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BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF JUDGE BAZIL HARRISON BY A. D. P. VAN BUREN
Here they halted; a temporary camp was made; it being decided that scouts should go forward to spy out the land, Mr. Harrison selected Whipple, Abraham Davidson and Elias Harrison to go with him, the latter having acquired some acquaintance with the Indian tongue. This party was gone a week, and soon after they set out they learned from the Indians that a great prairie, the largest in the territory, would be found less than forty miles north of the southern territorial line. This was in confirmation of other stories they heard from hunters and traders, and the scouts pushed forward until they reached the southern
edge of the prairie, a view of which fully satisfied them of the truthfulness of the descriptions they had heard. Mr. Harrison quickly decided to return and conduct the colony thither.
With this idea fully fixed in his mind, Mr. Harrison and his colony broke camp again and set out upon their final march, and after a few days traveling, on the evening of the fifth day of November, 1828, just at dusk, they lighted their camp fires on the southeastern edge of Prairie Ronde, or Wa-we-os-eo-tang-scotah, as the Indians call it, meaning the '"round fire plain, " whence conies the French "Prairie Ronde. "
As the party retired to rest that night they felt that the end of their journey had been reached. Before them was the greatest and loveliest prairie they had ever seen, and Mr. Harrison and those with him were satisfied to look no further. For perhaps the eye of man has rarely rested on a more beautiful natural landscape than was presented by Prairie Ronde
"Before the white man marred it with his plow. "
Michigan
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