Part 8 (1/2)

”We read marvellous stories of the ferocity of western men. The name of Kentuckian is constantly a.s.sociated with the idea of fighting, dirking, and gouging. The people of whom we are now writing do not deserve this character. They live together in great harmony, with little contention and less litigation. The backwoodsmen are a generous and placable race.

They are bold and impetuous; and when differences do arise among them, they are more apt to give vent to their resentment at once, than to brood over their wrongs, or to seek legal redress. But this conduct is productive of harmony; for men are always more guarded in their deportment to each other, and more cautious of giving offence, when they know that the insult will be quickly felt, and instantly resented, than when the consequences of an offensive action are doubtful, and the retaliation distant. We have no evidence that the pioneers of Kentucky were quarrelsome or cruel; and an intimate acquaintance with the same race, at a later period, has led the writer to the conclusion, that they are a humane people; bold and daring, when opposed to an enemy, but amiable in their intercourse with each other and with strangers, and habitually inclined to peace.”

In morals and the essential principles of religion, this cla.s.s of people are by no means so defective as many imagine. The writer has repeatedly been in settlements and districts beyond the pale of civil and criminal law, where the people are a ”law unto themselves,” where courts, lawyers, sheriffs, and constables existed not, and yet has seen as much quiet and order, and more honesty in paying just debts, than where legal restraints operated in all their force. The turpitude of vice and the majesty of virtue, were as apparent as in older settlements. Industry, in laboring or hunting, bravery in war, candor, honesty, and hospitality were rewarded with the confidence and honor of the people. Regulating parties would exist, and thieves, rogues and counterfeiters were sure to receive a striped Jacket ”worked nineteen to the dozen,” and by this mode of operation, induced to ”clear out;” but truth, uprightness, honesty and sincerity are always respected. Many of the frontier cla.s.s are _illiterate_, but they are by no means _ignorant_. They are a shrewd, observing, thinking people. They may not have learned the black marks in books, but they have studied _men and things_, and have a quick insight into human nature. They are not inattentive to religion, though their opportunities of religious instruction are few, compared with old countries. They have prejudices and fears about many of the organized benevolent societies of the present age, yet there are no people more readily disposed to attend religious meetings, and whose hearts are more readily affected with the gospel than the backwoods people; and as large a proportion are orderly professors of religion as in any part of the Union. Ministers of the gospel and Missionaries, who can suit themselves to the circ.u.mstances and habits of frontier people,--who like Paul, can ”become all things to all men,”--find pleasant and interesting fields of labor on all our frontiers. But let such persons show fastidiousness, affect superior intelligence and virtue, catechise the people for their plainness and simplicity of manners, and draw invidious comparisons, and they are sure to be ”used up,” or left without hearers, to deplore the ”dark clouds” of ignorance and prejudice in the west.

_Hunters and Trappers._ Entirely beyond the boundaries of civilization are many hundreds of a unique cla.s.s, distinguished by the terms Hunters and Trappers. They are engaged in hunting buffalo and other wild game, and trapping for beaver. They are found upon the vast prairies of the West and Northwest,--in all the defiles and along the streams of the Rocky mountains, and in various parts of the Oregon Territory, to the peninsula of California. They are an enterprising and erratic race from almost every state, and are usually in the employ of persons of capital and enterprise, and who are concerned in the fur and peltry business.

Expeditions for one, two, or three years, are fitted out from St. Louis, or some commercial point, consisting of companies, who ascend the rivers to the regions of fur. The hunters and trappers, receive a proportion of the profits of the expedition. Some become so enamored with this wandering and exposed life as to lose all desire of returning to the abodes of civilization, and remain for the rest of their lives in the American deserts. There are individuals, who are graduates of colleges, and who once stood high in the circles of refinement and taste, that have pa.s.sed more than twenty years amongst the roaming tribes of the Rocky mountains, or on the western slope, till they have apparently lost all feelings towards civilized life. They have afforded an interesting but melancholy example of the tendencies of human nature towards the degraded state of savages. The improvement of the species is a slow and laborious process,--the deterioration is rapid, and requires only to be divested of restraint, and left to its own unaided tendencies. Many others have returned to the habits of civilization, and some with fortunes made from the woods and prairies.

_Boatmen._ These are the fresh water sailors of the West, with much of the light hearted, reckless character of the sons of the Ocean, including peculiar shades of their own. Before the introduction of Steamboats on the western waters, its immense commerce was carried on by means of _keel boats_, and _barges_. The former is much in the shape of a ca.n.a.l boat, long, slim-built, sharp at each end, and propelled by setting poles and the cordelle or long rope. The barge is longer, and has a bow and stern. Both are calculated to ascend streams but by a very slow process. Each boat would require from ten to thirty hands, according to its size. A number of these boats frequently sailed in company. The boatmen were proverbially lawless at every town and landing, and indulged without restraint in every species of dissipation, debauchery and excess. But this race has become reformed, or nearly extinct;--yes, reformed by the mighty power of steam. A steamboat, with half the crew of a barge or keel, will carry ten times the burden, and perform six or eight trips in the time it took a keel boat to make one voyage. Thousands of flat boats, or ”broad horns,” as they are called, pa.s.s _down_ the rivers with the produce of the country, which are managed by the farmers of the West, but never return up stream. They are sold for lumber, and the owners, after disposing of the cargo, return by steam. The number of boatmen on the western waters is not only greatly reduced, but those that remain are fast losing their original character.

CHAPTER V.

PUBLIC LANDS.

System of Surveys.--Meridian and Base Lines.--Towns.h.i.+ps.--Diagram of a towns.h.i.+p surveyed into Sections.--Land Districts and Offices.

--Pre-emption rights.--Military Bounty Lands.--Taxes.--Valuable Tracts of country unsettled.

In all the new states and territories, the lands which are owned by the general government, are surveyed and sold under one general system.

Several offices, each under the direction of a surveyor general, have been established by acts of Congress, and districts, embracing one or more states, a.s.signed them. The office for the surveys of all public lands in Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, and the Wisconsin country is located at Cincinnati. The one including the states of Illinois and Missouri, and the territory of Arkansas is at St. Louis. Deputy surveyors are employed to do the work at a stipulated rate per mile, generally from three to four dollars, who employ chain bearers, an axe, and flag man, and a camp-keeper. They are exposed to great fatigue and hards.h.i.+p, spending two or three months at a time in the woods and prairies, with slight, moveable camps for shelter.

In the surveys, ”_meridian_” lines are first established, running north from the mouth of some noted river. These are intersected with ”_base_”

lines.

There are five princ.i.p.al meridians in the land surveys in the west.

The ”_First Princ.i.p.al Meridian_” is a line due north from the mouth of the Miami.

The ”_Second Princ.i.p.al Meridian_” is a line due north from the mouth of Little Blue river, in Indiana.

The ”_Third Princ.i.p.al Meridian_” is a line due north from the mouth of the Ohio.

The ”_Fourth Princ.i.p.al Meridian_” is a line due north from the mouth of the Illinois.

The ”_Fifth Princ.i.p.al Meridian_” is a line due north from the mouth of the Arkansas. Another Meridian is used for Michigan, which pa.s.ses through the central part of the state. Its base line extends from about the middle of lake St. Clair, across the state west to lake Michigan.

Each of these meridians has its own base line.

The surveys connected with the third and fourth meridians, and a small portion of the second, embrace the state of Illinois.

The base line for both the second and third princ.i.p.al meridians commences at Diamond Island, in Ohio, opposite Indiana, and runs due west till it strikes the Mississippi, a few miles below St. Louis.

All the _towns.h.i.+ps_ in Illinois, south and east of the Illinois river, are numbered from this base line either north or south.

The third princ.i.p.al meridian terminates with the northern boundary of the state.

The fourth princ.i.p.al meridian commences in in the centre of the channel, and at the mouth of the Illinois river, but immediately crosses to the _east_ sh.o.r.e, and pa.s.ses up on that side, (and at one place nearly fourteen miles distant) to a point in the channel of the river, seventy-two miles from its mouth. Here its base line commences and extends across the peninsula to the Mississippi, a short distance above Quincy. The fourth princ.i.p.al meridian is continued northward through the military tract, and across Rock river, to a curve in the Mississippi at the upper rapids, in towns.h.i.+p eighteen north, and about twelve or fifteen miles above Rock Island. It here crosses and pa.s.ses up the _west_ side of the Mississippi river fifty-three miles, and recrosses into Illinois, and pa.s.ses through the town of Galena to the northern boundary of the state. It is thence continued to the Wisconsin river and made the princ.i.p.al meridian for the surveys of the territory, while the northern boundary line of the state is const.i.tuted its base line for that region.

Having formed a princ.i.p.al meridian with its corresponding base line, for a district of country, the next operation of the surveyor is to divide this into tracts of six miles square, called ”_towns.h.i.+ps_.”

In numbering the towns.h.i.+ps _east_ or _west_ from a princ.i.p.al meridian, they are called ”_ranges_,” meaning a range of towns.h.i.+ps; but in numbering _north_ or _south_ from a base line, they are called ”_towns.h.i.+ps_.” Thus a tract of land is said to be situated in towns.h.i.+p four north in range three east, from the third princ.i.p.al meridian; or as the case may be.

Towns.h.i.+ps are subdivided into square miles, or tracts of 640 acres each, called ”_sections_.” If near timber, trees are marked and numbered with the section, towns.h.i.+p, and range, near each sectional corner. If in a large prairie, a mound is raised to designate the corner, and a billet of charred wood buried, if no rock is near. Sections are divided into halves by a line north and south, and into quarters by a transverse line. In sales under certain conditions, quarters are sold in equal subdivisions of forty acres each, at one dollar and twenty-five cents per acre. Any person, whether a native born citizen, or a foreigner, may purchase forty acres of the richest soil, and receive an indisputable t.i.tle, for fifty dollars.

_Ranges_ are towns.h.i.+ps counted either east or west from meridians.

_Towns.h.i.+ps_ are counted either north or south from their respective base lines.

_Fractions_, are parts of quarter sections intersected by streams or confirmed claims.

The parts of towns.h.i.+ps, sections, quarters, &c. made at the lines of either towns.h.i.+ps or meridians are called _excesses_ or _deficiencies_.

_Sections_, or miles square are numbered, beginning in the northeast corner of the towns.h.i.+p, progressively west to the range line, and then progressively east to the range line, alternately, terminating at the southeast corner of the towns.h.i.+p, from one to thirty-six, as in the following diagram:

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6

5

4

3

2

1

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7

8

9

10

11

12

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