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Clinton is rich, and its productions are like all those which are common in Missouri. The timber of this county consists of all the varieties of oak (with the exception of live oak), hickory, elm, black walnut, hackberry, mulberry, coffee-bean, &c. Of the county of Clinton about two thirds is prairie; consequently, the population will continue to be sparse, until some regular plan shall be adopted of raising or encouraging the growth of timber in the rich and beautiful farming-grounds of the county, included within the great meadows of the Great Spirit.

The stock of this county consists of horses, cattle, hogs, and a few sheep have been introduced. The three first-named kinds are sent to a foreign market; of the last there is not yet a surplus. The only manufactories in Clinton are those strictly denominated domestic, where the instrumental music of the family is produced by a spinning-wheel. The performances on these instruments are sometimes as attractive as the piano-forte has ever been made by scientific execution.

PLATTSBURGH is the seat of justice for Clinton county, and both names seem to have been copied from the county and town of the same name in the State of New-York. Clinton, like her neighbour, Clay county, will shortly change character, and from having been a frontier county, will become an interior one, by the accession of the territory in the northwest corner of the state. The people of these frontier counties, or those who are greater stock-raisers than grain-growers, have much leisure, which many of them appropriate to hunting and trapping. This is a wild, independent life of license, that is pleasing to many of those who have chosen a frontier residence; and it sometimes leads to contact and collision with the Indians in the vicinity of the frontier. There has been an unfortunate instance latterly, at no great distance from the county above described. A party of seven or eight men had met with an emigrating detachment of the Pottawatamies, and failing. to purchase their horses for a small allowance of whiskey, proceeded to obtain them at a lower rate, by stealing as many as they fancied. The Indians pursued and demanded the stolen property. A skirmish ensued, in which two white men and as many Indians were slain; one of

the whites threatened to report the facts, and his associates slew him on suspicion of honesty. This banditti, consisting of five or six men, and one woman, the mother or patron of iniquity, are now lodged in jail, with the hope that punishment may overtake them by due course of law, without the expense of an extra term of Judge Lynch's court. This band of robbers in their late enterprise, our honest friend Nimrod, the beaver-trapper, would have denominated " a horsetile party.”

COLE COUNTY is on the right bank of the Missouri and on the left bank of Osage river, and has these streams for boundaries on two sides of its triangular form. It is bounded on the west by Cooper and Morgan counties. The Moreau (that is called a creek) is a considerable stream, and empties its waters into the Missouri below Jefferson city about eight miles. This stream, during an extraordinary freshet, acted in a miraculous manner upon its neighbouring streams, confirming the sacred maxim, which affirms, that "the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong." Taking advantage of the Missouri, when this mighty river had poured out its mountain contributions to aid the great father of waters, the Mississippi, in "making up á sum" that was due the ocean, the Moreau, swelled with heavy rains, sent forth her volume of waters (a new edition), backing up the Missouri, and rolling back the current of the Cedar, above Jefferson city, on the opposite side of the Missouri, with such force as to break a mill-dam on the Cedar, several miles above its mouth. This was an unlooked-for attack in the rear that the millwright could not have anticipated. The head springs of this stream are in Morgan county. It is entitled to the name of river after the feat just recorded, and is accordingly thus dignified on the Gazetteer Map. The Moniteau is the stream next in consequence in Cole county; and there are one or two mills on it. The lands of Cole are rich, where the face of the country will admit the soil within the class of arable lands. Much of the county is broken and rocky; but on the margin of all the streams the land is excellent, and some of the high grounds are valuable for farming purposes. The county is generally well

timbered, and in the forests timber of the valuable kinds is found, including walnut and sugar-tree.

The lead mineral prospects are good on the Osage and on the Moreau. Limestone abounds in the county, and the Osage buhr there engages the attention of millers. The county of Cole has the advantage of the seat of government of the state within its boundaries; and Jefferson is dignified with the name of city on that account. The place is now improving, and promises to be that which it is named, although Nature left the entire task for art to perform. In justice, however, to the much-abused and suffering city, there are some local advantages at Jefferson. It is a central position; the "mad waters" flow at the base of the Rome-like hills on which it is being built. The place is based on very valuable quarries of gray building-stone, resembling marble. There is, perhaps, a peculiar advantage in the location of the state government on ground with an irregular and broken surface. The politicians, when assembled there in the discharge of their delegated trust, and when walking from their quarters to the capital, will be always kept in mind, practically, of the “ups and downs" in political life, and thereby acquire circumspection in the measure and cadence of their footsteps. At Jefferson city there is a respectable house for the parliamentary sittings of the general assembly; but the increased number of the senators and representatives, by the formation of new counties, will shortly require more space.

The governor is furnished with a house, built for his residence, which is creditable to the state, on the score of munificence and taste. The penitentiary is on a substantial scale, and much more spacious than the state of morals in Missouri requires. The settlements in it are extremely sparse. How far the summary justice inflicted by sentence of his honour Judge Lynch may have thinned the ranks of culprits, and reduced the number of convicts in Missouri, it is not the business of a grave compiler of topography and statistics to determine. The seat of justice for Cole county is at Jefferson city. It was removed from Marion to Jefferson, after the location of the seat of government Marion lingered a while after this removal, and it was

there.

supposed to be dying of famine; but it has revived, and it is fattening with the nutritious effects of agriculture and commerce. This town is fifteen miles above Jefferson, on a bold, rocky shore of the Missouri. Cole is a stock-raising county, and horses, beef, cattle, and hogs are driven from it, and bacon and pork are shipped from the landings of this county. At the point of land between the Missouri and Osage rivers, seventeen years ago, a town was laid off. Lots to the amount of twenty or thirty thousand dollars were then sold. But the move was a premature one, and no improvement was made there. The best "corner lots" are still encumbered with the native crab-tree, and the principal streets are thickly shaded with hazel. The only business in the wholesale and retail line there is carried on by a single concern. This is the commission and forwarding produce house of RACKOON, POSSUM, & Co. The operations of this house, or the broken surface of the country, may have given the reproachful name of varmint county to Cole, which it never deserved.

There are in Jefferson and in Marion several large business houses, that operate on an extensive scale; and at Jefferson city there is a steam saw-mill, the most expensive and perfect piece of machinery in the State of Missouri. The engine is of capacity to drive two saws.

The citizens of Cole are much indebted to Mr. James Dunnica for the tasteful architecture at Jefferson, and, with more ample means, he would have made it still more creditable to the state. The bridges over the streams in Cole county, on the main road from Jefferson, running up the river, and parallel with the Missouri, are excellent, and of durable materials. This gives practical evidence to the traveller of the existence of much public spirit in Cole county.

There is in Cole a "fish-story" told, and well authenticated by the testimony of one of the representatives of the county. This gentleman has a mill on the Moreau river, the eccentric stream that has been already described. It is affirmed, that the fish of this river are so numerous, that the water-wheels are frequently choked with them, and the machinery thus made to stand

still. On such occasions it is usual to shut down the gate, and proceed to take out the fish that have been thus meddlesome in the affairs of others. Such a fishery as this was never dreamed of by old IZAAK WALTON, the literary angler.

"The Missourian," a weekly paper, is about to be established at Jefferson city, by Col. Birch, a very able man, and a diligent editor. The "Jeffersonian" has been published by Calvin Gunn, Esq., at Jefferson city, for many years.

COOPER COUNTY is on the right bank of the Missouri, and its boundaries begin in this river at a point where the line between ranges fourteen and fifteen would intersect the same; thence in a direct line to the southeast corner of township forty-six, range sixteen; thence south, with the range line between ranges fifteen and sixteen, one mile to the southeast corner of section one, range sixteen, township forty-five; thence west to the southwest corner of section six, range nineteen, township forty-five; thence north with the dividing line between ranges nineteen and twenty, to the northwest corner of township forty-eight, range nineteen; thence in a direct line to a point on the southern bank of the Missouri river, where the range line between ranges eighteen and nineteen terminates; thence north to the middle of the main channel of said river; thence down the same to the beginning.

This populous and well-cultivated county comes fro.n the hand of the Great Architect happily apportioned into prairie and timbered land. Here the farmer is exempt from the toil of clearing land and when his fences are completed, no obstruction remains between his plough and the furrow. If his stock of cattle and sheep are not sufficient to crop closely the luxuriant herbage of the prairie, a late or early burn will leave him a surface, generally undulating, sometimes an inclined plane, but always smooth; inviting the coulter, and exempting the ploughman from the customary labour of breaking new lands, in a timbered country. There is no rhetorical arrangement of language that can be made sufficiently descriptive of the advantages of prairie farming. There are no stumps to plough around, or occupy space. 'The first crop of corn on such land usually falls short in product with that of old fields and well-cultivated

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