116 NOTES ON THE NORTHWEST. 



by our government, the Indians reserved a tract of one mile 

 square at the head of the rapids, and a similar tract at the 

 foot, for Mr. Antoine Leclaire their interpreter. On the lower 

 reservation is the town of Davenport, and it is intended to 

 have another town on the upper tract. Adjoining the upper 

 reservation, above it, is the little village of Berlin. Fifteen 

 miles further up the stream is another, Camanche. This last 

 is in Clinton county. Fifteen miles to the west of this last 

 a town has been laid out for the county seat of the county. 

 It is called De Witt. The site is in a handsome prairie, 

 having groves upon three sides, at a distance of from one to 

 three miles, and to the northward open to a much greater 

 distance. There are many eligible spots for settlement in 

 this as well as in Scott and all the northern river counties. 

 The settlements have been made lower on the stream, and 

 have progressed westward a hundred miles from the river, 

 while these fine lands have been passed over from a dislike 

 to go so far north, — a very insufficient consideration to place 

 in the balance against contiguity to the river ; which, furnish- 

 ing a great channel for transportation, must always make a 

 difference in the price of produce in the river counties by no 

 means to be overlooked : while the difference in temperature 

 is so slight that neither man nor beast is sensible of it, and 

 the feeding season would not be more than a week or two, 

 at most, longer in these counties than in the lower counties of 

 the territory. Lyons is a busy little village, w^ell situated on 

 the river, in this county, about ten miles above Camanche. 

 At this point begins a change in the topography of the land 

 adjacent to the river. The road from Lyons to Charleston, 

 about twenty miles above, in Jackson county, is over a very 

 rough, broken country, very little of which, in a distance of 

 three or four miles from the river, is favorable to cultivation. 

 It is generally covered with timber. The land, however, at 



