Nicolas de Finiels: Mapping the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers, 1797-1798

Historiogtl 'Revle-w

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Missouri

COLUMBIA, MISSOURI

MISSOURI HISTORICAL

REVIEW Published Quarterly

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THE STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF MISSOURI

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JAMES W. GOODRICH

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Copyright © 1987 by the State Historical Society of Missouri 1020 Lowry Street, Columbia, Missouri 65201

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VOLUME LXXXI

NUMBER 4

JULY, 1987

Courtesy Carl J. Ekberg Between 1797 and 1798, Nicholas de Finiels, a French draftsman in the service of Spain, produced several maps of the Mississippi and Missouri rivers. This illustration shows the detail of his map of the Mississippi River Valley where the Missouri and Illinois rivers empty into the Mississippi.

Nicholas de Finiels: Mapping The Mississippi & Missouri Rivers,

1797-1798 BY W. RAYMOND WOOD*

In the late spring of 1797, the residents of Upper Louisiana witnessed the return to Spanish St. Louis of an expedition which had explored and mapped in detail more of the upper reaches of the Missouri River than had previously been accomplished. James Mackay, the Scottish trader and explorer, had been chosen by Jacques Clamorgan to lead the

*W. Raymond Wood is professor of anthropology and research professor at the University of Missouri-Columbia. He holds B.A. and M.A. degrees from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and a Ph.D. from the University of Oregon-Eugene.

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388 Missouri Historical Review

expedition upriver in 1795 on behalf of the Company of Explorers of the Upper Missouri, better known simply as the Missouri Company. This company, formed by many of the most influential St. Louis businessmen of the period, hoped to open the vast Upper Missouri River area to traders from Spanish Louisiana. Mackay chose as his second in command a young Welshman, John Thomas Evans, then in Louisiana seeking evidence for "Welsh Indians."1

The Missouri Company's expedition struggled up the Missouri River to a point near the Omaha Indian village in today's Dakota County, northeastern Nebraska. There, in the fall of 1795, they built Fort Charles (or Carlos). During the winter, Evans led a party farther upriver to the mouth of the White River in present-day South Dakota, but hostile Sioux Indians forced him back. In the spring, however, he managed to strike nearly 700 miles upstream from Fort Charles, meeting the Mandan Indians and wintering near their villages at the mouth of the Knife River in current west-central North Dakota. Mackay, in the meantime, explored northeastern Nebraska between Fort Charles and the mouth of the Niobrara River. He returned to St. Louis in the spring of 1797. Evans followed him home a few months later.

The Mackay-Evans expedition made the two men celebrities throughout Louisiana.2 More important, the geographical knowledge they obtained on this expedition made available for future scholars what many of those involved in the fur trading community of St. Louis had known, at least indirectly, for many years. This information was widely disseminated throughout Spanish Louisiana, from St. Louis to New Orleans. Copies of their maps and journals likewise found their way into the hands of American officials in Indiana Territory, as well as in New Orleans and, thence, to

1 The expedition history may be pieced together from A.P. Nasa t i r , Before Lewis and Clark: Documents Illustrating the History of the Missouri, 1785-1804, 2 Vols. (St. Louis: St. Louis Historical Documents Foundation, 1952); Gwyn A. Williams, Madoc: The Making of A Myth (London: Eyre Methuen, 1979): and The Search for Beulah Land (London: Croom Helm. 1980); and David Williams, " J o h n E v a n s ' S t range Journey ," American Historical Review 54 ( J a n u a r y 1949): 277-295, and (April 1949): 508-529. See also W. Raymond Wood, "The J o h n E v a n s 1796-97 Map of the Missouri River," Great Plains Quarterly 1 (Winter 1981): 39-53.

2 Gayoso de Lemos to Francisco de Saavedra , 22 November 1798, in Nasa t i r , Before Lewis and Clark, 2: 582-583. In this letter de Lemos alluded to these "two famous travellers, Don J a y n Macay and Don J u a n Evans . " Their fame did not, however, lead to a n y substant ia l f inancial rewards, especially for Evans .

Nicholas de Finiels 389

Washington, D.C. Little wonder, for their charts were the most precise ones made before Lewis and Clark traversed the area.

During the planning for their journey up the Missouri, Lewis and Clark consulted the invaluable journals and maps generated by this wilderness excursion. The maps produced by these two men, indeed, laid out in detail the entire first year of the Lewis and Clark expedition. The captains carried copies of the Mackay and Evans charts and regularly inspected them during the voyage.3

Perhaps the most important single document resulting from the Mackay-Evans expedition was a large-scale map illustrating the Missouri River from St. Charles, Missouri, to the Mandan villages.4 It is the only detailed map of the Missouri River of the period, especially because the maps of the lower Missouri made by Lewis and Clark have been lost.5

Although the company made several copies of this chart, only one draft is now known to exist. While usually referred to as the "Indian Office Map," scholars agree that it is a copy of one produced under James Mackay's direction in St. Louis, in 1797, following the return of the Mackay-Evans expedition. Mackay assumed responsibility for its compilation from his notes and those of Evans. A recently discovered manuscript, however, reveals for the first time that Nicholas de Finiels, a French engineer and cartographer, actually prepared the final draft.6

Annie H. Abel found the map in 1915 among the cartographic files of the Lewis and Clark expedition in the Indian Office. When Abel first published the chart, she ascribed it to John Evans. However, a map specialist, Aubrey Diller, convincingly has identified it as a copy of the map made by

3 Wood, "The John Evans Map," 39-41. 4 It was first described by Annie H. Abel, "A New Lewis and Clark

Map," Geographical Review 1 (May 1916): 329-345. 5 W. Raymond Wood and Gary E. Moulton, "Prince Maximilian and

New Maps of the Missouri and Yellowstone Rivers by William Clark," Western Historical Quarterly 12 (October 1981): 380.

6 The de Finiels manuscript, "Notice sur la Louisiane Superieur," is in the archives of Lovejoy Library, Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville. A photocopy of the memoir and a preliminary translation of the text is in the John Francis McDermott Research Collection, Box 46. Discovered about 1970 in France by McDermott, the manuscript is in several distinct hands, none of them identifiable as that of de Finiels. This 40,000 word manuscript was purchased from M. Le Comte de Pre de Saint-Maur, France, a descendant of Pierre Clement de Laussat. A notation on the manuscript states it was written by de Finiels at New Orleans in 1803.

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In 1915, Annie Abel, a historian, discovered the James Mackay-John Evans "Indian Office Map" in the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Nicholas de Finiels drafted that map from the notes which Mackay and Evans made on their explorations up the Missouri River during the waning years of

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State Historical Society of Missouri

the e ighteenth century. This sect ion of the Indian Office Map s h o w s the Missouri River be tween St. Charles , Missouri, and the vicinity of Sioux City, Iowa.


Mackay.7 This ascription still stands despite an intense scrutiny of the chart for forty years since Diller's identification.8

The history of the map remains somewhat convoluted. James Mackay returned to St. Louis from his upriver voyage a few days before May 13, 1797.9 Two men eagerly awaited his report on the expedition's activities and discoveries: the director of the Missouri Company, Jacques Clamorgan, and the Spanish Lieutenant Governor of Upper Louisiana, Zenon Trudeau. As one of his first tasks, Mackay produced a map illustrating the area explored by the expedition. Before his departure, Spanish officials had directed Mackay to pay particular attention to this cartographic assignment. He had been "instructed in the manner and knew that he had pledged himself to procure this map with careful attention for the government.,,1()

A week or two after his return, Mackay, in fact, had prepared a map of the Missouri River from its mouth to that of the White River in present-day South Dakota. On May 26, 1797, Trudeau wrote the Baron de Carondelet, Governor General of Louisiana in New Orleans, that Mackay had "made a very good map of the Missouri from its mouth as far as the riviere Blanche [White River, South Dakota] which includes about three hundred and fifty leagues. You will receive this map as soon as it is distinct."11

This infers the map remained in rough draft and would be forwarded to New Orleans after Mackay drew it in a more refined form. Any final map purporting to illustrate the expedition's full range of discoveries would have to await Evans's return. Mackay had not gone further upriver than the mouth of the Niobrara River in northeastern Nebraska. Evans did not return to St. Louis until about July 15, 1797.12

7 Aubrey Diller, "Maps of the Missouri River Before Lewis and Clark," Studies and Essays in the History of Science and Learning, ed. M.F. Ashley Montagu (New York: Henry Schuman, 1946), 513-516.

8 J o h n Logan Allen, Passage Through the Garden (Urbana: Universi ty of Illinois Press , 1975), 141-142, n50; Donald Jackson , ed., Letters of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, With Related Documents, 1783-1854 (Urbana: Univers i ty of Illinois Press , 1962), 136, n3; Gary E. Moulton, Atlas of the Lewis and Clark Expedition (Lincoln: Universi ty of Nebraska Press , 1983), 6; and W. Raymond Wood, "An Atlas of Ear ly Maps of the American Midwest," Illinois State Museum, Scientific Papers 18 (1983): Plate 10.

9 Carlos Howard to Baron de Carondelet, 13 May 1797, in Nasa t i r , Before Lewis and Clark, 2: 515.

10 Zenon Trudeau to Gayoso de Lemos, 16 J a n u a r y 1798, ibid., 545. 11 Zenon Trudeau to Baron de Carondelet, 26 May 1797, ibid., 520. 12 Williams, " John Evans , " 529; Williams, Madoc, 182.


During his excursion, Evans had made a map of his voyage to the Mandans illustrating the river from Fort Charles to their villages.13 Without Evans's contribution, Mackay's product could not have shown the Missouri River as far as the Mandans. The final, enlarged map, therefore, represented a composite product of the two men.

At least two separate copies of the enlarged map appeared in the next few months after July. Jacques Clamorgan, director of the Missouri Company, received the first of them. When Mackay reported to Clamorgan on his return, Clamorgan dutifully passed this information on to higher Spanish authority. On October 14, 1797, five months after Mackay's return to St. Louis, Clamorgan forwarded to Secretary Andres Lopez Armesto a copy of "the map of the Missouri well drawn up at the cost and expense of the company."14 If this draft remains in the Spanish archives, it has yet to be discovered.

The second enlarged map was drawn up for Zenon Trudeau. Three months after Clamorgan sent his map to New Orleans, Trudeau sent Manuel Gayoso de Lemos (Carondelet's successor in New Orleans) a map of the Missouri River. This version of the redrafted map, apparently now "distinct," included the course of the river "as far as the Mandan nation." Trudeau wrote:

I am enclosing to Your Excellency a relacion of a voyage which M. Mackay has made in the Upper Missouri, and the map of the said river, as far as the Mandan nation, made by the same person, which I believe to be the most exact of those which have been formed up to the present.15

One of the Chouteau brothers of St. Louis, on a periodic business visit to the capital in 1798, delivered the map to Gayoso de Lemos. A letter to Gayoso by Trudeau documented this delivery and specified that Mackay was "the author of the map which Mr. Chouteau will deliver to you."16 No trace of this map remains.

13 Wood, "The John Evans Map," 39-53. 14 Jacques Clamorgan to Andre Lopez, 14 October 1797, in Nasatir,

Before Lewis and Clark, 2: 520, n6. 15 Zenon Trudeau to Gayoso de Lemos, 16 January 1798, in ibid., 545. 16 Zenon Trudeau to Gayoso de Lemos, 5 March 1798, in ibid., 545, n3.

McDermott's notes say the unnamed Chouteau brother made this trip in September; his source for this statement has not been verified.


Mackay, in a letter to Gayoso on June 8, 1798, claimed to have made a map of the Missouri from its mouth to the "wanutaries nation."17 The "Manutaries" were the Hidatsa Indians, close neighbors and, culturally, nearly indistinguishable from the Mandans.18 Mackay's claim did not mention the contribution made by his assistant Evans. He claimed, as commanders of expeditions often do, the accomplishments of his subordinate. Mackay earlier had visited the Mandan and Hidatsa villages, but he did so by coming in from Canada, in 1787, before he moved to St. Louis to work for the Spanish.19

Possibly, some of the details on this small upper portion of the map reflect his own personal experiences during that visit.

Generally, Mackay has been given full credit for producing the map, albeit with Evans's help. However, several compelling reasons suggest that the bulk of the map, instead, may be the work of Evans. Evans claimed, on his return, to have "explored and charted the Missurie for 1,800 miles," the distance believed to separate the mouth of the Missouri and the Mandan and Hidatsa villages.20 In addition, Evans was a trained surveyor, whereas Mackay, reportedly, had been "in structed in the manner" of map making just before the expedition. Nevertheless, the company later employed Mackay as a surveyor. One should not underestimate his mapping skills, even though he obtained the assistance of an experienced draftsman to prepare a final version of the map. Since Mackay never saw the Missouri River above the mouth of the Niobrara, he had to depend on Evans's explorations above that point, an area which comprises about one-half of the content of the final map. In addition, Evans may well have been responsible for the details of the lower half of the river. The features shown on this part of the chart are depicted in the same detail and style as those on his portion of the map.

Beginning with his rough field data and those of John Evans, Mackay obtained the aid of a trained draftsman to

17 James Mackay to Gayoso de Lemos, 8 June 1798, in ibid., 563. 18 Stephen A. Chomko informed me by telephone in June 1978 that

"Wanutaries" is a mistranscription of the term "Manutaries," a variant spelling of "Minatarees," a common name for one of the subgroups of the Hidatsa Indians.

19 "Captain McKay's Journal," in Nasatir, Before Lewis and Clark, 2: 492-493.

20 John Evans to Samuel Jones, cited in Williams, Madoc, 183; see especially Moulton, Atlas, 6.


compile a single comprehensive version of the map. Just such a person appeared in St. Louis at this time: Nicholas de Finiels, a French army engineer then employed by the Spanish government. De Finiels outlined his role in making this map in an unpublished memoir. Apparently, de Finiels composed the account in June 1803, for Pierre Clement de Laussat.21 De Laussat, the French prefect, had come to New Orleans in 1803 to supervise the transfer of Spanish Louisiana to the French government.22

General Victor Collot's inspection of St. Louis in 1796 for the French had found it sadly lacking in defensive works. His report stimulated the Spanish minister at Philadelphia, Marques de Casa Yrujo, to remedy the situation. The Spanish government, accordingly, sent de Finiels to St. Louis in 1797 to superintend the construction of fortifications that Collot recommended. He arrived in St. Louis from Philadelphia on June 3, 1797, about a month after Mackay returned from his expedition up the Missouri, and nearly six weeks before Evans's return in July.

The new military commander of Upper Louisiana, Lieutenant Colonel Don Carlos Howard, however, refused to permit de Finiels to carry out his assignment. "Frustrated and reduced to menial tasks," de Finiels instead prepared a meticulously detailed map of the central Mississippi River valley and the lower reaches of the Missouri.23 This map has not been published satisfactorily due to its large size, nearly ten feet long and a yard wide. It shows all of the major physical features in the Mississippi valley, as well as roads, towns, streets and dwellings from the mouth of the Illinois River to New Madrid. Even a casual inspection of this monumental chart silences any question of de Finiels's cartographic skills.24

21 Undated note by McDermott in the McDermott Collection, Box 46. 22 Pierre Clement Laussat to Pierre Chouteau, 30 April and 24 August

1803, Delassus Collection, Missouri Historical Society, St. Louis; cited in William E. Foley and C. David Rice, The First Chouteaus (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1983), 101, n l .

23 Jack D.L. Holmes, "Some French Engineers in Spanish Louisiana," John Francis McDermott, ed., The French in the Mississippi Valley (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1965), 136-137.

24 A small scale reproduction of the map appears in Wayne C. Temple, "Indian Villages of the Illinois Country," Illinois State Museum, Scientific Papers 1, Supplement (1975): Plate 79. Nasatir, Before Lewis and Clark, 1: opp. 94, reproduces (at approximately full scale) that part of the chart illustrating the mouth and lower reaches of the Missouri River.


Nicholas de Finie ls worked on a grand scale. His map of the Mississippi River, dated 1797-1798, measures 9 feet 2J/4 inches long by 27V6 inches wide . This sect ion of the map s h o w s the junction of the Ohio River wi th the Mississippi.


That de Finiels had no regular duties apparently gave him the time to prepare, for Mackay, a final version of the Mackay-Evans map. Given the interest of the Spanish at this time in the Upper Missouri River, his superiors may even have instructed him to assist Mackay in the matter. Whatever the reasons, de Finiels spelled out his contributions in his Memoir. He wrote that "it was on the basis of [Mackay's] memoranda and notes that I drafted for him in 1797 the latest map of the Missouri."25 Later in the manuscript he says he made the map in 1798:

The map of this river that I drafted in 1798 based on the memoranda of messieurs Mackay and Evans gives a very precise rendering of that part of the river which is best known at this time.26

His ambiguity in dating his assistance suggests that he did the work in late 1797 or early 1798. This appears consistent with the known completion of the map before about January 16,1798.

Another copy of the map, also now lost, came into the possession of Daniel Clark, Jr., of New Orleans. Clark, a native of Ireland, came to New Orleans in 1786, where he became a wealthy merchant and attorney. He served for a time as a clerk in the office of Gayoso de Lemos, the Spanish Governor General in New Orleans. In this position many official documents of the period would have passed through his hands. Clark became an American citizen in 1798, and for a few months he acted as a temporary American consul. President Jefferson appointed him a regular consul at New Orleans on July 16, 1801. When Andrew Ellicott visited New Orleans in January and February 1803, just before the Louisiana Purchase, Clark served as an intermediary between Ellicott and Gayoso de Lemos. Ellicott, the American commissioner, had charge of setting the boundary between American and Spanish lands.27

Clark obviously obtained a copy of the Mackay-Evans/de Finiels map through his Spanish contacts. In 1803, in response to a request for information by President Jefferson, Clark wrote to Washington, D.C., that:

25 Nicholas de Finiels MS, "Notice sur la Louisiane Superieur," 62. Translation by Carl J. Ekberg.

26 Ibid., 89. 27 Allen Johnson and Dumas Malone, eds., Dictionary of American

Biography (New York: Charles Scribners, 1929), 2:125-126.

i:Mg::i:s ,


Finiels 's map of the Mississippi River provided the best guide then available for that waterway . The original is in the Archives de la Marine, Chateau, Vincennes , France.


The Map of the Missouri taken at the expence of the Company of the same name I sent to be presented to [President John] Adams . . . in 1799.—this survey is certainly the best that was ever made in that part of the world, & the map must now be in Mr Adams possession.28

The wording in this passage is ambiguous. The content of the map, made at the expense of the Missouri Company, closely follows the words of Clamorgan ("the map of the Missouri well drawn up at the cost and expenses of the Company"), requires no elaboration. Apparently this copy also did not survive.

The only existing copy of the map is the one carried on the Lewis and Clark expedition. The map must have been well-known among St. Louis residents. On November 5, 1803, William Clark wrote a letter to William Henry Harrison, governor of Indiana Territory, asking him for a copy of the chart. Harrison responded a week later with a copy of the map and the comment that:

The map mentioned in your letter of the 5th Instant had been taken from me by Mr. Jones who claimed it as the property of Mr. Hay of Cahokia but as it was still in the possesion of Mr. Jones I have had it copied & now send it to you by the Post rider—29

An inscription on the back of the Indian Office map reads, "For Captn William Clark or Captn Meriwether Lewis on their voyage up the Mississippi." The notation, in Harrison's hand, illustrates he obviously was confused about their destination.30

A copy of the Mackay-Evans/de Finiels map thus had been in Harrison's possession. When Jones reclaimed it, Harrison had another copy made to send to Lewis and Clark. Harrison's notation on the back of the map provides convincing evidence that the Indian Office Map is the one he sent William Clark on November 13. Meriwether Lewis mentions having obtained this map of the Missouri River

28 Daniel Clark to the Secretary of War, 1803, Clarence Edwin Carter, ed., The Territorial Papers of the United States, 9, Orleans Territory (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Service, 1948), 29.

29 William Henry Harrison to William Clark, 13 November 1803; in Jackson, Letters, Lewis and Clark, 135. John Rice Jones was a lawyer of Vincennes and Kaskaskia, and postmaster at Vincennes, Indiana; John Hay was a merchant, trader, and the postmaster at Cahokia.

30 Ibid., 136, n3.


"from it's mouth to the Mandane nation" in his letter to President Jefferson, December 1803.31

The most enigmatic features on the chart are the bilingual labels (French with English translations) applied to the principal geographical features shown on the map. Abel, who first described the map, said that both sets of labels appeared to be in the same hand, which she did not identify.32 The similar handwriting on both sets led to this conclusion. The historian Donald Jackson, however, said he could not recognize the French hand, although he concluded that the English terms are in the hand of William Clark.33 Having had the opportunity to either transcribe or inspect virtually all of the William Clark documents associated with the Lewis and Clark expedition, his opinion commands respect.

John Evans knew no French,34 and neither did William Clark. Either de Finiels or Mackay (who wrote in French) could have been responsible for the French legends, and both men apparently collaborated in the preparation of the original map. Since Frenchmen actively had been exploring the river since its discovery, its major features naturally bore names in their language. Evidently, William Clark added, in his own hand, the English translations to the French legends on the copy supplied by Harrison. Clark, no master even of English, displayed his naivete of French in many of the translations on the map.35 Apparently he drew on the knowledge of the expedition's engages at Camp Dubois for these translations. The early French explorers' command of English probably left a great deal to be desired.

The Mackay-Evans/de Finiels composite map, and the map of the Missouri River from Fort Charles to the Mandan produced by John Evans, contributed to the construction of many derivative maps in French, Spanish and English.36

Several of these charts, produced in St. Louis, circulated among local fur traders and their employers as well as local map makers. Other copies were obtained by visiting explorers and scientists active on the Missouri River before and after

31 Meriwether Lewis to Thomas Jefferson, 28 December 1803, ibid., 155. 32 Abel, "New Lewis and Clark Map," 338, n44. 33 Jackson, Letters, Lewis and Clark, 135-136, n3; 155. 34 Williams, Madoc, 30. 35 Abel, "New Lewis and Clark Map," 341. 36 Wood, "John Evans Map," 39, n51.


Lewis and Clark, including Perrin du Lac, Antoine Soulard and Joseph N. Nicollet.

Other map makers who drew on this source obtained their copies in New Orleans. One such derivative map, drawn in France in 1803 by James Pitot, relied on sketches provided by Barthelemy Lafon.37 These charts also contributed to two other maps, in Spanish. One is an anonymous Spanish map of about 1800. Jose Pichardo compiled the other map in 1811.38 Both trace their inspiration for the course of the Missouri River to a copy of the Mackay-Evans/de Finiels map sent to the Spanish officials in New Orleans.

To Nicholas de Finiels should go the credit for two significant late-eighteenth-century cartographic treasures. The best known is his 1797-1798 map of the middle reaches of the Mississippi River and the lower Missouri River. His memoirs

37 Wood, Atlas, Plate 10. 38 Ibid., Plate 8; and Charles Wilson Hackett, Pichardo's Treatise on the

Limits of Louisiana and Texas (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1931), Vol. 1. Pichardo was a Jesuit employed by the Spanish to determine the boundaries between Spanish territory and that of the United States. He obtained a great number of contemporary papers and maps in conducting this task; at least one of them was obviously a Mackay-Evans product.

Meriwether Lewis and William Clark relied on a copy of Finiels's map for their expedition up the Missouri River in 1804. The Indian Office Map provided the most accurate information about the river between St. Louis and the Mandan nation in present-day North Dakota.



now reveal him as the individual who polished the rough notes of Mackay and Evans, after their return from the 1795-1797 exploration of the Missouri River. De Finiels prepared for the Spanish one of the most exact and important maps to predate Lewis and Clark. The final form of the "Indian Office Map" now may be added to Nicholas de Finiels's cartographic contributions to western North American exploration.

No less than five copies of the latter map were made. The best documented ones include the incomplete draft showing the Missouri as far as the White River, the two enlarged copies that Clamorgan and Trudeau sent to New Orleans, the copy obtained by John Rice Jones of Vincennes, the Indian Office Map, and the copy Daniel Clark sent to President Adams. The many derivative maps that exist give reason to suspect that some may remain, unrecognized, in Spanish or American archives.

Nowadays That's a Weekend

Canton Press, July 9, 1880. The Fourth of July this year was not a full day. As it was celebrated in

various places on Saturday, Sunday and Monday, 'twas three-fourths.

Goodbye, Mosquito!

Cameron Daily Vindicator, July 2, 1885. Four ounces oil of cloves, two ounces oil of peppermint, eight ounces

Persian powder, four ounces gum camphor; mix. The preparation is warrented to drive a mosquito out of the room. If it fails, hit him with a wet towel.

Rough Occupation

Weston Border Times, March 3, 1865. A horse dealer, describing a used-up horse, said he looked "as if he had

been editing a country newspaper for a living."

Puritan Viewpoint

Maryville Weekly Republican, August 2, 1870. The Puritans hated bear-hunting, not because it gave pain to the bear

but because it gave pleasure to the spectator.—[McCauley]