"Hunc over de" clubs, NY 1736?

[Joel S. Berson]

Doug, I don't think your guess is out in left
field.  It has plausibility to me -- but of
course no proof (yet).  If this learned list
can't help further (George Thompson wrote me
privately that he was going to look into it), I
may try some 18th century historians.

Intriguingly, the earliest article Early American
Newspapers finds for "hunc over de" (as three
separate words) is the possibly-satiric one I
excerpted here.  [A correction -- the date of
publication  is 1 March, not 25 February (1736 NS).]

The only additional hit from EAN before 1748 is
the Boston Evening-Post, 12 April 1736, which
copied from the New-York Weekly Journal of 15
March (not found by EAN with my search).  The
writer of a letter signed Andrew Merril is
serious about political party factionalism at
social gatherings and clubs that disappoints him,
a visitor from overseas.  After describing his
experiences at various men's and women's clubs, he writes:

"I fell into Company one Day with the _Hunc over
De_ Club, they were merry enough, but they had
like to have demolished the Ladies Tea Table at
whose House the Club was; they had not much Party
till Supper cane, and then they were as warm as Scallopt Oysters."

[Another mystifying reference!  Is Merril
reporting factually?  Does "Scallopt Oysters"
hint at something?  (By the way, this antedates
OED2!)  Is "Party" a play on words?  Etc.]

I did not search further, as it appeared there
would be a large number of false positives.  If,
as one modern author wrote, there are many
references to the Hunc Over De club in the New
York Papers circa 1736, EAN did not find
them.  Nor did it find any "junco verde".

Joel

At 10/3/2007 01:39 AM, Doug Wilson wrote:
>>What can this learned list tell me about the "hunc over de" club of
>>New York in the 1730s, and especially about the name?
>
>I don't know nothing about the club, but I can make a guess about the name.
>
>"Hunc Over De" = Spanish "junco verde" (= "green
>reed/rush"), rewritten as bogus [I think] Latin,
>with "j" replaced by "h" which expresses the
>Spanish pronunciation ("j" = /h/ or close enough).
>
>"Junco verde" is apparently from Columbus's log:
>the green rush/reed was apparently one of the
>first things observed to indicate that the
>expedition was nearing the land of the New World.
>
> From a Web site ... http://www.mgar.net/docs/colon2.htm ...
>
><<Fragmento del diario de navegación de Cristóbal
>Colón Jueves 11 de octubre de 1492: / Navegó al
>Ouestesudeste. Tuvieron mucha mar, y más que en
>todo el viaje habían tenido. Vieron pardelas y un
>junco verde junto a la nao. Vieron los de la
>carabela Pinta una caña y un palo y tomaron otro
>palillo labrado, a lo que parecía, con hierro, y
>un pedazo de caña y otra hierba que nace en
>tierra, y una tablilla. Los de la carabela Niña
>también vieron otras señales de tierra y un
>palillo cargado de escaramojos. Con estas señales
>respiraron y alegráronse todos. Anduvieron en
>este día, hasta puesto el sol, veintisiete leguas.>>
>
>There are on-line English versions, I think.
>
>The "junco verde"/"green rush"/"green reed" is
>mentioned in histories and even poems. E.g.: from Google Books:
>
>Juan Bautista Muñoz, _Historia del nuevo-mundo_
>(1793), p. 80: <<En la tarde del 11 se animaron y
>alegraron todos al ver un junco verde, un pez de
>los que se crian entre rocas, una tablilla , una
>caña, un baston con ciertas labores prolijas, ....>>
>
>Alfred Coester, _The Literary History of Spanish
>America_ (1916),  p. 435: <<_El Junco verde_
>[poem by J. J. Pérez (1845-1900)] relates the
>impression which was produced on Columbus and his
>crew by the sight of a green reed, the first sign of land.>>
>
>I suppose the meaning of the club name might have
>been "Attainment of the New World" or something like that.
>
>Alternatively perhaps there was a game named
>after Columbus's reed, with the club named after the game.
>
>I don't know whether there is some other meaning
>(a double-entendre) in the club name.
>
>Pretty obscure: I suppose it was meant to be so.
>
>Or am I out in left field again?
>
>-- Doug Wilson
>
>
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