Does the Term “What in the Sam Hill?” Originate With Oregon’s Sam Hill?

While he never claimed to be the original Sam Hill, he never denied it, either.

Stonehenge at Maryhill Museum of Art. (Stokes RX)
By Marty Smith

Does the term “What in the Sam Hill?” originate with the infamous Sam Hill from Oregon’s railroad wars, as described in the book The Columbia by Stewart Holbrook? The Sam Hill of “Sam Hill’s Castle” and the Maryhill Museum of Art? —Stephen O.

The term of art for phrases like “What in the Sam Hill?” is “minced oath”: Someone is too polite to use profanity, so they substitute a similar-sounding word, which is why you’ll often hear your grandma saying “dang” or “fudge” or “heck” or (perhaps less frequently) “monkey-fighting cork soaker.”

The primary qualification for a minced oath is to sound like the word you’re eliding. “Sam Hill” is used because “Hill” sounds like “hell,” not because of anything some guy named Sam Hill did, which is why the identity of the original—if there even is one—doesn’t really matter.

This is not to say, however, that fin de siècle railroad baron and financier Sam Hill didn’t cut a larger-than-life figure across the canvas of Pacific Northwest history. While he never claimed to be the original Sam Hill, he never denied it, either.

Hill was already rich when he came west from Minnesota in the 1890s, and he didn’t get poorer when he finagled a monopoly on Seattle’s gas market. From there, he seems to have become one of those rich guys who just builds whatever they think is cool, like a less douchey Elon Musk.

Hill convinced legislators to create the Oregon Highway Commission and was the driving force behind the Columbia River Highway. He bought 80 or so sculptures from a not yet world famous Auguste Rodin, a collection around which he built his Maryhill Art Museum.

Not everything landed, though, like the monument to World War I’s dead that inexplicably took the form of a life-sized replica of Stonehenge, or the Peace Arch to commemorate 100 years of no war with Canada, which seems a little like giving yourself a trophy because you managed to go a year without snorting coke with Mr. Rogers.

Hill was an interesting character, but he was born in 1857, about 25 years after the first recorded “What in the Sam Hill?” So no, he couldn’t have been the phrase’s namesake—and anyone’s assertions to contrary are a big, steaming load of Bill Schonely.*

*Or, to put it another way, they’re pulling your Schonz.

Questions? Send them to dr.know@wweek.com.

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