Close up; completely, fully. In the 1853 example, the word is equivalent to “stunning.”
1825. He had been sitting, for two or three hours, without opening his mouth, “jam up,” in a back seat.—John Neal, ‘Brother Jonathan,’ ii. 52.
1825. “Hold in! or you’re jam up, I swear,” cried out a long, slabsided Virginian.—Id., ii. 303.
1835. He [Andrew Jackson] went jam up for war; but the cabinet got him down to half heat.—‘Col. Crockett’s Tour,’ p. 192 (Phila.).
1837. I was standing by the Doctor jam up to him.—Balt. Comml. Transcript, June 24, p. 2/4.
1846. Their notion is that we go jam up to 54° 40′, and the Russians come jam down to the same, leaving no place for the British lion to put down a paw.—Mr. Benton of Missouri, U.S. Senate, May 22: Cong. Globe, p. 852.
1853. Wiggins’s tavern was a jam-up house of amusement.—Daily Morning Herald, St. Louis, May 9.
1866. Linton played his part of the programme jam up.—C. H. Smith, ‘Bill Arp,’ p. 61. (Italics in the original.)
