pea-warmer/pee-warmer

[Grant Barrett]

On Apr 3, 2005, at 14:28, Douglas G. Wilson wrote:
> I suppose that the mine's name reflects usage like "pea warmer" =
> "humdinger" already in existence in 1877. This would be a reasonable
> name
> for a mine at the time. Alternative possibility would be that the mine
> name
> arose independently [...] in that case the mine's
> name would be a good candidate for the etymon of the later term IF the
> mine
> were a famous success; however, this would seem unlikely since AFAIK
> the
> on-line newspapers show no mention of this mine name except for the one
> 1877 instance (where it was mentioned with other mines in the area).

I found just one other mention of the mine:

http://laststagetodeadwood.nexuswebs.net/deadwood1879.html

It appears to be from the index of Historical Newspaper Archives.

Grant Barrett
gbarrett at worldnewyork.org