Opportunity to get the flavor of the period by reading
contemporary literature is afforded by two principal kinds of
books. One is reminiscences, letters, and histories written by
the Westerners themselves. Timothy Flint's "Recollections of the
Last Ten Years" (1826) will be found interesting; as also J.
Hall, "Letters from the West" (1828), and T. Ford, "History of
Illinois" (1854).
The second type of materials is books of travel written by
visitors from the East or from Europe. Works of this nature are
always subject to limitations. Even when the author tries to be
accurate and fair, his information is likely to be hastily
gathered and incomplete and his judgments unsound. Between 1800
and 1840 the Northwest was visited, however, by many educated and
fair-minded persons who wrote readable and trustworthy
descriptions of what they saw and heard. A complete list cannot
be given here, but some of the best of these books are: John
Melish, "Travels in the United States of America in the Years
1806 & 1807 and 1809, 1810 & 1811" (2 vols., 1810; William
Cobbett, A Year's Residence in the United States of America
(1818); Henry B.
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