The American horse-chestnut, Æsculus glabra. Ohio came to be called the Buckeye State, on account of the abundance of chestnuts; and an Ohioan is colloquially termed a Buckeye.
1784. Here also is the buck-eye, an exceeding soft wood, bearing a remarkable black fruit.—John Filson, ‘Kentucke,’ p. 23.
1792. [In Kentucky,] by the middle of the month [March], the buck-eye or horse chestnut is clad in its summer’s livery.—G. Imlay, ‘Topographical Description,’ p. 128.
1828. She put into his arms a third boy, a fine Illinois buckeye too.—Timothy Flint, ‘Arthur Clenning,’ ii. 171.
1833. Dr. Drake’s famous address on the Buckeye (Dec. 26) is to be found in Benj. Drake’s ‘Tales and Sketches,’ pp. 173–80 (Cincinnati).
1835. [I was born] and nurtured in the back-woods, a buckeye in feeling and thought.—Mr. Lytle in the House of Representatives, Feb. 18: Cong. Globe, p. 264.
1835. [These boats are] manned (I have not understood whether they are officered or not) by “real Kentucks”—“Buck eyes”—“Hooshers”—and “Snorters.”—Ingraham, ‘The South-West,’ i. 105.
1836. The Illinoisans are called suckers, the inhabitants of Indiana Hooshiers, and those of Ohio Buckeyes.—Phila. Public Ledger, Oct. 14.
1840. Queer carryalls did these Buckeye boys construct.—Buffalo Commercial Advertiser, Sept. 12.
1840. I saw nothing here at which a well corn-and-pork-fed Western Buckeye would not douce (sic) his wool hat, throw off his linsey hunting shirt, roll up his sleeves, and walk right into.—Dr. Duncan of Ohio, N.Y. Courier, Jan. 15: J. S. Buckingham, ‘The Eastern and Western States of America,’ i. 454 (1842).
1840. These horse-chestnuts were plenty in our country, and in the West it was what they called the buck-eye.—Mr. Jones of Virginia, House of Representatives, April 29: Congressional Globe, p. 367.
1840. People in the Atlantic States know as little about the high and beating heart of the Mississippi valley, as we Buckeyes, Corn-crackers, and Hooshiers do about Nova Zembla.—Cincinnati Chronicle, Aug. 26.
1841. Far in the stern [of the steamer at New Orleans] you see flitting about, three or four gentle hoosiers, or buckeye fair ones.—Arcturus, ii. 53 (N.Y.).
1845. A letter on the word Buckeye, and on Dr. Drake’s address.—‘The Cincinnati Miscellany,’ ii. 97–100.
1848. There is a swarm of “suckers,” “hoosiers,” “buckeyes,” “corn-crackers,” and “wolverines” eternally on the qui vive in Wisconsin.—Durivage and Burnham, ‘Stray Subjects,’ p. 79.
1852. In this year ‘The Buckeye Abroad,’ by S. S. Cox of Ohio, appeared.
1896. I kep’ a buckeye in my pocket tell it wore a hole and fell out. But I never get red o’ the rheumatiz.—Ella Higginson, ‘Tales from Puget Sound,’ p. 218.
