Four-and-a-Half Months’ Stay in New Harmony
Description of the region – Natural history – Messrs. Say, Lesueur, and Owen – Hunting excursions in Indiana and Illinois – Wabash, Fox River – Illinois prairies – Albion – Black River – Mr. Bodmer’s trip to New Orleans
January 29, 1833
In the morning, warm weather and overcast sky. At seven thirty, 6 3/4°R [47.2°F, 8.4°C]. After breakfast I went to Fox Island, where I shot nothing, got lost in the tall cane, and did not reach home until one thirty. I found a cast-off deer antler and a still-fresh drake that had been gnawed at by birds of prey; the predator would not want to return. In a hollow Platanus branch I found an owl (Strix asio); I was unable to drive [it] out for a shot by knocking on the tree. The Wabash is rapidly rising today.
At home I found a splendid bald eagle (Aquila leucocephala), which was shot 6 miles from Harmony, and bought [it] for a dollar. At two o’clock, temperature of 11 1/2°R [57.9°F, 14.4°C]. Dreidoppel went hunting, and I directed him to the hollow tree in which the little owl was hiding. He returned without being able to get it out.
I spent the evening at the home of Mr. Lesueur. He gave me shards from the Indian graves he had excavated; all of [these shards] have a certain marking on the outside, mostly parallel stripes. Others look as though they had been made in a cloth or basket, the impressions of which they assumed. They are made of darkgray clay. Mr. Lesueur has seen large flat containers with somewhat figured handles that were still unbroken.
These graves contain rectangles, formed by smooth stones inside a flat heap of earth and covered on top with smooth stones, in which the bones are found. But what people lived here along the Wabash? I was unable to obtain any information here about that.
In one grave a jawbone, apparently from some kind of deer, was found. We talked further about the animals of this area. The Canadian deer (elk), the bear, and the beaver have vanished. The white-tailed deer and the wild turkey are daily being diminished. The star-nosed mole (Condylura), which is common around Philadelphia, does not occur here on the Wabash at all.