416 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 



perhaps because like many others, it is in the middle of 

 a middling sized prairie, 20 miles north of Springfield, 

 the capitol of the Sucker State. From whatever cause 

 this name for the State originated, I doubt not that many 

 who have been "suck'd in" by the private speculations of 

 individuals, as well as by the wild projects of internal 

 improvement that have suck'd in so many millions of 

 dollars, will think the name an appropriate one. 



Indications of a change of soil are visible to day. The 

 timber is such as is commonly found on the alluvial bot- 

 tom lands of the west. Maple, elm, black-walnut, ash 

 and buckeye, interspersed with oak, the prevailing timber 

 further north. And a still greater indication shows by 

 the absence of barns and other "yankee fixings," that 

 show the yankee thrift of character, that a population of 

 corn-growing, hog-feeding, corn-bread and bacon-eating 

 southerners are in the majority in this latitude. Our 

 eastern built carriage, with two wheels in the rut upon 

 one side, while the other two are jolting upon a rough 

 ridge, tells us that we are in a country of "wide track 

 wagons," driven with the "single line" as we see, by a 

 teamster seated upon one of the horses. And why should 

 it be different? Did not their father's so drive before 

 them ! ! 



In the bluff of the Sangamon river, (5 miles from 

 Springfield,) which is here a good mill stream, and so 

 used, where it has been dug out to form a road to a fine 

 new bridge, we see the rock in every state of formation, 

 between soft clay and hard limestone. From the river 

 to near the town, the road lies over a tract of very poor 

 sandy hills, full of gulleys and covered with brush, that 

 probably never will again be worth as much money as 

 it was valued at a few years ago, when Springfield was 

 "going to be" a London or Pekin, in the eyes of men, that 

 in counting dollars, discarded all figures below millions. 



Now, on this 12th day of January, 1845, at Springfield, 

 the capital of the State of Illinois, it is a mild sunny day, 

 more like May than midwinter, and a drouth prevailing 



