Antedating of "Hell in a Handbasket"

[Fred Shapiro]

I have previously pointed to a 1926 citation in Whiting, Modern Proverbs
and Proverbial Phrases, as the earliest known usage of "going to hell in a
handbasket" (DARE has a first use in the 1940s, I believe).

Ben Zimmer has posted an earlier citation on alt.usage.english, from a
Making of America search:

Author: Ayer, I. Winslow.
 Title: The great north-western conspiracy in all its
 startling details.
 Publication date: 1865.

 He referred to the suspension of the habeas corpus,
 and said many of our best men were at that moment
 "rotting in Lincoln's bastiles;" that it was our
 duty to wage a war against them, and open their
 doors; that when the Democrats got into power they
 would impeach and probably hang him, and all who
 were thus incarcerated should be set at liberty;
 that thousands of our best men were prisoners in
 Camp Douglas, and if once at liberty would "send
 abolitionists to hell in a hand basket;" he said
 the meanest of those prisoners was purity itself
 compared to "Lincoln's hirelings."

Zimmer also posts a ProQuest-derived citation for "heaven in a handbasket"
much earlier than the previous earliest one known:

Which Will Garfield Do?
 Washington Post, Nov 16, 1880. p. 2
 He feels that but for the almost superhuman efforts
 the Stalwarts, like Grant, Conkling, Cameron and Logan,
 made after the disaster in Maine, he would have had no
 more chance of election than of going to heaven in a
 hand-basket, and he will not quarrel with them.

Fred Shapiro


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