The Word Hoosier; John Finley: Indiana Historical Society Publications, Volume IV, Number 2 — John Shaqi
The Word Hoosier; John Finley: Indiana Historical Society Publications, Volume IV, Number 2Dunn, Jacob Piatt
History
The Word Hoosier; John Finley: Indiana Historical Society Publications, Volume IV, Number 2
Dunn, Jacob Piatt
Finley, John, 1797-1866; Hoosier (Nickname)
Here is a presentation of the question, ten months after Finley's
publication, covering most of the ground that has since been occupied.
The "hussar" theory is carried back to the war of 1812, long before Col.
Lehmanowsky was in this country. The "who's here" theory is carried back
to the government surveys, although it is certain that there were few,
if any, "squatters" on government lands in Indiana before the surveys
were made. The "husher" theory, in embryo, is presented in the writers
theory, which is apparently conjectural, except perhaps as evidence that
the word was applied to the rather rough-looking class of flat-boatmen
who made their trips down the Ohio and Mississippi.
There has been notable tendency to locate these stories at Louisville,
and to connect them with the building of the Louisville and Portland
canal which was under construction from 1826 to 1831, inclusive. The
"husher" story is located there by several of its advocates. Another
story, of recent origin, coming from one Vanblaricum, was recounted by
Mr. George Cottman in the Indianapolis Press of February 6, 1901.
Vanblaricum claimed that while passing through southern Tennessee he met
a man named Hoosier, and this man said that a member of his family had a
contract on the construction of the Louisville and Portland canal; that
he employed his laborers from the Indiana side, and the neighbors got to
calling them "Hoosier's men," from which the name "Hoosier" came to be
applied to Indiana men generally. Vanblaricum could not give the
address of his informant, or any information tending to confirm the
story. At my request Mr. Louis Ludlow, Washington correspondent of the
Indianapolis Sentinel, made inquiry of the representatives from the
southern districts of Tennessee, and learned that none of them had ever
heard of such a story, or knew of the name "Hoosier" in his district. An
examination of the directories of Atlanta, Augusta, Baltimore,
Chattanooga, Cincinnati, Kansas City, Little Rock, Louisville, Memphis,
Nashville, New Orleans, Philadelphia, Richmond, St. Louis, St. Joseph,
Savannah, Wheeling, Wilmington, the District of Columbia, and the state
of Tennessee, failed to reveal any such name as Hoosier. As it is hardly
possible for a family name to disappear completely, we may reasonably
drop the Vanblaricum story from consideration. The same conclusion will
also apply to the story of a Louisville baker, named Hoosier, from whom
the term is sometimes said to have come. It is now known that the
occurrence of "Hoosier" as a Christian name in the minutes of an early
Methodist conference in Indiana, was the result of misspelling. The
members name was "Ho-si-er (accent on the second syllable) J. Durbin,"
and the secretary in writing it put in an extra "o." It may be mentioned
in this connection that "Hooser" is a rather common family name in the
South, and that "Hoos" is occasionally found.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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