What is the origin of the name “Little Egypt”?

Southern Illinois is the inverted triangle bounded by the Wabash, the Ohio, and the Mississippi, and by an indeterminate line drawn east from St. Louis on the north. It has been called Egypt since the extreme winters of 1824, 1831, and 1832; when northerners journeyed south to buy corn and seed, imagining themselves as the sons of Jacob, who went “down to Egypt to buy corn” in Genesis 42. After 1832, the term Egypt came into general use, as people enjoyed thinking that they had settled in a land of plenty sanctioned by Scripture. In 1837 the town of Cairo was chartered at the Nile-like delta where the Ohio joins the Mississippi. Many other towns in the area have taken on Biblical names as well; such as Karnak, Thebes, Palestine, Lebanon, Mt. Carmel, Eden, Goshen, Olive Branch and Herod. There was even a Sodom that vanished in the early 1900’s.