We will do all in our power to assist our esteemed friend Nugator in
his etymological researches.--We remember to have read in a work of a
New England author, some years since, an elaborate inquiry into the
origin of the word which so much puzzles our correspondent. If our
memory serve us faithfully, that writer fixes the nativity of the term
in the city of Boston, and the date of its birth previous to the
revolution. The circumstances out of which it sprang he asserts to be
these. In that stormy period, when every class of citizens was
agitated by the sentiments which exploded shortly afterwards in the
thunders of revolution, public meetings were frequently held by the
different trades and professions. For reasons which we now forget,
particular attention was attracted to one called by the _Calkers_, a
large body of citizens in so commercial a town. Their proceedings
being peculiar, (perhaps in exclusiveness or secrecy,) caused this
assemblage to be much talked of; and every subsequent meeting
characterized by similar peculiarities in its formation or
proceedings, was called a "_Calker's Meeting_." Gradually, in the
lapse of time, although the term continued to be used, its origin was
forgotten; and a knowledge of its etymological parentage no longer
preserving it from corruption, an erroneous pronunciation, and
consequently an erroneous manner of spelling it, gave to it the form
and shape which it now wears--a change not at all surprising in regard
to a word which was probably _unwritten_ during the first thirty years
of its existence. We give this derivation from memory alone; we cannot
even recall the work in which we saw it. If it be the true one, our
friend will perceive that in one of his surmises he is not far wrong.
It is high time that the birth, parentage and early condition of a
particle of our language, which has of late become a word of power,
equal in its magic influence to the fabled spells of ancient
necromancers, should be settled beyond dispute. Seeing what Caucus now
means, it is natural that we should desire to know from what
beginnings it has arisen to its present stupendous importance in the
ranks of our modern political vocabulary.