W. W. Phelps

“ It is a great place, and every thing about it is GREAT. The Missouri, than which a large or more dreadful river, (with its muddy face always scowling,) is not on earth, rushes rapidly from near the 49th to about the 39th degree of north latitude, hurrying along with it, its numerous relatives, and tributaries, from the vast prairies, that lay spread out like an empire, and passes into the State of Missouri, as the President of rivers. ”

“ If the government should succeed in its philanthropic operation to ameliorate the condition of the Indians, and honorably purchase much of their land: if the Lord should permit timber to grow upon the prairies, like corn stalks upon the cultivated fields, so that towns and cities might speckle the west as they now do the east, still, when "Jacob takes root," according to the prediction of Isaiah, "and blossoms and buds and fills the face of the world with fruit," this country will then be The Land of Israel. ”

“ The generations generally, except the saints, as they have passed by, from the beginning, have had their measure, of glory, fame and power, because they have eagerly sought for it—but where are the mightiest of them? ”

“ Besides the Delawares, Shawnees, Kickapoos, Wyandots, Pottowattomies, Senecas, Osages, Choctaws, Cherokees, Kaskaskias, Kansas, &c. &c. which our nation and the missionaries are domesticating as they are gathered, upon the southern limits of the land of Israel, the Pawnees, the Sioux, the Rickarees, the Mandans, the Nespersees, the Blackfeet, the Sacs, the Foxes, and many other tribes, rove and hunt from prairie to prairie, from river to river, from hill to hill, and from mountain to mountain, and live, and are blessed before the face of heaven daily as well as their contemporary whites ”

“ The cattle live and fatten upon these rushes, year in and year out, without any other fodder. One Mr. Martin, who has a permit from the garrison, has the benefit of all this spontaneous feed, together with a farm and ferry at the Platt, a farm and ferry at the Missouri, opposite the garrison, and a boarding house in the garrison, or cantonment, more properly, an account of which will be given hereafter. ”