These extracts sufficiently demonstrate the general acceptation of the name in the two years following the publication of Finley's poem. The diversified spelling of the word at this period shows that it was new in print, and indeed some years elapsed before the now accepted spelling became universal. On Jan. 6, 1838 the Ft. Wayne Sentinel, republished the portion of the poem beginning with the words, "Blest Indiana, in her soil." It was very probable that this publication was made directly from an original copy of the carrier's address, for Thomas Tigar, one of the founders and editors of the Ft. Wayne Sentinel, had been connected with the Indianapolis press in January 1833, and the old-fashioned newspaperman was accustomed to preserve articles that struck his fancy, and reproduce them. In this publication the poem is given as in the Finley manuscript, except that the first two times the word occurs it is spelled "hoosier" and once afterward "hoosheer," the latter evidently a typograpical error. At the other points it is spelled "hoosher." This original form of the word also indicates that there has been some change in the pronunciation, and this is confirmed from another source. For many years there have been perodical discussions of the origin of the word in the newspapers of the State, and in one of these, which occurred in the Indianapolis Journal, in 1860, when numerous contemporaries of Finley were still living, Hon. Jere Smith, a prominent citizen of Winchester, made this statement: My recollection is that the word began to be used in this country in the fall of 1824, but it might have been as late as 1826 or 1827, when the Louisville & Portland canal was being made. I first heard it at a corn-husking. It was used in the sense of "rip-roaring," "half horse" and "half alligator," and such like backwoods coinages. It was then, and for some years afterwards, spoken as if spelled "husher," the "u" having the sound it has in "bush," "push," etc. In 1829, 1830 and 1831 its sound glided into "hoosher," till finally Mr. Finley's "Hoosier's Nest" made the present orthography and pronunciation classical, and it has remained so since.[7] Of course, this is not conclusive evidence that there was a change in pronunciation, for Mr. Smith's observation may have extended to one neighborhood only, and it may have taken on a variant pronunciation at the start, but his testimony, in connection with the changed spelling, is certainly very plausible. There have been offered a number of explanations of the origin of the word, and naturally those most commonly heard are those that have been most extensively presented in print. Of the "authorities" on the subject perhaps the best known is Bartlett "Dictionary of Americanism's" which was originally published in 1838 and was widely circulated in that and the subsequent edition, besides being frequently quoted. Its statement is as follows: