llars. I was born on the point of land lying between and above
the mouth of the Okaw or Kaskaskia River and the Mississippi
River, in what is known as the Great American Bottom - the
particular point I refer to was then called Zeal-no-waw, the
Island of Nuts. It was nineteen miles from the point of the
bluffs to the mouth of the Okaw River; ten miles wide up at the
bluffs and tapering to a point where the rivers united. Large
bands of wild horses - French ponies, called "punt" horses - were
to be found any day feeding on the ever green and nutritious
grasses and vegetation. Cattle and hogs were also running wild in
great numbers; every kind of game, large and small, could be had
with little exertion. The streams were full of fish; the forests
contained many varieties of timber; nuts, berries, and wild
fruits of every description, found in the temperate zone could be
had in their season.

Near by was the Reservation of the Kaskaskia Indians, Louis
DuQuoin was chief of the tribe. He had a frame house painted in
bright colors, but he never would farm any, game being so
plentiful he had no need to labor. Nearly all the settlers were
French, and not very anxious for education or improvement of any
kind. I was quite a lad before I ever saw a wagon, carriage, set
of harness, or a ring, a staple, or set of bows to an ox yoke.
The first wagon I ever saw was brought into that country by a
Yankee peddler; his outfit created as great an excitement in the
settlement as the first locomotive did in Utah; the people
flocked in from every quarter to see the Yankee wagon.

Everything in use in that country was of the most simple and
primitive construction. There were no sawmills or gristmills in
that region; sawed lumber was not in the country. The wagons were
two-wheeled carts made entirely of wood - not a particle of iron
about them; the hubs were of white elm, spokes of white oak or
hickory, the felloes of black walnut, as it was soft and would
bear rounding. The felloes were made six inches thick, and were
strongly doweled together with seasoned hardwood pins; the linch
pin was of hickory or ash; the thills were wood; in fact all of
it was wood. The harness consisted of a corn husk collar, hames
cut from an ash tree root, or from an oak; tugs were rawhide;
the lines also were rawhide; a hackamore or halter was used in
place of a bridle; one horse was lashed between the thills by
rawhide straps and pins in the thills for a hold-ba