Our route now lay through an undulating, open country for twenty miles, when we came to a house and mill on Pawpaw river where we "ate our breakfast for our dinner." We now crossed the stream, and travelled a new road, generally through timbered land, passed seven or eight small lakes, for twenty-eight miles before we came to a house.
Here, we found two log houses adjoining each other. It had now become night, and at this place we were to stay till the next day. I went in, and asked the woman, if she could get us something to eat. She said, if we would accept of such fare as she had, she would try. When we went in to supper, I never was more agreeably surprised in my life. We found a table neatly set; and upon it, venison steaks, good warm wheat bread, good butter, wild honey in the white comb, and a good cup of tea—better fare than we had found in Michigan, and as good as could be obtained anywhere. Our accommodations at this log house in the woods, show what people may do if they choose. And I wish some tavern keepers of our large towns, might happen to call there, and learn a lesson which they seem too much disinclined to learn at home. Our bill was so moderate, we added a dollar to it, and hardly thought we had fully paid our hostess then.
Twelve miles further, brought us to the river St. Joseph, about a mile above where it empties into the lake. The river here is thirty rods wide. We crossed it in a ferry boat, and after ascending a high bluff, we came in full view of lake Michigan and the St. Joseph village.
This village is pleasantly situated on a high bluff, on the south side of the river, and facing the lake; and contains sixty or seventy houses, two taverns, some half dozen stores, two large warehouses, and a light house. One tavern, the stores, and a few dwelling houses, are built underneath the bluff, on the bank of the river. A steamboat plies between this place and Niles, fifty miles up the river, as it runs, but only twenty-five miles by land. Just above the village, is a steam saw mill, which does a good deal of business. This place carries on considerable trade with the interior; the staple of which is wheat.
St. Joseph is very unhealthy. At the tavern, I found three persons sick, and one dangerously so. I called upon the doctor, and he was sick abed; I called upon the baker, and he was sick abed—and I passed by another house, where the whole family, consisting of a man, his wife, and five children, were all sick abed, and so completely helpless, that the neighbors had to take care of them! This is no fiction. The man's name is Emerson; from the State of New-York. Last spring he came on to this part of the country with his family and goods in a wagon. And when he came to Pawpaw river, where we breakfasted, he found no road direct to St. Joseph. He accordingly cut out the road that we had travelled to this place, and was the first who came through with a wagon, a distance of about fifty miles. Soon after his arrival, his eldest son, a promising youth of fifteen, accidentally was drowned in the river. The family, one by one, were taken sick; and now, all were sick and helpless. The man possessed great vigor of mind and body; had bought him a farm at some distance from the village on the road he had made, and commenced some improvements, and made great efforts to persevere and clear it up. But who can withstand the iron grasp of disease, or the "bold demands of death!" He beheld his family wasting away and to all appearance, hastening to the grave; and himself, as sick and helpless as they. A sad catastrophe this, in his prospect of wealth and bliss in the new world!
A schooner, called the Philip, plies regularly between this, and Chicago across the lake; but I had to wait here three days before its return. I spent the time in traversing the woods and the lake shore. This lake is a clear, beautiful sheet of water, having a soft sandy shore, and surrounded by high sandy hills. The river makes a good harbor, but there is a sand bar at its mouth, on which there is not more than five or six feet of water. The average width of the lake is sixty miles.
The distance from Detroit to St. Joseph is two hundred miles, and we had been five days and a half in travelling it. The road was as good as could be expected in a country so new, and so thinly inhabited. The land generally is good, and will support a dense population. The southern part of the territory is thought to contain the best land, and there are indeed some beautiful prairies. Prairie Round is among the most beautiful. It contains a number of thousand acres of high, level, and smooth land; and in the centre there are a hundred acres of higher land, covered with a beautiful growth of trees.
The best part of Indiana is on the border of Michigan, and extending south, on the Wabash river. The southern part of the State contains a good deal of hilly, rocky and sandy land, unfit for cultivation.
A territorial road has been laid out from Detroit to St. Joseph; and a survey of a railroad has been made, nearly on the line of the road, between the two places; but some time will elapse, before either are completed.
Wild game is plenty; deer, ducks, bears, wolves and squirrels are in sufficient quantity to keep the hunter awake.