What's a futcheon?

[James Smith]

I'm familiar with the appearnce of o.k. in the Boston
papers in the 1830's.  Many years ago I read that
Andrew Jackson (1767-1845, President 1829-1837) marked
"oc" or "ok" on documents and letters to indicate his
approval.  My questions are: first - did ex-Pres
Jackson really do this? (because the phrase apparently
originated in 1839, this use would have been in the
years after his presidency) ... and second - if so,
did he pick up the practice directly from the
newspapers, or did "ok" quickly become a popular
phrase in general use?


--- AAllan at AOL.COM wrote:
> Allen Walker Read's detailed history of the origins
> of O.K. cites the
> following passage from the Boston Morning Post of
> March 26, 1839:
>
> "Many of O.F.M. [Our First Men] and several
> _futcheons_ had the pleasure of
> taking these 'interesting strangers' by the hand,
> and wishing them a speedy
> passage to the Commercial Emporium [New York City].
> They were o.k. . . ."
>
> This is the second earliest known citation of "o.k."
> (the first is from the
> same newspaper three days earlier). But my question
> is, what's a futcheon?
> It's not in any of my dictionaries, and Read doesn't
> provide an explanation.
>
> You can see this on p. 13 of American Speech 38.1
> (February 1963).
>
> - Allan Metcalf


=====
James D. SMITH                 |If history teaches anything
SLC, UT                        |it is that we will be sued
jsmithjamessmith at yahoo.com     |whether we act quickly and decisively
                               |or slowly and cautiously.

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