house plunder

alternative house-plunder

1. Southern USuncountableMiscellaneous household items.First known use mid 19th c.

   [P]eople had stock, and children, and house plunder, and a stout log cabin to cover them, […]

   1852, Cora Montgomery, “A Pioneer Mother”, in Eagle Pass; or, Life on the Border, New York, N.Y.: George P[almer] Putnam & Co., […], →OCLC, page 28

   5 more examples

   I can count many families living in log houses with a ladder only for a stairway to the loft, where one or more beds and sometimes house plunder and grain were kept; while the room below—kitchen, dining-room and parlor—where the wool was carded into rolls, spun and sometimes woven into cloth, prepared for the puller, to be made into good warm winter goods.

   1885 December 11 – 1886 February 11, William Penn Ryman, quoting John R. Barton, “The Early Settlement of Dallas Township, Pa.”, in Horace Edwin Hayden, editor, Proceedings and Collections of the Wyoming Historical and Geological Society, volume VI, Wilkes-Barré, Pa.: […] [E. B. Yordy Co.] for the [Wyoming Historical and Geological] Society, published 1901, →OCLC, pages 212–214

   Also I will sell all of my house plunder, such as bedding, chairs, tables, parlor and kitchen furniture.

   1888 August 15, B. T. Igleheart, “Notice”, in McHenry Rhoads, Frank L. Felix, editors, The Hartford Herald, volume XIV, number 33, Hartford, Ky.: [McHenry Rhoads and Frank L. Felix], →OCLC, page 3, column 3

   I'm the squire from Buckskin Township, an' I rather think I married that old lady with red cheeks to an oldish man in a butternut suit, drivin' a span of grays to a green wagon full of house plunder, an' with two red cows tied behind.

   1894 November, Lizzie Hyer Neff, “A November Idyl”, in The Peterson Magazine, volume IV (New Series), number 5, Philadelphia, Pa.: Penfield Pub. Co., →OCLC, page 1114, column 2

   Each girl got a cow, a mare and sufficient "house[-]plunder" with which to set up house-keeping, but they rarely got any land, the husband being expected to provide that.

   1914, John Preston Arthur, “Manners and Customs”, in Western North Carolina: A History (from 1730 to 1913), Asheville, N.C.: The Edward Buncombe Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution; Raleigh, N.C.: Edwards & Broughton Printing Company, →OCLC, page 253

   Why, she married that oldest boy of little Ike's, a moughty well-turned, civil, workin' boy, an' his folks give 'im a heifer an' some house[-]plunder, an' her mam give 'em a bed an' a nice lot uv quilts, an' they've set up fer theirselves.

   1917, Louise S[aunders] Murdoch, “In Memoriam”, in Almetta of Gabriel’s Run, New York, N.Y.: The Meridian Press, →OCLC, page 101

   Synonyms: household goods