Wish(ing) bone (1847, 1850, 1853)

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   Andy Smith (editor of the OXFORD ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN FOOD & DRINK) mentioned on the train to Providence that he did some work on the Americanism "wishbone" (also called "merrythought").
   Michael Quinion's World Wide Words addressed the topic, and you can look it up on Google Groups at rec.food.historic.
   OED has 1860 and Merriam-Webster has 1853 for "wishbone."
   This is from ACCESSIBLE ARCHIVES.


ITEM #8054
October 7, 1847
THE NATIONAL ERA
Washington, D.C., Vol. I No. 40 p. 1

For the National Era.
RECOLLECTIONS OF COUNTRY LIFE.
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BY PATTY LEE.
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CAROLINE BRADLEY'S QUILTING.
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CHAPTER V.
(...)
'Begin to feel, as well I might,
The keen demands of appetite.'"


So saying, she ran laughingly down stairs. Whether her admirer quilted any better, I am not able to say; but he consoled himself by acting the agreeable to Miss Lane, a plain but superior woman, to whom I shall devote a chapter one of these days.

Supper was soon announced, but, in these days of spiritualists and Grahamites, I am almost afraid to tell about the chickens and sweet potatoes, and peaches and cream, that graced the snowy cloth of our hostess. Sally did the honors of the coffee urn, and Caroline "handed round the things," and Dr. Watson made himself generally useful; but notwithstanding all, some of the ladies were soon heard to say, "thank you, I've eaten very hearty!" while Sally


"Pressed the bashful strangers to their food,
And learned the luxury of doing good;"


and Caroline said they had nothing very inviting. Then came the breaking of the "<< wish-bones>> ;" but the girls all refused to tell their wishes, excepting Hannah, who wished aloud, as she broke the mystic bone with the good-natured Mrs. Bradley, that she might have a charming beau to wait upon her home.

"Did you ever!" exclaimed the hostess.

"What a strange wish!" said the girls, hiding their faces; but the Doctor said, bowing gracefully to Hannah, who was merrily drawing the bones from the plump hand of the hostess, to see if she should get her wish, that he should be too happy, if to verify her wish were in his power.

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ITEM #20905
January 3, 1850
THE NATIONAL ERA
Washington, D.C., Vol. IV No. 157 p. 1

For the National Era.
THE LOST AND FOUND.
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A STORY OF THANKSGIVING DAY.  (LONG!  Jump to end!--ed.)
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BY MARY IRVING.
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"Hoowa for Thanksgiving Day;" chirruped a fat three-year-old, bursting in his night-gown into Farmer Talbot's warm kitchen. He was trying to unlock two bright blue eyes, that Sleep had sealed up pretty fairly, and cut quite a ludicrous figure with his stentorian "Hoowa!"
"Bravo, Bobby! Bravo-o-o!" laughed the grandfather from his chimney corner. "Try it again, Bobby; you'll keep up the honor of the family. Come here, sir!"
Bobby's eyes were fairly open by this time - he had found his mother, and took refuge in the folds of her cheek dress, sucking his thumb in quiet thankfulness. Mamma looked around from the gridiron she was superintending, with a gentle smile. That smile seemed rather sad, methinks, for the scene and the day; but we will know more of her.
Thanksgiving was always a joyous time at Grandfather Talbot's, not merely for its turkeys, puddings, and pies - though (softly be it spoken) Grandmamma Talbot and her daughters did excel all other grandmammas and aunties at a roaster - in the estimation of the grandchildren, large and small. But Farmer Talbot and his "guide-wife" were stanch old Puritans - two of that good old stock with which our blessed New England shores were planted. This stock has been grafted with many other and foreign shoots since - but is it not still the tree of our nation's prosperity? It has long been fashionable to ridicule the quaint manners and the starched strictness of the Puritans. Children are taught to picture them as forever conning a psalm-book with a nasal twang - as the deadly foes of all cheerfulness and merriment. Is not this almost treason to the memory of the Pilgrim Fathers who sleep beneath us? Foes to the wild exuberance of untamed spirits, they were indeed - and often too prone to stretch every mind to their own stature of opinion and feeling. But they were a cheerful race. The happiest, yes, the merriest Thanksgiving day that brightened my young life was spent beneath the roof of a stanch Puritan old lady, one of the few that linger, like sombre evergreens in Autumn, among the more gay and careless of this generation.
Farmer Talbot kept Thanksgiving day religiously as well as cheerily. Good old patriarch! He might be forgiven the pride with which he glanced round on his seven children, with all their little ones around him, and then lifted up his hand to bless Heaven in their behalf. But for three years, ever since the little Bobby had been a sunbeam to bless the good old man's hearth, there had been a shadow, too, upon it - a gentle shadow, but a sad one. That shadow was the graceful mother of the child - the favorite daughter of the family.
Adelaide Talbot was beautiful and lovely in her youth, dearly loved by all, but best by those of her own fireside circle. She was, indeed, the richest gem in that circlet. When the long lashes were lifted from her ever-changing cheek, you could look into the very soul of the high-minded, sunny-hearted girl. Six years before, she had stood in her father's low parlor on Thanksgiving eve - she had stood between that father and another to whose face she lifted her soul-speaking eye, his bride of an hour. And as the good mother's raspberry wine, carefully bottled for the occasion, went round, she dreamed not that in that cup lurked a demon that should yet overthrow the altar just erected. Caleb Reynolds was now a drunkard, and a deserter from his home. He had enlisted - it was thought, in an hour of intoxication - but his wife was left to learn it from other lips. He went, without one word of farewell, to the plains of Mexico - and never since had she heard of him. Poor Adelaide carried her crushed heart back to her father's house, longing only to lay it in the grave. Have you ever seen a tree in our Western forests, blighted by "girding," as the woodsmen call it - cut off from its connection with the life-giving earth, and then left to wither for years? I never pass such a tree without thinking of the slow death of the heart, to which some writer has strikingly compared it. It was thus that Adelaide stood among the other plants of her father's nurture. Have you ever seen, from such a girded tree, a young shoot spring out, and, striking down its fibres, form a feeble connection with the bark below, and sustain a sure though sickly life in the tree? It was thus that little Robert came, to bind a few broken fibres from her early hopes and dreams to earth.
But we are forgetting our Thanksgiving. None of the aunties forget it, however - or the cousins; and by the time Farmer Talbot's "big sleigh" had emptied its contents twice upon the old salt-sprinkled stone step, all were brought home from church, and all were there.
All - except two unaccountable stragglers, "the boys," as two striplings nearly six feet high continued to be called, who were cultivating the sciences in a college not many miles away. And why were they not there? So questioned every one; and grandmamma did not answer - only wiped her spectacles every two minutes on her apron, and peered out of the southwest window.
Meanwhile the new-comers were all clustered in the "sitting room,' making a merry use of the interlude between service and dinner. There was Robert, the eldest son, with his romping family and anxious-looking wife. there was Charlotte - no, nobody knew her by that name - Lottie, blooming in her prime, and managing her little ones to a charm. There was Philip, the "old bachelor," though by no means a crusty one. Next him sat a pale, stiff-looking cousin from the nearest factory village. Last, but not least - though, in truth, she was a little one - was the "schoolma'am,' - the youngest of her father's flock, the laughing, fun-loving Susie. She was not beautiful, as Addie had been, but there was such a world of good nature in her low broad forehead and dimpling cheeks, that you loved her at first sight. I will not attempt her portrait, for I do not know that she ever sat still long enough to have it taken, except in church. This day she was here, and there, and everywhere, among the children, kissing one, romping with another, and then tossing up Robert's baby, to the terror of its mamma and the delight of all others.
"You must let me go to help grandmamma take up the turkey, indeed you must," cried Susan, laughing, as she pushed through the doorway, followed by the whole scampering troop. One had sprung from the top of the arm-chair to her shoulder, and sat crowing like a parrot on his perch.
As she advanced towards the kitchen, the outer door was thrown suddenly open, and "A merry Thanksgiving to you!" burst from the lips of the intruders, amid the renewed shouts of the boisterous brood.
"Bless me, where did you drop from?" cried the mother, dropping her ladle into the coals in her surprise.
"Why brothers, we never heard your sleigh bells," exclaimed Susan, throwing off her encumbrance, and heartily welcoming the young collegians.
"I dare say not," replied Edward, as he knocked the snow from his boots. "We chartered other sort of vehicles - hey, Will?"
"The fact is," explained Will, "that we started with the sunrise this morning, but met with a most provoking 'break-down' by the way. So, not to be cheated out of our Thanksgiving, we footed it through the drifts. We've lost Parson Wood's sermon, but we're in time for mother's dinner; and I assure you a walk of eight miles has given us a pair of appetites."
So they sat down to dinner at least, all the loving and the merry ones. Grandfather hushed them for a moment, while he lifted his bronzed hands over the huge platter, and invoked bountiful Heaven in a lengthy but fervent "blessing." Then followed the usual clattering, and - but I need not describe it all; you see it as well as I do.
The "<< wish-bone>> " (a great prize that) fell to the share of the shyest one, little blue-eyed Nelly, who carefully wrapped it in her white apron, as a sacred treasure.
"Coz, may I break with you," screamed her cousin Harry, from the other end of the table.
"No; I am going to break with" --
"With whom, I should like to know?"
"With Aunt Susie, then," said the little dove, nestling timidly to her side."
"Aunt Susie - ha, ha! Aunt Susie would look finely breaking a << wish-bone>> ."
"And why not, Master Harry?" said Susan, merrily. "I assure you I have broken more than one << wish-bone>>  at this very table."
"And did your wishes ever come to pass - did they ever, Aunt Susie?" cried three voices at once.
"Yes, did they ever, Aunt Susie?" chimed in Edward, casting up from his plate a sidelong, demure glance, that brought blushes and dimples to her cheeks.
Susie had seen some quiet little flirtations, even under he father's Argus eye. Suddenly her face grew serious. She caught Adelaide's expression of countenance, as the latter quietly rose from the table, and made some excuse for withdrawing.
The "<< wish-bone>> " was broken to a charm - snapping exactly in the middle, to the infinite amusement of the juveniles, who had been making bets on the result. The "babies" went to sleep at the right hour precisely, and were packed into their snug candles with blankets and pillows. The elders of the juvenile community were ensconced in a corner to play "button;" and the brothers and sisters clustered in quiet little knots.

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ITEM #3318
January, 1853
Godey's Lady's Book
Philadelphia
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Vol XLVI Page 41

THE MERRY THOUGHT.

BY THE AUTHOR OP "MISS BREMER'S VISIT TO COOPER'S LANDING," "GETTING INTO SOCIETY," "BOARDING-HOUSE POLITICS," ETC.

(...)
I will tell you what did happen: Nannie and Augusta chanced to be visiting a mutual friend in New York the next winter, when Augusta was delightfully surprised to see her cousin's name in the list of passengers just arrived from Savannah. Of course he called on them, and was happy to renew his acquaintance with Miss Barton, taking the cousinly liberty of seeing the ladies very often, and being promoted to serve in a series of New Year's Tableaux, then in preparation, in which they were both to appear as "belles of the olden time." The rehearsals, not en costume, went off very cleverly, and the important night arrived. Now it so chanced that our friends were to appear in the very first scene, and came down to the little boudoir appointed for a withdrawing-room, before any of the rest, and here Mr. Grayson found them, opening the door softly, intending a surprise. He scarcely recognized them at first in their old-time costume, Nannie in a bodice of pearl gray satin, with white cambric sleeves, and no adornment but a broad black ribbon about her fair throat. Augusta's little figure tried to look imposing in a dark close-fitting velvet, set off by the identical Mechlin lace belonging to her mother, which had arrived the day before, per Adams's Express, from Philadelphia. And there, like two very unromantic young people, to say nothing of the dignity befitting their costume, they were playfully quarrelling over a merrythought, or "<< wishing-bone>> ," as the children call it, secured from the lunch that had just been served up to the performers.

"I declare, Nan, you are not fair," he heard Augusta say; "you have taken hold too high up, and I know you are going to wish to be my cousin, after all! Come, now, confess!"

"Nonsense, Augusta: come, pull: there now!"

Gerard Grayson would have given his new seal ring to know which won; but he concluded it would not do to appear just then. He was discovered, a few moments after, in the dressing-room, making a very dark mustache of burnt cork on his upper lip, in deep absence of mind. Now this was entirely unsuited to his costume, the sober garb of a young country squire of years ago, and it cost him some trouble to efface it. He had already sacrificed his own cherished mustache to the character, and the brown flowingwig parted in the middle, was received with bursts of applause and laughter, as he presented himself to his fair companions, who were unsuspicious of what he had seen and heard.

As the curtain fell after they had been duly admired, Gerard Grayson heard Augusta whisper, "a penny for your thoughts," and then Nannie certainly did blush, and turn her eyes away from his questioning look.

"After all, they were married?"

Yes, and never, till then, did Gerard allude to the omnibus disaster. They were at Niagara on their bridal tour last summer, and were waiting for the gong to sound for dinner, when he noticed that Nannie wore a flounced tissue. Both smiled, and the young bride hid her face on his shoulder as she said, "Truly, Gerard, tell me, what did you think?"

"You won't scold me if I tell you, as you did when I confessed about the << wishing-bone>> ?"

"No, indeed, if you will be candid."

"Well, then, I could not help noticing shall I tell you? that the tear had revealed a very neat and very pure underskirt, and I have such a horror of a sloven! Not even a 'merrythought,' you see, dear!"

Was there ever a less romantic confession for believers in love at first sight!