Wisconsin Historical Collections, Volume VI (1872)

              the north-west in 1817 e 1st december 1817 to major general brown my dear sir — i beg leave to submit to you a detail of such occurrences subsequent to my departure from you as have not already been presented in a different shape whatever re lates to the tour is due to yourself as your request was the cause of it at midnight of the day wnen i took leave of you at de troit august 17th 1817 i embarked in a barge to pro ceed by the river and lake so olair to fort gratiot the country bordering the two waters i found level and fertile it is scantily peopled by french canadians who reside on the margin and make no improvements in the interior the small surplus of their produce is purchased by vessels coasting be tween the lakes in the rear of the settlements is a growth of substantial timber and an abundant supply of natural grass at the upper parts of the river the soil meliorates ; the banks are high and often picturesque on the evening of the 19th i reached lake huron and fort gratiot without recurrence to the map a stranger is led into error from the different names given to the same water since leav ing detroit i had been on one stream known in its various parts as detroit river lake st olair the river st olair and the river huron fort gratiot is situated on the right bank of the latter which is the rapid formed by lake huron in its first outlet to the waters below its direction is from north to * of samuel a stobrow the author of this narrative we only know that he was a na tive of massachusetts and acting judge advocate in the army in 1815 ; judge advocate in 1816 ; and resigned feb 5 1820 this narrative was published in pamphlet form 39 octavo pages ; the society's copy is without title page if it ever had any and we can find no reference to it any of the catalogues of the principal american libraries l c d