Travels in the Interior of North America Part 12

The reference is to Dr. Jedidiah Morse (1761-1826), _Report to Secretary of War on Indian Affairs_ (New Haven, 1822), the result of a tour among the Western tribes in 1820.--ED.

[107] Saline Creek (or River), formed by the union of the North and South Forks in Gallatin County, Illinois, flows southeast and enters the Ohio River about ten miles below Shawneetown. For a short statement on salt deposits, see James's _Long's Expedition_, in our volume xiv, p. 58, note 11.--ED.

[108] The "Paragon" (90 tons) was constructed at Cincinnati in 1829.--ED.

[109] Battery Rock is twelve miles below Shawneetown.--ED.

[110] See Plate 7, in the accompanying atlas, our volume xxv. See also c.u.ming's _Tour_, in our volume iv, p. 273, note 180.--ED.

[111] For Golconda consult Woods's _English Prairie_, in our volume x, p. 327, note 77. Sister's Island, a narrow strip a mile in length, lies twenty miles below Elizabethtown, Illinois. Smithland is the county seat of Livingston County, Kentucky, immediately below the mouth of the c.u.mberland.--ED.

[112] Paducah, the seat of McCracken County, Kentucky, and forty-eight miles above Cairo, was laid out in 1827 and named from a well-known Indian chief. It is a large s.h.i.+pping place and in 1900 had a population of 12,797. It is the seat of Paducah University.

The book here referred to is Samuel c.u.mings' _Western Pilot, containing Charts of the Ohio River and of the Mississippi from the Mouth of the Missouri to the Gulf of Mexico, accompanied with Directions for navigating the same, and a Gazetteer or Description of Towns on their Banks, Tributary Streams, etc., also a variety of Matter interesting to Travelers and all concerned in the Navigation of these Rivers_ (Cincinnati, 1828, 1829, 1834).

For a brief sketch of Fort Ma.s.sac, see A. Michaux's _Travels_, in our volume iii, p. 73, note 139.--ED.

[113] Several fruitless attempts were made to establish a city at the confluence of the two rivers. Trinity, long time a rival of Cairo, was first settled in 1817 at Cache River. Shortly afterwards Shadrach Bond, John Comyges, and others entered a land claim for eighteen hundred acres between the Ohio and Mississippi rivers and incorporated it as the City and Bank of Cairo. At Comyges's death, however, the claim was allowed to lapse. In the same year William Bird occupied three hundred and sixty acres at the extreme point of the peninsula, and named his proposed city Bird's Point. A few houses were built; but during the War of Secession were removed to the Missouri side. In 1828 John and Thompson Bird built the first houses on the present site of Cairo. Here boats were long accustomed to stop for supplies. In 1835, Sidney Breeze, Baker Gilbert, and others re-entered the forfeited land of the City and Bank of Cairo, and two years later obtained its incorporation as Cairo City and Ca.n.a.l Company. Speculation followed; the company purchased at a high price ten thousand acres, comprising all the territory between the Ohio, Mississippi, and Cache rivers, including Bird's Point. Plans for extensive improvements were made. D.

B. Holbrook, one of the leading promoters, sold in Europe two million dollars in bonds. Sharp reverses followed and Cairo was not incorporated as a city until 1858.--ED.

[114] The steamboat "O'Connell" was built at Pittsburg in 1833.--ED.

[115] Commerce, on the Missouri side thirty miles above Cairo, was a trading post, as early as 1803. It was laid out in 1822, incorporated in 1857, and made the seat of Scott County in 1864. See Campbell, _Gazetteer of Missouri_ (St. Louis, 1875).--ED.

[116] For the early history of Cape Girardeau, see A. Michaux's _Travels_, in our volume iii, p. 80, note 154. Devil's Island, less than three miles in length, is near the Illinois side four miles above Cape Girardeau. Bainbridge, Missouri, twelve miles above the town of Cape Girardeau, was on the road from Kentucky and Illinois to the White River and Arkansas. Hamburg (not Harrisburg), in Calhoun County, Illinois, is directly across the river from Bainbridge, and at the time of Maximilian's visit was a new landing. The Devil's Tea Table is on the Missouri side eighteen miles above Cape Girardeau. For more particulars concerning the places between St. Louis and the mouth of the Ohio, see Flagg's _Far West_, in our volume xxvi, pp. 50-83 (original pagination), and footnotes to the same.--ED.

[117] See Plate 9, in the accompanying atlas, our volume xxv.--ED.

[118] It is well known that the whole tract contains sh.e.l.l limestone.

Mr. Lesueur has made important collections of this kind on the Tower Rock at Vicksburg, Natchez, and other places on the banks of the Mississippi, of part of which he has made descriptions and drawings.

He has accurately stated the several strata, with the sh.e.l.ls of animals and fishbones occurring in them. The sh.e.l.ls are very friable when taken out of the rock--afterwards, and especially if washed in water, they are firmer. Mr. Lesueur has sent large collections of these things to France.--MAXIMILIAN.

[119] St. Mary's River rises in Perry County, Illinois, and enters the Mississippi six miles below the mouth of the Kaskaskia. Chester is the seat of Randolph County, seventy-six miles below St. Louis. Large quant.i.ties of bituminous coal and building stone are in the vicinity.

For the early history of Kaskaskia, see A. Michaux's _Travels_, in our volume iii, p. 69, note 132.--ED.

[120] An account of the founding of Ste. Genevieve is given in c.u.ming's _Tour_ in our volume iv, p. 266, note 174.--ED.

[121] The mines here referred to are the _Mine La Mothe_ and the _Mine a Burton_; a more extended account of these will be given in Flagg's _Far West_, in our volume xxvi.--ED.

[122] For the history of Fort Chartres, see A. Michaux's _Travels_, in our volume iii, p. 71, note 136.--ED.

[123] See opposite page for formations of limestone rocks.--ED.

[124] Herculaneum is a small village in Jefferson County, Missouri, at the mouth of Joachim Creek, about twenty-eight miles below St. Louis, and a few miles above the hamlet of Selena. Herculaneum was laid out in 1808 by Moses Austin and S. Hammond, and subsequently was made the seat of Jefferson County.--ED.

[125] Platteen (commonly spelled Plattin) Creek is a small stream rising in the southern part of Jefferson County, flowing north, and emptying into the Mississippi at the northern extremity of the county, four and a half miles below Herculaneum.

The Maramec (often p.r.o.nounced and written Merrimac) River finds its source in Dent County, Missouri, and flowing northeast joins the Mississippi nineteen miles below St. Louis. Its estimated length is a hundred and fifty miles, draining a territory rich in mines of copper, iron, and lead.--ED.

[126] For an account of Jefferson Barracks, see Townsend's _Narrative_, in our volume xxi, p. 122, note 2.

Carondelet, named for Baron Carondelet, Spanish governor of Louisiana in 1791, was formerly a village in St. Louis County, Missouri; but in 1860 it was merged with the First Ward of St. Louis, under the name of South St. Louis.

For Cahokia, see A. Michaux's _Travels_, in our volume iii, p. 70, note 135.--ED.

[127] For the early history of St. Louis, see A. Michaux's _Travels_, in our volume iii, p. 71, note 138. Probably the author here intends Auguste Chouteau, stepson of Laclede, founder of the city--for the former consult our volume xvi, p. 275, note 127.--ED.

[128] For a brief sketch of General William Clark, see Bradbury's _Travels_, in our volume v, p. 254, note 143; for a more extended notice, consult Thwaites, _Original Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition_ (New York, 1905), introduction. This is an interesting glimpse of General Clark in the professional duties of his later life.--ED.

[129] For the early history and the alliance of the Sauk and Foxes, see J. Long's _Voyages_, in our volume ii, p. 185, note 85. Black Hawk and his fellow prisoners were being kept as hostages for the good behavior of the remainder of the tribe, after the war of 1832. See Thwaites, "Black Hawk War," in _How George Rogers Clark won the Northwest_ (Chicago, 1903), pp. 116-200; and _Treaties between the United States of America and the several Indian Tribes_ (Was.h.i.+ngton, 1837), pp. 508-510. Soon after Maximilian's visit, Black Hawk was sent on a tour to the East, in order that he might appreciate the resources and power of the American people.--ED.

[130] Keokuk (Watchful Fox) was not a chieftain by birth, but by his address and eloquence raised himself to a prominent place in the allied Sauk and Fox tribes. Born at Saukenuk about 1780, he was younger than Black Hawk, and early took opposition to his policy.

Keokuk was for peace and the American alliance, and about 1826 removed his division of the tribe across the Mississippi to a village southwest of the present Muscatine, Iowa. During the Black Hawk War he kept a large portion of the tribe neutral, and at its close was recognized by the federal government as head-chief of the tribe. In 1836 a large tract of Iowa land was ceded by the Indians to the federal government, whereupon the tribesmen removed to Kansas. Keokuk visited Was.h.i.+ngton several times, notably in 1837, when he made addresses from the platform of Catlin's museum. Catlin painted his portrait in the full garb of an Indian councillor, and daguerreotypes of him also exist. His features were of a Caucasian type, for his father was part French. Keokuk died in Kansas in 1848; in 1883 his remains were removed to Keokuk, Iowa. It is not true that in person Keokuk surrendered Black Hawk to the American authorities. Consult on the capture of the latter, _Wisconsin Historical Collections_, v, p.

293; viii, p. 316.--ED.

[131] In confirmation of the similarity of the Americans to each other, we may quote the authority of Humboldt, and other travellers.

(See Essay on the Political State of New Spain, vol. i. p. 115). Dr.

Meyen gives a figure of a Peruvian Mummy (N. Acta Acad. Caes. Leop.

Car. I. xvi. Suppl. 1. Tab. 1), which perfectly expresses the character of the North American Indians.--MAXIMILIAN.

[132] See Meyen, Loc. cit. p. 45.--MAXIMILIAN.

[133] There are numerous tribes in North America, also, among whom the aquiline nose is very rare. This is certified, with respect to the Chippeways, in Major Long's account of his journey to St. Peter's River; and Captain Bonneville says that the people to the east of the Rocky Mountains have, in general, aquiline noses, but that the tribes to the west of those mountains, mostly straight or flat noses. (See Was.h.i.+ngton Irving's Adventures of Captain Bonneville, p.

221.)--MAXIMILIAN.

[134] N. Bossu, a French officer who in 1750 came with troops to Louisiana. He remained about twelve years in the country, and published _Nouveaux Voyages aux Indes occidentales_ (Paris, 1768), an English translation of which appeared in 1771.

For the fate of the Natchez, consult Nuttall's _Journal_, in our volume xiii, p. 303, note 226.

The Botocudo are a Tapuyan tribe of southeastern Brazil.--ED.

[135] For Baron von Humboldt, see our volume xviii, p. 345, note 136.

Franz Julius Ferdinand Meyen was a German botanist who voyaged around the world in 1830-32. Upon his return he was called to a chair at Berlin, but died prematurely in 1840 at the age of thirty-eight. He published many memoirs in scientific journals, and in 1834-35 an account of his world-wide voyage.--ED.

[136] Louis Isidore Duperrey, a French naval officer (1786-1865), entered the navy in 1802. Soon afterwards he made two long voyages around the world, and published much hydrographic and scientific matter. In 1842 he was chosen member of the French Academy of Sciences.--ED.

[137] Loc. cit. p. 18.--MAXIMILIAN.

[138] Loc. cit. p. 117.--MAXIMILIAN.

[139] For Zebulon M. Pike, see Evans's _Pedestrious Tour_, in our volume viii, p. 280, note 122.--ED.

[140] Loc. cit., vol. i. p. 3.--MAXIMILIAN.

[141] Warden, Loc. cit., part ii. plate x. fig. 4.--MAXIMILIAN.

_Comment by Ed._ Referring to D. B. Warden, _Recherches sur les Antiquities de l'Amerique Septentrionale_. The stream where the antique vase was found, was Caney Fork of c.u.mberland, in central Tennessee.