Trip to the West and Texas: comprising a journey of eight thousand miles, through New-York, Michigan, Illinois, Missouri, Louisiana and Texas, in the autumn and winter of 1834-5.Parker, A. A. (Amos Andrew)
History
Trip to the West and Texas: comprising a journey of eight thousand miles, through New-York, Michigan, Illinois, Missouri, Louisiana and Texas, in the autumn and winter of 1834-5.
Parker, A. A. (Amos Andrew)
Frontier and pioneer life -- Mississippi River Valley; Frontier and pioneer life -- Texas; Mississippi River Valley -- Description and travel; Texas -- Description and travel; Texas -- History -- Revolution, 1835-1836
St. Joseph is very unhealthy. At the tavern, I found three persons
sick, and one dangerously so. I called upon the doctor, and he was sick
abed; I called upon the baker, and he was sick abed--and I passed by
another house, where the whole family, consisting of a man, his wife,
and five children, were all sick abed, and so completely helpless,
that the neighbors had to take care of them! This is no fiction. The
man's name is Emerson; from the State of New-York. Last spring he came
on to this part of the country with his family and goods in a wagon.
And when he came to Pawpaw river, where we breakfasted, he found no
road direct to St. Joseph. He accordingly cut out the road that we
had travelled to this place, and was the first who came through with
a wagon, a distance of about fifty miles. Soon after his arrival, his
eldest son, a promising youth of fifteen, accidentally was drowned in
the river. The family, one by one, were taken sick; and now, all were
sick and helpless. The man possessed great vigor of mind and body;
had bought him a farm at some distance from the village on the road
he had made, and commenced some improvements, and made great efforts
to persevere and clear it up. But who can withstand the iron grasp of
disease, or the "bold demands of death!" He beheld his family wasting
away and to all appearance, hastening to the grave; and himself, as
sick and helpless as they. A sad catastrophe this, in his prospect of
wealth and bliss in the new world!
A schooner, called the Philip, plies regularly between this, and
Chicago across the lake; but I had to wait here three days before its
return. I spent the time in traversing the woods and the lake shore.
This lake is a clear, beautiful sheet of water, having a soft sandy
shore, and surrounded by high sandy hills. The river makes a good
harbor, but there is a sand bar at its mouth, on which there is not
more than five or six feet of water. The average width of the lake is
sixty miles.
The distance from Detroit to St. Joseph is two hundred miles, and we
had been five days and a half in travelling it. The road was as good
as could be expected in a country so new, and so thinly inhabited.
The land generally is good, and will support a dense population. The
southern part of the territory is thought to contain the best land, and
there are indeed some beautiful prairies. Prairie Round is among the
most beautiful. It contains a number of thousand acres of high, level,
and smooth land; and in the centre there are a hundred acres of higher
land, covered with a beautiful growth of trees.
The best part of Indiana is on the border of Michigan, and extending
south, on the Wabash river. The southern part of the State contains a
good deal of hilly, rocky and sandy land, unfit for cultivation.
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