Note I-60 — Chapter I · ITINERARY: ST. LOUIS TO ST. PAUL, AUGUST 9TH-SEPTEMBER 21ST, 1805.

"Grand Encampment" is a phrase in use since Carver's Travels first appeared. Carver first came to Lake Pepin Nov. 1st, 1766. Those who wish to verify the fact will find it on p. 34 of the Phila. ed. of 1796, which is commoner and therefore more accessible than any of the earlier ones; the London princeps, 1778, is a rare book; the place is p. 54 of this ed. On p. 35, Carver says the place was "some miles below Lake Pepin." This left the location in the air, especially as he does not say which side of the river; and various authors have raised such a fog about it that we might be excused if we failed to find it anywhere. By Pike as above, the place is between Buffalo r. and Chippewa r.; he starts late, noons on the spot, and gets into Lake Pepin at dusk. On his return voyage, Apr. 15th, 1806, he stops at the place; he makes it on the right (west) bank, 9 m. below Lake Pepin. When Long comes by, in 1823, his boat-party camps opposite the mouth of Buffalo r., just as Pike did yesterday; on the 30th of June they find themselves "a few miles" below L. Pepin, and much concerned to discover Carver's "fortifications": see Keating, I. pp. 276-78. The upshot of their long discussion is the conclusion that Carver did really see what he says he saw, but that the works he described were not at the Grand Encampment, where they found no fortifications. But this is clearly a non sequitur, or a lucus a non, or a petitio principii, or an argumentum ad hominem, or whatever may be the logical definition of an illogical syllogism. It misses the point. The question is not one of identifying Carver's locality; the question is whether what he saw there was an artificial work or a natural formation. The place can be pointed out with the point of a pin stuck through the map, provided the topography has not changed too much for that during the century; for the point which now points to Carver's location is Point Teepeeota of the U. S. survey chart. The point above, at which Major Long's boat-party landed an hour or two later that day, and "which appeared to correspond with the description" of Carver's place, though "their search here was likewise unsuccessful" (p. 278), is the present site of Wabasha—the place where Nicholas Perrot is thought to have landed in 1683, and built a log fort, the first thing of the kind in all that country, afterward marked on some maps as Fort Perrot. Teepeeota pt. is the projecting end of the long narrow sand-drift or sand terrace already mentioned as extending 9 m. or more in the delta of the Zumbro; it strikes the Mississippi immediately below the Middle mouth of the Zumbro, and in fact determines the position of that opening. Teepeeota pt. is 4½ m. direct above Alma, somewhat more than 5 m. by the channel; it is 3 m. direct below Wabasah, a little more by the channel; it is 6 m. below the upper mouth of Chippewa r., say 7 by the channel. The Indian name would be more correctly rendered Tipiotah—tipi meaning a lodge or dwelling (such as is called "wigwam" in novels, but seldom so on the spot) and the rest of the word denoting multitude; the paper-town there, called Tepeeotah City, went up in smoke, 1859. The island off Teepeeota pt., but a little lower down, is now called Grand Encampment isl. Of the accuracy of this identification I do not see how there can be any question, though time has modified the contour details in the course of nature, as well as in the course of the engineering work done there of late years. These fortifications of the river against its own sands are doubtless the only ones of any magnitude that have ever been made on the spot, before or since Carver; though there was nothing to hinder the Sioux from scooping holes in the sand-drift and scuttling into them when the Chippewas came in sight, as we know they did at Prairie La Crosse and elsewhere. Under these circumstances, I think the gentlemen of Major Long's party were as unjust to themselves in doubting their own identifications (in which they were supported by Hart, Rolette, and others who knew about the place), as they were to Carver in saying, p. 277: "No gentleman of the party would be willing to ascribe to Carver a scrupulous adherence to truth, (personal observation having convinced them all of the many misrepresentations contained in his work)." If this is meant to charge Carver with willful misrepresentation, I think it is unjust as well as ungenerous. Carver mistook a natural for an artificial work—so did William Clark, to the extent of drawing one to a scale and describing it in the terms of military science—so have done many professional archæologists. Carver made mistakes, like the rest of us; he was often loose about distances, dimensions, and such things; he believed more things that were told him than a less honest and more wary wayfarer would have taken to be true; but I think that he drew a short bow for so long a journey, had no occasion to deceive anyone but himself, and always intended to tell the truth as it seemed to him—in short, I do not see how his good faith can be seriously questioned. I accept Carver's statements, as I do those of Pike, Long, and other honest persons, for what they may prove to be worth.