Sword and Pen Part 57

"On the 22d day of July, 1881, the traveler and author, Captain Willard Glazier, discovered a silvery lake nestled among the pineries of Northern Minnesota and situate about a mile and a half to the south of Lake Itasca. He also discovered that a swift current flowed continuously from his new-found wonder to what was supposed to be the source of the Father of Waters. The lake is known to the Indians as _Pokegama_, and when it was reached by the Glazier party they were much surprised by Chenowagesic, an Indian chief, who had accompanied them as guide, addressing Captain Glazier as follows:

"'My brother, I have come with you through many lakes and rivers to the head of the Father of Waters. The sh.o.r.es of this lake are my hunting ground. Here I have had my wigwam and planted corn for many years. When I again roam through these forests, and look on this lake, source of the Great River, I will look on you.'

"Captain Glazier was induced to explore the true source of the Mississippi by Indian traditions which he had picked up while traveling across the continent and which denied Schoolcraft's theory of Itasca.... Fortified with the idea that Schoolcraft was in error he set out to discover the true source of the Father of Waters, and how he succeeded forms the subject of the first five chapters of his very interesting book. The remainder of the book, an interesting and instructive volume of nearly five hundred pages, is devoted to a trip 'down the Great River' to the Gulf of Mexico.

To Captain Glazier is due all the honor and glory of discovering to modern geographers the true source of our great river."

_Detroit Commercial Advertiser._

"'Down the Great River' is Captain Willard Glazier's interesting record of his expedition in 1881 in search of the source of the Mississippi River. It is a very exciting narrative from beginning to end, is profusely ill.u.s.trated and will be especially interesting to students of geography, as well as to all interested in matters of exploration and discovery. Captain Glazier undoubtedly accomplished a great work. The source of the Mississippi had ever been an unsettled question, unsatisfactory attempts at discovery having been made and various ill-founded claims put forward; but the subject for the last half century has been constantly agitated.

It remained for Captain Glazier to finish the work begun by De Soto in 1541, and positively locate the true fountain-head.... That the lake from which the Great River starts, known by the Indians as Lake Pokegama, should be re-named LAKE GLAZIER, seems an appropriate honor for the resolute explorer...."

_La Crosse Republican and Leader._

"'Down the Great River' is the t.i.tle of a book just issued which possesses many claims to popular favor. No one on the North American continent will be at a loss to identify the river by its t.i.tle; the Amazon undoubtedly discharges a larger volume of water into the sea, and the Volga is claimed to be longer. No river in the Old or New World is surrounded by so many a.s.sociations, or is so identified with the memories of discoverers and adventurers, warrior-priests and saintly soldiers, peaceful pioneers and devastating armies, as the Mississippi.... For half a century Lake Itasca has been accepted as the fountain-head of the Great River, but Captain Glazier having had reasons for doubting the correctness of that theory, undertook, in 1881, to verify or disprove it, and the book treats of his adventures on that mission and his subsequent voyage by canoe down its entire length from its source to its mouth, a distance of three thousand one hundred and eighty-four miles.... The voyage, embracing as it does over seventeen degrees of lat.i.tude, furnishes material for the description of strongly contrasted scenery and greatly diversified industries, and in depicting these the Captain has the pen of a ready writer, simple and concise...."

_Michigan Christian Advocate._

"'Down the Great River' is a book of great current interest. It is packed full of things people ought to know. Not only is there a full and well-written account of the finding of the true source of the Mississippi, but a wonderful amount of fact and incident picked up along its sh.o.r.es from its headwaters clear down to New Orleans and the Gulf of Mexico."

_Detroit Tribune._

"This interesting work gives an account of the discovery of the true source of the Mississippi River, by the author. From the first page to the last the book teems with information and topographical and geographical data to be found nowhere else. Captain Glazier carries his readers along with him from the source of the mighty river down through a stretch of over three thousand miles clear into the salt waters of the Gulf of Mexico. The author made the trip in an open canoe, and as he proceeds downwards discourses pleasantly upon the features of the landscape, the characteristics of the people and the important towns upon the banks of the Great River."

_Grand Rapids (Michigan) Leader._

"Lake Itasca has been the accredited head of the Mississippi for fifty years, and the author's desire to pursue further investigations into the great north country was due to conflicting reports published by other navigators and explorers of discoveries made in that region. He decided to investigate the matter personally. The author describes in an entertaining manner the incidents of each day as the journey proceeded towards Lake Itasca.

Here a careful survey of the lake was made for feeders, several of which were found, and up the largest of which the party forced their way through a strong barrier of rushes. After a short pa.s.sage a body of water was found Which the Indians called Lake _Pokegama_, but which the Captain's companions named GLAZIER in honor of the head of the expedition. They then floated down the river in their canoes to the Gulf, and the events of each day form very interesting and often thrilling chapters as they are described by the author."

_New Bedford Standard._

"In 1881 Captain Glazier made a canoe voyage of over three thousand miles from the headwaters of the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico, and this book gives an interesting account of the voyage, together with a description of the cities and villages along the river banks, not omitting important historical events or quaint bits of legendary lore. While the book is of special value to the young student of geography and history, it is none the less valuable to all who are interested in geographical science, particularly in the question of the source of the Mississippi River...."

_Madisonensis, Madison University, New York._

"Captain Glazier has commanded the attention of educated men generally by a.s.serting and satisfactorily proving that he has at last discovered what De Soto, Marquette, La Salle, Schoolcraft, and other explorers, were unable to find--the true source of the Mississippi. The journey of exploration is here minutely described, and the account is enlivened with bright narratives of personal experiences. The author is an able writer, and a keen critical observer, and the information collected, pertaining to the people and country along the course of the Great River, from its headwaters to the Gulf of Mexico, is of value to every student of our country's history. The book is more than a mere description of an expedition--it is an epitomized collection of historical, geographical and commercial matters interesting to all."

_Hamilton, New York, Republican._

... "The important fact brought out is, that Lake Itasca, discovered by Schoolcraft in 1832, and by him located as the fountain-head of the river, has no just claim to that t.i.tle.

Glazier's expedition has brought public notice to another lake at a remoter distance from the mouth than Itasca, which is united to the latter by a constantly flowing stream.... It now seems that the prominence Itasca has had so long must hereafter be given to LAKE GLAZIER."

_Davenport Tribune._

"This work embraces an account of the discovery by the author of the true source of the Mississippi. It is an interesting tale of how Captain Glazier and his party pursued a voyage in canoes up the stream which flowed into Itasca, and finally located the real source of the river in a new lake, which was named by his companions LAKE GLAZIER. The work is a valuable one and highly instructive, and should be read by all residents of the Mississippi Valley."

_Daily Eagle, Grand Rapids, Michigan._

... "It seems most surprising that it should have been reserved for so recent a date as 1881 to discover the true source of the greatest river of our continent, especially within the borders of a territory that has been a State for nearly forty years. But such is the fact, and to Captain Glazier belongs the honor of the discovery among white men."

_Telegram-Herald, Grand Rapids, Michigan._

... "Captain Glazier, in his search for the true source of the Mississippi, has corrected a geographical error of half a century, and located the fountain-head in a lake above and beyond Lake Itasca. He discovered this lake on the twenty-second day of July, 1881, Chenowagesic, a Chippewa brave, being his guide. The lake, out of which flows the infant Mississippi, is about two miles in its greatest diameter. Its Indian name is _Pokegama_, but Glazier's companions insisted on naming it after their leader."...

_Akron Daily Beacon._

... "Until Captain Glazier traced back from Lake Itasca the perennial stream that supplied it from a more distant lake, called by the Indians _Pokegama_, and beyond which there is no further supply to the Father of Waters, Itasca was considered its source.... July twelfth, 1881, Glazier left Brainerd, Minnesota, on his mission, reaching Leech Lake July seventeenth. Thence the expedition proceeded westward by little lakes and streams and portages, until on the twenty-first they camped on Schoolcraft Island, in Lake Itasca, and then paddling through this lake away, as supposed, from the Mississippi, and by Eagle Creek, the next day they found what is now, and will hereafter be known as, LAKE GLAZIER, the ultimate source of the mighty Mississippi."...

_Youngstown (Ohio) Telegram._

"A pamphlet, ent.i.tled the 'True Source of the Mississippi,' by Pearce Giles, has reached us. It proves very clearly that not Lake Itasca but LAKE GLAZIER, a lake just to the south of it, is the true source of the mighty central river. The best part of the discovery seems to be that Captain Glazier so explored the country about this lake that there is no possibility of another discovery of a connecting lake beyond it. One likes to have such matters settled definitely."

_National Republican, Washington, D. C._

... "The birthplace of the Father of Waters is not Lake Itasca, as generally received, but LAKE GLAZIER, in its vicinity, which, by a small stream, flows into Itasca. LAKE GLAZIER, so named from its discoverer, Captain Willard Glazier, has three feeders, Eagle, Excelsior, and Deer creeks. This latest geographical claim is supported by ample testimony from highest and widespread authorities. The story of adventures during the exploration which had so important a result, is extremely interesting."

_Dubuque Trade Journal._

"On July twenty-second, 1881, Captain Willard Glazier dispelled the geographical error of half a century which has placed Lake Itasca on the maps as the source of the Mississippi. Strange as it may seem, there is scarcely a wilder region on this continent than exists in Northern Minnesota, and it has so remained in spite of the explorations of Beltrami, Schoolcraft, and Nicollet, who, perhaps, ought to have been a little more exhaustive in their efforts when on the same depended the designation of the actual source of a great river. Nevertheless, at the date above mentioned, Captain Glazier, at the head of a small but indomitable band, emerged from Lake Itasca, and the birch-bark canoes of the party were urged against a strong current and a bulwark of rushes, through a stream seven feet wide and three deep, until the clear waters of another lake came in view. The greatest diameter of this new body of water is about two miles, its feeders are traceable to springs only, and hence it is unquestionably the primal source whence the Father of Waters starts on his long journey of 3,184 miles to the Gulf of Mexico."...