TO

ALEXANDER B. JOHNSON, ESQ.

OF UTICA.

My dear sir:--I feel impelled to place your name before these sheets,
from a natural impulse. It is many years since I accompanied you to the
Genesee country, which was, at that time, a favorite theatre of
enterprise, and called the "Garden of the West." This step, eventually,
led me to make deeper and more adventurous inroads into the American
wilderness.

If I am not mistaken, you will peruse these brief memoranda of my
exploratory journeys and residence in the wide area of the west, and
among barbarous tribes, in a spirit of appreciation, and with a lively
sense of that providential care, in human affairs, that equally shields
the traveler amidst the vicissitudes of the forest, and the citizen at
his fireside.

Very sincerely yours,

HENRY R. SCHOOLCRAFT.




PREFACE.

Ten years ago I returned from the area of the Mississippi Valley to New