The broadside printing of "Big Bow Wow" linked by Mick Pearce in the other thread indicates that the song is from the play "Love in a Camp."

This was written by the once well-known John O'Keeffe and first performed in 1786.

Steve, outside of the not-always-reliable pages of Farmer & Henley (and the existence of Boston terriers), I have never heard of a Bostonian referred to as a "bow-wow" of any size.

(Can we somehow combine this and the other thread? They *are* embarrassingly similar.)