A resident of Wisconsin.
1833. A keen-eyed leather-belted “badger” from the mines of Ouisconsin.—C. F. Hoffman, ‘A Winter in the Far West,’ i. 207 (Lond., 1835).
1856. I found abundant points of resemblance between the Germans of the Hercynian forest, and our “Hoosiers,” “Suckers” and “Badgers” of the American woods.—Emerson, ‘English Traits,’ iv. ‘Race.’ 54. (N.E.D.)
a. 1881. It is popularly supposed that the term “badger” was applied to our people because of the abundance of these animals within our borders, but such is not the fact. Previous to 1835 there were, except at the military forts and missionary and trading stations, and in the lead mines of the South-west, very few white people located within the territory. The characteristic term of “badger” arose in the lead region. The miners were of two grades—those who stayed all the year round at the “diggings,” and those who came up from Illinois only to operate during the summer season. The permanent residents, having but little time or material to construct regular huts, were accustomed to burrow into the hill-sides semi-subterranean cells, large enough for bunking and cooking purposes. This peculiar mode of life, being similar to that of the badger—an animal then plentiful in the lead regions—suggested the term of “badger-holes,” as applied both to the cavelike homes and the sunken shafts of the resident miner, while the latter themselves were termed “badgers.” On the other hand the Illinois itinerants would come up in the spring and return in the fall, in the same manner as the “sucker” fishes; being in the diggings but a short season, they did not sink regular shafts and burrow under the earth along the mineral veins like “badger” miners, but opened large quarry pits, seeking for float-lead and that ore which could be easily obtained near the surface. The itinerants were called “suckers,” because of the similarity of their migratory habits to those of the catastomus, as to distinguish them from the resident “badgers”; while the open pits scooped out by the former were designated “sucker-holes.” The lead-mine region in South-western Wisconsin is still plentifully besprinkled with these “sucker-holes,” exhausted and abandoned by the early visitors from over the Illinois border. The distinguishing appellations, “badger” and “sucker,” became, as an obvious sequence, characteristic terms, applied to the entire people of the States of Wisconsin and Illinois respectively, and to the States themselves. It was, therefore, because of this time-honoured and accepted designation of Wisconsin and its inhabitants that the badger was chosen as our armorial crest, and we became officially, as well as popularly, “the Badger State.”—Madison (Wis.) Journal.
