Officially Technological
Thursday, September 18, 2008
What's a Hoosier??
Now that I am a Hoosier (I suppose I'll start owning up to it after hearing this story - lol), I was wondering what is a Hoosier?? Is it an extinct bird? Is it a nut (like in Ohio)? Is it an ugly flower (it would have to be an ugly one with a handle like that - no matter what Shakespeare said about a rose by any other name)? No, it turns out that it was none of these things.
Back when Indiana was still a territory and not a legal state, about 1/3 of the property was owned by a man named Hoosier. He was (obviously) a very wealthy farmer. But besides being a very wealthy farmer, he was sympathetic to the plight of the slaves in the south. And he would hire slaves who had escaped their bondage in the south, and would pay them decent wages and give them homes to live in. These escaped slaves were called Hoosiers since they worked on the Hoosier farm. And when Indiana became a state all Indiana residents adopted this familiar name. I must say, I've never been so proud to take the name Hoosier in all my 2.5 years of living here. Bravo, Mr. Hoosier!
Back when Indiana was still a territory and not a legal state, about 1/3 of the property was owned by a man named Hoosier. He was (obviously) a very wealthy farmer. But besides being a very wealthy farmer, he was sympathetic to the plight of the slaves in the south. And he would hire slaves who had escaped their bondage in the south, and would pay them decent wages and give them homes to live in. These escaped slaves were called Hoosiers since they worked on the Hoosier farm. And when Indiana became a state all Indiana residents adopted this familiar name. I must say, I've never been so proud to take the name Hoosier in all my 2.5 years of living here. Bravo, Mr. Hoosier!
4 Comments:
that's a much more flattering story of the name than i've heard. i heard that people used to call out when someone knocked on the door, "who's there?", but with a pathetic accent, and it sounded like 'hoosier'. i think i'll adopt your story. makes me happier to be one.
Thanks for enlightening me! I never knew what a Hoosier was also, and sadly enough most Hoosiers themselves couldn't tell me what a Hoosier was!
great job on doing the research. i have lived 5 minutes from the hoosier state line all my life and never knew what a hoosier really was (i thought it had to do something with basketball... :)
nichole
That is so cool! Since my genes did some marinating down there in Hoosier country, I've always wanted to know what a Hoosier was as well. Now I know and I like it a lot :-)
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