Diary in America, Series One

Volume Two—Chapter Three

Once more on board of the Michigan, one of the best vessels on Lake Erie; as usual, full of emigrants, chiefly Irish. It is impossible not to feel compassion for these poor people, wearied as they are with confinement and suffering, and yet they do compose occasionally about as laughable a group as can well be conceived. In the first place, they bring out with them from Ireland, articles which no other people would consider worth the carriage. I saw one Irish woman who had old tin tea pots; there was but one spout among the whole, and I believe not one bottom really sound and good. And then their costumes, more particularly the fitting out of the children, who are not troubled with any extra supply of clothes at any time! I have witnessed the seat of an old pair of corduroy trowsers transformed into a sort of bonnet for a laughing fair-haired girl. But what amused me more was the very reverse of this arrangement; a boy’s father had just put a patch upon the hinder part of his son’s trousers; and cloth not being at hand, he had, as an expedient for stopping the gap, inserted a piece of an old straw bonnet; in so doing he had not taken the precaution to put the smooth side of the plait inwards, and, in consequence, young Teddy when he first sat down felt rather uncomfortable. “What’s the matter wid ye, Teddy; what makes ye wriggle about in that way? Sit aisy, man; sure enough, havn’t ye a strait-bottomed chair to sit down upon all the rest of your journey, which is more than your father ever had before you?” And then their turning in for the night! A single bed will contain one adult and four little ones at one end, and another adult and two half-grown at the other. But they are all packed away so snug and close, and not one venturing to move, there appears to be room for all.

We stopped half an hour at Mackinaw to take in wood, and then started for Green Bay, in the Wisconsin territory. Green Bay is a military station; it is a pretty little place, with soil as rich as garden mould. The Fox river debouches here, but the navigation is checked a few miles above the town by the rapids, which have been dammed up into a water power; yet there is no doubt that as soon as the whole of the Wisconsin lands are offered for sale by the American Government, the river will be made navigable up to its meeting with the Wisconsin, which falls into the Mississippi. There is only a portage of a mile and a half between the two, through which a canal will be cut, and then there will be another junction between the lakes and the Far West. It was my original intention to have taken the usual route by Chicago and Galena to St. Louis, but I fell in with Major F—, with whom I had been previously acquainted, who informed me that he was about to send a detachment of troops from Green Bay to Fort Winnebago, across Wisconsin territory. As this afforded me an opportunity of seeing the country, which seldom occurs, I availed myself of an offer to join the party. The detachment consisted of about one hundred recruits, nearly the whole of them Canada patriots, as they are usually called, who, having failed in taking the provinces from John Bull, were fain to accept the shilling from uncle Sam.

Major F— accompanied us to pay the troops at the fort, and we therefore had five waggons with us, loaded with a considerable quantity of bread and pork, and not quite so large a proportion of specie, the latter not having as yet become plentiful again in the United States. We set off, and marched fifteen miles in about half a day, passing through the settlement Des Peres, which is situated at the rapids of the Fox river. Formerly they were called the Rapids des Peres, from a Jesuit college which had been established there by the French. Our course lay along the banks of the Fox river, a beautiful swift stream pouring down between high ridges, covered with fine oak timber.

The American Government have disposed of all the land on the banks of this river and the Lake Winnebago, and consequently it is well settled; but the Winnebago territory in Wisconsin, lately purchased of the Winnebago Indians, and comprising all the prairie land and rich mineral country from Galena to Mineral Point, is not yet offered for sale: when it is, it will be eagerly purchased; and the American Government, as it only paid the Indians at the rate of one cent and a fraction per acre, will make an enormous profit by the speculation. Well may the Indians be said, like Esau, to part with their birthright for a mess of pottage; but, in truth, they are compelled to sell—the purchase-money being a mere subterfuge, by which it may appear as if their lands were not wrested from them, although, in fact, it is.

On the second day we continued our march along the banks of the Fox river, which, as we advanced, continued to be well settled, and would have been more so, if some of the best land had not fallen, as usual, into the hands of speculators, who, aware of its value, hold out that they may obtain a high price for it. The country through which we passed was undulating, consisting of a succession of ridges, covered with oaks of a large size, but not growing close as in a forest; you could gallop your horse through any part of it. The tracks of deer were frequent, but we saw but one herd of fifteen, and that was at a distance. We now left the banks of the river, and cut across the country to Fond du Lac, at the bottom of Lake Winnebago, of which we had had already an occasional glimpse through the openings of the forest. The deer were too wild to allow of our getting near them; so I was obliged to content myself with shooting wood pigeons, which were very plentiful.

On the night of the third day we encamped upon a very high ridge; as usual studded with oak trees. The term used here to distinguish this variety of timber land from the impervious woods is oak openings. I never saw a more beautiful view than that which was afforded us from our encampment. From the high ground upon which our tents were pitched, we looked down to the left, upon a prairie flat and level as a billiard-table, extending, as far as the eye could scan, one rich surface of unrivalled green. To the right the prairie gradually changed to oak openings, and then to a thick forest, the topmost boughs and heads of which were level with our tents. Beyond them was the whole broad expanse of the Winnebago lake, smooth and reflecting like a mirror the brilliant tints of the setting sun, which disappeared, leaving a portion of his glory behind him; while the moon in her ascent, with the dark portion of her disk as clearly defined as that which was lighted, gradually increased in brilliancy, and the stars twinkled in the clear sky. We watched the features of the landscape gradually fading from our sight, until nothing was left but broad masses partially lighted up by the young moon.

Nor was the foreground less picturesque: the spreading oaks, the tents of the soldiers, the waggons drawn up with the horses tethered, all lighted up by the blaze of our large fires. Now, when I say our large fires, I mean the large fires of America, consisting of three or four oak trees, containing a load of wood each, besides many large boughs and branches, altogether forming a fire some twenty or thirty feet long, with flames flickering up twice as high as one’s head. At a certain distance from this blazing pile you may perceive what in another situation would be considered as a large coffee-pot (before this huge fire it makes a very diminutive appearance). It is placed over some embers drawn out from the mass, which would have soon burnt up coffee-pot and coffee all together; and at a still more respectful distance you may perceive small rods, not above four or five feet long, bifurcated at the smaller end, and fixed by the larger in the ground, so as to hang towards the huge fire, at an angle of forty degrees, like so many tiny fishing-rods. These rods have at their bifurcated ends a piece of pork or ham, or of bread, or perhaps of venison, for we bought some, not having shot any: they are all private property, as each party cooks for himself. Seeing these rods at some distance, you might almost imagine that they were the fishing-rods of little imps bobbing for salamanders in the fiery furnace.

In the mean time, while the meat is cooking and the coffee is boiling, the brandy and whisky are severely taxed, as we lie upon our cloaks and buffalo skins at the front of our tents. There certainly is a charm in this wild sort of life, which wins upon people the more they practise it; nor can it be wondered at: our wants are in reality so few and so easily satisfied, without the restraint of form and ceremony. How often, in my wanderings, have I felt the truth of Shakespeare’s lines in “As You Like It.”

On the fourth day we descended, crossed the wide prairie, and arrived at the Fond du Lac, where we again fell in with the Fox river, which runs through the Winnebago lake. The roads through the forests had been very bad, and the men and horses showed signs of fatigue; but we had now passed through all the thickly wooded country, and had entered into the prairie country, extending to Fort Winnebago, and which was beautiful beyond concoction. Its features alone can be described; but its effects can only be felt by being seen. The prairies here are not very large, seldom being above six or seven miles in length or breadth; generally speaking, they lie in gentle undulating flats, and the ridges and hills between them are composed of oak openings. To form an idea of these oak openings, imagine an inland country covered with splendid trees, about as thickly planted as in our English parks; in fact, it is English park scenery, Nature having here spontaneously produced what it has been the care and labour of centuries in our own country to effect. Sometimes the prairie will rise and extend along the hills, and assume an undulating appearance, like the long swell of the ocean; it is then called rolling prairie.

Often, when I looked down upon some fifteen or twenty thousand acres of these prairies, full of rich grass, without one animal, tame or wild, to be seen, I would fancy what thousands of cattle will, in a few years, be luxuriating in those pastures, which, since the herds of buffalo have retreated from them, are now useless, and throwing up each year a fresh crop, to seed and to die unheeded.

On our way we had fallen in with a young Frenchman, who had purchased some land at Fond du Lac, and was proceeding there in company with an American, whom he had hired to settle on it. I now parted company with him; he had gone out with me in my shooting excursions, and talked of nothing but his purchase: it had water; it had a waterfall; it had, in fact, everything that he could desire; but he thought that, after two years, he would go home and get a wife: a Paradise without an Eve would be no Paradise at all.

The price of labour is, as may be supposed, very high in this part of the country. Hiring by the year, you find a man in food, board, and washing, and pay him three hundred dollars per annum (about 70 pounds English.)

The last night that we bivouacked out was the only unfortunate one. We had been all comfortably settled for the night, and fast asleep, when a sudden storm came on, accompanied with such torrents of rain as would have washed us out of our tents, if they had not been already blown down by the violence of the gale. Had we had any warning, we should have provided against it; as it was, we made up huge fires, which defied the rain; and thus we remained till day-light, the rain pouring on us, while the heat of the fire drying us almost as fast as we got wet, each man threw up a column of steam from his still saturating and still heated garments. Every night we encamped where there was a run of water, and plenty of dead timber for our fires; and thus did we go on, emptying our waggons daily of the bread and pork, and filling up the vacancies left by the removal of the empty casks with the sick and lame, until at last we arrived at Fort Winnebago.

Volume Two—Chapter Four

We had not to arrive at the fort to receive a welcome, for when we were still distant about seven miles, the officers of the garrison, who had notice of our coming, made their appearance on horseback, bringing a britchska and grey horses for our accommodation. Those who were not on duty (and I was one) accepted the invitation, and we drove in upon a road which, indeed, for the last thirty miles, had been as level as the best in England. The carriage was followed by pointers, hounds, and a variety of dogs, who were off duty like ourselves, and who appeared quite as much delighted with their run as we were tired with ours. The medical officer attached to the fort, an old friend and correspondent of Mr Lee of Philadelphia, received me with all kindness, and immediately installed me into one of the rooms in the hospital.

Fort Winnebago is situated between the Fox and Wisconsin rivers at the portage, the two rivers being about a mile and a-half apart; the Fox river running east, and giving its waters to Lake Michigan at Green Bay, while the Wisconsin turns to the west, and runs into the Mississippi at Prairie du Chien. The fort is merely a square of barracks, connected together with palisades, to protect it from the Indians; and it is hardly sufficiently strong for even that purpose. It is beautifully situated, and when the country fills up will become a place of importance. Most of the officers are unmarried, and live a very quiet, and secluded, but not unpleasant life. I stayed there two days, much pleased with the society and the kindness shown to me; but an opportunity of descending the Wisconsin to Prairie du Chien, in a keel-boat, having presented itself, I availed myself of an invitation to join the party, instead of proceeding by land to Galena, as had been my original intention.

The boat had been towed up the Wisconsin with a cargo of flour for the garrison; and a portion of the officers having been ordered down to Prairie du Chien, they had obtained this large boat to transport themselves, families, furniture, and horses, all at once, down to their destination. The boat was about one hundred and twenty feet long, covered in to the height of six feet above the gunnel, and very much in appearance like the Noah’s Ark given to children, excepting that the roof was flat. It was an unwieldy craft, and, to manage it, it required at least twenty-five men with poles and long sweeps; but the army gentlemen had decided that, as we were to go down with the stream, six men with short oars would be sufficient—a very great mistake. In every other respect she was badly found, as we term it at sea, having but one old piece of rope to hang on with, and one axe. Our freight consisted of furniture stowed forward and aft, with a horse and cow. In a cabin in the centre we had a lady and five children, one maid and two officers. Our crew was composed of six soldiers, a servant, and a French half bred to pilot us down the river. All Winnebago came out to see us start; and as soon as the rope was cast off, away we went down with the strong current at the rate of five miles an hour. The river passed through forests of oak, the large limbs of which hung from fifteen to twenty feet over the banks on each side; sometimes whole trees lay prostrate in the stream, held by their roots still partially remaining in the ground, while their trunks and branches offering resistance to the swift current, created a succession of small masses of froth, which floated away on the dark green water.

We had not proceeded far, before we found that it was impossible to manage such a large and cumbrous vessel with our few hands; we were almost at the mercy of the current, which appeared to increase in rapidity every minute; however, by exertion and good management, we contrived to keep in the middle of the stream until the wind sprung up and drove us on to the southern bank of the river, and then all was cracking and tearing away of the wood-work, breaking of limbs from the projecting trees, the snapping, cracking, screaming, hallooing, and confusion. As fast as we cleared ourselves of one tree, the current bore us down upon another; as soon as we were clear above water, we were foul and entangled below. It was a pretty general average; but, what was worse than all a snag had intercepted and unshipped our rudder, and we were floating away from it, as it still remained fixed upon the sunken tree. We had no boat with us, not oven a dug-out—(a canoe made out of the trunk of a tree)—so one of the men climbed on shore by the limbs of an oak, and went back to disengage it. He did so, but not being able to resist the force of the stream, down he and the rudder came together—his only chance of salvation being that of our catching him as he came past us. This we fortunately succeeded in effecting; and then hanging on by our old piece of rope to the banks of the river, after an hour’s delay we contrived to re-ship our rudder, and proceeded on our voyage, which was a continuation of the same eventful history. Every half hour we found ourselves wedged in between the spreading limbs of the oaks, and were obliged to have recourse to the axe to clear ourselves: and on every occasion we lost a further portion of the frame-work of our boat, either from the roof, the sides, or by the tearing away of the stancheons themselves.

A little before sunset, we were again swept on to the bank with such force as to draw the pintles of our rudder. This finished us for the day: before it could be replaced, it was time to make fast for the night; so there we lay, holding by our rotten piece of rope, which cracked and strained to such a degree, as inclined us to speculate upon where we might find ourselves in the morning. However, we could not help ourselves, so we landed, made a large fire, and cooked our victuals; not, however, venturing to wander away far, on account of the rattle-snakes, which here abounded. Perhaps there is no portion of America in which the rattle-snakes are so large and so numerous as in Wisconsin. There are two varieties: the black rattle-snake, that frequents marshy spots, and renders it rather dangerous to shoot snipes and ducks; and the yellow, which takes up its abode in the rocks and dry places. Dr F— told me that he had killed, inside of the fort Winnebago, one of the latter species, between seven and eight feet long. The rattle-snake, although its poison is so fatal, is in fact not a very dangerous animal, and people are seldom bitten by it. This arises from two causes: first, that it invariably gives you notice of its presence by its rattle; and secondly, that it always coils itself up like a watch-spring before it strikes, and then darts forward only about its own length. Where they are common, the people generally carry with them a vial of ammonia, which, if instantly applied to the bite, will at least prevent death. The copper-head is a snake of a much more dangerous nature, from its giving no warning, and its poison being equally active.

This river has been very appropriately named by the Indians the ‘Stream of the Thousand Isles,’ as it is studded with them; indeed, every quarter of a mile you find one or two in its channel. The scenery is fine, as the river runs through high ridges, covered with oak to their summits; sometimes these ridges are backed by higher cliffs and mountains, which halfway up are of a verdant green, and above that present horizontal strata of calcareous rock of rich grey tints, having, at a distance, very much the appearance of the dilapidated castles on the Rhine.

The scenery, though not so grand as the highlands of the Hudson, is more diversified and beautiful. The river was very full, and the current occasionally so rapid, as to leave a foam as it swept by any projecting point. We had, now that the river widened, sand banks to contend with, which required all the exertions of our insufficient crew.

On the second morning, I was very much annoyed at our having left without providing ourselves with a boat, for at the grey of dawn, we discovered that some deer had taken the river close to us, and were in midstream. Had we had a boat, we might have procured a good supply of venison. We cast off again and resumed our voyage; and without any serious accident we arrived at the shot-tower, where we remained for the night. Finding a shot-tower in such a lone wilderness as this, gives you some idea of the enterprise of the Americans; but the Galena, or lead district, commences here, on the south bank of the Wisconsin. The smelting is carried on about twelve miles inland, and the lead is brought here, made into shot, and then sent down the river to the Mississippi, by which, and its tributary streams, it is supplied to all America, west of the Alleghanies. The people were all at work when we arrived. The general distress had even affected the demand for shot, which was now considerably reduced.

On the third day we had the good fortune to have no wind, and consequently made rapid progress, without much further damage. We passed a small settlement called the English prairie—for the prairies were now occasionally mixed up with the mountain scenery. Here there was a smelting-house and a steam saw-mill.

The diggings, as they term the places where the lead is found (for they do not mine, but dig down from the surface,) were about sixteen miles distant. We continued our course for about twenty miles lower down, when we wound up our day’s work by getting into a more serious fix among the trees, and eventually losing our only axe, which fell overboard into deep water. All Noah’s Ark was in dismay, for we did not know what might happen, or what the next day might bring forth. Fortunately, it was not necessary to cut wood for firing. During the whole of this trip I was much amused with our pilot, who, fully aware of the dangers of the river, was also equally conscious that there were not sufficient means on board to avoid them; when, therefore, we were set upon a sand-bank, or pressed by the wind on the sunken trees, he always whistled; that was all he could do, and in proportion as the danger became more imminent, so did he whistle the louder, until the affair was decided by a bump or a crash, and then he was silent.

On the ensuing day we had nothing but misfortunes. We were continually twisted and twirled about, sometimes with our bows, sometimes with our stern foremost, and as often with our broadside to the stream. We were whirled against one bank, and, as soon as we were clear of that we were thrown upon the other. Having no axe to cut away, we were obliged to use our hands. Again our rudder was unshipped, and with great difficulty replaced. By this time we had lost nearly the half of the upper works of the boat, one portion after another having been torn off by the limbs of the trees as the impetuous current drove us along. To add to our difficulties, a strong wind rose against the current, and the boat became quite unmanageable. About noon, when we had gained only seven miles, the wind abated, and two Menonnomie Indians, in a dug-out, came alongside of us; and as it was doubtful whether we should arrive at the mouth of the river on that night, or be left upon a sand-bank, I got into the canoe with them, to go down to the landing-place, and from thence to cross over to Prairie du Chien, to inform the officers of the garrison of our condition, and obtain assistance. The canoe would exactly hold three, and no more; but we paddled swiftly down the stream, and we soon lost sight of the Noah’s Ark. Independently of the canoe being so small, she had lost a large portion of her stem, so that at the least ripple of the water she took it in, and threatened us with a swim; and she was so very narrow, that the least motion would have destroyed her equilibrium and upset her. One Indian sat in the bow, the other in the stern, whilst I was doubled up in the middle. We had given the Indians some bread and pork, and after paddling about half an hour, they stopped to eat. Now, the Indian at the bow had the pork, while the one at the stern had the bread; any attempt to move, so as to hand the eatables to each other, must have upset us; so this was their plan of communication:– The one in the bow cut off a slice of pork, and putting it into the lid of a saucepan which he had with him, and floating it alongside of the canoe, gave it a sufficient momentum to make it swim to the stern, when the other took possession of it. He in the stern then cut off a piece of bread, and sent it back in return by the same conveyance. I had a flask of whisky, but they would not trust that by the same perilous little conveyance; so I had to lean forward very steadily, and hand it to the foremost, and, when he returned it to me, to lean backwards to give it the other, with whom it remained till we landed, for I could not regain it. After about an hour’s more paddling, we arrived safely at the landing-place. I had some trouble to get a horse, and was obliged to go out to the fields where the men were ploughing. In doing so, I passed two or three very large snakes. At last I was mounted somehow, but without stirrups, and set off for Prairie du Chien. After riding about four miles, I had passed the mountain, and I suddenly came upon the prairie (on which were feeding several herd of cattle and horses), with the fort in the distance, and the wide waters of the Upper Mississippi flowing beyond it. I crossed the prairie, found my way into the fort, stated the situation of our party, and requested assistance. This was immediately dispatched, but on their arrival at the landing-place, they found that the keel-boat had arrived at the ferry without further difficulty. Before sunset the carriages returned with the whole party, who were comfortably accommodated in the barracks—a sufficient number of men being left with the boat to bring it round to the Mississippi, a distance of about twelve miles.