![]() ![]() “Golden Days – The gold fever is again raging in North Carolina. The American Sentinel of Connecticut carried this item in its edition of 17 September 1828: It was likely first used to describe the avarice attending the discovery of gold in the southern states in the 1820s and 1830s. The reason for the gold rush was, of course, gold fever, a phrase which pre-dates the exodus to California. See the Trenton Evening Times of 6 April 1912. around the infield) is not so clear, but it was used in this baseball context by 1912. How the phrase acquired its baseball usage (i.e. Logically, those sailing to California around South America went “around the Horn” and the expression was in frequent use. It was named after the town of Hoorn in northern Holland, the birthplace of Willem Schouten, the Dutch sea captain who named it “Kaap Hoorn” in 1616. Cape Horn was not so-called because of its shape. ![]() For decades before James Marshall discovered gold in California, mariners had been sailing around the southern tip of South America, known as Cape Horn. Those sailing to California around South America during the gold rush were said to have gone around the horn. Although the reference was already in use in the 18 th and 19 th centuries, it was immediately applied to those en route to California by ship in the quest for gold. This is a reference to the Greek mythological hero, Jason, leader of the Argonauts, and their quest for the Golden Fleece. The forty-niners who sailed to California by ship often called themselves Argonauts. “A FORTY-NINER – Considerable fun was created in the parquet of the Forrest Theater, on Saturday evening, by the appearance of a tall, rough, shaggy individual, in a blue shirt and slouched hat, with a full-sized, old-fashioned Colt’s revolver and a huge Bowie knife slung to his waist.” The Daily Democratic State Journal had this item in 1857: However, the term forty-niner, used in the sense of one who went to California in 1849, was in use in California in the 1850s. There will be another gold rush in the spring.” The term was in use by 1861 in the west, however, when the following appeared in the Portland Daily Advertiser: “It is stated that the entire country beyond the Cascades and the Rocky Mountains, is one vast gold field. What we learned might surprise you.įirst, the phrase gold rush itself was not generally in use until after the California gold rush was over. Just for fun, we explored the origins of some of the terms generally associated with the gold rush. Not only did the California gold rush have a huge impact on the history of the United States, it also added some “color” to the English language in the form of new phrases and expressions. ![]()
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