I am favored by Lieutenant J. R. Williams, of the army, with the following copy of the rough draught of a hitherto unpublished letter from General John R. Williams of Detroit to Major Amos Holton, giving an interesting picture of Pike, framed in his early environment:
I have recd your esteemed favor of the 14th April last, on the interesting subject of your contemplated publication of a Biographical memoir, illustrative of the Character and services of the late Brigadier Genl. Zebulon Montgomery Pike of the U. S. Army. The half Sheet of the Albany Argus which you designed to accompany your letter, and which gives an account of a night battle on the Champlain frontier, I regret to say, has not been received.
The period of my acquaintance with the subject of your contemplated memoir, is indeed distant and remote; and altho' those days are still cherished in my recollection as the halcyon and pristine days of my youth and vigor, Yet, I cannot but be truly sensible that many interesting incidents have escaped my recollection in the lapse of forty-five years.
Soon after my arrival at Camp Allegheny in the month of May 1800 I became acquainted with Lieut. Zebulon Montgomery Pike of the 2d Regt. U. S. Infy, he was shortly afterwards appointed Adjutant of the Regiment, in which Capacity he served during the Years 1800 & 1801. No officer could be more attentive prompt and efficient in the execution of the several duties of his office--nor was there any more emulous to acquire a perfect knowledge of the Military profession, nor more zealous, ardent and persevering in the pursuit of scientific improvement.
It was these qualities and disposition of mind that laid the foundation of the subsequent Character and fame of Zebulon M. Pike and would probably have introduced him had he lived, to the highest honors, at least, in the military profession under the Republic.
I then understood that his only means of Education had been such as could be obtained in Garrison under the eye of his father then Major Pike at the several posts he commanded, notwithstanding these disadvantages he was a tolerable good english scholar and wrote a good hand when I knew him and had also acquired by his own persevering industry a tolerably good knowledge of the french language--this I know from the fact of having frequently corrected, at his own request, several of his translations from Fenelon's Telemachus.