N is for Nicknames

by Kim Van Sickler

[Kim's posts will all relate to her MG historical fiction novel with a paranormal twist: Muleskinner. Here's the pitch: An extraordinary canal dog gives twelve-year-old mule driver, Clay, the conviction to fight against a highly suspect Indenture agreement his pa supposedly signed...right before Pa was found swinging from a tree above Lonesome Lock.]

Canalers and places on the Ohio Canal frequently developed nicknames. For instance Captain Pearl Nye, a canaler who later wrote and performed stories and songs about life on The Silver Ribbon (nickname for the Ohio Canal), was known as Skinny. The locks the canal boats passed through developed their own colorful nicknames as well. Some of my favorites that I worked into Muleskinner are: Lonesome Lock, Black Dog Crossing, Johnny Cake Lock, and Whiskey Lock.

Captain Pearl Nye, nicknamed Skinny

Lonesome Lock circa 1892

Many of my Muleskinner characters have nicknames as well. Clay, my muleskinner (slang for a mule driver) is Bird, a name he was given that he hopes refers to how he sings rather than, as he suspects, his scrawny build. Gloomy and dark Cap'n Loomis Sheridan was nicknamed Mossy by his younger brother, Owen. The name derives from a shortening of the slang term moss-backed, which meant drunk. Owen never calls Cap'n Mossy to his face, however. And Cap'n Sheridan refers to his bushy-haired younger brother Owen, the bowman, as Whiskers, when he's irritated with him. 

I embraced the nickname culture when writing Muleskinner. I couldn't resist!