Nittany comes from the Algonquian word Nit-A-Nee, meaning "single mountain," a name the area's original inhabitants used for the mountain and that likely became corrupted to Nittany by the first Europeans who settled the area in the 18th century. By the time Penn State was founded in 1855, the word was already in use. Harrison "Joe" Mason, third baseman on the 1904 Penn State baseball team, is credited with originating the idea of a mountain lion as Penn State's mascot when he boasted to a visiting Princeton baseball team, "Well, up at Penn State, we have Mount Nittany right on our campus, where rules the Nittany Mountain Lion, who has never been beaten in a fair fight. So Princeton Tiger, look out."