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Fifty Years In The Northwest: With An Introduction And Appendix Containing Reminiscences, Incidents And Notes — John Shaqi

Fifty Years In The Northwest: With An Introduction And Appendix Containing Reminiscences, Incidents And NotesFolsom, William H. C. (William Henry Carman)

History

Fifty Years In The Northwest: With An Introduction And Appendix Containing Reminiscences, Incidents And Notes

Name: Fifty Years In The Northwest: With An Introduction And Appendix Containing Reminiscences, Incidents And Notes
Author: Folsom, William H. C. (William Henry Carman)

Folsom, William H. C. (William Henry Carman)

Minnesota -- History; Wisconsin -- History

Produced by Mark C. Orton, Nathan Gibson, Josephine Paolucci
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
http://www.pgdp.net.







FIFTY YEARS IN THE NORTHWEST.

WITH AN INTRODUCTION AND APPENDIX
CONTAINING
REMINISCENCES, INCIDENTS AND NOTES.


BY W. H. C. FOLSOM.

EDITED BY E. E. EDWARDS.

PUBLISHED BY
PIONEER PRESS COMPANY.
1888.

                      TO THE OLD SETTLERS
                             OF
                    WISCONSIN AND MINNESOTA,

  WHO, AS PIONEERS, AMIDST PRIVATIONS AND TOIL NOT KNOWN TO THOSE OF
      LATER GENERATION, LAID HERE THE FOUNDATIONS OF TWO GREAT
        STATES, AND HAVE LIVED TO SEE THE RESULT OF THEIR
          ARDUOUS LABORS IN THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE
            WILDERNESS--DURING FIFTY YEARS--INTO A
              FRUITFUL COUNTRY, IN THE BUILDING
                OF GREAT CITIES, IN THE
                  ESTABLISHING OF ARTS
                    AND MANUFACTURES,
                        IN THE
                    CREATION OF COMMERCE
                AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF AGRICULTURE,
                  THIS WORK IS RESPECTFULLY

                        DEDICATED

             BY THE AUTHOR, W. H. C. FOLSOM.




PREFACE.


At the age of nineteen years, I landed on the banks of the Upper
Mississippi, pitching my tent at Prairie du Chien, then (1836) a
military post known as Fort Crawford. I kept memoranda of my various
changes, and of many of the events transpiring. Subsequently, not,
however, with any intention of publishing them in book form until
1876, when, reflecting that fifty years spent amidst the early and
first white settlements, and continuing till the period of
civilization and prosperity, itemized by an observer and participant
in the stirring scenes and incidents depicted, might furnish material
for an interesting volume, valuable to those who should come after me,
I concluded to gather up the items and compile them in a convenient
form.

As a matter of interest to personal friends, and as also tending to
throw additional light upon my relation to the events here narrated, I
have prefixed an account of my own early life for the nineteen years
preceding my removal to the West, thus giving to the work a somewhat
autobiographical form. It may be claimed that a work thus written in
the form of a life history of a single individual, with observations
from his own personal standpoint, will be more connected, clear and
systematic in its narration of events than if it were written
impersonally.

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

Fifty Years In The Northwest: With An Introduction And Appendix Containing Reminiscences, Incidents And Notes

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