I. LETTERS FROM BARRETT CHANNING PAINE.
We commence with the press correspondence of Mr. Barrett Channing Paine, who, at the period of the Glazier expedition, was a reporter on the staff of the Saint Paul Pioneer Press, and subsequently Managing Editor of the Saint Paul Globe. This gentleman accompanied Captain Glazier to the source of the Mississippi, and thence down the river in a canoe to the Gulf of Mexico. During the entire voyage Mr. Paine was in constant correspondence with the Pioneer Press and leading papers of various cities on the banks of the Mississippi, to which he furnished detailed accounts of the discovery and incidents of the journey. We present only a few of these letters, selected from a large number, for the perusal of the reader. The writer was certainly in a position to know the truth of the matters upon which he so intelligently reports.
Letter to the Brainerd (Minnesota) Tribune from Channing Paine:
"Schoolcraft Island,
"Lake Itasca, Minnesota,
"July 22, 1881.
"To the Editor of the Tribune:
"Captain Glazier's party arrived at this much-talked-of lake last evening, reaching the south-eastern arm by a three mile portage, and then paddling down to the Island, where we encamped. We left Leech Lake on the sixteenth, after cordial farewells with the gentlemen then at the Agency, especially Mr. Nichols and Rev. Edwin Benedict, to whose kindness we were greatly indebted. Launching our little fleet of canoes, three in number, on the billowy surface of the lake, we started for our first objective, Lake Itasca. After leaving Leech Lake our way lay up a river called by the Indians Gabakauazeba. The river broadens out a short distance from the lake, but narrows again and becomes tortuous and full of snags. Passing safely through all these, we reached, late in the afternoon, a fine lake nearly ten miles long, upon the shore of which we encamped. Next morning we paddled to the upper end of the lake, and were there introduced to our first real portage. Two miles and a half over a very rough country—the hardest work we ever undertook—brought us to another but smaller lake, and then, for five days, lakes and portages followed each other in rapid succession, until at length the waters of Itasca burst upon our view. The talk of our guides, coupled with what we had heard at Leech Lake, had led Captain Glazier to the conclusion that, whatever the source of the Mississippi might be, there was reasonable ground for the belief that Lake Itasca was not. Chief among the theories advanced by the Indian guides, one of whom, Chenowagesic, had hunted and trapped for years at the headwaters of this river, was that there existed a lake of good dimensions and wooded shores above Itasca, which poured its waters into the so-called source, and which was itself really the source of the Great River. They also stated (correctly, as we afterwards learned) that the stream which flowed from the lake spoken of by Paul Beaulieu as perhaps the source, contributed much less water to the main stream at its confluence with it than did the stream from Itasca. Resolved to explore the lake above Itasca, the captain started with two canoes, next morning, from Schoolcraft Island, and pushed up to the head of the lake. Chenowagesic piloted us through the rushes with which this end of Itasca is filled, and presently we found ourselves in a small but rapid stream, up which we went, and after following its windings, paddled again through some rushes, and then shot out upon the smooth surface of a beautiful lake. This lake is about two miles long by a mile and a half broad, and its shape is that of a heart. The shores are beautifully wooded, and its waters are deep and clear. On its one promontory our party landed. After exploring its shores, and first slaking our thirst at a spring of ice-cold water which bubbled up near by, we were marshalled in line, and Captain Glazier made a few remarks pertinent to the discovery of the true source of the Father of Waters. After this six volleys were fired in honor of the occasion, and then the question of a name for the new lake arose. This being left for the party to decide, I addressed my companions, and after alluding to the time, money and energy expended by the leader of the expedition, proposed that it be named Lake Glazier in his honor. This proposition was received with applause and carried by acclamation, and it was further decided that the name and date should be blazed on a pine tree which stood conspicuously on the point. After this we re-embarked in our canoes and returned to the Island."