Green’s Dictionary of Slang

Boston, also attrib.; thus Hubite, a Bostonian.

1858		O.W. Holmes Autocrat of the Breakfast Table 143: Boston State-House is the hub of the solar system. You couldn’t pry that out of a Boston man, if you had the tire of all creation straightened out for a crow-bar.
1869		Boston Herald Dec. n.p.: He is to have a quintette club of amateurs with him, from The Hub [F&H].
1872		Daily Tel. 4 July n.p.: Boston claims to be the HUB of the universe; but New York grandiloquently asserts itself to be the universal wheel itself [F&H].
1875		L.A. Herald 28 Mar. 2/3: [headline] The Hub Exasperated. Boston, March 26th [...].
1889		S. Bourke & Mornington Jrnl (Richmond, Vic.) 4 Dec. 2s/4: A new era of culture has dawned upon the Hub — the culture of muscle, of eye-closers and nose smashers [...] and rib-roasters.
1897		S.F. Call 8 Oct. 6/4: The Windy City might retort by reminding the Hub that it is the ‘beneficiary‘ of Chicago’s hog products.
1909		L.A. Herald 26 Oct. 11/3: [headline] Million is Presented to Brother by Hub Physician [...] the brother of Dr John Morgan of Boston realized $7,000,000 [etc.].
1910		Wash. Post 3 July 3/4: A fellow is strictly up against it when he’s on the lookout for freaks. Hubites seem to have an insatiable hankering for them.
1922		Clinch Valley News (Jefferson, VA) 15 Sept. 2/4: Some day a quilldriver from our Appalachian regions may [...] get up to the land of the Hub.
1926		Wood & Goddard Dict. Amer. Sl.