While visiting Columbia, S. C., I was walking one day with a young gentleman, and we passed a rough looking countryman, "My! what a hoosier," exclaimed my escort. "That is a very noble term to apply to such an object," I said. "Why so," he inquired. "Why I am a Hoosier—all Indiana people are," I answered. "Oh! we do not use it in that sense here," he rejoined. "With us a hoosier means a jay."
The following three statements were furnished to me by Mr. Meredith Nicholson, who collected them some months since:
John Bell Henneman, of the department of English, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, writes:
The word "hoosier" is generally used in Virginia, South Carolina, Tennessee as an equivalent for "a country hoodlum," "a rough, uncouth countryman," etc. The idea of "country" is always attached to it in my mind, with a degree of "uncouthness" added. I simply speak from my general understanding of the term as heard used in the States mentioned above.
Mr. Raymond Weeks, of Columbia, Mo., writes:
Pardon my delay in answering your question concerning the word "hoosier" in this section. The word means a native of Indiana, and has a rare popular sense of a backwoodsman, a rustic. One hears: "He is a regular hoosier."
Mrs. John M. Judah, of Memphis, writes:
About the word "Hoosier"—one hears it in Tennessee often. It always means rough, uncouth, countrified. "I am a Hoosier," I have said, and my friends answer bewilderingly, "But all Indiana-born are Hoosiers," I declare, "What nonsense!" is the answer generally, but one old politician responded with a little more intelligence on the subject: "You Indianians should forget that. It has been untrue for many years." In one of Mrs. Evans's novels—"St. Elmo," I think—a noble philanthropic young Southern woman is reproached by her haughty father for teaching the poor children in the neighborhood—"a lot of hoosiers," he calls them. I have seen it in other books, too, but I can not recall them. In newspapers the word is common enough, in the sense I referred to.
It is scarcely possible that this widespread use of the word in this general sense could have resulted if the word had been coined to signify a native of Indiana, but it would have been natural enough, if the word were in common use as slang in the South, to apply it to the people of Indiana. Many of the early settlers were of a rough and ready character, and doubtless most of them looked it in their long and toilsome emigration, but, more than that, it is an historical fact that about the time of the publication of Finley's poem there was a great fad of nicknaming in the West, and especially as to the several States. It was a feature of the humor of the day, and all genial spirits "pushed it along." A good illustration of this is seen in the following passage from Hoffman's "Winter in the West"[[10]] referred to above:
There was a long-haired "hooshier" from Indiana, a couple of smart-looking "suckers" from the southern part of Illinois, a keen-eyed, leather-belted "badger" from the mines of Ouisconsin, and a sturdy, yoemanlike fellow, whose white capot, Indian moccasins and red sash proclaimed, while he boasted a three years' residence, the genuine "wolverine," or naturalized Michiganian. Could one refuse to drink with such a company? The spokesman was evidently a "red horse" from Kentucky, and nothing was wanting but a "buckeye" from Ohio to render the assemblage as complete as it was select.