CD: Early Western Travels, 1748-1846: Volume III

CD: Early Western Travels, 1748-1846: Volume III, Andre Michaux’s Travels into Kentucky, 1793-96. Francois Andre Micheaux’s Travels West of Alleghany Mountains, 1802. Thaddeus Mason Harris’s Journal of a Tour Northwest of Alleghany Mountains, 1803 - Reuben Gold Thwaites. Andre Michaux, a French botanist and scientist, originally came to America to make a study of forest trees and experiment with regard to their transplantation to France. His journals cover nearly eleven years' travel in America. This volume relates the expedition made to Kentucky by way of the Ohio with the return over the Wilderness Road and through the Valley of Virginia with a longer journey from Charleston to Tennessee, through Kentucky to the Illinois, and back by a similar route with side excursions on the great Western rivers. His son, Francois Andre Michaux, assisted him on his journeys before returning to France to study medicine. He was commissioned by the French minister of the interior to proceed to the United States to study forests and agriculture in general. His journals reflect the rapidity with which the West was changing. "The opening of the Mississippi had caused an immense growth in both the extent and means of Western commerce…The increase in the number, size, and appearance of the towns, and the additional comforts in the homes of the people, were indicative of a great and growing prosperity." Thaddeus Mason Harris's journal is valued for the "accuracy which he exhibits in data concerning the size of the towns, their prosperity and growth, their business interests, and stage of material development; in matters regarding the growth of ship-building and navigation, the number of manufactories, and the general material prosperity of the region…" (1904), 2007, CD, Graphic Images, Searchable, Adobe, v6, PC and Mac, 382 pp. 101-CD4440 ISBN: 0788444409