Interesting and utterly new to me. Thanks.

Map of "Little Dixie" counties.

http://www.rootsweb.com/~morandol/maps.htm

Hannibal/St. Petersburg is in Pike County, shown here as "bordering"
relative to Little Dixie. Also, of course, just across the river is
free-soil Illinois. Add in islands which might be free-soil one day and
slave territory the next, and certainly a dynamic circumstance results!

DDD

PS: This map exaggerates the size of the rivers (obviously) but shows
the "highway" system (if you will) very well. I don't know how far up
the Missouri was navigable by large boats.

http://www.mapofmississippi.com/map_of_mississippi.cfm