LEWIS AND CLARK: EXPLORERS OF LOUISIANA 257
THE CAPTAINS OF "THE AMERICAN SYSTEM" 339
ZEISBERGER Preaching to the Indians at Coshocton, Ohio, in 1773 _Frontispiece_
RUFUS PUTNAM, Leader of the Founders of Marietta, Ohio 106
JOHN HECKEWELDER, Missionary to the Indians 142
REV. DAVID JONES, Companion of George Rogers Clark 165
HENRY CLAY, Statesman and Abolitionist 184
ALBERT GALLATIN, Promoter of the Cumberland Road 190
GENERAL ARTHUR ST. CLAIR, Appointed Governor of Ohio by Congress 205
GOUVERNEUR MORRIS, Promoter of the Erie Canal 212
DE WITT CLINTON, Friend of the Erie Canal Project 230
MERIWETHER LEWIS, of the Lewis and Clark Expedition 262
WILLIAM CLARK, of the Lewis and Clark Expedition 274
_The Part played in American History by the Pioneer's Axe.--Several Classes of Leaders in the Conquest of the Wilderness.--Patriotism even in those that were Self-seeking.--The Achievements of Cleaveland, Henderson, Putnam, Morris, and Astor, respectively.--Feebleness of the Republic in its Infancy.--Its need of Money.--The Pioneers were of all Races.--Other Leaders besides these Captains of Expansion accused of Self-seeking.--Washington as the Father of the West.--His great Acquisitions of Land.--His Influence on other Land-seekers.--Results of Richard Henderson's Advance into Kentucky.--Zeisberger's Attempt to form a Settlement of Christian Indians thwarted by the Revolution.--Rufus Putnam as a Soldier and a Pioneer.--As Leader of the Ohio Company of Associates, he makes a Settlement Northwest of the Ohio.--Three Avenues of Westward Migration: Henry Clay's Cumberland Road; the Erie Canal; the Baltimore and Ohio Railway.--These Avenues not laid between Cities, but into the Western Wilderness._
THERE is some ground for the objection that is raised against allowing the history of America to remain a mere record of battles and campaigns. The sword had its part to play, a glorious part and picturesque, but the pioneer's axe chanted a truer tune than ever musket crooned or sabre sang. And with reference to the history of our Central West, for instance, it were a gross impartiality to remember the multicolored fascinating story of its preliminary conquest to the exclusion of the marvellous sequel--a great free people leaping into a wilderness and compelling it, in one short century, to blossom as the rose.