One of the most interesting wild-goose chases I ever indulged in was occasioned by a passage in the narrative of Francis and Theresa Pulszky, entitled "White, Red and Black." The Pulskys accompanied Kossuth on his trip through the States and visited Indianapolis in 1852. In the account of this visit Mrs. Pulszky says:
Governor Wright is a type of the Hoosiers, and justly proud to be one of them. I asked him wherefrom his people had got this name. He told me that "Hoosa" is the Indian name for maize, the principal produce of the State.
This opened a new vista. The names "Coosa" and "Tallapoosa" came to memory. How simple! The Indiana flatboatmen taking their loads of corn down the river were called "Hoosa men" by the Southern Indians, and so the name originated. But a search of Indian vocabularies showed no such name for maize or for anything else. The nearest approaches to it are "Hoosac" and "Housatonic," which are both probably corruptions from the same stem, "awass," meaning beyond or further. The latter word is supposed to be the Indian "wassatinak," which is the New England form of the Algonquin "awassadinang," meaning beyond the mountains.
In 1854 Amelia M. Murray visited Indianapolis, and was for a time the guest of Governor Wright. In her book entitled "Letters from the United States, Cuba and Canada" (page 324), she says:
Madame Pfeiffer (she evidently meant Mrs. Pulszky, for Madame Pfeiffer did not come here and does not mention the subject) mistook Governor Wright, when she gave from his authority another derivation for the word "Hoosier." It originated in a settler's exclaiming "Huzza," upon gaining the victory over a marauding party from a neighboring State.
With these conflicting statements, I called on Mr. John C. Wright, son of Governor Wright. He remembered the visits of the Pulszkys and Miss Murray, but knew nothing of Madame Pfeiffer. He said: "I often heard my father discuss this subject. His theory was that the Indiana flatboatmen were athletic and pugnacious, and were accustomed, when on the levees of the Southern cities, to 'jump up and crack their heels together' and shout 'Huzza,' whence the name of 'huzza fellows.' We have the same idea now in 'hoorah people,' or 'a hoorah time.'"
It will be noted that all these theories practically carry three features in common:
1. They are alike in the idea that the word was first applied to a rough, boisterous, uncouth, illiterate class of people, and that the word originally implied this character.
2. They are alike in the idea that the word came from the South, or was first applied by Southern people.
3. They are alike in the idea that the word was coined for the purpose of designating Indiana people, and was not in existence before it was applied to them.