ne), in the winter of 1789-90, he succeeded
in picking up about eighty deer skins and about five hundred raccoon
skins in less than thirty days. He descended the Wabash and "turned into
the woods" toward the White River, there bartering with the Indians for
their peltries.

As to wild game, the whole valley was abundantly supplied. In the spring
time, great numbers of wild ducks, geese and brant were found in all the
ponds and marshes; in the woody ground the wild turkey, the pheasant and
the quail. At times, the sun was actually darkened by the flight of wild
pigeons, while the prairie chicken was found in all the open tracts and
grass lands.

The bottom lands of this river, were noted for their fertility. The
annual inundations always left a rich deposit of silt. This silt
produced excellent maize, potatoes, beans, pumpkins, squashes, cucumbers
and melons. These, according to Heckewelder, were important items of
the Indian food supply.

To the Indian we are indebted for ash-cake, hoecake, succotash, samp,
hominy and many other productions made from the Indian maize. The Miamis
of the Wabash, with a favorable climate and a superior soil, produced a
famous corn with a finer skin and "a meal much whiter" than that raised
by other tribes. How far the cultivation of this cereal had progressed
is not now fully appreciated. In the expedition of General James
Wilkinson against the Wabash Indians in 1791, he is said to have
destroyed over two hundred acres of corn in the milk at Kenapacomaqua,
or the Eel river towns, alone, and to have cut down a total of four
hundred and thirty acres of corn in the whole campaign. In General
Harmar's campaign against Miamitown in the year 1790, nearly twenty
thousand bushels of corn in the ear were destroyed. On the next day
after the battle of Tippecanoe the dragoons of Harrison's army set fire
to the Prophets Town, and burned it to the ground. Judge Isaac Naylor
says that they found there large quantities of corn, beans and peas, and
General John Tipton relates that the commissary loaded six wagons with
corn and "Burnt what was estimated at two thousand bushel."

Of the many other natural advantages of this great valley, much might be
written. Wheat and tobacco, the latter of a fine grade, were growing at
Vincennes in 1765, when Croghan passed through there. Wild hemp was
abundant in the lowlands. The delicious pecan flourished, and walnuts,
hazelnuts and hickory nuts were found in grea