[58] The Loutre is a Montgomery County stream.—Ed.
[59] The correct name of this man was Isaac Van Bibber. His father was killed at the Battle of Point Pleasant (see Bradbury's Travels, in our volume v, note 156); he was brought up in Daniel Boone's family, and married Elizabeth Hays, daughter of Boone's eldest daughter, Susan. Emigrating to Missouri in 1800, he served during the War of 1812-15 as major of militia. In the autumn of 1815 he settled at the place called Loutre Lick, on the site of the present village of Mineola, Montgomery County, and a considerable immigration followed. A man named Massey had attempted a settlement even earlier, but from fear of the Indians had retreated. The settlement was sometimes called Van Bibber's Lick. An effort was made to utilize the spring in the manufacture of salt, but the brine proved too weak to yield profitably.—Ed.
[60] The old mining district in Madison County, Missouri, centered around the town of Mine la Motte, named for the Frenchman who discovered the deposits. Mine la Motte was settled as early as 1722; its site is about four miles north of Fredericktown. St. Michael was settled in 1801, by immigrants from North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, and Virginia, and in 1822 contained fifty dwellings; then it declined and almost disappeared. Its site is on the north bank of Saline Creek, opposite Fredericktown.—Ed.
[61] Thrall's settlement was about four miles north of Rocheport, Boone County. The first settlers arrived as early as 1812, and after the War of 1812-15 the population grew rapidly. Augustus Thrall, for whom the place was named, came in 1816. The site was on land granted by the federal government to sufferers from the New Madrid earthquake.—Ed.
[62] Willdenow. F. palustris. Nuttall.—James.
[63] For Franklin and Chariton, see the preceding volume, notes 116, 122. Grand River is a considerable affluent of the Missouri; it rises in southern Iowa and flows southeasterly; its lower course forms the boundary between Chariton and Carroll counties, Missouri.—Ed.
[64] The text does not make clear the route of the party through Carroll County, especially as Doe Creek cannot be identified. If this stream was a tributary of Grand River, the party could not have crossed a branch of the Wahconda in a course north, 45° west; for Big Creek, a tributary of the Grand, which flows southeasterly through the eastern half of the county, would have separated them from the Wahconda basin. It seems likely that they ascended the watershed between Big Creek and the Wahconda, and that Doe Creek was a small branch of the former. The two tributaries of the Grand which were crossed may have been Big Creek and one of its large branches, probably the Little Wahconda, which flows south through the centre of the county. The journey of twenty-two miles must have brought them near the northern line of Carroll County.
Wahconda (sometimes Wakanda and Wakenda) is, as the text has explained, the Indian name for the supreme being (Master of Life). The stream pursues an eastward course across Carroll County. Its waters abounded in fish and its banks in game; to the Indians such abundance seemed to betoken the presence of the deity, and the stream was regarded as sacred. Another legend concerning the name is, that two Sioux died while passing a night upon its bank, and as they bore no marks of violence, the Indians attributed their death to the Master of Life.—Ed.
[65] Eaton's Index to the Geology of the Northern States. First edition.—James.
[66] A ceanothus, smaller than C. americana, the amorpha canescens, and the symphoria racemosa, are almost the only shrubs seen in the prairies.—James.