and when, is still to be found.

• Brooks–Malott Road, Green Township, Brown County, Ohio Probable

  A country road near Mount Orab, in the township where the Brown County Malotts lived for more than a century and where many of them are buried. Its name very likely honors the local Malott family, alongside the Brooks family of nearby Brooks Cemetery, but no record of the naming has been found. See the Headstone gallery.

• Malott, Washington, Okanogan County Probable

  Named for Leonard C. Malott, born 11 October 1843 in Ontario, Canada, a son of William and Mary Malott. He went to California in 1865, married Mary Hamilton, and in August 1886 settled in the Okanogan valley, where his was the first family among the bachelor settlers. The post office opened as Malott in 1890, with Leonard as postmaster for twenty years. The Malotts of Ontario in the 1840s were essentially one family, the Essex County descendants of the Malotts captured on the Ohio in 1780, so Leonard very likely belongs to that branch; which William was his father is not yet proven.

  

  Source: An Illustrated History of Stevens, Ferry, Okanogan and Chelan Counties (Western Historical Publishing Co., 1904), as transcribed at Genealogy Trails; Wikipedia.

• Marlette, Michigan, Sanilac County Probable

  Settled in the 1850s by people from Ontario. Marlette Township’s own history says the name comes from the word “Marlatt,” carved on the end log of a shanty built by two brothers from Ontario who meant to build a mill; their mother’s name was Marlatt. The brothers are not named. The family’s Ontario Marlatts, the descendants of Joseph Marlatt (1752–1813) of Halton County, had daughters whose sons were the right age, but the county histories of 1884, 1894 and 1906 do not tell the story, and the brothers are still to be identified. (The 1894 county atlas spells the town “Marlett.”)

  Sources: Wikipedia; Marlette Township history.

• Mellott, Indiana, Fountain County Not yet traced

  The post office was established in 1882 and named for its first postmaster, John Mellott. Who he was, and whether he belongs to the Pennsylvania Mellotts, has not been traced.

  Source: Wikipedia.

Know of another place named for the family, or a record that settles one of these? Please get in touch.