"Hill Billies" and variants (1881-1889)

[Bonnie Taylor-Blake]

A couple years ago Fred Shapiro pushed "hillbilly" back to 1891 [1].
(The OED shows as its earliest example a usage from 1900.)  Here are
some slightly earlier sightings.

-- Bonnie

[1] http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind1202D&L=ADS-L&P=R7871

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NICHOLASVILLE, October 17. -- This has been Court-day, and a quiet
one, until about dark, when ten or fifteen roughs, known locally as
"Hill Billies" undertook to take the city.  They, by firing off
pistols, shouting and other boisterous conduct, created great
consternation among the citizens, and the police endeavored to arrest
them, but without avail, as they were too many for him.  [From
"Nicholasville, Kentucky; The Town Taken by Roughs," The Cincinnati
Enquirer, 18 October 1881, p. 2.]


FOUR drunken hill Billys had a pic-nic while loading a wagon with
furniture here last Friday.  One of them became nettled because a
small boy would n't [sic] treat him to a cigar, and offered to loan
him forty dollars, at 10 per cent. interest.  [The Bourbon News
(Paris, Bourbon County, KY), 14 March 1882, p. 1.]


The foolish custom of poetizing in dog lingo the address on letters is
now taking place between some one in Fieming [sic] county and and
[sic] ex-citizen of that place here.  It ought to be prohibited by the
Postmaster General from passing through the mails.  It is an old
fashioned "Hill Billy" custom which is very nauseating to the strictly
refined.  [From "Millersburg," The Semi-Weekly Bourbon News (Paris,
Bourbon County, KY), 28 September 1883, p. 4.]


HUNG -- A telegram from Wiliiamsburg [sic] says:  Jo Early was swung
at 2:35 for the murder of the school teacher.  When they entered the
jail for him he had nothing to say.  A lot of "hill Billys" and a
negro raised a big fuss as he was brought out and he was hurried on to
a scaffold and swung immediately.  [The Semi-Weekly Interior Journal
(Stanford, KY), 8 December 1885, p. 3.]


"That fellow is a pumpkin-voiced Jonah, a hill billy, but the girl is
an agreeable angel.  Ah, there, my spasm," he was saying, but he never
finished.  [From "Railway Romances; Incidents of a Journey on the
Train with Two Newly-Married Couple [sic].  Courier-Journal
(Louisville, KY), 14 February 1886, p. 10.]


They are principally what the Frankfort girls picturesquely term
"Hill-billys," tough-grained old fellows, and mountain men, who have
stood by the South family for years.  [From "The Penitentiary Muddle,"
Semi-Weekly South Kentuckian (Hospkinsville, KY), 23 February 1886, p.
2.  This was originally published in The Louisville Post.  "The South
family" refers to the family of Warden South.]


Mr. McMillan, of Clay, answered that no man but a "hill Billy" did'nt
[sic] know the Hon. John C. Brown, of Giles county, who is an
ex-governor of Tennessee.  [From "Wholly Inharmonious; Right Ballots
for Governor but No Nomination," The Knoxville (TN) Journal, 11 May
1888, p. 1.]


County Judge Colyer is a thick-headed, prejudiced "hill Billy," who
cares nothing for the peace and happiness of his constituents, nor
anything else that tends to advance the interest of the county, which
he as been the instigator in bringing into disrepute.  [From "Sad
State of Affairs in Rockcastle," Semi-Weekly Interior Journal
(Stanford, KY), 10 September 1889, p. 2.]

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