Personal Memoirs of a Residence of Thirty Years with the Indian Tribes on the American Frontiers

by Henry Rowe Schoolcraft

"A spirit of ultraism seems to pervade the whole community. The language of Milton's archdevil 'Evil, be thou my good,' is the creed of modern reformers, or, in other words--anything for a change. What is to come of all this, I have not wisdom even to guess. It is an age of transition, and whether you and I live to see the elements of the moral and political world at rest, is, I think, extremely doubtful. But our consolation should be that the Lord reigns--that he loves good order and truth better than we do--and, blessed be his name, he is able to establish and maintain them.

"This is the anniversary of our national independence, and ought to be celebrated with thanksgiving and praise to God. Alas! how it is perverted."

22d. Mr. Green, of the Missionary Rooms, Boston, again writes about the Mackinack Mission. "I believe that my views accord very nearly with your own, as to what it would be desirable to do, provided the suitable persons could be procured to perform the work. There is a great deficiency in well qualified laborers. We can generally obtain persons who will answer our purpose, if we will wait long enough, but it often happens, in the mean time, that the circumstances so change that the proposed plan becomes of doubtful expediency. We have been continually on the lookout, since Mr. Ferry left Mackinack, for some one to fill his place, but as yet have found no one, and have no one in view."

28th. Mr. W. Fred. Williams, of Buffalo, communicates information respecting three boxes of specimens of natural history, which I lost in the fall of 1821. "My conversation with you having made me acquainted with the fact that you once lost two boxes of minerals and one of shells, I have been rather on the lookout for information respecting them, and am now able to inform you as to what became of them, and to correct the statement which I made (as I said) on supposition of the manner in which Edgerton became possessed of them.

"In the spring of 1832, a stranger from Troy or Albany came to Mr. Edgerton, at Utica, and told him that he had two boxes of minerals which he had received from Mr. Schoolcraft, and that if he (E.) would label them, he (E.) might take what he wished to retain for his trouble. He said, also, that he was about to establish a school at Lockport, but, knowing nothing of mineralogy, he wished to get the specimens labeled. Mr. Edgerton unpacked the boxes, took a few for himself, labeled and repacked the rest, and returned them to the stranger.

"The box of shells was left at the tavern of Levi Cozzens, in Utica, where they remained two years, waiting for some one to claim them; about this time Mr. C., closing up his concern, opened the box and gave the shells to his children for playthings, and sent the mocock of sugar (which had your name on or about it) to his mother. If the person who had the minerals still remains at Lockport, perhaps they may be recovered, but the shells are all destroyed."

The minerals referred to consisted of choice and large specimens of the colored and crystaline fluates of lime from Illinois, and the attractive species and varieties of sulphates of barytes, sulphurets of lead, radiated quartz, &c. &c., from Missouri, which I had revisited in 1821. They were fine cabinet specimens, but contained no new species or varieties. Not so with the fresh-water shells. They embraced all the species of the Wabash River, whose entire length I had traversed that year, from its primary forks to its entrance into the Ohio. Among them were some new things, which would, at that time, have proved a treat to my conchological friends.

8th. Mukonsewyan, or the Little Bear Skin, visited the office, with a retinue. He asked whether any Indians from the Fond du Lac, or Upper Mississippi, had visited the office this season. I stated to him the renewal of hostilities between the Sioux and Chippewas, as a probable reason why they had not. He entered freely into conversation on the history of the Sioux, and spoke of their perfidy to the Chippewas. I asked him if they were as treacherous to the Americans as they had been to the British--several of whose traders they had in former days killed. He said he had seen the Sioux offenders of that day, encamped at Mackinack, while the British held it, under the guns of the fort, and all the Indians expected that they would have been seized. But they were suffered to retire unmolested.

14th. I went to Round Island with Mr. Featherstonehaugh and Lieut. Mather. Examined the ancient ossuaries and the scenery on that island. Mr. F. is on his way to the Upper Mississippi as a geologist in the service of the Topographical Bureau. He took a good deal of interest in examining my cabinet, and proposed I should exchange the Lake Superior minerals for the gold ores of Virginia, &c. He showed me his idea of the geological column, and drew it out. I accompanied him around the island, to view its reticulated and agaric filled limestone cliffs; but derived no certain information from him of the position in the geological scale of this very striking stratum. It is, manifestly, the magnesian limestone of Conybeare and Phillips, or muschelkalk of the Germans.

Lieut. Mather brought me a letter from Major Whiting, from which I learn that he has been professor of mineralogy in the Military Academy at West Point. I found him to be animated with a zeal for scientific discovery, united with accurate and discriminating powers of observation.