CD: Early Western Travels, 1748-1846: Volume VIII, Buttrick’s Voyages, 1812-1819 and Evans’s Pedestrious Tour, 1818

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CD: Early Western Travels, 1748-1846: Volume VIII, Buttrick’s Voyages, 1812-1819 and Evans’s Pedestrious Tour, 1818 - Reuben Gold Thwaites, LL.D. Buttrick spent several years roaming through the Great West. On a journey from Massachusetts to Kentucky, "he gives us an interesting picture of river life, and its exigencies; while with graphic pen he portrays the bad roads, fever and ague, and deserted condition of the country though which he returned to his Eastern home. In 1815 began his longest journey through the West." In his writings he drew a vivid picture of Mississippi navigation. From New Orleans, he started on foot for the North, "over the route known as the Natchez trail-a wild and lonely journey of a thousand miles, through the land of semi-hostile Indians and backwoodsmen nearly as savage." His journal reveals the hardships of pioneers and the devastation of the War of 1812-15. Estwick Evans was a self-educated lawyer, born in New Hampshire, with a desire to "return to nature and the charm of savage life." The primary value of his narrative begins when he reached Detroit. "From that place through the remainder of the journey, to Presqu' Isle, and down the Allegheny, Ohio, and Mississippi to New Orleans, Evans was keenly alert for all manner of information that bore upon the war, the state of agriculture, the topography and settlement of the country, and the general industrial conditions…He gives us one of the best pictures we possess of early Michigan Territory, the French habitants contrasted with American settlers, the influence of the fur-trade, and the scattered posts in this far-away region." His descriptions also include early Indiana and Illinois and the remnants of French civilization in New Orleans. (1905), 2006, CD, Graphic Images. Adobe Acrobat, v6, PC & Mac, 368 pp. 101-CD2607 ISBN: 0788426079