Ashtabula weekly telegraph. [volume] (Ashtabula, Ohio) 1853-1873, 1859-06-04
WHOLE NUMBER 40S.


cars and were followed by their baggage.
aud in half an hour we were steaming M
through the woody ravine TO emerge on
one Of the largest prairies on Northern
Missouri. Across tbis-or, rather, along
tive took our course westward almost as
the crow flies to st. Joseph on the Missouri,
2O6 miles distant, which we reached in q
little more than twelve hours. or at hall.
past o last evening. The road was com
pleted in hot haste last Winter, in order
to profit by the pixies "Peakp migration
this Spring no gravel is found on its line
unless in the immediate vicinity of the Miss
issippi aud it was raining pitilessly for
the second day nearly throughout, SO that
the road-bed was a causeway of mortar or
ooze, into which the passing trains pressed
the ties, first on one side, then on the 9TH
er, making the track as bad as q track
could well be. A year hence, it must be-
better, even with the frost coming out Of
the ground after dry week, it win
probably be quite fair bat yesterday it
afforded more exercise to the mile than any
other road | ever travelled. About one
third of the way from Hannibal, it is inter-
sected by the North Missouri Railroad
from st. Louis, which city is about one
hundred miles further from st. Joseph than
Hannibal is; the train from ST. Louis start
ing at A. NJ. to connect with ours which
ought to have left Hannibal at 81. Each
road ia completed, so that ST. Louis as well
as Hannibal is within days ride by rail of
st. joseph, which faces Kansas almost up
to the Nebraska line. ~
Though the day was dreary, noted with
deep interest the country through which
we passed, which disappointed me in these
respects l. The land is better than had
supposed 2. 1t is of more uniform grade
hardly anything worth calling a hill be-
ing seen after rising the bluff from the Mis-
sissippi till we come in sight Of those which
enclose the Missouri g. There is more
prairie and less timber than had expect
ed and 4. There is infinitely less popula-
tion and improvement OF course, this
road was run so as to avoid the more set.
tied districts, and thus to secure larger al
lotment of the Public Lands whereof the
| alternate sections for a width of FIVE or six
miles were granted to the State in aid of its
construction but | had not believed it
possible to run a railroad through Northern
Missouri so as to strike so few settlements.
Palmyra, near the Mississippi, and Chilli
cothe, hundred miles further west, are
county seats and villages of perhsps hun-
dred dwellings each /; besides these, there is
no village of any size, unless it be one of
those we passed in rain and darkness as we
neared the Missouri For some fifty miles
after passing Palmyra, we traversed level
prairie, admirably grassed, but scarcely
broken. save where the needs of the Rail-
road had called up two to half dozen pet
ty buildings. Yet for most of the way tim
Der was in sight on one side or on both,
often within a mile and tho soil, though
but thin black mold resting on heavy
clay, therefore not so well adapted to grain
as prairie soils are apt to be, is admirably
fitted for stock-growing 1t seems incredi-
BILE thet such land, in State forty years
old, could have remained unsettled till now.
We traversed other prairies, five to twenty
miles long, separated by the richest inter-
wales skirting Grand River and sundry
smaller streams, well timbered with elm.
hickory, &c. Miles on miles of gently roll
ing ridges, thinly covered with white oak,
and forming "oak openings or "timbered
openings" with a thick growth of young
what checked by roads and cultivation,
coming forward under the fullgrown oaks,
are interposed between the prairies, the
whole forming one of the most beautiful
and inviting regions l ever passed over
They tell me that the rolling prairies near
| ST. Joseph are richer and fuer than those
l saw but they surely need not be. With
such soil and timber, the Mississippi on one
side, the Missouri on the other, and rail-
road connecting them, it must be that
Northern Missouri is destined to Increase
its population speedily and rapidly. l am
sure Beef can be made there at less cost
per pound than in any other region l ever
visited
st. Joseph is busy, growing town of
some 10000 inhabitants. 1t is beautifully
situated on bend of the Missouri, partly
on the iutervale (which the river is goug-
ing out aud carrying away, and partly on
/ The Southwark slope of the blutf, which
rises directly from the river bank at the
north end Of the town. Other towns on
the Missouri may have a grander future;
doubt that any has finer location. The
river bank must be piled or docked, or in
some way fortified against the boiling cur
rent, which sets against the to wn site With
fearful power aud effect.
/ believe this is further West than any
other point reached by a railroad connect
ing eastward with the Atlantic ports. At
all events, the travel, and part Of the trade
of the vast wilderness watered by the Up-
per Missouri and its tributaries, seem TO
center here. At the City Hotel, where
stopped (kept by two New Yorkers-J.
& j. Hunter--from Auburn), some of the
guests were of and from Salt Lake; one,
an Indian trader from the head waters of
the Columbia, who came down the Yellow
Stone from the Rocky Mountains last Fall
in canoe. Army officers and suffers for
the forts far up the Missouri aud its trlbu.
taries are constantly arriving and depart.
ing. l may never see st. Joseph again.
but she will long be 10 me pleasant re.
collection, Elwood, in Kansas, opposite,
is a small place, which must grow with the
country behind it. The up-rlVer trade Is
not for her.
took passage for this place at 8 this
mnrninfr on tha s.o,,d ofaafaon Dlatt. ~. -