In New England.
1825. A little boy, from ‘down east,’ whom she was teaching, all one summer, to ride on a cane; herself, the while, mounted on a broomstick.—John Neal, ‘Brother Jonathan,’ i. 28
1825. A ginooine he-yankee, from “away down east.”—Id., iii. 145.
1829. “What brig is that?” shouted the captain. “Ten Sisters, from Dennis, Shube Nickerson, master.” “Where the deuce is Dennis?” “Oh, down east.”—Mass. Spy, Nov. 25: from the Pawtucket Chronicle.
1830. [The vessel] was built during the war, down east, where every one knows that they build ships by the mile and saw them off in lengths to accommodate purchasers.—N. Ames, ‘A Mariner’s Sketches,’ pp. 5–6 (Providence).
1830. The down-east monster that furnished abundant food for conjecture to all squatters between Portland pier and ’Quoddy inclusive, some two years ago.—Id., p. 42.
1835. [These boats] resemble, only being must shorter, the “Down East” gundalow (gondola) so common on the rivers of Maine.—Ingraham, ‘The South-West,’ i. 105.
1836. William is from “down east,” and does not seem to be as “cute” as Yankees generally.—Phila. Public Ledger, April 28.
1836. The down east girls have a droll way of amusing themselves.—Id., May 21. [See CHEWING GUM.]
1837. He was from the Down-East country, a representative of the Bay State.—R. M. Bird, ‘Nick of the Woods,’ i. 194 (Lond.).
1837. Famine Down East. The Eastport Sentinel says that a scarcity of provisions in that quarter is severely felt.—Balt., Comml. Transcript, June 26, p. 2/1.
1838. [Mr. Prentiss] evidently has all the acuteness of a down cast lawyer.—Corr. the same, Jan. 17, p. 2/2.
1855. That land of wooden hams, wooden nutmegs, and wooden-headed pedagogues, known, emphatically, as Down East.—S. A. Hammett (‘Philip Paxton’), ‘A Stray Yankee in Texas,’ p. 347.
1858. Our ‘help,’ a buxom Irish girl, has a very devoted lover down East, who writes such ‘lofty’ letters to her, that they are entirely above her comprehension.—Knick. Mag., li. 541 (May).
1861. A letter of the same date, from Bowdoin-College, Brunswick, Maine, almost ‘the jumping-off place of Down-East.’—Id., lvii. 669 (June).
