A. A. Parker

“ Nature has laid off her work here, upon a magnificent scale, and finished it with a liberal hand. Its natural productions are rich and abundant. Its waters abound with fish—its soil teems with an exuberance of trees, plants and blossoms—rich mines lie emboweled beneath the surface—and wild game are profusely scattered over its prairies, woodland and rivers. To the husbandman, it presents itself in a more attractive aspect, than the granite hills and rocky soil of New-England. It has increased in population and wealth, incomparably greater than any other section of the world ”

“ This is, by far, the largest eastern tributary of the Mississippi; and at the junction, and a hundred miles above, it is as wide as the parent stream. If the Mississippi rolls along its sweeping and angry waters, in more majesty—the Ohio far exceeds it in beauty, and in its calm, unbroken course. No river in the world moves along the same distance, in such an uniform, smooth and peaceful current. The river is formed by the junction of the Alleghany and Monongahela at Pittsburgh. ”

“ Rye, barley, oats, flax, hemp, tobacco, melons, pumpkins, squashes and all garden vegetables flourish remarkably well. Peaches, pears, plums, cherries, &c. grow to great perfection. The land seems well adapted to the use of plaster, and this is found of excellent quality, in inexhaustible quantities, on the banks of the Missouri.
Beyond all countries, this is the land of blossoms. Every prairie is an immense flower garden. In the spring, their prevailing tint is that of the peach blossom—in summer, of a deeper red—then a yellow—and in autumn, a brilliant golden hue. ”

“ If by land, through Louisiana and Red River, its first appearance is that of a poor country of hilly land, chiefly covered with wood, and presenting to the eye a weak soil, alternately of sand and of clay. But when you pass the border towards the interior, the scene becomes entirely changed. You behold a beautiful country of rich soil, rounded by the hand of nature into the most fanciful forms, covered with eternal verdure, and begirt with forests of stately trees. Earth may not afford a more beautiful prospect than is obtained from the summit of an elevated prairie. ”

“ It would be difficult to decide at what season of the year, the Ohio has the most interesting and beautiful appearance—in the spring, when its high floods sweep along with irresistible power, and the red-bud and other early blossoms enliven its banks—or in autumn, when it passes quietly along, showing its broad and clean sand bars, and its pebbly bottom, through waters transparent as air—and when the withering leaves of the forest are painted in golden and scarlet colors along its shores. ”

“ Perhaps the emigrant had never before travelled far from the smoke of his father's dwelling, and had spent his life hitherto in the neighborhood where he was born, and where his early and innocent attachments were formed. He now finds himself in a new country, far away from the ever-to-be-remembered scenes of his childhood, and he looks abroad upon the world around him, in sadness of heart; for it is a world, however beautiful it may be, that is a stranger to him, and with which he has no sympathy. Not to feel, under such circumstances as these, indicates something more or less than man. ”

“ They have much more friendship for the Americans, than for the Spaniards; and if they call them into action, it may prove disastrous only to themselves. The Indians are as hard to direct and control, as a fire on their own boundless prairies. The fire, uncontrolled by him who kindles it, sweeps over the plain, where the wind happens to drive; so the wild Indian, regardless of friend or foe, hurries on to kill and plunder, where his savage fury happens to impel him. But on another ground, Santa Anna had better take heed. Exciting the Indians to kill and plunder, is a game that two can play at. ”

“ In the region of Sangamon river, nature has delighted to bring together her happiest combinations of landscape; being beautifully variegated with woodland and lawn, like sunshine and shade. It is generally a level country; the prairies are not too extensive, and timber abounds in sufficient quantity to support a dense population. In this beautiful section of the new world, more than two hundred families, from New-England, New-York and North Carolina, fixed their habitations before it was surveyed. The land is exceedingly rich and easily cultivated. ”

“ But when the boundless resources that now lie hidden in its hills and mountains shall have become developed—when the vast plains shall have been settled—and towns, villages and farm houses arise in the lonely wilderness, and the teeming soil be cultivated—who then will be able to estimate the value of this great territory of the West? In ten years, the West will have a majority in the United States Congress; in a century, a large portion of it will contain a population as dense, perhaps, as that of the Atlantic States. ”

“ Well might Black Hawk look with indifference on the puny exhibition of fireworks in New-York, when he had so often seen fireworks displayed, on such a gigantic scale, on his own native prairies.
A prairie storm of fire is indeed terrific. Animals and men flee before it, in vain. When impelled by a strong breeze, the wave of fire passes on, with the swiftness of the wind; and the utmost speed of the horse lingers behind. It then assumes a most appalling aspect; roars like a distant cataract, and destroys every thing in its course. Man takes to a tree, if he fortunately can find one ”

“ There is in truth, a worse kind than negro slavery—when a man becomes a slave to his own unhallowed, vindictive passions.
Much injustice has been done the southern people. Those who have travelled and dwelt among them, bear testimony to their high-mindedness, kindness and hospitality. They scorn to do an act of meanness; or to enter upon the broad field of scandal. And although their strong sensibility may sometimes lead them into error, yet in all the virtues which ennoble man, they might not suffer in a comparison with the North. ”

“ The thin settled State of Texas, with a population of some fifty thousand, comparatively, without arms and resources, and having no organized government, engaging in a war with sixteen States, with a population of eight millions, reminds one of the stripling David, going out in the valley of Elah, to give battle to the Philistine of Gath. It requires an unusual degree of boldness and daring, to form the resolution, and to commence a war, with such an immense disparity of force. But the race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong. ”

“ In the year 1833, about sixty thousand emigrants left Buffalo, to go to the West by water; and in 1834, not less than eighty thousand there embarked, besides those who took passage from other ports. No calculation can be made, of the number that have passed along the south shore of the lake by land; but, I was informed, a gentleman counted two hundred and fifty wagons in one day!
The western world is all alive. The lakes, the streams, the prairies, and forests, are all teeming with life, and exhibit all the noise and bustle of human industry and enterprise. ”

“ The broad expanse of country, stretching from the Alleghany mountains to the Pacific ocean, much of which is unsurveyed, unsettled and unexplored, is an interesting portion of the United States. It is believed, there are two hundred million acres of public lands yet unsurveyed in Wisconsin Territory—fifty millions in Michigan—and 800 millions in Missouri, Mississippi, and Arkansas. To all these, are to be added the illimitable tracts, hardly yet trodden by the foot of civilized man, which lie in the unpeopled immensity, on both sides of the rocky mountains. ”

“ The magnolia, celebrated for its large, splendid blossom, is an evergreen, having a dark, green leaf an inch and a half wide, and two and a half long, and of the size of the maple—the peccan, a tree resembling the walnut, and bearing a round nut an inch long, equal to the hickory-nut—the hackberry, about the size and much resembling the beach—the holly, a small evergreen, having a small thick leaf—the chinquopin, a mere shrub, resembling the chestnut tree, and bearing a similar but smaller nut. ”

“ The Texians, and the gallant spirits that have hastened to their aid and rescue, compared in number with their enemy, are indeed but a handful of men; but, like the Spartan band of former times, they have lion-hearts and vigorous arms. What men dare, they dare! They have staked their all upon the issue. They have drawn the sword, and thrown away the scabbard. Exterminated they may be, but not subdued. Before such a band, numbers are of no avail; before such opponents, well may tyrants tremble.
The first campaign has ended in the complete overthrow of the Mexican force, in Texas. ”

“ Milam was mainly instrumental in the complete success of the assault, and fell a victim to his own zeal and intrepidity. The death of this estimable man, turned the joy of victory into sadness. Like the lamented Warren of Bunker Hill, he fell early in his country's struggle for independence;—and like him, his untimely exit was deeply deplored.
A native of Kentucky, he possessed in an eminent degree, the chivalry and noble bearing, so conspicuous in the land of his birth. In early life, he left his native State. ”

“ Now, if the object be to emancipate the slaves, go to the slaveholder himself, and endeavor to satisfy him that slavery in itself is evil; and, on a view of the whole ground, it is safe, practicable, and beneficial to the slaves to be set free.—To the objection, that it would be unsafe to go among slaveholders for such a purpose, I reply, that missionaries are sent among the Indians of the West, the heathen of the East, and in the islands of the sea; and can it be deemed more dangerous to go among the slaveholding citizens of the United States, than among them? It cannot be pretended. ”

“ The prairie grass is unlike any kind I have seen at the north; but it affords excellent fodder for horses, neat cattle and sheep. A finer grazing country I had never seen. The grass appears to have more nourishment in it, than at the north. I saw beef cattle, fatted on the prairie grass alone, and I challenge Brighton to produce fatter beef, or finer flavored.
Towards the lake, the land is gently undulating; farther west, on Fox and Rock rivers, it is rolling; and as you approach Galena on the Mississippi, it becomes more hilly and broken. All this country seems to lack, is timber and water. ”

“ The man who had been here two years, had a hundred acres under fence; raised a large crop of corn and wheat, and had sold at Chicago, only thirty miles distant in a straight line, two hundred and twenty bushels of potatoes for as many dollars. He had built a weir across the river to catch fish, which I walked down to see. He took his boat, went out to the pen, and dipped out with a small net half a boat load of fish.
This is a land of plenty sure enough; and if a man cannot here find the luxuries of the city, he can obtain all the necessaries of life in abundance. ”

“ When perils thicken around and death stares him in the face, instead of summoning all his powers into action, and bravely contending to the last, he attempts to shut his eyes upon impending ruin, by stupifying the body, and ignobly surrenders life without a struggle. On no other principle, can I account for the excesses of New-Orleans. In its best estate, it is emphatically a place of disease and death. ”

“ It rages with violence in Maine, disturbs the quiet villages of New-England, keeps the western world alive, and visits the shores of Texas. I was at a loss to know how speculation could get hold of Texas lands; for they are only granted to the actual settler and only one grant given to each. Human ingenuity has devised a plan. When an emigrant arrives in the country, he is met by a land speculator, who tells him he knows of a good location, and if he will go and settle on it, he shall have one half of the league for nothing. ”

“ The sons of freedom can never be indifferent and unconcerned, in a struggle between liberty and despotic power, however remote the theatre of action; but when such a war is waged by their neighbors and friends, and Freedom the prize to be lost or won, the deep feeling pervading American breasts, cannot be suppressed.
When Centralism was established, the State governments annihilated, and Santa Anna, by aid of the priests and the army, proclaimed himself monarch of Mexico, united Texas arose as one man, to oppose the usurpation. ”

“ The Ohio, at this place, is about six hundred yards wide, and it immediately assumes a broad and beautiful aspect which continues in its whole course, to the Mississippi. Beautiful and romantic streams come in, at nearly equal distances—its bottoms are of an extraordinary depth and fertility—and the configuration on its banks, has all that softness, grandeur and variety, still changing and recurring in such endless combinations, as to render a voyage down it, at all times pleasant and delightful. ”

“ The soil is a rich, black loam, entirely inexhaustible, and produces abundant crops without the aid of manure. In some of the old settled towns at the lower part of the State, the same spot of ground has been cultivated with Indian corn for a hundred years, and it now produces equally as well as it did at first. In the time of strawberries, thousands of acres are reddened with this delicious fruit. But this country, which so delightfully strikes the eye, and has millions of acres that invite the plough, wants timber for fuel, building and fences. ”

“ Two of his daughters are well married, and settled on farms near him. Let every farmer at the north, who has to tug and toil on the sterile and rocky soil of New-England, to support his family, judge for himself, whether it is better to go to the West, or stay where he is. Whether, in fact, it is better to struggle for existence, and feel the cold grasp of poverty, or to roll in plenty and live at ease.
This region was somewhat the theatre of Indian cruelties in the last war with the whites. One northern man became their victim in this settlement. His name was Elijah Philips, of New-Hampshire. ”

“ I frequently amused myself by walking for miles on the sandy beach, and picking up some of the pretty shells among the millions that lay scattered along. It is as fine a walk as a pensive maiden, in contemplative mood, could desire. On the one hand, is the ever-toiling ocean, whose waves break upon the sand bars, and in giddy globes of foam, lash the shore, and spend their force beneath your feet: on the other, a low, sandy bluff, and then an extended lawn, stretching far away into the interior, and its utmost verge skirted with stately forest trees ”