"Big Muddy" (Missouri or Mississippi RIver?); Barbeque (1760s)

[Dave Wilton]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: American Dialect Society
> [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU]On Behalf
> Of Bapopik at AOL.COM
> Sent: Thursday, August 29, 2002 2:37 AM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: "Big Muddy" (Missouri or Mississippi RIver?);
> Barbeque (1760s)
>
>
> BIG MUDDY
>
>    The RHHDAS has two entries for "Big Muddy."  It's 1825,
> 1859, and 1913 for the Missouri River.  It's 1846 and then
> 1956 for the Mississippi River.
>     Check out these citations, found on the NORTH AMERICAN
> WOMEN'S LETTERS AND DIARIES database.  The excerpts I copied
> don't clearly state which river, but you can check for yourself.
>
> Enos, Salome Paddock, _Diary of Salame Paddock Enos,
> September 1816_, in THE DIARY OF SALOME PADDOCK ENOS,
> SPringifeld, IL: Illinois State Historical
> Society, 1920, pg. 377:
>
>    Monday 30th cloudy roads better traveled over the pyraees
> found pleasant beyond my expectations forded big muddy put up
> at a miserable cabin had an Idiot for landlady and a savage for
> a landlord 17 miles.
>
>
> Steele, Eliza R. Stansbury, _Letter from Eliza R. Steele,
> July 12, 1840_, in
> SUMMER JOURNEY IN THE WEST, New York: John S. Taylor, 1841, pg. 205:
>
>    At the mouth of Big Muddy river, forty miles below
> Kaskaskia, we stopped to take in wood, and we went on shore to take
> an evening stroll.

Note that there is river that is actually named the "Big Muddy" in Jackson
County, IL (there's a "Little Muddy" too). It's a tributary of the Missouri.
The 1840 quote is undoubtedly a reference to this river, as the mouth of the
Big Muddy is some 40 miles south of Kaskaskia, IL. (And the mouth of the
Missouri is what, some 700 miles away?) There's not enough geographical
context to evaluate what is meant by the 1816 quote.