BOWES

This surname, according to Grose, originated as follows : about the time of the Conqueror, there was a town (on the site of the Castle of Bowes), which the tradition of the family states, was burned. It then belonged to the Earls of Brittany and Richmond. The castle was built, as Mr. Horseley thinks, out of the ruins of the Roman Fortress, by Alan Niger, the second earl of that title, who, it is said, placed therein William, his relation, with five hundred archers to defend it against some insurgents in Cambridge and Westmorland confederated with the Scots, giving him for the device of his standard the arms of Brittany, with three bows and a bundle of arrows, whence both the castle and the commander derived their names; the former being called Bowes Castle, and the latter, William de Arcubus, or William Bowes.

LEYCESTER

Local. A borough town in England; a camp of the Roman legion. (See Leicester.)

KEYS

Probably from Keyus, an old Roman word for a warden or keeper.

CRAWFORD

Local. First assumed by the proprietor of the lands and barony of Crawford, in Lanarkshire, Scotland. The extreme ancestor of the ancient family of Crawford, in Scotland, was Reginald, youngest son of Alan, the fourth Earl of Richmond. He seems to have accompanied David the First to the north, and to have received extensive grants of land in Strath Cluyd, or Clydesdale, whence his immediate descendants adopted the name of Crawford, then forming one of the largest baronies in Scotland, and signifying in Gaelic The pass of blood from cru, bloody, and ford, a pass or way, as commemorative, probably, of some sanguinary conflict between the Aborigines and the Roman invaders. The name has been derived by others from crodh and port, pronounced cro-fort, signifying a sheltering place for cattle.

GLOUCESTER

Local. From the city of Gloucester, England, the ancient Gleva, from the Welsh Glo, coal, coalmines, and castrum, Latin, a Roman fort or camp; Saxon, ceaster, a city, the city of coal.

ROMANNO

Local. From lands in the county of Peebles, Scotland, so called from a Roman military way, leading from the famous Roman camp at Line to the Lothians, which passed through the middle of those lands, from which they were called Romanno.

R0MAINE

The same as Roman, from Rome; also, strong.

LEICESTER

Local. A borough town in England; a camp of the Roman legion. (See Leicester.)

CHESTER

Local. From the city of Chester, the capital of Cheshire, England, founded by the Romans. The name is derived from the Latin Castrum; Saxon, ceaster, a fortified place, a city, a castle or camp, it being a Roman station where the twentieth legion was quartered. The Roman stations in England were generally so called, being sometimes varied in dialect to Chester, Chaster, or Caster, the termination of many English towns, as Colchester, the camp on the river Coin; Doncaster, on the Don; Lancaster, on the Lon or Lune, etc.

LESTER

Local. A borough town in England; a camp of the Roman legion. (See Leicester.)

LEICESTER

From Leicester, a borough town in England. Saxon, Leagceaster, from Leag or Ley, a field or common, and cester, a camp or city, from the Latin Castrum; because, says Bailey, it was probably built hard by a leag or common; a camp of the Roman legion. (See Chester.)

CHICHESTER

Local. From the city of Chichester, Sussex, England, whose Saxon name was Cissanceaster ; from Cissa, the son of Aella, who settled the kingdom of the South-Saxons; and ceaster or Chester, a city, from castrum, a Roman station.

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