Joseph N. Nicollet Maps. September 28-November 14, 1839*. Untitled pen-and-ink manuscript map, in French, of the Mississippi River from Fort Snelling (Minneapolis-St. Paul, in southeastern Minnesota) to the mouth of the Des Moines River (near present Keokuk, southeastern Iowa).

Joseph N. Nicollet Maps. September 28-November 14, 1839*. Untitled pen-and-ink manuscript map, in French, of the Mississippi River from Fort Snelling (Minneapolis-St. Paul, in southeastern Minnesota) to the mouth of the Des Moines River (near present Keokuk, southeastern Iowa); map charting the lower reaches of the La Crosse River east of the town of La Crosse.

*Note for the Nicollet maps: Joseph N. Nicollet’s western expedition of 1839 carried him on the steamboat "Antelope" from St. Louis to Fort Pierre, in present South Dakota. He was accompanied by John Charles Fremont, his assistant, and by Charles A. Geyer. On September 28, he began his return to St. Louis down the Mississippi River. Fremont remained behind; he was to have rejoined Nicollet at Praire du Chien, but events prevented him from doing so, and Nicollet completed the journey without him. Traveling by canoe, Nicollet mapped the river from his point of departure near Fort Snelling, Minnesota, to Warsaw, Illinois, at the mouth of the Des Moines River--- part of the modern boundary between Iowa and Missouri. Unfortunately, his field diary for the Mississippi River expedition has been lost; so details of the journey must largely be reconstructed from notes on the map. The map shows great detail of the river channel, as well as the course of Nicollet’s canoe (shown by a dashed line), and a multitude of natural and cultural features along both banks, including early townsites and Sioux and Fox Indian village locations.

Lloyd’s Steamboat Directory and Disasters on the Western Waters, 1856.

Reminiscences, 1892 / Myrick, Nathan, 1822-1903

Typewritten copy of a letter from Nathan Myrick, an early settler of La Crosse, Wisconsin, to F. A. Copeland, Mayor of La Crosse, dated St. Paul, Minnesota, January 28th, 1892, in which he provides a brief account of his life and reminiscences of his arrival at Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, in 1841 and subsequent life as a trader in the settlement of La Crosse, until his departure for Minnesota, ca. 1850. Uncorrected OCRd text available.