Note I-39 — Chapter I · ITINERARY: ST. LOUIS TO ST. PAUL, AUGUST 9TH-SEPTEMBER 21ST, 1805.

From Dubuque to Cassville is only 30 m., and Pike was somewhat advanced beyond Dubuque when he started. "The mouth of Turkey river," opp. which he camped, is of course a fixed point; and this shows the required reduction of his "40" miles to somewhat under 30. Determinations like these would be proof, were any needed, of the proposition advanced at the start, that the set of mileages with which we have to deal require a discount of 20 to 25 per cent. as a rule. In making his "two short reaches," Pike passed his Little Macoketh, the Little Makoqueta r., on his left, and the extensive slough on his right which receives the discharges of Platte and Grant rivers. He maps the former river: see the unnamed stream on the left, where "Mr. Dubuques Houfe" and "Lead Mines" are lettered. The other two rivers are not laid down; they run in Grant Co., Wis. Beltrami, II. 196, has a locality on the W. said to be 16 m. above Dubuque's mines, and to be called Prairie Macotche, "from the name of a savage who inhabited it." This item is no doubt imaginary; but Macotche is clearly the same word as Makoqueta. Pike's "long reach" is the 15 m. or more where the river is straight; it begins about Specht's Ferry (opp. which the Potosi canal was dug for an outlet of Grant r.) and extends to Turkey r. On the left, about halfway along this stretch, is the town of Waupeton (Wahpeton, Warpeton, etc.), at or near which the boundary between Dubuque and Clayton cos. strikes the Mississippi; the town of Buenavista, Clayton Co., Ia., is 3½ m. higher, between Plum and Panther crs. On the right a snicarty 11 m. long connects Grant r. with Jack Oak slough, at the head of which Cassville is situated, at the mouth of Furnace cr., and obliquely opposite the mouth of Turkey r. Some places which started along the river have failed, or changed their names; I do not now find Osceola, which maps mark near the mouth of Platte r.; nor Lafayette, which started about the present site of Potosi, and is now marked by some dilapidated chimneys you will observe when the C., B. and Q. train stops at a sort of station there; nor Frenchtown and Finlay, both on the Iowan side, the latter at the mouth of a creek called Bastard on a map of 1857; nor Frankford, at or near Buenavista; nor Winchester, about the mouth of Turkey r. Whether by accident or design, Grant r. is lettered "Le Grand R." on Nicollet's map. The Fox village, whose women and children were so frightened at the sight of the Americans, is marked by Pike on the N. side of Turkey r., near its mouth, about where Winchester seems to have stood. Present Turkey R. Junction of the C., M. and St. P. R. R. is on the other side. This stream is "Turkies" r. of Beltrami, II. p. 196.