American Memory: Upper Midwest Library of Congress American Memory Collection: books on the Upper Midwest (More about this collection...) Parts of this collection: Texts (140 displayed) Word counts by language (click any bar to limit display): Places and dates in this collection:

“Three score years and ten,” life-long memories of Fort Snelling, Minnesota, and other parts of the West.
Charlotte Ouisconsin Van Cleve (1819-1907) was the daughter of a U.S. Army officer, one of the first group of soldiers assigned to establish a fort in what was then known to whites as the Northwest. This was Fort Snelling, situated at the mouth of the St. Peter's [Minnesota] river in territory which eventually became the state of Minnesota. Van Cleve's book is a memoir of life spent with the military first as the daughter of a military officer, Major Nathan Clark, and later as the wife of another officer, Horatio Phillips Van Cleve, who served in the Union Army with the Second Minnesota Infantry and rose to the rank of General. Van Cleve's book emphasizes the early years of Fort Snelling. She recalls her childhood memories of life at the fort: the rudimentary schooling she received there, her encounters with Indians, the excitement of communications with the East, and all the rigors associated with frontier life. Van Cleve met her husband at Fort Winnebago, where he and her father were both stationed. Their assignments provided many opportunities to travel, and she visited St. Louis, Cincinnati, Kentucky, and Nashville. (English) (search this work)

An address on the climate, soil, resourses, development, commerce and future of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, delivered in ... 1861, by Alex. Campbell, of Marquette.
Alexander Campbell, a state representative from Marquette, presented this address on February 6, 1861 to the Michigan State Legislature, which resolved that 5,000 copies of it be printed and distributed. Campbell extols the resources and development prospects of Michigan's Upper Peninsula, and attempts to balance prevailing assumptions about its frigid climate and long winters with positive descriptions of its dry, clean air and therapeutic value for invalids, particularly during the summer months. Among the area's natural advantages, Campbell cites natural harbors, abundant fisheries, mineral wealth (especially iron and copper), lumber (vast stands of hardwood timber), and agricultural potential. Though the winter air might be too bracing for those suffering from tuberculosis, Campbell believes that it virtually eliminates the feverish colds and barking coughs of damper, more changeable climates. He argues, however, that highways and ports must be developed to improve transportation and export of the region's products. (English) (search this work)

Along the bowstring or south shore of Lake Superior.
This amply-illustrated promotional guidebook, issued by the General Passenger Department of the Duluth South Shore & Atlantic Railway, describes in great detail the sights and recreational opportunities afforded visitors along Lake Superior's South Shore. The author follows the route from Sault Ste. Marie west to Duluth, including Marquette, Presque Isle and Macinac as well as other major stopover points, providing much local and geological history along the way. In words and pictures, the book depicts picturesque landmarks and scenic landscapes, mining, manufacturing, logging operations, fishing, hunting, and other wilderness activities, with some attention to the region's Indian groups. (English) (search this work)

Among the Wolverines: a series of letters on the resources, growth and business of the principal towns and cities of Michigan.
This pamphlet brings together a series of letters originally published in theChicago Price Current under the pseudonym Massabesic. They chronicle the writer's travels through Michigan's towns and cities by the Michigan Central Railroad as well as by water transportation and coach. Schooley emphasizes the growth and financial development of these burgeoning communities in the late 1860s. He discusses each town's local attractions, newspapers, educational and religious facilities, fiscal health, sources of wealth, retailing and distribution of goods, and agricultural and industrial production; however, he does not always provide the same amount of information for every community. Schooley also includes "An Essay on the Credit System," which analyzes the pitfalls of extending credit and buying "on time,"and an essay on the "Commercial Independence of the Northwest," which encourages the manufacture and distribution of the Upper Midwest's finished products through Chicago. (English) (search this work)

Autobiographical notes. (English) (search this work)

The autobiography of David Ward.
This privately-printed narrative, written by a self-made millionaire for his descendants, provides a personal mirror of Michigan's development during the nineteenth century. Born in 1822 in Essex County, New York, Ward moved with his family in 1836 to a farm on the St. Clair River near Newport, Michigan, and spent the next thirteen years working at a variety of jobs while recovering from respiratory ailments. Trained by his father as a surveyor, he used his skill to benefit himself and others, laying claims to the best stands of Michigan pine as soon as they became available. By the late 1850s, he had run his own lumbering operation in Sumner township on the Pine River (where he served as town supervisor), and set up residence in Saginaw with his wife, Elizabeth Perkins Ward, and their children. In 1863, when his vigorous prosecution of "log thieves" caused his children to be harassed, the family moved to a farm at Orchard Lake (Oakland County), near Pontiac, and lived there year-round until business responsibilities obliged them to winter in Detroit. From this new base, Ward began lumbering on the Tobacco and Chippewa rivers and, later, the Manistee. He expanded his forest holdings in Wisconsin as well as the Upper Peninsula and served for two years as president of the First National Bank of Pontiac. During the 1870s and 1880s, Ward traveled extensively, describing his impressions of West Coast forests, and journeying to the Southern Appalachian region where he purchased land containing forests and coal and iron deposits. He also purchased extensive stands of California redwood. In his later years, he continued to make trips into the woods and actively supervised such operations as grading railroad beds for lumber transport. Throughout his career, Ward had to contend with sharp business practices and unscrupulous associates--some within his family. It seems that he wrote this autobiography in part as a warning and as a compendium of good advice. (English) (search this work)

Autobiography of Erastus O. Haven, D.D., LL.D., one of the Bishops of the Methodist Episcopal Church.
Erastus O. Haven (1820-1881) was a minister and leader of the Methodist Episcopal Church during a vigorous period of its growth and development. The child of a Methodist minister and farmer, he was born in Boston and spent most of his childhood in Massachusetts. Upon graduating from Wesleyan University, Haven established a life-long pattern of combining the ministry with teaching. This eventually led him to assume the presidencies of the University of Michigan and Northwestern University as well as the chancellorship of Syracuse University. Haven was deeply interested in educational issues affecting students at all levels and in helping to develop a strong Methodist presence among institutions of higher learning. His presidency at the University of Michigan, along with an earlier four-year stint there as a Latin professor, forced him to deal with the specific problems of a secular state university. Among the topics he discusses during the Michigan years are hazing, secret societies, fiscal issues and institutional administration. In midlife, Haven left his initial position at Michigan to become editor of Zion's Herald, a Methodist newspaper that gave him a voice in the Church's major controversies over slavery, church polity, and temperance. Later, he resigned the presidency of Northwestern University to become Secretary of the Board of Education for the Methodist Episcopal Church. Haven also served two terms in the Massachusetts Senate and was residing as a bishop in San Francisco when he died, leaving unfinished this autobiography, completed from his writings by the editor. (English) (search this work)

The bark covered house, or Back in the woods again; being a graphic and thrilling description of real pioneer life in the wilderness of Michigan ... By Willian Nowlin, esq.
This first-person narrative of a pioneer boyhood is intended as a tribute to the author's parents, who emigrated to Dearborn, Michigan, from Putnam County, New York in 1834. William Nowlin describes his father's frustration with subsistence on a small, debt-ridden fruit farm and his mother's anguish at leaving her friends, church, and relatives. He recounts the family's adventurous journey on the Erie Canal, the dangers of a public house in Buffalo, the perils of their steamship voyage across Lake Erie during a storm, and the trials of establishing a new home. Wishing to memorialize the challenges of converting wilderness into what he sees as a prosperous and civilized community, Nowlin describes building roads, clearing the land, building a home, fishing and hunting, handling cattle, and warding off mosquitoes, snakes, and wild animals, all in careful detail. He remembers uneasy relations between the white community and Native Americans, and discusses the social, legal, and moral complexities of dealing with the fugitive slaves and free African Americans who flowed back and forth across the Canadian border in search of freedom or job opportunities. Nowlin is conscious of the impact of modern technology, especially the railroads, and discusses both what was raised on the family farm and where and how it was marketed. He describes his father's long-range strategies to enhance the family's material welfare, and shows how family members collaborated as an economic unit. (English) (search this work)

Between the iron and the pine; a biography of a pioneer family and a pioneer town.
Lewis Reimann was the son of German immigrants who ran a boarding- house for miners and loggers in the Iron River district of Michigan's Upper Peninsula. This book consists of the author's recollections with anecdotes and historical commentary about the region. Reimann conveys a sense of the occupational lifestyles and multiple ethnicities of Iron River's inhabitants and deals in some detail with its folklore, material culture, foodways, and memorable local characters. He devotes a special chapter to Carrie Jacobs Bond, the genteel doctor's wife who left the area after her husband died and became a noted composer of songs. (English) (search this work)

A canoe voyage up the Minnay Sotor; with an account of the lead and copper deposits in Wisconsin; of the gold region in the Cherokee country; and sketches of popular manners; &c. &c. &c. Volume 2.By G.W. Featherstonhaugh.
This detailed travelogue, the concluding part of a two-volume work written primarily for a British readership, discusses the United States' geological resources and offers critical observations about the manners and customs of its different peoples. It was written over a decade after the author explored St. Peter's River--the "Minnay Sotor" of the book's title--in 1835, and draws upon the journals he kept along the way. A Canoe Voyage (volume 2) deals with Featherstonhaugh's return journey to the east coast. His route, interrupted by many detours and excursions through what is now the state of Wisconsin, took him from Fort Snelling and Galena to St. Louis and its environs. Traveling by steamer along the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers to Paducah, Kentucky, Featherstonhaugh then journeyed down the Tennessee River to Tuscumbia, where he caught a train to Decatur. From this point, he journeyed by steamer, stage, and dugout canoe, to areas described as "Cherokee country," then onward to Georgia, the Carolinas,Virginia, and Washington, D.C, his ultimate destination. In this volume, Featherstonhaugh inveighs against fraudulent land speculators, slavery, the treatment of the Cherokee, and the bad manners of fellow travelers. He found much to admire in the beauty of the Southern Appalachians and the hospitality of John C. Calhoun, the celebrated Southern statesman. (English) (search this work)

A canoe voyage up the Minnay Sotor; with an account of the lead and copper deposits in Wisconsin; of the gold region in the Cherokee country; and skethes of popular manners; &c. &c. &c. Volume 1. By G. W. Featherstonhaugh.
This detailed travelogue, the first part of a two-volume work written primarily for a British readership, discusses the United States' geological resources and offers critical observations about the manners and customs of its different peoples. It was written more than a decade after the author explored St. Peter's River--the "Minnay Sotor" of the book's title-- in 1835, and draws upon the journals he kept along the way. A Canoe Voyage (volume 1) deals with the first part of Featherstonhaugh's trip. He set forth from Georgetown, in Washington, D.C., along the canal paralleling the Potomac River. He then continued along the Allegheny ridges through western Maryland, over to Pittsburgh, and, after stopping at the Rappite community of Economy in Ohio and at Ravenna, made his way to Cleveland, where he journeyed by steam and sail to Detroit, Ft. Gratiot, Mackinac, and Green Bay. At Green Bay, he obtained supplies and voyageurs for an expedition into areas less familiar to Americans of European ancestry. He paddled by canoe up the Fox River to Fort Winnebago, portaged over to the Wisconsin River, changed to a north by northwest course on the Mississippi to Prairie du Chien, and paused at both Lake Pepin and Fort Snelling. At Fort Snelling, Featherstonhaugh proceeded up the Minnesota River, his major objective, via the Makotah River and Lac Qui Parle, until he reached the Minnesota's source on Côteau du Prairie. He then returned to Fort Snelling by way of Big Stone Lake. Much of his account is filled with the author's opinions about the voyageurs and various Native American groups such as the Winnebago, the Ojibway [Chippewa], the Menominee, and the Sioux [Dakota]. (English) (search this work)

Canoeing with the Cree, by Arnold E. Sevareid.
This is the narrative of a canoe trip by renowned news commentator Eric Sevareid (1912-1992). After graduating from Minneapolis High School, he embarked with his classmate, Walt Port, on a journey that would take them up the Minnesota River to Big Stone Lake and from there to the Red River of the North and Lake Winnipeg. They paddled along the eastern shore of Lake Winnipeg to Norway House and then through five hundred miles of wilderness to York Factory, the historic trading center at Hudson Bay. They succeeded in becoming the first Americans on record to complete the route, which was over 2,250 miles long and required an entire summer, and their regular dispatches were published by the Minneapolis Star. Though aided initially by conveniences available at towns and settlements along the river banks, their route became progressively wilder and more challenging. During the last leg of the trip, when they found themselves ill-equipped to endure the climate, scarcity of food, and unanticipated hazards, they depended heavily on assistance from traders and the Cree, of whom Sevareid sometimes speaks disparagingly. The book focuses on adventure and personal experience rather than natural description or ethnographic information. Severeid himself viewed his journey as a rite of passage from adolescence into manhood. (English) (search this work)

Captured by the Indians; reminiscences of pioneer life in Minnesota.
This book is an account of Minnie Buce Carrigan's captivity among the Sioux after the 1862 uprising and her subsequent experience as an orphan. Carrigan emigrated with her German parents to Fox Lake, Wisconsin in 1858. Two years later they helped to establish a German settlement at Middle Creek in Renville County, Minnesota, where they lived in relative comfort and peace among the Sioux [Dakota]. By 1862, the numbers of settlers had grown exponentially, and their Sioux neighbors began to display signs of hostility. On August 18, 1862, when Carrigan was only about seven years of age, her parents and two of her siblings were killed during the Sioux uprising. Carrigan was taken captive with a brother and sister and spent ten weeks among the Sioux before the U.S. army compelled the return of all captives. Several other survivors, Emanuel Reyff, J.G. Lane, Mrs. Inefeldt, and Minnie Krieger, relate their own experiences in a final section of the book. (English) (search this work)

A child of the sea and life among the Mormons.
This is the vivid memoir of a mid-nineteenth-century girlhood spent mostly on the islands of Lake Michigan and the onshore communities of Manistique, Charlevoix, Traverse City, and Little Traverse (now Harbor Springs), written by a woman who grew up to be a lighthouse keeper on Beaver Island and in Little Traverse. Williams was brought up Catholic by a French-speaking mother and an English-speaking father who was a ship's carpenter for entrepreneurs engaged in the mercantile trade to and from these rapidly developing settlements. Williams depicts cordial, even intimate, relationships between her family and the Indians who lived nearby, and describes the courtship and arranged marriage of an Ottawa chief's daughter who lived with her family for an extended period. The major portion of the book, however, is devoted to her eye-witness recollections of James Jesse Strang's short-lived dissident Mormon monarchy on Beaver Island, amplified by stories she heard from disillusioned followers. Strang was expelled from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints after disputing Brigham Young's right to succeed Joseph Smith. Eventually he and his own loyal followers settled on Beaver Island and attracted a stream of new converts; at their demographic peak, the "Strangites" numbered 5,000 strong. Strang saw himself as a prophet and believed the rules he tried to establish were in accord with divine revelations. Williams describes the mounting tensions between Strang's followers and the "gentile" residents who fled the island as Strang's influence grew; incidents connected with Strang's assassination by two former followers; and the ensuing exodus of most Strangites from Beaver Island. She later moved back there with her family, as did many of the earlier inhabitants. (English) (search this work)

Collections of the Minnesota Historical Society. Volume 1.
This volume is a collection of several different kinds of important historical documents published by the Minnesota Historical Society. It is chronologically indexed, and reprints materials by some of Minnesota territory's leading residents, including Henry Hastings Sibley, Alexander Ramsay, and William J. Snelling, originally published in five pamphlets from 1850 to 1856. The Society was organized in 1849 by the fifth Act of Minnesota's first territorial legislature, and there is information here about its formation and about the region's most notable historical events and cultural characteristics. The Rev. Edward Duffield Neill's address at the first annual meeting summarizes the seventeenth-century explorations by French missionaries and traders in the Upper Midwest. Many other accounts of exploration and discovery follow, ranging from Henry Rowe Schoolcraft's expedition in 1852 to memoirs and biographical sketches of such key figures as Nicolet, Reveille, Hennepin, Le Sueur, D'Iberville, Pike and Carver. There is material on Native American antiquities and cultural practices, the Dakota language, and the Fox and Ojibwe War, and on the establishment of schools, courts, and religious institutions. (English) (search this work)

Collections of the Minnesota Historical Society. Volume 10, Part 1.
This volume is a collection of several different kinds of important historical documents published by the Minnesota Historical Society. It is the first of a two-volume compilation of addresses and papers presented before the Society from 1899 through 1904. These secondary materials deal specifically with Minnesota and regional subjects such as the history of Fort Ripley (1849-1859) and the Treaty of Traverse des Sioux (1851), the history of raising wheat in the Red River Valley, and Minnesota flour manufacture. There are also materials dealing with steamboats on the Minnesota and Red Rivers, railroads, government land surveys in Minnesota west of the Mississippi, and the founding of Hutchinson and its association with the singing Hutchinson family. There are also items concerning the Rev. Joseph W. Hancock's missionary work among the Dakota or Sioux at Red Wing (1849-1852) sponsored by the American Board of Foreign Missions, the early Catholic and Protestant Episcopal church in Minnesota, the history of St. Paul's mid-nineteenth-century real estate, and Minnesota's early schools and libraries. Five major papers by Daniel S. B. Johnston (1832-1914) concern Minnesota journalism during the territorial period and contain quotations and anecdotes. An index for both parts one and two of volume 10 appears at the end of part two (the next volume). (English) (search this work)

Collections of the Minnesota Historical Society. Volume 10, Part 2.
This volume is a collection of several different kinds of important historical documents published by the Minnesota Historical Society. It is the second of a two-volume compilation of addresses and papers presented before the Society from 1899 through 1904. In addition to memorials, obituaries, and addresses for prominent historical figures (Bishop Henry Benjamin Whipple, Governor Alexander Ramsey, Judge Charles Flandrau, and General John B. Sanborn) and other members of the Society, there are articles on Minnesota's Second State Legislature (1859-60), the lumber industry and transportation on the Upper St. Croix River, the eastern, western, and southern boundaries of Minnesota, and the mills erected by federal troops at the Falls of St. Anthony. There is also a major article on Médart Chouart or Sieur des Groseilliers (1625-1698) and his brother-in-law Pierre Esprit Radisson (c.1636-c.1710), with extensive primary and secondary source quotations and an annotated bibliography. These two explorers are believed to be the first Europeans to have reached the Upper Mississippi River. The Sioux chief, Gabriel Reveille, provides an eye-witness account of the Sioux uprising of 1862 and Sibley's expedition against the Sioux in 1863. According to an appended biographical sketch of Reveille by Samuel Brown, Reveille became head scout for General Sibley on the frontier between Minnesota and Dakotah Territory after saving the lives and property of many whites captured by the Sioux during the uprising. An index of all the authors published in the Minnesota Historical Society Collections, vols. 1-10, appears at the end of this volume, as does an index for both parts of volume 10. (English) (search this work)

Collections of the Minnesota Historical Society. Volume 12.
This volume is a collection of several different kinds of important historical documents published by the Minnesota Historical Society. It continues the history of Minnesota's newspapers begun by Daniel S. B. Johnston (1832-1914) in volume 10, part 1 and carries it forward for the years 1858 through 1865, amending some earlier errors and omissions and offering new material complete with quotations, anecdotes, and personal speculations. Other major entries in this volume include histories of the University of Minnesota, the state's capitol buildings, and the frigate Minnesota; discussions of Minnesota charities, the banking industry, boundaries and land surveys; and local topics related to St. Paul, St. Cloud, and Goodhue County. There are also recollections of the territorial and state legislator, William Pitt Murray (1827-1910), and extensive Civil War material by Gen. Lucius Frederick Hubbard (1836-1913), who enlisted as a private in Company A of the Fifth Minnesota Infantry, became brigadier general of his regiment by 1862 and, twenty years later, the ninth governor of Minnesota. Hubbard emphasizes the role of the Minnesota troops in the battle of Corinth (1862), the Vicksburg campaigns (1862-1863), the Red River Expedition (1864), the battle of Nashville (1864), and the Mobile campaign (1865). Much other material in the volume illuminates the relationship between white Americans and the Native Americans of this region, particularly the Dakota or Sioux. The Rev. Samuel William Pond (1808-1891) provides ethnographically detailed information about the Minnesota Sioux in 1834, the year he and his brother Gilbert started a mission at Lake Calhoun. Dr. Asa W. Daniels (1829-1923), a pioneer physician who attended the Wahpekuta and Medawakantonwan bands of the Dakota (1854-1861), reminisces about Chief Little Crow (d. 1853). An address at Fort Snelling commemorates a treaty in 1805 between Lieutenant Zebulon M. Pike (1779-1813) and various Sioux chiefs ceding territory to the United States. There is also a brief, historical article about the three chiefs named Wabasha along with some items of archaeological interest. This volume also contains addresses and papers presented to the Minnesota Historical Society from September, 1904-1908 and obituaries for members who died during that time. Memorial addresses honor Judge Greenleaf Clark (1835-1904), Harlan Page Hall (1838-1907), the journalist and newspaper publisher, Horace Austin (1831-1905), governor of Minnesota from 1870 through 1874, and Andrew Ryan McGill (1840-1905), tenth governor of Minnesota (1887-1889). There is also an address marking the presentation to the Society of a portrait of the Rev. Ezekiel Gilbert Gear, the Episcopal chaplain at Fort Snelling. The volume is indexed. (English) (search this work)

Collections of the Minnesota Historical Society. Volume 15.
This volume is a collection of several different kinds of important historical documents published by the Minnesota Historical Society. It begins with three articles about railroads in Minnesota. The first, by Rasmus S. Saby, looks at the history of the state's railroad legislation from 1849 to 1875, and chronicles the granger movement as an expression of farmers' desire to curb the railroads' concentrated wealth and power through the political process. Under public pressure, the Minnesota legislature passed regulatory legislation (the granger laws) in 1874, but repealed it the following year. The second article describes the funding of railroads through land grants and public loans, while the third article concerns the railroads' early corporate history and construction. The volume continues with a report on the Kensington Rune Stone by the Society's museum committee. Sometimes regarded as a hoax, the Rune Stone was discovered in 1898 by a Swedish farmer on his property near Alexandria, and touted as evidence that Vikings had reached the American heartland. Other items concern pioneer and Native American relations. There is a narrative of the Sioux conflict led by Little Crow (1862-1863), and two related reminiscences by authors who lived among the Sioux: Dr. Asa W. Daniels (1829-1923), a pioneer physician, and John Ames Humphrey, who remembers the slaughter of his family at the Lower Sioux Agency. There are also discussions of the public lands and their role in creating Minnesota's school fund, northern Minnesota boundary surveys (1822-1826) after the Treaty of Ghent (1814), a memoir of state politics by Henry A Castle (1836-1917), and material on the sale of Fort Snelling (1857). Other local history articles concern Grey Cloud Island, the Red River region, Centerville, and parks and public grounds in Minneapolis and St. Paul. A biography of Nathaniel Pitt Langford (1832-1911), the first superintendent of Yellowstone National Park, highlights his contributions as an explorer of the Yellowstone region and his involvement with Montana's vigilante movement. It is written by Olin Dunbar Wheeler (1852-1925), who himself served as topographer for the Powell Expedition to the Grand Canyon in 1870. The volume also includes memorial articles on local and regional notables as well as obituaries for Historical Society members who died between 1909 and the end of 1914. The volume is indexed. (English) (search this work)

Collections of the Minnesota Historical Society. Volume 5.
This volume is a collection of several different kinds of important historical documents published by the Minnesota Historical Society. It is devoted to the Ojibwe (Chippewa) Indians, and contains both William W. Warren's "History of the Ojibways Based Upon Traditions And Oral Statements" and the Rev. Edward D. Neill's "History of the Ojibways, And Their Connection With Fur Traders, Based Upon Official And Other Records." William Warren, whose biographical sketch precedes his monograph, was a part-Ojibwe member of the Legislature. Fluent in the Ojibwe language, he served as an interpreter and maintained close contact with Native American relatives. From them and other acquaintances, he collected religious beliefs, oral history, customs, and legends, presenting them for a nineteenth-century audience. He pays particular attention in this monograph to diplomatic, political, and military issues and events and also to the totemic or clan system and to the fur trade. The Rev. Edward D. Neill (1823-1893), a prominent historian and president of Macalester College, compiled brief information about the Ojibwes and their relation to the fur trade, arranging the information chronologically and frequently citing the sources from which it was taken. The volume is indexed. (English) (search this work)

Collections of the Minnesota Historical Society. Volume 7.
This volume is a collection of several different kinds of important historical documents published by the Minnesota Historical Society. It is devoted to a historical discussion by Jacob Vredenberg Brower (1844-1905) about the source and headwaters of the Mississippi River, combined with his extensive hydrographic and topographic surveys. Brower summarizes the major European and white American exploratory trips to the area. Based on a scientific survey of the Itasca Basin that he made under the authority of the Minnesota Historical Society, Brower concludes that the true source of the Mississippi is neither Itasca Lake nor Elk Lake, nor even the stream discovered by Jean N. Nicolet (1836) called "Nicolet's Infant Mississippi River," but the "Greater Ultimate Reservoir" which receives its water supply from aerial precipitation and stores it in various component lakes and springs. Some of these lakes include Hernando de Soto, the Triplets, Whipple, Morrison, and Floating Moss; the streams that proceed from them include the beginnings of the Nicolet as well as the Mississippi. From Nicolet's middle lake the main river proceeds "in an unbroken channel" to the Gulf. After lobbying successfully to have this headwater region preserved as Itasca State Park (1891), Brower served as its first commissioner. The appendix includes an historical account of how the Mississippi and the Lake of the Woods came to form part of the northwestern boundary of the United States. Its author was Albert James Hill (1823-1895), who was also instrumental in the creation of Brower's report. The volume is indexed. (English) (search this work)

Collections of the Minnesota Historical Society. Volume 9.
This volume is a collection of several different kinds of important historical documents published by the Minnesota Historical Society. It devotes considerable space to the papers and speeches presented on the Society's fiftieth anniversary and to the obituaries of various Society members. Other lengthy sections address topics such as Minnesota's transportation history, the Ojibwe, Father Louis Hennepin, and local histories of Duluth, St. Louis County, St. Paul, and Redwood County. There are also sections on the beginnings of Minnesota's Episcopal Church, the lumber industry, the ordinance of 1787, the Sioux (including the 1862 uprising), the Louisiana Purchase and Spanish policy in America. There is also information on the dual origin of Minnesota from land ceded by Britain (1783) and by France (1803), and various aspects of territorial history. There are also biographical notes and reminiscences as well as an account by General Edwin Cooley Mason (1831-1898), a former Inspector General of the Military Department of the Columbia, relating how the San Juan Islands in Washington were eventually acknowledged as the northwest boundary of the United States. The Ojibwe material is written by the Reverend Joseph A. Gilfillan (1838-1913), a Protestant Episcopal missionary on the White Earth Indian Reservation (1872-1898), and by Henry R. Whipple, the first Protestant Episcopal Bishop of Minnesota and an advocate for reforming the policies and administration of U.S. Indian affairs. The volume is indexed. (English) (search this work)

Collections of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin. Volume 11.
This volume is a collection of several different kinds of important historical documents published by the State Historical Society of Wisconsin. It opens with a biographical article and bibliography of Jean Nicolet, the first European to reach the Wisconsin region (1634), and continues with a compilation of "Western State Papers" from periods of French, English, and American domination of the Upper Midwest during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Selections from the third and fourth voyages (1658-1659) of Radisson and Groseilliers follow and chronicle their adventures along the Fox-Wisconsin watercourse, in the Chequamegon Bay vicinity, and in the Chippewa River's headwaters. A group of papers from the Canadian Archives (1778-1783) illuminates the Wisconsin region's history during the Revolutionary War and encompasses copies of all the Haldimand Papers which mention operations in that area. The Haldimand Papers contain the correspondence of British officers with each other and with their commanding officer, General Frederick Haldimand, at Quebec. Thompson Maxwell's narrative describes what may have been the first voyage across Lake Superior under British command, and there are additional documents detailing life at the fur-trading post of Milwaukee. There are also descriptions of Prairie du Chien and Green Bay in the early nineteenth century. This volume provides much information on the fur trade and the Native Americans who participated in it. The material included also discusses European, Native American, and American relations as well as boundary issues, local government structures, Jefferson County's early days, and the financial career of Andrew Mitchell. An index appears at the end of the volume. (English) (search this work)

Collections of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin. Volume 12.
This volume is a collection of several different kinds of important historical documents published by the State Historical Society of Wisconsin. After an extensive list of materials published by the Historical Society (1850-92) and a memoir of Lyman Coleman Draper, the Society's guiding spirit during most of that period, this volume continues with papers from the Canadian Archives iluminating British influence in the Wisconsin region from 1763 to 1814. Most of the documents are letters from military officers at frontier posts and provide information on the fur trade, Indian affairs (with estimates of tribal populations as well as descriptions of diplomatic negotiations and commerce with the Indians), martial law, and a court of inquiry at Green Bay. There is also an article on Robert Dickson, the Native American trader, a list of American Fur Company Employees, and a biographical sketch and the journal (with supplementary papers) of James McCall, one of three commissioners empowered by President Jackson to settle land disputes between the Winnebagoes, Menomonees, and New York Indians in 1830. In addition, this volume contains Reuben Thwaite's annotated chronicle of the Black Hawk War (1832), papers from Indian Agent George Boyd in 1832, articles on Wisconsin's German and Swiss populations, a list of Chippewa geographical names, an oral reminiscence of the Wisconsin Winnebagoes, a discussion of missions on Chequamegon Bay and and a history of Green Bay's early schools. An index appears at the end of the volume. (English) (search this work)

Collections of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin. Volume 14.
This volume is a collection of several different kinds of important historical documents published by the State Historical Society of Wisconsin. It contains a variety of primary and secondary source materials dealing with the history of Wisconsin from the mid- seventeenth century through the mid-nineteenth century. The opening article, "The Story of Mackinac," is followed by reminiscences of girlhood on the island during the second and third decades of the nineteenth century by Elizabeth Thérèse Baird, who was of Scots and Native- American ancestry. The community she describes, and the tools, techniques, and cultural practices that sustained it, are a blend of European and Native American influences. A history of Fort Winnebago, along with an accompanying orderly book, emphasizes the military aspects of life in the Wisconsin region. Other articles discuss Abraham Lincoln's role as captain of a company of volunteers in the Black Hawk war, Capt. Frederick Marryat's description of his journey through Wisconsin in 1837, early Wisconsin railroad legislation, the Cornish settlements of southwest Wisconsin and the Icelandic settlers of Washington Island. There is also information on the geographical origins and religious motivations of German immigration to Wisconsin and material about the Catholic Church and the Episcopal mission in Green Bay. There is also a first-hand account of the capture of Jefferson Davis, the travel journal of the Rev. Jackson Kemper, an Episcopalian missionary writing about his tour to Green Bay (1834), and a short biography of Father Samuel Mazzuchelli, the Catholic missionary. An index appears at the end of the volume. (English) (search this work)

Collections of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin. Volume 15.
This volume is a collection of several different kinds of important historical documents published by the State Historical Society of Wisconsin. In this volume, several documents reveal how Native Americans conveyed land and access rights to pre-Territorial pioneers and others show how the Presbyterian and Methodist churches took root in early Wisconsin. The Presbyterian missionary, Cutting Marsh, sent annual reports to the Society in Scotland for Propagating Christian Knowledge, and these are published here along with other papers and a biographical sketch of his life and work among the Stockbridge Indians at Statesburg (Kaukana). Alfred Brunson, a Methodist minister, writes of his journey on horseback from Pennsylvania to Wisconsin in 1835. Elizabeth Thérèse Baird (whose girlhood at Mackinac is chronicled in volume 14) is represented here by her "Reminiscences of Life in Territorial Wisconsin," (1824-1842), and there is a complete diary by Mathias Duerst, a leader of the Swiss colony at New Glarus. Another Swiss immigrant, Theodore Rodolf, writes of "Pioneering in the Wisconsin Lead Region" (1834-1848). This volume also includes a Sac legend, "Osawgenong,"and the narratives of a fur-trader, a surveyor, and others involved in early commercial activities. A "Report on the Quality and Condition of Wisconsin territory" by Samuel Stambaugh, the Indian Agent at Green Bay, describes Wisconsin just before it acquired Territorial status. An index appears at the end of the volume. (English) (search this work)

Collections of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin. Volume 16.
This volume is a collection of several different kinds of important historical documents published by the State Historical Society of Wisconsin. It is the first of three volumes devoted to the era of French dominance in the fur trade region of the upper Great Lakes and the upper Mississippi (1634-1763), emphasizing the period between 1634 and 1727. Documents are arranged chronologically with the last entries dating from 1727. Much of the material is from the Jesuit Relations and is summarized or excerpted in translation. Accounts of Native American diplomatic and military histories mingle with narratives, reports, and letters by such explorers, traders, and missionaries as Nicolet, Radisson and Groseilliers, Ménard, Allouez, Perrot, Galinée and Dolier, Dablon, Joliet and Marquette, Le Sueur, and Charlevoix. These men provide extensive information, mediated by their own experiences and adventures, about the customs and practices of the Native American groups with whom they came into contact in the Wisconsin area and other parts of what is now considered to be the Midwest. There is much information about the Fox War, the fur trade, the policies of the French government in both Europe and New France, and life at Michilimackinac, Detroit, and other military posts and missions. An index appears at the end of the volume. (English) (search this work)

Collections of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin. Volume 17.
This volume is a collection of several different kinds of important historical documents published by the State Historical Society of Wisconsin. It is the second of three volumes devoted to the era of French dominance of the fur trade region of the upper Great Lakes and the upper Mississippi (1634-1763), emphasizing the period between 1727 and 1748. During this period, Native Americans increasingly participated in economic and cultural transactions with the Europeans. Trading posts at Mackinac and Detroit were linked by trade and travel to subsidiary entrepôts such as Green Bay (La Baye) and Chequamegon (La Pointe). Many of the documents here provide evidence of Fox [Mesquakie] resistance to French dominance and their anti-French alliances with other Native Americans ranging from the Sioux further west to the Six Nations of the Iroquois in the east. Other peoples, such as the Detroit Hurons, the Ottawa, and the Potowatomi [Pottawatomie] are shown playing out localized hostilities in an international arena. After several crippling defeats by the French, tribes loosely confederated against the French revived and revolted during King George's War (1744-1748). The costs of curbing their unrest depleted France's colonial treasury, which the government attempted to restore by leasing posts to the highest bidder. The French government also used its monopoly of the Indian trade to increase prices for supplies sold to their Native-American trading partners. This provoked some of them (such as the Miamis) to develop closer ties with the English. The papers in this volume are arranged chronologically and consist chiefly of translations made from transcripts of papers in French archives, although some previously-published items also appear. They deal with diplomatic, military, and commercial activities, as well as the structures and operations of the French colonial administration. An index appears at the end of the volume. (English) (search this work)

Collections of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin. Volume 18.
This volume is a collection of several different kinds of important historical documents published by the State Historical Society of Wisconsin. It traces the decline of French dominance of the fur trade region of the upper Great Lakes and the upper Mississippi from 1743, when the Sioux allied themselves with the Fox [Mesquakie], to 1760, when the British took control of Mackinac. It also provides extensive information about the British administration of Wisconsin and the influence of both Spanish Louisiana and the United States. There is also a register of marriages performed at Mackinac from 1725-1821, and the journal of Peter Pond describing a visit to Wisconsin (1773-1775) and conveying much about Native American and frontier life as seen through the eyes of a Connecticut traveler. Many documents, some of which have been published before, illuminate the role played by Wisconsin's various population groups and economic interests during the American Revolution. Spanish materials from the Archives of the Indies at Seville appear here in translation and show how Upper Louisiana impinged on the affairs of the Upper Midwest. An index appears at the end of the volume. (English) (search this work)

Collections of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin. Volume 19.
This volume is a collection of several different kinds of important historical documents published by the State Historical Society of Wisconsin. It presents listings of baptisms and burials at Mackinac between 1695 and 1821, supplementing the listings of marriages from the same register that appeared in volume 18. These mission records shed light on relationships between Native Americans, fur-traders, guides, military officers and their families at an important military post and center of the fur trade. They are followed by documents concerning the fur trade in the upper Great Lakes region between 1778 and 1815. First, there is the journal of François Victor Maliot, a novice fur-trader wintering in Lac du Flambeau among the Chippewa in 1804-1805. His text is accompanied by invoices and memoranda illuminating economic practices and business rivalries. Other documents (business and personal correspondence interspersed with a few official documents) are grouped under "The Fur-Trade on the Upper Lakes -- 1778-1815," which discusses the Northwest fur trade during its height under British domination and the earliest years of American influence. The last group of documents, organized as "The Fur-trade in Wisconsin -- 1815-1817," chronicles the ascendancy of John Jacob Astor's American Fur Company and the United States's regional expansion. Both of these collections have much to say about the era's great fur corporations--how they organized and managed themselves as economic institutions and how they fostered an occupational culture in which many ethnic groups participated. An index appears at the end of the volume. (English) (search this work)

Collections of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin. Volume 20.
This volume is a collection of several different kinds of important historical documents published by the State Historical Society of Wisconsin. Although it opens with an 1812 assessment of the impact of the United States fur trade's "factory system" on Canada's ability to control Native American economic and diplomatic activities, most of the other materials date from 1818 to 1825. In 1825, a peace treaty at Prairie du Chien fixed territorial boundaries for the Eastern Sioux and made peace between them and the Lake Superior Ojibwe [Chippewa], the Sac and Fox [Mesquakie], Menominee, Iowa, Winnebago and parts of the Ottawa and Potawatomi [Pottawattomies]. It was during this period that the United States took control of the Northwest fur trade and protected its interests with a series of forts: Mackinac, Detroit, Green Bay, Prairie du Chien, and the newly-built Fort Snelling (1819) at the headwaters of the Mississippi. Correspondence and reports reflect divergent opinions on whether the fur trade should be privatized, increasingly under the aegis of the American Fur Company, or supervised through the government's factory system. For those peoples who had been involved with Wisconsin's fur trade for centuries, this was a time of crisis and transition: their trade networks and system of alliances were being disrupted even as their trading practices were subjected to increased local competition and government regulation. Many of the traditional fur- traders of the Wisconsin area were of mixed French and Native American ancestry and were regarded as foreigners by the Americans. Letters to and from August Grignon, a trader on the upper Mississippi, reveal how he was driven from the region through the cutthroat strategies of a competitor. The last document in this volume is the journal kept by Michel Curot, a fur-trader on Yellow River during 1802-1803. In it, the author reveals much about the customs of those dependent on trapping, trading, and other forest activities while Canada was still in control of regional commerce. An index appears at the end of the volume. (English) (search this work)

Collections of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin. Volume 25: a machine-readable transcriptiion..
This volume is a collection of important historical documents published by the State Historical Society of Wisconsin. It is entirely devoted to letters from an English immigrant, Edwin Bottomley (1809-1850), written between 1842 and 1850 to his father, Captain Thomas Bottomley. Edwin Bottomley was born in Mossley near Manchester, and moved to Huddersfield and South Crossland, where his father became manager of the Crossland mills. As a pattern designer and leader of the Methodist church choir, he became prominent in that community. In 1842, however, seeking better prospects than could be found "in a cuntry wher Labour the sorce of all Real wealth is troden under foot By Monopoly Taxation and Opprssion," he emigrated with his wife, Martha, their five children and his bass viol to what would soon be known as English Settlement in western Racine County, Wisconsin. Bottomley farmed seventy acres and within eighteen months moved his family from a temporary shanty to a substantial brick house. The years brought hard work and regular bouts of fever, but enough prosperity for Bottomley to add 300 contiguous acres to the original holding. (The mortgage on this purchase caused him considerable anxiety, and he later turned to his father and brother for financial help). From the beginning, Bottomley was active in civic affairs, helping to establish the local school house and Methodist Episcopal church. His letters contain many references to British political issues and reflect some of the religious tensions of the period. In 1850, Bottomley succumbed to typhoid fever, leaving a will and inventory included here. An index appears at the end of this volume. (English) (search this work)

Cornflake crusade/by Gerald Carson.
This extensively-researched popular history chronicles how Battle Creek, Michigan, became both a health center and the place where America's breakfast cereal industry developed at the turn of the century. Carson tells how Battle Creek first hosted a famous sanitarium run by Dr. John Harvey Kellogg (1852-1943), under the initial sponsorship of the Seventh-Day Adventists, and featuring water cures, vegetarianism, exercise, and sexual abstinence. Kellogg, raised in an Adventist family, later parted company with that denomination over religious differences. His sanitarium encouraged other experimental medical enterprises, transforming Battle Creek into a place where entrepreneurs began to produce "healthy" foods such as crackers, coffee substitutes, and, especially, cereals. Charles W. Post, a disgruntled former Kellogg patient who practiced briefly as a healer himself, achieved early success manufacturing and marketing these new products. By standardizing sizes and recipes for such foods as Grape Nuts and Postum, and combining mass distribution methods with aggressive advertising techniques, Post achieved spectacular success with consumers and paved the way for a host of competitors. Will Keith Kellogg, the second giant among breakfast food manufacturers, produced and marketed the "corn flakes" first developed by his brother John. The W. K. Kellogg Co.'s innovative marketing campaigns emphasized product flavor, international distribution, and free toys or tokens in the cereal box. W. K. Kellogg is widely remembered for having established the philanthropic foundation that bears his name. (English) (search this work)

Crusader and feminist; letters of Jane Grey Swisshelm: 1858-1865.
Jane Grey Swisshelm (1815-1884) was an antislavery advocate, newspaper editor, lecturer, crusader, feminist, and Civil War nurse. She edited two newspapers in Minnesota during the period 1858-1865, when these letters were written: first, the St. Cloud Visiter [sic] and, afterward, the St. Cloud Democrat. The Minnesota Historical Society collected and compiled the series of articles and letters written for the St. Cloud Democrat, publishing them as a book in 1934. In her articles and letters, Swisshelm addresses many of the important issues of her time, including women's rights, slavery, and the frontier conflict between Indians and white settlers. She crusaded for a woman's right to own property, speak in church, and vote. She was an avid antislavery advocate who spoke out against the abusive treatment of slaves and their legal standing as chattel. She advocated harsh treatment toward the Sioux in the aftermath of the 1862 uprising, considering the settlers to be aggrieved victims in this case. That Swisshelm was a prominent figure of her time is demonstrated by her familiarity with influential leaders such as Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton. Her book also contains articles she wrote as she traveled around southern Minnesota, some of which describe her experiences with the First Minnesota Regiment at Fort Snelling. (English) (search this work)

Crusaders.
This biography of Arthur Le Sueur (1867-1950) and Marian Le Sueur (1877- 1954) was written by Marian's daughter, Meridel Le Sueur (1900-1996), the noted Minnesota writer and social activist. Both Arthur and Marian Le Sueur were avid socialists. Arthur Le Sueur, born in Nininger, Minnesota, established a law practice in Minot, North Dakota, where he edited the agrarian radical newspaper Appeal to Reason and served as a Socialist mayor. At various points, Le Sueur was active with the I.W.W., the Socialist party under Eugene V. Debs, the Non-Partisan League, and the Farmer-Labor Party. He met his wife while both were teaching at The People's College in Fort Scott, Kansas. Marian, a divorcée with children, had previously supported herself by lecturing on subjects ranging from female health issues to women's rights. After their marriage, they settled in St. Paul and Minneapolis, where they championed civil liberties and social justice. According to Meridel Le Sueur, Marian subordinated many of her personal talents while acting as secretary to her husband and struggling to support the family. The author includes testimonials and celebratory poems dedicated to her mother and stepfather. She also critiques their marriage, which she perceived to be stifling to her mother, however satisfying to her stepfather it seemed to be. (English) (search this work)

Detroit and the pleasure resorts of northern Michigan. Compliments of passenger department.
This pamphlet was designed for distribution to travelers and business people, "compliments of the passenger department" of the Detroit, Lansing, and Northern Railroad. It promotes tourist destinations, resorts, and towns in late nineteenth-century northern Michigan, especially those of the Northern Peninsula, recommending the area for its healthful climate, hunting, boating, and fishing opportunities, as well as its hotels and developed transportation network. A special section is devoted to Detroit, and another lists its leading business institutions. There are copious illustrations of scenic attractions, cityscapes and street plans, in addition to advertisements ranging from camping gear and guide services to pianos, carriage goods, and medical services. There is also a railroad route map. (English) (search this work)

Early days in the Chippewa Valley.
This is an autobiographical narrative about a young lawyer's search for the best community in which to build a legal practice in the Upper Midwest in the late 1850s. Charles Smith Bundy's experiences reveal how networks of friends, family, and associates from earlier places of residence assisted young men anxious to "get ahead" in mid-nineteenth-century America. Bundy first came to Wisconsin from Oxford, Chenango County, New York, in 1856. His initial contacts in Wisconsin were relatives and two businessmen from his home community, a social foundation from which he was soon able to develop political contacts. His account provides vivid descriptions of Reed's Landing, Pepin, Eau Claire, Menomonie, and Chippewa Falls. (English) (search this work)

Facts and Figures about Michigan; a hand-book of the state, statistical, political, financial, economical, commercial. By Frank J. Bramhall.
This is a small compendium of statistics, charts, timetables, and political information published by the Michigan Central Railroad. It includes lists of members of state boards, the state legislature, and officers of military regiments. Population figures, vote tallies, and numbers drawn from the report of the state treasurer for fiscal year 1884 accompany useful commercial intelligence such as the locations of local post offices and national banks or names and sites of regional newspapers. Thee are schedules for railroads and circuit courts, and a brief geographical and historical summary. Advertisements range from notices of available land to railroad routes, heating devices, tobacco, insurance, and hotels and restaurants. Much of the book's material directly or indirectly promotes the Michigan Central Railroad. (English) (search this work)

Fifty memorable years at St. Olaf; marking the history of the “College on the Hill” from its founding in 1874 to its golden jubilee celebration in 1925.
This booklet of newspaper articles and photographs, reprinted from the Northfield News, chronicles the first fifty years of St. Olaf college with an emphasis on its relationship to the Norwegian ("Norse") immigrant experience, especially in Minnesota. There is statistical information here about Minnesotans of Norse background, their occupations and their population. Grose tells why so many Norwegians emigrated from the 1840s through the 1860s, and discusses some of the traits he believes characterize them as an ethnic group. St. Olaf is a Lutheran college, and this work includes an extended tribute to its founder, the Rev. Bernt Julius Muus, who first came to Minnesota in 1859 as a Lutheran missionary. From its opening in 1875, the college received extensive support from the Norse community, which espoused education as a principal means of advancement. (English) (search this work)

Fifty years in America.
Nils Nilsen Rønning (1870-1962) emigrated from Norway to Minnesota in 1887 to settle with his brother, who had emigrated previously. Fifty Years in America narrates Rønning's cultural adjustment and education at Red Wing Seminary and the University of Minnesota, his spiritual development, and his involvement with the Lutheran Church in Minnesota. In discussing the latter, he focuses on different schools of thought in the Lutheran Church, especially among Minnesota's evangelical Lutherans, and provides information on how these differences had their root in the political and religious life of Norway. Rønning was a writer, an editor, and a publisher. Proud of the rich, folkloric traditions of his birthplace, Telemark, he recounts the literary paths by which he immersed himself in the English language. For several years he worked part-time for the Augsburg Publishing House of the Norwegian Lutheran Church and later took on a number of independent projects, publishing Christian literature for Lutherans and other titles designed for Scandinavian- American audiences. (English) (search this work)

Fifty years in the Northwest.
William Henry Carman Folsom (1817-1900), Minnesota legislator, businessman, and historian, emigrated from Maine to the Upper Midwest when he was nineteen years old. There he lived the rest of his life, achieving prominence in the lumber business and other related activities. His autobiography provides a detailed history of Minnesota, county by county, with a particular emphasis on the region's most prominent men and the role they played in its economic, political, and cultural development. For the most part, chapters are devoted to the histories of one or more counties and contain capsule biographies as well as significant geographical and institutional features. There are several narratives of early settlement and anecdotes about the relationships between settlers and Indians. Preceding the historical materials is an extensive autobiographical introduction. (English) (search this work)

Fifty years on the firing line.
James W. Witham, born in 1856, was a journalist and advocate for the rights and concerns of farmers. In Fifty Years on the Firing Line, Witham traces his childhood in Ohio and his political coming of age in the Midwest during the mid-nineteenth century. While working as a farm laborer in Nebraska and Iowa, Witham started canvassing for farmer's rights in a farmer's paper, The Western Rural, a practice he continued for many years. In the fall of 1878, he met the populist leader, Gen. James B. Weaver, the first of many influential political leaders who became the subjects of his writing. He wrote about the origins of the Farmer's Alliance organization while playing a role in its formation. By 1882, he was attending state legislative sessions in Iowa, Nebraska, and Minnesota as a reporter and advocate. In this book, he discusses some of the legislative struggles that pitted farmers against big business and offers reasons why farmers should be allowed to form organizations to advocate their cause. Witham also criticizes the practice of railroad companies providing free riding privileges to journalists and elected public officials, contending that this practice biased these professions in favor of the railroads. He became well-known for his advice columns in the St. Paul Daily News, signed as "The Cornfield Philosopher." The bulk of Witham's experiences discussed here reflect his long residency in Iowa. There is, however, a wealth of information about Minnesota politics of the 1910s and early 1920s. (English) (search this work)

Five years in Minnesota. Sketches of life in a western state.
Maurice Farrar was an Englishman authorized by Minnesota in 1880 to act as an Agent for the promotion of Immigration through lecturing in Great Britain. He spent five years in Minnesota during the late 1870s and, upon his return home, published this promotional work extolling the farming life there. The preface makes clear his intention of encouraging inhabitants of Britain to emigrate to a land seemingly unaffected by agricultural depression. His favorable review of Minnesota centers on Fairmont, in Martin County, which he describes as an "English colony" settled by natives of Great Britain from all walks of life. He then talks about the woods of Fillmore County and the town of Chatfield which he follows with a visit to a Chippewa reservation, White Earth. For much of the rest of the book, Farrar discusses sports, politics, and social life, finishing with a detailed exploration of factors that might induce one to emigrate. An appendix of agricultural crops, ploughing, appropriate housing and other practical information concludes this volume. (English) (search this work)

Floral home; or, First years of Minnesota. Early sketches, later settlements, and further developments.
Harriet E. Bishop (1817-1883) emigrated to Minnesota from New England in 1847. She was recruited by Catherine Beecher's Board of National Popular Education to establish a school in St. Paul, Minnesota and to serve as its first formal teacher, reaching students of French, English, Swiss, Sioux, Chippewa, and African-American backgrounds. Her book, Floral Home, is divided into three components: "Early Sketches," "Later Settlements," and "Further Developments." "Early Sketches" provides accounts of the earliest known white explorers and settlers to the region and discusses the source of the Mississippi River as well as the establishment of Fort Snelling. "Later Settlements" encompasses the period from about 1835-1850 and includes her own arrival. "Further Developments" covers the period after 1850 that saw an explosion of growth in Minnesota. Bishop describes the region's culture, its varied population, its geography and land-use, its natural resources, and the development of its religious, educational, and governmental institutions. There are comments upon the progress of St. Paul, St. Anthony's Falls, St. Croix Falls, Stillwater, and Minneapolis and Minnesota's formation into a territory. Bishop also relates many encounters with the Chippewa and the Sioux [Dakotas] and offers insights about how vastly different cultures co-existed on the frontier. She includes several poems about topics of local significance, some without attribution. (English) (search this work)

La Follette's autobiography; a personal narrative of political experiences, by Robert M. La Follette.
The autobiography of Robert La Follette (1855-1925) traces the political life and accomplishments of this eminent Republican politician from his election as district attorney for Dane County, Wisconsin in 1880 to the presidential campaign of 1912, when his bid to dislodge President William Howard Taft was pushed aside by former president Theodore Roosevelt on the Progressive Party's national ticket. The book emphasizes tactics, strategies, and coalition-building as well as La Follette's assessments of various local and national public figures. We learn little about La Follette's childhood, education, legal training or family life, although he does pay tribute to his wife, a lawyer and civic reformer in her own right. La Follette served three terms in Congress (1885-1891); and after a decade of private law practice and grassroots activism, was elected Wisconsin's governor (1900-1904). From 1905 until his death, La Follette was a senator. He crusaded at state and national level against powerful, unregulated business interests--especially the railroads--which he felt exerted undue influence upon government. He also championed open primary elections, equitable taxation of corporations, and public management of public resources by highly qualified, non-partisan public servants. While many of these influential reforms were instituted at the state level during his governorship, his contribution in the Senate may have had less to do with his legislative record than with his ability to rally forces around well-articulated programs. (English) (search this work)

The frontier holiday; being a collection of writings by Minnesota pioneers who recorded their divers ways of observing Christmas, Thanksgiving and New Year's.
This collection of brief first-person descriptions and anecdotes chronicles how Christmas, New Year's, and Thanksgiving were celebrated in nineteenth-century Minnesota. The materials are drawn from documents at the Minnesota Historical Society, and many have appeared before in print. They range from Zebulon Pike's journal entries for December 25, 1805 and January 1, 1806 (which mention extra rations and presents for members of his expedition) to translated excerpts from the Swedish writer's Hugo Nisbeth's travel narrative, Two Years in America (1872-1874). Most of these accounts date from the middle of the century. Topics include a community Christmas celebrated in the schoolhouse; New Year's open houses; Christmas in early Minneapolis, Winona, and Fort Snelling; Christmas customs adapted by Native Americans; and a Thanksgiving feast. (English) (search this work)

A gallery of pen sketches in black and white of our Michigan friends "as we see 'em.", by Newpaper cartoonists' association of Michigan.
This is a collection of cartoons and caricatures of Michigan's business leaders, professionals, politicians, and other notables drawn by cartoonists from such newspapers as the Detroit News and the Free Press. The subjects are treated as a pantheon of "Michiganders," "who perform their share of the world's work in such a manner as to bring them into public notice." Each illustration combines a realistic portrait of the subject's head with a caricatured body, and shows him performing activities associated with his particular calling. Icons, symbols, and stereotypes facilitate instant recognition of the trades, businesses, and professions represented. There are no women included, and ethnic minorities are occasionally portrayed in a disparaging manner. (English) (search this work)

Gazetteer of the state of Michigan.
This is a detailed compendium of information about Michigan in 1839. Part One presents a "general view of the state," describing Michigan's geology, soil, climate and topography as well as its improvements, products, governance, religious and educational institutions, population, and antiquities. Part One also incorporates a "Succinct History of the State," which treats major events from the era of French exploration through statehood. Part Two provides a general view of each county, including its seat of justice, principal towns and villages, waterways and natural resources, political subdivisions, and population. Part Three imparts similar information for all the organized townships, and includes a large section on Detroit. Finally, there are a few pages of advice for immigrants. (English) (search this work)

H. P. Hall's observations; being more or less a history of political contests in Minnesota from 1849 to 1904.
Harlan Page Hall (1838-1907) founded the St. Paul Dispatch in 1868 and devoted most of his life to journalism. This book, based on personal reminiscences, chronicles the contests and struggles of Minnesota's political parties from its territorial years through the early twentieth century. He emphasizes the parties' factional struggles but also connects politics within the state to national campaigns, candidates, and issues. Hall describes local politics in light of the region's conflicting economic interests and devotes considerable attention to political strategy at the grassroots level. (English) (search this work)

Half a century.
At the beginning of her autobiography, Jane Swisshelm announces that she intends to show the relationship of faith to the antislavery struggle, to record incidents characteristic of slavery, to provide an inside look at hospitals during the Civil War, to look at the conditions giving rise to the nineteenth-century struggle for women's rights, and to demonstrate, through her own life, the "mutability of human character." After her father's death in 1823, she helped support her family through hard work and teaching school. Her marriage in 1836 to James Swisshelm, a Methodist farmer's son, resulted in continual conflict with her husband's family, who sought to convert her to their own beliefs. After a few years in Louisville, Kentucky, where Swisshelm observed slavery first-hand, she left her husband to nurse her mother in Pittsburgh. She wrote several articles for the antislavery Spirit of Liberty and the Pittsburgh Commercial Journal, then in 1848 started her own anti-slavery newspaper, the Pittsburg Saturday Visiter [sic]. Her views on slavery, women's issues, and the Mexican- American War soon attracted a national readership. In 1856 she started another abolitionist paper, the Democrat, and began to lecture frequently on slavery and the legal disabilities of women. She opposed those who advocated leniency for the leaders of the 1862 Sioux uprising, and took her cause to Washington, D.C., on the advice of state officials. While there she secured a position nursing wounded Union soldiers and raising supplies for their benefit. Her narrative ends with her discharge and retirement to an old log block house on ten acres of her husband's family holdings. (English) (search this work)

Hand book of Wisconsin: second edition, enlarged and improved.
This pocket-sized book provides statistical and geographical information about Wisconsin in the 1850s, including topographical descriptions, a listing of natural resources, educational data, a discussion of available lands and instructions for filing land claims, information about unsurveyed lands, census figures, the economic activities of each county, and transportation routes. Advertisements from publishers, retailers, and members of the professions appear in the back pages. (English) (search this work)

Historical Collections. Collections and researches made by the Michigan pioneer and historical society ... Reprinted by authority of the Board of state auditors. Volume 10.
This volume is a collection of several different kinds of important historical documents published by the Michigan Pioneer and Historical Society. Volume 10 combines approximately two hundred pages of articles written about local, territorial, and state history with a second installment of materials from the Haldimand Papers, continued from Volume 9. The Haldimand Papers are materials culled from Canadian archives in Ottawa by the Society's representative, B.W. Shoemaker, to illuminate British influence and activities in the Great Lakes region during the era of the American Revolution and its aftermath. Articles in the first part of the volume range from the presidential campaign of 1840 to the early history of Michigan horticulture. They cover early Michigan surveys; town histories and recollections of Detroit, Flint, Green, and Watertown; religious institutions such as the Freewill Baptist Church of Cook's Prairie, the old Moravian mission at Mount Clemons, and the Methodist Episcopal Church of Galesburg; and Native American customs, lore, and history. Excerpts from the White Pigeon Republican report the proceedings of a council held at Notawassippi (St. Joseph County) in 1839 between the Potawatomi [Pottawattomies] remaining in Michigan and Indiana and Isaac S. Ketchum. Two chiefs, Red Bird and Muckmote, speak in detail about why their people rejected a proposal to move west of the Mississippi. Two poems, both printed in the White Pigeon Republican, 1839, meditate upon the graves and forest life-style of vanished Indians. There are also several short biographies and testimonials. The volume's installment of the Haldimand papers continues the correspondence by frontier-based British officers with each other and with their commanding officer, General Frederick Haldimand, at Quebec. The excerpts here emphasize European, Native American, and American relations from the 1760s through the early 1780s and provide documentation about Native American councils and court proceedings, civil and military life, corn contracts, movements in the Ohio Country, ceremonies, inventories and supplies, census figures for Detroit and St. Joseph, indemnification, Native American oratory, trade, medical care, and military intelligence. A general index and name index appear at the end of the volume. (English) (search this work)

Historical collections. Collections and researches made by the Michigan pioneer and historical society ... Reprinted by authority of the Board of state auditors. Volume 11.
This volume is a collection of several different kinds of important historical documents published by the Michigan Pioneer and Historical Society. This volume opens with the President of the Society's address along with reports, memorials, personal reminiscences, and local history papers delivered at the 1887 annual meeting. Some of these papers deal with the Ordinance of 1787, early exploration of Lake Superior and life in and around its copper mines, Fort Gratiot, and the Calhoun and Kalamazoo County legal communities. The second half of the volume is devoted to the Haldimand Papers, continuing the series of publications from them that began in Volumes 9 and 10. The Haldimand Papers consist chiefly of the correspondence of frontier-based British officers with each other and their commanding officer, General Frederick Haldimand, at Quebec. They were culled from Canadian archives in Ottawa by the Society's representative, B.W. Shoemaker, to illuminate British influence and activities in the Great Lakes region during the era of the American Revolution and its aftermath. Documents here emphasize European, Native American, and American relations from 1782-1790 and provide information about Native American Councils and transactions, civil as well as military life, corn supplies, inventories, Native American oratory and a speech to Congress (1786), medicine, treaties, and military intelligence. There are extensive sections dealing with the state of trade (as reported by Montreal merchants), and with the proceedings of a Court of Inquiry investigating complaints by traders of Michilimackinac about the conduct of an employee of the Indian Department and his interpreter. A general index and an index of names appear at the end of the volume. (English) (search this work)

Historical collections. Collections and researches made by the Michigan pioneer and historical society ... Reprinted by authority of the Board of State auditors. Volume 12.
This volume is a collection of several different kinds of important historical documents published by the Michigan Pioneer and Historical Society. The first half of the volume is devoted to a fourth installment of papers selected from the Canadian Archives at Ottawa by the Society's representative, B.W. Shoemaker, to illuminate British influence and activities in the Great Lakes region during the era of the American Revolution and the early American republic. Materials here pertain to the years 1788-1799 and provide information on British policy towards the Native Americans, Native American activities and attitudes, supplies, ordnances, corn relief , the condition of Michilimackinac's fort, treaties, Chief Blue Jacket, desertion from the British navy, new defenses, and miscellaneous reports. The second half of the volume continues the publication of papers from the Historical Society at Detroit begun in Volume 8. These documents include miscellaneous letters, warrants, legal and judicial papers, the constitution of a Ladies' Society, a thanksgiving proclamation, papers pertaining to Mexican prisoners of wars, and public addresses, including an address by the Port Sarnia Indians to the Queen. There are also citizen petitions, memorials, papers relative to a demonstration of African Americans and their evacuation to Canada, a Detroit census, an unsigned recollection of Patriot War activities across the border from Canada (1837-1838), a circular about Michigan's resources along with its replies, and material about the Young Men's Society of Detroit and the Detroit Young Men's Temperance Society. In addition, several pages are devoted to the opinions, addresses, resolutions, and letters of Judge Woodward and to the proceedings against the Earl of Selkirk. Signed articles include the narrative of an escape from the Potawatomi [Potawattomie] Indians in 1814, Congregationalism in Michigan, an account of the boundary dispute with Ohio, the Battle of Phillip's Corners, the early history of Lenawee County, and a history of the War with the Foxes and the Sacs. An appendix with notes, a general index, and a name index appear at the end of the volume. (English) (search this work)

Historical collections. Collections and researches made by the Michigan pioneer and historical society ... Reprinted by authority of the Board of state auditors. Volume 15.
This volume is a collection of several different kinds of important historical documents published by the Michigan Pioneer and Historical Society. It contains another installment of materials selected from the Canadian Archives at Ottawa by the Society's representative, B.W. Shoemaker, in this case chosen to illuminate British influence, perspectives, and activities in the Great Lakes region during the War of 1812. The materials published here consist chiefly of reports and correspondence among British officers stationed at frontier posts in Canada and Michigan and with their commanding officers. The documents shed light on the island of Mackinac's strategic importance, Gen. Hull's surrender of Detroit, and British-Indian relations. They are divided into five sections: "Relations with the United States and events preliminary to war," "Declaration of War--Campaign of 1812," "Campaign of 1813," "Campaign of 1814," and "Appendix with elaborate notes to Second Edition." They include an extract discussing the state of the province of Upper Canada, and a biography of Gen. Henry Procter. An appendix with notes and an index appear at the end of the volume. (English) (search this work)

Historical collections. Collections and researches made by the Michigan pioneer and historical society ... Reprinted by authority of the Board of state auditors. Volume 16.
This volume is a collection of several different kinds of important historical documents published by the Michigan Pioneer and Historical Society. It contains a further installment of materials selected from the Canadian Archives at Ottawa by the Society's representative, B.W. Shoemaker, to illuminate British influence, perspectives, and activities in the Great Lakes region at the end of the War of 1812 and immediately thereafter (1815-1819), continuing the selection of documents begun in Volume 15. The materials published here consist chiefly of reports and correspondence among British officers stationed at frontier posts in Canada and Michigan and with their commanding officers. These concern the restitution of posts, military stores, supplies and ordnance, claims, a court martial and courts of inquiry, allegations of seditious behavior, medical care, and Native American affairs and activities (including Native American Councils at Amherstburg and Drummond Island). Other topics are treaties and ratifications, including the ratification of a treaty between the United States and the Wyandot, Seneca, Delaware, Shawanese, and Potawatomi [Pottawattomies] (reported in the Detroit Gazette, February 19, 1819), and British and American diplomatic correspondence. An appendix with notes and an index appear at the end of the volume. (English) (search this work)

Historical collections. Collections and researches made by the Michigan pioneer and historical society ... Reprinted by authority of the Board of state auditors. Volume 19.
This volume is a collection of several different kinds of important historical documents published by the Michigan Pioneer and Historical Society. It is devoted to another installment of materials selected from the Canadian Archives at Ottawa by the Society's representative, B.W. Shoemaker, in this case chosen to illuminate British influence, perspectives, and activities in the Great Lakes region between 1721 and the end of America's Revolutionary War. These documents are concerned with Detroit, Michilimackinac, Mackinac, and St. Joseph and other Upper Country military and Upper Posts. A report on the American Colonies was written on September 8, 1721 as a "representation of the Lords' Commissioners for Trade and Plantations to the King" and contains an official account of French and British friction in the Indian territories between 1712 and 1721. Brief reports written in 1761 (Indian trade in the Upper Country) and 1762 (to General Jeffery Amherst from Thomas Gage on the condition of Montreal) are also included. There are military dispatches from General Amherst (1758-1762) and letters sent to and from Col. Henry Bouquet (1759-1765) that shed light on events associated with the French and Indian War. Excerpts from the Haldimand Papers are continued from Volume 11 and cover the years from 1773 to 1781. They consist chiefly of correspondence among British officers stationed at frontier posts and with their commanding officer, General Frederick Haldimand, at Quebec. These documents shed light on such aspects of military life as inventories, stores, invoices, reparations, requests for supplies, and the complexities and mechanisms of British and Native American relations. An appendix with notes and an index appear at the end of the volume. (English) (search this work)

Historical collections. Collections and researches made by the Michigan pioneer and historical society ... Reprinted by authority of the Board of state auditors. Volume 20.
This volume is a collection of several different kinds of important historical documents published by the Michigan Pioneer and Historical Society. It contains the last installment of the Haldimand Papers, continued from Volume 19 and covering the years 1782- 1789. The Haldimand Papers were selected from the Canadian Archives at Ottawa by B.W. Shoemaker, the Society's representative, to illuminate British influence and activities in the Great Lakes region during the era of the American Revolution and its aftermath. The materials in this volume report the reestablishment of peace between Great Britain and the United States, and the vacating of some of the Upper Military Posts. There is a detailed account of a September 6, 1783 Council convened by Alexander McKee, Esq., Deputy Agent for Indian Affairs, and attended by the Hurons of Sandusky, Delawares, Shawanese, Mingoes, Creeks, and Cherokees with Capt. Joseph Brant, accompanied by a deputation from the Six Nations of the Iroquois and T'Sindatton and a deputation of Lake Indians from Detroit. Much of the rest of this installment of the Haldimand Papers is devoted to British, Native American, and American relations. These are also the subject of the second half of the volume, which contains additional military correspondence in the Canadian Archives at Ottawa. There is extensive correspondence from Joseph Chew (a loyalist who served as Secretary of the Indian Department under Sir William Johnson and others of the Johnson family), that includes a copy of a peace treaty (signed at Grenville August 3, 1795) between the United States and the Wyandots, Delawares, Shawanoes, Ottawas, Chipewas, Putawatames, Miamis, Eel River, Weeas, and Kickapoas. An appendix with notes and an index appear at the end of the volume. (English) (search this work)

Historical collections. Collections and researches made by the Michigan pioneer and historical society ... Reprinted by authority of the Board of state auditors. Volume 9.
This volume is a collection of several different kinds of important historical documents published by the Michigan Pioneer and Historical Society. This is the first of several volumes that contain excerpts from the "Haldimand Papers," materials culled from Canadian archives in Ottawa by the Society's representative, B.W. Shoemaker, to illuminate British influence and activities in the Great Lakes region during the era of the American Revolution and its aftermath. The Haldimand Papers consist chiefly of the correspondence of frontier-based British officers with each other and their commanding officer, General Frederick Haldimand, at Quebec. The documents emphasize European, Native American, and American relations from 1776-1784 and frequently address issues connected with the Revolutionary War. There is a description of Michilimackinac in 1781, a report of Native American Councils at Detroit, a trip to Lake Superior in 1784, and papers concerning Samuel Robertson, a prisoner. In addition, there is a presidential address, and reports, memorials, personal reminiscences, and local history papers presented at the annual meeting of the Pioneer Society in 1886. There are also papers discussing the American settlement of Ottawa County, read in honor of the county's semi- centennial celebration, with attention to the area's soil and climate, pioneer settlements and fruit culture, commerce and ship-building, early newspapers and churches (Dutch, German, and English-speaking), and its medical and educational history. There is also an eye-witness account of the fire that devastated Holland, Michigan in 1871. An index appears at the end of the volume. (English) (search this work)

Historical collections. Collections and researches made by the Michigan pioneer and historical society... Reprinted by authority of the Board of state auditors. Volume 8.
This volume is a collection of several different kinds of important historical documents published by the Michigan Pioneer and Historical Society. It opens with a presidential address and other reports, memorials, personal reminiscences, and local history papers delivered at the Society's annual meeting in 1885. Numerous copies and translations of historical documents follow, divided into "leading papers" and "miscellaneous documents." Highlights include a translation of the "Pontiac Manuscript" (a first-hand, knowledgeable narrative of Pontiac's Rebellion conjectured to have been the work of a French priest), which is supplemented by other eyewitness accounts and letters. Some of the other articles discuss Canadian sources for researching Michigan history, Father Marquette and other early Jesuit missionaries in the region, a plot to transfer Michigan's lower peninsula to British ownership (1795), and early settlements in Detroit and its environs by the French and others. The documents include reports of Indian unrest, tax lists, deeds, bills and receipts, town site plans, military expeditions, and an "Address of the Chiefs of the Chippewa Nation." An index appears at the end of the volume. (English) (search this work)

A history of Herring Lake; with an introductory legend, The bride of mystery.
Herring Lake is located in Benzie County along the shores of Lake Michigan. John Howard, the self-styled "bard of Benzie," chronicles its history through legends, anecdotes, and an abundance of antiquarian information about local artifacts, town characters, Indians, and memorable occurrences. He discusses Watervale's transformation from a "defunct lumber village" to a summer resort community, and recalls vanished technological processes used in processing and transporting lumber. The book's preface is a verse legend, "The Bride of Mystery," concerning the courtship, marriage, and drowning of an Indian maiden, "Arequipah.". (English) (search this work)

History of the Ottawa and Chippewa Indians of Michigan; a grammar of their language, and personal and family history of the author.
Blackbird (Mack-e-te-be-nessy) was an Ottawa chief's son who served as an official interpreter for the U.S. government and later as a postmaster while remaining active in Native American affairs as a teacher, advisor on diplomatic issues, lecturer and temperance advocate. In this work he describes how he became knowledgeable about both Native American and white cultural traditions and chronicles his struggles to achieve two years of higher education at the Ypsilanti State Normal School. He also deals with the history of many native peoples throughout the Michigan region (especially the Mackinac Straits), combining information on political, military, and diplomatic matters with legends, personal reminiscences, and a discussion of comparative beliefs and values, and offering insights into the ways that increasing contact between Indians and whites were changing native lifeways. He especially emphasizes traditional hunting, fishing, sugaring, and trapping practices and the seasonal tasks of daily living. Ottawa traditions, according to the author, recall their earlier home on Canada's Ottawa River and how they were deliberately infected by smallpox by the English Canadians after allying themselves with the French. Blackbird finds Biblical parallels with Ottawa and Chippewa accounts of a great flood and a fish which ingests and expels a celebrated prophet. He includes his own oratorical "Lamentation" on white treatment of the Ottawas, twenty-one moral commandments of the Ottawa and Chippewa, the Ten Commandments and other religious material in the Ottawa and Chippewa language, and a grammar of that language. Henry Rowe Schoolcraft appears in the narrative in his role as an Indian agent. (English) (search this work)

Intimate letters of Carl Schurz, 1841-1869.
This is a collection of personal letters written by the eminent German- American statesman, Carl Schurz (1829-1906), to his immediate family and close friends. Schurz maintained a legal residence in Watertown, Wisconsin from 1855 to 1866, even though lecture tours and campaign speeches took him all across the northern United States. Several of these letters deal with Schurz's Wisconsin years, and most are published here for the first time in English. They are filled with descriptive insights about German immigrants and native-born Americans as well as about the newly developing urban centers of the Upper Midwest. Schurz was a political revolutionary during his university years in his native Germany. When he emigrated to the United States, he became an outstanding spokesman for the anti-slavery cause and the Republican party. One of his missions was to mobilize German-American communities against slavery, but his rhetorical skills in English as well as German soon won him a broader following. Later, Schurz became an ardent champion of civil service reform. His other contributions to American life ranged from farming and practicing law to serving as Ambassador to Spain (1861-62), Civil War general (1862-63), Senator from Missouri (1869-75), organizer of the Liberal Republican Party (1872), and Secretary of the Interior (1877-81), where he made the conservation of natural resources an object of policy for the first time. Schurz was also considered one of the leading journalists of his day, editing the New York Evening Post (1881- 83) and writing for Harper's Weekly (1892-1901). His biographies of Henry Clay and Abraham Lincoln are still read today. (English) (search this work)

Journal of a trip to Michigan in 1841.
This brief journal, written for the author's wife and father, describes a three- week trip from Rochester, New York to southern Michigan by way of the Great Lakes. Swan's business seems to have been the manufacture of soda water, and he visited some drug stores in Detroit in order to promote his wares. After a brief stop in Ypsilanti, he spent the weekend in Ann Arbor, where he attended church. He then took a stage for Jackson, Marshall and the Genesee Prairies (near Kalamazoo), where he visited a sister and brother. In Michigan he also stopped at Summerville, Niles, La Porte Prairie, White Pidgeon Prairie, Clinton, and Saline. Swan writes enthusiastically about the prairies' wildflowers and abundant natural beauty, and describes life aboard Great Lakes steamers in some detail. He also voices candid opinions about women, food, and the discomforts of travel. (English) (search this work)

Life story of Rasmus B. Anderson, written by himself, with the assistance of Albert O. Barton.
Rasmus Anderson (1846-1936), the American author, scholar, editor, businessman and diplomat, i