Ohio History Journal

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WHY IS OHIO CALLED THE BUCKEYE STATE

WHY IS OHIO CALLED THE BUCKEYE STATE?

 

AN ADDRESS BY WILLIAM M. FARRAR.

THE name Buckeye, as applied to the State of Ohio, is

an accepted sobriquet, so well recognized and so generally

understood throughout the United States, that its use re-

quires no explanation, although the origin of the term

and its significance are not without question, and therefore be-

come proper subjects of consideration during this Centennial

year.

The usual and most commonly accepted solution is,

that it originates from the buckeye tree, which is indigen-

ous to the State of Ohio and is not found elsewhere. This,

however, is not altogether correct, as it is also found both

in Kentucky and Indiana, and in some few localities in

West Virginia, and perhaps elsewhere. But while such

is the fact, its natural locality appears to be in the State

of Ohio, and its native soil in the rich valleys of the Mus-

kingum, Hockhocking, Scioto, Miamis, and Ohio, where

in the early settlement of the State it was found growing

in great abundance, and because of the luxuriance of its

foliage, the richly colored dyes of its fruit, and its ready

adaptation to the wants and conveniences of the pioneers,

it was highly prized by them for many useful purposes.

It was also well known to and much prized by the

Indians, from whose rude language comes its name,

"Hetuck," meaning the eye of the buck, because of the

striking resemblance in color and shape between the brown

nut and the eye of that animal, the peculiar spot upon the

one corresponding to the iris in the other. In its application,

however, we have reversed the term, and call the person

or thing to which it is applied a buckeye.

In a very interesting after-dinner speech, made by Dr.

Daniel Drake, the eminent botanist and historian of the

Ohio Valley, at a banquet given at the city of Cincinnati

on the occasion of the forty-fourth anniversary of the

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