this is starting to get like tracing the yellow rose of Texas...

the problem with newspaper articles is the self censoring done to keep up readership... you will not see profane or socially unacceptable terms in print, especially slang ... and hogeye has those connotations today and possibly in the past... heck... even on this medium you avoid using words that are viewed racist even when all you want tot do is examine the word and how it was used in the past

example... my grandfather was born in the 1880's and went to after losing half his right arm as a kid and could do farm work.. he and a buddy risked their lives to get a black stoker out of a sinking ship who was still shoveling the coal into the boiler with his coattails floating behind him, he also let black dockworkers sleep in his boat when they were down and out... he also called them the N* word as naturally as he would use their proper names... notice that I did not use the actual word I heard him say time after time

I suspect we would need access to the logbooks of the steamers that hauled the river barges to see when and if the term appears