ittle opportunity for
literary effort, and in time his early facility in this direction
became dulled. He was the most successful of collectors of materials
for Western history, and as such did a work which must earn for
him the lasting gratitude of American historical students; but
unfortunately he did little more than collect and investigate, and
the idea which to the last strongly possessed him, of writing a
series of biographies of trans-Alleghany pioneers, was never
realized. He died August 26, 1891, having accomplished wondrous deeds
for the Wisconsin Historical Society, of which he was practically the
founder, and for thirty-three years the main stay; in the broader
domain of historical scholarship, however, he had failed to reach
his goal. His great collection of manuscripts and notes, he willed
to his Society, which has had them carefully classified and
conveniently bound--a lasting treasure for historians of the West
and Southwest, for the important frontier period between about 1740
and 1816.

Dr. Draper had exhibited much ability as an editor, in the first ten
volumes of the _Wisconsin Historical Collections_. In 1890, the Robert
Clarke Company engaged him, as the best living authority on the
details of Western border history, to prepare and edit a new edition
of Withers. He set about the task with interest, and was engaged in
the active preparation of "copy" during his last months on earth;
indeed, his note upon page 123 of this edition is thought to have been
his final literary work. He had at that time prepared notes for about
one-fourth of the book, and had written his "Memoir of the Author."

The matter here rested until the autumn of 1894, when the publishers
requested the present writer to take up the work where his revered
friend had left it, and see the edition through the press. He has done
this with some reluctance, conscious that he approached the task with
a less intimate knowledge of the subject than his predecessor;
nevertheless he was unwilling that Dr. Draper's notes on the early
pages should be lost, and has deemed it a labor of love to complete
the undertaking upon which the last thoughts of the latter fondly
dwelt.

In the preparation of his own notes, the editor has had the great
advantage of free access to the Draper Manuscripts; without their
help, it would have been impossible to throw further light on many of
the episodes treated by the author. The text of Withers has been
prese