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JOURNAL

OF

A TOUR

INTO

THE INTERIOR OF MISSOURI AND ARKANSAW,

FROM

Potosi, or Mine à Burton, in Missouri Territory, in a South-West Direction, toward the Rocky Mountains;

PERFORMED IN THE YEARS 1818 AND 1819.

BY HENRY R. SCHOOLCRAFT.

LONDON:

PRINTED FOR SIR RICHARD PHILLIPS AND Co.

BRIDE-COURT, BRIDGE-STREET; AND TO BE HAD OF ALL BOOKSELLERS.

TOUR

INTO THE

INTERIOR OF MISSOURI,

IN THE YEARS 1818 AND 1819.

I

Potosi, Thursday, 5th Nov. 1818.

BEGIN my tour where other travellers have ended theirs, on the confines of the wilderness, and at the last village of white inhabitants, between the Mississippi river and the Pacific Ocean. I have passed down the valley of the Ohio, and across the state of Illinois, in silence! I am now at the mines of Missouri, at the village of Mine à Burton, (now called Potosi,) and surrounded by its mineral hills and smoking furnaces. Potosi is the seat of justice for Washington county, Missouri territory, and is situated forty miles west of St. Genevieve, and about sixty south-west of St. Louis, the capital. It occupies a delightful valley, of small extent, through which a stream of the purest water meanders, dividing the village into two portions of nearly equal extent. This valley is bordered by hills of primitive limestone, rising in some places in rugged peaks; in others, covered with trees, and grouped and interspersed with cultivated farms, in such a manner as to give the village a pleasing and picturesque appearance. It contains seventy buildings, exclusive of a court-house, a jail, an academy, a post-office, one saw, and two grist mills, and a number of temporary buildings necessary in the smelting of lead. In its vicinity is found a considerable tract of very fertile land, and a lively interest is manifested to the pursuits of agriculture; but the trade of Potosi is chiefly in lead, which is, in a great degree, the medium of exchange, as furs and peltries formerly were in certain parts of the Atlantic states. Very great quan