by
W. H. C. Folsom
Edited by E. E. Edwards
Published by
Pioneer Press Company.
1888
PREFACE
At
the age of
nineteen years, I landed on the banks of the Upper Mississippi,
pitching my tent at Prairie du Chien, then (1836) a military post known
as Fort Crawford. I kept memoranda of my various changes, and
of
many of the events transpiring. Subsequently, not, however,
with
any intention of publishing them in book form until 1876, when,
reflecting that fifty years spent amidst the early and first white
settlements, and continuing till the period of civilization and
prosperity, itemized by an observer and participant in the stirring
scenes and incidents depicted, might furnish material for an
interesting volume, valuable to those who should come after me, I
concluded to gather up the items and compile them in a convenient form.
As a matter of interest to personal friends,
and as
also tending to throw additional light upon my relation to the events
here narrated. I have prefixed an account of my own early
life
for the nineteen years preceding my removal to the West, thus giving to
the work a somewhat autobiographical form. It may be claimed
that
a work thus written in the form of a life history of a single
individual, with observations from his own personal standpoint, will be
more connected, clear and systematic in its narration of events than if
it were written impersonally.
The period included in these sketches is one
of
remarkable transitions, and reaching backward, in the liberty accorded
to the historian, to the time of the first explorations by the Jesuits,
the first English, French and American traders, is a period of
transformation and progress that has been paralleled only on the shores
of the New World. We have the transition from barbarism to
civilization; we have the subjugation of the wilderness by the first
settlers; the organization of territorial and state governments; an era
of progress from the rude habits of the pioneer and trapper, to the
culture and refinement of civilized states; from the wilderness, yet
unmapped, and traversed only by the hardy pioneer in birch barks or dog
sledges, to the cultivated fields, cobwebbed by railways and streams
furrowed by steamers. It is something to have witnessed a
part,
even, of this wonderful transformation, and it is a privilege and a
pleasure to record, even in part, its history.
I have quoted from the most correct histories
within
my reach, but the greater part of my work, or of that pertaining to the
fifty years just passed, has been written from personal observation and
from information obtained directly by interview with, or by written
communications from, persons identified in some way with the history of
the country. To those persons who have so freely and
generously
assisted me in the collection of material for this work, I hereby
express my thanks. I have relied sparingly on traditions, and, where I
have used them, have referred to them as such.