Princeton, Illinois, _June_ 21, 1841.


I have just returned from an excursion to Rock River, one of the most
beautiful of our western streams.

We left Princeton on the 17th of the month, and after passing a belt of
forest which conceals one of the branches of the Bureau River, found
ourselves upon the wide, unfenced prairie, spreading away on every side
until it met the horizon. Flocks of turtle-doves rose from our path scared
at our approach; quails and rabbits were seen running before us; the
prairie-squirrel, a little striped animal of the marmot kind, crossed the
road; we started plovers by the dozen, and now and then a prairie-hen,
which flew off heavily into the grassy wilderness. With these animals the
open country is populous, but they have their pursuers and destroyers; not
the settlers of the region, for they do not shoot often except at a deer
or a wild turkey, or a noxious animal; but the prairie-hawk, the
bald-eagle, the mink, and the prairie-wolf, which make merciless havoc
among them and their brood.

About fifteen miles we came to Dad Joe's Grove, in the shadow of which,
thirteen years ago, a settler named Joe Smith, who had fought in the
battle of the Thames, one of the first white inhabitants of this region,
seated himself, and planted his corn, and gathered his crops quietly,
through the whole Indian war, without being molested by the savages,
though he was careful to lead his wife and family to a place of security.
As Smith was a settler of such long standing, he was looked to as a kind
of patriarch in the county, and to distinguish him from other Joe Smiths,
he received the venerable appellation of Dad. He has since removed to