The berries which I celebrate appear to have a range—most of them—very nearly coterminous with what has been called the Algonquin Family of Indians, whose territories are now occupied by the Eastern, Middle, and Northwestern States and the Canadas, and completely surrounded those of the Iroquois, who occupied what is now the State of New York. These were the small fruits of the Algonquin and Iroquois families. The Algonquins appear to have described this kind of fruits generally by words ending in the syllables meenar.

It is true we have in the Northern States a few wild plums and inedible crab-apples, a few palatable grapes and nuts, but I think that our various species of berries are our wild fruits to be compared with the more celebrated ones of the tropics . . .

  Dear Sir. We enclose herein our note for $100 @ 3 months, for last 100 lbs Plumbago

Respy

L. L. & C. H. Smith

  What more encouraging sight at the end of a long ramble than the endless successive patches of green bushes,—perhaps in some rocky pasture,—fairly blackenedwith the profusion of fresh and glossy berries? . . .

  Plinv says, “In minimis Natura praestat” (Nature excels in the least things) . . .

  Nature is slow but sure; she works no faster than need be; she is the tortoise that wins the race by her perseverance; she knows that seeds have many other uses than to reproduce their kind. In raising oaks and pines, she works with a leisureliness and security answering to the age and strength of the trees . . .

  I find him in spirits—busied, he tells me, with his Journal, and, bating his out-of-doors, in his usual trim. Fair weather and spring time, I trust, are to prove his best physicians, and the woods and fields know their old friend again presently.

  Your Pcl and Bill for Collection, $10 oo on H. A. Lucas Balto has been presented and Payment Refused

Please advise us at once what disposition we shall make of the Goods, as they are held subject to your order, and at your RISK AGAINST FIRE, AND OTHER DANGERS.

  Answer on THIS SHEET.

Respectfully yours,

For the Company

Jos. Stubbs

  The address of Mr. Thoreau is a very interesting one, particularly that portion which explains the process of nature, by which when a decayed pine wood is cut down, oaks and other hard woods may at once take its place. In other words, how it is that, without the aid of man, a rotation of crops in the shape of trees takes place. This is done, as he truly says, by the winds, in some cases, by the birds and by animals in others. The squirrel is a great tree-planter, the oak, the walnut and the beech are mostly planted by him. They are brought from long distances and are buried in the ground for winter use ; some are forgotten or are not wanted and they vegetate the following spring. He is, however, mistaken in supposing the planting to be carried on annually of necessity, or that “the oldest seedlings annually die.” The plants come up and throw out from two to six leaves, and continue to do so from year to year, until the pines decay or arc removed, and the light and air come to them, when they at once commence a vigorous growth. I have marked within fifteen years, hundreds of oaks in their dormant state, and have never lost sight of them. There they are, just as when I first discovered them. Others I have opened to the light and air, by clearing away the pines which shadowed them, and they are vigorously taking their places. Providence has wisely made this provision for the future. These plantations are existing all around us, with no oaks within a large circuit—they have been all sacrificed years ago, yet the clearing up of a pine grove will reveal the careful providence of nature. If no oak has ever grown in a district, none will grow, for want of seed, but once planted and germinated, it is never lost.

  The squirrel is equally efficient in planting the pine seed as the acorn. The cone of a pine contains from thirty to sixty sound germinating seed. The squirrel, with his sharp teeth, cuts off the little flaps which hold them and pouches them, carrying them to his retreat, where they are lightly buried. A common chipmunk will take in his pouches or cheeks more than a hundred seeds at a time.

  It is not only the pine that acts as a sentry over the oak, preparing for its future growth by the annual decay of its spikelets. The birch, to some extent, performs the same office. If you carefully look through what appears to be an entire birch cover, you will frequently find the young oaks beneath abiding the period of its more rapid decay.
R. J. F. . . .

MIDDLESEX AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY.—We have before us the report of the last year’s doings of the Society. The Address of Mr. Thoreau, ‘On the Succession of Forest Trees,’ is given in full. We have spoken of this before, and given extracts from it. It contains, also, reports on Sheep, Poultry, Grapes, Vegetables, Bread, and Plowing loith Single Teams, extracts from which we hope to find room for hereafter. There are several other short reports of no general interest.

  I have to acknowledge receipt of your favor of 11th instant enclosing a Check by the Concord Bank on the Suffolk Bank of this City for Forty three & 03/100 Dollars to my order being in full for amount of Bill of 2 Bbls Black Lead forwarded you on the 10th inst per your order & I remain

Yr. Ob. St.

Frederic Tudor

Per Benj. F. Field

  A kitten is so flexible that she is almost double; the hind parts are equivalent to another kitten with which the fore part plays. She does not discover that her tail belongs to her till you tread upon it . . .

  The writer is evidently a regular sportsman, and describes his sporting with great zest . . .

  However, I should have found nothing peculiar in the book, if it did not contain, near the end, so good an example of human inconsistency . . .

  Mother hears a robin to-day . . .

  “The bluebird has come, now let us rejoice!
  This morning I heard his melodious voice.”

  But a more certain herald of spring, the pigeon woodpecker, a few of which remain with us during the winter, has commenced his refreshing call. While I sit writing with my Shanty door open I hear, too, the sweet notes of meadow-lark, which also winters here, and regales us with his song nearly every fine morning. I have seen and heard the blackbird flying over, not his song, but crackle; the redwing, I doubt not he is quite garrulous in the warmer nooks of low and open woodlands and bushy pastures. There goes the woodpecker, rattling away on his “penny trumpet!”

  It is one of those exquisitely still mornings when all nature, without and within, seems at peace. Sing away, dear bluebird! My soul swells with gratitude to the great Giver of all good and beautiful things. As I go to my Shanty door to dry my ink in the sun, I see swarms of little flies in the air near by. The crows are cawing from the more distant pine-woods, where you and I and my other dear poetic friends have walked together. Now I hear the lonely whistle of the black-cap, followed by his strange counterpart in song, the “Chickadee” chorus.

  2p.m. Wid S.W. Thermometer 52 deg. In shade. I suppose that you are also enjoying somewhat of this spring influence, if not as fully as we. The winter has passed away this far quite comfortably with us, and though not severe, with a few occasional exceptions, yet we have had a good deal of good skating, which has been well improved by bothsexes, old and young, My sons and I again made a circuit of the Middleborough ponds on the 17th December, at which we should have liked very much your company. Our river has also been frozen strong enough, and we have had several afternoons’ skating there, visiting our friends below on the Fairhaven side. It was really a cheerful sight to see the large number—sometimes a thousand or more—enjoying the pastime and recreation. Many of our young women skate well, and among them our Emma. Walton makes his own skates, and really elegant affairs are they, and he is also very agile upon them. We have a large ship building a little below us, but far enough off not to interfere with the inland quiet of my rambles along shore which I sometimes take in foggy weather, when I suppose I am [a] little more of a Hollander than usual.

  As my object was principally to announce the bluebird, which may have reached you by the time this letter shall, I will soon close. March is close at hand again, and may be here by the time you read this. It is “a welcome month to me.” I call it a month of hope, and can patiently wait for the spring flowers and the song of birds so near by. Soon the willow will put forth its catkins, and your friend the piping or peeping frogs set up their vernal choir, so gentle and soothing to the wounded spirit, where there is also a poetic ear to listen to it.

  4 p.m. I fear after all, that thesis will prove rather a disjointed letter, for I have been interrupted several times in its progress. During the intervals I have been to town—helped load a hay-wagon with hay, and am just returned from a short drive with my wife and daughters. The only objects of particular attraction were the pussies or catkins on the willows along the lower part of the Nash road, and the aments of the alder, the latter not much advanced.

  Now that spring is so near at hand may I not expect to see you here once more? Truly pleasant would it be to ramble about with you, or sit and chat in the Shanty or with the family around our common hearthstone.

  I send you this day’s Mercury with a letter and editorial (I suppose) of [William Ellery] Channing’s.

  Hoping to hear from you soon, or, what is better, to see you here, I remain,

  Yours truly,
  Dan’l Ricketson

Your welcome letter of Nov. 4th last was duly received. I regret that mine which prompted it should have proved mystical to you. We must ‘bear and forbear’ with each other.

  Turn in at the gate this side of Moore’s and sit on the yellow stones rolled down in the bay of a digging, and examine the radical leaves, etc., etc. . . . (Journal, 14:321).

  A lady tells me that she met Deacon S. of Lincoln with a load of hay, and she, noticing that as he drove under the apple trees by the side of the road a considerable part of the hay was raked off by their boughs, informed him of it . . .

  Your letter reached me in due time, but I had already heard the bluebirds. They were here on the 26th of February at least,—but not yet do the larks sing or the flickers call, with us. The Bluebirds come again, as does the same spring, but it does not find the same mortals here to greet it. You remember Minott’s cottage on the hillside,—well, it finds some change there, for instance. The little gray hip-roofed cottage was occupied at the beginning of February, this year, by George Minott and his sister Mary, respectively 78 and 80 years old, and Miss Porter, 74. These had been its permanent occupants for many years. Minott had been on his last legs for some time,—at last off his legs, expecting weekly to take his departure,—a burden to himself and friends,—yet dry and natural as ever. His sister took care of him, and supported herself and family with her needle, as usual. He lately willed his little property to her, as a slight compensation for her care. Feb 13 their sister, 86 or 87, who lived across the way, died. Miss Minott had taken cold in visiting her, and was so sick that she could not go to her funeral. She herself died of a lung fever on the 18th (which was said to be the same disease that her sister had),—having just willed her property back to George, and added her own mite to it. Miss Potter too, had now become ill,—too ill to attend the funeral,—and she died of the same disease on the 23d. All departed as gently as the sun goes down, leaving George alone.

  I called to see him the other day,—the 27th of February, a remarkably pleasant spring day,—and as I was climbing the sunny slope to his strangely deserted house, I hear the first bluebirds upon the elm that hangs over it. They had come as usual, though some who used to hear them were gone. Even Minott had not heard them, though the door was open,—for he was thinking of other things Perhaps there will be a time when the bluebirds themselves will not return anymore.

  I hear that George, a few days after this, called out to his niece, who had come to take care of him, and was in the next room, to know if she did not feel lonely? “Yes, I do,” she said. “So do I,” added he. He said he was like an old oak, all shattered and decaying. “I am sure, Uncle,” said his niece, “that I am like an oak or any other tree, inasmuch as I cannot stir from where I am.”

  Either this topic was too pathetic for Thoreau to finish the letter, or perchance he thought it not likely to interest his friend; for he threw aside this draft for three days, and then, with the same beginning, wrote a very different letter. The Minotts were old familiar acquaintance, and related to that Captain Minott whom Thoreau’s grandmother married as a second husband. George was his “old man of Verona,” who had not left Concord for more than forty years, except to stray over the town bounds in hunting or wood-ranging; and Mary was the “tailoress” who for years made Thoreau’s garments.

  The bluebirds were here the 26 of Feb. at least, which is one day earlier than your date; but I have not heard of larks nor pigeon woodpeckers.

  To tell the truth, I am not on the alert for the signs of Spring, not having had any winter yet. I took a severe cold about the 3 of Dec. which at length resulted in a kind of bronchitis, so that I have been confined to the house ever since, excepting a very few experimental trips as far as the P. O. in some particularly mild noons. My health otherwise has not been affected in the least, nor my spirits. I have simply been imprisoned for so long; & it has not prevented my doing a good deal of reading & the like.

  Channing [William Ellery Channing] has looked after me very faithfully—says he has made a study of my case, & knows me better than I know myself &c &c. Of course, if I knew how it began, I should know better how it would end. I trust that when warm weather comes I shall begin to pick up my crumbs. I thank you for your invitation to come to New Bedford, and will bear it in mind, but at present my health will not permit my leaving home.

  The day I received your letter Blake [H. G. O. Blake] and Brown [Theophilus Brown] arrived here, having walked from Worcester in two days, though Alcott who happened in soon after could not understand what pleasure they found in walking across the country at this season when the ways were so unsettled. I had a solid talk with them for a day & a half—though my pipes were not in good order—& they went they way again.

  You may be interested to hear that Alcott is at present perhaps the most successful man in the town. He had his 2d annual exhibition of all the school in the town at the Town Hall last Saturday—at which all the masters & misses did themselves great credit, as I hear, & of course reflected some on their teachers & parents. They were making their little speeches from 1 till 6 o’clock pm, to a large audience which patiently listened to the end. In the meanwhile the children mad Mr A. an unexpected present, of a fine edition of Pilgrim’s Progress & Herberts Poems—which, of course, overcame all parties. I inclose our order of exercises.

  We had, last night, an old fashioned N. E. snow storm, far worse than any in the winter, & the drifts are now very high above the fences. The inhabitants are pretty much confined to their houses, as I was already. All houses are one color white with the snow plastered over them, & you cannot tell whether they have blinds or not. Our pump has another pump, its ghost, as thick as itself, sticking to one side of it. The town has sent out teams of 8 oxen each to break out the roads & the train due from Boston at 8½ am has not arrived yet (4 pm) All the passing has been a train from above at 12 m—which also was due at 8½ am. Where are the bluebirds now think you? I suppose that you have not so much snow at New Bedford, if any.

Yrs
Henry D. Thoreau

  Enclosed find $2. Note on Bank of Kenduskeag to replace the one returned. Of course we were not aware that there was any thing wrong with the one you returned.

Truly Yours
L. Johnson & Co

  I am surprised, but at the same time a little encouraged, to hear that you have been imprisoned by a cold, like myself, most of the winter. I am encouraged, because I should like to discover that it is owing to some peculiarity in the season, rather than in my constitution. I hope that the knowledge of my sickness will be, at least an equal benefit to you. I hear that throat complaints have been very prevalent and unmanageable of late; but it is hard to come at the truth, for it is natural that we, having such complaints, should hear much more than usual about them. I may say that I have been a close prisoner ever since the 3d of December, for the very few times I have ventured out a little way, in the warmest days, just to breathe the fresh air, it has been against the advice of my friends.

  However, I may say that I have been unexpectedly well, considering how confined and sedentary my life has been. I have had a good time in the house, and it is really as if nothing had happened; or only I have lost the phenomena of winter. I have been quite as busy as usual, reading and writing, and I trust that, as warm weather advances, & I get out of doors more & more, my cough will gradually cease . . .

  The only excursion that I made last year was a very short though pleasant one to Monadnock, with my neighbor Channing. We built 2 spruce huts, and lived (in one at a time) on the rocky summit, for 6 days & 5 nights, without descending. It was an easy way to get an idea of the mountain . . .

  Accept these words from

Yrs truly
Henry D. Thoreau

  Mrs. Josiah Quincy, a lady who reads & admires your books very much, is passing a few days with me. Will you come in and dine with us to-day—It will give her much pleasure to see you, & when your are tired of talking with ladies, Horace will be glad to have his promised visit & you shall release yourself when you please.

With much regard,
Mary Mann

We dine at one.

  I am sorry to say that I have not a copy of “Walden” which I can spare, and know of none, unless possibly, Ticknor & Fields have one. I send, nevertheless a copy of the “Week,” the price of which is $1.25 which you can pay at your convenience.

  As for my prospective reader, I hope that he ignores Fort Sumpter, & Old Abe, & all that, for that is just the most fatal and indeed the only fatal, weapon you can direct against evil ever; for as long as you know of it, you are particeps criminis. What business have you, if you are “an angel of light,” to be pondering over the deeds of darkness, reading the New York Herald, & the like? I do not so much regret the present condition of things in this country (provided I regret it at all) as I do that I ever heard of it. I know one or 2 who have this year, for the first time, read a president’s message. Blessed are the young for they do not read the president’s message.

  Blessed are they who never read a newspaper, for they shall see Nature, and through her, God.

  But alas I have heard of Sumpter, & Pickens, & even of Buchanan, (though I did not read his message).

  I also read the New York Tribune, but then I am reading Herodotus & Strabo, & Blodget’s Climatology, and Six Years in the Deserts of North America, as hard as I can, to counterbalance it.

  By the way, Alcott is at present our most popular & successful man, and has just published a volume on “vice,” in the shape of the annual school report, which, I presume, he has sent to you.

  Yours, for remembering all good things,

Henry D. Thoreau

  It is now some time since I wrote to you or heard from you but do not suppose that I have forgotten you or shall ever cease to cherish in my mind those days at dear old Concord. The last I heard about you all was from Morton who was in England about a year ago; & I hope that he has got over his difficulties & is now in his own country again. I think he has seen rather more of English country life than most Yankee tourists & appeared to find it curious, though I fear he was dulled by our ways, for he was too full of ceremony & compliments & bows, which is a mistake here; though very well in Spain. I am afraid he was rather on pins & needles; but he made a splendid speech at a volunteer supper, & indeed the very best, some said, ever heard in this part of the country.

  We are here in a state of alarm & apprehension the world being so troubled in the East & west & everywhere. Last year the harvest was bad & scanty. This year, our trade is beginning to feel the events in America. In reply to the northern tariff, of course we are going to smuggle as much as we can. The supply of cotton being such a necessity to us—we must work up India & South Africa a little better.

  There is war even in old New Zealand but not in the same inland where my people are! Besides we are certainly on the eve of a continental blaze. So we are making merry & living while we can: not being sure where we shall be this time year.

  Give my affectionate regards to your father mother & sister & to Mr Emerson & his family, & to Channing Sanborn Ricketson Blake & Morton & Alcott & Parker. A thought arises in my mind whether I may not be enumerating some dead men! Perhaps Parker is! These rumors of wars make me wish that we had got done with this brutal stupidity of war altogether; & I believe, Thoreau, that the human race will at last get rid of it, though perhaps not in a creditable way—but such powers will be brought to bear that it will become monstrous even to the French.

  Dundonald declares to the last that he possessed secrets which from their tremendous character would make war impossible. So peace may be begotten from the machination of evil.

  Have you heard of any good books lately? I think “Burnt Njal” good & believe it to be genuine. “Hast thou not heard (says Steinrora to Thangbrand how Thor challenged Christ to single combat & how he did not dare to fight with Thor” When Gunnar brandishes his sword three swords are seen in air. The account of Ospah & Brodir & Brians battle is the only historical account of that engagement which the Irish talk so much of; for I place little trust in OHallorans authority though the outline is the same in both.

  Emersons Conduct of Life has done me good; but it will not go down in England for a generation or so.

  But these are some of them already a year or two old. The book of the season is DeChaillu’s Central Africa with accounts of the Gorilla, of which you are aware that you have a skeleton at Boston for many years. There is also one in the British Museum; but they have now several stuffed specimens at the Geographical Societys room in Town.

  I suppose you will have seen Sir Emerson Tennet’s Ceylon, which is perhaps as complete a book as every was published; & a better monument to a governors residence in a great providence was never made

  We have been lately astonished by a foreign Hamlet, a supposed impossibility; but Mr Fechter does real wonders. No doubt he will visit America & then you may see the best actor in the world. He has carried out Goethes idea of Hamlet as given in the Wilhelm Meister showing him forth as a fair hair’d & fat man. I suppose you are not fat yet!

Yrs ever truly
Thos Cholmondeley

I am still as much an invalid as when you & Brown were here, if not more of one, and at this rate there is danger that the cold weather may come again, before I get over my bronchitis. The Doctor accordingly tells me that I must “clear out,” to the West Indies, or elsewhere, he does not seem to care much where. But I decide against the West Indies, on account of their muggy heat in the summer, & the S. of Europe, on ac of the expense of time & money, and have at last concluded that it will be most expedient for me to try the air of Minnesota, say somewhere about St Paul. I am only waiting to be well enough to start—hope to get off within a week or 10 days.

  The inland air may help me at once, or it may not. At any rate I am so much of an invalid that I shall have to study my comfort in traveling to a remarkable degree—stopping to rest &c &c if need be. I think to get a through ticket to Chicago—with liberty to stop frequently on the way, making my first stop of consequence at Niagara Falls—several days or a week, at a private boarding house—then a night or day at Detroit—& as much at Chicago, as my health may require.

  At Chicago I can decide at what point (Fulton, Dunleith or another) to strike the Mississippi & take a boat to St. Paul.

  I trust to find a private boarding house in one or various agreeable places in that region, & spend my time there.

  I expect, and shall be prepared to be gone 3 months—& I would like to return by a different route—perhaps Mackinaw & Montreal.
I have thought of finding a companion, of course, yet not seriously, because I had no right to offer myself as a companion to anybody—having such a peculiarly private & all absorbing but miserable business as my health, & not altogether his, to attend to—causing me to stop here & go there &c &c unaccountably.

  Nevertheless, I have just now decided to let you know of my intentions, thinking it barely possible that you might like to make a part or the whole of this journey, at the same time, & that perhaps your own health may be such as to be benefitted by it.

  Pray let me know, if such a statement offers any temptations to you. I write in great haste for the mail & must omit all the moral.

H. D Thoreau

  I give you a little list of names of good men whom you may chance to see on your road. If you come into the neighborhood of any of them, I pray you to hand this note to them, by way of introduction, praying them, from me, not to let you pass by, without salutation, and any aid and comfort they can administer to an invalid traveler, one so dear and valued by me and all good Americans.

Yours faithfully

R. W Emerson

  Put up at the Delavan House. Not so good as costly (Journal, 14:340).

  P.M. to Goat Island. Sight of rapids, from the Bridge like sea off Cape Cod. Most imposing sight as yet. The great apparent height of the waves tumbling over the successive ledges at a distance, while the water view is broad & boundless in that direction as if you were looking out to sea, you are so low. Yet the distances are very deceptive. The most distant billow was scarcely more than ¼ mile off, though it appeared 2 miles or more. Many ducks constantly floating a little way down the rapids, then flying back & alighting again.

  Water falling apparently broken into lengths of 4 or 6 or more feet. Masses of ice under edge of cliff . . .

  Horace Mann asked me if I did not hear the sound of the falls as we went—from the Depot to the Hotel last night—but I had not—though certainly it was loud enough. I had probably mistaken it for a train coming or a locomotive letting off steam of which we hear so much at home. It sounds hardly as loud this morning though now only ⅓ of a mile off—As I sit in my chamber is as if I were surrounded by many factories in full steam.

  This is quite a town with numerous hotels & stores, paved streets & &c. I imagine the falls will soon be surrounded by a city. I intend to walk down to the Falls & Goat Island after dinner.

  I pay a dollar a day here & shall certainly stay here till next Monday at least.

  We arrived at the Suspension Bridge last night at about half past eight, and stopped over night at the New York Central House. This morning at ten minutes of eight we came up here, two miles in the cars, and went around to find a boarding place; we went to every house but one in the town I believe and at last took a room at the American house where we are now for one dollar a day. Mr. Thoreau seems to feel better all ready, and I think that he will get better before long. I have seen the falls though I have not been to look at them yet, and I hear them roaring now all the time. I am very well. I do not know of any more to say now but I will write again in a day or two and tell you what I have seen; Good bye

Your Loving son
Horace Mann

P.S. You must direct to Chicago next time and send the letter so directed on Saturday if possible. H.M.

  Dear Sir

  You will find herein the thing you wanted to know. Mr. Whitfield is very well posted about the country and what he says is reliable. I hope you will have a pleasant time get heartily well and write a book about the great West that will be to us what your other books are. A friend, I want you to stop in Chicago as you come back if it can be possible, and be my guest a few days. I should be very much pleased to have you take a rest and feel at home with us, and if you do please write in time so that I shall be sure to be at home.

I am very truly
Robert Collyer

  As I remember Henry Thoreau then, he was something over forty years of age but would have easily passed for thirty-five, and he was rather slender, but of a fine delicate mold, and with a presence which touched you with the sense of perfect purity as newly opened roses do. It is a clear rose-tinted face he turns to me through the mist of all these years, and delicate to look on as the face of a girl; also he had great gray eyes, the seer’s eyes full of quiet sunshine. But it is a strong face, too, and the nose is especially notable, being as Conway said to me once of Emerson’s nose, a sort of interrogation mark to the universe. His voice was low, but still sweet in the tones and inflections, though the organs were all in revolt just then and wasting away and he was making for the great tablelands beyond us Westwards, to see if he could not find there a new lease of life. His words also were as distinct and true to the ear as those of a great singer, and he had Tennyson’s splendid gift in this, that he never went back on his tracks to pick up the fallen loops of a sentence as commonplace talkers do. He would hesitate for an instant now and then, waiting for the right word, or would pause with a pathetic patience to master the trouble in his chest, but when he was through the sentence was perfect and entire, lacking nothing, and the word was so purely one with the man that when I read his books now and then I do not hear my own voice within my reading but the voice I heard that day.

  This is the picture I treasure of Henry Thoreau as I saw him in my own house the year before he died.

  Much pink, flowered, apple-like tree (thorn-like) thru Illinois, which may be the Pyrus coronaria.

  Distances on the prairie deceptive. A stack of wheat straw looks like a hill in the horizon ¼ or ½ mile off, It stands out so bold and high.

  Only one boat up daily from Dunleith by this line. In no case allowed to stop on the way.

  Small houses without barns, surrounded & overshadowed by great stacks of wheat straw, it being threshed on the ground. Some wood always visible, but generally not large. The inhabitants remind you of mice nesting in a wheatstack which is their wealth. Women working in fields quite commonly. Fences of narrow boards. Towns are, as it were, stations on a rail-road.

  Staphylea trifolia out at Dunleith.

  I have just this minute [7:45 a.m.] been down to the post office & got your letter sent on the 18th. I was very glad to hear from you. I walked around most all day yesterday and saw considerable of Chicago. I went to Mr. Clarke’s in the afternoon after considerable trouble in finding it and found he had gone out but I saw his wife. I saw him later in the afternoon in town. I saw also Mr. Carter who let me have a check for a $100 which I got turned into gold. The Chicago banks are having a good deal of trouble just now and I suppose most of them must fail so I was very lucky in getting gold as it is scarce in the city. I got it of a Mr. [B. B.] Wiley, a kind of banker, a friend of Mr. Thoreau’s. We go this morning at 9:15 A.M., so I am in a good deal of a hurry and therefore write with a pencil as it is easier. you had better direct your next letter to St. Anthony, Minnesota. I cannot write you much about what I am doing till we get where we shall stay a while. It was a beautiful day here yesterday, but it is a little cloudy this morning though I do not think it will rain. I may write to you again from the boat on the Mississippi though perhaps not till I get to St. Paul. I am very well and Mr. Thoreau is getting along very well also, excepting a little trouble that the water gives him in the bowels, though that is of no account. I do not know as I can say anything more now, so

Good bye
Your loving son
Horace Mann

  River, say 60 rods wide, or ¾ to 1 mile between bluffs. Broad flooded low intervals covered wiht willow in bloom (20 feet high, rather, slender) & probably other kinds & elm & white maple & cottonwood. Now boatable between the trees & probably many ducks there. Bluffs say 150 to 200 ft. high. Rarely room for a village at base of cliffs. Oaks on top (white ?) ash, elm, aspen, Bass on slope & by shore. Kingfishers, small ducks, swallows, jays, &c.

  land on the shore often with a plank. Great rafts of boards & shingles 4 or 5 rods wide & 15 or 20 long. Very few small boats. Holes in sides of hill, at Cassville where lead [has been] dug. Occasionally a little lonely house on a flat or slope is often deserted. Banks in primitive condition between the towns, which is almost everywhere. Load some 9 or 10 cords of wood at a landing. 20 men in 10 minutes. Disturb a bat which flies aboard. Willow shown floating horizontally across the river. Low islands occasionally. Macgregor a new town opposite to Prairie du Chien, the smartest town on the river. Exports the most wheat of any town between St. Paul & St. Louis. Wheat in sacks. Great heaps at P. du Chien, covered at night & all over the ground & the only seed wheat.

  We have just got here; it is now about quarter past eleven, & we arrived here about quarter before ten. We had a very pleasant passage up the river. The cars left Chicago, Thursday morning about ten o’clock and we got to Dunleith at 20 minutes after six in the evening and went onto the boat “Itasca” & got our suppers, then I went on shore and got a few minerals out of the bluff and also a few flowers, when I went back to the boat and went to bed. The boat left Dunleith about 8:30 in the morning and went over to Dubuque across the river, and got under way about 9 o’clock in the morning We got to Prairie du Chien about 5 P.M. and had to wait till 8 P.M. for the cars with were late; in the morning we stopped at Brownsville, the first town on the river in Minnesota, about five o’clock, and at about four in the afternoon we entered Lake Pepin, arrived at Red Wing at about 7:30 P.M. and a little while after they left there we went to bed. The boat got to St. Paul about 2 or 3 o’clock this morning; we left it at six and went up in town to the American House where we got breakfast at 7:30 and at about 8:30 we left in the stage coach in a driving rain-storm and go here as I said before. The two days which we had on the river were the most beautiful days we have had this spring, they were very warm and not a bit of wind till late yesterday afternoon when a little breeze came up and sometime in the night it commenced to rain. When the sun rose this morning I thought it was going to clear off but about seven it commenced to rain and it is raining very hard now but I guess it will clear off and be a pleasant day to-morrow.

  On both sides of the Mississippi all the way from Dunleith to St. Paul there are high bluffs from 150 ft. to 250 ft. in height and from one to five miles distant from each other. They are generally pretty steep and in some places very steep and high cliffs so as to make it impossible to climb them. Where they are farthest apart the river has several different channels made by low islands in the water, and covered by the water when it is high, which are covered with thick woods. From the tops of the luffs the country lays on every side level and most[ly] prairie with a little wood on it in different places.

  We are at a house here called Tremont House, and from the window of my room I can see a little bit of the Falls of St. Anthony, though not enough to know how they look.

  I write with a pencil because my ink bottle is stuck to-gether and I cannot get it open.

  I do not know any more to say now excepting that I am well and Mr. Thoreau is pretty well too. From your loving son,

Horace Mann.

  P.S. I thought I would write a little more before I sent my letter. It is now after supper. I had a good nap in the afternoon for I slept about 3 hours. I then waked up and went down to see the Falls of St. Anthony. I will draw a little plan of them so you can see about how they lie. [He here includes a brief sketch.] The fall is divided by Hennepin Island named after a Jesuit missionary, the first white man who ever saw them and who named them, arriving on St. Anthony’s day. A little above this island is Nicholas [Nicollet] Island and above that Boom Island and the dotted line in the River represents a boom made to catch logs and keep them from going over the falls. (Look out the meaning of Boom in a dictionary). Below the falls are two or three little, inaccessible islands which will some time be entirely washed away, I think, for they seem to be going slowly now. After supper I went up onto the prairie back of the and got a few flowers for Mr. Thoreau. He is doing very well now and I think will be a great deal better before long.

  Hear and see red-headed woodpecker on a telegraph post within stone’s throw of post office . . .

  Dry cra-a-ck of hyla in sloughs on prairie… The Minnesota University here is set in the midst of such an oak opening & it looks quite artificial, & unlike our pines left standing will probably thrive as if nothing had happened.

  Spermophile tridecemlineatus erect, making a queer note like a plover, over his hole. Earth heap of gopher (according to Anderson), bursarius or pouched. Ribbon snake in swamp. Indian or deer path on prairie. Thresh grain with a machine. Poplars & willows the ornamental trees. Bass & bream in lake (1300 acres). Great no. of golden rods on prairie . . .

  Tuesday, put in wash, 3 shirts, 1 flannel, 1 pair drawers, 4 bosoms, 5 handkerchiefs (2 small cotton), 1 pair socks.

  Minnesota (the St. Peter’s River) is water-skyey or muddy—(or the color that it is) . . .

  The tridecimlineatus dirty grayish white beneath, above dirty brown with 6 dirty tawny or clay-colored or very light brown line alternating with broad (3 times as broad) dark brown lines, stripes, the last having an interrupted line or square spots of the same color with the first mentioned running down their middle, reminding me of the rude pattern of some Indian work—porcupine quills, baskets (gopher) & pottery.

  P.M. to woods, southeast (Thoreau’s Minnesota Journey, 9).

  Indian graves in a oak opening on a ridge. Hazel bushes & sage willow beneath. 1st aspen & willow, then elm & ash & at last oak. The large woods I walked in this p.m. were like the wooded region westerner & parallel with the river & very dense or clogged with underwood as are old woods with us.

  Q. II. Is Mr. Thoreau really better of his cough? A. Yes, and he can raise more and it does not hinder his sleeping so much.

  Q. III. Has he a good appetite? Yes, he has a very good one . . .

  Q. XIV. Do you think Mr. T. is prudent? Yes . . .

  We cannot get rain water to drink, but Mr. Thoreau has got over his bowel complaint and is getting better of his cold.

  A boy shot a S. Franklinii with peas. A horned lark soared very high over prairie at 3 ½ p.m. & sang the same twittering note (Thoreau’s Minnesota Journey, 14).

  Catch fish—bream & bass. Hear snipe & loon & new(?) oriole (Thoreau’s Minnesota Journey, 14).

  P.m. A wild pigeon nest in a young bass tree 10 ft. from ground . . .

  Lumberers came here & speared this eve. Say the lumber above is more knotty than that of Maine, the river nothing for rapids to the Penobscot . . .

  Thunder in night. Get larch fish poles.

  You see by the date of this letter that we are staying at a house on the edge of Lake Calhoun. It is a beautiful sheet of water, perhaps a mile and a half or three quarters the longest way a nearly a mile the other way in breadth; it has an outlet by which it MTT itself into Lake Harriet, which lies a little ways to the SE of here, and that again MTT into the Minnehaha and goes over the falls. We are staying at the house of a Mrs. Hamilton, a widow, and one of the first settlers near this lake. The house is surrounded with very thick woods which is full of great big musquitoes, so when you walk in them, particularly near nightfall, they swarm around you in such a cloud that you can hardly see through them. There are also a great many pigeons in the woods back of the house, (though I should hardly know them from a musquito here by size) which are breeding, and I found the nest of one this afternoon which had but one egg in it which I took. The lake is full of fishes and we have them at every meal almost. I went into St. Anthony this morning where I put some birds and clams in alcohol and got some blotting paper to press flowers with and I have just been putting some away to press under the bed post . . . You want me to tell you how things make me feel but I will not do so about the musquitoes. It is pretty warm weather here all the time now. We had a thunder storm last night but I did not know it till I got up this morning. Mr. Thoreau and I went in swimming this afternoon and then we went to walk and we came to a pond hole near some woods which was full of shells and frogs . . . Mr. Thoreau continues to get better and I am very well of course. We drink lake water here. I will write more before I send this letter, so Good Night,

Your loving son

Horace Mann

I wish you would leave the “Esq” off when you direct my letters because that is not any part of my name.

  I shall take this letter in to town this morning, nothing has happened that I can tell you of that I think of now but I will write again in a day or two. Goodbye

Your loving son

Horace Mann

It is such hard work to write that you must not expect every little particular, but I will tell you most of the things I do and how things look, and the rest when I get home. I am very well and have been ever since I left home and expect to be till I get back there again, and then I do not intend to be sick. Mr. Thoreau is getting well I think and I think will be entirely well before a great while, so do not fret about him.

  Dont you show this to any body now nor let either of the boys.

[Drawing]
  Representation of your loving son shooting a bird with that gun that kicks so.

Horace Mann

  She [Mrs. Hamilton] said the wild [crab?] apple grew about her premises. Her husband 1st saw it on a ridge by the lake shore. They had dug up several & set them out, but all died. (The settlers also set out the wild plum & thimble berry &c.). So I went & searched in that very unlikely place, but could find nothing like it, though Mrs. Hamilton said there was on ether 3 feet higher than the lake. But I brought home a thorn in bloom instead & asked if that was it. She then gave me more particular directions & I searched again faithfully. & this time I brought home an Amelanchier as the nearest of kin, doubting if the apple had ever been seen there. But she knew both these plants. Her husband had first discovered it by the fruit. But she had not seen it in bloom here. Then called on Fitch & talked about it. He said it was found—the same they had in Vermont (?) & directed me to a Mr. [Jonathan T.] Grimes as one who had found it. He was gone to catch the horses to send his boy 6 miles for a doctor on account of the sick child. Evidently a [?] and enquiring man. The boy showed me some of the trees he had set out this spring. But they had all died, having a long tap root & being taken up too late. But then I was convinced by the sight of the just expanding though withered flower bud to analyze. Finally stayed & went in search of it with the father in his pasture, where I found it first myself, quite a cluster of them.

  See a great flight of large ephemera this a.m. on Lake Harriet shore & this evening on Lake Calhoun.

  P.M. to prairie pond (Thoreau’s Minnesota Journey, 18).

  I did not write till to-night because I have not been into town since Monday morning [10 June]; I shall go in tomorrow morning and then take his letter. I have not done much but walk around since Monday, except to collect some of those shells I spoke of in my last letter and to get a few birds and a red squirrel, the only kind of squirrel that they have here. It has been very warm weather here but there has been a wind most of the time so we could bear it pretty well.

  We shall leave this place on Saturday morning [15 June] and go to St. Anthony and on Sunday morning we shall go down to St. Paul and I think we may go up to St Peters, or Minnesota, river to the lower Sioux agency where the indians are going to be paid off on the 18th and subsequent days. We shall not go however if we can not get good accommodations or if the fair is too high. If we do not go there we shall go to Redwing I suppose but I will write you again on Sunday and tell you if we go up there. I want you to direct to Redwing however as I asked Ed Neally to tell you to do some time ago. We are and have been having a very good time here. Mr. Thoreau is pretty well, and I am very well . . .

  I expect to be at home before the middle of July, I may say more before I put this in the post office. Good night.

Your loving son
Horace Mann

  Dr. [Charles L.] A[nderson] said that the anthers of the swamp vaccinium were awned. I find them not so—& the styles hairy—which would put it with the uliginosum!! section. He has a rattlesnake—another much larger light brown snake found on the prairie (Thoreau’s Minnesota Journey, 18-19).

  He tells his mother that you and he are having a fine time.

  The West opens a new field for his observations; and to one whose everyday walk was an expedition into some unexplored region of Concord in search of novelties, though his track had been taken but yesterday, that wilderness must have surprising attractions . . .

  I know not to whom that wild country belongs if not to this old explorer, and think it has waited with an Amazonian patience for his arrival . . . his visit must have been predestined from the beginning, and this lassitude of these late months only the intimation of his having exhausted these old fields and farms of Concord of the significance they had for him.

  Walked in p.m. across bridge south of St. Pauls (Thoreau’s Minnesota Journey, 19).

  P.M. to west end of town (Thoreau’s Minnesota Journey, 19).

  We left St. Paul last night about 5 o’clock with Governor Ramsey, the Governor of Minnesota, on board and about 25 volunteers on board going up to Fort Ridgely.

  Coming up this morning we [saw] a field, or rather a meadow on the banks of the river, which was pink with wild roses . . .

  They have a band on board which is now playing a tune I do not know what one. There are I should think over a hundred passengers on board, and it is a small boat, so that a great many of them have to sleep wherever they can around on chairs, or on the floor, or on trunks, etc.

  It is a beautiful day, rather hot in the sun and as the river is so narrow we can see everything on the banks very easily.

9:45 P.M.

  Since I wrote the above we have passed Le Sueur, Traverse des Sioux, St. Peter’s and Mankato, & we are now stopping at South Bend and I do not know but what we may stay here all night as the water is pretty low and the river is full of sand bars and snags . . .

  I am writing in my bed in my stateroom.

  At Fort Ridgely at eve (Thoreau’s Minnesota Journey, 21).

  At about 7 o’clock in the evening we arrived at Fort Ridgely, having been within 8 miles of it by land a little after noon but on account of the crooks it took us a good while to get there.

  Indian strikes fire, takes a little punk (Illinois [man] says from white maple) & holds it flat against a flint, then strikes across their edges with a steel ring & puts the ignited punk on or in the pipe . . .

Pushes out pith of a green young ash for pipe.

  Lie by, ½ way between Redwood & Fort. Illinois [man] says female whippoorwill make the note.

  Indians, 30 dance, 12 musicians on drums & others strike arrows against bows. The dancers blow some flutes. Keep good time. Move feet & shoulders, one or both. No shirts. 5 bands there. Ox cut in 5 parts.

  P.M. under Barn Bluff . . .

  The double path on bluff made by 2, one a little higher & fainter, ceasing near end on slope, like a regular 2 wheel track, 3 feet apart, the lower the deepest. The old Indian mound, say 1 rod x 3 feet & the new 2 x 4, 8 or 10 years old. Red Wing. According to [Nathan H.] Parker’s Minnesota Handbook [for] 1856-57, there were but 3 white families in St. Paul in Spring of 1847; in 1857 10,000. Principal capital invested in groceries, dry & Indian goods. (Make time & truck along the Minnesota).

  Today has been a very hot day, though there was, as there always is, a strong wind blowing from some quarter or other, which makes the heat much easier to bear.

  This morning we walked over back of the town onto the bluffs & found a good many strawberries growing wild, which we ate. little while after dinner I went in swimming in the River and about two hours after that Mr. Thoreau went in. We walked around the bluff today.

  We shall leave here I suppose on Wednesday afternoon [26 June], and we expect to get a letter before that time from home which will be the last one. I shall not send this letter till just before I go, and as I do not think of any-thing more to say I will bid you Good-night.

From your loving son

Horace Mann

  I was very glad to find awaiting me, on my arrival here on Sunday afternoon, a letter from you. I have performed this journey in a very dead and alive manner, but nothing has come so near waking me up as the receipt of letters from Concord. I read yours, and one from my sister (and Horace Mann, his four) near the top of a remarkable isolated bluff here, called Barn Bluff or the Grange, or Redwing Bluff, some 450 feet high and half a mile long—a bit of the main bluff or bank standing alone. The top, as you know, rises to the general level of the surrounding country, the river having eaten out so much. Yet the valley just above & below this (we are at the head of Lake Pepin) must be 3 or 4 miles wide.

  I am not even so well informed as to the progress of the war as you suppose. I have seen but one eastern paper (that, by the way, was the Tribune) for 5 weeks. I have not taken much pains to get them; but, necessarily, I have not seen any paper at all for more than a week at a time. The people of Minnesota have seemed to me more cold—to feel less implicated in this war, than the people of Massachusetts. It is apparent that Massachusetts, for one state at least, is doing much more than her share, in carrying it on. However, I have dealt partly with those of southern birth, & have seen but little way beneath the surface. I was glad to be told yesterday that there was a good deal of weeping here at Redwing the other day, when the volunteers stationed at Fort Snelling followed the regulars to the seat of the war. They do not weep when their children go up the river to occupy the deserted forts, though they may have to fight the Indians there.

  I do not even know what the attitude of England is at present.

  The grand feature hereabouts is, of course, the Mississippi River. Too much can hardly be said of its grandeur, & of the beauty of this portion of it—(from Dunleith, and prob. from Rock Island to this place.) St. Paul is a dozen miles below the Falls of St. Anthony, or near the head of uninterrupted navigation on the main stream about 2000 miles from its mouth. There is not a “rip” below that, & the river is almost as wide in the upper as the lower part of its course. Steamers go up to the Sauk Rapids, above the Falls, near a hundred miles farther, & then you are fairly in the pine woods and lumbering country. Thus it flows from the pine to the palm.

  The lumber, as you know, is sawed chiefly at the Falls of St. Anthony (what is not rafted in the log to ports far below) having given rise to the towns of St. Anthony, Minneapolis, &c &c In coming up the river from Dunleith you meet with great rafts of sawed lumber and of logs—20 rods or more in length, by 5 or 6 wide, floating down, all from the pine region above the Falls. An old Maine lumberer, who has followed the same business here, tells me that the sources of the Mississippi were comparatively free from rocks and rapids, making easy work for them, but he thought that the timber was more knotty here than in Maine.

  It has chanced that about half the men whom I have spoken with in Minnesota, whether travelers or settler, were from Massachusetts.

  After spending some three weeks in and about St. Paul, St. Anthony, and Minneapolis, we made an excursion in a steamer some 300 or more miles up the Minnesota (St. Peter’s) River, to Redwood, or the Lower Sioux Agency, in order to see the plains & the Sioux, who were to receive their annual payment there. This is eminently the river of Minnesota, for she shares the Mississippi with Wisconsin, and it is of incalculable value to her. It flows through a very fertile country, destined to be famous for its wheat; but it is a remarkably winding stream, so that Redwood is only half as far from its mouth by land as by water. There was not a straight reach a mile in length as far as we went,—generally you could not see a quarter of a mile of water, & the boat was steadily turning this way or that. At the greater bends, as the Traverse des Sioux, some of the passengers were landed & walked across to be taken in on the other side. Two or three times you could have thrown a stone across the neck of the isthmus while it was from one to three miles around it. It was a very novel kind of navigation to me. The boat was perhaps the largest that had been up so high, & the water was rather low (it had been about 15 feet higher). In making a short turn, we repeatedly and designedly ran square into the steep and soft bank, taking in a cart-load of earth, this being more effectual than the rudder to fetch us about again; or the deeper water was so narrow & close to the shore, that we were obliged to run into & break down at least 50 trees which overhung the water, when we did not cut them off, repeatedly losing a part of our outworks, though the most exposed had been taken in. I could pluck almost any plant on the bank from the boat. We very frequently got aground and then drew ourselves along with a windlass & a cable fastened to a tree, or we swung round in the current, and completely blocked up & blockaded the river, one end of the boat resting on each shore. And yet we would haul ourselves round again with the windlass & cable in an hour or 2, though the boat was about 160 feet long & drew some 3 feet of water, or, often, water and sand. It was one consolation to know that in such a case we were all the while damming the river & so raising it. We once ran fairly on to a concealed rock, with a shock that aroused all the passengers, & rested there, & the mate went below with a lamp expecting to find a hole, but he did not. Snags & sawyers were so common that I forgot to mention them. The sound of the boat rumbling over one was the ordinary music. However, as long as the boiler did not burst, we knew that no serious accident was likely to happen. Yet this was a singularly navigable river, more so than the Mississippi above the Falls, & it is owing to its very crookedness. Ditch it straight, & it would not only be very swift, but soon run out. It was from 10 to 15 rods wide near the mouth & from 8 to 10 or 12 at Redwood. Though the current was swift, I did not see a “rip” on it, & only 3 or 4 rocks. For 3 months in the year I am told that it can be navigated by small steamers about twice as far as we went, or to its source in Big Stone Lake, & a former Indian agent told me that at high water it was thought that such a steamer might pass into the Red River.

  In short this river proved so very long and navigable, that I was reminded of the last letter or two in the Voyages of the Baron la Hontan (written near the end of the 17 century, I think) in which he states that after reaching the Mississippi (by the Illinois or Wisconsin), the limit of previous exploration westward, he voyeaged up it with his Indians, & at length turned up a great river coming in from the west which he called “La Riviere Longue” & he relates various improbable things about the country & its inhabitants, so that this letter has been regarded as pure fiction—or more properly speaking a lie. But I am somewhat inclined now to reconsider the matter.

  The Governor of Minnesota, (Ramsay)—the superintendent of Ind. Affairs in this quarter,—& the newly appointed Ind. agent were on board; also a German band from St. Paul, a small cannon for salutes, & the money for the Indians (aye and the gamblers, it was said, who were to bring it back in another boat). There were about 100 passengers chiefly from St. Paul, and more or less recently from the N. Eastern states; also half a dozen young educated Englishmen. Chancing to speak with one who sat next to me, when the voyage was nearly half over, I found that he was a son of the Rev. Samuel May, & a classmate of yours, & had been looking for us at St. Anthony.

  The last of the little settlements on the river, was New Ulm, about 100 miles this side of Redwood. It consists wholly of Germans. We left them 100 barrels of salt, which will be worth something more when the water is lower, than at present.

  Redwood is a mere locality, scarcely an Indian village—where there is a store & some houses have been built for them. We were now fairly on the great plains, and looking south, and after walking that way 3 miles, could see no tree in that horizon. The buffalo was said to be feeding within 25 or 30 miles—

  A regular council was held with the Indians, who had come in on their ponies, and speeches were made on both sides thro’ an interpreter, quite in the described mode; the Indians, as usual, having the advantage in point of truth and earnestness, and therefore of eloquence. The most prominent chief was named Little Crow. They were quite dissatisfied with the white man’s treatment of them & probably have reason to be so. This council was to be continued for 2 or 3 days—the payment to be made the 2d day—and another payment to other bands a little higher up on the Yellow Medicine (a tributary of the Minnesota) a few days thereafter.

  In the afternoon the half naked Indians performed a dance, at the request of the Governor, for our amusement & their own benefit & then we took leave of them & of the officials who had come to treat with them.

  Excuse these pencil marks but my ink stand is unscrewable & I can only direct my letter at the bar. I could tell you more & perhaps more interesting thing, if I had time. I am considerably better than when I left home, but still far from well.

  Our faces are already set toward home. Will you please let my sister know that we shall probably start for Milwaukee & Mackinaw in a day or 2 (or as soon as we hear from home) via Prairie du Chien & not La Crosse.

  I am glad to hear that you have written to Cholmondeley, as it relieves me of some responsibility.

Yrs truly
Henry D. Thoreau

  This morning early we had a very heavy thunder storm, but it held up after breakfast and I thought it might clear off, so I went up on top of the bluff to gather some pulsatilla for Uncle Nat; I gather a good lot of it, but it commenced to drizzle, and by the time I got home I was pretty damp. About half an hour after I got into the house, it commenced to rain in earnest and rained until about the middle of the afternoon when it cleared up and it is a beautiful evening now, and nice & cool. I have been asleep about half of the afternoon and part of the forenoon so as to get a little rested.
We have not received any letter yet, but expect to tomorrow morning, and if we do we shall leave here in the afternoon.

  2 p.m. Leave War Eagle for Prairie du Chien, some 200 miles distant. Mrs. [Margaret Barker] Upham of Clinton with us, has a cousin [John Quincy Adams] Clifton in Bedford. Lake Pepin. 1st northeast then east (?) by sun & compass. Reach Prairie du Chien about 9 A.M. [the] 27th.

  I have not yet received any letter from you, and so I have left word at the post-office to have any which may come, forwarded to Detroit where I may be able to get it. We shall leave this afternoon.

  It is quite a cool day in the wind, though the sun is pretty warm.

Goodbye, your loving son

Horace Mann

P.S. I shall write again from Milwaukee.

  Madison, capital & 4 lakes (Thoreau’s Minnesota Journey, 24-25).

  As I am writing while the cars are going, I cannot do it up very well, but I will try to make it readable.

  We left Red-Wing yesterday at about 2 P.M. on the Steamer War Eagle and arrived in Prairie du Chien at 8 P.M. to-day. The train for Milwaukee did not leave till 10 o’clock so we had to wait a while. It is rather cooler today than we have had for some time so it is very comfortable travelling. We passed through Madison at 1:30 P.M. and shall arrive in Milwaukee at 6 o’clock this evening If we can find a boat going to mackinaw we shall take it immediately, if not, we shall wait until one does go, which will be in the course of a day anyhow, I suppose. There has been a riot in Milwaukee of which I suppose you have read long before this, but the Milwaukee paper says to-day that the city is quiet.

  For the first 60 or 70 miles of travel to-day we kept in the valley of the Wisconsin River, which we crossed three times . . . You may think that I can write better, but I cannot, for this is one of the roughest roads I ever rode over. Madison is a very pretty place I should think and the lakes which surround it (stopping at Palmyra) are very beautiful. The state house is a large building standing on a rise of ground near the track as we enter the city; it is built out of dark cream colored limestone, which can be quarried all over that section of the state. I have nothing more to say now so Goodbye.

From your loving son

Horace Mann

  28th at eve leave Sheboygan & steam north-east to Carp River (Thoreau’s Minnesota Journey, 25).

Horace Mann

  As you see by the date we are on Lake Michigan. It is a beautiful day again, though it is a little cloudy this afternoon, & a little cool on the lake.

  We bought our tickets for Boston this morning for which we paid $20.15 over $5.00 cheaper than the way we came out. The tickets are via Goderich, Stratford, Ogdensburg, Rouse’s Point, Vermont Central R.R. and Lowell to Boston. We have a lay over ticket by which we can stay as long as we please at Mackinaw, which will be, I think, about 5 days. We shall then come right home, stopping somewhere over Sunday [7 July].

  Pass Manitou Islands on left in forenoon & opposite Fox Island run into Carp River. Leave there at noon & steam north & west to Beaver (or Mormon Islands) with its first hut & Morman homes. Leave there at eve & reach Mackinaw 2 A.M., 30th.

  Yesterday we had a very pleasant day on the lake and we got here about 2 o’clock this morning; we have been walking around the Island to-day gathering new plants and seeing the island. Instead of waiting and starting Thursday, I think we shall leave here Monday (to-morrow) night and so get home before Sunday if possible, but do not expect us at any particular time for very likely we may stop a day or two somewhere on the way home. I do not know as I have any more to say to you to-night, so

Good night
Your loving son
Horace Mann

P.S. I may not write again, so do not expect anything.

  I have been desirous of hearing from you for a long time, and particularly in regard to your health, which from your letter of 22 March I was sorry to hear was not as good as usual; but as you speak of your complaint as that of, ‘a severe cold,’ I hope by this time you have bid farewell to it and are once more traveling about the woods and fields of old Concord and boating on your favorite stream . . .

  My dear friend, since I saw you, & considerably since I wrote you last have I met with some fresh and very unexpected experiences, which have resulted in a change of my religious views. Long, long have I striven to become a good man, rather, to obtain that peace of mind which I consider to be the evidence of a soul in a state of acceptance with its Creator, but in vain have been my efforts—and my researches in the wisdom of the schools of ancient and modern philosophy, the (I fear) delusive and bewitching scepticism of so many noble minds. I am now quite inclined to believe in what are termed the dogmas of Christianity—at least in a part of them & have ceased to rebel against the rest. From my repeated failures in the path of virtue & godliness I am at last convinced of the necessity of regeneration i.e. a new heart—and what may surprise you still more, I am led to believe in the existence of an Evil Spirit, the great adversary of the Soul, whose malign influence has so often destroyed my fondest hopes of peace. I seize upon the truth of the gospel as recorded in the Old and New Testaments as a shipwrecked sailor to the hand stretched forth to rescue him from the whelming waves. The spiritual wants of man herein recorded and corroborated by his inward light seem to be so aptly fitted that nothing less than a Divine Master could have given them to us. What is human life without the faith and hope thus inspired within the Soul!—the faith of so many of the great and good, the Saints and Martyrs of the Church of Christ. Oh! dear T. we need it all. “I am not mad most noble Festus” but am willing to be accounted a fool for the sake of the great Head of this Church. I know that you are too good and too pure a man to smile at my new born zeal or rather newly awakened for I once before long ago was similarly led. Dont think that I am about to forsake my kind Concord friends, the purest, wisest and best of philosophers, dear noble souls—no—My heart year[n]s for your spiritual recognition of the revealed word, wherein ye may see that “ye must be born again.” Whatever takes from our faith and hopes in the future life, robs us of the only possessions that render our earthly existence endurable. Let us devoutly pray to God for light, for light & strength. We must feel contrite—be ready to smite our breast and cry “God be merciful to me a sinner.” O! there must be a listening ear to the fervent petition of the troubled soul—Our Heavenly Father will hear us He will answer to our prayers. I humbly trust that He hears mine.

  As I said before I have no rebellion in my heart now—I gladly accept whatever provision God has made for our future happiness, & endeavor to repose with faith upon the arms of Divine wisdom—Welcome Christ the Saviour of our souls if God so wills, Mystery though it be—purest of the pure simplest & wisest of all teachers, who died for his faithfulness—the great exemplar & guide of man through the thorny road of earthly life, whose life blood sealed the great testimony of truth he wrought out for us—typical of regeneration He died for us all—How grateful we should feel towards him, the great Head of the Church.

  Monday Morng. July 1 . . .

  Do let me hear from you soon? And remember me kindly to Channing for whom I shall ever feel an affectionate interest, and to dear father Alcott . . .

  My wife has had a long illness, but is now recovering. My valued Uncle, James Thornton died 27 April last in his 64th year, of which please inform Channing, who knew him.

  Little Traverse Bay quite a place for Ottawa Indians.

  Ice forms about middle of January & lasts firm till April. Mails from south (i.e., Chicago) along shore on the beach from Saginaw River by 2 Indians (14 employed) with a dog team if snow not too deep. Taking 1 week.

  Ice at head of Lake Superior quite recently. [William Miengun Johnston], County clerk. Born by half breeds & French. Says Mississippi means “Everywhere water River.” Applied to upper waters only by Chippeway. Michilimacanac means not “island of the great turtle” but “of the great genii.” Offer buttermilk at dinner instead of water; had to ask for water.

  Flies (like ants) in snow & marching to woods. William Johnson . . . Get woods from islands over ice. Plainly see a lighthouse 25 miles off. Used cedar bark for roofing & clapboards. Some wild Indians from eastward still offer tobacco. Leave it on the rocks at Mackinaw. noe fur trade of consequence for 20 years. 9 ½ P.M., take propeller Sun for Goderich, which we reach at 10 p.m. July 5th.

  For such an excursion as you propose I would recommend you to carry as food for one for six days:

  2 or 3 lbs. of boiled corned beef (I and my companions have preferred it to tongue).

  2 lbs. of sugar.

  ¼ lb. of tea (or ½ lb. of coffee).

  2 lbs. of hard bread, and a half a large loaf of home-made bread, (ready buttered if you like it), consuming the last first; or 4½ lbs. of hard bread alone.

  Also a little moist and rich plum cake, of which you can take a pinch from time to time.

  2 or 3 lemons will not come amiss to flavor poor water with.

  If you multiply this amount by 8, the number of your party, subtract from 5 to 10 per cent.

  Carry these different articles in separate cotton or linen bags labelled, and a small portion of the sugar in a box by itself for immediate use. (The same of salt, if you expect to get game or fish.)

  As for clothing and other articles, I will state exactly what I should take in such a case (besides what I wore and what were already in my pockets), my clothes and shoes being old, but thick and stout.

  1 shirt.

  1 pair socks.

  2 pocket-handkerchiefs.

  1 thick waist-coat.

  6 bosoms (or dickies).

  Towel and soap.

  Pins, needles, and thread.

  A blanket.

  A thick night cap (unless your day cap is soft and close fitting.)

  A map of the route, and a compass.

  (Such other articles as your peculiar taste and pursuits require.)

  A hatchet, (for a party of half a dozen a light but long handled axe), for you will wish to make a great fire, however warm, and to cut large logs.

  Paper and stamps.

  Jack knife.

  Matches; some of these in a water-tight vial in your vest pocket.

  A fish line and hooks, a piece of salt pork for bait, and a little salt always in your pocket, so as to be armed in case you should be lost in the woods.

  Wastepaper and twine.

  An iron spoon and a pint tin dipper for each man, in which last it will be well to insert a wire handle, whose curve will coincide with that of the dipper’s edge, and then you can use it as a kettle, if you like, and not put out the fire.

  A four quart tin pail will serve very well for your common kettle.

  An umbrella.

  For shelter, either a tent or a strong sheet large enough to cover all. If a sheet, the tent will be built shed-fashion, open to the fair weather side; two saplings, either as they stand or else stuck in the ground, serving for main posts, a third being placed horizontally in the forks of these, 6 or 7 feet from the ground, and two or three others slanted backward from it. This makes the frame on which to stretch your sheet, which must come quite down to the ground on the sides and the back.

  You will lie, of course, on the usual twigged bed, with your feet to the front.

  Thoreau, sadly out of health, was the only cheerful man in Concordia; he was in a state of exaltation about the moral regeneration of the nation.

  When your last letter was written I was away in the far North-West, in search of health. My cold turned to bronchitis which made me a close prisoner almost up to the moment of my starting on that journey, early in May. As I had an incessant cough, my doctor told me that I must “clear out”—to the West Indies or elsewhere, so I selected Minnesota. I returned a few weeks ago, after a good deal of steady travelling, considerably, yet not essentially better, my cough still continuing. If I do not mend very quickly I shall be obliged to go to another climate again very soon.

  My ordinary pursuits, both indoor and out, have been for the most part omitted, or seriously interrupted—walking, boating, scribbling, &c. Indeed I have been sick so long that I have almost forgotten what it is to be well, yet I feel that it all respects only my envelope.

  Channing & Emerson are as well as usual, but Alcott, I am sorry to say, has for some time been more or less confined by a lameness, perhaps of a neuralgic character, occasioned by carrying too great a weight on his back while gardening.

  On returning home, I found various letters awaiting me, among others one from [Thomas] Cholmondeley & one from yourself.

  Of course I am sufficiently surprised to hear of your conversion, yet I scarcely know what to say about it, unless that judging by your account, it appears to me a change which concerns yourself peculiarly, and will not make you more valuable to mankind. However, perhaps, I must see you before I can judge.

  Remembering your numerous invitations, I write this short note now chiefly to say that, if you are to be at home, and it will be quite agreeable to you, I will pay you a visit next week, & take such rides or sauntering walks with you as an invalid may.

Yrs
Henry D. Thoreau

  I have just received and read yours of yesterday, and in reply would say, that myself and family will be very glad to have a visit from you as you propose, next week—As you have fixed upon no particular time, I will be at the Head of the River depot for you by the Monday afternoon train from Boston which arrives about 6 o’clock The p.m. train from Boston for N. Bedford leaves at 4 ½ p.m.

  I am glad to inform you that my health & spirits are better than they have been for some years & I can I trust infuse a little new physical life into you at which I am pretty good. I have just raised my wife from a frustrating illness, by an intelligent faith. What you want is to live easy, just like an intelligent Indian who is a little poorly—giving nature a fair chance—your body is well enough (normally) but the brain works too hard, the engine above is a little too heavy for the craft below — so slack up & let off the steam & float awhile along shore just using the helm occasionally as occasion requires.

  I am sorry to hear of Mr Alcott’s lameness & hope he will soon recover. My son Arthur is a surgeon in the U.S. Navy on board ship Nightingale, & expects to sail from Brooklyn Navy Yard to-morrow. My wife who is you know constitutionally delicate had the bronchitis a few years ago & is now entirely well of it—her lungs which were weak and attended with cough much improved—her trouble now indigestion and palpitation of heart but getting better slowly of these. I am her doctor. I feel that your treatment should be directed to the brain principally & the remedy rest or agreeable occupation without excitement.

  I was hardly wise I fear in writing about my late experiences which I find were considerably aroused by domestic afflictions yet not without some good results I hope.

Yours truly
D. Ricketson

  Dr. Denniston, to whom I recommended you to go, has kindly consented on his way from New Bedford to Northhampton, to go to Concord to see you. He has had much experience and success in the treatment of bronchitis, and I hope his visit to you will result in your placing yourself under his care, which I much desire.

  Should the Doctor have the time, and you feel able, please show him a little of the Concord worthies and much oblige,

Yours truly,
D. Ricketson

  I am desirous to hear how you are getting along, although I have an impression that you are improving. I would not put you to the trouble to write me, could I fairly call upon any one else.

  I look back with pleasure upon my late visit to Concord. The particularly bright spots are my walks with you to Farmer Hosmer’s and to Walden Pond, as well as our visit to friend Alcott.

  I should like to have you make us a good long visit before cold weather sets in, and should this meet your approval please inform me when you answer this.

  I expect to be absent from home for a few days the last of this month, but after that time I shall be at home for some time.

  Our Indian Summer weather is very charming, and probably the air softer than more inland if a season so delightful has any difference in this section of New England.

  I suppose you have hardly needed a fresh doctor since the bountiful supply I brought you. I was much pleased at the unceremonious way in which you described him. I hope the dread of another holocaust of the same kind will keep you in good heart for some time, for, assuredly, as soon as you begin to complain, which is hardly possible, after so great a feast as you have had of late, a bigger victim will be forthcoming upon whom the eagle-eye of some friend of yours is already fixed.

  You will pardon my seeming levity, and attribute it to the fresh morning air and increasing health and spirits. I have tasted no sugar-plums of any kind since I left you. I thank you for the friendly caution. I need more. Come then, and be my kind Mentor still further.

  With kind regards to all your family and to Mr. Alcott, Channing, Hosmer, &c.

Yours truly,
D. Ricketson

  P.S. Mrs Ricketson and our daughters join in regards and invitation to visit us soon. You will be welcome at any time. This is a good time to ride out to the ponds, &c. We are having beautiful weather here, calm and mild.

  Please ask Channing if he received a book I sent him in care of Dr. W. Channing, Boston.

  I think that, on the whole, my health is better than when you were here; & my faith in the doctors has not increased.

  I thank you all for your invitation to come to New Bedford, but I suspect that it must still be warmer here than there, that, indeed, new Bedford is warmer than Concord only in the winter, & so I abide by Concord.

  September was pleasanter & much better for me than August, and October thus far has been quite tolerable. Instead of riding on horseback, I take a ride in a wagon about every other day. My neighbor, Mr [E. R.] Hoar, has two horses, & he being away for the most part this fall has generously offered me the use of one of them, and, as I notice, the dog throws himself in, and does scouting duty.

 I am glad to hear that you no longer chew, but eschew, sugar plums. One of the worst effects of sickness even is that it may get one into the habit of taking a little something, his bitters or sweets, as if for his bodily good, from time to time, when he does not need it. However, there is no danger of this if you do not dose even when you are sick.

  I met with a Mr Rodman, a young man of your town, here the other day—or week, looking at farms for sale, and rumor says that he is inclined to buy a particular one.

  C[hanning] says that he received his book, but has not got any of yours.

  It is easy to talk, but hard to write.

  From the worst of all correspondents

Henry D. Thoreau

  I received on the 8th inst your draft in payment for plumbago sent to you Oct 23d I forgot to deduct the interest, but when I remarked it supposed that you would correct the mistake before I could—for I had agreed to make the deduction.

  But the case is now altered for if I have to pay for the draft (which in any other conditions are not to be sent without cost) I think that you should not expect me to make any further deduction for interest

Yours truly
Henry D. Thoreau

  For inspecting the Stone Bridge on the main stream & reporting on its condition.

Recd Payt
H. D. Thoreau

  Thank you for your friendly interest in my dear brother. I wish that I could report more favorably in regard to his health. Soon after your visit to Concord, Henry commenced riding, and almost every day he introduced me to some of his familiar haunt, far away in the thick woods, or by the ponds; all very new and delightful to me. The air and exercise which he enjoyed during the fine autumn days were a benefit to him; he seemed stronger, had a good appetite, and was able to attend somewhat to his writing; but since the cold weather has come, his cough has increased, and he is able to go out but seldom. Just now he is suffering from an attack of pleurisy, which confines him wholly to the house. His spirits do not fail him; he continues in his usual serene mood, which is very pleasant for his friends as well as himself. I am hoping for a short winter and early spring, that the invalid may again be out of doors.

  I am sorry to hear of your indisposition, and trust that you will be well again soon. It would give me pleasure to see some of your newspaper articles, since you possess a hopeful spirit. My patience is nearly exhausted. The time looks very dark. I think the next soldier who is shot for sleeping on his post should be Gen. McClellan. Why does he not do something in the way of fighting? I despair of ever living under the reign of Summer or Phillips.