A hiding-place. TO CACHE, to hide. Fr.
1595. This towne was left bare of goodes: the inhabitants havinge intelligence of our cominge, had caried all in the woodes, and hid theyr treasure in casshes.—Drake, ‘Voyage,’ p. 12. (N.E.D.)
1817. The Aricaras could not spare us any provisions, as the excessive rains had penetrated into their caches, and spoiled the whole of their reserved stock, so that they expected to be in want themselves before the harvest would come in.—John Bradbury, ‘Travels,’ p. 118. (Italics in the original.)
1823. He observed a recent mound of earth, about eight feet in height, which he was induced to believe must be a cachè, or place of deposit, for the spoils which the party, occupying the encampment, had taken from an enemy, and which they could not remove with them on their departure…. He saw several of the Pawnee caches, which had been broken open and robbed of their corn by the Omawhaws.—E. James, ‘Rocky Mountain Expedition,’ i. 91, 190.
1830. [Reference goes back to this year.] The manner of caching furs is this: A pit is dug to a depth of five or six feet, in which to stand. The men then drift from this under a bank of solid earth, and excavate a room of considerable dimensions, in which the furs are deposited, and the apartment closed up. The pit is then filled with earth. These caches are the only storehouses of the wilderness.—Mrs. Victor, ‘The River of the West,’ p. 80 (Hartford, Conn., 1870).
1833. We returned to Beaver river, and dug up the furs that we had buried, or cashed, as the phrase is, and concluded to ascend it, trapping towards the head.—‘Narrative of J. O. Pattie,’ p. 64 (Cincinnati).
1855. In a short time we had one of the 6lb. howitzers, we had taken out of the cache, ready for action.—Oregonian, Dec. 29.
1856. Cache, as used by mountain men, means a hole in the ground, where provisions are concealed.—Id., March 22.
1857. Go and build your store-houses, and get your wheat together, and when the time to cache the wheat comes, we will cache it.—H. C. Kimball at the Bowery, Salt Lake City, Aug. 23: ‘Journal of Discourses,’ v. 180.
1857. You say you are going to work to cache your grain, and so am I.—The same, at the Tabernacle, Nov. 29: id., vi. 103.
1862. Mrs. Stone, a tall, bony virago, here bustled forward to answer for herself, which she did by telling the hungry querist that he was “a greedy, cowardly, troublesome, turkey-buzzard of a Yankee, and that he had better have been helping to cache the horses and unload the boats than calling for food, as if he was in some fine city hotel.”—Harper’s Weekly, vi. p. 362/4 (June 7).
