Note 24 — COMMENCEMENT OF THE EXPEDITION

This is not the stream now known as the Little Platte, for which see James's Long's Expedition, in our volume xiv, p. 174, note 141. Possibly it was Maple Creek, a stream which rises in the southern part of Stanton County, Nebraska, and flowing westward through Dodge County joins the Elkhorn nearly opposite the town of Fontenelle. At the time of Major Long's expedition (1820), all the Pawnee villages were situated within a few miles of each other, on the Loup fork of the Platte (see volume xv of our series, pp. 144-149), while Pattie finds a Republican Pawnee village within a day's march of the Elkhorn. Probably this was but a temporary village, as Colonel Henry Dodge (1835) and later travellers describe the location on the main Platte (see Senate Doc., 24 Cong., 1 sess., 209). Pattie is also the only person who mentions more than one Republican Pawnee village. It seems likely that he erroneously classed as Republican the other Pawnee villages, excepting that of the Loups (which he mentions separately)—namely, the Grand and the Tapage villages.—Ed.