ILLUSTRATIONS TO VOLUME XIX

"Arrival of the Caravan at Santa Fé." From Gregg's Commerce

of the Prairies

Facsimile of title-page, Ogden's Letters

Frontispiece

21

"Plan of a proposed Rural Town, to be called Hygeia." Fold

ing map

Facsimile of title-page, Bullock's Sketch

116

117

Facsimile of title-page, Gregg's Commerce of the Prairies, Vol. I 157 "March of the Caravan"

.

"A Kitchen Scene" (text cut in original)
"Gold-Washing" (text cut in original)

Riding dress of Caballero (text cut in original)
"Mexican Arrieros, with an atajo of pack-mules"

245

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PREFACE TO VOLUMES XIX AND XX

In these two volumes we reprint the works of three Western travellers: George W. Ogden's Letters from the West; William Bullock's Sketch of a Journey through the Western States; and Josiah Gregg's Commerce of the Prairies. The first two of these are slight sketches, chiefly interesting for their accounts of the Ohio Valley and its metropolis, Cincinnati, at the close of the first quarter of the nineteenth century. The third is the classic description of the Santa Fé trail. "Although limited in scope, it fills its particular niche so completely, that it is entitled to rank as one of the great works of American history."

George W. Ogden was a Quaker merchant from the Massachusetts town of New Bedford, who early in 1821 went on a business journey to the Western country, where he remained two years. Arriving in Pittsburg in April, 1821, he devotes his first letter to a description of its prosperity and prospects, and the neighboring points of interest. In his second letter he describes the Ohio River journey to Cincinnati; to which town and its sister community at Louisville, with the journey thence to the Mississippi, the third letter is concerned. These three letters comprise Ogden's account of his personal wayfaring adventures. In preparation for the press he saw fit to add to these communications, written apparently only for family reading, some succinct information on the history, topography, and possibilities of the West, gathered from various sources; this, in order that his letters might prove "beneficial to those for whom

'H. M. Chittenden, History of the American Fur-Trade in the Far West (New York, 1902), p. 544.— ED.

they are particularly designed -the great number of emigrants who are constantly moving to that country.' For our present purpose, the chief interest of the book centres in the early portions - the added data being but a historical and geographical compendium, somewhat hastily constructed.

Ogden writes with the predispositions of a New England Quaker, who especially abhors all evidences of slavery and all vestiges of war. He notes the Westerner's jealousy of Yankees and his "peculiar" manners; but declares that he found the borderman "humane and hospitable, kind and attentive to strangers." His picture of the backwoodsmen of Western Virginia is, however, somewhat colored by Eastern prejudice. "They acquire rough and savage manners, they have no learning, no settled principles of religion, and, in fine, are not far removed in point of civilization from the savages of our western borders." He testifies to the prosperity of the Ohio Valley, despite the decline in the ship-building enterprise; to the growth of the towns, the beginnings of manufacture, and the ambitious character of the enterprises under way. He is especially enchanted with the beauty of the scenery, with the delights of the view from the surrounding Cincinnati hills; but in his enthusiasm is led to speak of "huge mountains" on the Ohio, "whose tops intercept the clouds"- possibly the result of some early morning experience, when the river fogs, rising lazily, still lagged in deep ravines furrowing the hilly banks.

The only other publication known to be from Ogden's pen is a controversial pamphlet, A Letter to Hull Barton, an Excommunicated Member from the Society of Friends, now a New Light Preacher (New Bedford, 1823). His Letters from the West is now a very scarce book. This is, we believe, the first reprint of the New Bedford edition.

The brief work of William Bullock is a supplement to that of Ogden's describing in terms of enthusiastic approval

the same region some five years later. Bullock was an Englishman, who while engaged in the occupation of jeweller and goldsmith in Liverpool (1808), became interested in objects of natural history to which he devoted his leisure. Having opened a museum comprised of curiosities from foreign regions, notably those brought to England by the vessels of Captain Cook after his circumnavigation of the globe, he was so successful that in 1812 he removed his collection to London and for seven years exhibited it in the well-known Egyptian Hall in Piccadilly. Searching for fresh material, Bullock undertook in 1822 a journey to Mexico, where he was well received and the recipient of many courtesies and favors. Upon his return he opened an exhibit known as "Modern Mexico," and published his observations in a work entitled Six Months' Residence and Travels in Mexico (London, 1824). As this was the first English work on that country that had appeared for over a hundred years, it was read with avidity. A second edition. was demanded the following year, and French, German, and Dutch translations also appeared.

In 1827 Bullock again visited Mexico, returning by way of the United States. Landing at New Orleans, he ascended the river to Cincinnati. Charmed with the climate, the scenery, and the people, he purchased a large estate on the Kentucky side of the river, planning to make it his future home, and to lead thence a colony from England. Intent on this purpose he proceeded by way of Sandusky, Buffalo, and the Erie Canal to New York, whence he sailed for the mother country. There he published the work from which we here reprint his journal of the trip from New Orleans to New York. The book originally contained as an appendix a compendium known as Cincinnati in 1826, edited by B. Drake and E. D. Mansfield. This we have not included in our republication.