A merry Briton in pioneer Wisconsin

This volume is the last five chapters of a longer travel account, Life in The West: Back-wood Leaves and Prairie Flowers: Rough Sketches on the Borders of the Picturesque, the Sublime, and Ridiculous. Extracts from the Notebooks of Morleigh in Search of an Estate (1842). The portion reprinted here describes the pseudonymous Morleigh’s travels through the Wisconsin Territory, commencing at Racine and including Janesville, Madison, Mackinac, Whitewater, Mineral Point, Prairieville, Milwaukee, the Green Bay vicinity, and the Wolf River, in the summer of 1841. The tone is light and anecdotal. The author describes the consequences of land speculation and takes an interest in the experiences of several of the ethnic groups then immigrating into the territory. He also describes the plants and animals of the countryside. He observes Wisconsin’s social life at the taverns, inns, and depots where a traveler was likely to pass the time, and finds the region to be politically lively and filled with partisan factions. Native Americans extend their hospitality to him, and he attends a gathering of Menominee assembled to collect federal annuities.
- Summary from the American Memory website