Furthermore, if a person who came to a house called "Who's yere?" what cause would there be for calling the people who lived in the house "who's yeres?" There is neither evidence nor reason to support it. But there is still a stronger reason for discarding these theories, and most others. To produce the change of a word or term by corruption, there must be practical identity of sound and accent. It was natural enough for the Indiana pioneers to convert "au poste" into "Opost." It was natural enough for the New Mexican settlers to change "Jicarilla" to "Hickory." It was natural enough for the Colorado cowboys to transform "Purgatoire river" to "Picketwire river." But there is scant possibility of changing "husher," or "who's yere"—as it would probably be spoken—into "hoosh-er." This consideration has led to the suggestion that the expression from which the word came was "who is yer?" but there is nothing to support this. The early settlers did not use "is" for "are" but usually pronounced the latter "air." And they did not say "yer" for "you," though they often used it for "your."

Another theory, almost as popular as these, derives the word from "hussar," and this theory, in its various forms, harks back to a Col. John Jacob Lehmanowsky, who served under Napoleon, and afterwards settled in Indiana, where he became widely known as a lecturer on the Napoleonic wars. The tradition preserved in his family is that once while in Kentucky he became engaged in a dispute with some natives, and sought to settle the matter by announcing that he was a hussar. They understood him to say that he was a "hoosier," and thereafter applied that name to everybody from Indiana. This theory has several shapes, one being presented by the Rev. Aaron Wood, the pioneer preacher, thus:

The name "hoosier" originated as follows: When the young men of the Indiana side of the Ohio river went to Louisville, the Kentucky men boasted over them, calling them "New Purchase Greenies," claiming to be a superior race, composed of half horse, half alligator, and tipped off with snapping turtle. These taunts produced fights in the market house and streets of Louisville. On one occasion a stout bully from Indiana was victor in a fist fight, and having heard Colonel Lehmanowsky lecture on the "Wars of Europe," who always gave martial prowess to the German Hussars in a fight, pronouncing hussars "hoosiers" the Indianian, when the Kentuckian cried "enough," jumped up and said: "I am a Hoosier," and hence the Indianians were called by that name. This was its true origin. I was in the State when it occured.[[8]]

Unfortunately, others are equally positive as to their "true origins." The chief objection that has been urged to this theory is that Lehmanowsky was not in the State when the term began to be used, and the evidence on this point is not very satisfactory. His son, M. L. Lehmanowsky, of DePauw, Ind., informs me that his father came to this country in 1815, but he is unable to fix the date of his removal to Indiana. Published sketches of his life [[9]] state that he was with Napoleon at Waterloo; that he was afterwards imprisoned at Paris; that he escaped and made his way to New York; that he remained for several years at New York and Philadelphia where he taught school; that he came to Rush county, Indiana, and there married and bought a farm; that after bearing him seven children his wife died; that he then removed to Harrison county, arriving there in 1837. These data would indicate that he came to Indiana sometime before 1830. The date of the deed to his farm, as shown by the Rush county records, is April 30, 1835. Aside from the question of date, it is not credible that a Polish officer pronounced "hussar" "hoosier," or that from the use of that word by a known foreigner a new term could spring into existence, and so quickly be applied to the natives of the State where he chanced to live.

To these theories of the origin of the word may be added one communicated to me by James Whitcomb Riley, whose acquaintance with dialect makes him an authority on the subject. It is evidently of later origin than the others, and not so well known to the public. A casual conversation happening to turn to this subject, he said: "These stories commonly told about the origin of the word 'Hoosier' are all nonsense. The real origin is found in the pugnacious habits of the early settlers. They were very vicious fighters, and not only gouged and scratched, but frequently bit off noses and ears. This was so ordinary an affair that a settler coming into a bar room on a morning after a fight, and seeing an ear on the floor, would merely push it aside with his foot and carelessly ask, 'Who's year'?" I feel safe in venturing the opinion that this theory is quite as plausible, and almost as well sustained by historical evidence, as any of the others.

In this connection it is of interest to note the earliest known discussion of the meaning of the word, which has been referred to as republished in the Indiana Democrat of Oct. 26, 1833. It is as follows:

HOOSHIER.

The appellation of Hooshier has been used in many of the Western States, for several years, to designate, in a good natural way, an inhabitant of our sister state of Indiana. Ex-Governor Ray has lately started a newspaper in Indiana, which he names "The Hoshier" (sic). Many of our ingenious native philologists have attempted, though very unsatisfactorily, to explain this somewhat singular term. Mordecai M. Noah, in the late number of his Evening Star, undertakes to account for it upon the faith of a rather apocryphal story of a recruiting officer, who was engaged during the last war, in enlisting a company of HUSSARS, whom by mistake he unfortunately denominated Hooshiers. Another etymologist tells us that when the state of Indiana was being surveyed, the surveyors, on finding the residence of a squatter, would exclaim "Who's here,"—that this exclamation, abbreviated to Hooshier was, in process of time, applied as a distinctive appellation to the original settlers of that state, and, finally to its inhabitants generally. Neither of these hypotheses are deserving any attention. The word Hooshier is indebted for its existence to that once numerous and unique, but now extinct class of mortals called the Ohio Boatmen.—In its original acceptation it was equivalent to "Ripstaver," "Scrouger," "Screamer," "Bulger," "Ring-tailroarer," and a hundred others, equally expressive, but which have never attained to such a respectable standing as itself. By some caprice which can never be explained, the appellation Hooshier became confined solely to such boatmen as had their homes upon the Indiana shore, and from them it was gradually applied to all the Indianians, who acknowledge it as good naturedly as the appellation of Yankee—Whatever may have been the original acceptation of Hooshier this we know, that the people to whom it is now applied, are amongst the bravest, most intelligent, most enterprising, most magnanimous, and most democratic of the Great West, and should we ever feel disposed to quit the state in which we are now sojourning, our own noble Ohio, it will be to enroll ourselves as adopted citizens in the land of the "HOOSHIER."—Cincinnati Republican.

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.