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We headed directly to Yahoo!'s Indiana category to find the meaning of Hoosier. Once we arrived at the Get Local page for the state of Indiana, we performed a restricted search on "history" -- this means we limited our search to the Indiana category rather than all of Yahoo!. The results led us eventually to the Indiana Historical Society. There, we searched for "hoosier," and found exactly what were looking for in the result titled "What is a Hoosier?," part of the FAQ About Indiana. It seems there is no definitive answer. We did find out that the term came into general usage in the 1830s when John Finley of Richmond
wrote a poem, "The Hoosier's Nest," which was used as the "Carrier's Address" of the Indianapolis Journal, Jan. 1, 1833. Here are some of the other popular theories: - When a visitor hailed a pioneer cabin in Indiana or knocked on its door, the settler would respond, "Who's yere?"
- Indiana rivermen were so spectacularly successful in trouncing or "hushing" their adversaries in brawling that they became known as "hushers" and eventually Hoosiers.
- There was once a contractor named Hoosier employed on the Louisville and Portland Canal who preferred to hire laborers from Indiana. They were called "Hoosier's men."
We learned that the most serious student of the origin of "Hoosier" was Jacob Piatt Dunn, Jr., an Indiana historian and longtime secretary
of the IHS. Dunn noted that "hoosier" was used throughout the South in the 19th century to refer to woodsmen or rough hill people. He traced the word back to "hoozer," in the Cumberland dialect of England. This derives from the Anglo-Saxon work "hoo" meaning high or hill. We checked a few of the other sites that focus on Indiana's history, but they all said basically the same thing. We think Indiana writer Meredith Nicholson said it best: "The origin of the term 'Hoosier' is not known with certainty. But certain it is that ... Hoosiers bear their nickname proudly."
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