THE GEORGE CATLIN INDIAN GALLERY. 705 



Here he received additional impressions from his surroundings and 

 the incidents he heard related, which gave him his love for the Indians. 



Though the Indians had long since disappeared, legends and stories 

 of them were constantly told, and kept before his boyish mind the hero- 

 ism and life of the red man, even then being pushed toward the far 

 West. 



In the middle of the little valley of the Ocquago (Ohk-qua-guh), 

 New York, named from a mountain overlooking it, lay his father's 

 farm. Some dozen other farms then filled it, with a population of 

 some two hundred persons. Mr. Catlin says : 



This picturesque but insignificant little valley, which at that time had acquired 

 no place in history, having been settled but a few years, nevertheless had its tradi- 

 tions of an exciting interest, as the rendezvous of Brant, the famous and terrible Mo- 

 hawk chief, and his army during the frontier war, in which the Wyoming massacre 

 took place, and the finale of which was the subsequent deroute of Brant and his In- 

 dian forces through the valley of the Ocquago and beyond the Randolph Mountains 

 to the source of the Susquehanna, by the Pennsylvania militia. 



The plows in my father's fields were daily turning up Indian skulls or Indian bones, 

 and Indian flint arrow-heads, which the laboring men of his farm, as well as those of 

 the neighborhood, were bringing to me, and with which I was enthusiastically form- 

 ing a little cabinet or museum. * * * I was in a position to increase rather than 

 to diminish the excitement already raised in my mind relative to the Indians. 



His youthful fancy was thus fed by traditions, and his sight by ob- 

 jects which constantly fed his increasing love of Indians and Indian ro- 

 mance. His father sold the New York farm in 1808, and moved to one 

 at Hop Bottom, Pa. From this farm George went to the law school of 

 Reeves & Gould, at Litchfield, Conn., in 1817, where he remained until 

 1818. While here he became noted as an amateur artist. 



MR. CATLIN AS A LAW STUDENT AND ARTIST. 



While at law school, in 1818, Mr. Catlin painted a portrait* of Judge 

 Tapping .Reeves, one of his preceptors. This portrait he afterwards 

 proposed to have engraved, and issued a prospectus for subscribers to 

 the print, to be taken from an engraved plate of the portrait. The pros- 

 pectus is in the handwriting of Mr. Catlin, and in a small blank book, 

 which he also used in England in 1840, 1841, and 1842, as an expense 

 account book. 



The prospectus is as follows : 



Having ascertained that my portrait of Hon. Tapping Reeves is the only resem- 

 blance left of that valuable man, I have deemed it a duty to his friends and the pub- 

 lic, and particularly to the gentlemen of the bar, to propose the publication of it by 

 subscription. If possible the plate will be executed in the most superb manner, and 

 I hope that sufficient encouragement will be given in this way to authorize the execu- 

 tion of it. The price of the prints will be $1 each to subscribers, payable on delivery. 

 Also other sales will be invariably at $1.50 each. 



Geo. Catlin. 



Litchfield, March 28, 1825. 



Then follows subscribers' agreement and address. 



We, the undersigned, agree to pay George Catlin or his order one dollar for each 



* A fac-Bimile of the certificate given Mr. Catlin by Judge Reeves faces thie page. 



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