The summer and autumn of 1836 found Edmund Flagg, a teacher and journalist, traveling in Missouri and Illinois, and writing for the Louisville Journal. These letters became the basis for his first book, The Far West. This volume presents Part II of this book, chapters thirty-three through forty-one. Most of this volume is devoted to de Smet's letters and sketches. He was born and educated in Belgium. He crossed the Atlantic to carry the gospel to the Indians of the Western continent, but it was not until 1838 that he undertook his first missionary enterprise, when a chapel for the Potawatomi was built on the site of the modern Council Bluffs. In 1840, he set forth for the Flathead country with the annual fur-trade caravan traveling the Oregon Trail as far as the Green River rendezvous to meet a deputation of ten Flatheads, sent to escort him to their habitat. He spent two months with them at their encampment at the Three Forks of the Missouri before returning to the fur-trade post of Fort Union. In 1841 he traveled to the Flathead tribe in Beaver Head Valley, Montana then crossed the waters of the Columbia, to found the mission of St. Mary. He left the mission to seek re-enforcements and further aid in Europe, arriving in St. Louis at the end of October, 1842. At this point the journey detailed in this volume comes to an end. "The freshness of description, the wholesome simplicity of the narrative, the frank presentation of wilderness life, charm the reader, and make this book a classic of early Western exploration."
Reuben Gold Thwaites, LL.D.
(1906), 2007, CD-ROM, Graphic Images, Searchable, Adobe v6, PC or Mac, 380 pp.
ISBN: 9780788444029
101-CD4402
