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Exploratory Expedition to the Sources of the Mississippi
River, in 1820, by Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
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Title: Summary Narrative of an Exploratory Expedition to
the Sources of the Mississippi River, in 1820
Resumed and Completed, by the Discovery of its Origin in
Itasca Lake, in 1832
Author: Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
Release Date: September 11, 2013 [eBook #43693]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK
SUMMARY NARRATIVE OF AN EXPLORATORY
EXPEDITION TO THE SOURCES OF THE MISSISSIPPI
RIVER, IN 1820***
E-text prepared by
K Nordquist, Katie Hernandez, Hélène de Mink,
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
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Transcriber’s note:
Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the original
document have been preserved.
Obvious typographical and errors have been corrected.
The cover image has been fabricated and is placed in the
public domain.
DISCOVERY
OF THE
SOURCES OF THE
MISSISSIPPI RIVER.
SUMMARY NARRATIVE
OF AN
EXPLORATORY EXPEDITION
TO THE
SOURCES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER,
IN 1820:
RESUMED AND COMPLETED,
BY THE
DISCOVERY OF ITS ORIGIN IN ITASCA LAKE, IN
1832.
By Authority of the United States
WITH APPENDIXES,
COMPRISING THE
ORIGINAL REPORT ON THE COPPER MINES OF LAKE SUPERIOR, AND OBSERVATIONS
ON THE GEOLOGY OF THE LAKE BASINS, AND THE SUMMIT OF THE MISSISSIPPI;
TOGETHER WITH ALL THE OFFICIAL REPORTS AND SCIENTIFIC PAPERS OF BOTH
EXPEDITIONS.
BY HENRY R. SCHOOLCRAFT.
PHILADELPHIA:
LIPPINCOTT, GRAMBO, AND CO.
1855.
Entered according to the Act of Congress in the year 1854, by
LIPPINCOTT, GRAMBO, AND CO.,
in the Office of the Clerk of the District Court of the United States, in and for
the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
[ORIGINAL DEDICATION.]
TO THE
H O N . J O H N C . C A L H O U N ,
SECRETARY OF WAR.
SIR : Allow me to inscribe to you the following
Journals, as an illustration of my several reports on
the mineral geography of the regions visited by the
recent Expedition under Governor Cass.
I beg you will consider it, not only as a proof of
my anxiety to be serviceable in the station
occupied, but also as a tribute of individual respect
for those exertions which have been made, during
your administration of the War Department, to
develop the physical character and resources of all
parts of our Western country; for the patronage it
has extended to the cause of geographical science;
for the protection it has afforded to a very
extensive line of frontier settlements by stretching
a cordon of military posts around them; and for the
notice it has bestowed on one of the humblest
cultivators of natural science.
HENRY R. SCHOOLCRAFT.
ALBANY, 1821.
PREFACE.
The following pages embrace the substance of the
narratives of two distinct expeditions for the discovery of
the sources of the Mississippi River, under the authority of
the United States. By connecting the incidents of discovery,
and of the facts brought to light during a period of twelve
years, unity is preserved in the prosecution of an object of
considerable importance in the progress of our geography
and natural history, at least, from the new impulse which
they received after the treaty of Ghent.
Geographers deem that branch of a river as its true source
which originates at the remotest distance from its mouth,
and, agreeably to this definition, the combined narratives,
to which attention is now called, show this celebrated
stream to arise in Itasca Lake, the source of the Itasca
River.
Owing to the time which has intervened since these
expeditions were undertaken, a mere revision of the prior
narrations, in the journal form, was deemed inexpedient. A
concise summary has, therefore, been made, preserving
whatever information it was thought important to be known
or remembered, and omitting all matters not partaking of
permanent interest.
To this summary, something has been added from the
original manuscript journals in his possession. The
domestic organization and social habits of the parties may
thus be more perfectly understood. The sympathies which
bind men together in isolated or trying scenes are sources
of interest long after the link is severed, and the progress of
science or discovery has passed beyond the particular
points at which they then stood. Events pass with so much
rapidity at present, in the diffusion of our population over
regions where, but lately, the Indian was the only tenant,
that we are in danger of having but a confused record of
them, if not of losing it altogether. It is some abatement of
this fear to know that there is always a portion of the
community who take a pleasure in remembering
individuals; who have either ventured their lives, or exerted
their energies, to promote knowledge or advance discovery.
It is in this manner that, however intent an age may be in
the plans which engross it, the sober progress and
attainments of the period are counted up. An important fact
discovered in the physical geography or natural history of
the country, if it be placed on record, remains a fact added
to the permanent stores of information. A new plant, a
crystal, an insect, or the humblest invertebrate object of the
zoological chain, is as incontestable an addition to scientific
knowledge, as the finding of remains to establish a new
species of mastodon. They only differ in interest and
importance.
It is not the province of every age to produce a Linnæus, a
Buffon, or a Cuvier; but, such are the almost endless forms
of vegetable and animal life and organization—from the
infusoria upward—that not a year elapses which may not
enlarge the boundaries of science. The record of discovery
is perpetually accumulating, and filling the list of
discoverers with humbler, yet worthy names. Whoever
reads with care the scientific desiderata here offered will
find matter of description or comment which has employed
the pens of a Torrey, a Mitchell, a Cooper, a Lea, a Barnes,
a Houghton, and a Nicollet.
It is from considerations of this nature, that the author has
appended to this narrative the original observations, reports,
and descriptions made by his companions or himself, while
engaged in these exploratory journeys, together with the
determinations made on such scientific objects as were
referred to other competent hands. These investigations of
the physical geography of the West, and the phenomena or
resources of the country, constitute, indeed, by far the most
important permanent acquisitions of the scrutiny devoted to
them. They form the elements of classes of facts which will
retain their value, to men of research, when the incidents of
the explorations are forgotten, and its actors themselves
have passed to their final account.
It would have been desirable that what has here been done
should have been done at an earlier period; but it may be
sufficient to say that other objects engrossed the attention
of the author for no small part of the intervening period,
and that he could not earlier control the circumstances
which the publication demanded. After his permanent
return from the West—where so many years of his life
passed—it was his first wish to accomplish a long-
cherished desire of visiting England and the Continent, in
which America, and its manners and institutions, might be
contemplated at a distance, and compared by ocular proofs.
And, when he determined on the task of preparing this
volume, and began to look around for the companions of
his travels, to avail himself of their notes, he found most of
them had descended to the tomb. For the narrative parts,
indeed, the manuscript journals, kept with great fulness,
were still preserved; but the materials for the other division
of the work were widely scattered. Some of them remained
in the archives of the public offices to which they were
originally communicated. Other papers had been given to
the pages of scientific journals, and their reprint was
inexpedient. The rich body of topographical data, and the
elaborately drawn map of this portion of the United States,
prepared by Captain Douglass, U. S. A., which would have
been received with avidity at the time, had been in a great
measure superseded by subsequent discoveries. [1] The only
part of this officer’s observations employed in this work,
are his determinations of the geographical positions. The
latter have been extended and perfected by the subsequent
observations of Mr. Nicollet. At every point, there have
been difficulties to overcome. He has been strenuous to
award justice to his deceased companions, to whose
memory he is attached by the ties of sympathy and former
association. If more time has elapsed in preparing the work
than was anticipated, it is owing to the nature of it; and he
can only say that still more time and attention would be
required to do justice to it.
A word may be added respecting the period of these
explorations. The year 1820 marked a time of much activity
in geographical discovery in the United States. The treaty
of Ghent, a few years before, had relieved the frontiers
from a most sanguinary Indian war. This event enlarged the
region for settlement, and created an intense desire for
information respecting the new countries. Government had,
indeed, at an earlier period, shown a disposition to aid and
encourage discoveries. The feeling on this subject cannot
be well understood, without allusion to the name of John
Ledyard. This intrepid traveller had accompanied Captain
Cook on his last voyage round the world. In 1786, he
presented himself to Mr. Jefferson, the American minister
at Paris, with a plan of extensive explorations. He proposed
to set out from St. Petersburg, and, passing through Russia
and Tartary to Behring’s Straits, to traverse the north
Pacific to Oregon, and thence cross the Rocky Mountains
to the Missouri Valley.[A] Mr. Jefferson communicated the
matter to the Russian plenipotentiary at Paris—and to the
Baron Grimm, the confidential agent of the Empress
Catherine—through whose influence he received the
required passports. He proceeded on this adventure, and
had reached within two hundred miles of Kamschatka,
where he was arrested, and taken back, in a close carriage,
to Moscow, and thence conducted to the frontiers of
Poland. On reaching London, the African Association
selected him to make explorations in the direction of the
Niger. Reaching Egypt, he proceeded up the Nile to Cairo,
where, having completed his preparations for entering the
interior of Africa, he sickened and died, in the month of
November, 1788.—Life of Ledyard, Sparks’s Amer. Biog.
vol. xvi.
The suggestion of Ledyard to explore Oregon became the
germ of the voyages of Lewis and Clark. It appears that, in
1792, Mr. Jefferson proposed the subject to the American
Philosophical Society at Philadelphia. [2] It is not known that
its action resulted in anything practical. After Mr. Jefferson
