Ohio History Journal

SOME EARLY TRAVELERS AND ANNALISTS OF

THE OHIO VALLEY.

In a letter to R. W. Emerson, dated July 8, 1851, Thomas

Carlyle wrote as follows: "I lately read a small old brown

French duodecimo, which I mean to send you by the first

chance there is. The writer is a Capitaine Bossu: the pro-

duction, a Journal of his experiences in 'La Louisiana,'

'Oyo' (Ohio,), and those regions, which looks very genuine,

and has a strange interest to me, like some fractional Odys-

sey or letter. Only a hundred years ago, and the Mississippi

has changed as never valley did: in 1751, older and stranger,

looked at from its present date, than Balbec or Ninevah!

Say what we will, Jonathan is doing miracles (of a sort) under

the sun in these times now passing. Do you know Bartram's

Travels?  This is of the Seventies (1770) or so; treats of

Florida chiefly, has a wondrous kind of floundering eloquence

in it; and has also grown immeasurably old. All American

libraries ought to provide themselves with that kind of book;

and keep them as a kind of future biblical article."

Writing a month later to the same appreciative corre-

spondent, the great Scotchman said: "Along with the

sheets [of the life of Sterling] was a poor little French Book

for you,-Book of a poor Naval Mississippi Frenchman, one

'Bossu' I think; written only a century ago, yet which

already seemed old as the Pyramids in reference to those

strange, fast-growing countries. I read it as a kind of de-

faced romance; very thin and lean, but all true, and very

marvelous as such."   The books1 thus strikingly character-

 

1Nouveaux Voyages aux Indes Occidentales, Contenant une Relation des

differens Peuples qui habitent les environ du grande Flevre Saint Louis,

appelle vulgairement le Mississippi; leur Religion; leur Gouvernement; leurs

Guerres, leur Commerce. Par M. Bossu, Amsterdam, 1768.

Travels through North and South Carolina, Georgia, East and West

Florida, the Cherokee Country, the Extensive Territories of the Muscogulges,

or Creek Confederacy, and the Country of the Choctaws. Plates, 8vo: By

William Bartram, London, 1792.

230

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Ohio Valley Travelers and Annalists.    231

ized by the poet-historian of Craigenputtock, while they

possess an interest to all Americans, and a certain historical

value to the whole world, are of special significance to the

student of western history, for they mark the period when

travelers and explorers began to record observations taken in

the Mississippi valley. Bossu was one of the first of the

quite numerous French travelers who visited the interior of

North America in the latter part of the Eighteenth Century

and the beginning of the Nineteenth. The Bartrams, John,

born in 1701, and William, born in 1739, were Pennsylvan-

ians, and both were eminent botanists. The volume which

so impressed Carlyle was first published in Philadelphia in

1791. Coleridge honored it with his praise, calling it a

"work of high merit every way."

Seven years before the publication of Bartram's Travels,

there was issued from the press a little volume of much his-

torical interest, and which has now become such a rare

curiosity that I here transcribe the complete title.  "The

Discovery, Settlement, and Present State of Kentucky; and

an Essay towards the Topography and Natural History of

that Important Country; By John Filson. To which is added

an Appendix containing: I. The Adventures of Col. Daniel

Boone, one of the First Settlers, comprehending every im-

portant Occurrence in the Political History of that Province.

II. The Minutes of the Piankashaw Council, held at Post St.

Vincent's, April 15, 1784. III. An Account of the Indian

Nations inhabiting within the Limits of the Thirteen United

States; their Manners and Customs; and Reflections on their

Origin. IV. The Stages and Distances between Philadel-

phia and the Falls of Ohio; from Pittsburg to Pensacola, and

several other Places. The whole illustrated by a new and

accurate Map of Kentucky, and the Country adjoining, drawn

from actual surveys. Wilmington, Printed by John Adams,

1784."

Very few copies of Filson's book and map are in existence,

and a single copy of the work has been sold for as much as

one hundred and twenty dollars. Next to nothing had been

published, or was generally known about Filson until quite

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232    Ohio Archaeological and Historical Quarterly.

recently, when Colonel R. T. Durrett gathered together the

scanty memorials of the romantic pioneer, and gave them to

the world in a small volume1 put forth by the Filson Club,

Louisville. From this volume (which contains a weird and

shadowy portrait of John Filson) we learn that he was born

near the Brandywine, Pennsylvania, about the year 1747, and

that he came to Kentucky, probably in 1783, being then,

perhaps, thirty-six years old. He formed the acquaintance

of, and collected information from Daniel Boone, Levi Todd,

James Harrod, Christopher Greenup, John Cowan, William

Kennedy, and other pioneers.  The adventures of Boone

were related by that hero directly to the enterprising school-

master, speculator, and verse-maker, Filson, who published

them, and who is therefore not only the first historian of

Kentucky, but the original biographer of the typical back-

woodsman of Literature. The narrative of Filson furnished

the basis of Bryan's " Mountain Muse," one of the early at-

tempts to put Western scenery and pioneer romance into

verse. Having prepared his manuscript and map, the author

returned to the East and had them published. The next

year he turned his face westward, and proceeded from his

home to Pittsburg in a Jersey wagon, and thence down the

Ohio, to the mouth of Beargrass Creek, where Louisville

now is, in a flat-boat. The entire journey consumed two

months, from April 25 to June 27, 1785.

In the summer of the same year Filson went in a canoe to

Vincennes, on the Wabash, and walked back through the

woods to Beargrass. This journey of 450 miles he repeated

in the autumn, the object of both excursions being to collect

materials for a history of the Illinois country. On the first

day of June, 1786, he set out from Vincennes for the Falls

of the Ohio in a "perogue," accompanied by three men.

The party were attacked by Indians, and compelled to land

and take to the woods for safety. Filson, after many perils

and sufferings, found his way back to Vincennes, exhausted

 

lJohn Filson, the First Historian of Kentucky, An Account of His Life

and Writings, principally from Original Sources. Prepared for the Filson

Club by Reuben T. Darrett. Louisville and Cincinnati. 1884.

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Ohio Valley Travelers and Annalists.     233

with famine and sore with wounds. After this adventure, he

returned safely to Kentucky, and again traveled over the long

road to Philadelphia on horseback. In 1787 he once more

appeared in the land of Boone, and advertised proposals in

the Kentucky Gazette to start a classical academy in Lexing-

ton, the sylvan "Athens of the West." The project seems

not to have been realized; but Filson was fertile in expe-

dients, and soon he engaged in the important enterprise

which fixed his name in history. In August, 1788, he went

into partnership with Mathias Denman and Robert Patterson

in the purchase of a tract of land on the north side of the

Ohio River, opposite the mouth of the Licking, on which it

was proposed to lay out the town of Losantiville, now Cin-

cinnati. Filson invented the name Losantiville, which has

been much ridiculed, but it is doubtful whether the word Cin-

cinnati, which is either a genitive singular or a nominative

plural, is not as absurd as the euphonious name compounded

by the Lexington schoolmaster. Filson, who was a surveyor,

marked out a road from Lexington to the mouth of the Lick-

ing, and, with his partners, arrived at the site of their town

in September, and began to lay out streets, at least on paper.

One of these was to be called Filson Avenue, but the name

was changed to Plum street after Filson's tragic disappear-

ance from the stage of affairs. The circumstances of his exit

are shrouded in mystery. The supposition is that he fell a

victim to the tomahawk and scalping-knife of some prowling

savage. All that we know is that he set out alone to ex-

plore the solitudes of the Miami woods, and that he was seen

no more by his white comrades. Nor was any trace of his

body ever found.

I pass from the story of Filson to mention another traveler

and writer who, in some sense, took up the historical and

romantic role which Filson had ceased to play. George Im-

lay, a Captain in the American army, and commissioner for

laying out lands in the back settlements, published, in the

year 1792, a remarkably complete and entertaining book1 on

¹A Topographical Description of the Western Territory of North Amer-

ica, Containing an account of its Climate, Population, Manners and Cus-

toms, Etc. By Captain George Imlay. London, 1792.

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234    Ohio Archaeological and Historical Quarterly.

Kentucky and the West. It was written in the form of a

series of letters, and first appeared from a London press.

This Captain Imlay was the man whose scandalous relation

with and cruel abandonment of Mary Wollstonecroft once

made a considerable excitement in the world. He met Miss

Wollstonecroft in France, sometime in 1792, and the two

formed a free-love alliance which Imlay broke, thereby caus-

ing the lady to make two attempts to commit suicide. She

afterwards became the wife of the famous William Godwin,

by whom she had a daughter who married the poet Shelley.

Imlay was the author of a novel entitled "The Emigrants,"

which appeared in three volumes, in 1793.

To the second edition of Imlay's "America" was appended

John Filson's "Kentucky." The work was furnished with

several useful maps. Several of the chapters deal in general

historical facts collected from other books. The writer dwells

with prolix comment, on the American theory and form of

government, and on systems of polity, religion, and society,

evidently regarding himself as an authority in statesmanship

and philosophy. His socialviews are extremely radical, and

he indulges in divers rhapsodical flights on liberty, equality,

fraternity and millenial virtue.

The interest of Imlay's book to readers of the present day

consists in his descriptions of Kentucky, its products and

people, as he saw them nearly a hundred years ago. It is

pleasant, for instance, to read what he wrote of the cane-

brakes that once covered many parts of the Ohio Valley, and

which were of value as fodder. "The cane," he says, "is a

reed that grows to the height frequently of ten or twelve

feet, and it is in thickness from the size of a goose-quill to

that of two inches in diameter. When it is slender, it never

grows higher than from four to seven feet; it shoots up in

one summer, but produces no leaves until the following year.

It is an evergreen, and is, perhaps, the most nourishing food

for cattle upon earth. No other milk or butter has such

flavor and richness as that which is produced from cows

which feed upon cane. Horses which feed upon it work

nearly as well as if they were fed upon corn."

• 5
 

Ohio Valley Travelers and Annalists.    235

The Captain's style is often picturesque and vivid, but

some of his delineations of primitive customs in Kentucky

are probably touched with the hues of fancy. The following

idylic paragraphs might have been written of Arcadia. "The

season of sugar-making occupies the women whose mornings

are cheered by the modulated buffoonery of the mocking-

bird, the tuneful song of the thrush, and the gaudy plumage

of the paroquet.-Festive mirth crowns the evening.-The

business of the day being over, the men join the women in

the sugar groves where enchantment seems to dwell.-The

lofty trees wave their spreading branches over a green turf,

on whose soft down the mildness of the evening invites the

neighboring youth to sportive play; while our rural Nestors,

with calculating minds, contemplate the boyish gambols of a

growing progeny, they recount the exploits of their early

age, and in their enthusiasm forget there are such things as

decrepitude and misery. Perhaps a convivial song, or a

pleasant narrative closes the scene.

"Rational pleasures meliorate the soul; and it is by famil-

iarizing man with uncontaminated felicity, that sordid avarice

and vicious habits are to be destroyed.

"Gardening and fishing constitute some part of the amuse-

ments of both sexes. Flowers and their genera form one of

the studies of our ladies; and the embellishment of their

houses with those which are known to be salutory constitute

a part of their employment. Domestic cares and music fill

up the remainder of the day, and social visits, without cere-

mony or form, leave them without ennui or disgust. Our

young men are too gallant to permit the women to have sep-

arate amusements; and thus it is that we find that suavity

and politeness of manners universal, which can only be

effected by female polish.

"The autumn and winter produce not less pleasure. Eve-

ning visits mostly end with dancing by the young people,

while the more aged indulge their hilarity, or disseminate

information in the disquisition of politics, or some useful art

or science.

"Such are the amusements of this country, which have for

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236     Ohio Archaeological and Historical Quarterly.

their basis hospitality, and all the variety of good things

which a luxuriant soil is capable of producing, without the

alloy of that distress of misery which is produced from

penury or want. Malt liquor, and spirits distilled from corn

and the juice of the sugar tree, mixed with water, constitute

the ordinary beverage of the country. Wine is too dear to

be drank prodigally; but that is a fortunate circumstance, as

it will be an additional spur to us to cultivate the vine."

Enough, and perhaps too much of Captain Imlay's rosy

rhetoric.  Let us turn from  the perusal of his pages to the

less florid volumes of his cotemporary, Harry Toulmin, an-

other historiagrapher of Kentucky. He was an Englishman,

a disciple and follower of Joseph Priestley. Migrating to

Kentucky he took a leading part in the public affairs of the

young state. For a time Toulmin was president of Transyl-

vania University, at Lexington; and he afterwards became

Secretary of State.  A collection of the acts of the Kentucky

Legislature, by him, was published at Frankfort in 1802.

His "Description of Kentucky," and "Thoughts on Emi-

gration," both published in London, in 1792, were valuable

in their day in spreading knowledge of the West, and in-

ducing immigration.

The celebrated naturalist F. A. Michaux, who, clad in a

suit made of the skins of wild animals, traversed the Missis-

sippi Valley, collecting materials for his "History of American

Oaks," also published a book¹ of travels. The descriptions

which he gave of the West, and of his experiences of log-

cabin life, and woodland adventure, were much admired in his

day, and are yet well worth reading.

Not less entertaining and more general in its scope was a

book of travels by the French writer, C. F. Volney, a trans-

lation2 of which appeared in 1804, and was very generally

circulated.

 

¹Travels to the Westward of the Allegheny Mountains in the States of

Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee, and return to Charleston through the

Upper Carolinas. London, 1804.

²View of the Climate and Soil of the United States of America, with

Remarks on Florida, By C. F. Volney. London, 1804.

• 7
 

Ohio Valley Travelers and Annalists.     237

There was published in 1808, a book1 that created a sen-

sation in the Ohio Valley, and particularly in Cincinnati.

This was a pretentious but blundering narrative by Thomas

Ashe, compiled from the "Navigator," and other books,

with original statements based on insufficient observation,

and not a few downright inventions of the author's fancy.

For example, the Big Miami river is represented as flowing

out of Lake Erie. Ashe went under the assumed name of

D'Arville, and introduced himself by forged letters to lead-

ing citizens of the West. We are told by an early Western

writer that this impostor "beguiled the late learned, ingenious,

and excellent Dr. Goforth of his immense collection of mam-

moth bones, and made a fortune of them, and of his book, in

London." E. D. Mansfield brands Ashe as the "first to

discover that a book abusing the people of the United States

would be profitable by its popularity." Daniel Drake, whose

preceptor was the deluded Goforth, mentions Ashe, alias

D'Arville, as that "swindling Englishman"; but the favorite

appellation by which indignant Cincinnatians advertised the

offending bone-stealer, was "the infamous Ashe."   The

London Quarterly Review said of Ashe and his "Travels":

"He has spoiled a good book by engrafting incredible stories

on authentic facts."

Rev. Thaddeus Mason Harris's "Journal of a Tour into

the Territory Northwest of the Allegheny Mountains," 1805;

Christian Schultz's "Inland Voyage from New York to the

West and South," 1808; Daniel Drake's "Picture of Cincin-

nati and the Miami Country," 1815; and Timothy Flint's

"Recollections" of travel and residence in the Mississippi

Valley, and his "Geography and History of the Western

States," are all works of importance for the useful matter

they contain, and of interest, owing to their style of compo-

sition. They require more extended notice than it is within

the scope of this article to give.

 

1Travels in America, performed in 1806, for the purpose of Exploring the

Rivers Allegheny, Monongahela, Ohio, and Mississippi, and ascertaining the

Produce and Condition of their Banks and Vicinity. By Thomas Ashe,

Esq. London, 1808.

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238     Ohio Archaeological and Historical Quarterly.

In the year 1818, Morris Birbeck, an English speculator

who founded the settlement of Albion; in Southern Illinois,

published in London two little books, "Letters from Illi-

nois," and "Notes on a Journey in America."    These vol-

umes were in motive similar to the writings Toulmin had

produced in Kentucky thirty years before.

The various volumes of travel and exploration by Pike,

Dana, Stoddart, Long, Schoolcraft, Lewis and Clarke, and

others, which appeared from 1810 to 1814, though not treat-

ing especially of the Ohio Valley, furnished much history

directly bearing upon common interests, and were widely

read in Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. The numer-

ous letters, notes, journals, and books of travel and observa-

tion, such as I have mentioned, furnished the literary ma-

terial on which local historians based more comprehensive

works.

Humphrey Marshall published a formal "History of Ken-

tucky,"¹ in 1812; and a more elaborate one² in 1824. Hum-

phrey Marshall, a relative of Chief Justice John Marshall, was

a distinguished politician and orator. He was elected to the

United States Senate over John Breckenridge for the term

1795-1801.   He once fought a duel with Henry Clay.

Marshall died in 1842, at the advanced age of eighty-two.

His history has a force and piquancy that makes it readable

to-day, and the bias in favor of Federalism adds a relish to

its pages like that which one discovers in Hildreth's " United

States."

Another historian of comparatively early time in Kentucky

was Mann Butler, the father of Noble Butler, and a pioneer

who deserves to be remembered for his virtues and services.

Butler was born in Baltimore in 1784; visited England in

boyhood; graduated at St. Mary's College, D. C.; came

 

1The History of Kentucky, Including an Account of the Discovery, Set-

tlement, and Present State of the Country. By Humphrey Marshall.

Frankfort, 1812.

²The History of Kentucky. An Account of the Modern Discovery, Set-

tlement, Progressive Improvement, Civil and Military Transactions, and the

Present State of the Country. Two vols. Frankfort, 1824.

• 9
 

Ohio Valley Travelers and Annalists.    239

West in 1806, and began the practice of law at Lexington;

taught school at Marysville, Versailles, and Frankfort; served

some years as professor at Transylvania University; located

at Louisville, where he was a prominent educator and writer

from 1831 to 1845; removed to St. Louis, where he resided

from 1845 to the year of his death, 1852.

Butler's history1 is agreeably written, and is specially inter-

esting on account of its descriptions of life in the backwoods.

The History of Kentucky, by Judge Lewis Collins, first

issued in 1847 (revised and enlarged fourfold, and brought

down to 1874 by Dr. Richard Collins), gathers up all the frag-

ments of Kentucky history, new and old, and is a standard

reference book.

Turning our attention to the historical bibliography of the

States north of the Ohio River, we find among the names of

early annalists that of Nahum Ward, who, as early as 1822,

published a "Brief Sketch of the State of Ohio," a book

now hard to obtain. The "Preliminary Sketch of the His-

tory of Ohio," contained in the "Statutes of Ohio and of the

Northwestern Territory," edited by Salmon P. Chase, and

published at Cincinnati in 1833, is justly regarded as a stand-

ard of reference that can be relied on, and it is, in fact, the

first systematic presentation of Ohio's history. Before it was

issued, however, Mr. John H. James, of Urbana, had began

to print, in Hall's Western Magazine, his chapters on the

history of the Buckeye State. The "History of the State of

Ohio; Natural and Civil," by Caleb Atwater, which is reck-

oned among our pioneer books, was brought out in 1838;

and Henry Howe's compendious volume, a most serviceable

work, was originally published in 1848. In the same year

the Historical Society of Ohio published Samuel Prescott

Hildreth's "Pioneer History of the Ohio Valley," which,

with its companion volume, "Biographical and Historical

Memoirs of the Pioneers," takes high rank among writings

of its class. Judge Jacob Burnet's "Notes on the Early

1A History of the Commonwealth of Kentucky, from its Exploration and

Settlement by the Whites to the Close of the Northwestern Campaign in

1813. By Mann Butler. Louisville, 1834.

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240     Ohio Archaeological and Historical Quarterly.

Settlement of the Northwestern Territory," (1847), is also a

useful contribution to our stock of pioneer histories. J. W.

Taylor's " History of the State of Ohio," though it treats of

the earliest period of the State's history, can not be regarded

as an old book, for it was published in 1854, less than fifty

years ago.

Most prominent of the early historians of Indiana, was

John B. Dillon, whose career falls in quite recent years, and

whose first important book came out in 1843. This was the

initial volume of a projected elaborate work which was never

completed. The author, however, published, in 1859, a

"History of Indiana from its Earliest Explorations to the

Close of the Territorial Government in 1815."  Dillon wrote

other historical books. He was a most amiable gentleman,

and a useful citizen. For many years he was State Librarian

of Indiana.

Illinois is quite rich in historical records. Having white

settlements in the southern part at a very early date, the

Illinois country became the subject of much attention by

travelers and writers. I have referred to the letters of Mor-

ris Birbeck, which date back as far as 1818. The Rev. John

Mason Peck, a distinguished Baptist missionary and educa-

tor, wrote "A Guide for Emigrants; Containing Sketches of

Illinois, Missouri, and the adjacent Posts," which was pub-

lished in Boston in 1831; and also a "Gazetteer of Illinois,"

published in 1834. Henry Brown's "Illinois," came out in

1844.

A book valued for its historical information, and amusing

as a literary curiosity, is "The Pioneer History of Illinois,"

written by John Reynolds, one of the early Governors of

Illinois, an illiterate man of strong common sense. The

volume was published at Belleville, Illinois, in 1852, and

contains the history of Illinois from 1673 to 1818. The

author says, "My friends will think it strange that I have

written a book, no matter how small and unpretending it

may be." He justifies his effort on the score that "many

facts stated in the 'Pioneer History,' since the year 1800, came

under my own observation, which may be relied on as true.'

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Ohio Valley Travelers and Annalists.   241

Recounting his personal history he says, "The first Illinois

soil I ever touched was on the bank of the Ohio, where Gol-

conda now stands, in March 1800. When we were about to

start from the Ohio, I asked Mr. Lusk how far it was to the

next house on the road, and when he told us the first was

Kaskaskia, one hundred and ten miles, I was surprised at the

wilderness before us. My father hired a man to assist us in

traveling through the wilderness. We were four weeks in

performing this dreary and desolate journey."

Governor Reynolds gives the following quaint description

of the French settlers of Illinois: "The French seldom

plowed with horses, but used oxen. It is the custom with

the French everywhere to yoke oxen by the horns, and not

by the neck. Oxen can draw as much by the horns as by

the neck, but it looks more savage. Sometimes the French

worked oxen in carts, but mostly used horses. I presume

that a wagon was not seen in Illinois for nearly one hundred

years after its first settlement. A French cart as well as a

plough, was rather a curiosity. It was constructed without

an atom of iron. When the Americans came to the country

they called these carts 'barefooted carts,' because they had

no iron on their wheels."  *  *    *    *     *    *

"The French generally, and the females of that nation par-

ticularly, caught up the French fashions from New Orleans

and Paris, and with a singular avidity adopted them to the

full extent of their means and talents. The females gener-

ally, and the males a good deal, wore the deer skin mawkaw-

sins. A nicely made mawkawsin for a female in the house

is both neat and serviceable."

* *   *  * *   *  "The ancient and innocent custom was

for the young men about the last of the year to disguise

themselves in old clothes, as beggars, and go around the vil-

lage in the several houses where they knew they would be

welcome. They enter the houses dancing what they call the

Gionie, which is a friendly request for them to meet and have

a ball to dance away the old year. The people, young and

old meet, each one carrying along some refreshment, and

then they do, in good earnest, dance away the old year.

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242    Ohio Archaeological and Historical Quarterly.

About the 6th of January, in each year, which is called Le

jour de Rais, a party is given, and four beans are baked in a

large cake; this cake is distributed among the gentlemen, and

each one who receives a bean is proclaimed king. These

four kings are to give the next ball. These are called

"King's balls." These Kings select each one a queen, and

make her a suitable present. They arrange all things neces-

sary for the dancing party. In these merry parties no set

supper is indulged in. They go there not to eat, but to be

and make merry. They have refreshments of cake and coffee

served round at proper intervals. Sometimes Bouillon, as

the French call it, takes the place of coffee. Towards the

close of the party, the old queens select each one a new

King, and kisses him to qualify him into office; then each

new King chooses his new Queen, and goes through the

ceremony as before. In this manner the King balls are kept

up all the carnival."

Another Illinois Governor, Thomas Ford, wrote a history

of the state, which was published at Chicago in 1854.

Illinois is deeply indebted to the literary industry and en-

terprise of Judge James Hall, who resided in the State from

1820 to 1833, and there conducted the "Illinois Magazine,"

devoting much time and pains to historical subjects. To

him, also, the people of the Ohio Valley owe gratitude for

general labors in the field of local history, and especially for

his delightful volume, "The Romance of Western History."

An exceedingly important and useful digest of events,

covering the whole ground of Ohio Valley history, is James

H. Perkins's "Annals of the West," first issued in 1846; re-

vised in 1850 by Rev. T. M. Peck, and re-revised by James

R. Albach in 1852, and again in 1857. From this well-

ordered storehouse of valuable information, many compilers

and historians have borrowed, and many more will borrow.

W. H. VENABLE.

• 13