The “Old Bay State” is Massachusetts.

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1773.  [These publications] were craftily calculated for the meridian where they first appeared, and suited the too levelling disposition of the Bay-men.—Wm. Gordon, ‘Hist. Am. Revol.,’ i. 272 (Lond., 1788).

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1775.  There is too great a nationality among the Bay-men; such a one might be unduly prejudiced in favor of his own Colony.—Id., ii. 38.

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1801.  Down here in the Bay State and all about the country.—‘Spirit of the Farmer’s Museum,’ p. 198.

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1837.  He was from the Down-East country, a representative of the Bay State.—R. M. Bird, ‘Nick of the Woods,’ i. 194.

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1837.  [He] had given over all thought of returning to the Bay-State.Ib., iii. 260.

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1843.  He had been bred among the woodlands of the Bay State.Yale Lit. Mag., viii. 329 (June).

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1846.  Mr. Jones of Georgia was sorry to hear any American—any citizen of the “Old Bay State”—say that he would not say that he would go with his country, right or wrong.—House of Representatives, May 14: Congressional Globe, p. 825.

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1846.  

        Let our dear old Bay State proudly
  Put the trumpet to her mouth,
Let her ring this messidge loudly
  In the ears of all the South.
Lowell, ‘Biglow Papers,’ 1st Series, No. 1.    

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1848.  

          But my good mother Baystate needs no praise of mine,
She learned from her mother a precept divine.
Lowell, ‘A Fable for the Critics.’    

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1850.  I see that in the good old Bay State there is even now a struggle going on to keep the negro children out of the common schools.—Mr. McWillie of Mississippi, House of Repr., March 4: Cong. Globe, p. 447.

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1850.  Our captain, who was a regular down-easter from the “Bay state,” and though a good fellow, was something of an original.—James L. Tyson, ‘Diary in California,’ p. 11 (N.Y.).

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1857.  When I fling a Bay-State shawl over my shoulders, I am only taking a lesson from the climate that the Indian had learned before me.—Holmes, ‘The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table,’ ch. i.

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1861.  The “Old Bay State” sent forth her clarion notes.—O. J. Victor, ‘The History … of the Southern Rebellion,’ i. 161.

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1863.  The readiness of the “Old Bay State” to meet the crisis is characteristic of the spirit of her people, and of the intelligence of her rulers.—Id., ii. 93.

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