Yank Carl Sandburg has Whall's 'hog-eye' barges rounding Cape Horn proper.

By 1966 they're all over the place:

“As a matter of fact Whall, 'Seaman of the Old School,' gives an explanation of the word 'Hog-eye' without any obscene entanglements. He plainly states that it was a type of barge invented for the newly formed overland trade which used the canals and rivers of America at the time of the Gold Rush (1850) onwards). A 'Ditch-Hog' was a sarcastic phrase used by American deepwatermen to denote sailors of inland waterways such as the Mississippi and Missouri as opposed to foreign-going Johns.
[Hugill]