Personal effects; baggage.
1815. We heard these men [in the Allegany hills] themselves uniformly calling their baggage “plunder.”—T. Flint, ‘Recollections,’ p. 6 (1826).
1817. [We carried] our plunder (as the Virginians call baggage) in a light Jersey wagon.—J. K. Paulding, ‘Letters from the South,’ i. 38. (N.E.D.) (Italics in the original.)
1818. When you arrive at a house [in Kentucky], the first inquiry is, where is your plunder? as if you were a bandit; and out is sent a slave to bring in your plunder; i. e. your trunk, or valise.—Henry C. Knight (‘Arthur Singleton’), ‘Letters from the South and West,’ p. 106 (Boston, 1824).
1820. His plunder consisted of a small parcel of clothing tied up in a bandanna handkerchief.—James Hall, ‘Letters from the West,’ p. 182 (Lond.). (Italics in the original.)
1827. “At my time of life, food and clothing be all that is needed, and I have little occasion for what you call plunder, unless it may be, now and then, to barter for a horn of powder or a bar of lead.” “You ar’ not, then, of these parts, by natur’, friend?” the emigrant continued, having in his mind the exception which the other had taken to the very equivocal word, which he himself, according to the customs of the country, had used for “baggage” or “effects.”—J. F. Cooper, ‘The Prairie,’ i. 31.
1833. This here heavy waggon, loaded down with plunder.—James Hall, ‘Legends of the West,’ p. 191. [For fuller quotation see PRIMING.]
1833. In our day, father, the merchants were well enough satisfied to tote their plunder upon mules and pack horses.—Id., p. 49. (Italics in the original.)
1835. [They burned] the cabin, and a beautiful piece of cloth that she had in the loom, and all the plunder that the poor thing had been scrapin together by the work of her own hands.—The same, ‘Tales of the Border,’ p. 55 (Phila.).
1835. When I reached the creek I inquired of a bystander if he knew what they were toling that plunder for.—Boston Pearl, Sept. 26.
1842. [In Virginia] you hear the driver say, “Here, you nigger fellow, tote this lady’s plunder to her room.” Upstairs is pronounced “upstarrs”; the words “bear” and “fear” [? fair] are pronounced “barr” and “farr”; and one passenger was told “The room upstarrs is quite preparred, so that your plunder may be toted there [? thar] whenever you’ve a mind.”—J. S. Buckingham, ‘Slave States,’ ii. 293.
1846. In a few minutes her companion made his appearance, and announced that he had toted the plunder aboard.—E. W. Farnham, ‘Life in Prairie Land,’ p. 18. (Italics in the original.)
1847. What can honest people do with such a heap of plunder as you are toting in that wagon?—Sol. Smith, ‘Adventures,’ p. 59.
1848. His “plunder” was toted from the Astor before day-break.—W. E. Burton, ‘Waggeries,’ p. 93 (Phila.).
1848. I do believe old Miss Stallins and mother has packed up ’bout seven trunks full of plunder of one kind and another, and the more we tell ’em that ther ain’t no use in takin so much, the more they say we don’t know any thing about it.—W. T. Thompson, ‘Major Jones’s Sketches of Travel,’ p. 9 (Phila.).
1853. [A man] poked his head into a country-store, where I was ‘loafing’ at the time, and yelled out the very intelligible question: ‘Mister, do you take plunder here for spun truck?’—Knick. Mag., xlii. 211 (Aug.).
