PREFACE.



  THERE were four of us pilgrims-my Wife,
our Boy of ten and a half years, the Doctor,
and I. My object in going-the others went
for the outing-was to gather "local color"
for work in Western history. The Ohio River
was an important factor in the development
of the West. I wished to know the great
waterway intimately in its various phases, -to
see with my own eyes what the borderers saw;
in imagination, to redress the pioneer stage,
and repeople it.
  A motley company have here performed
their parts: Savages of the mound-building
age, rearing upon these banks curious earth-
works for archaeologists of the nineteenth cen-
tury to puzzle over; Iroquois war-parties,
silently swooping upon sleeping villages of the
Shawanese, and in noisy glee returning to the
New York lakes, laden with spoils and cap-
tives; La Salle, prince of French explorers
and coureurs de bois, standing at the Falls of
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