PART II.EARLY DAYS IN MISSOURI

ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO THE territory west of the Mississippi river was as unknown to the civilized races of mankind as the wilds of Central Africa are today. Eighty-one years ago there

was not an American settlement west of Kentucky, and the Indians of Illinois, part of Ohio, and all that vast territory lying to the north, west and south-west, were undisturbed in their hunting grounds. There were doubtless tribes in the remote West who had never heard of white men, or of the coming of a superior race that was to drive them, finally, into the Pacific Ocean. Now this immense continent is dotted with large cities, thriving villages, and neat farm houses; in every valley is heard the puffing of the iron horse; and there is hardly a foot of ground that has not been trod, time and again, by the feet of white men. School houses and workshops have pushed the smoky wigwams aside, and leviathan steamboats plow and churn the waters over which the stealthy canoe once glided. There are places which we call old, and view with reverence as the abode of our ancestors, that have not yet seen a century! We talk of antiquities, and proudly point out to strangers our “old landmarks,” and yet there are men and women still living who remember when Daniel Boone came to—Upper Louisiana, or New Spain. St. Louis was then an

insignificant French village—now it is the third city of the United States and the metropolis of the Mississippi Valley! The Mississippi Valley! A continent within itself, that numbers its population by millions! St, Charles was an Indian trading post, and the country twenty miles west of it had been visited by only a few bold hunters. When Daniel Boone came, he went away out into the wilderness, among the Indians and wild animals—twenty miles west of St. Charles! and there he settled. When the grandfather of the writer arrived in St. Louis, seventy-six years

ago, the Spanish commandant would not give him a permit to settle near the present town of Cap-au-Gris, in Lincoln county, because it was too far out on the frontier, and exposed to attacks

from the Indians!

No one can view the astonishing growth of this great country without amazement. It has sprung up as if by the conjuration of some mighty magician, and one who lives in this good year of 1876 can hardly realize what Missouri and the West were eighty one years ago.

In 1764 a company of Fren