what's a wampus, really?

[anne foster]

I'm reading an Overland Trail reminiscence based on an 1864 diary, but edited in 1928.  In it, the narrator describes one of the members as wearing clothing "appropriate for outside" including a "blouse or wampus, jean trousers, and cow skin boots".  In searching Google Books, I found a few more references to wampus from the 1860s into the 1870s.  But, one describes a "jacket or wampus", another "wearing old 'corduroy pants and wampus, blouse, green-baize coat'", and the last describes someone taking a flattened hat out from the front of a wampus.  So, what's a wampus?  I'm picturing a workman's smock, which I suppose could be worn over a blouse as well as under a coat, but what of the one where it is listed as linked with pants and the wearer has both a blouse and a coat?  Also of note, several references seem to use it associated with speakers who have a rural or country style of (written) speech.

Ideas?

Anne

[hanktrent]

Could it be any relation to a "warmus"? When you say the word outloud, it sounds kinda like "wampus."

http://books.google.com/books?id=ri8WAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA254

The "warmus" is a working garment, similar in appearance to a "roundabout," but more full, and being usually made of red flannel, is elastic and easy to the wearer. It is an article generally unknown in New England, New York, and the extreme northern or southern part of our country, but is more peculiar to the Germans of Pennsylvania. If any traveller, in passing through Ohio, should chance to see a large number of "lobster back" people on the farms, or about the village taverns, he may at once know, without any inquiry, that he is among the descendants of the worthy settlers of the "key-stone state."

That was 1847, so they may have spread later, as German influence spread in general. Might be worth checking out.

Hank Trent
hanktrent@gmail.com