Narrative Journal of Travels Through the Northwestern Regions of the United States: Extending from Detroit Through the Great Chain of American Lakes to the Sources of the Mississippi River, Performed as a Member of the Expedition Under Governor Cass in the Year 1820Henry Rowe Schoolcraft (1793-1864) was an explorer, Indian agent, and early ethnologist of Native American culture who joined an expedition organized by Governor Cass of Michigan in 1819. Its purpose was to locate the Mississippi River's sources, to explore the Great Lakes region, and to describe its significant topographical features, natural history, and mineral wealth. Schoolcraft joined the expedition as a mineralogist, and this is the journal of his participation. He describes his preliminary journey from New York to Detroit, where the expedition embarks for Michilimackinac and presses on to Sault de Ste. Marie and Fond du Lac. Eventually the explorers locate Lake Itasca in Minnesota, where the Mississippi originates. Schoolcraft also highlights St. Peter's, Prairie du Chien, the lead mines at Dubuque, and Green Bay, and devotes a whole chapter to the Ontagenon River and its nearby copper mines. His journal blends narrative with historical, ethnographic and statistical information. |
Other editions - View all
NARRATIVE JOURNAL OF TRAVELS T Henry Rowe 1793-1864 Schoolcraft,Joseph Meredith Toner Collection (Librar No preview available - 2016 |
Narrative Journal of Travels Through the Northwestern Regions of the United ... Henry Rowe Schoolcraft No preview available - 2013 |
Common terms and phrases
alluvial animal appears ascended banks beautiful bluffs buffalo calcareous canoes Cass character Charlevoix Chippeway colour commenced consists continued DAY.-(August DAY.-(September descended Detroit distance east eight elevated embarked encamped expedition falls of St fish five foot forest forty four French garrison Governor granite Green Bay half head hornblende Huron river Indians island journey Lake Huron Lake Pepin Lake Superior land leagues limestone Louis river Mackinac maple Michilimackinac mineral Mississippi Mississippi river morning Moss Island New-York Niagara northwest northwestern o'clock observed Ontonagon Ousconsing Peter's petrifactions pine portage Prairie du Chien present quartz rain rapid region river rock sand stone Sandy Lake Sault de St savage shore Sioux six miles sixty species spot strata stratum stream tion town traders travelling trees tribes tributary twenty village voyage voyageurs weather width wild rice wind woods
Popular passages
Page ii - Maps. Charts, ami Books, to the authors and proprietors of such copies, during the times therein mentioned ;" and also, to the act entitled ** An act supplementary to an act entitled "An act for the encouragement of learning, by securing the copies of Maps. Charts, and Books, to the authors ana proprietors of such copies
Page 233 - Sees God in cloud?, or hears him in the wind ; " His soul proud science never taught to stray • " Far as the solar walk, or milky way; " Yet simple nature to his hope has giv'n, " Behind the cloud-topt hill, an humbler heav'n
Page 234 - To be,—contents his natural desire, " He asks no angel's wing;, no seraph's fire ; " But thinks, admitted to that equal sky, " His faithful dog shall bear him company.
Page 234 - Some safer world in depth of woods embrac'd, *' Some happier island in the watery waste, " Where slaves once more their native land behold, " No fiends torment,—no Christians thirst for gold. *
Page 357 - And as a babe, when scaring sounds molest, " Clings close, and closer, to the mother's breast— " So the loud torrent, and the whirlwind's roar,
Page 332 - covered with grass, I could plainly discern that it had once been a breast-work of about four feet in height, extending the best part of a mile, and sufficiently capacious to cover five thousand men. Its form was somewhat circular, and its flanks reached to the river. Though much defaced by time, every angle was
Page 59 - with his most secret thoughts and intentions, he stepped towards the Indian chief that sat nearest to him, and drawing aside his blanket discovered the shortened firelock. This entirely disconcerted the Indians, and frustrated their design. ''He then continued to tell them, that as he had given his word at the time they desired an
Page 345 - When a quantity of ore has been got out, it is carried in baskets, by the women, to the banks of the Mississippi, and there ferried over in canoes to the island, where it is purchased by the traders at the rate of two dollars for a hundred and twenty pounds, payable in goods at Indian prices.
Page 117 - diverted from that designed by the adversary. At such a moment, therefore, nothing could be less liable to excite premature alarm, than that the ball should be tossed over the pickets of the fort, nor that having fallen there, it should be followed, on the instant, by all engaged in the game, as well the one parly as the other, all
Page 117 - shouting, in the unrestrained pursuit of a rude athletic exercise ; nothing, therefore, could be more happily devised, under the circumstances, than a stratagem like this ; and it was, in fact, the stratagem which the Indians employed to obtain possession of the fort, and by which they were enabled to slaughter