The end of a journey; the last place to be reached; an “ultima Thule.”
1826. Being, as they phrase it, the “jumping off place,” it [Natchitoches] is necessarily the resort of desperate, wicked, and strange creatures, who wish to fly away from poverty, infamy, and the laws, and those who have one, from conscience.—T. Flint, ‘Recollections,’ p. 366.
1836. Natchez under the hill,—where, O! where, shall I find words suitable to describe the peculiarities of that unholy spot? ’Tis, in fact, the jumping off place. Satan looks on it with glee, and chuckles as he beholds the orgies of his votaries.—‘Col. Crockett in Texas,’ p. 98 (Phila.).
1848. It surprises one greatly, after riding for hours over the monotonous plain, to come so unexpectedly upon these gaping fissures, which look at first as if the earth’s crust was split down to its very center, and you feel as though you had come to “the jumping off place.”—C. W. Webber, ‘Old Hicks the Guide,’ p. 97 (N.Y.).
1851. [The Yazoo] comes closer bein’ the jumpin off place than any I ever hearn tell on.—‘Polly Peablossom’s Wedding,’ &c., pp. 67–8.
1855. We do not find out the impossibility of the thing, until we come very near to the jumping-off place.—D. G. Mitchell, ‘Fudge Doings,’ i. 136.
1856. Is all the beauty in existence centered in the jumping-off point of New-Jersey?—Knick. Mag., xlviii. 285 (Sept.).
1857. Away down upon the Atlantic coast nearly to the jumping-off-place of this free and independent country, dozes in the sun a little city [St. Augustine, Florida].—Yale Lit. Mag., xxii. 261 (June).
1861. Bowdoin-College, Brunswick, Maine, almost the ‘jumping-off place of Down-East.’—Knick. Mag., lvii. 669 (June).
