NOTES RELATIVE TO GEORGE CATLIN. 



George Catlin was born in Wilkesbarre, in tlie valley of Wyoming, 

 Pennsylvania, in the year 171)0. His father was a lawyer of considera- 

 ble reputation, and designed his son to practice the same i)rofession, 

 which he did for a short time ; but his natural inclination for art was so 

 strong that after two or three years he abandoned the idea of becoming 

 a lawyer and removed to Philadelphia, where he pursued his occupation 

 principally as a portrait-painter. It was here that an incident occurred 

 which determined that future career which has made his life and labors 

 famous. A party of roving Indians visiting Philadelphia, decorated 

 with the barbaric splendor of their native dresses, by their bold and 

 martial bearing, and by their unconstrained attitudes and gestures, so 

 impressed him that he determined to become the historian of this 

 remarkable race, which was rapidly becoming extinct, and to devote 

 himself to the illustration of their arts, types, manners, and customs. 



With this purpose in view, in 1830 and lS31,he accompanied Governor 

 Clarke, of Saint Louis, then superintendent of Indian Affairs, who was 

 engaged in making treaties with the Winuebagoes, Mouomouees, Shavr- 

 nees, and Sacs and Foxes. In 1832 he ascended the Missouri, on the 

 steamer Yellowstone, to Fort Union, and afterward returned, in a 

 canoe, with two companions, a distance of 2,000 miles, visiting and 

 painting all the tribes, so numerous at that time, on the whole length 

 of the river. The next year he went up the Platte as far as Fort 

 Laramie, and extended his journey to Great Salt Lake. In 1831 he 

 explored the Mississippi as far as the Falls of Saint Anthony, and visited 

 the OJibbeways and other tribes, and returned to Saint Louis, a distance 

 of 900 miles, in a bark canoe. In 1835 he made a second visit to the 

 Falls of Saint Anthony, and thence proceeded to the Eed Pipestone 

 region on the Couteau des Prairies, and then, returning to the Falls of 

 Saint Anthony, descended the river a second time in a canoe to Saint 

 Louis. In 183G he accompanied Colonel Dodge on an expedition to the 

 Comanches and other southwestern tribes ; and in 1837 visited Florida 

 for the purpose of painting the Semiuoles and Euchees- During these 

 eight years he visited fifty different tribes of North American Indians, 

 taking sketches all the time. Having tluis accumulated a large number 

 of paintings representing the portraits of the principal men and the tribes 

 and the pictures of savage life, he exhibited them in various parts of 

 the United States, especially in Washington, Philadelphia, New York, and 

 Boston, with such success that, in 1839, he went to London and Paris, 

 where the artist and his collections attracted general attention. From 

 this time until 1852 he remained in Europe, being everywhere treated 



