DEDEAGATCH  , a seaport of

European Turkey, in the vilayet of Adrianople, so m . N.W. of the Maritza estuary, on the Gulf of Enos, an inlet of the Aegean Sea . Pop, (1905) 4b9ut 3000, Canonical Influence . mostly Greeks . Until 187r Dedeagatch was a mere cluster of fishermen's huts . A new town then began to spring up, settlers being attracted by the prospect of opening up a trade in the products of a vast forest of valonia oaks which grew near . In 1873 it was made the chief town of a Kaza, to which it gave its name, and a Kaimakam was appointed to it . In 1884 it was raised in administrative rank from a Kaza to a Sanjak, and the governor became a Mutessarif . In 1889 the Greek archbishopric of Enos was transferred to Dedeagatch . On the opening, early in 1896, of the Constantinople-Salonica railway, which has a station here, a large proportion of the extensive transit trade which Enos, situated at the mouth of the Maritza, had acquired, was immediately diverted to Dedeagatch, and an era of unprecedented prosperity began; but when the railway connecting Burgas on the Black Sea with the interior was opened, in 1898, Dedeagatch lost all it had won from Enos . Owing to the lack of shelter in its open roadstead, the port has not become the great commercial centre which its position otherwise qualifies it to be . It is, however, one of the chief outlets for the grain trade of the Adrianople, Demotica and Xanthi districts .

The valonia trade has also steadily

developed, and is supplemented by the export of timber, tobacco and almonds . In 1871, while digging out the foundations of their houses, the settlers found many ancient tombs . Probably these are relics, not of the necropolis of the ancient Zone, but of a monastic community of Dervishes, of the Dede sect, which was established here in the 15th century, shortly after the Turkish conquest, and gave to the place its name .