Note I-34 — Chapter I · ITINERARY: ST. LOUIS TO ST. PAUL, AUGUST 9TH-SEPTEMBER 21ST, 1805.

Whatever the exact distance represented by this mileage, we have to set the Expedition down in a very unhealthy place to-night, as will presently appear. Soon after decamping from Apple r.,—that is, in 5 miles' distance by the channel, Pike passes on his left a notable stream, which he elsewhere calls the Great Macoketh. This is Makokety r. of Nicollet, Maquoketa r. of others, whose name is now usually spelled Makoqueta. This is also the designation of the county seat of Jackson, situated upon the river. It falls in opposite Sand prairie, about where the line between Carroll and Jo Daviess cos. strikes the river. The "beautiful eminence on the W." which Pike observed is Leopold hill, near Bellevue, Jackson Co., Ia. This town existed before Nicollet's map was made, as he marks it by name. The locality called Chéniere by Beltrami II. 196, was hereabouts. He gives it on the W., 10 m. above his R. la Pomme. The hills begin to approach the river four or five miles below Bellevue, and so continue with little interruption to Dubuque. The trough of the river is similar on the Illinois side, but the hills do not hug the river so closely, leaving a stretch of sloughy bottom, especially at the delta of the Galena r. This is the insalubrious place of encampment. The Galena was long named, and is still sometimes called, Fever r. The same slough by which it discharges receives Smallpox cr.; and on the Iowan side, opposite Harris slough, which is the upper end of the Fever delta, a creek falls in known as Tête du Mort, or Tête des Morts. It must have been a choice region of saturnine and miasmatic poisons, as the victims of lead-palsy and ague-cake who lived on Fever r. had the option of moving down on Smallpox cr. or over to Death's-head cr. The place to avoid is pointed out to Mississippian tourists by Pilot Knob, an isolated eminence on the prairie near the variolous creek, 3 m. S. of the city of Galena, which is about the same distance up the febrile stream. The cranial creek is said to have been so named on account of the number of skulls which resulted from an Indian fight there. On this point Beltrami, 1828, II. p. 160, has "a place called the Death's-heads; a field of battle where the Foxes defeated the Kikassias [Kaskaskias?], whose heads they fixed upon poles as trophies of their victory. We stopped at the entrance of the river la Fièvre, a name in perfect conformity with the effect of the bad air which prevails there." Nor do I know what terrors may be hidden under the name of Sinsinawa cr., which makes in a mile or two higher up, on the Illinois side. Two of the sloughs at the delta are called respectively Harris' and Spratt's; a third is Stone slough. One Gordon established a ferry here, many years ago, and a place on the Iowan side, close to the boundary between Jackson and Dubuque cos., is still known as Gordon's ferry. Regarding the nomenclature of Galena r., we should not omit to cite here Keating's Long's Exp. of 1823, published 1824, I. p. 212, where it is stated that Smallpox cr. and Fever r. are the same: "a small stream, called by the Indians Mekabea Sepe, or Small-pox river; it is the Riviere de la Fievre, which is said to enter the Mississippi opposite to Dubuque's mines." Probably not much weight attaches to this observation, which Major Long only made parenthetically, and evidently at second-hand information, in speaking of a badger which his party had killed and cooked; though it is also quite possible that Galena r. once rejoiced in both names, one of which was later conferred upon the small creek which enters its delta. That Long knew the Galena as La Fièvre r. is certain, for he uses the latter name, though without any accent, in the narrative of his voyage of 1817, in speaking of reaching it on Monday, July 28th, of that year. See Minn. Hist. Coll., II. Part 1, 1860; 2d ed. 1890, p. 66. It appears that Long's MS. of his voyage of 1817 was placed in Prof. Keating's hands when the latter was preparing for publication the history of Long's Expedition of 1823. This source of information was freely drawn upon; in fact, I do not see that Prof. Keating did not fully avail himself of this opportunity to editorially embody in the narrative of 1823 the whole substance of the 1817 materials, in so far as Major Long went over the same ground in the two expeditions. But the earlier narrative contains considerable matter not pertinent to the later one, inasmuch as Major Long in 1817 traversed a long section of the Mississippi that he did not retrace in 1823. On this particular account, as well as for more general reasons, it was desirable and eminently fitting that Long's Expedition of 1817 should be published; and that was first done in long after-years by my friend, the late Rev. Edw. D. Neill, the veteran Minnesota historian, who received the MS. for this purpose from Dr. Edwin James, then of Burlington, Ia. (who d. Oct. 28th, 1861). As originally published under Dr. Neill's careful editorship, the article was entitled: "Voyage in a Six-Oared Skiff to the Falls of Saint Anthony in 1817. By Major Stephen H. Long, Topographical Engineer United States Army," and formed Part 1 of Vol. II. of the Minn. Hist. Coll., 1860 (about 80 pages); 2d ed. 1890, half-title and introductory note by E. D. N., one leaf; journal, pp. 9-83; map and appendix, prepared by A. J. Hill, pp. 84-88. Major Long's movements of 1817 occupied 76 days, of which the journal here printed covers the period from July 9th to Aug. 15th, both inclusive, or 38 days; as it picks up Major Long after his return to Prairie du Chien from a tour of the Fox-Wisconsin portage, takes him from that Prairie to the falls, and returns him to Bellefontaine, near the mouth of the Missouri. The objects of this voyage were to meander the upper Mississippi and take its topography, with special reference to the selection of military sites. It was performed in a boat furnished by Governor William Clark, Superintendent of Indian Affairs at St. Louis. Its most important single result was the speedy occupation of the mouth of St. Peter's r. for a military post, at first called Fort St. Anthony, and in 1824 named Fort Snelling; but the narrative is replete with matter of permanent historical and scientific interest. Major Long was a conscientious, competent, and well-equipped explorer, as all three of his important and memorable expeditions attest. The present expedition is the only one of which we have the account from his own pen, as Dr. James and Prof. Keating, respectively, were the authors of the other two. Stephen Harriman Long, of New Hampshire, was appointed from that State a second lieutenant of Engineers Dec. 12th, 1814, and brevetted major of Topographical Engineers Apr. 29th, 1816, though his actual majority in that corps was not reached till July 7th, 1838. He became colonel Sept. 9th, 1861, was retired June 1st, 1863, and died at Alton, Ill., Sept. 4th, 1864.