Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. America.

1848		J.R. Lowell Biglow Papers (1880) 109: Hail Columby’s happy land is goin’ thru a crisis.
1853		S. Northup Twelve Years A Slave 56: So we passed, hand-cuffed and in silence, through the streets of Washington – through the Capital of a nation, whose theory of government, we are told, rests on the foundation of man’s inalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness! Hail! Columbia, happy land, indeed!
1862		Yankee Doodle n.p.: You’ve been sp’ilt by Uncle Sam / With dognose, votes and candy, Hail, Columbia! happy land.

2. a euph. for hell.

1845		J.H. Carleton Prairie Logbooks (1983) 27 May 192: Hail Col-um-bia! why how damp you look!
1850		J.C. Neal Pic-nic Sketches 22: Drat these boots! they’ve been eating green presimmings. I guess their mouths are all drawed up, just as if they wanted to whistle ‘Hail Kerlumby’.
1869		A.K. McClure Three Thousand Miles through the Rocky Mountains 170: She occasionally combs the head of the Prophet with a three-legged stool, raises Hail Columbia in the very sanctuary of the holies, and smashes a chair over the piano.
1874		Daniel G. Crotty Four Years Campaigning in the Army of the Potomac 50: They pitch into the Johnnies and give them Hail Columbia.
1894		Herald (Los Angeles) 28 Oct. 9/1: That executive meeting was a corker. De Kernel he had de floor [...] just giving the whole crowd Hail Columbia [...] He was as ugly as hell.
1912		A. Berkman Prison Memoirs of an Anarchist (1926) 164: It was Hail Columbia all right.
1920		H.C. Witwer Kid Scanlon 238: Why in the Hail Columbia don’t you bust out and giggle now and then, hey?
1936		(con. 1920s) Dos Passos Big Money in USA (1966) 748: The owners, who were a lot of greedy smalleyed Dutchmen, began to raise Hail Columbia.
1969, 1968–70		in DARE.
1977		R. Coover Public Burning (1979) 651: If you ain’t the all-starten skittiest crittur in all Hail Columbia!

3. a punishment, a telling-off, a scolding.

1854		in Oregon Weekly Times 9 Sept. n.p.: He says we gave him Hale Columby.
1907		J.W. Carr ‘Word-List from Hampstead, N.H.’ in DN III iii 189: hail Columbia, n. phr. A sound scolding.
1913		H.A. Franck Zone Policeman 88 222: A place for every man and every man in his place, each his allotted work, which he was fully able to do and getting Hail Columbia if he failed to do it.
1927		(con. 1900s) S. Lewis Elmer Gantry 16: If they tell me they didn’t know about this, you’ll get merry Hail Columbia for not telling ’em.
1928		V. Delmar Bad Girl 14: I’ll get Hail Columbia if my brother’s in.
1937		William Maxwell They Came like Swallows (2002) 115: If she finds out you’ve been using her dictionary, you’ll get Hail Columbia!
1946		New Yorker 25 May 25/3: I got Hail Columbia from Father for that escapade [DA].