[Ads-l] mosey, verb, antedated

[James Eric Lawson]

OED 30 December 1829.

The antedating text is implicated in a commonly advanced (and as 
commonly disparaged) origin story, so I include it in full:

1829  *Richmond Times-Dispatch* (Richmond, Virginia) 25 Jul 3/3 
(newspapers.com)  The following statement is from the Western Courier, a 
paper published at Ravenna, Ohio.

     “He’d debts to pay and could not stay,
     ‘So Mosey ran away.’—Old song.

It will be recollected by most of our readers, that a *quarto* Jackson 
meeting was held in Medina county, in the fall of 1827, to wit: a county 
meeting, at which *four* persons attended, three of whom were appointed 
delegates to attend the Jackson Convention at Columbus, and that one of 
this immortal *trio* was Moses Wright of legal memory. Now what less 
could President Jackson do than bestow an office, especially when one 
office would reward one-fourth of the Jacksonites in Medina. It is well 
known that Gen. Jackson is not “slack in performing his promises” to his 
friends, so, in process of time, on came the long-looked-for letter, 
directed to ‘Moses Wright, Esq.’ and ornamented with the official 
signature of ‘W. T. Barry,’ appointing the said Moses, Postmaster, in 
and over Medina, and removing Rufus Ferris, the incumbent. But alas! the 
freaks of Dame Fortune! poor Moses’s legal practice had not increased 
with his patriotism, and this boon of Jackson gratitude being too long 
delayed, he was involved in debt, and his creditors, unlike true 
patriots, would not wait for him to pay them out of the milk of the 
Jackson pap, and he had to *Mosey*— alas poor Moses! the appointment and 
removal came, but there was no Moses. An express was sent after him, 
that pursued as far as Cincinnati, when ‘hope long delayed’ failed, and 
the chase was given up.
   As Ferris is removed, and Mosey run away, we would suggest to Mr. 
Barry to direct his next appointment “To any one of the four remaining 
within the county of Medina.”

https://www.newspapers.com/article/richmond-times-dispatch-ohio-postmaster/133737406/



-- 
James Eric Lawson

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