29 March 2023
A Hoosier is a person from the state of Indiana, but where the term comes from is a mystery. That, however, hasn’t stopped speculation about its origin. What we do know about the term is that it dates to around 1830 and the earliest extant uses refer to Indianans, and perhaps more specifically to those Indianans who conducted trade along the canals and rivers of the state. A second sense of a rustic or yokel, one not necessarily from Indiana, appears in the record a bit later. While Indianans claim the name Hoosier with pride, this second sense has a derogatory connotation. The association with Indiana predates this second sense in the record, but the dates are close enough that we can’t tell which sense came first.
The earliest known use of Hoosier is found in a letter in the archives of the Indiana State Library from a G.L. Murdock to General John Tipton, dated 11 February 1831 which refers to boat named the Indiana Hoosier. The boat delivered goods to Logansport, Indiana on the Wabash River.
A week later, a letter printed in the Vincennes Gazette by someone using the pseudonym of “Rackoon,” uses Hoosher to refer to Indianans more generally:
As an example of the astonishing increase in population in our state, which has taken place in a few years, and with in [sic] my own observation, I send you the following statement of the representation in 1826 and in 1831, of the country north, east, and west of Vigo county, at the different periods.
In 1824, Parke and Vermillion had one representative; Putnam, Montgomery, and the country north, north-east, west, and northwest, one representative; the whole of the above, with Vigo attached, one senator—In all, representatives, 2, senators, 1=3.
By the bill lately passed [by] both branches of the legislature, and approved 30th Jan. 1831, the same district of the country has, representatives, 14—senators, 7=21.
The “Hoosher” country is coming out, and the day is far distant, when some states which have hitherto looked upon us as a kind of outlandish, half civilized race, will have to follow in our train.—Let the “half-horse, half-alligator” coon country look to it.
While the writer is using the nickname with pride, the context indicates that this is an example of reclamation of a negative term. The subtext hints Hoosier or Hoosher was a negative term for a rustic or yokel, a “half-horse, half-alligator” raccoon and that the writer is wearing that badge with pride.
Many sources cite a letter supposedly written in 1826 and published in the Chicago Tribune in 1949 as the earliest known use of Hoosier, but that letter, in fact, was probably written in 1846. So, it is an early, but by no means the earliest use of the term. The relevant line reads, “The Indiana hoosiers that came out last fall is settled from 2 to 4 milds [sic] from us.”
Similarly, a use of Hoosier in a diary entry allegedly from 14 July 1827 by an Indiana resident named Sandford C. Cox appears to be a later editorial intervention when the diary entry was published in 1859.
Hoosher appears again in a letter dated 10 June 1831 written by the pseudonymous Jeremiah Sweepstakes in the Wabash Herald of 2 July 1831. The article is an extended metaphor of Indiana politics as a horse race. The “Noble” horse is a reference Noah Noble, who would win the Indiana governor’s race later that year:
The third is the “Noble” horse called the “Tanner” we are not aware where he was folded [sic], nor yet his pedigree, he is stabled however in Indianapolis, the centre of the race track, has been corned, littered and kept in Indiana and may be called a “Hoosher,” he bears good marks for a racer, his limbs well calculated for lengthy jumps, whether his gather will keep pace in rapidity his keepers know not, he is supposed to be of good wind, he won one or two scrub races on the Eastern quarter paths. His rider however, it is thought carries in his pocket a “Subscription Paper” which weight is calculated to do him much injury—the knowing ones have great confidence in him from some “secret” marks they discover in his bearing.
[…]
The next is the scrub races for the Parke Senatorial purse.
The first horse entered is a Virginia folded nag, but raised in the “Half horse half alligator country,” he has a high forehead, twinkling keen eyes—a good winnew—he is a sorrell, of lively carriage, and bears many marks of a tolerable racer. He beat the “Farmers friend” on a close and well contested race, for the Representative plate, though in bad keeping, and is called the “Canal Hoosher,” of the moderate Jackson breed and groomed by a Jockey who wears a scarf with “Wabash and Erie Canal, public faith kept sacred,” printed upon it.—He runs with head and tail both high, and if we may judge by the confidence of his keepers, and the manner in which he is littered and grained will be a hard horse to beat. Bets offered freely in his favor.
The second is the noted imported horse called the “Irish Fox,” he is of a noble Irish Strain, his keepers claim him to be of the full thorough going Jackson breed, he is kept by a “Rail Road” and (whole hog) Jackson Jockey, and owned by a company, the principal of whom is a descendant of the House of Judea, a cunning knowing chap, and it is said, expects to win the United States Senatorial purse this winter, by using the “Fox” as a chaser. The fox is a bright sorrel, well made, of bold bearing and noble carriage, but it is thought that the canal banner floating at the “Hoosher stable” together with a bundle of papers slyly slipt into the Fox’s riders [sic] breeches pocket, labelled “Anti-Tariff,” by way of weight—will impede his speed, however, his friends are sanguine, as he runs well, head and tail up, nostrils expanded, it is supposed there will be fine racing between him and the “Canal Hoosher.”
We see again the “half horse, half alligator” designation, and another candidate/horse, in a portion I haven’t quoted, is referred as the “Rackoon Racer.” Furthermore, Mr. Sweepstakes is writing from the “Rackoon Club Room.” So, while Hoosher is being used here as a general term with no specific derogatory intent, it definitely carries a rustic connotation.
A certain John Finley wrote a poem titled The Hoosier’s Nest that was published in the Indianapolis Journal on 1 January 1833. The publication version, which was printed on a separate insert, does not survive, but the following version is reproduced from Finley’s manuscript copy. While the poem is most definitely a paean to Indiana, it also celebrates the rustic, independent, and simple life of its residents:
Blest Indiana! In whose soil
Men seek the sure rewards of toil,
And honest poverty and worth
Find here the best retreat on earth,
While hosts of Preachers, Doctors, Lawyers,
All independent as wood-sawyers,
With men of every hue and fashion,
Flock to this rising “Hoosher” nation.
Men who can legislate or plow,
Wage politics or milk a cow—
So plastic are their various parts,
Within the circle of their arts,
With equal tact the “Hoosher” loons,
Hunt offices or hunt raccoons.
[…]
Invited shortly to partake
Of venison, milk, and johnny-cake
The stranger made a hearty meal
And glances round the room would steal;
One side was lined with skins of “varments”
The other spread with divers garments,
Dried pumpkins overhead were strung
Where venison hams in plenty hung,
Two rifles placed above the door,
Three dogs lay stretched upon the floor,
In short, the domicile was rife,
With specimens of “Hoosher” life.
And there is this introduction to Finley’s poem about Indiana that was printed in the Jamestown Journal (New York) on 6 February 1833. The portion of the poem reproduced in that paper only includes the latter, more rustic description, and not the paean to “the rising ‘Hoosher’ nation.” So, to the editors of that New York paper, at least, the nickname carried the connotation of a rustic person or yokel:
From the Cincinnati Chronicle.
THE HOOSHEROONS.
The good citizens of our young sister Indiana, are pretty generally known throughout the West by the singular appellative of Hooshers. The following lines, from a young Hoosheroon, conveys a very graphical picture of Hoosher life on the frontiers of Indiana. In our own perambulations through the State we have often partaken the welcome hospitality of a “buck-eye cabin,” while our gallant steed stood by the “sapling” and the “sugar trough” for the night.
(I haven’t been able to locate the issue of the Cincinnati Chronicle containing the poem.)
And in a letter dated 29 December 1833, Charles Fenno Hoffman notes that while people back East think of Hooshiers as yokels, Indianans wear the label with pride. He also postulates that the term originated as an insult:
I am now in the land of the Hooshiers, and find that long-haired race much more civilized than some of their western neighbours are willing to represent them. The term “Hoosier,” that of Yankee, or Buck-eye, first applied contemptuously, has now become a sobriquet that bears nothing invidious with it to the ear of an Indianan.
I mentioned that use of Hoosier to refer to yokel from anywhere, not just Indiana, is a later development. And one such use could be in the Spirit of the Times of 15 October 1836. In the piece, the pseudonymous “Jehu Slapdash” claims to have just returned to New York City from “Salt River” but does not specify where that is. There is a Salt River in Kentucky, but the writer could be using it as a generic placename. In any case, in this paragraph he compares crossing Wall Street with fording the river:
After waiting almost as long as the Hoosier did for salt river to run by that he might pass over dry, I at last caught an opening about wide enough to see daylight through, and made a dart like a flash of lightning through a gooseberry bush to get through. I succeeded, with the damage of a great slit in my coat, which I got upon an old rusty nail sticking out of the corner of a dirt cart.
Whether or not Slapdash is using Hoosier to refer to an Indianan or to a yokel in general, he is clearly depicted Hoosiers as stupid.
But we see Hoosier clearly being used in the general sense in this story by George Washington Harris, writing under the pseudonym of Mr. Free, dated 27 March 1843. The incident allegedly took place at Possum Knob, Tennessee, on the border with Virginia:
The nags were brought out— their trainers had been turning them, and making false starts, each trying to get the advantage of the other—you know a great deal depends on the start—for an half hour or such matter, when a right verdant Hoosier stepped up to me saying, “Stranger, won't they start afore long?” I told him I thought it highly probable they would. "Well,” said he, “I wish they mort (might) for I come clean from Little Shinbone afoot, to see this ere race.”
After a slight pause he continued, “Stranger, perhaps you'd drink something?” I declined the honor. “Maby you're temperance?” “Occasionally," I answered. On hearing this, he cast upon me such a look of contempt, as I am inadequate to describe, and thus remarked, "Well, I don't sign away my liberties no how you can fix it; I drinks whenever I likes, and I want a dram now, monstrous bad."
A few minutes after this conversation, I saw him wending his way to Old Keats' Jug-grocery, which is situate [sic] about a hundred yards from the Paths. Just as he entered the door the nags were turned loose. An instant more the shouts of the multitude told the race was run, and the loud huzzas of the friends of F.K.'s Little Breeches, showed that she was winner, and that the favorite before starting, W.R.B.'s Brown Mary, was beaten.
Directly, our Hoosier appeared again upon the ground; but with disappointment strongly depicted in his countenance. He had never seen a race in his life, though he had heard a heap talk of 'em—heard when this was to be—walked eleven miles, over knobs, that morning to see it, and after waiting an hour or so, had missed it! He waited a few minutes longer, then cut a stick and made a straight coat tail for Little Shinbone, musing, no doubt, as he went, upon the uncertainty of all human affairs, and thinking a race not exactly the thing it's cracked up to be.—I say, Mister, have you got any nags in ’York that can run a quarter before a man can drink a dram?
Although the general sense of a yokel isn’t unambiguously recorded until later, it is possible that this sense is the original meaning of Hoosier, and when applied to them, Indianans took to wearing it with pride. But we really can’t tell which came first, although in the written record the association with the state comes first, only later generalizing into the derogatory sense.
Some have tried to connect it to hoozer, a Cumberland, England dialect term for anything unusually strong, but any such connection is, at best, tenuous.
A Randy Hooser has tried to connect Hoosier to his family history, arguing the word comes from the Hauser family (pronounced / husəɹ / ), who started emigrating from the Alsace region in the early eighteenth century, settling in Appalachia. The name was Anglicized to Hooser. Militating against this hypothesis is that the first Hausers did not migrate to Indiana until 1828, after the word had been associated with the state. A variant on this explanation is that Hoosier derives from Samuel T. Hauser who was the chief engineer building the Louisville and Portland Canal bypassing the falls of the Ohio River between Kentucky and Indiana. Supposedly, workers on the canal were dubbed Hoosiers. Construction on the canal started in 1826, so the chronology works for this variant, but there is no evidence to connect Samuel Hauser with the term.
Explanations for Hoosier with little or no evidentiary support and which can be dismissed as implausible if not outright false:
a variant of hussar
an Indiana dialectal pronunciation of who’s here? or who’s ear (said after an ear has been found on the floor after a brawl)
from hooza, and Indigenous term for corn (but no such word has been found)
from husher, a term meaning a river boat worker
after Harry Hosier (d. 1806), a Black, Methodist circuit preacher; Hosier was never associated with Indiana
Guess work as in the above examples is the start of an investigation into a term’s origin, not its end point. Unless earlier citations turn up, we’ll probably never definitively know the origin for this one.
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