This peninsula was called “grand” to distinguish it from another about one mile south of Marshall. Jutting out from the mouth of the Little Bassa River, the smaller peninsula began as a strip of sand but continued into the Atlantic Ocean as a ridge of rocks. It was once recognizable from the seaside by two high trees on its left bank.
The use of “Grand Bassa” as the name of a “district,” not just a peninsula, took off after the Liberian colony was established. The focus of the district shifted from the Little Bissaw stream to being centered two and a half miles to the northwest around the delta where the St. John River and two streams, Benson and Mechlin, merge before emptying into the ocean.
Footnote: U. S. Hydrographic Office, The West Coast of Africa, pt. 2. From Sierra Leone to Cape Lopez. Publication No. 47. Translated and compiled by Leonard Chenery [from the French of C. P. de Kerhallet and A. Le Gras]. Washington, DC: Navy Dept. Hydrographic Office, 1875, pp. 65-69: J. Ashmun, “Accessions of territory – and new establishments connected with the colony, African Repository, May 1826, p. 93.
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