I., 1 JU THE GARDEN OF THE WORLD, GREAT WEST; ITS HISTORY, ITS WEALTH, ITS NATURAL ADVANTAGES, AND ITS FUTURE. AXSO, COMPRISING A COMPLETE GUIDE TO EMIGRANTS, WITH A FULL DESCRIPTION OF THE DIFFERENT ROUTES WESTWARD. BY AN OLD SETTLER. WITH STATISTICS AND FACTS, FROM HON. THOMAS H. BENTON, HON. SAM HOUSTON, COL. JOHN C. FREMONT, AND OTHER “ OLD SETTLERS.” BOSTON: WENTWORTH AND COMPANY, 86 WASHINGTON STREET. 1 8 5 6 . Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1856, by WENTWORTH AND COMPANY, In the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts STEREOTYPED AT THE BOSTON STEREOTYPE FOUNDRY. I beheld the westward marches Of the unknown crowded nations. All the land w r as full of people, Restless, struggling, toiling, striving, Speaking many tongues, yet feeling But one heart-beat in their bosoms. In the woodlands rang their axes, Smoked their towns in all the valleys ; Over all the lakes and rivers Rushed their great canoes of thunder. Longfellow’s Song of Hiawatha. CONTENTS INTRODUCTION, HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF THE WEST, OHIO, Boundaries and Extent, 58 Rivers, 58 Climate, 59 Surface, Soil, &c., 60 Agriculture, 61 Internal Improvements, Government,. Education, . . . Religion, &c., Population, . . Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus, . Page ,.13 ,.17 ,.57 ...62 ...63 ...61 ...65 ...65 ,.66 ..75 ..77 INDIANA 83 Boundaries and Extent, 84 Rivers, 84 Climate, 85 Surface and Soil, 85 Agriculture, 86 Indianapolis, New Albany, Internal Improvements, 87 Government, 88 Education, 88 Religious Statistics, ....89 Population, ...90 90 92 ILLINOIS, 95 Boundaries and Extent, 96 Rivers, 97 Climate, 97 Surface and Soil, 98 Agriculture, 99 Nauvoo,. Chicago, Internal Improvements, 100 Government, 101 Education, 102 Religion, 103 Population, 103 103 105 MICHIGAN H2 Boundaries and Extent, 112 Rivers and Lakes, 113 Climate, 116 Surface and Soil, 117 Agriculture, 118 Detroit, Lansing, Internal Improvements, 119 Government, 120 Education, 120 Religious Statistics, 121 Population, 121 122 125 1 * 6 CONTENTS, WISCONSIN, Boundaries and Extent, 127 Elvers, 128 Climate, 128 Surface and Soil, 129 Agriculture, 132 Internal Improvements, 133 Madison, . . Milwaukie, 127 Kailroads in Wisconsin, in 1856, 134 Government, 135 Education, 135 Religious Statistics, 186 Population, 136 136 138 IOWA 142 Boundaries and Extent, 142 Rivers, 143 Climate, /. . . .144 Surface and Soil, 145 Agriculture, 146 Davenport, Dubuque, . • Internal Improvements, 147 Education, 153 Religious Statistics, 154 Population, 154 .155 157 MISSOURI, Boundaries and Extent, 161 Rivers, 162 Climate, 163 Surface, Soil, &c., 164 Agriculture, 164 Internal Improvements, 165 St. Louis, 161 Railroads in Missouri in 1856, 167 Government, 168 Education, 16S Religion, 169 Population, 169 The Mines of Missouri, 169 171 KANSAS, 177 Position and Boundaries, 178 Rivers, 178 Climate, 189 Surface and Soil, 190 Agriculture, 193 Prices Current, 193 Missouri Compromise, 19*4 Organization, 196 Squatter Laws, 196 Population, 198 Leavenworth City, 198 Lawrence, 199 Fort Leavenworth, 200 Topeca, 201 Fort Riley 201 Manhattan, , 201 Franklin, 202 Grasshopper Falls, 202 Osawatomie, 202 Kickapoo, 203 Atchison 203 Donaphin, 203 INFORMATION TO KANSAS EMIGRANTS 203 CONSTITUTION OF AMERICAN SETTLEMENT CO. ,....221 Proposals and Plans, 223 OCTAGON SETTLEMENT COMPANY, 225 VEGETARIAN SETTLEMENT COMPANY 226 CONTENTS. 7 ^NEBRASKA, .... Settlements, ^MINNESOTA, Boundaries and Extent,, KJivers, Cllimate, Siurfe.ee and Soil, Agriculture, . S-St. Paul, SSt. Anthony, 227 .235 .237 .238 .239 .239 .240 Internal Improvements, Education, Religious Statistics, Population, 237 ..241 ..241 ..242 ..242 243 245 TTEXAS, Boundaries and Extent, 249 J“j. Ters > .'250 C Climate, ...... 250 Suirface and Soil, '.251 Agriculture, ’.'.'.253 Imternal Improvements, 254 248 Government, 254 Education, 255 Religion, 256 Population, 257 Sam Houston on the Future of Texas, 257 MEW MEXICO, Suirface and Soil, 267 | Population, TJJTAH, OREGON, Agriculture,. ,266 ..268 269 278 ,.287 WASHINGTON TERRITORY, 288 CJALIFORNIA, 298 Bcoundaries and Extent, Itiivers, Cllimate, Suirface and Soil, Agriculture, Gcovernment, Smn FltANCISCO, . . . .299 .300 .301 .304 .306 ,306 Education, 307 Population, 308 The Mines, 310 Col. Fremont’s Explorations, 314 The Yankees in California, 321 Col. Fremont and his Mariposa Grant, . 329 330 RAVERS, Olhio River, 335 Diistances, 340 Miississippi River, 341 335 Distances, 353 Missouri River, 353 Distances, 357 HCon. Thomas H. Benton’s Speech on the Pacific Railroad Bill > 358 RtOUTES TO THE WEST, 393 G reat Western Railroad Route 393 Via Fitchburg, Cheshire, Rutland and Burlington, 394 Firom New York to St. Louis, 394 Fjkom the Principal Places in Northern New England, 395 TjAssenger and Express Route to California, 396 I THE GARDEN OF THE WORLD; OR THE GREAT WEST. The Land of Promise , and the Canaan of our time, is the region which, commencing on the slope of the Alleghanies, broadens grandly over the vast prairies and mighty rivers, over queenly lakes and lofty moun- tains, until the ebb and flow of the Pacific tide kisses the golden shores of the El Dorado. With a soil more fertile than human agriculture has yet tilled ; with a climate balmy and healthful, such as no other land In other zones can claim ; with facilities for internal communication which outrival the world in extent and grandeur, — it does indeed present to the nations a land where the wildest dreamer on the future of our race may one day see actualized a destiny far outreaching in splendor his most gorgeous visions. To the New England man, who has been nurtured among the bleak hills and the rough, rocky valleys of his native section, where land is scant and food scan- 9 14 THE GARDEN OF THE WORLD, OR tier, where the farmer laboriously cultivates his little patch of ground, and gets therefrom but a small return for his toilsome labors, let him turn his gaze to the broad fields of the West, and there behold the ne plus ultra of farming — an agriculture worthy of the name. There will he see the field where his busy brain and thinking hand can find space and material to work, and an opportunity to rear from its virgin civilization institutions which shall bless generations yet to be. 0, the soul kindles at the thought of what a magnifi- cent empire the West is but the germ, which, blessed with liberty and guaranteeing equal rights to all, shall go on conquering and to conquer, until the whole earth shall resound with its fame and glory ! The hardy yeomanry of New England are peopling by thousands on thousands this land of “ milk and honey,” carrying with them the indomitable Anglo- Saxon energy, and the stern virtues of their fathers, and more than all, minds which the common school has trained into strong intellectual growth, thus fitting them to be the master spirits of the new era. The old world, cursed with despotism, is pouring out its oppressed millions into the lap of the West, and they will furnish the hardy sinews which, directed by New England minds, shall lay the untold bounties of nature under contribution, and swell the tide of wealth. When a Pacific railway shall connect the farthest east and the farthest west within a few days’ travel, and the now almost limitless deserts shall “ blossom as the THE GREAT WEST. 15 .rose,” inhabited by teeming millions pursuing tlieir ■ avocations peacefully, and each contributing his part to 1 ^ 1G 8’°°d of all, it will be a consummation which the imind is lost in contemplating, and Of which the imagi- mation is powerless to form an adequate conception. The rapid strides which the West has made in civil- iization and in wealth are marvellous. Every body is acquainted with them, from the child who goes to ■.school to the patriarch with the snows of eighty win- iters on his brow, — how Cincinnati, Chicago, and St. ILouis, the spots on which they stand, but a few years Ssince unbroken forests, have sprung into existence and grown with such rapidity and power that they now coutrival in wealth and population the older cities of ttlie East, with two centuries of growth on their record ; lnow new States, like Ohio, are wresting the rod of empire from their eastern sisters, and are overshadow- ing the rest with their power and influence. The subjects which we shall treat on in this work aue of lasting and deep interest to every man, woman, aind child on the continent. They need no apology. Mo one who has a spark of patriotism animating his b)osom will turn away from the glowing annals of the West. With resources such as Nature has vouchsafed to no oither clime, blessed with a race of men who are no icdlers in their vineyard, but chaining all the elements imto their service until there seems no limit to their accquisitions, there cannot fail to be set up along its nnighty rivers and over its broad prairies a pavilion of 16 THE GARDEN OF THE WORLD, OR human progress which shall bless mankind. This structure is yet in process of erection : the materials of construction, workmen ascending and descending, mar its present appearance ; but when the work is finished the seatfolding will fall, and the noble edifice will start in its wondrous beauty before an astonished world 1 We will not enlarge upon this topic here. Our province lies with things as they now exist, and the reader will pardon us for indulging in these remarks upon the future of The Garden of the World. THE GEEAT WEST. IT HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF THE WEST. With the intention of giving a clear and succinct view of the “ Garden of the World,’ ’ we shall com- mence with a synopsis of its history, carefully compiled for the “ Great West.” Twenty years after the great event occurred which has immortalized the name of Christopher Columbus, Florida was discovered by Juan Ponce de Leon, ex- governor of Porto Rico. Sailing from that island in March, 1512, he discovered an unknown country, which he named Florida, from the abundance of its flowers, the trees being covered with blossoms, and its first being seen on Easter Sunday, a day called by the Spaniards Pascua Florida ; the name imports the coun- try of flowers. Other explorers soon visited the same coast. In May, 1539, Ferdinand de Soto, the gov- ernor of Cuba, landed at Tampa Bay with six hundred followers. He marched into the interior, and on the 1st of May, 1641, discovered the Mississippi ; being the first European who had ever beheld that mighty river. 2 * 18 THE GARDEN OF THE WORLD, OR Spain for many years claimed the whole of the coun- try bounded by the Atlantic to the Gulf of St. Law- rence on the north, all of which bore the name of Florida. About twenty years after the discovery of the Mississippi, some Catholic missionaries attempted to form settlements at St. Augustine and its vicinity ; and a few years later a colony of French Calvinists had been established on the St. Mary’s, near the coast. In 1565 this settlement was annihilated by an expe- dition from Spain, under Pedro Melendez de Aviles, and about nine hundred French, men, women, and children, cruelly massacred. The bodies of many of the slain were hung from trees, with the inscription, “ Not as Frenchmen , hut as heretics .” Having accom- plished his bloody errand, Melendez founded St. Au- gustine, the oldest town by half a century of any now in the Union. Four years after, Dominic de Gourges, burning to avenge his countrymen, fitted out an expe- dition at his own expense, and surprised the Spanish -colonists on the St. Mary’s, destroying the ports, burn- ing the houses, and ravaging the settlements with fire and sword, finishing the work by also suspending some of the corpses of his enemies from trees, with the in- scription, “ Not as Spaniards , hut as murderers .” Un- able to hold possession of the country, De Gourges re- tired to his fleet. Florida, excepting for a few years, remained under the Spanish crown, suffering much in its early history from the vicissitudes of war and pi- ratical incursions, until 1819, when, vastly diminished from its original boundaries, it was ceded to the United States, and in 1845 became a state. THE GREAT WEST. 19 In 1535 James Cartier, a distinguished French nnariner, sailed with an exploring expedition up the St. Lawrence, and taking possession of the country in tlhe name of his king, called it “ New France.” In 11608 the energetic Champlain created a nucleus for tlhe settlement of Canada by founding Quebec. This was the same year with the settlement of Jamestown, Wirginia, and twelve years previous to that on which tlhe Puritans first stepped upon the rocks of Plymouth. To strengthen the establishment of French domin- icon, the genius of Champlain saw that it was essential tco establish missions among the Indians. Up to this period “ the far west ” had been untrod by the foot of tlhe white man. In 1616 a French Franciscan, named Ue Caron, passed through the Iroquois and Wyandot niations to streams running into Lake Huron ; and in 11634, two Jesuits founded the first mission in that rcegion. But just a century elapsed from the discovery off the Mississippi ere the first Canadian envoys met tlhe savage nations of the north-west at the Falls of St. Mary’s, below the outlet of Lake Superior. It was not umtil 1659 that any of the adventurous fur traders wvdntered on the shores of this vast lake, nor until 1660 tlliat Rene Mesnard founded the first missionary station utpon its rocky and inhospitable coast. Perishing soon alter in the forest, it was left to Father Claude Allouez, fi ve years subsequent, to build the first permanent habitation of white men among the north-western In- dians. In 1668 the mission was founded at the Falls off St. Marys, by Dablon and Marquette ; in 1670 20 THE GARDEN OP THE WORLD, OR Nicholas Perrot, agent for the intendant of Canada, explored Lake Michigan to near its southern termina- tion. Formal possession was taken of the north-west by the French in 1671, and Marquette established a missionary station at Point St. Ignace, on the main land north of Mackinac, which was the first settlement in Michigan. Until late in this century, owing to the enmity of the Indians bordering the Lakes Ontario and Erie, the adventurous missionaries, on their route west, on pain of death, were compelled to pass far to the north, through “ a region horrible with forests,” by the Otta- wa and French Rivers of Canada. As yet no Frenchman had advanced beyond Fox River, of Winnebago Lake, in Wisconsin ; but in May, 1673, the missionary Marquette, with a few compan- ions, left Mackinac in canoes, passed up Green Bay, entered Fox River, crossed the country to the Wiscon- sin, and, following its current, passed into and discovered the Mississippi ; down which they sailed several hun- dred miles, and returned in the autumn. The discov- ery of this great river gave great joy in New France, it being “ a pet idea ” of that age that some of its west- ern tributaries would afford a direct route to the South Sea, and thence to China. Monsieur La Salle, a man of indefatigable enterprise, having been several years engaged in the preparation, in 1682 explored the Mis- sissippi to the sea, and took formal possession of the country in the name of the King of France, in honor of whom he called it Louisiana. In 1685 he also took THE GREAT WEST. 21 fcormal possession of Texas, and founded a colony on tliie Colorado ; but La Salle was assassinated, and the ccolony dispersed. The descriptions of the beauty and magnificence of thie Valley of the Mississippi, given by these explorers, leid many adventurers from the cold climate of Canada to) follow the same route, and commence settlements. Afbout the year 1680 Kaskaskia and Cahokia, the. olldest towns in the Mississippi Valley, were founded. K.askaskia became the capital of the Illinois country, amd in 1721 a Jesuit college and monastery were founded there. •A peace with the Iroquois, Hurons, and Ottawas, in 17100, gave the French facilities for settling the western pairt of Canada. In Jifne, 1701, De la Motte Cadillac, wiith a Jesuit missionary and a hundred men, laid the foundation of Detroit. All of the extensive region south of the lakes was now claimed by the French, umder the name of Canada, or New France. This ex- cised the jealousy of the English, and the New York lejgislature passed a law for hanging every Popish priest that should come voluntarily into the province. Tlhe French, chiefly through the mild and conciliating course of their missionaries, had gained so much in- fluience over the western Indians that, when a war broke out with England in 1711, the most powerful of tine tribes became their allies ; and the latter unsuc- cessfully attempted to restrict their claims to the coun- trjy south of the lakes. The Fox nation, allies of the Emglish, in 1713 made an attack upon Detroit, but 22 THE GARDEN OF THE WORLD, OR were defeated by the French and their Indian allies. The treaty of Utrecht, this year, ended the war. By the year 1720, a profitable trade had arisen in furs and agricultural, products between the French of Louisiana and those of Illinois, and settlements had been made on the Mississippi, below the junction of the Illinois. To confine the English to the Atlantic coast, the French adopted the plan of forming a line of military posts, to extend from the great northern lakes to the Mexican Gulf ; and, as one of the links of the chain, Fort Chartres was built on the Missis- sippi, near Kaskaskia ; and in its vicinity soon flour- ished the villages of Cahokia and Prairie du Rocher. The Ohio at this time was but little known to the French, and on their early majJs was but an insignifi- cant stream. Early in this century their missionaries had penetrated to the sources of the Alleghany. In 1721, Joncaire, a French agent and trader, established himself among the Senecas at Lewistown, and Fort Niagara was erected, near the falls, five years subse- quent. In 1735, according to some authorities, Post St. Vincent was erected on the Wabash. Almost coeval with this was the military post of Presque Isle, on the site of Erie, Penn., and from thence a cordon of posts extended on the Alleghany to Pittsburg, and from thence down the Ohio to the Wabash.* * A map published at London, in 1755, gives the following list of French posts, as then existing in the west. Two on French Creek, in the vicinity of Erie, Penn. ; Luquesne, on the site of PittsbuTg , Miamis, on the Maumee, near the site of Toledo ; Sandusky, on San- THE GREAT WEST. 23 In 1749 the French regularly explored the Ohio, amd formed alliances with the Indians in Western New Work, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. The English, who cllaimed the whole west to the Pacific, but whose settle- mients were confined to the comparatively narrow strip erast of the mountains, were jealous of the rapidly in- cireasing power of the French in the west. Not con- teent with exciting the savages to hostilities against tliiem, they stimulated private enterprise by granting siix hundred thousand acres of choice land on the Ohio to the “ Ohio Company.” By the year 1751 there were in the Illinois country tine settlements of Cahokia, five miles below the site of Sit. Louis ; St. Philip’s, forty-five miles farther down the rrver ; St. Genevieve, a little lower still ; and on the eaist side of the Mississippi, Fort Chartres, Kaskaskia, amd Prairie du Roclier. The largest of these was Kas- ktaskia, which at one time contained nearly three thou- samd souls. In 1748 the Ohio Company, composed mainly of wrealtliy Virginians, despatched Christopher Gist to explore the country, gain the good will of the Indians, amd ascertain the plans of the French. Crossing over duisky Bay; St. Joseph’s, on St. Joseph’s River, Michigan; Ponchar- traiin, site of Detroit ; Massillimacinac ; one on Pox River, Green Baiy ; Crevecceur, on the Illinois ; Rockfort, or Port St. Louis, on the Illlinois ; Vincennes; Cahokia; Kaskaskia; and one at each of the moiuths of the Wabash, Ohio, and Missouri. Other posts not named weire built about that time. On the Ohio, just below Portsmouth, arej ruins, supposed to be those of a French fort, as they had a post thcere during Braddock’s war. 24 THE GARDEN OF THE WORLD, OR land to the Ohio, he proceeded down it to the Great Miami, up which he passed to the towns of the Mi- amies, about fifty miles north of the site of Dayton. The next year the company established a trading post in that vicinity, on Loramies Creek, the first point of English settlement in the western country ; it was soon after broken up by the French. In the year 1753, Dinwiddie, governor of Virginia, sent George Washington, then twenty-one years of age, as commissioner, to remonstrate with the French com- mandant, who was at Fort le Boeuf, near the site of Erie, Penn., against encroachments of the French. The English claimed the country by virtue of her first royal charters, the French by the stronger title of discovery and possession. The result of the mission proving unsatisfactory, the English, although it was a time of peace, raised a force to expel the invaders from the Ohio and its tributaries. A detachment under Lieutenant Ward erected a fort on the site of Pitts- burg ; but it was surrendered shortly after, in April, 1754, to a superior force of French and Indians under Contrecceur, and its garrison peaceably permitted to retire to the frontier post of Cumberland. Contre- coeur then erected a strong fortification at “ the fork,” under the name of Fort Duquesne. Measures were now taken by both nations for the struggle that was to ensue. On the 28tli of May, a strong detachment of Virginia troops, under Washing- ton, surprised a small body of French from Fort Du- quesne, killed its commander, M. Jumonville, and ten THE GREAT WEST. 25 men, and took nearly all the rest prisoners. He then fell back and erected Fort Necessity, near the site of Uniontown. In July he was attacked by a large body of French and Indians, commanded by M. Villicrs, and, after a gallant resistance, compelled to capitulate, with permission to retire unmolested, and under the ex- press stipulation that farther settlements or forts should not be founded by the English, west of the mountains, for one year. On the 9th of July, 1755, General Braddock* was defeated within ten miles *of Fort Duquesne. His army, composed mainly of veteran English troops, passed into an ambuscade formed by a far inferior body of French and Indians, who, lying concealed in two deep ravines each side of his line of march, poured in upon the compact body of their enemy volleys of musketry, with almost perfect safety to them- selves. The Virginia provincials, under Washington, * Braddock was totally unfit to head an important military expe- dition. Vain, rash, arrogant, and without military capacity, a broken- down debauchee and gambler, he was hated and despised the moment he assumed the command. “ We have a general,” wrote the brave and accomplished William Shirley, from the camp at Cumberland, to his friend Gouverneur Morris, at Philadelphia, “ most judiciously disquali- fied for the service he is employed in, in almost every respect. I am greatly disgusted in seeing an expedition, as it is called, so ill con- certed in England, so ill appointed, and so improperly conducted since in America. I shall be very happy to retract hereafter what I have said, and submit to be censured as moody and apprehensive. I hope, my dear Morris, to spend a tolerable winter with you at Phila- delphia.” Poor Shirley never saw that winter. He was shot through the brain at the beginning of the battle. 3 26 THE GARDEN OF THE WORLD, OR by tlieir knowledge of border warfare and cool bravery, alone saved the army from complete ruin. Braddock was himself mortally wounded by a provincial named Fausett. A brother of the latter had disobeyed the silly orders of the general that the troops should not take positions behind the trees, when Braddock rode up and struck him down. Fausett, who saw the whole transaction, immediately drew up his rifle and shot him through the lungs, partly from revenge and partly as a measure of salvation to the army, which was being sacrificed to lijs headstrong obstinacy and inexperience. The result of this battle gave the French and In- dians a complete ascendency on the Ohio, and put a check to the operations of the English, west of the mountains, for two or three years. In July, 1758, General Forbes, with seven thousand men, left Carlisle, Penn., for the west. A corps in advance, princi- pally of Highland Scotch, under Major Grant, were on the 18th of September defeated in the vicinity of Fort Duquesne, on the site of Pittsburg. A short time after, the French and Indians made an unsuccess- ful attack upon the advanced guard, under Colonel Boquet. In November the commandant of Fort Duquesne, unable to cope with the superior force approaching under Forbes, abandoned the fortress, and descended to New Orleans. On his route he erected Fort Massac, so called in honor of M. Massac, who superintended its construction. It was upon the Ohio, within forty THE GREAT WEST. 27 miles of its month, and within the limits of Illinois. Forbes repaired Fort Duquesne, and changed its name to Fort Pitt, in honor of the English prime minister. The English were now for the first time in possession of the Upper Ohio. In the spring they established several posts in that region, prominent among which was Fort Burd, or Redstone Old Fort, on the site of Brownsville. Owing to the treachery of Governor Lyttleton, in 1760, by which twenty-two Cherokee chiefs on an em- bassy of peace were made prisoners at Fort George, on the Savannah, that nation flew to arms, and for a while desolated the frontiers of Virginia and the Carolinas. Fort Loudon, in East Tennessee, having been besieged by the Indians, the garrison capitulated on the 7th of August, and on the day afterwards, while on the route to Fort George, were attacked and the greater part massacred. In the summer of 1761 Colonel Grant invaded their country, and compelled them to sue for peace. On the north the most brilliant success had attended the British arms. Ticonderoga, Crown Point, Fort Niagara, and Quebec were taken in 1759, and the next year Montreal fell, and with it all of Canada. By the treaty of Paris, in 1763, France gave up her claim to New France and Canada, embracing all the country east of the Mississippi from its source to the Bayou Iberville. The remainder of her Mississippi possessions, embracing Louisiana west of the Mississip- pi, and the Island of Orleans, she soon after secretly 28 THE GARDEN OF THE WORLD, OR ceded to Spain, which terminated the dominion of France on this continent, and her vast plans for empire. At this period Lower Louisiana had become of con- siderable importance. The explorations of La Salle in the Lower Mississippi country were renewed in 1697 by Lemoine D’Iberville, a brave French naval officer. Sailing with two vessels, he entered the Mississippi in March, 1698, by the Bayou Iberville. He built forts on the Bay of Biloxi, and at Mobile, both of which were deserted for the Island of Dauphine, which for years was the head quarters of the colony. He also erected Fort Balise, at the mouth of the river, and fixed on the site of Fort Rosalie ; which latter became £fie scene of a bloody Indian war. After his death, in 1706, Louisiana was but little more than a wilderness ; and a vain search for gold, and trading in furs, rather than the substantial pur- suits of agriculture, allured the colonists, and much time was lost in journeys of discovery, and in collect- ing furs among distant tribes. Of the occupied lands, Biloxi was a barren sand, and the soil of the Isle of Dauphine poor. Bienville, the brother and successor of D’Iberville, was at the fort on the Delta of the Mis- sissippi, where he and his soldiers were liable to inun- dations, and held joint possession with mosquitoes, frogs, snakes, and alligators. In 1712 Antoine de Crozat, an East India merchant, of vast wealth, purchased a grant of the entire coua-' try, with the exclusive right of commerce for sixteen years. But in 1717, the speculation having resulted THE GREAT WEST. 29 irn his ruin, and to the injury of the colonists, he sur- rendered his privileges. Soon after, a number of other aidventurers, under the name of the Mississippi Compa- my, obtained from the French government a charter which gave them all the rights of sovereignty, except tlhe bare title, including a complete monopoly of the tirade and the mines. Their expectations were chiefly firom the mines ; and on the strength of a former tiraveller, Nicolas Perrot, having discovered a copper imine in the valley of St. Peter’s, the directors of the oompany assigned to the soil of Louisiana silver and gold, and to the mud of the Mississippi diamonds and piearls. The notorious Law, who then resided at Paris, was the secret agent of the company. To form its cjapital, its shares were sold at five hundred livres each; amd such was the speculating mania of the times, that im a short time more than a hundred millions were rcealized. Although this proved ruinous to individuals, jyet the colony was greatly benefited by the consequent ©migration, and agriculture and commerce flourished. In 1719 Renault, an agent of the Mississippi Compa- my, left France with about two hundred miners and emi- grants, to carry out the mining schemes of the company. He bought five hundred slaves at St. Domingo, to work the mines, which he conveyed to Illinois in 1720. Me established himself a few miles above Kaskaskia, amd founded there the village of St. Philip’s. Extrava- gant expectations existed in France of his probable ssuccess in obtaining gold and silver. He sent out ex- ploring parties in various sections of Illinois and Mis- 3 * 30 THE GARDEN OP THE WORLD, OR souri. His explorations extended to the banks of the Ohio and Kentucky Rivers, and even to the Cumber- land valley hi Tennessee, where, at lt French Lick, ,? on the site of Nashville, the French established a trading post. Although Renault was wofully disap- pointed in not discovering extensive mines of gold or silver, yet he made various discoveries of lead ; among which were the mines north of Potosi, and those on the St. Francois. He eventually turned his whole atten- tion to the smelting of lead, of which he made consid- erable quantities and shipped to France. He remained in the country until 1744. Nothing of consequence was again done in mining until after the American revolution. In 1718 Bienville laid out the town of New Orleans, on the plan of Rochefort, France. Some four years after, the bankruptcy of Law threw the colony into the greatest confusion, and occasioned wide-spread ruin in France, where speculation had been carried to an ex- treme unknown before. The expenditures for Louisiana were consequently stopped ; but the colony had now gained strength to struggle for herself. Louisiana was then divided into nine cantons, of which Arkansas and Illinois formed each one. About this time the colony had considerable difficul- ty with the Indian tribes, and were involved in wars with the Chickasaws and the Natchez. This latter named tribe were finally completely conquered. The remnant of them dispersed among other Indians, so THE GREAT WEST. 31 tluat that once powerful people, as a distinct race, was emtirely lost. Their name alone survives as that of a flourishing city. Tradition related singular stories of tine Natchez. It was believed that they emigrated froom Mexico, and were kindred to the Incas of Peru. Tlhe Natchez alone, of all the Indian tribes, had a con- seccrated temple, where a perpetual fire was maintained by/ appointed guardians. Near the temple, on an arti- fic3ial mound, stood the dwelling of their chief, called thie Great Sun, who was supposed to be descended from that luminary, and all around were grouped the dwellings of the tribe. His power was absolute ; the diignity was hereditary, and transmitted exclusively thirough the female line, and the race of nobles was so) distinct that usage had moulded language into the fojrms of reverence. In 1732 the Mississippi Company relinquished their chiarter to the king, after holding possession fourteen ye;ars. At this period Louisiana had five thousand wlhites and twenty-five hundred blacks. Agriculture wtas improving in all the nine cantons, particularly in Illlinois, which was considered the granary of the colo- nyr. Louisiana continued to advance until the war br:oke out with England in 1755, which resulted in the ower throw of French dominion. Immediately after the peace of 1763, all the old Firench forts in the west, as far as Green Bay, were re- paiired and garrisoned with British troops. Agents amd surveyors, too, were making examinations of the fimest lands east and north-east of the Ohio. Judging 32 THE GARDEN OF THE WORLD, OR from the past, the Indians were satisfied that the Brit- ish intended to possess the whole country. The cele- brated Ottawa chief, Pontiac, burning with hatred against the English, in that year formed a general league with the western tribes, and by the middle of May all the western posts had fallen, or were closely besieged by the Indians, and the whole frontier, for almost a thousand miles, suffered from the merciless fury of savage warfare. Treaties of peace were made with the different tribes of Indians in the year follow- ing, at Niagara, by Sir William Johnson ; at Detroit or vicinity by General Bradstreet ; and in what is now Coshocton county, Ohio, by Colonel Boquet ; at the German Flats, on the Mohawk, with the Six Nations and their confederates. By these treaties extensive tracts were ceded by the Indians, in New York and Pennsylvania, and south of Lake Erie. Peace having been concluded, the excitable frontier population began to cross the mountains. Small settle- ments were formed on the main routes, extending north towards Fort Pitt, and south to the head waters of the Holston and Clinch, in the vicinity of South-western Virginia. In 1766 a town was laid out in the vicinity of Fort Pitt. Military land warrants had been issued ? in great numbers, and a perfect mania for western land had taken possession of the people of the middle colonies. The treaty made by Sir William Johnson at Fort Stanwix, on the site of Utica, New York, in Oc- tober, 1768, with the Six Nations and their confeder- ates, and those of Hard Labor and Lochaber, made THE GREAT WEST. 33 witth the Cherokees, afforded a pretext under which the) settlements were advanced. It was now falsely claiimed that the Indian title was extinguished east and somth of the Ohio, to an indefinite extent, and the spiirit of emigration and speculation in land greatly increased. Among the land companies formed at this timie was the “ Mississippi Company,” of which George Washington was an active member. TUp to this period very little was known by the Eng- lisln of the country south of the Ohio. In 1754 James M. Bride, with some others, had passed down the Ohio in (canoes, and, landing at the mouth of the Kentucky Riwer, marked the initials of their names, and the date, on the barks of trees. On their return, they were the firsst to give a particular account of the beauty and rich- nesss of the country to the inhabitants of the British set- tleiments. No further notice seems to have been taken of Kentucky until the year 1767, when John Finlay, an Indian trader, with others, passed through a part of the rich lands of Kentucky, then called;' by the In- diams “ the Dark and Bloody Ground .” ^Finlay, re- turning to North Carolina, fired the curiosity of his neiighbors by the reports of the discoveries he had maide. In consequence of this information, Colonel Dainiel Boone, in company with Finlay, Stewart, Hol- dem, Monay, and Cool, set out from their residence on the) Yadkin, in North Carolina, May 1, 1769, and after a hong and fatiguing march over a mountainous and pafthless wilderness, arrived on the Red River. Here, from the top of an eminence, Boone and his compan- 34 THE GARDEN OF THE WORLD, OR ions first beheld a distant view of the beautiful lands of Kentucky. The plains and forests abounded with wild beasts of every kind ; deer and elk were common ; the buffalo were seen in herds, and the plains covered with the richest verdure. The glowing descriptions of these adventurers inflamed the imaginations of the borderers, and their own sterile hills and mountains beyond lost their charms when compared to the fertile plains of this newly-discovered Paradise in the West. In 1770 Ebenezer Silas and Jonathan Zane settled Wheeling. In 1771 such was the rush of emigration to Western Pennsylvania and Western Virginia, in the region of the Upper Ohio, that every kind of bread- stuff became so scarce that, for several months, a great part of the population were obliged to subsist entirely on meats, roots, vegetables, and milk, to the entire ex- clusion of all breadstuff’s ; and hence that period was long after known as u the starving year.” Settlers, enticed by the beauty of the Cherokee country, emi- grated to East Tennessee, and hundreds of families also moved farther south, to the mild climate of West Florida, which at this period extended to the Mississippi. In the summer of 1773 Frankfort and Louisville, Ken- tucky, were laid out. The next year was signalized by “ Dunmore’s war,” which temporarily checked the settlements. In the summer of 1774 several other parties of sur- veyors and hunters entered Kentucky, and James Har- rod erected a dwelling, the first erected by whites in the country, on or near the site of Harrodsburg, around THE GREAT WEST. 35 wlhich afterwards arose “ Harrod Station.” In the year 17175 Colonel Richard Henderson, a native of North Carolina, in behalf of himself and his associates, pur- chased of the Cherokees all the country lying between tine Cumberland River and Cumberland Mountains and Kentucky River, and south of the Ohio, which now comiprises more than half of the State of Kentucky. Tlhe new country he named Transylvania. The first legislature sat at Boonesborough, and formed an inde- pemdent government, on liberal and rational principles. Hienderson was very active in granting lands to new settlers. The legislature of Virginia subsequently crushed his schemes ; they claimed the sole right to pmrchase lands from the Indians, and declared his pmrchase null and void. But as some compensation fo)r the services rendered in opening the wilderness, the legislature granted to the proprietors a tract of land, twelve miles square, on the Ohio, below the mouth of G;reen River. In 1775 Daniel Boone, in the employment of Hen- deerson, laid out the town and fort afterwards called Bioonesborough. From this time Boonesborough and Hiarrodsburg became the nucleus and support of emi- gration and settlement in Kentucky. In May another fort was also built, which was under the command of Cops met with a severe loss. The next year a larger arnoy was assembled at Cincinnati, under General St. Claair, composed of about three thousand men. With thiis force he commenced his march towards the Indian towns on the Maumee. Early in the morning of the 4tln of November, 1791, his army, while in camp on what is mow the line of Darke and Mercer counties, within thrree miles of the Indian line, and about seventy north from Cincinnati, were surprised by a large body r of Imdians, and defeated with terrible slaughter. A third arimy, under General Anthony Wayne, was organized. Om the 20th of August, 1794, they met and completely defeated the Indians, on the Maumee River, about twelve miiles south of the site of Toledo. The Indians, at lemgth, becoming convinced of their inability to resist tine American arms, sued for peace. On the 3d of Auigust, 1795, General Wayne concluded a treaty at Gireenville, sixty miles north of Cincinnati, with elesven of the most powerful north-western tribes, in grrand council. This gave. peace to the west, of sev- eral years’ duration, during which the settlements pro- gressed with great rapidity. Jay’s treaty, concluded 44 THE GARDEN OF THE WORLD, OR November 19, 1794, was a most important event to the prosperity of the west. It provided for the with- drawal of all the British troops from the north-western posts. In 1796 the North-western Territory was divid- ed into five counties. Marietta was the seat of justice of Hamilton and Washington counties ; Vincennes, of Knox county ; Kaskaskia, of St. Clair county ; and Detroit, of Wayne county. The settlers, out of the limits of Ohio, were Canadian or Creole French. The head quarters of the north-west army were removed to Detroit, at which point a fort had been built by De la Motte Cadillac, as early as 1701. Originally Virginia claimed jurisdiction over a large part of Western Pennsylvania, as being within her dominions ; yet it was not until after the close of the revolution that the boundary line was permanentlv established. Then this tract was divided into two counties. The one, Westmoreland, extended from the mountains west of the Alleghany River, including Pittsburg and all the country between the Kish- keminitas and the Youghiogeny. The other, Washing- ton, comprised all south and west of Pittsburg, inclusive of all the country east and west of the Monongahela River. At this period Fort Pitt was a frontier post, around which had sprung up the village of Pittsburg, which was not regularly laid out into a town until 1784. The settlement on the Monon- gahela at “ Redstone Old Fort,” or “FortBurd,” as it originally was called, having become an important point of embarkation for western emigrants, was the THE GREAT WEST. 45 next year laid off into a town under the name of Brownsville. Regular forwarding houses were soon established here, by whose lines goods were systemat- ically wagoned over the mountains, thus superseding the slow and tedious mode of transportation by pack- horses, to which the emigrants had previously been obliged to resort. In July, 1786, “ The Pittsburg Gazette,” the first newspaper issued in the West, was published ; the second being “ The Kentucky Gazette,” established at Lexing- ton in August of the next year. As late as 1791 the Alleghany River was the frontier limit of the settle- ments of Pennsylvania, the Indians holding posses- sion of the region around its north-western tributaries, with the exception of a few scattering settlements, which were all simultaneously broken up and exter- minated in one night, in February of this year, by a band of one hundred and fifty Indians. During the campaigns of Harmer, St. Clair, and Wayne, Pitts- burg was the great depot for the armies. By this time agriculture and manufactures had begun to flourish in Western Pennsylvania and Vir- ginia, and an extensive trade was carried on with the settlements on the Ohio and on the Lower Mis- sissippi, with New Orleans and the rich Spanish settle- ments in its vicinity. Monongaliela whiskey, horses, cattle, and agricultural and mechanical implements of iron , were the principal articles of export. The Span- ish government soon after much embarrassed this trade by imposing heavy duties. 46 THE GARDEN OP THE WORLD, OR The first settlements in Tennessee were made in the vicinity of Fort Loudon, on the Little Tennessee, in what is now Monroe county, East Tennessee, about the year 1758. Forts Loudon and Chissel were built at that time by Colonel Byrd, who marched into the Cherokee country with a regiment from Virginia. The next year war broke out with the Cherokees. In 1760 the Cherokees besieged Fort Loudon, into which the settlers had gathered their families, numbering nearly three hundred persons. The latter were obliged to surrender for want of provisions, but, agreeably to the terms of capitulation, were to retreat unmolested beyond the Blue Ridge. When they had proceeded about twenty miles on their route, the savages fell upon them and massacred all but nine, not even sparing the women and children. The only settlements were thus broken up by this war. The next year the celebrated Daniel Boone made an excursion from North Carolina to the waters of the Holstein. Li 1766 Colonel James Smith, with five others, traversed a great portion of Middle and West Tennessee. At the mouth of the Tennessee Smith’s companions left him to make farther explorations in Illinois, while he, in company with a negro lad, returned home through the wilderness, after an ab- sence of eleven months, during which he saw “ neither bread, money, women, nor spirituous liquors.” Other explorations soon succeeded, and permanent set- tlements were first made in 1768 and ’69, by emigrants from Y irginia and North Carolina, who were scattered THE GREAT WEST. 47 along the branches of the Holstein, French, Broad, and Watauga. The jurisdiction of North Carolina was in 17 77 extended over the western district, which was organized as the county of Washington, and extending nominally westward to the Mississippi. Soon after, some of the more daring pioneers made a settlement at Bledsoe’s station, in Middle Tennessee, in the heart of the (Chickasaw nation, and separated several hundred miles, by the usual travelled route, from their kinsmen on the Holstein. A number of French traders had previously established a trading post and erected a few cabins at the a Bluff” near the site of Nashville. To the s;ame vicinity Colonel James Bobertson, in the fall of 1780, emigrated with forty families from North Carolina, who were driven from their homes by the marauding incursions of Tarleton’s cavalry, and estab- lished “ Robertson’s Station,” which formed the nu- cleus around which gathered the settlements on the Cumberland. The Cherokees having commenced hos- tilities upon the frontier inhabitants about the com- mencement of the year 1781, Colonel Campbell, of Virginia, with seven hundred mounted riflemen, in- vaded their country and defeated them. At the close of the revolution, settlers moved in in large numbers from Virginia, North and South Carolina, and Georgia. Nashville was laid out in the summer of 1784, and named from General Francis Nash, who fell at Bran- dywine. The people of this district, in common with those of Kentucky, and on the Upper Ohio, were deeply inter- 48 THE GARDEN OF THE WORLD, OR ested in the navigation of the Mississippi, and under the tempting offers of the Spanish governor of Louisi- ana, many were lured to emigrate to West Florida, and become subjects of the Spanish king. North Carolina having ceded her claims to her west- ern lands, Congress, in May, 1790, erected this into a territory under the name of the “ South-western Ter- litoiy, according to the provisions of the ordinance of 1787, excepting the article prohibiting slavery. Ihe territorial government was organized with a legislature, a legislative council, with William Blount as their first governor. Knoxville was made the seat of government. A fort was erected to intimidate the Indians, by the United States, in the Indian country, on the site of Kingston. From this period until the final overthrow of the north-western Indians by Wayne, this territory suffered from the hostilities of the Creeks and Clierokees, who were secretly supplied with arms and ammunition by the Spanish agents, with the hope that they would exterminate the Cumberland settle- ments. In 1795 the territory contained a population of seventy-seven thousand two hundred and sixty-two, of whom about ten thousand were slaves. On the first of June, 1796, it was admitted into the Union as the State of Tennessee. By the treaty of October 27, 1795, with Spain, the old sore, the right of navigating the Mississippi, was closed, that power ceding to the United States the right of free navigation. The Territory of Mississippi was organized in 1798, THE GREAT WEST. 49 and Winthrop Sargeant appointed governor. By the ordinance of 1787 the people of the North-west Terri- tory were entitled to elect representatives to a territo- rial legislature whenever it contained five thousand males of full age. Before the close of the year 1798, the territory had this number, and members to a terri- torial legislature were soon after chosen. In the year 1799 William H. Harrison was chosen the first dele- gate to Congress from the North-west Territory. In 1800 the Territory of Indiana was formed, and the next year William H. Harrison appointed governor. This territory comprised the present States of Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Michigan, which vast country then had less than six thousand whites, and those mainly of French origin. On the 30th of April, 1802, Congress passed an act authorizing a convention to form a constitution for Ohio. This convention met at Chil li ooth e in the succeeding November ; and on the 29tli of that month a constitution of state government was ratified and signed, by which act Ohio became one of the states of the Federal Union. In October, 1802, the whole western country was thrown into a ferment by the suspension of the American right of depositing goods and produce at New Orleans, guaranteed by the treaty of 1795 with Spain. The whole commerce of the west was struck at in a vital point, and the treaty evidently violated. On the 25th of February, 1803, the port was opened to provisions, on paying a duty, and in April following, by orders of the King of Spain, the right of deposit was restored. 50 THE GARDEN OF THE WORLD, OR After the treaty of 1763 Louisiana remained in pos- session of Spain until 1803, when it was again restored to France by the terms of a secret article in the treaty of St. Ildefonso, concluded with Spain in 1800. France held but brief possession ; on the 30th of April she sold her claim to the United States for the considera- tion of fifteen millions of dollars. On the 20th of the succeeding December Generals Wilkinson and Clai- borne took possession of the country for the United States, and entered New Orleans at the head of the American troops. On the 11th of January, 1805, Congress established the Territory of Michigan, and appointed William Hull governor. This same year Detroit was destroyed by fire. The town occupied only about two acres, com- pletely covered with buildings and combustible mate- rials, excepting the narrow intervals of fourteen or fifteen feet used as streets or lanes, and the whole was environed with a very strong and secure defence of tall and solid pickets. ' At this period, the conspiracy of Aaron Burr began to agitate the western country. In December, 1806, a fleet of boats, with arms, provisions, and ammunition, belonging to the confederates of Burr, was seized upon the Muskingum, by agents of the United States, which proved a fatal blow to the project. In 1809 the Territory of Illinois was formed from the westerm part of the Indiana Territory, and named from the powerful tribe which once had occupied its soil. The Indians, who, since the treaty of Greenville, had 'HE GREAT WEST. 51 been at peace, about the year 1810 began to commit aggre ssions upon the inhabitants of the west under the leadership of Tecumseh. The next year they were defeated by General Harrison, at the battle of Tippe- canoe, in Indiana. This year was also distinguished by the voyage from Pittsburg to New Orleans of the steamboat “ New Orleans,” the first steamer ever launched upon the western waters. In June, 1812, the United States declared war against Great Britain. Of this war the west was the principal theatre. Its opening scenes were as gloomy and (disastrous to the American arms as its close was brilliant and triumphant. At the close of the war the population of the Terri- tories of Indiana, Illinois, and Michigan was less than fifty thousand. But from that time onward the tide of emigration again went forward with unprecedented rapidity. On the 19th of April, 1816, Indiana was ad- mitted into the Union, and Illinois on the 3d of De- cember, 1818. The remainder - of the North-west Ter- ritory, as then organized, was included in the Territory of Michigan, of which that section west of Lake Michi- gan bore the name cf the Huron District. This part of the west increased so slowly that, by the census of 1830, the Territory of Michigan contained, exclusive of the Huron District, but twenty-eight thousand souls, while that had only a population of three thousand six hundred and forty. Emigration began to set in more strongly to the Territory of Michigan in consequence of steam navigation having been successfully intro- 52 THE GARDEN OF THE WORLD, OR duced upon the great lakes of the west. The first steamboat upon these immense inland seas was the “ Walk-in-the-Water,” which, in 1819, went as far as Mackinaw; yet it was not until 1826 that a steamer rode the waters of Lake Michigan, and six years more had elapsed ere one had penetrated as far as Chicago. The year 1832 was signalized by three important events in the history of the west, viz., the first appear- ance of the Asiatic cholera, the great flood in the Ohio, and the war with Black Hawk. The west has suffered serious drawbacks in its prog- ress from inefficient systems of banking. One bank frequently was made the basis of another, and that of a third, and so on throughout the country. Some three or four shrewd agents or directors, in establish- ing a bank, would collect a few thousands in specie, that had been honestly paid in, and then make up the re- mainder of the capital with the bills or stock from some neighboring bank. Thus, so intimate was the connection of each bank with others, that, when one or two gave way, they all went down together in one common ruin. In 1804, the year succeeding the purchase of Louisi- ana, Congress formed from part of it the “ Territory of Orleans,” which was admitted into the Union in 1812, as the State of Louisiana. In 1805, after the Territory of Orleans was erected, the remaining part of the purchase from the French was formed into the Territory of Louisiana, of which the old French town of St. Louis was the capital. This town, the oldest in THE GREAT WEST. 53 the territory, had been founded in 1T64, by M. Laclede, agent for a trading association, to whom \had been given, by the French government of Louisiana, a mo- nopoly of the commerce in furs and peltries with the Indian tribes of the Missouri and Upper Mississippi. The population of the territory in 1805 was trifling, and consisted mainly of French Creoles and traders, who were scattered along the banks of the Mississippi and the Arkansas. Upon the admission of Louisiana as a state, the name of the Territory of Louisiana was changed to that of Missouri. From the southern part of this, in 1819, was erected the Territory of Arkansas, which then contained but a few thousand inhabitants, who were mainly in detached settlements on the Mis- sissippi and on the Arkansas, in the vicinity of the “ Post of Arkansas.” The first settlement in Arkan- sas was made on the Arkansas River, about the year 1723, upon the grant of the notorious John Law ; but, being unsuccessful, was soon after abandoned. In 1820 Missouri was admitted into the Union, and Arkansas in 1836. Michigan was admitted as a state in 1837. The Huron District was organized as the Wisconsin Terri- tory in 1836, and was admitted into the Union as a state in 1848. The first settlement in Wisconsin was made in 1665, when Father Claude Allouez established a mission at La Pointe, at the western end of Lake Superior. Four years after, a mission was permanently established at Green Bay ; and eventually the French also established themselves at Prairie du Chien. In 5* 1819 an expedition, under Governor Cass, explored the territory, and found it to he little more than the abode of a few Indian traders, scattered here and there. About this time the government established military posts at Green Bay and Prairie du Chien. About the year 1825 some farmers settled in the vicinity of Gale- na, which had then become a noted mineral region. Immediately after the war with Black Hawk, emigrants ♦ flowed in from New York, Ohio, and Michigan, and the flourishing towns of Milwaukie, Sheboygan, Racine, and Southport were laid out on the borders of Lake Michigan. At the conclusion of the same war, the lands west of the Mississippi were thrown open to emi- grants, who commenced settlements in the vicinity of Fort Madison and Burlington in 1833. Dubuque had long before been a trading post, and was the first set- tlement in Iowa. It derived its name from Julien Dubuque, an enterprising French Canadian, who, in 1798, obtained a grant of one hundred and forty thou- sand acres from the Indians, upon which he resided until his death in 1810, when he had accumulated im- mense wealth by lead mining and trading. In June, 1838, Iowa was erected into a territory, and in 1846 became a state. In 1849 Minnesota Territory was organized ; it then contained a little less than five thousand souls. The first American establishment in the territory was Fort Snelling, at the mouth of St. Peter’s, or Minnesota River, which was founded in 1819. The French, and afterwards the English, occupied this country with THE GREAT WEST. 55 their fur trading forts. Pembina, on the northern boundary, is the oldest village, having been established l in 1812 by Lord Selkirk, a Scottish nobleman, under a grant from the Hudson’s Bay Company. California was admitted into the Union as a sister state in 1850. The Territory of Oregon was organized in 1847, im- mediately after the adjustment of the treaty with Great • Britain, and its rapid increase in population will soon justify its citizens in imperatively demanding an admit- tance as the thirty-second state of the confederacy. The Territory of Utah was organized in 1850. A great deal of interest is felt in relation to this embryo state, owing to the religion of its settlers, the Mor- mons, and their “ peculiar institution,” polygamy. The Territory of New Mexico was also organized in 1850. The Territories of Kansas and Nebraska, after the most exciting debate known in congressional annals, were organized in May, 1854. This unparalleled excitement arose from the repeal, in connection with the territorial organization, of the compact known as the Missouri Compromise. Thus “ westward the star of empire takes its way ; ” and hew states and populous cities spring into life beneath its glowing light with the rapidity of magic. THE GREAT WEST. 5T OHIO. This state has heretofore been classed among the North-west States of the American Union ; but the vast accumulation of territory lying still farther west and north has left Ohio more properly among the Middle States, on the Atlantic side of the continent : indeed, her relative position, considered in regard to the present north-western possessions of the United States, is actually that of one of the Eastern States of this republic. Marietta, the oldest town in the state, was settled, in 1788, by the “ New England Ohio Company.” The next permanent settlement was at Columbia, in the following year. In 1791, a company of French emigrants founded the town of Gallipolis. Large bodies of New England people, in 1796, settled several towns on Lake Erie. Before the above settle- ments were undertaken, several of the neighboring states, which, by charter or otherwise, were proprietors of various tracts of unappropriated western lands lying within this territory, had, from time to time, relin- quished their claims ; and numerous Indian titles were also extinguished by treaty. A territorial government was formed in 1799, in which year the legislature con- vened for the first time, at Cincinnati, and elected Gen- eral William H. Harrison as delegate to Congress. A state constitution was formed in 1802, by virtue of 58 THE GARDEN OF THE WORLD, OR which, and under authority of Congress, Ohio became an independent member of the federal Union. BOUNDARIES AND EXTENT. Bounded north by the State of Michigan and Lake Erie ; east by the States of Pennsylvania and Virginia, being separated from the latter by the Ohio River ; south by said river, which divides it from Kentucky ; and west by the State of Indiana. The Ohio River washes the border of the state, through its numerous meanderings, for a distance of over 430 miles. The state contains 40,000 square miles, and measures 200 miles from north to south, by 220 miles from east to west. It lies between 38° 30' and 42° north latitude, and between 80° 35' and 84° 42' west longitude. .RIVERS* The Ohio River, which gives name to the state, washes its entire southern border. This river is 1004 miles long from Pittsburg to its mouth, by its various windings, though it is only 614 in a direct line. Its current is gentle, with no falls, excepting at Louisville, Kentucky, where there is a descent of 22| feet in 2 miles, which is obviated by a canal. For about half the year it is navigable for steamboats of a large class through its whole course. The Muskingum, the largest river which flows entirely in this state, is formed by the junction of the Tuscarawas and Walhonding Riv- THE GREAT WEST. 59 ers, and enters the Ohio at Marietta. It is navigable for boats 100 miles. The Scioto, the second river in magnitude, flowing entirely within the state, is about 200 miles long, and enters the Ohio at Portsmouth. Its largest branch is the Whetstone, or Olentangy, which joins it immediately above Columbus. It is nav- igable for boats 130 miles. The Great Miami, a rapid river, in the western part of the state, is 100 miles long, and enters the Ohio in the south-west corner of the state. The Little Miami has a course of 70 miles, and enters the Ohio 7 miles above Cincinnati. The Maumee, 100 miles long, rises in Indiana, runs through the north-west part of the state, and enters Lake Erie at Maumee Bay. It is navigable for steamboats to Perrysburg, 18 miles from the lake, and above the rapids is boatable for a considerable distance. The Sandusky rises in the northern part of the state, and after a course of about 80 miles, enters Sandusky Bay, and thence into Lake Erie. The Cuyahoga rises in the north part of the state, and after a curved course of 60 miles, enters Lake Erie at Cleveland. It has a number of falls, which furnish valuable mill seats. Besides these there are Huron, Yermilion, Black, Grand, and Ashtabula Rivers, which enter Lake Erie. CLIMATE. In general, the climate throughout the state is high- ly favorable to human health. The summer season, though warm, is regular, with the occasional and some- 60 THE GARDEN OP THE WORLD, OR what rare exception of a whirlwind or hurricane. The winters are not severely cold, nor subject to violent storms ; and the intermediate seasons are delightfully pleasant. It is true that in some of the marshy local- ities, giving rise to unwholesome vapors, the inhabit- ants are subject to those peculiar distempers always prevalent in such districts ; but even there, the range of disorders scarcely extends beyond fevers and agues. SURFACE, SOIL, &c. Near the borders of Lake Erie, and for some distance in the interior of the northern part of the state, the surface is generally level, and occasionally somewhat marshy. The section of country in the vicinity of the Ohio River, in the eastern and south-eastern quarters, is elevated and broken, although there are no lofty mountains in the state. But the entire region is a table land, reaching to a height of 600 to 1000 feet above the ocean level. The most level and fertile lands are situated in the interior, through which flows the River Scioto. Vast prairies lie near the head waters of that river, of the Muskingum, and the two Miami Rivers, upon which there is no growth of timber, but which yield abundance of coarse grass. The forests, in other parts, produce oaks, walnut, hickory, beech, birch, maple, poplar, sycamore, papaw, cherry, buckeye, and whitewood, in all their varieties. Pines are un- common, and the whitewood is generally substituted. The staple agricultural product of the state is wheat, THE GREAT WEST. 61 of which enormous quantities are annually exported. Rye, oats, buckwheat, Indian corn, and other grains, are raised in great profusion ; and nearly every species of garden vegetable is cultivated successfully. It is estimated that nine tenths of the land is adapted to purposes of agriculture, and that three fourths of it is extraordinarily fertile. Fruits of all descriptions known in the same latitude grow luxuriantly in all parts of the state. AGRICULTURE. In 1855 there were 10,000,000 acres of improved land, and about 9,000,000 acres of unimproved land in farms. The cash value of the farms is about $400,000- 000, and the value of implements and machinery be- longing to the same about $14,000,000. The value of live stock in this state, comprising horses, sheep, swine, oxen, cows, Ac., was about $50,000,000. The follow- ing are the statistics of the products of the soil for 1855 : Wheat, 40,000,000 bushels ; rye, 700,000 ; In- dian corn, 73,000,000 ; oats, 14,000,000 ; barley, 500,- 000 ; buckwheat, 800,000 ; peas and beans, 70,000 ; potatoes, 6,000,000 ; sweet potatoes, 200,000. Value of fruit, $800,000. Produce raised by market gardens, $225,000. Butter and cheese, 60,000,000 pounds. Maple sugar, 500,000 pounds. Gallons of molasses, 200,000. Wool produced, 11,000,000 pounds. Flax, 500,000 pounds. Hay cut, 2,000,000 tons. Robert Buchanan, of Cincinnati, says that he sold last year, from his vineyard, 140,000 cuttings, and thinks that 6 62 THE GARDEN OP THE WORLD, OR the whole number sold in one season would number 2,000,000 cuttings and 300,000 stocks. This looks very much like making the Ohio valley the land of the vine. These immense figures show the extent of op- erations, and the enterprise of Ohio farmers. INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS. Many important public works have been undertaken and accomplished in this state. The Ohio Canal, 307 miles in length, extends from Cleveland, on the shore of Lake Erie, to Portsmouth, on the Ohio River ; and there are connected with it sundry branches, one of which reaches 50 miles. This work, commenced in 1825 and completed in 1832, cost $5,000,000. The Miami Canal, 178 miles long, extends from Cincinnati, and connects with the Wabash and Erie Canal at Defi- ance. This is also intersected by several branches. The Mahoning, a branch of the Ohio Canal, commences at Akron, and extends 88 miles, to Beaver River. Two continuous lines of railroad extend across the state, from north to south — one from Cincinnati to Sandusky, the other from Cincinnati to Cleveland, which is also connected by railroad with Pittsburg, Buffalo, Sandusky, and Toledo. There are numerous important lines in progress, extending east and west, and, indeed, in al- most every direction. The City Council of Cincinnati passed an ordinance to aid the Ohio and Mississippi Railroad, chiefly by commuting the interest on the THE GREAT WEST. 63 $600,000 loan, and the rent of the wharf until 1861, on condition that the road shall be finished by Novem- ber, 1857. GOVERNMENT. The constitution provides for the election of a gov- ernor biennially ; but he cannot be elected for more than three terms in succession. Members of the Sen- ate, 36 in number, are elected for two years, one half chosen annually. The House of Representatives is composed of 72 members, elected for one year. All these elections are by the people. The state secretary, treasurer, and auditor are chosen by the legislature, in joint ballot, for three years. The sessions of the Gen- eral Assembly commence annually on the first Monday in December, at Columbus, the capital of the state. White males, 21 years of age, residents for one year in the state, and tax payers, are entitled to the right of suffrage. The constitution has been recently revised and modified ; but its new features do not seem to be essential improvements in principle upon its former provisions. Among the amendments introduced are the following : The House of Representatives to con- sist of 100 members — both branches to be chosen for two years ; the legislature to hold its sessions once in two years ; the lieutenant governor to be acting presi- dent of the Senate, with only a casting vote ; on the passage of every bill, the yeas and nays to be required, and a majority of all the members elected, of each 64 THE GARDEN OF THE WORLD, OR house, to be necessary to the passage of any law ; all judicial officers to be elected by the people — the judges of the Supreme and Common Pleas Courts for five years ; no state debts to be contracted to an amount of over 1750,000, except in certain emergencies, nor the state credit to be loaned, nor the state, nor any county, city, or town to hold stock in corporations. EDUCATION. On the admission of this state into the Union, it was stipulated, for certain considerations, that one thirty- sixth part of all the territory should be set apart for the maintenance of common schools. This liberal res- ervation makes ample provision for securing to coming generations the advantages of early instruction ; and, thus far, the compact, on the part of the state, has been faithfully carried out. Good schools are diffused all over the land ; and all needful attention and aid are given by the people to their support and improve- ment. There are many thousands of public grammar and primary schools in the state, some hundreds of academies or similar seminaries, and about twenty uni- versities, colleges, and other institutions of a high order. The amount of the school fund owned by the state is nearly $2,000,000 ; and nearly $300,000 are an nually apportioned to the several counties for school purposes. The number of persons over 20 years of age who can neither read nor write is about 35,000. THE GREAT WEST. 65 RELIGION, &c. There were in the state, in 1850, 551 Baptist church- es, 90 Christian, 100 Congregational, 5 Dutch Reformed, 79 Episcopal, 18 Free, 94 Friends, 71 German Re- formed, 3 Jewish synagogues, 260 Lutheran, 10 Men- nonite, 1529 Methodist, 160 Moravian, 663 Presbyterian, 130 Roman Catholic, 2 Swedenborgian, 14 Tunker, 48 Union, 1 Unitarian, 53 Universalist, and 60 other sects, the whole having 3936 churches. Total value of church property, $5,793,099. POPULATION. The people of Ohio are remarkable for industry, en- terprise, and public spirit. They have “ increased and multiplied,” through accessions from the older states, and from Europe, in an almost incredible ratio. The growth of the population has been without parallel, until, perhaps, the recent thronging towards the golden land in the farthest west. From the time when the first census was taken, a period of only 60 years, the number of inhabitants has been augmented from 3000 to over 2,000,000. The principal places are Cincinnati, the metropolis ; Columbus, the capital ; Cleveland, Sandusky, Dayton, Springfield, Zanesville, Marietta, and Portsmouth. There were in February, 1855, 68 banks, with a paid capital of $8,718,366 ; in February, 1855, 46 railroads, of which 2367 miles of track were 6 * 66 THE GARDEN OP THE WORLD, OR finished and in operation, and 1578 in course of con- struction. Tonnage of the state, 26,000. CINCINNATI. the metropolis of Ohio, capital of Hamilton county, and the largest and most commercial place west of the Alleghany Mountains . It is situated on the right bank of the Ohio River, 455 miles below Pittsburg, and 1548 above New Orleans, and 502 miles from Washing- ton. It is the largest city of the Mississippi valley north of New Orleans, and the fifth in population in the United States. Population in 1800, 750 ; in 1810, 2540 ; in 1880, 24,831 ; in 1840, 46,388 ; in 1845, 65,000 ; 1850, 115,438 ; in 1853, 160,141 ; and in 1855, about 200,000. The suburbs have 25,000 in- habitants additional. This city is near the eastern extremity of a valley, about twelve miles in circumference, surrounded by a series of hills, which rise to the height of three hundred feet by gentle and varying slopes, and are partly covered with the native forest trees. From the summit of these hills is presented a beautiful and pic- turesque view of the city and valley. It is built on two table lands, the one elevated from forty to sixty feet above the other. Low-water mark in the river, which is 108 feet below the upper part of the city, is 432 feet above tide water at Albany, and 133 feet below the level of Lake Erie. Covington and New- port, opposite, in Kentucky, and Fulton and the THE GREAT WEST. 67 adjacent parts of Mill Creek township on the north, are but suburbs of Cincinnati, and, if added to the above population, would extend it to 185,000. The shore of the Ohio at the landing is substantially paved to low- water mark, and is supplied with floating wharves, adapted to the great rise and fall of the river, which renders the landing and shipping of goods at all times convenient. Cincinnati is laid out with great regularity. North of Main Street, between the north side of Front Street and the bank of the river, is the landing, an open area of ten acres, with about 1000 feet front. This area is of great importance to the business of the city, and from surise to sunset presents a scene of much activity. The central part is compactly and well built, with spacious warehouses, large stores, and handsome dwell- ings ; and many of them are of stone or brick ; and of those recently erected, a very large number are of a beautiful kind of stone : the style of architecture is constantly improving. The streets are well paved, ex- tensively shaded with trees, and many of the houses surrounded with shrubbery. The climate is more variable than on the Atlantic coast in the same latitude. Snow rarely falls sufficiently deep, or lies long enough, to furnish sleighing. Few places are more healthy. The inhabitants are from every state in the Union, and from various countries in Europe. The Ohio River at Cincinnati is 1800 feet, or about one third of a mile wide, and its mean annual range from low to high water is about fifty feet ; the ex- 68 THE GARDEN OF THE WORLD, OR treme range may be about ten feet more. The greatest depressions are generally in August, September, and October, and the greatest rise in December, March, May, and June. The upward navigation is in winter very rarely suspended by floating ice, and in some winters not at all. Its current at its mean height is about three miles an hour ; when higher or rising it is more, and when very low it does not exceed two miles. The quantity of rain and snow which falls annually at Cincinnati is near three feet nine inches. The average number of clear and fair days in the year is 146 ; of variable, 114 ; of cloudy, 105. Among the public buildings is the new Court House and city hall ; the Cincinnati observatory ; the first and second Presbyterian churches are beautiful edifices, and the Unitarian church is singularly neat. There are several churches, built within the last three years, which possess great beauty, either internally or ex- ternally. But the most impressive building is the Catholic cathedral, which surpasses in beauty and picturesque effect 'the metropolitan edifice at Balti- more. There are many fine blocks of stores, on Front, Walnut, Pearl, Main, and Fourth Streets, and the eye is arrested by many beautiful private habitations. The most showy quarters are Main Street, Broadway, Pearl, and Fourth Street. There are over one hundred churches in Cincinnati, viz. : 7 Baptist, 1 Bethel, 4 Congregational, 5 Disci- ples, 5 Episcopal, 2 Friends, (Hicksite and Orthodox,) 4 Jews’ synagogues, 12 Lutheran, 22 Methodist, 10 THE GBEAT WEST. 69 Presbyterian, 13 Roman Catholic, 1 Second Advent, 1 Unitarian, 1 Unitarian Baptist, 2 Universalist, Ac. There are six market houses and three theatres, of which one is German. The city contains many literary and charitable insti- tutions. The Cincinnati college was founded in 1819. The building is in the centre of the city, and is the most beautiful edifice of the kind in the state. It is of the Grecian Doric order, with pilaster fronts, and facade of Dayton marble, and cost about $35,000. The law department only, now in operation, has a faculty composed of three professors, and the course of instruction embraces a period of eight months, viz., from 23d September to 1st June. Woodward Col- lege, named from its founder, who gave a valuable block of ground in the north part of the city, has a president and five professors or other instructors, and, including its preparatory department, near 200 stu dents. The Fairmont Theological Seminary, under direction of the Baptists, (building not yet finished.) The Cincinnati Theological Seminary, Old School Presbyterian, was organized in 1850. St. Xavier’s College, under the direction of the Roman Catho- lics, has a president, eight professors, 100 students, and near 5000 volumes in its libraries. Lane Seminary, a theological institution, is at Walnut Hills, two miles from the centre of the city. It went into operation in 1833 ; has a president, 3 professors, 75 students, and over 13,000 volumes in its libraries. There is no charge for tuition. Rooms are provided and furnished 70 THE GARDEN OP THE WORLD, OR at $5 per annum, and the students boarded at 62^ to 90 cents per week. The Medical College was char- tered-and placed under trustees in 1825. It has a large and commodious building, recently erected, in the Collegiate Gothic style, a library of over 2000 volumes, 7 professors, and about 150 students. The Wesleyan Female College, established in 1844, has 37 pupils. The Mechanics’ Institute, chartered in 1828, has a valuable philosophical and chemical apparatus, a library, and a reading room. The free schools of the city are of a high order, with competent teachers, fine buildings, and apparatus. In the colleges and high schools there are not less than 1500 pupils ; in the common and private, 20,000 ; making an aggregate of 22,000 persons in the various departments of education. In 1831 a college of teachers was established, having for its object the elevation of the profession, and the advancement of the interest of schools in the Missis- sippi valley, which holds an annual meeting in Cincin- nati in October. The young men’s Mercantile Library Association has a fine library and reading rooms. The library contains over 13,000 volumes, and the institu- tion is unsurpassed in the United States. The library and reading rooms are connected in one vast room, 18 feet high, 140 long, and 60 broad. The Apprentices’ Library, founded in 1821, contains about 5000 volumes. The charitable institutions of the city are highly respectable. The Cincinnati Orphan Asylum is in a building which dost $18,000. Attached is a library THE GREAT WEST. 71 and well-organized school, with a provision even for infants, and it is supported by ample grounds. The Catholics have one male and female Orphan Asylum. The Commercial Hospital and Lunatic Asylum of Ohio was incorporated in 1821. The edifice is in the north- west part of the city, and will' accommodate 250 per- sons. A. part of the building is used for a poorhouse, and there are separate apartments for the insane. The city is supplied with water raised from the Ohio River by steam power, capable of forcing into the reservoir 5,000,000 gallons of water each twelve hours. The reservoir is on elevated ground, (about 400 feet above the Ohio ;) its entire length is 868 feet ; width, 135 feet ; and 23 feet deep ; estimated to contain 5,000,000 gallons of water. Cost, $796,000, and is the property of the city. The city is lighted with gas, supplied by the Cincinnati Gas Light and Coke Com- pany. Capital, $100,000. Cincinnati is an extensive manufacturing place. Its natural destitution of water power is extensively com- pensated at present by steam engines, and by the surplus water of the Miami Canal and the White Water Canal, which extend 25 miles, and connect with the White Water Canal of Indiana, half a mile south of Harrison, on the state line. The manufac- tures of the city, already enormous, may be expected to greatly increase. It appears that the manufactures of Cincinnati of all kinds, according to the census of 1850, employed a capital of $6,833,796, and produced articles valued at $19,685,022. These amounts, ac- 72 THE GARDEN OF THE WORLD, OR cording to Cist, should be more than doubled to express the capital actually employed, and the value of articles produced. Wine, from the Catawba grape, is exten- sively made from the produce of the numerous vineyards in the vicinity. There are 10 daily, 1 tri-weekly, and 21 weekly newspapers, and 6 semi-monthly, 24 monthly, and 2 quarterly publications printed in the city. The site on which the Cincinnati observatory is erected is one of great beauty. The building crowns a hill which rises some 500 feet above the line of low water of • the Ohio, and commands a varied and picturesque view. The main building is built of stone, 80 feet front, two stories and a half on the wings, and three in the centre. Through the centre of the main building, and founded on the natural rock, rises a pier of grouted masonry eight feet square, entirely insulated from the floors through which it passes, to furnish a permanent and immovable basis for the great equatorial telescope, one of the largest in the world, made at the Fraucnliofer Institute, Munich. The focal length is about 17i feet ; the diameter of the object glass, 12 inches ; bearing magnifying powers varying from 100 to 1400 times. Clockwork is attached to the telescope, and its machinery and circles, by which its mass, weigh- ing some 2500 lbs., is moved with such admirable accu- racy that an object under examination may be followed by the telescope at the will of the observer. It is mounted on a stone pedestal, and rises, when directed to the zenith, some 20 feet above the floor of the THE GREAT WEST. 73 rooms. The apartment is surmounted by a roof of peculiar structure, and so arranged that a portion of the vertical wall and roof, strongly framed together, and mounted on wheels on a circular track, may, by a single person, be moved either north or south, when the entire heaven falls within the sweep of the tele- scope. On the floor below, in the transit room, is the transit telescope, and connected -with it is an admirable sidereal clock, and also the machinery invented by Professor Mitcliel ; this mechanism consists of two in- struments of entirely different construction, the one intended to record the observations of right ascension, the other observations of difference in declination. By means of the electro-magnet, the clock is made to record its own beats with surprising nicety, -on a disk, revolving with uniform velocity on a vertical axis. This disk, covered with paper or metal, receives a minute dot, struck into it by a stylus, driven by a magnet, whose operating electric circuit is closed at each alter- nate beat, by a delicate vibrating wire attached to the pendulum of the clock by a spider’s web ; thus, at each alternate vibration of the pendulum, the circuit is closed ; and the second is entered, magnetically, on the revolv- ing disk. At the close of each revolution, the disk moves itself forward about the tenth of an inch, without check or interference with the uniformity of its angu- lar motion, and a new circumference of time dots commences to be recorded. On the time scale thus perpetually .forming the observer can enter, magneti- cally, by the touch of a key, the observed transit of 7 74 THE GARDEN OF THE WORLD, OR any star or other object across the meridian wires of the telescope. These entries are subsequently read from the disk, even to the thousandth of one second of time. The trade of Cincinnati embraces the country from the Ohio to the lakes on the north, and from the Scioto to the Wabash east and west. The country bordering the Ohio River in Kentucky, for fifty miles down, and as far up as the Virginia line, obtain their supplies here. Its manufactures are sent into the Upper and Lower Mississippi country. There are 6 incorporated banks, with aggregate capital of $5,800,000, besides 10 unincorporated banks ; 8 fire insurance companies, 3 life insurance companies, and 1 live stock insurance company. Cincinnati is the greatest pork market in the world. The pork, bacon, lard, lard oil, star candles, soap, bristles, &c., amount in value, to about 10 millions of dollars annually. Im- ports, year ending August- 31, 1853, $51,230,644. Exports, same year, $36,266,108. Tonnage of the port, 1853, 10,191. There were 25 steamboats and 3 barges built in 1853, with an aggregate tonnage of 10,252 tons. The total arrivals of steamboats for the year 1853 was 3630, and the departures 4113. Cincinnati enjoys great facilities for communication with the surrounding country. Two trunk-lines of railroads enter the city, viz., Little Miami and the Cincinnati, Hamilton and Dayton. From each of these diverge numerous branches. Two other trunk- lines are constructing, viz., the Dayton Air Line and .the Ohio and Mississippi, which is to extend to St. THE GREAT WEST. 75 Louis. From Covington, on the Kentucky side of Ohio, a railroad is constructed to the heart of Ken- tucky. The city is divided into 16 wards, and is governed by a mayor, and a board of trustees of three members for each ward, styled the city council. The mayor is elected biennially, and the trustees annually. Cincinnati was founded in 1789, by emigrants from New England and New Jersey, on the site of Fort Washington. It has grown with great rapidity, and being the great emporium of the centre , it must con- tinue to increase with a ratio unprecedented. CLEVELAND. City and port of entry and court house Cuyahoga county. On Lake Erie, at the mouth of Cuyahoga Fiver. It derives its name from General Moses Cleve- land, an agent of the Connecticut land company, who accompanied the first surveying party to the Connecti- cut Reserve, and under whose direction the town was first surveyed in 1796. The Indian title to the land it occupies had been extinguished two years before ; but on the opposite side of the Cuyahoga River the Indians retained their title till 1805. Cleveland was incorpo- rated as a village in 1814, and as a city in 1886. Pop- ulation in 1799, one family; in 1825, about 500 ; in 1830, 1000 ; in 1840, 6071 ; in 1850, 17,054 ; in 1855, about 35,000. It is 130 miles north-west from Pitts- 76 THE GARDEN OF THE WORLD, OR burg, 146 north-east from Columbus, 200 south-west from Buffalo, 130 east from Detroit. It is situated on a gravelly plain, elevated about 80 feet above the lake, of which it has a commanding prospect. The streets, which cross each other at right angles, are 80 feet wide, and Main Street 120. The location is dry and healthy, and there are many fine buildings. Near the centre is a public square of 10 acres, neatly enclosed and shaded with trees. The harbor at the mouth of the Cuyahoga, since its improvement, by piers on each side extending into the water, is one of the best on Lake Erie, and its position at the northern terminus of the Ohio Canal, and the fertile country and enterprising population by which it is surrounded, have given it a very rapid growth, wlucli as yet is but just commencing. It is already the second commercial town in Ohio, and bids fair even to rival Cincinnati. Besides its in- tercourse with the interior of the state by the Ohio Canal, and its extensive lake commerce, it communi- cates by the Ohio and Pennsylvania Canal with Pitts- burg, and by the New York and Welland Canals with the Atlantic coast. To these facilities for transportation have lately been added a system of railroads, affording communication with Cincinnati, Detroit, Pittsburg, and Buffalo, and through these two latter places with Phil- adelphia, New York, and Boston. Ohio City, on the opposite side of the Cuyahoga, is a growing suburb. THE GREAT WEST. 77 COLUMBUS. City, capital of the state, and seat of justice of Franklin county. 140 miles south-west from Cleve- land, and 125 north-east from Cincinnati. It is on the same parallel of latitude with Philadelphia, 450 miles west, and on the same meridian with Detroit, 175 miles south. Population in 1815, 700 ; in 1820, 1450 ; in 1880, 2437 ; in 1840, 6048 ; in 1850, 17,871 ; in 1855, 40,000. It is situated on the east bank of the Scioto, upon ground rising gradually from the riven, and affording an eligible site for a large city. This spot was selected by the legislature as the seat of gov- ernment in 1812, while it was yet a wilderness, and is designated in the act as “ the high bank of Scioto River, opposite Franklinton.” It is laid out, as all towns established in such a manner are usually laid out, with the most entire regularity ; the streets cross- ing each other at right angles, and forming spacious squares, which are often divided into lesser squares by alleys, or narrower streets, intersecting each other in the middle. Broad Street, which extends from the bridge, over which the national road passes the Scioto, to the eastern limits of the city, is 120 feet wide, and High Street, at right angles with this, which is the principal seat of business, is 100 feet wide. The other streets are 88 feet in width. A substantial quay has been constructed along the margin of the river, 1300 feet long, which affords every facility for loading and unloading goods, produce, and other articles transport- 7 * 78 THE GARDEN. OF THE WORLD, OR ed upon the river ; or through the Ohio Canal, which passes 11 miles south of this point, and is connected with the Scioto at Columbus by a canal, or feeder, of that length. In the centre of the town is a public square of 10 acres, handsomely enclosed, designed originally for the public buildings. It has Broad Street on the north side, and High Street on the west. Upon the south- west corner of this square, fronting towards the west, stands the State House, which is a brick edifice, 75 feet long by 50 feet wide, two stories high, and surmounted with a handsome cupola, from the balcony of which a beautiful view of the city and the surrounding country is obtained. The winding course of the river, the pleasant town of Franklinton, on its opposite bank, and many features of the more distant prospect, give a varied and pleasing interest to this view. The Kepre- sentatives’ Hall is on the lower floor of the State House, and the Senate Chamber is immediately above. The public offices are in a separate building, 100 feet long by 25 feet wide, standing directly north of the State House. In the same line, a little farther north, is the Court House for the United States District Court. There are many elegant private dwellings in Colum- bus ; but the general style of building is characterized rather by neatness than display. The churches of the different denominations are numerous, and many of them well sustained. The First Presbyterian Church in Columbus was organized in 1818, and their neat brick edifice stands near the south-east corner of the THE GREAT WEST. 79 public square. The Baptist Church is a large and handsome building at the corner of Third and Rich Streets ; and the Episcopal Church is a stone edifice on Broad Street, opposite the public square. The several state institutions located at Columbus do honor to the state, while they greatly adorn the city. The Ohio Lunatic Asylum occupies an open area, about one mile east of the State House, and is a truly noble structure. The buildings present a front of 376 feet, with wings on the right and left projecting 11 feet for- ward, and running back 218 feet, thus forming a spa- cious court in the rear. They cover an acre of ground, and contain 440 rooms. About 30 acres of land are attached to the establishment, forming a quiet and ample retreat for such patients as are able to enjoy it. The cost of erecting the buildings of the Lunatic Asy- lum was over $150,000. The Ohio Deaf and Dumb Asylum is located about one third of a mile east of the State House, on grounds which are handsomely laid out, and adorned with shrub- bery. Its site was selected in 1829, and it went into operation as soon as the necessary arrangements could be made. The buildings are of brick, and cost, with the grounds, about $25,000. • The Ohio Institution for the Education of the Blind is another of these noble institutions, located at Colum- bus. It is situated on the national road, about three quarters of a mile easterly from the State House. The edifice is a large and handsome structure of brick, with 80 THE GARDEN OF THE WORLD, OR a beautiful lawn in front. The institution was estab- lished in 1837, and is in a flourishing condition. The state penitentiary, which is situated on the east- ern bank of the Scioto, about half a mile north from the State House, is the largest and most imposing of the public edifices at Columbus. The main building is constructed of hewn limestone, and consists of a centre building, 56 feet front, and four stories high, with two wings each, 200 feet long, and three stories high ; pre- senting an entire front of 456 feet in extent. With the prison yard in the rear, upon the three sides of which are the long ranges of workshops for the prisoners, the buildings of the penitentiary enclose a hollow square of 6 acres. The centre building of the main edifice, as seen in front, contains the house of the warden, the office, and the guard rooms ; and each of the wings contains 350 cells for prisoners, arranged in 5 tiers, and exposed through the whole line to the observation of the officers from the guard rooms. A railroad, about two miles long, has been laid down from the prison to a stone quarry, where a portion of the convicts are employed in getting out stone. The discipline of this prison is excellent. The prisoners attend divine ser- vice on the Sabbath, and enjoy the privileges of a Sab- bath school, and the use of an excellent library, com- prising several hundred volumes. They have Bibles in their cells, unite in exercises of sacred music, and are permitted, occasionally, to hear temperance addresses, &c., in the chapel. Their labor yields to the state, THE GREAT WEST. 81 after defraying the expenses of the prison, a surplus of $16,000 or $18,000 annually. On the 10th of February, 1816, Columbus was in- corporated as a borough. Its present city charter was granted March 8, 1884. The mayor is elected for two years. The city is divided into five wards, each of which elects four members of the city council, who hold their offices for four years, one in each ward being elected annually. All other officers are elected an- nually. THE GREAT. WEST. 83 INDIANA. The history of the settlement of Indiana is nearly identical with that of its twin sister, Illinois, and of much of the vast surrounding region formerly included in the so called North-west Territory. The first per- manent occupancy of the country was effected in 17 02, at a fertile spot on the eastern bank of the Wabash, about one hundred miles above its confluence with the Ohio. To this place, which became a fortified trading post, its inhabitants afterwards gave the name of Vin- cennes. The original settlers were French soldiers from Canada, belonging to the army of Louis XIY. Their descendants remained an almost isolated com- munity, increasing very slowly in numbers for nearly one hundred years ; and in the mean time, from habits of constant intercourse with their Indian neighbors exclusively, with whom they often intermarried, had imbibed a taste for savage life, and had consequently retrogressed in the march of civilization. By the treaty of peace between France and England, in 1763, the ter- ritory became subject to the latter, from which power, however, it was wrested by the Americans during the revolutionary war. From the close of that struggle, in 1783, until General Wayne’s treaty in 1795, and again just before the commencement of the second war with Great Britain, the people, generally residing in hamlets and villages remote from each other, were ter- 84 THE GARDEN OP THE WORLD, OR ribly harrassed by the incursions of the Indians, who committed the most cruel atrocities. These merciless barbarians were at length effectually conquered and humbled by the United States military forces under General Harrison ; a season of quietude and prosperity immediately ensued, and a vast tide of emigration has been flowing into the state since the peace of 1815. Indiana was originally embraced in the territory north- west of the Ohio, and so remained until the year 1800. It was then^ including the present State of Illinois, newly organized under the name of Indiana Territory. In 1809 it was divided into two territories, Illinois having been set off, and became an independent state in 1816. BOUNDARIES AND EXTENT. The state is bounded north by Michigan and the southern portion of the lake of that name; east by the State of Ohio ; south-east and south by Ohio River, which divides it from Kentucky ; and west by Illinois, the Wabash River forming part of the boundary. It lies between 37° 47' and 41° 50' north latitude, and its mean length is estimated at 260 miles ; its mean breadth is about 140 miles, extending from 84° 45' to 88° west longitude. Its area comprehends nearly 34,000 square miles. RIVERS. The Ohio River washes the entire southern border of this state and furnishes great facilities for trade. THE GEEAT WEST. 85 The Wabash is the largest river in the state, being 500 miles in length. It rises in Ohio, and passes westward- 1 7 and south-westwardly through the state, forming its western boundary for a distance of 120 miles. It is navigable for steamboats to La Fayette, 300 miles, a part of the year. White River, 200 miles long, is its largest branch, and is navigable on its west fork for steamboats to Indianapolis in seasons of floods ; it con- sists of an east fork and a west fork, which unite about 30 miles above its junction with the Wabash. The White Water River runs in the eastern part of the state, and enters the Great Miami. Lake Michigan touches this state in the north-west. CLIMATE. Residents of the country characterize the climate as generally mild and salubrious. In summer the tem- perature is genial and uninterrupted by injurious changes. The winters are neither long nor severe, six weeks being considered as their average duration. Frosts, however, are common in spring and autumn. Fevers and agues prevail only in marshy places, and in the neighborhood of stagnant waters. SURFACE AND SOIL. The face of the country, though not mountainous, is in some quarters hilly and broken. The greater portion of the state, by far, consists of immense tracts 8 86 THE GARDEN OF THE WORLD, OR of level lands, studded at intervals with picturesque clusters of trees. Many of tlie upland prairies are skirted for long distances with noble forests, while those bordering upon the rivers are rarely productive of any description of timber. The whole earth is replete with vegetable wealth. Upon the prairies there is, at the proper seasons, intermingled with gay and odorous flowers, a thick covering of grass, growing to a height of seven or eight feet. The soil of the prai- ries, as well those which are elevated as those which lie along the rivers, is surpassingly rich, the loam com- monly reaching to a depth of two to five feet. The trees of native growth comprise several varieties of oak, wal- nut, maple, elm, sycamore, beech, ash, linden, locust, sassafras, buckeye, cottonwood, cherry, and mulberry. The most important of the cultivated products are wheat, Indian corn, rye, and other grains, potatoes, and various other esculents. Grapes, and indeed fruits of all kinds peculiar to the climate, grow profusely. Among the many valuable staples of this state are large quantities of beef, pork, butter, cheese, sugar, wool, tobacco, and hemp. AGRICULTURE. There were in this state in 1855 over 6,000,000 acres of land improved, and about 9,000,000 acres unim- proved land in farms. Cash value of the farms, about $150,000,060. Value of implements and machinery attached thereto, $7,000,000. Value of live stock, horses, oxen, cows, &c., $25,000,000. THE GREAT WEST. 87 The wheat crop last year was 15,000,000 bushels. Rye, 149,897. Buckwheat, 200,000. Indian corn, 78.950.000. Oats, about 7,000,000. Barley, about 50.000. Potatoes, over 2,000,000. Sweet potatoes, over 2,000,000. Value of fruit produced, $400,000. Value of produce of market gardens, $75,000. Pounds of butter made, about 14,000. Cheese, about 700,000. Maple sugar, 3,000,000 pounds. Molasses, 200,000 gal- lons. Wool produced, about 3,000,000 pounds. Plax, abo’ut 300,000 pounds. Hops, about 100,000 pounds. Tobacco, 1,500,000 pounds. Hay, 413,000 tons. There were made 15,000 gallons of wine, sparkling, Catawba, &c. INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS . The Wabash and Erie Canal, 187 miles in length,, connecting the navigable waters of the River Wabash with those of Lake Erie, is the most important enter- prise of the kind in which this state has been con- cerned. Nearly 100 miles of its extent are in Indiana, and the residue in Ohio. The whole was completed in 1843. The Whitewater Canal, a work of much less magnitude, is partially completed, and several additions are contemplated. A railroad, commencing at Indian- apolis, connects the capital with three or four differ- ent points on the Ohio, a distance of about 100 miles. From the same point of beginning, another road, partly macadamized, extends northwardly to Michigan City. Other railroads have been projected, some of which, are in course of construction. 88 THE GARDEN OF THE WORLD, OR GOVERNMENT. The executive power resides in a governor and lieutenant governor, the latter being president of the Senate, and acting as governor in cases of vacancy. The legislature consists of two branches, — Senate and House of Representatives, — apportioned to the coun- ties according to the number of qualified electors, in such ratio that the number of representatives shall not be less than 36 nor piore than 100. The Senate is never to contain less than 12 nor more than 50 members. All the above are elected by the people triennially, except the representatives, who are chosen every year. The legislature convenes annually. The chief magistrate cannot hold office longer than six years in any term of nine years. The secretary of state, treasurer, and auditor are chosen by the General Assembly in joint ballot, the first for a term of four years, and the two latter for three years. EDUCATION. Attention to this important interest has been con- siderably awakened within a few years. A common school fund, to be derived from various sources, was founded by a law of the state in 1849, at which time the several funds set apart for the purpose were valued at upwards of $700,000. By the census of 1840, there were within the state over 38,000 white persons, above the age of 20 years, who could neither read nor write. THE GREAT WEST. 89 Asylums for the blind, the deaf and dumb, and the insane, have been established. There are several col- leges, and numerous academies, in various parts of the state. The names and locations are as follows: In- diana State University at Bloomington, Hanover Col- lege at Hanover, Wabash College at Crawfordsville, Indiana Asbury University at Greenoastle, University of Notre Dame at South Bend, Hartsville University at Hartsville, Indiana Theological Seminary at Hano- ver, Ecclesiastical Seminary at Vincennes, Indiana Medical College at Laporte, Indiana Central Medical College at Indianapolis, Indiana State University Law School at Bloomington, and Indiana Asbury University Law School at Greencastle, the whole having, in 1850, 1069 students. There were also 131 academies, 6185 pupils ; 4822 schools, 161,500 scholars ; 151 libraries, aggregate number of volumes 68,403. School fund (productive and unproductive,) $4,998,000. Present available annual revenue, $159,501. There is an in- stitution for the education of the blind at Indianapolis, an institution for the education of the deaf and dumb near Indianapolis, and also a hospital for the insane. The state prison is at Jeffersonville. RELIGIOUS STATISTICS. In modes of faith there is much diversity. The most numerous classes of Christians are Methodists, •Presbyterians, and Baptists ; there are also consider- able numbers of Lutherans, 'Episcopalians, Roman 8 * 90 THE GARDEN OF THE WORLD, OR Catholics, and Friends. There were in the state, in 1850, 428 Baptist churches, 187 Christian, 2 Congre- gational, 5 Dutch Deformed, 24 Episcopal, 10 Free, 89 Friends, 5 German Reformed, 63 Lutheran, 778 Methodist, 57 Moravian, 282 Presbyterian, 63 Roman Catholic, 5 Tunker, 5 Union, 1 Unitarian, 15 Univer- salist, and 13 other sects, the whole having 2032 churches ; total value of church property, $1,529,585. POPULATION. The population of Indiana, since the year 1825, has increased with unexampled rapidity. At that date the number of inhabitants was estimated at 185,000 ; 1850, 988,416 ; 1855, about 1,200,000. Among the causes which have conduced to attract settlers thither, the extraordinary fertility of the soil, the low price of lands, the facilities for inland water communication, and the healthful climate, are doubtless among, the most prominent. INDIANAPOLIS. Capital of the State of Indiana, and seat of justice for Marion county. It is situated very near the geo- graphical centre of the state, on the east side of the west fork of White River, which is navigable, except at low water, for steamboats from the Ohio and Wabash Rivers to this place. The ground on which it is built, together with the suburbs, embracing, all together, four THE GREAT WEST. 91 sections of land, according to the government surveys, was secured to the State of Indiana by a compact with the United States, in 1820, when it was covered with a dense forest, as a permanent seat of government. In the spring of 1821 the town was laid out and surveyed by commissioners appointed for that purpose. The original plat of the town, which is on an extended plain, was a mile square ; but it has since been extend- ed in different directions beyond these limits. It was laid out into regular four-acre squares, each to contain 12 lots ; and these squares were divided through the middle by alleys, from east to west, 30 feet wide, and from north to south 15 feet wide. The streets, in gen- eral, were laid out 90 feet in width. Washington Street, which passes through the centre, and is the great business street, is 120 feet in width. Through this street the great national road passes. Near the centre of the town a square has been appropriated, as a site for the mansion of the governor of the state. In the centre of this square stands the Governor’s House, on ground slightly elevated, 60 feet square, and having four elegant fronts. A circular street, 80 feet wide, encompasses this enclosure, and four streets extend from it diagonally, towards the four corners of the city. The streets, with the exception of these four, all intersect each other at right angles. They bear the- names of the different states of the Union. The State House at Indianapolis is beautifully lo- cated, in the centre of one of the 40 acre squares, handsomely laid out and enclosed. It is one of the 92 THE GARDEN OF THE WORLD, OR most splendid buildings in the west. It is 180 feet long, 80 feet wide, and 40 feet high, to the top of the cornice, and is surmounted with a handsome dome. It is on the model of the Parthenon at Athens, with the omission of the columns on the sides ; for which pilasters, 18 in number, are substituted. On each front there is a beautiful portico, with 10 Doric col- umns. The two halls for the legislature are in the second story, to which the entrance is through a hall and rotunda in the centre. The Court House, which was formerly occupied as the State House, is also a handsome building. Some of the church edifices are large and of fine appearance. Indianapolis is the centre of a number of stage routes from different sections of the west, and is fast becoming a place of extensive business. It is connect- ed by railroad with Madison, on the Ohio River, a dis- tance of 86 miles ; being by this route about 150 miles from Cincinnati, and about the same distance from Louisville, Kentucky. The railroad will soon be com- pleted to connect it with Peru, on the Wabash and Erie Canal. Population, 1850, 8091 ; in 1855, 14,000. NEW ALBANY. City, and seat of justice of Floyd County. 126 miles south by east from Indianapolis. Situated on the north bank of the Ohio River, about two miles be- low the foot of the falls in that river, at Louisville. This is one of the largest places in the state. It is laid THE GREAT WEST. 93 out with entire regularity, having six streets parallel with the river, nearly east and west, and eleven run- ning back from the river, intersecting them at right angles. It has churches of the Presbyterian, Episco- pal, Methodist, Baptist, Campbellite Baptist, and Ro- man Catholic denominations. There are a male and a female seminary, a lyceum, and other excellent pro- visions for the education of the young. A donation of $5000 was made by the original proprietors to con- stitute a fund for the support of a public school. There are several ship yards at New Albany, in which a num- ber of steamboats are built annually, and a large business is done in various branches of manufacture. Population in 1840, 4226 ; in 1850, 10,000 ; in 1855, 15,000. THE GREAT WEST. 95 ILLINOIS. This comparatively young member of the American Union was, nevertheless, partially settled, by civilized adventurers, as early as the year 1673. A party of enterprising Frenchmen from Canada accompanied M. De la Salle in his second exploration of the country, in the above year, when in search of the River Mississippi, and founded the villages of Kaskaskias and Cahokia. These settlements continued to flourish for some years ; but the people, by constant intercourse with the sur- rounding savages, gradually reduced themselves to a semi-barbarous condition, and for a long period their numbers were but little augmented by immigration. By the treaty of peace between the French and Eng- lish, in 1763, the Illinois country, together with Canada, was ceded by the former to the latter, who took formal possession two years afterwards. It remained in their hands, under several successive military governors, until 1778 ; in which year a body of Virginia troops, commanded by General Clarke, penetrated the country, and subdued all the fortified places. In the same year, a county called Illinois was organized by the legislature, and placed under the care of a deputy governor. The country had been considered, hitherto, as a part of the territory included in the charter of Virginia ; and the claim founded thereon was recognized by the treaty of 96 THE GARDEN OF THE WORLD, OR 1783. Viginia, however, ceded it to the United States, four years afterwards, when it constituted a section of the “ North-west Territory,” so called. In 1800, it received a separate organization and a territorial gov- ernment, in conjunction with, and under the name of, Indiana. Another division took place in 1809, when the distinct Territories of Indiana and Illinois were formed ; both oi which were subsequently admitted into the Union as independent states — the former in 1816, and the latter in 1818. The name of the state is derived from that of its great central river — an ab- original appellation, signifying the River of Men. BOUNDARIES AND EXTENT. The state is bounded north by Wisconsin ; east by the southern portion of Lake Michigan, by the State of Indiana, and by the Ohio River, dividing it from Kentucky also on the south ; and west by the Missis- sippi, which separates it from the States of Missouri and Iowa. Its extreme length is some 380 miles, ex- tending from 37° to 42^° north latitude. Its breadth varies from about 145 to 220 miles, being widest in the centre, and narrowest at the northern and southern points. Its utmost reach of longitude is 4 degrees, viz., from 87° to 91°, west from Greenwich. Its area is computed at 55,400 square miles, of which near 50,000 are believed to be well adapted to agricultural purposes. THE GREAT WEST. 97 RIVERS. The Illinois is the largest river in the state. Fox and Des Plaines Rivers, its two largest branches from the north, rise in 'Wisconsin, and with the Kankakee River from Indiana, form the Illinois, which, after a course of 400 miles, enters the Mississippi twenty miles above the Missouri. It is navigable a distance of about 250 miles. Rock River rises in Wisconsin, and after a course of 300 miles, mostly in Illinois, empties into the Mississippi. The Kaskaskia rises near the middle of the state, and after a south-westerly course of 250 miles, enters the Mississippi 63 miles below the Mis- souri. It is navigable for boats 150 miles. The Wa- bash forms a part of the east boundary. The Little Wabash, after a course of 130 miles, enters the Wabash a little above its junction with the Ohio. Peoria Lake, through which the Illinois River flows, about 150 miles from its mouth, is a beautiful sheet of water twenty miles long and two broad. In general, the climate of Illinois, in its influence upon health, does not differ materially from that of the other states, lying within the same parallels, east of the Alleghany ridge. It furthermore enjoys the ad- vantage of exemption from annoying easterly winds, although the prairie breezes are often severely cold. The temperature, ordinarily, is much like that of Ohio 9 98 THE GARDEN OF THE WORLD, OR and Michigan during the respective seasons. The length of the winter is usually somewhat less than three months. Snow seldom falls to a great depth, or continues upon the earth many days in succession ; and the ground is commonly free from frost throughout half the winter. The early spring months are rainy and unpleasant ; but they are soon succeeded by a milder season, a warm and cheering summer, with an invigorating atmosphere ; and, finally, “ the year is crowned ” by a delightful autumn of some months’ duration, rarely disturbed by a cloudy day or a stormy hour. SUKFACE, SOIL, &c. There are no lofty mountains in this state, although at its northern and southern extremes the land is con- siderably elevated, and occasionally broken. In gen- eral, the surface is level, or slightly undulating, about two thirds of the whole consisting of immense prairies, clothed luxuriantly with grass, herbage, delicious straw- berries, and other wild berries, and resplendent with myriads of indigenous flowers, flourishing in all the beauty of “ nature unadorned.” No impenetrable forests encumber these vast tracts, although isolated patches of woodland, some of them covering many acres, are frequently found in their midst. In some quarters of the state timber is sufficiently abundant ; in others there is a deficiency. The most common de- scriptions are the oak, hickory, maple, elm, ash, locust, beech, poplar, sycamore, and various other woods. The THE GREAT WEST. 99 soil is almost invariably fertile, often of the finest and richest quality, to a great depth. The products of the earth are of corresponding value and amount. Every variety of grain, and of edible vegetables, together with hemp, flax, cotton, and tobacco, are cultivated with ex- traordinary success. All the fruits common to the temperate latitudes are produced in abundance : grapes, especially, natives of the soil, are remarkably plentiful in most parts of the state, and of fine quality, capable of yielding excellent wines. The fecundity of the land, and the generous returns with which it rewards even the moderate labors of the husbandman, may be inferred from the fact that in almost all parts of the state an average crop, per acre, can be obtained, of fifty bushels of Indian corn — one of its important staples ; and instances are frequent where the product reaches 75 or a 100 bushels. AGRICULTURE. There were in this state, in 1855, 6,000,000 acres of land improved, and 7,000,000 acres of land unim- proved in farms. Cash value of the farms over $100,- 000,000. Value of live stock, horses, cows, oxen, &c., about $25,000,000. The wheat crop of 1855 was 20,000,000 bushels ; rye, 115,000 ; Indian corn, 180,- 000,000 ; oats, 13,000,000 ; barley, 112,000 ; buckwheat, 200,000 ; peas and beans, 90,000 ; potatoes, 3,000,000 ; sweet potatoes, 200,000. Value of fruit produced, $500,000. Produce of market gardens, $133,000. 100 THE GARDEN OF THE WORLD, OR Pounds of blitter made, 14,000,000 ; cheese, 1,500,000 ; maple sugar, 250,000 ; molasses, 9000 gallons ; wool produced, 3,000,000 pounds; flax, 175,000 pounds ; tobacco, 9000 pounds ; hay, 7000 tons. INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS. The means of internal communication in Illinois, except in one or two favored localities, are as yet very limited. Some of her interior rivers are navigable, and a cordon of navigable water almost insulates the state ; but until access to these be facilitated by rail- roads, their use to commerce must be comparatively small. Nevertheless, there are few ports that equal Chicago in its commerce, and Alton, on the Mississippi, is fast rising into importance ; nor is Galena to be left unnamed in the list of commercial places. At these ports, as well as those on the Illinois River and Canal, a vast amount of business is transacted — that of Chi- cago with the east, and that of Galena, Alton, Ac., chiefly with the south. The interests of the two sec- tions are partially blended by the canal, which opens the lakes to the south and west, and will be complete- ly united when the vast system of railroads in course of construction is brought into action. The length of railroad now in operation within the state is 287 miles ; the length in progress is 1822 miles ; and the length projected and surveyed about 600 miles. The princi- pal points from and to which the several lines extend are, Chicago, where at least seven lines centre ; Alton, THE GREAT WEST. 101 which is the terminus of three lines ; Galena, which is connected with Chicago on the east, and Cairo on the south ; Cairo, where the great Central Railroad con- nects with the Mobile and Ohio Railroad ; Rock Island, the west terminus of the Chicago and Rock Island Railroad ; and on the Indiana line, Vincennes, Terre Haute, Ac., from which latter places the principal east and west lines pass, uniting the system of Illinois with those of Indiana, Ohio, Ac. All the lines referred to will be completed within the next three years, and by that time Illinois will have fairly entered upon that great commercial destiny that awaits her career. GOVERNMENT. The chief magistrate is chosen for four years, by the people, viva voce , and cannot serve two terms in succes- sion. The lieutenant governor (who is, ex officio, presi- dent of the Senate) and the senators are also elected quadrennially. The members of the House of Repre- sentatives are elected for two years. The popular elec- tions and the legislative sessions are held biennially. The Senate cannot consist of less than one third, nor more than one half, the number composing the other branch. All white males above the age of 21 years, who have resided six months within the state, are qualified voters. Slavery is prohibited by the constitution — to amend which instrument a convention must be called. Elec- tions are decided by a plurality of votes. 9 * 102 THE GARDEN OF THE WORLD, OR EDUCATION. The act of admission to the Union provides for a reservation of one thirty-sixth part of all the public lands for school purposes ; and section numbered 16 has been accordingly designated and set apart, in each township, for the benefit of its inhabitants. A common fund, for the promotion of education generally, was also established by the United States government, through the annual payment to the state of three per cent, of the net avails of the public lands within its limits. Of this fund, a sixth part is appropriated to the erection and support of a collegiate institution. Other funds, to a very generous extent, have likewise been provided ; from all which sources a large annual income is derived. Yet the subject of common schools has not received that degree of regard and attention which its immeas- urable importance demands ; although there are, in many towns, primary schools of fair character, and occasionally a seminary of higher grade. Several col- leges exist ; but they are mostly exclusive or somewhat sectarian in their organization ; each of the following denominations having a special institution, viz., Old School Presbyterians, New School Presbyterians, Bap- tists, and Methodists. One of these, at Alton, was liberally endowed by Dr. B. Shurtlelf, of Boston, Massa- chusetts, and bears his name. There are a number of respectable academies and literary associations in va- rious parts of the state ; and it is to be hoped that measures will be taken to establish the school fund of THE GREAT WEST. 103 the state on a basis corresponding to the liberality of Congress, and to the example set by Ohio and other neighboring states. RELIGION. The most numerous sect are the Methodists, includ- ing their different varieties. Then follow the Baptists and Presbyterians, with their several ramifications. The Episcopalians, Lutherans, and Dunkers have each from eight to twelve congregations ; and there are small societies of Roman Cathplics, Quakers, and Mor- mons. The proportion of professors of religion has been estimated at about one tenth of the whole pop- ulation. POPULATION. During the thirty years prior to 1840, the population of Illinois increased from 12,282 to 476,183, of whom 3600 were persons of color. In 1850 the population was 851,470, of whom 5366 were persons of color. In 1855, population over 1,000,000. NAUVOO. The town of Nauvoo is situated on the Mississippi, at the second rapid below the Falls of St. Anthony. It is located on a bluff, which is distinguished by an easy slope of great extent. The plain at the summit is broad enough for the erection of an immense city. Nauvoo was intended by the Mormons, its founders, to 104 THE GARDEN OF THE WORLD, OR be a vast and beautiful city, and once contained 18,000 inhabitants. The Mormon Temple was a building with- out a peer in the west. It was 128 feet long, 88 feet wide, 65 feet high to the top of the cornice, and 163 feet to the top of the cupola. It was built of polished limestone, which resembled marble, and its architecture was Doric. It could accommodate about 3000 persons. In the basement of the Temple was a large stone basin, supported by twelve oxen of colossal size. In this font the Mormons were baptized. This building was re- duced to a heap of ruins by an incendiary in October, 1848. The Mormon troubles furnish a curious chapter for the history of Illinois. On the 10th of December, 1840, the legislature of Illinois passed an act to incorporate the city of Nauvoo, and several acts highly favorable to the prosperity of the Mormon population were passed in the course of the same session. But it seems that these people, in their enthusiasm for their religious principles, and for the glorification of their prophet and ruler, Joseph Smith, forgot their duty to the government of the state. They adopted several ordinances which vir- tually annulled the laws. Among these were the or- dinances permitting marriage without license, and making it penal for an officer to serve process in Nau- voo, if the said process was not approved by the Mor- mon authorities. The continuance of such ordinances, and the practice under them, at length aroused the other inhabitants of Hancock county, and attracted the attention of the governor. Frequent contests en- THE GREAT WEST. 105 sued, and it became the settled purpose of the inhabit- ants, or of the rough spirits among them, to drive the Mormons from the state. The Temple was burned, and soon after the governor issued an order for the arrest of Joseph Smith and some of his chief followers. Those personages were arrested and committed to jail. But a band of armed men were determined to assert the supremacy of the summary Lynch law, disguised them- selves, broke open the jail, seized the prisoners, and shot them dead. Not long after this terrible demon- stration of the hostility of the people, the Mormons left their prosperous city and moved west of the Mis- sissippi. The place is now of comparatively small im- portance, though the beautiful site of the town and the magnificent scenery in the vicinity will well repay a visit from tourists. CHICAGO. > City, lake port, and shire town of Cook county, Illinois. This place is situated on the west shore, and towards the south end of Lake Michigan, at the point where the river of the same name enters the lake. The northern and southern branches of this river unite about three quarters of a mile back from the lake, forming a harbor from 50 to 75 yards wide, and from 15 to 25 feet deep. At its mouth it spreads out into a bay, with about 9 feet depth of water. The city is built on both sides of this bay and harbor, on a site which is almost as level as a floor, but sufficiently ele- 106 THE GARDEN OP THE WORLD, OR vated to be secure from the highest floods. Piers have been constructed, extending into the lake from both sides of the mouth of the river, to prevent the forma- tion of a bar from the accumulation of sand. These works were built by the United States, and also the lighthouse, and the fortification named Fort Dearborn, which are upon a strip of land between the city and the lake shore, belonging to the government. This place has had a rapid growth, and from its po- sition in the great line of communication between the east and west, is destined to become a large city. In 1832 it contained only 5 small stores, and 250 inhabit- ants. Only 4 vessels had arrived during the year be- fore. In 1836, 4 years later, the arrivals of brigs, ships, and schooners amounted to 407, besides 49 steamboats. The Illinois and Michigan Canal unites the head of navigable waters in the Illinois River with Lake Michi- gan at Chicago. This great internal improvement was projected, and in part constructed, to be a ship canal for the largest class of vessels which navigate the lakes. For a distance of 30 miles from a point in the Chicago River, 5^ miles west of the city, it was excavated, through indurated clay and compact limestone, to the depth of from 18 to 20 feet. Beyond this the canal is only 6 feet deep. Its width at the top is 60 feet, and its entire length 96J- miles, besides a navigable feeder of about 4 miles, from Fox River. This is one of the best constructed works of the kind in the country, opening an extensive channel of trade to the west, THE GREAT WEST. 107 and establishing an uninterrupted water communica- tion between the St. Lawrence and the Mississippi. Another improvement, still more important in its results to the prosperity of Chicago, is that of the great Illinois Central Railroad, which is now in process of construction between this place and Cairo, at the junction of the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers. This railroad will constitute the most direct and expeditious channel of communication between the North-western and the Southern States, and between the commerce of the great lakes and the Gulf of Mexico. Especially will this be the case when its route shall be extended, as now contemplated, through Mississippi and Alabama to the city of Mobile ; for which extension, as well as for the road through Illinois, Congress has voted a munificent appropriation from the public lands. Such an important line of communication, whether by this extension to Mobile, or by the aiver, as at present, to New Orleans, open throughout at all seasons of the year, must bring an incalculable amount of business into Chicago, while it opens to the Atlantic cities of the north a new available access to the vast resources of the western trade. The streets of Chicago are laid out in straight lines, intersecting each other at right angles. They are of good width, and some of them are planked ; stone pavements not being used to any great extent. The largest buildings are of brick. The place is well sup- plied, from the region about Green Bay, with pine tim- ber, another important material for building ; and the 108 THE GARDEN OF THE WORLD, OR transportation of this valuable description of lumber through the canal into the northern parts of Illinois and other sections of the west, where it is a desider- atum, makes a profitable part of the business of Chi- cago. The city is supplied with water by an aqueduct from the lake. It has six or seven churches, some of which are fine edifices, situated on a public square. Some of the public houses are extensive establishments, affording accommodations equal to the best hotels in our eastern cities. Chicago intends to develop her resources, and con- test the palm of superiority over her sister cities as the leading commercial emporium of the Western States. The amount of building done in 1855 figures to $2,500,000, while at the present time immense ware- houses and extensive granite depots are springing up in every direction, and innumerable other improve- ments are being made, the ultimate cost of which must far exceed the gross expenditures of the previous year. The population of this city in 1850 was 28,620 ; the population in 1855 was 80,000. The amount of real estate' in 1850 was assessed at $8,101,000. The pres- ent year it is assessed at $34,747,000. Most assuredly these evidences towards power and influence indicate the star of empire not slow in reaching its culminating point of grandeur westward. The waterworks of Chicago are receiving the ear- nest attention of its citizens, and they are prosecuting the work to its completion with the same vigor and enterprise which has distinguished all their undertak- THE GREAT WEST. 109 ings. The extension of pipe throughout the city dur- ing the past year has been 76,239 feet, or equal to 10§ miles ; the, total amount of iron main distributed in the city up to December, 1855, is 42 miles ; the number of fire hydrants erected during the past year, 35 ; the number of buildings into which water was introduced in 1855 was 1506 ; introduced previously, 2745 ; total, 4251 ; the amount of water pumped from the lake into the reservoir, and from thence distributed about the city, 873,424,844 gallons ; receipts for 1855, 1230,365 ; expenditures for 1855, $190,791 ; total reve- nue in 1855 for water rents, $70,181 92 ; total cost of waterworks up to December, 1855, $650,000. The present reservoir is altogether inadequate for the city, it being only sufficient to hold water for one night, and it takes 14 hours to pump into the tank sufficient to last the remaining 10 hours. The commissioners are now discussing the expediency of erecting a new one, whose capacity is estimated at 7,000,000 gallons, while the present one contains only 500,000. It is to cover an area of 275 square feet ; the height from the bottom of the foundation to the top of the basin to be 100 feet ; depth of basin, 23 feet. The walls of the basin are to be 20 feet thick at the bottom, and ten feet at the top. Cost, $275,000. The report states that the revenue for water taxes this year will amount to $100,000. The Chicago Gas Light and Coke Company manu- facture an exceedingly clear and bright light, which for brilliancy cannot be excelled. They have just com- pleted a new Retort House, at an expense of $22,240. 10 110 THE GAEDEN OF THE WOELD. The amount of stock issued amounts to 1356,900, held by 78 stockholders. The funded debt is 170,000, in bonds, bearing interest at the rate of 7 per cent, per annum. The following table shows the progress made by the company : — Date. Consumers. Burners. Street lamps. Miles 1850 198 1447 112 5 1851 327 3055 146 7 1852 540 4794 164 7 1853 840 7522 209 13 1854 1398 12,398 380 20 1855 1964 18,760 476 23 Up to the present time the total outlay is $227,361. The official statistics of the loss of property on the lakes, just compiled, prove them to be enormous. Total loss in 1855, $2,821,529 ; total loss in 1854, $2,187,825 ; increase in 1855, $688,704. Total loss of life in 1855, 119. 603 disasters occurred to vessels ; and 33 schooners, 1 tug, 6 barks, 6 brigs, 3 steamers, making a total of 58, have gone down in the dark, deep waters during the year. 112 THE GARDEN OP THE WORLD, OR MICHIGAN. This is one of those members of the American Union which were formerly' comprised in the “ North- west Territory.” In the year 1640, it was partially explored by a few French traders from Canada ; and the first settlement was formed at Detroit in 1670. By the peace between France and England, in 1763, the latter obtained possession of the territory, and, at the termination of the revolutionary war, ceded it to the United States, retaining control of Detroit, how- ever, until 1796. It was organized as a territory of the United States in 1805 ; but, in the course of the war of 1812, again fell into the hands of the British, from whom it was recovered, in a short period, by the American forces under General Harrison. In 1836 it was admitted into the Union as an independent state. BOUNDARIES AND EXTENT. Bordered on the northern and eastern fronts by two of the great lakes, and parted near its centre by another, the land surface exhibits two distinct penin- sulas — the base of one lying adjacent to Ohio and Indiana on the south, and that of the other com- mencing at the boundary of Wisconsin on the south- west. The main peninsula, known as Michigan proper, THE GREAT WEST. 113 is bounded north by the waters of Lakes Huron and Michigan ; east by Lakes Huron and St. Clair, and by a portion of Lake Erie, with the intermediate straits or rivers ; south by the States of Ohio and Indiana ; and west by Lake Michigan. The northern or upper peninsula is bounded north by Lake Superior ; east and south-east by Lake Huron and the waters there- with connected ; south by Lake Michigan ; and south- west by the Menomonee and Montreal Rivers, which separate it from Wisconsin. The southern peninsula is 282 miles long, with an average breadth of 140 ; the length of the northern is 324 miles, and its mean width 60. The whole area of the state, including some 36,300 square miles of water surface, comprises about 92,500 square miles. Its geographical position is be- tween 41° 30' and 47° 20' north latitude, and extends from 82° 25' to 90° 30' west longitude. RIVERS AND LAKES. The rivers of Michigan are in general comparatively smaller, but more numerous, having in the lower pen- insula a greater length from their mouths to where they head than is commonly observed in most other sections of the Union. This latter circumstance may, perhaps, be attributed not only to the uniformity of descent, but to the more favorable structure of the interior to furnish them constant supplies. The De- troit, St. Clair, and St. Mary’s are more properly called straits, and not rivers. They are tranquil, deep, copi- 10 * 114 THE GARDEN OF THE WORLD, OR oils, and expansive streams, uniting the great lakes, tlie waters of which they conduct towards the ocean. The largest rivers of the lower peninsula are the Grand, Maskegon, St. Joseph, and Kalamazoo, which flow into Lake Michigan ; the Cheboygan and Thunder Bay Rivers, that discharge into Lake Huron, and the Sagi- naw into Saginaw Bay. The streams flowing eastward are small, owing to the position of the dividing ridge, which is considerably east of the middle of the penin- sula ; the largest are the Raisin, Huron, Clinton, and Rouge. The largest rivers of the upper peninsula are the Montreal, the Great Iron, the Ontonagon, the Hu- ron, the St. John’s, and the Chocolate, which put into Lake Superior ; and the Menomonee and Manistee, which flow, the former into Green Bay, and the latter into Lake Michigan. There are several other consid- erable streams, though of a smaller grade ; and these, with few exceptions, are lively, pure, and healthy, supplying mill power, and draining the fine agricultural lands through which they course. Michigan is encompassed by five lakes, four of which are the largest collections of fresh water on the globe. These are Lake Superior, Lake Michigan, Lake Huron, Lake St. Clair, and Lake Erie, which are connected by the Straits of Detroit, St. Clair, Michilimackinac, and St. Mary. Of these immense mediterranean waters, Lake Superior is by far the largest. It lies directly north of the upper peninsula, and the greater part of its southern coast is bordered by it. Lake Michigan is the second in size. It is a long, narrow lake, stretch- THE GREAT WEST. 115 ing a little nortli-eastwardly between the lower penin- sula and the States of Wisconsin and Illinois. The northern part, together with the straits, separate the two peninsulas from each other. Lake Huron is next in dimensions, and is situate on the north-eastern border of Lower Michigan, separating it from Canada West. The shape of. this lake is extremely irregular; its principal indentations are Saginaw Bay, which ex- tends down into the interior, and two others, one im- mediately north of Manito Islands, and the other south-east of them. The latter, sometimes called the the Manito Bay or Georgian Lake, is very large, es- timated at one fourth of Lake Huron. It empties through the Strait St. Clair into St. Clair Lake , the smallest of the five bordering on Michigan ; and this again discharges itself through Detroit Strait into Lake Erie. More than 30 miles of this latter borders Michigan, and opens to the state a free navigation to the principal ports along its coasts — Buffalo, Dunkirk, Erie, Sandusky, &c. Nor is this state merely sur- rounded by lakes, but the interior is interspersed with them from one border to the other. The country in- deed is literally maculated with small lakes of every form and size, from an area of 1 to 1000 acres ; though, as a general rule, they do not, perhaps, average 500 acres in extent. They are sometimes so frequent that several of them may be seen from the same position. They are usually very deep, with gravelly bottoms, waters transparent, and of a cool temperature at all seasons. This latter fact is supposed to be in conse- 116 THE GARDEN OF THE WORLD, OR quence of springs which furnish them constant sup- plies. Water fowl of various sorts inhabit their shores, and their depths are the domain of abundance of fish, trout, bass, pike, pickerel, dace, perch, catfish, sucker, bullhead, &c., which often grow to an extraordi- nary size. It is usual to find some creek or rivulet originating in these ; but what is a singular fact, and not easily accounted for, many of these bodies of living water have no perceptible outlet, and yet are stored with fish. A lake of this description, with its rich stores of fish and game, forms no unenviable ap- pendage to a farm, and is properly appreciated. But with all its length of lake coast, Michigan can boast of but few good harbors ; yet there are several that afford excellent shelter from the storms that frequently sweep over these great inland seas, and lash them into turmoil. CLIMATE. There is a marked dissimilarity between the climates of the upper and lower peninsulas of Michigan, arising from their different geographical positions. The for- mer is subject to great extremes of heat and cold, to sudden and severe changes, while thc ; latter enjoys a comparatively mild and uniform temperature. Long and cold winters, followed by short and hot summers, are the principal seasons in the upper peninsula ; for the transitions are so rapid as to afford but a brief in- terval of spring or autumn. The contrast between the two portions of the state, in this respect, is owing, THE GREAT WEST. 117 doubtless, to the varied influences of the winds from the lakes. The general adaptation of the climate to human health may be said to equal that of the central portions of Indiana and Illinois. Among the diseases most common are fever and ague, and other maladies originating in malaria. In some seasons, affections of the lungs, of the bowels, the limbs,. &c., prevail to greater or less extent, depending upon atmospheric agencies. The goitre , or swelled neck, is a disease peculiar to the inhabitants residing on the lake shores. SURFACE AND SOIL. Michigan proper presents a diversity of surface. It is mostly either level or slightly swelling, but is occa- sionally rough and hilly, and towards the central points, between the eastern and western shores, is elevated to a height of some 600 to 700 feet, forming rugged and irregular ridges. On the western side of this range of eminences, the land slopes gently and smoothly towards the lake, but again rises on the coast into steep and broken sand banks and bluffs. The northern half of this peninsula is as yet but sparsely peopled ; and its soil is regarded as inferior to that of the southern portion, although most of the lands in the inte- rior are said to be, in general, well adapted to agricultu- ral purposes. In the settled parts, the soil is quite pro- ductive, and flax, hemp, and all the varieties of grains, garden vegetables, Surveyor General’s Office, K. T. , 185 — . I certify that has this day filed in my office a notice in accordance with the 12th section of the act establishing the Office of the Surveyor General of Kanzas and Ne- braska. and granting preemption rights to actual settlers for the quarter ot sec- tion number in township number in range number east ot the btli Principal Meridian in Territory. , . T , , , Surveyor General of Kanzas and Nebraska. To quiet the fears of those who apprehend that all of the desirable por- tions of the territory have been, or in a short time will be, secured, it may 208 THE GARDEN OF THE WORLD, OR be sufficient to say that there are millions of acres from which farm lots may now be selected, and that the quantity ot land open to preemption is sufficient to accommodate 75,000 families, embracing half a million of indi- viduals. It contains an area of 114,798 square miles ; it is 3 times as large as Ohio, and 14 times the size of Massachusetts. Tt is capable of bein" divided into 10 states, representing, in number of square miles, Maine Ver- mont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut,’ New J ersey, Delaware, Maryland, and South Carolina. Although, therefore, the farm lots in the immediate vicinity of, perhaps for miles around Lawrence and some other of the earlier settlements, may be, and probably are, ere this’ secured, there is a plenty of as good ones awaiting new comers. Let them found other New England or rather liberty-loving settlements of a similar character. To effect this requires neither magic nor supernatural power; New England energy, industry, and perseverance, seconded by the efforts of true sons of liberty, who went forth from various sections of the Union, bi ought the one, and can bring others into existence. Various sites for such settlements have heen selected, and on application will be designated bv the company’s agents. J Wood and Timber . — To the oft made inquiry, Is there an abundance of timber m the territory ? the answer must be modified somewhat according to the hailing-place of the interrogator. If he be from Maine, we should reply, no; if irom Illinois, we should answer, there is a fair supply. In other words, there is not an extreme scarcity, and there is far from an over- abundance or wood; sufficient can be procured on reasonable terms for all ordinary purposes. The advantage resulting from the limited supply is far greater than the disadvantage ; for the consequence is a freedom from roots and stumps, the frequent occurrence of which, in many sections of our country, proves a serious inconvenience to the agriculturist, and requires tor removal an expenditure of much time, money, and labor, in order to place the ground m an arable condition. The law of compensation is here found admirably exemplified, as the under supply of wood for fuel is more than made good by the vast deposits of bituminous coal known to exist in the territory ; the under supply of timber for building purposes is remedied by the abundance of lime and clay; the deficiency of fencing stuff by suitable material for walls; and in a few years, should the Osage orange be cultivated, which will grow luxuriantly, hedges will supersede the neces- sity ot any other means for forming enclosures. Though timber, to a person from a lumber region, would seem scarce, the scat city is not one that will necessarily be constantly on the increase as set- tlements multiply and the lands are reclaimed from their present state, in- asmuch as the limited growth arises, not from uncongeniality of climate, un- suitableness of soil, or absence ot seed, but from tlie frequent prevalence, year after year, of vast prairie fires that sweep every thing before them, and thus stmt or entirely prevent the growth of tree or' shrub. Arrest the fires, and woodlands will soon abound. Small, however, as the proportion of wood- land is said to be, one of the company’s agents found no difficulty in con- tracting ior 600 cords of standing wood at 25 cents per cord, and 600 lo»s oi timber at 50 cents per log, the logs averaging half a thousand each. The price has somewhat advanced since, in consequence of the greatly increased demand ; still purchases can be made at fair rates. The Herald of Freedom ot Januai) 26, 1856, says, “If those who listened to the reports of returning pioneers last spring, that there was ‘no timber in Kansas,’ could see the large logs brought to one of the mills in town the other day, measuring 5 feet m diameter, and cutting three 12 feet logs from the same tree, the smallest measuring 3 feet in diameter, they would conclude there was but little con- fidence to be placed in similar reports. It is true there is not an over-supply oi timber here ; but if what we have was equally divided among the settlers, thcie would be enough for all practical purposes for many years, or until another crop can be grown.” THE GREAT WEST. 209 The principal varieties of wood are bass or linwood, cottonwood, hickory, oak, black walnut, ash, sycamore, hackberry, &c. Weather. — This of course cannot reasonably be expected to be uniformly the same all years, for corresponding seasons. The same variations that are experienced elsewhere must be looked for and provided against m Kanzas; though we believe, as a general rule, the variations there will he less fre- quent and extreme than they are liable to be in this section ot the country. There was a striking contrast in regard to the degree of coldness at Lawrence the last and preceding winter. At Lawrence during the winter ot 1854- oo, there was not necessarily any severe or long-continued suffering from the inclemency of the weather. Governor Reeder stated that a fire was not needed the last of December, 1854 ; and a resident at the company’s set- tlement writes that “ on the 27th of December mechanics and others were comfortably at work in the open air without their coats, whilst the tew idlers were basking in the sun like snakes in June.” there was not, how- ever, an entire freedom from cold and stormy weather. Up to the close ot the year, there occurred but one fall of snow, which was to the depth of two inches, and disappeared in three days; in January, 1855, only five inches of snow fell. „ ^ A gentleman, who had resided at one of the Missions for fifteen years, said the greatest depth of snow at any one time during that long period was six inches. _ , During the season above alluded to, there was no frost m the ground before the close of December ; frost generally disappears by the beginning of March. T , „ vr According to thermometrical tables carefully kept at Lawrence by Dr. H. Clark, the average temperature in November, 1854, at sunrise, was 2J r . ; at 1 o’clock. P. M., 49 A ° ; and at i of an hour past sunset 44£°. ihe av- erage in December, 1854, at the same periods, were 25^°, 49°, and 42° ; and in January, 1855, 23°, 39°, and 323°. , „ , ia The Kanzas Herald of Freedom, under the date of February 10, looo, says, “ But once has the mercury gone down to zero ; and by those long on the ground we are assured that this is an uncommon occurrence ; while the mean of all the observations will average only at the freezing point. Where, we would ask, could a more delightful temperature be found ? None who have designed to make Kanzas their homes need be deteired from coming from any fear in respect to extreme cold. V hen the time shall arrive that we shall be surrounded with the comforts and conveniences ot the older states, such a thing as discomfort on this account will be unknown. During the past winter ( 1855— ’56) there has been some very severe weather in the territory. A portion of December and January proved colder than has any corresponding period for more than 20 years. Under date of De- cember 29, the editor'' of the Herald of Freedom writes, the thermometer has ranged between zero and 22° below that point for the last week, tor which he cannot account, excepting upon the supposition “ that the weather table of the latitude of Quebec has been substituted for that of Kanza_s. The latter part of January, snow was six inches deep at Lawrence, and in the river bottoms, at some places, there were drifts several feet in depth , the ground was frozen a foot and a half deep, and the river was covered with ice of the same thickness. By the latest accounts received, the rigor of winter had abated.* * Lost some individuals, forgetful of their own recent experience here, should im- agine Kanzas a second Siberia, and the reports heretofore given of its climate high colored and deceptive, it may bo well to state that the past winter has been an ox- tremely rigorous one throughout the Union, and in Italy and various other parts ot Europe celebrated for a mild climate. In Philadelphia, the coldness of the month of January was 8° below the average for the last 30 years. At MeadviUe, Pa., January 2o, the thermometer fell to 30° below zero. So cold has it been in South Carolina, which has 18 * 210 THE GARDEN OP THE WORLD, OR The winters are, notwithstanding, usually mild, and there is rarely suf- ficient snow for sleighing. A gentleman of high respectability told the writer that soon after he took tip his residence near Kanzas, he purchased an excellent new sleigh, which he used a few times that winter, and before another opportunity occurred (several years subsequently) the vehicle was so far decayed as to be utterly unserviceable. On the subject of winter weather we have dwelt at some length, as nu- merous inquiries have been and are constantly being made in regard to it. _We will briefly glance at the other seasons. Our acquaintance with Kanzas, writes Mr. Brown, ranges through seven and a half months, com- mencing with the middle of November, 1854. Those months, with the ex- ception of April, have been all we could have desired. April, owing to the high winds that prevailed, (which was also true in other sections of the country,) proved very unpleasant. June was one of the most lovely months ever known. In July the range of the thermometer was from 90° to 100°, between the hours of 10 A. M. and 3 P. M. ; although, from the preva- lence of gentle winds, the temperature was much cooler to the senses than is above indicated. However hot may be the weather through the day, it is refreshingly cool and invigorating in the night; so that, indeed, a blanket is not unusually very acceptable. May, June, and July are pronounced “model months.” In August there were just rain and warmth enough to make a healthy and fertile country ; during the hottest days, the thermom- eter ranged between 90° and 94°. September was a “most lovely month” with the exception of the first two or three days, and the last six, when the wind was rather higher than usual, and the atmosphere cold and damp. ^ October, from the 1st to the 20th, was generally pleasant and beautiful. From the 20th to the 25th, high north and north-west winds prevailed, the thermometer through the day standing below the freezing point ; from that time to the 10th of November, excepting one day, it was so mild and pleas- ant that “workmen were constantly engaged out of doors, and the masons were busy erecting composite walls, which cannot be built during freezing weather. But little rain fell, and only a few flakes of snow were seen in the air, which melted before reaching the ground. “Taking the month as a whole, we are not conscious of having experienced one so mild and pleasant.” Rain. — The annual fall of rain is under 30 inches. The rainiest pe- riod usually is from May 10 to June 10; during which, and at all times when severe rain storms occur, the roads are somewhat he^vy, the creeks troublesome to ford, and travelling becomes tedious. There is very little rain in midsummer or autumn ; sometimes, indeed, scarcely as much as is desirable for farming purposes. During the rainy period very few days pass by without the sun being seen, at least for a short time. usually been supplied with ice from New England, that some persons have cut and stored away their own ice. In Mobile, on January 22, the mercury stood at 25°, and ice on the shady sides of the streets gave no indication of thawing. In New Orleans ice formed on the canals and in the gutters an inch thick, and in exposed situations much thicker. Water in cisterns was frozen in the faucets, so that it could not be drawn, and icicles were hanging around; fires and overcoats, and warm coverings at night, were in great demand. In Texas, on the upper Brazos, the thermometer stood at 1° degree below zero; cat- tle were dying, and several travellers had perished from the severity of the cold. Simi- lar instances might he adduced sufficient to fill many pages, were it necessary. As with the land, so has it been with the water. Long Island Sound has been closed; the western rivers blocked with ice ; the Mississippi, for all purposes of navigation, has been shut its entire length; even the inhabitants of the “ briny deep” have been suf- ferers; the Nantucket Inquirer of January 23 advises us the excessive cold weather has been particularly severe upon the eels on the coast, hundreds of bushels of which have been driven ashore and raked up on the beach. THE GREAT WEST. 211 Provisions. — There has been no deficiency of these, for in Lawrence, as elsewhere, the demand produced a supply, by prompting those residing on the borders of the territory to bring of their abundance to the settlement, and the competition was sufficient to keep prices reasonable. This undoubtedly will hold true at other settlements. After the first year or two the settlements will not only supply themselves, but have a surplus to dispose of. A market for all such surplus may, for years to come, be found near at hand, inasmuch as thousands are passing through that region every year along the California, Santa Fe, and Great Salt Lake City routes, all of whom require more or less supplies ; besides, the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers, and soon a line of railroads, will afford facilities for reaching other markets. Moftes of Conveyance. — Vehicles are very frequently passing between Kanzas City and Topeka, by which means those who intend locating in the vicinity of said towns will be conveyed there for about $4 the passage. Per- sons and parties destined for other sections of the territory may engage con- veyance at Kanzas City, or will probably adopt the course pursued by some who have preceded them, viz., those who intend to be farmers will pur- chase their teams, and thus afford means for taking along the baggage of all their associates. There is a regular line of stages between Kanzas City and Lawrence, also between Leavenworth and Lawrence, and Kanzas City and Osawatomic. In 4 the course of the season it is expected that one or more steamboats and flat boats, constructed for the purpose, will ply on the Kanzas River, as- cending 150 miles or more, according to the state of the water and the en- couragement extended to the enterprise. We consider that no more profitable business could be engaged in than that of transporting freight to the various settlements on Kanzas River. It is true that the state of the river during a large part of the boating season of 1855 seems to militate against such an opinion. That season, however, was an extraordinary one, the Kaw River being, throughout the period, lower than it had been known to be for twenty-five years ; and the cause which produced this also seriously affected the Missouri and other Western Rivers, viz., the small quantity of ice and snow in the mountains the pre- ceding winter. The great abundance of both the past winter gives prom- ise of a good state of navigation the coming season. Competent judges inform the writer that the Kaw River will, on an average, be navigable, at least as far as Lawrence, three years out of four, through the greater part of the Missouri River season ; when not navigable, the boat could be remu- neratively employed on the Missouri, conveying flour up or grain down. To insure a profitable business, attention to several points is absolutely requi- site : the boat must be of very light draught ; the captain must be an ex- perienced, sober, active, and energetic man ; and the pilot must possess and bring into practice strict temperance principles. Accommodations in the Territory. — It was originally intended to estab- lish receiving houses at the principal places, for the temporary accommoda- tion of new comers. This was done at Lawrence. But the necessity for them is in a great measure superseded by the opening of boarding houses at the settlements. Were it, however, otherwise, not being constructed on a locomotive principle, settlers ought not and probably would not be so un- reasonable as to expect to meet with them every where throughout that vast region ; neither are they requisite in a large majority of cases, (however convenient,) inasmuch as all who go out in the spring and summer, if industrious, will have time to provide themselves with shelter, prior to the ensuing winter. The quickest, cheapest, and most comfortable way of se- curing shelter, at the outset, is to take along tents. These should be pro- cured on the way out, at St. Louis. One of sufficient size to lodge four or five individuals may be had for from $8 to $10. 212 THE GARDEN OF THE WORLD, OR At Lawrence the company has erected a commodious stone hotel, 50 by 70 feet, three stories high, and abasement; this will accommodate a very large number of individuals and families. It is said to be the finest struc- ture of the kind west of St. Louis. Families. — Whether or not to take one’s family along, or go ahead and prepare the way for it, depends on many circumstances, varying greatly in. different cases, a knowledge of which is essential satisfactorily to decide the question. Where the wife is feeble, has an infant or several young children, or from any cause cannot lend a helping hand, she had better remain behind until the new home is provided for her ; or, if taken along, she had better be boarded at the nearest convenient place to the spot selected for a location. If, on the other hand, the woman is the man, or is in truth a helpmate, and can cheerfully submit to roughing it for a while, if the children be of an age and character suited to prove serviceable, let them be taken along. If families remain back, it will be unnecessary to return for them, as there will always be some one going out under whose charge they can be placed. Board. — This can be obtained at boarding houses in Kanzas City, Mo., and at Lawrence, Topeka, Osawatomie, Manhattan, Leavenworth, and Coun- cil City, K. T., and perhaps at some of the Missions, for from $3 to §4 per week. At hotels it will be much higher ; probably about $ 7 per week. Employment. — Work is not guaranteed by the company to any one ; but wherever settlements already are, or hereafter may be started, good mechan- ics will find employment at remunerative prices — particularly carpenters, masons, blacksmiths, harness makers, brick makers, &c. Governor Reeder wrote, in December, 1854, — “ This is a most lovely and promising country. There is no finer under the sun, and next summer it will be a rich harvest for all kinds of building mechanics and laborers. Last season stone masons and carpenters got $2 25 and $2 50 a day ; laborers, $1 25 and $1 50. A legion of them will be needed early in the spring and all summer. If you have any to spare, send them along. We shall pay out in the territory near a mil- lion of dollars in building, and a man can be earning the highest wages and getting a good farm at $1 25 per acre at the same time. The government alone will spend $100,000 or $150,000 in stone buildings at Fort Kiley. The stone mason, carpenter, brick maker, brick layer, plasterer, laborer, lime burner, Ac., can lay the foundation of a fortune here the first year. Send them on ; I know they will not repent it. We have as yet had nothing I would call winter, and I doubt if it will be any colder. Spring opens about the 1st of March, and mechanics, Ac., should be here at that time. There are some twenty towns laid out, the greater part of which must be built up, to say noth- ing of farm houses, Ac.” As already suggested, the company advises no one entirely destitute of means to go out at this early period ; individuals who can command the requisite funds (which, indeed, are but small) to sustain them the first year, in other words until a crop is raised, or employment is sure, can go in per- fect safety, and unquestionably should better their condition by going ; others may find sufficient work to supply means, but it is premature for a very large number of such to go, although thus far the supply of laborers has not kept pace with the demand ; men of determined energy, great self- reliance, industrious and temperate habits, who are not easily disheartened, and whose indomitable perseverance will enable them to surmount such obstacles as the settlers of new regions will be obliged to encounter, though less perhaps in Kanzas than in most unreclaimed regions, such need not hesitate to immigrate, though dependent solely on their hands and daily exertions for a livelihood; all others, who are thus destitute, should “ bide their time.” Climate “ and Diseases. — “The only objection we have found to the climate of Kanzas, thus far,” (says the Herald of Freedom,) “is the heavy winds, which usually blow from one to three days at a time over the prairies, * Some remark s' bearing on this will be found under the head of Weather. We now apeak of it in relation to its healthfuluess. THE GREAT WEST. 213 making it rather disagreeable to be exposed out of doors. We think the wind and storms are not more violent than in Western Pennsylvania and Eastern Ohio.” Professional men pronounce the climate a remarkably healthy one, ad- mirably adapted to those having a tendency to diseases of the lungs. It is, in a great measure, free from that pest of many western places, intermit- tents, or fever and ague, (chills and fever, or shakes, as popularly termed ;) cases can and do occur there, mainly, however, from imprudence, and prob- ably will be met with to some extent on the first breaking up of the lands ; but such is the character of the country, and consequent deficiency of ex- isting material, it is not probable that it will become one of the permanent diseases of the region. During the past summer (1855) this disease prevailed at most of the set- tlements, far more generally than had been anticipated. But, from a per- sonal examination of the locations, and an inquiry into the habits and modes of living of the sufferers, the writer is convinced that a very large propor- tion of the cases, with ordinary care, might have been avoided, and after their occurrence, with prudence and judicious remedial management, might have been promptly cured. It should not be forgotten that, during the period referred to, exciting and predisposing causes were more active and virulent than usual, as is evident from the fact that various Indian tribes in Kanzas Territory and elsewhere reported a greater prevalence of the disease than had occurred for many years previously ; and from the additional facts that it raged with unwonted violence in those sections of the west usually afflicted with it, and that it also appeared in many quarters (as in the interior of Ohio) where it never before manifested itself. It is said that this disease, when it attacks Indians, yields more readily to medicines than when whites are the sufferers. , Prior to the appearance of the cholera, a period of six years elapsed with- out a single death occurring, to the knowledge of Dr. Lykins,* between Kanzas City, Mo., and the region of the Big Blue, in the vicinity of Fort Riley, a distance of 125 miles west. From October to August, previous to the irruption of that disease, there was an almost complete immunity from sickness. The most sickly period is in April and May, when bowel complaints, having a typhoid tendency, prevail. Most sickness in the fall occurs from the middle of August to the middle of September, and then bilious remittents and intermittents occur ; some seasons, typhoid fever makes its appearance, which it did last fall, for the second time, only, in twelve or fifteen years. A large portion of the cholera cases of which we hear so much, particularly on the western waters and at the river towns, result from gross imprudence, as is evident from the fact that from two thirds to three fourths of them break out early in the week, i. e. after the excesses indulged in Saturday nights and on Sundays. In winter a few coughs and colds, and some cases of pneumonia or lung fever, are met with, but little else. Cost of Building. — This, of course, must vary according to the material used, the size and style of the house, &e. The main aim, at first, when so many important matters will require attention, should be to put up a cheap, temporary shelter. A tent costing from $ 8 to $15 will accommodate five or six persons tolerably well. A stone house somewhat similar to the concrete form may be built for from 12£ to 14 cents the cubic foot. A house thus constructed, a story and a half high, will cost, ready for occupancy, from $300 to $500; a permanent log house of the same dimensions, from $100 * To this gentleman we are under great obligations for his unceasing kindness, and his assiduous professional attendance, during a period of six weeks, whilst we were confined with a severe attack of typhoid fever. We witli much pleasure avail of this opportunity to recommend him to all who may need the services of a kind and compe- tent physician. 214 THE GARDEN OF THE WORLD, OR to $250 ; one suitable for transient occupancy, from $50 to $100 ; the for- mer would, require the labor of four hands for two weeks — the last, the same number for one week. In all cases avoid lying immediately on the damp ground or green grass. Where material can be had, — and it is difficult to conceive where it cannot, — a flooring should be laid at once, no matter how rough and rude it be. At all events elevate the resting-place above both. By neglect of this simple precaution much unnecessary sickness and suffering have been endured. The writer visited several tenements whilst in the territory where the grass under the bedding was rank with mould, and yet the inmates could not con- ceive why they were racked with pains more than their neighbors. Avoid building in the low bottoms, on the banks of the streams, or among the tim- ber on the borders ; the more elevated the site, the less liability to sickness. The Kanzas Tribune recommends a puncheon flooring, which the editor thus describes : — “ It is made by splitting a log in flat pieces, hewing one side to a plain surface, and notching the other down to fit sleepers. Small logs are sometimes nearly split in two, making large slabs, while larger ones are split in three or four pieces. After splitting the pieces, each end is laid on a piece of timber, in which are placed two pins to hold the puncheon on its edge, and thus it is hewed in the same manner as any other piece of timber, and turning it down, the edges are squared. After laying down a floor of this kind, the surface is frequently made even with an adze. It is a very substantial floor, and can be made quite handsome. These were the kind of floors almost univer- sally used in the log cabins of the west. There is no use in being without a floor where there is timber enough to make one.” Time of commencing Farm Work, its Cost , the Kind and Value of Crops, & ;c . — On these points we avail of information furnished for publication by an individual bitterly and uncompromisingly opposed to the present New England movement, and who has exerted himself to throw all the impedi- ments and discouragements possible in the way of those who contemplate emigrating from the free states ; when such a person is compelled to make so flattering statements as the subjoined, there is no necessity for our friends offering any extra inducements to freemen to become citizens of Kanzas. It may be well to premise that the cost of hiring prairie land broken up will be about $3 per acre ; and we understand that individuals, suitably prepared and acquainted with the business, purpose pursuing it as a vocation ; so that what General Stringfellow deems an insuperable diffi- culty in the way of New England and western farmers, can easily be obvi- ated ; and where no one can be hired, resort will be had to a very common practice — of which he seems ignorant — of doubling or trebling teams, and thus mutually aiding one another. He says, — “ The greatest difficulty is in the command of the requisite labor, the hands and team necessary to break and enclose the land. To one who has this it is far easier and cheaper to make a farm of 100 acres or more in the prairie than in the timber, Indeed, in Missouri it is deemed better and cheaper in the end to make a farm of 300 acres in the prairie, and to haul the rails 10 miles, than to clear timbered land. “ The plough used will turn over from 20 to 26 inches, and one team will break from two to two and a half acres per day. The cattle require no other feed, but will keep fat on the grass while at work. The proper season for breaking prairie is from the 1st of May to the middle of July ; up to which time corn can be planted. The corn is dropped in the furrow by a boy who can sit on the plough, and is covered by the plough. It will usually mature and make good corn if planted as early as the 1st of June. That planted later will make good stock feed. “ Prairie may be broken up as late as the middle of August, and will, if sown, yield a wheat crop equal to any that can be afterwards grown on the ground. “ To one who has stock to feed, the crop of corn on the sod is always worth the cost of breaking, and will, in a good season, pay for breaking and enclosing. “ In the second year the farm is in perfect condition. There are no stumps, but the sod is rotted, and your field, clear of weeds and grass, is light and mellow as an ash- band. In the prairie, too, a hand can cultivate one third more than in the timber. I ought here to 6ay that both in Missouri and Kanzas the winters are always dry, and with but little snow, and hence hands are able to work during the entire winter.” THE GREAT WEST. 215 As regards yield of crops, the same writer makes the following statement to show the great profit of slave labor ; and we will not insult the good sense of our friends by doubting for a moment that a freeman can accom- plish as much as a bondman. He says, — “Lying in the same latitude, immediately west, and alongside of Missouri, the soil and climate of Kanzas cannot differ materially from those of Missouri. I am inclined to believe that Kanzas will prove even healthier than Missouri, there being less low, marshy land in Kanzas. “ * * * Before leaving home I procured from intelligent farmers in Platte, a coun- try borderiug on Kanzas, a statement showing the amount of land which one hand can cultivate, with the yield per acre, and the market price of the products at home. I have no hesitation in attesting its correctness. Amount of Land to Hand, and Yield per Acre. Hemp, 7 to 8 acres, 800 to 1200 pounds. Corn, 10 to 15 acres, 10 to 20 barrels. Wheat, 10 to 15 acres, 20 to 45 bushels. Oats, 10 to 15 acres, 30 to 50 “ Value of Products at Home. Hemp, 2| tons, at gS per ton, g200 00 Corn, 100 barrels, at $1 per barrel, 100 00 Wheat, 5 acres, 100 bushels, at 80 cents per bushel, 80 00 Oats, 5 acres, 150 bushels, at 30 cents per bushel, 45 00 Total least yield, at lowest prices, $425 00 Ilemp, 4 j tons, at $130 per ton, 585 00 Corn, 300 barrels, at $2 per barrel, 600 00 Wheat, 5 acres, 225 bushels, at $1 per bushel, 225 00 Oats, 5 acres, 250 bushels, at 40 cents per bushel, 100 00 Greatest yield, at highest prices, $1510 00 “ This will, doubtless, seem an extravagant estimate ; yet the quotations of the mar- kets will show that the maximum prices are less than the present market prices. Hemp has sold during the past season for $150 per ton. Wheat is worth $1 25 per bushel, and corn $3 per barrel. The yield, too, is often greater than the highest. But it is not less true that the greatest yield and highest price are not often together. My object is rather to show the least yield and the lowest price. “ To a distance of 160 miles west, the soil is but little if any inferior to that of Mis- souri. Its great staples must be hemp and tobacco. * * * 1 need hardly say that the grains and grasses will all succeed where hemp and tobacco can be grown. “I have said that Kanzas was not suited to the poor man; I only intended to refer to those who design to till the ground. [Ml] But to the poor mechanic it offers great inducements. To all carpenters especially, and to stone and brick masons, it will give constant employment and high wages. The rudest beginner receives $1 50 per day ; good workmen, as journeymen, receive in regular employment from $2 to $3 per day. Their expenses are light, the cost of living being low.” It has been so often alleged against the company and its agents that they have portrayed in glowing and deceptive colors the beauty and fertility of Kanzas Territory, and thereby allured people to migrate thither, who, had the truth been fitly spoken, would never have wandered from their homes ; and as the allegation is made, not only by those openly opposed to our movements, by many in our very midst, who covertly side with the enemy, or are led astray by the disheartening statements of returned discontented ones, we subjoin the opinions of two other writers, whose character and standing are vouched for by pro-slavery presses. The first extracts subjoined are from a letter written by a gentleman at Platte City, Mo., November 30, 1855, and addressed to a friend in Georgia. That there may be no mistake as regards his hostility to us, we copy a por- tion of his second paragraph. “ I live in sight of Kanzas. My first two children were born there. You. are aware 216 THE GARDEN OF THE WORLD, OR that on the passage of the Kanzas Nebraska bill New England rose in her might, formed aid societies, and vomited forth on us all the dirt and filth of her degraded fanaticism.” After much in the same style, he declares, — “ As far as health, climate, and profit of negro labor are concerned, this is better than any country in the Union. It Is true we have hot and cold, wet and dry weather, but I never saw the country where a man can be more independent, and make his bread and meat with less capital than here. * * * Ten or twelve furrows run in corn will make ten barrels to the acre. One thousand pounds of hemp is a common crop to the acre. Wheat, and oats do well; oceans of grass and swarms of cattle, and withal good markets for every thing. “This is the stake that poor, barren New England contends for and hates to surren- der; and it remains for the south to say. Your blood and treasure paid for half of the seven territories which at present belong to the United States. Has not the south manliness to take possession of one ? And if you don’t get Kanzas, which one can you get? None, none. * * * “We want your moving population to come here. We want your poor and rich, who are inclined to move at all, to come to Kanzas. and while they thus secure this glorious territory to the south, and the Union to us all, take my word as a man of honor, they will reap a rich harvest in their own personal advancement.” Our other witness is the Hon. Sterling G. Cato, one of the territorial judges, who holds his appointment under the administration of President Pierce. In a letter of recent date, addressed to his brother residing at Eu- faula, Alabama, he says, — “ The people here are quiet and orderly, sharp and intelligent, a little rough in man- ners, but warm-hearted and cordial. This is as fine a country as any on the face of the earth, and the profits of its productions would far exceed those of the cotton fields of the south. All kinds of grain, grass, clover, and hemp yield a rich product. I have no doubt but that slave labor would yield in hemp, corn, and grain at least from thirty to forty dollars per acre annually. I have seen no poor land; it all seems to me richer than the best Chattahoochee bottom, and most of it just such land as in the adjoining Missouri counties is now selling at from $20 to $50 per acre. Corn is now selling at twenty cents per bushel, and the product estimated at one hundred bushels an acre; and hemp crop (six tons per hand) at $140 per ton; and you see at once how labor is more productive here than at the south. It is impossible to give an adequate idea of the beauty and fertility of the soil and country; generally rolling, without a great deal of timber, but, as 1 understand, abounding in coal for fires and stone for building and fencing ; good wells of water can be obtained any where, besides frequent streams running through the prairies.” To the preceding we would add, three of the best branches of business to engage in are wool growing, stock raising, and dairy farming, for which purposes there probably is not to be found a superior region ; and those who early embark in either will in a few years realize large fortunes as the fruits of their industry. Land Warrants. — The inquiry is often made of us, whether land warrants are or will be available in Kanzas ? We answer, if the holders of them are not or do not intend to become actual settlers, they cannot at present locate them either in Kanzas or Nebraska, for lands must first be surveyed, offered at public sale, and rendered subject to private entry, before they can thus be taken up. These warrants will, however, be received in payment for pre- emption claims. To holders, therefore, who are actual settlers, under the preemption law they will prove as good as money when pay day comes for securing their 160 acres of land.* The Indian trust lands will not be subject to land warrant locations, if government act in good faith, as by treaty they are to be sold for the benefit of the Indians, Fencing, fyc. — To fence with rails will cost about sixty cents per rod ; stone * These remarks will not apply to warrants issued under the act of 1850. THE GREAT WEST. 217 walls can be built for about one dollar per rod, and what is known in the territory as picket fence for forty cents per rod. Indians. — From the Indians, the original and rightful owners of the soil, the settler has nothing to fear, so long as in his intercourse with them he squares his conduct by the golden rule. The poor native has. in times past suffered more, and now has far more to apprehend, from the white man than the white man from him. Most of those with whom the settlers will come in contact are in what we call a semi-civilized state ; they are not roving, “ wild Indians,” here to-day and there to-morrow, but have permanent loca- tions, cultivate the soil, raise some cattle, sow, and plant ; and from them, on fair terms, the immigrants may obtain vegetables, fencing stuff, &c. Many of these, particularly among the Shawnees, Wyandots, and the Delawares, are highly intelligent, and have a good common school education ; among them will be found "active and shrewd business men; some speak French and English almost as fluently as their native tongue, and among the females some may be met with who have received instruction in music and drawing. Twice in the course of his tour the writer had the pleasure of an interview with an individual, a Pottowattomie by birth and an Ottawa by adoption, who received a liberal education in one of the collegiate institu- tions of Western New York ; he is a worthy member of the church, and a philanthropist whose face is never averted from the needy nor door closed against the weary and way-worn traveller. Among most of the tribes, Protestant and Catholic missions have been established for many years, and accomplished much good. Until recently, the Friends and the Baptists have supported schools in the Shawnee Re- serve. It is a subject of great regret that at a time when, above all others, it is of the utmost importance that the principles of “pure and undefiled religion ” should be inculcated, the Baptist Board, and we think the Friends, have abandoned their vantage ground, and left their former pupils and their descendants to go astray, or be subjected to the tender mercies of those who have not their welfare at heart. We must think those denominations have acted under wrong impressions, and that they will ere long renew their works of benevolence and Christianity. Towards this ill-fated race were the hand of friendship more frequently extended than the weapon of destruction levelled, were the policy of govern- ment one of peace rather than of war, of civilization than of brutalization, or, what it threatens to be, of extermination, it would be far more to the credit of the white man, and we should eventually be convinced of the erroneousness of the long prevalent opinion, that the red man is irre- claimable. This company has always enjoined upon its agents and upon settlers to avoid committing trespasses upon any of the Indian tribes. Pursuing this course, it has declined making locations at several desirable sites where towns have since been established by those less scrupulous, against whose incursions the Indian agents, their ostensible and legal guardians and pro- tectors, have raised no. successful opposition. The company, it should be distinctly understood, is sending to Kanzas ; it knows neither north, south, east, nor west, to the exclusion of tire re- mainder ; it is desirous of seeing the whole peopled with good men and true, who will maintain their own rights and respect those of others ; who, whilst they resolutely resist being encroached upon by the lawless and reckless, w'hencesoever they may come, will carefully refrain from committing unjust acts or uttering harsh epithets against others, simply for a difference of. opinion ; who, save in extreme cases, will rely for victory upon the teachings of the Bible and instructions of the ballot box, instead of the influence of the bottle and destructiveness of the musket ; discarding the bottle alto- gether, and reserving the musket as a dernier resort. Religion and Education. — At Lawrence there are several regularly con- stituted religious societies of various denominations, viz., Congregational- 19 218 THE GARDEN OF THE WORLD, OR ists, Unitarians, Methodists, Baptists, and United Brethren. A free school is established there, in which the ordinary branches are taught, and meas- ures are in train to found an academy for instruction in the higher branches. An athenaeum has also been instituted, by members of which discussions are regularly held and lectures delivered. Connected with this institution is a public library. Sunday school libraries also exist there. All of these means, for securing and elevating the mental and moral con- dition of the community, have made considerable advancement, and will soon be in full operation at Topeka and the other settlements of the com- pany. The powerful influence for good exerted by these is clearly manifest. The writer met many on their way, in pursuit of a new home, who wished to be directed where they could find a Yankee settlement, giving, as a rea- son for the inquiry, that they wished to locate near one, being thus sure of a school for their children and of religious services on the Sabbath. In behalf of each and all, the secretary earnestly solicits contributions in money or books ; the former he will endeavor judiciously to convert into books ; of the latter almost every one has more or less, which, having done their mission here, will still prove of exceeding value, for a similar purpose, in our new settlements. If the secretary’s efforts are approved and seconded by our friends here, he will be enabled to transmit to the territory, by every party, a package the contents of which may prove of incalculable importance to our friends there. Game. ■ — Game is quite abundant in some sections of the territory, though but little occurs in others. Several varieties of squirrels, ducks, geese, turkeys, prairie hens, &c., were seen by the writer. In the Neosho valley and other parts deer are found. Herds of buffalo were within sight from Fort Riley, while the writer was in that section, although the present regu- lar range of this animal, which is likely soon to become extinct, is farther west and north-west. The streams abound with gar, buffalo, whitefish, and a large variety of others. Arms. — Should they be taken along for protection against Indians, for hunting, &c. ? Our opinion of the red man has already been given, viz., as a general rule, if treated kindly and met as a man, he will behave like a man ; but if treated like a wild beast, you must expect him to conduct like one. Still, as impositions are constantly being practised on him, and tres- passes committed upon his rights, by vagabonds of our own race — of in- stances of which we ourselves have had repeated cognizance — it is not impossible, though hardly probable, that some roving bands from the dis- tant plains or fastnesses of the Rocky Mountains may, under exasperation, make their appearance on the borders ; and as “ an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,” and “ discretion is the better part of valor,” it would be well to go prepared for such emergencies. Besides, it would be somewhat vexatious to a hungry man (and one who intends to be a pioneer must expect often to be a-hungered) to see game fleeting by him, which might have furnished him many a good meal, and be none the better for it, because, presuming there was no use for powder and ball, he went to his new home without them. Thus did not the hardy pioneers of the days of our ancestors. Moreover, wolves, rattlesnakes, and other reptiles of various forms, will be occasionally encountered, or be de- tected around the claims ; and although the former, like many enemies in human shape, who make much noise, are great cowards, and seldom attack one, excepting when they are sure of an advantage, it is advisable to be pre- pared to give them a warm reception. Whether there may be any other use for arms, the writer, perhaps, is not qualified to judge ; but, in accordance with the old Latin maxim, that it is permitted to be taught by an enemy, he thinks it sufficient, and will prob- ably be perfectly satisfactory to inquirers, to adduce the opinion of the Hon. THE GREAT WEST. 219 David R. Atchison on this point. In a letter of very recent date, to a gen- tleman at the south, he says, — » j- jet YOllr young men come forth to Missouri and Kanzas ! Let them come -well armed with money enough to support them for twelve months, and determined to see this thin" out ! One hundred true men will be an acquisition ! The more the better. “We want men — armed men. We want money; not for ourselves, hut to support our friends who may come from a distance. . 11 p, e t your young men come on in squads, as fast as they can be raised, well armed. We want none but true men.” Such is the advice of one who, we are told, “ has occupied, for a quarter of a century at least, an eminently high position among the statesmen of the Union, and who, in the Senate of the United States, over which he pre- sided with so much satisfaction to that body, fairly earned a reputation of which few can boast.” The advice of such a one, on the present subject of inquiry, it would ill become us to gainsay. We cannot refrain from quoting this gentleman’s concluding sentiment, and most cordially reiterating his hope : — u We hope that there will be an uprising of the people in every county and town in the state and that while our young men will in hundreds respond to the call of Kan- zas, the old and the wealthy will give that aid which, if withheld, will keep from < there’ many a dauntless spirit, brave heart, and strong arm.” Size of Parties. — Parties, for their own comfort and convenience, should not exceed one hundred persons ; and a larger number the company does not advise to go at once ; neither is there a necessity for it, as at least weekly opportunities will be furnished ; indeed, one half that number would be still better. The capacity and accommodations of the Missouri River boats vary ; but a certain number can be well cared for ; and the company discountenances any unreasonable crowding on board of those boats ; it possesses not the magic power, as some unreasonably think, of enlarging the boat’s capacity to correspond with a party’s wants or desires. The agents, therefore, are enjoined against countenancing or permitting, so far as they can exercise a control, one over the proper number from taking passage in any boat ; if a contrary course be persisted in, however, it must be at the risk of those who will not be advised, and not on the responsibility of the company. . As, however, there will unquestionably be for some time a great rush, and parties will be very large, notwithstanding the advice of the company, every one who goes must be content to submit to various inconveniences, more especially in the boats and at the houses of entertainment where they may temporarily stop. „ . ... Those who go out early in the spring will, of course, meet with more an- noyance than those who leave later ; but, on the other hand, they will have a greater choice as regards location, and will sooner enjoy the right of exer- cising the glorious privileges of freemen — a matter of great moment to them, and of vast moment to all who may subsequently become citizens of the territory. Temporary Organizations . — Parties are advised to pursue the course of those who went out last season, and form on the route (whilst steamboat- ing it up from St. Louis, or previously) some temporary organization for the benefit of all. By doing this, and appointing committees to act for all, there will be little danger of what many fear, that undue advantages will be taken of them by cattle and produce dealers at Kanzas City and elsewhere. Should imposi- tions be attempted, by deputing certain individuals of shrewdness and good judgment to goto the towns a little removed from the river borders and make the requisite purchases, sellers will soon find it for their interest to deal justly and act uprightly ; and none but fair prices will be demanded. In 220 THE GARDEN OP THE WORLD, OR these cases, as in all others of doubt, take counsel of the company’s agents, as your and their interests are not antagonistic. Modes of Communication. — All letters sent to the care of Samuel C. Pomeroy, Esq., Kanzas City, Mo., will be forwarded, as opportunities offer,' to the individual’s address. Those intended for Lawrence, Topeka, or Leavenworth, K. T., may he addressed direct, as a post office has been established at each of these places. In cases requiring more speedy com- munication, advantage can be taken of the telegraph, as an office is estab- lished at Kanzas City, by means of which intelligence may be speedily con- veyed to or received from all prominent points throughout New England the Western, Middle, and Southern States. Company's Aid. —To correct an error that extensively prevails, it is well to state, what may be inferred from our introductory remarks, that the com- pany furnishes no direct pecuniary aid to individuals. Its main objects are not eleemosynary or charitable, in the ordinary acceptation of the word, but philanthropic. It has not the means to assist, nor, had it, could its officers devote the requisite time to investigating the merits of individual cases ; these must be left to the care of the local auxiliary leagues, which are recommended, if they extend a helping hand, to aid, not by gift, but by loan. The company’s means have been, and, if continued to them, will be, em- ployed to encourage the formation of settlements, and to advance the pros- perity and promote the welfare of the various communities that may be es- tablished ; in a word, to make, as far and as fast as possible, each place a set- tlement of freemen, by introducing such conveniences, founding and encour- aging such institutions and establishments, as now characterize New Eng- land homes, and such as the true principles of freedom and the pure spirit of liberty invariably show are so essential to the perpetuity of good govern- ments, and prove absolutely requisite for securing and sustaining the great- est good of the greatest number. The company deals with persons as constituting communities ; the auxiliary societies or local leagues deal with them in their individual capacities. Sources of Information. Newspapers. — Those who are desirous of pro- curing a large amount of information at a small expense, and of being kept posted up on territorial affairs, should subscribe to the Kanzas Herald of Freedom, published weekly at Lawrence, K. T. ; the first volume, just com- pleted, contains a greater quantity of material of a practical character than is elsewhere to be found. The second volume was commenced on the ninth of the present month, (February ;) this, therefore, is a favorable time for subscribing. By sending address and subscription ($2) to the secretary the paper will in due time be forwarded. THE GREAT WEST. 221 CONSTITUTION OF THE AMERICAN SETTLE- MENT COMPANY. The subscribers hereto, being desirous to form a company for the purpose of settling a tract of land in the Territory of Kanzas, in order to. assist in making it a free state, and to found thereon a city, with a municipal gov- ernment, and the civil, literary, social, moral, and religious privileges of the old free states, for the equal benefit of the members, have associated and formed, and do hereby associate and form themselves into a joint stock company, under the name of the ‘■'American Settlement Company,” and have adopted the following Articles for the government of said com- pany, and the management of its property, affairs, and concerns ; and here- by pledge themselves, each to the others, faithfully to observe and 08 Portland, 130 Great Nemaha River,. .528 Nishnebotna River, . . .651 Little Nemaha River, . .563 Nebraska River, 633 Bellevue, 645 Council Bluffs, 685 C 6 te sans Dessein, 150 Jefferson Citv. ... irn Marion, 777 Nashville 1 R 7 Kanzas River 381 Kocheport , 200 358 THE GARDEN OF THE WORLD, OR PACIFIC RAILROAD. SPEECH OF HON. THOMAS H. BENTON, OF MISSOURI, In the House of Representatives, January 16, 1855, On the Physical Geography of the Country between the States of Missouri and California , with a View to show its Adaptation to Settlement , and to the Construction of a Railroad. The House being in the Committee of the Whole on the state of the Union, on the Pacific Railroad Bill — Mr. BENTON said : Mr. Chairman : I have desired for some time past to change the plan of making this road — to withdraw it from legislative authority, where political and sectional interests must always interpose — and leave it to a company of business men, where business considerations could only prevail; for this is a case in which private interest and public interest would go hand in hand, that which would be best for one being best for the other ; and so insuring the selection of a route which would be most national, because most suitable to the greatest number. With this view I have turned my attention to private enterprise, and have found solid men who are willing to take the preliminary steps now, preparatory to the final assumption of the work — Congress granting the necessary authority, and conferring the right of way through its territories, one mile wide on each side of the road. No military protection — no alternate sections — no gift of money — no aid but the right of way, and payment for transportation of mails, troops, and munitions, according to a plan not yet matured. Telegraphic lines to be established or permitted, and transportation to begin before the road is finished, by using stage coaches for the remainder, according to a plan which may be agreed upon. No exclusive privilege, except in two degrees on each side of the road, to keep off competition, leaving all the rest of the country open to other roads. The substitute bill which I propose contains the names of some of these citizens, and with whom other solid men will deem it a privilege to be associated — not that all will be expected to be millionnaires, but only good for what they promise ; for it is not intended that straw men THE GREAT WEST. 359 or wind men shall get control of this undertaking. The consent of those in the bill will he necessary to the admission of every new associate ; but after the act shall he accepted, books of subscription are to be opened in every state of the Union, and the stock divided into convenient shares, to suit short- as well as long purses. Congress has ordered surveys of routes : they are not ready ; but that is no impediment to the adoption of my substitute, which fixes no route, but leaves it to the company to choose their own ; and no company, using their own money, will act upon any surveys but their own. Sucli a com- pany will look before it leaps ; and if it did not, it would not leap long. It will send out its own surveyors — practical engineers and road makers — to report upon every mile of the way, and under every aspect of cost and feasibility. To such a company the government surveys are not wanted, even if ready, and made properly, in winter as well as summery and, in fact, they were not intended for a. company, but for Congress — intended to enable Congress to fix the route itself — a consummation which it is now found to be impossible to attain. I would have preferred that Congress should have made the road, as a national work, on a scale commensurate to its grandeur, and let out the use of it to companies, who would fetch and carry on the best terms for the- people and the gov- ernment. But that hope has vanished, and the organization of Kanzas having opened up the country to settlement, and placed it under law, and carried it into conjunction with Utah and New Mexico, a private com- pany has become the resource and the preference. I embrace it as such, utterly scouting all plans for making private roads at national expense — of paying for the use of roads built with our land and money — of bar- gaining with corporators or individuals for the use of what we’ give them — a species of bargaining in which my observation informs me that the government gets about as badly cheated as Moses Primrose was when he sold the colt which had been in the family nine years; and as much worse as his father was when he undertook to help out the matter by selling Blackberry. I presume every member knows how that was : for I would be sorry to suppose that any one, possessed of the English language, had lived to man’s estate without enjoying the luxury of reading the Vicar of Wakefield, lor my part, I have been reading it since I was five years old, and with augmented enjoyment every time, and especially since they have got to putting pictures in it, and above all, that picture of Moses sell- ing the colt for a gross of green spectacles with silver rims and shagreen cases ; a picture for which the United States sit every time Congress undertakes to make a bargain for the public. I eschew' all such bargains, and all private roads made at public expense, but am willing to have’ as many as any one pleases upon the same terms as contained in mv substi- tute — and there will he room for several such ; but I do not think’another will be built in our day. I prefer the central route ; the administration eschews that route, and lays out its strength in favor of frontier routes, by Canada and Mexico. It sent a surveying party on the central, but only to go a part of the way and turn round — leaving the essential section between the Little Salt Lake and the valley of the San Joaquin unexamined. Mr. Fremont supplied that omission last winter, exploring a new and direct route between those points, and through the Sierra Nevada — completing all that was wanting in that quarter. This new route cut off the elbow to the 360 THE GARDEN OF THE WORLD, OR Bouth-west made hv the old Los Angeles trail, avoided the desert which it crossed, and left ‘far to the south those excitable sand fields, in which no number of horses can leave a track — in which what is a hillock to- day is a hole in the ground to-morrow — where, under a gentle breeze, the sands creep like an army of insects — where the traveller who lies down to sleep during the night in a light wind must rise and shake him- self often to avoid being buried in the sand ; and where, during a high wind, the air is filled with a driving tempest of silicious particles, very cutting to the skin and eyes, very suffocating to the throat, very danger- ous to men who are not tall and" swift — where men and animals fly for their lives when they feel the wind rising, and where this administration would carry the road. Fremont’s new discovery avoided all that, but without conciliating our administration. Frontier and foreign routes monopolize their affection and engross their cares, involving, in my opinion, at least in one instance, a misapplication of the appropriation for the survey of routes. I allude to the Puget Sound route, skirting the British line "all the way, going where nobody travels, where nobody lives, and where nobody can now want a road except the British fur company, and a certain chartered company, of which Mr. Robert J. Walker" and Mr. James Duane Doty are the heads, and which route the debates in Congress show was not within the contemplation of the law when the appropriation was made. I nominated it a British road from the time the survey was ordered, but did not expect to have any other evi- dence of it than what the case itself afforded ; but I now have other evi- dence, and produce it. Here it is ! ( holding up a document,) and I pro- ceed to read from it ; and, first, of the title, which runs thus : “Canada. 1st session, 5th Parliament, 18th Victoria, 1854. Petition of the lion. Augustus N. Morin, and others, praying for a charter by the name of the Nor. hern Pacific liailwav Company,’ Ac., Ac. Ordered by the Legislative Assembly tarious tributaries — among them the Huerfano, (Orphan River,) easily distin- guished from the remote point (nearly due west) where it issued from the Sierra Blanca, to its junction with the Arkansas, except at short intervals where it passed through canyons in the plain. Pike’s Peak was a prominent object in the landscape, its head capped with eternal snow, soaring high above all the neighboring summits. The river (Huerfano) bottom was broad, and thickly wooded with willows and cottonwood, inter- laced with wild rose and grape vines, and carpeted with soft grass — a sylvan paradise. The scenery, as we approached the country betweon the Spanish Peaks and the Sierra Mohada, was picturesque and beautiful. Mountains towered high above us, the sum- mits of some covered with snow, (July,) while the dense forests of dark pines which clothed their sides contrasted well with the glittering white at the top, and the light green of the soft grass at their base. The humidity of the Sierra Mohada gives great fertility to this region ; and the country bordering on the sides of the mountains, as well as the valleys in their recesses, are unequalled in loveliness and richness of vegeta- tion. To the settler they offer every inducement; and I have no doubt in a few years this tract of country will vie with California or Australia in the number of emigrants it will invite. It is by far the most beautiful part of New Mexico, (now a part of Kan- zas,) and a remarkably level country connects it with the western part of the Atlantic States. As soon as this is thrown open to settlement, a continuous line of farms will be established, by which the agricultural and mineral wealth of the country will be de- veloped.” Mr. Charles M’Clanahan, a Virginia emigrant to California, and a large dealer in stock to that country, writing back to me from the valley of San Luis in August, 1853, says, — “ On this route almost the entire way may be settled, as all the land from Missouri to Bent’s Fort is rich, and very fertile, equal to the best lands of Missouri and Illinois, and no land can beat the Sierra Blanca for grass. Even to the very summit it stands as thick as the best meadows, and many acres would mow at least four tons to the acre. Then comes the large and beautiful valley of San Luis, said to be one of the most fer- tile in New Mexico. Indeed, fine land is upon the whole route, and the climate is such that the stock can live out all the winter upon the grass. On this route there is an abundance of grass and water, so much so that stock wdll travel and keep fat. A very large majority of our sheep are as fat mutton as any in the Philadelphia or Baltimore market ; and a very large number of Mr. Barnwell’s cattle are fine beef, and I have never seen any stock, after travelling so far, look half so well.” Mr. Leroux, in his published letter to me, describing, among other things, the valley of San Luis, which lies east of the Coochatope Pass, and leads to it through the Sahwatch Valley, and which valley of San Luis is now partly in Kanzas, says, — “There is a large valley to the east, about fifty or sixty miles wide, and near one hundred miles long, reaching from the Coochatope to the Taos settlements at the little THE GREAT WEST. 369 Colorado. The Del Norte runs through this valley, which is the widest and best valley in all New Mexico, and can hold more people than all New Mexico besides. It is all prairie except on the creeks, and on the river, and on the mountain sides, which are well wooded. It is a rich soil, and covered with good grass, and wooded on all the streams. The Spaniards called it El Valle derail Luis, and it was formerly famous for wild horses and buffaloes ; and ever since Taos was settled by the Spaniards, the in- habitants drove their sheep and cattle there to winter. Before the Utah Indians be- came so bad, the stock, as many as fifty or sixty thousand head of sheep and cattle, have been driven there to winter, which they did well, feeding on the grass during the day, and sheltering in the woods about the shepherds’ camp at night. Most of the winters there is no snow along the foot of the mountain on the north side of this valley, being sheltered from the north, and open to the sun to the south. The United States have established a military post in this valley, not far from the pass of El Sangre de Christo, and about two hundred families have gone there to live, chiefly near the fort, and raised crops there last year ; and now that they have protection, the valley will soon be all settled, and will be the biggest and best part of New Mexico. About three hundred families more were preparing to move there. The post is called Fort Massa- chusetts.” This is the Western or Upper Ksmzas, and will make another great state, and both w'ill quickly be ripe for admission into the Union — East Kanzas in 1855, and the western in 1856. They will both be settled with unexampled rapidity. In agriculture and grazing alone they present irre- sistible attractions to the settler. But it is not agricultural and pastoral advantages alone, great as they are, which are to attract people to this region ; other causes are to add their inducements to the same attractions, and render them invincible. At the head of these other causes stands the preemption law, now engrafted as a permanent feature in the federal land system, and made applicable to all the public lands in the territory. By virtue of this law the laboring man, without a dollar in his pocket, is put ahead of the speculator with his thousands. He may choose for himself out of the wide domain, mark out his choice, take possession, work it, and raise enough out of it or on it to pay the government price by the time the pay is demandable, With the good prospect to see it rise to ten or twenty times as much as it cost within a few years. This is a chance for a freehold, and of provision for a family, which the wise and industrious tiller of the earth will not neglect. Then come the political advantages. The act of Congress creating the territory gives great political rights to unnaturalized settlers coming into it. It gives the elective franchise, and eligibility to office, upon the simple declaration of an intention to become a citizen of the United States, and taking the requisite oaths. This is an advantage which the foreign emigrant will know howto appreciate and to appropriate. Then comes an advantage of a different kind still, novel but energetic, and already in full operation — the competition for excess of settlers between the free and the slave states. That competition, though deplorable in its political and social aspect, must have one good effect upon the territory — that of rapidly filling it with people, the only point of view' in which I refer to it. Finally comes a fourth cause in this extra list for attracting settlers — one that must have its effect upon all who can reason from cause to effect, who can look ahead and see what is to happen by seeing what exists, who can estimate the force of natural causes, which are self-acting and irresistible, and which work out their results without the directing and helping hand of government. It is the Pacific Railroad ! Kanzas has the charter from nature for that road, and will use it. She has the smooth way on which to place it, the straight way on which to run it, the material with which to build it, the soil and 370 THE GARDEN OF THE WORLD, OR people to support it, and the salubrious climate to give it exemption from disease ; and she has in her south-west quarter, precisely where the straight line requires them to be, the multiplied gates which open the mountains to the Pacific, the Coochatope, the Carnero, the San Juan, the Poonehe, the Medio, the Mosca, the Sangre de Christo, the Utah. These passes, and the rich, grand, and beautiful country in which they lie, command a road, and will have it; and the preemptioner who acquires a quarter section on its line may consider his fortune made. Now I think I have provided for two of the five states which I have promised, and that within the brief space of one and two years, and each upon a larger population than has ever yet been required from other new states. Now let us proceed to the other three, and let us despatch them in less time than these two have required. III. We take a section of the Rocky Mountains, from 37° to 41° — near three hundred miles north and south — and go down to the base on each side, say a hundred miles or more each way, making an area of sixty thousand square miles, while all the Swiss cantons have not twenty thousand. Here, then, is territory enough for a great mountain state. Now let us look to its contents and capabilities. First, there are the Three Parks first described by Fremont, and since laid down on all the maps — large, beautiful, mountain coves, two of them of thirty miles’ diameter each, the other of sixty — at a great elevation, delightful in summer, and tempered in winter, from the concentration of the sun’s rays, and sheltered by the lofty rim of mountains, forever crowned with snow, which wall them in and break off the outside storms. The name is not fanciful, nor bestowed capriciously by travellers, but a real description, translated from the Indian name of these parks, which signifies “ cow lodge,” and not without reason, for the buffaloes not only feed but lodge there, and make them the places of their immense congregation, attended by all the minor animals — elk. deer, antelopes, bears. Then the innumerable little val- leys in which rise the myriad of young streams which, collecting into creeks, go off to start upon their long courses in the mighty rivers which, there rising together, go off in opposite directions, some* to the rising, some to the setting sun ; the South Platte, the Arkansas, the Del Norte on one side : and the Great Colorado of the West on the other — all four born so near together to run so far apart, a point of similitude to Switzer- land which the instructed mind will not fail to perceive, and also to dis- cover another similitude in Pike’s Peak, grand in its elevation, forever luminous in its mantle of snow — the Mont Blanc of the Rocky Moun- tains, which no adventurous Packard or De Saussure has ever yet climbed. Then an endless labyrinth of little valleys and coves, where wild animals luxuriate in summer and shelter in winter, and where the Indians pursue their game in all seasons without impediment from cold or snow, and where their horses do well on the grass, retaining much of its moisture and nutriment. Fremont thus describes the general winter condition of these valleys : — “ Our progress in this mountainous region was necessarily slow ; and during ten days which it occupied us to pass through about one hundred miles of the mountainous country bordering the eastern side of the Upper Colorado valley, the greatest depth of the snow was (among the pines and aspens on the ridges) about two and a half feet, aud in the valleys about six inches. The atmosphere is too cold and dry for much snow; and the valleys, protected bv the mountains, are comparatively free from it, and warm. We here found villages of Utah Indians in their wintering ground, in littlo valleys THE GREAT WEST, 371 along the foot of the higher mountains, and bordering the more open country of the Colorado valley. Snow was here (December 25) only a few inches deep — the grass generally appearing above it, and there being none under trees and on southern hill sides. The horses of the Utahs were living on the range, and, notwithstanding that they were used in hunting, were in excellent condition. One which we had occasion to kill for food had on it about two inches of fat, being in as good order as any buffalo we had killed in November on the eastern plains. Over this valley country — about one hundred and fifty miles across — the Indians informed us that snow fhlls only a few inches in depth, such as we saw it at the time.” This is the winter condition of these little valleys, very comfortable for man and beast, even in their wild state, and to become more comfortable under the hand of cultivation. The summer view, as presented by Messrs. Beale and Heap, is absolutely enchanting — a perfect labyrinth of val- leys, with their cool water and sweet grass ; some wide, some narrow; some bounded by perpendicular walls of rock, like streets in a city; others by softly-rounded hills ; some studded with small circular moun- tains, called by the hunters “round mountains,” — fertile on the sides, level and rich on the top, diversified with wood and prairie, and re- freshed with clear streams, and beautified with deep, limpid, miniature lakes. These descriptions are charming, but too numerous for quotation, and I can only give a specimen of each : — “ The trail led over low hills and down a succession of beautiful slopes, running mostly in a southern direction, until we entered a narrow, winding valley, two miles and a half in length, by one and two hundred yards in breadth. It was shut in on each side by perpendicular walls of rock, rising from fifty to seventy-five feet above the level of the valley, whose surface was flat and carpeted with tender grass. A stream of clear water meandered through its centre, and the grade was so slight, that the stream, overflowing in many places, moistened the whole surface. As we descended this beautiful and singular valley we occasionally passed others of a similar character. It ends in Sah- watch valley, which we entered about one hour before sunset.” “ The valleys down which we travelled, and which opened into each other with the regularity of streets, grew gradually broader as we descended. We finally entered one watered by Carnero (Sheep) Creek, which joins the Garita (Gate) Creek in San Luis valley, and at noon encamped a short distance above a gate or gap through which the stream passes, (and whence it de- rives its name.) Half a mile below this gap there is another, and a quarter of a mile farther a third. The passage through them is level, while the trail around them is steep and stony. In the afternoon we went through the first gap, made a circuit around the second, as it was much obstructed with trees and bushes, and, leaving the third on our left, rode over some low hills, and five miles from camp crossed the Garita. We were once more in San Luis valley, and all before us was a perfect level as far as the sight could reach.” “Our way, for a mile or two, led over a barren plain, thickly covered with grice wood, but we soon struck the base of the mountain, where firm, rich mountain grass swept our saddle girths as we cantered over it. We crossed a consider- able mountain covered with timber and grass, and near the summit of which was quite a cluster of small, but very clear and apparently deep lakes. They w'ere not more than an acre or two in size, and some not even that, but surrounded by luxuriant grass, and perched away upon the mountain, with fine timber quite near them. It was the most beautiful scenery in the world. It formed quite a hunter’s paradise, for deer and elk bounded off from us as we approached, and then stood within rifle shot, looking back in astonishment. A few hours’ ride brought us to the Indian camp ; and I wish I here could describe the beauty of the charming valley in which they camped. It was small, probably not more than five miles wide by fifteen long, but surrounded on all sides by the boldest mountains, covered to their summits with alternate patches of timber and grass, giving it the appearance of having been regularly laid off in small farms. Through the centre a fine bold stream, three feet deep by forty wide, watered the meadow land, and gave the last touch which the valley required to make it the most beautiful I had over seen.” “ Hundreds of horses and goats were feeding on the meadows and hill side; and the Indian lodges, with the women and children standing in front of them to look at the approaching stranger, strongly reminded me of old patriarchal times, when flocks and herds made the wealth and happiness of the people, and a hut was as good as a palace. I was conducted to the lodge of the chief — an old and infirm man, who 372 THE GARDEN OP THE WORLD, OR welcomed me kindly, and told ine his young men told him that I had given of my small store to them, and to 1 sit in peace.’ In about fifteen minutes a squaw brought in two large wooden platters, containing some very fat deer meat, and some boiled corn, to which I did ample justice ; and when about to leave, found a large bag of dried meat and a peck of corn put up for me to take to my people.” “ This morning I explored the mountain lying to the south of our camp, forming a picturesque portion cf our front view. After ascending the mountain and reaching the summit, I found it a vast plateau of rolling prairie land, covered with the most beautiful grass, and heavily timbered. At some places the growth of timber would be so dense as to render riding through it impos- sible without great difficulty ; while at others it would break into beautiful open glades, leaving spots of a hundred acres or more of open prairie, with groups of trees, looking pre- cisely as if some wealthy planter had amused himself by planting them expressly to beautify his grounds. Springs were abundant, and small streams intersected the whole plateau. In fact, it was an immense natural park, already stocked with deer and elk, and only requiring a fence to make it an estate for a king. Directly opposite to the 6outh is another mountain, in every respect similar; and a valley, more beautiful to me than either, lies between them.” Enough for a sample ; and if any thing more is wanted to establish the character of this mountain region for fertility of soil and attraction for man, it is found in its character of hunting .and of war ground. Fre- mont says he found it the most variously and numerously stocked with game, and the most dangerous war ground, which he had seen in all the extent of the Rocky Mountains — both indexes to a fertile country. The country sought for by animals and fought for by men is always a good country. Western men will understand this, and remember how Kentucky was called the “ Bloody Ground,” because Indians came there to hunt the numerous game, feeding on the rich grass, product of her rich soil, and to fight for its possession. By this test — and it is one which never fails — our Mountain State will be one of eminent fertility. We Americans are in the habit of referring to Europe for a point of comparison for every thing we wish to praise in our own country, although our own may be far superior ; therefore I compare this Mountain State to Switzerland, although it is disparaged in the comparison. Its valleys are .more numerous and beautiful — its mountains less rugged and more fertile- — its surface more inhabitable — its climate more mild and equally salubrious — more accessible by roads ; the mule every where sure of its feet, the carriage of its wheel, and the hunter at liberty to pursue his game without fear of slipping into a bottomless icy chasm, betrayed by a treacherous covering of snow. Its little round mountains, with their grassy sides, and rich level tops, and natural parks, and miniature lakes, and sweet flowing waters, have no parallel in Switzerland, or in any other part of the world. And upon this view of their relative advantages I am ready to adopt the opinion of Fremont, and to go beyond it, and to cele- brate this Mountain State as being as much superior to Switzerland in adaptation to settlement as it would be in extent ; and to crown its recommendations, just half way to the Pacific, and on the straight line. IV. The valley of the Upper Colorado would furnish the territory for the fourth state, one hundred and fifty miles wide from the western base of the Rocky Mountains to the eastern base of the Wahsatch and Anter ria ranges, and three or tour hundred in length, up and down the river, lhe face of the country is high and rolling, with alternations of wood- land prairie, and open to roads and settlement in any direction. The soil, like, much of that on the Rio del Norte and in Southern California, is peculiar and deceptious — looking thin and sandy to the eye, but having an element of fertility in it which water impregnates, and enables THE GREAT WEST. 373 to send forth a vigorous vegetation. All it wants, and that only in places, is irrigation ; and for this purpose, and for all purposes, there is water enough , for this valley is probably the best watered region in the . woilu, and is obliged to be so from the configuration and structure of the u Tr hC VaUey is f 0r P ed . b y the lofty ranges of the Rocky and '' ahsatch Mountains, which, wide apart at its lower end, converge as they go north, and unite above latitude forty-two — giving to the lorn? and broad valley they enclose the form of the Greek lettef delta (a! m of oiu V inverted. . The summits of these mountains are covered with eter- nal snows their sides with annual winter snows; and these latter beginning to melt early in the spring, and continuing till midsummer fill the earth with moisture, and give rise to myriads of springs, creeks’ and small rivers, which collect into the two forks of the Colorado called by the hunters Green and Grand Rivers, and, in their junction, constitute the great river itseh : for the country below, being sterile and arid, con- tnbutes but little to swell the volume of the great river which traverses it. The climate in this valley is mild — the month of January being ^°, us ‘ owe knowledge to the last winter expedition of Fremont, who says, “ The immediate valley of the Upper Colorado for about one hundred miles in breadth, and from the 7th to the 21st of January, was entirely bare of snow, and the weather resembled autumn !i U w abounds in this valley, cropping out in thick strata in the bluffs of Grand River, (the east fork of the Great Colorado,) and a saline creek thirty miles long, and formed by salt springs, fells into the same fork from the north ; and both the coal and the salt are in the line of the contemplated road to the Pacific. This would be the fourth state equal in extent to any, inferior in soil, superior in wood and water softer in climate, better m due alternations of woodland and prairie : and being pait of the Utah Territory, it is now under the dominion of law and government, and open to immediate settlement, which, in fact, is now going on. V. The fifth state would consist of the remainder of the Utah Terri- tory, beginning at the eastern base of the Wahsatch and Anterria ranges and extending 300 miles to the California line, upon whatever breadth might be desired. . It would include, towards its eastern border, the Little Salt Lake, which is 2«0 miles south of the Great Salt Lake, and which designates a country as much superior to that of the Great Salt Lake as itself is inferior to that large and marvellous body of salt water. It would be a magnificent state ; its eastern limit, there the rim of the Great Basin, would embrace the broad expanse of the Wahsatch and Anterria ranges, or rather blocks, as they are cut up into short sections — proba- bly the richest mountain region in the world, where Nature has crowded and accumulated into a hundred miles square, as into a vast magazine, a profusion of her most valuable gifts to man. Soil, water, grass, wood, timber, rock salt, coal, stone, a due alternation of mountain and valley — the former cut into blqcks, white on the top with snow, dark on the sides with forests, and their bosoms filled with ores ; the valleys green with grass, fresh with cool water, opening into each other by narrow level gaps, or defiles ; the climate so soft that animals live out all the winter, and February (so frosty and frozen with us) the usual month there for starting the plough : I say starting the plough ; for the Mor- mons, since several years, have seen the beauty of this region, and have 32 374 THE GARDEN OF THE WORLD, OR come upon it. W r e owe to Fremont’s last winter expedition, the revela- tion to public view of this magnificent region, more valuable than all the golden mines of California and Australia put together. He had seen these ranges in his previous expeditions, and given them a page in his journal, and a place in his map ; but it was not until his last expedition that he penetrated their recesses, and saw their hidden treasures, lie was fourteen days in them, (from the 24th of January to the ith of Feb- ruary,) and thus speaks of what he saw : — “They lie between the Colorado valley and the Great Basin; and at their western base are established the Mormon settlements of Parowan and Cedar City. They are what are called fertile mountains, abundant in water, wood, and grass, and fertile val- leys, offering inducements to settlement and facilities for making a road, t hese moun- tains are a great storehouse of materials — timber, iron, coal which would be of in- dispensable use in the construction and maintenance of the road, and. are solid founda- tions to build up the future prosperity of the rapidly increasing Utah state, bait is abundant on the eastern border; mountains — as the Sierra de Sal — being named from it. In the ranges lying behind the Mormon settlements, among the mountains through which the line passes, are accumulated a great wealth of iron and coal, and extensive forests of heavy timber. These forests are the largest I am acquainted with in the Rocky Mountains, being, in some places, 20 miles in depth of continuous for- est; the general growth lofty and large, frequently over three feet in diameter, and sometimes reaching five feet, the red spruce and yellow pine predominating. At the actual southern extremity of the Mormon settlements, consisting of the two enclosed towns of Parowan and Cedar City, near to which our line passed, a coal mine has been opened for about 80 yards, and iron works already established. Iron here occurs in extraordinary masses, in some parts accumulated into mountains, which comb out in crests of solid iron, 30 feet thick and 100 yards long.” Fremont brought home specimens of this coal and iron, of which Pro- fessor Baird, of the Smithsonian Institution, has made the analysis ; and which I give in his own words: “Magnetic oxide of iron: Parowan. Seems a very pure ore of iron, and suitable for manufacturing purposes. Maybe estimated to contain about 70 or 71 per centum of metallic ii on, somewhat similar to the ore in the great beds of Northern New i oi k, but more solid than is usual there. Probably very well adapted to the manufacture of steel. The coal appears to be of excellent quality — semi-bituminous — somewhat in appearance like the transition coal of the Susquehanna mines in Pennsylvania.'’ . I must ask the pardon of some of my auditors for supposing that they may not be better acquainted with the language of geology than I was myself, when I supposed that this “ combing out of the solid iron in crests” was mere descriptive language, suggested by the taste of the writer. I found it was not so, but the technical phraseology, which the geological science required to be used, and which, being used, conveyed an exact meaning — that of a mineral showing itself above the surface, and crowning the top of the hill or mountain as a crest does the helmet, and the comb the head of the cock. In this view of its meaning the language here used by Fremont, and which seems to have been the sug- gestion of an excited imagination, becomes the subdued expression of science and technicality. And what a picture he presents ! What pi o- fusion and variety of God’s best gifts to man ! Here, are, in fact, the elements of a great state — enough of themselves to build up a rich and populous state : but appurtenant to it, and interlaced with it, or border- ing upon it, is a great extent of valley country — that of the Little halt Lake, of the Santa Clara Meadows, of the Nicollets River, and its tribu- taries ; and a multitude of other coves and valleys, all stretching along THE GEEAT WEST. 875 the western base of the Wahsatch, and within the rim of the Great Ba- sin; that basin as remarkable here for beauty and fertility as in most other parts for sterility and deformity. The Mormon settlements of Par- agoona, Paiowan, and Cedar City are along the edge of this rich moun- tain region ; and the well-trod Mormon road from the Great Salt Lake to Southern California, relieved with bridges and marked with mile- stones, pass by these towns; all announcing to the traveller that in the depths of the unknown wilderness he had encountered the comforts of civilization. Messrs. Beale and Heap passed these settlements at mid- summer, and speak in terms of enchantment, not only of the beauty of the country, but of the improvements and cultivation. Pretty towns, built to a pattern, each a square, the sides formed by lines “of adobe houses, all facing' inwards, with flower and kitchen gardens in front, and a large common field in the rear, crowded with growing grain — and all wateied, both fields and gardens, and the front and rear of every house, with clear cool streams, brought down from the mountain sides, and fiom under a seeming canopy of snow. Grist and saw mills at work; foiges smelting the iron, ore ;. colliers digging the coal ; blacksmiths hammering the red hot iron into farming implements, or shoes for the horses assisted by dexterous Indian boys ; cattle roaming in rich nat- ural pastures ; people quarrying, and the cattle licking, the rock salt. Lmigiants obtain supplies here — beef and flour, at moderate prices: and it was here that Fremont was refitted after his 70 days of living upon his mules which died from exhaustion. The number and beauty of these valleys and fertile mountains, seen by Beale and Heap in exuber- ance, their ripe, rich dress of midsummer, excite their wonder, and call foith enchanting descriptions. Broad valleys, connected by narrow ones a continued succession of these valleys going from one to another not by climbing ridges, but through level openings — grass, flowers, and water in each. The mountains, some circular, some cut into blocks, some with fertile flat tops, rich in vegetation, some with peaks white with snow, and all dark with forests on their sides. It is impossible to read their descriptions without being reminded of Central Persia, and of that valley of Shiraz, celebrated as incomparable by the poets, but matched and surpassed in the. recesses of the Wahsatch and the Anterria ; and the climate delicious in summer, and soft in winter. From the 24th of January to the 8th of February, that Fremont explored this region, he found in the valleys either no snow at all, or a thin covering only ; and, in the first week of February, the Mormons told him they had usually commenced ploughing, and preparing the ground for the spring seeds. And yet all this would be but a cofner of a state, ■which may spread west and north some hundred miles to the California line, and into the Great J3asm — chiefly characterized as desert, but which has its oases — veqas y as the Spaniards call them — meadows refreshed with water, green with grass, and arable land, and with a structure of country, narrow valleys between snowy mountains, which give assurance of the artesian wells which can extend the area of fertility, and multiply the points of settle- ment. ho that this fifth state ma)' be as extensive, as populous, and as i ich as any public interest could require. Abundant instances are given by remont, find by JBeale and Heap, to justify this enchanting descrip- tion of these valleys and veejas : too many to cite. One only will be quoted as a specimen. I take it from Fremont’s description of one of. 376 THE GARDEN OF 'THE WORLD, OR the vegas of Santa Clara ; for there are several of them, and they are always cited in the plural — vegas, not vega. He says, — “We considered ourselves as crossing the rim of the Great Basin; and, entering it at this point, we found here an extensive mountain meadow, rich in ‘ bunch grass,’ and fresh with numerous springs of clear water, all refreshing and delightful to look upon. It was, in feet, that las vegas de Santa Clara, which had been so long presented to us as the terminating point of the desert, and where the annual caravan, from California to New Mexico, halted and recruited for some weeks. The meadow was about one mile wide and ten long, bordered by grassy hills and mountains — some of the latter rising 2000 feet, and white with snow (May) down to the level of the vega. Its elevation above the sea was 5280 feet, and its latitude, by observation, 37° 2S' 28". Here wc had complete relief from the heat and privations of the desert, (on the old route to Los Angeles.)” The “ bunch grass,'' here spoken of, takes its name from the form in which it grows, which is in bunches — different from the short grass called “ buffalo ,” on the east side of the Rocky Mountains — but about equally valuable, being nutritious both in summer and winter, and hav- ing a second growth in the fall. It prevails extensively on the Pacific slope of our continent, and is an element of national wealth in its sup- port of stock. The climate of this region, besides what has been said, may be judged of by the material used for building, even where wood and stone are abundant — adobes, or sun-baked bricks. That indicates a climate comparatively dry and mild — more Asiatic than American — reminding us of Nineveh and Babylon. Certainly no houses, built of such material, (with or without straw,) on our side of the continent, could stand the driving of our merciless rains, or resist the action of our freezing winters. Beale and Heap went through these ranges not only at a different sea- son of the year from Fremont, but on a different line ; and their descrip- tion of the pass at the divorce point of the waters between the valley of the Upper Colorado and the Great Basin, and of the valleys of the An- terria and Wahsatch, and of the Mormon settlements, will complete this view of the capabilities of the fifth state. This, then, is what they say : — “ On the summit of the ‘ divide ’ ( divortia aquarum ) between the waters of the Colo- rado and the Great Basin, and before descending into the valley of the Bio Salado, an affluent of Sevier (Nicollet) River, I took a careful survey of the surrounding country, which offered many interesting features. The Wahsatch Mountains are composed of several parallel ranges, running north and south, with fine well-watered valleys be- tween them. They are short, and between the valleys are numerous passes. The hills are clothed, from their summits to their base, with a thick growth of pine trees, cedars, and aspens, and the brook was swarming with trout. The 1 divide’ is broad, level, and smooth, and the descent, on the western side, easy. We encamped, for the night, on the Salado, in a broad and level valley. Throughout the mountains the grass reminded us of that of the Sah watch range, although in the valley it was less luxuriant. We were now in the Great Basin, and near the Mormon settlements; and, directing our course west, we came again to the Salado, at the place where it flows past the mines of rock salt, from which it derives its name. The course of the creek is here south-west, and it joins Nicollet River, about three miles below the mines. At the mines we found a Mormon trail, which, our guide told us, led to their settlements, about 20 miles dis- tant. Following up Sevier (Nicollet) River, four miles brought us to beautiful meadows, grass luxuriant, reaching above the saddle girths. Crossing Nicollet River, we passed over a steep hill ; we descended into another valley, watered by the same stream, hav- ing missed the Mormon road which led into it. This valley lies north and south, and unsurpassed in beauty and fertility by any thing we had yet seen. It is about thirty miles in length by four in breadth; surrounded by mountains, down whose sides tric- kled numberless cool and limpid brooks, fringed with willows and cottonwood. Nicollet River flows through its centre, and it abounds, in its entire length, in rich pasturage. The mountains which enclose it were clothed, from summit to base, with oaks and pines. At the head of the valley, and through a canon (canyon) comes in the Rio San THE GREAT WEST. 377 Pasqual— -the main fork of the Nicollet, and which itself flows through a valley of groat beauty. “ Arrived at Little Salt Lake. (260 miles south of the Great Salt Lake.) in the valley of which is the first Mormon town — I’aragoona — of about 30 houses, built of adobes, (sun-burnt bricks,) presenting a neat and comfortable appearance, but broken up, in the moment of our arrival, by the Utah war, and the inhabitants removed to I’arowan. Proceeded to this town over an excellent wagon road, made, and kept in repair, and bridged in many places by the Mormons. We passed a large grist and saw mill worked by water power. Parowan is in a pretty valley of its own name, and is a town of about 100 houses, (adobes,) built in a square and facing inwards. In their rear, and outside of the town, are vegetable gardens, each house having a lot running back about 100 yards. By an excellent system of irrigation, water is brought to the front and rear of each house, and through the centre, and along the outside boundary of each garden lot. The houses are ornamented in front with small flower gardens, which are fenced off from the square, and shaded w T ith trees. The field covers about 400 acres, and was in a high state of cultivation ; the wheat and corn being as fine as any we had seen in the States. Several smelting furnaces are at work upon the iron ore in the mountains, coal for the fuel, and all asserted to be abundant and excellent. We had our horses shod here, two Pahutah boys assisting the white blacksmith ; and we were surprised to see the skill and dexterity with which they assisted — fully equal to that of our white boys of the same age. Furnaces for smelting iron ore were already in operation in the vicinity of Paragoona and Parowan, and that metal, which was obtained in sufficient quantity to supply au.y demand, was also of excellent quality, and the veins of coal apparently inexhaustible. A large force of English miners was employed in working these mines, and prouounced the coal to be equal to the best English coal. We saw it in use in the forges — bituminous, and burning with a bright flame. A Pahutah hand- ed me some ears of wheat, the grains of which I preserved, and he stated that it grows spontaneously near the Santa Clara. It is from this stock that the New Mexicans have obtained the seed which they call Pahute wheat, and the Mormons Taos wheat, and which has been much improved by cultivation, and is considered the best in New Mex- ico and Utah.” Mr. Chairman, I commenced this speech with undertaking to estab- lish two propositions ; first, that the country between Missouri and Cal- ifornia, in the latitude in which we now stand, is well adapted to settle- ment and cultivation, and capable of forming five great states ; secondly, that it is well adapted to the construction of a railway. I believe I have made good the first of these propositions, and that we may now assume that the line of great states which now extend nearly half way across this continent, and through the centre of this Union — Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri — may be continued, and matched, by an equal number of states, equally great, between Missouri and Cali- fornia. I consider that proposition established, and say no more about it. The establishment of the second proposition results from the estab- lishment of the first one, as all that has been shown in favor of the coun- try for settlement and cultivation is equally in favor of it for the road. But I have some direct and positive testimony on this head which the •importance of the subject, and the value of the testimony itself, requires to be produced. I speak of the last expedition of Colonel Fremont — his winter expedition of 1853 and 1854 --and of the success which at- tended it, and of the value of the information which it afforded. He chose the dead of winter for his exploration, that he might see the worst — see the real difficulties, and determine whether they could be van- quished. He believed in the practicability of the road, and that his mis- carriage in 1848-9, was the fault of his guide, not of the country; and he wag determined to solve those questions by the test of actual experi- ment. With these views he set out, taking the winter for his time, the west for his course, a straight line his object, the mouth of the Kanzas for his 32 * 378 THE GARDEN OF THE WORLD, OR point of departure, St. Louis and San Francisco the points to be con- nected. The parallels of 38 and 39 covered his course ; and between these he continued to move west until he reached the Little Salt Lake, within 300 miles of the California line ; after that upon a slight deflec- tion to the south, between the parallels 37 and 38, until he entered Cali- fornia. This may be called a straight line, and so fulfils a primary con- dition of every kind of road, and especially of a railroad, where a speed of a hundred miles an hour may be as easily attained, and as safely run, as the third of that velocity in a road of crooks and curves. Snow was the next consideration ; and of that he found none, on any part of the route, to impede any kind of travelling. On the Kanzas, the Upper Arkansas, and the Huerfano, he found none at all ; in the Sand Hill pass of the Sierra Blanca, none ; in the valleys of San Luis, and the Sahwatch, none ; in the Coochatope pass, four inches ; and none if he had crossed the day before ; and that was the 14th of December, corre- sponding with the time, and almost in view of the place where he had been buried in the snows five years before — and Would have been again if he had gone to the same place. This solved the question of snow in the passes of the mountains, and showed that his miscarriage had been the mistake of the guide, and not the fault of the country. After that — after crossing the Rocky Mountains — the climate changes. A great amelioration takes place, which he knew before, and then fully expeji- f enced. The remainder of the route, as has been shown in the view of the country, may be said to have been found free from snow — a hun- dred miles at a time in one place without finding any ; and when found at all, both thin and transient ; and all so light and dry as to clog noth- ing, nor damp the moccason in a day’s travel. And that this was the common winter state of the pass, and not an occasional exception, has been shown by Mr. Antoine Leroux, and others, and corresponded with his own theory of snow in the passes. Mr. Leroux, in his published let- ter to me, said, “ There is not much snow in this pass, (the Coochatope,) and people go through it all the winter. And when there is much snow on the mountains on the Abiquiu route, (which is the old Spanish trail from Santa Fe to California,) the people of Taos go round this way, and get into that trail in the forks of Grand and Green Rivers.” And Messrs. Beale and Heap, in their journal, say of it, “ Coochatope pass is travelled at all seasons, and some of our men had repeatedly gone through it in the middle of winter, without meeting any serious obstruc- tion from snows.” And this was the theory of Fremont, that the passes in these mountains were nearly free from snow, and comparatively warm ; while in the open plains, or on the mountain summits, deep snows would prevail, and a killing cold, which no animal life could stand. This frees the Rocky Mountains from that objection. The next range of moun- tains (for all the valleys have been shown to be free) is the Anterria and Wahsatch ; and there again the passes are free. Fremont says of them, — “ In passing through this bed of mountains about fourteen days had been occupied, from January 24 to February 7 ; the deepest snows we here encountered being about up to the saddle skirts, or four feet ; this occurring only in occasional drifts in the passes on northern exposures, and in the small mountain flats hemmed in by woods and hills. In the valley it was sometimes a few inches deep, aud as often none at all. On our arrival at the Mormon settlements, February 8, we found it a few inches deep, and were there informed that the winter had been unusually long-continued and severe, the thermometer having been as low as 17° below zero, and more snow having THE GREAT WEST. 379 fallen than in all the previous winters together since the establislwnent of the colony. At this season their farmers had usually been occupied with their ploughs, preparing the land for seed.” The Sierra Nevada was the last range of mountains ; and there not a particle of snow was found in the pass which he traversed, while the mountain itself was deeply covered. And this disposes of the objection of snow on this route, so formidable in the imagination of those who have nothing but an imaginary view of it. Smoothness of surface, or freedom from abrupt inequalities in the ground, is the next consideration : and here the reality exceeded the ex- pectation, and challenges incredulity. Let Fremont speak. He says, — “ Standing immediately at the mouth of the Sand Hill pass — one of the most prac- ticable in the Sierra lilanca, and above those usually travelled • — at one of the remotest head springs of the Huerfano River, the eye of the traveller follows down, without ob- struction or abrupt descent, along the gradual slope of the valley to the great plains which reach the Missouri. The straight river and the open valley form, with the plains beyond, one great slope, without a hill to break the line of sight, or obstruct the courso of the road. On either side of this line hills slope easily to the river, with lines of timber and yellow autumnal grass ; and the water which flows smoothly between is not interrupted by a fall in its course to the ocean.” Here is a section of the route above seven hundred miles long — being more than half the distance to California — in which there is no eleva- tion to arrest the vision — in which you might look down the wide dis- tance, if the eyesight was long enough, and see the frontier of Missouri from the mouth of the first pass in the first mountain, being more than half the length of the road. This would do for a start. It would satisfy the call for a fair surface at the commencement. This first pass is called the Sand Hill, or Roubidoux, through which Fremont entered the valley of San Luis ; and the way so low and level as to be seen through. And through that valley and its continuation (the Sahwatch) to the Coocha- tope the ground is so smooth as to present no exception to its level but the natural curvature of the earth. Meeting a man on horseback in this long level of more than a hundred and twenty miles, (counting the entire valleys of San Luis and the Sahwatch,) is like meeting a ship at sea ; you see his head first, then his body, then his horse, and at last the ground. The pass itself, as well as the approaches to it, is perfect. Fremont calls it “an open easy wagon way.” Beale and Heap say it was a ques- tion whether they had passed the dividing point between the eastern and western waters, which could only be answered by referring to the water itself. The pass itself, of which they made a drawing, was grand and beautiful. They say of it, “Lofty mountains, their summits covered with eternal snows, lifted their heads to the clouds ; while jn our imme- diate vicinity were softly-rounded hills, clothed with grass and flowers, with rich meadows between ; through which numerous rills trickled to join their waters to the Coochatope Creek.” But why multiply words to induce conviction when facts are at hand to command it ? Facts enough abound to show the facility of this pass, even in a state of nature. more than 40 loaded wagons went through it in the summer of 1853, 20 of them guided by Leroux for Captain Gunnison, the rest by emigrant fam- ilies without guides. But more than that, the buffaloes have travelled it always — those best of engineers, whose instinct never commits a mis- take, and which in their migrations for pasture, shelter, and salt, never fail to find the lowest levels in the mountains, the shallowest fords in the rivers, the richest grass, the best salt licks, the most permanent water, and 380 THE GARDEN OP THE WORLD, OR always take the shortest and best routes between all these points of at- traction. These instinctive explorers traverse this pass, and gave it their name — Coochatope in the Utah language; Puerto del Cibolos in the Spanish ; which, being rendered into English, signifies the Gate of the Buffaloes. And their bones and horns, strewing ihe ground, attest their former numerous presence in this locality, before the firearms of modern invention had come to their destruction at such a crowded point of rendezvous. This is enough to show that the Rocky Mountains may be passed without crossing a hill — that loaded wagons may cross it at all seasons of the year. This applies to the Coochatope pass, but there are many others, and all good ; and it is curious to detect the Latin lan- guage in many of their names, put upon them in the Spanish translation of the original Indian. Thus we see porta in puerto (agate) constant-, lj r recurring, as Puerto del Cibolos, Puerto del Mosca; in which latter, besides the porta, we detect the Latin musca, (fly ;) Anglice, the Ely Gate, from the unusual number of these insects which the Indians found in it ; Puerto del Medio , (medium,) Middle Gate, &c., &c. ; and here I recapitu- late in order to make an important point clear. 1. From the Missouri frontier to the first pass, in the first mountain, upwards of 700 miles, the way is so smooth and straight that there is no obstruction to the vision. 2. Through that first pass, (the Sand Hill,) eight miles, it is about equally level, but the line of sight broken by the deflection through the moun- tain. 3. Through the San Luis and Sahwatch valleys to the Coo- chatope pass, above 100 miles, it is equally level and straight ; so that from Missouri to the Coochatope, (above 800 miles,) there is no visible inequality of surface, nor any thing to break the line of sight, but the deflection of eight miles through the Sand Hill pass of the Sierra Blanca. It was the Baron Alexander Yon Humboldt that first put it into a book that the buffaloes were the best of civil engineers. He put it into his Aspects of Nature ; and I afterwards put the same into a senatorial speech, without knowing what he had done ; and, true to the facts, we both gave the same examples of leading roads in our America, first traced by the buffaloes, and afterwards followed by the Indian as his war path, by the pioneer white man as his wagon road, and by the engi- neer as his McAdam or railroad track. Among these examples we both mentioned the buffalo trail from the Holston Salt Springs, in Virginia, to the rich pastures of Kentucky, through the Cumberland Mountain Gap, and said that.no other practicable route between these two points had yet been found. In fact, all the country people knew that the buffa- loes were right ; but in this past summer of 1854 some railroad engineers undertook to find a better and shorter road between the Salt Springs and the Cumberland Gap. They tried it, got cornered, could get no farther, had to perform that evolution which, in the vernacular of the west, is called backing out,” had to return to the salt works, take the old trail, and follow the buffaloes. This was a confirmation of Hum- boldt' and a triumph of instinct over science ; and we shall claim the benefit of it if any book-taught engineer shall ever have the temerity to dispute the excellence and supremacy of the Coochatope pass. In a word, there is no difficulty about passes ; the only bother is to choose out of so many, all so good, both in themselves and in their ap- proaches. This is enough for the passes : with respect to the whole mountain region, and the facility of going through it, and upon different THE GREAT WEST. 381 lines, we have also the evidence of facts, which dispense with specula- tion and assertion. That region was three times traversed, and on dif- ferent routes, by Messrs. Beale and Heap in the summer of 1853. It happened thus : when they had reached the east fork of the Great Colo- rado of the West, and were crossing it, they lost, by the accident of an overturned canoe, their supply of munitions, both for the gun and the mouth, and were forced to send back to the nearest settlement for a further supply. That nearest settlement was Taos, in New Mexico, distant 330 miles, and that distance to be made upon mules, finding their own food, which had already travelled, on the same condition, 1000 miles from the frontier of Missouri, and these mules (thus already travelled long and hard, without other food than the grass afforded) now made the double distance at the rate of 40 miles a day, still finding their own food, and, on the return, bringing packs on their backs. This performance must stand for a proof that the whole mountain region between the Upper Colo- rado and the valley of the Upper Del Norte is well adapted to travel- ling, and that in a state of nature, and also well supplied with nutritious grass. The experience of Captain Gunnison was to the same effect. His twenty wagons, guided by Leroux, and without the benefit of pio- neers to remove obstructions, and making circuits to avoid impediments which a fatigue party should have removed, still made the distance be- tween the Del Norte and the Upper Colorado (300 miles) in 22 days, averaging nearly 15 miles to the day, (and government wagons at that, never known to be in a hurry,) being the usual rate of wagon travel on oui country roads, the teams arriving at the Colorado fatter than they had left the Del Norte, and without other food than the grass on the way ; and this clears us of the Rocky Mountains, from which to the Little Salt Lake it is all an open, practicable way, not limited to a track, but traversable on any line. Loaded wagons travel it in a state of nature. The valley of the Colorado is either level or rolling ; the Wah- satch and Anterria ranges are perforated by incessant valleys, and from the Little Salt Lake to the Great Sierra Nevada, as explored by Fre- mont last winter, the way is nearly level — a succession of valleys between the mountains, perfectly adapted to artesian wells, and termi- nated by a superb pass debouching into the valley of San Joaquin. Fre- mont, referring to previous Indian information, says of it, — When tlie point was reached, I found the Indian information fully verified : the mountain suddenly terminated, and broke down into lbwer grounds, barely above the level of the country, and making numerous openings into the valley of the San Joaquin. 1 entered into the first which offered, (taking no time to search, as we were entirely out of provisions, and living upon horses,) which led us by an open and almost level hollow 13 miles long to an upland, not steep enough to be called a hill, over into the valley of a small affluent to Kern River, the hollow and the valley making together a way where a wagon would not find any obstruction for 40 miles.” The discovery of this pass was the “ crowning mercy ” of this adven- turous winter expedition. It was the cherished desideratum of the cen- tral route. It fulfilled its last condition. It gives nearly a straight line from the Little Salt Lake to the Sierra Nevada, with a good pass into the valley of the San Joaquin. It cuts off the elbow which the old Los Angeles trail makes to the south-west. It avoids the desert on that route. . It leaves far to the south those excitable fields of roving sands which infest the New San Diego route — sands which creep, like an 382 THE GARDEN OP THE WORLD, OR army of pis-ants, under a gentle breeze, which bury the traveller who lies down to sleep on them when there is a little wind, unless he rises and shakes himself often during the night ; in which no number of horses can leave a track ; in which the hillock of to-day is a hole in the ground to-morrow; and which, in high winds, is a driving tempest of silicious particles, very cutting to the eyes and skin, very suffocating to the throat, very dangerous to those who are not tall and swift, and from which man and beast fly for life ; and all which West Point science proposes to overcome by a profuse application of federal dollars. All this is avoided by the short and straight route west from the Little Salt Lake discovered by Fremont in his winter expedition of 1853-54. And this completes all that is necessary to be shown in favor of the smoothness of the way — its equality of surface throughout the whole line ; although it attains a great elevation, and lands you in California, in the rich and settled valley of San Joaquin, proximate to the southern end of the gold mines. Not a tunnel to be made, a mountain to be climbed, a hill to be crossed, a swamp to be seen, or desert or movable sand to be encountered, in the whole distance, and all this equality of surface barometrically determined by Fremont as well as visibly seen by his eye ; so that this line for a road, the longest and straightest in the world, is also over the smoothest and most equal surface. For, al- though a great elevation is attained, it is on a long line, and gradually and imperceptibly, the mere rise of an inclined plane. Rivers to be passed are obstructions to roads, to be overcome by large applications of skill and means ; and here again the central route is most favorable. The entire line is only crossed in its course by the streams in the valley of the Upper Colorado, and those of inconsiderable width, with solid banks, and stone for bridges. On this side of the Rocky Mountains the course of the rivers is parallel to that of the road ; the Kanzas, the Arkansas, and the Huerfano being all in its line. Beyond the valley of the Colorado, no river at all, only small streams. Mr. McClanahan, and others whose statements have been given, have attested the supreme excellence of the route for the road from Missouri as far as the San Luis valley, and that upon experiment with wagons, carriages, flocks, and herds. It only remains to produce the same kind of testimony in behalf of the remaining part of the way, from that valley to California; and that testimony is at hand. Mr. R.S. Wootten, of New Mexico, a large dealer in stock to California, and who drove 8000 sheep there in the summer of 1853, thus writes in a letter which he gave responsibly to the public : — “ During the last year I have taken a drove of sheep from this place (Taos) to Cali- fornia over the route that Colonel Eremont intended to have gone in the winter of 1848-’49, at the time of his disaster. I made the trip through to California in 90 days, arriving there with my sheep in good order, having passed through some of the finest country X ever saw, and had good camps, and plenty of wood, water, and grass every night during the whole trip. There is now being commenced a settlement on the Arkansas River, at the mouth of the Huerfano, at which emigrants can procure such necessaries as they may be in want of, and also at the Mormon settlements at Little Salt Lake. There is aiso a good ferry at the moutli of the Huerfano, and ferries will also be established during the coming summer on Grand River and Green River, (Up- per Colorado.) There is also another great advantage that this route has over a more northern one, as emigrants may leave Missouri as late as the 1st of August, and there is no danger of being stopped by snow. After reaching the great Spanish trail in the valley of Green River, (Upper Colorado,) from thence to California there is never any snow, and the months of October and November are more pleasant to travel, and hotter for stock, than the summer months.” THE GREAT WEST. 383 This is the testimony of experience, of actual experiment, in all the country of the mountains ; in all the region from the Rocky* Mountains out, supposed by some to be so sterile, so rugged, so savage, so imprac- ticable ; proved to be so fine that sheep find camps when they please, and they only make ten miles a day, and fatten upon their travel. And the settlers already commenced settlements all along, and proceeding rapidly. What was one man at the mouth of the Huerfano in 1853, was forty in the spring of 1854, all raising crops. Other settlements skirt the road, as that of 200 families in the valley of San Luis, and the pueblos San Carlos, Cuerno Verde, and others above Bent’s Tort on the extreme Upper Arkansas. This finishes the testimony which time permits to be now produced in favor of the excellence of the country ; in fact, its surpassing beauty and great superiority. It is as full and complete as the law of evidence re- quires any testimony in such a case to be. Still there may be persons to impugn it, and to cry down the country. That is an old business, as old as Moses and the twelve messengers which he sent from the wilder- ness of Paran to spy out the promised land, and ten of which made an “ evil report ” of the country, and stirred up the mutiny against Moses which continued forty days, and for the punishment of which the rebel- lious children were detained forty years in the wilderness. This is what happened to the promised land, and it is not to be expected that the dis- tant and unknown countries of the Great West are to fare better. They also must expect to be evilly reported upon ; but truth is powerful and must prevail, even where two stand against ten, as in the question be- tween the messengers of Moses, and still more in the case of multitudes against units, as will be the way in the case of evil reports of this far distant West; especially as the country will stand to vindicate itself and the truth. That is the last and greatest witness, the country itself — work of God — standing where he placed it, exhibiting itself as it is, and ready to cover with shame the faint-hearted wanderers who, to get an excuse to return to the flesh-pots of Egypt, are forever discovering a “ lion in the path.” I deem myself justified to develop, with some more detail, but one of the road advantages possessed by this route — an advantage often men- tioned, but not sufficiently enforced. It is that of coal, so valuable under every aspect, and so indispensable to railroads when in prairies. It ex- ists in superfluous abundance all along this line. Commencing in those coal fields in the west of Missouri which geologists compute to be of 20,000 square miles’ extent, it is found all along the Kanzas River, on the Upper Kanzas, in the Rocky Mountains, in the valley of the Upper Colorado, at the western base of the Wahsatcli and Anterria ranges, thus known at present from its own exhibition of itself, cropping out from the bluffs of rivers and the banks of ravines. How much remains to be discovered when so much shows itself spontaneously '? Really, it seems like “ carrying coals to Newcastle,” to tell of coal on this route. The proposed central route is intended to be a straight line, turned aside by no obstacle, and seduced from its course by no lateral interest. But it will be a road for the accommodation of the whole broad expanse of the country, from the Mississippi to the Pacific Ocean. Branches striking out like ribs from the spine, would reach every settlement — Northern Missouri and Iowa from a point on the Upper Kanzas, New 384 THE GARDEN OF THE WORLD, OR Mexico from a point on the Upper Arkansas, the Great Salt Lake from a point on the upper valley of the Colorado, and thence on to the mouth of the Columbia, and Los Angeles and Southern California from a point on the Little Salt Lake and Santa Clara settlements. • All these places would be conveniently reached by branch roads, while the great trunk would follow its direct course — best for itself and for them — from Mis- souri to California, debouching at each end into the midst of business populations, and connecting with steamboat navigation and all the state improvements. And its settlement would be magic. The line once in- dicated, and the enterprising emigrants of our America would flock upon it as pigeons to their roosts, tear open the bosom of the virgin soil, and spring into existence the long line of farms and houses, of towns and villages, of orchards, fields, and gardens, of churches and school- houses, of noisy shops, ■ clattering mills, and thundering forges, and all that civilization affords to enliven the wild domain from the Mississippi to the Pacific ; to give protection and employment to the road, and to balance the populous communities in the eastern half of the Union by equal populations on its western half. In this description of the country I have relied chiefly on Fremont, whose exploration, directed by no authority, connected with no company, swayed by no interest, wholly guided by himself, and solely directed to the public good, tvould be entitled to credit upon his own report, unsup- ported by subsidiary evidence ; but he has not left the credit of his re- port to his word alone. He has done besides what no other explorer had done ; he has made the country report itself. Besides determining elevations barometrically, and fixing positions astronomically, and meas- uring objects with a practised eye; besides all that, he has applied the daguerreotype art to the face of the wild domain, and made it speak for itself. Three hundred of these views illustrate the path of his explora- tion, and compel every object to stand forth and show itself as it is, or was — mountain, gap, plain, rock, forest, grass, snow, (where there is any,) and naked ground where there is not; all exhibit themselves as they are ; for Daguerre has no power to conceal what is visible, or to ex- hibit what is unseen. If the “wart” is there, he needs no admonition to show it, and could not suppress it. He uses no pencil to substitute fiction for fact, or fancy for memory. He is a machine that works to a pattern, and that pattern the object before him ; and in this way has Fre- mont reproduced the country from the Mississippi to the Pacific, and made it become the reflex of its own features, and the exhibiter of its own face, present and viewable to every beholder ; and that nothing may be wanting to complete the information on a subject of such magnitude, he has now gone back to give the finishing look at the west end of the line, which 30,000 miles of wilderness explorations in the last twelve years (all at his own solicitation, and the last half at his own cost) authorize him to believe is the true and good route for the road which is to unite the Atlan- tic and the Pacific, and to give a new channel to the commerce of Asia. All the other requisites for the construction and maintenance of a road, and to give it employment when done, have been shown in the view of the country — wood, water, stone, coal, iron ; rich soil to build up set- tlements and cities, to give local business and travel all along its course, as well as at the great terminating points, and to protect it without govern- ment troops. Add to this, picturesque scenery and an entire region of THE GREAT WEST. 385 unsurpassed salubrity. This quality of the route, salubrity, requires a special notice. Fremont says of it, “ It is a healthy route. No diseases of any kind upon it, and the valetudinarian might travel it in his own vehicle, or on horse, or even on foot, for the mere recovery of spirits and restora- tion of health.” This is what Fremont says, and he ought to know, traversing the region as he has done for twelve years, and never having a physician with him, nor losing a man by sickness. And all his moun- tain comrades, sojourners, of 20, 30, 40 years in this wild domain, report the same thing. Salubrity, then, is one of the eminent recommendatory qualities of the central route. The whole route for the road between the States of Missouri and California is good ; not only good, but su- premely excellent ; and it is helped out at each end by water lines of transportation, now actually existing, and by railways, projected or in progress. At the Missouri end there is a railway in construction to the line of the state, and steamboat navigation to the mouth of the Kanzas, and up that river some hundred miles ; at the California end there is the like navigation up the Bay of San Francisco and the San Joaquin River, and a railway projected. And thus this central route would be helped out at once by some 300 miles at each end, connecting it with the great business populations of California and Missouri, at which latter point it would be in central communication with the great business population of the Union. People now travel it and praise it ; buffaloes travel it, and repeat their travel, which is their praise. The federal government only seems to eschew it, and lean to outside routes — one by Canada, which the Cana- dian provincial parliament appears to be now adopting for its own ; and one through old Mexico, which Santa Anna might adopt, if he had any commerce ; and upon neither of which is seen a buffalo track, or a vol- untary white man’s track going to California, where no white man goes to get to California, except under the orders and at the expense of gov- ernment, and where no buffalo could be made to go, even by the power of the government. That sensible old animal would die before he would be made such a fool of as to be conducted to the Sacramento, or San Joaquin, or San Francisco, via the hyperborean region of Upper Cana- da and New Caledonia, or via the burning deserts of Sonora and Chi- huahua. The central route is the free choice of men and buffaloes, and is good for all sorts of roads, and in all seasons. Its straightness of course will enable the car to more than double its speed, and consequent- ly earn its money in half the time. The smoothness of its course is but little interrupted by its ascents or descents; for they are gradual, and distributed over long distances ; and the whole country between the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevada, is at the general level of 5000 feet, the greatest descent being from the Sierra Nevada to the level of the sea : and that may distribute itself for the road over some hundred miles. And now I hold it to be in order of human events, iu the regular pro- gression of human affairs, that the road will be built, and that soon ; not by public, but private means, by a company of solid men, asking nothing of Congress but the right of way through the public lands, and fair pay for good service in carrying mails, troops, government officials, and munitions of war. Such an enterprise is worthy of enlightened capitalists, who know how to combine private advantage with public good, and who feel a laudable desire to connect their names with a mon- 33 386 THE GARDEN OF THE WORLD, OR umental enterprise more useful than the pursuits of political ambition, more glorious than the conquest of nations, more durable than the pyra- mids, and which, being finished, is to change the face of the commercial world, and all to the advantage of our America. The road will be made, and soon, and by individual enterprise. The age is progressive and utilitarian. It abounds with talent seeking em- ployment, and with capital seeking investment. The temptation is irre- sistible. To reach the golden California, to put the populations of the Atlantic, the Pacific, and the Mississippi Valley into direct communica- tion, to connect Europe and Asia through our America, and to own a road of our own to the East Indies; such is the grandeur of the enter- prise, and the time has arrived to -begin it. The country is open to settlement, and inviting it, and receiving it. The world is in motion, following the track of the sun to its dip in the western ocean. West- ward the torrents of emigration direct their course, and soon the country between Missouri and California is to show the most rapid expansion of the human race that the ages of man have ever beheld. It will all be settled up, and that with magical rapidity ; settlements will promote the road, the road will aggrandize the settlements. Soon it will be a line of towns, cities, villages, and farms. And rich will be the man that may own some quarter section on its track, or some squares in the cities which are to grow upon it. But the road beyond the Mississippi is only the half of the whole ; the other half is on this side, and either in progress or completed. Behold your own extended iron ways, departing from this city to go west towards the lakes and the great rivers, to join the great western trunk, now almost finished through Cincinnati, Vincennes, St. Louis, there to find the Pacific road in progress to the western limit of Missouri. Behold the lateral roads from Pennsylvania, New England, New York, all point- ing to the west, and converging to the same central track. And behold the diagonal central road of Virginia, to traverse the state from its south-east to its north-west corner, already finished beyond the Blue Ridge, and its advanced pioneers descending the Alleghany Mountain, to arrive at the mouth of Big Sandy, in the very latitude of St. Louis, San Francisco, and Baltimore, and there to join the same great central western trunk. And the Blue Ridge road of South Carolina, bound upon the same destination, and the roads of Georgia pointing and advancing to the north-west. What is the destiny of all these Atlantic roads, thus pointing to the west, and converging upon the central track, the whole course of which lies through the centre of our Union, and through the centre of its population, wealth, and power, and one end of which points to Canton and Jeddo, the other to London and Paris — what will those lateral roads become, in addition to their original destination 1 They will become parts of a system, bringing our Atlantic cities nearer to the Pacific coast than they were to the Blue Ridge and the Ohio in the time of canals and turnpikes. And what then ? The great idea of Colum- bus will be realized, though in a different and a more beneficent form. Eastern Asia is reached by going west, and by a road of which we hold the key ; and the channel of Asiatic commerce, which has been shifting its bed from the time of Solomon, and raising up cities and kingdoms wherever it went, (to perish when it left them,) changing its channel for the last time, to become fixed upon its shortest, safest, best, and THE GREAT WEST. 387 quickest route, through the heart of our America, and to revive along its course the Tyres, and Sidons, the Balbecs, Palmyras, and Alexandrias, once the seat of commerce and empire, and the ruins of which still at- test their former magnificence, and excite the wonder of the Oriental traveller. This great central trunk road from Baltimore to the mouth of the Ivanzas, along the parallel of 39°, is already almost finished, and for all the purposes of its continuation from Missouri to California, may be assumed to be now finished ; for it will be completely so before any part of the other is ready to join it. It is now complete to the Ohio River, complete to Cincinnati, complete through the State of Ohio ; complete halfway through Indiana, and the other half in progress ; complete half way through Illinois, and the other half in progress ; complete (near- ly) one third of the way through Missouri, and all the rest under con- tract, and under the daily energies of two thousand laborers, led by a most energetic contractor. We may assume, then, the great western trunk road to be finished from Atlantic tide water to the western limit of Missouri; that is to say, half way to the Pacific, and to the com- mencement of that vast inclined prairie plain which spreads from the Missouri frontier more than half the distance of the remaining half, and which is nearly prepared by the hand of Nature for the immediate recep- tion of the iron rails and their solid foundations. What a temptation for a company to begin the great work when so much is done to their hand, and so much of the remainder is so easy to be done ! and then, how advanced all the Atlantic and Mississippi Valley connections with this great western trunk ! On the Atlantic side, from Maine to Georgia, from Bangor, on the Penobscot, in the State of Maine, to the State of Georgia, a man may now go by car to that central trunk in Ohio and Indiana ; from the southern shores of the northern lakes he can do the same ; from the borders of the southern gulf he can partly do it. Soon all will be complete, and every part of the Atlantic States and of the Mis- sissippi Valley be ready to go into communication with the Pacific Ocean as soon as the trunk is completed from Missouri to California. Telegraphic lines are ready at both ends. In California they extend over the state, into the valleys of San Joaquin and Sacramento, and would be ready to meet the road at the state line. On this end, the wires now extend to the western limit of Missouri — to the mouth of Ivanzas — from which point intelligence can now be flashed to every part of the Union ; so that, on this central route, there is only a gap to be filled up to complete these magic communications between the shores of the two great oceans. This is the object ! that road, compared to which, those “ Appian and Flaininian Ways,” which have given immortality to their authors, are but as dots to lengthened lines — as sands to mountains — as grains of mustard to the full grown tree. Besides the advantages to our Union in opening direct communication with that golden California, which com- pletes our extended dominion towards the setting sun, and a road to which would be the realization of the Roman idea of annexation, that no conquest was annexed until reached and pervaded by a road ; besides the ob- vious advantages, social, political, commercial, of this communication, another transcendental object presents itself ! That Oriental commerce which nations have sought for, and fought for, from the time of the Phe- 388 THE GARDEN OF THE WORLD, OR nicians to the discovery of the Cape of Good Hope — which was carried on over lines so extended — by conveyances so slow and limited — amidst populations so various and barbarous, and which considered the merchant their lawful prey — and up and down rapid rivers, and across strange seas, and through wide and frightful deserts ; — and which, under all these perils, burdens, discouragements, converted Asiatic and African cities into seats of wealth and empire — centres of the arts and sciences — while Western Europe was yet barbarian ; and some branches of which afterwards lit up Venice, and Genoa, and Florence, and made commer- cial cities the match for empires, and the wives and daughters of their citizens (in their luxurious, Oriental attire) the admiration and the envy of queens and princesses. All this commerce, and in a deeper and broader stream than the “ merchant princes ” ever saw, is now within our reach ! attainable by a road all the way on our own soil, and under our own laws ; to be flown over by a vehicle as much superior in speed and capacity to the steamboat as the boat is to the ship, and the ship to the camel. Thanks to the progress of the mechanic arts ! which are going on continually, converting into facilities what stood as obstacles in the way of national communications. To the savage, the sea was an obsta- cle: mechanical genius, in the invention of the ship, made it a facility. The firm land was what the barbarian wanted : the land became an ob- stacle to the civilized man, and remained so until the steam car was in- vented. Now the land becomes the facility again — the preferred element of passage — and admitting a velocity in its steam car which rivals the flight of the carrier pigeon, and a punctuality of arrival which may serve for the adjustment of clocks and watches. To say nothing of its accompaniment — the magnetic telegraph, which flashes intelligence across a continent, and exchanges messages between kingdoms in the twinkling of an eye ; and compared to which the flying car degener- ates into a lazy, lagging, creeping John Trot of a traveller, arriving with his news after it had become stale with age. All this commerce, in a stream so much larger, with a domestic road for its track, your own laws to protect it, with conveyances so rapid, and security so complete, lies at your acceptance. That which Jew and Gen- tile fought for before the age of Christianity, and for which Christians have fought both Jew and Gentile, and fought each other, and with the Saracen for an ally ; all this is now at your acceptance, and by the be- neficent process of making a road, which, when made, will be a private fortune, as well as a public benefaction — a facility for individuals as well as for the government. Any other nation, upon half a pretext, would go to war for such a road, and tax unborn generations for its completion. We may have it without war, without tax', without treaty with any nation; and when we make it, all nations must travel it, with our permission, and behave well to receive permission, or fall behind and lose the trade by following the old track ; giving us a bond in the use of our road for their peaceable behavior. Twenty-five centuries have fought for the commercial road to India ; we have it as a peaceable possession. Shall we use it 1 or wear out our lives in strife and bitterness, wrangling over a miserable topic of domestic contention, while a glorious prize lies neglected before us 1 Vasco do Gama — in the discover of the Cape of Good Hope, and the opening of a new route to India, independent of Mussulman power — eclipsed, in his day, the glory of Columbus, balked THE GREAT WEST. 389 in the discovery of his well-divined route by the intervention of a new world. Let us vindicate the glory of Columbus by realizing his divine idea of arriving in the east by going to the west. The enterprise would be a trifle to the wealth and resources of our business population — only some 1300 miles of road over ground the most favorable, and under skies the most auspicious, and with material the most abundant and convenient ; and the prices of labor and of iron returning to reasonable rates. More than half the distance is smooth prairie, to cost no more than railways in the prairies of Illinois : the remainder is. nearly level — only slight undulations — with an almost total exemption from the high cuttings, deep fillings up, long bridgings and tunnelings, which constitute the gravity of the expense of railroad making. Say a fourth more than the cost of Illinois prairie road, (the wide gauge being understood,) and you have but $20,000 to the mile — $26,000,000 for the whole. What is that to the resources of our busi- ness populations ? There are many 26 men in our extended Union who could build the road themselves, and own it, as their private and princely estate, themselves and their posterity after them. Safety as well as profit, security as well as policy, protection against calamity as well as prospective good, require the 'construction of this road. What sustains and stimulates the national industry at this time ? California gold ! that gold, the weekly arrival of which is the life’s blood of our daily industry ! and one month’s default of which would be the paralysis of our financial, commercial, and industrial world. And how do we receive that gold now ? Over foreign seas, and across foreign territory, and after a circuit of 6000 miles — liable to be cut off at any moment by the cruisers and privateers (to say nothing of fleets) of any power with which we might be at war ; and several specks of that porten- tous cloud now appear above the line of our political horizon. And this is the place for these political considerations. Such considerations ad- dress themselves to the political power; and that political power is here Congress is charged with the protection of the national interests, and ships, and troops, and missions are put in requisition for that purpose. A readier, a cheaper, a more effectual mode of protection to that com- merce which belongs to the Pacific — which comes from California — would be to make this road through our own territory — placing it be- yond the reach of foreign depredation, and, at the same time, making it a means of keeping the Indians themselves in order. Pliny the elder, accounting for the commercial prosperity of some an- cient cities, attributed it to their form of government, (republican,) and because that form admitted the greatest freedom of enterprise. The moderns have seen the truth of this profound remark in later times — have seen it in Italy, in Holland, and in various parts of our America. We are a republic, and a great one ; and our fathers have given proof of the truth of Pliny’s axiom in the success and extent of their commercial undertakings. Their sons have not degenerated. The maxim of Pliny is not disparaged. The numerous Mercantile Library Associations which cover our country — their ample list of members and well-filled libraries, and laudable spirit of improvement — give earnest of future eminence, and of useful and honorable careers, rivalling their fathers, and justify- ing the axiom of Pliny. They will not let the road flag; they will not lose the East India trade. All they want is information about the road, 390 THE GARDEN OF THE WORLD, OR and I have endeavored to give it. I have brought the facts, carefully as- sured, to show that there is a good way for a good road, and a good country to sustain people to protect and support it — and law and gov- ernment to guard it — and settlements nearly all the way already begun, and to multiply with magic rapidity. Then let us begin — take the first step, which is always the most difficult. My plan is, to get this substi- tute bill passed, which Congress may pass without constitutional scruple, confined as it is to territorial domain, giving to the citizens whose names it contains, their successors, associates, and assigns, a right of way in one mile wide through the public lands in Kanzas and Utah, on each side of the road, and a year’s delay to obtdin that practical information which business men must always have before they undertake any great enter- prise — building the road at their own expense, and without other aid from the federal government than that of its custom, paying for its ac- commodation by an arrangement not yet matured. I repeat, I am will- ing to vote the same privilege to any other company, but have no idea of squandering the public lands upon speculators, either to make a bub- ble stock upon the exchange of New York and London, or to build a private road for themselves at the national expense, and then tax the nation for travelling upon it. I do not expatiate upon the home advantages of a railway to the Pa- cific ; it has become a necessity, the urgency of which is universally admitted. I enforce another advantage, not so immediate, but obvious to the thinking mind, and important to America, Europe, and Asia ; and which, in changing a channel of rich commerce, may have its effect upon the wealth and power of nations, and operate a change in the maritime branch of national wars : I allude to the East India trade, (already inci- dentally touched upon,) and the change of its channel from the water to the land ; and the effect of that change in nullifying the maritime suprem- acy of naval powers by making continents, instead of oceans, the great theatres of international commerce. No events in the history of nations have had a greater effect on the relative wealth and power of nations, than the changes which have been going on for near 3000 years in the channels of Asiatic commerce. During that time nations have risen and fallen, as they possessed or lost that commerce. Events announce the forthcoming of a new change. The land becoming a facility and the ocean an obstacle to foreign trade, must have an effect upon Europe con- terminous upon Asia, and upon America separated from it by a western sea over which no European power can dominate. I confine myself to the American branch of the question, and glance at the past to get an insight into the future. I look to former channels of this Asiatic com- merce — their changes — the effects of the changes — and infer from what has been, what may be — from what is, to what will be. I. The Phcenician Route. — Tyre, queen of cities, was its first empori- um. The commerce of the East centred there before the captivity of the Jews in Babylon, upwards of 600 years before the coming of Christ. Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, conquered Tyre and razed it to its foundations : but he was no statesman — merely a destroyer — and did not found a rival city ; and the continuance of the India trade quickly restored the queen of cities to all her former degrees of preeminence and power. Alexander the Great conquered her again. He was a statesman, and knew how to build up, as well as how to pull down, and looked to THE GREAT WEST. 891 commerce for exalting and enriching that magnificent empire which his war genius was conquering. He founded a rival city on the coast of Egypt, better adapted to the trade ; and the prophecy of Ezekiel became fulfilled on Tyre ! She became a place for fishermen to dry their nets. II. The Jewish Route. — In the time of Solomon and David, the Jews succeeded to the East India trade, made it a leading subject of their pol- icy, and became rich and powerful upon it. Jerusalem rivalled Nineveh and Babylon ; and Palmyra, a mere thoroughfare in their trade, in the midst of a desert, became the seat of power and opulence, of Oriental magnificence, and the centre of the arts and sciences. The Jews lost that trade, and Jerusalem became as a widow in the wilderness, and Palmyra a den for foxes and Arabs. III. The Alexandrian Route. — This was opened by Alexander the Great — its course along the canal of Alexandria to the Nile — np that river to Coptus — thence across the desert with camels to the Red Sea — and down that sea to the neighboring coasts of Asia and Africa — a route chosen with so much judgment that it made Alexandria and Egypt the seats of wealth, power, learning, the arts and sciences ; and continued to be the channel of trade for a period of 1800 years — from 300 vears before Christ to the close of the fifteenth century — when the Portuguese discovery of the passage by the Cape of Good Hope annihilated the Egyptian route, and transferred to Lisbon the glories of Alexandria. But not without a great contest. Solyman the Magnificent, then Sultan of the Turkish empire, fought the Portuguese for the dominion of routes — carried on long and bloody wars to break up the Cape of Good Hope route, assisted by the Venetians, because of their interest in the Egyptian route, and menacing Christendom (this alliance of Christian and Sara- cen against Christians, according to the Abbe Raynal, indorsed by the philosophic historian Robertson) with the “ most illiberal and humiliat- ing servitude that ever oppressed polished nations.” From this calamity Christendom was saved by the valor of the Portuguese, and the talents of their renowned commander, Albuquerque ; but the contest shows the value which all nations placed on the possession of this trade ; and the reversed conditions of Alexandria and Lisbon — of Egypt and Portugal — upon the defeat of the Turks and Venetians, shows that that value was not over-estimated. IV. The Constantinopolitan Route. — This became fully established in the time of the Greek empire, and during the 200 years of the Crusade irruptions ; and to which the enlightened part of the Crusaders greatly contributed. For, while a religious frenzy operated upon the masses, the extension of their trade with India was the systematic, persevering, and successful policy of all liberal and enlightened minds, availing themselves of that frenzy to promote and establish the commerce upon the posses- sion of which the supremacy of nations depended. It was fully estab- lished ; and the long and tedious transit across the Black Sea to the mouth of the Phases, up that river to a portage of five days to the Cyrus, down that river to the Caspian Sea, across it to the mouth of the Oxus, up it 900 miles to Samarcand, (once Alexandria.) the limit of Alexander’s march to the north-east ; and after this long travel, an overland journey of 1)0 clays on the Bactrian camel, to the confines of China, commenced. Such was this extended route. Yet it was upon this route, so extended and perilous, that Europe was supplied with East India goods for several ' 392 THE GARDEN OF THE WORLD, OR centuries — the profits of the trade being so great that after its arrival at Constantinople, it could still come on to Italy, and even round to Bruges (Brussels) and to Antwerp. It was upon this route that the Genoese established their great commerce, gaining permanent establishments, with great privileges, at Constantinople, (its suburb Peru,) and in that Crimea, then resplendent with wealth, since impoverished, now the scene of bloody strife ; and of which the issue would be fortunate, if it restored the Crimea to what it was when Caffa was as celebrated as Sebastopol is now, and celebrated for streams of commerce instead of streams of blood. But to this route of Constantinople the Cape of Good Hope passage be- came as fatal as it was to that of Alexandria. V. The Ocean Route. — It has been the line of the East India trade since the close of the fifteenth century, and must have continued to be so forever, if a marvel had not been wrought, and the land become the facil- ity — the ocean the obstacle — to commerce. All the powers that have land for distant communications must now betake themselves to the steam car. Why contend with ships for the dominion of the sea, when both the ships and the sea are to be superseded 'i Take the case of Rus- sia. She has been 1 50 years building up a navy — to become useless the first day it was wanted. Not only useless, but an encumbrance and a burden — requiring impregnable forts, and vast armies, and murderous battles to protect and to save it — save it from going to swell the enemy’s fleet, and be turned against its builders. Why build any more ships when there is the land to carry commerce, without protection, to every part of Europe, and to Asia, and to America, (by Behring’s Straits,) ren- dering fleets inoperative and harmless 1 But I confine myself to our own commerce and our own land. There is the road to India, (pointing west,) half the way upon our own land, and the rest on a peaceable sea, washing our shores, but separated from Europe by the whole diameter of the earth. Can we not cease wrangling over an odious subject of domestic contention, and go to work upon the road which is to exalt us to the highest rank among nations, and make us mistress of the richest gem in the diadem of commerce ? Can we not cease contention, and seize the supreme prize which lies glittering before us ? Make the road ! and in its making, make our America the thoroughfare of Oriental com- merce — throw back the Cape and the Horn routes to what Tyre became when Alexandria was founded, and what Alexandria became when the Cape of Good Hope was doubled — making Europe submissive and tributary to us for a transit upon our route, and dispensing us from the maintenance of the fleets which the ocean commerce demands for its protection 1 Pass the substitute which I propose, and you have the opinion of men whose names are in it, and whose opinions are worth attention, that these great and glorious consequences will ensue. THE GREAT WEST. 393 ROUTES TO THE WEST TOR THE EMIGRANT AND THE TOURIST. GREAT WESTERN RAILROAD ROUTE. Among the different routes from Boston to the Western States, the shortest, most direct, and popular railroad route is via Worcester, Spring- field, Albany, and Rochester. At Rochester is a diverging point, one going via Buffalo and along the southern shore of Lake Erie to Cleveland, where there are numerous railroads running into the interior of the States of Ohio and Indiana. Also, a route extending on from Cleveland to Toledo, and thence over the Michigan, Southern, and Northern Indiana Railroads to Chicago, where it connects with the different railroads run- ning into Illinois and Iowa. The other route goes from Rochester to Suspension Bridge, and thence by the Great Western Railway to Detroit, thence via the Michigan Central Railroad to Chicago, where it connects with railroads running to Galena, Dubuque, Rock Island, Burlington, Peoria, Springfield, and St. Louis. There is but little difference in these two routes in point of time, although the one via Suspension Bridge and Detroit is a few miles the shortest. The price of tickets to Chicago, and points west of Chicago, are the same by either route. Table of Distances from Boston to the various Points in the Great West, via Worcester, and Western, and New York Central Railroads. Distance from Boston to Albany, 200 Albany to Buffalo, 300 >500 Buffalo to Cleveland, 180 680 Cleveland to Toledo, 112 792 Toledo to Chicago, 213 1035 Via Worcester, and Western, and New York Central Railroad. Distance from Boston to Albany, 200 Albany to Niagara Falls, 300 500 Niagara Falls to Detroit, 229 729 Detroit to Chicago, 282 1011 Chicago to St. Louis, 260 “ Burlington, 210 “ Rock Island, 182 “ Fulton City, 136 “ Galena, 171 “ Milwaukie, 85 Distance from Boston to Cleveland 680 Cleveland to Cincinnati via Columbus, .... 255 935 “ “ via Dayton, 273 953 “ Indianapolis, 280 960 “ Terre Haute, 353 1033 “ St. Louis via Indianapolis, .... 558 1238 394 THE GARDEN OP THE WORLD, OR Table showing the comparative Distance from Boston to Buffalo be- tween the different Routes. From Boston to Buffalo via Wor., and Western, andN. Y. C. RR. 500 “ “ “ Fitchburg and Rutland, 568 “ “ “ New Aork and N. Y. & Erie RR. . . . 654 Thus it -will be seen that the route via Worcester, and Western, and New York Central Railroads is sixty-eight miles shorter than that via Fitchburg and Rutland, and one hundred and fifty-four miles shorter than via New York City. By the Worcester and Western route, baggage is checked through from Boston to Buffalo or Suspension Bridge, thus saving the passenger trouble and expense, and is not chocked through to those points by any other route. The running time is so arranged as to form a continuous line, and the usual time from Boston to Chicago is forty-eight hours ; from Boston to Cincinnati thirty-six hours. This is the only line in Boston via Worcester and Western Railroad where passengers can have their choice of all the lines west of Albany and Buffalo. Through tickets for sale at 19 State Street, or Ticket Office Boston and Worcester Railroad, Albany Street. FAKES. 1ST CLASS. EMIGRANT. To St. Louis, Mo $29.50 $13.00 To Milwaukie, Wis. 26.40 13.77 To Chicago, 111 24.00 12.00 To Cincinnati, 0 20.50 ...... 1 1.00 These rates are subject to changes. We give them merely to present some idea of the expense. ROUTE TO THE WEST YIA FITCHBURG, CHESHIRE, RUT- LAND AND BURLINGTON RAILROADS. From Boston to Fitchburg via Fitchburg Railroad, from Fitchburg to Bellows Falls via Cheshire Railroad, from Bellows Falls to Rutland via Rutland and Burlington Railroad, thence to connect with New York Central Railroad from Rutland to Schenectady via Saratoga, or to Troy, New York, via North Bennington, or to Albany via Eagle Bridge, and from Schenectady, Troy, or Albany, west, via New York Central Rail- road, or from Bellows Falls to Burlington via Rutland and Burlington or Vermont Central Railroad, thence to Ogdensburg and west. The prices of tickets west, as well as freight, are as low as by any other route. The present prices to Albany are, for freight, 1st class 35c., 2d class 30c., and 3d class 25c. per 100 pounds ; and for tickets, 1st class $5.00, emigrant $3.00. The prices west are subject to changes by various routes, classes, &c., and cannot be given for any definite period. The price of tickets from Albany to Suspension Bridge or Buffalo is, 1st class $6.00, emigrant $3.00. ROUTE FROM NEW YORK TO ST. LOUIS. From New York via the Hudson River Railroad to Albany, Central THE GREAT WEST. 395 Southern Michigan, by steamboat, and Chicago and Mississippi Railroad. Fare to St. Louis, $26. AVhole distance, 1693 miles. From New York via the Hudson River Railroad, Michigan Central Railroad, and steamboat, and Chicago and Mississippi Railroad. Fare to St. Louis, $26. Whole distance, 1760 miles. From New York Ha the Hudson River steamboats, New York Central Railroad, Great Western Railroad, Michigan Central Railroad, and Chi- cago and Mississippi Railroad. Fare to St. Louis, $28. AVhole distance. 1736 miles. The several railroad lines from New England and New York pass chil- dren under five years of age free, and charge half price for those from five to twelve years old. On steamers, those under four years go free. Each grown person is allowed to carry baggage free not exceeding one hundred pounds. The novice who travels on western steamboats should know that it is the custom to include the right to boarding and state room in the charge for passage ; and from the time the name is registered and fare paid, though the boat should be detained at the levee several days, the passen- ger is entitled to meals and lodging. The frequency of bell-ringing, and uncertainty as to the hour of starting, render it judicious to five on board. The conveniences are as many, and table as good, as may be found in an ordinary hotel. ROUTES FROM THE PRINCIPAL PLACES IN NORTHERN NEAV ENGLAND TO THE AVEST. For the convenience of our friends in Maine, New Hampshire, and A r ermont, who are not conversant with their railroad facilities, we have carefully compiled the following tables, shoving the different routes from the largest towns in their respective states. Persons residing in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut will readily perceive that we have already given all the necessary information, for those desiring to emigrate from their states, on the preceding pages. Portland, Me. — By railroad or boat to Boston, and thence by various routes, or by cars, to Montreal and Broekville, C. AV., and thence by steamboats to Toronto or Lewiston. In the fall a line of' railroad will be opened from Broekville to Toronto, forming a direct route from Portland to Chicago, &c. From Toronto via Collingv r ood by cars, and thence by steamer to all ports on Lake Michigan ; or by way of Detroit by railroad. Portsmouth, N. IT. — By cars to Boston, or by railroad through Con- cord, N. H., to Ogdensburgh, N. Y., and thence by boats to Toronto or Lewiston, and thence by routes from Suspension Bridge or Buffalo. Nashua, N. H. — Via AVorcester and Albany ; via Groton Junction and Rutland to Albany ; or via Concord and Ogdensburgh. Concord, N. H. — By cars to Ogdensburgh, N. Y., and thence by steamboat to Toronto or Lewiston ; via Nashua, and Worcester, and Al- bany ; or via Nashua, Groton Junction, and Rutland, and Schenectady ; or via Boston. St. Johnshury, Vt. — Via AVhite River J unction and Ogdensburgh ; or via Bellow'S Falls, and Rutland, and Albany; or via Springfield and Albany. Littleton, N. II. — Via Wells River, and same as St. Johnsbury. 896 THE GREAT WEST. Plymouth, N. H . — Via Concord. (See Concord.) Burlington, Vt. — Yia Ogdensburgh or by steamboat to W hitehall, and thence by cars to Albany or Troy ; or by railroad to Hutland and lroy, or Albany. Northfield, Vt. — To Ogdensburgh, or via Burlington. Waterbury and Montpelier. — The same as Burlington. PASSENGER AND EXPRESS ROUTE POR CALIFORNIA. There are, it is well known to the public, two passenger and express routes from the Atlantic States to California . one, the old established mail route via the Isthmus of Panama, called the “ United States and Pacific Mail Steamship Company,” the other the “Nicaragua Steamship and Accessory Transit Company,” via the Isthmus of Nicaragua. This last is somewhat the shortest route, but owing to the unsettled state of the country through which it passes in crossing from ocean to ocean, it cannot be depended upon as a safe or speedy means of transit at the present time. The route via Panama, on the contrary, may be counted on with certainty as being always safe, speedy, and reliable ; and the pas- senger or fa mil y securing ticket by this line can reckon the time within a few° hours that will land him at his place of destination. No greater evidence of the reliability of this line need be adduced than the fact that the well-known express of Adams & Co., from the time of the gold discovery'' in California until their withdrawal from the California business, has always been transported by the United States and Pacific Mail Line via Panama route, and that their successors to the California Express, Messrs. Freeman. § Co., still continue to send the bulk of their express freight, gold dust, and valuable packages by that same route. The steamers of the United States Mail Steamship Company leave New York regularly on the 5th and 20th of every month (except when those dates fall on Sunday, when they leave the day following) for Aspin- wall, Navy Bay, direct, and perform the trip in about 8£ days, distance 2000 miles. As soon as the passengers, baggage, mails, and express matter can be landed, they are received by the new and comfortable cars of the Panama Railroad Company, and after a pleasant ride oi 5 or 6 hours across the Isthmus, the old Spanish city of Panama is reached, and passengers, baggage, mails, express, &c., are at once transferred, to the new iron barges of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company, and in a few minutes are safely embarked on board one of their splendid floating palaces lying always ready in the harbor, and are steaming away up the coast of the beautiful Pacific tow'ards San Prancisco, (a distance of some 4000 miles,) where they arrive in about 13 days, generally refreshed and improved by the voyage. The price of passage by this line is as follows, viz. : — Deck State Room Berths, $300 Upper Saloon “ 275 Lower Saloon “ 225 Second Cabin “ 175 Upper Steerage “ 125 Lower Steerage “ 1®® Tickets for sale at 59 Broadway, New York, and 84 Washington Street, Boston.