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[Illustration: TORTURING A CAPTIVE]
WESTERN SCENES
AND
REMINISCENCES:
TOGETHER WITH
THRILLING LEGENDS AND TRADITIONS
OF THE
RED MEN OF THE FOREST.
TO WHICH IS ADDED
SEVERAL NARRATIVES OF ADVENTURES AMONG THE INDIANS.
AUBURN: DERBY & MILLER.
BUFFALO: DERBY, ORTON & MULLIGAN.
1853.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1851, by
GEO. H. DERBY & CO.,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the
Northern District of New York.
CONTENTS.
PAGES.
PERSONAL REMINISCENCES, 5 to 40
Scenes and Adventures in the Ozark Mountains, 41 " 63
Personal Incidents and Impressions of the Indian Race, 64 " 77
TALES OF A WIGWAM--
The White Stone Canoe, 79 " 81
The Lynx and the Hare--Fable from the Odjibwa-Algonquin, 81
The Worship of the Sun, an Ottowa Tradition, 82 " 84
Shingebiss, 85 " 86
Wasbashas, or the Tribe that Grew out of a Shell, 95 " 97
The Boy who set a Snare for the Sun, 97 " 99
Ampata Sapa, or, The First Wife, 99 " 100
Mukakee Mindemoea, or, The Toad Woman, 101 " 103
The Quadruped with the Hair blown off its Skin, 106 " 109
The Traditionary Story of Red Head and his Two Sons, 109 " 115
The Swing on the Lake Shore, 116 " 117
Takozid, or the Short-Foot, 118 " 121
Machinito, the Evil Spirit, by Mrs. E. Oakes Smith, 121 " 126
The Little Spirit, or Boy-Man, an Odjibwa Fairy Tale, 127 " 130
Aingodon and Naywadaha--story of a family of Nadowas, 130 " 133
The Rabid Wolf, a Village Tradition, 158 " 163
Moowis, or the Man made up of Rags and Dirt, 164 " 167
The Lone Lightning, an Odjibwa Tale, 168
POETRY--
To Health, 183
The Bird, 63
"The Loon upon the Lake, 404
Odjibwa Song, 405
Niagara, an Allegory, 407
Traditionary War Songs of the Odjibwa Algonquins, 410 " 416
SKETCHES OF THE LIVES OF NOTED RED MEN AND WOMEN--
Wabojeeg, or the White Fisher, 134 " 145
Brant, Red Jacket, Uncas, Miontonimo, 146 " 157
Confessions of Catherine Ogee Wyan Akwut Okwa, 169 " 174
Andaig Weos, or Crows-Flesh, 192 " 195
Early Indian Biography--Piskaret, an Algonquin Chief, 87 " 90
Early Sketches of Indian Women, 95
The Magician of Lake Huron, 75 " 178
Venerable Indian Chief, 365
Indian Women, their Dispositions, Employments, &c., 399 " 401
ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF THE RACE--
Wyandot Traditions of the Creation, and other Epochs, 196 " 200
Traditions of the Arctides, 201 " 203
Historical Traditions of the Chippewas, Odjibwas, &c., 203 " 206
Mythology, Superstition, and Religion of the Algonquins, 206 " 217
Indian Arrow Heads, &c., 218 " 220
The Manito Tree, 78
The Era of the Arrival of the French in the Upper Lakes, 289 " 290
Shingaba-Wossins, or Image Stones, 291 " 293
Mnemonic Symbols of the North American Indians, 293 " 300
Grave Creek Mound, 301
Names of the American Lakes, 302 " 303
Letters on the Antiquities of the Western Country, 309 " 328
Era of the Settlement of Detroit, &c., 328 " 330
The Choctaw Indians, 330
A Synopsis of Cartier's Voyages of Discovery, 331 " 352
Influence of Ardent Spirits on the Condition of Indian 353 " 365
Fate of the Red Race in America, 366 " 389
Pawnee Barbarity, 402 " 403
Indian Possessions, 163
Ruling Chief of the Miamis, 174
Repose of the Soul, 127
Corn Planting and its Incidents, 179 " 183
Domestic and Social Manners of the Indians, 184 " 187
Pugasaing, or the Game of the Bowl, 188 " 190
Reverence and Affection for Parents, 191
Chronology, 288
The Origin of the Wyandot and Seneca Tribes, 91 " 94
The Flight of the Shawnees from the South, 104 " 105
ETHNOLOGY--
Schoolcraft's Cyclopaedia--History, Geography, &c., 131 " 165
LANGUAGE--
Grammatical Structure of the Indian Language, 266 " 288
Nursery and Cradle Songs of the Forest, 390 " 398
Mode of Writing an Indian Language, 145
Languages of the Pacific Islands, 398
Indian Music, Songs, and Poetry, 221 " 229
Geographical Terminology, from the Indian Language 304 " 308
Names of the Seasons, 308
Chant to the Fire-fly, 230
A Psalm, or Supplication for Mercy, &c., 408 " 409
APPENDIX--
Narrative of the Captivity of Alexander Henry, Esq. 417 " 462
Narrative of the Captivity of Frances Noble, 463 " 469
Narrative of the Captivity of Quintin Stockwell, 470 " 478
Narrative of the Captivity of Peter Williamson, 479 " 487
Narrative of the Captivity of Jonathan Carver, 488 " 493
Narrative of the Captivity of Mrs. Scott, 494 " 495
PERSONAL REMINISCENCES.
It is now twenty-six years since I first entered the area of the
Mississippi valley, with the view of exploring its then but imperfectly
known features, geographical and geological. Twenty-two years of this
period have elapsed since I entered on the duties of an Executive Agent
for the United States Government in its higher northern latitudes among
the Indian tribes in the west. Having devoted so large a portion of my
life in an active sphere, in which the intervals of travel left me
favourable opportunities of pursuing the languages and history of this
branch of the race, it appears to be a just expectation, that, in
sitting down to give some account of this people, there should be some
preliminary remarks, to apprise the reader how and why it is, that his
attention is recalled to a topic which he may have supposed to be well
nigh exhausted. This it is proposed to do by some brief personal
reminiscences, beginning at the time above alluded to.
The year 1814 constituted a crisis, not only in our political history,
but also in our commercial, manufacturing, and industrial interests. The
treaty of Ghent, which put a period to the war with England, was a
blessing to many individuals and classes in America: but, in its
consequences, it had no small share of the effects of a curse upon that
class of citizens who were engaged in certain branches of manufactures.
It was a peculiarity of the crisis, that these persons had been
stimulated by double motives, to invest their capital and skill in the
perfecting and establishment of the manufactories referred to, by the
actual wants of the country and the high prices of the foreign articles.
No pains and no cost had been spared, by many of them, to supply this
demand; and it was another result of the times, that no sooner had they
got well established, and were in the high road of prosperity than the
peace came and plunged them headlong from the pinnacle of success. This
blow fell heavier upon some branches than others. It was most fatal to
those manufacturers who had undertaken to produce fabrics of the highest
order, or which belong to an advanced state of the manufacturing
prosperity of a nation. Be this as it may, however, it fell with
crushing force upon that branch in which I was engaged. As soon as the
American ports were opened to these fabrics, the foreign makers who
could undersell us, poured in cargo on cargo; and when the first demands
had been met, these cargoes were ordered to be sold at auction; the
prices immediately fell to the lowest point, and the men who had staked
in one enterprise their zeal, skill and money, were ruined at a blow.
Every man in such a crisis, must mentally recoil upon himself. Habits
of application, reading, and an early desire to be useful, had sustained
me at a prior period of life, through the dangers and fascinations of
jovial company. There was in this habit or temper of room-seclusion, a
pleasing resource of a conservative character, which had filled up the
intervals of my busiest hours; and when business itself came to a stand,
it had the effect to aid me in balancing and poising my mind, while I
prepared to enter a wider field, and indeed, to change my whole plan of
life. If it did not foster a spirit of right thought and
self-dependence, it, at least, gave a degree of tranquillity to the
intervals of a marked pause, and, perhaps, flattered the ability to act.
Luckily I was still young, and with good animal spirits, and a sound
constitution I resolved I would not go down so. The result of seven
years of strenuous exertions, applied with persevering diligence and
success, was cast to the winds, but it was seven years of a young man's
life, and I thought it could be repaired by time and industry. What the
east withheld, I hoped might be supplied by another quarter. I turned my
thoughts to the west, and diligently read all I could find on the
subject. The result of the war of 1812, (if this contest had brought no
golden showers on American manufacturers, as I could honestly testify in
my own case,) had opened to emigration and enterprise the great area
west of the Alleghanies. The armies sent out to battle with Indian, and
other foes, on the banks of the Wabash, the Illinois, the Detroit, the
Raisin and the Miami of the Lakes, had opened to observation attractive
scenes for settlement; and the sword was no sooner cast aside, than
emigrants seized hold of the axe and the plough. This result was worth
the cost of the whole contest, honour and glory included. The total
prostration of the moneyed system of the country, the effects of
city-lot and other land speculations, while the system was at its full
flow, and the very backward seasons of 1816 and 1817, attended with late
and early frosts, which extensively destroyed the corn crop in the
Atlantic states, all lent their aid in turning attention towards the
west and south-west, where seven new states have been peopled and
organized, within the brief period to which these reminiscences apply:
namely, Indiana, Illinois, Mississippi, Missouri, Alabama, Arkansas and
Michigan, besides the flourishing territories of Wisconsin and Iowa, and
the more slowly advancing territory of Florida. It appeared to me, that
information, geographical and other, of such a wide and varied region,
whose boundaries were but ill defined, must be interesting at such a
period; and I was not without the hope that the means of my future
advancement would be found in connexion with the share I might take in
the exploration of it. With such views I resolved to go west. This
feeling I find to be expressed on the back of an old slip of an account
of the period:
"I will go by western fountain,
I will wander far and wide;
Till some sunny spot invite me,
Till some guardian bid me bide.
"Snow or tempest--plain the drearest
Shall oppose a feeble bar,
Since I go from friends the dearest,
'Tis no matter then how far.
"On!--'tis useless here to dally;
On!--I can but make or mar;
Since my fortune leads to sally,
'Tis no matter then how far."
Of the "seven years" to which allusion has been made I had spent four in
New England, a land which is endeared to me at this distance of time, by
recollections of hospitality, virtue, and manly intelligence.
While engaged in the direction of the business above named, I had
prepared the notes and materials for my first publication, in which I
aimed to demonstrate the importance of an acquaintance with Chemistry
and Mineralogy in the preparation and fusion of numerous substances in
the mineral kingdom, which result in the different conditions of the
various glasses, enamels, &c. I had, from early youth, cultivated a
taste for mineralogy, long indeed it may be said, before I knew that
mineralogy was a science; and, as opportunities increased, had been led
by my inquiries, (which I followed with ardour but with very slight
helps,) to add to this some knowledge of elementary chemistry and
experimental philosophy, and to supply myself, from Boston and New York,
with books, apparatus, and tests. I do not know that there were any
public lectures on mineralogy, &c. at this time, say from 1810 to '16;
certainly, there were none within my reach. I gleaned from the best
sources I could, and believe that the late Professor Frederick Hall was
the only person to whom I was indebted even for occasional instructions
in these departments. He was a man strongly devoted to some of the
natural sciences, particularly mineralogy; and was erudite in the old
authors on the subject, whom he liked to quote; and I may say that I
continued to enjoy his confidence and friendship to the time of his
death, which happened in 1843. From such sources, from the diligent
reading of books, and from experiments, conducted with the advantage of
having under my charge extensive works, at various times, in the states
of New York, Vermont and New Hampshire, I drew the principles which
formed the basis of my treatise on Vitreology. With this work in hand, I
left Keene, in New Hampshire, early in the winter of 1817; and, crossing
the Connecticut river at Brattleboro, proceeded over the Green
Mountains, by the route of Bennington, to Albany, and thence returned to
my father's house in western New York. No time was lost in issuing
proposals for the work; and I had the satisfaction to find that the
portions published, and the entire plan and merits of it were warmly
approved by the pen of the late Mr. Maynard of Utica, and by several
liberal minded and intelligent persons. Before quitting New England, I
had determined to go to the Mississippi valley, and had begun to study
its geography; and I now resolved to proceed, without unnecessary delay.
Means constitute the first object of solicitude in all such
undertakings. The ebbing tide of manufacturing prosperity to which I
have referred, had left me very poor. From the fragments of former
acquisitions, for which, however, I was exclusively indebted to my own
industry, I raised a small sum of money--much smaller I think than most
men would be willing to start with, who had resolved to go so far. I
had, in truth, but sixty dollars in the world; but I possessed a very
good wardrobe, and some other personal means, such as it may be supposed
will adhere to a man who has lived in abundance for many years. I put up
a miniature collection of mineralogical specimens, to serve as a
standard of comparison in the west, a few implements for analysis, some
books which I thought it would be difficult to meet with in that region,
and some drawing materials. I had connected these things in some way
with my future success. In other respects, I had the means, as above
hinted, of making a respectable appearance. Thus prepared, I bade adieu
to my father and mother, and also to three sisters and a brother, all
younger than myself, and set forward. The winter of 1818 had opened
before I reached my brother's house at Geneva, in western New York. From
this point I determined to leave the main track, through the Genessee
county west, and to strike the head waters of the Alleghany river, so as
to descend that stream with the spring flood.
My brother drove me in his own sleigh, as far as Angelica. By the time
we reached that place, being no traveller and much fatigued with the
intricacies and roughness of the road, he was fain to give over his
undertaking, and I parted from him, sending back the sleigh from Olean,
to take him home.
The Alleghany river was locked with ice when I reached it. I had an
opportunity to cross it on foot, and to examine in the vicinity those
evidences of the coal formation which are found in masses of bituminous
shale, slaty coal and petroleum. The river began to open about the
middle of March. I left Olean in the first ark for the season, borne
onwards down the sweeping Alleghany at the top of the flood, often
through winding channels, and once in danger of being precipitated over
a mill dam, by taking the wrong channel.
On another occasion, just as we were coming to the division of the
channel, at the head of a group of islands, a tall Seneca Indian,
standing in the bow of a very long pine canoe, cried out, in a tone of
peculiar emphasis, "Keep to the right--I speak it." This direction we
followed, and were saved from another mishap. We tied the ark to the
shore at night, built a fire on the bank and cooked a supper. On
passing the Conowonga, it was at the height of its flood, and appeared
to bring in as much water as the Allegheny. We stopped at the noted
chief Cornplanter's village, and also to gratify a reminiscent
curiosity, at the mouth of French Creek, connected with Washington's
perilous adventure in visiting Fort de Boef, now Erie. At Kittaning, a
great scow ferry boat was rowed and managed by two women or girls with a
degree of muscular exertion, or rather ease, which would put to the
blush many a man east or west of the Alleghanies. The tone, air, and
masculine strength of these girl-boatmen, reminded me of nothing this
side of Rollin's description of the Amazons--save that the same
provision was not apparent for drawing the bow. Bold hills line both
banks of the river along its upper parts, and continue, indeed, at
farther intervals apart, to very near the junction of the Monongahela;
but long before this point, the stream is one of noble dimensions,
clear, broad, and strong. After a voyage of exciting and vivid interest,
I reached and landed at Pittsburgh.
NO. II.
It is Dr. Johnson, I think, who says, that we take slight occasions to
be pleased. At least, I found it so, on the present occasion; the day of
my arrival was my birth day, and it required but little stretch of
imagination to convert the scene upon which I had now entered, into a
new world. It was new to me.--I was now fairly in the great geological
valley of the west, the object of so many anticipations.
The ark, in which I had descended the Alleghany, put ashore near the
point of land, which is formed by the junction of the Monongahela with
this fine clear stream. The dark and slowly moving waters of the one,
contrasted strongly with the sparkling velocity of the other. I felt a
buoyancy of spirits as I leapt ashore, and picked up some of its clean
pebbles to see what kind of geological testimony they bore to the actual
character of their parent beds in the Appalachian range.
"What shall I pay you, for my passage, from Olean," said I, to the
gentleman with whom I had descended, and at whose ark-table I had found
a ready seat with his family. "Nothing, my dear sir," he replied with a
prompt and friendly air,--"Your cheerful aid in the way, taking the oars
whenever the case required it, has more than compensated for any claims
on that score, and I only regret that you are not going further with
us."
Committing my baggage to a carman, I ascended the bank of diluvial earth
and pebbles with all eagerness, and walked to the point of land where
Fort Pitt (old Fort Du Quesne) had stood. It is near this point that the
Alleghany and Monongahela unite, and give birth to the noble Ohio. It is
something to stand at the head of such a stream. The charm of novelty is
beyond all others. I could realize, in thought, as I stood here, gazing
on the magnificent prospect of mingling waters, and their prominent and
varied shores, the idea, which is said to be embodied in the old Mingo
substantive-exclamation of O-he-o! a term, be it remembered, which the
early French interpreters at once rendered, and truly, it is believed,
by the name of _La Belle Riviere_.
So far, I said to myself, all is well,--I am now west of the great
spinal chain. All that I know of America is now fairly _east_ of
me--bright streams, warm hearts and all. I have fairly cast myself
loose on the wide waters of the west. I have already come as many
hundred miles, as there are days in the week, but I begin my travels
here. I have, as it were, taken my life in my hand. Father and mother, I
may never see more. God wot the result. I go to seek and fulfil an
unknown destiny. Come weal or woe, I shall abide the result. All the
streams run south, and I have laid in, with "time and chance" for a
journey with them. I am but as a chip on their surface--nothing more!
Whether my bones are to rest in this great valley, or west of the
Cordilleras, or the Rocky Mountains, I know not. I shall often think of
the silver Iosco, the farther I go from it. To use a native metaphor, My
foot is on the path, and the word, is onward! "The spider taketh hold
with her hands," Solomon says, "and is in king's palaces." Truly, a man
should accomplish, by diligence, as much as a spider.
Pittsburgh was, even then, a busy manufacturing town, filled with
working machinery, steam engines, hammers, furnaces, and coal smoke. I
visited Mr. O'Hara, and several other leading manufacturers. They made
glass, bar iron, nails, coarse pottery, castings, and many other
articles, which filled its shops and warehouses, and gave it a city-like
appearance. Every chimney and pipe, perpendicular or lateral, puffed out
sooty coal smoke, and it required some dexterity to keep a clean collar
half a day. I met ladies who bore this _impress_ of the city, on their
morning toilet. I took lodgings at Mrs. McCullough's, a respectable
hotel on Wood street, and visited the various manufactories, for which
the place was then, and is now celebrated. In these visits, I collected
accurate data of the cost of raw material, the place where obtained, the
expense of manufacture, and the price of the finished fabric. I had thus
a body of facts, which enabled me, at least to converse understandingly
on these topics, to give my friends in the east, suitable data, and to
compare the advantages of manufacturing here with those possessed by the
eastern and middle states. Every thing was, in the business prospects of
the west, however, at a comparatively low ebb. The prostrating effects
of the war, and of the _peace_, were alike felt. We had conquered
England, in a second contest, but were well exhausted with the effort.
The country had not recovered from the sacrifices and losses of a series
of military operations, which fell most heavily on its western
population. Its agricultural industry had been crippled. Its financial
affairs were deranged. Its local banks were broken: its manufactories
were absolutely ruined. There was little confidence in business, and
never was credit, public and private, at a lower ebb. There was however,
one thing, in which the west held out a shining prospect. It had
abundance of the finest lands in the world, and in fact, it promised a
happy home to the agricultural industry of half the world. It was
literally the land of promise, to the rest of the union, if not to
Europe.
Having seen whatever I wished in Pittsburgh, I hired a horse and
crossing the Monongahela, went up its southern banks, as high as
Williamsport. I found the country people were in the habit of calling
the city "Pitt" or "Fort Pitt," a term dating back doubtless to the time
of the surrender, or rather taking possession of Fort Du Quesne, by Gen.
Forbes. Mineral coal (bituminous) characterizes the entire region, as
far as my excursion reached. By a happy coincidence in its geological
structure, iron ores are contained in the series of the coal deposits.
On returning from this trip, night set in, very dark: on the evening I
approached the summit of the valley of the Monongahela, called Coal
Hill. The long and winding road down this steep was one mass of moving
mud, only varied in its consistence, by sloughs, sufficient to mire both
man and horse. I was compelled to let the animal choose his own path,
and could only give him aid, when the flashes of lightning lit up the
scene with a momentary brilliance, which, however, had often no other
effect but to remind me of my danger. He brought me, at length, safely
to the brink of the river, and across the ferry.
To be at the head of the Ohio river, and in the great manufacturing city
of the West, was an exciting thought, in itself. I had regarded
Pittsburgh as the alpha, in my route, and after I had made myself
familiar with its characteristics, and finding nothing to invite my
further attention, I prepared to go onward. For this purpose, I went
down to the banks of the Monongahela, one day, where the arks of that
stream usually touch, to look for a passage. I met on the beach, a young
man from Massachusetts, a Mr. Brigham,--who had come on the same errand,
and being pleased with each other, we engaged a passage together, and
getting our baggage aboard immediately, set off the same evening. To
float in an ark, down one of the loveliest rivers in the world, was, at
least, a novelty, and as all novelty gives pleasure, we went on
charmingly. There were some ten or a dozen passengers, including two
married couples. We promenaded the decks, and scanned the ever changing
scenery, at every bend, with unalloyed delight. At night we lay down
across the boat, with our feet towards the fire-place, in a line, with
very little diminution of the wardrobe we carried by day,--the married
folks, like light infantry in an army, occupying the flanks of our
nocturnal array. The only objection I found to the night's rest, arose
from the obligation, each one was tacitly under, to repair on deck, at
the hollow night-cry of "oars!" from the steersman. This was a cry which
was seldom uttered, however, except when we were in danger of being
shoved, by the current, on the head of some island, or against some
frowning "snag," so that we had a mutual interest in being punctual at
this cry. By it, sleep was to be enjoyed only in sections, sometimes
provokingly short, and our dreams of golden vallies, studded with pearls
and gems, were oddly jumbled with the actual presence of plain matter of
fact things, such as running across a tier of "old monongahela" or
getting one's fingers trod on, in scrambling on deck. We took our meals
on our laps, sitting around on boxes and barrels, and made amends for
the want of style or elegance, by cordial good feeling and a practical
exhibition of the best principles of "association." There was another
pleasing peculiarity in this mode of floating. Two or more arks were
frequently lashed together, by order of their commanders, whereby our
conversational circle was increased, and it was not a rare circumstance
to find both singers and musicians, in the moving communities for "the
west," so that those who were inclined to, might literally dance as they
went. This was certainly a social mode of conquering the wilderness, and
gives some idea of the buoyancy of American character. How different
from the sensations felt, in floating down the same stream, by the same
means, in the era of Boon,--the gloomy era of 1777, when instead of
violin, or flageolet, the crack of the Indian rifle was the only sound
to be anticipated at every new bend of the channel.
Off Wheeling the commander of our ark made fast to a larger one from the
Monongahela, which, among other acquaintances it brought, introduced me
to the late Dr. Sellman of Cincinnati, who had been a surgeon in Wayne's
army. This opened a vista of reminiscences, which were wholly new to me,
and served to impart historical interest to the scene. Some dozen miles
below this town, we landed at the Grave Creek Flats for the purpose of
looking at the large mound, at that place. I did not then know that it
was the largest artificial structure of this kind in the western
country. It was covered with forest trees of the native growth, some of
which were several feet in diameter, and it had indeed, essentially the
same look and character, which I found it to present, twenty-five years
afterwards, when I made a special visit to this remarkable mausoleum to
verify the character of some of its antiquarian contents. On ascending
the flat summit of the mound, I found a charming prospect around. The
summit was just 50 feet across. There was a cup-shaped concavity, in its
centre, exciting the idea that there had been some internal
sub-structure which had given way, and caused the earth to cave in. This
idea, after having been entertained for more than half a century, was
finally verified in 1838, when Mr. Abelard Tomlinson, a grandson of the
first proprietor, caused it to be opened. They discovered two remarkable
vaults, built partly of stone, and partly of logs, as was judged from
the impressions in the earth. They were situated about seventeen feet
apart, one above the other. Both contained bones, the remains of human
skeletons, along with copper bracelets, plates of mica, sea shells,
heads of wrought conch, called "ivory" by the multitude, and some other
relics, most of which were analogous to articles of the same kind
occurring in other ancient mounds in the west. The occasion would not
indeed have justified the high expectations which had been formed, had
it not been for the discovery, in one of the vaults, of a small flat
stone of an oval form, containing an inscription in ancient characters.
This inscription, which promises to throw new light on the early history
of America, has not been decyphered. Copies of it have been sent abroad.
It is thought by the learned at Copenhagen, to be Celtiberic. It is not,
in their view Runic. It has, apparently, but one hieroglyphic, or
symbolic figure.
A good deal of historical interest clusters about this discovery of the
inscribed stone. Tomlinson, the grandfather, settled on these flats in
1772, two years before the murder of Logan's family. Large trees, as
large as any in the forest, then covered the flats and the mound. There
stood in the depression I have mentioned, in the top of the mound, a
large beech tree, which had been visited earlier, as was shewn by
several names and dates cut on the bark. Among these, there was one of
the date of A. D. 1734. This I have seen stated under Mr. Tomlinson's
own hand. The place continued to be much visited from 1770 to 1790, as
was shewn by newer names and dates, and indeed, continues to be so
still. There was standing at the time of my first visit in 1818, on the
very summit of the mound, a large dead or decayed white oak, which was
cut down, it appears, about ten years afterwards. On counting its
cortical layers, it was ascertained to be about 500 years old. This
would denote the desertion of the mound to have happened about the
commencement of the 13th century. Granting to this, what appears quite
clear, that the inscription is of European origin, have we not evidence,
in this fact, of the continent's having been visited prior to the era of
Columbus? Visited by whom? By a people, or individuals, it may be said,
who had the use of an antique alphabet, which was much employed,
(although corrupted, varied and complicated by its spread) among the
native priesthood of the western shores and islands of the European
continent, prior to the introduction of the Roman alphabet.
The next object of antiquarian interest, in my descent, was at
Gallipolis--the site of an original French settlement on the west bank,
which is connected with a story of much interest, in the history of
western migrations. It is an elevated and eligible plain, which had
before been the site of an Indian, or aboriginal settlement. Some of the
articles found in a mound, such as plates of mica and sea shells, and
beads of the wrought conch, indicated the same remote period for this
ancient settlement, as the one at Grave Creek Flats; but I never heard
of any inscribed articles, or monuments bearing alphabetic characters.
All other interest, then known, on this subject, yielded to that which
was felt in witnessing the antique works at Marietta. Like many others
who had preceded me and many who have followed me, in my visit, I felt
while walking over these semi-military ruins, a strong wish to know, who
had erected works so different from those of the present race of
Indians, and during what phasis of the early history of the continent? A
covered way had, evidently, been constructed, from the margin of the
Muskingum to the elevated square, evincing more than the ordinary degree
of military skill exercised by the Western Indians. Yet these works
revealed one trait, which assimilates them, in character, with others,
of kindred stamp, in the west. I allude to the defence of the open
gate-way, by a minor mound; clearly denoting that the passage was to be
disputed by men, fighting hand to hand, who merely sought an advantage
in exercising manual strength, by elevation of position. The Marietta
tumuli also, agree in style with others in the Ohio valley.
A leaden plate was found near this place, a few years after this visit,
of which an account was given by Gov. Clinton, in a letter to the
American Antiquarian Society, in 1827, but the inscription upon it,
which was in Latin, but mutilated, proved that it related to the period
of the French supremacy in the Canadas. It appeared to have been
originally deposited at the mouth of the river Venango, A. D. 1749,
during the reign of Louis XV.
While at Marietta, our flotilla was increased by another ark from the
Muskingum, which brought to my acquaintance the Hon. Jesse B. Thomas, of
Illinois, to whose civilities I was afterwards indebted, on several
occasions. Thus reinforced, we proceeded on, delighted with the scenery
of every new turn in the river, and augmenting our circle of fellow
travellers, and table acquaintance, if that can be called a table
acquaintance which assembles around a rustic board. One night an
accident befel us, which threatened the entire loss of one of our
flotilla. It so happened, at the spot of our landing, that the smaller
ark, being outside, was pressed by the larger ones, so far ashore, as to
tilt the opposite side into the stream below the caulked seam. It would
have sunk, in a few minutes, but was held up, partly by its fastening to
the other boats. To add to the interest felt, it was filled with
valuable machinery. A congress of the whole travelling community
assembled on shore, some pitching pebble-stones, and some taking a
deeper interest in the fate of the boat. One or two unsuccessful efforts
had been made to bail it out, but the water flowed in faster than it
could be removed. To cut loose the rope and abandon it, seemed all that
remained. "I feel satisfied," said I, to my Massachusetts friend, "that
two men, bailing with might and main, _can_ throw out more water, in a
given time, than is let in by those seams; and if you will step in with
me, we will test it, by trying again." With a full assent and ready good
will be met this proposition. We pulled off our coats, and each taking a
pail, stepped in the water, then half-leg deep in the ark, and began to
bail away, with all force. By dint of determination we soon had the
satisfaction to see the water line lower, and catching new spirit at
this, we finally succeeded in sinking its level below the caulked seam.
The point was won. Others now stepped in to our relief. The ark and its
machinery were saved. This little incident was one of those which served
to produce pleasurable sensations, all round, and led perhaps, to some
civilities at a subsequent date, which were valuable to me. At any rate,
Mr. Thomas, who owned the ark, was so well pleased, that he ordered a
warm breakfast of toast, chickens, and coffee on shore for the whole
party. This was a welcome substitute for our ordinary breakfast of bacon
and tea on board. Such little incidents serve as new points of
encouragement to travellers: the very shores of the river looked more
delightful, after we put out, and went on our way that morning. So much
has a satisfied appetite to do with the aspect of things, both without,
as well as within doors.
The month of April had now fairly opened. The season was delightful.
Every rural sound was joyful--every sight novel, and a thousand
circumstances united to make the voyage one of deep and unmixed
interest. At this early season nothing in the vegetable kingdom gives a
more striking and pleasing character to the forest, than the frequent
occurrence of the celtis ohioensis, or Red Bud. It presents a perfect
bouquet of red, or rose-coloured petals, while there is not a leaf
exfoliated upon its branches, or in the entire forest.
No incident, further threatening the well being of our party, occurred
on the descent to Cincinnati, where we landed in safety. But long before
we reached this city, its _outliers_, to use a geological phrase, were
encountered, in long lines and rafts of boards and pine timber, from the
sources of the Alleghany, and arks and flat-boats, from all imaginable
places, with all imaginable names, north of its latitude. Next,
steamboats lying along the gravel or clay banks, then a steam-mill or
two, puffing up its expended strength to the clouds, and finally, the
dense mass of brick and wooden buildings, jutting down in rectangular
streets--from high and exceedingly beautiful and commanding hills in the
rear. All was suited to realize high expectations. Here was a city
indeed, on the very spot from which St. Clair set out, on his ill-fated
expedition in 1791, against the hostile Indians. Twenty-five years had
served to transform the wilderness into scenes of cultivation and
elegance, realizing, with no faint outlines, the gay creations of
eastern fable.
NO. III.
Cincinnati had, at this time, (1818,) the appearance of a rapidly
growing city, which appeared to have, from some general causes, been
suddenly checked in its growth. Whole rows of unfinished brick buildings
had been left by the workmen. Banks, and the offices of corporate and
manufacturing companies, were not unfrequently found shut. Nor did it
require long looking or much inquiry to learn that it had seen more
prosperous times. A branch bank of the U. S. then recently established
there, was much and bitterly, but I know not how justly, spoken against.
But if there was not the same life and air in all departments, that
formerly existed, there was abundant evidence of the existence of
resources in the city and country, which must revive and push it onward
in its career and growth, to rank second to no city west of the
Alleghanies. This city owes its origin, I believe, to John Cleves Symes,
father-in-law of the late President Harrison, a Jerseyman by birth, who,
in planning it, took Philadelphia as his model. This has imparted a
regularity to its streets, and squares, that visitors will at once
recognize, as characteristic of its parentage. It stands on a heavy
diluvial formation of various layers of clay, loam, sand, and gravel,
disposed in two great plateaux, or first and second banks, the lowest of
which is some thirty or forty feet above the common summer level of the
Ohio. Yet this river has sometimes, but rarely, been known to surmount
this barrier and invade the lowermost streets of the city. These
diluvial beds have yielded some curious antiquarian relics, which lead
the mind farther back, for their origin, than the Indian race. The most
curious of these, if the facts are correctly reported to me, was the
discovery of a small antique-shaped iron horse-shoe, found twenty-five
feet below the surface in grading one of the streets, and the blunt end,
or stump of a tree, at another locality, at the depth of ninety-four
feet, together with marks of the cut of an axe, and an iron wedge. I
have had no means to verify these facts, but state them as credible,
from the corroborative testimony afforded them by other discoveries in
the great geological basin of the west, examined by me, which denote
human occupancy in America prior to the deposition of the last of the
unconsolidated and eocene series.
Our flotilla here broke up, and the persons who had formed its floating
community separated, each to pursue his several way, and separate views.
I made several acquaintances, whose names are recollected with pleasure.
Dr. S. invited me to dine with him, introduced me to his young partner,
Dr. Moorhead, and put me in the way of obtaining eligible private
lodgings. The three weeks I spent in this city were agreeably passed,
varied as they were, by short excursions in the vicinity, including the
Licking valley--a stream which comes in on the Kentucky side, directly
opposite the city. I went, one day, to see an experimental structure,
built at the foot of the Walnut hills, with a very long pipe, or wooden
chamber leading up their sides, and rising above their tops. This was
constructed by an ingenious person, at the expense of the late Gen.
Lyttle, under the confident hope of his realizing a practical mechanical
power from the _rarifaction of atmospheric air_. There was confessedly
_a power_, but the difficulty was in multiplying this power, so as to
render it practically applicable to the turning of machinery. The ratio
of its increase, contended for, namely, the length of the pipe, appeared
to me to be wholly fallacious, and the result proved it so. The thing
was afterwards abandoned. There was an ancient mound here, which had not
then been opened, but which has since yielded a curious ornamented
stone, bearing a kind of arabesque figures, not dissimilar, in the style
of drawing, to some of the rude sculptured figures of Yucatan, as
recently brought to light by Mr. Stephens and Mr. Catherwood.
I received, one day, a note from one of the directors of the White Lead
Works, above the city, requesting me to visit it, and inspect in detail
the processes of the manufacture. The latter I found to be defective in
the mode of corroding the lead by the acetic acid; there was also an
unnecessary complication and amount of machinery in bringing the oxide
into the condition of a good pigment, and putting it into kegs, which
had been very onerous in its cost, and was perpetually liable to get out
of order.
It was during my stay here that I first felt the effects of the western
limestone waters in deranging the stomach and bowels, and paid for my
initiation into the habit, as all strangers must, by some days
confinement. Dr. M. brought me about, and checked the disease, without
any permanently injurious effects on my general health.
When I was ready to proceed down the river, I went to seek a passage
along the landing, but found no boat (steamboats were few and far
between in those days). While pacing the beach, I met a man of
gentlemanly appearance, who had experienced the same disappointment, and
was desirous to go forward in his journey. He told me, that he had found
a small row boat, well built, and fitted with seats, which could be
purchased for a reasonable sum; that it would hold our baggage very
well, and he thought we could make a pleasant trip in it as far as
Louisville at the Falls, where the means of communication by steamboats
were ample. On examining the boat, and a little inquiry, I acceded to
this proposition, and I had no cause to regret it. This gentleman,
whose name I have forgotten, but which is somewhere among my papers, was
a native of the city of Nancy, but a resident of Baltimore. He was, like
the city itself I believe, Franco-German, speaking the two languages
very well, and the English with peculiarities. He had a benevolent and
honest countenance and social, agreeable manners, not too free, nor
stiffly reserved; and we performed the trip without accident, although
we had a narrow escape one day from a sawyer, one of that insidious cast
of these river pests, called in western parlance, a sleeping sawyer. It
was now the month of May; the atmosphere was mild and balmy, loaded with
the perfumes of opening vegetation; we took the oars and the helm
alternately; we had a constant succession of pretty views; we put ashore
to eat and to sleep, and the whole trip, which occupied some three or
four days at the farthest, was perfectly delightful.
We put ashore at Vevay, where the Swiss had then newly introduced the
cultivation of the vine, to see the vineyards and the mode of
cultivation. I have since witnessed this culture on the banks of the
Rhine, and found it to be very similar. The vines are closely pruned and
kept from becoming woody, and are trained to slender sticks, which, are
arranged with the order of a garden bean-bed, which at the proper
season, they much resemble. We also tasted the wine, and found it poor.
On the last day of the voyage, we took into our boat a young
physician--a Hollander, recently arrived in the country, telling him,
that by way of equivalent, we should expect him to take his turn at the
oars. He was a man of small stature--well formed, rather slovenly, yet
pretty well dressed, with blue eyes, a florid face, and very voluble. Of
all that he said, however, by far the most striking part, was his
account of his skill in curing cancer. It was clear that he was an
itinerating cancer-doctor. He said, amid other things, that he had
received an invitation to go and cure the Governor of Indiana. We now
had Indiana on our right hand, and Kentucky on our left.
These are the principal incidents of the trip. We reached our
destination in safety, and landed on the superb natural sylvan wall, or
park, which is formed by the entrance of Beargrass Creek with the Ohio,
just in front of, or a little above, Louisville. Here we sold our boat,
took separate lodgings, and parted. I found in a day or two, that my
friend from Nancy had a flourishing school for military tactics and the
sword exercise, where, at his invitation, I went to visit him. From this
man, I learned, as we descended the Ohio, that the _right_ and _left_
banks of a river, in military science, are determined by the supposed
position of a man standing at its head, and looking _downwards_.
I found in the limestone rocks which form the bed of the river between
the town and Corn Island, the cornu ammonis and some other species of
organic remains; and while I remained here, which was several weeks, I
wrote a notice for one of the papers, of a locality of manganese on
Sandy river, Ky., and others of some other objects of natural history in
the west, which I perceived, by their being copied at the eastward, were
well taken. It was my theory, that there was a general interest felt in
the Atlantic States for information from the west, and this slight
incident served to encourage me.
The steamboat canal since constructed around the falls at this place,
was then a project only spoken of, and is here alluded to for no higher
purpose than to mention, that in its actual subsequent execution, we are
informed the workmen came, at the depth of fourteen feet below the
surface of the _calcareous rock_, to a brick hearth, covered with what
appeared to be the remains of charcoal and ashes.
I took walks almost daily, on the fine promenade, shaded with lofty
trees, festooned with their native vines, along the Beargrass Creek,
which is the common place of landing for arks and boats. On one of these
occasions, there came in a large ark, which had been freighted at
Perryopolis, on the Yioughagany, some thirty miles from Pittsburgh. The
two proprietors were K. and K., Marylanders, both young men, or verging
to middle life, who had clubbed together the necessary funds, and in the
spirit of adventure, resolved on a trading voyage. There was something
in the air and manners of both, which I thought I could trust in for an
agreeable voyage, especially as they saw in me, not a rival in commerce
of any kind, but a mere observer,--a character which I found, on more
than one occasion, placed me on grounds of neutrality and advantage.
Steamboats are the worst vehicles ever invented by the ingenuity of man
to make observations on a country, always excepting the last improvement
on locomotive rail-roads. To a naturalist, especially, they are really
horrible. Not a tree or plant can be examined; not a shell, or a rock
certainly identified. Hundreds of miles are passed in a few hours; the
effect of speed is to annihilate space; town succeeds town, and object
object, with such rapidity, that there is no distinct time left for
observation or reflection; and after the voyager has reached his point
of destination, he is often seriously in doubt, what he has seen, and
what he has not seen, and is as much puzzled to put together the exact
feature of the country's geography, as if he were called to re-adjust
the broken incidents of a night's dream. I had yet another objection to
this class of boats, at the era mentioned. Their boilers and machinery
were not constructed with elaborate skill and strength; their commanders
were often intemperate, and a spirit of reckless rivalry existed, whose
results were not infrequently exhibited in exploded, sunk, or grounded
boats, and the loss of lives.
It is a regulation of law that pilots are provided for all boats,
descending the falls--a descent, by the way, which can only be made on
the Indiana side. When this officer came on board, the owners thought
best to go by land to Shippingport. I had less at stake in its safety
than they, yet felt a desire to witness this novel mode of descent; nor
did the result disappoint me. Standing on the deck, or rather flat roof
of the ark, the view was interesting and exciting. The first point at
which the mass of water breaks was the principal point of danger, as
there is here a powerful reflux, or eddy current, on the right hand,
while the main velocity of the current drives the vessel in a direction
which, if not checked by the large sweeps, would inevitably swamp it.
The object is to give this check, and shoot her into the eddy water.
This was done. The excitement ceased in a few moments, and we passed the
rest of the way with less exertion to the men, and got down the
remainder of the falls in perfect safety. All this danger to the growing
commerce of the west, is now remedied by the Louisville canal, which, by
a work of but two miles in length, which holds the relative position of
a string to the bow, connects the navigable waters above and below those
falls, and permits all river craft of the largest burden to pass.
It was about the falls of the Ohio, or a little above, that I first saw
the gay and noisy paroquet, or little parrot of the west; a gregarious
bird, whose showy green and yellow plumage makes it quite an object to
be noticed and remembered in a passage on the lower Ohio. One of these
birds, which had been wounded, was picked up out of the river, a few
miles below the falls. It was evident, from the occurrence of this
species, and other features in the natural history of the country, that
we were now making a rapid southing. The red-bud, the papaw, the
buckeye, and the cucumber tree, had all introduced themselves to notice,
among the forest species, below Pittsburgh; although they are all, I
think, actually known to extend a little north of that latitude; and we
now soon had added to the catalogue, the pecan and cypress, and the
cane, with the constant attendant of the latter, the green briar. I had
no opportunity to examine the pecan, until we reached the mouth of the
Wabash and Shawneetown, where I went on a shooting excursion with a
young Kentuckian, who gave me the first practical exhibition of bringing
down single pigeons and other small game with the rifle, by generally
striking the head or neck only. I had heard of this kind of shooting
before, and witnessed some capital still shots, but here was a
demonstration of it, in brush and brier--catching a sight as best one
could. The ball used on these occasions was about the size of a large
buckshot.
Shawneetown is a word which brings to mind one of the North American
tribes, who, between 1632 and the present time, figure as one of the
frontier actors in our history. They have, in this time, with the
ubiquity of one of their own genii, skipped over half America. They were
once, certainly dwellers on the Savannah, if not, at a still earlier
day, on the Suanee, in Florida; then fled north, a part coming down the
Kentucky river, and a part fleeing to the Delaware, and thence west.
They are now on the Konga, west of the Missouri. So much for the
association of names. History never remembers any thing which she can
possibly forget, and I found at least, one high-feeling personage here,
who did not like the manner in which I associated the modern town with
reminiscences of the savages. "Why, sir," said he, as we walked the deck
of the ark, floating down the Ohio, and getting nearer the place every
moment, "we have a bank there, and a court house; it is the seat of
justice for Gallatin county;--and a printing press is about to be
established;--it is a very thriving place, and it bids fair to remain
second to none below the Wabash." "All this, truly," I responded,
willing to reprove pride in an easy way, "is a great improvement on the
wigwam and the council-fire, and wampum coin-beads." It is sometimes
better to smile than argue, and I found it so on the present occasion. I
did not wish to tread on the toes of rising greatness, or pour upon a
love of home and locality, honorable and praise-worthy in my fellow
traveller, the chilling influence of cold historical facts. My allusions
were the mere effect of the association of ideas, resulting from names.
If the residents of Shawneetown do not like to be associated with the
native race, who would not have exchanged a good bow and arrows for all
the court houses in Christendom, they should bestow upon the place some
epithet which may sever the tie.
NO. IV.
After stopping a day or more at Shawneetown, and reconnoitering its
vicinity, I proceeded to the mouth of the Cumberland, and from thence,
after many days detention at that point waiting for a boat, to the mouth
of the Ohio. I found this to be a highly interesting section of the
river, from its great expanse and its fine water prospects. The
picturesque calcareous cliffs on the west banks, display a novel and
attractive line of river scenery. The Ohio had, from its commencement,
well sustained the propriety of its ancient appellation of the Beautiful
River; but it here assumed something more than beautiful--it was
majestic. Let it be borne in mind that this stream, in the course of
some seven or eight hundred miles flow from Pittsburgh to Shawneetown,
had been swelled on the right and left hand by the Scioto, the
Muskingum, the Kentucky, the Miami, Green River, Wabash, and other
rivers of scarcely inferior size. It is still further augmented, from
the left bank, with those noble tributaries, the Cumberland and
Tennessee, which bring in the gathered drain of the middle ranges of the
Alleghanies. It is below Shawneetown, too, that the cliffs of the
Cave-in-Rock-Coast present themselves on the west shore--with their
associations of the early robber-era which has been commemorated by the
pen of fiction of Charles Brockden Brown. These cliffs are cavernous,
and assume varied forms. They rise in bold elevations, which bear the
general name of the Knobs, but which are well worthy of the name of
mountains. Distinct from the interest they have by casting their
castle-like shadows, at sunset, in the pure broad stream, they
constitute a kind of Derbyshire in their fine purple spars, and
crystalized galena and other mineralogical attractions. I was told that
a German of the name of Storch, who pretended to occult knowledge, had,
years before, led money and mineral diggers about these Knobs, and that
he was the discoverer of the fine fluates of lime found here.
One can hardly pass these broken eminences, with the knowledge that they
tally in their calcareous structure and position with the rock formation
of the Missouri state border, lying immediately west of them, without
regarding them as the apparent monuments of some ancient geological
change, which affected a very wide space of country north of their
position. A barrier of this nature, which should link the Tennessee and
Missouri coasts, at Grand Tower, would have converted into an inland
sea the principal area of the present states of Illinois, Indiana, and
Southern Ohio. The line of separation in this latitude is not great. It
constitutes the narrowest point between the opposing rock formations of
the east and west shores, so far as the latter rise through and above
the soil.
I was still in a floating Monongahela ark as we approached this coast of
cliffs. The day was one of the mildest of the month of June, and the
surface of the water was so still and calm that it presented the
appearance of a perfect mirror. Our captain ordered alongside the skiff,
which served as his jolly boat, and directed the men to land me at the
Great Cave. Its wide and yawning mouth gave expectations, however, which
were not realized. It closes rapidly as it is pursued into the rock, and
never could have afforded a safe shelter for gangs of robbers whose
haunts were known. Tradition states, on this point, that its mouth was
formerly closed and hid by trees and foliage, by which means the
unsuspecting voyagers with their upward freight were waylaid. We
overtook the slowly floating ark before it had reached Hurricane Island,
and the next land we made was at Smithfield, at the mouth of the
Cumberland. While here, several discharged Tennessee militiamen, or
volunteers from the still unfinished Indian war in the south, landed on
their way home. They were equipped after the fashion of western hunters,
with hunting shirts and rifles, and took a manifest pride in declaring
that they had fought under "old Hickory"--a term which has, since that
era, become familiar to the civilized world. I here first saw that
singular excrescence in the vegetable kingdom called cypress knees. The
point of land between the mouth of the Cumberland and Ohio, was a noted
locality of the cypress tree. This tree puts up from its roots a blunt
cone, of various size and height, which resembles a sugar loaf. It is
smooth, and without limb or foliage. An ordinary cone or knee would
measure eight inches in diameter, and thirty inches high. It would seem
like an abortive effort of the tree to put up another growth. The
paroquet was exceedingly abundant at this place, along the shores, and
in the woods. They told me that this bird rested by hooking its upper
mandible to a limb. I made several shooting excursions into the
neighbouring forests, and remember that I claimed, in addition to
smaller trophies of these daily rambles, a shrike and a hystrix.
At length a keel boat came in from the Illinois Saline, commanded by a
Captain Ensminger--an Americo-German--a bold, frank man, very
intelligent of things relating to river navigation. With him I took
passage for St. Louis, in Missouri, and we were soon under weigh, by the
force of oars, for the mouth of the Ohio. We stopped a short time at a
new hamlet on the Illinois shore, which had been laid out by some
speculators of Cincinnati, but was remarkable for nothing but its name.
It was called, by a kind of bathos in nomenclature, "America." I
observed on the shores of the river at this place, a very recent
formation of pudding-stone, or rather a local stratum of indurated
pebbles and clay, in which the cementing ingredient was the oxyde of
iron. Chalybeate waters percolated over and amongst this mass. This was
the last glimpse of consolidated matter. All below, and indeed far
above, was alluvial, or of recent origin. Nothing could exceed the
fertile character of the soil, or its rank vegetation and forest growth,
as we approached the point of junction; but it was a region subject to
periodical overflows, the eras of which were very distinctly marked by
tufts and bunches of grass, limbs, and other floating matter which had
been lodged and left in the forks and branches of trees, now fifteen or
twenty feet above our heads. It was now the first day of July, and I
felt the most intense interest as we approached and came to the point of
confluence. I had followed the Ohio, in all its sinuosities, a thousand
miles. I had spent more than three months in its beautiful and varied
valley; and I had something of the attachment of an old friend for its
noble volume, and did not well like to see it about to be lost in the
mighty Mississippi. Broad and ample as it was, however, bringing in the
whole congregated drain of the western slopes of the Alleghanies and the
table lands of the Great Lakes, the contest was soon decided. The stream
had, at that season, sunk down to its summer level, and exhibited a
transparent blue volume. The Mississippi, on the contrary, was swelled
by the melting snows of the Rocky Mountains, and was in its vernal
flood. Coming in at rather an acute angle, it does not immediately
arrest the former, but throws its waters along the Tennessee shores. It
runs with prodigious velocity. Its waters are thick, turbid, and replete
with mingled and floating masses of sand and other comminuted rock and
floating vegetation, trees, and rubbish. For miles the line of
separation between the Ohio and Mississippi waters was visible by its
colour; but long before it reaches the Iron Banks, the modern site of
Memphis--the Father of Waters, as it is poetically, not literally,
called--had prevailed, and held on its way to make new conquests of the
St. Francis, the White, the Arkansas, and other noble streams.
Our captain, although he had no lack of self-confidence, did not seem to
be in haste to grapple with this new foe, by plunging at once into the
turbid stream, but determined to try it next morning. This left me, a
good part of the day, in a position where there was not much to reward
inquiry. I fished awhile from the boat's side, but was rewarded with
nothing besides a gar, a kind of sword, or rather billed fish, which
appears to be provided with this appendage to stir up its food or prey
from a muddy bottom. Its scales and skin are nearly as hard and compact
as a shark's, and its flesh is equally valueless. It is at this point
that the town of Cairo has since been located. There were, at the period
mentioned, several arks and flat-boats lying on the higher banks, where
they had been moored in high water. These now served as dwellings, and
by cutting doors in their sides they formed rude groceries and
provision stores. Whatever else, however, was to be seen at so low and
nascent a point, the mosquito as night came on, soon convinced us that
he was the true magnate of those dominions.
The next morning at an early hour our stout-hearted commander put his
boatmen in motion, and turned his keel into the torrent; but such was
the velocity of the water, and its opacity and thick turbidness, that I
thought we should have been precipitated down stream, and hurled against
sunken logs. Those who have ascended this stream in the modern era of
steamboats, know nothing of these difficulties. It seemed impossible to
stem the current. A new mode of navigation, to me at least, was to be
tried, and it was evidently one which the best practised and
stoutest-hearted men by no means relished. These boats are furnished
with a plank walk on each side, on which slats are nailed to give a
foothold to the men. Each man has a pole of ash wood about 16 feet long,
with a wooden knob at the head to rest against the shoulder, and a blunt
point at the other end shod with iron. Planting these upon the bottom
near shore, with their heads facing down stream, the men bend all their
force upon them, propelling the boat by their feet in the contrary
direction. This is a very laborious and slow mode of ascent, which has
now been entirely superseded on the main rivers by the use of steam.
Such is the fury and velocity of the current, that it threatens at every
freshet to tear down and burst asunder its banks, and run lawless
through the country. Often whole islands are swept away in a short time.
We had an instance of this one night, when the island against which we
were moored, began to tumble into the channel, threatening to overwhelm
us by the falling earth and the recoil of the waves, and we got away to
the main shore with much effort, for night was set in, the current
furious, and the shore to which we were going entirely unknown. To have
struck a sunken log on such a traverse, under such circumstances, must
have been fatal. We got at length upon a firm shore, where we moored and
turned in at a late hour; but a curious cause of alarm again roused us.
Some animal had made its appearance on the margin of the stream, not far
below us, which in the dimness of the night appeared to be a bear. All
who had arms, got them, and there was quite a bustle and no little
excitement among the cabin passengers. The most knowing pronounced it to
be a white bear. It produced a snorting sound resembling it. It seemed
furious. Both _white_ and _furious_ it certainly was, but after much
delay, commendable caution, and no want of the display of courage, it
turned out to be a large wounded hog, which had been shot in the snout
and head, and came to allay its fevered and festered flesh, by night, in
the waters of the Mississippi.
To stem the current along this portion of the river required almost
superhuman power. Often not more than a few miles can be made with a
hard day's exertions. We went the first day six miles, the second about
the same distance, and the third eight miles, which brought us to the
first cultivated land along a low district of the west shore, called the
Tyewapety Bottom. There were six or eight small farms at this spot; the
land rich, and said to be quite well adapted for corn, flax, hemp, and
tobacco. I observed here the papaw. The next day we ascended but three
miles and stopped, the crew being found too weak to proceed. While
moored to the bank, we were passed by several boats destined for St.
Louis, which were loaded with pine boards and plank from Olean, on the
sources of the Alleghany. They told us that sixty dollars per thousand
feet could be obtained for them.
Additional men having been hired, we went forward the next day to a
point which is called the Little Chain of Rocks, where, from sickness in
some of the hands, another halt became necessary. It is at this point
that the firm cherty clay, or diluvial soil of the Missouri shore, first
presents itself on the banks of the river. This soil is of a sterile and
mineral character. I noticed beneath the first elevated point of it,
near the river's edge, a locality of white compact earth, which is
called chalk, and is actually used as such by mechanics. On giving a
specimen of it, after my return to New York in 1819, to Mr. John
Griscom, he found it completely destitute of carbonic acid; it appears
to be a condition of alumine or nearly pure clay. Large masses of
pudding-stone, disrupted from their original position, were seen lying
along the shore at this locality, being similar in their character to
that seen on approaching the mouth of the Ohio.
We ascended the river this day ten miles, and the next five miles, which
brought us to Cape Girardeau, at the estimated distance of fifty miles
above the mouth of the Ohio. At this place I was received with attention
by one of the principal residents, who, on learning that my object was
to examine the natural history of the country, invited me to his house.
In rambling the vicinity, they showed me a somewhat extra but
dilapidated and deserted house, which had been built by one Loramee, a
Spanish trader, who has left his name on one of the branches of the
river St. Mary's of Indiana. This old fabric excited a strong interest
in my mind as I walked through its open doors and deserted rooms, by a
popular story, how true I know not, that the occupant had been both a
rapacious and cruel man, siding with the Indians in the hostilities
against our western people; and that he had, on one occasion, taken a
female captive, and with his own hands cut off her breasts.
The journey from Cape Girardeau to St. Louis occupied nineteen days, and
was fraught with scenes and incidents of interest, which I should detail
with pleasure were it compatible with my limits. Indeed, every day's
voyage along this varied and picturesque shore presented objects of
remark, which both commended themselves to my taste, and which the slow
mode of ascent gave me full means to improve. This might be said
particularly of its geological structure and its mineralogical
productions--themes which were then fresh and new, but which have lost
much of their attractions by the progress which natural science has made
in the country during six and twenty years. To these topics it is the
less necessary to revert, as they were embraced in the results of my
tour, given in my "_View of the Mines_," published in 1819.
The article improperly called pumice, which floats down the Missouri
during its floods, from the burning coal banks in the Black Hills, I
first picked up on the shore in the ascent above Cape Girardeau, and it
gave me an intimation that the waters had commenced falling. We came to,
the same night, at a well known fountain, called the Moccasin Spring, a
copious and fine spring of crystal water, which issues from an elongated
orifice in the limestone rock.
While lying at the mouth of the river Obrazo, where we were detained on
account of hands, several boats touched at the place, carrying emigrants
from Vermont and New York, whose destination was the most westerly
settlements on the Missouri. At higher points in the ascent we
encountered emigrants from Maine, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, North
Carolina, and Kentucky, which denotes the wide range of the spirit of
migration at the era. The ends of the Union seemed to be brought
together by this general movement towards the west. It was not uncommon
to find representatives from a great number of the states in these
accidental meetings; they were always of a social and highly friendly
character, and the effect of such a system of intercommunication and
residence, from districts widely separated, could not but be highly
auspicious in promoting uniformity of manners and opinions, and
assimilating customs, dress, and language. If long continued it must
destroy provincialisms, and do much to annihilate local prejudices.
Every one who has ascended this stream will recollect the isolated
cliff, standing in its waters, called Grand Tower, with the
corresponding developments of the coast on the contiguous shores, which
tell the traveller plainly enough that here is the site of some ancient
disruptive process in the physical history of the valley. The current
has an increased velocity in sweeping around this obstacle; and we
found, as the waters fell, that there were numerous eddies and strong
jets or currents along this precipitous coast, which it required extra
force to surmount. We saw one day a number of pelicans standing on a
sand bar. The wild turkey and quail were daily encountered on shore.
Our approach to St. Genevieve was preceded by a sight of one of those
characteristic features in all the early French settlements in this
quarter--the great public field extending several miles, five miles I
think, along the banks of the river. St. Genevieve itself lies about a
mile from the river, and is concealed by irregularities in the surface.
It is a highly characteristic antique French town, and reminds one
strongly of the style and manner of building of the provincial villages
and towns of the parent country, as still existing. Three miles above
this place we came to a noted point of crossing called the Little Rock
Ferry; a spot worthy of note at that time as the residence of a very
aged Frenchman, called _Le Breton_. Statements which are believed to be
true, made him 109 years old. From his own account he was at the siege
of Bergen-op-zoom, in Flanders; at the siege of Louisburg; at the
building of Fort Chartres, in Illinois; and at Braddock's defeat. After
his discharge, he discovered those extensive lead mines in Washington
county, about forty miles west of the river, which still bear his name.
The coast between St. Genevieve and Herculaneum is almost one continuous
cliff of precipitous rocks, which are broken through chiefly at the
points where rivers and streams discharge. Herculaneum itself is seated
on one of these limited areas, hemmed in by cliffs, which, in this case,
were rendered still more picturesque by their elevated shot towers. I
landed at this place about noon of my twenty-second day's ascent, and
finding it a convenient avenue to the mine district, determined to leave
my baggage at a hotel till my return from St. Louis, and pursue the rest
of the journey to that place on foot. It was at this point that I was
introduced to Mr. Austin, the elder, who warmly approved my plan of
exploring the mines, and offered every facility in his power to further
it. Mr. Austin was, he informed me at a subsequent stage of our
acquaintance, a native of Connecticut. He had gone early into Virginia
and settled at Richmond, where his eldest son was born, and afterwards
removed to Wythe county. In 1778 he went into Upper Louisiana, enduring
severe sufferings and the risk of life, in crossing the country by way
of Vincennes to St. Louis, where he was well received by the Spanish
local governor. He obtained a grant of land in the present area of
Washington county, the principal seat of the older mines. About the time
I went to Missouri, or soon after it, he resolved to visit San Antonio,
in Texas, with a view of introducing a colony of Americans into that
quarter. This plan he carried into execution, I think, in 1820, and
returned with an ample grant; but he did not live to carry its
stipulations into effect, having died suddenly after his return, at the
house of his daughter, Mrs. Bryant, at Hazel Run.
Mr. Austin was a man of great zeal and fervour of imagination, and
entered very warmly into all his plans and views, whatever they were. He
was hospitable, frank, intelligent, and it is with feelings of unmixed
pleasure, that I revert to my acquaintance with him, no less than with
his talented son, Stephen, and the excellent, benign, and lady-like Mrs.
Austin, and other members of this intelligent family.
NO. V.
Herculaneum had nothing in common with its sombre Italian prototype,
which has been dug out of dust and ashes in modern times, but its name.
Instead of buried palaces and ruins of a luxurious age of marble, bronze
and silver, most of the houses were built of squared oak logs, and had
bulky old fashioned chimneys, built outside with a kind of castelated
air, as they are seen in the old French and Dutch settlements in Canada,
and along the vallies of the Hudson and Mohawk. The arts of painting and
gilding and cornices, had not yet extended their empire here. Mr.
Austin's residence, was the only exception to this remark, I remember.
The Courts of Justice were content to hold their sessions in one of the
oaken timber buildings named; the county jail had a marvellous
resemblance to an ample smoke-house, and my kind host, Ellis, who was a
native of South Carolina, was content to serve up substantial and good
cheer in articles, not exhumed from a city buried in volcanic ashes, but
in plain fabrics of Staffordshire and Birmingham. In addition to the
host-like and agreeable resort, which travellers unexpectedly found at
his hands, in a mansion whose exterior gave no such signs, he presided
over the department of a public ferry, established at this place, across
the wild and fluctuating Mississippi; and had he kept note book, he
could have given account of many a one, from other lands, with golden
hopes of the far west, whom he had safely conducted, against the most
adverse floods, to the Missouri shore. I found a few old books at his
house, which showed that there had been readers in his family, and which
helped to while away moments, which every traveller will find on his
hands.
I have intimated that there was nothing in the way of the antique, in
Herculaneum, but its name. To this I might add, that there was no
exception, unless it be found in the impressions of objects, in the
structure, of the rocks, in this quarter, denoting a prior age of
existence. I was shown an impression, in the surface of a block of
limestone, quarried here, which was thought to resemble a man's foot. It
did not appear to me to bear this similitude, but was rather to be
referred to some organic extinct forms, which are not yet well
understood.
Having passed a couple of days here, I set out early one morning, on
foot, for St. Louis, accompanied by two young men from Pennsylvania,
with whom I had become acquainted on prior parts of my route. They had
come with an adventure of merchandize from the waters of the
Yioughagany, and were desirous of seeing the (then) capitol of the
Territory. Nothing untoward occurred, until we reached and crossed the
river Merrimack, where night overtook us, and set in with intense
darkness, just as we reached the opposite shore. There was but one house
in the vicinity; and not distant more than a mile, but such was the
intensity of the darkness, owing to clouds and a gathering storm, that
we lost the road, wandered in the woods for some hours, during which the
rain commenced, and were at length directed to the house we sought, by
the faint and occasional tinkling of a cow bell.
We travelled the next morning twelve miles, to breakfast at the antique
looking village of Carondalet. The route lies over an elevated tract of
uplands, eligibly situated on the right bank of the Mississippi, in
which a growth of wild prairie grass and flowers, filled up the broad
spaces between the trees. There was no habitation visible on the
route--a standing spring under a ledge of rocks, about halfway, was the
only spot where we could get a drop of water to allay our thirst--for it
was a hot August day. We encountered several deer, and from the frequent
occurrence of their tracks, deemed such an occurrence to be common. It
is on this elevated and airy tract, that the site of Jefferson Barracks,
has since been judiciously established by the government.
Beyond Carondalet, the country has the appearance of a grown-up heath.
It is a bushy uninviting tract, without mature forest trees. The most
interesting feature we saw, consisted of a number of regular
depressions, or cup-shaped concavities in the soil, caused by the
passage of springs over a clay basis, upon which there is deposited a
heavy diluvial stratum of sand, mixed earth and pebbles. Within about
three miles of the city, this heathy and desolate tract began to assume
a cultivated character; dwellings and gardens soon succeeded, and we
found ourselves, by almost imperceptible grades, introduced into the
city, which we reached about four o'clock in the afternoon. On entering
its ancient Spanish barriers, we noticed one of the old stone towers, or
defences, which constituted a part of the enclosure. This town, I
afterwards learned, had been regularly walled and fortified, during the
possession of the country by the Spanish crown. As soon as I had taken
lodgings, I called on R. Pettibone Esq., a friend formerly of Vernon, in
western N. Y. who had established himself in this central city of the
west, in the practice of the law; he was not in, at the moment, but his
family received me with cordiality. He returned my visit in the evening,
and insisted on my taking up my quarters at his house. The time that I
spent here, was devoted to the most prominent objects which the town and
its vicinity presented to interest a stranger, such as the private
museum of the late Gen. Wm. Clark, containing many articles of rich and
valuable Indian costume; the large natural mounds above the city, and
the character of the rock formation along the shores of the river, which
was said to have had the impressions of human feet, on its original
surface. The latter I did not see till the summer of 1821, when the
block of stone containing them was examined in Mr. Rapp's garden, at
Harmony, on the Wabash.
My inclinations having led me, at this time, to visit the extensive lead
mines, south-west of this city, on the waters of the Merrimack, I lost
no time in retracing my way to Herculaneum, by descending the
Mississippi.
When I was prepared to descend the river, the two gentlemen who had been
my travelling companions, on the journey up, had completed the business
of their adventure, and offered me a seat, in a small boat, under their
control. It was late in the afternoon of the day that this arrangement
was proposed, and it was dusk before we embarked; but it was thought the
village of Cahokia, some five or six miles below, could be reached in
good season. A humid and misty atmosphere rendered the night quite dark,
and we soon found ourselves afloat on the broad current of the stream,
without knowing our position, for it was too intensely dark to descry
the outlines of either shore. Being in a light open boat, we were not
only in some peril, from running foul of drifting trees, but it became
disagreeably cold. On putting in for the Illinois shore, a low sandy
bar, or shoal was made, but one of my companions who had landed came
running back with an account of a bear and her cub, which caused us to
push on about a mile further, where we passed the night, without beds or
fire. Daylight disclosed to us the fact that we had passed Cahokia; we
then crossed over to the Missouri shore, and having taken breakfast at
Carondalet, continued the voyage, without any further misadventure, and
reached Herculaneum at noon.
I lost no time in preparing to visit the mines, and having made
arrangements for my baggage to follow, set out on foot for Potosi. The
first day I proceeded eighteen miles, and reached Steeples, at the head
of the Zwoshau, or Joachim river, at an early hour. The day was
excessively hot, and the road lay for the greater part of the distance,
over a ridge of land, which afforded no water, and very little shelter
from the sun's rays. I met not a solitary individual on the route, and
with the exception of the small swift footed lizard, common to the way
side, and a single wild turkey, nothing in the animal kingdom. The
antlers of the deer frequently seen above the grass, denoted it however
to abound in that animal. I was constrained while passing this dry
tract, to allay my thirst at a pool, in a rut, not, however, without
having disconcerted a wild turkey, which had come apparently for the
same purpose.
Next day I crossed the valley of Grand or _Big_ river, as it is commonly
called, and at the distance of twelve miles from the Joachim, I entered
the mining village of Shibboleth--the feudal seat, so to say, of the
noted "John Smith T." of whose singularities rumour had already
apprized me. Here was a novel scene. Carts passing with loads of
ore--smelting furnaces, and fixtures, and the half-hunter, half-farmer
costumes of the group of men who were congregated about the principal
store, told me very plainly, that I was now in the mining region. Lead
digging and discovering, and the singular hap-hazards of men who had
suddenly got rich by finding rich beds of ore, and suddenly got poor by
some folly or extravagance, gave a strong colouring to the whole tone of
conversation at this spot, which was carried on neither in the mildest
or most unobtrusive way; quite a vocabulary of new technical words burst
upon me, of which it was necessary to get the correct import. I had
before heard of the pretty term, "mineral blossom," as the local name
for radiated quartz, but here were tiff (sulphate of barytes),
glass-tiff (calcareous spar), "mineral sign," and a dozen other words,
to be found in no books. At the head of these new terms stood the
popular word "mineral," which invariably meant galena, and nothing else.
To hunt mineral, to dig mineral, and to smelt mineral, were so many
operations connected with the reduction of the ores of galena.
I soon found the group of men about the village store, was a company of
militia, and that I was in the midst of what New Yorkers call a
"training," which explained the hunter aspect I had noticed. They were
armed with rifles, and dressed in their every day leather or cotton
hunting shirts. The officers were not distinguished from the men, either
because swords were not easily procured, or more probably, because they
did not wish to appear with so inefficient and useless an arm. "Food for
powder," was the first term that occurred to me on first surveying this
group of men, but nothing could have been more inapposite; for although
like "lean Jack's" men, they had but little skill in standing in a right
line, never were men better skilled for personal combat,--from the
specimens given, I believe there was hardly a man present, who could not
drive a bullet into the size of a dollar at a hundred yards. No man was
better skilled in this art, either with rifle or pistol, than the Don of
the village, the said John Smith T, or his brother, called "the Major,"
neither of whom travelled, or eat, or slept, as I afterwards witnessed,
without their arms. During my subsequent rambles in the mine country, I
have sat at the same table, slept in the same room, and enjoyed the
conversation of one or the other, and can say, that their extraordinary
habit of going fully armed, was united in both with courteous manners,
honourable sentiments, and high chivalric notions of personal
independence; and I had occasion to notice, that it was none but their
personal enemies, or opponents in business, that dealt in vituperation
against them. John Smith T. was doubtless a man of singular and
capricious humours, and a most fiery spirit, when aroused; of which
scores of anecdotes are afloat. He was at variance with several of his
most conspicuous neighbours, and, if he be likened to the lion of the
forest, it will be perfectly just to add, that most of the lesser
animals stood in fear of him.
My stop here had consumed some time, but thinking I could still reach
_Mine a Burton_, I pushed on, but had only proceeded a couple of miles
when I was hastily compelled to seek shelter from an impending shower.
As it was late, and the storm continued, I remained at a farm house, at
Old Mines during the night. They gave me a supper of rich fresh milk and
fine corn bread. In the morning, a walk of three miles brought me to
Potosi, where I took lodgings at Mr. Ficklin's, proprietor of the
principal inn of the place. Mr. F. was a native of Kentucky, a man of
open frank manners, and most kind benevolent feelings, who had seen much
of frontier life, had lived a number of years in Missouri, and now at a
rather advanced period of life, possessed a fund of local knowledge and
experience, the communication of which rendered the time I spent at his
house both profitable and pleasing.
I reached Potosi on the second of August. The next day was the day of
the county election[1], which brought together the principal miners and
agricultural gentlemen of the region, and gave me a favourable
opportunity of forming acquaintance, and making known the object of my
visit. I was particularly indebted to the civilities of Stephen F.
Austin, Esq. for these introductions. During my stay in the country he
interested himself in my success, omitted no opportunity of furthering
my views, and extending my acquaintance with the geological features and
resources of the country. He offered me an apartment in the old family
mansion of Durham Hall, for the reception and accumulation of my
collections. Mr. Bates and sons, Mr. Jones and sons, Mr. Perry and
brothers, Mr. Elliot, Mr. Brickey, Mr. Honey and others, seconded these
civilities. Indeed the friendly and obliging disposition I uniformly met
with, from the inhabitants of the mines, and the mine country generally,
is indelibly impressed on my memory.
I was now at the capital of the mines, and in a position most favourable
for obtaining true information of their character and value. Three
months devoted to this object left scarcely a nook of the country which
I had not either personally explored, or obtained authentic information
of. I found forty-five principal mines, or mineral _diggings_ as some of
them are called, within a circumference of less than forty miles.
Potosi, and its vicinity yielded annually about three millions of pounds
of lead, and furnished employment to the estimated number, of eleven to
twelve hundred hands. The business was however depressed, like almost
every other branch of domestic arts or industry, after the peace of
1814, owing to the great influx and low prices of foreign products, and
the general derangement of currency and credit. Prepared ore, delivered
at the furnaces, was worth two dollars per cwt., paid chiefly in
merchandize. Pig lead sold at four dollars, at the mines; and but half a
dollar higher on the banks of the Mississippi, and was quoted at seven
dollars in the Atlantic cities. Judged from these data, there appeared
no adequate cause for the alleged depression; for in addition to the
ordinary merchant's profit, in the disposition of his stock to the
operative miner or digger of ore, a profit of one cent and a half per
pound was left, over and above the cost of transportation to an eastern
market; besides, the difference in exchange, between the south-western
and eastern cities. And it was evident, from a view of the whole
subject, that the business could not only be profitably pursued, with
economical arrangements, but that the public domain, upon which most of
the mines are seated, might be made to yield a revenue to the treasury,
at least equal to the amount of this article required for the national
consumption, over the expenses, the superintendence and management.
Besides which, there was great room for improved and economical modes of
mining; and there was hardly one of the manipulations, from the making
of a common drill or pick, to the erection of a smelting furnace, which
did not admit of salutary changes for the better. The recovery of the
mere waste lead, in its sublimated form, around the open log furnaces of
the country, promised to add a valuable item to the profit of the
business. The most wasteful, hurried, and slovenly of all systems is
pursued in exploring and raising the ore, by which the surface of the
country is riddled with pit holes, in the most random manner; the loose
and scattered deposits in the soil hastily gathered up, and the real
lead and veins of metal left, in very many cases, untouched. Thousands
of square acres of land were thus partially rifled of their riches, and
spoiled, and condemned, without being exhausted. By having no scientific
knowledge of mineral veins and geological structure, as practically
adopted in Europe, all rule in the process of mining and raising the ore
had degenerated into mere guess work, and thousands of dollars had been
wasted, in some places, where the application of some of the plainest
mining principles, would not have warranted the removal of a shovel full
of earth. In short, there was here observed, a blending of the miner and
farmer character. Almost every farmer was a miner. Planters who had
slaves, employed them part of the year in mining; and every miner, to
some extent was a farmer. Because the ore found in the clay beds did not
occur in east and west, or north and south lines, or its rules of
deposition had not been determined by careful observation, all success
in the exploration was supposed to be the result of chance. And whoever
surveys the mineral counties of Missouri, will be ready to conclude,
that more labour has been thrown away in the helter-skelter system of
digging, than was ever applied to well directed or profitable mining.
Had an absolute monarch called for this vast amount of labour from his
people to build some monument, he would have been declared the greatest
tyrant. Indeed, I know of no instance in America, of the misapplication
of so great an amount of free labour--labour cheerfully bestowed, and
thrown away without a regret. For the losers in mining, like the
adventurers in a lottery, have no one to blame but themselves.
It appeared to me that a statement of the actual condition of the mines,
would be received with attention at Washington, and that a system for
the better management of them could not but be approved, were it
properly brought forward. I determined to make the attempt. It did not,
however, appear to me, that nature had limited the deposits of ore to
one species, or to so limited an area, and I sought means to extend my
personal examinations farther west and south. To bring this about, and
to collect the necessary information to base statements on, in a manner
correspondent to my wishes, required time, and a systematic mode of
recording facts.
To this object, in connexion with the natural history of the country, I
devoted the remainder of the year, and a part of the following year. I
soon found, after reaching the mines, that I had many coadjutors in the
business of collecting specimens, in the common miners, some of whom
were in the habit of laying aside for me, any thing they found, in their
pits and leads, which assumed a new or curious character. Inquiries and
applications relative to the mineralogy and structure of the country
were made, verbally and by letter, from many quarters. I established my
residence at Potosi, but made excursions, from time to time, in various
directions. Some of these excursions were fruitful of incidents, which
would be worth recording, did the cursory character of these
reminiscences permit it. On one occasion, I killed a horse by swimming
him across the Joachim river, at its mouth, whilst he was warm and
foaming from a hard day's ride. He was put in the stable and attended,
but died the next day, as was supposed, from this sudden transition.
There was scarcely a mine or digging in the country, for forty miles
around, which I did not personally examine; and few persons, who had
given attention to the subject, from whom I did not derive some species
of information.
The general hospitality and frankness of the inhabitants of the mine
country could not but make a favourable impression on a stranger. The
custom of riding on horseback, in a region which affords great
facilities for it, makes every one a horseman and a woodsman, and has
generated something of the cavalier air and manners. But nothing
impressed me more, in this connexion, than the gallant manner, which I
observed here, of putting a lady on horseback. She stands facing you,
with the bridle in her right hand, and gives you her left. She then
places one of her feet in your left hand, which you stoop to receive,
when, by a simultaneous exertion and spring, she is vaulted backwards
into the saddle. Whether this be a transmitted Spanish custom, I know
not, but I have not observed it in the French, or American settlements
west of the Alleghanies.
The earthquakes of 1812, which were so disastrous in South America, are
known to have propagated themselves towards the north, and they exerted
some striking effects in the lower part of the valley of the
Mississippi, sending down into the channel of the latter, large areas of
diluvial earth, as was instanced, in a remarkable manner, at New Madrid.
Portions of the forest, back of this town, sunk, and gave place to lakes
and lagoons. These effects were also witnessed, though in a milder form,
in the more solid formations of the mine country. Soon after reaching
Potosi, I visited the Mineral Fork, a tributary of the Merrimack, where
some of these effects had been witnessed. I descended into the pit and
crevices of the Old Mines. These mines were explored in the
metalliferous rock. Every thing had an old and ruinous look, for they
had been abandoned. Large quantities of the ore had been formerly raised
at this mine, which was pursued into a deep fissure of the limestone
rock. I descended into this fissure, and found among the rubbish and
vein stones, large elongated and orbicular masses of calc spar, the
outer surfaces of which bore strong marks of geological abrasion. They
broke into rhombs very transparent, and of a honey-yellow colour. Mr.
Elliot, the intelligent proprietor of this mine, represented the
indications of ore to have been flattering, although every thing was now
at a stand. Masses of sulphuret of zinc, in the form of blende, were
noticed at this locality. Mr. Elliot invited me to dine, and he filled
up the time with interesting local reminiscences. He stated, among other
facts, that a copious spring, at these mines, dried up during the
remarkable earthquakes of 1812. These earthquakes appear to have
discharged their shocks in the direction of the stratification from the
south-west to the north-east, but they spent their force west of the
Mississippi. Their chief violence was at Natchitoches and New Madrid, at
the latter of which they destroyed an immense area of alluvial land.
Their effects in the Ohio valley, lying exactly in the direction of
their action, were slight. A Mr. Watkins, of Cincinnati, accompanied me
on this examination, and rode back with me to Potosi.
On the 9th of August, I had dined with Samuel Perry, Esq., at Mine a
Burton, one of the principal inhabitants of the county, and was passing
the evening at Mr. Austin's, when Mr. and Mrs. Perry came suddenly in.
They had hardly taken seats, when a rabble of persons with bells and
horns surrounded the house, and kept up a tumult that would have done
honor to one of the wildest festivals of St. Nicholas, headed by Brom
Bones himself. This, we were told, was a Chiraviri. And what is a
Chiraviri? I am not deep enough read in French local customs to give a
satisfactory answer, but the custom is said to be one that the populace
may indulge in, whenever a marriage has taken place in the village,
which is not in exact accordance with their opinions of its propriety. I
was, by this incident informed of Mr. Perry's recent marriage, and
should judge, moreover, that he had exercised both taste and judgment in
his selection of a partner. The affair of the Chiraviri is said to have
been got up by some spiteful persons.
Towards the middle of the month (12th,) I set out, accompanied by Mr.
James B. Austin, on horseback, for Herculaneum, by the way of Hazel Run,
a route displaying a more southerly section of the mine country than I
had before seen. A ride on horseback over the mine hills, offers one of
the most delightful prospects of picturesque sylvan beauty that can be
well conceived of. The hills are, with a few exceptions, not precipitous
enough to make the ride irksome. They rise in long and gentle swells,
resembling those of the sea, in which the vessel is, by an easy motion,
alternately at the top of liquid hills, or in the bottom of liquid
vales. From these hills the prospect extends over a surface of
heath-grass and prairie flowers, with an open growth of oaks; giving the
whole country rather the aspect of a _park_ than a _wilderness_.
Occasionally a ridge of pine intervenes, and wherever there is a brook,
the waters present the transparency of rock crystal. Sometimes a range
of red clay hillocks, putting up rank shrubs and vines of species which
were _unknown before_, indicates an abandoned digging or mine. Farms and
farm houses were then few; and every traveller we met on horseback, had
more or less the bearing of a country cavalier, with a fine horse, good
equipments, perhaps holsters and pistols, sometimes a rifle, and always
something of a military air, betokening manliness and independence.
Wherever we stopped, and whoever we met on the way, there was evinced a
courteous and hospitable disposition.
We did not leave Potosi till afternoon. It was a hot August day, and it
was dusk before we entered the deep shady valley of Big River. Some
delay arose in waiting for the ferryman to put us across the river, and
it was nine o'clock in the evening when we reached Mr. Bryant's, at
Hazel Run, where we were cordially received. Our host would not let us
leave his house, next morning, till after breakfast. We rode to
McCormick's, on the Platten, to dinner, and reached Herculaneum before
sunset. The distance by this route from Potosi is forty-five miles, and
the road, with the exception of a couple of miles, presented a wholly
new section of the country.
The Mississippi was now low, displaying large portions of its margin,
and exhibiting heavy deposits of mud and slime, which broke into cakes,
as they dried in the sun. I know not whether these exhalations affected
me, but I experienced a temporary illness for a few days during this
visit. I recollect that we had, during this time, some severe and
drenching rain storms, with vivid and copious lightning, and heavy
pealing thunder. These drenching and rapid showers convert the brooks
and rills of the mine country to perfect torrents, and this explains one
cause of the washing away and gullying of roads and streets, so
remarkable on the west bank of the Mississippi. My illness induced me to
give up returning on horseback; and I set out, on the 18th of the month,
in a dearborn, accompanied by Mrs. Austin. On descending the long hill,
near Donnell's, beyond the Joachim, the evening was so dark that I
became sensible I must have got out of the road. I drove with the more
care a few moments, and stopped. Requesting Mrs. Austin to hold the
reins, I jumped out and explored the ground. I found myself in an
abandoned, badly gullied track, which would have soon capsized the
wagon; but leading the horse by the bridle, I slowly regained my
position in the direct road and got down the hill, and reached the house
without further accident. Next day we drove into Potosi by four o'clock
in the afternoon. This was my second visit, and I now accepted a room
and quarters for my collection, at their old homestead called Durham
Hall.
From this period till the middle of September, I pursued with
unremitting assiduity, the enquiry in hand, and by that time had made a
cabinet collection, illustrating fully the mineralogy, and, to some
extent, the geological structure of the country. I erected a small
chemical furnace for assays. Some of the clays of the country were found
to stand a high heat, and by tempering them with pulverized granite,
consisting largely of feldspar, I obtained crucibles that answered every
purpose. Some of the specimens of lead treated in the dry way, yielded
from 75 to 82 per cent.
Accident threw in my way, on the 25th of August, a fact which led to the
discovery of a primitive tract, on the southern borders of the mine
country, the true geological relation of which to the surrounding
secondary formations, formed at the outset rather a puzzle. I rode out
on horseback on that day, with Mr. Stephen F. Austin, to Miller's, on
the Mineral Fork, to observe a locality of manganese, and saw lying,
near his mills, some large masses of red syenitic granite, which
appeared to have been freshly blasted. He remarked that they were
obtained on the St. Francis, and were found to be the best material at
hand for millstones. On examination, the rock consisted almost
exclusively of red feldspar and quartz. A little hornblende was present,
but scarcely a trace of mica. This species of syenitic granite, large
portions of which, viewed in the field, are complete syenite, and all of
which is very barren of crystals, I have since found on the upper
Mississippi, and throughout the north-western regions above the
secondary latitudes. The hint, however, was not lost. I took the first
opportunity to visit the sources of the St. Francis: having obtained
letters to a gentleman in that vicinity, I set out on horseback for that
region, taking a stout pair of saddle-bags, to hold my collections. I
passed through Murphy's and Cook's settlements, which are, at the
present time, the central parts of St. Francis county. _Mine a la Motte_
afforded some new facts in its mineralogical features. I first saw this
red syenite, in place, on Blackford's Fork. The westernmost limits of
this ancient mine extends to within a mile or two of this primitive
formation. The red clay formation extends to the granitic elevations,
and conceals their junction with the newer rock. The nearest of the
carboniferous series, in place, is on the banks of Rock Creek, at some
miles' distance. It is there the crystalline sand stone. How far this
primitive district of the St. Francis extends, has not been determined.
The St. Francis and Grand rivers, both have their sources in it. It is
probable the Ozaw Fork of the Merrimack comes from its western borders.
Not less than twenty or thirty miles can be assigned for its north and
south limits. The Iron mountain of Bellvieu is within it. The vicinity
of the pass called the Narrows, appears to have been the locality of
former volcanic action. A scene of ruder disruption, marked by the vast
accumulation of broken rock, it would be difficult to find. Indeed the
whole tract is one of high geological, as well as scenic interest. Had
the observer of this scene been suddenly dropped down into one of the
wildest, broken, primitive tracts of New England, or the north-east
angle of New York, he could not have found a field of higher physical
attractions. Trap and greenstone constitute prominent tracts, and exist
in the condition of dykes in the syenite, or feldspathique granite. I
sought in vain for mica in the form of distinct plates. Some of the
greenstone is handsomely porphyritic, and embraces green crystals of
feldspar. Portions of this rock are sprinkled with masses of bright
sulphuret of iron. Indeed iron in several of its forms abounds. By far
the largest portion of it is in the shape of the micaceous oxyde. I
searched, without success, for the irridescent specular variety, or Elba
ore. In returning from this trip, I found Wolf river greatly swollen by
rains, and had to swim it at much hazard, with my saddle-bags heavily
laden with the results of my examination. It was dark when I reached the
opposite bank: wet and tired I pushed for the only house in sight. As I
came to it the doors stood open, the fences were down, a perfect air of
desolation reigned around. There was no living being found; and the
masses of yawning darkness exhibited by the untenanted rooms, seemed a
fit residence for the genius of romance. Neither my horse nor myself
were, however, in a temper or plight for an adventure of this kind, and
the poor beast seemed as well pleased as I was, to push forward from so
cheerless a spot. Four miles' riding through an untenanted forest, and a
dark and blind road, brought us to a Mr. Murphy's, the sponsor of
Murphy's settlement.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] About 70 votes were polled in the town of Potosi. Mr. Austin, the
younger, was returned by the county to the Territorial Legislature.
SCENES AND ADVENTURES IN THE OZARK MOUNTAINS.
A. D. 1818 AND 1819.
FROM THE ORIGINAL NOTES AND JOURNAL.
PRELIMINARY REMARKS.
Very little, it is conceived, is necessary to enable the reader to
determine the writer's position on the extreme south-western frontiers,
in the year 1818. He had spent the summer of that year in traversing the
mine district, which extends along the right bank of the Mississippi,
between the mouth of the Maromeg and the diluvial cliffs south of Cape
Girardeau, extending west and south-westward to the sources of the St.
Francis. In these mineralogical rambles, which were pursued sometimes on
foot, and sometimes on horseback, or wheels, he made acquaintance with
many estimable men, amongst whom he may name the Austins, father and
son, the late Col. Ashley, John Rice Jones, Esq., and many others who
are still living, by all whom, his object in visiting the country was
cordially approved and encouraged, at all times. He also became
acquainted with practical miners, and persons of enterprize who were not
only familiar with the settled frontiers, but who had occasionally
penetrated beyond them, into the broad expanse of highlands, now
geographically known under the term of, the Ozark Chain. Geologically
considered, the mine country is but the eastern flanks of this chain,
which extends flush to the banks of the Mississippi, and has its
terminus in that elevated range of mural cliffs, which form so striking
and often picturesque a display, between St. Genevieve and St. Louis.
There was, at the time, a general apprehension felt and expressed, by
hunters and others who had penetrated those wilds in quest of deer and
buffalo, or of saltpetre-earth in the limestone caves, of the predatory
tribe of the Osages,--a people who had for years enjoyed the bad
reputation of being thieves and plunderers. All concurred, however, in
the interesting character of the country extending in a general course,
south-westwardly, from the junction of the Missouri with the
Mississippi. He felt an ardent desire to penetrate this terra incognita.
He could not learn that any exploratory journey had been made towards
the Rocky Mountains, since the well known expeditions of Lewis and
Clark, up the Missouri, and of Lieut. Pike, across the upper region of
the Arkansas, to Sande Fe and Chihuahua. Breckenridge had subsequently
published an account of a trip to Council Bluffs.[2] But neither of
these routes crossed the wide and mountainous tracts referred to, or
gave any definite information respecting them. Viewed on the map, these
routes formed the general exterior outlines, but they left the interior
filling up to be supplied,--or, if supplied at all, it was too often
with such vague phrases as these--"Here are salt mountains." "The ----
is supposed to take its rise here." "Volcanic hills," and so forth. The
geology of the country furnished no indications whatever of the
probability of the latter remark. The kind of pseudo-pumice found
floating down the Missouri, in high water, had been stated by Lewis and
Clarke, to have a far more remote, and local origin. The description of
rock salt, in mountain mass, had long been numbered by popular belief,
among the fanciful creations of an exciting political era; and together
with western volcanoes, had settled down among those antiquarian
rumours, which hold up, as their prime item, the existence of the living
mammoth "beyond the big lakes."
If the writer of the notes and journal which furnish these sketches, was
not swayed by any particular theories of this nature, yet was he not
free from the expectation of finding abundant materials, in the natural
productions and scenery and incidents of the journey, to reward him
amply for its perils. He had received from hunters several objects of
the mineralogical and geological collection which he made, while living
at Potosi, and _Mine a Burton_: from these wild borders, and, without
pretending to estimate the force of each particular object which made up
the sum of his motives, he resolved to organize an expedition, with all
the means he could muster, and explore the region. The Austins, who had
treated him with marked kindness and attention, from the hour of his
first landing in Missouri, were then preparing to make their first
movement into Texas, and held out to him a fine theatre for enterprise;
but it was one not suited to his particular means or taste. He recoiled
from the subtlety of the Spanish character; and is free to confess, that
he deemed it a far more attractive latitude for the zea maize and the
cotton plant, than for those pursuits which led him to prefer the more
rugged eminences of the Ozarks. They, in the end, founded a republic,
and he only made an adventurous journey.
Having thus recalled the era and the motive of the following sketches,
the purport of these remarks is accomplished.
_New York_, 1844.
CHAPTER I.
Things to be thought of before plunging into the woods--Composition
of the party, and reasons why it was not more numerous--First night's
encampment--Preliminaries--Sleep in a deserted Indian lodge--A
singular variety of the Fox Squirrel--The Pack Horse escapes--Cross
the elevation called the Pinery--Reach the outskirts of the
settlements in the valley of the Fourche A'Courtois.
Whoever would venture into the wilderness, should provide himself with
such articles of personal comfort or safety, as habits, forecast, or the
particular object of pursuit or observation, require. Every one will
think of arms and ammunition, but there are other things required to
make life pleasant, or even tolerable in the woods. This, prior
excursions had already taught me, but the lesson was repeated by those
of greater experience. There were two persons who had agreed to go with
me, and stick by me, to the end,--the one a native of Massachusetts, and
the other, of Connecticut, both like myself, new in the field, and
unacquainted with life in the woods. What they lacked in this art, they
more than made up, I thought, in intelligence, enterprise and resource.
The name of the first was Brigham. The other, I shall allude to, under
the name of Enobitti. Some three or four other persons, natives of the
region, had consented to go as hunters, or adventurers into a new field
for emigration, but it so happened, that when all was ready--when every
objection to the tour had been obviated, and every want supplied, and
when my two eastern friends came on to the ground, these persons all
quietly, and with an easy flow of reasons, backed out. In fact, my
friend Brigham, was also obliged to relinquish the journey, after he had
reached the point of rendezvous, i.e. Potosi. A residence on the
American bottom, in Illinois, the prior summer, had exposed him to the
malaria of that otherwise attractive agricultural area, and an
intermittent fever, which he had thus contracted, forbade his venturing
beyond the settlements. So that when the appointed day arrived, Enobitti
and myself and my good landlord, Ficklin--a warm hearted Kentuckian, who
had been a hunter and border spy in his youth, were all the persons I
could number, and the latter, only went a short distance, out of the
goodness of his heart, and love of forest adventure, to set us, as it
were, on the way, and initiate us into some necessary forest arts. It
was a bright balmy day,--the 6th of November, 1818. The leaves were
rapidly falling from the trees, and strewed the road and made a musical
rustling among the branches, as we passed the summits of the mine hills,
which separated the valley of Mine a Burton from the next adjoining
stream. The air had just enough of the autumn freshness in it, to make
it inspiring; and we walked forward, with the double animation of
health and hope. As we passed through forests where the hickory
abounded, the fox and grey squirrel were frequently seen preparing their
winter's stores, and gave additional animation to the scene. It was
early in the afternoon when we came into the valley of Bates' Creek--it
was indeed but a few miles from our starting point, where our kind
Mentor told us, it was best to encamp; for, in the first place, it was
the only spot where we could obtain _water_ for a long distance, and
secondly, and more important than all, it was necessary that we should
re-arrange the load of our pack-horse, take a lesson in the art of
encamping, and make some other preparations which were proper, before we
plunged outright into the wilderness. This was excellent advice, and
proper not only to novices, but even to the initiated in the woodsman's
art. It is always an object, to make, by this initiatory movement, what
is technically called _a start_.
I had purchased at Potosi, a horse--a low priced animal, rather old and
bony, to carry our blankets, some light cooking utensils and a few other
articles of necessity, and some provisions. He bore the not very
appropriate name of "Butcher," whether from a former owner, or how
acquired I know not, but he was not of a sanguinary temper, or at least,
the only fighting propensity he ever evinced was to get back to Potosi,
as quick as possible, for he ran off the very first night, and
frequently, till we got quite far west, repeated the attempt. The poor
beast seemed to know, instinctively, that he was going away from the
land of corn fodder, and would have to sustain himself by picking up his
meals out of sere-grass, often in stony places, or in some dense and
vine-bound cane bottom, where his hind legs would often be bound fast by
the green briar, while he reached forward in vain, to bite off a green
leaf.
Here we took the first lesson in duly hobbling a horse--a very necessary
lesson: for if not _hobbled_, he will stray away, and cause great
detention in the morning, and if not _well_ hobbled he will injure his
legs. We found, near the banks of the stream, a deserted Indian lodge,
which appeared susceptible, by a little effort, of affording us a very
comfortable night's lodging, and would furthermore, should it rain,
prove an effectual shelter. This arrangement we immediately set about:
the horse was unpacked, his burden stowed in the lodge, the horse
hobbled and belled, and a fire lit. While my companion arranged the
details of the camp, and prepared to boil a cup of tea, I took my gun,
and, with but little ado, shot a number of fine fox and grey
squirrels--being the first fruits of our exertions in the chace. Among
them, there was one of decidedly mongrel species. If not, the variety
was peculiar. He had a grey body, and a red foxy tail, with the belly,
nose, and tips of the ears black, thus uniting characteristics of three
varieties. One or two of these were added to our supper, which we made
with great satisfaction, and in due time spread out our blankets, and
slept soundly till day break.
On sallying out, I found the horse was gone, and set out in pursuit of
him. Although his fore feet were tethered, so that he must lift up both
together, he made his way back, in this jumping manner, to his former
owner's door, in the village of Mine a Burton. He had not, however, kept
the path, all the way, and losing his track after he got on the herbage,
my ear caught the sound of a bell far to the left, which I took to be
his, and followed. I pursued the sound of this bell, which was only
heard now and then, till after crossing hill and dale, without deviation
from the line of sound, I came out at a farm yard, four miles below
Potosi; where I found the bell to be attached to the neck of a stately
penned ox. The owner, (who knew me and the circumstance of my having set
out on the expedition,) told me, that Butcher had reached the mines, and
been sent back, by a son of his former owner, to my camp. I had nothing
left, but to retrace my way to the same spot, where I found the
fugitive, and sat down to a breakfast of tea, bread, ham and squirrel.
The whole morning had been lost by this misadventure. It was ten o'clock
before we got the animal packed and set forward.
Our second day's journey yielded but little to remark. We travelled
diligently along a rough mountainous path, across a sterile tract called
the Pinery. This tract is valuable only for its pine timber. It has
neither farming land nor mineral wealth. Not a habitation of any kind
was passed. We saw neither bird nor animal. The silence of desolation
seemed to accompany us. It was a positive relief to the uniform
sterility of the soil, and monotony of the prospect, to see at length, a
valley before us. It was a branch of the Maromeg, or Merrimack, which is
called by its original French term of _Fourche a Courtois_. We had
travelled a distance of fourteen miles over these flinty eminences. The
first signs of human habitation appeared in the form of enclosed fields.
The sun sunk below the hills, as we entered this valley, and we soon had
the glimpse of a dwelling. Some woodcock flew up as we hastened forward,
and we were not long in waiting for our formal announcement in the loud
and long continued barking of dogs. It required the stern commands of
their master, before they slunk back and became quiet. It was a small
log tenement of the usual construction on the frontiers, and afforded us
the usual hospitality and ready accommodation. They gave us warm cakes
of corn bread, and fine rich milk. We spread our blankets before an
evening's fire, and enjoyed a good night's rest. Butcher here, I think,
had his last meal of corn, and made no attempt to return. With the
earliest streaks of day light, we re-adjusted his pack, and again set
forward.