Note I-20 — Chapter I · ITINERARY: ST. LOUIS TO ST. PAUL, AUGUST 9TH-SEPTEMBER 21ST, 1805.

James Wilkinson: see elsewhere for this letter, which formed Doc. No. 1, App. to Pt. 1. of the orig. ed. of this work. Pike's 5 or 6 m. takes him past Dobson's slough and Devil's or Sugar cr. and isl., and the sand-bar on which he camped is now represented by Niota isl., 2½ m. long, or one of the small ones close by. The locality is the well-known one of the city of Madison, or Fort Madison, seat of Lee Co., Ia. Opposite this city, in Hancock Co., Ill., are two little places, one called Niota, and the other Appannose (Nicollet), Appanoose (G. L. O. map), Appanooce (Miss. Surv. chart), etc. A certain creek which falls in by Niota and is known as Tyson's cr. seems to be the never-identified one which Lewis and Clark mapped in 1814 as Sand Bank cr.

A history of Lee Co., pub. Chicago, 1879, says that the city of Fort Madison was so called from the old fort and trading-post of that name. The author speaks of the tradition that this establishment was built by Zachary Taylor, when this distinguished general, afterward president of the United States, was a lieutenant in the army; and attempts to refute this tradition by an appeal to the War Department for the facts in the case. But unluckily, the information he derived from this source was erroneous; for the Hon. Geo. W. McCrary, then secretary of war, told him that the adjutant-general of the army reported to him (McCrary) that Fort Madison was erected by Pike in 1805. Whereas, besides imperishable renown, Pike erected nothing in 1805 but his stockade on Swan r., and various patriotic flag-poles. The difference between selecting or recommending a site for a fort, and building one on that site, is obvious at sight. But Pike did not even select or recommend this spot for a fort, the lowest one of several which he did pick out being at Burlington: see next note. Z. Taylor was a 1st lieut. of the 7th Infantry in 1808, appointed from Ky.; which fact, as far as it goes, supports the tradition. The Andreas Hist. Atl. of Ia. has it that the fort for which the town was named was built in 1808; evacuated and burned by hostile Indians, 1813 (qu. 1812?). On Monday, Aug. 4th, 1817, when Long visited the ruins of Fort Madison, there was nothing left but some old chimneys, a covert way leading from the main garrison to some sort of an elevated outwork in the rear, and a number of fruit-trees on the ground which had been a garden: see Minn. Hist. Soc. II., Part 1, 1860, 2d ed. 1890, p. 75. In the fall of 1832 one Peter Williams settled on the present site of the town. The old trading-house there was called Le Moine factory. The old fort stood close to the river, and as I judge within a third of a mile of the present State penitentiary.