We stopped a week or two in Western New York at my brother-in-law’s, in Vernon, Oneida County.  I took along to the West, which had been favorable to me, my youngest brother James, and my sister Maria Eliza.  We pursued our route through Western New York and Buffalo, and reached Detroit on the 6th of May.

I here found a letter from Dr. J. V. Rensselaer, of New York, written two days after leaving the city, saying:  “I have this morning finished the perusal of your last work, and consider myself much your debtor for the new views you have given me of the interesting region you describe.  Nor am I more pleased with the matter than with the simple unpretending manner in which you have chosen to clothe it.”

I also found a note informing me that Gov.  Cass had gone to hold a conference with the Wyandot Indians at Wapakennota, Ohio, that he would return about the 10th of June, and immediately set out for Prairie du Chien by the way of the Fox and Wisconsin rivers, and would have me to go with him.

“You must calculate the time when I shall probably reach Mackinack, and I trust you will join us there.  I have a thousand reasons why you should undertake the tour.  Many of the Indians will be from your agency, and such a convocation will never again be seen upon this frontier.  You can return by the Chippewa River, which will give you a fine opportunity of becoming acquainted with a part of the country very little known.”

Leaving my sister with friends temporarily at Detroit, I pursued my way, without loss of time, to the Sault; where, among the correspondence accumulated, I found some subjects that may be noticed.  Mr. C. C. Trowbridge gives this testimony respecting Mr. A. E. Wing, a gentleman then prominent as a politician.

“He is an intelligent, high minded and honorable man, and gifted with habits of perseverance and industry which eminently qualify him to represent the Territory in Congress.”

On the 1st of June the Executive of the Territory apprizes me of his return from Wapekennota, and that he is bending all his force for the contemplated trip to Prairie du Chien.

“I enclose you,” he adds, “the copy of a letter from the war department, by which you will perceive that the Secretary has determined, that the outrage of last fall shall not go unpunished.  His determination is a wise one, for the apprehension of the Chippewa murderers is essential to the preservation of our character and influence among the Indians.”

June 17th.  Business and science, antiquities and politics are curiously jumbled along in the same path, without, however (as I believe they never do where the true spirit of knowledge is present), at all mingling, or making turbid the stream of inquiry.

Colonel Thomas L. M’Kenney, Commissioner of Indian Affairs, in a letter of this date says:  “At the Little Falls of the Potomac, are to be seen the prints of turkeys’ feet in stone, made just as the tracks of the animal appear, when it runs upon dust or in the snow.”