Democratic Sentinel, Volume 8, Number 10, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 April 1884 — The Origin of the word Teetotal. [ARTICLE]

The Origin of the word Teetotal.

In 1811 the first organized attempt to battle .with 1 intemperance that history records was started in Massachusetts, It spread from State to State of the Union and crossed the Atlantic in 1829. It had already made some progress in England, Scotland and Ireland, when Father Matthew appeal'd 1838. In 1817 a Total Abstinence Society was formed in Skibbereen, Cork. In 1832 the war against alcohol was begun in England. One Joseph Livesey, a gentleman of Preston, having opened it with a mass-meeting at which several gentlemon mado speeches, urging the necessity of moderation in the use of alcoholic liquors. A plasterer’s laborer we are told, named “Did ” Turner, said to the assemblage:—’l hev nowt to do wi’ this moderation, >tli©ration pledge; I’ll be rest down o-tee-total for ever and ever.” The w 1 Teetotal was thus got into print, and * as caught up at once as the Watchword of the thorough temperance reformers.