I was perusing Lucy Rollin's excellent new edition of Tom Sawyer --
I especially enjoy the appendix on small-town American boyhood in the
1840s.  Anyway, it got me to thinking about the links between MT's
fiction and SC's Missouri. St. Petersburg began bothering me. I pulled
out my copy of Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer Among the Indians and looked
through it again.  I can't find what I'm looking for there.
    What I'm wondering about is the origin of the name St. Petersburg.
Did Sam leave any clues about as to the origin? There was in the 1820s,
a town named Petersburgh, Missouri near the confluence of the Salt River
and the Mississippi.  This would have been about 25 miles downriver from
Florida on the Salt and 25 miles downriver on the Mississippi from
Hannibal.  Petersburgh would have been near present Louisiana, Missouri.
 It is on H.C. Carey's 1822 map of Missouri, but not on Jeremiah
Greenleaf's 1840 map, nor Joseph Meyer's 1845 map.  It does, however,
show up on an 1841 map by S.G. Goodrich, which might indicate it died
somewhere around 1840???
    Is this dead town the origin of St. Petersburg?  I recall some
fanciful speculations about the name being indicative of heaven, but do
not recall anything on an actual geographical reference.  Sam knew the
river like the back of his hand.  His dad was interested in Salt River
development.  But is there anything in writing by SC like Villagers?
    Terrell Dempsey