Loco Foco (Sep. 1835)

[Joel S. Berson]

Not an antedating, but in 1839 Hawthorne used the phrase "Loco Foco",
referring to the political faction, in "The Sister Years", published
in the Salem Gazette.

Joel

At 8/9/2007 05:25 PM, Banjamin Zimmer wrote:
>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:
>
>-----
>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:
>
>-----
>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):
>
>-----
>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.]
>-----
>
>
>--Ben Zimmer
>
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