Historic Diaries: James Doty, 1820
July 17, 1820: Schoolcraft Heads for the Mississippi's Source
Editor's Note:
For the next seven days, Doty stayed at Sandy Lake and did not write in his journal. We have inserted for those dates excerpts from Henry Schoolcraft's narrative, published the following year, in which he describes how he and a handful of the others sought the source of the Mississippi River deeper in the Minnesota wilderness.
Location: north of Big Sandy Lake Reservoir, Minn.
View Schoolcraft's complete description in his 1821 Narrative
[Schoolcraft's narrative:]
We left the fort at half past nine in the morning, in three canoes, manned by nineteen voyageurs and Indians, and provisioned for twelve days. Our party now, exclusive of the working men, consisted of Governor Cass, Dr. Wolcott, Capt. Douglass, Lieut. Mackay, Maj. Forsyth, and myself. The balance of the expedition, -- men, baggage, and canoes, was left at the Company's establishment...
On entering the Mississippi, we found a strong current, -- reddish water, a little turbid, -- some snags and drifts, -- and alluvial banks, elevated from four to eight feet, bearing a forest of elm, maple, oak, poplar, pine, and ash. The elm predominates; maple and oak are common, -- pine, ash, and poplar, sparing. The river has a width of sixty yards, and the shores are skirted with bull rushes, foille avoine, and tufts of willow. In the course of the day we passed the following rapids, numbered and estimated from the mouth of Sandy Lake River...
We encamped twenty miles above the sixth rapid at eight o'clock in the evening, having been eleven hours in our canoes, and progressed forty-six miles.
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