According to the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, Jack-o’-the-Lantern used to be a man named Stingy Jack or Jack the Smith, Drunk Jack, Flakey Jack, and other names. Jack tricks and traps the ...

The term jack-o’-lantern was first applied to people, not pumpkins. As far back as 1663, the term meant a man with a lantern or a night watchman. Just a decade or so later, it began to be used ...

According to Irish folklore, a man called Jack O’Lantern was sentenced to roam the earth for eternity. A ghostly figure of the night, O’Lantern walks with a burning coal inside of a carved ...

The article made no mention of Halloween, however, and the story’s description of a man’s inquisitive reaction to the jack-o’-lantern pumpkin indicates that it was not yet a common phenomenon.