Loco Foco (Sep. 1835)

[Benjamin Zimmer]

In 2005 Barry Popik investigated "Loco Foco", a self-igniting match
which gave its name to the radical "Equal Rights" wing of the
Democratic party after an 1835 incident at a Tammany Hall nominating
meeting in New York.

http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0512A&L=ADS-L&P=R4966
http://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/loco_foco_party/

Barry found a cite on Proquest apparently dating to 1833:

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30 November 1833, Liberator, pg. 1:
Thank GOD, the Whigs of the State and City of New York, while they
feel as men should feel on this subject, have clearly demonstrated
that they at least, are prepared to hold Abolitionism as only worthy
of being associated with Loco Focoism and Fanny Wright Agrarianism.
-----

I rechecked Proquest and the issue with that cite has evidently been
misdated. The article appeared in The Liberator on 30 Nov 1838 (Vol.
8, Iss. 48), not 30 Nov 1833 (Vol. 3, Iss. 48). So that leaves Barry's
cites from Nov. 1835 as the target for antedating.

Using the 19th Century US Newspapers database, I was able to find
advertisements for Loco Foco matches beginning in Sep 1835:

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1835 _United States' Telegraph_ (Washington, DC) 25 Sep. 1019/3
(advt.) Loco Foco matches. A new article for lighting segars, &c.
-----

The Tammany Hall incident is first described in the 5 Nov 1835 issue
of the New-York Spectator (slightly antedating Barry's 7 Nov 1835 cite
from Workingman's Advocate):

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1835 _New-York Spectator_ 5 Nov. 2/2 One division of "the Democracy"
is styled the "Loco Foco" party. The etymology is this:-- During the
fracas on Thursday night, the regulars, finding that King Numbers was
arrayed under the charcoal banner of Job Haskell, undertook to
discomfit them by suddenly extinguishing the lights. The policy of the
leaders of "the party" has ever been to keep the people "in the dark"
-- intellectual darkness, we mean -- but on the present occasion,
judicial blindness was not deemed sufficient, and the sachems
therefore stopped the gas pipes -- whereupon the den was suddenly dark
as Erebus. But the agrarians had once before been caught in the same
way, when rejoicing in the oratory of Fanny Wright, and they were
resolved not to be "at fault again." No sooner, therefore, had the
complexion of all been thus rendered as black as Job's merchandise,
than a thousand loco-foco matches sputtered forth their phosphorescent
sparkles, and in the next instant a thousand candles were blazing from
a thousand greasy hands. [etc.]
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--Ben Zimmer

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