Box 3, Folder 3: Typewritten Letters 1840-1844

444 [426] 1840.

logs forming the sides of the cabin. Last night I witnessed the display of the combined mechanical skill of the artists and mechanics of the "Queen City" of the West." Instead of the sugar trough I saw a mahogany sofa, with crimson velvet cushions marked $200. A splendid mahogany bedstead, pianos, center and pier tables and mirrors, quilts, blankets, shears, door locks, augers, files, saws, planks, columns, philosophical and chemical apparatus, lathes, presses, silk reels, cotton spinning gins, architectural drawings, paintings, ice cream, lemonade, and men, women and children, all exhibited as the growth, produce and manufacture of the Queen of the West.

Mr. Storer said, at the close of the fair, he did not consider this exhibition a sample of the improvements of the fifty years past in this city, he pointed to our churches, our schoolhouses, our public buildings, and internal improvements. He stated that there had been more labor performed, more improvements made, more mind and intelligence developed in the last fifty years in the valley of the Mississippi than there had been on the same extent of surface of the whole habitable globe!***

Your affectionate brother,

Darius.

I.A. Lapham.

Cincinnati, July 11th, 1840

Respected Father,--

I would have sent William some Log Cabin Almanacs and sketches of Tippecanoe if I had not been so hurried that I forgot it entirely. I see General Harrison every day or two and shake hands with him and sometimes dine at his "log cabin", the canal runs between his house and the river and the celebrated tunnel is within fifty rods of his house.

I have not the least doubt of the election of the general

445 [427] 1840.

to the presidency, there never at an election before was such universal enthusiasm manifested by immense collections of people, in conventions and meetings. It will be a great blessing to this country should the old man live to serve out his term. It will be the means of restoring confidence among business men, establishing a stability and permanency in the currency of the country by introducing a change in the administration of the government, &c.

The old man is most shamefully abused by the Locofocos and it touches his feelings very much. He said at Fort Meigs that if it was the title deed to his land and property, that they were attempting to invalidate and deprive him of, he could bear it, but to steal from him the good name he had established by a long life of sacrifice and devotion for the defense [defense] and honor of his country was a little too much for his philosophy to bear, and it affected him much. ****

Respectfully from father's son,

Darius.

Seneca Lapham.

Milwaukee, July 13th, 1840.

Dear Sir,--

Your package of plants was received per Col. Kilbourne a few days since. Many of them were very interesting and you will please accept my thanks for them.

I have made up for you a small parcel collected mostly this season which I shall send by the Colonel and which I hope will prove interesting. At the close of the season I hope to be able to make for you another package which will be interesting. If you have an opportunity of sending here again I should be happy to receive such further specimens as you may have to spare, only

446 [428] 1840.

do not get me too much in your debt. If such opportunity occurs please inform Mr. Wm. Sullivant, who has a package for me, and please say to him when you meet him that I am collecting the species he desired and will send them with others at the close of the season.

Yours truly,

I.A. Lapham.

J.R. Paddock,

Worthington, Ohio.

Milwaukee, July 15th, 1840.

Dear Sir,--

I wish you would preserve for me several specimens of all such plants you find as are not found here.

If they are new I wish to send specimens to Drs. Torrey and Gray, who are publishing a new Flora of North America, and it appears to be the desire of all botanists to furnish these authors the means of making their work as perfect as possible. Besides I wish to form a correct list and herbarium of Wisconsin plants. In return I can send you a variety of plants for your herbarium from here, from Ohio, Kentucky, New York and other places, which will prove interesting to you.

Prof. Dewey says in a letter to me that he has from Illinois a mere leaf of a plant called the Rattle Snake Master, that is said to cure the poison. The leaf is about 8 inches long, sessile or it may have been torn from a sheath, cannot tell, but it looks like a grass. The edges of the leaf have appendages nearly half an inch long, or spear like, extending forwards and close to the leaf, it is said to end in a burr, which sometimes sends out three or four branches, each bearing a burr very rough like a chestnut burr. Do you find anything like this at Beloit? If so,

447 [429] 1840.

please send me half a dozen specimens.

I send you my catalogue of Milwaukee plants which you may return to me with a check mark opposite the plants you want from here. I shall publish a supplement this fall, I have many additions. Send the plants before navigation closes so that I may send specimens to New York this fall.

I.A. Lapham.

T. Mellhaney

Beloit, Wis.

Milwaukee July 30th, 1840.

Dear Brother

Your favor of the 5th came to hand only a few days before I left here on a tour to detail which will be the subject of this letter. Here it is.

At 4 o'clock a.m. I was awakened by a loud knock at my door and a call for "Lapham!" whereupon I roused my drowsy powers and having hastily made my toilet and kissed my wife good bye, I went on board the harbor steamboat called the "Badger," which piles between our wharves and the larger vessels in the bay which are unable to pass the bar at the mouth of the river. There is only about six feet of water on the bar, but there is a depth of from twelve to eighteen feet along the river inside the bar for two and a half miles. The construction of two parallel piers at the mouth would, by confining the currents to a particular channel enable it to keep its bed clear of sand. This would have been done by this time probably if Kilbourne instead of Dodge had been elected our delegate in Congress.

But as I was saying, I got on board the Badger, which was built by the town or rather by the west ward of the town for she belongs exclusively to us of the west side and has been the cause

448 [430] 1840.

of much quarreling between the two sides of the river in our town as she was formerly run exclusively for the benefit of the west ward, passengers for the east ward could find some other conveyance or land on the west side and cross over. In a few moments, we were paddles to the bay, a distance of two miles from my home, and brought up alongside of the "Constellation" one of the splendid floating palaces of our northern lakes. These boats cost from $100,000 to $200,000. They run in regular order, one boat arriving from each way every other day. They have formed a combination to prevent competition and the proceeds of all the boats are divided among the whole according to certain agreed proportions. The cabin fare to Buffalo is $25.00. Distance from Chicago 1200 miles, has been run in four days, being 300 miles a day!

When talking about the depth of our river I should have added that for three miles it is on a level with the lake and that all the streams that enter Lake Michigan are quite deep and on a level with the lake for some distance above their mouths. How came these channels worn so deep? How was the alluvium removed from a depth of twelve to eighteen feet below the surface of still water? The rational answer I can give is to suppose that the lake was at no very remote period about fifteen feet lower than it is now. What say you?

The Constellation was ready to set her powerful engine in motion and we paddled off at the rate of twelve miles an hour.

The engines on the lakes are of the sawmill breed, their pistons working vertically, they have no large beam and no fly wheel. They are of course, being intended to propel large vessels at a rapid rate, of very enormous power and strength.