Early Western Travels, 1748-1846/Volume 1/Preface
PREFACE TO VOLUME I
In planning for this series of reprints of Early Western Travels, we were confronted by an embarrassment of riches. To reissue all of the many excellent works of travel originally published during the formative period of Western settlement, would obviously be impossible. A selection had therefore to be made, both as to period and material. The century commencing with Conrad Weiser's notable journey to the Western Indians in 1748, set convenient limits to the field in the matter of time. The question of material was much more difficult.
It being unlikely that any two editors would choose the same volumes for reprint, criticism of our list will undoubtedly be made. It should, however, candidly be explained that the matter of selection has in each case necessarily been affected by two important considerations—(1) the intrinsic value of the original from the historical side, and (2) its present rarity and market value. The Editor having selected a list of items worthy of a new lease of life, the Publishers, from their intimate knowledge of the commercial aspect of rare Americana, advised which of these in their opinion were sufficiently in demand by libraries and collectors to render the enterprise financially productive. It is believed that this co-operative method has resulted in an interesting collection, and given point to the descriptive sub-title: "Some of the best and rarest contemporary volumes of travel. . . in the Middle and Far West, during the period of early American settlement."
The first volume of our series is necessarily more varied in composition than any of its successors, it having been deemed important to present herein several typical early tours into the Indian country west of the Alleghenies.
That of Conrad Weiser, occurring in August and September of 1748, was the first official journey undertaken at the instance of the English colonies, to the west of the mountain wall. His purpose was, to carry to the tribesmen on the Ohio a present from the Pennsylvania and Virginia authorities. The results were favorable to an English alliance, but they were partially neutralized by the French expedition headed by Céloron the following year.
The journals of George Croghan (1750-65) are an epitome of the Indian history of the time. The first three documents deal with the period of English progress—in 1750, Croghan was on the Ohio en route to the Shawnee towns and Pickawillany; the next season, he outwitted Joncaire on the Allegheny. The four succeeding documents are concerned with the period of hostility to the English—in 1754 he was on the Ohio after Washington had passed (December, 1753); the letter from Aughwick, in 1755, tells of affairs after Braddock's defeat; in 1756, we learn particulars of Indian affairs; and in 1757 is given a résumé of past events. The last two journals are the longest and most important—that of 1760-61 is concerned, topographically and otherwise, with the trip to Detroit via Lake Erie, in the company of Rogers's Rangers, and the return by land to Pittsburg; that of 1765, with a tour down the Ohio towards the Illinois, where the writer is captured and carried to Ouiatanon—in due course making a peace with Pontiac, and returning to Niagara.
The journals of Christian Frederick Post and Thomas Morris are interludes, as to time, in the Croghan diaries. Post's two journals cover the months of July to September, 1758, and October, 1758 to January, 1759. He was at first sent out, by the northern trail, in midsummer, as an official messenger to the hostiles, among whom he succeeded in securing a kind of neutrality—a venturesome expedition into the neighborhood of Fort Duquesne, whose French commandant offered a price upon his head. The second journey, in the autumn, was undertaken to carry the news of the treaty of Easton (October, 1758), and pave the way for General Forbes's advance. In the course of his journey he proceeded to the Indian towns on the Ohio and its northern tributaries, and returned to the settlements with Forbes's army.
Captain Morris accompanied Bradstreet (1764) on the latter's expedition towards Detroit. Being dispatched from Cedar Point on a mission to the French in the Illinois, Morris was arrested and maltreated at the Ottawa village at Maumee Rapids. He saw Pontiac, went to Fort Miami, narrowly escaped being burned at the stake, and finally made his escape through the woods to Detroit. His journal presents a thrilling episode in Western history.
It is our purpose, in these reprints, accurately to republish the original volumes, with all of their illustrations and other features. While seeking to reproduce the old text as closely as practicable, with its typographic and orthographic peculiarities, it has been found advisable here and there to make a few minor changes; these consist almost wholly of palpable blemishes, the result of negligent proof-reading—such as turned letters, transposed letters, slipped letters, and mis-spacings. Such corrections will be made without specific mention; in some instances, however, the original error has for a reason been retained, and in juxtaposition the correction given within brackets. We indicate, throughout, the pagination of the old edition which we are reprinting, by inclosing within brackets the number of each page at its beginning, e. g. [24]; in the few instances where pages were, as the fruit of carelessness in make-up, misnumbered in the original, we have given the incorrect as well as the correct figure, e. g. [25, i. e. 125]. In two or three instances, where matter foreign to our purpose was introduced in the volume as originally published—such as the journal of a voyage not within our field, or an appendix of irrelevant or unimportant matter—we have taken the liberty of eliminating this; in such cases, however, especial attention will be called to the omission.
An analytical index to the series will appear in the concluding volume.
In the preparation of notes for the present volume, the Editor has been assisted by Louise Phelps Kellogg, Ph.D., of the Division of Maps and Manuscripts in the Wisconsin State Historical Library. He has also been favored with valuable information on various points, from Colonel Reuben T. Durrett of Louisville, Mr. Frank H. Severance of Buffalo, the Western Reserve Historical Society at Cleveland, and Dr. Ernest C. Richardson and Dr. John Rogers Williams of Princeton University.
R. G. T.
Madison, Wis., January, 1904.