Note 81 — UNCLE SAM. BY ALBERT MATTHEWS.

This singular expression, now obsolete or obsolescent, was common in the first half of the nineteenth century. It was originally the slang of the boatmen on the Mississippi and other Western rivers. See C. Schultz, Jr., Travels (1810), II, 145, 146. The Salem Gazette of June 12, 1812, a few days before war was declared with England, printed the following: "Curious Terms of Defiance, New-Orleans April 24. 'Half horse half alligator'—has hitherto been the boast of our up-country boatmen, when quarreling. The present season however has made a complete change. A few days ago two of them quarreled in a boat at Natchez, when one of them jumping ashore declared with a horrid oath that he was a steamboat. His opponent immediately followed him, swearing he was an earthquake and would shake him to pieces—and in fact almost literally executed his threat." The Salem Gazette added "It is these monsters of the western wilds that are forcing the people of the Atlantic shores into an unnecessary and ruinous war" (p. 4-1).