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Frank Cotolo
January 2, 2014 |
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North Americans often refer to Sam Hill in a certain context when exclaiming something. It's a
common name to use as a replacement for a word that would be considered profane or obscene.
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You may have heard it used like this: "What the Sam Hill is that all about?" or "What the Sam Hill
is going on around here?" or "What the Sam Hill did you mean by that?" et cetera...
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Of course the question that comes to mind is this: Who in the Sam Hill is Sam Hill? The origins of
the name have some questionable sources, none of which can be verified as the single reason for the
name being used the way it is used. We do know, though, that it is never used in place of any other
words.
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Small-town records from Wyoming indicate there was a Sam Hill who owned a lot of land in the
mid-1800s. He started with a handful of dirt, half of which was bequeathed to him from his uncle,
Anthony Hill.
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Also known as Ant Hill, his uncle settled in the western part of the state and built a business
transporting people to the eastern part of the state, where he started a saloon chain that became
very popular among drunkards. When Ant Hill raised the price of whiskey, alcoholics in the east
replaced cuss words using his name. It stuck when Ant Hill closed the saloons and all the
alcoholics went into convulsions from lack of booze. Many of them died.
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Another story is that Sam Hill was a sailor and he would run amok when his ship docked in one of
the 13 colonies. He was rowdy and rude and often spat upon dockworkers. He started fights with
women and changed the clothing on young children when their parents were not looking. No one knew
why he was so ornery so they began to use the phrase, "What in the Sam Hill?"
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Still another story claims that Sam Hill was a doctor in the wild west and was so lazy that he
refused to help some people get better when they were sick or injured. The story goes that many
gunfights took place in his town and he would dawdle and stall to show up at the gunfight site and
help the loser. Some people thought it was not laziness but greed that made him ignore losers in
gunfights.
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