The colloquial designation of various States and peoples of the American Union is as follows:—BADGER STATE = Wisconsin; BAY STATE = Massachusetts; BAYOU STATE = Mississippi; BEAR STATE = (1) Arkansas, (2) California (Century), and (3) Kentucky (Century); BIG BEND STATE = Tennessee: people = MUDHEADS; BLUE HEN STATE = Delaware: people = BLUE HEN’S CHICKENS; BLUE-LAW STATE = Connecticut: also infra; BUCK-EYE STATE = Ohio; BULLION STATE = Missouri: people = PUKES; CENTENNIAL STATE = Colorado: people = CENTENNIALS; CORN-CRACKER STATE = Kentucky: people = CORNCRACKERS; CRACKER STATE = Georgia: people = CRACKERS; CREOLE STATE = Louisiana: also infra; THE DARK AND BLOODY GROUND = Kentucky: also supra; DIAMOND STATE = Delaware: also supra; EMPIRE STATE = New York: also infra: people = KNICKERBOCKERS; EMPIRE STATE OF THE SOUTH = Georgia: people = CRACKERS; EXCELSIOR STATE = New York: also supra; FREESTONE STATE = Connecticut: also supra and infra; GARDEN STATE = Kansas: also infra; GOLDEN STATE = California: also supra; GOPHER STATE = Minnesota; GRANITE STATE = New Hampshire; GREEN MOUNTAIN STATE = Vermont; GULF STATE = Florida: also infra; HAWKEYE STATE = Iowa: people = HAWKEYES; HOOSIER STATE = Indiana: people = HOOSIERS; KEYSTONE STATE = Pennsylvania; LAKE STATE = Michigan: people = WOLVERINES; LAND OF STEADY HABITS = Connecticut: also supra; LITTLE RHODY = Rhode Island; LONE STAR STATE = Texas: people = BEEFHEADS; LUMBER STATE = Maine; also infra; MOTHER OF PRESIDENTS (or STATES) = Virginia: also infra; MUDCAT STATE = Mississippi: also supra; NEW ENGLAND OF THE WEST = Minnesota: also supra; OLD COLONY = Massachusetts: also supra; OLD DOMINION = Virginia: also supra; OLD LINE STATE = Maryland; OLD NORTH STATE = North Carolina: also infra; PALMETTO STATE = South Carolina; PAN HANDLE STATE = West Virginia; PELICAN STATE = Louisiana: also supra; PENINSULAR STATE = Florida: also supra; PINE TREE STATE = Maine: also supra; PRAIRIE STATE = Illinois: also infra; SAGE-HEN STATE (or SILVER STATE) = Nevada; SQUATTER STATE = Kansas: also supra; SUCKER STATE = Illinois: also supra; TURPENTINE STATE = North Carolina: people = TAR-HEELS: also supra; WEB-FOOT STATE = Oregon; WOLVERINE STATE = Michigan: people = WOLVERINES; WOODEN NUTMEG STATE = Connecticut: also supra.
1835. C. F. HOFFMAN, A Winter in the West, i. 207. 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…. Could one refuse to drink with such a company?
1855. JACOB BIGELOW, Eolopoesis: American Rejected Addresses. ‘The American Congress.’
| Broad Indiana’s HOOSIER sons her fame must needs keep good, | |
| By healthful sport of rolling logs and stumping in the wood. |
1848. New York Herald, 13 June. Thank God, in my own State, in the BULLION STATE, they did not succeed in depreciating our majority.
1849. WHITTIER, Voices of Freedom.
| What means the OLD DOMINION? Hath she forgot the day, | |
| When o’er her conquered valleys swept the Briton’s steel array? | |
| Ibid. | |
| Lift again the stately emblem on the BAY STATE’S rusted shield, | |
| Give to Northern winds the Pine-Tree on our banner’s tattered field. |
1851. ABBY ALLIN, Home Ballads, 19, ‘New England and New Englanders.’
| The ‘EMPIRE STATE’ is your New York, | |
| I grant it, hard to mate her; | |
| Yet still give me the ‘NUTMEG STATE— | |
| Where shall we find a greater?’ |
1856. H. B. STOWE, Dred, i. xii. ‘I was amused enough,’ said Nina, ‘with Old Hundred’s indignation at having to get out the carriage and horses to go over to what he called a ‘CRACKER funeral.’
1859. BARTLETT, Dictionary of Americanisms, s.v. BEAR STATE. I once asked a Western man if Arkansas abounded in bears, that it should be designated as the “Bear State.” Yes, said he, it does; for I never knew a man from that State but he was a BAR, and in fact the people are all BARISH to a degree.
1861. Charleston Mercury, ‘War Song.’ March, march on, brave PALMETTO BOYS, Sumter and Lafayette, forward in order.
1861. Delaware Inquirer, 5 May. Delaware’s honor is in your hands … BLUE HEN’S CHICKENS to the front! Forward! March!
1861. New York Observer, 26 Dec. A young lady from the rural districts of HOOSIERDOM lately visited Chicago with her beau.
1847. LONGSTREET, A Voice from the South, 53. Let us not forget the Cynosure of Independence [i.e., Massachusetts]; but bid her a kind farewell for her pilotage through the breakers of the Revolution—… put the LONE STAR in its place.
c. 1861–5. E. V. MASON, ed. The Southern Poems of the War, 95, ‘The Flag of the Lone Star.’
| And Texans will fight, | |
| ’Neath the flag of the LONE STAR, | |
| For God and their right. |
1865. W. A. WHEELER, Dictionary of the Noted Names of Fiction, s.v. DARK AND BLOODY GROUND, The. An expression often used in allusion to Kentucky, of which name it is said to be a translation. The phrase is an epitome of the early history of the State, of the dark and bloody conflicts of the first white settlers with their savage foes; but the name originated in the fact that this was the grand battle-ground between the northern and southern Indians.
1877. E. E. HALE, G.T.T.; or, The Wonderful Adventures of a Pullman, iii. 30. So they whirled relentlessly across the ‘PAN HANDLE,’ by which domestic name that funny strip of Western Virginia is known that shoots up like an inverted icicle between Pennsylvania and Ohio.
1877. PRES. HAYES, Speech [Providence, 28 June]. I ask every lady and gentleman to consider that here and now I give you a hearty BUCKEYE shake. Ibid. [Louisville, 17 Sept]. The once DARK AND BLOODY GROUND of Kentucky, no longer so, but, as I trust in God, here and elsewhere a land of peace, prosperity, and happiness.
1877. New York Tribune, 6 July. old church in Nassau Street (New York) was dedicated in 1732…. The congregation was composed of the wealthiest and most prominent people of Manhattan Island—the veritable KNICKERBOCKERS.
1879. EGGLESTON, The Hoosier Schoolmaster, Preface. It has been in my mind since I was a HOOSIER boy to do something toward describing life in the back-country districts of the Western States.
d. 1891. J. R. LOWELL, Poems, ‘On the Capture of Certain Fugitive Slaves near Washington.’
| When first the Pilgrims landed on the BAY STATE’S iron shore, | |
| The word went forth that slavery should one day be no more. |
1896. LILLARD, Poker Stories, iii. The game, as she is played in the LAND OF STEADY HABITS …
TO LIE IN STATE, verb. phr. (GROSE).—‘To be in bed with three regular harlots.’
IN A STATE OF ELEVATION, verb. phr. (common).—More or less drunk: see SCREWED.
1749. SMOLLETT, Gil Blas (1812), II. iv. We drank hard, and went home in a STATE OF ELEVATION, that is half-seas over.
IN A STATE OF NATURE. See NATURE’S GARB.
