25th. Very warm and pleasant; made about twenty miles over a pleasant country, rather uneven, diversified with woods and prairie, thinly settled. Saw several wild turkeys; there appears to be plenty of such game here.
20 miles.
26th. Passed through heavy timber to-day for most of the way.—Crossed the north and middle fork of Grand river, and passed the village of Princeton, which is a small hamlet of log houses about one half of which are groceries. Tried to buy some flour—found but an 100 weight in the village, and they asked $4 for that. I concluded I would not take it for two reasons: First, if they had but one cwt. in the village, they needed it themselves; and next, I did not like to be shaved well enough to pay that price. They asked $1.50 per bushel for corn.
Uncle Jo, one of our comrades from Mineral Point, and myself, went turkey hunting last night (by moonlight.) We rambled some eight or ten miles, and got back about 2 o'clock in the morning, minus turkeys, not having seen one.
The day has been excessively warm, and we are in hopes of having grass soon, which would be welcome as our horses have had nothing of hay kind but dry prairie grass, which we cut ourselves (and some nights we could not get that) for the last hundred miles, and we do not expect to find any more. We cannot camp now without doing it in a jam. There are some 30 or 40 wagons camped around us now, oxen, horses, &c. We are camped to-night on the Middle Fork of Grand river.
20 miles.
27th. We had a heavy shower with thunder last night: in the morning the wind was in the north-west, and cold. We left our camping ground early, and made 26 miles. We passed one small village to-day—Bethany, similar to the last, i.e. groceries. Have passed through a beautiful country to-day, alternately timber and prairie, some of it has been settled eleven years, but we cannot buy a loaf of bread, a dozen eggs, or any hay or straw, or in fact anything to eat for man or beast, with the exception of bacon, and that raised itself. We were lucky enough to lay in supplies for both man and beast before we got into this region. It is a great pity that Missouri is a slave state; were it a free state, so that free northern men would settle in it, all this great region of valuable land would be settled and improved, and there is no part of the western country that can excel the northern part of Missouri in beauty and fertility. It is better timbered, and watered than Illinois, and is rather more uneven, but no more so than is necessary to make good farming land.
26 miles.
28th. Sunday. We started again this morning and travelled ten miles to the main branch of the Grand river, which we crossed and camped. This is the last timber before crossing a prairie of 25 miles in width. Some go on intending to camp on the prairie, but the wind being cold, (from the north-west) we concluded to lay over until to-morrow. Our camping ground looks like the camp of an army. Horses, picketed tents, with the star spangled banners flying, wagons standing around, while lying by the side of logs and trees are brawny, sun-burnt men, sunning themselves, and taking their ease. Within thirty minutes after we camped there were 21 wagons camped. Since then they have been coming in and camping continually. How many there are at this time, would be difficult to say, and still they come. But this is but a foretaste of what we shall see at St. Joseph, which we expect to reach by Tuesday night, it being 44 miles from this place, we are told. On the opposite side of the river, and half a mile from here, is Gentryville, the county seat of Gentry county. It is a right smart place, as they say out this way. It has a saw and grist mill, two taverns, with a fair sprinkling of stores and workshops. I should think the water power very good for this country, and capable of supplying power for much more machinery than now in use.
10 miles.